Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Founder & CEO of The Shamayim V’Aretz Institute, and a doctoral candidate at Columbia University in Moral Psychology & Epistemology. He is the author of Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century. In April 2012, Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the most influential rabbis in America.

I walked up to Nelson Mandela’s former prison cell on Robben Island (just off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa) wondering what I would feel. Mandela, due to his political and ethical convictions, was locked away for decades. Somehow, after all that pain and sorrow, he kept faith in mankind. He writes in his autobiography:

Because of the courage of the ordinary men and women of my country, I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Even in the grimmest times in prison, when my comrades and I were pushed to our limits, I would see a glimmer of humanity in one of the guards, perhaps just for a second, but it was enough to reassure me and keep me going. Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished (Long Walk to Freedom, 457).

A commitment to social justice consists precisely of this optimism: that no matter how dark times get, we see the dignity and potential in every human being. All individuals have rights and obligations. In times of despair, a people can only look toward their personal and national self-interest, but this leads to greater universal tragedy. It is in the most trying times that we must especially remember the other.

Social justice – a Jewish ethic

Defending the vulnerable is a core Jewish value which draws upon our highest values and laws such as pikuah nefesh (saving the life of another), kiddush Hashem (sanctifying the Name of God in public), and loving the stranger. “God upholds the cause of the orphan and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing him with food and clothing. You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:18-19). Ibn Ezra teaches the extent of our collective responsibility: “Do not oppress…for anyone who sees a person oppressing an orphan or a widow and does not come to their aid, they will also be considered oppressors.” We must intervene and emulate God (halakhta bidrakhav) and be compassionate in all of our ways. But this cannot stop at hesed (one time acts of kindness), rather, it must enter the realm of tzedek (systemic change). We must get to the root of problems if we truly wish to have a lasting impact.

Based on the verse Leviticus 25:35 that we must “strengthen him” (the one who has stumbled), Rashi teaches: “Do not wait until he has gone down and fallen, because it will be difficult to raise him up. Instead, strengthen him at the time where his hand is slipping. What is this like? To a load upon a donkey. When it is still on the donkey, one can support it and make it stand. Once it falls to the ground, even five cannot make it stand.” Rashi is teaching that we must embrace preventive justice attacking the root cause of social ills ensuring a society that is just for all. Rashi teaches that this is not only the most moral path but also the most cost effective.

The Jewish community has apparently integrated values of social justice into its very being. The Nathan Cummings 2012 Jewish Values Survey asked American Jews how important Jewish values are. Core findings include:

Statement	Somewhat/Very Important (%)
The pursuit of tzedek	84
Caring for the widow and orphan	80
Tikkun olam	72
Welcoming the stranger	72
Political beliefs and activities are informed by a belief that every person is made in the image of God	55
A commitment to social equality is most important for Jewish identity	46

The number of Orthodox participants was less than ten percent, representative of their numbers in Jewish America. From this survey it is unclear what the numbers were for the Orthodox community. Anecdotal evidence suggests that it would be less than for that of the Jewish community, and to fill that gap Uri L’Tzedek and an Orthodox social justice movement needed to be founded.

Social justice – an Orthodox Jewish ethic

Uri L’Tzedek, the Orthodox social justice movement, was founded to apply the wisdom of Jewish law and values to the most pressing moral issues of our time based on the premise that observant Jews have unique obligations toward the vulnerable (poor, sick, abused, oppressed, alienated).The Torah prioritizes the language of obligation to the language of rights to ensure that we are all empowered as agents of responsibility. The Orthodox community has an enviable commitment to Jewish life, Torah study, prayer attendance, and mitzvah observance. Religious idealism (messianic fervor, perhaps) is matched by the pragmatic charge to daily ethical leadership. The Orthodox community is a natural and fitting home for social justice leadership because of its commitment to consistent ritual practice. This consistency allows for the structure and reflective space that empowers the activation of values learned through rituals. Leon Wieseltier writes about a child who walks onto a stage. If the child does not have lyrics, he or she will expend energy thinking of the words. If the words are set, the child can focus on singing as best as possible. When ritual is set, we can sing in life better. Psychologists have shown that when children have a large backyard without fences to play in they play in only a small section, but when there is a fence they play in much more of the backyard. Structure and foundation provides us stability, and thus courage.

This combination of factors – Jewish law and values, commitment to mitzvah observance, strong ritual and structure, religious idealism – has practical relevance regarding how to build a religious social justice movement. The Orthodox social justice movement begins by building on our strong commitment to our obligations bein adam laMakom, which serves as a foundation to actualize our ethical commitments of bein adam lehavero. But it also goes further, ensuring that those prior commitments become a foundation for service on the level of bein adam la-kehilla (between the person and the community) and bein adam la-olam (between the person and the rest of the world).

Further, Jewish tradition understands that God, on some level, is at the center of social change, yet the burden is upon us humans to enact that change. We need not perfectly understand the nature of the world to fully throw ourselves into creating change. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explains this point well:

If we were able to see how evil today leads to good tomorrow – if we were able to see from the point of view of God, creator of all – we would understand justice but at the cost of ceasing to be human. We would accept all, vindicate all, and become deaf to the cries of those in pain. God does not want us to cease to be human, for if he did, he would not have created us. We are not God. We will never see things from his perspective. The attempt to do so is an abdication of the human situation. My teacher, Rabbi Nahum Rabinovitch, taught me that this is how to understand the moment when Moses first encountered God at the burning bush. ”Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God” (Ex. 3:6). Why was he afraid? Because if he were fully to understand he would have no choice but to be reconciled to the slavery and oppression of the world. From the vantage point of eternity, he would see that the bad is a necessary stage on the journey to the good. He would understand God but he would cease to be Moses, the fighter against injustice who intervened whenever he saw wrong being done. ”He was afraid” that seeing heaven would desensitize him to earth, that coming close to infinity would mean losing his humanity. That is why God chose Moses, and why he taught Abraham to pray (To Heal a Fractured World, pp. 22-23).

Challenges facing Orthodox social justice

While the opportunities for a powerful Orthodox social justice movement are immense, there are also barriers.

• The observant community often values study over action. While this yields a great commitment to Torah study, it tends to create a vacuum in change leadership.
• The Orthodox community, and particularly its more right wing segment, tends to suffer from a parochialism and insularity that comes from the historical experience freshly emphasized in the traditional mind. The Orthodox community focuses heavily of protecting, tending to, and taking care of its own needs. Even when broadened, those needs extend to other members of the Jewish community.
• The insularity is often connected to a general conservatism, one of whose markers is a trend toward preservation of the past and stagnant thinking.
• The top-down power structures in rabbinic authority also at times perpetuates a culture of disempowerment and a lack of critical autonomous thinking.]
• Committing to live an observant life and to have one’s children educated in the day school system requires a tremendous amount of time and resources, which leaves little for other types of commitments.

As a religious global citizen, it is not enough merely to seek personal piety. That commitment must be converted into altruism. We must zoom out of the minutiae and see the bigger picture. A personal example, which was transformative for me, exemplifies this challenge.

A few years ago I led a Yeshiva University service-learning volunteer trip to rural Thailand through the American Jewish World Service. A few days into the trip, the students were informed that there was going to be an anti-HIV parade in the village. The custom is for adults to serve as educators and models by wearing costumes that promote safe sex through the use of condoms. Some of the YU students approached me and asked whether or not it was appropriate for them to wear these outfits as the village leaders requested. I told them it was up to them to decide on their own based upon their values and comfort levels. Two or three of the students decided that since HIV was such a rampant problem in this developing country that it was appropriate for them to take part in this educational initiative. What they didn’t expect was to return back to their campus with pictures of them posted on classroom doors demeaning their experiences and articles questioning whether they should have been serving “idolaters” in the first place. The response shook me at the core. These students bravely went beyond their comfort zones to serve others and their Yeshiva peers mocked (and some faculty reported condemned) their service. It was one of many experiences I have had that reminded me how much courage it takes to be an Orthodox social justice activist swimming against a stream of complacency and insularity.

While the Orthodox social justice movement has learned much from other social justice organizations and continues to have much to learn from their decades of experience, much has also been learned from the pedagogical approaches of the well-established traditional Orthodox institutions. While the explicit existence of the organization is very new, the ethos of the movement finds its origins in Avraham, who was chosen because of his commitment la-asot tzedaka umishpat (to do justice and righteousness). It stands to argue that if this was the rationale for God’s choice of Avraham, then this value of justice and righteousness is the raison d’être of the Jewish people – to be the global leaders of fighting for justice. While the Jewish people have often been disempowered to stand on the front lines for change, there are new opportunities provided by our return to our homeland and the establishment of a nation on Jewish principles. Our newfound power must be exercised not only to provide security for the Jewish people, but to serve as a platform to create a more just world based on Jewish principles and ideals.

Study can interfere with action

Sometimes study can get in the way. The rabbis concluded that “Study is greater because it leads to action” (Kiddushin 40b). Today, unfortunately, study sometimes actually impedes action. Sometimes, when the study of Torah is done wrong, it prevents necessary action rather than enabling it. Rav Aharon Lichtenstein (the Rosh Yeshiva in Yeshivat Har Etzion) writes powerfully about an experience that influenced his perspective on balancing learning with action.

A couple of years after we moved to Yerushalyim, I was once walking with my family in the Beit Yisrael neighborhood… We came to a corner, and found a merchant stuck there with his car. The question came up as to how to help him; it was a clear case of perika u-te’ina (helping one load or unload his burden). There were some youngsters there from the neighborhood, who judging by their looks, were probably ten or eleven years old. They saw that this merchant was not wearing a kippa. So they began a whole pilpul, based on the gemara in Pesahim (113b), about whether they should help him or not. They said, “If he walks about bareheaded, presumably he doesn’t separate terumot u-ma’asrot, so he is suspect of eating and selling untithed produce…” I wrote R. Soloveitchik a letter at that time, and told him of the incident. I ended with the comment, “Children of the age from our camp would not have known the gemara, but they would have helped him.” My feeling then was: Why, Ribbon shel Olam, must this be our choice? Can’t we find children who would have helped him and still know the gemara? Do we have to choose? I hope not; I believe not. If forced to choose, however, I would have no doubts where my loyalties lie: I prefer that they know less gemara but help him (By His Light, p. 249).

Thus, Rav Aharon teaches that when we do not act instinctively on our values, our Torah education has failed us. We have not cultivated a truly religious personality. The purpose of our learning is to help to develop the right instincts based upon our cherished values. Learning Torah and internalizing our cherished values properly should ensure that we are public exemplars at home and in the streets. The paradigmatic case of hillul Hashem (desecration of God’s Name) is in the financial realm (Yoma 86a), since this classically is the main realm where Jews would interact with non-Jews and thus convey their values and integrity. Religion is truly lived in the streets, not in the sanctuary. It is at work, in the checkout line, and in our leisure time where we put our values into practice. It is about how we vote, what we buy, and how we spend our free time.

The Jewish tradition is full of values and laws concerned with justice and we must bring integrity and rigor into that learning and appropriation process. If we wish to take a position and understand that Torah is meant to be lived and internalized with a subjective experience, then we need to leave our insular worlds and experience the suffering of others. The story is told of one of the Baal HaTanya (Shneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of Habad) who heard a baby cry in the house. When he went to soothe the infant he noticed his grandson still deeply engrossed in study. “Why did you not go to soothe the child?” asked the rebbe. His son responded, “I was so deeply engrossed in my learning that I did not even hear the child.” The rebbe retorted, “If the cry of another does not cause you to pause in your learning, then your Torah is null and void.” Religious life is not a naïve intellectual exercise. It requires engagement with the world and a deep responsiveness to the suffering of others. This experience will look different for each of us as we will be surrounded by and called toward different social justice responsibilities. Thus we must further a respectful and sophisticated discourse around the plurality of our values, commitments, and experiences.

Toward a brighter future

It is all too easy to neglect global suffering when it is remote. David Hume once suggested that individuals care more about a pain in their finger than about the loss of a life on the other side of the planet. Suffering and injustice become erased from our consciousness when it is not right before our eyes. Elie Weisel, in a speech in 1986, said: “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And, the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference. Because of indifference one dies before one actually dies” (US News & World Report). The prophetic voice and halakhic mandate do not allow us to retreat from responsibility.

Rambam writes that cynicism is the antithesis of the religious impulse. He explains that we must ultimately view every life choice as if our choice will tip the scale of the salvation of the world or the destruction of the world one way or another (Hilkhot Teshuvah). There is no room for cynicism or disengagement if the world and fate of all humanity rests upon our shoulders.

For years, I was the only observant Jew struggling to pray, keep kosher, observe Shabbat, and continue learning Torah on my own during service missions abroad. It was always lonely in the desert with my Gemara and shovel. Today, we have a growing culture of young observant Jews committed to creating grassroots change in society to better protect the vulnerable and attack injustice. We have many more obstacles to overcome but I remain very hopeful that the next generation of Orthodoxy will see social justice activism as a top fulfillment of the Torah’s calling.