The value of rituals and morality in religion

The Ten Commandments, so the Bible tells us, were etched onto two tablets of stone for perpetuity. The first tablet lists our obligations to God, the second our duties to each other. The first is largely to be manifest in ritual, the second in moral conduct.

For liberals, to be religious is to be moral more than to observe rituals. Piety without ethics is hypocrisy. The prophets of the Hebrew Bible railed against those who observed rituals, but acted immorally. They taught ethical monotheism as the very core of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

However, most of our contemporaries who affirm their commitment to moral conduct describe themselves as secular. Normative Judaism disagrees with this self-assessment. Even if people only heed the commandments on the second of the two tablets, exponents of Judaism remind us that it, no less than the first, comes from God and makes for holiness.

Judaism doesn’t distinguish between religious and secular, only between holy and profane. It teaches that people who act morally are implicitly God-fearing, whether they acknowledge it or not. Though adamant self-styled secularists shun open manifestations of commitment to God, their efforts to live morally bring them into the realm of faith.

That’s why many religious leaders have no qualms about joining exponents of other faiths and women and men who describe themselves as non-religious in the struggle for justice and morality. When the Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel joined the Protestant Rev. Martin Luther King in the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in 1965, he said his feet were praying when he marched for freedom.

Similarly, though many of the founders of what later became the State of Israel described themselves as secular, the influential contemporary exponent of Judaism and the first chief rabbi in the country, Abraham Isaac Kook (18651935), regarded them as doing God’s work. Which prompts this question: If living by the precepts of the second tablet alone makes you religious, can you be religious by living primarily by the precepts of the first tablet, more concerned with rituals than morality?

Though philosophers and theologians through the ages have said yes, most contemporary adherents of Christianity, Islam and Judaism will emphatically say no. They see morality even more indispensable to religion than ritual and theology. The tensions between traditionalists and modernists are often about that.

In our time, many thoughtful and believing Muslims, Jews and Christians are horrified when they hear of corrupt religious leaders or of clergy who sexually abuse those in their charge or incite adherents to acts of violence. They regard their piety as a sham and accuse them of bringing religion into disrepute. Their colleagues who protect abusers or turn a blind eye are often also castigat- ed. Whether or not the theology of the adherents of the first tablet is sound, their practices are considered to be unacceptable in our time unless they’re rooted in moral conduct.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, named by Newsweek and the Forward as one of America’s 50 most influential Jews, is troubled by this issue.

In a recent article that has appeared in several publications, he admits that “one can indeed be religious and be unethical” on the grounds that “none of the religious traditions of the world is absolutely perfect.”

That’s why it’s not enough to “merely submit to religious teachings or authorities.” Yanklowitz insists that “religious communities cannot be afraid of drawing upon moral wisdom outside of the text.”

That’s also the contribution of great exponents of authentic religion, such as Heschel, King, Kook and countless others. They taught us how to try to live as faithful followers of the commanding God.

Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel said his feet were praying when he marched with Martin Luther King

Dow Marmur is rabbi emeritus of Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple. His column appears every four weeks.