Judaism is not an enemy of liberal values

We are here today because many people have been told a lie.

The lie is simple: Judaism and liberal values are in conflict. One must choose between being Jewish and being democratic, between tradition and equality, between Jewish identity and universal human dignity.

That lie is not new. It is just specially loud these days.

Judaism is not afraid of liberal values. Judaism gave birth to many of them.

Let us start with the most basic principle: the infinite value of human life. The Torah states, in words later echoed by the Mishnah: “Whoever saves a single life, it is as if they saved an entire world.” Not a Jewish life, that was added on a later stage. A human life.

That idea, that every individual life carries infinite worth, is not Greek, not Roman, not modern. It is biblical. It is Jewish. From that principle flows everything else: democracy, equality, limits on power, concern for minorities, feminism, and the pursuit of peace.

Take self-defense, for example. The Talmud famously says: “If someone comes to kill you, rise and kill them first.” This sentence is often quoted and very often abused. However, the rabbis were painfully clear: killing is permitted only when the threat is imminent, clear, and cannot be stopped in any other way.

Not hypothetical. Not collective. Not out of fear, anger, or revenge. We are not a culture of bloodlust. We are a legal and moral system terrified of spilling blood, even when forced to do so. Judaism allows killing only to protect life, never to glorify death.

What about the redemption of captives? The Talmud teaches: “There is no greater mitzvah than redeeming captives.” None. Because captivity is not only physical imprisonment, it is hunger, terror, humiliation, torture, and often sexual violence.

The rabbis understood this deeply. In one haunting Talmudic story, Jewish boys and girls captured by the Romans choose to end their lives rather than be abused by their captors. The story is not there to glorify death. It is there to show the depth of cruelty captivity entails and why freeing captives is an absolute moral priority. A society that abandons its captives abandons its soul. This is not left-wing. This is not right-wing. This is Jewish.

Let us speak clearly about war and responsibility. Judaism does not sanctify war, but it does recognize its necessity. When a war is defensive, when the community is under existential threat, it becomes what the tradition calls a milchemet mitzvah, a mandatory war. In such a war, Torah study does not exempt anyone. Everyone is drafted: Kings. Priests. Scholars. There is no spiritual aristocracy that gets to outsource the burden of defense. Shared danger demands shared responsibility.

What about power? Judaism was revolutionary in one essential way: it never allowed absolute power. Not even kings stood above the law. The king was bound by commandments. Limited by priests. Confronted by prophets. Subject to moral criticism.When King David sins, he is publicly rebuked. When King Ahab abuses power, Elijah stands against him. When the Hasmoneans tried to combine political and religious authority, when they claimed both crown and priesthood, the rabbis condemned them, and history did too. Judaism understood something very early: concentrated power corrupts the soul and destroys society. Separation of powers is not a modern invention. It is a Jewish instinct.

A painful, but necessary truth: Having a murderous, fanatical, sadistic enemy does not give us permission to abandon our values. Judaism does not say: “They are cruel, therefore we may be cruel.” On the contrary, the harder the reality, the higher the ethical demand.

If we take life, it must be to protect life, not to express hatred. Not out of racism. Not out of revenge. The Torah forbids what it calls a mitzvah haba’ah ba’averah—a mitzvah that comes through a transgression. In simple language: The end does not justify the means.

You do not defend holiness by becoming brutal. You do not protect life by dehumanizing others. You do not strengthen Judaism by betraying its moral spine. This is not weakness. This is discipline.

And yes, this includes women. Judaism insists that women are created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God. The prophets speak in women’s voices. The Talmud records women arguing law with men. Israeli thinkers, from Yeshayahu Leibowitz to Ruth Calderon, have insisted that ethical responsibility, not brute force, is the heart of Jewish power. A Judaism that silences women, excludes them, or treats their suffering as secondary is not traditional. It is distorted. Judaism is not tribal morality. It is universal responsibility rooted in particular history.

As the prophet Isaiah says: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” Not domination. Not supremacy. Moral example.

I write this today to say something simple and unfashionable: Judaism is not the enemy of liberal values. Judaism is one of their deepest sources.

Democracy. Equality. Pluralism. Respect for minorities. Peace. Feminism. The infinite value of life. These are not foreign imports. They are part of our oldest moral grammar.

Our task is not to choose between being Jewish and being human. Our task is to refuse that false choice altogether. Because a Judaism without ethics is empty. And liberalism without roots is fragile. We must insist on both.