{"id":78392,"date":"2020-08-03T19:01:53","date_gmt":"2020-08-03T16:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=78392"},"modified":"2020-08-03T19:01:53","modified_gmt":"2020-08-03T16:01:53","slug":"be-virtuous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/be-virtuous\/","title":{"rendered":"Be Virtuous"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"78392","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":36277,"related_cahpter":"538","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"But no virtue-signalling!\r\n\r\n","content":"

A famous passage of Talmud (Makkot 24a) attempts to reduce the 613 mitzvot of the Torah to the minimum, bare essentials.\u00a0 Kind David managed to condense them into 11 core tenets; the prophet Isaiah boils them down to six, and Micah, in today\u2019s chapter is said to encapsulate the whole Torah in just three cardinal principles:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cHe has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do justice, to love goodness and to walk modestly with your God.\u201d (Micah 6:8)<\/span><\/p>\n

These three directions are all, no doubt, fine guiding lights to live by, but how do they encompass everything? Why do they constitute a summation of all that God desires of us?<\/span><\/p>\n

The Talmudic commentator Maharsha, Shmuel Eidels (1555 \u2013 1631), suggests a thought-provoking answer. He writes that much of Judaism is good ethical sense, giving rules for life to which most reflective and morally sensitive people would assent. \u201cDo justice and love goodness;\u201d – strive to do good to other people and to build a just society – is a comprehensive summary of that whole side of Torah; fulfill this mandate and you will live in a way that other good people will recognize as right.<\/span><\/p>\n

But a godly religion demands of us more than just acting in a way that decent people around you would approve of. According to Maharsha, it requires living well out of total disregard for what anybody thinks. It asks of us \u201cnot to do mitzvot for any extraneous reasons, but only for the sake of Heaven.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is what the third part of the triptych, \u201cand to walk modestly with your God,\u201d adds. \u201cEven when doing something good in public, a person shouldn\u2019t draw attention to it and say, \u201clook what I did\u201d. That\u2019s just preening and self-pride,\u201d warns Maharsha. (\u201cVirtue-signaling\u201d might be an approximate contemporary translation for \u201cpreening and self-pride.\u201d)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s mixing in extraneous motivations,\u201d he goes on.\u00a0 Rather, we \u201cshould walk modestly with God\u201d even when doing good that is unavoidably public, such as assisting in burying the dead or helping a poor bride to marry, and all the more so when doing good things that are best done in private, like giving tzedakah or studying Torah.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWalking modestly with God,\u201d is the side of Torah that does not care about public approval or applause. If Judaism is just \u201cdoing justice and loving goodness,\u201d then the temptation to court the crowd\u2019s admiration and praise for acts of justice and goodness is ever-present. Only when we also \u201cwalk modestly,\u201d and do good secretly and for its own sake, do we walk with God.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":78395,"id":78395,"title":"mic6-virtue","filename":"mic6-virtue-1.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/mic6-virtue-1.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/be-virtuous\/mic6-virtue\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"mic6-virtue","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":78392,"date":"2020-08-03 16:01:25","modified":"2020-08-03 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