The Lost Dimensions of Morality

Modern morality has become a careful curator of two prized virtues, kindness and fairness. If you listen to the way people argue about right and wrong today, particularly in the secular West, it rarely strays beyond these two concerns. Will this harm someone, and is this fair? These questions are not trivial, and the moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt has shown how deeply they shape our ethical instincts. But you begin to wonder whether two virtues alone can hold the full weight of human existence. It is like trying to paint a sunrise with only two colours and telling yourself that the missing ones were unnecessary after all.

Something in us knows better. We sense that morality is richer, fuller, more textured than harm and fairness can ever express. The Bible certainly thinks so. It seems to assume that human beings are not only bodies that feel pain and not only minds that calculate fairness. We are also souls and spirits, creatures who inhabit meaning and mystery, longing and loyalty. When Scripture speaks about what is good, it speaks with a vocabulary deeper than the thin language of modern ethics.

Sometimes it becomes helpful to see the Hebrew words themselves, because they reveal dimensions of the moral life that our culture rarely names.

There is חֶסֶד (hesed, loving kindness), the active and generous goodness that goes beyond what fairness requires, found in Leviticus 19:18, Micah 6:8.

There is רַחֲמִים (rahamim, compassion or mercy), the tenderness that feels the wound of another so deeply that it becomes impossible to turn away. Psalm 103:13, Isaiah 49:15.

There is צֶדֶק (tzedek, righteousness), the conviction that the world must reflect not only what humans find convenient but what G-d calls just, as in Deuteronomy 16:20, Proverbs 21:3.

There is מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, just judgment), the concrete application of justice in daily dealings and in the courts. Leviticus 19:15, Deuteronomy 10:18.

Then there is אֱמוּנָה (emunah, faithfulness or covenant loyalty), usually translated as faith but closer to steadiness of heart, the quality that holds relationships together, whether between people or with G-d. Deuteronomy 7:9, Habakkuk 2:4, Exodus 17:12.

And overarching them all is קְדֻשָּׁה (kedushah, holiness), the awareness that life is infused with the presence of the Creator, a truth woven through the whole of Leviticus. Leviticus 19:2, Exodus 19:6, Isaiah 6:3.

Once you see these dimensions, you realise that morality in Scripture is not trying to minimise pain or maximise fairness. It is trying to form a certain kind of person, someone whose inner life is shaped by love, compassion, justice, loyalty, and reverence. It speaks to the body, but also to the soul and to the spirit. It recognises that human beings are not flat creatures who respond only to harm and fairness but multi layered and richly dimensional beings who long for meaning, belonging, and sacred presence.

Jonathan Haidt (1) notes that pre modern and religious societies preserve these additional moral foundations. They value loyalty, respect, sanctity, compassion, and duty. They understand that communities cannot survive on kindness and fairness alone. Without loyalty, relationships fracture. 

Without reverence, life becomes trivial. 

Without holiness, the world loses its depth. 

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once observed that when societies abandon their sense of the sacred, morality collapses into a matter of personal preference. What feels fair to me replaces what is right before G-d.

This is where the deeper biblical vision speaks to our modern confusion. Scripture presents morality through three great voices that shape the human condition. One calls us to honour what is sacred, another calls us to pursue justice, and another calls us to seek wisdom. These voices do not compete, they complete one another. They form a moral ecology that reaches every part of who we are. When we hear only one or two of those voices, our inner world begins to shrink.

C. S. Lewis often warned that modern people live as if the world had been stripped of enchantment. We analyse everything but revere nothing. We measure harm and fairness but forget gratitude, humility, loyalty, and holy awe. We fear that words like righteousness or holiness might make us look strange, so we whisper them or hide them altogether. Yet something in us refuses to be satisfied. The ache for transcendence does not disappear simply because we have replaced the language of the sacred with the language of psychology. If anything, the ache grows louder.

When we read Scripture slowly, the moral landscape begins to widen again. You notice how often the text speaks of חֶסֶד (hesed, loving kindness) as something more generous than fairness. You see how deeply it values רַחֲמִים (rahamim, compassion) that softens the heart toward the suffering of others. You observe the seriousness of צֶדֶק (tzedek, righteousness), the insistence that our choices are not morally neutral because they either affirm or violate the order G-d has woven into creation. You recognise the weight of מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, just judgment), the practical execution of justice that protects the vulnerable. You begin to feel the steadiness of אֱמוּנָה (emunah, faithfulness), the refusal to abandon covenant commitments even when they become costly. And you learn to stand quietly before קְדֻשָּׁה (kedushah, holiness), the awareness that every moment, every life, every breath carries the imprint of G-d.

This is a far cry from the simple question, does this harm anyone. It asks instead, does this honour the sacred. Does this reflect covenant loyalty. Does this act cultivate righteousness or fracture it. Does this lead my soul toward wisdom or away from it. In other words, it treats morality not as a system of avoiding mistakes but as the slow, faithful shaping of a person who walks with G-d.

Believers in Yeshua feel this gap between biblical depth and modern thinness rather sharply. Yeshua never restricted morality to harm avoidance and fairness. His compassion was deeper than harm prevention. His justice was richer than fairness. He welcomed the outcast not because He had calculated that it was equitable but because His heart overflowed with חֶסֶד (hesed, loving kindness). He confronted hypocrisy not because it was merely unfair but because it violated צֶדֶק (tzedek, righteousness). He healed with רַחֲמִים (rahamim, compassion), taught with the wisdom of the sage, lived with the loyalty of אֱמוּנָה (emunah, faithfulness) toward the Father, and moved in a constant awareness of קְדֻשָּׁה (kedushah, holiness).

To imitate Him is to rediscover the fullness of the moral life. It is to recognise that the spirit within us must be shaped as much as the body and soul. It is to remember that morality asks not only how to prevent harm but how to become holy. Not only how to be fair but how to be faithful. Not only how to avoid cruelty but how to cultivate compassion. Not only how to balance rights but how to honour sacred obligations. This is a far more demanding vision than the modern one, and also far more beautiful.

If modern ethics feels small, it is because it has lost its tallest pillars. It has forgotten קְדֻשָּׁה (kedushah, holiness) and אֱמוּנָה (emunah, faithfulness), and in their absence the structure shivers. But Scripture has not forgotten them, nor have the sages of Israel, nor have the disciples of Yeshua (Jesus) who continue to listen for those deeper voices. When we open ourselves to this wider moral vocabulary, something within us expands. We remember who we are, creatures fashioned in the image of G-d, called not merely to avoid harm but to reflect holiness.

Perhaps this is the task for believers today, not to rage against modern morality but to gently expand it, to reintroduce our world to the richer music of חֶסֶד (hesed, loving kindness), רַחֲמִים (rahamim, compassion), צֶדֶק (tzedek, righteousness), מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, just judgment), אֱמוּנָה (emunah, faithfulness), and קְדֻשָּׁה (kedushah, holiness). If we allow these words to shape us, body, soul, and spirit, we may find that the flattened moral world begins to rise into something three dimensional again, something spacious and alive. And perhaps we will discover that this ancient moral architecture still stands quietly behind us, waiting for us to walk back in, not as strangers but as children returning home.

Adivalter Sfalsin

(1) Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (London, Allen Lane, 2012).