2.28.19


What is a Jewish view of morality?  

For Judaism morality is something else.  It is covenantal, the result of a partnership – a marriage – between humanity and God. A covenant (like a marriage) is a mutual obligation that is neither a fact of nature, nor a private or subjective state, but a bond created by a declaration – the word given, the word received, the word honored in loyalty and trust.

The reason that morality is covenantal is that only in and through such a bond do free agents redeem their solitude, creating between them a relationship that honors the freedom and integrity of each while at the same time enabling them to achieve together what neither could achieve alone – the good that exists only in virtue of being shared.  A covenant is what turns love into law, and law into love. At the heart of Judaism – its most audacious and least understood idea – is that between heaven and earth, between an infinite power and finite human beings, there can be, and is, such a relationship. (Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, A Letter in the Scroll, pg.59)

How do Rabbi Sacks’ words impact your idea of morality?