Some years ago, I was assigned to teach some boys in high school more Talmud than was required. I selected the tractate Bava Metzia, a section of the Talmud dealing with torts and damages. After some weeks, they approached me and said that they wanted to learn something that was more “religious”! I replied that the most religious commandments in Judaism are those that deal with how we treat other people and the world in general.
The “Ten Declarations” in Exodus are interesting in that there is not only the mention of freeing slaves from Egypt, but also in the commandment to observe Shabbat, the statement that Shabbat rest flows from God’s ceasing to work on the seventh day. The first five statements are a prologue to the last five. Where other religions are God-centered or individual-centered, Jewish religious thought sees the relationships between one human and another as the central focus of what it means to be a follower of the Divine purpose of the universe.
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The rabbis fashioned their halakhah as house-training the most potentially noxious apex predator into an instrument to be the Divine caretaker of the universe. The Mishnah that was edited and codified around 212 CE (the same year that Caracalla made Roman citizenship available to almost everyone in the Empire) was the rabbinic guidebook for human action.
In one section on damages, Bava Kamma, the Mishnah teaches that a human being is always considered capable of damage (even while asleep!). The infliction of needless pain on animals (tzar baalei chayyim) is prohibited. Consequently, Jews are forbidden to hunt or to fish with a hook and line for sport. The earth is to be cared for, so every seventh year, rest is given to the fields to replenish their strength. Climate care is an old Jewish thought!
Judah “The Pious,” founder of the “Hasidei Ashkenaz,” in his “Sefer Hasidim” (“Book of the Pious”) states: “If a Jew does harm to a Jew, it is a civil matter, but if a Jew does harm to a non-Jew, it is a hillul HaShem (profanation of the name of God).” Rabbi Yishmael in the Tosefta of Sanhedrin states: “All the righteous of the gentiles have a share in the world to come!”
It is with these thoughts that our sages fleshed out the meaning and intent of the other half of the Tablets. It is exactly how we treat every person, every animal, every plant, and our planet — with reverence — that distinguishes us as fulfillers of the Divine commandments on which the world was formed, and the slaves from Egypt were redeemed.
As the anonymous teacher ends the additional sixth chapter of Pirkei Avot: “All that the Holy One, blessed be He, created in this world, He created for his glory.” To destroy is to desecrate the name of God. To build, to help, to improve is to sanctify God’s name.
May we be worthy of fulfilling these commandments and know that doing so is the most religious of all.
Rabbi Eugene A. Wernick is a scholar and educator who has guided students at eight institutions, including establishing honors work to help students study complex sections of the Talmud. He has developed interfaith programming in the U.S. and Canada, worked with many interfaith leaders, and is the author of “A Gateway to Kabbalah.”