Rabbi Mendel Bluming is the leader of the community through the Chabad Shul of Potomac and is often challenged with this question.
So I present you with a thought based on Jewish philosophy: Good is truly good because G-d chose it to be. G-d is not held down by anything, and could have chosen otherwise. He could have decided "Thou shalt steal," and "Do not help the poor and needy." Aiding old ladies across the street would be the wrong thing to do, but robbing them would be honorable. Now you may argue, any person with a healthy conscience knows that stealing is morally unacceptable and helping the needy is a righteous and upright action. But our conscience is also formed by G-d. If morality would be reversed, we would be wired accordingly. Luckily for all those old ladies crossing the street everywhere, G-d chose the other way around. Does this mean good isn't honestly good? Is morality nothing more than a whimsical fancy? Not in the slightest. Only humans are whimsical and random. G-d is absolute. Good is absolutely good not because of how good feels to me but because the Absolute One made it so. Morality is clarified by the infinite scale of G-d, not the finite nature of human feelings. The real question is this: without G-d, how can anything be good or evil? Who makes this choice? That's a really good question Rabbi Mendel Bluming and Rabbi Moss
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AuthorRabbi Mendel Bluming also dedicated six years to serving on the board of directors of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, where he received the Matthew H. Simon Rabbinical Award for exceptional communal leadership. Archives
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