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Suppose there is a situation where one person has 'slapped' another on the face. Of course, slapping is a metaphor in this instance for civil dispute. Many people incorrectly assume 'slapped' exhausts every kind of possible harm, but there is a hermeneutic reason why we should honor the common sense use of the image of 'slapping' here. It refers to a kind of condescension, a slight. It does not refer to someone murdering you, your child, or some other egregious act.

If the writers had intended 'slapped' to exhaust all possibilities of harm, we can assume they probably would have included other examples: "If a man slays your boy child, give him the neck of your girl child also." This is clearly not the intention of the passage, clearly not its meaning. So first we need to limit realistically what kinds of slights 'slapped' really refers to. The best interpretations I've seen - given the legal focus of the Hebrews - is that this refers to civil disputes or to ordinary interpersonal social competition.

So we have this hypothetical where one person has slapped another. We can analyze this situation in one of two ways: we can analyze the act itself, or the intentions (internal state) of the person who has been slighted. It's the latter dimension that's of interest because the writers of this passage are not really concerned about slapping (it's just a symbolic vessel for the lesson). So we are interested in the internal state of the slighted person.

What it is telling us is that we should not internally worship the 'god of revenge'; we should not entertain in ourselves for there to grow a love of revenge. In other words, we should not act - in the narrow domain of civil disputes with our neighbors - on the basis of our immediate emotions/impulses, but with reason. This is not, therefore, a rigid rule for what you should do, but rather a more general guide about how to become aware of your motivations.

It could be that you should return the strike, if the situation demands it, say, if the person is literally hitting you and shows no signs he intends to stop hitting you until something else stops him. In that case, hit back.

The point is to assess your actions, to authentically reflect, and not to act on the basis of revenge. Don't seek revenge against a neighbor who slights you. If there is a dispute, solve it with reason.

At the same time, this acknowledges that the norm for people is not reason, but impulse. In this sense, it is calling for a sacrifice in the ordinary business of your social groups. The enlightened person will act on the basis of reason, whereas the lesser person acts on the basis of impulse. You are called to do the former, even when those cruder people in your midst do the latter.

So it is a warning both against the poison of harboring desire for revenge, and also against pride. A person who is slighted often feels that immediate embarrassment and the ensuing social impulse to have his revenge so as not to look like he's 'lost' the exchange. He slapped me. I must slap him back. But is this not the way of niggers? Muh disrespek!

This is a Biblical transmission of Stoicism, which influenced Christianity heavily.

Don't act on impulse. Turn the other cheek as a defiant sign that another person's crude mode of handling a situation is not something you will stoop to. Here's the other cheek. I offer it as a sign to indicate I'm above your petty shit. Be petty, but I won't meet you down there in the mud. Just because a pig bit me, does not mean that I will get down in the mud to wrestle it. 'Winning' in that moment will only get me muddy and cause me, in the eyes of my neighbors, to join the foolery. I become one of the fools.

This passage has positively nothing to do with military combat or more significant group-lvl attacks on a society. It is just a Stoic message given in a parabolic form, which Jesus was pretty fond of doing.

It's a problem, surely, the loss of an intellectual tradition in western religion. The bar has fallen.

The problem with what (I gather) you're implying is that it doesn't make a truth a falsehood, just because people (even the majority of them) aren't fit for it. So, what to do. Do we abandon truth for the sake of what is convenient, or most accessible, to those who are unworthy of it? Do we accept a religion that takes only a few words to get across, because its simple nature is more amenable to lesser men?

I forgive you.

Justice isn't White because no man can do justice. Only God can do justice. What justice can one do e.g. for the rape and murder of a child? Justice is only for God. Man is only capable of defense. For some reason we want our governments to do justice yet consider pre-crime killings immoral. In reality it's the opposite. When a murderer gets death, no one honestly says "yay justice was done". It wasn't. The victim is still uncompensated. If people are happy it is from the knowledge that the evildoer can never do harm again. This is pre-crime, a concept most consider vile.