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its welfare systems, its education, family "

righteousness (tzedek/tzedakah), justice
(mishpat), loving-kindness (chessed) and
compassion (rachamim). These structure
the template of biblical law, which covers
all aspects of the life of society, its economy,

life, employer-employee relations, the Without a
protection of the environment and so on. land and state,
Judaism
The broad principles driving this elaborate
structure, traditionally enumerated as 613
commands, are clear. No one should be left is a shadow
in dire poverty. No one should lack access
be without its share of the land. One day in of itself
to justice and the courts. No family should

seven, everyone should be free. One year
in seven all debts should be cancelled. One
year in 50 all land that had been sold was everyday speech. Only there can they live
to revert to its original owners. It was the Jewish time within a calendar structured
nearest thing the ancient world had ever according to the rhythms of the Jewish
Cherry tomatoes, an Israeli innovation (GPO)
seen to an egalitarian society. year. Only in Israel can Jews once again
walk where the prophets walked, climb the
nation in the world whose sovereign was None of this was possible without a land. mountains Abraham climbed and to which
God Himself, and whose constitution – the The sages said, “Whoever lives outside Israel David lifted his eyes. Israel is the only place
Torah – was His word. is as if he had no God.” Nachmanides in the where Jews have been able to live Judaism
13th century said that ”The main purpose in anything other than an edited edition,
Judaism is the code of a self-governing of all the commands is for those who live in continuing the story their ancestors began.
society. We tend to forget this, since Jews the land of the Lord.” These are mystical
have lived in dispersion for 2,000 years, sentiments but we can translate them into The reborn State of Israel in a mere 70 years
without the sovereign power to govern secular terms. Judaism is the constitution of has surely exceeded even the highest hopes
themselves, and because modern Israel a self-governing nation, the architectonics of the early pioneers of the return to Zion,
is a secular state. Judaism is a religion of of a society dedicated to the service of God and this despite the fact that it has had to
redemption rather than salvation: it is in freedom and dignity. Without a land and face almost ceaseless threats of war, terror,
about the shared spaces of our collective state, Judaism is a shadow of itself. God delegitimation and defamation. Despite
lives, not an interior drama of the soul, may still live in the heart, but not in the all this, it stands as a living testimony to
though Judaism, in the books of Psalms and public square, in the justice of the courts, Moses’ great command: “Choose life, that
Job, knows this as well. the morality of the economy, and the you and your children may live.”
humanitarianism of everyday life.
The Jewish God is the God of love: You May the light of the State of Israel, which
shall love the Lord your God with all your Jews have lived in almost every country shines a little brighter each year, continue
heart, all your soul and all your might. You under the sun. In 4,000 years, only in Israel to be a blessing, not just to the Jewish
shall love your neighbour as yourself. You have they been able to live as a free, self- people, but also to the world.
shall love the stranger. The Hebrew Bible governing people. Only in Israel have they
is a book suffused with love – the love of been able to construct an agriculture, a
God for humanity, and the love of a people medical system, an economic infrastructure,
for God. All its tense emotions of anger and in the spirit of the Torah and its concern for Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is
jealousy are part of the story of that often freedom, justice and the sanctity of life. the Emeritus Chief Rabbi of the
unreciprocated love. United Hebrew Congregations
But because Judaism is also the code of a Only in Israel can Jews today speak the of the Commonwealth
.
society, it is also about the social emotions: Hebrew of the Bible as the language of @RabbiSacks www.RabbiSacks.org
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