Thoughts on Loving Our Neighbor

Originally Posted January 30, 2026

When we think of our first patriarch, Abraham, not only was he singled out for his recognition of the one God, but his outstanding attribute was his hospitality to strangers, hachnasat orchim. The mIdrash tells us his tent was open in all directions so that he might not miss any passing stranger. Even shortly after his circumcision at age 99, we find him sitting at the entrance of his tent, seeking an opportunity to welcome strangers passing through the desert into his tent and to provide them with food and water and a place to rest on their journey. He sees three strangers, possibly Arab traders, passing his way and he runs to greet them, offers them a bite to eat and then runs to prepare a feast for them involving his wife and son Ishmael in the preparations. The strangers were messengers of God, angels, but that made no difference to Abraham. He would have shown the same hospitality if they were just any traveler coming through the desert sands. This outreach to others becomes an example for us all through the ages, welcoming the stranger.

        Rabbi Akiva, centuries later, proclaims the great principle of our faith to be “Love your neighbor as yourself.” His colleague Ben Azzai extends this further. Perhaps he’s afraid that people might, as they have, limit the definition of “neighbor” to those who are like us, have the same religion, same level of observance, same race, same color, same nationality. Love your neighbor as long as he is like you, they might claim. I do not know that Rabbi Akiva had that limitation in mind, but just in case, Ben Azzai points to a different verse in Genesis which tells us that when God created humankind, He created us all in the divine image. All people reflect the image of God. Thus, part of the commandment to love the Lord your God includes loving God’s creatures, loving all who are created in the divine image, recognizing that image in all people. In fact, some of the commentators on the verse of love your neighbor, point to the continuation of that verse, which says “Ani Adonay,” I am the Lord. When we love our neighbor, they teach, we are expressing our love of the Almighty. In the same chapter of Leviticus which includes this commandment to love our neighbor, we find a specific commandment to love the stranger, to love those who are not like you, who are different, yet bear the divine image as much as you do. Time and again throughout the Torah we are reminded that we ourselves have been strangers, that we know the heart of the stranger, and all the more so should we act to show love and kindness to others.

        This concept is not limited to Jewish thought. You may recall that Jesus affirms these two commandments as fundamental to the teachings of Moses and the prophets. He is quoted in the Gospel of Mark as saying there are no other commandments greater than these. He makes similar comments about them in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke as well. So it seems that these teachings should be the guiding principles for most, if not all, Americans, at least Jews and Christians. I feel sure that most other religions teach the same things and even if one is an atheist, these are basic human principles as well. Clearly, in spite of determined efforts to erase and whitewash our history, we have often failed as a nation to practice these principles. When Europeans “discovered” this part of the world, they failed to see the divine image in the indigenous inhabitants of the land. Those who did not succumb to the imported diseases that were brought to America were treated as subhuman and as enemies, their numbers decimated and promises made to them too frequently were violated as they were herded into reservations. 

One can pry the pictures of the enslaved off the walls of our museums, but we know very well the shameful history of our nation and of those who were kidnapped from Africa, sold into slavery, and even after being emancipated, continued to suffer countless acts of violence, discrimination, and racism. In spite of often recognizing their own shortcomings and hypocrisy, our founding fathers proclaimed that “all men are created equal” and that they are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Clearly the realization of this statement is still a work in progress. Ben Azzai’s verse, by the way, makes it clear that it is not just men, but that “when God created humankind in the image of God, male and female He created them.” It took about 150 years for that portion of the verse to begin to be realized.

As patriotic Americans, in spite of that history, we grew up proud of our heritage of welcoming people from around the world. The Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, a gift from the people of France, bears a famous poem by Emma Lazarus, which we had to memorize as children, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” The huddled masses streamed into this country by the millions and as they became part of the fabric of this country, they made countless contributions to our nation and to the world. Without them, without us, we would not be the nation we have become.

However, we also realize that not all of these “huddled masses” were considered equal by later generations of Americans. They were not all welcomed. Laws were passed discriminating against Asian immigrants, particularly Chinese, at the end of the 19th century and soon after, in the 1920s, strict limitations were placed on immigration. Quotas were established as to which immigrants we wanted to admit and how many. As Jews, we are only too aware of the terrible price these laws exacted upon our people fleeing Nazi Germany and being turned away. Not all who tried to immigrate were able to open that Golden Door. In spite of this troubled history, many refugees fleeing persecution, torture, criminal activity, and poverty, have managed to enter our land, to become citizens, and have prospered and continue to contribute greatly to our country.

Thus, it is very painful for those of us who cherish the positive principles upon which this country was established to watch what has been happening over the past year and before that: the blatant violation of our Constitution and the laws of the land and the targeted attacks upon various groups in this country all authorized by our own government. Those of us who believe in the promise of America and support the efforts over the past decades to fully realize the potential of our founding principles, fighting for civil rights, the rights of all people, are ashamed of our country. We are embarrassed before the world by the actions of our government and its agents. We are terrified by the violence unleashed by hatred of others. Some of those haters claim to act in the name of their religious beliefs. If so, I refer them back to their respective scriptures.

We mourn the deaths of innocents both on the streets of our nation as well as in the holding cells for those cruelly uprooted from family, friends, and their communities and who have been denied both the basic protections of our laws as well as humane treatment expected by those detained legally in confinement. This is no longer the America we cherish. This looks too much like the police states and totalitarian governments our armed forces fought against in past wars. I have heard people say that this is like Nazi Germany in the ‘30s and even in the early ‘40s. However, it seems like people are beginning to wake up to what is happening and are increasingly unhappy. They are protesting and marching and voting to stand up against these policies and these actions.

I saw a video clip of an interview with the former project director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, a professor who I knew many years ago when I was a camper at Ramah in Connecticut and he was one of the counselors. Dr. Michael Berenbaum was asked if we were indeed in a period like the ’30s in Germany and he said he did not agree with that assessment. To him we are in a period like the ‘20s, a time when something still could be done to change things and he is hopeful that the signs of protest and the awakening of officials will ultimately triumph and restore sanity and the rule of law to our land. I hope he is right. I believe that is our future. The reign of terror is not yet over, but there are signs of hope. Those red caps with the slogan “Make America Great Again,” MAGA, need to be rewritten as suggested to “Make America Good Again.” It is past time for all of us to say “Enough,” and to work toward removing this blot on our history. We need to work for the day when we no longer are embarrassed and ashamed of our government, afraid of its agents, and bring about a time when the principles of our religious faiths and of our Constitution are restored. We look for the day when that Golden Door once again will be open to welcome the “huddled masses” - which at one time were our own grandparents or great-grandparents - with open arms.

In the words of our daily prayerbook, we pray “For the slanderers let there be no hope, and may all wickedness perish in an instant. May all Your people’s enemies swiftly be cut down. May You swiftly uproot, crush, cast down, and humble the arrogant swiftly in our day.” Though the language has been somewhat modified over the ages, this prayer was composed originally by the second century sage known as Shmuel HaKatan who according to Rav Kook, deeply loved his fellow human beings. He is quoted in Pirke Avot as saying “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls.” Thus, our prayer is not for the destruction of evil people, but for the turning of all people to the path of goodness and love once more.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Edward Friedman