The phrase “love your neighbor as yourself,” which appears in nearly all religions as what we often call the “Golden Rule,” is the rule of reciprocity—love as you wish to be loved, treat others as you wish to be treated. Now this seems almost imbecilically obvious except that we are living through a ghastly moment of stupidity in our public life. “Strength” is exalted across the world by rightward mobs in reactionary anxiety of cultural and societal erosion. These changes, in my view, are mostly our own creations due to endless speeding up of life, isolation by our technologies of communication, and separation from traditional aspects of life that allow us sabbath from relentless work and overexposure to one another.

The Golden Rule is the opposite of the Code of Hammurabi, that most misquoted of political favorites of autocrats who prefer revenge, grievance, and retribution to forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation. Those are the only two choices of living together. The code of Hammurabi, of course, “an eye for an eye” was actually a primitive form of mercy, as it were. In a world where killing one of my villagers justifies my burning your entire village, emptying your bank account, stealing all of your land and killing everyone in sight. We can only kill one for one. It was probably considered progressive at the time, I would think, as long as you weren’t the one.

All of this indicates that we are sliding back into primitive territory. The  Freudian Id has returned to avenge itself from being domesticated when we were two years old and couldn’t go potty in our pants any longer if we wanted to walk around in public. Now we seem to be able to say anything, act anyway and go full Karen on airplanes. I feel truly sorry for everyone named Karen. Again, one Karen went nuts during the pandemic and now every Karen is cursed.

So, back to Hammurabi. If you can’t do endless revenge (and of course, some of our current leaders convince us that this will work again). Being like ancient Babylon rings a bit hollow, but the power movers seem to say, “Oh, you’ll be a lot happier. Just don’t be the one under the bus. Be a thrower.” Well, that’s one way to do it, I suppose. The historical record is fairly bleak about oppression, cruelty and rage as a long-term strategy, though. So, what else can there be?

The Golden Rule and its cousins throughout every religion is another try—in the negative form, it is like Confucious said, “Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.” It’s a step forward from, “Kill one for one. Poke one eye for your eye.” If your neighbor throws his trash into your backyard, toss yours into his, but no more.” Confucious would say, “If you don’t want your neighbor tossing his Hefty bags full of moldy lawn clippings in the back yard, you can at least not throw yours first.” It’s a step.

I would argue that this is a pretty powerful advance for humanity—a boundary, or in another word, “respect.” The book of Leviticus is one of the most exhausting devotional readings imaginable, except perhaps for the most compulsive of religionists. A lot of regulations, rules, festivals to keep, stones to throw, prohibitions to observe and so on.  But in all fairness to Moses, that year in the desert while he and the LORD were creating the framework for a society tested his every patience to the ilk. He had to get the tablets redone after coming down from Sinai and finding that people had gotten anxious and started pining for slavery in Egypt again. Nothing like desert, thirst, hunger and uncertainty to make you forget why you left in the first place. Anyway, they started making an idol to worship and Moses lost it, slammed the tablets down and had to go back up and redo the whole thing.

So Leviticus is an intricate try at putting enough rules and guidelines there to protect all that is sacred about life. A lot of cleaning and purifying. Bad news for the hoarders, you understand. “You shall purge the hoarders from among you, and toss their piles of junk in the local dumpster.” If it isn’t in there, it’s well implied.

But under all of these arcane and sometimes OCDish minutiae is something important. Boundaries are required to live together. In the 1960s we said, “Give peace a chance.” Thought if we just listened to enough music and made love, the world would work out. Hard data indicates that we are friendly enough with each other, but beyond a certain point human beings start getting on one another’s last nerve and we need some rules to keep from descending into, well, village burning and frogmarching one another off cliffs.

But in the midst of all of that regulating and ruling, comes this gem, in Leviticus of all places, in chapter 19, verse 18, and it’s one of the most powerful ethical commands in the Bible:

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord

This verse is part of a broader section often called the Holiness Code (Leviticus chapters 17–26), which outlines how the Israelites were to live as a holy people. The command isn’t just about warm fuzzies—it’s about justice, compassion, and respect, responsibility. In other words, restraining the id for the sake of the other. At least love your fellow Israelite as much as you love yourself.  It follows a series of instructions about fair treatment, honesty, and respect for others, including the vulnerable, the poor, and the outsider.

Now tell me again that we are the products of great progress. Now I know Jesus took it to it’s logical conclusion, at least from God’s view. He said your neighbor is whoever is next to you at the moment, even a Samaritan, or an enemy. He taught us that loving God with the heart, soul, mind and strength and loving our neighbors were the greatest two commandments, going so far as to say that all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two. But He did not invent this whole cloth. It was in his fellow Israelites’ entire history. Get life in order. Respect for God, respect for others. Love others as you love yourselves.

That is how to have a neighborhood without other people’s trash in your backyard. Or a country that isn’t built on anger, cruelty and power. Or a world where extermination of people groups still goes on today. Love one another, at least as you love yourselves. It’s a start. Anything else is, well, cruel and unnecessary. Whatever else you may call it,  our current spirit of cruelty has very little to do with God, the Bible, or common decency.

Love your neighbor.

More about that next time.