DEUT504 As far as this life is concerned, Ben 'Azzai states succinctly: "The reward of a precept is a precept and the punishment of a transgression is a transgression." Abot 4:21; see also Abot R. Nathan A 25; B 33. The real compensation for either good or evil is in the acts themselves. Good leads to more good, and evil is trailed by evil. Rabbi Elazar comments on Psalm 112:1, "'Happy is the man who feareth the Lord, that delights greatly in His commandments,' i.e., who delights in His commandments themselves and not in the reward of His commandments." Ab. Z. 19a. The Sifre comments on (this verse), "Lest you say I shall study Torah in order that I may become rich, that I may be called Rabbi or that I may be rewarded in the hereafter, Scripture specifies 'to love the Lord your God'; whatever you do, do from love." 122 R. Eleazar b. Zadok taught: "Do things for the sake of doing them; engage in them for their own sake."

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DEUT537 See [[EXOD1009]] Exodus 33:11 stir COHON 242

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DEUT553 See [[DEUT500]] Deuteronomy 11:13 If COHON 123-4

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DEUT554 See [[GEN388]] Genesis 3:10 afraid COHON 125-6

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DEUT562 See [[EXOD741]] Exodus 22:30 eat COHON 166-7

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DEUT605 See [[EXOD214]] Exodus 15:2 glorify COHON 150-1

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DEUT662 The Jewish people have been taught to consider themselves sons of God (this verse), and to extend Divine sonship to men of all creeds and races. This doctrine has carried the most far-reaching consequences. As a child of God, man may not be degraded to a mere cog of either the industrial or the political order. He forms a center of human value and is an end in himself. The worth of the individual is fundamental to the democratic spirit of Judaism. Every person, irrespective of the accident of birth or station, is regarded as divinely endowed, as the possessor of a soul. Says R. Elazar: "The whole world was created only for the sake of man." R. Abba b. Kahana adds: "Man outweighs the whole world." Ber. 6b

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DEUT679 See [[EXOD741]] Exodus 22:30 eat COHON 166-7

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DEUT699 (Continued from [[EXOD389]] Exodus 8:9 labor COHON 179) Indolence on weekdays leads to the profanation of the Sabbath. Scripture says "The Lord thy God will bless thee in all the work of thy hands." [this verse]. "Shall I infer from this statement that the Divine blessing will come even to him who stays idle? Therefore the verse continues: 'which the doest.'" See Tahuma, Vayetze, 13. Where there is no labor there is no blessing. Hence the rabbis rated the merit of industry above idle piety. In the words of the Psalmist: "When thou eatest the labor of the hands, Happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.--128:2. Ber. 8a. While there are drones in every hive who fatten on the work of others, they are to be pitied rather than envied. Idleness is a curse which leads to ill health and to immorality. Ketubot 59b. A good share of honest toil has recommended itself to moderns as a cure of many illnesses and as the best way out of mischief. "He who does not teach his son a trade is as if he taught him robbery." Kid. 29a. A person of sound health has no right to live on that which he has not earned. Adam, while still in the Garden of Eden, was not allowed to eat before he earned his bread by work. Ab. R.N., B, 21; A, 11.

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DEUT808 The earliest legislation of the Bible contains special provisions for the helpless, and for the amelioration of their lot (Exodus 22: 20–26; 23:6-12). The still more humanitarian law of Deuteronomy is particularly insistent upon regard for those in want. It urges liberality toward the poor, the manumitted slave and the landless Levite and consideration for the hired servant, the fugitive slave and the unprotected foreigner. With grim realism coupled with deepest sympathy, the Deuteronomic Code states: (this verse). The enjoyment of God's bounties must be shared with those who are in need (16:11, 14). Acts of kindness rate as tzedakah (24:13). The still more advanced Code of Holiness prescribes that the corners of the field, the gleanings and the fallen fruit of the vineyard shall be left unharvested. The original purpose of this legislation may have been, as Frazer suggests, to leave some of the corn for the spirits of vegetation on whom the following harvest depended. Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, I. p. 2234ff.; A.S. Peake, A Commentary of the Bible, p. 207. That motive is wholly forgotten and the humanitarian purpose is announced: "Thou shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger" (Leviticus 19:9-10; 23:22; Deuteronomy 24:21f.; Ruth).

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