To surrender deeply held convictions and achieve a religious
outlook on life is a difficult and painful task. It demands virtues all
too rare today, humility, openmindedness, sensitivity, and above
all, the capacity to withstand the pressure of conformity and the
tyranny of "fashion" and "modernity." Yet there is something
far more gruelling than a change in one's ideas and beliefs--a trans-
formation in one's pattern of action, a transformation in the rites
and practices by which one lives. This difference explains in large
measure why active missionary activity and revival campaigns have
been far more characteristic of Christianity than of Judaism, and
more successful. For while it is true that "works" are important in
the Christian life, greater stress has been traditionally placed upon
"faith," as in the great imperative, "Believe on me and ye shall be
saved." In Judaism, on the other hand, the emphasis is reversed.
While beliefs are highly significant, the credal aspect is not so
central as the elements of ritual observance and ethical conduct.
The key term in Judaism is not emunah, "faith," which, incidentally,
means "trust" and "faithfulness" rather than "belief" in the Bible.
The operative word is mitzvah, "Divine commandment," which
refers always to an act prescribed or forbidden. Traditionally, the
acts through which men may express their faith and loyalty to
God are divided into two categories--"the commandments between
man and God," which may be translated into our modern idiom
as "ritual," and "commandments between man and his fellow,"
which is equivalent to the domain of "ethics."

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