Talk:Jewish ethics

Article organization
Put in a new introduction that tries to cover a broad range of methods and authors within "Jewish ethics". Hope you like it.

Perhaps we should put most of the remainder of the article into a section that might be entitled "Sampling of themes in Jewish ethics". This would include: 2 Jewish family ethics, 3 Altruistic virtues, 4 Prophetic ethics, 5 Ethics in rabbinic literature, 6 Justice, 7 Truth and Peace, 8 Charity, 9 Peace and hatred, 10 Sanctification of God's name, 11 Animals and the environment, 12 Bioethics.

Frankly, I would be inclined to delete these sections because they do not seem appropriate for such a diverse topic in an encyclopedia. Comments? HG

(Sorry, I made the changes without logging in. user: HG)


 * This seems good to me. I also tried to organize the discussion of Jewish ethical texts and trends into a section titled "Jewish Ethical Literature." Moreh405 (talk) 13:40, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and tried to turn the various themes listed in the article into subcategories under two headings, one on principles and virtues and the other on areas of applied ethics.Moreh405 (talk) 14:24, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I've now done a fair amount of cleanup on the structure of the article. It seems to me that its most urgent problem at this point is that it relies too heavily on the text of the Jewish Encylopedia. But I hope that the current organization will be helpful. Moreh405 (talk) 00:07, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

biblical ethics
What about the ethics written by Shlomo HaMelekh in Mishle ? (which is by the way the source for many jewish ethical books) And what about Rabbeinu Bachye's ben Asher who in his commentary to the torah begins each portion explaining a verse in Mishle--69.114.174.131 20:51, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


 * According to Genesis, were it not for the sin that Adam and Eve committed in eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge about good and evil, we would not know the difference between what is right and what is wrong. This was the way that a knowledge of ethical behavior began and we should be glad that that serpent caused us to begin to sin, because without it we would still be naked and unaware of the philosophy and meaning of our lives. Macrocompassion (talk) 09:59, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

perkei avot
perkei avot cant just be called ethics, b/c it doesnt just say the law, but whats beyond the letter of the law "milsa dichasidusa". for ethics you will need to learn musser which is not only ethics from the musser movement but from many sources for example Mishle, sefarim that explain Mishle, in RaMBaM's hilchot de'ot it explains which traits a person must stay away from, in the Tanya it explains how to fight depression etc. But in perkei avot which is devided in 6 chapters are not all devoted to ethics for example the 6th chpter is called kinyan torah and lists the virtues of the torah--69.114.174.131 21:16, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Marriage and sexual relations
Marriage is called kidushin, or 'making holy'. To set up a family home is to take part in an institution imbued with holiness. Celibacy is regarded as wrong because in the Torah (Genesis 2:18 and Isaiah 45:18), God told Jews to multiply. Sex is not considered acceptable outside marriage, but it is an important part of the love and care shown between partners. Sexual relations are forbidden during the time of the woman's period. A week after her period has ended, she will go to the mikveh (the ritual immersion pool) where she will fully immerse herself and become ritually clean again. Sexual relations may then resume. Married couples need to find other ways of expressing their love for each other during these times, and many say that the time of abstention enhances the relationship. Adultery, incest, and homosexuality are prohibited in the Torah (Leviticus 18:6–23). However, Reform and Liberal Jews accept homosexuality, and homosexuals are not persecuted by Orthodox Jews. Prostitution is forbidden, but this is tempered with understanding and a caring attitude for people who, for reasons of poverty, may have chosen to resort to prostitution. -- HIZKIAH (User • Talk) 17:09, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm thinking about this, and while Kidushin is part of marriage, it's actually an engagement (accepting the ring), not the marriage, which is Nissuin. (see http://www.faqs.org/faqs/judaism/FAQ/04-Observance/section-64.html). Also, I'm kind of unclear what "homosexuals are not persecuted" means. In Judaism, there is no official persecution that is really any different than this - Judaism hasn't had any real punishment mechanism for a couple hundred years. Davidmanheim (talk) 16:47, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

heading box
is someone able to put in the box for the links to headings that you see on most wikipedia pages Watters (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 07:05, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Jewish ethics and interfaith relations
There should maybe be discussion on how Jewish ethics applies to interfaith relations as well as general relations with non-Jews, other than the obvious Noachide laws. Jewish commentators will often describe groups opposed to Israel like Hamas and the PLO as immoral (cf  [ http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41433 ]).

Pope Pius XII gets the same kind of treatement as Yasser Arafat, unanimously branded immoral by modern Jewish commentators. The books of Daniel Goldhagen (i.e. A Moral Reckoning and Hitler's Willing Executioners) are symptomatic of this tendency to scapegoat the greater part of gentiles as immoral. ADM (talk) 23:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * No, no! This black-painting habit belongs not to the Jews nor Judaism per se, but to the current state of Israel and various forms of Zionism. Instead we should focus on Judaism as taught by various rabbinic scholars, pro-Israeli or anti-Israeli. Since this is about the Jewish ethics, it would be better balanced if we regard historical rabbis as much as modern rabbis. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 19:08, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * (And, Jews being negative against Christians for long term persecutions, I'm willing to forgive. Pardon for my forerunners' errors, please!) ... said: Rursus (bork²) 19:42, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Golden rule?
Just a question: I sometimes use to call the Golden Rule for "Yeshua-Hillel's Law", since it is independently defined by Rabbi Hillel and Jesus, or not too improbably Jesus borrowing it from Rabbi Hillel. How wide spread is Rabbi Hillel's Law in the minds of the Jews – could it be considered a central principle in Judaism ethic? It could be regarded central according to the Christian Bible, but Christian tend to forget it and instead concentrate on the 10 (as we count it) commandments. ... said: Rursus (bork²) 19:17, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Surely Hillel's call for ceasing to offend one's neighbor is an ancillary rule to that of the less practical love of the neighbor as written in Leviticus and elsewhere. Further, it is much easier to cease offending more distant neighbors than in more directly loving them. So it seems to me that if we follow Hillel's instruction, we will at least be able to approach to the golden rule of Leviticus. Macrocompassion (talk) 09:46, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

rabbinic contemporaries
An earlier version of this article claimed that Hillel and Akiva were contemporaries. Not true. Updated Stormj (talk) 01:04, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Jewish utilitarianism
The article should maybe show the contemporary role of the philosophy of utilitarianism in Jewish ethics. For instance, in order to determine what is correct in a given situation, Jews are usually told to ask themselves what is good for the Jews. Most Jews would not all respond in the same way however, given that they are also taught that it is good to have many diverging opinions, something that might be called Jewish pluralism. ADM (talk) 19:20, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Correct spelling: Mussar or Musar
The almost 8 year old Mussar movement (2 "ss's") article was recently changed to Musar movement (1 "s") following discussions between a very small group of editors. Wider input is requested to arrive at fuller WP:CONSENSUS. Please see the discussions at Talk:Musar movement. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 06:28, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

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Ethical dilemmas stemming from the Gaza Conflict
Since October 7, 2023, Israel and Hamas have been at war with enormous consequences for the Israeli people, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and the Jewish Diaspora. Because of the savagery of the violence, there has been a call to re-examine whether the existence of Israel (https://w.wiki/94DM) is a zero-sum game (https://www.c-span.org/video/?531835-1/rep-rashida-tlaib-news-conference-israel-ceasefire-gaza) or whether an accommodation can be made between the parties to the conflict (https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/how-to-end-the-civil-war-in-israel-palestine). Because the level of violence has been astounding (https://jacobin.com/2023/12/israel-defense-forces-gaza-palestine-civilian-death-casualties-women-children-journalists-war), there are many calls to re-examine Jewish ethics (https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-27/ty-article/.premium/war-is-always-hell-moral-philosophers-on-the-ethics-of-israels-battle-with-hamas/0000018c-10b8-d2ae-afcf-35fabe230000 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWsG2lpbmwU https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/12/opinion/israel-gaza-war-crimes.html ). Bgold04 (talk) 13:40, 3 February 2024 (UTC)