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DEUTERONOMY — 6:25 observe

DEUT318 With the adoption of the Torah as the foundation of Jewish life, righteousness came to be regarded as strict observance of its laws and ordinances (this verse). Identified with the revealed will of God, the laws of the Torah exercised supreme authority over the Jewish people. The rabbis continued the ideals of the prophets and of the Torah.

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DEUTERONOMY — 8:5 disciplines

DEUT368 [The prophets'] moral and religious conceptions [regarding evil, sorrow, and grief] centered in the doctrine of [Divine] retribution, in the light of which suffering is the fruit of sin and of folly, and happiness the reward of obedience and of goodness. This simple creed of the Biblical authors was shaken by the suffering of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked. Prophets, Psalmists, and Sages alike complain against the topsy-turvydom of the moral order. Hab. 1:3-4; Jer. 12:1-3; Pss. 49; 73. Job rejected the orthodox belief, championed by his friends, of an equation between evil and suffering, and left a matter a veiled impenetrable mystery. The Parsis [followers in India of the Persian prophet Zoroaster - AJL] had solved the problem in a holy different way. They envisioned the world as governed by two conflicting powers, one good and the other evil. Deutero–Isaiah, rejecting the dualistic conception of the world, reaffirmed the doctrine of ethical monotheism: "I am the Lord, and there is none else; I form light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I am the Lord that doeth all these things (Is. 45:6-7). (Cf. Sanh. 39a. Lam. 3:38 lends itself to two opposite constructions. Take it as a question, it supports the belief of Deutero-Isaiah. As a direct statement it asserts that evil and good proceed not from God, but that they are man-made). This manifesto of monotheism, while ruling out dualism from the range of Jewish belief, left the ethical problem where it was. How can a good God create evil? Does not evil cast a reflection upon His character? Deutero-Isaiah resorts to two novel conceptions to supplement the old doctrine of retribution. With (this verse) he interprets suffering as disciplinary in character, as the rabbis subsequently turned it, "chastisement of love." Chapter 53 of Isaiah advances the belief that suffering is vicarious. The righteous does not suffer merely an expiration of his own sins. By his suffering, he bears and expiates the guilt of his wicked fellow man.

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DEUTERONOMY — 10:12 serve

DEUT419 The rabbi's, endeavoring to discover a basis for prayer in the Torah, found it implied in the Deuteronomic monition: "To love the Lord your God, and to serve Him with all your heart with all your soul" (this verse). They asked: "What is the service of the heart?" And replied: "It is prayer." Sifre, Deut. 11:13; Taan. 2a. Though the worship of prayer did not come into its own until the sacrificial worship ceased, attempts were made to trace the institution of prayer to the patriarchs themselves. R. Elazar ranked prayer above sacrifice. Ber. 26b; 32b. R. Joshua b. Levi believed it to be so efficacious that it breaks even an iron wall which separates Israel from the Heavenly Father. Sotah 38b. Prayer removes all obstacles and dangers to the spiritual life. Maimonides treats prayer in his Code under the section Ahavah. Love is, indeed, the life breath of prayer, love in the sense of longing and yearning for God and of the direction of the spirit and self-dedication to Him. It is the placing of oneself at the disposal of God, offering heart and mind, soul and being upon His altar. R. Nahman of Bratzlav considered prayer a category of faith, of spiritual creativeness which fills the emptiness of the heart with the consciousness of the Divine. Through prayer God's holiness increases. True spiritual vitality is derived only through prayer. Horodetzki, Torat R. Nahman, Tephllah.

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DEUTERONOMY — 10:19 stranger

DEUT467 The spirit of philanthropy and consideration for others, which marks most of the provisions of the [Deuteronomic] Code, breathes also from the introductory sections of Deuteronomy. Characteristic of the entire book is the following application of the doctrine of God's impartial justice: "He doth execute justice for the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the strangers; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Deuteronomy 10:17-19). (Continued at [[GEN65]] Genesis 1:26 likeness COHON 207-8)

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DEUTERONOMY — 10:19 stranger

DEUT469 While benevolence may be as universal as humanity; the Torah made benevolence a positive religious obligation. God himself "executes justice for the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the strangers; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt" (this and preceding verse). Philanthropy must mitigate the ills that grow out of social inequality and economic distress. As a phase of justice, its practice constitutes a duty both to God and man. What God desires of man, says the author of Isaiah 58, is not a fast of self-mortification, of gestures of woe and of humiliation but a fast which quickens the sense of tzedakah in its double aspect of justice and effective beneficence.

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DEUTERONOMY — 11:13 If

DEUT500 In the Bible, where the unit of consideration is the nation, and where the moral horizon is bounded by this world, the law of compensation plays the leading role. The acts of the individual have their bearing not only upon his own but also upon his people's future. Achan, by breaking a tabu, brings guilt upon the entire people (Joshua 7). Jonathan tastes the honey of the forest, an unconscious violation of Saul's oath, and thereby brings defeat to the army of Israel. On the other hand, righteous men are the bulwark of the community. A faithful remnant ensures the nation's future (Genesis 18; Isaiah 10:20 f.). Obedience to the commands of God guarantees prosperity, plenty and security for oneself and for the nation. Disobedience, on the other hand, entails sorrow, grief, misery, defeat, suffering, and death (Deuteronomy 11:13-21; 28; Leviticus 26). "That it may be well with thee" and "that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth" are the recurrent themes of Deuteronomy and are implied in the other books of the Bible. The well-being referred to is both communal and personal.

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