Why Be Jewish?

Halakhah is the Hebrew word for Jewish law, and it literally means walking, a path to take and not a destination to reach.

Yet we are too humble in dodging responsibility for our own behavior. We claim that our circumstances alone created us, but such insistence is almost always heard when we have done something wrong, not something praiseworthy. Do well, and it is our merit; fail, and curse fate.

In an instructive fable, the Rabbis of the Talmud imagine that one day the evil impulse in human beings was captured and bound. Suddenly, no one had children, built houses, or took initiative, for our drives are complex and interrelated. Ambition, sexuality, even envy—all of them can be creative or calamitous.

Spirituality is also concerned with shaping our actions and, through them, touching the tender part of our souls. As action and passion interact, we are slowly changed, moving closer and closer to the ideal of a true sage enunciated in the Talmud—one whose inside and outside match. Spirituality means transforming oneself; a religious tradition is a

The Bible is admonishing us that self-indulgence only looks like self-love. It is in halakhah, disciplined and deep journeying, that self-love is really found.

To be a faithful Jew means to scour one’s soul, seeking to force oneself deeper. Teshuva is a hard test; we must not only examine ourselves, we must ask forgiveness from those whom we have hurt. Without confronting those who have suffered by our sins, we cannot do teshuva.

The first demand made of a Jew is goodness. Nothing else is more important, no command more central. Tied to the consciousness of God is the need to be good. A verse from the biblical Book of Leviticus reads: “You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I am

Judaism’s most important single teaching is that each human being is created in the image of God.

Judaism urges us to sin against God before we would sin against another who is in God’s image. God can bear our sin. We cannot injure God, but we can destroy each other. Our first task therefore is kindness toward those who are created in the Divine image: the poor, the stranger, the neighbor, and the friend.