Said the Khazarite: It is so in truth, and so do I think; I also read in your books as follows: ‘What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God?’[135] and another verse says: ‘What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy?’[136] and many other passages. Said the Rabbi: These and similar things are the rational laws, which are the preambles and bases of the divine Law, preceding it in character and time, and without which the administration of any human society is impossible. Even a band of robbers must adopt a standard of justice among them, otherwise their confederacy would not last. When the disobedience of the children of Israel had come to such a pass that they disregarded the rational and social laws (without which no society can exist, just as no individual can exist without the natural functions like eating, drinking, movement, rest, sleeping, and waking), but nevertheless held fast to ceremonial worship, like sacrifices and other divine laws that were prescribed to them, He was satisfied with even less. He said: ‘Would that ye observed those laws which even the meanest community observes, as the adoption of justice, the right path, and the acknowledgment of the Creator’s bounty!’ For the divine laws are not complete until the social and rational laws become perfected, and the rational laws include the adoption of justice and the acknowledgment of the Creator’s bounty. Now how can he, who does not cling to these laws, adhere to sacrifices, Sabbath, circumcision, and other ceremonies, which reason neither necessitates, nor rejects? But these are the very laws which were especially given to the children of Israel in addition to the rational ones, and it is through them that they received the advantage of the divine influence, though they knew not why these laws were necessary, just as they knew not how the glory of God descended upon them, or the fire of God upon their sacrifices; or how they heard the speech of God; or how all the other things occurred to them. Reason would not accept these matters, if not for the irrefutable testimony of by-standers and eye-witnesses. In a similar manner it was said unto them: ‘What doth the Lord require of thee?’[137], and ‘Add your burnt-offerings unto your sacrifices’[138], and other verses of a similar nature. Is it possible that an Israelite, confining himself to the doing of justice and the loving of kindness, while forsaking circumcision, Sabbath, and the laws of Passover and other laws, would prosper?