EXOD19 The Omnipotence of God created in the heart of the Jew a sense of reverence for the life around him and a holy awe for its mysteries. The pages of Holy Writ reflect such longings and sensations. [Gen XX.II; this verse; Ex iii.6; Ps. ii. II; viii; cxi. 5; Prov. i.7; ix. 10; xv. 33; xvi.6.] When this attribute was combined with divine omniscience, the folly of sin was and made all the more glaring. Since His knowledge is limitless, penetrating the innermost recesses of the heart, how can erring man hope to escape detection? The Midrash provides the answer. [Gen. R. xxiv. I.] "It can be compared with an architect who is appointed a collector of taxes. Is it not the height of futility for the evader taxes to conceal his wealth in some hidden crypt and underground cave? Did not the architect himself construct the secret hiding places? Similarly foolish are the devices of the sinners who do evil in secret places. From whom do they seek to conceal their actions? "Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, and their works are in the dark, and they say: 'Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?'" [Is. xxix. 15].

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EXOD34 The Torah holds the scales equally balanced between rich and poor, employer and employed; but it is clear that the heart of the Lawgiver was with the oppressed labourer. Did he not himself leave a royal palace in order to go out and relieve his people from their burdens? [this verse] No less than seventy times does the word 'ani (poor man) occur in the Bible (with evyon "needy man") a close second with sixty-one)--an indication that the needs of the poor were uppermost in the mind of the Lawgiver. No Socialist ever denounced more trenchantly than did our prophets the evils of their times, thundering against the grinding of the poor in the violence and immorality committed by the rich. [See especially Amos ii. 6-16 et passim; Is. iii. 14-15; Jer. xxii. 13ff; Job xxiv. 2-11] In education, the children of the poor would be given first consideration, for from them would scholarship emerge. [Ned. 81a] Even the Messiah, according to one Rabbi, [Exodus R. xxii] will be found among the ragged poor. When God was asked by Israel: "Who are Thy people?" The answer they received was "The poor".

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EXOD59 The two Hebrew words for "in a flame of fire" are Belabbat aish, implying that God wishes us to perform all our duties as His witnesses sincerely and eagerly, with a heart (lev) aflame for righteousness. To illustrate this thought, take the conspicuous part allotted to charitable acts. It is been explained that the reason why the middle one of the three Matzot at the Seder table is broken in two (Yahatz), is to indicate that our aim as Jews should be to halve another's sorrows by practical sympathy and by sharing with him the blessings that a good fortune has brought our way. Further, the half Shekel which each Israelite was asked to contribute towards the mobile Tabernacle in the wilderness and later towards the upkeep of the Tabernacle in the wilderness was an earnest of communal responsibility and a reflection of "the coin of fire" God showed Moses on the Mount. All our actions were to be inspired by a warm heart and a loving consideration for the recipients of our goodwill. One of the reasons advanced for the fact that no blessing is recited when performing an act of kindness, though it is a Mitzvah to do so, is the consideration that the joy in the performance of the Mitzvah may simultaneously cause some pain or shame to the beneficiary. It is an irrevocable principle of Jewish ethics that wherever a good deed involves some discomfort to the object of our kindness, no blessing was to be recited. [Other examples are that no שהחינו blessing is recited by the Mohel at his first circumcision of a child; at the Shehitah of an animal; when donning shoes made of leather; or when counting the Omer. The memories of a Temple destroyed are too bitter to be sweetened by this blessing.]

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EXOD62 See [[EXOD19]] Exodus 1:17 fearing LEHRMAN 153

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EXOD68 [God's] first revelation to his people at Sinai, as to his lawgiver Moses [this verse] at the Thorne-Bush (Sneh), was prompted by the suffering and loneliness which, as a just and versatile Father, He could no longer tolerate.

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EXOD158 Judaism is almost alone in its insistence on holiness in all things, even in the most mundane matters of life. The Rabbinic advice was: "Be holy even in the prosaic act, performing all thy deeds in the name of Heaven." For this reason does Jewish teaching condemn unchastity in look, thought or act; regarding profanity of speech as an unpardonable offense against Him who made all speech possible. The Jew was taught that "the Lord, thy God, walketh in the midst of thy camp; ... Therefore shall thy camp be holy, that He see no unseemly thing in thee, and turn away from thee [Deut. xxiii.15] One will find that whereas throughout the dark Middle Ages, coarseness and lewdness prevailed among high and low in non-Jewish circles, a spirit of modesty and charity prevailed in the Jewish home, raising it into a model of sanctity--an inspiration to modesty in demeanor and to the practice of the love and charity which their faith taught. "And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them." [Exodus 25:8] by keeping their home life pure, they kept away destruction from their habitations. [this verse] "Their homes become not their graves"-- the earnest plea of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement.

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EXOD171 Jewish Ethics are dominated by the equality of all human beings. "One law shall be to him that is home-born, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you" [this verse]. To countenance any distinction would be inconsistent with the quintessence of our teachings. Since One God created us and since He reveals Himself as a loving Father, it follows as a corollary that we are all his children. "Have we not all one father", pleads Malachi (ii.10), "and hath not one God created us? Then why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, profane in the covenant of our fathers?" Nor must it be thought that the belief of the Election of Israel negatives a belief in the equality of all peoples in His eyes. What the phrase "Chosen People" stresses is that Israel, as the depository of divine truths, must not keep to itself truths for which they have been chosen to communicate onto the world at large. Israel has been chosen, not to inherit the pleasures of this world for themselves but to point out to others also the glories of the higher life, here and in the Hereafter. The pious of all creeds will share the Life to Come. Consequently, the Jew has studiously avoided converting others to his outlook on life. He has only welcomed those into his fold, and even then reluctantly, who sought admission of their own volition and free will and who were urged to do so by disinterested motives, by the desire to embrace the faith of Israel. Not exclusion is our aim, but tolerance and consideration for all; above all, a genuine respect for the sincere faith of another. Judaism has never entertained pretensions to be the sole depository of the means of grace. It has neither claimed membership of our faith as a guarantee of the salvation of soul, nor has it denied salvation of soul to anyone not born a Jew. According to the Talmud [Meg. 13a], a man who renounces idolatry automatically arranges himself on the side of Judaism. All he needs for salvation is the exercise of his moral powers for doing good.

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EXOD180 The only teachers of children mentioned in the Bible are parents. "And Thou shall teach them diligently to thy children" (Shema); "Thou shalt tell it to thy son", [this verse], and "Hearken my son, to the instruction of thy father; and abandon not the teaching of thy mother". [Prov. i.8.] The professional teacher was a product of economic stress when parents no longer had time to look after this duty themselves. At the best, he was only a substitute for the parent. Only when the parent has succeeded in equipping the child with a sound Jewish education leading to nobility of action, is the parental task discharged. This education must commence as soon as a child can speak "in order to introduce him to a performance of Mitzvot". The first three years were to be devoted to building up the body of the child; after that, the needs of his mind must also be catered for.

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EXOD218 The true Jew not only obeys the letter of the law; he is anxious for the opportunity to do even more than the strict law demands of him. [The phrase coined by the Talmud is 'Simchah shel Mitzvah,' see Shabb. 31b; Ber. 33b]. "Fear of God" is the beginning of knowledge; the end of religious teaching is to love God and serve our fellow-man. It means to be conscious that we owe Him a debt of gratitude which we can never adequately repay. One of the ways in which we can express our gratitude is to find pleasure in the performance of the duties devolving upon us, as well as to be possessed of an implicit trust that all that happens to us is, in the long run, for the best. Filled with this belief, we can safely entrust ourselves to Him everywhere and all times, confident in His guidance, glorying in His salvation. Real faith, though it inspires resignation, does not mean a heartless indifference, a kind of "could not care less" attitude. It must be dynamic and ready to inspire heroism and self-sacrifice. "The Lord is a man of battle" [this verse]; so must a faith that is worthwhile be militant for its convictions. Especially courageous must faith be against evil inclinations, against the Yetser Ha'ra, placed in us in accordance with the Divine scheme of things as an essential constituent in human nature without which the march of civilization, chequered as it is, would be impossible.

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EXOD226 It is particularly when one is in need, when one's well-being is threatened, that the expressions of love on the part of a neighbor count for most. The ethics of love demand that care be taken of the defenseless and the weak. We receive constant reminders to care for the widow and the fatherless, especially when our fortunes go well with us, for then we are most likely to forget the needs of those less fortunate. The burden of their loss must be made to weigh easier for them to shoulder. As for the poor in general, not only are they to be supported but they should not be made to feel the stigma of charity. [cf. Ps. xli. 2. See Yer. Shek. v.4; Lev. R. xxxv]. The stranger, too, must be made to feel that he has full share of our consideration: "And a stranger shalt thou not oppress: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." [Exodus xxiii.9]. In thirty-six places does the Torah urge consideration for the stranger. Hence says a Rabbi: "to divert the right of a stranger is to divert the right of God". [B. Metz 59b]. Another teacher considers the crime of robbing a stranger to be worse than that of robbing a Jew. [B. Kama 113a] Kiddush Ha'shem, like Imitatio Dei, is only observed when one displays kindness to all. Of Rabbi Johanan b. Zakkai it is told that he would be the first to greet a non-Jew. Other rabbis are also described as the possessors of similar courtesy. It was a saying of the Rabbis [Gittin 59b] that since the paths of the Torah lead to peace, we should do acts of grace even unto those not of our faith in order to establish peace and goodwill among all men. God says: "Both the Gentiles and the Israelites are My handiwork. How can I, then, let the former perish on account of the latter?" [Sanhed 39b; Meg. 10b]. For this reason did He stop the Song of the Sea with the protest: "My handiwork is drowning in the sea--and you dare to sing a song?" [e.g., this verse].

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