To Heal a Fractured World

1. Responsibility is the Essence of Being Human

Being human means being conscious and being responsible.

Consciousness and accountability. To be human is to possess awareness and the capacity to respond to the world around us. This consciousness brings with it a profound responsibility to act ethically and to contribute to the well-being of others. Life is not merely about personal fulfillment but about recognizing our interconnectedness and our duty to the human other.

Ethics in shared life. Ethics belongs to the life we live together and the goods we share. It is a reminder that we are not isolated individuals but members of a community with shared values and obligations. The pursuit of personal satisfaction alone is insufficient; we must also strive to create a just and compassionate world for all.

Life's call to responsibility. God invites us to become partners in the work of creation, using our freedom to honor and enhance the freedom of others. This invitation is the central theme of the book, emphasizing that life is a call to responsibility, a summons to act ethically and to mend the fractures of the world.

2. Biblical Faith is a Call to Protest, Not Acceptance

The only force equal to a fundamentalism of hate is a counter-fundamentalism of love.

Defiance against injustice. Judaism was born as an act of defiance against the great empires of the ancient world, challenging the sanctification of hierarchy and the rule of the strong over the weak. The Bible removes the chains of slavery, emerging as the voice of social protest. It is not a religion that reconciles us to the world but one that calls us to challenge its injustices.

God's invitation to prayer. God invites Abraham to pray for Sodom, not because He needs Abraham's knowledge, but because He wants Abraham to respond. This act of communication is an invitation to Abraham to pray, guiding him to live by righteousness and justice. God wants Abraham to live by these values, and it is these two words that form the heart of Abraham’s prayer.

Humanizing religion. The religious imperative is to create, not destroy, recognizing that the world and its creatures are sacred. The only force equal to a fundamentalism of hate is a counter-fundamentalism of love. The prophets warned against a rift between the holy and the good, emphasizing that serving God and serving our fellow human beings are inseparably linked.

3. Charity is Justice: A Moral Imperative

Someone else’s physical needs are my spiritual obligation.

Tzedakah's dual nature. The Hebrew word tzedakah encompasses both charity and justice, reflecting the idea that giving to those in need is not merely an act of generosity but a moral obligation. This concept arises from the belief that all things are ultimately owned by God, and we are merely holding our possessions in trust.

Social justice and dignity. Tzedakah is akin to social justice, ensuring that everyone has a basic right to a dignified life and equal worth as citizens. This is fundamental to the kind of society the Israelites were charged with creating, one in which the lonely are not alone, the poor not without help, and the cry of the vulnerable is heeded.

Beyond material needs. The psychological dimension of tzedakah is crucial, as it seeks to protect the dignity of the recipient and avoid humiliation. Maimonides' eight levels of charity emphasize the importance of anonymity and empowering individuals to become self-sufficient, highlighting that the greatest act of tzedakah is one that allows the individual to dispense with charity.

4. Love as Deed: The Highest Form of Connection

Someone will forever be surprising a hunger in himself to be more serious.

Hessed as covenant love. Hessed, often translated as kindness or loving-kindness, is more than just an emotion; it is love expressed as deed. It is covenant love, a bond of loyalty and faithfulness that means being ever-present for the other, in hard times as well as good. It is the happiness we make by sharing.

Imitating God's acts. The concept of hessed is learned from the acts of God himself, who clothes the naked, visits the sick, comforts the mourners, and buries the dead. These acts of loving care humanize the world, transforming it into a place where trust is rewarded and love begets love.

Redemption of solitude. Hessed is born in the recognition that "it is not good for man to be alone," and it seeks to bridge the gap between individuals by conferring dignity on the other. It is the gift of the person, the poetry of everyday life written in the language of simple deeds.

5. Sanctifying the Name: Living as God's Ambassadors

The Jew should remember that the glory of God is, as it were, entrusted to his care and that every Israelite holds the honour of his faith and of his entire people in his hands.

Kiddush ha-Shem defined. Kiddush ha-Shem, literally "sanctifying the name" of God, refers to behavior that creates respect for God and Judaism. It is about living a life that is a positive advertisement for faith, enhancing the lives of others and making a difference in the world.

The urgent vs. the important. The things we spend most of our time pursuing turn out to be curiously irrelevant when it comes to seeing the value of a life as a whole. They are urgent but not important, and in the crush and press of daily life, the urgent tends to win out over the important.

The prophets' warning. The prophets warned against a rift between the holy and the good, our duties to God and to our fellow human beings. Serving God and serving our fellow human beings are inseparably linked, and the split between the two impoverishes both. Unless the holy leads us outward toward the good, and the good leads us back, for renewal, to the holy, the creative energies of faith run dry.

6. Mending the World: A Task for All

The world is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.

Tikkun olam defined. Tikkun olam, mending or perfecting the world, is the idea that God invites us to become, in the rabbinic phrase, his ‘partners in the work of creation’. It is the belief that it is no accident that we are here, in this time and place, with these gifts and capacities, and this opportunity to make a positive difference to the world.

Divine providence and purpose. The concept of divine providence (hashgahah peratit) suggests that God is operative in our lives as individuals, and that we are here because someone wanted us to be. There is a task that only we can fulfill, and where what I can do meets what needs to be done, there is God’s challenge and our task.

The power of small acts. We do not have to redeem the world all together in one go. We do it one day at a time, one person at a time, one act at a time. A single life, said the sages, is like a universe. Save a life and you save a world. Change a life and you begin to change the world.

7. Collective Responsibility: Like a Single Soul

The world is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.

Interconnectedness and shared fate. Judaism emphasizes that we are not isolated individuals but part of a collective, bound together by a shared fate and mutual responsibility. What happens to one affects all, and we are all sureties for one another.

The crisis of Jewish peoplehood. The destruction of the Second Temple and the subsequent dispersion of Jews posed a profound challenge to the concept of Jewish peoplehood. Without geographical proximity or political autonomy, how could Jews sustain their collective identity?

A mystical definition of nationhood. Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai offered a new definition of Jewish nationhood, stating that Jews are like a single body and a single soul, united by a profound bond of fellow feeling and responsibility. This mystical vision preserved Jewish identity through centuries of exile.

8. The Kindness of Strangers: Building Bridges of Peace

And that much never can be obsolete, since someone will forever be surprising a hunger in himself to be more serious . . .

Darkhei shalom defined. Darkhei shalom, "the ways of peace," is a principle that extends kindness and compassion to those who are not members of our faith. It is a program for peace in an unredeemed world, emphasizing living with difference and mutual respect.

Beyond tolerance. Civic peace demands more than tolerance; it requires active engagement and a willingness to contribute to the welfare of other communities. This is an expression of the fact that those who remember suffering can be sensitized, and respond, to the sufferings of others.

The value of peace. The sages understood that in this not-yet-fully-redeemed world, peace means living with difference. It is a faith in which God invites human beings to become his partners in the work of redemption; to build a society on the basis of a justice that people understand as such; a human world, without hubris (the attempt to be more than human) or nemesis (a descent into the less-than-human).

9. Transforming Suffering: Finding Meaning in Adversity

The world is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.

Turning outward. Those who have experienced great suffering can transform their pain into a source of strength and compassion for others. By turning outward and caring for other people's suffering, they are able to forget their own and find purpose in life.

The power of choice. Viktor Frankl's logotherapy emphasizes that even in the most hopeless situations, we retain the freedom to choose our attitude and find meaning in our suffering. This involves refusing to believe that we are victims of fate and recognizing that there is more than one way of interpreting what happens to us.

A call to return. Suffering is less a punishment for sins than a call to return, a renewed commitment to the good. It is a reminder that we are not alone and that we have a responsibility to act on behalf of others, bringing comfort and dignity to the deprived.

10. The Monotheistic Imagination: Internalizing Conflict

The world is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.

Relocating conflict. Monotheism relocates conflict from the external world to the internal realm of the human mind. This changes our view of God, fate, and history, as well as our understanding of the soul and the human personality.

The birth of hope. Monotheism gives birth to hope as a human emotion, grounded in the belief that the universe is not indifferent to our existence and that we are not condemned to ignorance. There is something at the heart of being that responds to us as persons, and teaches us to ask questions.

Humanizing the world. More than other faiths, the religion of the Hebrew Bible is written in the future tense. Ancient Israel was the only civilization to set its golden age in not-yet-realized time, because a free human being lives toward the future.

11. The Faith of God: Trust in Human Potential

The world is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.

God's risk in creation. In creating humanity, God took a risk, endowing us with freedom and the capacity to act in his image. This act of self-limitation on God's part is a testament to his faith in human potential.

The challenge of human action. The real and present challenge to Jews specifically, humanity generally, is to wrestle with the ever more consequential challenges of human action. To believe either that we are accountable to no one, or that God will somehow intervene to save us from ourselves, is consistent but irresponsible, and this is not how I read my faith or understand the human condition.

The power of forgiveness. God neither destroys the world, nor does he give up on his hopes for humankind, but he now knows it will take time. That is what hope is in Judaism: a refusal to give up on your deepest ideals, but a refusal likewise to say, in a world still disfigured by evil, that the Messiah has yet come, and the world is saved.

12. The Kind of Person We Are: Cultivating Virtue

The world is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.

Beyond rules. Judaism is not just a code of individual responsibility. Each of us is responsible for others also. The covenant creates a bond of collective responsibility. This is a well-known idea. Less well known is the intense historical drama out of which it emerged.

The importance of character. The Torah is more than law; it is narrative as well. Law divides reality into simple categories: right and wrong, innocent or guilty, permitted or forbidden, liable or exempt. We need narrative to instruct us in the many situations in which there are no simple answers.

A healing presence. To be gracious, thoughtful, sensitive, attentive; to have integrity, courage and psychological strength; to be able to respond to different people in different ways, knowing what each needs to fulfill his or her part in the scheme of things - is to come as close as we can to living in the world as God lives in the world.

Last updated: March 28, 2025