Can We Create a Socially Just World Using God's Compassion as a Model?

The two key terms are tzedakah (tzedek- justice) and mishpat (judgment).The word mishpat means the judgment given by the shofet (judge); hence the word can mean justice, norm, ordinance, legal right, law. The word tzedakah may be rendered by "righteousness."

While legality and righteousness are not identical, they must always coincide, the second being reflected in the first. It is exceedingly difficult to establish the exact difference in meaning of the biblical terms mishpat, justice, and tzedakah, righteousness (which in parallelism are often used as variants).

However, it seems that justice is a mode of action, righteousness a quality of the person. Significantly,the noun derived from shafat (to judge) is shofet, which came to mean a judge or arbitrator; while the noun from tsadak (to be just) is tsaddik, a righteous man.

Righteousness goes beyond justice. Justice is strict and exact, giving each person his due. Righteousness implies benevolence, kindness, generosity. Justice is a form, a state of equilibrium; righteousness has a substantive associated meaning. Justice may be legal; righteousness is associated with a burning compassion for the oppressed. When you extend a loan to a poor man, "you shall not sleep in his pledge; when the sun goes down, you shall restore to him the pledge, that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you; and it shall be righteousness to you before the Lord your God." (Deuteronomy 24:10-13).

It would be wrong to assume that there was a dichotomy of mishpat and kindess; "Justice was not equal justice but a bias in favor of the poor. Justice always leaned toward mercy for the widows and the orphans."

Divine justice involves His being merciful, compassionate. There God is waiting to be gracious to you; Therefore He exalts Himself to show mercy to you. For God is a God of justice; Blessed are all those who wait for Him. (Isaiah 30:18)

Justice dies when dehumanized, no matter how exactly it may be exercised. Justice dies when deified, for beyond all justice is God's compassion. The logic of justice may seem impersonal, yet the concern for justice is an act of love.

God's concern for justice grows out of His compassion for man. The prophets do not speak of a divine relationship to an absolute principle or idea, called justice. They are intoxicated with the awareness of God's relationship to His people and to all men.

Justice is not important for its own sake; the validity of justice and the motivation for its exercise lie in the blessings it brings to man. For justice, as stated above, is not an abstraction, a value. Justice exists in relation to a person, and is something done by a person.

An act of injustice is condemned, not because a person has been hurt. What is the image of a person? A person is a being whose anguish may reach the heart of God. "You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. IF you do afflict them, and they cry out to Me, I will surely hear their cry...if he cries to Me, I will hear, for I am compassionate." (Exodus 22:22,26) When Cain murdered his brother Abel, the words denouncing his crime did not proclaim: "You have broken the law." Instead we read: "And...the Lord said: What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to Me from the ground." (Genesis 4:10)

We bring Torah into the world when we strive to fulfill the highest ethical mandates in our relationships with others and with all of God’s creation. Partners with God in tikkun olam, repairing the world, we are called to help bring nearer the messianic age. We seek dialogue and joint action with people of other faiths in the hope that together we can bring peace, freedom and justice to our world. We are obligated to pursue tzedek, justice and righteousness, and to narrow the gap between the affluent and the poor, to act against discrimination and oppression, to pursue peace, to welcome the stranger, to protect the earth’s biodiversity and natural resources, and to redeem those in physical, economic and spiritual bondage. In so doing, we reaffirm social action and social justice as a central prophetic focus of traditional Reform Jewish belief and practice. We affirm the mitzvah of tzedakah, setting aside portions of our earnings and our time to provide for those in need. These acts bring us closer to fulfilling the prophetic call to translate the words of Torah into the works of our hands.