Sir, “Love your neighbour as yourself” may well be in Matthew xxii (letter, November 8), but it originates in Leviticus xix, 18, where it sits among a whole series of ethical instructions including not oppressing one’s neighbour, paying a labourer on time, not cursing the deaf or impeding the blind, and not favouring the mighty. It is a manual of moral instruction of which care for our neighbours is just one constituent part.

There is in fact a more important message that many — Christians and all of us — need to hear. “Love your neighbour” appears once in the Old Testament; “Love the stranger” 37 times. Indeed, move on a few verses in Leviticus to verse 34 and find it right there: “The stranger shall be to you as homeborn and you shall love him as yourself . . . ”

Loving one’s neighbours can be a pushover, if they don’t have 30ft-high leylandii. Loving the stranger — as the world’s borders alter and movement across them increases — is a far greater challenge on which people of all religions and none should be judged.

Yours faithfully,
BARRY HYMAN,
4 Priory View,
Bushey Heath,
Hertfordshire WD23 4GN.
November 8.

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