GEN439 Because imitating God is one of the Torah’s 613 commandments Deuteronomy 28:9 “walk in His ways,” the Rabbis carefully studied the Bible to find acts performed by God that human beings could emulate.  Thus, in the evolution of Jewish law, the two acts [of] providing clothing for those in need and arranging a burial, are regarded as among the great acts of kindness and charity that we can do for others. TELVOL 2:139

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN443 See [[GEN161]] Genesis 1:28 rule SPERO 75-6

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN445 [H]e [Adam] has become unique in the world, i.e. a species having no similar species with which he shares this quality he has attained.  What is this quality? It is that he himself, of his own accord, knows the good and the bad things, does whatever he wishes, and is not prevented from doing them.  … Since this is necessary for human existence, I mean, that man performs good and bad actions by his choice when he wishes, it necessarily follows that he can be instructed in the good ways and be commanded, forbidden, punished, and rewarded.  All of this is just.  It is necessary for him to accustom his soul to good actions until he acquires the virtues, and to avoid bed actions until the vices disappear from him, if he has acquired any.  He should not say he has already attained a condition that cannot possibly change, since every condition can change from good to bad and from bad to good; the choice is his.  EWM 88

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN444 (Continued from [[GEN8]] GEN 1:1 create PASTIMP 134-5) … the relationship between creation and revelation may be viewed as correlative and complementary.   From this perspective, creation and revelation are separate but related modes through which God’s will is made known to the world.  Creation establishes a normative world that retains its own integrity even after the Torah is given.  Thus, God’s engagement with the world does not involve a simple progression from creation to revelation or from humanity as a whole to the chosen people, but rather operates differently in different spheres and among differnet peoples.  This point of view has been expressed most cogently by David Novak: “even though the covenant between God and Israel transcends nature, it still accepts nature as a limit (peras) and its own precondition. Jews are human beings who have been elected through the covenant, but they are still human beings within the natural order of things.  Nature, constituted as the covenant’s general background and horizon, is not overcome.”  [Novak, Jewish Social Ethics, 74-79]. It follows that Jews have a double relationship to God, first as human beings and second as members of the covenanted community.  Those who adopt this view of creation and revelation, then will necessarily be inclined to stress the similarities as well as the differences between Israel and the rest of humanity.  While this position is not developed explicitly within classical sources, it may be inferred from a number of texts.  At the conclusion of the creation story, God says, “Behold, the man has become like one of us knowing good and evil,” [this verse] suggesting that moral discernment of a certain sort is universal and derives, not from God’s revelation to Israel, but rather, in mythic terms, from the first human’s eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good an evil.  PASTIMP 135-6

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN446 Humankind stands in a special relationship to God, both because people represent the pinnacle of the created order and because they alone have the distinction of being made “in God’s image.” In one version of the creation story, human beings, after eating of the forbidden fruit, become godlike, “knowing good and evil.” (this verse).  It follows that we can no more avoid the moral condition than we can avoid being the creatures that we are, for God has invested us with moral knowledge.  Thus, creation – both of the world and of humankind in particular – has important normative implications.  The world is created as a cosmos, revealing the design and purpose of a benevolent creator, and human beings are created (or very early on become) creatures with moral discernment.  Taken together these two aspects of creation manifest themselves in the view, implicit throughout Scripture, that all human beings stand in an irreducibly moral relationship with a God who both created them for moral purposes and judges their moral conduct.  PASTIMP 133-4

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN447 Kantian ethics derives, say, kindness to animals as a humane virtue, not as a corollary to the categorical imperative.  One can say that humaneness is part of what we cultivate in treating humanity in ourselves as an end and never merely a means.  But that argument is on a par with the celebrated proof that Adam wore a yarmulke, which rests on [this verse] announcing that God sent Adam out of the garden: “Do you think he’d send him out bareheaded!” JHRHV 164 n. 22

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN448 See [[GEN399]] Genesis 3:14 because GORLAW 68-9

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN449 Weapons first appeared in the Torah at the very beginning of Creation after Adam and Eve sinned, with the flaming sword that protecting the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life, preventing man from re-entering.  This first divine weapon then, was intended to protect property, like a gun in a home, but for defensive purposes only.  A few generations later, as society developed implements and tools for working the land and musical instruments, one person, Tuval Kayin, forged sharp instruments out of bronze and iron, which Rashi says were weapons made for murders to kill people.  Genesis 4:22 with Rashi commentary.  Thus, the first human weapons were made in order to hurt individuals and kill human beings, not essentially different from the guns and other weapons that are manufactured to kill people today.  Needles s to say, the Rabbis did not look upon this invention as a positive development for mankind.  AMJV 120

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN450 … we must remember that ultimately Torah is not about ethics alone; it is above all about holiness, about drawing near to God. Our sages repeatedly taught that ethical perfection is a necessary prerequisite for spiritual elevation; but it is in no way a substitute. Consider the following well-known midrash: Rabbi Ishmael the son of Rav Nahman stated, Consideration precedes Torah, as it is written: “[He placed at the East of Eden cherubim and the turning sword] to keep the way to the tree of life.” [this verse]. “The way” refers to consideration; the Tree of Life is Torah. Leviticus Rabbah 7:11 It is true that ethical behavior comes first; that is how we set out on the way. But it is only the way—the goal is the Tree of Life, which is Torah.  MEIR 8

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

GEN451 Derech Eretz preceded the giving of the Torah by twenty-six generations [from Adam to Moses].  The word, “the way” (“derech”) refers to derech eretz.  Yalkut Genesis, end of ch. 3. Here we see that an aspect of derech Eretz existed in the world even before the Torah was given to the Jewish people; it is a mode of behavior crucial to the existence of humanity.  A person who lacks this trait falls short of fulfilling his quintessential role as a human being.  WAGS 14-5

SHOW FULL EXCERPT