I think that William Shakespeare was stating what I consider to be true, and it is possible, but doubtful, that he was Jewish.

Shakespeare wrote, “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.” The advice was given by Polonius to his son Laertes in Act 1, Scene 3 of the play Hamlet, as part of a longer farewell speech, when Laertes was leaving to attend a university in France. Some scholars believe that Polonius was advising Laertes to be honest and genuine with himself, and not to pretend to be someone he isn’t. As a result, he will also be honest with others and treat them well.

It is possible to give his statement a more nuanced, complex Jewish interpretation, grounded in intelligence and the law regarding gerim, strangers.

Both the pagan philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE) and the Jewish philosopher Maimonides (1138-1204) stressed that the most critical lesson people should learn is that the trait that distinguishes humans from animals and plants is the divine gift of intelligence, along with the obligation to use it to improve themselves and the world. Maimonides stated in the first chapter of his Guide for the Perplexed that, when Genesis 1:27 says God created humans in the divine image, it means God empowered people with intelligence.

The Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the five Books of Moses, repeatedly commands love and proper treatment for the ger, a Hebrew word meaning stranger, whose plural form is gerim, strangers, which was later used also to mean a convert to Judaism.[1]

The Talmud in Bava Metzia 59b tells us that 36 or 46 times the prohibition against wronging the ger is in the Torah. A key........

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