Why the Jewish Way of Living Matters

Why do Jewish lives matter? Why do we suddenly care so much about Israel or Jewish survival? Is it merely from a nativist love of our own or a need to deny posthumous victories to Hitler? Is it only the Jew as eternal victim that we cherish? God forbid. “Never again” is never enough. What matters are not only Jewish lives, but the Jewish way of living.

Jewish identity, purpose and meaning are highly contested notions, not least in Israel. The nation’s recent political battles have been about nothing less than the Jewishness of the Jewish state: whether and in what ways “startup nation” should remain the people of the book.

Yet both sides of these debates appeal to Jewish principles—the Israeli left to the prophets’ demands for justice and regard for the other, the Israeli right to the law’s concern with holiness. Beneath these differences are widely shared beliefs and values, also Torah-based: A cultural disposition to gratitude for the astonishing gift of life and world. A belief in the equal dignity of all human beings, each in the image of God. The duty to honor father and mother, the foundation of family life and cultural transmission. Reverence for life and limb, body and soul. Equality before the law. Commitment to care for widows, orphans and the poor. Humane treatment of the stranger. Moral seriousness: a felt need to give an account of one’s life, to practice atonement, to seek and offer forgiveness.

Read in The Wall Street Journal.