"As rabbis, our first responsibility in [Rabbis for Human Rights] is to uphold the Jewish tradition of human rights. However, international law is a secular expression of that same love for humanity. International law was not created to be a gun pressed against our heads, but to learn from the darkest chapters of human history and serve as secular expression of the very Jewish belief in the intrinsic sanctity of every human being. ...
There would be no need for the Torah to teach us that every human being is created in God's Image were this obvious to us. It would not need to command us time and time again to love the stranger if this came easy to us. Were we to enjoy perpetual peace and harmony, neither the Torah nor international law would need to place limits on what is permissible in times of war. Were there no natural human desires to acquire as much as we can for personal gain, neither the Torah nor international law would need to insist that we worry about the needs of others or teach us about economic justice. The Jewish tradition would not need to put a curb on greed or remind us that "The earth belongs to Adonai," and that not everything in our bank account is really ours. ...
Our Jewish tradition and international law are necessary because our legitimate desires to find meaning and a sense of belonging through religious, national and ethnic in-groups can lead us down the slippery slope to human right violations perpetrated against out-groups. Our understandable desire to take control of our destiny and again enjoy national sovereignty as an answer to two thousand years of oppression, humiliation and wanderings can lead all to justifying our exclusive rights to theLand of Israel
God did not give us Torah out of a naïve belief that we live in an ideal messianic world in which it would be easy to observe the Torah, but out of a loving understanding of our human foibles. God knows that we are capable of evil, but as the psalm quoted above continues, "You have made humanity little less than the Divine" (Psalms 8:6) God did not impose the yoke of the commandments in order to oppress us, but out of a desire to inspire towards a better and more holy reality in which we will be the first to benefit. We are taught that the Torah is a Tree of Life. We are to live by the commandments, not die by them. The authors of international law were not naïve idealists sitting in a bubble. They loved and believed in humanity, but were scarred and painfully aware of the depths to which humanity can sink.
The Torah of human rights is not designed for some other fantasy world where they are not necessary. They are a loving gift to our imperfect, bleeding, shattered and screaming world, where they are desperately necessary."
There would be no need for the Torah to teach us that every human being is created in God's Image were this obvious to us. It would not need to command us time and time again to love the stranger if this came easy to us. Were we to enjoy perpetual peace and harmony, neither the Torah nor international law would need to place limits on what is permissible in times of war. Were there no natural human desires to acquire as much as we can for personal gain, neither the Torah nor international law would need to insist that we worry about the needs of others or teach us about economic justice. The Jewish tradition would not need to put a curb on greed or remind us that "The earth belongs to Adonai," and that not everything in our bank account is really ours. ...
Our Jewish tradition and international law are necessary because our legitimate desires to find meaning and a sense of belonging through religious, national and ethnic in-groups can lead us down the slippery slope to human right violations perpetrated against out-groups. Our understandable desire to take control of our destiny and again enjoy national sovereignty as an answer to two thousand years of oppression, humiliation and wanderings can lead all to justifying our exclusive rights to the
God did not give us Torah out of a naïve belief that we live in an ideal messianic world in which it would be easy to observe the Torah, but out of a loving understanding of our human foibles. God knows that we are capable of evil, but as the psalm quoted above continues, "You have made humanity little less than the Divine" (Psalms 8:6) God did not impose the yoke of the commandments in order to oppress us, but out of a desire to inspire towards a better and more holy reality in which we will be the first to benefit. We are taught that the Torah is a Tree of Life. We are to live by the commandments, not die by them. The authors of international law were not naïve idealists sitting in a bubble. They loved and believed in humanity, but were scarred and painfully aware of the depths to which humanity can sink.
The Torah of human rights is not designed for some other fantasy world where they are not necessary. They are a loving gift to our imperfect, bleeding, shattered and screaming world, where they are desperately necessary."
excerpt from an email from Rabbi Arik Ascherman, Rabbis for Human Rights
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For the full message, see:
http://rhr.org.il/eng/index.php/2011/06/shavuot-thoughts-human-rights-were-designed-for-the-real-world/
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