Saturday, February 23, 2013

Nugget #15


Deuteronomy 19:18b, “You are to love your neighbor as yourself for I am YHVH.”

In the previous Nuggets we found that love is a giving action not a taking action. In our culture we can easily say, “Give me some love”. However, in Hebrew (Ahavah) love is about giving not receiving. So to love our neighbor is to give to our neighbor. Could we image a world where we give to our neighbors and our neighbors gives to us? We are not just speaking of giving but rather doing for the betterment of all. All working towards a greater good, based upon taking on a role of bestowal by taking on the desire of the Creator as our own. Our neighbor is to be treated as though they are us for in reality they are.

Note that the reason to do this is “for I am YHVH”. This is an interesting comment! Volumes could be written on this name. However, it will suffice to simply realize that the verse is saying that by performing this command we take on equivalence of form of YHVH.

Ask yourself: What else can YHVH mean? In what ways can we give to others that we currently don’t do?

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