DEUT341 One other aspect of the biblical and rabbinic concept of justice derives from its theological foundations. As I have discussed in chapter three, God, according to the Torah, loves the People Israel for reasons having nothing to do with its number for power, the usual marks of a nation's greatness, and God promises the Patriarchs to continue that relationship through the generations. (Deuteronomy 7:6-11). The Israelites, in turn, are to love God and “always keep His charge, His laws, His rules, and His commandments.” (Deuteronomy 11:1). The commandments of the Torah are thus not legalistic formulations, totally divorced from human compassion, moral values, and a spiritual relationship with God -- as some Christian writings portray them. Quite the contrary, the practice of justice is an extension of love, as demonstrated by commandments calling on all Israelites to “love your fellow as yourself,” (Leviticus 19:18). to “love the stranger” (repeated thirty-six times in the Torah), (B. Bava Metzi’a 59b) and to “love God.” (Deuteronomy 6:5 and 11:1). In fact, one of the primary expressions of God's love is precisely that he provides human beings with rules of justice. Very much like parents who love their children enough to take the time and energy to insist on proper behavior because they know it will ultimately be in the children's best interest, so “the Lord commanded us to observe all these laws, to revere the Lord our God, for our lasting good and for our survival, as is now the case.” (Deuteronomy 6:24-25). Again, “Bear in mind that the Lord your God disciplines you just as a man disciplines his son. Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God: walk in His ways and revere Him.” (Deuteronomy 8:5-6). In sum then, the Jewish tradition makes justice a concrete reality by spelling out at least most of its demands in specific laws. The Torah and later rabbinic tradition insist, though, that we do the right and the good even when the details of the law would permit us to do otherwise. The Jewish tradition thus recognizes both that the legal framework is indispensable in making justice a reality and that the demands of justice extend beyond the law, however extensively it is defined. The Torah and the later Jewish tradition also placed the demand for justice in a theological context, thereby undergirding the authority of the demand for justice and giving it a rationale: We are to be just because God requires that of us and because that is one important way in which we can imitate God's ways. These legal, moral, and theological parameters of the biblical and rabbinic concept of justice make it an ongoing, active component of a life lived in longing covenant with God.

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT369 See [[DEUT341]] Deuteronomy 7:9 steadfast DORFFDRAG 124-5

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT403 See [[GEN854]] Genesis 15:16 iniquity DORFFDRAG 66

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT405 See [[EXOD320]] Exodus 19:5 treasured 67-8

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT408 See [[EXOD1039]] Exodus 34:7 forgiving DORFFDRAG 188-9

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT429 One consistent theme in the Bible is the fact that God is not only the Creator of the earth, but the “owner” of it. (Deuteronomy 10:14). Because God is the owner of all assets, He has the right to distribute them as He wills. Human beings may, at God's behest, own property, but God requires us, as the Torah’s commandments indicate, to give charity from “our” resources, gained from our temporary lease on God's property. Those who refuse to provide for the poor thus effectively deny God’s sovereignty, for such people dispute God's ultimate claim to all the earth and the right of God to demand that some of His property be redistributed to the poor. Consequently, the Rabbis deemed refusal to assist the poor nothing less than idolatry. (T. Pe’ah 4:20)

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT442 In Western legal systems, justice is an instrumental good, a commodity important for social peace and welfare. That motivation to achieve justice appears in Jewish texts as well, but Jewish sources add another important motive. God demands justice and makes the existence of the world depend on it because God Himself is just. In fact, He is the ultimate judge who “shows no favor and takes no bribe, but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing him with food and clothing.” (Deuteronomy 10:17-8) As Moses proclaims in his parting poem (Deuteronomy 32:3-4). It is precisely because God is just that Abraham can call Him to account for His plan to destroy Sodom, regardless of the innocent people in it ... (Genesis 18:25). God's justice is also at the heart of Job's complaint (See, for example, Job 9:22) and God thunders and reply, “Would you impugn My justice? / Would you condemn Me that you may be right?” (Job 40:8)

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT490 See [[DEUT341]] Deuteronomy 7:9 steadfast DORFFDRAG 124-5

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT512 See [[EXOD40]] Exodus 2:12 struck DORFFDRAG 33-4

SHOW FULL EXCERPT

DEUT552 Jews in the United States are the product of both the American and the Jewish culture, each with a radically different understanding of community. Am I, as the Declaration of Independence proclaims, a creature born with inalienable rights within a community that exists only at the pleasure of those who give up some of its rights? Or am I, as Deuteronomy would have it, a person born into a host of obligations that are as “unalienable” as the Declaration's rights? The two are not mutually contradictory, but they certainly present two very different ways of thinking of oneself and of one's community. The clashes between Judaism and American democratic theory appear in several forms. The first, as I have been suggesting, concerns the assumptions that I as a human being and a citizen make about myself and others. If rights are the primary reality of my being, the burden of proof rests on anyone who wants to deprive me of those rights or restrict them. Because other people are born with the same rights, there are times when my rights are legitimately restricted, and there are even times when I have a positive duty to others. In each case, however, the duty arises out of a consideration of the other person’s rights. If, on the other hand, the prime fact of my being is that I have obligations, as it is in Judaism, then the burden of proof rests on me to demonstrate that I have a right against another person as a result of his or her duties to me. My rights exist only to the extent that others have obligations to me, not as an innate characteristic of my being. The source and purpose of my obligations also divide Judaism from American democracy. It is “We, the people” who create the constitution of the United States; the government must be “of the people” and “by the people,” according to President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, not just “for the people.” The reason is the underlying assumption articulated in the passage from the Declaration of Independence quoted at the start of this section: “To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Rules are instituted to secure rights; American individualism can be set aside only by American pragmatism, in this case the practical need to ensure that all can enjoy what is theirs by right. The source of authority of the law is the consent of the governed, who presumably see the practical need for imposing a law that restricts freedom. For Judaism, on the other hand, the author of the commandments is God, not the government. The Bible delineates several reasons to obey God’s laws: to avoid divine punishment and/or to receive divine rewards; to fulfill the promises of our ancestors to abide by the covenant, promises to which we, too, are subject; to have a special relationship with God, thereby becoming a holy people; and, as the opening passage of this section from Deuteronomy declares, to express our love for God. None of these aims, however, is to secure rights. Judaism and American democracy differ completely, then, in the initial assumptions of the legal system (rights versus obligations), the source of the law (people versus God), and the goals of the law (securing rights versus participating in the covenantal relationship with God). Moreover, the way in which a person views the world in the two systems of thought is different. In the one, I owe God; in the other, the world, or at least the government, owes me. In Judaism, I begin with the assumption that things can be expected of me; in the American system, I begin with the assumption that I have an unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which the government has been established to secure. In his 1961 inaugural address, President John F Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country”; but those lines are memorable precisely because they are so surprising in an American context.

SHOW FULL EXCERPT