Chapter 1: Measuring Deeds
In “The Good Place” Michael talks about deeds and points, and on the podcast Jon Spira-Savett and Dan Ross (two rabbis) discuss whether deeds and mitzvahs can or can’t be measured.
Texts
(Go to Jewish Lexicon on this site for more on Jewish terminology, names of texts and other background. The links here in the citations take you to the specific quotes in their full contexts.)
Rabbi Moses Maimonides or “Rambam”
Mishnah Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah 3:4
Every person should see oneself the entire year as though perfectly balanced between merit and guilt, and also the entire world as though perfectly balanced between merit and guilt.
If a person does one more wrong, that person tilts the balance personally and tilts the balance for the whole world to the side of guilt...
If a person does one mitzvah, that person tilts the balance personally and tilts the balance for the whole world, all of it, to the side of merit, and saves and rescues both oneself and the whole world.
Mishnah, Pirkei Avot 2:1
Rabbi [Yehudah Ha-Nasi] says:
Be careful with a light commandment as with a weighty one, for you did know not the reward for the [fulfillment of] the commandments. Also, reckon the loss [resulting from fulfilling] a commandment against its reward, and the gain of a wrong against its loss. And look at three things and you will not come into the hands of doing-wrong — Know what there is above you: an eye that sees and an ear that hears, and that all your deeds are written in a book.
Link — Deeper Dive:
Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz interviews Professor Peter Singer on “Utilitarian Ethics and Savings Lives.” Professor Singer is the most important contemporary scholar and advocate of pure utilitarianism, and Rabbi Yanklowitz is an Orthodox scholar and kidney donor deeply committed to exploring how Torah and utilitarianism should relate across a range of issues.
Learn more about both Jon and Dan, and how to follow them, on our Hosts page!
