DEUT341 One other aspect of the biblical and rabbinic concept of justice derives from its theological foundations. As I have discussed in chapter three, God, according to the Torah, loves the People Israel for reasons having nothing to do with its number for power, the usual marks of a nation's greatness, and God promises the Patriarchs to continue that relationship through the generations. (Deuteronomy 7:6-11). The Israelites, in turn, are to love God and “always keep His charge, His laws, His rules, and His commandments.” (Deuteronomy 11:1). The commandments of the Torah are thus not legalistic formulations, totally divorced from human compassion, moral values, and a spiritual relationship with God -- as some Christian writings portray them. Quite the contrary, the practice of justice is an extension of love, as demonstrated by commandments calling on all Israelites to “love your fellow as yourself,” (Leviticus 19:18). to “love the stranger” (repeated thirty-six times in the Torah), (B. Bava Metzi’a 59b) and to “love God.” (Deuteronomy 6:5 and 11:1). In fact, one of the primary expressions of God's love is precisely that he provides human beings with rules of justice. Very much like parents who love their children enough to take the time and energy to insist on proper behavior because they know it will ultimately be in the children's best interest, so “the Lord commanded us to observe all these laws, to revere the Lord our God, for our lasting good and for our survival, as is now the case.” (Deuteronomy 6:24-25). Again, “Bear in mind that the Lord your God disciplines you just as a man disciplines his son. Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God: walk in His ways and revere Him.” (Deuteronomy 8:5-6). In sum then, the Jewish tradition makes justice a concrete reality by spelling out at least most of its demands in specific laws. The Torah and later rabbinic tradition insist, though, that we do the right and the good even when the details of the law would permit us to do otherwise. The Jewish tradition thus recognizes both that the legal framework is indispensable in making justice a reality and that the demands of justice extend beyond the law, however extensively it is defined. The Torah and the later Jewish tradition also placed the demand for justice in a theological context, thereby undergirding the authority of the demand for justice and giving it a rationale: We are to be just because God requires that of us and because that is one important way in which we can imitate God's ways. These legal, moral, and theological parameters of the biblical and rabbinic concept of justice make it an ongoing, active component of a life lived in longing covenant with God.