Update on Pints With Jack

Quick update: I'm sure everyone has been waiting with bated breath to hear the conversation David Bates and I had a about P. H. Brazier's book, "A Hebraic Inkling: C. S. Lewis on Judaism and the Jews." Things are bit behind schedule over at Pints With Jack, but the conversation did happen and I'm excited to share it with everyone as soon as it comes out. Just hold tight! 

An Alternate Model: Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself

Treat [the Dumb Beasts] gently and cherish them but do not go back to their ways... 
The Magician's Nephew

There is an alternate biblical command that we may use to model Aslan's command to the first Narnians. That is the command to "Love your neighbor as yourself. (Leviticus 19:18)." Also known as the Golden Rule, this command has been philosophically analyzed by various midrashim and the Talmud and is repeated a number of times in the Christian Bible. 

What's perhaps surprising, is how little in Jewish law the command is concretized into defined actions. The Talmud's explicit utilization of the verse is highly restrictive: ensuring that when the death penalty is carried out it is done in the least harmful fashion (Pesachim 75a), that a child is permitted to let the blood of his father (something that was assumed to be a healing mechanism, Sanhedrin 84b), and warning against marriage before the bride and groom meet face-to-face (Kiddushin 41a).  

It was left to Maimonides to formally codify an explicit list of acts of kindness that fall under the rubric of the Golden Rule. And even those great acts (visiting the sick, comforting those in mourning, welcoming guests, etc.) are short on concrete rules because, as Nachmanides explains elsewhere there is no way to cover every possible interaction and make explicit rules and generalities are needed. 

From this approach it might perhaps make sense to include several broad categories as to what it might mean to cherish the dumb beasts and not return to their ways. But the variables of time and place render meaningless to provide an explicit list. 

Even so, the importance of the Golden Rule is emphasized in the Talmud (and taught in every pre-school). Why are Aslan's first commands not similarly revered?