The greatest commandment
WHEN the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them a scholar of the law tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
REFLECTION TRUE LOVE. The Pharisees ask Jesus which commandment in the Law is the greatest (v 36). They believe not only in the Law of Moses, but also in 613 rabbinical traditions, the “fence around the Law” to protect a person from inadvertent transgressions.
Jesus’ answer gives the two texts from the Jewish Scriptures that underlie all of New Testament morality.
The first is the Jewish morning and evening prayer, the prayer with which every Jewish service still opens today, the first sentence every Jewish child commits to memory, the prayer often recited by Jews, the prayer that is placed in the phylacteries on their arm and forehead and in the mezuzah at the doorposts of Jewish homes, the prayer that all religious Jews hope to have on their lips when they die. It says, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (v 37; cf Dt 6:5).
The heart is considered the center of knowing and feeling, the soul the principle of life and the source of all our energies, and the mind the center of perception. The text means we are to love God with everything we have: a love that is wholehearted, not laid-back; dynamic, not phlegmatic; outgoing, not introverted; performed with conviction, courage, and commitment, not lackadaisical.
The second greatest commandment, Jesus says, is like the first: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself ” (v 39; cf Lv 19:18).
Although the Jews divide their percepts into “heavy” and “light,” and rabbinic tradition classifies the second precept as lighter that the first, Jesus puts it right up with the other. The novelty of Jesus’ answer does not consist in quoting these two texts: both are in the Jewish Scriptures. Jesus’ novelty consists in putting both texts side by side with equal weight, rescinding all the heavy and light regulations that suffuse Jewish living. This is new and has no parallel in all Jewish literature.
The second precept is the manifestation of the first. Love of God issues forth in proper love of ourselves and other people. When we love God, human beings become deeply lovable – not with sentimentality, but with commitment. There is an intimate connection between our faith in God and our relationship with our neighbor. It is only in and through the proper love we bear for self and one another that we actualize our love for God.
SOURCE: “365 Days with the Lord 2017,” ST. PAULS Philippines, 7708 St. Paul Rd., SAV, Makati City (Phils.); Tel.: 895-9701; Fax 895-7328; E-mail: books@stpauls.ph; Website: http://www.stpauls. ph.