DEUT1597 … what gives Jewish morality its integrated character is, first, the sense that the ultimate origin of all values is in God, whose essence is morality, and second, the logical connectives that relate principles to rules and rules to moral judgments. The ideal of consistency is rendered attainable in Jewish morality by the presence of a hierarchy of values which offer guidance in cases of conflict. Except for that ultimate test when man must be prepared to give his life for kiddush ha-shem, human life and human dignity set aside ritual obligations, love of God stands higher than fear of God, mercy higher than justice, and peace higher than truth. In terms of comprehensiveness, the material we have presented indicates that the basic reasoning processes employed by the original rabbis in interpreting the talmudic texts are still available to those of us today who would decide the moral issues that confront us by the perceptions of Jewish morality. This, it will be recalled, was the pointed claim of Moses, [this verse and preceding, 11-14]. One of the most important claims of Jewish morality is that it is eminently practicable; that these values can be realized in real life. Judaism believes that the variegated richness and complexity of the real world is penetrable by human reason not only in the domain of pure knowledge but also by practical reason in the domain of morality. Stimulated by his intuitions and guided by the teachings of the Torah, the Jew should be able to work out what is right and good by himself. It is ironic that some of the most attractive moral theories in the general field of ethics exhibit an almost fatal weakness precisely at the point where the individual, in the bewilderment of his concrete situation, is expected to make a moral judgment. Utilitarianism has never been able to provide a formula by which the utility of the various dimensions of pleasure could be transposed into a common factor for purposes of summing and evaluation. ... We are not suggesting that Jewish morality offers a formula for decision procedures that can be mechanically applied to every concrete case and that will always yield a valid judgment or blissful certainty. In difficult cases of conflicting values or duties, the agony of uncertainty and the sense of moral risk will undoubtedly persist. In Judaism one has the further recourse of consulting with the rabbis and teachers, whose knowledge and experience can be helpful, and with whom one can share responsibility for the moral decision. However, the more than three thousand years during which the Jewish people have wrestled with moral issues, and recorded their struggles, have encouraged the development of a Jewish moral system that contains a pool of insightful moral teachings, a ranking of values, and a workable method of moral reasoning. In a sense, the history of Judaism, in its moral as well as its ritual aspects, has successfully carried out the original task given to it by the Torah: "'And these are the judgments that you shall set before them' -- as a set table ready for human use and consumption (See Rashi on Exodus 21:1).