When we were kids, my parents stressed two thing above all else…respect other people and their property and don’t lie.
My first year in high school I had a band director who told us that he didn’t care whether or not we ever learned a piece of music in his classroom, BUT we would learn respect. If he put a $10 bill on the top of the piano, he better find that very same $10 when he came back for it. Mr. Blair’s band room was the safest place in the school. I’m not sure how much music got learned in there, but if something ever disappeared, you did not want to be anywhere near the fallout.
In college, I took a Biblical Hebrew class where I learned a story – one that later was translated into a very famous parable…
A pagan goes to Rabbi Gamliel and says, I will convert if you can tell me there is in the Torah while I stand on one foot. Rabbi Gamliel sent the man away.
The pagan then went to Rabbi Hillel and issued the same request; I will convert if you can tell me all there is to know in the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament) while I stand on one foot.
Rabbi Hillel responded with, “that which is harmful to you, do not to others. All else is commentary. Go forth and study.”
That story became the parable of the Good Samaritan.
I try to live my life by Rabbi Hillel’s words. If I don’t like something, I don’t want to do it to someone else. Of course, there are those occasions where the other party just won’t let you, but I try.
There are 613 commandments in the Torah – 365 negative ones and 248 positive one. I’m not sure if it is truly possible to obey each and every one of them; Rabbi Hillel’s advise may not be a command, but it is something worth following.