Rav Avigdor Miller on Hating Gentiles

Q:

Is it permissible for a Jew to hate a non-Jew?

A:

Now the question is what kind of non-Jew you’re talking about. I wouldn’t say it’s a sin if you hate Hitler. So it depends.

Now, if you’re going to be a hypocrite like a Reform rabbi and you’re going to say, “We can’t hate! We have to love all people,” so you’re all mixed up. You don’t understand anything.

I once spoke in one of these lectures.  A man came over to me.  He was a high school principal or something.  And he said, “Rabbi Miller, you advocate capital punishment?!  How can you think of killing?”

So I said to him, “Suppose a man was about to murder your mother, would you kill him to save your mother?”

“Oh no!” he said.

A meshugeneh!

And so, when you ask should you hate anybody – non-Jew, Jew – we have to say that it depends. It depends – do you want to be a hypocrite or do you want to speak according to the truth of our seichel and emotions. It depends.  

Some goyim, why should you hate them?  There are plenty of nice goyim.  Not enough but there are plenty of them.  I look back in my life and see goyim who helped me, goyim who came in very handy.

I was once in the police station to make a complaint against some black boys who had broken into our shul and the policeman who was there, he said to me, “Stand behind the wall here so they shouldn’t see you. So that the black boy shouldn’t see you.” 

To this day, I remember that policeman with gratitude.  Because if they would see me, that I’m the one who accused them, so when they would be released they would wander around the neighborhood and they might see me and cause trouble. The policeman – an Italian policeman – I still have an affection for that Italian boy. He was a short Italian boy, a good looking policeman at the Snyder Precinct, the Snyder Avenue precinct.  He pushed me behind the wall, so they shouldn’t see me.

And so certainly there are some gentiles who deserve to be appreciated.

Now to say ואהבת לרעך כמוך, to love your fellowman like yourself, that’s something reserved for the Am Hakodesh. I won’t be a hypocrite and say I love that policeman like myself. The truth is, it’s very hard for me to admit that I love anybody like myself.  I’m going to be a hypocrite? But certainly to love a goy like yourself, who says such things?

But to hate all goyim, that’s silly and nobody ever said such a thing. And no Torah’dige Jew has such thoughts in his mind.

TAPE # 215