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DEUTERONOMY — 25:12 cut

DEUT1446 Rabbinic interpretation of another law in the Pentateuch yielded a special category of damages called boshet, "shame" or "indignity." Thus, we find the law [this and preceding verses]. Interpreting the "cutting off of the hand" as monetary payment, the rabbis concluded that the woman was to pay for the embarrassment and dignity which she caused. This was formulated in the Mishnah thus: "If a man wounds his fellow man he becomes thereby culpable on five accounts: for injury, for pain, for healing, for the loss of time, and for indignity inflicted.… How is one compensated for indignity inflicted? All according to the man who inflicts the indignity and the man who suffers the indignity" (Bava Kamma 8:1 and 8:6) The rabbis in the Talmud go on to demonstrate how the nature and extent of dignity/indignity is different for different people and depends upon any number of factors, including the social status, age, and sex of the individual involved, and the place, the time, and the public nature of the incident.

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DEUTERONOMY — 30:14 close

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).

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DEUTERONOMY — 30:19 choose

DEUT1619 Freedom of Will In The Torah. While the concept of freedom is found in the Torah primarily as an implicit presupposition of human responsibility, there are some rather explicit references to this principle in addition to the assurance to Cain: "And thou mayest rule over it." Moses concludes his farewell address to the people of Israel with the ringing: [this verse]. God Himself does not interfere in the human choice and takes no responsibility for the consequences that follow: "Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good" (Lamentations 3:38). But God is not "neutral" in terms of the human struggle. To be good is to want to do good for others. So that God wants to see man choose the good. "Oh that they would have such a heart as this always, to fear Me and keep all My commandments, that it might be well with them, and their children for ever" (Deuteronomy 5:26).

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DEUTERONOMY — 32:4 just

DEUT1668 The problem of theodicy receives its fullest biblical treatment in the Book of Job. Here, as elsewhere in the Bible, the form in which the problem is presented is not such as to seek an explanation for suffering or evil in general, but rather to focus on the suffering of the righteous. Judaism never strayed away from the belief in the moral quality and purposive nature of God's will. However, men are compelled to question the justice of God, and indeed the entire world order, once we contemplate the fate of a Job. The challenge of Job's experience consists precisely in this. The tzaddik in Job believes in God. The thinker in Job accepts God's existence but demands that we separate God from ideas of morality and justice. For it appears clear that God's rule is not moral. The Book of Job rejects the separation. Once God appears to Job and causes him to experience the "grace of revelation," God's concern for the world is clear. Job is now able to accept the principle that God's ways are hidden from men. Out of an "immediate certitude of divine majesty," Job regains his faith in the meaningfulness of God's acts. The Bible's last word on the problem of theodicy is that, all experience to the contrary, the concept of God necessarily includes the moral idea. (Y. Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, (trans. M. Greenberg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960) p. 338; J. Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism (New York: Holt, Rinehard & Winston, 1964) p. 15). "For all His ways are justice… just and right is He" [this verse].

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