Jewish History Lab (New Lecture Series for Fall 2020)

Hello Henry,
My name is Richard MacDonald from Iroquois Falls. I used to visit your parents at the store and they would tell me how you were doing. I have wanted to speak with you for a long time even though I have never met you. I visited Krugerdorf after reading your essay in The Enterprise. I hope your mom is well and I hope to be able to speak with you at some time,
Richard

In your lecture on Rabbi Akiva, much appreciated along with all the others,
you bring up, in reference to the origins of the Samaritans, the story told by Yeshua (Jesus) of the good shepherd. Here you claim that the lesson is that there may be some good Samaritans, though most are bad. If that had been the case, there would have been no lesson at all since this was the common view. However the real moral is quite different.

You will recall (Luke 24-37) that the two individuals who passed by the wounded set upon traveler were not ordinary “am-ha-Haaretz”. The first was a Levite and the second, a priest, and both these religious Jewish office holders passed on the opposite side of the road without stopping. The one who had mercy and ministered to the injured man, took him to an Inn and provided money for his treatment, was a Samaritan, one despised by the Jews.

The lesson here is anti-chauvinistic, and humane. Hashem looks at the heart and not at the office or the race or tribe. One can be pious
and callous. One can be humble and despised but merciful and kind, thereby fulfilling the injunction to love thy neighbor as thyself.

Daniel Cohn
Pasadena CA