ייִדישער מחשבֿה אויף תהילים 15:1

Scripture has already gathered together everything we introduced on curbing the senses in saying: "Who among us shall dwell with the consuming fire? ... He that walks righteously, and speaks uprightly; [he that despises the gain of oppression, that keeps his hands from the holding of bribes, that stops his ears from hearing of blood, and shuts his eyes from seeing evil]"(Yeshaya 33:14).
And afterwards, the wise man gathered them and added to them the heart in saying: "There are six things that the L-ord hates, and the seventh is an abomination of His soul; Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood; A heart that thinks wicked thoughts; feet that hasten to run to evil; A false witness who incites quarrels among brothers" (Mishlei 6:16), and likewise they are found in the Psalm 15: "O G-d, who will dwell in Your tent?..."

My own view of the principle enunciated by the master is as follows: The Blessed One, for His great Name's sake, commanded to Israel through Moses His prophet six hundred and thirteen mitzvoth, designating reward for each one of them. But there is no doubt that the reward is not the same for each of them, as our sages have stated (Avoth 2:1): "Run to perform a lesser mitzvah as a greater one, for you do not know the reward of mitzvoth." And there are one or two, or two or three or more, the reward of which is equivalent to that of many other mitzvoth combined. But the Torah did not wish to specify these rewards so that men would not pursue only those mitzvoth whose reward is relatively great and forsake those of relatively lesser reward, as mentioned in the Midrashim. And this concealment and lack of specification was designed to result in gain. For, not knowing which of the mitzvoth promised greater reward, all men would pursue all mitzvoth, saying: "Perhaps this is the mitzvah of greatest reward and value." This would result in one's attaining the greatest possible perfection of which he was capable, through his fulfilling all of the mitzvoth. And this was the intent of the Blessed One, the Giver of the Law, in this concealment. And according to this cogent premise, it is possible, and, indeed, true that in performing one mitzvah perfectly all of his days one may attain life in the world to come. But this is not true of all mitzvoth. For there are certain mitzvoth which, in themselves, will not result in life in the world to come and which will be rewarded in this world alone and enter into the category of (Kiddushin 39b): "He whose merits are more than his transgressions is considered to have fulfilled the entire Torah and not to have omitted even one letter of it." But there is no doubt that there are some mitzvoth of such great value and reward that even a few of them will cause one to merit life in the world to come. This is the intent of (Makkoth 23b): "R. Simlai expounded: 'Six hundred and thirteen mitzvoth were given to Moses at Sinai… David came and established them at eleven, as it is written (Psalms 15): "Who will dwell in Your tent…" Isaiah came and established them at six…"

Judaism has always believed, as we said at the outset, that man has it within his power to take fate ‎into his own hands and shape it into the destiny of a free life, a life full of meaning and saturated ‎with the joy of living, turning isolation into aloneness and disparagement into significance. For this ‎reason Judaism places so great an emphasis on the principle of free will. [And] for this reason ‎‎[Judaism] so appreciates the human intellect, which has it within its power to free man from his ‎enslavement to nature and allow him to rule over his environment and its blind circumstances and ‎subjugate it to his will. The Community of Israel is obligated to use this free will in all facets of life, ‎and especially for the good of the State of Israel. If secular Zionism, in the end, comes to ‎understand that the establishment of the State of Israel has not weakened the paradoxical fate of ‎Jewish aloneness, but, on the contrary, that the incomprehensible state of, “I shall take you unto ‎Me as a people” (Exodus 6:7) has become even more pronounced in the international arena, it ‎must ask itself the age-old question: “What is your occupation; from where do you derive . . . and ‎from what people do you come?”(Jonah 1:8).The question is asked in any event; if not by the Jew, ‎then by the gentile. We must answer with pride that, “We fear the Lord, the God of the heavens” ‎‎(Jonah 1:9). Our historic obligation today is to raise ourselves from a people to a holy nation, from ‎the Covenant of Egypt to the Covenant of Sinai; from a compelled existence to an original way of ‎life, permeated with morality and religious principles, that transcends history. We must go from ‎being an Encampment to being a Nation. The task of religious Zionism is to fuse the two covenants, ‎the Covenant of Egypt and the Covenant of Sinai; the covenants of fate and destiny, of isolation ‎and loneliness. This task entails self-perfection by suffering; the out-pouring of lovingkindness ‎brought about by combining all the elements of the nation and uniting them in one community, “A ‎nation unique in the land”(II Samuel 7:23),and the readiness to pray for one’s friend and to feel his ‎joy and his grief. The goal of this self-repair is the purposeful consecration of self and ascent to the ‎‎“Mountain of God” (Psalms 15:1).One great goal unites us all. A single exalted vision captures our ‎hearts. One Torah (Written and Oral) directs us all to a unified end — the fulfillment of the vision of ‎aloneness and the vision of the sanctity of an Encampment/People that ascends to the level of a ‎Community/Nation and ties its lot to the destiny that was proclaimed to the world in the words of ‎our ancient father Abraham: “And I and the lad shall go unto that place and shall worship God and ‎return to you” (Genesis 22:5).‎‎