Alongside the freeway on the way to where our church (UU) used to meet, there was a Christian school at the foot of a hill. At that time, every December they would mount a gigantic nativity scene on that hillside -- gigantic as in several stories high.
Our minister at the time address the question of whether to teach our children our own religious beliefs. Refering to his own pre-school daughter and to that school with the nativity monstrosity, he stated that he would definitely want to get to his daughter before those people did.
We taught our own children to be loving and caring and considerate and honesty and helpful. And we answered their questions as honestly and truthfully as we could. Dogma and doctrine did not enter into the mix, as they are unimportant compared with those other core teachings.
From the
Pirke Avoth ("Sayings of the Fathers") comes the story of the Pharisee Rabbi Hillel. A gentile had earlier approached the Sadducee head rabbi asking him to recite the whole of the Law while standing on one foot -- the Law was the Torah, the first five books of the OT, and study at these academies included memorizing the entire Torah. The Sadducee chased him away for his insolance. When he demanded the same of the Pharisees, Rabbi Hillel responded, "Do not to others that which is displeasing to yourself. That is the whole of the Law. The rest is just explanation. Now go and learn it."
This Pharisee teaching of the Golden Rule was circa 20 BCE, about 50 years before the NT has Jesus teaching it.
Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.
Edited by dwise1, : Added what we did
But accidentally put the edit reason in the Message Subtitle, so had to come back in to correct that
™ Version 4.2
