Q:
Is it permitted to hate goyim?
A:
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.
There’s a mitzvah of ואהבת לרעך כמוך – you have to love your fellow Jew. There’s no command to love 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. If you hate anyone, you become 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 kindhearted and polite to everybody. אמרו עליו על רבן יוחנן בן זכאי שלא הקדימו אדם שלום מעולם – It was said about Rabban Yochanan ben Zakai that nobody every greeted him first. It means he was always first on the draw. Nobody ever said shalom before him. He was the first one to greet a man. ואפילו נכרי בשוק – even a gentile in the street; when he encountered a gentile, he was always the first one to say shalom. He made sure of that. That’s politeness!
The Chofetz Chaim too. In Radin, there were very narrow sidewalks. When somebody was walking on the sidewalk, the Chofetz Chaim walked off the sidewalk to let the person walk. He walked off; he always yielded the sidewalk.
Once he was walking and a Russian general was passing and he yielded the sidewalk. So the Russian general said, “Old man, why are you yielding to me? You’re an elderly man and you’re yielding the sidewalk to me?”
So the Chofetz Chaim said, “I do it to everybody.”
“You’re going to live long,” the General said. “You’ll live long because of that.” That’s a blessing from a Russian general!
The truth is, Jews are always kindhearted to everybody, always polite; only that the mitzvah of loving a Jew is a specific mitzvah. You don’t have that mitzvah for anybody else.
However, for your own benefit, it’s muttar; it’s not an issur of lo sechanem to do favors. Lo sechanem means to do favors for nothing; that you don’t do. But favors for your own character you can do. And anything you do for gentiles that improves your character, it’s a good thing to do because you’re doing it for yourself. You’re changing yourself for the better.
TAPE # 630