[Avodah] What is Jewish Art and Science?

[Professor L. Levine]

The following if from part of RSRH's commentary on Devarim 4:6.  YL


4:6 So keep [it] and carry [it] out; for that is your wisdom and your understanding
before the eyes of the nations, who will hear all these statutes and will say: So it is, indeed,
a wise and understanding nation, this great people!


Many are the arts and sciences that are the heritage of other civilized
nations, whereas the Jewish art and science is the art and science of building
up all of personal and national life on the dual basis of awareness of
God and duty to one’s fellow men. This is the art and science of the knowledge
and actualization of the Torah, the art and science of truth and of
harmony in life.


<Snip>


Your knowledge and art of living will be regarded by the
other nations as your distinguishing feature. You will be living proof of
the words of the ancient seer:  יַ֤פְתְּ אֱלֹהִים֙ לְיֶ֔פֶת וְיִשְׁכֹּ֖ן בְּאָֽהֳלֵי־שֵׁ֑ם : (Bereshis 9:27).
The art of beauty appealing to the senses is the heritage of other nations,
but the art of building tents, cities, states in which God dwells will be
found only among the descendants of Shem. Hence, if you will devote
yourselves to the knowledge and practice of the Torah, and live this way
before the eyes of the nations, your whole life will be a campaign for the
establishment of God’s kingdom on earth, built upon allegiance to God’s
Torah.


<Snip>


Other nations incessantly seek the standard of political wisdom that
would fit constantly changing conditions. However, the laws they create
are the product of human thought, which is shortsighted and perceives
only the superficial nature of things; hence, their laws are in a constant
state of flux, and what today is proclaimed as truth and justice is buried
tomorrow as pernicious folly.

Only the Jewish people has an eternal standard of duty for the whole
being and will of private and public life. With firm trust the Jewish people
subordinates to this standard the personal and national life of all times,
confident that through this subordination to God’s Torah it becomes
master of its own fate.

Like its Torah, its history, too, is given and set in advance. An entire
nation, including all its generations, devotes itself to the knowledge and
practice of the Law, and by virtue of this devotion Israel is a great nation
in the eyes of the nations. They hear of all these laws that shape Jewish
personal and national life, and acknowledge that this great nation is a
national society full of wisdom and insight!

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