Now that, you have to know, is a question that never comes up among Jews. Jews never talk about hating goyim. And I’ll explain that.
It’s true that there’s a mitzvah of כמוך לרעך ואהבת – you have to love your fellow Jew. It means that there’s no command to love somebody who is a non-Jew. To love non-Jews, there’s no mitzvah at all. But certainly, nobody is told to hate anybody! Because hate is a boomerang. You just cannot hate and hate and hate without becoming a hateful person. Your nature changes. If a person is always muttering imprecations on goyim for nothing, then he becomes a low character.
Decent Jews are kind hearted and polite to everybody! It was said about Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai that nobody ever said shalom to him in the street before he said shalom to them. He was the first one to greet a man. בשוק נכרי ואפילו – Even gentiles in the street (Brachos 17a); when he encountered a gentile, he was the first one to greet him. That’s politeness. That’s how a Jew behaves.
The truth is that Jews are always kindhearted to everybody; only that the mitzvah of loving a Jew is a specific mitzvah that’s only for fellow Jews. You don’t have that mitzvah for anybody else. But to be kind and polite, that’s not even a question.
Reprinted from the Parshas Chukas 5784 email of Toras Avigdor, based on the teachings of Rav Avigdor Miller, zt”l. Adapted from (Tape #630 – February 1987)
