Chizkiyahu: It needs to be both

Context: The Jewish people are in serious need of a religious revival. Their fate hangs in the balance.


Last year, our navi class began to examine חזקיהו in a deeper manner. We asked if he was a good king/person, or a bad one. How does one decide such a thing?

ספר ישעיהו stresses the lack of צדק ומשפט, and how the people had a problem with hubris. A religious revival would include the restoration of צדק ומשפט and the self removal of hubris. However, when we read about the religious revival in חזקיהו's time, we do not see that. We see that he got rid of the במות so that people would go to the בית ימקדש. We said that perhaps חזקיהו has a bit of arrogance in his personality, and is a double sided personality. He has a religious side and then an everything else side, and he only goes to ישעיהו for religious help. Then later when Hashem saves them from אשור, he does not thank Hashem.


In Perek לט, we saw that after the sick king,  חזקיהו , was saved by Hashem,  the king of Babylonia heard that he had recovered and sent him a gift. And then  חזקיהו showed them every single treasure of his house- his silver, gold, spices, oil, and treasures. That doesn't seem like something a modest guy would do. Somebody comes to give you a "yay you're alive present", and you show off how wealthy you are. It's not the best thing to do.

ישעיהו asks חזקיהו what he showed the Babylonian messengers, and he tells him that he showed them everything. Then ישעיהו tells him that Hashem said: One day all of your riches will go to Babylonia, and your sons will work in his palace. And in response חזקיהו says, "Good is what Hashem has said, because there will be peace and truth in my days."  It seems that he is saying he does not care, because he'll be dead by then.


How does this relate to Chumash? This past week we said that some commandments apply to our religious life, and other commandments apply to our moral lives. You must have a mix of both religious and moral to be a good person. If you are religious you are not automatically good and G-d does not automatically love you. As we can see with Chizkiyahu, who brought about a religious revival, you can still be religious and yet not completely moral. 


Some questions I would like to pose:
Do you think that it is enough to only be moral and not religious? If yes, why?


Do you think it is enough to be only religious? If yes, why? If no, why?


If you answered that it is enough to be moral but not enough to be religious: Why do you think it's okay to only be moral and forget religion when you can't have religion and forget moral? Is it because you feel that the Torah is restricting and it should be a choice- I'm interested to know what you think.


--Just another random thought that I had while writing this
Sometimes we get set on our opinions, and when people disagree we get highly offended. And yet, when we disagree with other people we can become hostile toward them and not respect that they are entitled to an opinion, and that sometimes we might A) learn from their opinion B) they might have more knowledge on the subject.
Part of being moral is to not judge, so everyone in the world should be less judgmental when it comes to others and their religious views/interpretations.