The Golden Rule: Jesus vs Hillel

Most people know Jesus’s Golden Rule “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” (Leviticus 19:18, Luke 6:31, Matthew 7:12). But not as many people know that there is another “Golden Rule” in Judaism, that of Hillel, who was a contemporary of Jesus. How are they different?

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[marilyngreenblatt]

Hillel's version is essentially the same as Jesus. Hillel said, "What is hateful to you, do not do to others". It is hateful to people to be ignored and neglected. Because of this, it is absolutely important to not ignore and neglect others. Therefore, according to Hillel's version of the Golden Rule, it is mandatory to do action and reach out to others.

[nathanieltovar]

IT’s believed that Hillel was one of the rabbis in the synagogue that spoke with Jesus as a child

[RightOnBro]

Nice video. I was looking for a comparison of Hillel & Shammai. For the purpose of comparing Jesus' "Golden Rule" & Hillel's "Silver Rule, " I'd say that they are both just variations of Bill & Ted's BETTER rule: "Be Excellent to each other." However, Jesus has a terrible habit of contradicting the commandments written by Moses. In this case, Jesus is answering "What is the greatest commandment?" where he answers somewhat correctly with Deuteronomy 6:5, (in one gospel, he even goes to 6:4, ) but then he incorrectly adds half of Leviticus 19:18, "Love your neighbor as yourself" as being the same thing. Hillel makes the same error when he says, “That which is hateful to you, do not unto another: This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary — [and now] go study.” Sorry, but neither of these are "the wohle Torah, " nor are they Deuteronomy 6:5 which begins, "You shall love the LORD...") The first of the 10 commandments is to worship no other gods, and likewise, keeping & remembering the Sabbath is a commandment by God of what we're supposed to do. So, anyone who thinks the whole Torah is just about loving (or not doing what is hateful) to your neighbor is missing the most important parts.

But more importantly, I like that the video went into the Parable of the Good Samaritan, because this is where Jesus really gets things wrong when he tries to answer the question, "Who is my neighbor?" Because most Jews would identify their fellow Jews as their neighbors, Jesus uses a Priest and a Levite as the ineffective guys here. After the traveler gets robbed & mugged, the Samaritan comes in, picks up his stuff, puts him on his horse & takes care of him. What Jesus doesn't ask (because his purpose is to disdain the Jews) is "Why didn't the Samaritan stop the guy from getting robbed?" Maybe none of them helped him, because they'd have suffered the same punishment. Also, Jesus does not address why the Jews didn't help the guy by taking care of him the way the Samaritan did. His conclusion (without clearly stating it) was that the non-Jew who did nice things for the guy was is real "neighbor, " while his fellow Jews were to be hated. I take this entire passage as just a microscopic view of what the entire New Testament is about, which is convincing the reader to hate the Jews. While I do not like Hillel's answer about the "Silver Rule, " I am hopeful that he would not disrespect his own people the way Jesus did with the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

[aviblack]

Is this a competition about “which religion is better”? Virtually all ethical traditions have versions of the Golden Rule — learn from them all. And don’t use one phrase to encapsulate an entire world view — that is illogical, an error of omission. Who taught you about perpetrators, etc., after all? As if modern Judaism is entirely about Hillel’s teachings — or modern Christianity about Jesus’s. Think Jesus would support Trump, or Hillel would approve of Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank?

[cafeinst]

There is no difference between the Jewish and the Christian version of the Golden Rule. Leviticus 19:18 proves this.