GEN435 Rashi begins his commentary to Genesis with the question: If the Torah is a book of law, why does it not start with the first law given to the People of Israel as a whole, which does not appear until Exodus 12? Why does it include the narratives about Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the patriarchs and matriarchs and their children? Rashi gives an answer that has nothing to do with morality -- he says it has to do with the Jewish people’s right to their land. But Netziv (Rabbi Naphtali Zvi Yehuda Berlin; 1816 – 1893) writes that the stories of Genesis are there to teach us how the patriarchs were upright in their dealings, even with people who are strangers and idolaters. That, he says, his why Genesis is called by the sages, “The book of the upright.” Haamek Davar to Genesis, Introduction. Morality is not just a set of rules, even a code as elaborate as the 613 commandments and their rabbinic extensions. It is also about the way we respond to people as individuals. The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is at least in part about what went wrong in their relationship when the man referred to his wife as isha, “woman,” a generic description, a type. Only when he gave her a proper name, Chava, Eve, did he relate to her as an individual in her individuality, and only then did God “make [them] garments of the skin and clothed them” [this verse]. This too is the difference between the god of Aristotle and the God of Abraham. Aristotle thought that God knew only universals, not particulars. This is the god of science, of the Enlightenment, of Spinoza. The God of Abraham is the God who relates to us in our singularity, and what makes us different from others as well as what makes us the same. This ultimately is the difference between the two great principles of Judaic ethics: justice and love. Justice is universal.  It treats all people alike, rich and poor, powerful and powerless, making no distinctions on the basis of color or class. But love this particular. A parent loves his or her children for what makes them in each unique. The moral life is a combination of both. That is why it cannot be reduced solely to universal laws. That is what the Torah means when it speaks of “the right and good” [referencing Deuteronomy 6:18 – AJL] over and above the commandments, statutes, and testimonies. A good teacher knows what to say to a weak student who, through great effort, has done better than expected, and to a gifted student who has come to the top of the class but he still performing below his or her potential.  A good employer knows when to praise and when to challenge. We all need to know when to insist on justice and when to exercise forgiveness. The people who have had a decisive influence on our lives are almost always those we feel understood us in our singularity. We were not, for them, a mere your face in the crowd. That is why, though morality involves universal rules and cannot exist without them, it also involves interactions that cannot be reduced to rules. SACKS 283-4