BOUNDARIES.

'Love the sinner, but hate their sin.'

We need boundaries and limits,
a concept of what is acceptable and what is not.
Without boundaries there is chaos, insecurity, fear.
Behaviour contrary to communal good
is performed without restriction.

Then we need judgement
a decision whether certain things are acceptable
and what to do if they are not.

Then we need 'police'
to bring wrongdoers to a place of accounting
and 'jailers' to execute the sentence.

But is this how we should behave?
How God would have us behave?

How should we care for the feckless,
the stupid and thoughtless,
those driven only by drugs,
even the downright evil?

Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge
against anyone among your people,
but love your neighbor as yourself,
Leviticus(19:18)

Do to no one what you yourself dislike.
Tobit 4:15;

That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man.
That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.
Rabbi Hillel (20BC)

Recognize that your neighbor feels as you do,
and keep in mind your own dislikes.
Sirach 31:15

If anyone says, 'I love God', yet hates his brother, he is a liar.
For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen,
cannot love God, whom he has not seen
1 John(14:20).

If you don't find God in the next person you meet,
it is a waste of time looking any further.
Mahatma Gandhi,

Maybe the key is to try to see others as God sees them, as some of God's children, who are different from me,
who have absorbed different values, different experiences, yet are also like me in many ways - could be me in some ways.

When feeling at odds with another person, even to the point of seeing him/her as an "enemy,"
take a time out to ponder on similarities, rather than difference.
Treat others as you would wish to be treated in that situation,
even if it is one of punishment or constraint, and so try to start a healing process.