The Jewish contribution to morality is found in the Torah’s open critique of despotism as that exhibited by a form of absolute power in the hands of the pharaoh of Egypt who was confronted with Moses. Among the commandments that the Jews must observe in memory of their passage in Egypt figure that of loving the foreigner. Included in this commandment is to welcome and not to hate the Egyptians because “you were foreigners in their country”. Torah requires people to practice love and respect across national and cultural borders. This injunction found in the Torah was also the guiding light of the world. Our fathers were the first to apply these lofty principles as a coherent philosophy of human development. They were the first to teach us and show us that the evil our generation has had to to face and overcome was racism and division within humanity. It is only when this evil will be defeated and overthrown as we see freedom and prosperity. Like the Hebrews of old, our generation needs to learn morals from the painful lessons of the past. The sufferings were blind. So the respect and love we have for each other must also be blind, to eradicate the poison of racism and the thought of division that the colonialists have attempted to impose on Africans. By designating racism as the main scourge of our time thatattempted to impose on Africans. By designating racism as the main scourge of our time that we must eradicate as a deadly disease, our leaders have entrusted us with a spiritual task at the end of which shines the redemptive light of a humanity finally conscious of its own mission and its own purpose. As a united human family, we will be proud of each other and, there will come a time when “men will learn to see themselves as they are in the eyes of G‑d.”
The Jewish Contribution to Morality
