Ask The Rabbi
24 May 1997 
Issue #150 (Parashat Behar)
===========================================================================
This Issue Contains:
1.  Being Good
2.  Yiddle Riddle
===========================================================================
You can now submit your questions to the Rabbi with your internet browser:
                 http://www.ohr.org.il/ask/page/ask.htm
===========================================================================

Odyssey007@aol.com wrote:

>Dear Rabbi,
>
>I am interested in the relative status of the teachings of the Prophet 
>Micha who is credited with saying something like the following:  "All God 
>asks is that you do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God."
>
>Is this passage considered of significance in the Jewish religion?  Is 
>compliance with it sufficient to make you a good person? a good Jew? a 
>good practicing Jew?  Is there a difference?  In other words, if I am not 
>Orthodox and do not fulfill all of the rituals demanded by Orthodoxy, can 
>I still be a good Jew following the words of Micha?  Thanks for your help.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dear Odyssey007,

Micha is certainly an authoritative source.  He was a Prophet, and his book 
is part of the Kitvei Hakodesh, the Holy Books.

Is fulfilling Micha's statement enough to make you into a good Jew?  Yes 
and no.  Let me give you an analogy:

Let's say NASA were to offer a twenty-year program teaching people how to 
design space ships that will be able to bring people to and from distant 
galaxies.  On the first day of class, the professor gets up and says to the 
class, "We have only one demand of our graduates, and everything you learn 
here over the next twenty years is based on this very simple idea:  `Bring 
`em back alive.'"  Can the students now graduate, knowing this phrase?  Or 
do they need to learn all the detailed specifications required to build a 
ship that will `bring `em back alive?'

The Talmud explains that Micha was offering an underlying principle to aid 
in the performance of the 613 commandments of the Torah.  "Doing justice 
and loving kindness" are the underlying goals of all the commandments 
concerning the way you treat other people, while "walking privately with 
God" is the underlying goal of all the commandments concerning your 
relationship with God.

Micha is addressing people who seemed so caught up in performing the 
sacrifices at the Temple that they had forgotten the essence of Judaism.  
They did not pursue justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God as much 
as they should have.  Micha is telling the Jewish people not to lose sight 
of the goals of the commandments.

So it's a mistake to think that Micha advocated non-observance of the 
mitzvot, or meant to minimize their importance in any way.  Micha himself 
observed the Shabbat, ate kosher food, and kept the rest of the Torah and 
Rabbinic laws.  He urged the people to remember Moses, Aharon and Miriam as 
the leaders who taught them the Torah, and he prophesied about the day when 
the Temple will be rebuilt and "Torah will go forth from Zion."

Hillel did the same thing when he was asked to sum up the entire Torah 
while `standing on one foot.'  He said, "Whatever you don't like, don't do 
to others.  The rest of the Torah is the explanation of this statement.  Go 
study it."

Was Hillel condoning non-observance of the commandments?  Hillel himself 
was a Torah observant Jew, and the Talmud is replete with his halachic 
teachings, including laws about Temple sacrifice and the prohibition of 
work on Shabbat and festivals.  Rather, Hillel was offering a principle 
which serves as a guiding focus for the observance of all the commandments.

In short, one can't be a "good Jew" with only law and rituals and no 
ethical dimension.  But by the same token, the ethical dimension can't be 
accessed without the Torah guidelines found in Jewish law.  Micha was 
talking to people who were all action and no thought; nowadays many people 
are all thought and no action.  We need both to be good Jews.

Sources:
o  Micha 6:8 and Malbim
o  Micha 4:1-2, 6:4
o  Tractate Makkot 24a

===========================================================================

Yiddle Riddle

jerry@abcworks.co.uk wrote:

Hi, This may interest you as a Yiddle Riddle:  When can a person be called 
to the Torah for 3 successive aliyot (called up to make blessings at the 
public Torah reading) on the same day?

Answer next week.
===========================================================================
Do you link to us?  Let everyone know about the Ohr Somayach Home Page by
dropping the following text into the HTML document of YOUR home page:

          <A HREF="http://www.ohr.org.il" TARGET="_top">
          The Ohr Somayach International Home Page</A>
=========================================================================== 
                                 SUBSCRIBE!

to one of the many weekly "lists" published by Ohr Somayach Institutions:

      ohrnews - Keep up-to-date with the Ohr Somayach Web Site
       weekly - Summary of the weekly Torah portion
      dafyomi - Rav Mendel Weinbach's insights into the Daf Yomi
          ask - The Rabbi answers YOUR questions on Judaism
   parasha-qa - Challenging questions on the weekly Torah portion
   os-special - All the SPECIAL publications produced by Ohr Somayach
      os-alum - "B'Yachad" - the Ohr Somayach Electronic Alumni Newsletter
     judaismo - Spanish-Language newsletter on the Parsha & Judaism
        month - Seasons of the Moon - The Jewish Year through its months

Ohr Somayach NEVER charges for any of the above lists.
To subscribe, send the message:  subscribe {listname} {your full name}
                          mailto:listproc@virtual.co.il
===========================================================================
Dedication opportunities are available for Ask The Rabbi.
Please contact us for details.
===========================================================================
Ask The Rabbi is written at
Ohr Somayach Institutions / Tanenbaum College, Jerusalem, Israel.
General Editor: Rabbi Moshe Newman
Production Design: Lev Seltzer
===========================================================================
   Jewish   L         EEEEEEEE  Prepared by the Jewish Learning Exchange of
     J      L         E         Ohr Somayach International
     J      L         E         22 Shimon Hatzadik Street, POB 18103
     J      L         Exchange  Jerusalem 91180, Israel
     J      L         E         Tel: 972-2-581-0315 Fax: 972-2-581-2890
J    J      L         E         Mailto:ohr@virtual.co.il
 JJJJ       Learning  EEEEEEEE  http://www.ohr.org.il
===========================================================================
(C) 1997 Ohr Somayach International - All rights reserved.
This publication may be distributed to another person intact without prior
permission.  We also encourage you to include this material in other
publications, such as synagogue newsletters.  However, we ask that you
contact us beforehand for permission, and then send us a sample issue.

