Whereas the laws of the nations of the world are guided by parameters of rights and obligations (a citizen’s rights and obligations toward society, the state, the government) the Torah is guided by parameters of positive commandments and negative commandments (with mitsvot between man and God) and by parameters of hesed and respect for the Divine image in man (with interpersonal mitsvot).  This point explains the Rambam’s distinction, in Sefer HaMitsvot, between perpetual mitsvot and temporary mitsvot and, mainly, the parameter of “foundation” mitsvot.  His distinction is referring to the element of hesed inherent in the mitsvot.

The issue of rights and obligations is confusing and entangling, because rights and obligations constituted two sides of the same coin.  In speaking of two separate individuals, my obligation to the other becomes his right in relation to me, and vice versa.  The axis of rights and obligations is the axis around which the moral system revolves.  According to the non-Jewish perception, morality begins only with a social reality, in a situation of two people relating to one another.  The individual alone is not subject, supposedly, to any moral framework. 

The Torah obligates even the individual standing before his Possessor, to relate morally.  The individual is obligated by a moral obligation even in relation to himself, because he does not belong to himself but to his Creator.  One who commits suicide, or places himself in danger out of his own free will is judged as a murderer.  “Do not cut bald scars into your head, and in your flesh do not cut any mark,” the Torah warns. 

Therefore a moral system cannot be built upon separation between rights and obligations, but only upon an attitude of respect and hesed toward all.  Including toward oneself.  And even toward one’s enemy.  You must unload your enemy’s donkey before you load up your friend’s donkey, comands the Torah.

The megila of Ruth deals with gemilut hasadim – doing deeds of generous kindness – because the element of hesed is the central element of the Torah, which is called the Torah of hesed.  “A world of hesed shall be built.”   And Matan Torah, the giving of the Torah entails an expression of the Creator’s hesed toward his people Israel.  “The Holy Blessed One wished to merit Yisrael – therefore he increased Torah and mitsvot for them.”

“Your people are my people, your God is my God, etc.”  Ruth obligates herself to observe all the commandments by these words.  (See Hazal who specify all of the practical halachot that are alluded to with every word of these passages.)

In spite of this, for one who seeks to convert and to join the assembly of Israel, accepting the mitsvot alone is not adequate.  “And she saw that she was exerting herself to follow after her.”  What else did Naomi see about Ruth, othe than her absolute willingness and devotion to acceptance of the mitsvot?

Enslavement to the Codes: A Problem that Only Matan Torah Resolves.

Whereas all other religions were born on the vertical axis of “revelation”, in which a dreamer dreams that God has revealed Himself to him – the element of revelation exists also in Judaism, though not to an individual and not in a dream but rather “and God descended upon Mount Sinai” in the presence of millions of fully conscious witnesses – nevetheless Judaism is not built mainly upon revelation, but rather, mainly, on Matan Torah.

Revelation has but one purpose: the bond between man and God.  Round this axis, the world cannot turn: It pushes aside the relationship between man and the universe in favor of the axis connecting man andCreator. 

The Torah was given to man as guidance, obligating a way of life that is based on the here and now, which joins the man-Creator axis as its tangible expression – revelation is made tangible along the axis of space and time.

Sanctifying the physical, sanctifying life, and raising it to revolve about the axis of revelation.  The flat plane, the field of practical endeavor, relates to the dimension of height – to the third scripture that resolves the conflicts of the two-dimentional plane.

The dimension of height, for its part, remains barren and lacking tangibility  as long as it lacks a basis in tangible reality.  These are not empty words but rather a most  detailed and precise relating to the dimension of reality in man, to his physical, social, and spiritual needs, as a three-dimensional unit that has been consolidated into one unit. 

This principle finds expression in the Torah’s attitude to all elements of human existence, including every aspect of it, including the cycle of the codes, in which flourish the harshest enslavements – those that are the most difficult to break free from. 

The Torah is the single cultural/spiritual approach that has discovered the solution to the fundamental, elemental problem of enslavement – a solution that is the only one of its kind, that precisely targets man’s goal in his universe.  This is the goal that he chooses out of his own free choice, and this goal then has the power to displace those goals that would choose man, that would enslave him to their own interests – for man is required to be enslaved “only to God alone”, and to free himself from any other enslavement.

What is the nature of these codes?  The self is surrounded by concentric circles of defense systems that belong to the technical mechanisms of the system of self-preservation: The ego.  Both the self and the ego have energy sources that activate man.  Each has its own goals.  However, only the self has goals that express human quality and human uniqueness.  The ego expresses the system of self-preservation: kina, ta’ava, kavod, “envy, lust, and honor.”  These activating mechanisms vie and quarrel with one another, producing “rotten fruit and children of harlotry”: Guilt feelings, vengefulness, hatred, and various other demons. 

Thus is the self surrounded by the cycle of survival.  The cycle nearest to the self is comprised of the conflict that begets psychological complexes and codes.  These codes are embedded within the depths of the cultural subconscious.  The individual does not recognize their role as an activator of behavior.  He perceives them as a first premise, as self-evident, and it never occurs to him to question their truth. 

The matter is far graver than he imagines to himself: These activating elements do not withstand the test of logic, or morality, or the self – including the self’s qualities and values.  Man is hopelessly enslaved to them – they are the equivalent of idolatry.  Every society has its own codes, such as the Polish mother’s blind attitude to the fruit of her womb, especially to sons, and especially to the son of old age.  Or such as stinginess and enslavement to money, in a certain society.   Or  orderliness, compulsive meticulousness, technical efficiency, etc. in another society.  Honor, and especially the honor of the family, in patriarchal societies, and so on.

These codes constitute the stone stumbled over, the block against, that most decisively determining value in man: The value of free choice.  When man comes up against one of the codes that control him, he loses his head, and his heart, and all that is most dear to him.  The mida of anger is the most faithful servant of the codes, and Hazal have already warned us that one who is angry is similar to one who serves idols. 

There is no doubt that man is more enslaved to his codes than to any physical lust in the world.  The Torah relates to the human reality, and it therefore assists man in freeing himself from the enslavements that derive from his animal side.  Halacha entails a counterweight, against the various enslavements, and therefore the Torah attaches all behavior to halacha.  Halacha belongs to the value-based / moral / spiritual dimension, and free choice plays a decisive role in this.

Thus the Sota, and nazir, which relate to the central weaknesses, sexuality and alcoholic addiction, which derive from physical lust, which reaches down to the depths of the codes.

Megilat Ruth relates to the issue of hesed, which is the eternal answer to all codes and social enslavements.  Instead of enslaving oneself to society, and to man in general, along comes hesed, arising out of free choice, and frees the self, including all the values of the self, springing it free; it leaps up and lands in the central arena of behavior.

When Ruth declares her faithfulness to every aspect of halacha of every kind, Naomi is still not convinced, until Ruth “exerts herself”, making an effort of the heart, for the language of the heart is the language par excellence of the self; the language of the heart breaks through all the cycles that block the self.

“And she saw that she was exerting herself with great effort.”  When Naomi saw that Ruth knew the language of the heart, the language of hesed, she accepted her.  The nazir only refrains from succumbing to the code that enslaves the language of the body; the Torah actually relates ambivalently to nazir-hood in general, absolutely giving preference to the language of the heart.

Even halacha runs the risk of becoming enslaved to the codes: This is the phenomenon of one-sided fanaticism, of fundamentalism, which pushes halacha toward the murky depths of the codes – the basic codes of sexuality and of eating – one person in regard to sexuality, another in regard to eating (exaggerated kashrut, obsessive anxiety over insects in food, etc.).