There is an email letter being circulated among Jewish clergy inviting us to affirm a list of ten beliefs that reflect our understanding of what makes us uniquely Jewish and American. Given the considerable discord over some basic values in our country, I thought it would be meaningful to share this list with you. Not because I expect all to agree with them, but rather as a way of inviting reflection about your own core values and the extent to which certain Jewish principles might influence your own world view. I’ll share their values with you over the next several days as a reminder of some core beliefs that continue to guide a wide diversity of our Jewish spiritual leaders. I’ve grouped them under broad topics and included references that the authors believe inform these principles.

Our Basic Humanity

  • We believe that all people are the children of God, endowed with holiness, all equal in value. (Gen. 1:27)
  • We believe in welcoming the stranger, the alien in our midst, the one who lives with us. (Lev. 19:33)  We are commanded to love the stranger as ourselves.  We are a people of repeated migrations, descended from strangers in Egypt.
  • We believe in respect for others, especially for the strangers among us, for elders and those less fortunate, and all who struggle. We are commanded not to take advantage of the weakness of others, not to place a stumbling block before the blind. (Lev. 19:32; 19:14) We feel it is important to engage in acts of kindness and believe that we are in relationship with all people and should behave with compassion and empathy. (Avot 1:2)

I’m often struck by the nature of our discourse today that dismisses or misrepresents the essential humanity of those who exist outside of one’s own orbit. Whether they hold diverse opinions, hail from other nations, manifest needs different from our own, or are dependent upon others for their very survival, it is easy to resort to mean-spirited generalizations and false assumptions about what underlies their character. As a people that has tragically experienced truly evil dehumanization that resulted in wide-scale murder, it is incumbent upon us to strive to see the basic humanity in others. So doing we avoid jumping to presumptions of evil intent, immorality, ignorance, or trafficking in language that reflects a denial of basic rights. The values articulated above, derived from Jewish sources, compel us to resist those facile and human tendencies and strive to judge others with compassion and, in the words of Pirkei Avot, וֶהֱוֵי דָן אֶת כָּל הָאָדָם לְכַף זְכוּת –“judge all people on a scale that is weighted in their favor.”

—Rabbi Ron Stern