LEV960 This cry for social justice is heard throughout the prophetic writings. It was the demand of Isaiah (v. 8) and the lack of it was condemned by Amos (viii. 4). The Book of Proverbs (xi. 26) imposes curses upon him who withholds the corn from the people in need. Judaism laid the foundations of a higher justice not satisfied with the mitigation of misery by pittances but insisted on a readjustment of the social conditions that create poverty. If the rest of the world has become more philosophically-minded, it is due in great measure to the "Poor Laws" of the Torah, to its institutions of Shemitah (Deut. xv. 1-6) and Yovel [this verse], and to its provisions for the release of debts in the restoration of fields and houses to those forced to sell what had once been their patrimony. These human regulations aimed at preventing the tyranny of wealth from becoming a permanent source of oppression. From them arose all efforts in modern times to alleviate the lot of the poor and check the causes of corruption in the social organism. Jewish Social Ethics seek not only to alleviate but to cure; not only to serve as a panacea for many ills but as a prophylactic; not only to add to the happiness of mankind but to arm the good instincts inherent in society and in man that they may overcome the evil rampant in the world. Justice demands a consciousness of individual responsibility and an interdependence of one man on another. In Jewish ethics, virtue is not a sedative, but a stimulus; not a dope, but a dynamic.