If you stub your toe, do not then stub your neighbor’s toe. If you cut off your nose to spite your face, do not do the same to your neighbor. If you kick the bucket, do not simultaneously kick your neighbor’s bucket too. How do we know all of this? That’s simple: it’s the Golden Rule.
In Judaism, the Golden Rule stems from Vayikra 19: 17—18: “You shall not hate your kinsfolk in your heart. Reprove your kinsman but incur no guilt because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your fellow [neighbor] as yourself….” As to the last clause about loving your neighbor as yourself, Rabbi Akiva famously said that “Zeh Klal Gadol BaTorah,” meaning “this is a great principle of the Torah.” (Talmud Yerushalmi Nedarim 30b) As an aside, if you run a yeshiva, then you might be a great principal of the Torah.
Hillel similarly taught: “That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation. Go study.” (Shabbat 31a). The Sforno further explained that we should “apply the same yardstick to our concern for our fellow that we would want applied to ourselves if we were in his shoes in similar situations.” (Sforno, 19:18) Of course, the Sforno’s reference to “shoes” is not to be taken literally. If your neighbor is wobbling around in stilettos, squishing around in galoshes or knocking around in wooden clogs, you need not follow suit. If your neighbor is River Dancing all night long in Irish hard shoes, you need not reciprocate but you probably should purchase the world’s best noise-cancelling earplugs.
In theory, the Golden Rule seems easy to apply but in practice it can get tricky depending on the circumstances. For example, if during the summer you treat yourself to the last popsicle in your freezer, you obviously cannot give your neighbor a popsicle too. The box is empty and splitting a popsicle in half does not work because only one of you will get the far more preferable end with the stick. To achieve equal treatment, you should forgo the popsicle, purchase a new box or wait around for an ice cream truck to roll by and save the day. Then again, all of this could be avoided if you stock your freezer with easily split-able ice cream sandwiches, flying saucers or Klondike Bars.
There are other instances in which it is hard to treat your neighbor as you treat yourself. If during the winter you purchase logs and light a fire in your fireplace, you obviously cannot heat your neighbor’s house with the same fire. You could invite your neighbor over to share in the enjoyment of your fire, but your neighbor will never be quite as comfortable in your home as you are, which is why, in sports, the home team often prevails over the visiting team. You could light a fire in your neighbor’s house but if you do not have your neighbor’s permission, it would be unwise, and if your neighbor does not have a fireplace, it would be arson. Similarly, if you decide to invest your life-savings in a high-risk stock, you should not put your neighbors’ money in the same investment unless you have their authorization or you enjoy being indicted.
If you are overly self-critical, you should not direct the same level of criticism at your neighbor. For example, if you loathe your ever-expanding waistline, do not chain your neighbors to their treadmill. If you despise your own parenting skills, do not report your neighbors to social services. If you hate the sound of your own voice, do not celebrate when your neighbor has laryngitis.
For obvious reasons, it must be rather difficult for a full-blown, empathy-less narcissist to comply with the “love your neighbor as you love yourself” requirement. A true-blue narcissist would excel at the “love yourself” portion of the rule but likely would fail miserably at the “love your neighbor” part, unless the narcissist also owns the property next-door. One could argue that, in cases of mental illness, it might be unfair to expect Golden Rule compliance. However, not every form of misconduct is necessarily a mental illness deserving of leniency. For example, if you rob a bank purely out of boredom, that is not particularly compassion-worthy. By the way, if you rob your bank, do not also rob your neighbor’s bank. That would be a perversion of the Golden Rule and it also would exponentially increase your chances of being caught.
Final thought: Good fences make good neighbors, especially if electrified.
By Jonathan Kranz
