What a wonderful path Judaism is!

What a wonderful path Judaism is!

• Judaism proclaims a God who is the Creator of all life, Whose attributes of kindness, mercy, compassion, and justice are to serve as examples for all our actions.
• Judaism stresses that every person is created in God’s image and therefore is of supreme value.
• Judaism teaches that people are to be co-workers with God in preserving and improving the world. We are mandated to serve as stewards of the world’s resources to see that God’s bounties are used for the benefit of all.
• Judaism teaches that nothing that has value may be wasted or unnecessarily destroyed.
• Judaism stresses that we are to love other people as ourselves, to be kind to strangers, “for we were strangers in the land of Egypt,” and to act with compassion toward the homeless, the poor, the orphan, the widow, even toward enemies, and to care for all of God’s creatures.
• Judaism urges efforts to reduce hunger.  A Jew who helps to feed a hungry person is considered, in effect, to have “fed” God.
• Judaism mandates that we must seek and pursue peace. Great is peace, for it is one of God’s names, all God’s blessings are contained in it, it must be sought even in times of war, and it will be the Messiah’s first blessing.
• Judaism exhorts us to pursue justice, to work for a society in which each person has the ability to obtain, through creative labor, the means to lead a dignified life.
• Judaism teaches that God’s compassion is over all of His works, that the righteous individual considers the well being of animals, and that Jews should avoid tsa’ar ba’alei chayim, causing pain to animals.
• Judaism stresses involvement, nonconformity, resistance to oppression and injustice, and a constant struggle against idolatry.

This ancient, marvelous Jewish outlook, applied to the planet’s gravest problems, can help shift the planet away from its present perilous course to produce a far better world.

(Excepted from Who Stole My Religion? by Richard H. Schwartz)