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I must give credit to Nathan Ausubel, whose "Book of Jewish Knowledge" has been a source of much information here ... The only changes made were certain personal comments by me, and some changes to make it more digestible for most readers.

In addition, before anything is said, I'd like to urge that one should never impugn the values discussed below by comparing them to the practices of any individual (writer included) ... or even to small groups of people you might know, who do not reflect these values to your satisfaction ... This should be said for every religious, ethnic, racial, geographic, or whatever groups are being considered vis-à-vis any set of values being discussed. Regarding my audacity of teaching ethics, it reminds me of something Mark Twain wrote: "It's noble to be good. It's nobler to teach others to be good, and less trouble" ... And so we continue.

You will see the words Talmud, Mishna, and Gemara throughout this and some other pages on this site ... A brief explanation is called for: The Talmud consists of two parts, Mishna, and Gemara, and is really a collection of many books. With abounding pride, we sometimes call it - "The Sea of the Talmud" (in Hebrew: Yam ha-Talmud). It is, in fact, a virtual library of treatises within which dwell all the Rabbinic laws, regulations, traditions, customs, rites and ceremonies, and civil and criminal laws. It also contains opinions, discussions and debates, and moralistic aphorisms of the Rabbinic sages.

The Mishna is a word applied by the Jews to the oral law. About 120 years after the destruction of the Temple, the rabbi Judah began to take down in writing the Jewish traditions containing six parts:

1. Agriculture and seed-sowing
   
2. Festivals, including Sabbaths and fasts
   
3. Marriage; including laws of divorce
   
4. Civil affairs, including penal laws
   
5. Sacrifices
   
6. What is clean and what is unclean.

Gemara (pronounced with a hard g), means "complement," is applied to the second part of the Talmud, and consists of annotations, discussions, and amplifications of the Mishna ... There is the Babylonian Gemara and the Jerusalem Gemara ... The former, which is the more complete, is from the academies of Babylon; the latter from those of Palestine ... Now we proceed with our subject.

The Rabbinical Sages concurred in the belief that ... "Every human being is equal in worth to the whole world." No similar high estimate of the individual was ever given in other ancient religions.

Perhaps alone among all the peoples, the Jews accorded a genuinely spiritual character to the life of man ... the Rabbinical teachers of Ethics compared the moral nature of the human being to that of his Creator. Consequently, his life on earth was to be a sanctification, because he resembled G-d in his potential of ethical attributes and in his capacity to exercise free will in his actions.

Now for the G-d intoxicated Jews, the main emphasis in ethics was on altruistic practices ... "For all moral principles concern the relation of man to his neighbor," stated Maimonides, the medieval rabbi-savant, who described them as being "given to man for the benefit of mankind" ... Therefore we can say the practice of these principles by each individual was not to be considered optional, it was mandatory.

This definition by Maimonides was inline with the consensus of Talmudic opinion which held that for a man to profess moral principles without trying to put them into practice was not only a mockery, but it made him guilty as well of the sin of hypocrisy. If this is true (and I take issue with it) ... then Buddy stands accused, but remember that I place this on this website only to be instructive to the large public in the richness of Jewish ethical values throughout history.

The crux of the matter is this: Ever since Moses taught the moral laws of life to the Jews, they have believed in the perfectibility of the individual man and of all society ... Hence they have directed both the teaching and practice of morals and ethics toward the achievement of this goal. The wellspring of all moral values, said the rabbis, was love ... It was the primal force, the all-embracing principle of life. The precepts of Moses and of later teachers of religious ethics tirelessly played on this selfsame theme: "Love thy neighbor as thyself." "Hate not thy brother." "Avenge not." "Bear no grudge." "Love the stranger."

To the medieval Jews, standing helplessly and mute under the savage assaults made upon them by their enemies, and drawing to the fullest from these many experiences in disaster, a lesson on the spiritual emptiness of worldly power and ambition, the image of the Righteous Man ... one dedicated to ideal goals and the pursuit of ethical ways ... loomed ever grander and more luminous. The Cabalists, with their other-world directed goals ... evaluated the Righteous Man as being immeasurably the most fortunate of all men.

Then why, like his Biblical prototype, Job, was this righteous man afflicted in his life with greater troubles and sorrows than were the wicked? ... For more on this provocative question - Why Bad Things Happen to Good People - you might see that other page on this site. To continue, like Rabbi Philo of Hellenistic Alexandria, the Cabalists took the austere view that the only man who can be considered free is the good man, for he lives by what he thinks and believes, despite the misfortune and persecution his lonely but determined course may bring him.

Akiba ben Joseph, the second-century Mishnah Sage, prized above all others, the Scriptural commandment "Love thy neighbor as thyself." (that idea is over 3,000 years old ... Leviticus 19:18) ... His reason was most interesting ... He said that it contained the quintessence of the entire Torah because it equated the divine love of G-d with the earthly love of man, thereby upholding both as the twofold and active duty of righteousness.

The day before Good Friday in the Catholic religion, is so called Maundy Thursday. It is from the Latin "dies mandati," (the day of Christ's great mandate). After He had washed His disciples' feet, He said, "A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another" (St. John xiii. 34). So what's so new? It's over 3,000 years old.

In the Talmud, G-d, cast in the role of the tender Father, says to the Jews: "My sons, my sons, is there anything I ask of you for myself? All I require is that you love one another." This affirmative love-principle then became the foundation for subsequent Jewish ethical values from which the teachings of Jesus were derived. "The Temple was destroyed because men hated one another," lamented several Talmudic teachers of ethics who had been eyewitnesses to that national tragedy for their people.

Maimonides elaborated on this central commandment in the Torah of bearing love for one's "neighbor," whether near or far... He also urged "love for the stranger." This was a duty, said he, that stemmed from two positive commandments in Torah: First, because he (the stranger) is included in the definition of neighbor, and then second ... just because he is a stranger, and because the Torah tells us ... "Love ye, therefore, the stranger" ... And it doesn't hurt to remember that regarding Jews, "We too, were strangers in a strange land" (Egypt) ... and we never forget that.

All in Israel are comrades ... Thus runs the credo of Jewish group-solidarity that has been uttered with simple conviction by the Jewish folk for over two thousand years. With it comes the corollary duty to each brother to protect and watch out for the welfare of the other. Urged Maimonides: "A man ought to speak in praise of his neighbor, and to care for is possessions just as he cares for his own, and as he wishes for his own honor" ... Conversely, he added ... "Whosoever glories in the shame of his fellow has no share in the World-to-Come."

There have always been in evidence among the Jews ... certainly just as among all peoples ... mean and twisted souls who have sought to profit from an injury done to a fellow man ... The Torah is severe in condemnation of those who, to advance their own selfish ends, place "stumbling blocks before the blind."

At no time during periods of grave stress for and persecution of, the Jews, was the informer (called in Hebrew-Yiddish: masser) absent in Jewish community life. The Talmud Sages, living in the darkest days of Roman persecution, heaped scorn upon this type of wretch: "He who secretly informs against his fellow man will have no share in the World-to-Come." Also and sadly, they were able to find no terms of opprobrium strong enough to match their revulsion for slanderers, who proved to be a constant menace to community morale, for like termites, they under minded the faith that existed between a man and his neighbor.

The Rabbis picturesquely called tale-bearing "the dust of slander." The slanderer was classed by them with the murderer. This was because his venom frequently not only destroyed his victim, but also took away from him the possibility of earning his livelihood. Savage in its indignation is this parable in the Talmud told to dramatize the evil of slander:

One day the members of the animal kingdom will assemble to reproach the serpent ... "And if the lion rends his prey, it is because he is hungry. If the wolf devours his victim, it is because he must eat ... But you, Oh serpent, what profit do you get from biting others?"

And the serpent, being very clever, will reply ... "Am I worse than the slanderer?"

Using precisely the same argument given by the psychologists of today concerning racial and religious prejudice ... the Talmudic Sages warned the unthinking against the destructive consequences of slander. "Slander injures these three: the person who is slandered, the one who listens to the slanderer, and the slanderer himself."

Having been turned into sober realists by their historical conditioning, Jews have always thought deeply about the plight of the individual who is standing alone in a chaotic world. Obviously, said the Rabbis, in order to survive, all human beings must practice mutual aid. Again, this statement was not dictated by a desire to further altruism; it grew from a simple realization of enlightened self-interest ... It was necessary for people to help one another.

The medieval Cabalists held a belief concerning this matter which was remarkable for the advanced social attitude of interdependence it reflected: "Not only do all men rely on one another for mutual aid, but this is practiced also by all the species in nature. The stars and the planets and even the angels support one another."

The definitive formulation of mutual aid in terms of enlightened self-interest is found in then celebrated aphorism of Hillel two thousand years ago:

If I am not for myself, who then is for me?
And if I am for myself alone, what am I?
And if not now, when?

Sometimes the strength of the individual ... even one disadvantaged ... can be found in the collective strength of the entire community ... hence the Talmudic proverb: If two dry logs and one wet one are laid together for burning, the flame from the two dry logs will dry and kindle the wet log as well.

The Jewish tradition pours scorn on the individual who stands aloof from community affairs ... It is as if he is saying ... "What do the affairs of the community have to do with me?" ... Why should he have to get involved in other people's troubles?

A more constructive attitude is one of social responsibility ... This is illustrated by the teacher who sees an old man planting a carob tree, and he says ... "Surely you don't expect to live that long ... You know it takes seventy years for a carob tree to bear fruit" ... So the old man replies, "Did I find the world empty when I came into it? ... Just as my father planted for me, so I am now planting for my children."

By means of the art of the parable, the Rabbis of the Talmud sought to illuminate their teachings concerning the interdependence of all people ... The Judean Sage, Simeon bar Yochai, told the following story:

Once a number of men set out to sea. In an idle and mischievous moment, one of the passengers started to bore a hole in the bottom of the boat where he was sitting.

"What are you trying to do?" ... cried his fellow passengers in alarm.

"What does it concern you what I am doing?" ... replied the man ... "I am not boring a hole under where you are sitting, only under my own place."

"It may be only under your place" ... retorted the others ... "But should the water fill the boat, it will capsize ... Then all of us will drown."

A problem of far greater moral implication was posed in a Rabbinical controversy that took place in Jerusalem during the second century between Akiba ben Joseph and Ben Paturi. It had to do with this hypothetical situation: Two men are traveling in a desert. Only one of the tow has any water left in his gourd. Unfortunately, it is only a little ... not sufficient to slake the thirst of both. What is to be done? Should the travelers practice mutual aid and share the water? ... Then both might perish. But, on the other hand, of only one drinks the water, then his companion is sure to die. Now, notes the Talmud regarding this quandary, both of these travelers are good men. The moral question is: "What are they supposed to do?"

Akiba, always common-sensed and a realist, argued that the prior duty of every person is, naturally, to himself. Therefore it would be perfectly all right for the man who had some water left in his gourd to try to save his own life by drinking all of it himself. Ben Paturi, an unflinching moralist, said that "it was better that both should drink and die, for was it not written in Torah ... 'And thy brother shall live with thee?' ... And if the man with the water found that he couldn't "live" with his brother by sharing it with him, then was it not better that he 'die' with him in brotherhood?"

This problem reminds me of the one presented to me some years ago by my great teacher, Dr. Alice Von Hilderbrand, nee ... It was in Social Ethics, where she posed the following problem: An accident, and two mountain climbers suddenly find themselves suspended from one line a thousand feet up, one climber above the other. It is known by both that this line is not able to carry the weight of both men, and that if they remain suspended this way ... that line will surely break at the top. Now the moral question, :"Should the man suspended above cut the line beneath him so that he "surely" will survive, with a certain death to the man below?"

Her answer was that the man on top should NOT cut the line because this would be tantamount to murder, but rather ... they should work together to save each other, and themselves ... trusting in the power and decision of G-d ... mutual aid.

To be gentle ... not merely in manner, but also in thought, word, outlook, feeling, and action, so that together, all formed a harmonious pattern of human personality ... was the message of Hillel. He left the impact of his glowing personality and his teaching on most Jews of his time ... including Jesus and his disciples ... He was the archetype of the "gentle Jew" for all the generations. His whole being and conduct, his way of life, his manner of thinking and of speaking, were keyed to benevolence and a universal embrace of all mankind. Such descriptives as ... "a disciple of Hillel" and "peace-loving as Hillel" ... were used by Jews throughout all ages to evoke the image of a very gentle and good man.

The antonym for "gentle" in traditional Jewish thought is "angry." The angry man was fully execrated in the Bible ... It says: "He who gives way to his anger shall be considered in thine eyes as an idolater." What could be the profit in getting angry, asked the Rabbis. And they answered their own question ... "His life is no life: his anger is the only profit he has."

There are some individuals, of course, who think they are "wise," but they too get angry. Then Simeon ben Levi chided: "A wise man who gets angry is no longer a wise man" ... A Talmudic aphorism injected in a clever play on three Hebrew words make plain the familiar Jewish attitude toward the angry man, to wit ... "In three things may a man's character be known: [by his behavior] in his cups (be-koso), in his purse (be-kiso), and in his hanger (be-ka'aso.)

A "teaching" story is recounted in the Talmud concerning the novel manner in which Judah ha-Nasi (135-220 C.E.) ... the Patriarch of Judea who compiled the Mishnah, used to transmit our ethical values to his students ... There was this time he invited several of his contentious students to dine with him. By his prior order, a platter of two cooked calf's tongues was placed before each of his student-guests ... Now one tongue was well cooked, properly seasoned, and soft; the other was just parboiled, over-seasoned, and quite tough. After sampling each tongue, the students with one accord turned their entire attention to the soft, well-seasoned tongues. "My sons," said the Sage, "consider this matter and learn from it ... Is it possible that there is anybody here who does not prefer a soft tongue to a tough one? ... Then let your tongues be 'soft' to one another."

It was by such teaching methods ... through lessons reinforced by parables, wise sayings, and the illustrations of practical experience ... that good character among Jewish children was molded.

Gentleness in response to provocation and insult was another aspect of the ideal image. Beloved among the folk has been this Talmudic saying: "If others speak evil of you, make no answer." There is no more moving testimonial to the practice of this attitude than a letter that the gentle philosopher-rabbi, Moses Maimonides (the Rambam) ... wrote to Joseph Aknin, a disciple of his, at the time when he was being abused by the rabbinical bigots of his day:

I have been much humbled by years and by sorrows. I especially forgive those who try to offend my honor and heap insults upon me ... And should someone be induced to say that I am without religion and good actions, he may say so. And all this, my son, as there is a living G-d, shall not hurt nor provoke me, even should I have heard it with my own ears, or seen it with my own eyes ... On the contrary, I should have humbled myself, and have answered in gentle terms, or been silent, or answered softly or modestly …

THE PURE IN HEART

The anonymous writers of the twenty-four separate books of the Bible were not infrequently poets, and often inspired ones. With breathtaking imagery they referred to the heart as - "seeing," or "understanding," or "hearing" ... By means of this word-alchemy that made the heart the very essence of the human personality, the creators of post-Biblical literature and the Talmud gave to that human organ the dimensions of man's interior universe, involving all of it in sensory, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual resources.

The great canonical Prophets and the unknown Psalmists ... in their ethical search for the true meanings of life, both listened attentively, as it were, to the murmurings of the human heart.

Who shall ascend into the mount of the Lord?
And who shall stand in His holy place?
And the answer came:

He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.

The Sages of the Talmud taught ... "The merciful G-d asks for but one thing ... the heart" ... And all other expressions of homage, of praise and devotions, are deemed inconsequential by him ... Did the worshiper wish to bring a gift to G-d? ... Only the pure heart was worthy as an offering. So the latter-day Cabalists offered a physical explanation to demonstrate the heart's spiritual primacy ... Had not G-d placed the heart in the center of the human body? ... And was it not placed there so that it might govern the body? ... if we mean the spiritual growth, the answer is: Yes.

"The heart is like the Holy of Holies in the Temple." Mused the Cabalistic work, the Zohar. "Yet it consists of two chambers; in one there s healing, in the other-deadly poison." The problem therefore, was how to eject the poison and leave the heart pure.

"What is the highest good?" asks the Rabbinical catechism.
And the answer given is: "To be found pure in the eyes of G-d and man."

COMPASSION ... "Av he-Rachamim" "Father of Compassion"

"Av he-Rachamim" ... is the emotional form of address the suppliant uses when he speaks to his G-d in prayer. Compassion has always been extolled by the Rabbinical teachers as one of the divine ethical attributes which it is man's duty to emulate: Think now, do you pray that G-d should show you compassion? ... Good, then show compassion to your fellow man.

The Rabbis taught ... "All benevolence is considered as springing from the sentiment of compassion" ... and to this the Zohar of the Cabalists, added: "He who shows compassion to a poor man and revives his soul ... is as if he himself had been the creator of that soul" ... This kind of benevolence is both an affirmation of principle as well as a sentiment of humanity in that it prompts a man to give not only of his material possessions, but also, to give of himself ... to alleviate a fellow man's suffering or need.

So this is the desirable image of the Jew projected by the ancient Sages: "He who feels compassion for the suffering of his fellowman is a true son of Abraham."

Related to this - later you might want to see my page on ... "The Healers" about the fountain-head making Jewish doctors. I've been asked so many times, "Why are there so many Jewish doctors?" ... it's not an accident.

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