GEN1028 The fact remains that the existence of national morality is clearly assumed in much that is quite central to our tradition. Discussion of theodicy is predicated upon it. As Benjamin Whichcote, Discourses, the seventeenth century Cambridge Platonist, pointed out, one cannot ask, “Shall, then, the judge of the whole Earth not do justice?” [this verse] unless one assumes the existence of an unlegislated justice to which, as it were, God Himself is bound; and which, one might add, man can at least apprehend sufficiently to ask the question. Or again, any attempt at rationalizing Halakha—an endeavor already found in Hazal, although much more fully elaborated by rishonim—presupposes an axiological frame of reference, independent of Halakha, in the light of which it can be interpreted. It makes no sense to say, with Abaye, that “the whole of the Torah… is for the purpose of promoting peace,” Gittin 59b unless the ethical value of peace can be taken for granted. The same holds true with respect to suggesting reasons for specific mitzvot. (By Aharon Lichtenstein, “Does Jewish Tradition Recognize an Ethic Independent of Halakha?”) KELLNER 103