 The Talmud tells us a very interesting story. It tells us how a certain Gentile approached Hillel, the great teacher, and asked him if he could convert him to Judaism. And Hillel said, OK, but the Gentile said, I have one condition. I want you to teach me the entirety of the Torah while I am in the short amount of time that I'm able to stand on one foot. So Hillel responded with the famous teaching that which you hate done unto yourself, that do not do unto others. That is the entirety of the Torah. The rest is commentary. Go learn. Go study. How are we to understand this teaching of Hillel? So first let us analyze Hillel's words. Let us analyze Hillel's words. Hillel said that which you hate done unto yourself. It implies not just what you don't like, what you hate. Example, if I lose a quarter, I'm upset, I'm sad. I feel, why did I have to lose that quarter? But if someone steals that quarter from me, if someone cheats me out of a quarter, even though it's only a quarter, I hate it. It's something that bothers me. What that tells me is that I have a sensitivity to what's just and unjust inside my heart. It's there. It's not something that I need to learn. It's present. And the fact is, every person, every human being, Jew Gentile has this sensitivity to justice and to injustice planted in their hearts. When in the book of Genesis we read how God breathed a breath into man, and that's how man became a living being. What the Bible is teaching us is that God imparted from his goodness into man. And even though many of us are very evil, and there are evil people out there, but even evil people are sensitive to justice, to honesty, to truth, to morality when they are on the receiving end of an injustice. If someone cheats them, if someone is unjust, if someone lies to them, they hate it. That shows that there's something inside of us which is sensitive to truth. And this is true for everybody. This is true for Jew. This is true for Gentile. Now, even the most righteous amongst us are least sensitive to truth, honesty, justice and morality when we are dealing with other people. A righteous person is disqualified from presiding as a judge in a case where he has a vested interest. If he has a vested interest in the case, we are worried that his vested interest will distort his perception of reality, will distort his sense of right and wrong, and therefore he has to recuse himself and move himself out of the case. In short, every human being has within him the sensitivity to truth, justice, honesty and morality, and it's at its peak, it's at its strongest when he's on the receiving end of an injustice. It's the most difficult for us to apply that sensitivity when we are dealing with other people. What Hillel was teaching this Gentile and in turn this individual and in turn teaching all of mankind is that if you want to follow God, wherever you are, if you're a Jew or if you're a Gentile, if you want to follow God, what you need to do is follow that sense of justice that's already inside you, that's already in your heart, and take it at its strongest when you find yourself at the receiving end of an injustice. Use that as if it would be a book to teach you what is right, what is wrong, and apply it to your life. Apply it to your life all the way to the other extreme, to the extreme where it's the most difficult to apply it when you're dealing with other people. What Hillel is actually saying over here is that this sensitivity to truth is part of the human soul, it's part of our makeup, it's something that's inside of us. In other words, he's telling us that what God is demanding of us is not something outside of ourselves, God is asking us to bring out, to develop and to cultivate the goodness that's inherent in our soul. And I use a parable to illustrate this idea. Imagine if you were in a subway station late at night, no one is there, and you're the only one there, you're the only one there, and there's a beautiful painting on the wall, someone must have donated it to decorate, to beautify the subway station. There's a can of black paint on the floor right in front of the painting without its lid, and you have this childish urge to take that can of black paint and splatter it across the beautiful painting. You won't do it. It's not because you're going to be caught, because you won't be caught. The security cameras are off, you're not going to get into any trouble. No one's going to catch you, no one will ever find out that you are the one that destroyed the painting, you won't do it, you won't bring yourself to do it. And if you ask yourself, why not? You will find yourself answering one of three answers. Your answer will fit into one of three categories, either because you feel for the people that are enjoying the painting, you realize the benefit, the joy, the pleasure, just the fact that they have the beauty of a nice subway station, what it means to them, and you don't want to take that away from them because you feel for them. That's kindness, that tells me, that tells you that you have a sensitivity to kindness inside of yourself. You like kindness and you don't like cruelty. You might not destroy the painting, you might find it difficult to destroy the painting because it's unjust, because it doesn't belong to you, you have no right to do it, it doesn't belong to you. That tells us, that tells me, that tells you that you have a sensitivity to justice and injustice that's part of your makeup, that's part of your psyche. And then it could be that the reason you're not destroying the painting is simply because it's beautiful, it's nice, it's something that's just so beautiful, how could you destroy something beautiful? And that tells us that you have a sensitivity to truth, truth is beauty, beauty is truth. And each one of us has all of those three powers inside of us. All of those three goodnesses inside of us, kindness, justice and truth. And if we want to follow God, again, whether we're Jewish, whether we're Gentile, whichever path God put us in life, we have to follow what God planted in our heart. And it's not something that's outside of ourself, it's something that's inside of us. Just allow that beauty, that goodness, that kindness and that justice that God planted in your heart as an inherent part of your own creation. Allow it to flourish, allow it to illuminate your life and the life of the people around you.