JUDAISM TEACHES THAT ALL LIFE IS PRECIOUS.  It's a radical concept, revolutionary really.  Most of us don't actually believe it; or perhaps more correctly put, we don't act on that belief.  Interestingly, it's the hallmark of Judaism. It's a religious syllogism:

1.    When God created mankind, He made him in the likeness of God; male and female He created them. (Genesis 5:1-2)

2.    You shall be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy. (Lev. 19:2)

3.    Therefore, all humans are holy.

That which is holy is precious. All life is precious.

If we believe all life is precious, in practical terms, it means:

1.    We'd provide health care for all citizens in life threatening situations;

2.    We'd provide basic food, clothing and shelter to all citizens who are incapable to provide for themselves;

3.    We'd provide equal access to justice to all citizens;

4.    We'd tax ourselves equitably to protect the preciousness of life.

This is not politics.  This is principled religion.  Politics is preferring a particular political party or program to achieve these ends. The ends are religious practice that logically flow from the belief that we are all created equally in God's image. All life is precious.  But many religious people espouse religion more than practicing it.

A man was murdered in a parking lot in Florida because the music in his car was too loud.  Someone in the car turned it down.  He turned it back up. The man in another car who had asked for the music to be lowered shot the man playing the music multiple times.  Apparently neither thought to move either car to a different spot in the parking lot. 

If it had been me playing the music too loudly, no one would believe that I should have been killed for that offense. But it was a middle aged white man accusing a teenage black man in Florida.  Therefore, some people think it's plausible, without a shred of evidence other than the testimony of the accused, that the black man had a shotgun and threatened the white man.  But if we believed life is precious there'd be no reasonable defense for killing a man in cold blood.  "Hey, mister, why didn't you just move your car if you didn't like the music in the parking spot?"  Instead he chose, "Stand your ground." And a man, a human being created in God's own image, is dead.

What does it mean to be religious? Does it mean Shabbat candles and High Holy Day repentance? Does it mean eating the right foods and fasting on Yom Kippur?  It can.  But principally it means acting upon the dictum that all life is precious. The rest follows from that ideal.

Some years ago during January I was preparing to serve a Sunday afternoon meal at the reStart Shelter. The kitchen managers were always either current or former residents of the shelter, and therefore were intimately familiar with homelessness.  I said to the kitchen manager, "I feel bad for the people who are here because of bad luck."  The manager looked at me and said, "Mister, there ain't nobody here who isn't here because of some bad choice they made."  I was shocked.  If it's their bad choices, why am I helping them out?

Philip Seymour Hoffman made some bad choices as a result of a past addiction and the recent need for painkillers.  All of America grieved the loss of a great actor.  But he died because of his bad choices.  In the aftermath, an MIT professor, Seth Mnookin, publically wrote of his own struggle with addiction and the bad choices he made in his life, and how he must counter them even now.  As it happens, I knew Mr. Mnookin's grandparents.  I buried his grandfather.  He was a wonderful man.  And I feel sympathy as a result for Mr. Mnookin the grandson, who will be challenged perhaps everyday of his life for as long as he lives by past bad choices.  And I have made a few bad choices myself in my own time. I would like the forgiveness of others, and perhaps their acceptance that I have done my best.  Maybe they could even accept me into their lives with all of my bad choices.  Then how, if I would like their mercy, would I believe that anyone else's life is less precious than my own?  How can I condemn a person, born with fewer privileges and acquiring less education, to live without the fundamentals in life?  Is not his/her life as precious as my own, or Mr. Mnookin's, whose righteous grandfather I knew and therefore feel sympathy for the plight of the grandson?

I believe in a spiritual life.  I believe in afterlife, and the one God of Israel, and the mitzvot given to the Jewish people.  I am a Jew.  But I know that first and foremost, God requires that, regardless of my beliefs, I act like a Jew.  Jews believe that life is precious and act accordingly.

At Beth Torah we don't judge anyone but ourselves, and our own actions.  I want to live as though your life is as precious to me as it is to you.  Judaism is a revolutionary religion.  God requires no less.