sm and the Kingdom of God

1. The soul of the Jewish religion is its ethics. Its God is the
Fountainhead and Ideal of morality. At the beginning of the summary of the
ethical laws in the Mosaic Code stands the verse: "Ye shall be holy, for I
the Lord your God am holy."(1527) This provides the Jew with the loftiest
possible motive for perfection and at the same time the greatest incentive
to an ever higher conception of life and life's purpose. Accordingly, the
kingdom of God for whose coming the Jew longs from the beginning until the
end of the year,(1528) does not rest in a world beyond the grave, but (in
consonance with the ideal of Israel's sages and prophets) in a complete
moral order on earth, the reign of truth, righteousness and holiness among
all men and nations. Jewish ethics, then, derives its sanction from God,
the Author and Master of life, and sees its purpose in the hallowing of
all life, individual and social. Its motive is the splendid conception
that man, with his finite ends, is linked to the infinite God with His
infinite ends; or, as the rabbis express it, "Man is a co-worker with God
in the work of creation."(1529)

2. Both the term ethics (from the Greek _ethos_) and morality (from the
Latin _mores_) are derived from custom or habit. In distinction to this,
the Hebrew Scripture points to God's will as perceived in the human
conscience as the source of all morality. Those ethical systems which
dispense with religion fail to take due cognizance of the voice of duty
which says to each man: "Thou shalt" or "Thou shalt not!" Duty
distinguishes man from all other creatures. However low man may be in the
scale of freedom, he is moved to action by an impulse from within, not by
a compulsion from without. Of course, morality must travel a long road
from the primitive code, which does not extend beyond the near kinsmen, to
the ideal of civilized man which encompasses the world. Still man's steps
are always directed by some rule of duty. The voice of conscience, heard
clearly or dimly, is not, as is so often asserted, the product, but the
original guiding factor of human society. The divine inner power of
morality has made man, not man morality. Morality and religion,
inseparably united in the Decalogue of Sinai, will attain their perfection
together in the kingdom of God upon the Zion heights of humanity.

3. Ethical elements, greater or smaller, enter into all religions and
codes of law of the various na