It has been said that Jesus added nothing to the Mosaic law, and only repeated the old Commandments. “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” Thus speaks Moses in Deuteronomy, “And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shalt have no pity upon them.” Thus it is written in Deuteronomy: a step further and we have reached Love, “Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” This is a beginning: do no wrong to strangers in memory of the time when you also were a stranger; but the stranger who lives with us is not an enemy, and to refrain from wronging him, does not mean to do good to him. Exodus commands not to wrong him. Leviticus is more generous, “And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land ye shalt not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself....” Always the foreigner who lives with you and has become your fellow-citizen, hence like one of your friends. In the same book we read, “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people.” This is another step forward. Do no harm to him who offends you, provided that he is of your own nation. We have come, if not to pardon, to generous forgetfulness, although only for neighbors. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Neighbor, fellow-citizen, the man who is your racial brother, who can help you. But your enemy? There is also an admonition about the treatment of your enemy: “If thou meet thine enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. If you see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him.” Oh, great kindness of Jewish antiquity! It would be so sweet to drive the ass further, so that his master would have more trouble in finding him: and when you see the ass fallen down under his pack-saddle, how amusing it would be to smile in your beard and pass on; but the heart of the old Jew was not hardened to this degree: an ass was too precious in those times and those conditions: no one could live without at least one ass in the stable, and every one had an ass. To-day yours has escaped and to-morrow mine may run away. Do not let us avenge ourselves on our animals even if the master is a brute. Because if I am that man’s enemy he is my enemy. Let us set him a good example, an example by which we hope he will profit; let us lend him a hand to readjust the pack-saddle of his ass; let us do to others what we hope others will do to us, and above the crupper and the ears of the ass let us, as merciful men, lay aside every evil thought.