To love your neighbor as yourself was a commandment of the Law of Moses for the Jews. But the critical point, around which there was much discussion, was who should be considered a neighbor. According to Jewish Law, the concept was often confused and limited. Some teachers of the Law even claimed it was illegal to help a gentile woman in labor, because another gentile would be born. To love your neighbor as yourself, means to love them as your own life. As Elder Sophrony, of the Monastery of Saint John the Baptists in Essex, wrote, it means that you should see the whole of mankind as if it were only one life, only one nature, with a great ...
