Human Rights Shabbat 2011

9th/10th December 2011 was Human Rights Shabbat

(see http://rhrna.org/resources/human-rights-shabbat.html for details)

On Human Rights Shabbat this year Rabbi Mark Solomon took items from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and added quotes from the Torah and the Talmud that were relevant to each.

The link at each of 30 Human Rights below will take you to the relevant commentary.

See also the web site of the Rene Cassim Organisation http://www.renecassin.org/ for Jewish views on current Human Rights issues.

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMANRIGHTS WITH JEWISH SOURCES

Compiled by Mark L Solomon

Introductory Note

Article 1 All human beings are born freeand equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscienceand should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2. Everyone isentitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, withoutdistinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion,political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or otherstatus. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of thepolitical, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territoryto which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governingor under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3.Everyone has the right to life,liberty and security of person.

Article 4. No one shall be held inslavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in alltheir forms.

Article 5. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6. Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law. (See comments on Articles 1 and 2 above)

Article 7.All are equal before the lawand are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. Allare entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation ofthis Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8. Everyone has the rightto an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violatingthe fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9. No one shall be subjectedtoarbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10. Everyone is entitledin full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartialtribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of anycriminal charge against him.

Article 11. (1) Everyone chargedwith a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guiltyaccording to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guaranteesnecessary for his defence. (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offenceon account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence,under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Norshall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the timethe penal offence was committed.

Article 12. No one shall besubjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home orcorrespondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has theright to the protection of the law against such interference orattacks.

Article 13. (1) Everyone has theright to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and toreturn to his country.

Article 14. (1) Everyone has theright to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. (2) Thisright may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising fromnon-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles ofthe United Nations.

Article 15. (1) Everyone has the right to anationality. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nordenied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16. (1) Men and women offull age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have theright to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as tomarriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. (2) Marriage shall be enteredinto only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. (3) Thefamily is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled toprotection by society and the State.

Article 17. (1) Everyone has theright to own property alone as well as in association with others. (2) No oneshall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18. Everyone has the rightto freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom tochange his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community withothers and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief inteaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom ofopinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions withoutinterference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through anymedia and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom ofpeaceful assembly and association. (2) No one may be compelled to belong to anassociation.

Article 21. (1) Everyone has the right to take partin the government of his country, directly or through freely chosenrepresentatives. (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public servicein his country. (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authorityof government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine electionswhich shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret voteor by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22. Everyone, as a memberof society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization,through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance withthe organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social andcultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of hispersonality.

Article 23. (1) Everyone has theright to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditionsof work and to protection against unemployment. (2) Everyone, without anydiscrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone whoworks has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himselfand his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, ifnecessary, by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has the right toform and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24. Everyone has the rightto rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours andperiodic holidays with pay.

Article 25. (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26. (1) Everyone has theright to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary andfundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical andprofessional education shall be made generally available and higher educationshall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. (2) Education shallbe directed to the full development of the human personality and to thestrengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shallpromote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial orreligious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations forthe maintenance of peace. (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind ofeducation that shall be given to their children.

Article 27. (1)Everyone has theright freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy thearts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. (2) Everyone hasthe right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting fromany scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is theauthor.

Article 28. Everyone is entitledto a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forthin this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29. (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society. (3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

Introductory Note

Jewish references, mainly in the form of biblical verses, have been appended to some of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is not suggested that these texts are the sources of the articles in question, although in a general way it could be said that the moral tradition of the Bible is one of the ultimate sources, and possibly the most important source, of the ethical universalism of the Declaration.

The Bible and Rabbinic tradition both speak of obligations, rather than rights, and the concept of universal human rights would probably have seemed alien to biblical and rabbinic writers. It has often been argued in modern times, however, that just as rights imply obligations (if you have a right to have your property respected, I have an obligation not to steal it) so obligations – mitzvot, in Jewish terminology – imply rights (if I have an obligation to give generously to the poor, the poor have a right to be provided for).

Many of the verses cited below can be, and have been, interpreted in particularistic ways, as imposing obligations only towards fellow Israelites, for example. While it is important to understand the original meaning of such commandments in their ancient context, there is a long tradition of universalising the moral obligations implied, and Liberal Judaism has always insisted on the most universalistic application possible.

The citations are mainly from the Bible, with occasional references to Rabbinic literature. Many more references could be found from the latter, and the absence of any citations for a particular article does not imply that Jewish sources could not be found. That said, clearly the Declaration uses concepts that were unknown in Biblical or Rabbinic times, such as nationality and democracy.

. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Genesis 1:26–27. And God said: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Note: Many interpretations have been offered for the concept of creation in the image of God. Jewish tradition rejects any notion of a physical image. Prominent among the interpretations are the attributes of reason and conscience, referred to in Article 1.

Leviticus 19:18. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the LORD.

Malachi 2:10. Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, profaning the covenant of our fathers?

Note: In context this clearly refers to people of Judah, but it has frequently been taken, by Jews and non-Jews alike, in a much broader spirit. The same applies to Lev. 19:18, which is referred to in halakhic literature as the mitzvahof ahavat yisrael(love of one’s fellow Jew), but which most modern Jewish writers take in a more universal sense. For love of the stranger, see the next Article.

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

 

Leviticus 19:33–34. When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 24:22. You shall have the same rule for the sojourner and for the native, for I am the Lord your God.

Numbers 15:15-16. For the assembly, there shall be one statute for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you, a statute forever throughout your generations. You and the sojourner shall be alike before the Lord. 16 One law and one rule shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you.

Note: Rabbinic tradition often understands the word ger[stranger] to mean a convert to Judaism. Modern scholars recognise that this is anachronistic, since no religious conversion existed at the time the Torah was written. The “stranger” is therefore to be understood as a resident alien, a non-Israelite foreigner (or possibly an indigenous survivor from pre-Israelite times) living in an Israelite society, and presumably landless and relatively disadvantaged.

. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Exodus 20:12. You shall not murder. … You shall not steal.

Note: Rabbinic law interprets “You shall not steal” in the Ten Commandments as speaking of kidnapping, since theft and robbery of property are dealt with explicitly elsewhere in the Torah.

. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Deuteronomy 23:16–17. You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him.

Deuteronomy 24:7. If a man is found stealing one of his brothers of the people of Israel, and if he treats him as a slave or sells him, then that thief shall die. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Exodus 21:20, 26–27. When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. … When a man strikes the eye of his slave, male or female, and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free because of his eye. If he knocks out the tooth of his slave, male or female, he shall let the slave go free because of his tooth.

Leviticus 25:10. You shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan.

Note: Slavery existed, and was taken for granted, in all ancient and most pre-modern societies. The enslavement of non-Israelites is explicitly permitted in the Torah, which is clearly at odds with the ethos of the Declaration. Nevertheless, in prohibiting excessive violence against slaves, and forbidding the return of an escaped slave to his/her master, the Torah shows itself to be far ahead of all other legal codes. For the right of slaves to a day of rest, see Article 24 below.

. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Leviticus 24:19–20. If anyone injures his neighbour, as he has done it shall be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him.

Deuteronomy 25:1–3. If there is a dispute between men and they come into court and the judges decide between them, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty, then if the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence with a number of stripes in proportion to his offense. Forty stripes may be given him, but not more, lest, if one should go on to beat him with more stripes than these, your brother be degraded in your sight.

Note: The lex talionis(an eye for an eye, etc.) is often cited as vengeful and barbaric, but in the context of ancient Near-Eastern law was progressive and enlightened. Other codes distinguished between injury to nobles or commoners, and often prescribed punishment in excess of the crime, especially for injury to someone of a higher social class. The Torah insists on full equality and commensurateness of punishment – no morethan an eye for an eye. Rabbinic tradition insists that this law, in any case, is not to be interpreted literally, but means monetary compensation commensurate with the injury (Talmud, Bava Kamma83b-84a). Regarding corporal punishment, the Torah prescribes a maximum of 40 lashes with a cane, and Rabbinic tradition asserts that, in order not to err and exceed this maximum, no more than 39 lashes were ever to be given. Neither corporal nor capital punishment has been practised by Jewish courts since ancient times. Prolonged imprisonment as a judicial penalty was unknown to ancient Jewish law.

Article 6. Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

(See on Articles 1 and 2 above.)

. All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

(See on Articles 1 and 2 above.)

. Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Deuteronomy 16:18–20. You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

Genesis 9:4–6. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

Note: Genesis 9 is seen by the Rabbis as one of the origins of the “Seven Noachide Laws” that apply to all human beings, and which, as well as prohibiting murder, include the imperative of creating law courts to administer justice to all.

. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Jeremiah 37:12– 38:10 (excerpts). Jeremiah set out from Jerusalem to go to the land of Benjamin to receive his portion there among the people. When he was at the Benjamin Gate, a sentry there named Irijah … seized Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “You are deserting to the Chaldeans.” And Jeremiah said, “It is a lie; I am not deserting to the Chaldeans.” But Irijah would not listen to him, and seized Jeremiah and brought him to the officials. And the officials were enraged at Jeremiah, and they beat him and imprisoned him in the house of Jonathan the secretary, for it had been made a prison. When Jeremiah had come to the dungeon cells and remained there many days, King Zedekiah sent for him and received him. … Jeremiah also said to King Zedekiah, “What wrong have I done to you or your servants or this people, that you have put me in prison? ... Now hear, please, O my lord the king: let my humble plea come before you and do not send me back to the house of Jonathan the secretary, lest I die there.” So King Zedekiah gave orders, and they committed Jeremiah to the court of the guard. And a loaf of bread was given him daily from the bakers’ street, until all the bread of the city was gone. So Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.… 38:4 Then the officials said to the king, “Let this man be put to death, for he is weakening the hands of the soldiers who are left in this city, and the hands of all the people, by speaking such words to them. For this man is not seeking the welfare of this people, but their harm.” King Zedekiah said, “Behold, he is in your hands, for the king can do nothing against you.” So they took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king's son, which was in the court of the guard, letting Jeremiah down by ropes. And there was no water in the cistern, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud. When Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch who was in the king's house, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern—the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate— Ebed-melech went from the king's house and said to the king, “My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they did to Jeremiah the prophet by casting him into the cistern, and he will die there of hunger, for there is no bread left in the city.” Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, “Take thirty men with you from here, and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.”

Amos 1:6, 9. Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they carried into exile a whole people to deliver them up to Edom.” … Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of Tyre, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they delivered up a whole people to Edom, and did not remember the covenant of brotherhood.”

Note: Amos is the earliest literary prophet of Israel, from the early 8thcentury BCE. In chapters 1 and 2 of the Book of Amos, the prophet surveys the kingdoms surrounding Israel and finds each morally wanting and subject to divine judgement, thus testifying to a sense of a universal moral order binding all peoples. The prophet then turns to Judah and Israel with equal condemnation. The crime of Gaza and Tyre seems to be the forcible capture and transfer of populations.

Article 10. Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Leviticus 19:15 You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbour.

Article 11. (1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence. (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Deuteronomy 19:15 A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.

Note. “There is no explicit presumption of innocence in Jewish law; the requirements of proof of guilt are, however, so stringent and rigorous, and the possibilities of establishing a valid defense so wide and flexible, that a conviction is much more difficult and an acquittal much easier to obtain than under a rebuttable presumption of innocence.” (Haim Hermann Cohn, Encyclopedia Judaica.) See further on Article 8.

Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Deuteronomy 24:10–11. When you make your neighbour a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to collect his pledge. You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you.

Leviticus 19:16. You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand idly by the blood of your neighbour: I am the Lord.

Leviticus 25:17. You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.

Note: Rabbinic law interprets the last verse as referring to “wronging with words” by embarrassing or humiliating another person in speech, especially in public; see Mishnah Bava Metzia4:10. Lev. 19:16 is the main source of the prohibition of lashon hara, “evil tongue” or slander, which is regarded as a terrible and destructive sin. Regarding the right of domestic privacy, the Talmud (Bava Batra60a) interprets Numbers 24:5 “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel,” to mean that the tents of the Israelites were so arranged that the entrances did not face one another, so that no-one could peer into his neighbour’s tent. Among the takkanot, or communal ordinances, enacted by Rabbenu Gershom of Mainz in the 11thcentury and accepted as law ever since, is a ban on opening someone else’s private correspondence. In Mishnah Avot2:15, Rabbi Eliezer states, in an application of the Golden Rule, “Let the honour of your fellow be as dear to you as your own.”

Article 13. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Ezra 1:1–4. In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing: “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusalem. And let each survivor, in whatever place he sojourns, be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with beasts, besides freewill offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.”

Article 14. (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. (2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Jeremiah 29:4–7. [Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles in Babylon] Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

See also on Article 4 above, Deut. 23:16-17

Article 15. (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16. (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Genesis 1:27–28. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 2:18, 24. Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”… Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Note: The Declaration is here clearly in advance of Jewish law, which does not grant women full equality in marriage, and certainly not in divorce, which can only be granted by the husband, resulting in women bound to absent or uncooperative husbands. However, although arranged marriage was the norm in ancient Judaism (and is so still in some communities) Jewish law forbade the marriage of a woman against her will (Kiddushin2b), and also prohibits a husband having sex with his wife against her will – something that has only recently become the case in many Western legal systems. The Pharisaic institution of the ketubbah(marriage contract) did much to ensure the safeguarding of women’s rights in marriage, which include the right to food, clothing and sexual satisfaction, based on Exodus 21:10, as well as support in the case of divorce or widowhood.

Article 17. (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Exodus 20:12. You shall not steal.

Leviticus 19:11–13. You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. You shall not oppress your neighbour or rob him. The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning.

Article 18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Micah 4:5 For let all the peoples walk each one in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever.

Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. (2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21. (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22. Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Leviticus 19:9–10. When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 25:35–43. If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God. If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: he shall be with you as a hired servant and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over him ruthlessly but shall fear your God.

Deuteronomy 14:28–29. At the end of every three years you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your towns. And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do.

Deuteronomy 15:7–11. If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, ‘The seventh year, the year of release is near,’ and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and you be guilty of sin. You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’

Deuteronomy 24:19–22. When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it afterward. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this.

Article 23. (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Deuteronomy 24:14–15. You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns. You shall give him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets (for he is poor and counts on it), lest he cry against you to the Lord, and you be guilty of sin.

Article 24. Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Exodus 23:12. Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.

Deuteronomy 5:11–14. Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

Article 25. (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Isaiah 1:16–17. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.

Amos 1:13–15. Thus says the Lord: “For three transgressions of the Ammonites, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have ripped open pregnant women in Gilead, that they might enlarge their border. So I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it shall devour her strongholds, with shouting on the day of battle, with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind; and their king shall go into exile, he and his princes together,” says the Lord.

Article 26. (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Deuteronomy 6:7. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

Proverbs 22:6. Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Talmud, Kiddushin30a. A father is obligated to do the following for his son: to circumcise him, to redeem him if he is a first born, to teach him Torah, to find him a wife, and to teach him a trade. Others say: teaching him how to swim as well.

Talmud, Bava Batra21a. Remember the name Yehoshua ben Gamla for praise. Were it not for him, the Torah would have been forgotten by Israel. It used to be that fathers would teach their children, and those children without fathers would not learn Torah. Schools were then set up in Jerusalem based on an interpretation of the verse: ‘Torah comes from Zion and the word of God from Jerusalem.’ But still, those with fathers would bring them up, and those without fathers would not go up. He enacted that local authorities should install teachers of children in every district and town and they should bring in children of ages six and seven to be taught by these teachers.

Article 27. (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Pirkey Avot6:6 [The last of the 48 qualities by which Torah is acquired is] to repeat a thing in the name of the one who said it. So you have learned: One who repeats a thing in the name of the one who said it brings redemption to the world, as it is said: ‘And Esther spoke to the king in the name of Mordecai.’ (Esther 11:22)

Article 28. Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Mishnah, Avot3:2. Rabbi Chanina, deputy to the priests, used to say: Pray for the integrity of the government; for were it not for the fear of its authority, a man would swallow his neighbour alive.

Article 29. (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society. (3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Mishnah, Avot2:4. Hillel used to say: Do not separate yourself from the community.

Article 30. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.