Chapter 4: Justice and Righteousness: It’s not a Quick Fix
Observe justice and perform righteousness….Praiseworthy is the man who does this and the person who grasps it tightly [Is 56:1.2]
North America’s first laws, from the Seventeenth century’s ‘Pilgrim Code’ …and the ‘Body of Liberties’… were confessedly based on Moses’ Torah. The American and English Puritans revered the Pentateuch…the Pilgrims tried to pattern American society upon the Torah’s moral teachings. [12.9]
How incredibly different is the world today. How many young people in the United States today will be able to explain what the above statement says and means? Would leaders today lift up their eyes and make a covenant with G-d as did the pioneers in 1836 in Natal, South Africa, when they pledged to henceforth keep that day as a Sabbath if G-d delivers them from the surrounding thousands of Zulu’s that wanted to slaughter them.
From the Seventeenth century onwards, when René Descartes (1596-1650) made the statement ‘I think, therefore I am’, man’s belief in a higher power and submitting himself to G-d, declined and disappeared, leaving man in a godless and immoral society as we face today. Descartes was ‘supremely confident that by human thought alone one could doubt all notions based on authority and could begin from himself with total sufficiency‘ [13.152] Man therefore placed himself on a pedestal, made himself the center of his universe and by the end of the 19th century Nietzsche (1844-1900) declared ‘God is Dead’ Our beautiful world of unity and meaning had become broken and fragmented as the Cubist painters like Picasso and Braque depicted in their paintings in 1905.
‘If God is dead, then everything for which God gives an answer and meaning is dead.’ [13.178]. ‘A secular universe is an impersonal universe, and thus, far from being an advance on monotheism, it in fact puts us back into the world of myth, where man is at the mercy of impersonal forces. [1.104] The abolition of God leads, slowly and imperceptibly to what C.S. Lewis called the abolition of man. (Is it a wonder that today, as I am writing this, in Canada people are insisting that an individual can choose to be referred to as either Ms /he /she /ze according to their personal choice regardless of their appearance, and want this legislated!).Many people have lost their faith in God and place their trust rather in man. The individual and his mind, abilities and emotions are now center stage. We have seen determinism and relativism influence modern man’s thinking. And today its individualism.
Kent Hovin related how a man in his audience stood up and declared ‘I decide for myself what is right or wrong, I am the god of my own universe’ Hovin responded by saying: I will shoot you now. Aghast the man responded: You cannot do that! Yet note, as C.S Lewis pointed out: If one says ‘doing or saying B is not like A, then logically there is a standard or measure C that is outside A as well as B.
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach said during a discussion of ‘Is the Torah from G-d’, that we first have to decide and establish if we need a guide. He continued: In fact we are the only species that need directions. A dog knows how to be a dog. An otter doesn’t need an engineering diploma to build his structures.
David Thomson in his new book Les Revenants, interviewed French jihadists. One of them, who grew up in a social housing project in Seine-Saint-Denis, defined jihad as a ‘response to the ideological vacuum’ of the West. Islamic extremists in Europe are now filling the Western ideological vacuum by appealing to the masses, convincing millions of Muslims to hate and fight the West. We cannot possibly be surprised by this considering the development of the West’s philosophy and world view as I briefly outlined above. Nor should we be surprised noting for example that since 1925 teaching religion in French schools are forbidden. The division of church and state has been increasingly strictly adhered to in the USA since especially the mid twentieth century. (*1)
Rabbi Sacks wrote July 2016: This is not politics as usual. I can recall nothing like it in my lifetime…we are witnessing throughout the West..a new politics of anger… The problems facing the West are real and serious…For the past half century we have been living through one of the great unstated social experiments of all time. We have tried to construct a world without identity and morality. ….Morality has been outsourced to the market. The market gives us choices, and morality has been reduced to a set of choices in which right or wrong have no meaning beyond the satisfaction or frustration of desire….Too many people in positions of public trust have come to the conclusion that if you can get away with it, you would be a fool not to do it. That is how elites betray the public they were supposed to serve. When that happens, trust collapses and a civilization begins to decay and die. (*2) Are we not seeing this today?
Rabbi David Aaron wrote : Your consciousness of reality determines the world you’re in. Your consciousness of G-d determines how much of the light and the truth of G- d will be allowed into your world. To the extent that you acknowledge G-d, to that extent G-d will be in your life. This is a very crucial idea. Although G-d is, G-d is not revealed in your perceptual world unless you actively acknowledge and invite G-d in. Each one of us has a choice. You can believe that this world is filled with the presence of G-d who cares about it and guides it. Or you can believe that this world is one big accident, a chaotic mess….How would I act if I really believed that G-d’s presence filled my life, my home, my office, my city, my world? How would I speak to my wife and kids? How would I treat the stranger? To the extent that I think, speak, and act in accordance with this heightened awareness, to that extent, G-d can be present in my world. It’s not just a matter of believing and saying so…… I need a daily concrete way to walk the talk. The so-called “good- deeds” and “rituals” of Torah tradition are designed to be building blocks to nurture and concretize consciousness all day long, so that I can channel G- d’s presence into the world and into my life. (*3) [More about this later – see Chapter 17]
Maimonides wrote in his famous tome Guide for the Perplexed: ‘ The general object of the Law is twofold: the well-being of the soul, and the well-being of the body….The well-being of the body is established by a proper management of the relations in which we live one to another. This we can attain in two ways: first by removing all violence from our midst; that is to say , that we do not do every one as he pleases, desires and is able to do; but every one of us does that which contributes towards the common welfare. Secondly, by teaching every one of us such good morals as must produce a good social state.’ [10.312]
You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and His testimonies and His statutes, which He has commanded you. And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. (Deu 6:17-18) (*4)
Rabbi Sacks comments the following regarding what I typed in italics here above: ‘At first Moses said that you are to keep His statutes and his testimonies which He commanded you, and now he is stating that even where He has not commanded you, give thought as well to do what is good and right in his eyes, for He, G-d, loves the good and the right.
‘Now this is a great principle, for it is impossible to mention in the Torah all aspects of man’s conduct with his neighbours (sic) and friends, all his various transactions and the ordinances of all societies and countries. But since He mentioned many of them, such as, “You shall not go around as a talebearer,” “You shall not take vengeance nor bear a grudge,” “You shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor,” “You shall not curse the deaf,” “You shall rise before the hoary head,” and the like, He went on to state in a general way that in all matters one should do what is good and right, including even compromise and going beyond the strict requirement of the law … Thus one should behave in every sphere of activity, until he is worthy of being called “good and upright.” (*5)
Bill Bullock writes in his discussion of Parashot Matot & Masei: Only when we let the Torah mold our thought processes can we view the world in its true perspective.
Law is about universals, principles that apply in all places and times. Don’t murder. Don’t rob. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Yet there are important features of the moral life that are not universal at all. They have to do with specific circumstances and the way we respond to them. What is it to be a good husband or wife, a good parent, a good teacher, a good friend? What is it to be a great leader, or follower, or member of a team? When is it right to praise, and when is it appropriate to say, “You could have done better”? There are aspects of the moral life that cannot be reduced to rules of conduct, because what matters is not only what we do, but the way in which we do it: with humility or gentleness or sensitivity or tact. (*5)
Sacks furthermore wrote that the Law lays down a minimum threshold but the moral life aspires to more than simply doing what we must, and though we call the Torah a book of Law, it’s not without empathy.
Regarding the Torah Rabbi David Aaron writes: ‘If you think religion is going to give you a quick fix you are wrong. And if you think that religion will put you on easy street you are deluded…. People are looking for happiness in all the wrong places. And they will never find it. Because happiness is not something you find outside — it lies within your soul. You cannot find happiness, you have to learn to be happy in whatever is happening.
‘The Torah does not give any dispensations from the challenges of life. It does not promise an easy life but a meaningful life. It does not offer an instant solution to sadness but it does offer a soulution (sic) to sadness and the secret to happiness. Through its’ wisdom and guidance, Torah empowers you to be (a) soul and enables you to make I contact with the Ultimate I — G-d. ‘ (*6) and have a relationship with Him.
I think it is clear from reading this blog that it is about choices that we make. The Hebrew word בחר (choose) often appears in the Tenach. For example: G-d chose Abraham to be the first patriarch (Neh 9:7), He chose Israel to be His people (Is 44:1) and He chose Jerusalem as His city where he placed His name, and David to be king (2Chron 6:6) Leading a Biblical life means making good and godly choices ‘to abhor evil and choose good’ (Is 7:16)
FOOTNOTES
*1 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-religion-schools/religion-and-controversy-always-part-of-u-s-education-idUSTRE75829R20110609 as well as http://education.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264093-e-46
*2 We need morality to beat this hurricane of anger. Sir Jonathan Sacks. This article was first published by the Daily Telegraph (UK) on 2nd July 2016.
*3 Rabbi David Aaron, Sparks, Sick Minds, Sick Bodies, Isralite, April 7, 2016.
*4 Note! Every time that the word ‘Lord’ appears in this quote from the Torah, in the actual Hebrew writing יהוה appears. In the English translation the word Hashem, meaning ‘The Name’, is used in the Stone edition of the Tenach.
*5 Jonathan Sacks. The Right and the Good. Va’etchanan, Covenant & Conversation 5775 on Ethics. 30 July 2015.
*6 David Aaron. Sparks. The Secret to Happiness. Parsha VaYeitzei. Isralite. 25 -6-2018