ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the traditional position that law, as imparted in the context of the Covenant, provides the only path God provides for the attainment of human and spiritual flourishing. As such, its provisions, as discerned within the tradition, are unconditionally binding. It will then develop the idea that law, despite its honorable place in the narrative of Judaism, is authoritative only within a deeper context of a contemplative and loving stance before God and creation. Finally, the implications of these two views for the punishment of law breakers will be discussed. For the Greeks, law was sacred. It expressed the structures of a permanent natural order, and in Plato that sense of divinity applied to the laws enacted by the community. The centrality of the belief in a faithful adherence to law in the Hebrew Bible emphasizes the preeminence of obedience over rational deliberation, and action over intention; actions reveal ones thoughts and moral commitments.
