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Thread: The Negative vs the Positive "Golden Rule"

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    Default The Negative vs the Positive "Golden Rule"

    Hillel the Elder was a famous sage, scholar and Jewish religious leader, born in Babylon about 110 BC and died in Jerusalem. He was the founder of the "House of Hillel School of Tannaim, " and the tannaim were the teachers whose views were important enough to be recorded in the Mishnah, or collection of sayings.

    He is popularly known as the author of an expression of an ethic of reciprocity: "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow". This form was copied into their collection of oral sayings and repeated for thousands of years – up till today.

    We notice a vague similarity to our own "Golden Rule", and yet is it not phrased in the opposite form? Our "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is more of a positive. Almost like the positive pole to Hillel's negative battery pole.

    To treat others or do unto others as one desires to be treated himself; this is found in most religions and cultures, (but sometimes we seem to lose sight of it in today's tough times.)

    But Hillel went even further with this - he explained that "this is the whole Torah, the rest is simply the explanation, go and learn." By using the word Torah he indicates the first five Books of the Hebrew Bible, namely Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

    In other words, to Hillel, if you simply learned not to do hateful things to your fellow man, you would have learned the entire lessons of the first portions of the Bible - and that the rest of the words in those Books were placed there simply to explain this idea.

    Hillel died in 10 AD, so he lived in Jerusalem during the time of King Herod, and of course during part of the early life of Jesus. It should be mentioned that he lived, like Moses, to the age of 120 years, and spent the last forty years in study. During the last third of his life he was the spiritual head of the Jewish people.

    One has to wonder if, had he lived another twenty years or so, he would have condemned Jesus the way his followers did. But perhaps he would have, since as we see above, he has turned this Golden Rule completely around - to the Negative side. It’s something like a "Negative" Golden Rule.

    Many say that Jesus used examples from the Hebrew Bible and Jewish scholars, but here is his own teaching: "All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them", and this is found in both Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31. He straightened out this common Jewish saying.

    My take on this is very simple - the negative form of the rule confines us to the region of justice, of government, of civil rules and punishments, while the positive version of Jesus takes us into the area of generosity, even grace, and thus it embraces both the laws and the prophets.

    This post is not too long; just my thoughts on how we might prepare and outfit ourselves, mentally, in order to survive and even thrive in the times that we are now living in.

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    United States Avalon Member Denise/Dizi's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Negative vs the Positive "Golden Rule"

    I find it interesting that most of those in the past that became in famous for their notations or versus essentially said.. "Be nice to eachother"

    And upon many different versions, said in many different ways, these individuals will forever be known as "Wise"..

    The sad thing is that people need to be reminded this simple thought, over and over throughout time... It doesn't seem to be something an entire population can just "Live" on a regular basis.

    I don't want to suggest that for most life is lived without caring for one another, but the more responsibility the more blame, the more the load one carries, the more they tire, and begin to forget that it takes everyone to make up the entirety of what we live.. And people begin to blame when someone does not carry their share.

    I believe it is far simplier than religion, governments, prophets and preachers.. We can blame and applaud all of those individuals.. But it is up to each individual to decide who they wish to be, and live that, no blame on anyone but themselves for their own failures. We have been living in structures we allowed to be not only created but supported.. We let the governments believe that they are the ultimate authority... So they in turn, take more authority. And will use force to do so.. We are convinced that people hate others, and this appauls us. So we allow things to happen... Surely YOU aren't evil, so we better stop those that are, which in turn has our soldiers killing others. It's all just a vicious cycle.

    So those that are able to live essentially doing no harm to others, or treating their neighbors as if they are themselves... well... It certainly seems like the ultimate Utopia to strive for...

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    UK Avalon Member Journeyman's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Negative vs the Positive "Golden Rule"

    Quote Posted by Jim_Duyer (here)
    My take on this is very simple - the negative form of the rule confines us to the region of justice, of government, of civil rules and punishments, while the positive version of Jesus takes us into the area of generosity, even grace, and thus it embraces both the laws and the prophets.
    I like that. A small change in emphasis with big implications.

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    Default Re: The Negative vs the Positive "Golden Rule"

    Quote Posted by Denise/Dizi (here)
    So those that are able to live essentially doing no harm to others, or treating their neighbors as if they are themselves... well... It certainly seems like the ultimate Utopia to strive for...
    Welcome you to our community

    I just hope.

    Treating others as ourselves is easy to say but sooo hard to do.

    If we live alone or just work in the society with some nice friends, that will be easy to make it. I guess so.

    But, if there are so many strangers living together to build a big family, what will you see or imagine?

    I am just thinking about it.

    Jesus's teachings are nice but how many kingdom of God are built in the world?

    May Peace be all over the world.

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    Netherlands Avalon Member gini's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Negative vs the Positive "Golden Rule"

    'Do not do unto others what you dont want them to do to unto you' is for me the essence of morality and i am convinced that by living by that 'golden rule' alone everything will be fine...
    But to 'do for others what you like others to do for you ' is more tricky,and can lead to what we see now with medical tyranny,'i want to be protected for the virus and i must force everyone else to be protected' or can even lead to communism itself if it becomes a dogma.
    No i prefer live and let live in stead of this obsessive 'doing good for others 'stuff.
    My aim is to be no trouble to anyone and to help when others ask me to or when its obvious they need help.But i dont feel to interfere in anyones life to do something 'good' for them (perhaps to show how 'nice' i am?)
    Being kind and respectful to one another is all it takes to live in a wonderful world

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    Default Re: The Negative vs the Positive "Golden Rule"

    Ah semantics! In the beginning was the 'word' they say. What does that really mean?

    I always thought the New Testament 'meme' was 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. That generally conveys the idea of karma to me.

    But best of all, I think is the pagan rule, 'do what thou wilt, so long as it harm no other'. That would include the bees and the trees...

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