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Are All Golden Rules the Same?
Every “ethical” society seems to have a Golden Rule, some variation on Luke and Matthew’s “Do to others what you would want them to do to you.” Confucius stated it as a negative: “What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others,” which is functionally identical to Hillel’s, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.”
And yet there is a gaping chasm between all of these forms (the Wiki link contains dozens of other examples), and the formulation which is the middle topic of the middlemost text (Leviticus) of the Torah (Lev. 19:18). In other words, the Torah formulation makes the Jewish version of the Golden Rule at the heart of the text. And it is, upon reflection, very different from the Golden Rule of Confucius and Luke and Matthew and Hillel. The Torah says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
How is this different? Consider firstly that the negative construction of Confucious and Hillel do not require any engagement – you can fulfill the Golden Rule by simply leaving other people alone. No relationship is required or even encouraged; people who separate from each other have followed the rule. Which is fine, as far as it goes. But this version of the Golden Rule does nothing to build relationships, to build families and communities and societies. It enables and condones solitude and isolation.
The positive constructions are better, in that one should treat others as you wish to be treated. But that in itself does not necessarily entail a relationship. Instead, it suggests a quid pro quo, doing to others as you want them to do to you. If you want to be left alone, then you can fulfill this rule merely by leaving others alone as well!
Perhaps most importantly, the distinction of “loving others” is that love is an ongoing investment, not a mere thing or product. To truly love others means that one needs to empathize with them, to care about them in ways that are not readily measured by keeping score of who was nice to whom. Love is a lifelong, ongoing and neverending process, not just the sharing of rations or the kind of polite courtesy with which decent people greet one another on the street.
So while people all-too-often “keep score” in their lives about whether they have received their due share, whether they have given more than they have received, etc., loving them as you love yourself means caring about someone else, about learning to see through their eyes, hear through the ears, and feel as they feel.
In this sense, then, the Torah is quite distinct from other ancient documents and texts. The existence of the non-Torah Golden Rule can readily be used as a defense of a godless moral society– after all, the Golden Rule surely suggests that civil societies can logically deduce an ethical social structure and body politic.
But for Judaism, the idea of loving someone else like yourself is much richer in religious overtones. Each person, we are told by the ensoulment of Adam, contains the very spirit of G-d within them. So when we love other people, truly love them, then we are drawing closer to G-d, by connecting with and empathizing with His spirit as it is found in each person. This is a positive commandment: we cannot fulfill it by leaving them alone as we want to be left alone or even by treating them as we want to be treated. In order to be holy, we have to connect with others in love, to try to see things their way, and seek to make them feel the love that we, in turn, want to enjoy ourselves.
Golden Rules are necessary for any ethical society. “Do/Don’t do unto others” represents a baseline in human rights. But “Love your neighbor as yourself” is one step up: love is a prerequisite for holiness.
For Judaism, this Golden Rule cannot be separated from religious faith. Loving other people is a way to love G-d.
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So true.
I’ve found this conversation so interesting that I’ve now had three cups of coffee go cold while I’ve been engrossed in reading it. :-)
I am thinking of writing to E J Hill to design and market a Ricochet coffee mug warmer for my desk. :-)
Concerning the Nazis: I don’t think the case can hold that G-d knew evil would grow among his created human beings as much as it did. I don’t think G-d punished us for eating the apple from the tree of knowledge by allowing evil to prosper among us and come close to destroying us.
The most powerful stories in the Bible concern G-d’s actions against it, his own attempts to defeat it from on high. We see in the stories of Gideon and Moses and Noah and Jesus G-d’s own attempts to rid the world of whatever it is that makes evil.
The heavenly dilemma is the same as the earthly one, now that we have weapons of mass destruction.
True, but it’s very deeply wired in Hebrew.
Wow. I shall have to read this thread again, slowly and with trepidation.
Do I understand from this that some in this thread believe G-d is NOT omniscient? That He is NOT omnipotent?
I can’t speak for anybody else, but we do know that on the 7th day G-d refrained from certain actions. Why should we assume that refraining from action then was a one off, or that “omnipotent” means “never allows free will?”
Perhps G-d is aware of and capable of acting on both position and velocity of every particle but chooses in almost all cases to allow particle behavior to follow the (created!) laws of statistical mechanics and not to cause the waters of the Re(e)d Sea to part.
When G-d made this world, he withdrew himself, limiting his power and being so that matter and the finite and the human can be here.
When we get too close, we cannot live – our finite qualities cannot coexist with the pure fire. See Aharon’s sons, G-d telling Moshe “you cannot see my face”, the revelation at Sinai, the Holy of Holies in the Temple, etc.
I complete agree. G-d can play with nature and with man. But unless He has a very, very good reason to interfere, He chooses to leave it up to his designated agents to make it all work. The job is ours, whether we like it or not.
:-)
So painfully true. :-)
Not necessarily. It could also be the expression of a preference (6-of-one or half-a-dozen of the other) or the expression of a reward for proper behavior.
Saying that you changed your mind in a conversation is isn’t even always “changing your mind”, you could have made the first statement to elicit a proper response from your child as an example. Exodus 32 11-14 (G_d relenting of his promise in response to Moses’ plea comes to mind)
True. But then we are in the dilemma of trying to understand the mind of G-d when He’s not explicit about his intentions. That’s pretty chancy.
I agree, that is why I have a qualifier on my example. I am not saying it is true, just that it could be and not be a mistake.
I do believe that G_d is the three O’s (Omniscient, Omnipotent, and Omnipresent) among all sorts of other things.
But if G-d is omniscient, then he knows the consequences of leaving it up to us. If He knows the consequences, knows they are not good, and yet does nothing, is He not accountable?
And if He is does in fact know all things, would He not have known what would happen with the first man?
On the other hand, if He is not omniscient, does not know all things, does not know the end from the beginning, then do we not have a G-d like this?
I’d like to address this comment, @chuckles. If this were true, for example, why would G-d let anyone die? Especially children? It isn’t always about leaving it up to us; it can also be nature unfolding.
And if He is does in fact know all things, would He not have known what would happen with the first man?
Whether or not G-d knew, to me, isn’t relevant. You seem to want G-d to intervene when things aren’t going to go well. I don’t think that is true. If G-d intervened every time there would be bad outcomes, we would have chaos all the time. It would also compromise our free will.
On the other hand, if He is not omniscient, does not know all things, does not know the end from the beginning, then do we not have a G-d like this?
Again, I think He does know. I think when we try to guess why G-d acts or doesn’t act, we are assuming his motivations are the same as humans. That’s hubris, don’t you think?
Which is why I have no problem with G-d not being “The Three Os” when He engages with our world. I think that is the plain meaning of the Torah. Man and G-d have a dynamic and unpredictable relationship.
It is also patently clear to me that G-d rates our free will as more important than goodness or life. We live in a world that cries out for improvement – from natural catastrophe to disease to evil behavior. G-d made that world. Then he handed it to us to finish the job.
He did know. Why do you think he didn’t?
He gave us the choice. We made them. I think G-d respects mankind enough that when he encourages us to choose goodness and life, he means that we actually have the free will to make that choice.
Oh, I am persuaded He did. Nor do I think he has ever said, “Oh, I never thought THAT would happen.” Nor do I think anything ever has, nor ever will, happen outside His will. I also think @susanquinn was correct in her comment about our inability to judge His plans or actions.
My questions were not intended to persuade anybody, I don’t think I can: But, @iwe, is your understanding of G-d as expressed herein what the typical practicing Jew would say?
Not at all! G-d’s remarkably clear about his intentions. A number of them were literally written in stone!
In the hermeneutic @instugator suggests, some language about G-d is useful but not literal; we could hardly expect otherwise hearing from One whose knowledge is more high above ours than mine is above my toddler’s. We may wonder about what He’s really thinking, but his instructions are clear enough, and we only take chances when we violate them.
Not if free will matters enough.
Yay for Avengers references!
So it would seem. Two comments previous to your own. iWe has also said things like that from time to time.
It is, logically speaking, a sufficient response to the problem of evil. William James took the route of rejecting G-d’s omnipotence.
I think William James assumed that allowing free will limits omnipotence, but I’ve never known of anyone else who did or of any reason we should make that assumption.
Ok, but do you think this means G-d lacks omnipotence?
A true premise, but I don’t see how it supports the conclusion that G-d lacks omniscience. I don’t see how omniscience restricts free will.
Of course that’s what I said. It’s a typical point of Christian theology that human sin is the reason creation hurts us (although for all I know earthquakes might have happened otherwise but been harmless).
Maybe not literally. Off the top of my head, the only New Testament reference is in Romans 7 or 8.
In the Torah, this is one aspect of how we interpret the curse spoken to Adam in Genesis 3.
I see no fallacy in your translation, and if you go back to # 20 I think you’ll find that I don’t even have an objection to the translation.
What I object to is the circular reasoning in your explanation: You say it must be translated “dwell” because it must be translated both “dwell” and “strive;” it must be translated both “dwell” and “strive” because the “dwell” translation entails the “strive” translation and because the “dwell” translation is correct.
In short, you say that it must be translated “dwell” because the “dwell” translation is correct.
Well, yes. It’s what we’ve been talking about for years. It’s what you keep saying, what I keep objecting to, what you often deny saying, and what I then ask for clarification on.
The e-paper trail is very clear on this.
It appears we are now back to the point where you deny saying it and I ask for clarification. # 13 of the current thread and #s 62 and 65 of “Gratitude” appear to be in error.
Then in what meanings of what words do you say that the soul is the same thing as G-d?
Edit: Correction: The e-paper trail probably does not do exactly what I described here, specifically in the “you often deny saying” bit. In my past conversations with iWe what he repeatedly denied saying was only, if memory serves, that the human being is G-d; here in this thread I believe he is denying (yet also affirming) that the human soul is G-d.
Really, not.
The word means several things. “Dwell” is one of them. “Strife” is another. Both work, though dwell makes more sense in the context of the rest of the sentence…. the mention of G-d’s spirit, ruach. And the letter “beis” which means IN. It is a word that denotes being inside something – the very opposite of the idea of force from a distance.
For a full breakdown of that verse and all the words, see this.
I think it is clear that G-d chooses to withdraw his potential, so that we can exist.
And I think the potency in this world, the agency in this world, has been loaned to each person from G-d.
There is a kabbalistic idea of tzimtzum, which means “withdrawal.” This is quite normative Jewish thought.