Jewish Ethics

Jewish ethics are considered to be at the intersection of Judaism and the Western philosophical tradition of ethics. Like other types of religious ethics, the diverse literature of Jewish ethics primarily aims to answer a broad range of moral questions and, hence, may be classified as a normative ethics. For two millennia, Jewish thought has also grappled with the dynamic interplay between law and ethics. The tradition of rabbinic religious law (known as halakhah) addresses numerous problems often associated with ethics, including its semi-permeable relation with duties that are usually not punished under law.

Famous quotes containing the words jewish and/or ethics:

    Don: Why are they closed? They’re all closed, every one of them.
    Pawnbroker: Sure they are. It’s Yom Kippur.
    Don: It’s what?
    Pawnbroker: It’s Yom Kippur, a Jewish holiday.
    Don: It is? So what about Kelly’s and Gallagher’s?
    Pawnbroker: They’re closed, too. We’ve got an agreement. They keep closed on Yom Kippur and we don’t open on St. Patrick’s.
    Billy Wilder (b. 1906)

    Ethics and religion differ herein; that the one is the system of human duties commencing from man; the other, from God. Religion includes the personality of God; Ethics does not.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)