The right and the good.

Buried among the epic passages in Vaitchanan,

among them the Shaman, the Ten Commandments, is a brief passage

with large implications for the moral life in Judaism.

Here it is, together with the preceding verse,

you shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his

testimony and his statutes which he has commanded you, and you shall do what is right and good

in the sight of the Lord, that it may go well with you and that you may go in and take possession

of the good land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers.

The difficulty is obvious. The preceding verse makes reference to commandments,

testimonies and statutes, and this on the face of it is the whole of Judaism as far as conduct is concerned.

What then is meant by the phrase the right and the good that is not already included in the previous

verse rashi says it refers to shah alifnimishurat adin to compromise that is not strictly

insisting on your rights and action within or beyond the letter of the law. The law, as it were, lays down a

minimum threshold. This we must do, but moral life aspires to more than simply doing what we must.

The people who most impress us with their goodness and rightness are not merely people who

keep the law. The saints and heroes of the moral life go beyond. They do more

than they are commanded. They go the extra mile. That according to Rashi is what the Torah means

by the right and the good. Rambun, while citing Rashi and agreeing with him, goes on to say

something slightly different. At first, Moses said that

you were to keep his statutes and his testament as which he commanded you, and now he is stating

that even where he has not commanded you, give thought as well to do what is right and good in

...