Main news for 3 July 2025

In all ages people have tended to strive for an ideal, including when it came to public life. It is no accident that the first projects of an ideal state appeared already in antiquity. But all such projects had one weak point: they proceeded not from the biblical but from the humanistic view of the human person, which was based on the postulate that the human being is good from the beginning, and that environment, upbringing, in short, society, spoils him. And all the creators of projects for an ideal state proceeded from the idea that the human being is a perfect creature, and that the task of the ideal state is to let this perfection reveal itself in full.

The Torah, however, like the Bible as a whole, proceeds from the fact that in humanity's present condition we are dealing with sinful people, and therefore with people far from perfection, from whom the ideal cannot be demanded. All the commandments, the whole Torah, are designed precisely for such sinful people. That is why it is said of it that it is close to everyone: one does not need to be a superhero in order to follow the Torah and keep the commandments given by God.

But by following the Torah and keeping the commandments, one can become a different person. Better than at the beginning. With God's help one can even become fit for life in the Kingdom and obtain this Kingdom. And a perfect society can also be created on sinful earth. Not the "best," as Plato called his ideal state, but, in his own expression, "second after the best," i.e., the best of what is possible in our world that is being transformed but is not yet transformed.

An ideal society cannot be created no matter how much one wants it, and one will not become sinless no matter how hard one tries. But it is possible to follow the Torah and keep the commandments, just as it is now possible, after the coming of Christ, to enter the Kingdom. What is needed here is only consistency. And the resolve to go all the way.