Love, Law and the Search for Justice.

Paper by Paul Benson of The Millennium Trust

Shema Ysrael Adoni Alohanu Adoni Achod.

V'ahuvta ait Adoni alochacha, b'chol-l'vavacha, uv'chol-nufshacha, uv'chol-modacha.  Vahayu hudvareem ha'alah ushare unochee mitzuvacha hiyom al-livorvarcha.  Vshenuntum livanacha vdibartum barm bshichvtacha bvatarcha uvlechtacha viderech uvshachbacha uvkoomaircha.

The translation of the first line is:

"Hear!  O Israel the Lord is our God, the Lord is One" and it will not go unnoticed amongst this particular gathering that the first line of this most important of prayers starts off noting the importance of hearing and sound and finishes with the importance of oneness.  How appropriate!

This is the historic and indeed the present day sound of the Hebrew language, which we call Ivrit.  I think it's a wonderful sound and as with Sanskrit has a nobility that comes from its ancient origins.  It is a sound that was kept alive throughout the centuries by the Jewish religious community and helped us keep in close touch with our ancestors, our history, our traditions, and our culture. Miraculously, it has now been revived as a modern spoken language and is today the native tongue of Israelies.

The English translation conveys the importance in Judaism explicitly expressed, of the relationship between Mankind, Love and God and the implied importance of the family for it states the importance of teaching your children the love of the Absolute.

The Shema, as we call this prayer, is the most important prayer in the Jewish liturgy and we have recited these words for thousands of years.  It contains, in fact, the first principle of Judaism, the Oneness of the Absolute, and is to be found in Deuteronomy 6.4

Before going further, I would explain that I and many Jews have no problem with the term 'The Absolute' or 'The Supreme Being' as a name for God or the concept of God.  I know this is a term that most of you here are familiar with and personally I like 'The Absolute' as it has no visual connotations. 

The name for God has always been a difficult one for Jews.  The fourth of the Ten Commandments commands, "Thou shall not take the Lords name in vain".  Furthermore, the Noahide Laws (more on these later) reinforce this commandment.  To be on the safe side most orthodox Jews today will not even say the word Adoni (lord)or Elohim (God's but not god's name) except in prayer.  In common usage they may use the word "H'shem" literally meaning The Name.  So that, for example, a common saying in Ivrit today would be "Baruch H'shem" which is the exact equivalent of the exclamation "thank God!"

You will gather from this opening that I am Jewish and I intend speaking to you today about Love, Law and the Search for Justice in the context of the problems facing religious traditions.

I have been forced to delve deep into my own background and the fundamentals of Judaism, for I have been, at best, a secular Jew attending Synagogue rarely.  Yet, always feeling very much attached to my Jewish cultural roots and a feeling that this is where I belong.

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Like the Prophets before them, the Priests, who laid the foundation of our Liturgy whilst in captivity in Babylon almost 3,000 years ago, looked upon religion and ethics as pre-eminently social: and society in that ancient world meant national society.  But this priestly nationalism, as of the Prophets, was of the spiritual kind and they prayed for a time when the spiritual values of Israel would govern the lives of all.

I believe that if there is an answer to the main proposition before us, then the laws given to Moses and Noah and subsequently embellished with our oral law may contain the answer.  This is why I commenced today with the prayer, The Shema, for it embraces a fundamental aspect of Judaism, which is Love of the Absolute, Love of the Law (Torah) and the importance of diligent teaching to children, to all children.

Love of the Absolute is therefore the basis of the religious aspect of Judaism and Love for your fellow man is the personal and social aspect of Judaism.

The Search for Justice is a far more difficult matter to deal with and I am going to put that to one side for the moment, for I wish to elaborate on the subject of Love and the Law, which in Judaism are entwined rather like DNA.

Rabbi Hillel, born in Babylon around 130 BCE was once confronted by a man thinking of becoming Jewish.  He said he wanted to know about Judaism in concise terms so he asked the Rabbi to tell him "whilst I stand on one foot".  Hillel replied, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man, go and learn."  This has become known as the Golden Rule and was his way of saying "Love thy neighbour as thyself" which you will find in the Torah, Leviticus 19:18.

A contempory of Hillel, Rabbi Akiva went further, introducing respect to the Golden Rule when he said, "Whatever you hate to have done to you, do not do to your neighbour.  Wherefore do not hurt him, do not speak ill of him, do not reveal his secrets to others, let his honour and his property be as dear to thee as thine own."

Another Rabbi says that the all words of the Torah boil down simply to "Love thy neighbour, the rest is commentary."  This injunction is not to apply to your neighbour, as in the person living next door, but to all those outside your home, for it is said;  'Remember the stranger for you were strangers in the Land of Egypt' (Deuteronomy 10:9)

Indeed, it is taught that on the `Day of Judgement' the very first question you will be asked is whether you have dealt justly with your neighbours.  The essence therefore of this social Judaism is to love and respect your neighbour and strangers.

To repeat Hillel's words "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man, go and learn."  On the face of it this is a simple sentence but what makes this uniquely Jewish is contained within the final 3 words from Hillel – "go and learn"!  The instruction here, somewhat sternly put, is to study the Torah and for thousands of years the pious Jew has made it his life's work to do just that.  Hence, we are known as The People of the Book.  This injunction is of course not merely to study the Torah but learn and live by it. 

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The Torah, our Law, has come down to us in various ways.  Rabbi Zadoc explains the origins and importance of the different laws comparing them to two sources of light. 

He says that there is the natural source of light from the sun and the stars and reflected by the moon.  This light is independent of human creativity.  This is the light from the Absolute, it is independent of man's wishes and abilities, and it is embodied in the Torah.  A world devoid of this light is a world devoid of moral standards, of relativism and is filled with uninhibited behaviour and is therefore a dark world.  This is the light we accepted unconditionally on Mount Sinai in BCE 1313, when God gave it to Moses.  Thus this written law, the Torah, teaches us about spirituality, love, and human goodness.  This light is external; it is literally a light from heaven.

The second source of light is internal; it is the Oral Law.  It is man-made and a product of man's intellect, creativity, efforts and spirit.  Over the course of time we lost our way somewhat and needed to create the Oral Law, the product of scholarship and study and concentrated effort.  This second source of inner light is fine but of course it would be quite unnecessary if we adhered to the Law of the Absolute, a world filled with the light of the Absolute.  Incidentally, our Rabbis saw darkness as an independent state of being and not merely a situation of the absence of light. 

We all know about the 10 commandments, The Laws of Moses.  But prior to receiving these laws there were others given to Adam, one for example being not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. 

Maimonides (1135- 1204) in his 'Guide to the Perplexed' states;

"the tree did not give us moral awareness when we had none before. Rather, it transformed this awareness from one kind into another." After eating from the Tree, humanity's innate sense of moral awareness was transformed from concepts of true and false to concepts of good and evil.

Genesis describes the tree as desirable (3:6), and our concepts of good and evil, unlike our concepts of true and false, also have an implicit measure of desire.   

In mystical traditions of world religions, sacred texts are read for metaphorical content with reference to the relationship between state of mind and the external experience of reality.  The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is not independent from the reference to the Tree of Life in the same allegory in Genesis. With the Tree of Life representing the coveted state of eternal fulfillment. 

Once the ego experiences shame, having been tempted by eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, we can no longer expect to live eternally in that limiting "fallen" experience. 

The Tree of Life is  therefore symbolic of the innocent self or true nature in control of purification of the ego, faith and return to being.  The mystic and the orthodox Jew attempts the return journey to Self and Unity with committed effort and practices that vary between individuals, religions and cultures.

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Whilst the Laws within the Torah are intended for Jews alone to adhere to, the Noahide Laws are intended for all mankind and are the basis of a just society.  Yet surprisingly few know of these laws although they were extremely important when given to Noah and today they retain a fundamental importance to us all. 

A non-Jew who lives according to these laws is regarded as one who is "righteous among the gentiles."  He will have attained the same spiritual and moral level as Israel's own High Priest.  He will have earned the same rights to the afterlife as a righteous Jew. 

Regardless of ones attitude to the concept of the afterlife, the principle behind the Jewish ideology that 'the righteous of the nations of the world all have a share in the World to come' is one that I imagine to be well received by this gathering.

The 7 Noahide Laws are:

1. Prohibition of Idolatry - acceptance that there is only one God.

2. Prohibition of Murder- including suicide and human sacrifice i.e. respect for all human life.

3. Prohibition of Theft–do not covert what doesn't belong to you.  4.Prohibition of Adultery–and all sexual immorality

5. Prohibition of Blasphemy–Revere God.

6. Prohibition of eating from the flesh of living animals -animals are to be treated with respect.

7. Establish courts of Justice - establish effective governance and police and do not make false oaths.

The Noahide Laws have even been officially recognised in the United States Congress:  "Whereas Congress recognises the historical tradition of ethical values and principles which are the basis of civilised society and upon which our great nation was founded:  Whereas these ethical values and principles have been the bedrock of society from the dawn of civilisation, when they were known as the Seven Noahide Laws."

At the heart of this universal moral code must be the acknowledgement that morality- indeed civilisation itself – is predicated on the belief in the Absolute.  Unless there is a higher power to whom we are responsible and who observes and knows our actions, we will not transcend the selfishness of our character nor the subjectivity of our intellect!  I have come to the conclusion that a subjectivist system can, by definition, produce no code of morality that compels a community to act in any particular manner.  If man himself is the final arbiter of right and wrong, the 'right' for him or her will be what he desires, regardless of the consequences to other inhabitants of the earth.

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Regarding the search for Justice, there are those who say, " There can be no peace without Justice.  First give us justice and then we will give you peace".  When contemplating the many injustices that are happening this very day in our world, I have much sympathy for this argument. 

However, it is for Israel, a word I use here to include Judaism, to lead on this.  The Torah has set us high standards, and we are expected to live by them.  I should stress that we must differentiate between the behaviour of some Jews and Judaism itself.  Self-determination is available to us all and of course we do not all use it wisely.

Many of the world's problems are directly related to one side or the other feeling a sense of injustice.  The Search for Justice is ultimately the same as the Search for Peace; they go hand in hand.  As King David says, "Turn away from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it."  (Psalms 34:15).  

We are not a proselytising religion, we make it difficult to become Jewish.  We do not count our success in numbers but by the influence for good that emanates from the Torah, which states, "out of Zion shall come the Law." 

Surely, all spiritual traditions should accept that all people must be allowed to hold to their own beliefs and respect those whose beliefs differ from their own?  I believe that many of the spiritual institutions have deviated from the Spiritual path, towards the material, in seeking to attain the greatest number of followers almost as if this confers truth upon their particular doctrine.

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Rabbi Kook, the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi in Jerusalem until his death in 1935 said:

" So long as the world moves along accustomed paths, so long as there are no wild catastrophes, man can find sufficient substance for his life by contemplating surface events, theories and movements of society.  He can acquire his inner richness from this external kind of 'property'.  But this is not the case when life encounters fiery forces of evil and chaos.  Then the 'revealed' world begins to totter.  Then the man who tries to sustain himself only from the surface aspects of existence will suffer terrible impoverishments, begin to stagger…then he will feel welling up within himself a burning thirst for that inner substance and vision which transcends the obvious surfaces of existence and remains unaffected by the world's catastrophes.  From such inner sources he will seek the waters of joy which can quicken the dry outer skeleton of existence".

As a member of the Thomas Circle and the Millennium Trust I am here today because I see the way forward as being via a spiritual path.  Acceptance of the concept of the Absolute without the dogma that plagues the traditional religions and causes so much conflict – that would be real progress.

I don't know which Rabbi said it, but I rather like the comment " One should embrace with the right hand and rebuff with the left.  But since there are enough rejecters we should all fulfil the role of embracer."

According to the Torah, God wants us all to practice fundamental ethical laws.  We may be male or female, Jew, Hindu, Christian, Moslem, or Buddhist, young or old.  But underneath there is unity. 

If we can reach beyond ourselves and carry out these fundamental ethical laws we can touch the primordial oneness that unites every human being on earth.  We must adjust our lives to take on the role of embracing.

2,000 years ago, the word Messiah meant 'the anointed one' and this would have been the High Priest in the Temple in Jerusalem or the King in his court.  But the root of the word Messiah actually means 'one who is on a divine mission' as indeed would be the Priest or King.  This divine mission is available to us now; it's attainable for all, for we could each give ourselves the task of being on a divine mission? 

We here, who have already accepted the principle and the importance of travelling the spiritual path, can but nibble away at the fringes of the problem, and that is exactly what we should be doing.  A word here and a word there gently influences those around us. 

By these small examples we can accumulatively make a major contribution to the spiritual well being of those around us be they friends or perceived foes.  Without any hint of megalomania, we should all give ourselves the role of being a messiah.

There you have it, the Jewish answer to the question posed by this conference is:  Love of the Absolute and your fellow man, which is the very heart of Judaism, supremacy of the Law as embodied in the Torah and Justice as expressed in the 7 Noahide Laws.

Finally, to digress a little, I have found the study required prior to presenting this reading to you, to have been profound and enlightening.

Whatever happens now I know that this has been an eye-opening journey into my own cultural past.  A journey, which would not have taken place without the obligation being placed upon me.  For that, I will always be grateful to Ronald Lello and the Millennium Trust for leading me down this path and to you for listening to my offering.

Shalom & Shanti

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