Judaism
religion
Overview
Religious beliefs and practices of the Jews.
One of the three great monotheistic world religions, Judaism began as
the faith of the ancient Hebrews, and its sacred text is the Hebrew
Bible, particularly the Torah. Fundamental to Judaism is the belief that
the people of Israel are God’s chosen people, who must serve as a light
for other nations. God made a covenant first with Abraham and then
renewed it with Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. The worship of Yahweh (God) was
centred in Jerusalem from the time of David. The destruction of the
First Temple of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (586 bce) and the
subsequent exile of the Jews led to hopes for national restoration under
the leadership of a messiah. The Jews were later allowed to return by
the Persians, but an unsuccessful rebellion against Roman rule led to
the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 ce and the Jews’ dispersal
throughout the world in the Jewish Diaspora. Rabbinic Judaism emerged to
replace the beliefs and practices associated with the Temple at
Jerusalem, as the Jews carried on their culture and religion through a
tradition of scholarship and strict observance. The great body of oral
law and commentaries were committed to writing in the Talmud and Mishna.
The religion was maintained despite severe persecutions by many nations.
Two branches of Judaism emerged in the Middle Ages: the Sephardic,
centred in Spain and culturally linked with the Babylonian Jews; and the
Ashkenazic, centred in France and Germany and linked with the Jewish
culture of Palestine and Rome. Elements of mysticism also appeared,
notably the esoteric writings of the Kabbala and, in the 18th century,
the movement known as Hasidism. The 18th century was also the time of
the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala). Conservative and Reform Judaism
emerged in 19th-century Germany as an effort to modify the strictness of
Orthodox Judaism. By the end of the 19th century Zionism had appeared as
an outgrowth of reform. European Judaism suffered terribly during the
Holocaust, when millions were put to death by the Nazis, and the rising
flow of Jewish emigrants to Palestine led to the declaration of the
State of Israel in 1948. In the early 21st century there were nearly 15
million Jews worldwide.
Main
the religion of the Jews. It is the complex phenomenon of a total way of
life for the Jewish people, comprising theology, law, and innumerable
cultural traditions.
The first section of this article treats the history of Judaism in
the broadest and most complete sense, from the early ancestral
beginnings of the Jewish people to contemporary times. In the second
section the beliefs, practices, and culture of Judaism are discussed.
Dates are listed throughout as bce (before the Common Era = bc) and ce
(Common Era = ad).
The history of Judaism
It is history that provides the key to an understanding of Judaism, for
its primal affirmations appear in early historical narratives. Thus, the
Bible reports contemporary events and activities for essentially
religious reasons. The biblical authors believed that the divine
presence is encountered primarily within history. God’s presence is also
experienced within the natural realm, but the more immediate or intimate
disclosure occurs in human actions. Although other ancient communities
also perceived a divine presence in history, the understanding of the
ancient Israelites proved to be the most lasting and influential. It is
this particular claim—to have experienced God’s presence in human
events—and its subsequent development that is the differentiating factor
in Jewish thought.
Moreover, the ancient Israelites’ entire mode of existence was
affected by their belief that throughout history they stood in a unique
relationship with the divine. The people of Israel believed that their
response to the divine presence in history was central not only for
themselves but for all humankind. Furthermore, God—as person—had
revealed in a particular encounter the pattern and structure of communal
and individual life to this people. Claiming sovereignty over the people
because of his continuing action in history on their behalf, he had
established a covenant (berit) with them and required from them
obedience to his teaching, or law (Torah). This obedience was a further
means by which the divine presence was made manifest—expressed in
concrete human existence. The corporate life of the chosen community was
thus a summons to the rest of humankind to recognize God’s presence,
sovereignty, and purpose—the establishment of peace and well-being in
the universe and in humankind.
History, moreover, disclosed not only God’s purpose but also
humankind’s inability to live in accord with it. Even the chosen
community failed in its obligation and had to be summoned back, time and
again, to its responsibility by the prophets—the divinely called
spokespersons who warned of retribution within history and argued and
reargued the case for affirmative human response. Israel’s role in the
divine economy and thus Israel’s particular culpability were dominant
themes sounded against the motif of fulfillment, the ultimate triumph of
the divine purpose, and the establishment of divine sovereignty over all
humankind.
The history of Judaism » General observations » Nature and
characteristics
In nearly 4,000 years of historical development, the Jewish people and
their religion have displayed a remarkable adaptability and continuity.
In their encounter with the great civilizations, from ancient Babylonia
and Egypt to Western Christendom and modern secular culture, they have
assimilated foreign elements and integrated them into their own social
and religious systems, thus maintaining an unbroken religious and
cultural tradition. Furthermore, each period of Jewish history has left
behind it a specific element of a Judaic heritage that continued to
influence subsequent developments, so that the total Jewish heritage at
any given time is a combination of all these successive elements along
with whatever adjustments and accretions have occurred in each new age.
The various teachings of Judaism have often been regarded as
specifications of the central idea of monotheism. One God, the creator
of the world, has freely elected the Jewish people for a unique
covenantal relationship with himself. This one and only God has been
affirmed by virtually all professing Jews in a variety of ways
throughout the ages.
Jewish monotheism has had both universalistic and particularistic
features. Along universal lines, it has affirmed a God who created and
rules the entire world and who at the end of history will redeem all
Israel (the classical name for the Jewish people), all humankind, and
indeed the whole world. The ultimate goal of all nature and history is
an unending reign of cosmic intimacy with God, entailing universal
justice and peace. Between creation and redemption lies the
particularistic designation of the Jewish people as the locus of God’s
activity in the world, as the people chosen by God to be “a kingdom of
priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). This arrangement is designated
a covenant and is structured by an elaborate and intricate law. Thus,
the Jewish people are both entitled to special privileges and burdened
with special responsibilities from God. As the prophet Amos (8th century
bce) expressed it: “You alone have I intimately known of all the
families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your
iniquities” (Amos 3:2). The universal goal of the Jewish people has
frequently expressed itself in messianism—the idea of a universal,
political realm of justice and peace. In one form or another, messianism
has permeated Jewish thinking and action throughout the ages, and it has
strongly influenced the outlook of many secular-minded Jews (see also
eschatology).
Law embraces practically all domains of Jewish life, and it became
the principle means by which Judaism was to bring about the reign of God
on earth. It is a total guide to religious and ethical conduct,
involving ritualistic observance as well as individual and social
ethics. It is a liturgical and ethical way constantly expatiated on by
the prophets and priests, by rabbinic sages, and by philosophers. Such
conduct was to be performed in the service of God, the transcendent and
immanent ruler of the universe, the Creator and the propelling force of
nature, and the one giving guidance and purpose to history. According to
Judaic belief, this divine guidance is manifested through the history of
the Jewish people, which will culminate in the messianic age. Judaism,
whether in its “normative” form or in its sectarian deviations, never
completely departed from this basic ethical and historical monotheism.
Salo Wittmayer Baron
Lou Hackett Silberman
The history of Judaism » General observations » Periodization
The division of the millennia of Jewish history into periods is a
procedure frequently dependent on philosophical predilections. The
Christian world long believed that until the rise of Christianity the
history of Judaism was but a “preparation for the Gospel” (preparatio
evangelica) that was followed by the “manifestation of the Gospel”
(demonstratio evangelica) as revealed by Christ and the Apostles. This
formulation could be theologically reconciled with the assumption that
Christianity had been preordained even before the creation of the world.
In the 19th century, biblical scholars moved the decisive division
back to the period of the Babylonian Exile and the restoration of the
Jews to the kingdom of Judah (6th–5th century bce). They asserted that
after the first fall of Jerusalem (586 bce) the ancient “Israelitic”
religion gave way to a new form of the “Jewish” faith, or Judaism, as
formulated by the reformer Ezra (5th century bce) and his school. In Die
Entstehung des Judentums (1896; “The Origin of Judaism”) the German
historian Eduard Meyer argued that Judaism originated in the Persian
period, or the days of Ezra and Nehemiah (5th century bce); indeed, he
attributed an important role in shaping the emergent religion to Persian
imperialism.
These theories, however, have been discarded by most scholars in the
light of a more comprehensive knowledge of the ancient Middle East and
the abandonment of a theory of gradual evolutionary development that was
dominant at the beginning of the 20th century. Most Jews share a
long-accepted notion that there never was a real break in continuity and
that Mosaic-prophetic-priestly Judaism was continued, with only a few
modifications, in the work of the Pharisaic and rabbinic sages well into
the modern period. Even today the various Jewish groups—whether
Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform—all claim direct spiritual descent
from the Pharisees and the rabbinic sages. In fact, however, many
developments have occurred within so-called normative or Rabbinic
Judaism.
In any event, the history of Judaism can be divided into the
following major periods: biblical Judaism (c. 20th–4th century bce),
Hellenistic Judaism (4th century bce–2nd century ce), Rabbinic Judaism
(2nd–18th century ce), and modern Judaism (c. 1750 to the present).
Salo Wittmayer Baron
The history of Judaism » Biblical Judaism (20th–4th century bce) » The
ancient Middle Eastern setting
The Bible depicts the family of the Hebrew patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob (all early 2nd millennium bce)—as having its chief seat in the
northern Mesopotamian town of Harran, which then belonged to the Hurrian
kingdom of Mitanni. From there Abraham, the founder of the Hebrew
people, is said to have migrated to Canaan (comprising roughly the
region of modern Israel and Lebanon), which was a vortex of west Asian,
Egyptian, and east Mediterranean cultures throughout the biblical period
and later ages. From Canaan the Hebrew ancestors of the people of Israel
(named after the patriarch Jacob, also called Israel) migrated to Egypt,
where they lived in servitude; a few generations later they returned to
occupy part of Canaan.
Israelite culture initially resembled that of its surroundings; it
was neither wholly original nor wholly primitive. The Hebrews were
seminomadic herdsmen and occasionally farmers. Their tribal structure
resembled that of the West Semitic steppe dwellers known from the
18th-century-bce tablets excavated at the north-central Mesopotamian
city of Mari; their family customs and law have parallels in the Old
Babylonian and Hurro-Semite law of the early and middle 2nd millennium.
The conception of a messenger of God that underlies biblical prophecy
was Amorite (West Semitic) and also found in the tablets at Mari.
Mesopotamian religious and cultural conceptions are reflected in
biblical cosmogony, primeval history (including the Flood story in
Genesis 6:9–8:22), and law collections. The Canaanite component of
Israelite culture consisted of the Hebrew language and a rich literary
heritage—whose Ugaritic form (which flourished in the northern Syrian
city of Ugarit from the mid-15th century to approximately 1200 bce)
illuminates the Bible’s poetry, style, mythological allusions, and
religious or cultic terms. Egypt provides many analogues for Hebrew
hymnody and wisdom literature. All the cultures among which the
patriarchs lived had cosmic gods who fashioned the world and preserved
its order, all had a developed ethical system expressed in law and moral
admonitions, and all had elaborate religious rites and myths.
Although plainer when compared with some of the learned literary
creations of Mesopotamia, Canaan, and Egypt, the earliest biblical
writings are so imbued with contemporary ancient Middle Eastern elements
that the once-held assumption that Israelite religion began on a
preliterate level must be rejected. Late-born amid high civilizations,
the Israelite religion had from the start features characteristic of all
the known religions of the area. Implanted on the land bridge between
Africa and Asia, it was exposed to crosscurrents of foreign thought
throughout its history.
The history of Judaism » Biblical Judaism (20th–4th century bce) » The
pre-Mosaic period: the religion of the patriarchs
Israelite tradition identified YHWH (by scholarly convention pronounced
Yahweh), the God of Israel, with the creator of the world, who had been
known and worshipped from the beginning of time. Abraham did not
discover this God but entered into a new covenantal relationship with
him, in which Abraham was promised the land of Canaan and numerous
progeny. God fulfilled that promise, it is believed, through the actions
of the Hebrew leader Moses (14th–13th century bce): he liberated the
people of Israel from Egypt, imposed covenantal obligations on them at
Mt. Sinai, and brought them to the Promised Land.
Historical and anthropological studies present formidable objections
to the continuity of YHWH worship from Adam (the biblical first man) to
Moses. The Hebrew tradition itself, moreover, does not unanimously
support even the more modest claim of the continuity of YHWH worship
from Abraham to Moses. This lack of continuity is demonstrated in Exodus
6:3, which says that God revealed himself to the patriarchs not as YHWH
but as El Shaddai—an archaic epithet of unknown meaning that is not
specifically Israelite but is found throughout the patriarchal
narratives and in the Book of Job. The epithet El Elyon (God Most High)
also appears frequently in the patriarchal narratives. Neither of these
epithets is used in postpatriarchal narratives (excepting the Book of
Ruth). Other compounds with El are unique to Genesis: El Olam (God the
Everlasting One), El Bethel (God Bethel), and El Roʾi (God of Vision).
An additional peculiarity of the patriarchal stories is their use of the
phrase “God of my [your, his] father.” All these epithets have been
taken as evidence that patriarchal religion differed from the worship of
YHWH that began with Moses. A relation to a patron god was defined by
revelations starting with Abraham (who never refers to the God of his
father) and continuing with a succession of “founders” of his worship.
Attached to the founder and his family, as befits the patron of
wanderers, this unnamed deity acquired various Canaanite epithets (El,
Elyon, Olam, Bethel, Qone Eretz [“Possessor of the Land”]) only after
their immigration into Canaan. Whether the name of YHWH was known to the
patriarchs is doubtful. It is significant that while the epithets
Shaddai and El occur frequently in pre-Mosaic and Mosaic-age names, YHWH
appears as an element only in the names of Yehoshuaʿ (Joshua) and
perhaps of Jochebed—persons who were closely associated with Moses.
The patriarchs are depicted as objects of God’s blessing, protection,
and providential care. Their response is loyalty and obedience and
observance of a cult (i.e., a system of religious beliefs and practices)
whose ordinary expression is sacrifice, vow, and prayer at an altar,
stone pillar, or sacred tree. Circumcision was a distinctive mark of the
cult community. The eschatology (doctrine of ultimate destiny) of their
faith was God’s promise of land and a great progeny. Any flagrant
contradictions between patriarchal and later mores have presumably been
censored; yet distinctive features of the post-Mosaic religion are
absent. The God of the patriarchs shows nothing of YHWH’s “jealousy”; no
religious tension or contrast with their neighbours appears, and
idolatry is scarcely an issue. The patriarchal covenant differed from
the Mosaic, Sinaitic covenant in that it was modeled upon a royal grant
to favourites and imposed no obligations as conditions of the people’s
happiness. Evidently not the same as the later religion of Israel, the
patriarchal religion prepared the way for the later one through its
familial basis, its personal call by the Deity, and its response of
loyalty and obedience to him.
Little can be said of the relation between the religion of the
patriarchs and the religions of Canaan. Known points of contact between
them are the divine epithets mentioned above. Like the God of the
fathers, El, the head of the Ugaritic pantheon, was depicted as both a
judgmental and a compassionate deity. Baal (Lord), the aggressive young
agricultural deity of Ugarit, is remarkably absent from Genesis. Yet the
socioeconomic situation of the patriarchs was so different from the
urban, mercantile, and monarchical background of the Ugaritic myths as
to render any comparisons highly questionable.
The history of Judaism » Modern Judaism (c. 1750 to the present) »
Zionism
The most striking of the new phenomena in Jewish life was Zionism,
which, insofar as it focused on the return to Zion (the poetic term for
the Holy Land), recalled older religious themes. Because it stressed the
establishment of a secular state, however, Zionism was yet another
example of the secularization of Jewish life and of Jewish messianism.
In its secular aspects, Zionism attempted to complete the emancipation
of the Jews by transforming them into a nation like all other nations.
Although it drew upon the general currents of 19th-century European
nationalism, its major impetus came from the revival of a virulent form
of racist anti-Semitism in the last decades of the 19th century, as
noted above. Zionism reacted to anti-Semitic contentions that the Jews
were aliens in European society and could never hope to be integrated
into it in significant numbers; it transformed this charge into a basic
premise of a program of national regeneration and resettlement. Zionism
has come to occupy roughly the same place in Jewish life as the Social
Gospel did in Christian life. Involvement in Israel as the new centre of
Jewish energies, creativity, and renewal served as a kind of secular
religion for many Diaspora Jews.
The history of Judaism » Modern Judaism (c. 1750 to the present) »
American Judaism
The history of Judaism in the United States is the story of several
fresh beginnings. In the colonial period the character of the tiny
American Jewish community was shaped by the earliest Sephardic
immigrants. The community was officially Orthodox but, unlike European
Jewish communities, was voluntaristic, and by the early 19th century
much of the younger generation had moved away from the faith. By the
mid-19th century a new wave of central European immigrants revived the
declining community and remade it to serve their own needs. Primarily
small shopkeepers and traders, the new immigrants migrated westward,
founding new Jewish centres that were almost entirely controlled by
laymen.
Life on the frontier in an open society created a predisposition for
religious reform, and it is significant that the greatest American
Reform Jewish leader of the 19th century, Isaac Mayer Wise (1819–1900),
was based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Wise sought to unite all of American
Jewry in the new nontraditional institutions that he founded: the Union
of American Hebrew Congregations (1873), Hebrew Union College (1875),
and the Central Conference of American Rabbis (1889); but his ever more
radical reforming spirit ultimately drove traditionalist elements into
opposition.
The head of the traditionalists was Isaac Leeser (1806–68), a native
of Germany, who had attempted to create an indigenous American community
along the lines of a modernized traditionalism. After his death,
Conservative forces became disorganized, but, in reaction to Reform,
they defined themselves by their attachment to the Sabbath, the dietary
laws, and especially to Hebrew as the language of prayer. Under the
leadership of Sabato Morais (1823–97), a traditional Sephardic Jew of
Italian birth, Conservative circles in 1886 founded a rabbinic seminary
of their own, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
The eastern European immigrants who moved in large numbers to
American shores from 1881 to 1914 were profoundly different in culture
and manners from the older elements of the American Jewish community,
and they and their descendants have made American Judaism what it is
today. The bridge between the existing Jewish community led by German
Jews of Reform persuasion and the new immigrant masses was the
traditionalist element among the older settlers. A traditionalist, Cyrus
Adler (1863–1940), cooperated with the German Reform circle of Jacob
Schiff (1847–1920) in reorganizing the Jewish Theological Seminary
(1902) and other institutions for the purpose of Americanizing the
eastern European immigrants. Enough eastern European rabbis and scholars
had immigrated, however, to create their own synagogues, which
reproduced the customs of the Old World. In 1880 almost all of the 200
Jewish congregations in the United States were Reform, but by 1890 there
were 533 synagogues, and most of the new ones founded by immigrant
groups were Orthodox. The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, which
was established in 1898 by elements associated with the Jewish
Theological Seminary, was soon taken over by Yiddish-speaking recent
immigrants for whom the seminary was much too liberal. In 1902 immigrant
rabbis also formed their own body, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the
United States and Canada (the Agudath ha-Rabbanim), which fostered the
creation of yeshivas (rabbinic academies) of the old type. In 1915 two
small yeshivas, Etz Chaim and Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Theological Seminary,
merged and undertook a program of further growth, adding Yeshiva College
of secular studies in 1928 and becoming Yeshiva University in 1945. The
eastern European Orthodox elements concentrated primarily on Jewish
education, and it was they who introduced the movement for Jewish day
schools, analogous to Christian parochial schools. Gradually, an
American version of Orthodoxy developed on the Neo-Orthodox model of
Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–88), which combined institutional separatism
with a certain openness to general culture.
The immigrants and their children had three desires: to advance
socially by joining older congregations or forming their own in an
Americanized image, to affirm an unideological commitment to Jewish
life, and to maintain their ties to the overseas Jewish communities of
their origin. With their strong sense of Jewish personhood, they
introduced Zionism into American Jewish life and accepted the basic
ideas of the Reconstructionism of Mordecai Kaplan (1881–1983), which was
committed to Zionism. A small group of anti-Zionists remained a
significant force in the 1930s and ’40s, but their central organization,
the American Council for Judaism, represented the descendants of earlier
German Jewish immigrants. The later immigrants took over all the earlier
institutions of the Jewish community and imbued them with their own
spirit.
American Jewish religious life is a continuum, from the most
traditional Orthodoxy to the most radical Reconstructionism. In theory,
all Orthodox groups agree on the revealed nature of all of Jewish law.
For Reform groups, the moral doctrine of Judaism is divine and its
ritual law is man-made; Conservatives see Judaism as the working out in
both areas of a divine revelation that is incarnate in a slowly changing
human history; and the Reconstructionists (who also include some
Conservative and Reform Jews) view Judaism as the evolving civilization
created by the Jewish people in the light of its highest conscience. The
role of the rabbi is substantially the same in all three groups: no
longer a Talmudic scholar but a preacher, pastor, and administrator, a
cross between a parish priest and the leader of an ethnic group.
Religious life for the three major Jewish denominations—Orthodox,
Reform, and Conservative—revolves around the individual synagogue and
the denomination to which it belongs. As religious identification has
become increasingly respectable in American life, the Jews have followed
the American norm, affiliating in greater numbers with synagogues,
though often for ethnic or social rather than religious reasons.
The history of Judaism » Modern Judaism (c. 1750 to the present) »
Judaism in other lands
Modernity came first to the Jewish people of Europe. It was therefore
within the European context that representatives of important
non-Ashkenazi communities—such as the proto-Zionist Sephardi Judah ben
Solomon Ḥai Alkalai (1798–1878) of Sarajevo and the Luzzatto family and
Elijah Benamozegh (1822–1900) in Italy—participated in variations of
Jewish modernity. In England and France more so than in Germany or
Russia, the central focus of Jewish experience was Wissenschaft des
Judentums, with its Enlightenment ideology; there the “republic of
scholarship” became the synagogue of the Jewish intelligentsia. In
neither country did Reform Judaism gain a major foothold, for the
Orthodox establishment liberalized its synagogue practice while
retaining its essentially conservative outlook. In Anglo-Jewish life in
the last decades of the 19th century, the two most pronounced modernist
tendencies were the moderate, romantic traditionalism of Solomon
Schechter (1847–1915) and the “renewed Karaism” of Claude Joseph
Goldsmid Montefiore (1858–1938), whose version of religious reform was
“back to the Bible.”
In South America and Canada, Jewish modernity appeared late, for
European Jewry arrived in those places even later than in the United
States, attaining significant numbers only in the 20th century. These
communities were dependent on immigrant scholars and intellectuals for
serious Jewish thought. Jews in the Arab lands in North Africa and the
Middle East, living in traditional societies, entered modernity even
later than those on the peripheries of Europe. Many of them received
their first introduction to the Western world in schools set up by the
Alliance Israélite Universelle (a Jewish defense organization centred in
Paris), which combined Jewish education with the language and values of
French civilization. Yet most of these communities remained
traditionalist almost up to the moment when they were expelled or felt
compelled to relocate, beginning in 1948, when the State of Israel was
created. The ferment of modernity in all its forms is now being felt in
their ranks. In Israel, which has received a large segment of Sephardic
Jewry, the attention of these communities has turned to gaining equality
with the more advanced Ashkenazim rather than to developing forms of
modern Jewish thought.
Other groups that may be described as regional or ethnic include the
Bene Israel, descendants of Jewish settlers in the Bombay region of
India, whose deviation in some Halakhic matters from the present
Orthodox consensus has raised problems for those among them who have
migrated to Israel; the Falashas of Ethiopia, whose development has been
almost entirely outside the mainstream described in this article; and
the Black Jews of the United States, whose place in and relation to the
rest of the community remains unclear.
The Judaic tradition » The literature of Judaism » General
considerations
A paradigmatic statement is made in the narrative that begins with
Genesis and ends with Joshua. In the early chapters of Genesis, the
divine is described as the creator of humankind and the entire natural
order. In the stories of Eden, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel, humans
are recognized as rebellious and disobedient. In the patriarchal stories
(about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph), a particular family is called
upon to restore the relationship between God and humankind. The
subsequent history of the community thus formed is recounted so that
God’s desired restoration may be recognized and the nature of the
obedient community may be observed by his people: the Egyptian
servitude, the Exodus from Egypt, the revelation of the “teaching,” the
wandering years, and finally fulfillment through entrance into the
“land” (Canaan). The prophetic books (in the Hebrew Bible these include
the historical narratives up to the Babylonian Exile—i.e., Joshua,
Judges, Samuel, and Kings) also address the tension between rebellion
and obedience, interpreting it within the changing historical context
and adding new levels of meaning to the motif of fulfillment and
redemption.
From this “narrative theology,” as it has been recited throughout the
centuries, new formulations of the primal affirmations have been drawn.
These have been clothed in philosophical, mystical, ethnic, and
political vocabularies, among others. The emphases have been various,
the disagreements often profound. No single exposition has exhausted the
possibilities of the affirmations or of the relationship between them.
Philosophers have expounded them on the highest level of abstraction,
using the language of the available philosophical systems. Mystics have
enveloped them in the extravagant prose of speculative systems and in
simple folktales. Attempts have been made to encompass them in
theoretical ethical statements and to express them through practical
ethical behaviour. Yet, in each instance, the proposed interpretations
have had to come to terms with the spiritual and intellectual demands
arising out of the community’s experience. The biblical texts,
themselves the products of a long period of transmission and embodying
more than a single outlook, were subjected to extensive study and
interpretation over many centuries and, when required, were translated
into other languages. The whole literature remains the basis of further
developments, so that any attempt to formulate a statement of the
affirmations of Judaism must, however contemporary it seeks to be, give
heed to the scope and variety of speculation and formulation in the
past.
The Judaic tradition » The literature of Judaism » Sources and scope of
the Torah
The concept “Giver of Torah” played a central role in the understanding
of God, for it is Torah, or “Teaching,” that confirms the events
recognized by the community as the acts of God. In its written form,
Torah was considered to be especially present in the first five books of
the Bible (the Pentateuch), which themselves came to be called Torah. In
addition to this written Torah, or “Law,” there were also unwritten laws
or customs and interpretations of them, carried down in an oral
tradition over many generations, which acquired the status of oral
Torah.
The oral tradition interpreted the written Torah, adapted its
precepts to ever-changing political and social circumstances, and
supplemented it with new legislation. Thus, the oral tradition added a
dynamic dimension to the written code, making it a perpetual process
rather than a closed system. The vitality of this tradition is fully
demonstrated in the way the ancient laws were adapted after the
destruction of the Temple in 70 ce and by the role played by the Talmud
in the survival of the Jewish people in exile. By the 11th century,
Diaspora Jews lived in a Talmudic culture that united them and that
superseded geographical boundaries and language differences. Jewish
communities governed themselves according to Talmudic law, and
individuals regulated the smallest details of their lives by it.
Central to this vast structure was, of course, the Jewish community’s
concern to live in accordance with the divine will as it was embodied
and expressed in Torah in the widest sense. Scripture, Halakhic and
Haggadic Midrash, Mishna, and Gemara were the sources that Jewish
leaders used to give their communities stability and flexibility. Jewish
communities and individuals of the Diaspora faced novel and unexpected
situations that had to be dealt with in ways that would provide
continuity while making it possible to exist with the unprecedented.
The Judaic tradition » The literature of Judaism » Sources and scope
of the Torah » Prophecy and religious experience
Torah in the broad sense includes the whole Hebrew Bible, including the
books of the Prophets. According to the Prophets, God was revealed in
the nexus of historical events and made ethical demands upon the
community. In Rabbinic Judaism the role of the prophet—the charismatic
person—as a source of Torah ended in the period of Ezra (i.e., about the
time of the return from the Babylonian Exile in the 5th century bce).
This opinion may have been a reaction to the luxuriant growth of
apocalyptic speculation, a development that was considered dangerous and
unsettling in the period after the Bar Kokhba revolt, or Second Jewish
Revolt (132–135 ce). Indeed, there seems to have developed a suspicion
that reliance on unrestrained individual experience as a source of Torah
was inimical to the welfare of the community. Such an attitude was by no
means new. Deuteronomy (13:2–19) had already warned against such
“misleaders.” The culmination of this attitude is to be found in a
Talmudic narrative in which even the bat qol, the divine “echo” that
announces God’s will, is ignored on a particular occasion. Related to
this is the reluctance on the part of teachers in the early centuries of
the Common Era to point to wonders and miracles in their own time. Far
from expressing an ossification of religious experience—the development
of the siddur (prayer book) and the Talmudic reports on the devotional
life of the rabbis contradict such an interpretation—the attitude seems
to be a response to the development of religious enthusiasm such as that
exhibited in the behaviour of the Christian church in Corinth—as Paul’s
First Letter to the Corinthians reveals—and among gnostic sects and
sectarians. Thus, even among the speculative mystics of the Middle Ages,
where allegorization of Scripture abounds, the structure of the
community and the obligations of the individual are not displaced by the
deepening of personal religious life through mystical experience. The
decisive instance of this is Joseph Karo (1488–1575), who was thought to
be in touch with a supernal guide but who was at the same time the
author of an important codification of Jewish law, the Shulḥan ʿarukh.
Admittedly, there have been occasions when Torah, even in the wide
sense, has been rigidly applied. In certain historical situations the
dynamic process of Rabbinic Judaism has been treated as a static
structure. What is of greater significance, however, is the way in which
this tendency toward inflexibility has been reversed by the inherent
dynamism of the rabbinic tradition.
The Judaic tradition » The literature of Judaism » Sources and scope
of the Torah » Modern views of Torah
Since the end of the 18th century, the traditional position has been
challenged both in detail and in principle. The rise of biblical
criticism has raised a host of questions about the origins and
development of Scripture and thus about the very concept of Torah, in
the senses in which it has functioned in Judaism. Naturalistic views of
God have required a reinterpretation of Torah in sociological terms.
Other positions of many sorts have been and undoubtedly will be
forthcoming. What is crucial, however, is the concern of all these
positions to retain the concept of Torah as one of the central and
continuing affirmations of Judaism.
Haim Zalman Dimitrovsky
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines
Judaism is more than an abstract intellectual system, though there have
been many efforts to view it systematically. It affirms divine
sovereignty disclosed in creation (nature) and in history, without
necessarily insisting upon—but at the same time not
rejecting—metaphysical speculation about the divine. It insists that the
community has been confronted by the divine not as an abstraction but as
a person with whom the community and its members have entered into a
relationship. It is, as the concept of Torah indicates, a program of
human action, rooted in this personal confrontation. Further, the
response of this particular people to its encounter with God is viewed
as significant for all humankind. The community is called upon to
express its loyalty to God and the covenant by exhibiting solidarity
within its corporate life on every level, including every aspect of
human behaviour, from the most public to the most private. Thus, even
Jewish worship is a communal celebration of the meetings with God in
history and in nature. Yet the particular existence of the covenant
people is thought of not as contradicting but rather as enhancing human
solidarity. This people, together with all humanity, is called upon to
institute political, economic, and social forms that will affirm divine
sovereignty. This task is carried out in the belief not that humans will
succeed in these endeavours solely by their own efforts but that these
sought-after human relationships have their source and their goal in
God, who assures their actualization. Within the community, each Jew is
called upon to realize the covenant in his or her personal intention and
behaviour.
In considering the basic affirmations of Judaism from this point of
view, it is best to allow indigenous formulations rather than systematic
statements borrowed from other traditions to govern the presentation.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » God
An early statement of basic beliefs and doctrines about God emerged in
the liturgy of the synagogue some time during the last pre-Christian and
first Christian centuries; there is some evidence to suggest that such
formulations were not absent from the Temple cult that came to an end in
the year 70 ce. A section of the siddur that focuses on the recitation
of a series of biblical passages (Deuteronomy 6:4–9; Deuteronomy
11:13–21; Numbers 15:37–41) is named for the first of these, Shema
(“Hear”): “Hear, O Israel! the Lord is our God, the Lord alone” (or
“…the Lord our God, the Lord is one”). In the Shema—often regarded as
the Jewish confession of faith, or creed—the biblical material and
accompanying benedictions are arranged to provide a statement about
God’s relationship with the world and Israel (the Jewish people), as
well as about Israel’s obligations toward and response to God. In this
statement, God—the creator of the universe who has chosen Israel in love
(“Blessed art thou, O Lord, who has chosen thy people Israel in love”)
and showed this love by the giving of Torah—is declared to be “one.” His
love is to be reciprocated by those who lovingly obey Torah and whose
obedience is rewarded and rebellion punished. The goal of this obedience
is God’s “redemption” of Israel, a role foreshadowed by his action in
bringing Israel out of Egypt.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » God » Unity and
uniqueness
At the centre of this liturgical formulation of belief is the concept of
divine singularity and uniqueness. In its original setting, it may have
served as the theological statement of the reform under Josiah, king of
Judah, in the 7th century bce, when worship was centred exclusively in
Jerusalem and all other cultic centres were rejected, so that the
existence of one shrine only was understood as affirming one deity. The
idea acquired further meaning, however. It was understood toward the end
of the pre-Christian era to proclaim the unity of divine love and divine
justice, as expressed in the divine names YHWH and Elohim, respectively.
A further expansion of this affirmation is found in the first two
benedictions of this liturgical section, which together proclaim that
the God who is the creator of the universe and the God who is Israel’s
ruler and lawgiver are one and the same—as opposed to the dualistic
religious positions of the Greco-Roman world, which insisted that the
creator God and the lawgiver God are separate and even inimical. This
affirmation was developed in philosophical and mystical terms by both
medieval and modern thinkers.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » God » Creativity
This “creed,” or “confession of faith,” underscores in the first
benediction the relation of God to the world as that of creator to
creation. “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who
forms light and creates darkness, who makes peace and creates all
things.” It adds the assertion that his activity is not in the past but
is ongoing and continuous, for “he makes new continually, each day, the
work of creation”; thus, unlike the deity of the Stoic worldview, he
remains actively present in nature (see Stoicism). This creed also
addresses the ever-present problem of theodicy (see also evil, problem
of). Paraphrasing Isaiah 45:7, “I form the light and create darkness; I
make peace, and create evil,” it changes the last word to “all” (or “all
things”). The change was clearly made to avoid the implication that God
is the source of moral evil. Judaism, however, did not ignore the
problem of pain and suffering in the world; it affirmed the paradox of
suffering and divine sovereignty, of pain and divine providence,
refusing to accept the concept of a God that is Lord over only the
harmonious and pleasant aspects of reality.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » God » Activity
in the world
The second and the third benedictions deal with divine activity within
the realm of history and human life. God is the teacher of all humanity;
he has chosen the people of Israel in love to witness to his presence
and his desire for a perfected society; he will, as redeemer, enable
humanity to experience that perfection. These activities, together with
creation itself, are understood to express divine compassion and
kindness as well as justice (judgment), recognizing the sometimes
paradoxical relation between them. Taken together, they disclose Divine
Providence—God’s continual activity in the world. The constant renewal
of creation (nature) is itself an act of compassion overriding strict
justice and affording humankind further opportunity to fulfill the
divinely appointed obligation.
The basically moral nature of God is asserted in the second of the
biblical passages that form the core of this liturgical statement
(Deuteronomy 11:13–21). Here, in the language of its agricultural
setting, the community is promised reward for obedience and punishment
for disobedience. The intention of the passage is clear: obedience is
rewarded by the preservation of order, so that the community and its
members find wholeness in life; while disobedience—rebellion against
divine sovereignty—shatters order, so that the community is overwhelmed
by adversity. The passage of time has made the original language
unsatisfactory (promising rain, crops, and fat cattle), but the basic
principle remains, affirming that, however difficult it is to recognize
the fact, there is a divine law and judge. Support for this affirmation
is drawn from the third biblical passage (Numbers 15:37–41), which
explains that the fringes the Israelites are commanded to wear on the
corners of their garments are reminders to observe the commandments of
God, who brought forth Israel from Egyptian bondage. The theme of divine
redemption is elaborated in the concluding benediction to point toward a
future in which the as-yet-fragmentary rule of God will be brought to
completion: “Blessed is his name whose glorious kingdom is for ever and
ever.”
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » God » Otherness
and nearness
Within this complex of ideas, other themes are interwoven. In the
concept of the divine creator there is a somewhat impersonal or remote
quality—of a power above and apart from the world—which is emphasized by
expressions such as the trifold declaration of God’s holiness, or divine
otherness, in Isaiah 6:3: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts….” The
development of surrogate divine names for biblical usage, as well as the
substitution of Adonai (“my Lord”) for the tetragrammaton (YHWH) in the
reading of the Bible itself, suggests an acute awareness of the
otherness of God. Yet the belief in the transcendence of God is mirrored
by the affirmation of God’s immanence. In the biblical narrative it is
God himself who is the directly active participant in events, an idea
that is emphasized in the liturgical narrative (Haggada; “Storytelling”)
recited during the Passover meal (seder): “and the Lord brought us forth
out of Egypt—not by an angel, and not by a seraph, and not by a
messenger….” The surrogate divine name Shekhina, “Presence” (i.e., the
presence of God in the world), is derived from a Hebrew root meaning “to
dwell,” again calling attention to divine nearness. The relationship
between these two affirmations, otherness and nearness, is expressed in
a Midrashic statement, “in every place that divine awesome majesty is
mentioned in Scripture, divine abasement is spoken of, too.”
Closely connected with these ideas is the concept of divine
personhood, most particularly illustrated in the use of the pronoun
“thou” in direct address to God. The community and the individual,
confronted by the creator, teacher, and redeemer, address the divine as
a living person, not as a theological abstraction. The basic liturgical
form, the berakha (“blessing”), is usually couched in the second person
singular: “Blessed art thou….” This relationship, through which
remoteness is overcome and presentness is established, illuminates
creation, Torah, and redemption, for it reveals the meaning of love.
From it flow the various possibilities of expressing the divine-human
relationship in personal, intimate language. Sometimes, especially in
mystical thought, such language becomes extravagant, foreshadowed by
vivid biblical metaphors such as the husband-wife relation in Hosea, the
“adoption” motif in Ezekiel 16, and the firstborn-son relation in Exodus
4:22. Nonetheless, although terms of personal intimacy are used widely
to express Israel’s relationship with God, such usage is restrained by
the accompanying sense of divine otherness. This is evident in the
liturgical “blessings,” where, following the direct address to God in
which the second person singular pronoun is used, the verbs are with
great regularity in the third person singular, thus providing the
requisite tension between nearness and otherness, between the personal
and the impersonal.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » God » Modern
views of God
The Judaic affirmations about God have not always been given the same
emphasis, nor have they been understood in the same way. This was true
in the Middle Ages, among both philosophers and mystics, as well as in
modern times. In the 19th century, western European Jewish thinkers
attempted to express and transform these affirmations in terms of German
philosophical idealism. Later thinkers turned to philosophical
naturalism, supplemented with the traditional God language, as the
suitable expression of Judaism. In the first half of the 20th century
the meaningfulness of the whole body of such affirmations was called
into question by the philosophical school of logical positivism. The
destruction of six million Jews in the Holocaust raised the issue of the
validity of concepts such as God’s presence in history, divine
redemption, the covenant, and the chosen people.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » Israel (the Jewish
people) » Choice and covenant
The concluding phrase of the second benediction of the liturgical
section—“who has chosen thy people Israel in love”—clearly states that
God’s choice to establish a relationship with Israel in particular was
determined by divine love. The patriarchal narratives, beginning with
the 12th chapter of Genesis, presuppose the choice, which is set forth
explicitly in Deuteronomy 7:6–8 in the New Jewish Version:
For you are a people consecrated to the Lord your God: of all the
peoples on earth the Lord your God chose you to be His treasured people.
It is not because you are the most numerous of peoples that the Lord set
His heart on you and chose you—indeed you are the smallest of peoples;
but it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath He made with
your fathers that the Lord freed you with a mighty hand and rescued you
from the house of bondage, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Later rabbinic traditions on occasion sought to base God’s choice
upon some special merit of Israel, and the medieval poet and theologian
Judah ha-Levi suggested that the openness to divine influence originally
present in Adam continued only within the people of Israel.
The background of this choice is the recurring disobedience of
humankind narrated in Genesis 2–11 (the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain
and Abel, Noah, and the Tower of Babel). In the subsequent chapters of
Genesis, Abraham and his descendants are singled out not merely as the
object of the divine blessing but also as its channel to all humanity.
The choice, however, demands a reciprocal response from Abraham and his
lineage. That response is obedience, as exemplified in the first
instance by Abraham’s readiness to leave his “native land” and his
“father’s house” (Genesis 12:1). This twofold relationship was
formalized in a mutually binding agreement, a covenant between the two
parties. The covenant, thought by some modern biblical scholars to
reflect the form of ancient suzerainty treaties, indicates (as in the
Ten Utterances, or Decalogue) the source of Israel’s obligation—the acts
of God in history—and the specific requirements those acts impose. The
formalization of this relationship was accomplished by certain cultic
acts that, according to some contemporary scholars, may have been
performed on a regular basis at various sacred sites in the land before
being centralized in Jerusalem. The content of the covenantal
obligations thus formalized was Torah. Israel was bound in obedience,
and Israel’s failure to obey provided the occasions for the prophetic
messages. The prophets, as spokespersons for God, called the community
to renewed obedience, threatened and promised disaster if obedience was
not forthcoming, and sought to explain the covenant’s persistence even
when it should have been repudiated by God.
The choice of Israel is expressed in concrete terms in the
requirements of the precepts (mitzwot, singular mitzwa) that are part of
Torah. The blessing recited before the public reading of the
pentateuchal portions on Sabbath, festivals, holy days, fasts, and
certain weekdays refers to God as “He who chose us from among all the
peoples and gave us His Torah,” thus emphasizing the intimate
relationship between the elective and revelatory aspects of God.
Israel’s role was not defined solely in terms of its own obedience to
the commandments. Abraham and his descendants, for example, were seen as
the means by which the estrangement of disobedient humankind from God
was to be overcome. Torah was the formative principle underlying the
community’s fulfillment of this obligation. Israel was to be “a kingdom
of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6) functioning within humanity
and for its sake. This task is enunciated with particular earnestness in
the writings of the Prophets. In Isaiah 43–44, Israel is declared to be
God’s witness and servant, who is to bring the knowledge of God to the
nations, and in 42:6–7 it is described as a “covenant of the people, to
be a light of the nations, to open the blind eyes, to bring out the
prisoners from the prisons, and them that sit in darkness out of the
prison house.” This double motif of a chosen people and a witness to the
nations, joined to that of the righteous king, developed in the biblical
and postbiblical periods into messianism in its several varieties.
The intimate relation between choice, covenant, and Torah determined
the modality of Israel’s existence. Religious faith, far from being
restricted to or encapsulated in the cult, found expression in the
totality of communal and individual life. The obligation of the people
was to be the true community, in which the relationship between its
members was open, in which social distance was repudiated, and in which
response to the divine will expressed in Torah was called for equally
from all. One of the important recurring themes of the prophetic
movement was the adamant rejection of any tendency to limit divine
sovereignty to the partial area of “religion,” understood as the realm
of the priesthood and cult. Subsequent developments continued this
theme, though it appeared in a number of other forms. Pharisaic Judaism
and its continuation, Rabbinic Judaism, resolutely held to the idea of
the all-pervasive functioning of Torah, so that however the various
Jewish communities over the centuries may have failed to fulfill this
idea, the self-image of the people was that of a “holy community.”
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » Israel (the
Jewish people) » Israel and the nations
The double motif of “treasured people” and “witness” was not without its
tensions as it functioned in ongoing history. Tensions are especially
visible in the period following the return from the Babylonian Exile at
the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 5th century bce. It is,
however, doubtful whether the use of such terms as nationalism,
particularism, or exclusivism are of any great help in understanding the
situation. Emphasis has, for example, been laid upon Ezra 9:2 and 10:2,
in which the reestablished community is commanded to give up wives taken
from “the peoples of the land.” This is taken as an indication of the
exclusive and nationalistic nature of Judaism, without reference to the
situation in which a harassed contingent of returning exiles sought to
maintain itself in a territory surrounded by politically unfriendly if
not hostile neighbours. Nor does this recognize that foreigners were
admitted to the Jewish community; in the following centuries, some
groups engaged in extensive missionary activities, appealing to the
individuals of the nations surrounding them to join themselves to the
God of Israel, the one true God and the creator of heaven and earth.
A more balanced view recognizes that, within the Jewish community,
religious universalism was affirmed by the same people who understood
the nature of Jewish existence in politically particularistic (i.e.,
nationalistic) terms. To neglect either side is to distort the picture.
In no case was the universalism disengaged from the reality of the
existing community, even when it was expressed in terms of the ultimate
fulfillment of the divine purpose, the restoration of the true
covenantal relationship between God and all humankind. Nor was political
particularism, even under circumstances of great provocation and
resentment, misanthropic. The most satisfactory figure in describing the
situation of the restored community, and one that continues to be useful
in dealing with later episodes, is that of the human heartbeat, made up
of two functions, the systole, or contraction, and the diastole, or
expansion. There have been several periods of contraction and of
expansion throughout the history of Judaism. The emphasis within the
abiding tension has been determined by the historical situation in which
the community has found itself. To generalize in one direction or the
other is fatal to an understanding of the history and faith of the “holy
community.”
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » Israel (the
Jewish people) » The people and the land
Closely related to the concept of Israel as the chosen, or covenant,
people is the role of the land of Israel. In the patriarchal stories,
settlement in Canaan is an integral part of God’s fulfillment of the
covenant. The goal of the Israelites who escaped from Egypt and of those
who returned from the Babylonian Exile is the same land, and entry into
it is understood in the same fashion. As there was the choice of a
people, so there was the choice of a land—and for much the same reason.
It was to provide the setting in which the community could come into
being as it carried out the divine commandments. This choice of the land
contrasts significantly with the predominant ideas of other peoples in
the ancient world, in which the deity or divinities were usually bound
to a particular parcel of ground outside of which they lost their
effectiveness or reality. Although some such concepts may very well have
crept into Israelite thought during the period of the kings (from Saul
to Jehoiachin), the crisis of the Babylonian Exile was met by a renewal
of the affirmation that the God of Israel was, as Lord of all the earth,
free from territorial restraint, though he had chosen a particular
territory for this chosen people. Here again the twofold nature of
Jewish thought becomes apparent, and both sides must be affirmed or the
view is distorted.
Following the two revolts against Rome (66–73 ce and 132–135 ce), the
Jews of the ever-widening dispersion continued, as they had before these
disasters, to cherish the land. Once again it became the symbol of
fulfillment, so that return to it was looked upon as an essential part
of messianic restoration. The liturgical patterns of the community,
insofar as they were concerned with natural phenomena (e.g., planting,
rainfall, harvest, and the annual cycle) rather than historical events,
were based on geography, topography, and agricultural practices of the
land. Although some Jews continued to live in the land, those in the
distant dispersion idealized it, viewing it primarily in eschatological
terms—their destination at the end of days, in the world to come. The
11th-century poet Judah ha-Levi not only longed for it in verse but also
gave it a significant role in his theological interpretation of Judaism
and eventually sought to return to it from his native Spain.
It was not, however, until the 19th century that the land began to
play a role other than the goal of pilgrimage or of occasional
settlement by pietists and mystics. At the end of the 19th century the
power of the territorial concept was released in eastern Europe in a
cultural renaissance that focused, in part, on a return to the land and,
in western and central Europe, in a political movement coloured by
nationalist motifs in European thought. The coming together of these two
strains of thought gave rise to Zionism. This predominantly political
movement reflected a dissatisfaction with the overall status of the
Jewish people in the modern world.
The political emphasis of Zionism aroused considerable opposition
from three competing views of the status of the Jewish people. The first
opposition came from some traditionalist Jews (now called “Orthodox” or
“ultra-Orthodox”) who were convinced that the Jewish nation must remain
a solely religious community in the Diaspora and even in the land of
Israel. They accepted the political rule of the Gentiles until the time
when God will send his messiah to redeem the Jewish people by
supernaturally returning all of them to the land of Israel in order to
rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
The second opposition came from acculturated Jews in western Europe
and North America who believed that Jews are part of larger secular
polities and that their role in them should be that of a communion of
like-minded religious believers, similar to that of the Catholic and
Protestant denominations.
The third opposition came from some eastern European Jews who
maintained that the Jewish people should seek their own national status
in the territories in which they were presently living, similar to the
resurgence of nationalism among a number of smaller nations living under
the Austro-Hungarian or Russian empires. It was not until the Nazi
Holocaust in the middle of the 20th century that the vast majority of
Jews regarded Zionism, if not as the solution to the “Jewish question,”
then as something the Jews could not very well survive without. After
this time, Jewish opposition to Zionism was confined to peripheral
groups on the right who still saw Zionism as pseudo-messianism and to
peripheral groups on the left who still saw Zionism as isolating Jews
from more important universalist goals.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » Israel (the
Jewish people) » Modern views of the people Israel
The nature of the people Israel and of the land of Israel has been
variously interpreted in the history of Jewish thought. In modern times
some interpretations have been deeply influenced by contemporary
political and social discussions in the general community. Thus, for
example, Zionist theoreticians were influenced by concepts of political
nationalism on the one hand and by socialist ideas on the other.
Further, the challenge to traditional theological concepts in the 19th
century raised issues about the meaning of the choice of Israel, and
Jewish thinkers borrowed from romantic nationalism ideas such as the
“genius” of the people. In the 20th century, attempts were made to
approach the question sociologically, dismissing the theological mode as
unhelpful. The concept of the chosen people was accordingly understood
as indicating a specific role deliberately undertaken by the Jewish
people and similar to that espoused by other groups (e.g., manifest
destiny by the American people). The establishment of the State of
Israel motivated some thinkers to call for a repudiation of the idea, in
keeping with the position that normal existence for the Jews requires
the dismissal of such concepts. Although only a small minority of Jewish
thinkers espoused this position, the concept of the choice of Israel was
not without theological difficulties. In the late 20th century there
were also some important attempts by Jewish thinkers to develop a
theology of election.
The most important scholarship on the concept of “chosenness” was
Michael Wyschogrod’s The Body of Faith (1983) and David Novak’s The
Election of Israel (1995). Wyschogrod held that the people of Israel
were elected because of God’s exceptional love for them and that God’s
love existed prior to the revelation to Moses on Mount Sinai. Novak also
accepted the traditional belief that God formed a unique relationship
with Israel but maintained that God extends his covenant to the world
and that the particularity of Israel’s election is implicated in the
general covenant with the world and vice versa.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » Humanity » The
image of God
In Genesis 1:26, 27; 5:1; and 9:6 two terms occur, “image” and
“likeness,” that seem to indicate clearly the biblical understanding of
essential human nature: humans are created in the image and likeness of
God. Yet the texts in which these terms are used are not entirely
unambiguous; the idea they point to does not appear elsewhere in
Scriptures, and the concept is not too prominent in the rabbinic
interpretations. What the image and likeness of God, or the divine
image, refers to in the biblical texts is not made explicit, and, in
light of the fact that the texts are dominated by psychosomatic
conceptions of the nature of humanity (i.e., involving both soul and
body), it is not possible to escape entirely the implication of “bodily”
similarity. What the terms meant in their context at the time and
whether they reflect mythological usages taken over from other Middle
Eastern thought are by no means certain. However, according to Akiba,
the most prominent 2nd-century-ce rabbi, the “image” of God seems to
mean the unique human capacity for a spiritual relationship with him;
this interpretation thus avoids any suggestion of a physical similarity
between God and humans.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » Humanity » The
earthly-spiritual creature
A dualistic interpretation of humanity was offered in parts of the
ancient Jewish community that were deeply influenced by Greek
philosophical ideas. In this understanding, the divine likeness is
identified with the immortal, intellectual soul as contrasted to the
body. Other ancient and modern thinkers have understood the likeness as
ethical, placing particular emphasis on freedom of the will. Clearly, no
doctrine of humanity can be erected on the basis of these several verses
alone—a broader view must be taken. A careful examination of the
biblical material, particularly the words nefesh, neshama, and
ruaḥ—which are often too broadly translated as “soul” and
“spirit”—indicates that these terms must not be understood as referring
to the psychical side of a psychophysical pair. A human being does not
possess a nefesh but rather is a nefesh, as Genesis 2:7 says, “wayehi
ha-adam le-nefesh ḥayya” (“…and the man became a living being”). Humans
are, for most of the biblical writers, “a unit of vital power,” not a
dual creature separable into two distinct parts of unequal importance
and value. While this understanding of human nature dominated biblical
thought, in apocalyptic literature (2nd century bce–2nd century ce) the
term nefesh was viewed as a separable psychical entity with existence
apart from the body. This conception of human nature was not entirely
divorced from the unitary biblical view, but a body-soul dualism (see
mind-body dualism) was effectively present in such literature. In the
Alexandrian version of Hellenistic Judaism, the orientation toward Greek
philosophy, particularly the Platonic view of the soul imprisoned in the
flesh, led to a clear-cut dualism with a negative attitude toward the
body. Rabbinic thought remained closer to the biblical position, at
least in its understanding of the human being as a psychosomatic unit,
even though the temporary separation of the components after death was
an accepted position.
The biblical view of the human as an inseparable psychosomatic unit
meant that death was understood to be human dissolution. Although a
human being ceased to be, this dissolution was not utter extinction.
Some of the power that functioned in the unit may have continued to
exist, but it was not to be understood any longer as life. The existence
of the dead in sheol, the netherworld, was not living but the shadow or
echo of living. For most biblical writers this existence was without
experience, either of God or of anything else; it was unrelated to
events. To call it immortality is to empty that term of any vital
significance. The concept of sheol, however, along with belief in the
possibility of the miraculous restoration of dead individuals to life
and even the idea of the revival of the people of Israel from the
“death” of exile, provided a foothold for the development of belief in
the resurrection of the dead body at some time in the future. The
stimulus for this may have come from ancient Iranian religion, in which
the dualistic cosmic struggle is eventually won by life through the
resurrection of the dead. This idea appeared in sketchy form in
postexilic writings (Isaiah 26:19; Daniel 12:2). In this view there is
life only in the psychosomatic unit now restored. This restoration was
bound up with the eschatological hope of Israel and was limited to the
righteous. In subsequent apocalyptic literature, a sharper distinction
between body and soul was entertained, and the latter was conceived of
as existing separately in a disembodied state after death. Although at
this point the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was not put
aside, the direction of thinking changed. The shades of sheol were now
thought of as souls, and real personal survival—with continuity between
life on earth and in sheol—was posited. Greek ideas, with their
individualistic bent, influenced Jewish thought, so that the idea of a
resurrection that was in some way related to a final historical
consummation began to recede. True life after death was now seen as
release from the bondage of the body, so that in place of or alongside
of the afterlife of physical resurrection was set the afterlife of the
immortal soul.
It was not the status of the soul, however, that concerned the
biblical and rabbinic thinkers. Instead, the latter’s discussions of
biblical themes emphasized the ethical import of the composite nature of
human beings. Humans are in a state of tension or equilibrium between
the two foci of creation, the “heavenly” and the “earthly.” They
necessarily participate in both. But this means that they are the only
creatures who can truly serve their creator, for they alone, partaking
of both sides of creation, may choose between them. It is this ability
to make an ethical choice that is the distinguishing mark of humans. It
is not derived from the “heavenly” side but resides in the dual nature
of human existence. This view is clearly not a type of body-soul dualism
in which the soul is the source of good and the body the basis of evil.
Such an attitude, however, did appear in some rabbinic material and was
often affirmed in medieval philosophical and mystical speculations and
by some of the later moralists. An important development of
biblical-rabbinic ideas, these later commentaries represent authentic
attempts to come to terms with other currents of thought and with the
problems and uncertainties inherent within the earlier materials
themselves.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » Humanity » The
ethically bound creature
Humankind is then viewed as ethically involved. The central theme of the
first 11 chapters of Genesis focuses on this responsibility, for the
implicit assumption of the pre-patriarchal stories is the human ability
to choose between obedience and disobedience. Rabbinic Judaism, taking
up the covenant-making episode between God and Noah (Genesis 9:8–17),
developed it as the basis of humanity’s ethical obligation. All
humanity, not merely Israel, is engaged in a covenant relationship with
God, which was spelled out in explicit precepts—variously enumerated as
6, 7, or even 10 and occasionally as many as 30—that reflect general
humanitarian behaviour and are intended to assure the maintenance of the
natural order by the establishment of a proper human society. The
covenant with Israel was meant to bring into being a community that
would advance the development of this society through its own obedience
and witness.
Human nature, viewed ethically, was explained in Rabbinic Judaism not
only as a tension between the “heavenly” and “earthly” components but as
a tension between two “impulses.” Here again, fragmentary and allusive
biblical materials were developed into more-comprehensive statements.
The biblical word yetzer, for example, means “plan,” that which is
formed in human minds. In the two occurrences of the word in Genesis
(6:5; 8:21), the plan or formation of the human mind is described as
raʿ, perhaps “evil” in the moral sense or maybe no more than
“disorderly,” “confused,” “undisciplined.” Other occurrences in the
Bible do not have this modifier. Nonetheless, the Aramaic translations
(Targumim) invariably replaced it with bisha (“wicked”) wherever it
occurred. Rabbinic literature created a technical term, ha-raʿ (“the
evil impulse”), to denote the source within humans of their
disobedience, and subsequently the counter-term yetzer ha-ṭov (“the good
impulse”) was used to indicate humans’ obedience. These terms more
clearly suggest the ethical quality of human duality, while their
opposition and conflict point to human freedom and the ethical choices
humans must make. Indeed, it is primarily within the realm of the
ethical that Judaism posits freedom, recognizing the bound, or
determined, quality of much of humans’ natural environment or
physiological makeup.
This ethically free creature stands within the covenant relationship
and may choose to be obedient or disobedient. Sin, then, is ultimately
deliberate disobedience or rebellion against the divine sovereign. This
is more easily observed in relation to Israel, for it is in this
connection that the central concern of Judaism is most evident and
discussed in greatest detail. The covenant relationship is not limited
to Israel, because, according to Judaic tradition, all humankind stands
within a covenant relation to God and is commanded to be moral and just;
therefore, the same choice is made universally. In technical language,
the acceptance of divine sovereignty by the people of Israel and by
individuals within that community is called “receiving the yoke of the
kingship.” This involves intellectual commitment to a basic belief, as
expressed by the Deuteronomic proclamation: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord,
our God, the Lord is one!” It also imposes obligations regarding
communal and individual behaviour. These two responses are understood to
be inextricably bound, so that rejection of the divine sovereign is
manifest as denial of God both intellectually and practically. It
amounts to “breaking the yoke of the kingship.” In more specific terms,
sin is sometimes summed up under three interrelated headings: idolatry,
murder, and illicit sexual behaviour, each of which involves rebellion,
for it involves activities that deny—if not God’s existence—his
commanding relationship and the requirement of human response. Such
behaviour destroys the community and sets individual against individual,
thus thwarting the ultimate purpose of God, the perfected human society.
If humans are free to choose rebellion and to suffer its
consequences, they are also able to turn back to God and to become
reconciled with him. The Bible—particularly the prophetic writings—is
filled with this idea, even though the term teshuva (“turning”) came
into use only in rabbinic sources. Basically, the idea grows out of the
covenant: the opportunity to return to God is the result of God’s
unwillingness—despite human failures—to break off the covenant
relationship. Rabbinic thought assumed that even the direst warnings of
utter disaster and rejection imply the possibility of turning back to
God, motivated by remorse and the desire for restoration. Divine
readiness and human openness are the two sides of the process of
reconciliation. What was expressed in prophetic literature in relation
to the immediate historical and political situation was stated in the
synagogal liturgy in connection with pentateuchal and prophetic lessons
and the homilies developed from them. Thus, the divine invitation was
constantly being offered. Humans are called upon to atone for their
rebellion by positive action in the other direction and are summoned to
reconstitute wholeness in their individual and communal life.
Jewish existence, as it developed under rabbinic leadership following
the two disastrous rebellions against Rome, was an attempt to
reconstitute a community of faith expressed in worship in an ordered
society in which the individual would live a hallowed life of response
to the divine will. Although this plan was not spelled out in detail, it
was probably understood to be the paradigm for the eventual
reconstruction of humanity.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » Humanity »
Medieval and modern views of man
Although the Jewish view of human nature was centrally concerned with
ethics, metaphysical issues, however rudimentary in the beginning, were
also included in the developing discussion. Medieval philosophers, for
example, sought an accommodation between the doctrine of the
resurrection of the body and the concept of the immortality of the soul.
The greatest of them, Moses Maimonides (1135–1204), propounded an
extremely subtle position that equated immortality with the cleaving of
the human intellect to the active intellect of the universe, thus
limiting it to philosophers or to those who accepted a suitable
philosophical theology on faith. Little or no consensus was evident in
the modern period, though the language of resurrection or immortality
was still used, even when its content was uncertain. Alongside this lack
of agreement, however, Judaism’s basic affirmation about human nature
remained the same: a human being is to be understood, however else, as a
creature who makes free ethical choices for which he is responsible.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » Ethics and society
» The ethical emphasis of Judaism
Jewish affirmations about God and humans intersect in the concept of
Torah as the ordering of human existence in the direction of the divine.
Humans are ethically responsible creatures who are responsive to the
presence of God in nature and in history. Although this responsiveness
is expressed on many levels, it is most explicitly called for within
interpersonal relationships. The pentateuchal legislation sets down,
albeit within the limitations of the structures of the ancient Middle
East, the basic patterns of these relationships. The prophetic messages
maintain that the failure to honour these demands is the source of
social and individual disorder. Even the most exalted members of society
are not free of ethical obligations, as is seen in the ethical
confrontation of David by Nathan (“Thou art the man”) for seducing
Bathsheba and arranging to have her husband killed (2 Samuel 12).
What is particularly striking about Jewish ethical concerns is the
affirmation that God is not only the source of ethical obligation but is
himself the paradigm of it. In the so-called Code of Holiness (Leviticus
19), imitation of divine holiness is offered as the basis of human
behaviour in both the cultic-ceremonial and ethical spheres. The basic
injunction, “You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am Holy,”
underlay the concern for economically vulnerable members of the
community; obligations toward neighbours, hired labourers, and the
physically handicapped; interfamilial relationships; and attitudes
toward strangers (i.e., non-Israelites). Acceptable human behaviour was
therefore “walking in all His ways” (Deuteronomy 11:22). The dialectical
relation between God and man in the literary prophets also exhibits
divine righteousness and divine compassion as patterns to be emulated in
the life of the community.
This theme, imitatio Dei (“imitation of God”), is expressed
succinctly in a commentary on Deuteronomy 11:22 that answers the
question of how it is possible to walk “in all His ways”: “As He is
merciful and gracious, so be you merciful and gracious. As He is
righteous so be you righteous. As He is holy, strive to be holy” (Sifre
Deuteronomy 85a). Even more daringly, God is described as clothing the
naked, nursing the sick, comforting the mourners, and burying the dead,
so that human beings may recognize their own obligations.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » Ethics and
society » Interpenetration of communal and individual ethics
What stands out in the entire development of Jewish ethical formulations
is the constant interpenetration of communal and individual obligations
and concerns. A just society requires just people, and a just person
functions within a just society. The concrete expression of ethical
requirements in legal precepts takes place with both ends in view, so
that the process of beginning the holy community and the process of
forming the ḥasid (“pious”), the person of steadfast devotion to God,
are concomitant. The relationship between the two is, of course, often
mediated by the historical situation, so that in some periods one or the
other moves to the centre of practical interest. In particular, the end
of the Judaean state (70–135 ce) truncated the communal aspect of
ethical obligations, often limiting discussion to apolitical
responsibilities rather than to the full range of social involvements.
The reestablishment of the State of Israel in the 20th century therefore
reopened for discussion areas that for millennia were either ignored or
treated as mere abstractions. This implies that the full ethical
responsibility of Jews cannot be carried out solely within the realm of
individual relationships but must include involvement in the life of a
fully articulated community.
This double involvement is most vividly apparent in the biblical
period, when both were equally present as divine command and demand. In
the rabbinic period, because of the new political context, the communal
aspect receded, so that discussion was mainly oriented toward
relationships between members of the Jewish community or between
individuals as such and away from political responsibilities.
Nonetheless, the virtues that were understood to govern these
relationships were, in their biblical setting, communal as well.
Righteousness and compassion had been obligations of the state,
governing the relationship between political units, as the first two
chapters of Amos make evident. At the same time, as Micah 6:8 shows,
doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God were obligations
of the individual as well. Given the situation of the Jewish Diaspora
following the revolts against Rome in the 1st and 2nd centuries ce, the
individual pattern became the primary object of concern. Theoretical
ethical systems were not developed until the Middle Ages, but even in
the early period it was understood that the dynamic of ethical theory
stood behind the practical system of Halakha, the enumeration of legal
precepts. This meant that the law assumed an ethical core that existed
prior to revelation and that the laws were just and merciful because God
was just and merciful. Thus an attempt was made to reduce the hundreds
of precepts to a small number expressing the ethical essence of Torah.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » Ethics and
society » The key moral virtues
In keeping with the rabbinic understanding of Torah, study also was
viewed as an ethical virtue. Passages from the Mishna, which are
repeated in the traditional prayer book, enumerate a series of virtuous
acts—honouring parents, deeds of steadfast love, attendance twice daily
at worship, hospitality to wayfarers, visiting the sick, dowering
brides, accompanying the dead to the grave, devotion in prayer,
peacemaking in the community and in family life—and conclude by
declaring that the study of Torah is the premier virtue. The extracts
enumerated in the Mishna and the prayer book exhibit the complex variety
of ethical behaviour called for within the Jewish tradition. To parental
respect and family tranquillity are added the responsibility of parents
for children, the duties of husband and wife in the establishment and
maintenance of a family, and ethical obligations that extend from the
conjugal rights of each to the protection of the wife if the marriage is
dissolved. The biblical description of God as upholding the cause of the
fatherless and the widow and befriending strangers, providing them with
food and clothing (Deuteronomy 10:18), remained a factor in the
structure of the community. Ethical requirements in economic life are
expressed concretely in passages such as Leviticus 19:35–36: “You shall
do no wrong in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity.
You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just
hin” (ephah and hin are units of measure); another example is Amos’s
bitter condemnation of those who “sell the righteous for silver, and the
needy for a pair of shoes” (Amos 2:6). Such injunctions, together with
many other specific precepts and moral requirements, established the
basis for a wide-ranging program that sought to govern, both in detail
and in general, the economic life of the individual and the community.
Relations within the human sphere are not the only object of ethical
concern; nature also is so regarded. The animal world, in the biblical
view, requires merciful consideration, so that on the Sabbath not only
humans but also their domestic animals are required to rest (Exodus
20:10; 23:12). Mistreatment of beasts of burden is prohibited
(Deuteronomy 22:4), and wanton destruction of animal life falls under
the ban (Deuteronomy 6–7). In the rabbinic attitude toward creation, all
of nature is the object of human solicitude. Thus, the food-yielding
trees of a city under siege may not be destroyed, according to
Deuteronomic legislation (Deuteronomy 20:14–20). The enlargement of this
and other biblical precepts resulted in the generalized rabbinic
prohibition, “You shall not destroy,” which governs human use of the
environment.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » Ethics and
society » The relation to non-Jewish communities and cultures
Although the end of the Jewish state reduced the scope of ethical
judgments in the political sphere, relations between the Jewish
community and other polities—particularly the Roman and Christian
empires and the Islamic states—provided opportunities for the
exploration of the ethical implications of such encounters. Because most
of these situations were characterized by gross disparities of power,
with the Jews the weaker party, prudential considerations were dominant.
Despite this, Jewish authorities sought to bring to bear upon these
external arrangements the ethical standards that governed the internal
structures.
The problem of the relationship between the Jewish community, in
whatever form it has existed, and other social units has been vastly
complicated. The relation is ideally that of witness to the divine
intent in the world. Practically, it has swung between the extremes of
isolation and assimilation, in which the ideal has, on occasion, been
lost sight of. Culturally, from its earliest beginnings, the people of
Israel have met and engaged the ideas, forms, behaviours, and attitudes
of their neighbours constructively. Israel reformulated what it received
in terms of its own commitments and affirmations. On more than a few
occasions, as in the period of settlement in Canaan, it rejected the
religious and cultural ideas and forms of the indigenous population. On
other occasions—as in Islamic Spain from the 8th to the 15th century—it
actively sought out the ideas and cultural patterns of its neighbours,
viewing them from its own perspective and embracing them when they were
found to be of value. Indeed, the whole history of Israel’s relationship
with the world may be comprehended in the metaphor, used previously, of
the heartbeat with its systole and diastole. No period of its existence
discloses either total rejection of or abject surrender to other
cultural and political structures but rather a tension, with the focal
point always in motion at varying rates. Judaism’s adjustment to and
relation with other social and political units has involved larger
aspects of communal and individual life. Whether or not under such
circumstances it is helpful to describe Judaism as a civilization, it is
important to recognize that, viewed functionally, much more must be
included than is usually subsumed under the term religion in modern
Western societies.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » Ethics and
society » The formulation of Jewish ethical doctrines
The ethical concerns of Judaism have frequently been expressed in
literary works. Not only were rabbinic writings constantly directed
toward the establishment of legal patterns that embody such concerns,
but in the medieval period the issues were dealt with in treatises on
morals; in ethical wills, in which a father instructed his children
about their obligations and behaviour; in sermons; and in other forms.
In the 19th century the traditionalist Musar (“Moral Instructor”)
movement in eastern Europe and the philosophical discussions of the
nascent Reform movement in the West focused upon ethics. Indeed, since
the political and social emancipation of the Jews, ethical and social
rather than theological questions have been given priority. Often the
positions espoused have turned out to be “Judaized” versions of ethical
theories or political programs. In some instances, as in the case of the
distinguished German Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), the
result has been a compelling restatement of a secular philosophical
ethics in Jewish form. In others it has resulted in no more than a
pastiche. More crucial, however, is the question of the uniqueness and
authority of Jewish ethics. The reestablishment of the Jewish state
renewed the possibility that the full range of ethical decisions,
communal and individual, may be confronted. In such a situation the
ethical task of the people moves out of the realm of speculation to
become actual again.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » The universe »
Creation and Providence: God’s world
Although Genesis affirms divine creation, it does not offer an entirely
unambiguous view of the origin of the universe, as the debate over the
correct understanding of Genesis 1:1 discloses. (Was there or was there
not a preexisting matter, void, or chaos?) The interest of the author,
however, was not in the mode of creation—a later concern perhaps
reflected in the various translations of the verse, “In the beginning
God created,” which could signify what medieval philosophers designated
creatio ex nihilo (“creation out of nothing”). He was concerned rather
to affirm that the totality of existence—inanimate (Genesis 1:3–19),
living (20–25), and human (26–31)—derived immediately from the same
divine source. As divine creation, the universe is transparent to the
presence of God, so that the Psalmist said, “The heavens declare the
glory of God, and the expanse proclaims [that it is] the work of his
hands” (19:1). Indeed, the repeated phrase, “And God saw how good it
was” (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 25, 31), may be understood as the
foundation of this affirmation, for the workmanship discloses the
workman. The observed order of the universe is further understood by the
biblical author as the direct result of a covenantal relationship
between the world and God: “So long as the earth endures, seedtime and
harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not
cease” (Genesis 8:22). This doctrine of the providential ordering of the
universe, reaffirmed in Rabbinic Judaism, is not without its
difficulties, as in the liturgical change made in Isaiah 45:7 to avoid
ascribing evil to God. Despite the problem of theodicy, Judaism has not
acquiesced to the mood reported in the Palestinian Targum to Genesis
4:8: “He did not create the world in mercy nor does he rule in mercy.”
Rather, Judaism has affirmed a benevolent and compassionate God.
God’s creation, the physical world, provides the stage for history,
which is the place of the human encounter with the divine. An early
Midrash, responding to the question of why Scripture begins with the
story of creation, asserts that it was necessary to establish the
identity of the Creator with the giver of Torah, an argument basic to
the liturgical structure of the Shema. This relationship is further
emphasized in the Kiddush, the prayer of sanctification recited at the
beginning of the Sabbath. That day is designated “a remembrance of
creation” and “a recollection of the going-forth from Egypt.” Thus,
creation (nature) and history are understood to be inextricably bound,
for both derive from the same divine source. This being so,
redemption—the reconciliation of God and man through and in history—does
not ignore or exclude the natural world. Using the imagery of an
extravagantly fecund world of nature, rabbinic thought expressed its
view of the all-inclusive effects of the restored relationship.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » The universe »
Humanity’s place in the universe
The human creature is, of course, subject to the natural order. Humans
carry on their relationship with God in the world and through the world.
The commandments of Torah are obeyed not solely as observances between
humans and God but as actions between humans themselves and between
humans and the world. The creation story describes the human as ruler
over the earth and its inhabitants (Genesis 1:26–28; Psalms 8:5–9);
nonetheless, far from being an arbitrary master, human dominion is
limited by Torah. The regulations in the Torah are concerned not only
with transactions between humans but also with human responsibilities to
cultivated land, to the produce of the soil, and to domesticated
animals. Bound in the network of existence, humans as moral creatures
are responsible for creation in all its parts.
Even the destruction of the Jewish commonwealth in the 1st and 2nd
centuries ce did not alienate Jews from these responsibilities, as the
elaborate system of Mishna and Gemara reveals. The gradual but
consistent exclusion of the Jews from immediate connection with large
segments of the natural world, through legislation in Christendom and
Islam, tended to dull their awareness of it. The recurring references to
the natural world in the religious calendar, however, and the
observation of harvest festivals even by city dwellers continued to
remind the community of its ties. Thus, at the end of the 19th century,
the nascent Zionist movement recognized that the regeneration of the
Jewish people involved, among other requirements, a responsible relation
to the natural order expressed in its attitude toward and treatment of
the land.
If nature as the place of divine disclosure has, during long periods
of Jewish existence, assumed a somewhat subordinate role, it has never
been rejected or been seen to be irrelevant to the divine purpose.
Indeed, in Jewish eschatology, its restoration is part of the goal of
history.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » The universe »
Intermediary beings: angels and demons
The exact nature of nonhuman beings mentioned in Scripture—angels, or
messengers (angel is derived from the Greek word angelos, which is the
equivalent of the Hebrew word mal’akh, “messenger”)—is not altogether
clear, and their roles seem ephemeral (see angel and demon). In the
postexilic period, perhaps under Iranian influence, and in the late
biblical and postbiblical literature, these beings emerge as more
complete and often as clearly identifiable individuals with their own
personal names. The unfocused biblical view gave way to an elaborate
hierarchy of functionaries who acted, in some apocalyptic visions, as a
veritable heavenly bureaucracy. Despite a consensus concerning their
existence, there was little agreement about their role or importance. In
some Midrashim, God takes counsel with them; in other sources, the
rabbis urge Jews not to involve them but to approach God directly.
Like their counter-figures the demons, angels have a residual
existence rooted in various layers of the Jewish experience and
interpretation of the universe. At some times they are highly
individualized and sharply realized; at others they are much more
imaginary. The medieval philosophers and the early mystics saw them
through Aristotelian or Neoplatonic categories. The Kabbalists
continually invented new angels and fitted them into their complicated
network of cosmic existence. Their role, however, even in periods of
considerable emphasis, was peripheral, and they were outside the great
movements and meanings of Jewish thought.
Contemporary philosophical speculation about the nature of the
universe has, of course, required a response from Jewish thinkers. But,
given the particular temper of a period in which metaphysics has not
been central to much of theological discussion, no major statement has
developed that has taken hold of the dominant positions and attempted to
view them from the Jewish creationist perspective. The attempt within
Reconstructionism to provide a naturalistic framework for Judaism, while
courageous, seems to be based on a philosophical naturalism that many
consider outmoded.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » Eschatology » The
future age of humankind and the world
The choice of Israel, according to the Bible, occurred because of
humankind’s continual failure, by rebellion against its creator, to
fulfill its divine potential. The subsequent inability of Israel to
become the holy community and thereby a witness to the nations gave rise
to the prophetic movement that summoned the people to obedience. An
integral part of prophetic summoning, side by side with threats of
punishment and warnings of disaster, was the vision of a truly holy
community, a society fully responding to the divine imperative. This
kingdom of the future was conceived of as entirely natural, functioning
as any normal social and political unit. The future kingdom would be
governed by a human ruler, who would carry out his tasks within the
sphere of divine sovereignty, serving primarily to exhibit his own
obedience and thus to stimulate the obedience of the entire people. This
future monarch was often, though not always, portrayed in terms of an
idealized David, using features of his life and reign that would
emphasize submission to God, social stability, economic satisfaction,
and peace. During the period of the monarchy, the prophetic demand was
directed toward each succeeding king, with the hope—or even the
expectation—that he would be or become the new David, the ideal ruler.
The Babylonian Exile added a new measure of urgency to this
expectation, but it was not expressed in any uniform fashion. The later
chapters of the Book of Ezekiel provide the constitution for the new
commonwealth but do not describe the peculiar characteristics of the
ruler, while the later chapters of the Book of Isaiah focus on several
figures—including Cyrus II the Mede, who conquered the Babylonian Empire
and freed the Jews from Babylonian captivity—who are seen as the divine
instruments ushering in a new era. Although the virtues ascribed to
these figures are extraordinary, they are neither superhuman nor
suprahuman; indeed, they are required of all Israel and of all humanity.
The frustrations of the postexilic period, when several attempts to
bring the holy community into being were largely thwarted by the
imperial designs of the great powers—as they had been in the preexilic
period—led to an emphasis on the futuristic quality of messianic hope.
This was abetted undoubtedly by external influences, such as Iranian
thought, in which the cosmic rather than the historic aspect of a future
era dominated. Because ancient cosmic myths had been part of the
Israelite intellectual inheritance, as seen in literary usages
throughout Scriptures, the impact of such ideas was to reinvigorate the
mythic elements in Judaism. Thus, hopes for the future at the end of the
Persian period and through the Hellenistic period comprised both
historical expectations focused upon an earthly community and
cosmic-mythic visions that moved on a broader stage. The latter were, of
course, never entirely absent from historical expectations, for a
renewal of nature was viewed as integral to the functioning of true
society. The obedient community required, and was to be granted, a
natural world in which true human relations could exist. In its most
vivid form, the apocalypse (i.e., a visionary disclosure of the future),
the literature of the period affords a remarkable insight into the
agonies and urgencies of the people (see apocalyptic literature). After
the disappointments of the past are recounted, the present, in
transparent disguise, is portrayed, and the imminent and desired
intervention of God is described in awesome detail as a means of
affirming and confirming the faith of those who saw themselves as the
remnant, or perhaps the promise, of the holy community.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » Eschatology »
The king-messiah and his reign
Israel’s hope was for the restoration of divine sovereignty over all of
creation. Among the variety of expressions of such hope, that which
centred around the idealized king assumed an ever more important (but
never exclusive) role. Many of the writings that report the ideas and
attitudes of the Jewish community in the period immediately preceding
and following the rise of Christianity are either ignorant of or more
probably indifferent to the personal element. God is envisioned as the
protagonist of the end, actively intervening or sending his messengers
(i.e., angels) to perform specific acts in ending the old era and
inaugurating the new one. On the other hand, in some writings of the
period the anointed king-messiah (Hebrew: mashiaḥ, “anointed”)—the title
reflects the episode in 1 Samuel 16 in which David is thus singled out
as the divinely chosen ruler—becomes more sharply defined as the central
figure in the culminating events and, given the cosmic-mythic
components, assumes suprahuman and, in some instances, even quasi-divine
aspects. Although the doctrine of last things in Judaism is not
necessarily messianic, if that term is properly limited to an
inauguration of a future era through the action of a human, suprahuman,
or quasi-divine person, the messianic version of eschatology played a
more compelling role in Rabbinic Judaism than other modes. The same is
true with regard to the locus of the “world (or age) to come.” Given the
ingredients noted above, it was possible to construct various
eschatological landscapes, ranging from the mundane to the celestial,
from Jerusalem in the hills of Judah to a heavenly city. Indeed,
medieval theologians, confronted with an embarrassment of riches, sought
to combine them into an inclusive system that involved as many of the
possibilities as could be brought together. In such patterns the
messianic this-worldly emphasis was understood as a preliminary movement
toward an ultimate resolution. The ideal ruler, the new David, would
reestablish the kingdom in its own land (in Zion, or Palestine) and
would reign in righteousness, equity, justice, and truth, thus bringing
into being the holy nation and summoning all humankind to dwell under
divine sovereignty. As a component of this reestablished kingdom, the
righteous dead of Israel would be resurrected to enjoy a life in the
true community that did not exist in their days. This kingdom, however
long it was destined to endure, was not permanent. It would come to an
end either at a predetermined time or as a victim of unrepentant nations
and cosmic foes, at which point the ultimate intervention by God would
take place. All the wicked throughout history would be recalled to life,
judged, and doomed, and all the righteous would be transformed and
transported into a new world; i.e., creation would be totally restored.
The particular emphases that one or the other of these ideas received
and the ways in which they were interpreted—philosophically, mystically,
and ethically—were determined most frequently by the situations and
conditions in which the Jewish community found itself. With a
considerable body of ideas at its disposal and with the details of none
of them ever receiving the kind of affirmation given to statements about
God, Torah, and Israel, freedom of speculation in the realm of
eschatology was little restricted. Thus, Joseph Albo, in his work on
Jewish “dogmas”—the Sefer ha-ʿiqqarim (1485; “Book of Principles”)—was
not inhibited from denying that belief in the messiah was fundamental.
The mystical movements of the Middle Ages found in eschatological hopes
a crucial centre. The early Kabbala was little interested in messianism,
for it reoriented such expectations in the direction of personal
redemption. However, following the disasters of the late 15th–17th
centuries (e.g., the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the Cossack
massacre of the Jews in Poland), messianic speculation in all its
varieties underwent a luxuriant growth, finally running wild in the
movements surrounding Shabbetai Tzevi of Smyrna and later Jacob Frank of
Offenbach. These tragedies for the Jewish communities once again
resulted in deferring eschatological hopes or at least limiting their
application.
The Judaic tradition » Basic beliefs and doctrines » Eschatology »
Secularization of messianism
In the 19th century, with the political emancipation of the Jews in
western Europe and the development of an optimistic evolutionism,
messianism was transformed by many liberal thinkers into a version of
the idea of progress, a goal that was often thought of as immediately
attainable through enlightened social and political action. When
disillusionment with emancipation set in, messianism was even more
completely secularized by segments of the community who saw its meaning
and fulfillment in some form of socialism. In others it was absorbed
into the emerging political nationalism—Zionism. Similar developments
took place in eastern Europe, with parallel transformations. In the 20th
century, particularly after the events symbolized by Auschwitz (a Nazi
death camp in Poland, where approximately one million Jews were killed),
the earlier modern interpretations, particularly of messianism, but also
of eschatology as a whole, were considered inadequate. Although no
compelling statement was forthcoming, Jewish thinkers beginning in the
second half of the 20th century attempted once again to come to grips
with eschatological concepts in all their varieties and forms.
The Judaic tradition » Basic practices and institutions » The hallowing
of everyday existence
Systematic presentations of the affirmations of the Jewish community
were never the sole mode of expressing the beliefs of the people.
Maintaining an equal importance with speculation—Haggadic, philosophic,
mystical, or ethical—was Halakhah (Oral Law), the paradigmatic statement
of the individual and communal behaviour that embodied the beliefs
conceptualized in speculation. Life in the holy community was understood
to embrace every level of human existence. The prophets vigorously
resisted attempts to limit the sovereignty of the God of Israel to
organized worship and ritual. The Pharisees, even while the cult of the
Jerusalem Temple was still in existence, sought to reduce priestly
exclusiveness by enlarging the scope of sacral rules to include, as far
as possible, all the people. Rabbinic Judaism, Pharisaism’s descendant,
continued the process of democratization and sought to find in every
occasion of life a means of affirming the presence of the divine. Some
critics of Rabbinic Judaism, however, have seen the legal aspect of
Jewish life as stifling. Although legalism is always a danger,
spontaneity is not necessarily lacking in a world governed by Halakhah.
Moreover, the intention of the Halakhic attitude is to remind Jews that
every occasion of life is a locus of divine disclosure. This is most
clearly seen in the berakhot, the “blessings,” that are prescribed to
accompany the performance of a broad spectrum of human actions, from the
routines of daily life to the restricted gestures of the
cultic-liturgical year. In these God is addressed directly in the second
person singular, his sovereignty is affirmed, and his activity as
creator, giver of Torah, or redeemer—expressed in a wide variety of
eulogies—is proclaimed. There are no areas of human behaviour in which
God cannot be met, and the Halakhic pattern is intended to make such
possibilities realities. The situation of the Jewish community, however,
determines how this intention is realized. On more than one occasion,
the Halakhic pattern has served as a defense against a hostile
environment, thus becoming a kind of scrupulousness (an obsessive
concern with minute details), but, just as often, the dynamic of the
intention has broken through to reestablish its integrity and to hallow
life in its wholeness.
The Judaic tradition » Basic practices and institutions » The
traditional pattern of individual and familial practices
The traditional pattern of an individual’s life can be discerned by
examining a passage from the Babylonian Talmud (tractate Berakhot 60b)
that was reworked into a liturgical structure but which in its original
form exhibits the intention discussed above. In this passage, the
blessings accompanying one’s waking and returning to the routines of
life are prescribed. There is a brief thanksgiving on awakening for
being restored to conscious life; then a benediction is offered over the
cock’s crowing; following this, each ordinary act—opening one’s eyes,
stretching and sitting up, dressing, standing up, walking, tying one’s
shoes, fastening one’s belt, covering one’s head, washing one’s hands
and face—has its accompanying blessing, reminding one that the world and
the life to which he has returned exist in the presence of God. These
are followed by a supplication in which the petitioner asks that his
life during the day may be worthy in all of its relationships. Then, as
the first order of daily business, Torah, both written (Bible) and oral
(Mishna), is briefly studied, introduced by doxologies to God as Giver
of Torah. Finally, there is a prayer for the establishment of the
kingdom of God, for each day contains within itself the possibility of
ultimate fulfillment. As indicated, this was originally not a part of
public worship but rather was personal preparation for a life to be
lived in the presence of God (even today it is not, strictly speaking,
part of the synagogue service, though it is frequently recited there).
Such individual responsibility marks much of Jewish observance, so
that the synagogue—far from being the focus of observance—shares with
the home and the workaday world the opportunities for divine-human
encounter. The table blessings, Kiddush (the “sanctification” of the
Sabbath and festivals), the erection of the booth (sukka) for Sukkoth
(the Feast of Tabernacles), the seder (the festive Passover meal) with
its symbols and narration of the Exodus, and the lighting of the lamps
during the eight days of Hanukkah (the Feast of Dedication) are all the
obligation of the individual and the family and have their place in the
home. It is here too where the woman’s role is defined and where, as
contrasted with the synagogue, she functions centrally. Given the
traditional dietary regimen of the Jewish community—the exclusion of
swine, carrion eaters, shellfish, and certain other creatures, the
separation of meat and dairy products, the ritual slaughtering of
animals, the required separation and burning of a small portion of dough
(ḥalla) when baking, the supervision of the Passover food requirements,
and many other stipulations—there exists a large and meticulously
governed area in the home that is the sphere of woman’s religion. There
seems not to have been a hierarchy of values in which the
home-centred—as contrasted with the synagogue-oriented—practices were
given an inferior status. In modern times, however—particularly in
Western societies, where the pervasiveness of religious obligation has
been replaced by ecclesiastical institutionalism on the prevailing
Christian model—this whole crucial area has lost much of its meaning as
a place of divine-human meeting. Thus, for many it is only the synagogue
that provides such an opportunity, and the individual act has been
reduced on the scale of values. With this downgrading, woman’s religion
has lost its significance, so that her status—when parallels are drawn
to her role in the larger society—has become inferior to that of men.
However attenuated personal religious responsibility may have become,
the intention of the Halakhic structure, the hallowing of the
individual’s total existence, remains a potent force within the Jewish
community.
The Judaic tradition » Basic practices and institutions » The
traditional pattern of synagogue practices
The other focus of observance is the synagogue. The origins of this
institution are obscure, and a number of hypotheses have been proposed
to account for the appearance of this lay-oriented form of worship.
According to various ancient sources, during the period of the Second
Temple—following the return from Babylon and continuing until the
Temple’s destruction in 70 ce—various non-sacrificial modes of worship
emerged that were independent of the priesthood and the official cult.
The reports by the philosopher Philo and the historian Josephus in the
1st century, buttressed by the Dead Sea Scrolls, provide some knowledge
of the practices of the contemporary Essenes. Rabbinic sources,
including the earliest layers of the traditional order of worship,
provide insights into an apparently Pharisaic mode, and passages from
the Acts of the Apostles concerning James and other Jewish Christians
suggest still other varieties. In any case, the practitioners of what
eventually became Rabbinic Judaism observed a form of worship that, with
the destruction of the Temple cult, provided a new centre and even
absorbed enough from the defunct priestly institution to suggest
continuity and legitimacy with the Judaic past. This was probably the
basic pattern for synagogal liturgy in the millennia that followed.
At the heart of synagogal worship is the public reading of
Scriptures. This takes place at the morning service on Sabbaths, holy
days, and festivals, on Monday and Thursday mornings, and on Sabbath
afternoons. The readings from the Pentateuch are currently arranged in
an annual cycle so that, beginning with Genesis 1:1 on the Sabbath
following the autumnal festivals, the entire five books are read through
the rest of the year. The texts for festivals, holy days, and fasts
reflect the particular significance of those occasions. In addition, a
second portion from the prophetic writings (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and
Kings, as well as the three major and 12 minor Prophets, but not Daniel)
is read on many of these occasions. The readings take place within the
structure of public worship and are incorporated into ceremonies in
which the Sefer Torah (“Book of the Torah”), the pentateuchal scroll, is
removed from the ark (cabinet) at the front of the synagogue and carried
in procession to the reading desk; from it, the pertinent text is
chanted by the reader. The text for the service is divided into
subsections varying from seven on the Sabbath to three at the weekday
morning service, and individuals are called forward to recite the
blessings eulogizing God as Giver of Torah before and after each of
these. The order of worship is composed of the preparatory blessings and
prayers, to which are added passages recalling the Temple sacrificial
cult (thus relating the present form of worship to the past); the
recitation of a number of Psalms and biblical prayers; the Shema and its
accompanying benedictions, introduced by a call to worship that marks
the beginning of formal public worship; the prayer (tefilla) in the
strict sense of petition; confession and supplication (taḥanun) on
weekdays; the reading of Scripture; and concluding acts of worship. This
general structure of the morning service varies somewhat, with additions
and subtractions for the afternoon and evening services and for Sabbath,
holy days, and festivals.
The prayer (tefilla) is often called the shemone ʿesre, the “Eighteen
Benedictions”—though it actually has 19—or the ʿamida, “standing,”
because it is recited in that position. It is made up of three
introductory benedictions (praise of the God of the Fathers, of God the
Redeemer who resurrects the dead, and of God the Holy One who fills the
earth with his glory) and three concluding acts (a prayer for the
acceptance of the service, a thanksgiving, and a prayer for peace).
Between the introductory and concluding sections there is a series of
intermediate petitions for knowledge, well-being, acceptance of
repentance, forgiveness of sin, and others. On the Sabbath and on
festivals the petitions are replaced by benedictions that mention the
specific occasion but are not petitionary; it is considered
inappropriate to attend to workaday concerns at these times.
The general outline of this order of service is found throughout the
entire Jewish world, but the details have varied in different periods
and geographic and cultural areas. The public service, requiring the
presence of at least 10 males, the minyan (“quorum”), is generally led
by a synagogal official, the ḥazzan, or cantor, but any Jewish male with
the requisite knowledge may act in this capacity, since there is no
clerical class in the community to whom such leadership is limited.
The synagogue room itself has a very simple basic form, though it may
be embellished considerably. The only requirements are a container for
the Torah scroll(s), called the aron ha-qodesh (“the holy ark”), a chest
against the east wall or a recessed closet with doors and a curtain; a
prayer desk (ʿamud) facing the ark, at which the reader stands when
reciting the service; and the pulpit (bima)—in or close to the centre of
the room, according to some requirements—from which the Torah is read.
In the Spanish-Portuguese tradition, only one desk (called teva) is
used. The ark contains one or more scrolls, on which are written the
Five Books of Moses. These are variously ornamented, depending upon the
cultural region: European communities deck them in coverings of cloth;
Oriental communities (North African and Near Eastern) place them in
wooden or metal containers. In addition, silver ornaments (rimonim) in
the form of towers or crowns are often set on the tops of two rods on
which the scroll is wound, and a breastplate (hoshen) and a pointer
(yad) are suspended from them.
Accommodations for the worshippers vary according to the cultural
milieu, from rugs and cushions in Oriental synagogues to pews and
standing desks in European ones. Given this essential simplicity, the
synagogue room itself may be used for purposes other than worship—e.g.,
study and community assembly. Again, this varies with the cultural
pattern.
The Judaic tradition » Basic practices and institutions » Ceremonies
marking the individual life cycles
The life of the individual is punctuated by observances that mark the
notable events of personal existence. A male child is circumcised on the
eighth day following birth, as a covenantal sign (Genesis 17); the rite
of circumcision (berit mila) is accompanied by appropriate benedictions
and ceremonies, including naming. Females are named in the synagogue,
generally on the Sabbath following birth, when the father is called to
recite the benedictions over the reading of Torah. A firstborn son, if
he does not belong to a priestly or a levitical family, is redeemed at
one month (in accordance with Exodus 13:12–13 and Numbers 18:14–16) by
the payment of a stipulated sum to a cohen (a putative member of the
priestly family). At age 13 a boy is called to recite the Torah
benedictions publicly, thus signifying his religious coming-of-age; he
is thenceforth obligated to observe the commandments as his own
responsibility—he is now a bar mitzvah (“son of the commandment”). Many
Conservative and Reform congregations have instituted a similar
ceremony, called the bat mitzvah, to celebrate the coming-of-age of
girls. Marriage (ḥatuna, also qiddushin, “sanctifications”) involves a
double ceremony, performed together in modern times but separated in
ancient times by one year. First is the betrothal (erusin), which
includes the reading of the marriage contract (ketubba) and the giving
of the ring with a declaration, “Behold you are consecrated to me by
this ring according to the law of Moses and Israel,” accompanied by
certain benedictions. This is followed by the marriage proper
(nissuʾin), consisting of the reciting of the seven marriage
benedictions. The ceremony is performed under a ḥuppa, a canopy that
symbolizes the bridal bower.
The burial service is marked by simplicity. The body, prepared for
the grave by the ḥevraʾ qaddishaʾ (“holy society”), is clad only in a
simple shroud and interred as soon after death as possible. In Israel no
coffin is used. There are observances connected with death, many of
which belong to the realm of folklore rather than Halakhic tradition. A
mourning period of 30 days is observed, of which the first seven
(shivah) are the most rigorous. During the 11 months following a death,
the bereaved recite a particular form of a synagogal doxology (Kaddish)
during the public service as an act of memorial. The doxology, devoid of
any mention of death, is a praise of God and a prayer for the
establishment of the coming kingdom. It is also recited annually on the
anniversary of the death (yahrzeit).
The Judaic tradition » Basic practices and institutions » Holy places:
the land of Israel and Jerusalem
The land of Israel, as is evident from the biblical narratives, played a
significant role in the life and thought of the Israelites. It was the
promised home, for the sake of which Abraham left his birthplace; the
haven toward which those escaping from Egyptian servitude moved; and the
hope of the exiles in Babylon. In the long centuries following the
destruction of the Judean state by the Romans, it was a central part of
messianic and eschatological expectations.
During the early period of settlement, there apparently were many
sacred localities, with one or another functioning for a time as a
central shrine for all the tribes. Even the establishment of Jerusalem
as the political capital by David and the building of a royal chapel
there by Solomon did not bring an end to local cult centres. It was not
until the reign of Josiah of Judah (640–609 bce) that a reform
centralized the cult in Jerusalem and attempted to end worship at local
shrines. Although Josiah’s reform was not entirely successful, during
the Babylonian Exile and the subsequent return, Jerusalem and its Temple
defeated its rivals and became—in law, in fact, and in sentiment—the
centre of Jewish cultic life. This did not inhibit, however, the rise
and development of other forms of worship and even—on a few
occasions—other cult centres. Nonetheless, no matter how unpopular the
priesthood of the Jerusalem Temple became with some segments of the
population—the Qumrān community seems to have denied its legality, and
the Pharisees complained bitterly about its arrogance and exactions,
attempting, when feasible, to impose and enforce Pharisaic regulations
upon it—reverence for the Temple seems to have remained a widespread
sentiment. With the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 ce,
such reverence was transformed both by messianic expectations and by
eschatological hopes into fervent devotion, which, over the following
centuries, became idealized and even supernaturalized. The most ardently
articulated statement of the crucial role of the land of Israel and the
Jerusalem Temple is found in the Sefer ha-Kuzari of Judah ha-Levi, in
which the two are seen as absolutely indispensable for the proper
relationship between God and his people.
Symbolizing the significance of the land and of the city is the
practice of facing in their direction during worship. The earliest
architectural evidence derived from synagogue remains in Galilee
indicates that the attempt was made to arrange the building in such a
way that the worshippers faced directly toward Jerusalem. This practice
may have continued even in the Diaspora, but at a later date the present
practice of setting the holy ark in or before the east wall was
established, so that “facing Jerusalem” is now more symbolic than
actual.
The Judaic tradition » Basic practices and institutions » The sacred
language: Hebrew and the vernacular tongues
The transformation of Hebrew into a sacred language is closely tied to
the political fate of the people. In the period following the return
from the Babylonian Exile, Aramaic, a cognate of Hebrew, functioned as
the international or imperial language in official life and gained a
foothold as a vernacular. It did not, despite claims made by some
scholars, displace the everyday Hebrew of the people. The language of
the Mishna, far from being a scholar’s dialect, seems to reflect popular
speech, as did the Koine (common) Greek of the New Testament.
Displacement of Hebrew—both in its literary form in Scriptures and in
its popular usage—occurred in the Diaspora, however, as illustrated by
the translation of Scriptures into Greek in some communities and into
Aramaic in others. There seems also to have been an inclination on the
part of some authorities to permit even the recitation of the Shema
complex in the vernacular during the worship service. Struggles over
these issues continued for a number of centuries in various places, but
the development of formal literary Hebrew—a sacred tongue, to be used
side by side with the Hebrew Scriptures in worship—brought them to an
end. Although the communities of the Diaspora used the vernaculars of
their environment in day-to-day living and even—as in the case of the
communities of the Islamic world—for philosophical, theological, and
other scholarly writings, Hebrew remained the standard in worship until
modern times, when some western European reform movements sought
partially—and a very small fraction even totally—to displace it.
The Judaic tradition » Basic practices and institutions » The rabbinate
» Legal, judicial, and congregational roles
The rabbinate, with its peculiar nature and functions, is the result of
a series of developments that began after the disastrous second revolt
against Rome (132–135 ce). The term rabbi (“my teacher”) was originally
an honorific title for the graduates of the academy directed by the
nasi, or patriarch, who was the head of the Jewish community in
Palestine as well as a Roman imperial official. The curriculum of the
school was Torah, written and oral, according to the Pharisaic tradition
and formulation. The nasi appointed rabbis to the law court (the bet
din) and as legal officers of local communities; acting with the local
elders, they supervised and controlled the life of the community and its
members in all aspects. A similar situation obtained in Babylon under
the Parthian and Sāsānian empires, where the resh galuta, or exilarch
(“head of the exile”), appointed rabbinical officials to legal and
administrative posts. In time the patriarchate and exilarchate
disappeared, but the rabbinate, nourished by independent rabbinical
academies, survived. An authorized scholar, when called to become the
judicial officer of a community, would at the same time become the head
of the local academy and, after adequate preparation and examination,
would grant authorization to his pupils, who were then eligible to be
called to rabbinical posts. There was thus a diffusion of authority, the
communities calling, rather than a superior official appointing, their
rabbis. The rabbis were not ecclesiastical personages but communal
officials, responsible for the governance of the entire range of life of
what was understood to be the qehilla qedosha, the “holy community.”
In modern times, particularly in the Western world, the change in
Jewish communal existence required a transformation of this ancient
structure. The rabbinate became, for the most part, an ecclesiastical
rather than a communal agency, reflecting the requirements of civic life
in modern nation states. The education of rabbis is now carried on in
seminaries whose structure and curriculum have been influenced by
European and American academic institutions. The majority of their
graduates serve as congregational rabbis, in roles similar to those of
ministers and priests in Christian denominations but with some other
functions deriving from the particular situation and nature of the
Jewish community.
In the State of Israel certain larger areas, such as that of family
law, are still reserved for the rabbinate. Even here, however, the
rabbinate functions more as a counterpart to other ecclesiastical
organizations, such as Christian and Muslim, than as an overarching and
all-inclusive communal agency.
The Judaic tradition » Basic practices and institutions » The
rabbinate » Chief rabbinates
The existence of the offices of chief rabbi in the State of Israel
derives from the situation in the Ottoman Empire, where the various
religious communities functioned as quasi-political entities in a
multiethnic conglomerate. Israel has two chief rabbis, one for the
Ashkenazic (European) and one for the Sephardic (Oriental) community;
they no longer function as the heads of whole communities but only of
ecclesiastical organizations. The same is true in countries outside
Israel that have the office of chief rabbi (e.g., Great Britain and
France); in these countries the chief rabbi’s relationship with the
government is like that of his ecclesiastical counterparts in the
Christian churches. While the chief rabbis have certain kinds of limited
authority because of their official position, they have jurisdiction
only over those members of the Jewish community who are ready to accept
it; others form their own ecclesiastical units and act without reference
to the chief rabbinate. In some situations—particularly in the United
States, where there is no similar structure—the title chief rabbi or
grand rabbi has been assumed occasionally by individuals as a means of
asserting superior dignity or even (fruitlessly) authority.
The Judaic tradition » Basic practices and institutions » General
councils or conferences
The nature of the Sanhedrin in the last years of the Jewish commonwealth
is a much disputed matter. The several councils mentioned in Talmudic
literature are equally difficult to define with any precision.
References scattered throughout medieval literature suggest the
existence of councils and synods, but their composition and authority
are uncertain. About the year 1000 a synod was held in the Rhineland in
which French and German communities participated under the guidance of
Rabbenu Gershom, the leading rabbinic authority of the region. In the
late Middle Ages, representatives from the communities of Great Poland,
Little Poland, Russian Poland (Volhynia), and Lithuania came together to
form the Waʿad Arbaʿ Aratzot (Council of the Four Lands). At the
beginning of the modern era, Napoleon in 1806 summoned the Assembly of
Notables—representatives of communities under French dominion—to deal
with questions arising from the dissolution of the older status of the
Jews and their naturalization as individuals into the new nation-states.
Decisions of the assembly that involved questions of Jewish law were
subsequently submitted to a Grand Sanhedrin called by Napoleon to
provide Halakhic justification for acts that the French imperial
government had required of the Jewish communities.
During the 19th century the demand for the reform of Jewish
life—principally the liturgy of the synagogue but many other aspects as
well—prompted a series of rabbinical conferences and synods. A similar
course of events took place in the United States. In both instances,
after an initial period in which radicals, moderates, and conservatives
argued their respective cases in the same forum, polarization set in and
intellectual differences were transformed into competing organizations.
In the 1970s the several tendencies within the Jewish communities in
North America were institutionalized in rabbinical conferences and
congregational unions—Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform—whose influence
was in large measure limited to their adherents. There is also a
worldwide body of Reform or Liberal Judaism—the World Union for
Progressive Judaism. One result of these developments was the hardening
of denominational differences, particularly in North America, especially
between Orthodox and non-Orthodox (Reform, Reconstructionist,
Conservative) Judaisms.
The Judaic tradition » Basic practices and institutions » Modern
variations
The preceding sketch of basic practices and institutions has attempted
to describe the so-called traditional situation, though it has been
indicated that even here there are variations—actually more than have
been noted. Reference has also been made to changes that represent the
abandonment of traditional practices on the basis of intellectual
decisions about the nature of Judaism, its beliefs, practices, and
institutions. Such changes are far too numerous to describe in detail,
but it is important to indicate their motivation. The Halakhic system,
both as a whole and in all of its parts, is viewed not as divinely
revealed but rather as a human process that seeks to expose in mutable
forms the meaning of the divine-human encounter. The practices and
institutions, therefore, are understood as historically determined,
reflecting the multifaceted experience of the people of Israel as they
have sought to live in the presence of God. Historical scholarship has
disclosed the origins, rise, development, and decline of these
structures in the past and thus suggests the propriety of changes in the
present and future that appear to fulfill the needs of the community and
its members. However, this kind of historicism (the explanation of
values and forms in terms of their historical conditions) has been
applied in widely different ways since it was first used in the 19th
century. Some have seen it as justifying a disengagement from much if
not all of the traditional pattern and a recognition that only the
spiritual essence is of consequence for Judaism. Others have argued that
the burden of proof is always upon those who would introduce changes.
Since the end of World War II, the question has been whether a
reconstituted Halakhic system might not be a requirement of the day.
The Judaic tradition » The Jewish religious year
The calendar of Judaism includes the cycle of Sabbaths and holidays that
are commonly observed by the Jewish religious community—and officially
in Israel by the Jewish secular community as well. The Sabbath and
festivals are bound to the Jewish calendar, reoccur at fixed intervals,
and are celebrated at home and in the synagogue according to ritual set
forth in Jewish law and hallowed by Jewish custom.
The Judaic tradition » The Jewish religious year » The cycle of the
religious year
According to Jewish teaching, the Sabbath and festivals are, in the
first instance, commemorative. The Sabbath, for example, commemorates
the Creation, and Passover commemorates the Exodus from Egypt over 3,000
years ago. The past is not merely recalled; it is also relived through
the Sabbath and festival observances. Creative physical activity ceases
on the Sabbath—as it did, according to Genesis, when Creation was
completed; Jews leave their homes and reside in booths during the
Sukkoth festival, as did their biblical ancestors. Moreover, Sabbath and
festival themes are considered to be perpetually significant, recurring
and renewed in every generation. Thus, the revelation of the Torah (the
divine teaching, or law) at Sinai, commemorated on Shavuot, is
considered an ongoing process that recurs whenever a commitment is made
to Torah study.
An important aspect of Sabbath and festival observance is
sanctification. The Sabbath and festivals sanctified the Jews more than
the Jews sanctified the Sabbath and festivals. Mundane meals became
sacred meals; joy and relaxation became sacred obligations (mitzwot). No
less significant is the contribution of the Sabbath and festivals to
communal awareness. Thus, neither Sabbath nor festival can be properly
observed in the synagogue, according to the ancient tradition, if fewer
than 10 Jewish males are present. Again, a Jew prays on Rosh Hashana and
mourns on Tisha be-Av not only for his own fate but for the fate of all
Jews. The sense of social cohesiveness fostered by the Sabbath and
festival observances has stood the Jews well throughout their long,
often tortuous history.
The seven-day week, the notion of a weekly day of rest, and many
Christian and Islamic holiday observances owe their origins to the
Jewish calendar, Sabbath, and festivals.
The Judaic tradition » The Jewish religious year » The Jewish calendar »
Lunisolar structure
The Jewish calendar is lunisolar—i.e., regulated by the positions of
both the Moon and the Sun. It consists usually of 12 alternating lunar
months of 29 and 30 days each (except for Ḥeshvan and Kislev, which
sometimes have either 29 or 30 days) and totals 353, 354, or 355 days
per year. The average lunar year (354 days) is adjusted to the solar
year (3651/4 days) by the periodic introduction of leap years in order
to assure that the major festivals fall in their proper seasons. The
leap year consists of an additional 30-day month called First Adar,
which always precedes the month of (Second) Adar. A leap year consists
of either 383, 384, or 385 days and occurs seven times during every
19-year period (the Metonic cycle). Among the consequences of the
lunisolar structure are these: the number of days in a year may vary
considerably, from 353 to 385 days; and the first day of a month can
fall on any day of the week, that day varying from year to year.
Consequently, the days of the week upon which an annual Jewish festival
falls vary from year to year despite the festival’s fixed position in
the Jewish month.
The Judaic tradition » The Jewish religious year » The Jewish
calendar » Months and notable days
The months of the Jewish religious year, their approximate equivalent in
the Western Gregorian calendar, and their notable days are as follows:
Tishri (September–October)
1–2 Rosh Hashana (New Year)
3 Tzom Gedaliahu (Fast of Gedaliah)
10 Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)
15–21 Sukkoth (Tabernacles)
22 Shemini Atzeret (Eighth Day of the Solemn Assembly)
23 Simḥat Torah (Rejoicing of the Law)
Ḥeshvan, or Marḥeshvan (October–November)
Kislev (November–December)
25 Hanukkah (Feast of Dedication) begins
Ṭevet (December–January)
2–3 Hanukkah ends
10 ʿAsara be-Ṭevet (Fast of Ṭevet 10)
Shevaṭ (January–February)
15 Ṭu bi-Shevaṭ (15th of Shevaṭ: New Year for Trees)
Adar (February–March)
13 Taʿanit Esther (Fast of Esther)
14, 15 Purim (Feast of Lots)
Nisan (March–April)
15–22 Pesaḥ (Passover)
Iyyar (April–May)
18 Lag ba-ʿOmer (33rd Day of the ʿOmer Counting)
Sivan (May–June)
6, 7 Shavuot (Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost)
Tammuz (June–July)
17 Shivaʿ ʿAsar be-Tammuz (Fast of Tammuz 17)
Av (July–August)
9 Tisha be-Av (Fast of Av 9)
Elul (August–September)
During leap year the Adar holidays are postponed to Second Adar.
Since 1948 many Jewish calendars list Iyyar 5—Israel Independence
Day—among the Jewish holidays.
The Judaic tradition » The Jewish religious year » The Jewish
calendar » Origin and development
The origin of the Jewish calendar can no longer be accurately traced.
Some scholars suggest that a solar year prevailed in ancient Israel, but
no convincing proofs have been offered, and it is more likely that a
lunisolar calendar similar to that of ancient Babylonia was used. In
late Second Temple times (i.e., 1st century bce to 70 ce), calendrical
matters were regulated by the Sanhedrin, or council of elders, at
Jerusalem. The testimony of two witnesses who had observed the new moon
was ordinarily required to proclaim a new month. Leap years were
proclaimed by a council of three or more rabbis with the approval of the
nasi, or patriarch, of the Sanhedrin. With the decline of the Sanhedrin,
calendrical matters were decided by the Palestinian patriarchate (the
official heads of the Jewish community under Roman rule). Jewish
persecution under the Roman emperor Constantius II (reigned 337–361) and
advances in astronomical science led to the gradual replacement of
observation by calculation. According to Hai ben Sherira (died 1038),
the head of a leading Talmudic academy in Babylonia, the Palestinian
patriarch Hillel II introduced a fixed and continuous calendar in 359
ce. A summary of the regulations governing the present calendar is
provided by Maimonides, the great medieval philosopher and legist, in
his Code: Sanctification of the New Moon, chapters 6–10.
Fragments of writings discovered in a genizah (a depository for
sacred writings withdrawn from circulation) have brought to light a
calendrical dispute between Aaron ben Meir, a 10th-century Palestinian
descendant of the patriarchal (Hillel) family, and the Babylonian Jewish
authorities, including Saʿadia ben Joseph, an eminent 9th–10th-century
philosopher and gaon (head of a Talmudic academy). Ben Meir’s
calculations provided that Passover in 922 be celebrated two days
earlier than the date fixed by the normative calendar. After a bitter
exchange of letters, the controversy subsided in favour of the
Babylonian authorities, whose hegemony in calendrical matters was never
again challenged.
Calendars of various sectarian Jewish communities deviated
considerably from the normative calendar described above. The Dead Sea,
or Qumrān, community (made famous by the discovery of the Dead Sea
Scrolls) adopted the calendrical system of the noncanonical books of
Jubilees and Enoch, which was essentially a solar calendar. Elements of
the same calendar reappear among the Mishawites, a sect founded in the
9th century.
The Karaites, a sect founded in the 8th century, refused, with some
exceptions, to recognize the normative fixed calendar and reintroduced
observation of the new moon. Leap years were determined by observing the
maturation of the barley crop in Palestine. Consequently, Karaites often
celebrated the festivals on dates different from those fixed by the
rabbis. Later, in medieval times, the Karaites adopted some of the
normative calendrical practices while rejecting others.
The Judaic tradition » The Jewish religious year » The Sabbath
The Jewish Sabbath (from Hebrew shavat, “to rest”) is observed
throughout the year on the seventh day of the week—Saturday. According
to biblical tradition, it commemorates the original seventh day on which
God rested after completing the creation.
Scholars have not succeeded in tracing the origin of the seven-day
week, nor can they account for the origin of the Sabbath. A seven-day
week does not accord well with either a solar or a lunar calendar. Some
scholars, pointing to the Akkadian term shapattu, suggest a Babylonian
origin for the seven-day week and the Sabbath. But shapattu, which
refers to the day of the full moon and is nowhere described as a day of
rest, has little in common with the Jewish Sabbath. It appears that the
notion of the Sabbath as a holy day of rest, linking God to his people
and recurring every seventh day, was unique to ancient Israel.
The Judaic tradition » The Jewish religious year » The Sabbath »
Importance
The central significance of the Sabbath for Judaism is reflected in the
traditional commentative and interpretative literature called Talmud and
Midrash (e.g., “if you wish to destroy the Jewish people, abolish their
Sabbath first”) and in numerous legends and adages from more-recent
literature (e.g., “more than Israel kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath kept
Israel”). Some of the basic teachings of Judaism affirmed by the Sabbath
are God’s acts of creation, God’s role in history, and God’s covenant
with Israel. Moreover, the Sabbath is the only Jewish holiday the
observance of which is enjoined by the Ten Commandments. Jews are
obligated to sanctify the Sabbath at home and in the synagogue by
observing the Sabbath laws and engaging in worship and study. The
leisure hours afforded by the ban against work on the Sabbath were put
to good use by the rabbis, who used them to promote intellectual
activity and spiritual regeneration among Jews. Other days of rest, such
as the Christian Sunday and the Islamic Friday, owe their origins to the
Jewish Sabbath.
The Judaic tradition » The Jewish religious year » The Sabbath »
Observances
The biblical ban against work on the Sabbath, while never clearly
defined, includes activities such as baking and cooking, travelling,
kindling fire, gathering wood, buying and selling, and bearing burdens
from one domain into another. The Talmudic rabbis listed 39 major
categories of prohibited work, including agricultural activity (e.g.,
plowing and reaping), work entailed in the manufacture of cloth (e.g.,
spinning and weaving), work entailed in preparing documents (e.g.,
writing), and other forms of constructive work.
At home the Sabbath begins Friday evening some 20 minutes before
sunset, with the lighting of the Sabbath candles by the wife or, in her
absence, by the husband. In the synagogue the Sabbath is ushered in at
sunset with the recital of selected psalms and the Lekha Dodi, a
16th-century Kabbalistic (mystical) poem. The refrain of the latter is
“Come, my beloved, to meet the bride,” the “bride” being the Sabbath.
After the evening service, each Jewish household begins the first of
three festive Sabbath meals by reciting the Kiddush (“sanctification” of
the Sabbath) over a cup of wine. This is followed by a ritual washing of
the hands and the breaking of bread, two loaves of bread (commemorating
the double portions of manna described in Exodus) being placed before
the breaker of bread at each Sabbath meal. After the festive meal the
remainder of the evening is devoted to study or relaxation. The
distinctive features of the Sabbath morning synagogue service include
the public reading of the Torah, or Five Books of Moses (the portion
read varies from week to week), and, generally, the sermon, both of
which serve to educate the listeners. Following the service, the second
Sabbath meal begins, again preceded by Kiddush (of lesser significance),
conforming for the most part to the first Sabbath meal. The afternoon
synagogue service is followed by the third festive meal (without
Kiddush). After the evening service the Sabbath comes to a close with
the havdala (“distinction”) ceremony, which consists of a benediction
noting the distinction between Sabbath and weekday, usually recited over
a cup of wine accompanied by a spice box and candle.
The Judaic tradition » The Jewish religious year » The Jewish holidays
The major Jewish holidays are the Pilgrim Festivals—Pesaḥ (Passover),
Shavuot (Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost), and Sukkoth (Tabernacles)—and
the High Holidays—Rosh Hashana (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of
Atonement). The observance of all the major holidays is required by the
Torah and work is prohibited for the duration of the holiday (except on
the intermediary days of the Pesaḥ and Sukkoth festivals, when work is
permitted to avoid financial loss). Purim (Feast of Lots) and Hanukkah
(Feast of Dedication), while not mentioned in the Torah (and therefore
of lesser solemnity), were instituted by Jewish authorities in the
Persian and Greco-Roman periods. They are sometimes regarded as minor
festivals because they lack the work restrictions of the major
festivals. In addition, there are the five fasts—ʿAsara be-Ṭevet (Fast
of Ṭevet 10), Shivaʿ ʿAsar be-Tammuz (Fast of Tammuz 17), Tisha be-Av
(Fast of Av 9), Tzom Gedaliahu (Fast of Gedaliah), and Taʿanit Esther
(Fast of Esther)—and the lesser holidays (i.e., holidays the observances
of which are few and not always clearly defined)—such as Rosh Ḥodesh
(First Day of the Month), Ṭu bi-Shevaṭ (15th of Shevaṭ: New Year for
Trees), and Lag ba-ʿOmer (33rd Day of the ʿOmer Counting). The fasts and
the lesser holidays, like the minor festivals, lack the work
restrictions characteristic of the major festivals. Although some of the
fasts and Rosh Ḥodesh are mentioned in Scripture, most of the details
concerning their proper observance, as well as those concerning the
other lesser holidays, were provided by the Talmudic and medieval
rabbis.
The Judaic tradition » The Jewish religious year » The Jewish
holidays » Pilgrim Festivals
In Temple times, all males were required to appear at the Temple three
times annually and actively participate in the festal offerings and
celebrations. These were the joyous Pilgrim Festivals of Pesaḥ, Shavuot,
and Sukkoth. They originally marked the major agricultural seasons in
ancient Israel and commemorated Israel’s early history; but, after the
destruction of the Second Temple in 70 ce, emphasis was placed almost
exclusively on the commemorative aspect.
In modern Israel, Pesaḥ, Shavuot, and Sukkoth are celebrated for
seven days, one day, and eight days, respectively (with Shemini Atzeret
added to Sukkoth), as prescribed by Scripture. Due to calendrical
uncertainties that arose in Second Temple times (6th century bce to 1st
century ce), each festival is celebrated for an additional day in the
Diaspora.
Pesaḥ commemorates the Exodus from Egypt and the servitude that
preceded it. As such, it is the most significant of the commemorative
holidays, for it celebrates the very inception of the Jewish
people—i.e., the event which provided the basis for the covenant between
God and Israel. The term pesaḥ refers originally to the paschal
(Passover) lamb sacrificed on the eve of the Exodus, the blood of which
marked the Jewish homes to be spared from God’s plague; its etymological
significance, however, remains uncertain. The Hebrew root is usually
rendered “passed over”—i.e., God passed over the homes of the Israelites
when inflicting the last plague on the Egyptians—hence the term
Passover. The festival is also called Ḥag or Matzot (“Festival of
Unleavened Bread”), for unleavened bread is the only kind of bread
consumed during Passover.
Leaven (seʾor) and foods containing leaven (ḥametz) are neither to be
owned nor consumed during Pesaḥ. Aside from meats, fresh fruits, and
vegetables, it is customary to consume only food prepared under rabbinic
supervision and labelled “kosher for Passover,” warranting that they are
completely free of contact with leaven. In many homes, special sets of
crockery, cutlery, and cooking utensils are acquired for Passover use.
On the evening preceding the 14th day of Nisan, the home is thoroughly
searched for any trace of leaven (bediqat ḥametz). The following morning
the remaining particles of leaven are destroyed by fire (biʿur ḥametz).
From then until after Pesaḥ, no leaven is consumed. Many Jews sell their
more valuable leaven products to non-Jews before Passover (mekhirat
ḥametz), repurchasing the foodstuffs immediately after the holiday.
The unleavened bread (matzo) consists entirely of flour and water,
and great care is taken to prevent any fermentation before baking.
Hand-baked matzo is flat, rounded, and perforated. Since the 19th
century, many Jews have preferred the square-shaped, machine-made matzo.
Passover eve is ushered in at the synagogue service on the evening
before Passover, after which each family partakes of the seder (“order
of service”), an elaborate festival meal in which every ritual is
regulated by the rabbis. (In the Diaspora the seder is also celebrated
on the second evening of Passover.) The table is bedecked with an
assortment of foods symbolizing the passage from slavery (e.g., bitter
herbs) into freedom (e.g., wine). The Haggada (“Storytelling”), a
printed manual comprising appropriate passages culled from Scripture,
Talmud, and Midrash accompanied by medieval hymns, serves as a guide for
the ensuing ceremonies and is recited as the evening proceeds. The seder
opens with the cup of sanctification (Kiddush), the first of four cups
of wine drunk by the celebrants. An invitation is extended to the needy
to join the seder ceremonies, after which the youngest son asks four
prescribed questions expressing his surprise at the many departures from
usual mealtime procedure. (“How different this night is from all other
nights!”) The father then explains that the Jews were once slaves in
Egypt, were then liberated by God, and now commemorate the servitude and
freedom by means of the seder ceremonies. Special blessings are recited
over the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs (maror), after which the
main courses are served. The meal closes with a serving of matzo
recalling the paschal lamb, consumption of which concluded the meal in
Temple times. The seder concludes with the joyous recital of hymns
praising God’s glorious acts in history and anticipating a messianic
redemption to come.
The Passover liturgy is considerably expanded and includes the daily
recitation of Psalms 113–118 (Hallel, “Praise”), public readings from
the Torah, and an additional service (musaf). On the first day of Pesaḥ,
a prayer for dew in the Holy Land is recited; on the last day, the
memorial service for the departed (yizkor) is added.
Originally an agricultural festival marking the wheat harvest,
Shavuot commemorates the revelation of the Torah on Mount Sinai. Shavuot
(“Weeks”) takes its name from the seven weeks of grain harvest
separating Passover and Shavuot. The festival is also called Ḥag
ha-Qazir (Harvest Festival) and Yom ha-Bikkurim (Day of First Fruits).
Greek-speaking Jews called it pentēkostē, meaning “the fiftieth” day
after the sheaf offering. In rabbinic literature, Shavuot is called
atzeret (“cessation” or “conclusion”), perhaps because the cessation of
work is one of its distinctive features, or possibly because it was
viewed as concluding the Passover season. In liturgical texts it is
described as the “season of the giving of our Torah.” The association of
Shavuot with the revelation at Sinai, while not attested in Scripture,
is alluded to in the Pseudepigrapha (a collection of noncanonical
writings); in rabbinic literature it first appears in 2nd-century
materials. The association, probably an ancient one, was derived in part
from the book of Exodus, which dates the revelation at Sinai to the
third month (counting from Nisan)—i.e., Sivan.
Scripture does not provide an absolute date for Shavuot. Instead, 50
days (or seven weeks) are reckoned from the day the sheaf offering
(ʿOmer) of the harvest was brought to the Temple, the 50th day being
Shavuot. According to the Talmudic rabbis, the sheaf offering was
brought on the 16th of Nisan; hence Shavuot always fell on or about the
6th of Sivan. Some Jewish sectarians, such as the Sadducees, rejected
the rabbinic tradition concerning the date of the sheaf ceremony,
preferring a later date, and celebrated Shavuot accordingly.
In Temple times, aside from the daily offerings, festival offerings,
and first-fruit gifts, a special cereal consisting of two breads
prepared from the new wheat crop was offered at the Temple. Since the
destruction of the Second Temple, Shavuot observances have been
dominated by its commemorative aspect. Many Jews spend the entire
Shavuot night studying Torah, a custom first mentioned in the Zohar
(“Book of Splendour”), a Kabbalistic work edited and published in the
13th–14th centuries. Some prefer to recite the tiqqun lel Shavuʿot
(“Shavuot night service”), an anthology of passages from Scripture and
the Mishna (the authoritative compilation of the Oral Law). An expanded
liturgy includes Hallel, public readings from the Torah, yizkor (in many
congregations), and musaf. The Book of Ruth is read at the synagogue
service, possibly because of its harvest-season setting.
Sukkoth (“Booths”), an ancient harvest festival that commemorates the
booths the Israelites resided in after the Exodus, was the most
prominent of the three Pilgrim Festivals in ancient Israel. Also called
Ḥag ha-Asif (Festival of Ingathering), it has retained its joyous,
festive character through the ages. It begins on Tishri 15 and is
celebrated for seven days. The concluding eighth day (plus a ninth day
in the Diaspora), Shemini Atzeret, is a separate holiday. In Temple
times, each day of Sukkoth had its own prescribed number of sacrificial
offerings. Other observances, recorded in the Mishna tractate Sukka,
include the daily recitation of Hallel, daily circumambulation of the
Temple altar, a daily water libation ceremony, and the nightly bet
ha-shoʾeva or bet ha-sheʾuvah (“place of water drawing”) festivities
starting on the evening preceding the second day. The last-mentioned
observance features torch dancing, flute playing, and other forms of
musical and choral entertainment.
Ideally, Jews are to reside in booths—walled structures covered with
thatched roofs—for the duration of the festival; in practice, most
observant Jews take their meals in the sukka (“booth”) but reside at
home. A palm-tree branch (lulav) bound up together with myrtle (hadas)
and willow (ʿarava) branches is held together with a citron (etrog) and
waved. Medieval exegetes provided ample (if not always persuasive)
justification for the Bible’s choice of these particular branches and
fruit as symbols of rejoicing. The numerous regulations governing the
sukka, lulav, and etrog constitute the major portion of the treatment of
Sukkoth in the codes of Jewish law. The daily Sukkoth liturgy includes
the recitation of Hallel (Psalms, 113–118), public readings from the
Torah, the musaf service, and the circumambulation of the synagogue
dais. On the last day of Sukkoth, called Hoshana Rabba (Great Hoshana)
after the first words of a prayer (hoshana, “save us”) recited then,
seven such circumambulations take place. Kabbalistic (mystical) teaching
has virtually transformed Hoshana Rabba into a solemn day of judgment.
Hoshana Rabba is followed by Shemini Atzeret (Eighth Day of Solemn
Assembly), which is celebrated on Tishri 22 (in the Diaspora also Tishri
23). None of the more distinctive Sukkoth observances apply to Shemini
Atzeret; but Hallel, public reading from the Torah, yizkor (in many
congregations), musaf, and a prayer for rain in the Holy Land are
included in its liturgy. Simḥat Torah (Rejoicing of the Law) marks the
annual completion of the cycle of public readings from the Torah. The
festival originated shortly before the gaonic period (c. 600–1050 ce) in
Babylon, where it was customary to conclude the public readings
annually. In Palestine, where the public readings were concluded
approximately every three years, Simḥat Torah was not celebrated
annually until after the gaonic period. Israeli Jews celebrate Simḥat
Torah and Shemini Atzeret on the same day; in the Diaspora, Simḥat Torah
is celebrated on the second day of Shemini Atzeret. Its joyous
celebrations bring the Sukkoth season to an appropriate close.
The Judaic tradition » The Jewish religious year » The Jewish
holidays » Ten Days of Penitence
The Ten Days of Penitence begin on Rosh Hashana and close with Yom
Kippur. Already in Talmudic times they were viewed as forming an
especially appropriate period of introspection and repentance.
Penitential prayers (seliḥot) are recited prior to the daily morning
service, and, in general, scrupulous observance of the Law is expected
during the period.
According to Mishnaic teaching, the New Year festival ushers in the
Days of Judgment for all of humankind. Despite its solemnity, the
festive character of Rosh Hashana is in no way diminished. In Scripture
it is called “a day when the horn is sounded” and in the liturgy “a day
of remembrance.” In the land of Israel and in the Diaspora, Rosh Hashana
is celebrated on the first two days of Tishri. Originally celebrated by
all Jews on Tishri 1, calendrical uncertainty led to its being
celebrated for an additional day in the Diaspora and, depending upon the
circumstances, one or two days in Palestine. After the calendar was
fixed in 359, it was regularly celebrated in Palestine on Tishri 1 until
the 12th century, when Provençal scholars introduced the two-day
observance.
The most distinctive Rosh Hashana observance is the sounding of the
ram’s horn (shofar) at the synagogue service. Medieval commentators
suggest that the blasts acclaim God as ruler of the universe, recall the
divine revelation at Sinai, and call for spiritual reawakening and
repentance. An expanded New Year liturgy stresses God’s sovereignty, his
concern for humankind, and his readiness to forgive those who repent. On
the first day of Rosh Hashana (except when it falls on the Sabbath) it
is customary for Jews to recite penitential prayers at a river,
symbolically casting their sins into it; this ceremony is called
tashlikh (“thou wilt cast”). Other symbolic ceremonies, such as eating
bread and apples dipped in honey, accompanied with prayers for a “sweet”
and propitious year, are performed at the festive meals.
The most solemn of the Jewish festivals, Yom Kippur is a day when
sins are confessed and expiated and human beings and God are believed to
be reconciled. It is also the last of the Days of Judgment and the
holiest day of the Jewish year. Celebrated on Tishri 10, it is marked by
fasting, penitence, and prayer. Work, eating, drinking, washing,
anointing one’s body, sexual intercourse, and wearing leather shoes are
all forbidden.
In Temple times, Yom Kippur provided the only occasion for the entry
of the high priest into the Holy of Holies (the innermost and most
sacred area of the Temple); details of the expiatory rites performed by
the high priest and others are recorded in the Mishna and recounted in
the liturgy. Present-day observances begin with a festive meal shortly
before Yom Kippur eve. The Kol Nidre prayer (recited before the evening
service) is a legal formula that absolves Jews from fulfilling solemn
vows, thus safeguarding them from accidentally violating a vow’s
stipulations. The formula first appears in gaonic sources (derived from
the Babylonian Talmudic academies, 6th–11th centuries) but may be older;
the haunting melody that accompanies it is of medieval origin. Virtually
the entire day is spent in prayer at the synagogue; the closing service
(neʿila) concludes with the sounding of the ram’s horn.
The Judaic tradition » The Jewish religious year » The Jewish
holidays » Minor festivals: Hanukkah and Purim
Hanukkah and Purim are joyous festivals. Unlike the major festivals,
work restrictions are not enforced during these holidays.
Hanukkah commemorates the Maccabean (Hasmonean) victories over the
forces of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (reigned 175–164 bce)
and the rededication of the Temple on Kislev 25, 164 bce. Led by
Mattathias and his son Judas Maccabeus (died c. 161 bce), the Maccabees
were the first Jews who fought to defend their religious beliefs rather
than their lives. Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days beginning on
Kislev 25. The Hanukkah lamp, or candelabra (menorah), which recalls the
Temple lampstand, is kindled each evening. One candle is lit on the
first evening, and an additional candle is lit on each subsequent
evening until eight candles are burning on the last evening. According
to the Talmud (Shabbat 21b), the ritually pure oil available at the
rededication of the Temple was sufficient for only one day’s light but
miraculously lasted for eight days; hence the eight-day celebration.
Evidence from the Apocrypha (writings excluded from the Jewish canon but
included in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox canons) and from
rabbinic literature shows an association between Hanukkah and Sukkoth,
possibly accounting for the former’s eight-day duration. The celebration
of Hanukkah includes festive meals, songs, games, and gifts to children.
The liturgy includes Hallel, public readings from the Torah, and the ʿal
ha-nissim (“for the miracles”) prayer. The Scroll of Antiochus, an early
medieval account of Hanukkah, is read in some synagogues and homes.
As recorded in the biblical Book of Esther, Purim commemorates the
delivery of the Persian Jewish community from the plottings of Haman,
prime minister to King Ahasuerus (Xerxes I, king of Persia, 486–465
bce). Mordecai and his cousin Esther, the king’s Jewish wife, interceded
on behalf of the Jewish community, rescinded the royal edict authorizing
a massacre of the Jews, and instituted the Purim festival. The
historicity of the biblical account is questioned by many modern
scholars. It is now generally conceded that the Book of Esther was
written in the Persian period (it contains Persian but not Greek words)
and reflects Persian custom. Except for the Book of Esther, the earliest
mention of the Purim festival is from the 2nd–1st centuries bce. The
name of the festival was derived from the Akkadian pûru, meaning “lot.”
In most Jewish communities, Purim is celebrated on Adar 14 (some also
celebrate it on the 15th, others only on the 15th). On the evening
preceding Purim, men, women, and children gather in the synagogue to
hear the Book of Esther read from a scroll (megilla). The reading is
repeated on Purim morning. A festive meal during the day is accompanied
by much song, wine, and merriment. Masquerades, Purim plays, and other
forms of parody are common. Friends exchange gifts of foodstuffs and
also present gifts to the poor. Aside from the Esther readings, the
liturgy includes public reading from the Torah and recital of the Purim
version of the ʿal ha-nissim prayer.
The Judaic tradition » The Jewish religious year » The Jewish
holidays » The five fasts
Each of the fasts of the Jewish religious year recognizes an important
event in the history of the Jewish people and Judaism. ʿAsara be-Ṭevet
(Fast of Ṭevet 10) commemorates the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem
by Nebuchadrezzar II, king of Babylonia, in 588 bce. Shivaʿ ʿAsar
be-Tammuz (Fast of Tammuz 17) commemorates the first breach in the wall
of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 ce. It initiates three weeks of
semi-mourning that culminate with Tisha be-Av. Tisha be-Av (Fast of Av
9) commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in 586
bce and 70 ce. The most solemn of the five fasts, its self-denials are
more rigorous than those prescribed for the others, and, like Yom
Kippur, the fast begins at sunset. The book of Lamentations is read at
the evening service, followed by poetic laments that are also recited on
Tisha be-Av morning. Tzom Gedaliahu (Fast of Gedaliah) commemorates the
slaying of Gedaliah, governor of Judah after the destruction of the
First Temple. Taʿanit Esther (Fast of Esther), which commemorates
Esther’s fast (compare Esther 4:16), is first mentioned in gaonic
literature. The commemorative apsects of the fasts are closely
associated with their penitential aspects, all of which find expression
in the liturgy. Thus, Jews not only relive the tragic history of their
people with each fast but are also afforded an opportunity to search
within themselves and focus on their own (and their people’s) present
and future. Penitential prayers (seliḥot) are recited on all fasts, and
the Torah is read at the morning and afternoon services.
The Judaic tradition » The Jewish religious year » The Jewish
holidays » The lesser holidays
A major festival in the biblical period, Rosh Ḥodesh (First Day of the
Month) gradually lost most of its festive character. Since Talmudic
times, it has been customary to recite Hallel on Rosh Ḥodesh. In the
medieval period, aside from the liturgical practices carried over from
the Talmudic period, it was celebrated with a festive meal. Always more
diligently observed in Palestine than in the Diaspora, attempts to
revive its full festive character have been made in modern Israel.
First mentioned in the Mishna, where it marks the New Year for
tithing purposes, Ṭu bi-Shevaṭ (15th of Shevaṭ: New Year for Trees)
assumed a festive character in the gaonic period. In the medieval period
it became customary to eat assorted fruits on the holiday. In modern
times it has been associated with the planting of trees in Israel.
Lag ba-ʿOmer (33rd Day of the ʿOmer Counting) is a joyous interlude
in the otherwise-somber period of the ʿOmer Counting (i.e., of the 49
days to Shavuot), which is traditionally observed as a time of
semi-mourning. Usually celebrated as a school holiday with outings, it
is first mentioned in medieval sources, which attribute its origin to
the cessation of a plague that was decimating the students of Akiba, an
influential rabbinic sage of the 2nd century, and to the anniversary of
the death of another great rabbi, Simeon ben Yoḥai (died c. 170 ce).
The Judaic tradition » The Jewish religious year » The situation today
Modern attitudes toward the Sabbath and festivals vary considerably.
Western secular Jews often are ignorant of, or choose to neglect,
traditional observances. Attitudes of committed Jews in the Western
world mostly reflect accepted Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform
practice; for example, driving to synagogue services on the Sabbath is
unthinkable in Orthodox circles, a matter of dispute among Conservative
rabbis, and common practice for Reform Jews. Among Orthodox Jews, who
best preserve the traditional observances, contemporary discussion
centres mostly on technological advances and their effect on Halakhic
practice. Whether or not hearing aids may be worn on the Sabbath and how
crossing the international dateline affects the observance of Sabbaths
and festivals typify the sort of problem addressed in Orthodox responsa
(“replies” to questions on law and observance). Discussion in modern
Conservative literature has raised the possibility of abolishing the
obligatory character of the additional festival days in the Diaspora
(except for the second day of Rosh Hashana), thus unifying Jewish
practice throughout the world. Reform Jews, the most innovative of the
three groups, observe neither the additional festival days (including
the second day of Rosh Hashana) nor the fasts and have modified the
liturgy and the observances of the holidays. More-radical Reform
congregations have experimented freely with sound and light effects and
other novel forms of synagogue service.
In Israel the Sabbath is the national day of rest, and Jewish
holidays are vacation periods. Municipal ordinances govern public
observance of the Sabbath and festivals; their enactment and enforcement
vary with the political influence of the local Orthodox Jewish
community. Attempts to interpret festivals along nationalistic lines are
common; some kibbutzim (communal farms) stress the agricultural
significance of the festivals. Independence Day is a national holiday;
the preceding day, Remembrance Day, commemorates Israel’s war dead. Yom
Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance and Heroism Day)—marking the systematic
destruction of European Jewry between 1933 and 1945 and recalling the
short-lived ghetto uprisings—is observed officially on Nisan 27, but
many religious Israelis prefer to observe it on Ṭebet 10 (a fast day),
now called Yom HaKaddish Haklali (the day on which the mourner’s prayer
is recited). Since the Six-Day War of June 1967, Iyyar 28—Liberation of
Jerusalem Day—is celebrated unofficially by many Israelis (see
Arab-Israeli wars). Appropriate services are conducted on all the
aforementioned holidays by most segments of Israel’s religious
community.
In Israel and the Diaspora, Jewish theologians often stress the
timelessness and contemporaneity of holiday observances. Nevertheless,
“revised” Passover Haggadot (plural of Haggada), in which contemporary
issues are accorded a central position, appear regularly.
The Judaic tradition » Art and iconography » The anti-iconic principle
and its modifications
Although the Second Commandment (Exodus 20:4; Deuteronomy 5:8), “You
shall not make yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that
is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the
water under the earth,” has been understood as absolutely prohibiting
any and all artistic representation, this is not the only possible
interpretation of these words. What is intended is a prohibition against
the construction of idols, which were objects of worship in the cultural
area in which the Israelites dwelt. Even in the Bible there are reports
of artistic activity in the construction of the tent sanctuary and its
ritual vessels (Exodus 25–31) and of the Temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings
6–7). The literalness with which the commandment was interpreted
depended on the larger situation of the community, so that when there
was external pressure toward religious conformity, such as during the
reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in Antioch (175–164 bce), the
anti-iconic attitude sharpened. During the Roman occupation of Israel,
the presence of battle standards containing animal representations was
looked upon as an affront, while extreme pietists would not even handle
Roman coinage because of the images stamped on it. On the other hand,
the walls of a 3rd-century-ce synagogue in Dura-Europus in Syria are
covered from floor to ceiling with biblical scenes including human
representations, and a number of synagogues in Palestine had elaborate
mosaic floors decorated with the signs of the zodiac, representations of
the seasons, and the like. Further, illuminated manuscripts from
medieval Europe were frequently decorated with biblical figures, some
quite clearly copied from Christian prototypes. There is also a
fascinating image in a Haggada in which the human figures have bird
heads. Synagogues from a later—though pre-emancipation—period (before
the 18th century) were often decorated with animal representations. In
the modern period the use of human representations has not been
completely avoided, though nothing like the decorations of Dura-Europus
has appeared.
The Judaic tradition » Art and iconography » Ceremonial objects and
symbols
Given this general anti-iconic attitude, much of Jewish artistic
endeavour has been directed toward the creation of ceremonial objects:
Kiddush goblets, candlesticks and candelabra, spice boxes for the
havdala ceremony at the end of the Sabbath, ornamented containers for
the mezuza (a parchment on which is written the passages from
Deuteronomy 6:4–9 and 11:13–21, fastened to the doorpost on the right
side as one enters), the silver crowns placed on the Torah scrolls,
together with the mantles and breastplates for the same, and many other
objects designed to embellish the performance of the large number of
ritual acts of the individual and the community. All these vary in
artistic quality, from the work of simple artisans to exquisitely
produced works of master craftsmen.
The Judaic tradition » Art and iconography » Architecture
The building of synagogues too is an expression of artistic interest and
concern, as well as of religious and social function. Nothing is known
of these edifices, if indeed there were any, until the Greco-Roman
period. Then the Roman basilica often provided the appropriate model,
because the basilican design incorporated what the synagogue required,
including a spacious hall and galleries (for women). Whenever possible,
synagogues were built on hilltops. At the front of the synagogue was a
walled entrance court with a fountain for ablutions. Before it was
destroyed, the Temple may have been oriented with its doors facing
eastward, but after it was rebuilt they faced Jerusalem; still later,
when the holy ark containing the Torah scrolls was placed in a fixed
position, the orientation was reversed so that the central gate would
not be blocked. Ultimately, however, the ark was placed in or against
the east wall, without reference to the actual direction of Jerusalem.
As the Diaspora grew larger, the new communities adapted the
architectural forms of the surrounding culture. Many of the surviving
buildings of the Muslim period in Spain have horseshoe arches and are
decorated with the exquisite stucco arabesques that mark the era. The
medieval period in Christian Europe saw a revival of a very strict
anti-iconic attitude and a gradual rejection of the church edifice in
favour of secular buildings as a model for the synagogue.
The increasingly limited role of the Jew in western European society
and the enlargement of restrictions by church and state made it
necessary to modify the structure of the synagogue. The doors no longer
were in the wall facing the ark, the courtyard grew smaller, galleries
were discontinued and side rooms served as the women’s section, and a
double- rather than a triple-aisled construction was largely favoured.
Similar developments took place in eastern Europe with the building of
fortress-synagogues and the remarkable wooden synagogues of Poland. In
the late 18th and the early 19th century, Baroque style had its day,
followed by styles imitating Greek temples; Romanesque, Gothic, and
Byzantine churches; and Moorish mosques. The various schools of
functionalism and their commercial descendants have also influenced
synagogue design. The best of these have brought together fine
architectural design and beautifully conceived and executed decoration.
The interior arrangement, even in some traditional synagogues, has been
influenced by the Protestant sermon-centred form of worship, so that
some of the unique forms that marked older structures are absent. The
holy ark is, however, still a centre of attention and has often been
treated in interesting and striking ways.
The Judaic tradition » Art and iconography » Paintings and illustrations
The use of paintings in the decoration of synagogues goes back to at
least the 3rd century ce and is found in the late pre-emancipation and
modern synagogues as well. Manuscripts too were illuminated with
miniatures, and during the Renaissance the Scrolls of Esther and the
beautifully decorated ketubbot (marriage contracts) appeared.
Nonetheless, the appearance of Jewish artists in painting and sculpture
is a modern phenomenon. Beginning in the 19th century, interest grew
apace, and more and more Jews were to be found in these fields, often in
the avant-garde. Some, such as Marc Chagall (1887–1985) and Jacques
Lipchitz (1891–1973), created specifically religious art.
The Judaic tradition » Art and iconography » Music
During the synagogue service, the ḥazzan, or cantor, reads the service
and declaims the scriptural lessons to certain set musical modes that
vary with the season and occasion. Many of these call for melodic
responses on the part of the congregation. The origins of these chants
are ancient, often obscure, and equally complicated. Whatever the basic
materials may have been, they were enlarged, varied, and reworked
through the centuries in the various environments in which the Jews
lived. In modern times, musicologists began to examine the history of
synagogal music, analyzing its basic structures and its relationship to
the music of Christian liturgical traditions. In the 19th century in
western Europe, much of the traditional synagogal music was either
discarded or reworked under the influence of Western forms and styles.
The introduction of the pipe organ in some more-liberal synagogues
provoked a fierce controversy because of the prohibition against
instrumental music in services, the general opposition to music in the
liturgy as a memorial to the destruction of the Temple, and the organ’s
association with Christian liturgical music.
The Judaic tradition » Art and iconography » Literature
Literature has been the home of Jewish artistic activity throughout the
ages. The Hebrew Bible is a work of monumental artistry, exhibiting
grandeur of form and language in historical narrative, poetry, rhetoric,
law, and aphorism. The extra-scriptural writings of the period disclose
literary genius of a high order in translation, though in many cases the
original works have vanished. Although the documents of the rabbinic
tradition are not often regarded as having great literary worth, much of
the material, particularly the Haggadic portions of the Midrashim,
reveals a noteworthy sensitivity to language. In the medieval period,
much attention was given to the production of piyyuṭim, liturgical
poetry with which to embellish the siddur (prayer book), itself a
collection containing much imaginative as well as pedestrian writing. In
the Islamic world, under the influence of Arabic poetry, Hebrew poetry
rose to great heights in both liturgical and secular forms. Important
works of history written in the medieval Rhineland chronicled and
commented on Jewish suffering during the Crusades. The beginnings of the
Jewish form of Middle High German also appeared in this period; through
the centuries it developed into an autonomous Jewish language, Yiddish,
which became a literary vehicle of very high order in the 19th century.
The re-creation of Hebrew as a literary language also began in the 19th
century; it became the basis of the spoken vernacular of the State of
Israel and of a flourishing literature. After the emancipation at the
end of the 18th century, Jews in western Europe and later in the United
States turned to literature in the vernaculars of their countries and
produced writers of note who dealt with both Jewish and general themes.
Lou Hackett Silberman
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy
The term Jewish philosophy refers to various kinds of reflection engaged
in by persons identified as Jews. At times, as in the Middle Ages, this
meant any methodical and disciplined thought pursued by Jews, whether on
general philosophical subjects or on specifically Judaic themes. In
other eras, as in modern times, concentration on the latter has been
considered a decisive criterion, so that philosophers who are Jewish but
unconcerned with Judaism or the Jewish heritage and destiny in their
thought are not ordinarily classified as Jewish philosophers.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Pre-Hellenistic and
Hellenistic thought » Bible and Apocrypha
Philosophy arose in Judaism under Greek influence; however, a kind of
philosophical approach may be discerned in early Jewish religious works
apparently subject to little or no Greek influence. The books of Job and
Ecclesiastes (Hebrew: Qohelet) were favourite works of medieval
philosophers, who took them as philosophical discussions not dependent
on historical revelation. The book of Proverbs introduces, in an
apparently theological context, the concept of Wisdom (Ḥokhma), which
was to have a primordial significance for Jewish thought, and presents
it as the first and favourite of God’s creations. It is also praised, in
the book of the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), as
instilled by God into all his works and granted in abundance to those he
loves. It is sometimes equated with fearing God and keeping the Law. In
other passages, however, piety seems to be regarded as superior to
Wisdom. The Wisdom of Solomon, probably originally written in Greek,
praises Wisdom, which is held to be an image of God’s goodness and a
reflection of the eternal light. God is said to have given the author
knowledge of the composition of the world, the powers, the elements, the
nature of animals, the divisions of time, and the positions of the
stars. In its vocabulary and perhaps in some of its doctrines, the work
shows the influence of Greek philosophy. It also has had considerable
influence on Christian theology.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Pre-Hellenistic and
Hellenistic thought » Philo Judaeus
The first systematic attempt to apply Greek philosophical concepts to
Jewish doctrines was made by Philo Judaeus (Philo of Alexandria) in the
1st century ce. Philo was influenced by Platonic and Stoic writings and
probably also by certain postbiblical Jewish beliefs and speculations.
He apparently had some knowledge of the Oral Law, which was developing
in his time, and he also knew of the Essenes, whom he praised highly.
Philo provided Jewish religious doctrines with intellectual and
cultural respectability by stating them in Greek philosophical terms. He
also showed that much of Greek philosophy was consonant with Judaism as
he conceived it and with the allegorical sense of biblical texts as he
read them. The fact that he stressed the primacy of Jewish religious
tradition over Greek philosophy may have been more than mere lip
service. It may be argued that—in central points of his thought, such as
his conception of Logos (the Divine Reason or Word)—Philo used
philosophical notions as expressions of religious beliefs. For him,
Logos is primarily an intermediary between a transcendent, unknowable
God and the world. On basic philosophical and theological problems, such
as the creation of the world or the existence of free will (see also
determinism), Philo’s writings provide vague or contradictory answers.
He placed mystic ecstasy, of which he may have had personal experience,
above philosophical and theological speculations.
Philo’s approach, his method of interpretation, his way of thinking,
as well as some of his ideas—especially that of Logos—exerted
considerable influence on early Christian thought but not, to any
comparable extent, on Jewish thought in the same period. In the Middle
Ages, knowledge of Philo among Jews was either very slight or
nonexistent. Not until modern times was his importance in the history of
Jewish religious thought recognized.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Pre-Hellenistic and
Hellenistic thought » Other ancient sources
Some traces of ancient philosophy, mainly Stoic, may be found in the
Mishna and in the subsequent Talmudic literature compiled in Palestine
and Babylonia. Jewish theological and cosmological speculations occur in
the Midrashim (plural of Midrash), which propound allegories, legends,
and myths under the guise of interpreting biblical verses, and in the
Sefer yetzira (“Book of Creation”), a combination of cosmogony and
grammar that was once attributed to Abraham. There is no clear evidence
of the period in which the Sefer yetzira was written; both the 3rd
century and the 6th or 7th century have been suggested. The book became
a key work in later Jewish mysticism.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Medieval philosophy
In the 9th and 10th centuries, after a long hiatus, systematic
philosophy and ideology reappeared among the Jews, a phenomenon
indicative of their contacts with Islamic civilization. The evolution of
Islam in the 9th and 10th centuries showed that Greek scientific and
philosophical lore could be separated, at least to some extent, from its
pagan associations and could be adapted to another language and another
culture. It also showed that a monotheistic, prophetic religion that in
all relevant essentials, including adherence to a basic religious law,
was closely akin to Judaism could be the basis of a culture in which
science, philosophy, and theology were an indispensable part. The
question of whether philosophy is compatible with religious law (the
answer sometimes being negative) constituted the main theme of the
foremost medieval Jewish thinkers. From approximately the 9th to the
13th century, Jewish thought participated in the evolution of Islamic
philosophy and theology and manifested only in a limited sense a
specifically Jewish character. Jewish philosophers showed no particular
preference for philosophical texts written by Jewish authors over those
composed by Muslims, and in many cases the significant works of Jewish
thinkers constituted a reply or a reaction to the ideas of Islamic
philosophical and scientific writings.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Medieval philosophy »
Jewish kalām
Although several Jewish intellectuals in 9th- and 10th-century Babylonia
were steeped in Greek philosophy, the most productive and influential
Jewish thinkers of this period represented a very different tendency,
that of the Muʿtazilite kalām. Kalām (literally “speech”) is an Arabic
term used in both Islamic and Jewish vocabulary to designate several
theological schools that were ostensibly opposed to Greek, and
particularly Aristotelian, philosophy. Islamic and Jewish Aristotelians
regarded kalām theologians (called the mutakallimūn) with a certain
contempt, holding them to be mere apologists and indifferent to the
philosophical question of truth. Herein they did not do justice to their
adversaries, for many representatives of kalām displayed a genuine
speculative impulse. The school’s theology, forged in disputes with
Zoroastrians, Manichaeans (see Manichaeism), and Christians, claimed to
be based on reason.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Medieval philosophy »
Jewish kalām » Saʿadia ben Joseph
The belief in reason, as well as some of the tenets of Muʿtazilite
theology, were taken over by Saʿadia ben Joseph (882–942), who was also
influenced (either directly or through the intermediary of an Arabic
philosopher) by John Philoponus (6th century), a Christian philosopher
who argued against certain Aristotelian and Neoplatonic positions.
Saʿadia’s main theological work, Kitāb al-amānāt wa al-iʿtiqādāt
(Beliefs and Opinions), is modeled on similar Muʿtazilite treatises and
on the Muʿtazilite classification of theological subject matter known as
the Five Principles.
Like many Muʿtazilite authors, Saʿadia set forth in his introduction
a list and theory of the various sources of knowledge. He distinguished
four sources: (1) the five senses, (2) the intellect, or reason, (3)
necessary inferences, and (4) reliable information given by trustworthy
persons. In Saʿadia’s sense of the word, intellect, or reason (al-ʿaql),
is an immediate, a priori cognition, independent of sense experience. In
Beliefs and Opinions the intellect is characterized as having immediate
ethical cognitions—that is, as discerning what is good and what is
evil—in opposition to the medieval Aristotelians, who did not regard
even the most general ethical rules as knowable a priori. The third
source of knowledge comprises inferences of the type “if there is smoke,
there is fire,” which are based on data furnished by the first two
sources of knowledge. The fourth source of knowledge is meant to
validate the teachings of Scripture and of the religious tradition,
which must be regarded as true because of the trustworthiness of the men
who propounded them. One of the work’s main purposes was to show that
the knowledge deriving from the fourth source concords with that
discovered by means of the other three—i.e., that religion and human
reason agree.
Saʿadia opposed Aristotle’s view that the natural order was eternal.
He held, with other partisans of the Muʿtazilite kalām, that the
demonstration of the temporal creation of the world must precede and
pave the way for the proof of the existence of God the Creator. Given
the demonstrated truth that the world has a beginning in time, it can be
proved that it could have been produced only through the action of a
creator. It can further be proved that there must have been only one
creator.
The theology of Saʿadia, like that of the Muʿtazilites, hinges on two
principles: the unity of God and the principle of justice. The latter
takes issue with the view (widespread in Islam and present also in
Judaism) that the definition of what is just and what is good depends
solely on God’s will, to which none of the moral criteria found among
human beings are applicable. According to this view, a revelation from
God can convert an action generally recognized as evil into a good
action. Against this way of thinking, Saʿadia and the Muʿtazilites
believed that being good and just or being evil and unjust are intrinsic
characteristics of human actions and cannot be changed by divine decree.
The notions of justice and of good, as conceived by humans, are binding
even on God himself. Indeed, the ethical cognitions of humans are the
same as those of the Deity.
Saʿadia also addressed the issue of the function of religious law. Of
central importance in traditional Judaism and Islam, the law was thought
to have been established to compel humans to perform good actions and
avoid bad ones. Because Saʿadia believed that humans have a priori
knowledge of good and evil and that this knowledge coincides with the
principles underlying the most important portions of the revealed law,
he was forced to ask whether this law is not superfluous. He could,
however, point out that, whereas the human intellect recognizes that
certain actions—for instance, murder or theft—are evil, it cannot by
itself discover the best definition of what constitutes a particular
transgression; nor can it, on its own, determine an appropriate
punishment. On both points, Saʿadia asserted, the commandments of
religious law give the best possible answers.
Saʿadia called the commandments that accord with the behests of the
human intellect the intellectual, or rational, commandments. According
to him, they include the duty of manifesting gratitude to the Creator
for the benefits he has bestowed upon humans. Saʿadia recognized that a
considerable number of commandments—for instance, those dealing with the
prohibition of work on the Sabbath—do not belong to this category. He
held, however, that the obligation to obey them can be derived from the
rational commandment that humans must be grateful to God, for such
gratitude entails obedience to his orders.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Medieval philosophy »
Jewish kalām » The Karaites
Saʿadia’s adoption of the rational Muʿtazilite theology was a part of
his overall effort to consolidate rabbinical Judaism (based on the
Mishna and Talmud), which was being attacked by the Karaites. This
Jewish sect, founded by Anan ben David in the 8th century, rejected the
authority of the Oral Law and the commentaries on it—that is, of the
Mishna and the Talmud. In the 10th century and afterward, the Karaites
accepted as their guides the Hebrew Bible and human reason, in the
Muʿtazilite sense of the word. Their repudiation of postbiblical Jewish
religious tradition facilitated a rational approach to theological
doctrine. This approach led Karaite authors to criticize the adherents
of rabbinical Judaism for holding anthropomorphic beliefs based in part
on texts of the Talmudic period. Karaite authors propounded, in
conceptual terms, a theology of Jewish history in exile (galut). Life in
exile is a diminished existence; nevertheless, the good or bad actions
of the Jewish people (rather than their material strength or weakness)
affect the course of history. Redemption may come when all Jews are
converted to Karaism.
The Karaites adopted Muʿtazilite kalām wholesale, including its
atomism. The Muʿtazilite atomists held that everything that exists
consists of minute, discrete parts. This applies not only to bodies but
also to space, time, motion, and the “accidents”—that is, qualities,
such as colour—which the Islamic and Jewish atomists regarded as being
joined to the corporeal atoms but not determined by them, as had been
believed by the Greek atomists. An instant of time or a unit of motion
does not continue the preceding instant or unit. All apparent processes
are discontinuous, and there are causal connections between their
successive units of change. The fact that cotton put into fire generally
burns does not mean that fire is a cause of burning; rather, it may be
explained as a “habit” that has no character of necessity. God’s free
will is the only agent of everything that occurs, with the exception of
one category—human actions. These are causes that produce effects; for
instance, one who throws a stone at someone else, who is then killed,
directly brings about the latter’s death. This inconsistency on the part
of the theologians was required by the principle of justice, for it
would be unjust to punish someone for a murder that was a result not of
this person’s action but of God’s. This grudging admission that
causality exists in certain strictly defined and circumscribed cases was
occasioned by moral, not physical, considerations.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Medieval philosophy »
Jewish Neoplatonism » Isaac Israeli
Outside Babylonia, philosophical studies were pursued by Jews in the 9th
and 10th centuries in Egypt and in the Maghrib (northwest Africa), most
notably by Isaac ben Solomon Israeli (832/855–932/955), an Egyptian-born
North African who has been called “the first Jewish Neoplatonist.” In
his philosophical works, such as the Kitab al-ustuqusat (“Book of
Elements”) and the Kitab al-hudud (“Book of Definitions”), Israeli drew
largely upon a 9th-century Muslim popularizer of Greek philosophy, Abū
ğūsuf Yaʿqūb al-Kindī, and also, in all probability, upon a lost
pseudo-Aristotelian text. The peculiar form of Neoplatonic doctrine that
seems to have been set forth in this text had, directly and indirectly,
a considerable influence on medieval Jewish philosophy.
According to Israeli, God creates through his will and power. The two
things that were created first were form, identified with wisdom, and
matter, which is designated as the genus of genera (the classes of
things) and which is the substratum of everything, not only of bodies
but also of incorporeal substances. This conception of matter apparently
was derived from the Greek Neoplatonists Plotinus (205–270) and Proclus
(c. 410–485), particularly from the latter. In Proclus’s opinion,
generality was one of the main criteria for determining the ontological
priority of an entity (its place in the hierarchy of being). Matter,
because of its indeterminacy, obviously has a high degree of generality;
consequently, it figures among the entities having ontological priority.
According to the Neoplatonic view, which Israeli seems to have adopted,
the conjunction of matter and form gives rise to the intellect. A light
sent forth from the intellect produces the rational soul, which in turn
gives rise to the vegetative soul.
Israeli was perhaps the first Jewish philosopher to attribute
prophecy to the influence of the intellect on the faculty of
imagination. According to Israeli, this faculty receives from the
intellect spiritual forms that are intermediate between corporeality and
spirituality. This explanation implies that these forms, “with which the
prophets armed themselves,” are inferior to purely intellectual
cognitions.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Medieval philosophy »
Jewish Neoplatonism » Solomon ibn Gabirol
In its essentials, the schema of creation and emanation propounded by
Isaac Israeli and his Neoplatonic source (or sources) was taken over by
Solomon ibn Gabirol, a celebrated 11th-century Hebrew liturgical poet
who was also the earliest Jewish philosopher of Spain. His chief
philosophical work, written in Arabic but preserved in full only in a
12th-century Latin translation titled Fons vitae (“Fountain of Life”),
makes no reference to Judaism or to specifically Jewish doctrines and is
a dialogue between a disciple and a master who teaches him true
philosophical knowledge. Despite its prolixity and many contradictions,
it is an impressive work. Few medieval texts so effectively communicate
the Neoplatonic conception of the existence of a number of planes of
being that differ according to their ontological priority, the
derivative and inferior ones constituting a reflection in a grosser mode
of existence of those that are prior and superior.
One of Ibn Gabirol’s central concerns was the divine will, which
appears to be both part of and separate from the divine essence.
Infinite according to its essence, the will is finite in its action. It
is described as pervading everything that exists and as being the
intermediary between the divine essence and matter and form. Will was
one of the traditional terms used by medieval theologians to identify
the entity intermediate between the transcendent Deity and the world or
the aspect of the Deity involved in creation. According to a statement
in Fons vitae, matter derives from the divine essence, whereas form
derives from the divine will. This suggests that the difference between
matter and form has some counterpart in the Godhead and also that
universal matter is superior to universal form. Some of Ibn Gabirol’s
statements seem to support the superiority of universal matter; other
passages, however, appear to imply the superiority of universal form.
Form and matter, whether universal or particular, exist only in
conjunction. All things, with the sole exception of God, are constituted
through the union of the two, the intellect no less than corporeal
substance. In fact, the intellect is the first being in which universal
matter and form are conjoined. The intellect contains and encompasses
all things. It is through the grasp of the various planes of being,
through ascending in knowledge to the world of the intellect and
apprehending what is above it—the divine will and the world of the
Deity—that humans may “escape death” and reach “the source of life.”
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Medieval philosophy »
Jewish Neoplatonism » Judah ha-Levi
Judah ben Samuel ha-Levi (c. 1075–1141), another celebrated Hebrew poet
from Spain, was the first medieval Jewish thinker to base his thought
consciously and consistently on arguments drawn from Jewish history. His
views are set forth in an Arabic dialogue, al-Hazari (Hebrew Sefer
ha-Kuzari), the full title of which is translated as “The Book of Proof
and Argument in Defense of the Despised Faith.” This work is usually
called Kuzari—i.e., “the Khazar.”
Basing his narrative on the historical conversion to Judaism of the
Khazars (c. 740), a Turkic-speaking people in central Eurasia, ha-Levi
relates that their king, a pious man who did not belong to any of the
great monotheistic religions, dreamed of an angel who said to him, “Your
intentions are pleasing to the Creator, but your works are not.” To find
the correct way to please God, the king sought guidance from a
philosopher, from a Christian, from a Muslim, and finally—after
hesitating to invite a representative of a people degraded by historical
misfortune—from a Jewish scholar, who then converted him to Judaism. The
angel’s words in the king’s dream may be regarded as a kind of
revelation. Ha-Levi used this element of the story to suggest that it is
not the spontaneous activity of reason that impels human beings to
undertake the quest for the true religion but the gift of prophecy—or at
least a touch of the prophetic faculty (or a knowledge of the
revelations of the past).
The argument of the philosopher whose advice is sought by the king
confirms this point. This disquisition is a brilliant piece of writing
that lays bare the essential differences between the Aristotelian God,
who is wholly indifferent to human individuals, and the God of the
Jewish religion. The God of the philosophers, who is pure intellect, is
not concerned with the works of human beings; moreover, the cultural
activities to which the angel clearly refers—activities that involve
both mind and body—cannot, from a philosophical point of view, either
help or hinder humans in the pursuit of the philosophers’ supreme goal,
the attainment of union with the active intellect, a “light” of the
divine nature. This union was supposed to confer knowledge of all
intelligible things on the individual; the supreme goal, therefore, was
purely intellectual in nature.
In opposition to the philosopher’s faith, the religion of the Jewish
scholar in the Kuzari is based on the fact that God may have a close,
direct relationship with humans, who are not conceived primarily as
beings endowed with intellect. The postulate that God can have
intercourse with a creature made of the disgusting materials that
compose the human body is scandalous to the king and prevents his
acceptance of the doctrine concerning prophecy, expounded by the Muslim
sage (just as the extraordinary nature of the Christological dogmas
deters him from adopting Christianity).
The Jewish scholar argues that it is contemplation not of the cosmos
but of Jewish history that procures knowledge of God. Ha-Levi was aware
of the odium attached to the doctrine of the superiority of one
particular nation; he held, however, that this teaching alone explains
God’s dealings with humanity, which, like many other things, reason is
unable to grasp. The controversies of the philosophers serve as proof of
the failure of human intelligence to find valid solutions to the most
important problems.
Ha-Levi’s dialogue was also directed against the Karaites. He shows
the necessity and celebrates the efficacy of a blind, unquestioning
adhesion to tradition, which the Karaites rejected. Yet he expounds a
theology of Jewish exile that seems to have been influenced by Karaite
doctrine. According to ha-Levi, even in exile the course of Jewish
history is not determined like that of other nations by natural causes,
such as material strength or weakness; the decisive factor is whether
the Jews are religiously observant or disobedient. The advent of
Christianity and Islam, in his view, prepares other nations for
conversion to Judaism, an event that will occur in the eschatological
period at the end of history.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Medieval philosophy »
Jewish Neoplatonism » Other Jewish thinkers, c. 1050–c. 1150
Many other Jewish thinkers appeared in Spain during the period from the
second half of the 11th century to the first half of the 12th. Bahya ben
Joseph ibn Pakuda wrote one of the most popular books of Jewish
spiritual literature, Kitāb al-hidāyah ilā farā’iḍ alqulūb (“Guidance to
the Duties of the Heart”), which combines a theology influenced by
Saʿadia with a moderate mysticism inspired by the teachings of the
Muslim Sufis (see Sufism). The commandments of the heart—that is, those
relating to thoughts and sentiments—are contrasted with the commandments
of the limbs—that is, the Mosaic commandments enjoining or prohibiting
certain actions. Bahya maintained that both sets of commandments should
be observed (thus rejecting the antinomian position) but made clear that
he was chiefly interested in the commandments of the heart.
Abraham bar Hiyya Savasorda, a mathematician, astrologer, and
philosopher, outlined in Megillat ha-megalle (“Scroll of the Revealer”)
a view of Jewish history that is reminiscent of ha-Levi but does not
emphasize its uniqueness to the same degree; it is also set forth in
much less impressive fashion. Living in Barcelona under Christian rule,
Bar Hiyya wrote scientific and philosophical treatises not in Arabic but
in Hebrew. Hebrew was also used by Abraham ibn Ezra (died 1167), a
native of Spain who travelled extensively in Christian Europe. His
commentaries on the Bible contributed to the diffusion among the Jews of
Greek philosophical thought, to which Ibn Ezra made many disjointed
references. His astrological doctrine had a great influence on some
philosophers.
The last outstanding Jewish philosopher of the Islamic East, Abū
al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī (who died as a very old man sometime after 1164),
also belongs to this period. An inhabitant of Iraq, he was converted to
Islam in his old age (for reasons of expediency, according to his
biographers). His philosophy appears to have had a strong impact on
Islamic thought, though its influence on Jewish philosophy and theology
is very hard to pin down and may be practically nonexistent. His chief
philosophical work, Kitāb al-muʿtabar (“The Book of That Which Has Been
Established by Personal Reflection”), contains very few references to
Jewish texts or topics. Abū al-Barakāt rejected Aristotelian physics
completely. According to him, time is the measure of being and not, as
Aristotle taught, the measure of motion; he also replaced Aristotle’s
two-dimensional concept of place with the three-dimensional notion of
space, the existence of which is independent of the existence of bodies.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Medieval philosophy »
Jewish Aristotelianism
Jewish thinkers in Muslim Spain and the Maghrib adopted Aristotelianism
(as well as systems that stemmed from but also profoundly modified pure
Aristotelian doctrine) considerably later than did their counterparts in
the Islamic East.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Medieval philosophy »
Jewish Aristotelianism » Abraham ibn Daud
Abraham ibn Daud (12th century), who is regarded as the first Jewish
Aristotelian of Spain, was primarily a disciple of Avicenna, the great
11th-century Islamic philosopher. He may have translated or helped to
translate some of Avicenna’s works into Latin, according to one
plausible hypothesis, for he lived under Christian rule in Toledo, a
town that in the 12th century was a centre for translators. His
historical treatises, written in Hebrew, manifest his desire to
familiarize his fellow Jews with the historical tradition of the Latin
world, which at that time was alien to most of them. But his
philosophical work, Sefer ha-emuna ha-rama (“Book of Sublime Faith”),
written in 1161 in Arabic, shows few if any signs of Christian
influence.
The doctrine of emanation set forth in this work describes in the
manner of Avicenna the procession of the 10 incorporeal intellects, the
first of which derives from God. This intellect produces the second
intellect, and so on. Ibn Daud questioned in a fairly explicit manner
Avicenna’s views on the way the second intellect is produced; his
discipleship did not mean total adherence. Ibn Daud’s psychology was
also, and more distinctively, derived from Avicenna. The argumentation
leading to a proof that the rational faculty is not corporeal attempts
to derive the nature of the soul from the fact of immediate
self-awareness. Like Avicenna, Ibn Daud founded psychology on a theory
of consciousness.
Ibn Daud often referred to the accord that, in his view, existed
between philosophy and religious tradition. As he remarked, the Sefer
ha-emuna ha-rama was not for readers who, in their simplicity, are
satisfied with what they know of religious tradition or for those who
have a thorough knowledge of philosophy. It was intended for readers of
one type only: those who, being acquainted with the religious tradition
on the one hand and having some rudiments of philosophy on the other,
are “perplexed.” It was for the same audience that Maimonides wrote his
The Guide for the Perplexed.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Medieval philosophy »
Jewish Aristotelianism » Maimonides
Moses Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon; 1135–1204), a native of Spain, is
incontestably the greatest name in Jewish medieval philosophy, but his
reputation is not derived from any outstanding originality in
philosophical thought. Rather, the distinction of Maimonides, who is
also the most eminent codifier of Jewish religious law, is to be found
in the vast scope of his attempt, in the Dalālat al-hā’irin (The Guide
for the Perplexed), to safeguard both religious law and philosophy (the
public communication of which would be destructive of the law) without
suppressing the issues between them and without trying to impose, on a
theoretical plane, a final, universally binding solution to the
conflict.
As Maimonides states in his introduction to the Guide, he regarded
his self-imposed task as perilous, and he therefore had recourse to a
whole system of precautions designed to conceal his true meaning from
people who, lacking the necessary qualifications, might misread the book
and abandon observance of the law. Maimonides himself notes that these
precautions include deliberately contradictory statements meant to
mislead the undiscerning reader. The apparent or real contradictions
encountered in the Guide are perhaps most flagrant in Maimonides’
doctrine concerning God. There seems to be no plausible hypothesis
capable of explaining away the inconsistencies between the following
three views:
1. God has an eternal will that is not bound by natural laws. Through
an act of his will, he created the world in time and imposed on it the
order of nature. This creation is the greatest of miracles; only if it
is admitted can other miracles, which interfere with the causally
determined concatenations of events, be regarded as possible. The
philosophers’ God, who is not free to cut the wings of a fly, is to be
rejected. This conception is in keeping with the traditional religious
view of God and is avowedly adopted by Maimonides because failure to do
so would undermine religion.
2. Humans are incapable of having any positive knowledge concerning
God. No positive attributes—e.g., wisdom or life—can be ascribed to God.
Contrary to the attributes predicated of created beings, the divine
attributes are strictly negative; they state what God is not. For
instance, he is not not-wise, and such a statement is not a positive
assertion. Hence, only a negative theology is possible—saying what God
is not. The way God acts can, however, be known. This knowledge is to be
found in natural science.
3. God is an intellect. The formula used by medieval
philosophers—which maintains that in God the knowing subject, the object
known, and the act of intellectual knowledge are identical—derives from
Aristotle’s thesis that God knows only himself. In adopting the formula,
however, Maimonides interpreted it in the light of human psychology and
epistemology, pointing out that, according to Aristotle, the act of
human (as well as divine) cognition brings about an identity of the
cognizing subject and the cognized object. The parallel drawn by
Maimonides between the human and the divine intellect quite evidently
implies a certain similarity between the two; in other words, it is
incompatible with the negative theology of other passages of the Guide.
Nor can it be reconciled with his theological doctrine that the
structure of the world—created in time—came into being through the
action of God’s will.
There would be no enigma in the Guide if Maimonides had believed that
truth can be discovered in a suprarational way, through revelations
vouchsafed to the Prophets. This, however, is not the case. Maimonides
held that the Prophets (with the exception of Moses) combine great
intellectual ability, which qualifies them to be philosophers, with a
powerful imagination. The intellectual faculty of the philosophers and
the prophets receives an overflow from the active intellect. In the case
of the Prophets, this overflow not only brings about intellectual
activity but also passes over into the imaginative faculty, giving rise
to visions and dreams. The fact that prophets have a strong imagination
gives them no superiority in knowledge over philosophers, who do not
have it. Moses, who belonged to a higher category than did the other
Prophets, did not have recourse to imagination.
The laws and religion as instituted by Moses are intended not only to
ensure the bodily welfare and safety of the members of the community but
also to facilitate the attainment of intellectual truths by individuals
gifted enough to uncover the various hints embodied in religious laws
and practices. This does not mean that all the beliefs inculcated by
Judaism are true. Some indeed express philosophical truths—though in an
inaccurate way, in a language suited to the intellectual capacity of the
common people, who in general cannot grasp the import of the dogmas they
are required to profess. Other beliefs, however, are false but necessary
for the preservation of public order and justice—e.g., the belief that
God is angry with wrongdoers.
There are two noteworthy aspects of Maimonides’ position on the
Law—i.e., the religious commandments. First, he maintained that it is
unique in its excellence and valid for all time. This profession of
faith, at least with regard to its assumptions about the future, lacked
philosophical justification; however, it could be regarded as necessary
for the survival of Judaism. Second, he asserted that certain precepts
of the Mosaic Law were related to specific historical situations and to
the need to avoid too sharp a break with popular customs and
practices—for instance, the commandments concerning sacrifice.
For at least four or five centuries, The Guide for the Perplexed
exercised a very strong influence in the European centres of Jewish
thought; in the 13th century, when the Guide was twice translated into
Hebrew, these centres were Spain, the south of France, and Italy. Rather
paradoxically, in view of the unsystematic character of Maimonides’
exposition, it was used as a standard textbook of philosophy and
condemned as such when the teaching of philosophy came under attack. The
Guide could be used in this way because from the 13th century onward the
history of Jewish philosophy in European countries acquired a continuity
it had never had before. This development seems to have resulted from
the substitution of Hebrew for Arabic as the language of philosophical
exposition. Because of the existence of a common and relatively
homogeneous philosophical background—Hebrew texts were much less
numerous and less diverse than Arabic philosophical works—and the fact
that Jewish philosophers reading and writing in Hebrew read the works of
their contemporaries and immediate predecessors, something like a
dialogue can be discerned. In striking contrast to the immediately
preceding period, European Jewish philosophers in the 13th century and
later frequently devoted a very considerable part of their treatises to
discussions of the opinions of other Jewish philosophers. That many of
the Jewish philosophers in question wrote commentaries on the Guide
undoubtedly furthered this tendency.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Medieval philosophy »
Jewish Aristotelianism » Averroists
The influence of Maimonides’ great Islamic contemporary Averroës, many
of whose commentaries and treatises were translated into Hebrew, was
second only to that of Maimonides on Jewish intellectual development.
Indeed, it may be argued that for philosophers (as distinct from the
general reading public) it often came first. In certain cases,
commentators on the Guide quote Averroës’ opinions in order to clarify
those of Maimonides, despite the frequent divergences between the two.
The apparently significant influence of Christian Scholastic thought
on Jewish philosophy was often not openly acknowledged by Jewish
thinkers in the period beginning with the 13th century. Samuel ibn
Tibbon (c. 1150–c. 1230), one of the translators of the Guide into
Hebrew and a philosopher in his own right, remarked that the
philosophical sciences were more widely known among Christians than
among Muslims. Somewhat later, at the end of the 13th century and after,
Jewish scholars in Italy translated into Hebrew various texts of St.
Thomas Aquinas and other Christian representatives of Scholasticism; not
infrequently, some of them acknowledged the debt they owed their
Christian masters. In Spain and in the south of France, a different
convention seems to have prevailed up to the second half of the 15th
century. Whereas Jewish philosophers of these countries felt no
reluctance about referring to Greek, Arabic, and other Jewish
philosophers, they refrained from citing Christian thinkers whose views
had, in all probability, influenced them. In the case of certain Jewish
thinkers, this absence of reference to the Christian Scholastics served
to disguise the fact that in many essentials they were representative of
the philosophical trends, such as Latin Averroism, that were current
among the Christian Scholastics of their time.
There is a striking resemblance between certain views of the Latin
Averroists and the parallel opinions of Isaac Albalag, a Jewish
philosopher who lived in the second half of the 13th century, probably
in Catalonia, Spain, and who wrote a commentary in Hebrew on the Tahāfut
al-falāsifah (“The Inconsistencies of the Philosophers”), an exposition
of Avicenna’s doctrine written by the Muslim philosopher al-Ghazālī
(1058–1111). Albalag’s assertion that both the teachings of the Bible
and the truths demonstrated by reason must be believed even if they are
contradictory raises the possibility that some historical connections
exist between this view and the Latin Averroist doctrine that there are
two sets of truths—the religious and the philosophical—which are not
necessarily in accord. On most other points Albalag was a follower of
the system of Averroës himself. This position is exemplified by
Albalag’s rejection of the view that the world was created in time.
Although he professed to believe in what he called “absolute creation in
time,” this expression merely signifies that at any given moment the
continued existence of the world depends on God’s existence, an opinion
that is essentially in harmony with Averroës.
Joseph Caspi (1297–1340), a prolific philosopher and exegetical
commentator, maintained a somewhat unsystematic philosophical position
that seems to have been influenced by Averroës. He expressed the opinion
that knowledge of the future, including that possessed by God himself,
is probabilistic in nature. The prescience of the Prophets is the same.
Caspi’s interest in this problem may well have had some connection with
the debate about future contingencies in which Christian Scholastics
were engaged at that time.
Moses of Narbonne, or Moses Narboni, like many other Jewish scholars
of the 14th century, wrote mainly commentaries, including those on
biblical books, on treatises of Averroës, and on Maimonides’ Guide. In
his commentary on the Guide, Narboni often interprets the earlier
philosopher’s opinions by recourse to Averroës’ views. Narboni also
expounded and gave radical interpretations to certain conceptions that
he understood as implied in the Guide. According to Narboni, God
participates in all things, because he is the measure of all substances.
God’s existence appears to be bound up with that of the world, to which
he has a relation analogous to that between a soul and its body (a
comparison already made in the Guide).
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Medieval philosophy »
Jewish Aristotelianism » Gersonides
Gersonides, also known as Levi ben Gershom (1288–1344), wrote the
systematic philosophical work Sefer milḥamot Adonai (“The Book of the
Wars of the Lord”), as well as many philosophical commentaries.
Gersonides cited Greek, Arabic, and Jewish thinkers, and in many ways
his system appears to have stemmed from the doctrines of Maimonides or
Averroës, regardless of whether he agreed with them. For example, he
explicitly rejected Maimonides’ doctrine of negative theology. Although
he never explicitly mentioned Christian Scholastic philosophers, a
comparison of his opinions and of the particular problems that engaged
his attention with the Scholastic writings of his period suggests that
he was influenced by the Latins on certain points.
Gersonides disagreed both with the Aristotelian philosophers who
maintained the eternity of the world and with the religious partisans
who believed in the creation of the world in time out of nothing. He
argued instead that God created the world in time out of a preexistent
body that lacked all form. As Gersonides conceived it, this body seems
to be similar to primal matter.
The problem of human freedom of action and a particular version of
the problem of God’s knowledge of future contingencies form an important
part of Gersonides’ doctrine. Unlike the great Jewish and Muslim
Aristotelians, Gersonides believed in astrology and held that all
happenings in the world except human actions are governed by a strict
determinism. God’s knowledge does not extend to individual human acts
but embraces the general order of things; it grasps the laws of
universal determinism but is incapable of apprehending events resulting
from human freedom. Thus, the object of God’s knowledge is a totally
determined world order, which differs from the real world insofar as the
latter is in some measure formed according to human freedom.
Gersonides does not appear to have assigned to the prophets any
political function; according to him, their role consists of predicting
future events. The providence exercised by the heavenly bodies ensures
the existence in a given political society of people with an aptitude
for the handicrafts and professions necessary for the survival of the
community. He remarked that in this way the various human activities are
distributed in a manner superior to that outlined in the Republic of
Plato. Thus, he explicitly rejected Plato’s political philosophy, which,
because it was suitable to a society ruled through laws promulgated by a
prophet (Muhammad), had been an important element of Jewish philosophy
in the Arabic period.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Medieval philosophy »
Jewish Aristotelianism » Ḥasdai Crescas
The Spanish Jewish thinker Ḥasdai ben Abraham Crescas (1340–1410), like
Gersonides, had thorough knowledge of Jewish philosophy and partial
knowledge of Islamic philosophy; in both areas he seems to have been
influenced by Christian Scholastic thought. Moreover, in certain
important respects Crescas was influenced by Gersonides himself. One of
Crescas’s main works, Or Adonai (“The Light of the Lord”), was quite
contrary to Gersonides in its attempt to expose the weaknesses of
Aristotelian philosophy. This attitude may be placed in the wider
context of the return to religion itself, as opposed to the Aristotelian
rationalization of religion, and the vogue of Kabbala (esoteric Jewish
mysticism), both of which were characteristic features of Spanish Jewry
in Crescas’s time. This change in attitude may have been a reaction to
the increasing precariousness of the position of the Jewish community in
Spain.
The criticism of the extreme rationalism of some medieval
Aristotelians coincided historically with a certain disintegration of
and disaffection toward classical Aristotelian Scholasticism. This trend
was associated with the so-called voluntarism of John Duns Scotus (c.
1266–1308), the nominalism of William of Ockham (c. 1285–1347/49) and
other 13th–14th-century Christian Scholastics, and the development of
anti-Aristotelian physics at the University of Paris and elsewhere
beginning in the 14th century. Significantly, there is a pronounced
resemblance between Crescas’s views and two of these trends, Scotism
(the teachings of Duns Scotus and his followers) and the “new” physics.
Crescas accepted Gersonides’ view that divine attributes cannot be
negative, but unlike his predecessor his explanation of the difference
between the attributes of God and those of created beings centred on the
contrast between an infinite being and finite beings. It is through
infinitude that God’s essential attributes—wisdom, for instance—differ
from the corresponding and otherwise similar attributes found in created
beings. In Crescas’s doctrine, as in that of Spinoza, God’s attributes
are infinite in number. The central place assigned to the doctrine of
God’s infinity in Crescas’s system suggests the influence of Duns
Scotus’s theology, which is similarly founded upon the concept of divine
infinity.
The problem of the infinite was approached from an altogether
different perspective in Crescas’s critique of Maimonides’ 25
propositions, which Maimonides had set forth in the Guide as the basis
of his proof of the existence of God. Crescas’s purpose in criticizing
and rejecting several of these propositions was to show that the
traditional Aristotelian proofs (founded in the first place on physical
doctrines) were not valid. In his critique, Crescas attempted to
disprove the Aristotelian thesis that the existence of an actual
infinite is impossible. He held that space is not a limit but a
three-dimensional extension, that it is infinite, and that, contrary to
Aristotle, the existence of a vacuum and of more worlds than one is
possible. He also argued that the thesis of the Aristotelian
philosophers that there exists an infinite number of causes and effects,
which have order and gradation, was impossible. This thesis refers not
to a temporal succession of causes and effects that have a similar
ontological status but to a vertical series, descending from God to the
lowest rung in creation. His attacks were likewise directed against the
Aristotelians’ conceptions of time and matter.
Crescas’s fundamental opposition to Aristotelianism is perhaps most
evident in his rejection of the conception of intellectual activity as
the supreme state of being for humans and for God. Crescas’s God is not
first and foremost an intellect, and humanity’s supreme goal is not to
think but to love God with a love corresponding, as far as possible, to
his infinite greatness and to rejoice in the observance of his
commandments. God too loves human beings, and his love, in spite of the
lowliness of its object, is proportionate to his infinity.
Crescas attacked the Aristotelian teaching of the separation of the
intellect from the soul and attempted, perhaps in part under the
influence of Judah ha-Levi, to refute the Aristotelian doctrine that the
actualized intellect, as distinct from the soul, survives the death of
the body. According to Crescas, the soul is a substance in its own
right; it can be separated from the body and subsists after the body’s
death.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Medieval philosophy »
Jewish Aristotelianism » Joseph Albo
Whereas Crescas regarded the Aristotelian philosophers as adversaries,
Joseph Albo (c. 1380–c. 1444), who considered Crescas his teacher,
expressed a much more ambivalent attitude toward them. Albo did not
eschew self-contradiction, apparently considering it a legitimate
precaution on the part of a philosophical or theological author; indeed,
he indulged in it in a much more obvious way than did Maimonides. But,
whereas the latter’s fundamental philosophical position is fairly clear,
it is much less apparent who Albo’s true masters were—Crescas and the
Jewish religious tradition, or Maimonides and Averroës. Because of this
perhaps deliberate failure to explain to the reader where he really
stood, Albo has often been dismissed as an eclectic. Indeed, along with
the authors just mentioned, Albo was strongly influenced by Saʿadia and
seems to have had considerable knowledge of Christian theology, even
adopting for his own purposes certain Scholastic doctrines. He differs
from Crescas and to some extent resembles Maimonides in having a marked
interest in political theory.
The theme of Albo’s magnum opus, Sefer ha-ʿiqqarim (“Book of
Principles”), is the investigation of the theory of Jewish religious
dogmas. Maimonides, in a nonphilosophical work, set the number of dogmas
at 13, whereas Albo, following a doctrine that seems to go back to
Averroës, limited the number to three: the existence of God, divine
providence in reward and punishment, and the Torah as divine revelation.
One section, usually including the philosophical and the traditional
religious interpretations side by side, is devoted to each of these
dogmas. Albo’s principal and relatively novel contribution to the
evolution of Jewish doctrine is the classification, in his introduction,
of natural, conventional, and divine law.
Natural law (the universal moral law inherent in human nature) is
necessary because human beings, who are political by nature, must belong
to a community, which may be restricted in size to one town or may
extend over the whole earth. Natural law preserves society by promoting
right and repressing injustice; thus, it restrains humans from stealing,
robbing, and murdering. The positive laws instituted by the wise take
into account the particular nature of the people for whose benefit they
are instituted, as well as other circumstances. This means that they
differ from the natural law in not being universally applicable. Neither
natural law nor the more elaborate conventional laws, however, lead
humans toward true spiritual happiness; this is the function of divine
laws instituted by a prophet, which teach humans true theoretical
opinions. Whereas Maimonides maintained that Judaism was the only divine
law promulgated by a true prophet, Albo considered that the commandments
given to Noah for all humankind—the Noahide Laws that Noah received
after the Flood—also constitute divine law, which ensures, though to a
lesser degree than does Judaism, the happiness of its adherents. This
position justifies a certain universalism; in accordance with a Talmudic
saying, Albo believed that the pious among the non-Jews—that is, those
who observe Noah’s laws—have a share in the world to come. But he
rejected the pretensions of Christianity and Islam to encompass divine
laws comparable—or even superior—to Judaism.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Modern philosophy » The
Iberian-Dutch philosophers
The expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal in 1492 and 1497,
respectively, produced a new centre of Jewish thought: Holland, where
many exiled Jews found a new and safer domicile; the tolerance of the
regime seemed to provide guarantees against external persecution. This
did not prevent, and indeed may have furthered, the establishment of an
oppressive internal orthodoxy that was prepared to chastise rebellious
members of the community. This was evident in the cases of Uriel Acosta
(Gabriel da Costa) and Benedict de Spinoza, two 17th-century
philosophers who rebelled against Jewish orthodoxy and were
excommunicated for their views (Acosta twice).
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Modern philosophy » The
Iberian-Dutch philosophers » Uriel Acosta
Belonging to a family of Marranos in Portugal, Acosta arrived in
Amsterdam after having been brought up in the Catholic faith. His
philosophical position was to a great extent determined by his
antagonism to the dogmatism of the traditional Judaism that he
encountered in Amsterdam. His growing estrangement from generally
accepted Jewish doctrine is attested by his Portuguese treatise Sobre a
mortalidade da alma (“On the Mortality of the Soul”). He held that the
belief in the immortality of the soul has many evil effects and that it
impels people to choose an ascetic way of life and even to seek death.
According to him, nothing has tormented human beings more than the
belief in an inner, spiritual good and evil. At this stage, Acosta
affirmed the authority of the Bible, from which, according to him, the
mortality of the soul can be proved.
In his autobiography, Exemplar Humanae Vitae (“Example of a Human
Life”), Acosta took a more radical position. He proclaimed the supreme
excellence of the natural moral law; when arguing before Jews, he seemed
to identify this law with the Noahide Laws (the commandments given to
Noah), thus suggesting a correspondence with the view of Albo.
Accordingly, Acosta denied the validity of the argument that natural law
is inferior to Judaism and Christianity, because he believed that both
these religions teach the love of one’s enemies, a precept that is not a
part of natural law and is a manifest impossibility.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Modern philosophy » The
Iberian-Dutch philosophers » Benedict de Spinoza
Born in Amsterdam but of Portuguese Marrano descent, Spinoza is unique
in the history of modern Jewish thought. Although his work does not deal
with specifically Judaic themes, he is traditionally included in this
history for several reasons. First, it was through the study of Jewish
philosophical texts that Spinoza was first initiated into philosophy.
Second, Spinoza’s system is in part a radicalization of, or perhaps a
logical corollary to, medieval Jewish doctrines, and the impact of
Maimonides and of Crescas is evident. Third, a considerable portion of
Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus deals with problems related to
Judaism. He drew from Jewish religion and history, even using the
Israelite commonwealth in the Tractatus as the template for his ideal
state, though he was not centrally concerned with matters of Jewish
theology and ritual.
The first chapters of the Tractatus show that the doctrine of
prophecy is of central importance to Spinoza’s explanation of Judaism
and that, in dealing with this subject, he used Maimonides’ categories,
though he applied them to different people or groups of people.
Maimonides held that the prophets combined intellectual perfection,
which made them philosophers, with perfection of the imaginative
faculty. He also referred to a category of persons, including lawyers
and statesmen, endowed with a strong imagination but possessing no
extraordinary intellectual gifts. Spinoza applied this category to the
prophets, whom he described as possessing vivid imaginations but as not
necessarily having outstanding intellectual capacities. He denied that
the biblical Prophets were philosophers and used a philosophical and
historical approach to the Scriptures to show that the contrary
assertion is not borne out by the texts.
Spinoza also denied Maimonides’ assertion that the prophecy of Moses
was essentially different from that of the other Prophets and that this
was because Moses, in prophesying, had no recourse to the imaginative
faculty. According to Spinoza, Moses’ prophecy was unique because he
heard the voice of God in a prophetic vision—that is, in a state in
which his imagination was active. In this assertion, Spinoza employed
one of Maimonides’ categories of prophecy. Maimonides thought it
improbable, however, that the voice of God was ever heard in prophetic
vision, and he held that this category is purely hypothetical. In his
classification of Moses, Spinoza was not concerned with what really
happened in history; rather, he was attempting to fashion the biblical
evidence according to Maimonides’ theoretical framework so that it would
further his own theological and political purpose: to show that there
could be a religion superior to Judaism.
This purpose made it imperative to propound in the Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus a theory concerning Jesus, whom Spinoza designates
as Christus. The category and the status assigned to Jesus are similar
to those that Maimonides attributed to Moses. Jesus is referred to in
the Tractatus as a religious teacher who makes recourse not to the
imaginative faculty but to the intellect. His authority may be used to
institute and strengthen the religion Spinoza called religio catholica
(“universal religion”), which has little or nothing in common with any
of the major manifestations of historic Christianity.
The difference between Judaism and Spinoza’s religio catholica
corresponds to the difference between Moses and Jesus. After leaving
Egypt, the Jews found themselves, in Spinoza’s view, in the position of
people who had no allegiance to any positive law. They had, as it were,
reverted to a state of nature and were faced with the need to enter into
a social pact. They were also an ignorant people and very prone to
superstition. Moses, a man of outstanding ability, made use of the
situation and the characteristics of the people in order to make them
accept a social pact and a state founded upon it that, contrary to
Spinoza’s scheme for his ideal communities, were not based first and
foremost upon utilitarian—that is, reasonable—consideration of the
advantages of life in society over the state of nature.
According to Spinoza, the social pact concluded by the children of
Israel in the desert was based upon a superstitious view of God as
“King” and “Judge,” to whom the children of Israel owed their political
and military successes. The children of Israel transferred political
sovereignty to God rather than to the representatives of the popular
will. In due course, political sovereignty was vested in Moses, God’s
representative, and in his successors. In spite of Spinoza’s insistence
on the superstitious foundations of the ancient Israelite state,
however, his account of its regime was not wholly unsympathetic,
especially regarding its ability to curb human tyranny by its doctrine
of divine sovereignty. Spinoza believed that the state contained the
seeds of its own destruction and that, with its extinction, the social
pact devised by Moses had lapsed and all the political and religious
obligations incumbent upon the Jews had become null and void.
It could be argued that, because the state conceived by Spinoza is
based not on superstitious faith but on a social contract originating in
rational, utilitarian considerations, it does not need to have its
authority safeguarded and stabilized by means of religion. Nevertheless,
Spinoza apparently believed that religion is necessary. To fulfill this
need and to obviate the danger of harmful religions, he devised the
religio catholica, the universal religion, which is characterized by two
distinctive traits. First, its main purpose, a practical one (which is
furthered by recourse to the authority of Jesus), is to impel people to
act in accordance with justice and charity. Such conduct is tantamount
to obedience to the laws of the state and to the orders of the
magistrates, in whom sovereignty is vested. Disobedience, however, even
if it springs from compassionate motives, weakens the social pact, which
safeguards the welfare of all the members of the community; in
consequence, its evil effects outweigh whatever good it may produce.
Second, although religion, according to Spinoza, is not concerned with
theoretical truth, in order to be effective the religio catholica
requires dogmas, which he set forth in the Tractatus. These dogmas are
formulated in terms that can be interpreted in accordance both with the
philosophical conception of God that Spinoza regarded as true and with
widespread superstitious ideas. It follows that if they are accepted as
constituting the only creed that everybody is obliged to profess, people
cannot be persecuted on account of their beliefs. Spinoza held that such
persecution may lead to civil war and may thus destroy the state.
Philosophers are free to engage in the pursuit of truth and to attain,
if they can, the supreme goal of humanity—freedom grounded in knowledge.
There can be little doubt that the furtherance of the cause of tolerance
for philosophical opinions was one of Spinoza’s main objects in writing
the Tractatus.
As compared with the Tractatus Theologico-Philosophicus, the Ethics,
Spinoza’s major philosophical work, bears a much more ambiguous relation
to Jewish medieval philosophy. In a way, Spinoza’s metaphysical system,
contained in the Ethics, can be regarded as drawing aspects of medieval
Aristotelianism to their logical conclusions, a step that most Jewish
(and Christian and Muslim) thinkers were unwilling to take, owing to
their theological conservatism.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Modern philosophy » German
philosophers » Moses Mendelssohn
The era opened by Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86)—i.e., c. 1750 to c.
1830—is sometimes called the German period of Jewish philosophy because
of the large number of works on Jewish philosophy that were written in
German. The German period is also marked by the emancipation of the
Jews—that is, by the abrogation of discriminatory laws directed against
them—and by their partial or complete assimilation. In this time in
particular, the term Jewish philosophy applied especially to works that
were primarily concerned with defining Judaism and offering a
justification of its existence. The second of these tasks was often
conceived of as involving a confrontation with Christianity rather than
with philosophy. This change from what would have been the practice in
the Middle Ages seems to have resulted from the demarcation of the
sphere of religion in such a way that, at least in the opinion of the
philosophers, possible points of collision with philosophy no longer
existed. This development was stimulated by the doctrine of Spinoza,
from whom Mendelssohn and others took certain fundamental ideas
concerning Judaism.
Like Spinoza, Mendelssohn held that it is not the task of Judaism to
teach rational truths, though such truths may be referred to in the
Bible. Contrary to what he called Athanasian Christianity—that is, the
doctrine set forth in the Athanasian Creed—Judaism has no binding
dogmas; it is centred on inculcating belief in certain historical events
and on the observance of religious law, which includes the ceremonial
commandments. Such observance is supposed to lead to happiness in this
world and in the afterlife. Mendelssohn did not reject this view out of
hand, as Spinoza would have done. Indeed, he seems to have been prepared
to accept it, God’s mysteries being inscrutable, and the radicalism and
what may be called the consistency of Spinoza being the complete
antithesis of Mendelssohn’s apologetics. Non-Jews were supposed by
Mendelssohn to owe allegiance to the natural moral law.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Modern philosophy » German
philosophers » Solomon Formstecher
Whereas Mendelssohn continued the medieval tradition (at least to some
extent) or adapted Spinoza’s doctrine for his own purposes, the Jewish
philosophers of the first half of the 19th century generally followed
the teachings of the non-Jewish philosophers of their own time. In Die
Religion des Geistes (“The Religion of the Spirit”), Solomon Formstecher
(1808–89) may have been influenced by F.W.J. von Schelling (1775–1854)
in his conception of nature and spirit as manifestations of the divine.
In Formstecher’s view, there are two types of religions that correspond
to these manifestations: the religion of nature, in which God is
conceived as the principle of nature or as the world soul, and the
religion of the spirit, in which God is understood as an ethical being.
According to the religion of the spirit, God has produced the world as
his manifestation in full freedom and not, as the religion of nature
tends to profess, because the world was necessary for his existence.
The religion of the spirit, which corresponds to absolute religious
truth, was first manifested in the Jewish people. The religious history
of the world may be understood as a process of universalization of the
Jewish religion, according to Formstecher. Thus, Christianity propagated
Jewish conceptions among the nations; however, it combined them with
pagan ideas. The pagan element is gradually being
eliminated—Protestantism, in this respect, marks considerable progress.
When at long last the Jewish element in Christianity is victorious, the
Jews will be right to give up their isolation. The progress that will
bring about this final religious union is already under way.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Modern philosophy » German
philosophers » Samuel Hirsch
The main philosophical work of Samuel Hirsch (1815–89), titled Die
Religionsphilosophie der Juden (“The Philosophy of Religion of the
Jews”), was decisively influenced by G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831). Hegel’s
impact is most evident in Hirsch’s method and in the task that he
assigned to the philosophy of religion—the transformation of religious
consciousness into conceptual truth. Contrary to Hegel, however, he did
not consider religious truth to be inadequate compared with
philosophical truth.
In Hirsch’s view, God revealed himself in the first stages of Jewish
history by means of miracles and prophecy. At present, he manifests
himself in the miracle of the existence of the Jewish people. Hirsch
further maintained that Christianity and Judaism were identical at the
time of Jesus and that a decisive break between them was caused by Paul.
When the Pauline elements are eliminated from Christianity, it will be
essentially in agreement with Judaism, though Judaism will preserve its
separate existence.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Modern philosophy » German
philosophers » Nachman Krochmal
Nachman Krochmal (1785–1840), a native of Galicia (at that time part of
Austria), wrote the highly influential Hebrew treatise More nevukhe
ha-zman (“Guide for the Perplexed for Our Time”), on the philosophy of
history and on Jewish history. Krochmal’s philosophical thought was
based on the notion of spirit. He was mainly concerned with the
“national spirit” that is proper to each people and that accounts for
the characteristics differentiating one people from another in every
domain of human activity. The national spirits of all peoples except the
Jewish are, according to Krochmal, essentially particular. Hence, when
the nation becomes extinct, the national spirit either disappears or, if
it is powerful, is assimilated by some other nation. The perpetuity of
the Jewish people, according to Krochmal, is the result of their special
relation to the Universal Spirit, who is the God of Israel.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Modern philosophy » German
philosophers » Solomon Steinheim
Solomon Ludwig Steinheim (1789–1866), the author of Die Offenbarung nach
dem Lehrbegriff der Synagoge (“The Revelation According to the Doctrine
of the Synagogue”), was apparently influenced by the antirationalism of
the German philosopher Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743–1819). His
criticism of science is based on Jacobi’s work, though he did not agree
with Jacobi in opposing discursive reason to the intuitive knowledge of
God; Steinheim contrasted human reason with divine revelation. The main
point of opposition between revelation, vouchsafed to the prophets of
Israel, and reason is that the God posited by reason is subject to
necessity—he can act only in accordance with laws. Moreover, reason
affirms that nothing can come from nothing. Accordingly, God is free to
create not a good world but only the best possible world. Revealed
religion, on the other hand, affirms the freedom of God and the creation
of the world out of nothing.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Modern philosophy » German
philosophers » Hermann Cohen
There seems to be little connection between the Jewish philosophers of
the first half or two-thirds of the 19th century and Hermann Cohen
(1842–1918), the head of the Neo-Kantian school centred at the
University of Marburg. Cohen may be regarded as a rather unusual case
among the Jewish philosophers of his and the preceding generations
because of the dual nature of his philosophical thought—the general and
the Jewish—and the uneasy equilibrium between them. Judaism was by no
means the only important theme of his philosophical system; indeed, it
was not even his point of departure. For most of his life, Cohen was
wholly committed to his brand of Kantianism, and he displayed
considerable originality in its elaboration. It has been maintained with
some justification that his doctrine manifests a certain (unintentional)
kinship with Hegel’s, though Cohen’s idea of God is based on an analysis
and development of certain conceptions of Immanuel Kant. In Cohen’s
view, reason requires that nature be conceived of as conforming to a
single rational plan and that there be harmony between the domains of
natural and moral teleology (ultimate purposes or ends). These two
requirements in turn require the adoption of the idea of God—the word
idea being used in the Kantian sense, which means that no assertion is
made about the metaphysical reality of God.
Cohen’s later works increasingly emphasized generally religious and
specifically Judaic elements. Some scholars, most notably his student
Franz Rosenzweig, interpreted this as a major turn in Cohen’s thought.
In the late 20th century, however, most scholars held that the
more-pronounced Judaism in Cohen’s later works was the culmination of
his overall philosophical system, not a radical departure from it.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Modern philosophy » German
philosophers » Franz Rosenzweig
Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929) published his main philosophical work, Der
Stern der Erlösung (The Star of Redemption), in 1921. It begins by
rejecting the traditional philosophical denial of the fear of death,
maintaining instead that this fear is the beginning of the cognition of
the All. Humans should fear death, despite the indifference of
philosophy and its predilection for accepting death. Traditional
philosophy is interested exclusively in the universal, and it is
monistic—its aim is to discover one principle from which everything can
be derived. This tendency of philosophy, however, denatures human
experience, which knows not one but three separate domains (which Kant
had referred to in a different context), namely, God, the world, and
humanity.
According to Rosenzweig, God (like the world and like humankind) is
known through experience (the experience of revelation). In Greek
religion, the most perfect manifestation of paganism, every one of these
domains subsists by itself: the gods, the cosmos, and the human as the
tragic, solitary, silent hero. Biblical religion is concerned with the
relation between the three: the relation between God and the world,
which is creation; the relation between God and human beings, which is
revelation; and the relation between humans and the world, which leads
to salvation. Under the influence of Schelling, whose term and concept
he adopted, Rosenzweig pursued a “narrative philosophy” that renounces
the ambition to find one principle for everything that exists and that
follows biblical religion in focusing on the connections between the
three domains and between the words and acts that bring about and
develop these connections.
Biblical faith brought forth two valid religions—Christianity and
Judaism. The first is described by Rosenzweig as the eternal way; the
Christian peoples seek in the vicissitudes of time and history the way
to salvation. In contrast to them, the existence of the stateless Jewish
people is not concerned with time and history; it is—notwithstanding the
hope for final salvation—already an eternal life, renewed again and
again according to the rhythm of the Jewish liturgical year.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Modern philosophy » German
philosophers » Martin Buber
Among the leading thinkers of the 20th century was Martin Buber
(1878–1965), whose impact was felt by both Jews and non-Jews. In his
early period, Buber was led, partly through empathy with Jewish and
non-Jewish mysticism, to stress unitive experience and knowledge, in
which the difference between one person and another and between the
individual and God tend to disappear. But in his final period he
taught—following, as he claimed, a suggestion of Ludwig Feuerbach
(1804–72)—that a human being can realize himself only in a relation with
another, who may be another person or God. This conception of the “I and
Thou” relationship led to the formulation of Buber’s view of the
dialogical life—the mutual, responsive relation between one person and
another—and accounts for the importance that he attached to the category
of “encounter.”
Shlomo Pines
The Judaic tradition » Jewish philosophy » Modern philosophy » German
philosophers » Emmanuel Lévinas
During the late 20th century the thought of the French Jewish
philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas (1905–95) exercised worldwide influence. In
his main work, Totality and Infinity (1961), Lévinas emphasized ethics,
as opposed to epistemology, as the primary means for achieving one’s
relation to the “Other.” This relationship is based on the existential
and material need of the other person rather than on one’s abstract
knowledge of him. In this philosophical program, Lévinas drew upon
rabbinic tradition as well as the philosophical anthropology of Cohen,
Rosenzweig, and Buber.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism
This section deals with the special nature and characteristics of Jewish
mysticism, the main lines of its development, and its role in
present-day religion and culture.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Nature and characteristics
The term mysticism applies to the attempt to establish direct contact,
independently of sense perception and intellectual apprehension, with
the divine—a reality beyond rational understanding and believed to be
the ultimate ground of being. Since mysticism springs from an aspiration
to join and grasp that which falls outside ordinary experience, it is
not easily defined. There is no clear boundary line between mysticism
and metaphysics, cosmology, theosophy (a system of thought claiming
special insights or revelation into the divine nature), occultism,
theurgy (the art of compelling or persuading divine powers), or even
magic.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Nature and characteristics
» The Judaic context
As the search for direct contact with the divine, however, mysticism
seems to be in conflict with classical Judaism. Normative Judaism
consists of a faith in a sole God who created the universe and who chose
to reveal himself to a select group by means of a rule of life he
imposed on it—Torah. According to traditional Judaic beliefs, the
earthly destiny of the chosen nation, as well as the eternal salvation
of the individual, depends on the observance of this rule of life,
through which any relationship to God must take place. The fact is,
however, that in the religious history of Judaism the quest for God goes
beyond the relationship mediated by Torah without ever dispensing with
it (since that would take the seeker outside Judaism), without
pretending to reach the depths of the mystery of the divine, and without
ending in an ontological identification with God (i.e., in the belief
that God and human beings are the same in nature and being).
It must also be noted that the quest for God implies the search for
solutions to problems that go beyond those of religion in the narrow
sense and that arise even when there is no interest in the relationship
between humankind and supernatural powers. Humans ponder the problems of
their origins, their destiny, their happiness, their suffering; the
presence or absence of religious institutions or dogmas is of little
importance when it comes to these questions. They were all formulated
within nonmystical Judaism and served as the basis and framework for the
setting and solution of problems in the various forms of Jewish
mysticism. This mysticism brought about profound transformations in the
concepts of the world, God, and “last things” (resurrection, last
judgment, messianic kingdom, etc.) set forth in biblical and rabbinical
Judaism. Nevertheless, Jewish mysticism’s own set of problems—about the
origins of the universe, humankind, evil, and sin; about the meaning of
history; and about the afterlife and the end of time—is rooted in the
very ground of Judaism and cannot be conceived outside an exegesis of
revealed Scripture and rabbinical tradition.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Nature and characteristics
» Three types of Jewish mysticism
There are three types of mysticism in the history of Judaism: the
ecstatic, the contemplative, and the esoteric. Although they are
distinct, they frequently overlap in practice.
The first type is characterized by the quest for God—or, more
precisely, for access to a supernatural realm, which is itself
infinitely remote from the inaccessible Deity—by means of ecstatic
experiences. The second type is rooted in metaphysical meditation, which
always bears the imprint of the cultural surroundings of the respective
thinkers, who are exposed to influences from outside Judaism. Philo
Judaeus of Alexandria and a few of the Jewish thinkers of the Middle
Ages, who drew their inspiration from Greco-Arabic Neoplatonism and
sometimes also from Muslim mysticism, are examples of those who felt
external influences.
The third type of mysticism claims an esoteric knowledge (hereafter
called esoterism) that explores the divine life itself and its
relationship to the extra-divine level of being (i.e., the natural,
finite realm), a relationship that is subject to the “law of
correspondences.” From this perspective, the extra-divine is a symbol of
the divine; it is a reality that reveals a reality superior to itself.
This form of mysticism, akin to gnosis (the secret knowledge claimed by
gnosticism, a Hellenistic religious and philosophical movement) but
purged—or almost purged—of the dualism that characterizes the latter, is
what is commonly known as Kabbala (Hebrew: “Tradition”). By extension,
this term is also used to designate technical methods, used for highly
diverse ends, ranging from the conditioning of the aspirant to ecstatic
experiences to magical manipulations of a superstitious character.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Main lines of development
From the beginning of Jewish mysticism in the 1st century ce to the
middle of the 12th century, only the ecstatic and contemplative types
existed. It was not until the second half of the 12th century that
esoterism became clearly discernible; from then on, Jewish mysticism
developed in various forms up to very recent times.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Main lines of development »
Early stages to the 6th century ce
The centuries following the return from the Babylonian Exile were marked
by increasingly widespread and intense reflection on various themes: the
intermediary beings between humans and God; the divine appearances,
whose special place of occurrence had formerly been the most sacred part
of the Jerusalem Temple; the creation of human beings; and the creation
and organization of the universe. None of these themes was absent from
the Bible, which was held to be divinely revealed, but each had become
the object of constant theological readjustment that also involved the
adoption of concepts from outside and reactions against them. The
speculative taste of Jewish thinkers between the 2nd century bce and the
1st century ce took them in many different directions: angelology
(doctrine about angels) and demonology (doctrine about devils); mythical
geography and uranography (description of the heavens); contemplation of
the divine manifestations, whose background was the Jerusalem Temple
worship and the visions of the moving “throne” (merkava, “chariot”) in
the prophecy of Ezekiel; reflection on the double origin of human
beings, who are formed of the earth but are also the “image of God”; and
speculation on the end of time (eschatology), on resurrection (a concept
that appeared only toward the end of the biblical period), and on
rewards and punishments in the afterlife.
This ferment was crystallized in writings such as the First Book of
Enoch. Almost none of it was retained in Pharisaic (rabbinical) Judaism,
which became the normative Jewish tradition after the Roman conquest of
Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple. The Talmud and the
Midrash (rabbinical legal and interpretative literature) touched these
themes only with great reserve, often unwillingly, and more often in a
spirit of negative polemic.
As early as the 1st century ce and probably even before the
destruction of the Second Temple, there were sages or teachers
recognized by the religious community for whom meditation on the
Scriptures—especially the creation narrative, the public revelation of
the Torah on Mount Sinai, the Merkava vision of Ezekiel, and the Song of
Solomon—and reflection on the end of time, resurrection, and the
afterlife were not only a matter of the exegesis of texts recognized to
be of divine origin but also a matter of inner experience. However,
speculation on the invisible world and the search for the means to
penetrate it were probably carried on in other circles. It is undeniable
that there was a certain continuity between the apocalyptic visions
(i.e., of the cataclysmic advent of God’s kingdom) and documents of
certain sects (Dead Sea Scrolls) and the writings, preserved in Hebrew,
of the “explorers of the supernatural world” (yorde merkava). The latter
comprise ecstatic hymns, descriptions of the “dwellings” (hekhalot)
located between the visible world and the ever-inaccessible Divinity,
whose transcendence is paradoxically expressed by anthropomorphic
descriptions consisting of inordinate hyperboles (Shiʿur qoma, “Divine
Dimensions”). A few documents have been preserved that attest to the
initiation of carefully chosen persons who were made to undergo tests
and ordeals in accordance with psychosomatic criteria borrowed from
physiognomy (the art of determining character from physical, especially
facial, traits). Some theurgic efficacy was attributed to these
practices, and there was some contamination from Egyptian, Hellenistic,
or Mesopotamian magic. (A curious document in this respect, rich in
pagan material, is the Sefer ha-razim, the “Treatise on Mysteries,”
which was discovered in 1963.)
The similarities between concepts reflected in unquestionably Jewish
texts and those expressed in documents of contemporary non-Jewish
esoterism are so numerous that it becomes difficult, sometimes
impossible, to distinguish the giver from the receiver. Two facts are
certain, however. On the one hand, gnosticism never ceases to exploit
biblical themes that have passed through Judaism (such as the tale of
creation and the speculation on angels and demons), whatever their
original source may have been; on the other hand, though Jewish
esoterism may borrow this or that motif from ancient gnosis or
syncretism and may even raise a supernatural entity such as the angel
Metatron—also known as “little Adonai” (i.e., little Lord or God)—to a
very high rank in the hierarchy of being, it still remains inflexibly
monotheistic and rejects the gnostic concept of a bad or simply inferior
demiurge who is responsible for the creation and governing of the
visible world. Finally, during the centuries that separate the Talmudic
period (2nd–5th centuries ce) from the full resurgence of Jewish
esoterism in the middle of the 12th century, the texts that were
preserved progressively lose their density and affective authenticity
and become reduced to the level of literary exercises that are more
grandiloquent than substantial.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Main lines of development »
Sefer yetzira
In the ancient esoteric literature of Judaism, a special place must be
given to the Sefer yetzira (“Book of Creation”), which deals with
cosmogony and cosmology. Creation, it affirms with a clearly
anti-gnostic insistence, is the work of the God of Israel and took place
on the ideal, immaterial level and on the concrete level. This was done
according to a complex process that brings in the 10 numbers (sefirot,
singular sefira) of decimal notation and the 22 letters of the Hebrew
alphabet. The 10 numbers are not understood merely as arithmetical
symbols: they are cosmological factors—the first of which, signified by
the multiply ambiguous term ruaḥ, is the spirit of God, while the nine
others seem to be the archetypes of the three elements (air, water,
fire) and the spatial dimensions (up, down, and the four cardinal
points). After having been manipulated either in their graphic
representation or in combination, the letters of the alphabet, which are
considered transcriptions of the sounds of the language, are in turn
instruments of creation. The basic idea of all this speculation is that
speech (that is, language composed of words, which are in turn composed
of letters or sounds) is not only a means of communication but an
operational agent destined to produce being; it has an ontological
value. This value, however, does not extend to every language; it
belongs to the Hebrew language alone.
The Sefer yetzira does not proceed entirely from biblical data and
rabbinical reflection upon them; Greek influences are discernible, even
in the vocabulary. What is important, however, is its influence on later
Jewish thought, down to the present time: philosophers and esoterists
have vied with one another over its meaning, pulling it in their own
direction and adjusting it to their respective ideologies. Even more
important is the fact that Kabbala borrowed a great deal of its
terminology from the Sefer yetzira (e.g., sefira), making semantic
adaptations as required.
The speculation traced above developed during the first six centuries
of the Common Era, both in Palestine and in Babylonia. Babylonian
Judaism had its own social and ideological characteristics, which put it
in opposition to Palestinian Judaism with regard to esoterism and other
manifestations of the life of the spirit. The joint doctrinal influence
of the two centres spread from the mid-8th to the 11th century among the
Jews of North Africa and Europe; mystical doctrines also filtered in,
but very little is known about the circumstances and means of their
penetration.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Main lines of development »
The Arabic-Islamic influence (7th–13th century)
Arabic Islamic culture was another important influence on Jewish
mystical development. A considerable part of Jewry, which had fallen
under Muslim domination in the 7th and 8th centuries, participated in
the new Arabic-Islamic civilization; the Jews of Asia, Africa, and Spain
soon adopted Arabic, the language of culture and communication.
Arabic-language culture introduced elements of Greek philosophy and
Islamic mysticism into Judaism and contributed to the deepening of
certain theological concepts that were of Jewish origin but had become
the common property of the three religions of the Book: affirming the
divine unity, purging anthropomorphism from the idea of God, and
following a spiritual path to the divine that leads through an ascetic
discipline (both physical and intellectual) to a detachment from this
world and a freeing of the soul from all that distracts it from God.
Greek philosophy and Islamic mysticism moreover raised serious questions
that threatened traditional beliefs about the creation of the world, the
providential action of God, miracles, and eschatology. Even in the
Christian West, where cultural contacts between the majority society and
the Jewish minority were far from reaching the breadth and intensity of
Judeo-Arab relations, Jewish intellectuals were unable to remain
impervious to the incursions of the surrounding civilization. (Jewish
biblical scholars were at times sought out by Christian theologians for
help in understanding the Hebrew Scriptures.) Moreover, at the beginning
of the 12th century if not earlier, European Judaism received part of
the intellectual Arabic and Judeo-Arab heritage through translations or
adaptations into Hebrew, its only cultural language.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Main lines of development »
The making of Kabbala (c. 1150–1250)
Under these circumstances, starting around 1150, manifestations of
markedly theosophic ideologies appeared in southern France (in the
regions of Provence and Languedoc). The two types that can be
distinguished at the outset are very different in appearance, form, and
content.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Main lines of development »
The making of Kabbala (c. 1150–1250) » Sefer ha-bahir
The first type is represented in fragmentary, poorly written, and badly
assembled texts that began to circulate in Provence and Languedoc during
the third quarter of the 12th century. Their inspiration, however,
leaves no doubt as to the community of their origin. They were in the
form of a Midrash—that is, an interpretation of Scripture with the help
of a particular interpretative method, full of sayings attributed to
ancient rabbinical authorities. This body of texts, probably imported
from the Middle East (Syria, Palestine, Iraq), is known as the “Midrash
of Rabbi Nehunya ben Haqana” (from the name of a 1st-century rabbi) or
Sefer ha-bahir (“Book of Brightness,” from a characteristic word of the
first verse of Scripture to be elucidated in the work). The authorities
cited are all inauthentic (as was often the case in late works). The
content of this Midrash may be characterized as a form of gnosticism
that successfully tries to escape any ontological dualism.
The object of the Sefer ha-bahir is to present the origin of things
and the course of history centred on the chosen people, with
vicissitudes caused in turn by obedience to God and by sin, as
conditioned by the manifestation of divine powers. These “powers” are
not “attributes” derived and defined by philosophical abstraction,
though that is one of the terms used to designate them: they are
hypostases (essences or substances). They are inseparable from God, but
each one is clothed in its own personality, each operates in its own
manner, leaning toward severity or mercy, in dynamic correspondence with
the behaviour of human beings, especially of Jews, in the visible world.
They are ranked in a hierarchy, which is not as fixed as it would become
starting with the second generation of Kabbalists in Languedoc and
Catalonia. The rich nomenclature used to designate the “powers” exploits
the resources of both the Bible and the rabbinical tradition, of the
Sefer yetzira, of some ritual observances, and also of the letters of
the Hebrew alphabet and the signs that can be added to them to indicate
the vowels.
Thus, according to the Sefer ha-bahir, the universe is the
manifestation of hierarchically organized divine powers, and the power
that is at the bottom of the hierarchy has special charge of the visible
world. This entity is highly complex. Undoubtedly there are survivals of
gnostic speculation on Sophia (“Wisdom”), who is involved, sometimes to
her misfortune, in the material world. This power is also the divine
“Presence” (Shekhina) of rabbinical theology, though it is profoundly
transformed: it has become a hypostasis. By a bold innovation, it is
characterized as a feminine being and thus finds itself, while remaining
an aspect of the Divinity, in the position of a daughter or a wife, who
owns nothing herself and receives all from the father or the husband. It
is also identified with the “Community of Israel,” another radical
innovation that was facilitated by ancient speculation based on the
allegorical interpretation of the Song of Solomon, which represents the
relationship of God to the chosen nation in terms of the marriage bond.
Thus, a theosophical equality is established between the whole of the
people chosen by God, constituted into a kind of mystical body, and an
aspect of the Divinity—whence the solidarity and linked destiny of the
two. A comparable relationship between the “Presence” and Israel was not
totally foreign to ancient rabbinical theology. In this light, the
obedience or disobedience of Israel to its particular vocation is a
determining factor of cosmic harmony or disruption and extends to the
inner life of the Divinity. This is the essential and definitive
contribution of the Sefer ha-bahir to Jewish theosophy. The same
document evinces the resurgence of a notion that older theologians had
attempted to combat—that of metensōmatōsis, the reincarnation into
several successive bodies of a soul that has not attained the required
perfection in a previous existence.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Main lines of development »
The making of Kabbala (c. 1150–1250) » School of Isaac the Blind
Another theosophic tendency in Languedoc developed concurrently with—but
independently of—the Sefer ha-bahir. The two movements would take only
about 30 years to converge, constituting what may conveniently (though
not quite precisely) be called classical Kabbala. The second school
flourished in Languedoc during the last quarter of the 12th century and
crossed the Pyrenees into Spain in the first years of the 13th century.
The most eminent spokesman of this school was Isaac ben Abraham,
known as Isaac the Blind, whose extant works include a very obscure
commentary on the Sefer yetzira. In the view of the eminent Kabbala
scholar Gershom G. Scholem (1897–1982), Isaac’s general vision of the
universe proceeds from the link he discovers between the hierarchical
orders of the created world and the roots of all beings implanted in the
world of the sefirot. A Neoplatonic influence is evident in the
reflections of Isaac—e.g., the procession of things from the one and the
corresponding return to the heart of the primordial
undifferentiatedness, which is the fullness of being and at the same
time every conceivable being. This return is not merely eschatological
and cosmic but is realized in the life of prayer of the contemplative
mystic—though it is not, indeed, a transforming union by which the human
personality blends completely into the Deity or becomes one with it.
The synthesis of the themes of the Bahir and the cosmology of the
Sefer yetzira, accomplished by Isaac or by others in the doctrinal
environment inspired by his teachings, was and remains the foundation of
Kabbala, whatever adjustments, changes of orientation, or radical
modifications the composite may subsequently have undergone.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Main lines of development »
The 10 sefirot
It is also in this environment that the nomenclature of the 10 sefirot
became more or less fixed, though variant terminologies and even
divergent conceptions of the nature of these entities may exist
elsewhere—e.g., as internal powers of the divine organism (gnostic), as
hierarchically ordered intermediaries between the infinite and the
finite (Neoplatonic), or simply as instruments of the divine activity,
neither partaking of the divine substance nor being outside it. The
classical list of the sefirot is
keter ʿelyon, the supreme crown (its identity or nonidentity with the
Infinite, Ein Sof, the unknowable Deity, remains problematic)
ḥokhma, wisdom, the location of primordial ideas in God
bina, intelligence, the organizing principle of the universe
ḥesed, love, the attribute of goodness
gevura, might, the attribute of severity
tif’eret, beauty, the mediating principle between the preceding two
netzaḥ, eternity
hod, majesty
yesod, foundation of all the powers active in God
malkhut, kingship, identified with the Shekhina (“Presence”)
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Main lines of development »
The 10 sefirot » School of Gerona (Catalonia)
The gnosticizing theosophy of the Sefer ha-bahir and the contemplative
mysticism of the masters of Languedoc became one in the hands of the
Kabbalists in Catalonia, where the Jewish community of Gerona was a
veritable seat of esoterism during the first half of the 13th century.
To the school of Gerona belong, among others, masters such as Ezra ben
Solomon, Azriel of Gerona, Jacob ben Sheshet, and Moses ben Naḥman (or
Naḥmanides), the famous Talmudist, biblical commentator, and theologian.
Their influence on the subsequent course of Jewish mysticism is of
fundamental importance, though none of them left a complete synthesis of
his theosophy. They expressed themselves, with more or less reserve, by
means of commentaries, sermons, polemic or apologetic treatises, and
brief summaries (at most) for the noninitiated. It is not impossible,
however, to discover through these texts their vision of the world and
to compare it with the views of the Jewish thinkers who attempted to
harmonize the biblical-rabbinical tradition with Greco-Arab philosophy,
whether of Neoplatonic or Aristotelian inspiration.
At the base of the Kabbalistic view of the world there is an option
of faith: it is by a voluntary decision that the unknowable Deity—who is
“nothing” or “nothingness” (nonfinite) because he is a fullness of being
totally inaccessible to any human cognition—sets into motion the process
that leads to the visible world. This concept radically separates
Kabbala from the determinism from which the philosophy of the period
could not, without contradiction, free the principle of being. In
addition, it offers a solution consistent with faith to the problem of
creation ex nihilo (out of nothing). The paradoxical reinterpretation of
the concept of the “nothing” eliminates the original matter coeternal
with God and solves the opposition between divine transcendence
(remoteness from the world) and immanence (presence in the world);
issuing from the unfathomable depth of the Deity and called to return to
it, the world, visible as well as invisible, is radically separated from
God, who is at the same time constantly present. The correspondence
between the sefirot and all the degrees of being gives meaning to the
structure of the world and to the history of humanity centred on the
revelation given to the chosen people, a revelation that is a rule of
life for this people and the criterion of merit and sin, or good and
evil. Thus, from the top to the bottom of the ladder, there are
corresponding realities that control one another. Contrary to the
opinion of the philosophers, evil is also a reality since it is the
rupture of the universal harmony. It is also the consequence of this
rupture, in the form of punishment. From this perspective, scrupulous
observance of the Torah, both in the written text and the oral
tradition, is the essential factor for the maintenance of the universe.
The “rational” motivation of the commandments, which raises
insurmountable difficulties for the theologians of philosophical
orientation, is in the eyes of the Kabbalists a false problem; the real
problem is the fundamental nature of the Torah. Kabbala brings more than
one solution to it, whereas philosophy has trouble providing a single
coherent and comprehensive solution.
It follows from this general concept that the Jewish faith, with its
implications—the conviction of holding the undiluted truth, the faithful
preservation of ritual practices, and the eschatological expectation—is
safeguarded from all the doubts that either philosophical speculation or
the rival religious doctrines of Christianity and Islam could evoke in
the minds of Jewish believers. Kabbala, already at the stage it had
reached at Gerona, may be said to be a significant factor in the
survival of Judaism, which was exposed everywhere in medieval society to
a wide range of perils.
Besides the Gerona school and the doctrinal descendants of Isaac the
Blind in Languedoc, there was another school of Jewish esoterism in
southern Europe during the first half of the 13th century. Members of
this school preferred to remain anonymous and therefore published their
writings, such as the Sefer ha-ʿiyyun (“Book of Speculation”), either
without an author’s name or with an attribution to a fictitious
authority. Their speculation was directed to the highest levels of the
divine world, where it discerned aspects beyond the 10 sefirot and
attempted to give an idea of them by resorting to the symbolism of
light, as well as to the primordial causes and the archetypes contained
in the Deity or directly issuing from it. The sometimes-striking
similarity between these speculations and those of the Christian
theologian John Scotus Erigena (810–c. 877), whose work was revived in
the 12th and 13th centuries, suggests not only a kinship of themes
between this Kabbalistic current and Latin-language Christian
Neoplatonism but also a concrete influence of the latter upon the
former. The same may be true of Isaac the Blind and the school of
Gerona, but certain knowledge is lacking.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Main lines of development »
The 10 sefirot » Sefer ha-temuna
The anonymous writer of the Sefer ha-temuna (“Book of the Image”)
provided literary expression for another manifestation of Jewish
mysticism in this period. This very obscure document claims to explain
the figures of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The speculation of
this treatise bears on two themes that were not foreign to the school of
Gerona, but it develops them in a personal manner that decisively
influenced the future of Jewish theosophy. On the one hand, it deals
with a theory of the different cycles through which the world must
travel from the time of its emergence to its reabsorption into the
primordial unity. On the other hand, it addresses various readings that
correspond to these cycles in the divine manifestation that is
constituted by the Scriptures. In other words, the interpretation and
consequently the message of the Torah vary according to the cycles of
existence; the passage to a cycle other than that under whose governance
humanity is presently living could thus entail the modification, even
the abrogation, of the rule of life to which the chosen people are
presently subject, an explosive notion that threatened to overthrow the
Jewish tradition.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Main lines of development »
Medieval German (Ashkenazic) Hasidism
The period during which Kabbala was established in the south of France
and in Spain is no less important for the shaping of Jewish mysticism in
the other branch of European Judaism, which was situated in northern
France (and England) and in the Rhine and Danube regions of Germany.
Unlike medieval Kabbala, which experienced a broad and varied
development starting in the second half of the 13th century, the
movement designated as German, or Ashkenazic (from a biblical place-name
conventionally used to designate Germany), Hasidism hardly survived as a
living and independent current beyond the second quarter of the 13th
century (it has no connection with modern Hasidism). Franco-German
Judaism experienced a certain continuity of mystical tradition, based on
the Sefer yetzira and the hekhalot (see above Sefer yetzira); certain
elements of theurgy and magic of Babylonian origin may also have reached
it through Italy; and apparently the gnosticizing current that was
crystallized in the Sefer ha-bahir did not pass without leaving traces
in Germany. The intellectual atmosphere of Franco-German Judaism,
however, differed greatly from that reigning in Spain or even Provence
and Languedoc. It was characterized by an almost exclusively Talmudic
culture, less intellectual contact with the non-Jewish environment than
in the countries of Muslim civilization, and a very limited knowledge of
Jewish theology in Arabic from the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain.
This situation did not change until the last third of the 12th century;
until then, the “philosophical” equipment of the Franco-German Jewish
scholar consisted essentially of a Hebrew paraphrase, dating perhaps
from the 11th century, of the treatise Beliefs and Opinions by Saʿadia
ben Joseph (the great 9th–10th-century Babylonian Jewish scholar and
philosopher) and the commentary on the Sefer yetzira written in Hebrew
in 946 by the Italian physician Shabbetai Donnolo (born 913). Even when
the cultural influence of Spanish Judaism came to be felt more strongly
in France, England, and Germany, speculative Kabbala hardly penetrated
there. Franco-German Jewish thinkers who inclined toward theological
speculation had their own problems—notably the persecutions that began
during the First Crusade—which resulted in a mysticism strongly imbued
with asceticism.
The main speculative problem for medieval Hasidic thinkers was that
of the relationship between God and his manifestations in creation,
including his revelation and communication with inspired men and women.
Reflection on this problem led to the elaboration of various
supernatural hierarchies between the inaccessible God and the created
universe or the recipient of divine communication. Data on angels taken
from the Bible and rabbinical and mystical traditions, as well as
speculation on the Shekhina, were used as material for these hierarchies
and also gave a peculiar coloration to liturgical practice. The latter
was marked, moreover, by a concern for spiritual concentration by means
of fixing attention on the words and even the letters of the synagogue
prayers. These speculations, however, had no great repercussions on the
subsequent course of Jewish esoterism; the only exception is the
mysticism of prayer and demonology, which was sometimes influenced by
the beliefs of the Christian environment and was fully developed in
Hasidic circles. On the other hand, the ascetic morality of the
movement, which was expressed in the literary works of Eleazar ben Judah
of Worms (c. 1160–1238) and in the two recensions of the “Book of the
Pious” (Sefer ḥasidim), was to mark Jewish spirituality, esoteric or
not, from then on.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Main lines of development »
The making of the Zohar (c. 1260–1492)
Once the marginal episode of German Hasidism was finished, almost all
creative activity in Jewish mysticism occurred in Spain, up to the
expulsion of the Jews in 1492.
After the flowering of the schools described above came to an end
about the year 1260, two other currents appeared. The first assumed a
gnostic bent through its emphasis on the problem of evil. The texts that
illustrate this tendency do not place evil in a state of dependence on
the “attribute of judgment” within the structure of the sefirot set up
by the previous Kabbalists but locate it outside the Divinity,
constructing a parallel system of “left-hand sefirot” and a
corresponding exuberant demonology. The second movement, whose main
representative was the visionary and adventurer Abraham ben Samuel
Abulafia (born 1240), justified itself by appeal to inner “prophetic”
experiences encouraged by training methods akin to those of Yoga,
Byzantine Hesychasm (mystical, quietist monasticism), and Sufism.
Moreover, an important place was given to speculations on the letters
and vocalic signs of the Hebrew script. Unlike the protagonists of other
mystical schools of Spain, Abulafia actively promoted his ideas,
worrying Jewish leaders and prompting even non-Jewish authorities to
pursue him. His numerous writings later stimulated a few minds among the
Kabbalists.
The work of Moses de León (1250–1305) marked one of the most
important turning points in the development of Jewish mysticism. He was
the author of several esoteric works, which he signed with his own name.
In order to better spread his ideas and to more effectively combat
philosophy, which he considered a mortal danger to the Jewish faith, he
composed pseudepigrapha (writings ascribed to other authors, usually in
past ages) in the form of Midrashim on the Pentateuch, the Song of
Solomon, the Book of Ruth, and Lamentations; only the names of the
Talmudic authorities were even partially authentic, a procedure already
used by the Sefer ha-bahir. In its most finished version (for there were
several of them), the plot of the tales centred around Rabbi Simeon ben
Yoḥai, a sage of the 2nd century, about whom the Talmud already related
some curious anecdotes, most of them semilegendary. Moses de León thus
produced over a period of about 30 years the Midrash ha-neʿelam (“The
Mystical Midrash”), an allegorical work written mainly in Hebrew, and
then the Sefer ha-zohar (“Book of Splendour”)—or, more briefly, the
Zohar—a larger work written in artificial Aramaic, whose content is
theosophic. The Zohar culminates in a long speech in which Simeon ben
Yoḥai, on the day of his death, supposedly exposes the quintessence of
his mystical doctrine. The book inspired nearly contemporary imitations
that were incorporated into it or appended to it but were sometimes of a
markedly different theological orientation: the Raʿya mehemana
(“Faithful Shepherd”—i.e., Moses the prophet), the particular subject of
which is the interpretation and theosophic justification of the precepts
of the Torah; and the Tiqqune zohar, consisting of elaborations in the
same vein bearing upon the first word of the book of Genesis (bereshit,
“in the beginning”).
The works of Moses de León were not immediately accepted as authentic
by all the esoterists and still less by scholars outside the theosophic
movement. It took half a century or more for the Zohar and imitations of
it to be recognized as authoritative ancient works, and even then it was
not without some reluctance. Although critics were never fully silenced
and the authenticity of the Zohar was already questioned in the 15th
century, the myth created by Moses de León and his imitators became a
spiritual reality for the majority of believing Jews, and it still
retains this character among many “traditional” Jews. The Zohar,
believed to be based on supernatural revelations and reinterpreted in
diverse ways, served as a support and reference for all Jewish
theosophies in later centuries.
In matters of doctrine, the Zohar and its appendices develop,
amplify, and exaggerate speculation and tendencies that already existed
rather than offer any radical innovation. The main lines of the
Zohar—the springing forth of being from the depth of the divine
“nothing,” the solidarity between the visible world and the world of the
sefirot (complicated by the introduction of four ontological levels, at
each of which the schema of the 10 sefirot is reproduced), the
indispensable contribution to universal harmony by the people (i.e., the
Jews) who observe the biblical and rabbinical precepts in their
slightest details—were ideas that had been accepted for a long time in
Jewish theosophy. But all of these themes were largely organized and
enhanced by the use—or rather the unscrupulous appropriation—of
materials taken from rabbinical tradition and ancient esoterism as well
as from more recent currents of theological and philosophical thought
(the speculations of the Sefer ha-temuna on the cosmic cycles and the
“Prophetic Kabbala” of Abulafia were tacitly set aside).
Despite the lack of esteem that the writers of the Zoharic corpus
felt—and sought to make others feel—toward works created by Gentiles,
the method of symbolic representation used in the Zoharic writings was
supported by a system of interpretation based on the originally
Christian concept of the fourfold meaning of Scripture: literal, moral,
allegorical (philosophical), and mystical. The symbolism that was thus
established boldly made use of an exuberant anthropomorphic and even
erotic imagery whose function was to convey the manifestation of the
levels of the sefirot to each other and to the extra-divine world. The
myth of the primordial man (Adam Qadmon), a virtually divine being,
reappeared here under a new form, and it remained in the subsequent
development of Kabbala.
The Zohar thus claims to provide a complete explanation of the world,
humankind, history, and the situation of the Jews; on a higher level, it
purports to justify the biblical revelation and rabbinical tradition
down to the slightest detail, including the messianic expectation, and
thereby to neutralize philosophy. But, while portraying itself as the
defender of the traditional religion regulated by the Talmud and its
commentaries, the Zohar places itself above tradition by boisterously
proclaiming the incomparable value of the theosophic teaching of Rabbi
Simeon ben Yoḥai and the superiority of the esoteric doctrine over
Talmudic studies. There was in this attitude—which was more accentuated
in the Raʿya mehemana than in the Zohar proper—a revolutionary potential
and a threat to the primacy of Torah practice and study. The future
would show that this danger was not completely unreal.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Main lines of development »
The Lurianic Kabbala
After the establishment of the Zoharic corpus, no major changes took
place in Jewish esoterism until the middle of the 16th century, when a
religious centre of extreme importance for Judaism, mainly inspired by
teachers coming from families expelled from Spain, was established in
Safed (in Upper Galilee, Palestine; present-day Ẕefat, Israel).
Kabbalistic literary output had been abundant in Spain until the
expulsion in 1492 and in Italy and the Middle East during the following
two generations, but it was primarily a matter of systematizing or even
popularizing the Zohar or of extending the speculation already developed
in the 13th century. There were also some attempts at reconciling
philosophy and Kabbala.
The expulsion from Spain and the forced conversions to Christianity
in both Spain and Portugal were profound tragedies. These events
accentuated the existing pessimism caused by the dispersal of the Jews
among the nations and intensified messianic expectation. This
expectation most likely contributed to the beginnings of the printed
transmission of Kabbala; the first two printed editions of the Zohar
date from 1558. All these factors, joined with certain internal
developments of speculative Kabbala in the 15th century, prepared the
ground for the new theosophy inaugurated by the teaching of Isaac ben
Solomon Luria (1534–72), who was born in Jerusalem, educated in Egypt,
and died in Safed. Although his teaching is traditionally associated
with Safed, he spent only the last three years of his life there. Luria
wrote very little; his doctrine was transmitted, amplified, and probably
somewhat distorted through the works of his disciples, especially Ḥayyim
Vital (1543–1620), who wrote ʿEtz ḥayyim (“Tree of Life”), the standard
presentation of Lurianic Kabbala.
The theosophy of Luria, whose novelty was proclaimed by its creator,
was perfectly realized by the esoterists who held to the Zoharistic
Kabbala, which was organized and codified precisely in Safed during the
lifetime of Luria by Moses ben Jacob Cordovero (1522–70). Although its
details are extremely complex, it is basically an attempt to reconcile
divine transcendence with immanence and to solve the problem of evil,
which the believer in the divine unity can recognize neither as a power
existing independently of God nor as an integral part of him.
The vision of Luria is expressed in a vast mythical construct, which
is typologically akin to certain gnostic and Manichaean (3rd-century
dualistic) systems but which strives at all costs to avoid dualism. The
essential elements of this myth include the withdrawal (tzimtzum) of the
divine light, which originally filled all things, in order to make room
for the extra-divine; the sinking, as a result of a catastrophic event
that occurred during this process, of luminous particles into matter
(qelippot, “shells,” a term already used in Kabbala to designate the
evil powers); and the consequent need to save these particles and return
them to their origin, by means of “repair” or “restoration” (tiqqun).
This must be the work of the Jews who not only live in complete
conformity to the religious duties imposed on them by tradition but who
dedicate themselves, in the framework of a strict asceticism, to a
contemplative life founded on mystical prayer and directed meditation
(kawwana) on the liturgy, which is supposed to further the harmony
(yiḥud, “unification”) of the innumerable attributes within the divine
life. The successive reincarnations of the soul, a constant theme of
Kabbala that Lurianism developed, are also invested with an important
function in the work of “repair.” In short, Lurianism proclaims the
absolute requirement of an intense mystical life with an unceasing
struggle against the powers of evil. Thus, it presents a myth that
symbolizes the world’s origin, fall, and redemption. It also gives
meaning to the existence and hopes of the Jews, not merely exhorting
them to a patient surrender to God but moving them to a redeeming
activism, which is the measure of their sanctity. Such requirements make
the ideal of Lurianism possible only for a small elite; ultimately, it
is realizable only through the exceptional personage of the “just”—the
ideal holy Jew.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Main lines of development »
Shabbetaianism
For 60 years after the death of Luria, his version of the Kabbala,
together with accretions from the other mysticisms of Safed, spread
through the Jewish Diaspora and deeply permeated its spiritual life,
liturgy, and devotional practices. It emphasized the need for “repair”
of a world in which Jewish uneasiness continued to grow; despite certain
favourable factors—the relative tolerance of the Ottoman Empire and the
peaceful establishment of an important Marrano (Iberian Jewish, or
Sephardic) community in Amsterdam—there was no overall solution to the
problem of the conversos who had remained in the Iberian Peninsula. The
Ashkenazim also experienced a serious crisis: its most prosperous and
dynamic section, the Jewish population of Poland, was sorely tried,
almost totally ruined, and in large part forced to move back toward the
west because of the massacres and the destruction that took place during
the Cossack uprising of 1648.
These ideological and historical data may provide the necessary
context for understanding the astonishing though short-lived success of
Rabbi Shabbetai Tzevi of Smyrna (1626–76), who proclaimed himself
messiah in 1665. Although the “messiah” was forcibly converted to Islam
in 1666 and ended his life in exile 10 years later, he continued to have
faithful followers. A sect was thus born and survived, largely thanks to
the activity of Nathan of Gaza (c. 1644–90), an unwearying propagandist
who justified the actions of Shabbetai Tzevi, including his final
apostasy, with theories based on the Lurian doctrine of “repair.”
Tzevi’s actions, according to Nathan, should be understood as the
descent of the just into the abyss of the “shells” in order to liberate
the captive particles of divine light.
The Shabbetaian crisis lasted nearly a century, and some of its
aftereffects lasted even longer. It led to the formation of sects whose
members were externally converted to Islam—e.g., the Dönme (Turkish:
“Apostates”) of Salonika, whose descendants still live in Turkey—or to
Roman Catholicism—e.g., the Polish supporters of Jacob Frank (1726–91),
the self-proclaimed messiah and Catholic convert (in Bohemia-Moravia,
however, the Frankists outwardly remained Jews). This crisis did not
discredit Kabbala, but it did lead Jewish spiritual authorities to
monitor and severely curtail its spread and to use censorship and other
acts of repression against anyone—even a person of tested piety and
recognized knowledge—who was suspected of Shabbetaian sympathies or
messianic pretensions.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Main lines of development »
Modern Hasidism
Although the messianic movement centred around Shabbetai Tzevi produced
only disillusionment and could have led to the destruction of Judaism,
it answered both the theosophic aspirations of a small number of
visionary scholars and the affective need of the Jewish masses that was
left unsatisfied by the dry intellectualism of the Talmudists and the
economic and social oppression of the ruling classes (both Jewish and
non-Jewish). This was the case especially in Poland, which before the
partition of the Polish kingdom (1772–95) included Lithuanian,
Belarusian, and Ukrainian territories. It was there that the Hasidic
movement originated around the middle of the 18th century (it was in no
way connected with medieval German Hasidism). While maintaining the
Lurian Kabbala as a theoretical basis of speculation, the movement also
made adjustments and transformations that continue to the present day.
Modern Hasidism may be regarded as a mass movement having a minimum
of organization and relying on itinerant teachers and preachers.
According to legend, it was founded by Israel ben Eliezer (c. 1700–60),
known as Baʿal Shem Ṭov (“Master of the Good Name”; that is, a
possessor—he was not the only one of his kind—of the secret of the
ineffable name of God, which bestows an infallible power to heal and
perform other miracles). Although relatively untrained according to the
norms of the rabbinical Judaism of his time, he was a spiritual person
of exceptional quality and was able to win to his ideas not only the
common people but also many representatives of the intellectual elite.
The mist of legend that surrounds him makes it impossible to reconstruct
his entire doctrine, which he probably never systematized. Inspired by
the methods of the itinerant preachers whose activity was becoming more
intense among eastern European Jews in the 18th century, his teaching
took the form of homiletic interpretations of sacred texts based on
fables and parables borrowed from daily life and from folklore. Although
this method remained constant in Hasidism, it is a mistake to conclude,
as did Martin Buber, that the tale and the anecdote are the most
authentic expression of the doctrine and spirituality of Hasidism.
Indeed, the thought of the Hasidic “rabbis” is best expressed in
doctrinal works, most of which took the form of sermons on the weekly
sections of the Pentateuch and other liturgical lessons. It is a very
diversified thought, for there are as many bodies of doctrine in
Hasidism as there were creative spirits during the first three
generations of the movement. It is possible nevertheless to point to a
few traits that are fundamental and common to Hasidism as a whole.
In theory, Hasidism remains rooted in the Lurianic Kabbala, and
nothing essential separates it at this point from the traditional
Judaism of eastern Europe. It is unique, however, because it made
devequt, “being-with-God,” an object of aspiration and even a constant
duty for all Jews and in all circumstances of life, even those seemingly
most profane. In other words, it demands a total spiritualization of
Jewish existence. This requirement entails a reevaluation, less new in
its principle than in its concrete application, of the speculative
concepts of Kabbala. Emphasis is placed on the inner life of the
believer, and it is on this level that the supercosmic drama (whose
stage is in the universe of the sefirot, according to bookish theosophy)
is played out. According to several teachers, the same emphasis on
inwardness holds for messianic redemption. Hasidism also transforms into
social reality a requirement that was part of the Lurian doctrine of
“repair,” though it was unfortunately distorted by Shabbetaianism: it
puts the inspired leader—an indispensable guide and unquestioned
authority endowed with supernatural powers, the “just” (tzaddiq), the
“miracle-working rabbi” (Wunder-rebbe)—at the centre of the group’s
organization and religious life. Hasidism thus produced, wherever it
triumphed, an undeniable spiritual renewal. On the other hand, it was
plagued by the cult of personality, by competition between “dynasties”
of “rabbis,” and by the social and economic consequences of its
obstinate insistence on isolating the Hasidic community from the
surrounding society.
From its very beginnings, Hasidism encountered strong resistance from
official Judaism, which had been sensitized to the anarchism of the
Shabbetaians and which at the same time was solicitous toward the
prerogatives of the community leaders and rabbis. The behaviour of the
followers of Hasidism, though irreproachable in its rigorous observance
of ritual rules, displayed several traits that were distasteful to its
adversaries (besides the unconditional submission to the tzaddiq, who
often doubled as the rabbi of the official congregation): desertion of
the general communal synagogues, meetings in small conventicles,
modifications of the liturgy, excessively formal dress during prayer,
and preference given to mystical meditation rather than to the
dialectical study of the Talmud, which required serious intellectual
concentration. Nevertheless, the conflict between the Hasidim and the
“Opponents” (Mitnaggedim) did not finally degenerate into schism; after
three generations, a tacit compromise was established between the two
tendencies—Hasidic and Mitnaggedic—though awareness of their differences
was never erased. The compromise was somewhat to the advantage of
Hasidism, but not without a few concessions on its part, notably on the
question of education.
The strong organization of the Hasidic groups allowed them to survive
the dislocation of eastern European Judaism as a result of the events of
World War II, but its vital centres are today in the United States
rather than in Palestine, partly for economic reasons and partly because
of the more or less reserved, and sometimes hostile, attitude of the
Hasidic “rabbis” toward political Zionism and the State of Israel. The
best-known of the U.S.-based groups is the very active Lubavitchers
(named after Lyubavichi, Russia, seat of a famous school of Hasidism),
whose headquarters are in the Crown Heights district of Brooklyn, New
York.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish mysticism » Modern Jewish mysticism
The role played by Kabbala and Hasidism in the thought and spirituality
of contemporary Judaism is far from insignificant, though its importance
is not as great as in former times. Although there is hardly any living
Kabbalistic and Hasidic literature, the personal thought of religious
writers such as Abraham Isaac Kook (c. 1865–1935)—spiritual leader,
mystic, and chief rabbi of Palestine—remains influential. Furthermore,
religious thought in Westernized Jewish circles between the two World
Wars received a powerful stimulus from the philosopher Martin Buber,
whose work is in part devoted to the propagation of Hasidic ideology as
he understood it. “Neo-Orthodoxy,” the theological system founded in
Germany by Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–88), was indifferent to mysticism
at the outset, but it too came to be influenced by it, especially after
the rediscovery of living Judaism in Poland during World War I by
Western Jewish thinkers. Also significant is the work of Abraham Joshua
Heschel (1907–72), a Polish Jewish theologian of distinguished Hasidic
background and dual culture—traditional and Western.
Jewish mysticism has exerted influence outside the Jewish community.
Kabbala, distorted and deflected from its own intentions, has helped to
nourish and stimulate certain currents of thought in Christian society
since the Renaissance. “Christian Kabbala,” born in the 15th century
under the impetus of Jewish converts from Spain and Italy, claimed to
find in the Kabbalistic documents—touched up or even forged if
necessary—arguments for the truths of the Christian faith. A certain
number of Christian humanist scholars became interested in Jewish
mysticism, and several of them acquired a fairly extensive knowledge of
it on the basis of authentic texts. Among them were Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola (1463–94) and Gilles of Viterbo (Egidio da Viterbo; c.
1465–1532) in Italy; Johannes Reuchlin (1455–1522) in Germany, who wrote
one of the principal expositions of Kabbala in a language accessible to
the learned non-Jewish public (De arte Cabbalistica, 1517); and the
visionary Guillaume Postel (1510–81) in France. The occult philosophy of
the 16th century, the “natural philosophy” of the 17th and 18th
centuries, and the occult and theosophic theories that are cultivated
even today and that have coloured the ideology of Freemasonry—all of
these continue to borrow from Kabbala, though they rarely grasp its
spirit and meaning. The same is true of most of the books on Kabbala put
out by publishers of occult and theosophic literature today.
The scholarly study of Jewish mysticism is a very recent phenomenon.
The state of mind and the tendencies of the founders of the “science of
Judaism” (the scholarly study of Jewish religion, literature, and
history) in Germany during the first half of the 19th century were too
permeated with rationalism to be favourable to scholarly investigation
of a movement judged to be obscurantist and retrograde. Although there
were some valuable early studies, research on a large scale and
application of the proved methods of philology and history of religions
began only with the work of Gershom G. Scholem (1897–1982) and his
disciples. This research addressed all the many areas of Jewish
mysticism, but in every area the gaps in knowledge remain serious.
Critical editions of mystical texts are few in number; unpublished
documents are cataloged incompletely; and only a few monographs on
writers and particular themes exist, though these are indispensable
preliminaries to a detailed and thorough synthesis. It is to be hoped
that the synthesis outlined by Scholem in his Major Trends in Jewish
Mysticism (1941), though exceptionally valuable in its time, will be
taken up again and completed.
Georges Vajda
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend
Jewish myth and legend comprises a vast body of stories transmitted over
the past 3,000 years in Hebrew and in the vernacular dialects spoken by
Jews, such as Yiddish (Judeo-German) and Ladino (Judeo-Spanish). These
stories have played an important role in the history of Jewish religion
and culture.Virtually all the standard types of folktales are
represented. Conspicuously absent, however, are pure fairy tales,
because fairies, elves, and the like are foreign to the Jewish
imagination, which prefers to populate the otherworld with angels and
demons subservient to God.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Significance and
characteristics
Apart from their intrinsic appeal, Jewish myths and legends claim
attention for three special reasons: (1) Those incorporated in the
Hebrew Bible are now part and parcel of the cultural heritage of the
Western world and have exerted a profound influence on its literature
and art. (2) During the Middle Ages, Jews were among the principal
transmitters of Middle Eastern and North African tales to the West, so
that many familiar Eastern stories can be traced to Jewish compilations.
(3) Since these stories have been accumulated through centuries of
constant migration, they provide an unrivalled body of “clinical”
material for studying the processes by which popular tales in fact
travel and are transformed.
Not all of the stories are of Jewish origin; many have parallels
elsewhere and are derived from tales the Jews picked up from their
non-Jewish neighbours in the lands of their dispersion. Even what is
borrowed, however, is usually impressed with a distinctive Jewish stamp.
The tales were often adapted to point up some precept of the Jewish
religion, to illustrate some facet of Jewish life, or to exemplify some
trait of Jewish character and temperament. The dominant feature of the
stories is their religious and moral tone; most of them are told
specifically as part of the homiletic exposition of Scripture. Such
stories are taught to Jews from early childhood as a regular part of
their religious education. To the tradition-minded Jew, therefore, they
are more than mere literary fancies. Biblical characters and events are
presented more in the lineaments of later legend than in their original
biblical form, and popular notions about heaven and hell, reward and
punishment, the coming of the messiah, and the resurrection of the dead
derive mainly from these sources rather than from Scripture itself.
A distinction must be made between myth and legend. In common
parlance, a myth is a story about gods or otherworldly beings. In this
sense, therefore, there can be no original Jewish myths, because Judaism
is a rigorously monotheistic religion. Nevertheless, from the earliest
times, Jews have not disdained to borrow the myths of their pagan
neighbours and adapt them to their own religious outlook. If, however,
the term is interpreted in a larger sense to mean the portrayal of
perennial concerns in the context of particular historical events, myth
is indeed one of the essential vehicles by which Judaism conveys its
message. It is only when historical happenings are translated into this
wider dimension that they cease to be mere antiquarian data and acquire
continuing relevance. In Judaism, for example, the Exodus from Egypt is
projected mythically from something that happened at a particular time
into something that is continually happening, and it comes to exemplify
the situation and experience of all humans everywhere—their emergence
from the bondage of obscurantism, their individual revelations at their
individual Sinais, their trek through a figurative wilderness, even
their death in it so that their children or children’s children may
eventually reach the figurative “Promised Land.” By the same token, the
historical destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem is transformed by myth
into a paradigm of the continuing mutual estrangement of God and humans,
their exile from one another. Legend, on the other hand, implies no more
than a fanciful embroidering of purportedly historical fact. Unlike
myth, it does not transcend the historical and the local.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and development
» Myth and legend in the Bible
The vast repertoire of Jewish myths and legends begins with the Hebrew
Bible. Their overall purpose in Scripture is to illustrate the ways of
God with humans, as exemplified both in historical events and in
personal experience. The stories themselves are often derived from
current popular lore and possess abundant parallels in other cultures,
both ancient and modern. In each case, however, they are given a
peculiar and distinctive twist.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the Bible » Myths
Biblical myths are found mainly in the first 11 chapters of Genesis, the
first book of the Bible. They are concerned with the creation of the
world and the first man and woman, the origin of the current human
condition, the primeval Deluge, the distribution of peoples, and the
variation of languages.
The basic stories are derived from the popular lore of the ancient
Middle East; parallels can be found in the extant literature of the
peoples of the area. The Mesopotamians, for instance, also knew of an
earthly paradise such as Eden, and the figure of the cherubim—properly
griffins rather than angels—was known to the Canaanites. In the Bible,
however, this mythical garden of the gods becomes the scene of man’s
fall and the background of a story designed to account for the natural
limitations of human life. Similarly, the Babylonians told of the
formation of humankind from clay. But, whereas in the pagan tale the
first man’s function is to serve as an earthly menial of the gods, in
the scriptural version his role is to rule over all other creatures. The
story of the Deluge, including the elements of the ark and the dispatch
of the raven and dove, appears already in the Babylonian myths of
Gilgamesh and Atrahasis. There, however, the hero is eventually made
immortal, whereas in the Bible this detail is omitted because, to the
Israelite mind, no child of woman could achieve that status. Lastly,
while the story of the Tower of Babel was told originally to account for
the stepped temples (ziggurats) of Babylonia, to the Hebrew writer its
purpose is simply to inculcate the moral lesson that humans should not
aspire beyond their assigned station.
Scattered through the Prophets and Holy Writings (the two latter
portions of the Hebrew Bible) are allusions to other ancient myths—e.g.,
to that of a primordial combat between YHWH and a monster variously
named Leviathan (Wriggly), Rahab (Braggart), or simply Sir Sea or
Dragon. The Babylonians told likewise of a fight between their god
Marduk and the monster Tiamat; the Hittites told of a battle between the
weather god and the dragon Illuyankas; while a Canaanite poem from Ras
Shamra (ancient Ugarit) in northern Syria relates the discomfiture of
Sir Sea by the deity Baal and the rout of an opponent named Leviathan.
Originally, this myth probably referred to the annual subjugation of the
floods.
Ancient myths are utilized also in the form of passing allusions or
poetic “conceits,” much as modern Westerners may speak of Cupid or the
Muses. In the prophetic books, for example, there are references to a
celestial upstart hurled to earth on account of his brashness and to the
imprisonment of certain rebellious constellations.
The prophets used myths paradigmatically to illustrate the hand of
God in contemporary events or to reinforce their prophecies. Thus, to
Isaiah the primeval dragon was the symbol of the continuing force of
chaos and evil that will again have to be vanquished before the kingdom
of God can be established on earth. Similarly, for Ezekiel the celestial
upstart serves as the prototype of the prince of Tyre, destined for an
imminent fall; and Habakkuk sees in the impending rout of certain
invaders a repetition on the stage of history of YHWH’s mythical sortie
against the monster of the sea.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the Bible » Legends and other tales
Legends in the Hebrew Scriptures often embellish the accounts of
national heroes with standard motifs drawn from popular lore. Thus, the
Genesis story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife recurs substantially (but
with other characters) in an Egyptian papyrus of the 13th century bce.
The account of the infant Moses being placed in the bulrushes (in
Exodus) has an earlier counterpart in a Babylonian tale about Sargon,
king of Akkad (c. 2334–c. 2279 bce), and is paralleled later in legends
associated with the Persian Cyrus and with Tu-Küeh, the fabled founder
of the Turkish nation. Jephthah’s rash vow (in Judges), whereby he is
committed to sacrifice his daughter, recalls the Classical legend of
Idomeneus of Crete, who was similarly compelled to slay his own son. The
motif of the letter whereby David engineers the death in battle of
Bathsheba’s husband recurs in Homer’s story of Bellerophon. The
celebrated judgment of Solomon concerning the child claimed by two
contending women is told, albeit with variations of detail, about
Buddha, Confucius, and other sages; the story of how Jonah was swallowed
by a “great fish” but was subsequently disgorged intact finds a parallel
in the Indian tale of the hero Shaktideva, who endured the same
experience during his quest for the Golden City. On the other hand, it
should be observed that many of the parallels commonly cited from the
folklore of indigenous peoples may be mere repetitions of biblical
material picked up from Christian missionaries.
Folktales in the Hebrew Bible sometimes serve to account for the
names of places in Palestine or for the origins of traditional customs
and institutions. Thus, the familiar story of the man who must struggle
with the personified current of a river before he can cross it is
localized (in Genesis) at the ford of Jabbok simply because that name
suggests the Hebrew word abḳ (“struggle”), and Samson’s felling of 1,000
Philistines with the jawbone of an ass is placed at Ramath-leḥi because
leḥi is Hebrew for “jawbone.” Similarly, a taboo against eating the
thigh muscle of an animal is validated in Genesis by the legend that
Jacob was struck in the hip when he fought with an otherworldly being at
Penuel (“Face of God”). The custom of annually bewailing the vanished
spirit of fertility is rationalized in Judges as a lamentation for the
hapless daughter of Jephthah.
The Hebrew Bible also contains a few examples of fables (didactic
tales in which animals or plants play human roles). Thus, the serpent in
Eden talks to Eve, and Balaam’s ass not only speaks but also seeks to
avoid an angel, unseen by Balaam, that is blocking the road, while trees
compete for kingship in the celebrated parable of Jotham in Judges.
Finally, in the book of Job (38:31) there are allusions to star myths
concerning the binding of Orion (called “the Fool”) and the “chaining”
of the Pleiades.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the Bible » Contemporary
interpretations
The tendency to interpret biblical tales and legends as authentic
historical records or as allegories or as the relics of solar, lunar,
and astral myths is now a thing of the past. The modern folklorist is
interested in the legends because they push back to remote antiquity
several tales and motifs long known from later literature. For the
theologian, however, they pose the deeper problem of distinguishing
clearly between the permanent message of Scripture and the form in which
it is conveyed. The process of “demythologization” is one of the central
concerns of modern religious thought. It recognizes that the natural
language of religious truth is myth; thus, the continuing relevance of
ancient scriptures depends not on the total rejection of that vehicle
but rather on the expansion and remodeling of it—i.e., on
“remythologization” rather than demythologization. In the final
analysis, the traditional portrayal of God himself is simply a mythical
representation of ultimate reality, but that reality transcends the
particular images in which it happens to be expressed. At the same time,
it is important to note that, whereas in the modern world scriptural
myths are generally understood as metaphors, in the ancient world they
were accepted as literal statements of fact. Gods, for example, were not
merely “personifications” of natural phenomena but rather the effective
potencies of the phenomena themselves conceived from the start as
personal beings.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the Persian period
In 539 bce the Jews came under Persian domination and consequently
absorbed a good deal of Iranian folklore about spirits and demons, the
eventual dissolution of the world in a fiery ordeal, and its subsequent
renewal. This introduced new elements into Jewish popular mythology:
hierarchies of angels; archangels such as Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel
(modeled loosely upon the six Iranian spiritual entities, the amesha
spentas); and the demonic figures of Satan, Belial, and Asmodeus
(corresponding to the Iranian Angra Mainyu [Ahriman], Druj, and Aēshma
Daeva). There was also a preoccupation with apocalyptic visions of
heaven and hell and of the Last Days. Unfortunately, no Jewish texts of
this genre from the Persian period are extant, so these new elements can
be recognized only inferentially from their survival in later
times—notably in products of the ensuing Hellenistic Age, such as the
Dead Sea Scrolls.
The principal monument of Jewish story in the Persian period is the
biblical Book of Esther, which is basically a Judaized version of a
Persian novella about the shrewdness of harem queens. The story was
adapted to account for Purim, a popular festival, which itself is
probably a transformation of the Persian New Year. Leading elements of
the tale—such as the parade of Mordecai, dressed in royal robes, through
the streets, the fight between the Jews and their adversaries, and the
hanging of Haman and his sons—seem to reflect customs associated with
Purim, such as the ceremonial ride of a common citizen through the
capital, the mock combat between two teams representing the Old Year and
the New Year, and the execution of the Old Year in effigy.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the Hellenistic period » Historiated
Bibles and legendary histories
Judaism entered a new phase in 330 bce, when Alexander the Great
completed his conquest of the Middle East. The dominant features of the
Hellenistic Age, which began with Alexander’s death in 323, were an
increasing cosmopolitanism and a fusion of ancient Middle Eastern and
Greek cultures. These found expression in Jewish myth and legend in the
composition (in Greek) of stories designed to link the Bible with
general history, to correlate biblical and Greek legends, and to claim
for the Hebrew patriarchs a major role in the development of the arts
and sciences. It was asserted, for instance, that Abraham had taught
astrology to the king of Egypt, that his sons and those of Keturah had
aided Heracles against the giant Antaeus, and that Moses, blithely
identified both with the semi-mythical Greek poet Musaeus and with the
Egyptian Thoth, had been the teacher of Orpheus (the putative founder of
one of the current mystery cults) and the inventor of navigation,
architecture, and the hieroglyphic script. Leading writers in this vein
were Artapanus, Eupolemus, and Cleodemus (all c. 100 bce), but their
works are known to us only from stray quotations by the early Church
Fathers Eusebius and Clement of Alexandria.
The Jews also adapted the current Greek literary fashion of retelling
Homeric and other ancient legends in “modernized,” novelistic versions,
well seasoned with romantic elaborations of their own traditions. A
paraphrase of Genesis found among the Dead Sea Scrolls ornaments the
biblical narrative with several familiar folklore motifs. Thus, when
Noah is born, the house is filled with light, just as it is said
elsewhere to have been at the birth of the Roman king Servius Tullius,
of Buddha, and (later) of several Christian saints. When Abraham’s life
is threatened, he dreams of a cedar about to be felled, an omen that is
said to have presaged the deaths of the Roman emperors Domitian and
Severus Alexander. (Although the parallels are of later date, they
illustrate the persistence of age-old traditions.) The same trend toward
fanciful elaboration of scriptural tales is manifested also in the
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (“testaments” meaning last wills),
in which the virtues and weaknesses of the sons of Jacob are illustrated
by moralistic legends. There is also a lengthy paraphrase of early
biblical narratives, mistakenly attributed to Philo, the famous
Alexandrian Jewish philosopher of the 1st century ce.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the Hellenistic period » Apocrypha and
Pseudepigrapha
The principal monuments of Jewish literature during the Hellenistic
period are the works known collectively as the Apocrypha and
Pseudepigrapha. The former are certain later writings excluded by Jews
from the canon of the Hebrew Bible but found in the Greek Septuagint
version. The latter are other late writings not included in any
authorized version of the Scriptures and spuriously attributed to
biblical personalities.
The Apocrypha include several Judaized versions of tales well
represented in other cultures. The book of Tobit, for instance, turns
largely on the widespread motifs of the “grateful dead” and the demon in
the bridal chamber. The former relates how a traveller who gives burial
to a dishonoured corpse is subsequently aided by a chance companion who
turns out to be the spirit of the deceased. The latter tells how a
succession of bridegrooms die on the nuptial night through the presence
of a demon beside the bridal bed. Similarly, in Bel and the Dragon (2nd
century bce) there is the equally familiar motif of fraud that is
detected by the imprint of the culprit’s foot on strewn ashes; the story
reappears later in the French and Celtic romance of Tristan and Iseult.
In the story of Susanna and the Elders (also 2nd century bce), a charge
of unchastity levelled against a beautiful woman is refuted when a
clever youngster (“Daniel come to judgment”) points out discrepancies in
the testimony of her accusers. This well-worn story has a close parallel
in a Samaritan tale about the daughter of a high priest in the 1st
century ce; the motif of the clever youngster who surpasses seasoned
judges recurs later in the Infancy Gospels and in the tale of ʿAlī
Khamājah in The Thousand and One Nights.
The Pseudepigrapha also contain a number of folktales that have
parallels in other traditions. The Martyrdom of Isaiah (1st century ce?)
tells how the prophet, fleeing from King Manasseh, hid in a tree that
opened miraculously, though he eventually perished when it was sawn
asunder. Similar tales are related in the Talmud and in the later
Persian epic Shāh-nāmeh (c. 1000 ce).
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the Talmud and Midrash » Midrash and
Haggada
Toward the end of the 1st century ce, the canon of the Hebrew Bible was
formed when certain Hebrew writings were recognized as the authoritative
corpus of divine revelation. The study of the Bible became an essential
element of the Jewish religion, which meant that the sacred text had to
be subjected to a form of interpretation that would bring out its
universal significance and permanent relevance. The process, known as
Midrash (“interpretation” or “investigation”), involved the spicing of
homiletic discourses with elaborative legends—a pedagogic device called
Haggada (“Storytelling”). Originally transmitted orally, the legends
were eventually committed to writing as part of the Talmud (the
authoritative compendium of Oral Law and commentary on it), as well as
in later compilations geared to particular books or sections of the
Hebrew Bible, to scriptural lessons read in the services of the
synagogue, or to specific biblical characters or moral themes.
The range of Haggada is virtually inexhaustible; a few representative
examples must suffice. With regard to biblical characters, both Moses
and David were born circumcised; Cain had a twin sister; Abraham will
sit at the gate of hell to reproach the damned on Judgment Day; Aaron
once locked the angel of death in the tabernacle; Solomon understood the
language of animals; King Hiram, who supplied materials for the Temple,
entered paradise alive; and the flesh of Leviathan will feed the
righteous in the world to come.
In such fanciful elaborations of Scriptures, Haggada does not disdain
to draw on Classical tales from ancient Greece and Rome. The men of
Sodom, it is said, subjected itinerant strangers to the ordeal of
Procrustes’ bed; the earth opened to rescue newborn Hebrew males from
the pharaoh, as it did for Amphiaraus, the prophet of Argos, when he
fled from Periclymenus after the attack on Thebes; Moses spoke at birth,
as did Apollo; Solomon’s ring, cast into the river, was retrieved from a
fish that had swallowed it, as was that of Polycrates, the tyrant of
Samos, in the story told by Herodotus; the Queen of Sheba had the feet
of an ass, like the child-stealing witch (Onoskelis) of Greek folklore;
and no rain ever fell on the altar at Jerusalem, just as none was said
to have fallen on Mt. Olympus.
There are other familiar motifs. Moses qualifies as a husband for
Zipporah by alone being able to pluck a rod from Jethro’s garden;
David’s harp is played at night by the wind, like that of Aeolus; and
Isaiah, like Achilles and Siegfried, has only one vulnerable spot in his
body—in his case, his mouth.
Legends are developed also from fanciful interpretations of
scriptural verses. Thus, Adam is said to have fallen only a few hours
after his creation, because the Hebrew text of Psalms 49:12 can be
literally rendered “Adam does not last the night in glory.” Lamech slays
the wandering Cain—a fanciful interpretation of his boast in Genesis
4:23–24. Melchizedek is immortal, in view of Psalms 110:4: “You are a
priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” And the first man is a
hermaphrodite (this notion has analogues elsewhere), because Genesis
1:27 says of God’s creation, “Male and female he created them.”
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the Talmud and Midrash » Fables and
animal stories
Midrash also uses fables paralleled in non-Jewish sources. Aesop’s fable
of The Lion and the Crane is quoted by a rabbi of the 1st century ce,
and the tales of The Fox in the Vineyard and of The Camel Who Got Slit
Ears for Wanting Horns likewise make their appearance. Material is also
drawn from medieval bestiaries (manuals on animals, real or imaginary,
with symbolic or moralistic interpretations). Bears, according to the
bestiaries, lack mother’s milk; hares and hyenas can change sex; only
one pair of unicorns exists at a time; and there is a gigantic bird
(ziz) that reaches from earth to sky.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the Talmud and Midrash » Contribution
of Haggada to Christian and Islamic legends
Several of the stories related in Haggadic literature were later adapted
by Christian writers. The legend that Adam was created out of virgin
soil was taken to prefigure the virgin birth of the second Adam (i.e.,
Jesus); while the story that the soil in question was taken from the
site of the future Temple was transformed into the claim that Adam had
been molded out of the dust of Calvary. Similarly, the legend that, at
the dedication of the Temple, the doors swung open automatically to
admit the Ark of the Covenant was transferred to the consecration of a
church by St. Basil (329–379); and the Talmudic tale that the bronze
Nicanor gates of the Temple had floated to Jerusalem when cast overboard
during their shipment from Alexandria was applied to the doors of a
sacred edifice erected in honour of St. Giles (fl. 7th century).
Nor was it only the Christians who absorbed Haggadic legends. The
Qurʾān, the sacred book of Islam, likewise incorporates a good deal of
such material in its treatment of biblical characters such as Joseph,
Moses, David, and Solomon.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the medieval period » Jewish
contributions to diffusion of folktales
The Middle Ages was a singularly productive period in the history of
Jewish myth and legend. Medieval Jews played a prominent role in the
transmission of Middle Eastern and Asian tales to the West and enhanced
their own repertoire with a goodly amount of secular material.
Especially in Spain and Italy, Arabic versions of standard collections
of folktales were translated into Hebrew and then into Latin, thus
enabling the stories to spread to the Christian world. The Indian
collection of animal tales known as The Fables of Bidpai (Sanskrit:
Panca-tantra), for example, was rendered into Hebrew from the
8th-century Arabic version of ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Muqaffaʿ; and, in the
12th century, John of Capua’s Directorium humanae vitae (“Guide for
Human Life”), one of the most celebrated repositories of moralistic
tales (exempla) used by Christian preachers, was developed from this
Hebrew translation. So too the famous Senbād-nāmeh (“Fables of
Sinbad”)—one of the sources, incidentally, of Boccaccio’s Decameron—was
rendered from Arabic into Hebrew and then into Latin. The renowned
romance of Barlaam and Josaphat—a Christian adaptation of tales about
the Buddha—found its Jewish counterpart in a compilation titled The
Prince and the Dervish, adapted from an Arabic text by Abraham ben
Samuel ibn Ḥisdai, a leader of Spanish Jewry in the 13th century.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the medieval period » Hebrew versions
of medieval romances
Hebrew translations were also made from Latin and other European
languages. There are several Hebrew adaptations of the Alexander
Romance, based mainly (though not exclusively) on a Latin rendering of
the Greek original by Callisthenes (c. 360–327 bce). The central theme
is the exploits of Alexander the Great, and the narrative includes
fanciful accounts of his adventures in foreign lands and of the
outlandish peoples he encounters. There is a Hebrew reworking of the
Arthurian legend, in the form of a secular sermon in which Arthurian and
biblical scenes are blithely mixed together. Finally, there is a Hebrew
Ysopet (the common title for a medieval version of Aesop) that shares
several of its fables with the famous collection made by Marie de France
in the late 12th century.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the medieval period » Jewish
contributions to Christian and Islamic tales
Apart from these Hebrew translations of Arabic and European works, a
good deal of earlier Haggadic material is embodied in the Disciplina
clericalis of Peter Alfonsi (1062–1110), a baptized Jew of Aragon
originally known as Moses Sephardi. This book is the oldest European
collection of novellas; it served as a primary source for the celebrated
Gesta Romanorum (“Deeds of the Romans”) of the same period—itself a
major source for European storytellers, poets, and dramatists for many
centuries.
Haggadic material was also absorbed by Arabic writers during this
period. Not only does the Qurʾān incorporate such material, but the
Egyptian recension of The Thousand and One Nights seems to have drawn
extensively on Jewish sources. Its tales of The Sultan and His Three
Sons, The Angel of Death, Alexander and the Pious Man, and the legend of
Baliqiyah most likely come from a Jewish source.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the medieval period » Major medieval
Hebrew collections
From the 11th to the 13th century, comprehensive collections of tales
and fables were compiled in Europe, both for entertainment and
edification; standard examples are the Spanish El novellino and the
aforementioned Disciplina clericalis and Gesta Romanorum. Jews,
especially in Morocco and in Islamic Spain, produced similar
collections. Two of the most important were The Book of Comfort by
Nissim ben Jacob ben Nissim of Al-Qayrawān (11th century) and The Book
of Delight by Joseph ben Meir ibn Zabara of Spain (end of the 12th
century). The former, composed in Judeo-Arabic, is a collection of some
60 moralizing tales designed to comfort the author’s father-in-law on
the loss of a son. Belonging to a well-known genre of Arabic literature
and derived mainly from Arabic sources, it is permeated by a
preoccupation with divine justice, which was typical of the Muʿtazilite
school of Islamic theology. It was later translated into Hebrew. The
Book of Delight consists of 15 tales, largely about the wiles of women,
exchanged between two travelling companions—a form of cadre, or
“enclosing tale,” later adopted on a more extensive scale in the 14th
century in the Canterbury Tales by Chaucer (c. 1342–1400). Typical is
the tale of The Silversmith and His Wife, which relates how a craftsman,
persuaded by his greedy wife to make a statue of a princess, gets his
hands cut off by the king for violating the Islamic law against making
images, while his wife reaps rich rewards from the flattered princess.
Although most of the stories are taken from Arabic sources, some have
parallels in rabbinic literature—including the famous tale of the matron
of Ephesus, who, while keeping vigil over her husband’s tomb, makes love
with a guard posted nearby to watch over the corpses of certain
crucified robbers. When, during one of their trysts, one of the corpses
is stolen and her lover therefore faces punishment, the shrewd woman
exhumes the body of her husband and substitutes it. This tale is found
already in the Satyricon of Petronius (died 66 ce) and was later used by
Voltaire (1694–1778) in his Zadig and by the 20th-century English
playwright Christopher Fry in his A Phoenix Too Frequent.
Of the same genre but deriving mainly from west European rather than
Arabic sources are the Mishle shuʿalim (“Fox Fables”) of Berechiah
ha-Nakdan (“the Punctuator”), who may have lived in England near the end
of the 12th century. About half of these tales recur in Marie de
France’s Ysopet, and only one of them is of specifically Jewish origin.
Berechiah’s work was translated into Latin and thereafter became a
favourite of European storytellers.
Among anonymous compendiums of this type is The Alphabet of Ben Sira,
extant in two recensions, probably of the 11th century. This is
basically a collection of proverbs attributed to the famous sage of the
apocryphal book Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach). In
one of the recensions the proverbs are illustrated by appropriate tales.
The author is represented as an infant prodigy who performs much the
same feats of sapience as are attributed to Jesus in some of the Infancy
Gospels.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the medieval period » Medieval
legendary histories and Haggadic compendiums
Two other developments mark the history of Jewish myth and legend during
the Middle Ages. The first was a revival of the Hellenistic predilection
for large-scale compendiums in which the history of the Jews was
“integrated,” in legendary fashion, with that of the world in general
and especially with Classical traditions. Two major works of this kind,
both composed (apparently) in Italy during the 9th century, are
Josippon, by a certain Ben Gorion, which presents a fanciful record from
the Creation onward and contains numerous references to foreign nations;
and the Book of Jashar, a colourful account from Adam to Joshua, named
for the ancient book of heroic songs and sagas mentioned in the Bible
(Joshua 10:13; 2 Samuel 1:18). There is also the voluminous Chronicles
of Jerahmeel, written in the Rhineland in the 14th century, which draws
largely on Pseudo-Philo’s earlier compilation and includes Hebrew and
Aramaic versions of certain books of the Apocrypha.
The other development was the gathering of Haggadic legends and tales
into comprehensive, systematic compendiums. Works of this kind are
Yalquṭ Shimʿoni (“The Collection of Simeon”), attributed to Rabbi Simeon
of Frankfurt am Main; Midrash ha-gadol (“The Great Midrash”), composed
after the death in 1204 of Moses Maimonides, whom it quotes; and the
Midrash of David ha-Nagid, named after the grandson of Maimonides. About
100 years later a similar work on the Prophets and holy writings, Yalquṭ
ha-Makiri (“The Collection of Makhir”), was compiled by Makhir ben Abba
Mari in Spain. It has been suggested that the production of such works
was spurred by the necessity of providing “ammunition” for the public
disputations with Christian ecclesiastics that the church forced upon
Jewish scholars during this period.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the modern period » Kabbalistic tales
In the 16th century, Jewish myth and legend took several new directions.
The disappointment of messianic expectations through the dismal eclipse
of the pretender Shabbetai Tzevi increased interest in occult
speculation and in the mystical lore of the Kabbala. Important schools
of Kabbala arose in Italy and at Safed, in Palestine, and tales of the
miraculous Faust-like powers of masters such as Isaac Luria (1534–72)
and Ḥayyim ben Joseph Vital (also known as Ḥayyim Vital Calabrese)
circulated freely after their deaths.
Another reaction to the dashing of messianic hopes is represented by
the beautiful story of the Kabbalist Joseph della Reyna and his five
disciples, who travel through the world to oust Satan and prepare the
way for the Deliverer. Warned by the spirits of such worthies as Rabbi
Simeon ben Yoḥai and the prophet Elijah, they nevertheless procure their
blessing and are sent on to the angel Metatron. The latter furnishes
them with protective spells and spices and advises Joseph to inscribe
the ineffable name of God on a metal plate. When, however, they reach
the end of their journey, Satan and his wife, Lilith, attack them in the
form of huge dogs. When the dogs are subdued, they beg for food, and
Joseph gives them spices to revive them. At once they summon a host of
devils, which causes two of the disciples to die of terror and two to go
mad, leaving only Joseph and a disciple. The messiah weeps in heaven,
and Elijah hides the great horn of salvation. A voice rings out telling
Joseph that it is vain to attempt to hasten the footsteps of the
Redeemer.
The repertoire of Jewish tales and legends was seasoned by other
elements. During the 16th century—the age of the great European
navigators—stories began to circulate about the discovery of the Ten
Lost Tribes in remote parts of the world.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the modern period » Judeo-German
(Yiddish) tales
In the 16th century, Judeo-German (Yiddish) came to replace Hebrew as
the language of Jewish tales and legends in Europe, primarily because of
the desire to render them accessible to women unschooled in the sacred
tongue. The synagogal lessons from Scripture were embellished in Yiddish
in the so-called Taitsh Humesh (“Yiddish Pentateuch”), in the more
fancifully titled Tzeʾena u-reʾena (“Go Forth and See”; compare Song of
Solomon 3:11), and in adaptations of the story of Esther designed for
dramatic presentation on the feast of Purim. The Hebrew Chronicles of
Josippon also assumed Yiddish dress. More-secular productions include a
verse rendition of the Arthurian legend, titled Artus Hof (“The Court of
King Arthur”) and based largely on Gravenberg’s medieval Wigalois, and
the Bove Buch by Elijah Levita (1469–1549), which retold the romance of
Sir Bevis of Southampton.
These “frivolous” productions were offset by collections of moral and
ethical tales. The main examples of these are the Brantspiegel (1572;
“Brant Mirro”), attributed to Moses Henoch, and the Maʿaseh Buch (1672;
“Story Book”), a compendium of 254 tales compiled by Jacob ben Abraham
of Meseritz and first published at Basel. The latter, drawn mainly from
the Talmud, was supplemented by later legends about medieval rabbis.
Jewish legends also circulated in the form of chapbooks, a large
selection of which is preserved in the library of the Yiddish Scientific
Institute in New York City.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the modern period » Judeo-Persian and
Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) tales
A similar development, though on a lesser scale, took place among Jews
who spoke other vernacular dialects. Major monuments of Judeo-Persian
literature are poetic embellishments of biblical narratives composed by
Shāhīn of Shīrāz in the 14th century and by Joseph ben Isaac Yahudi
(i.e., “the Jew”) some 300 years later. These, however, are exercises in
virtuosity rather than in creative storytelling. Versified elaborations
of the story of Joseph appear in Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) in Coplas de
Yoçef (“Song of Joseph”), composed in 1732 by Abraham de Toledo and
embodying a certain amount of traditional Haggadic material. From a
revival of literary activity in the 18th century comes a comprehensive
“legendary Bible” called Me-ʿam LoʿḥḲ ą, “From a People of Strange
Tongue” (compare Psalms 114:1), begun by Jacob Culi (died 1732) and
continued by later writers, as well as several renderings of standard
Hebrew collections and a number of Purim plays. Judeo-Spanish folktales
were still current in Macedonia and Yugoslavia until the Nazi occupation
of the early 1940s, but these stories drew more from Balkan than from
Jewish sources.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the modern period » Hasidic tales
The rise of the Hasidic sect in eastern Europe at the end of the 18th
century engendered a host of legends (circulated mainly through
chapbooks) concerning the lives, wise sayings, and miracles of
tzaddiqim, or masters, such as Israel ben Eliezer, “the Besht”
(1700–60), and Dov Baer of Meseritz (died 1772). These tales, however,
are anecdotes rather than formally structured stories and often borrow
from non-Jewish sources.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the modern period » Droll stories
To the popular creativity of the ghetto belong also the droll tales of
the Wise Men of Chełm (in Poland)—Jewish counterparts of the German
noodles (“stupid people”; hence “noodle stories”) of Schildburg and of
the more familiar Wise Men of Gotham (in England). These too were
circulated mainly in Yiddish popular prints. A typical story is that of
the two “sages” who went for a walk, one with an umbrella and the other
without one. Suddenly it began to rain. “Open your umbrella,” said the
one without one. “It won’t help,” answered the other, “it’s full of
holes.” “Then why did you bring it?” rejoined his friend. “I didn’t
think it would rain,” was the reply.
The Judaic tradition » Jewish myth and legend » Sources and
development » Myth and legend in the modern period » Modern Israeli
folktales
The gathering of Jews from many lands into the State of Israel has made
that country a treasure trove for the student of Jewish folktales.
Assiduous work has been undertaken by Dov Noy of Hebrew University in
Jerusalem, aided by enthusiastic amateurs throughout the country.
Mainly, however, the stories are retellings of traditional material.
Theodor H. Gaster
The Judaic tradition » Judaism in world perspective » Relation with
non-Judaic religions » Exclusivist and universalist emphases
The biblical tradition out of which Judaism emerged was predominantly
exclusivist (“no other gods”). The gods of the nations were regarded as
“no gods” and their worshippers as deluded, while the God of Israel was
acclaimed as the sole lord of history and the creator of heaven and
earth. The unexpected universalist implications of this exclusivism are
most forcibly expressed in an oft-quoted verse from Amos (9:7):
“Are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel?” says the
Lord. “Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the
Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir?”
Here the universal rule of the God of Israel is unmistakably
proclaimed. Yet in the same book (3:1–2), after referring to the
deliverance from Egypt—an act recognized as similar to that occurring in
the affairs of other peoples—the prophet, speaking for God, says: “You
only have I known of all the families of the earth.” Thus, the
exclusivism has two focuses: one universal, the other particularistic.
The ultimate claim of the universalistic position is found in Malachi
1:11: “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great
among the nations.” This, however, in no way negates the special
covenantal relationship between God and his people, because this
universalistic theme emphasizes that special bond. To interpret
Judaism’s stance toward other religious systems in any other way is to
fail to do justice to its inner dialectic. It is neither a bland
latitudinarianism that admits any or all viewpoints and practices nor a
fanatical intolerance but rather a subtle interplay of affirmation and
rejection. The latter is directed primarily against idolatry—the basic
failure of the peoples who are the objects of the same divine solicitude
as is Israel. If the religions of the nations are rejected because of
their failure to know God fully and truly, the peoples themselves are
not. Living under the covenant with Noah, their fulfillment of such
responsibilities provides for their acceptance, for they are not
expected to live within the realm of Torah.
The Judaic tradition » Judaism in world perspective » Relation with
non-Judaic religions » Relation to Christianity
Judaism’s relation to Christianity is complicated because of the close
historical interconnections between them. From a Judaic standpoint,
Christianity is or was a Jewish “heresy,” and, as such, it may be judged
somewhat differently than other religions. Christianity’s claim to be
the true fulfillment of the covenant—and, thus, the true Israel—has
given rise throughout the centuries to polemics of varying intensity.
The rise to power of the church and the embodiment of its anti-Judaic
sentiments and attitudes in the political structures and processes of
Christian nations made sharply negative Jewish responses inevitable.
Nevertheless, during the Middle Ages, Jewish thinkers attempted to avoid
designating Christianity as idolatry; some even argued that, because
Christianity was derived from Judaism, it was fulfilling—at least on a
moral plane—the divine purpose.
In modern times the relation between the two religions has undergone
changes necessitated by the newer situations into which the Jewish
community has moved. This does not mean that the polemical-apologetic
stance came to an end. The rejection of Judaism as a living religion by
some Christians has continued, though it was argued less on dogmatic
than on scholarly grounds. The Jewish response has often been
countercriticism. Beyond this, however, there has been a growing
inclination within the Jewish community to respond to the development of
an affirmative theology of Judaism in both the Roman Catholic and
Protestant churches by providing a theology of Christianity within
Jewish thought. Occasional formulations in this direction have appeared,
but some within the Jewish community have seen no need for such a
movement.
Beginning in the early 1960s many Christian churches, especially the
Roman Catholic Church, began to rethink their relationship to Judaism.
During the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), Pope Paul VI issued the
declaration Nostra aetate (“In Our Era”), which recognized the moral and
historical integrity of Judaism, a remarkable reversal of centuries of
Catholic teaching. Nostra aetate also acknowledged Judaism as a vibrant
religion with an identity independent of its role in the formation of
historical Christianity. Most mainline Protestant churches responded
with a declaration similar to Nostra aetate. During his pontificate,
John Paul II (1978–2005), who had a great theological admiration and
understanding of Judaism, further improved Catholic-Jewish relations.
The Judaic tradition » Judaism in world perspective » Relation with
non-Judaic religions » Relation to Islam
The emergence of Islam in Arabia in the 7th century ce brought Judaism
face to face with a second religious movement that derived some of its
ideas and structures from the older tradition. In this case, as in that
of Christianity, the new religion claimed a special relation with
Judaism. Muhammad held that the faith he proclaimed was none other than
the pristine religion of Abraham, the father of Ishmael (the progenitor
of the Arabs) and Isaac (from whom the people of Israel descended). That
religion had been distorted by both Judaism and Christianity, and
Muhammad, the “seal” of the Prophets, had been called by God to restore
it to its purity. The confrontation between Judaism and Islam, like that
between Judaism and Christianity, was coloured by political and social
considerations both before and after Islam spread beyond Arabia to other
areas of the Middle East (including Palestine) and to parts of Europe.
During the subsequent period, the intellectual development of the
Islamic world and the emergence of theologians and philosophers of the
highest order challenged Judaism and exerted considerable influence on
similar thinkers within that community. Given the strong monotheism and
the anti-iconic attitude of Islam, many of the questions that arose
between Judaism and Trinitarian and iconic Christianity were not an
issue between Judaism and Islam. Rather, the crucial point of dispute
was the nature of prophecy, which arose because of Muhammad’s claim
concerning his culminating role in the prophetic tradition. Thus, during
the medieval period there were polemics directed against that claim, as
well as expositions of the nature of prophecy that, without dealing
directly with Muhammad’s claim, could be taken to undercut it—as in the
case of Maimonides’ The Guide for the Perplexed). Nonetheless, Islam too
was understood to contribute to the fulfillment of the divine purpose.
From the late medieval period onward, the intellectual engagement
between the two religions diminished with the general decline in the
Turkish empire that then embraced the Muslim world. In modern times it
has not yet been renewed for many reasons, the most important of which
has been the political and military conflict between the State of Israel
and the Arab countries of the Middle East.
The Judaic tradition » Judaism in world perspective » Relation with
non-Judaic religions » Relations with other religions
Judaism’s encounters with religions other than Christianity and Islam
have been in large measure limited to the past. In the Hellenistic
world, it confronted and rejected the varieties of syncretistic cults
that grew up. Within the Sāsānian empire it was forced to deal with
Zoroastrianism, but the outlines of its response have not yet been
entirely disentangled from the literature of the period. In the modern
world, particularly in the most recent period, it has come face to face
with the religions of the Middle East and Asia, but beyond a few
tentative explorations nothing tangible has appeared. Because of the
growing interest and exchange between East and West, however, Jewish
thinkers will not be able to rest with older formulations concerning the
nature of other religious systems. Without compromising its own faith or
falling into an uncritical relativism, Judaism may indeed seek a new way
of understanding and relating to the varieties of religious systems
facing it on the world scene.
The Judaic tradition » Judaism in world perspective » The role of
Judaism in Western culture and civilization » Its historic role
Judaism has played a significant role in the development of Western
culture because of its unique relationship with Christianity, the
dominant religious force in the West. Although the Christian church drew
from other sources as well, its retention of the sacred Scriptures of
the synagogue (the Old Testament) as an integral part of its Bible—a
decision sharply debated in the 2nd century ce—was crucial. Not only was
the development of its ideas and doctrines deeply influenced, but it
also received an ethical dynamism that constantly overcame an
inclination to withdraw into world-denying isolation.
It was, however, not only Judaism’s heritage but its persistence that
touched Western civilization. The continuing existence of the Jews, even
as a pariah people, was both a challenge and a warning. Their liberation
from the shackles of discrimination, segregation, and rejection at the
beginning of the modern era was understood by many to be the touchstone
of all human liberty. Until the final ghettoization of the Jew—it is
well to remember that the term ghetto belongs in the first instance to
Jewish history—at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the
Renaissance, intellectual contact between Judaism and Christianity, and
thus between Judaism and Western culture, continued. St. Jerome
translated the Hebrew Bible into Latin with the aid of Jewish scholars;
the exegetical work of the scholars of the monastery of St. Victor in
the 12th century borrowed heavily from Jewish scholars; and the biblical
commentary of Rashi (Solomon ben Isaac of Troyes) was an important
source for Martin Luther (1483–1546). Jewish thinkers helped to bring
the remarkable intellectual achievements of the Islamic world to
Christian Europe and added their own contributions as well. Even
heresies within the church, on occasion, were said to have been inspired
by or modeled after Judaism.
The Judaic tradition » Judaism in world perspective » The role of
Judaism in Western culture and civilization » Its present role
In the modern world, while the influence of Jews has increased in almost
every realm of cultural life, the impact of Judaism itself has
diminished. The reason for this is not difficult to find. The Gentile
leaders who extended emancipation to the Jews at the end of the 18th
century and the beginning of the 19th were eager to grant political
equality, but they also insisted that certain reforms of Judaism be
accepted. With the transformation of Judaism into an ecclesiastical
institution, largely on the model of German Protestant churches, its
ideas and structures took on the cast of its environment in a way quite
unlike what had ensued in its earlier confrontations with various
philosophical systems. Indeed, for some, Judaism and 19th-century
European thought were not merely congruent but identical. Thus, while
numerous contributors to diverse aspects of Western culture and
civilization are to be found among Jews of the 20th and 21st
centuries—scientists, politicians, statesmen, scholars, musicians,
artists—their activities cannot, except in specific instances, be
considered as deriving from Judaism as it has been sketched above.
Lou Hackett Silberman
The Judaic tradition » Judaism in world perspective » The role of
Judaism in Western culture and civilization » Future prospects
The two central events of 20th-century Jewish history were the Holocaust
and the establishment of the State of Israel. The former was the great
tragedy of the Jewish people, while the latter was the light of a
rebirth, which promised political, cultural, and economic independence.
The rest of the world has been forced to reconsider and reorient its
relationship with Judaism and the Jewish people because of these two
events. At the same time, the centres of Jewish life have moved almost
exclusively to Israel and North America. The virtual absence of official
anti-Semitism in North America allowed Jews to flourish in pursuits
previously the preserve of Gentiles. Along with these developments,
theological considerations and practical realities, such as interfaith
marriage, have made Jewish religious culture a point of interest for
many non-Jews.
In the early 21st century, Jewish religious life continued to
fragment along ideological lines, but that very fragmentation animated
both moral imagination and ritual life. While ultra-Orthodox Judaism
grew more insular, and some varieties of Liberal Judaism moved ritual
practice even farther away from traditional observance, a vital centre
emerged, running from Reform Judaism to modern Orthodoxy. This centre
sought to understand Judaism within a broader context of interaction
with other cultures while leaving unaffected the essentials of belief
and practice. Predicting the future of Judaism is not an easy or
enviable task, but there is reason to hope that the world will continue
to draw upon the religious and cultural traditions of Judaism, both past
and present.
David Novak
