GEN995 … the Enlightenment’s view of human beings as individuals with rights leads Western countries to think of law as preserving rights, with major implications for law’s limits and methods. In contrast, the Jewish tradition understands Jews as members of a thick, organic community that has chosen to respond to God’s commandments and fulfill its mission of fixing the world. This underlying perception of the source and purposes of the law directly affects it (sic) scope, content, procedures, and tone, and it makes Jewish law significantly different from Western legal systems like that of the United States.   Stories are a good way to get to the heart of a civilization and its laws. The first Jewish story is that of Abraham. Unlike the beliefs of all the other peoples of the ancient world, for whom the gods rule on the basis of their power alone, where “might makes right,” Abraham discovers that the ways of God are “to do what is just and right,” [this verse]. It is that which later prompts Maimonides to characterize Abraham as “the pillar of the world” M.T. Laws of Idolatry 1:2 (end). Maimonides uses the same term for Abraham in his Guide for the Perplexed, part 3, chap. 29, for everything after that in the Jewish tradition, including the law given by God to and through Moses, is based on that fundamental premise. God is moral, even if we do not always understand how, and we therefore must be moral too (imitation dei).  DORFFLGP 88

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GEN996 One of the pillars of the world is justice. Avos 1:18 Hashem called Avraham “beloved” because he taught his descendants to perform deeds of righteousness and justice [this verse]. The prophet extols justice in a superlative way: Champion the cause of the poor and impoverished … for this is knowledge of Me, says Hashem. Jeremiah 22:16. The performance of this mitzvah is not limited to a king, beis din or community; every individual must strive to right the wrongs of injustice and stand up for the truth. Indeed, it is an integral aspect of honoring Hashem. Shaarei Teshuvah 4:5. JOURNEY 232

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GEN997 The twin characteristics of righteous giving (tzedakah) and truthful justice (mishpat) are the legacy of Avrham Avinu, [this verse], the foundation of the Torah, and an emulation of Hashem’s Providence. Tehillim 33:5, from whence is derived the eleventh berachah of Shemonah Esrei. See also Succah 49b.   The specific mitzvah of tzedakah is intrinsically related to righteous tzedakah in the wider sense which is one of the foundations of Hashem’s Providence. Thus, the Sages used superlatives when describing the mitzvah of tzedakah … The mitzvah of tzedakah requires more heedfulness than does any other positive commandment, since this mitzvah is the sign of a righteous descendant of Abraham, as the Torah says, For I know him that he will command his children … to guard justice and tzedakah” [this verse]. Ramban, Hilchos Matnos Aniyim 10:1. EHRMAN 457-8

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GEN998 The Bible never uses the word chosen in relation to the Jews as an adjective, but rather as a verb [note: literally, y’da’tiv – “I have known him” – AJL], thereby conveying the idea that they were chosen for a purpose.   God has no favorite nations.   Consider, “No, for I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice;… Or again, “Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage” Psalm 33:12. The verse makes it clear that the Jews are chosen as God’s witnesses to other nations to make Him known.  BOTEACH 277-8

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GEN999 [T]he Torah states [this verse]. We see, then, that this is more beloved to the holy One than all the other commandments.  Reflecting this principle the Rambam writes in the “Laws of Charitable Gifts” (10:1): “We are obligated to be more heedful with respect to the commandment of charity than with any other positive commandment.”   EYES 80

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GEN1000 … at an early period of Jewish thought, the rational quest for the Way of Righteousness asserted itself. The good, it was felt, somehow immanent in this world; there is a Divine law of justice, inherent in our minds and hearts, corresponding to the laws which holds nature in thrall. “Can it be that the judge of the whole universe will not do justice?” asks Abraham. Genesis 18:25   God’s purpose in choosing Abraham is “That he might command his children after him, that they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and righteousness.” [this verse]. “A way of the Lord” exists as the one right road to follow, and it is distinguished by the manifest, objective qualities of justice and righteousness, which are self-evident. The tension between the transrational Vision and the Way of “justice and righteousness” is illustrated in the trial of Abraham, which is a drama in two acts. In the first act, the romantic vision of the Divine Being is exemplified. He asks Abraham to slaughter his son, “his only one, the well-beloved.” Genesis 22:2  Abraham obeys, for after all God is beyond all good and evil; how can a poor mortal presume to weigh His commands in the scales of right and wrong? In the second act, an angel of the Lord tells Abraham not to kill his son, “For now I know that you fear God.” Again, Abraham obeys, this time as a mature worshiper who has learned his lesson-God wills that which is good.   In contrast to Kierkegaard’s admiration of the kind of faith that triumphs over mere morality, it should be pointed out that the heroism of Abraham in the second act was far more significant than his “fear of God” in the first act, precisely because it represented a harmonious resolution of his inner conflicts. This perspective becomes apparent as soon as we put this story in its historical context. In the days of Abraham and for a thousand years after him, it was universally assumed that human sacrifices were needed at critical moments in life. So Misha, King of Moab, sacrificed his son on the wall 2 Kings 3:27; so, too, the leading families of Carthage sacrificed their sons at the time of the slavery rebellion. O. Meltzer, Geschichte der Karthage, Vol II, Bk. 3 (1896).  It takes little courage to fall in line with the prevailing patterns of piety. In each successive generation, ordinary mortals did not hesitate to slaughter their sons on the altars of whatever Molochs happened to be worshiped. But, in the second part of the drama, Abraham found the courage and the wisdom to resist the impact of popular piety and to set over it the voice of the angel, who articulated the message of a rational conscience. Abraham was not merely “the first of the believers,” as Maimonides put it, or “the knight of faith,” as Kierkegaard put it--he was the protagonist of a moral-rational faith. To believe in God, who is beyond Nature and unlike all things, and, at the same time, to insist that the moral– rational Way, as it is manifest in the light of reason, is a revelation of His Will-this dual conviction establishes the central polarity in biblical religion. Abraham, the ideal believer, will not make peace with the notion that God punishes the innocent along with the guilty. Moses refused to concede that the ways of the Lord are so mysterious as to be beyond human standards of right and wrong. In the cleft of the rock, he was assured, that while “man could not see Him and live,” his Ways were comprehensible and compassionate.  Exodus 34:6-8 AGUS 32-34

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GEN1001 [T]he prophets applied all these terms to God: slow to anger and abundant in loving-kindness, just and righteous, perfect, powerful, strong, and the like.   They did so to proclaim that these ways are good and right, and a man is obliged to train himself to follow them and to imitate according to his strength.   How so?  A man shall habituate himself in these character traits until they are firmly established in him.  Time after time, he shall perform actions in accordance with the character traits that are in the mean.  He shall repeat them continually until performing them is easy for him and they are not burdensome and these character traits are firmly established in his soul.   Since these terms applied to the Creator refer to the middle way that we are obliged to follow, this way is called the way of the Lord.  This is what Abraham taught to his sons.  As it is said: [this verse]. Whoever walks in this way brings good and blessing upon himself.   As it is said [this verse].   EWM 30

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GEN1002 [The Rashba [Shlomo ben Aderet (1235–1310)] attributes the Jewish people’s great love of truth to several reasons, including the inheritance of Torah, a Torah of truth, and the fact that they are descendants of Yaakov, whose defining characteristic was truth.   The Rashba also alludes more subtly to a third reason – that they are “entirely an offspring of truth.”   That is, our entire nation descends from the patriarch Avraham, who could not be persuaded to worship idols by his father and his entire generation, all of whom were heathens.   Rather, he investigated the matter on his own, until he arrived at the truth and his soul became attached to the true God.   Thus, the very founding of our nation came about as a result of Avraham’s tireless search for the true path, and it thus became the defining characteristic of our nation.   This explains the Rashba’s later statement about “a powerful testament to how much the nation of the God of Avraham loves the path of truth.”   Thus, he mentions only the God of Avraham, and not the God of Yitzchak and Yaakov, because Avraham was the first to bequeath to his children and household the true path, as it is written [this verse]: “because he commands his children and his household after him that they keep the way of HaShem, doing charity and justice.”   EYES 437-8

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GEN1003 Throughout the Book of Deuteronomy, Israel is called upon “to walk in all His ways.” Deuteronomy 28:9, 11:22   But this expression was already used in Genesis, before the Sinaitic revelation, in reference to Abraham [this verse]. This would indicate that these values are not merely the ways which God has commanded man to walk in but that they are actually God’s ways – i.e., the ways in which God Himself walks. These “ways” are later revealed to Moses, when he asks to be shown God’s ”glory,” as middot, attributes of moral qualities: “merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in loving–kindness.” SPERO 86

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GEN1004 [In respect to Sodom it is written: “The outcry of Sodom and Gemorrah, because it is great,” and in respect to the generation of the flood it is written Genesis 6:5: “And God saw that the evil of man is great.]” This teaches us that their actions were similar. Yerushalmi, Baba Metzia 1:21.  TEMIMAH-GEN 86

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