“Who is my neighbour?”

Good morning everyone, we are the representatives of Dance Club, and the theme of this month is “respect differences, treat others with tolerance”. we all carry invisible lines in our minds, dividing “us” from “them.” We often walk past need, finding reasons not to get involved. But what if our true character is measured not by how we treat our friends, but by how we treat those who are nothing like us? One of history’s most famous stories tackles this challenge, flipping our expectations about who deserves our kindness.

It begins with a question: “Who is my neighbour?” A religious expert asked this not to expand his circle, but to limit it. In response, Jesus told of a man traveling a dangerous road, who was attacked, robbed, and left for dead. Stripped of his identity and possessions, he was reduced to a single truth: a human being in desperate need of help.

The first people to pass by were a priest and a Levite—precisely the individuals you would expect to help. They were respected, religious, and knew the right thing to do. Yet, upon seeing the man, they both crossed to the other side of the road. Their inaction reveals a painful truth: sometimes, ritual, convenience, or safety can feel more important than the messy work of mercy.

Then came a Samaritan, a member of a group deeply hated by the audience. He was the ultimate outsider. But when he saw the wounded man, he was moved with pity. Where others saw a problem, he saw a person. His compassion instantly overrode generations of cultural prejudice and division.

For the Samaritan, compassion was a verb. He didn’t just feel sorry; he acted. He bandaged the man’s wounds, transported him to an inn on his own donkey, and paid for his full recovery. This was tolerance in its most powerful and costly form—an active investment of time, resource, and self, offered without any expectation of return.

Jesus ended with a revolutionary question: “Which of these three proved himself to be a neighbour?” The answer redefines everything. Our neighbour isn’t determined by similarity or proximity, but by our conscious choice to act. It is a call to cross the road, see the shared humanity in everyone, and treat even those we’ve been taught to despise with dignity, respect, and life-changing mercy.

Dance Club