Issue: 7.01 1/11/2006
by: Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D.
Jewish Values Vs. Conventional Values
One of the primary factors behind many of the world's problems today is the sharp discrepancies between Jewish values and those believed and practiced by much of the rest of the world, including many Jews. Consider:
 
   

Jewish Values

  

Conventional Values

  
  1 Prophets   Profits  
  2 Love your neighbor as yourself   Suspect your neighbor as yourself  
  3 Just weights; just measures   Let the buyer beware.  
  4 People created in God's image   People treated as consumers.  
  5 God   Me.  
  6 The Earth is the Lord's   The earth exploited for convenience and profit.  
  7  People are co-workers with God in efforts to improve the world.   Do your own thing. Seek personal advantage.  
  8 Sanctity of every life.   Lives endangered to increase gain.  
  9 Tzedek, tzedek tirdof (Justice, justice shall you pursue.   Societies filled with injustice.  
  10 Tza'ar ba'alei chayim (kindness to animals)   Animals treated cruelly to meet human desires  
  11 God provides food for all; Share your bread with the hungry.   Millions die annually, due to lack of food; "enough for the world's need, but not its greed."  
  12 Leave corners of the field and gleanings of the harvest for the poor.   Centralized help; let government handle social problems.  
  13 I am my brother's keeper.   "What’s in it for me?"  
  14 Sumptuary laws that limit expenditures on simchas.   Lavish affairs; wastefulness.  
  15 Sabbatical year; let the ground lie fallow.   Fertility of soil destroyed by planting single-crops year after year.  
  16 Jubilee; redistribution of wealth.   Growing rich-poor gaps.  
  17 To be.   To have; to consume; to appear.  
  18 Dignity of labor.   Little pride in work.  
  19 Seek peace and pursue it.   ‘My country right or wrong’; excessive arms expenditures.  
  20 Be kind to the stranger.   Discrimination and animosity between groups.  
           

In order to solve the many critical problems that the world now faces, it is essential that the world be influenced by Jewish values!

Dr. Schwartz is Professor Emeritus of the College of Staten Island and a frequent contributor, and longtime family member of the Gantseh Megillah.
You can read some of his articles here in the Megillah and at  JewishVeg.com/schwartz
Richard H. Schwartz is a published author and a Professor Emeritus at the College of Staten Island. You can visit his Web site at http://jewishveg.com/schwartz
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