Essays on Ethics: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible

The Torah in Genesis 1 is telling us something radical. The reality to which Torah is a guide is moral and ethical. The question Genesis seeks to answer is not "How did the universe come into being?" but "How then shall we live?" This is the Torah's most significant paradigm shift.… For the first time, religion was ethicised. Why was Abraham ordered to sacrifice his son? Was Jacob right in stealing the blessings? Why were we commanded to destroy Amalek? What was Moses' sin in hitting the ro...