4. Accordingly, the highest principle of ethics in Judaism, the cardinal point in the government of the world, is not love, but _justice_. Love has the tendency to undermine the right and to effeminize society. Justice, on the other hand, develops the moral capacity of every man; it aims not merely to avoid wrong, but to promote and develop the right for the sake of the perfect state of morality. True justice cannot remain a passive onlooker when the right or liberty of any human being is curtailed, but strains every effort to prevent violence and oppression. It battles for the right, until it has triumphed over every injustice. This practical conception of right can be traced through all Jewish literature and doctrine; through the laws of Moses, to whom is ascribed the maxim: "Let the right have its way, though it bore holes through the rock",(315) through the flaming words of the prophets;(316) through the Psalmists, who spoke such words as these: "Thou art not a God who hath pleasure in wickedness; evil shall not sojourn with Thee. The arrogant shall not stand in Thy sight; Thou hatest all workers of iniquity."(317)
Nor does justice stop with the prohibition of evil. The very arm that strikes down the presumptuous transgressor turns to lift up the meek and endow him with strength. Justice becomes a positive power for the right; it becomes _Zedakah_, righteousness or true benevolence, and aims to readjust the inequalities of life by kindness and love. It engenders that deeper sense of justice which claims the right of the weak to protection by the arm of the strong.
5. Hence comes the truth of Matthew Arnold's striking summary of Israel's Law and Prophets in his "Literature and Dogma," as "The Power, not ourselves, that maketh for righteousness." Still, when we trace the development of this central thought in the soul of the Jewish people, we find that it arose from a peculiar mythological conception. The God of Sinai had manifested Himself in the devastating elements of nature--fire, storm, and hail; later, the prophetic genius of Israel saw Him as a moral power who destroyed wickedness by these very phenomena in order that right should prevail. At first the covenant-God of Israel hurls the plagues of heaven upon the hostile Egyptians and Canaanites, the oppressors of His people. Afterward the great prophets speak of the Day of JHVH which would come at the end of days, when God will execute His judgment upon the heathen nations by pouring forth all the terrors of nature upon them. The natural forces of destruction are utilized by the Ruler of heaven as means of moral purification. "For by fire will the Lord contend."(318)