We all know the Robert Frost poem that includes the line, “Good fences make good neighbors,” based on a 17th century proverb. He was actually questioning the wisdom of why his stonewall separating his fields from his neighbors needed to be rebuilt year after year. Apple trees and pine trees are not likely to encroach on his neighbor’s land. Is he walling something in or out? What would give offense? The neighbor disagreed and returned to building those strong New England stone walls. After all, for him, good fences do make good neighbors.
When I was a kid in Evanston, on our block, no one talked to the next door neighbor. Worse, if a ball went over the fence, it was not returned. Still worse, if you were away on vacation you might return to find a tree chopped down. No one knew how these grudges started and we watched as they were passed down from one generation to the next. Our solution was to move to Grand Rapids.
Some of you know that I spent 30 days getting ready for Rosh Hashanah by blogging about forgiveness. Twenty-two people from all walks of life and many religions, wrote personal stories, wrestled, responded to each other. Forgiveness, it turns out is very difficult. It was powerful and poignant. And unexpected. I learned that I don’t want to be angry, bitter or hold a grudge.
This afternoon’s Torah portion is from the very center of the Torah, from Leviticus 19, the Holiness Code. It teaches us that “You shall be holy because I the Lord your God am holy.” Then it reads like a top 10 list of how we become holy—separated, set apart, sanctified.. Ultimately, it is our righteous actions lead to our holiness.
In the center of this list, at the very center of the Torah, we hear, “You shall not seek out vengeance or bear a grudge against your kin, V’ahavta l’ra’echa kamocha. Love your neighbor as yourself.”
It seems particularly appropriate to look at this on Yom Kippur afternoon. It is about healing the fundamental holes in our relationships. That is what Yom Kippur is about, healing the relationships with our friends, our families, our God and ourselves. Mending fences is easy. Mending hearts is much more difficult but I think that is precisely what Yom Kippur calls us to do. My heart is especially heavy when I think of a mosque burned this week in Israel scrawled with the word Revenge. As many Israeli leaders and American rabbis have already said, this is the antithesis of Jewish values, especially during this week of deep soul searching. I would add, especially when today’s very portion decries the idea of seeking out vengeance.
I worry that this kind of hatred, this kind of vengeance is worse than that of my neighborhood in Evanston. I worry that are in danger of passing down this fear of the other from our generation to the next and the one after that. This cycle of violence and vengeance and grudges has become a modern day Hatfield and McCoy. It is not what our tradition demands of us. Our tradition in the Talmud teaches: “Whoever destroys a single life, it as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a single life, it as if he saved an entire world. Only one man, Adam, was created for the sake of peace among men, so that no one should say to his fellow, “‘My father was greater than yours’” (Mishna Sanhedrin 4:5). The Qu’aran almost teaches the verbatim: “If any one slays a person, it would be as if he slew all people; And if any one saves a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all people(Quran 5.32).” “We created you from a single pair of a male and a female, that you might know each other [not that you might despise each other]” (Qur’an 49.13).
When they talk about it, it seems possible. Don’t kill your neighbor. We all came from Adam so no one could say his lineage was better. It’s not that easy, and our verses for today come to help.
We get clues to significance of this verse by looking carefully at the Hebrew. V’ahavta, You (singular) shall love. This construction in the singular, that you shall love, only happens one other time in the Torah. In Deuteronomy we are told You shall love the Lord your God. Later are told You plural shall love the stranger. So only two times in the Torah do we legislate love—love of God and love of the other, either the neighbor or the stranger. In both cases we demonstrate our love by our actions, and that is precisely what this portion urges us to do by repeating many of the Ten Commandments and then taking it further. By welcoming the stranger, by not putting a stumbling block before the blind. By establishing just courts, and honest weights and measures. By a system for gleaning the fields so the hungry are provided for. And by not seeking vengeance. In our modern world that might be working at a soup kitchen, teaching English to immigrants, providing transportation to someone who needs a ride to the hospital.
The word rayecha is more difficult. In many translations it is your neighbor. More accurately it might be translated as your fellow, companion or friend. There is much debate about whether our obligation is to love just Jews or it is more universal. I prefer the more universal reading. Especially when I circle back to the idea of not holding a grudge. Especially when I myself live in the United States where most of my neighbors and many of my friends are not Jewish.
However, for me, the more interesting word in this Hebrew is Kamocha. We know this word from our liturgy. We ask Mi Kamocha, Who is Like You, God? And we answer that question in the Torah service, Ain Kamocha, No one is like You.
The usage of kamocha in this verse is different, it is not about God, it is about us and our relationships. It is telling us that we shall love our neighbors as ourselves. Hillel said, do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you. The rest is commentary go and study it. It begs the question, how do we want to treat our neighbors? How do we treat ourselves? I think that until we know how to love ourselves, we cannot love our neighbors. But that is not easy either and some of us struggle with it mightily. We are created b’tzelem elohim, in the image of God. Each of us. Our neighbors, our fellows, our friends. Full stop. That realization should provide a sense of self-worth and self-love. However, for some it does not. Those who have been battered and bruised by life, who don’t feel safe, who struggle with private demons maybe sitting there thinking, “I am not good enough. I don’t deserve God’s love or the love of my neighbor. I don’t really love myself, how can I love others?” We may not even be able to think all that. However, until we realize that we, ourselves and our neighbors, are created b’tzelem elohim in the image of God, and that God loves us, no matter who we are, we cannot love ourselves or our neighbors.
That isn’t simple either. It isn’t linear. Maybe it is more of a circle. Showing love to God through our actions we show love to our fellow. Showing love to our fellow we show love to God and in that process we grow into love of ourselves. It takes hard work and looking at ourselves carefully. That is the purpose of Yom Kippur. We aspire to be like God, created in the image of God. That God is full of compassion and love, forgiving to the 1000th generations. Just as God clothed the naked, we should clothe the naked. As God visited the sick, we should visit the sick. As God buried the dead, we should bury the dead. As God is forgiving, we should be forgiving of others and ourselves, not holding a grudge or seeking vengeance.
We become at one with God on this day of at-one-ment when we heal the holes in our relationships. Sometimes it is about mending fences and patching holes. Sometimes it is about breaking down the walls between farms or between people. Then we become whole and holy. Then we love our neighbors as ourselves. Then we have achieved the ideals of Yom Kippur. May it be so, speedily and in our day.
Delivered at Temple Emanuel of the Merrimack Valley, Lowell, Massachusetts, October 8, 2011.