Ethical, Ritual, Moral
Torah has three main focus areas:
Bein adam leMakom - between a person and Hashem - ritual
Bein adam lechaveiro - between a person and their fellow - interpersonal
Bein adam leatzmo - between a person and themselves – intrapersonal
Ritual in Torah is anything that concerns relationship with Hashem.
Bein adam leMakom is the foundation stone of all Torah observance. Thus the Even Ezra (Shmos 20:1) explains that the first of the Aseres Hadibros - I am Hashem your God - founds all 613 mitzvos.
Even though all Jewish practice is based on ritual, traits such as mercy and kindness are focused on intrapersonal and interpersonal respectively. Whereas a mitzvah such as bris milah, even though it involves another person, is exclusively ritual.
Apart from Eidus (testimonial practice) such as yom tov (which recalls specific events,) ritual practice is generally independent of human rational.
So, for example, we are commanded to eat kosher with the whole body of science that this entails and whilst we can and in fact are obligated, to try and understand the soul of the mitzvah, our performance of it is independent of human logic.
Whereas, not to murder or steal are mitzvos that are so logical and so connected to the efficient operation of human society, that they are adopted by most civilised cultures of the world.
Some primarily ritual mitzvos can be partially explained with human rational. So, for example, to rest from the 39 creative labours on Shabbos is primarily a sign for the Jewish People that Hashem created the world and He alone runs it.
But, it can also be rationalised to provide essential spiritual rest for the soul at the end of a week and on a less esoteric level, a very healthy rest for the world from human input.
Ethics in Torah refers to relationship with others. Ethics are always expressed in worldly action or speech and cannot remain only internal to the person, even if they are directed by internal drives.
The famous response of Hillel: what you hate, don’t do to others, this is the whole Torah the other is commentary go and learn (Shabbos 34a.) Rashi explains that the other refers to issues such as theft, adultery and most the mitzvos.
Doing kindness was implanted in the Jewish People by Avraham and Sarah, the bastions of chesed and has always been a fundamental in Jewish practice.
The section of Shulchan Aruch called Choshen Mishpat which deals with laws of interpersonal relationships including damages, ownership etc, takes up a major part of the work.
How does one go about perfecting this aspect of Torah? Starting with the advice from Hillel. Consider what you hate being done to you and then follow on not to do that to others.
Through this one becomes sensitive to the existence and needs of others, the first step in the process of becoming an ethical person.
Morals in Torah refers to relationship with oneself. Interestingly enough, this means that it is a personal avoida (service) that might never be revealed in worldly interaction and might in fact never be known to anyone else.
The Chazal (Sages) on the mitzvah of going in Hashem’s ways (Devarim 11:22) explain, just like He is merciful, so should you be merciful (Sifri 11:22.)
Having mercy means empathising with another person or creature, within oneself. If it leads to any action on one’s part to assist the other that is good, but is not an essential in this mitzvah.
So the Torah commands a Jew to make himself or herself a person who has mercy and this, by definition, is a moral person. How does one become such a person if one is not naturally so and how does the Torah command such a thing?
Like any other human pursuit, one needs to start with a mental effort to set about the hard work of thinking and acting in accordance with the goal.
This aspect of Torah observance is the hardest to achieve because, whilst behaviour patterns can and must be utilised to influence one’s inner being, the change is internal and very hard to quantify.
The umbrella term for personal character traits is midos. The root of this word means measurement. This connection becomes clear when we see that this is how we measure the real person.
Just like Ritual underlies all Torah observance, moral is the driver that drives all observance and practice.