The Heart of the Law

 I found this in a text document on my computer desktop, dated to April of 2024. I thought I would share it here.

***********************************************************

HEART OF THE LAW

It is said that the heart of the Law is to love G-d with all your heart, soul and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.

I have always interpreted that latter one in almost Lockean terms: do not regard your own rights and needs as more privileged than those of other people. That it is not so much that you LOVE your neighbor but that you respect the humanity and rights of your neighbor. It's not that I love the vast majority of humanity; I find the vast majority of humanity to be disappointing and disgusting. But that I don't get to treat myself as more privileged, important and with greater rights than others.

And many of the critics of believers point this out, that we love humanity in the abstract and in terms of individual rights but not so much where the messy rubber of human need meets the road. Where the rubber meets the road we often say "state your business quickly and then get off my lawn, stranger."

And if I try to be honest, I think that while I respect the rights of my neighbor and reject categorically the idea of privileged egoism, that my needs and rights are more important than others; I don't think I love my neighbor. There are scarcely any emotions involved in my regard for my neighbor, and what emotions are involved are usually negative.

And then I ask myself: does my love of G-d act like that? Do I just love G-d because I love truth, honesty, justice and equity? No. I do love truth honesty justice and equity, but I also love G-d Himself. And emotion, insight and reason blend together in that as a whole cloth, without distinctions. He's not just the archetype of goodness. He's my FATHER.

So I ask myself again: do I really NOT love Man? I think I do not love the aspects of him that present themselves the most readily to me: his greed, his selfishness, his callousness, his lies, his slurs and crimes against the value of life, and his hunger for power and domination. In short I do not at all love the demonic in him, and those are the aspects that present themselves the most apparently to me.

Why then am I so passionate about abortion? Sure it's still murder, and sure murder is wrong and I should be against it for that reason, but that does not explain my passion. Fewer babies of liberal parents means fewer bad people, right? And as long as I am not the one doing the murdering, why should I be passionate about it? 99% of those babies, if they were to live, are going to turn out like their godless liberal parents.

EASY LEGAL ABORTION MEANS FEWER LIBERALS. On that basis I should keep my nose out of it and let them murder their own, right?

But I LOVE them, those babies. I don't just love their moral right to exist, I love THEM.

They haven't done a thing good or evil yet. They haven't had that chance to make those decisions and face those trials. And here I think I am getting close to the core of the matter. I DO love Man - as G-d intended him. Man as the image of G-d. And the murdered unborn never get the chance to decide where on that divide they will stand: either on the side of seeking to live out the image of G-d or the image of the other guy. They never got the opportunity.

Not to mention that abortion destroys the standard of motherhood, an important part of that image of G-d in Man. Real mothers don't love their children one day and throw them in the dumpster the next, depending on how they feel. This is what liberals say, that you are only a mother if you choose to be. You only love that child if you choose to love them. Otherwise that child is just unloved tissue and you can freely throw it away (or sell its remains to medical science.)

No no HELL NO. If it's your child, you are a mother (or father.) You are going to be held to that godly standard of motherhood or fatherhood whether you like it or not: that you love and care for your child and seek his good. Why is "Honor thy father and thy mother" a COMMANDMENT, one of the TEN? Because it is an acknowledgement that according to G-d's standards they must love you, too. Even if you annoy the crap out of them, they are obligated to look after your good. This is a critical part of that "image of G-d in Man" thing, and one that the godless are most focused on destroying.

But even a fully grown human reprobate, an incorrigible sinner: are we not obligated to love whatever shadow of the image of G-d still remains in them? And incorrigible sinners sometimes DO repent, though I grant you it is all too rare. It does happen, it happened to me.

So in short, yes I do love my neighbor and not just abstractly. I love whatever part of the image of G-d is in him, just like I love those babies. It's hard to see that sometimes, with the demonic seeming to dominate most humans these days (or at least the loudest humans,) but it's still true.