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 Acharei Mot, Kedoshim: Love Your Neighbor as Yourself
Rabbi David Rosenn
for AVODAH: the Jewish Service Corps
You shall not exact vengeance or bear a grudge against your countryman.
Love your neighbor as yourself; I am God. [Leviticus 19:18]
It is written: Do not exact vengeance or bear a grudge against your countryman (Lev. 19:18). How would that work? You are cutting a piece of meat and the knife slips and cuts your hand, and you go and beat the hand [that caused the slip]. [Yerushalmi Nedarim 9:4; 41c]
The commentary Korban Ha-Edah explains this comment from the Talmud in the following way:
“The passage is best read as a rhetorical question. You are cutting meat and the knife you are holding cuts your hand. Would it ever occur to you to be vengeful and cut the hand that held the knife because it cut the other hand? [Of course not!] Similarly, all of Israel is like a single body. Therefore anyone who exacts vengeance from his fellow is like someone who is cutting off his own hand.”
To read this commentary, click here.
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