An Edifying Jewish World View and the Laws of the State of Israel: Before continuing, it is important to examine the Jewish perspective on morality, its place in Jewish philosophy, and to demonstrate the uniqueness of the Jewish religion in comparison with other divine religions, including those monotheistic religions that were an offshoot of Judaism: Christianity and Islam. Yeshayahu Leibowitz identified two categories of believers in a divine creator. There are those who believe in a God who metes out justice in his world, who rewards those who fulfill his commandments. Serving this God is ultimately self-serving and thus there is an element of utility in serving this creator. A second category shares the type of faith that Avraham, the forefather of the Jewish people, manifested particularly in the story of the akeidah (the binding of Yitzchak). His love of God did not depend on reward. His love of God was bound up in fulfilling God's commandments. Even when God's commandment essentially negated all prior divine promises (regarding the nation that would emerge from Yitzchak), Avraham remained silent. He did not reproach God for breaking his promise, but took his son Yitzhak to offer him up as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah, as God had commanded. Through this act, Avraham distanced himself from all materialism and utilitarianism and drew closer to his God in his love of him. There are groups in certain non-Jewish religions, such as Jesuit monks who have retained some of these sparks of worship, and shun all materialism or personal benefit in this world - but they do anticipate reward in the world to come. After this digression, let us proceed. A Jew is commanded to emulate the noblest of traits, which are embodied by the Creator. Every Jew has a purpose in this world. He is not the center of the universe, and his needs and self-interests have import only if they serve higher loftier goals. Humility is as esteemed as happiness, and mercy is greater than both. A Jew adheres to the commandments that are incumbent upon him, for their fulfillment is his means to spiritual growth. A Jew takes care of his body so that he will have the strength to fulfill God's commandments. This perspective should be the basis for how Israeli courts interpret Israeli law laws, as will be demonstrated further on. This is not because this work advocates religious coercion. The term "law" itself, however, contains an element of coercion, and a world-view that arises from the law is binding upon a judge even if he does not personally share that view. For example: the laws of the State of Israel absolutely prohibit corporal punishment in the schools. While it is quite likely that a specific judge in Israel will deem it appropriate to hit a student under certain circumstances, the laws of the state obligate him to rule against the teacher who hit his student. That judge would be absolutely unjustified in claiming that the law constitutes coercion of a world-view. The same holds true regarding the Jewish view that esteems spiritual values over personal interest. Since judges are required to rule according to Jewish values, they must rank dry material interests much lower than higher values, such as teaching people the importance of returning lost objects. The case of Handels vs. Kupat-Am Bank involved interpretation of Israeli law regarding the restoration of lost objects When a bank customer found an object on the floor of the vault and the owner could not be found, a legal dispute ensued over rights to the object. Barak ruled, in accordance with American law, that the bank (who owned the vault) had rights to the object, while Alon ruled according to Jewish law in favor of the finder. The difference in ruling depended on interpretation of an Israeli law. Both judges had already given their reasons in detail in an earlier round of the case Alon based his ruling on the goal shared by the Israeli legislator and Jewish law - that of encouraging the person who finds a lost object to try to return it to its owner - by reporting it to the police according to Israeli law or by searching for its owner according to Jewish law. The knowledge that he may acquire the lost object, if despite his best efforts its owner is not found, may encourage the finder to fulfill his lawful obligation. It is now in his self-interest to do his duty. This is a perspective that views self-interest not as the goal but only as a means of encouraging fulfillment of an obligation. The obligation and mitzvah to locate the owner shapes our interpretation of the law. Virtuous behavior on the part of the finder is encouraged by offering him a potential reward, the chance to earn the lost object for himself, if he fulfills his obligation to search for its owner. There is no need to encourage the owner of the place where the object was found, since he does not face any moral challenge. This is an example of an interpretation of law which considers the edification of man and development of his character as central to the legal system. Barak's interpretation of the law, on the other hand, gave precedence to ownership and rights, not virtue, and since the object was found on bank property, it belonged to the bank. The virtue that is spoken of is not the virtue that Alasdair Macintyre refers to, one that places man and his self interest at the center, but rather a Jewish conception of spiritual virtue (in accordance with the view of the Rambam who adopts a similar understanding as Plato, one that is not popular in Judaism today), one that does not hold man at its center, one that is not utilitarian, and whose characteristics do not seek to improve him as an ends to itself but rather as a means of drawing him closer to the attributes of the Creator. Hermann Cohen refers to the commandment in Deuteronomy, "Behold I have placed before you today life and good, death and evil…therefore choose life," and deduces from it that God limited himself when He gave a Jew freedom of choice, since though He commanded him to choose the just path, God will not prevent him from choosing otherwise. Cohen develops from here the constraints of a God who does not interfere either in man's intellectual reasoning (by which man establishes laws of reason) or in his moral reasoning (by which man's behavior is guided, and which is responsible for, among other things, a Jew not only fearing God but loving him). Fear distances man from his God while love draws him closer and impels him to strengthen his connection with his Creator by emulating Him. This ambition is a far cry from Western philosophy's goal of man's 'self fulfillment', that focuses entirely on advancing the secular man who sees himself as the source of all norms. Though Hermann Cohen calls man the goal, he in actuality views man's good deeds as the goal. The objective here is not religious coercion, but rather entry into a world in which man and his traits are viewed as the "corridor that leads into the dining hall." An In Depth Examination of the Jewish Perspective: The Babylonian Talmud in Tractate Brachot cites the Biblical commandment to send away a mother bird before taking her eggs, explaining "that he considers God's attributes as stemming from mercy. The Gemara there asks why we must silence the person who attributes this Biblical Law to God's mercy and answers (one of its two answers) because this person errs in attributing God's laws to mercy when in fact they are decrees. The Maharal analyzes Rambam's reason for this mitzvah. The Rambam, in contrast to the Ramban and other Jewish philosophers, did not believe that the purpose of mitzvahs was to develop man's spiritual traits so he would more closely emulate God. He is more in line with Plato's view that the improvement of one's traits is an inherent good, not necessarily connected to the mitzvahs. The Rambam, therefore, in contrast to the perspective in Judaism that we will be presenting, did not think that the commandment to send away the mother bird before taking her eggs was intended to teach man to be more merciful. As a result, the Maharal rejected the Rambam's opinion, preferring the Ramban's view instead. Nevertheless, as he explains in his 'Hilchot Deot' compiled by Dr. Zifroni and published by Omanut in 1968, the Rambam agrees that a Jew seeks to develop his behavioral traits in order to draw closer to God. De'ot is synonymous with techunot-attributes and in fact the subject of this book is not ideas (an alternate meaning of de'ot) but rather attributes. The book is primarily directed toward a 'wise' man, a man, as the Rambam describes on page seven of this book, "whose attributes are moderate and temperate." The Rambam elaborates on page six saying: "The just path is one of moderation in every trait that man has, so that each trait is equidistant from either extreme and not close to either. Therefore the early sages commanded that man should put [contemplate, as Zifroni explains according to Sota 5b] his traits constantly and direct them to the middle road, so that he will be complete in his person. How so? He shouldn't be an angry person, easily incensed nor like a dead person who is insensate, but rather moderate: angered only by important matters that deserve his wrath, so that he won't be inclined to do so another time. Similarly, he should desire only those things his body cannot live without as it is written : "A little bit is good for the righteous person. He should not seek more, nor should he squander his money, but rather he should give charity according to what he has and loan money to one who needs. He should not be foolish and giddy nor gloomy and miserable but rather cheerful and contented all his days, with a pleasant countenance." The Rambam cites as support for his advice the verse in Deuteronomy 25:9, "You should walk in His ways" and the Gemara in Sota 14a, "Just as He is merciful, you should be merciful, just as He is compassionate, you should be compassionate, just as He is holy, you should be holy." On page eight he lists God's attributes as He was depicted by the prophets (long-suffering, merciful, righteous and just, perfect, strong and mighty). He writes that the prophets sought "to advise us that these are good and just paths and that man must follow them and undertake to emulate Him as best as he can." The obligation to emulate God is incumbent upon all of humanity, and not only Jews, as is logical, since it doesn't relate to a religious commandment but rather directly follows from the recognition that there is a creator. Since the Rambam lived among religious Muslims who shared a belief in monotheism, his premises were different from those of Plato's or Aristotle's. A different section of 'Hilchot De'ot' is dedicated to the Jew specifically. There (page 24), he relates an explicit mitzvah in Torah to a Jew's moral behavior, even though generally the Rambam does not link man's traits to mitzvahs. The Rambam writes there: "It is a mitzvah incumbent upon every person to love each and every Jew as himself, as it is written, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' Therefore, he must relate his praises and watch over his property just as he watches over his own property and desires honor himself. And one who rejoices in his friend's downfall has no part in the World to Come. The obligation to love of the stranger, who has come under the wings of the Divine presence, stems from two positive commandments, one because he is included among 'neighbors' and two because he is a convert, and the Torah commanded us, "You shall love the convert." The Torah commanded us to love the convert just as it commanded us to love God himself, as it is written, 'You shall love Hashem your God.' God himself loves converts as it is written, 'and He loves the convert.' The Maharal preferred the Ramban's view over the Rambam's. The Ramban was of the opinion that, "the reason [for the mitzvah to send away the mother bird] is to accustom us to act mercifully so that we won't act cruelly to living creatures…And God decreed this attribute as well as all other commandments in order to inculcate man with good traits and they are decrees upon man." The Maharal quotes Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai who in reflecting on the entirety of the mitzvahs concluded that, "The Torah comes to improve us, but the commandment is a decree that He decreed, and this is the meaning of the statement - that he considers the attributes of God mercy when they are in fact decrees." [In other words: the decrees that God ordained, are to improve our traits - Y.C.] The Ramban writes regarding God's commandment to Avraham to go to the Land of Canaan, "This section did not explain the whole matter, for why should God tell him - leave your land and I will do for you good unlike any ever done in the world, without prefacing that Avraham worshipped God or was a perfectly righteous man, or explaining that his reason for leaving his land was to go a different land that was closer to God." The Ramban here is of the opinion that Avraham's rewards for fulfilling God's commandments are unimportant since only his closeness to God mattered. The Rambam, in his commentary on the introduction to Mishnah Avot, writes: "Man must subjugate all his mental faculties to reason, as we wrote in the previous chapter, and he should always keep before his eyes one goal, and that is comprehension of God, to the extent that a human being can comprehend Him, and he should direct all his actions, his movements and his breaks and everything to this goal, until none of his actions have any element of futility, in other words any action that does not lead to this goal…" The Kuzari writes: "Our Torah is divided between fear and love and happiness. Draw close to your God through each of these for your submission on a fast day does not draw you closer to God than your rejoicing on Shabbat and festivals…What we learn from this is that we can approach God only through his commandments…" In the Zohar it is written regarding the verse in Isaiah 42: "R. Abba began and said, 'Sing to God a new song, and His praise from the end of the earth…' How beloved are Israel before God for their rejoicing and their praise only come to include God and His divine presence within it, as we learned in the Mishnah - Any rejoicing of Israel in which they do not include God, is not rejoicing…" [This teaches that even man's joy, even his personal intimate joy should be done with the ultimate goal in mind. Man's willingness to rejoice only if God rejoices with him demonstrates significant restraint and humility]. To this we should add the array of mitzvahs, which besides accustoming man to follow God's commandments, yield no benefits through their performance, and their sole purpose is the training and refinement of man's soul. The question this work will address regarding Israel's existence as a Jewish State is the following: To what extent does, and to what extent should, an ancient Jewish principle, that is the creation of the Age of Religion in Judaism, of an ethic that is not constricted or constrained by the narrow framework of self-interest, apply? The term 'self-interest' here also includes the interests of the weak, the foreigner, the convert and the widow, for these are also human interests, as well as certain elements from prophecies of the prophets, concerns that are definitely extremely positive, and which still fall within the broader definition of 'interest': To what extent do we find in Israel the desire to emulate God expressed similarly to the way Judaism relates to this goal? This is not a question of the application of Jewish law but rather a question that relates to man's essence, to a moral orientation that relates to man's personal and social behavior through a conception that arises from Jewish religion without necessarily a connection to specific religious precepts, as demonstrated in the Handels case. Man's estrangement from the divine source of rules of behavior led many Western philosophers to concentrate on the 'procedural' question of 'how to derive ethical principles' while abandoning their search for the content of these principles Basically, the transition from a religious morality to a secular morality involves not only the transfer of the source of law from God to man, and in Judaism and the religions that stemmed from it, from the spirit that transcends man to human materialism, but also a redefinition of the terms 'good' and 'right'. While during the Age of Religion, 'good' was what was 'right', in the Age of Secularism - utilitarians defined the 'right' as what was 'good'. In Judaism, in general, and regarding modern Western theories of morality, in particular, there are varied opinions and approaches. The question arises - what should Israel's approach be, considering the fact that it defined itself at its inception and also in its constitution as a Jewish state. Should Israel embrace individualism or communitarianism or perhaps an entirely different approach. Is the new approach that was revived in the 1970's that relates to man's character and to virtue consistent with Jewish beliefs? Wewill establish immediately that though they appear similar, they in actuality are fundamentally different. The point of reference in Western thought is man and its goal is to improve man's inner essence. Thus, even Western theories that are opposed to utilitarianism are in fact also utilitarian in this broader sense. Even though Sieyes' ideas about national will are generally not associated with approaches of the twentieth century such as utilitarianism, liberalism, communitarianism, emotivism, perspectivism, they all in fact revolve around one and the same thing - namely man (either as an individual or a social entity). In Judaism, in contrast, the focus (even according to the Rambam) is external to man and unconnected to will or personal interest, concentrated rather on God and fulfilling one's responsibilities to Him. In short, the quality utterly lacking in Western philosophies is modesty. This is an attribute that follows naturally from many of man's instincts - for preferring his emotions over his reason, for desiring social company, for finding the underlying principles - both in the realm of morality and social behavior and in the realm of science and technology. Even the 'pure reason' with which Kant sought to 'rescue' man from his enslavement to nature, was implanted in man by his Creator. Our constitution and the adherence to 'Jewish tradition' that is mandated by the constitution, as well as the entire principle of a 'Jewish State'- all seek to set us apart from other nations. This legal and moral obligation that connects us to spiritually-blessed generations of Jews should not be renounced. As the author of this book explained in an earlier work, Supreme Court decisions that direct otherwise, contradict the legal basis of the State of Israel, disregard Knesset legislation and thus are not morally binding. There is a higher command than the directives of the Supreme Court judges, besides Israel's constitutional law and that is the command of Jewish history which is immersed in a moral system that is of no lesser stature than Western moral systems.