Extend the Golden Rule very far

Hello everyone,

From the book Thank You for Being Late by Thomas Friedman.

A rabbi once asked his students: “How do we know when the night has ended and the day has begun?” The students thought they grasped the importance of this question… Each answer brought a sadder, more severe frown to the rabbi’s face. Until finally he shouted, “No! None of you understands! You only divide!.. The rabbi stared back into the faces of his students, and with a voice suddenly gentle and imploring, he responded: “When you look into the face of the person who is beside you, and you can see that person is your brother or your sister, then finally the night has ended and the day has begun.”

Hastening that heavenly day is the moral work of our generation. I don’t know where it ends, but I know where it has to start—by anchoring people in strong families and healthy communities. It is impossible to expect people to extend the Golden Rule very far if they are unmoored, unanchored, and insecure themselves. How to build strong families is beyond my skill set, but I know something about strong communities, because I grew up in one.

In the previous subchapter Mr. Friedman writes:

When I think of this challenge on a global scale, my own short prescription is that we need to find a way to get more people to practice the Golden Rule. And it doesn’t matter which version you were taught. It can be “Do unto others as you would wish they would do unto you,” or its variant from the Babylonian Talmud, where the great Jewish teacher Rabbi Hillel famously said, “That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow…

I know—to even talk about scaling the Golden Rule to more people in more situations sounds utterly unrealistic. But the simple truth is: If we can’t get more people doing unto others as they would want others to do unto them, if we can’t inspire more sustainable values, we will be “the first self-endangered species,” argues Amory Lovins.

Does “extend the Golden Rule very far” mean the same as “get more people to practice the Golden Rule” and “scaling the Golden Rule to more people in more situations”? Or does it mean “treat other people (who are more distant from us) according to the Golden Rule”?

Thank you.

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I don’t really see the difference in your two explanations. To me, “extend” means to get more people to practice the Golden Rule and to use it in their interactions with more people, people who are more distant from them, both physically and relationally.

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