The Hebrew Bible contains multiple provisions to ensure that no one would go hungry. The corners of the field, forgotten sheaves of grain, gleanings that drop from the hands of the gleaner, and small clusters of grapes left on the vine were to be given to the poor.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of caring for the less fortunate by allowing them access to resources left behind in agricultural practices.
Jonathan Sacks highlights a compassionate principle from the Hebrew Bible that mandates the leaving of certain portions of crops for the poor. This action reflects a deeper societal responsibility to ensure that all individuals, especially those in need, can have access to food and resources. It emphasizes the ethical duty to support and uplift the less fortunate in our communities.
In practice
In a community service meeting discussing food distribution, this quote could emphasize the necessity of provisions for the poor.
Stabilizing the euro is one thing, healing the culture that surrounds it is another. A world in which material values are everything and spiritual values nothing is neither a stable state nor a good society. The time has come for us to recover the Judeo-Christian ethic of human dignity in the image of God.
Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent.
Jews read the books of Moses not just as history but as divine command. The question to which they are an answer is not, 'What happened?' but rather, 'How then shall I live?' And it's only with the exodus that the life of the commands really begins.
Why did God create mankind? Because God likes stories.
Find people not to envy but to admire. Do not the profitable but the admirable deed. Live by ideals.
Some years ago there was a study to discover the most stressful occupation. It turned out not to be the head of a large business, football manager or prime minister, but rather: bus driver.
We need language to tell us who we are, how we feel, what we're capable of- to explain the pains and glory of our existence.
What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right to take or endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there will be no limit to their cruelty.
Cats didn't start as mousers. Weasels and snakes and dogs are more efficient as rodent-control agents. I postulate that cats started as psychic companions, as Familiars, and have never deviated from this function.
It is enough for me to hear someone talk sincerely about ideals, about the future, about philosophy, to hear him say βwe" with a certain inflection of assurance, to hear him invoke "others" and regard himself as their interpreter - for me to consider him my enemy.
The Lord withdraws when He is denied, and what is taken by the undeserving does not avail them unto salvation, since the saving grace is turned into ashes and holiness departs.
Those thoughts are truth which guide us to beneficial interaction with sensible particulars as they occur, whether they copy these in advance or not.
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