Is that really true? Based on the Torah itself, are there really Rights, the way the Declaration of Independence declares them?
Well… no. At least, not exactly. Yes, the Torah commands that we must not infringe on the property and persons of others. It is easy to glean from the text that denying the liberty of other people is a sin. The Torah certainly condemns murder, and “might makes right” in all of its forms.
But these are not really rights gifted by G-d – they are instead commanded by G-d. They are not really inalienable. Any survey of human history shows that people have been alienated from their persons and property time and again by stronger people, or as casualties of injustice.
I would say that there is, at the very foundation, only one attribute that the Torah insists each person is endowed with: free will, and the responsibility that comes with it. This is the lesson of Adam and Eve when they chose to eat the fruit. It is the lesson G-d tried to teach Cain when G-d urged Cain to master his own natural anger and resentments. And it is the attribute that underpins absolutely every commandment in the Torah: if we do not have free will, then nothing we do matters. And if we do have free will, then everything we do should matter.
The problem, of course, is that most people, most of the time, deny the very existence of free will. That is what happens when we blame others for what happens to us – our nature or nurture, our parents or friends or culture or religion.
Every excuse we concoct is merely another way to deny our free will. And our worldview adds up to a self-fulfilling prophecy – whether we believe we have free will and the responsibility that comes with it – or we believe we are mere victims of everything and everyone else.
Ultimately, the perception of free will by an individual is the individual atom that enables any free society – but only to the extent that the existence of free will is accepted in the first place. Which means that freedoms (much like taxes) are not merely On/Off: they exist on a spectrum. There are all kinds of different modes and colors and languages and systems that define taxation, just as the freedoms held dear in one community may be ignored in another – think of Honor Killings.
So, for example, we theoretically have a right to bear arms – but not necessarily machine guns. Our property is subject to taxation or outright confiscation, despite our “inalienable” right to property. The spectrum has many dimensions, just as our acceptance or embrace of the concept of free will can be captured in essentially an infinite variety of colors.
Going back to the original point: In a Torah textual sense, every potential “right” flows only from this one idea, that of Free will.
And I think the Constitution is very much in the same vein, because our Founding Fathers assumed that free will is real and essential to an ideal society. In this way, the Constitution is really more like the Torah: The Torah commands what people must not do to each other, while the Bill of Rights limits what the government is allowed to do to the people (or the states).
Or do I have the wrong end of the stick?