It is certain that the faith if the ancient nation of Hebrews is central to their own belief in what they call the Book. Though Judaism is the religion of a small minority its positive impact on the culture of Western Civilization is immense. Indeed, perhaps envy at the success of Jews in law, education, science, music, literature and as parents with good families has driven some of the appallingly sinful scapegoating conduct of Christians and Muslims toward Jews. (Note: Persecution is a way to scapegoat others (a mass psychosis), rather than face your own weaknesses). The MeetingHouse and many who are spiritual but not religious have known Jews as good role models, even though they are not themselves adherents to Judaism.

What is it like to be a Jew? A people's ideas are formed by their history. Most people first encounter Judaism at a wedding or a bar mitzvah of the son of a friend. Few have attended an ordinary service at a synagogue. The roles of Torah, music, rabbi and ritual choreographer have sacred historical antecedents. Jewish mysticism -Kabbalah - has become more popular in the USA of late. Jewish law and philosophy is as old as its once secret mysticism. Events since the horror of the Holocaust and the founding of the state of Israel are still unfolding with no resolution in sight. The response of the Germans to what they did, paying reparations, and seeking to atone in other ways is encouraging The Arabs, driven by an oil-power elite can not seem to find a spirit of compromise. It is as though they are still trying to use hate to avenge the death of the Canaanite tribe. For four thousand years the Jewish people have persevered.

Judaism has never been a monolithic entity. The summary, below introduces Judaism to those who come to the MeetingHouse for some insight. There are some recommended readings at the end for those who want more.

Judaism, the religion of the Jews is an expression of a complex religious and ethnic community. It is a way of life as well as a set of basic beliefs and values. It is a religion with patterns of action, social order, and culture.

Our first objective will be to treat the history of Judaism as unitary broad and complete as well. History will guide us from the early ancestral beginnings of the Jewish people down to contemporary times. Second, we will turn to the beliefs, practices, and culture of Judaism. Dates are listed through out we will use the conventions of BCE (Before the Common Era = BC) and CE (Common Era = AD).

History provides clues to an understanding of Judaism because its primal affirmations appeared in early historical narratives. Many contemporary scholars agree that although the biblical (Old Testament) tales report contemporaneous events and activities, they are related for essentially theological reasons. Still this is a distinction of modern convenience that would have been unacceptable to the ancient authors. In the days when the bi-cameral mind was still evolving their understanding of every day events was not separated from but was contemporaneous with their mystical and religious experience which they reported. For them, it was a history of the divine presence that was encountered. God's presence was experienced within the realm of nature, but the more enthralling and intimate happenings were reports of human actions.

Other ancient cultures enjoyed a divine presence such as Taoism and Hinduism, it was so recorded. But those other experiences were probably not anthropomorphic, the image of,I AM (Yahweh) was most consequential within the ancient Israelite community. The image of G--D has remained, through many developments over time. The descendants' religious affirmations focus upon it.

It is this particular claim,to have experienced God's presence in human events,and its subsequent development that Jews believe is the differentiating factor for them. As ancient Israel believed itself through its history to be standing in a unique relationship to the divine. This basic belief affects and fashions life-style and mode of existence in a way markedly different from most other groups starting with a somewhat similar insight. Although, the Latter Day Saints - Mormons, seem to stake out a somewhat similar chosen people claim.

The response of the people of Israel to the divine presence in history was seen as crucial not only for itself but for all mankind. Further, G--d had,as person,in a particular encounter revealed the pattern and structure of communal and individual life for this people. Claiming sovereignty over the people because of his continuing action in history on their behalf was critical. G,d had established a berit ("covenant") with the Israeli community and required obedience to his Torah (teaching).

This obedience was a means by which the divine presence was manifested ,expressed within in the reality of human existence. The modus Vivendi of the chosen community, by its living example was to summon the rest of mankind to recognize God's presence, sovereignty, and purpose,thus G,D would establish peace and well-being in the universe and for all mankind.

If not sadly then solemnly, the long history disclosed not only God's purpose but also manifested man's inability to live in accord with it. Though it was the unique chosen community, it failed in its obligation and had, time and again, to be summoned back to its responsibility by divinely called spokesmen,the prophets,who warned of retribution within a long history that 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 mankind.

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Nature and Characteristics of the Religion and Its People

Over the nearly 4,000 years of historical development, the Jewish people and their religion have displayed both a remarkable adaptability and continuity. In their encounter with the great civilizations, from ancient Babylonia and Egypt down to Western Christendom and modern secular cultures, they have assimilated foreign elements and integrated them into their own socio-religious system while maintaining an unbroken line of ethnic and religious tradition. Each period of Jewish history left behind it specific elements of a Judaic heritage that had a continuity that influenced subsequent developments. The totality of Jewish heritage is a combination of all these successive elements along with inevitable adjustments and accretions that are the imperatives of each new age. The time-line of these accretions and adjustments is to most not important it is a continuity that yields the heritage of today.

Belief in the one and only God of Israel has been adhered to by professing Jews of all ages and all shades of sectarian opinion Still, The fundamental teaching of the oneness of G,D in Judaism is around concepts of an ethical (or ethical-historical) monotheism. By its very nature monotheism ultimately postulates religious universalism, although it was often combined with a measure of particularism. In the case of ancient Israel's exceptionalism took the shape of the doctrine of election; that is, of a people chosen by God as "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" to set an example for all mankind. As the 8th-century-BCE prophet, Amos expressed it: "You only, have I known - of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities."

Furthermore, it was a concept that combined the idea of a messiah. Accordingly, at the advent of the Redeemer, all nations would see the light, give up war and strife, and follow the guidance of the Torah (divine guidance, teaching, or law) emanating from Zion (a hill in Jerusalem that has a special spiritual significance). With all its variations in detail, messianism has, in one form or another, permeated Jewish thinking throughout the ages. Also, under various guises, it has colored the outlook of many secular-minded Jews. (See also eschatology below).

Law became the major instrumentality by which Judaism was to bring about the reign of God on earth. In this case law meant not only what the Romans called jus (human law) but also fas, the divine or moral law that embraces practically all domains of life. The ideal, therefore, expressed in the Ten Commandments, was a religio-ethical way of life that involved ritualistic observance as well as individual and social ethics. Judaism was to be a liturgical-ethical way constantly expatiated on by the prophets and priests, rabbinic sages, and philosophers. Conduct was to be placed in the service of God, as the transcendent and immanent Ruler of the universe, as such the Creator and propelling force of the natural world. Moreover G-d was the One giving guidance to history and thus helping man to overcome the potentially destructive and amoral forces of nature. According to Judaic belief, it is through the historical evolution of man, and particularly of the Jewish people, that the divine guidance of history constantly manifests itself. Ultimately it will culminate in the messianic age. Judaism, whether in its "normative" form, or its sectarian deviations, has never completely departed from this basic ethical-historical monotheism.

However understood, the background of this choice is the recurring disobedience of mankind narrated in Genesis 2-11. Abraham and his descendants are singled out not merely as the object of the divine blessing but also as its channel to all mankind. 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 "father's house" (Gen. 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) 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 may, according to some contemporary scholars, have been reenacted on a regular basis at various sacred sites in the land, eventually 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 spokesmen for God, called the community to renewed obedience, threatened and promised disaster if such was not forthcoming, and,recalling the source of the choice in divine love,sought to explain its persistence even when, strictly understood, the covenant should have been repudiated by God. A paradigmatic statement is made in the narrative that begins with Genesis and concludes with Joshua.

In the early chapters of Genesis the divine is described as Creator of the natural order, including mankind. In the Eden, Flood, and Tower of Babel stories, man is recognized as rebellious and disobedient. In the patriarchal stories (about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph) a particular family is called out of humankind to restore the thwarted relationship through personal and communal responsiveness. The subsequent history of the community thus formed is recounted so that the divinely sought restoration may be recognized and the nature of the obedient community may be observed: the Egyptian servitude, the going out 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) continue to deal with the rebellion-obedience tension, interpreting it within the changing historical context and adding new levels of meaning to the fulfillment-redemption motif. 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 continued to provide 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

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The Ancient Middle Eastern Setting

The Bible depicts the family of the Hebrew patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) as having had its chief seat in the northern Mesopotamian town of Harran,then (mid-2nd millennium BCE) belonging to the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni. Abraham, the founder of the Hebrew people, is said to have migrated from there to Canaan (comprising roughly the region of modern Israel and Lebanon),throughout the biblical period and later ages a vortex of west Asian, Egyptian, and east Mediterranean ethno-culture. Thence the Hebrew ancestors of the people of Israel (named after the patriarch Jacob, also called Israel) migrated to Egypt. They lived in the land of the Pharaohs in servitude for generations later returning to occupy part of Canaan. There is little doubt that their arrival and occupation of the land of Canaan brought on the genocide of the Canaanites.

Though the Hebrews were semi-nomadic herdsmen and occasionally farmers, ranging close to towns and living in houses as well as tents there is no doubt they claimed Canaan as there own promised land. The land dispute with the earlier inhabitants continues in a newer version today. The Palestinians have no better claim than the Israelites even though of a more recent vintage. The wrongful ejection of the Hebrews by the Romans in 70 AD gave rise to a primal need for recovery. Obviously, it would have been better for the Earth if after the blood bath in the land of Canaan these warring factions had blended their cultures in law as they did in fact. Purity of race among humans has been the cause of much woeful conduct not in the service of God.

The Khazars

A thousand years before the establishment of the Modern State of Israel, there existed a Jewish kingdom in the eastern fringes of Europe, astride the Don and Volga rivers.This kingdom, called Khazaria, was one of the most interesting and influential countries of the medieval world. Its power was so great that it had the ability to finance a permanent paid army. Khazaria was "the most significant attempt at the establishment of an independent Jewish state in the early Diaspora", according to former Israeli President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi in his book The Exiled and the Redeemed.

One of the principal authorities on the Khazars, Professor Peter Golden of Rutgers University, wrote in his book Khazar Studies: "Every schoolchild in the West has been told that if not for Charles Martel and the battle of Poitiers there might be a mosque where Notre Dame now stands. What few schoolchildren are aware of is that if not for the Khazars... Eastern Europe might well have become a province of Islam." The subsequent peaceful period in the eastern European steppes has been named the "pax khazarica" since it was the Khazars who enabled various tribes, like Slavs, to expand their settlements and engage in productive activities, free from the threat of warfare and strife.

The remarkable country of the Khazars first entered the Jewish orbit when it allowed Jews to settle in their land free from persecution. Jewish refugees from Byzantium, Persia, Mesopotamia, and elsewhere flooded into the Khazars realm from the 8th through the 10th century. Bringing with them Hebrew literacy, a love for Israel, the Jewish religion, and technological skill. The Cambridge Document, translated., by Norman Golb stated that immigrant Armenian Jews "intermarried with the inhabitants of the land, intermingled with the gentiles, learned their practices, and would continually go out with them to war; [and] they [Midwestern Jews and Khazarians] became one people...."

Remarkably, the Khazars, a people of Turkic origin, converted to the Jewish religion sometime in the 9th century, beginning with the royal house and spreading gradually among the general populace. It is believed nearly one million Khazars converted to Judaism at that time. The Khazars felt that being hemmed in by Christians to the West and Muslims to the East and South it was wise to adopt a religion of the Book for home security. It is now the accepted opinion among most scholars in the field that the conversion of the Khazars to Judaism was widespread. Bin al-Faqih, in fact, wrote "All of the Khazars are Jews." Christian of Stave lot wrote in 864 that "all of them profess the Jewish faith in its entirety." A Persian work by Denkart represented Judaism as the principal religion of the Khazars.

How sincere was their Judaism? Abd al-Jabbar ibn Muhammad al-Hamdani, writing in the early 11th century, pointed out that "they took upon themselves the difficult obligations enjoined by the law of the Torah, such as circumcision, the ritual ablutions, washing after a discharge of the semen, the prohibition of work on the Sabbath and during the feasts, the prohibition of eating the flesh of forbidden animals according to this religion, and so on. It is a wonder that other dedicated Jews in Europe such as those of Spain, Holland, Germany, and Austria has any sense of commonality with these volunteers who were not born of the gene pool associated with the land where Jerusalem is located. In modern terms, it is certain that this was an entirely new strain of DNA. The "Chosen People" of the Diaspora were no longer the pure-breeds from ancient Israel. Clearly, their assertion that the Jews of today are "One People" in the genetic sense is no truer than such an assertion of being pure bred by a modern day Englishman from the polyglot British Isles.

The acceptance of Russian-Jews to "their "homeland, Israel, is a worthy act of charity but it is not the re-admission of people who base their right to live there on the nativity of their ancestors. No such birth right exists.

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 the fulfillment, from the divine side, of the Covenant. The goal of the Israelites escaping from Egypt is the same land, and entry into it is understood in the same fashion. The return from the Babylonian Exile, too, is seen in the same light. As there was the choice of a people, so was there 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. Though 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, although He had chosen a particular territory for this chosen people. Here again the twofold nature of Jewish thought becomes apparent, and both sides are to 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 integral 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, viewed as paradigmatic. Although some Jews continued to live in the land, yet for most in the distant dispersion it was idealized and viewed 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 utopian 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 colored by nationalist motifs in European thought. The coming together of these two strains of thought gave rise to Zionism.

The political movement, Zionism, reflected a dissatisfaction with the view of the Jews as merely a body or organization of religious believers,like the Christian churches,an interpretation that had become dominant following the political emancipation of the Jews in the period after Napoleon. The political emphasis of Zionism aroused considerable opposition from those Jews who were convinced of the necessity of a churchly definition of Judaism parallel to the Roman Catholic and Protestant communions. While this conflict erupted in bitter debate during the first half of the 20th century, the events of the Nazi period in Europe brought it to a close, except for some sporadic renewals on the part of some numerically insignificant groups.

For the most part, although there are few satisfactory formulations,theological or secular,there is a working consensus that acknowledges a significant role to the land and recognizes that a churchly definition of the Jewish community, while strategically acceptable in some situations, does not do justice to history and is not theologically sound if it suggests that Judaism merely consists of abstract doctrines and dogmas. Some Jews, however, continue to argue that whatever the past has been, the future of the Jewish community is with those movements in the modern world that cut across or transcend the particularity Zionism represents. The free admission of these Khazar descent, and such others, cannot be rational based on this analysis.

Initially, the level of Israelite culture resembled that of its surroundings; it was neither wholly original nor primitive Their family customs and law have parallels in Old Babylonian and Hurro-Semite law of the early and middle 2nd millennium. The concept of people ass the messenger of God that underlies biblical prophecy was Amorite (West Semitic) and was found in the tablets at Mari. Mesopotamian religious and cultural legends and myths are reflected in biblical cosmogony, its primeval history (including the Flood story in Gen. 6:9-8:22), and the law collections which are somewhat derivative. The Canaanite local's component of Israelite culture consisted of the Hebrew language and a rich literary heritage,whose Ugarit form (which flourished in the northern Syrian city of Ugarit from the mid-15th century to about 1200 BCE) illuminates the Bible's poetry, style, mythological allusions, and religio-cultic terms.

Egypt provides many analogues for Hebrew songs and chants and wisdom literature as well. All the cultures among which the Jewish patriarchs lived had cosmic gods who fashioned the world and preserved its order, including justice. All had a developed ethic that was expressed in religious law and moral admonitions; and all had sophisticated religious rites and myths.

Though more direct in style, 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 ideas that the outmoded assumption that Israelite religion began on a primitive level is now rejected. Judaism is late-born amid high civilizations. The Israelite religion was from the start an admixture of high and low features that characterized all the known religions of the area. Implanted on the land bridge between Europe, Africa and Asia, Israel was exposed to crosscurrents of foreign thought throughout its history.

The Religion of the Patriarchs -Pre-Mosaic Period

Israelite tradition identified YHWH (scholarly convention pronounces it Yahweh), the God of Israel, with the Creator of the world. Known and worshipped by men from the beginning of time. Abraham circa 17 to 19 centuries BCE did not discover this God. , but entered into a blood covenant relation with him. G,D promised the land of Canaan and many progeny. Through Moses, God fulfilled that promise 13 centuries BCE. Legend has it that Moses led the liberation of the people of Israel from Egypt. Through Moses, Yahweh thundered the Covenant at Mt. Sinai and after years 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, and the Hebrew tradition itself, moreover, does not unanimously support even the more modest claim of the continuity of YHWH worship from Abraham to Moses. Against it is a statement in chapter 6, verse 3, of Exodus that God revealed himself to the patriarchs not as YHWH but as El Shade,a word of unknown meaning the frequency of which in patriarchal narratives and Job and other verses and songs seems to confirm its archaic and unidentified Israelite character.

The MeetingHouse regrets the very limited commentary on the Tribe of David and the original House of David, and the Psalms attributed to him. David as a source of heralded descendents call for more. recent scholars have asserted that David may be legendary. Some even allege an amalgam of myth and trivia. Furthermore it appears that the writers of the Pantatach may be one writer, a woman, called the Yahwist which is a pleasant revelation. ( Some even allege she was Bathsheba). We will delay to our next revision of the E Book to a resolution of this obvious problem.

Comparable is the diffusion of the epithet El Elion (God Most High). Neither of these epithets appears in the post-patriarchal narratives except for the Book of Ruth. Other compounded salutes with El are unique to Genesis: El Olam (God the Everlasting One), El Bethel (God Bethel), and El Ro?i (God of Vision). There is an additional peculiarity of the patriarchal stories. It is in their use of the phrase "God of my [your, his] father." All of these meaningful names have been taken as evidence that the patriarchal religion differed from the worship of YHWH that began with Moses. The absence of any history of other sons of adam such as Ishmael, Ishnall, and Ham is further evidence of censorship by the mosaic descendents.

The patriarchs are depicted as blessed objects of God's protection, and providential care. Their response is a loyal and obedient, observant cult whose ordinary expression is sacrifice, vow, and prayer at an altar, stone pillar, or sacred tree. Circumcision was a distinctive sign of the cult community. The doctrine of ultimate destiny (eschatology) of their faith was God's promise of land and a great progeny. One infers that any flagrant contradictions between patriarchal and later mores have presumably been censored. Yet distinctive features of the post-Mosaic religion are absent.

This unnamed deity (if indeed he was one only) acquired various Canaanite words of praise (El, Elyon, Olam, Bethel, one eretz [possessor of the Land]) only after the Jews immigration into Canaan. It is doubtful that the name of YHWH was known to the patriarchs. It is significant that while the epithets Shaddai and El occur with frequency in pre-Mosaic and Mosaic-age names, YHWH appears as an essential element only in the names of Yehoshua? (Joshua) and perhaps of Jochebed,persons who were closely associated with Moses.

The God of the patriarchs shows nothing of YHWH's "jealousy"; no religious tension or contrast with their neighbors appears, and idolatry is scarcely an issue. Evangelical Christians are caught up in a Mosaic perception of YHWH probably from the King James Version that is no longer perceived to be as accurate.

The patriarchal covenant differed from the Mosaic Covenant of Sinai. Instead it appears to be modeled in the style of a royal grant to favorites and contains no obligations the fulfillment of which was to be the pre-condition of their happiness. Evidently it is not the same as the later religion of Israel. Patriarchal religion prepared the way for it in its familial basis, its personal call by the deity, and its response of loyalty and obedience to him.

Little can be defined about the religion of the patriarchs in relation to the religions of Canaan. Known points of contact between the two are the divine names mentioned above. Like the God of the fathers, El, the head of the Ugaritic pantheon was depicted both as a judgmental and a compassionate deity. Baal (Lord), the aggressive young agricultural deity of Ugarit, is remarkably absent from Genesis. Yet the socio-economic situation of the patriarchs was so different from the urban, mercantile, and monarchical background of the Ugaritic myths as to render any comparisons highly speculative and therefore questionable.

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The Egyptian Sojourn

According to Hebrew tradition, a famine caused the migration to Egypt of the band of 12 Hebrew families that later made up the tribal league in the land of Israel. The schematic character of this tradition does not impair the historicity of: a migration to Egypt; enslavement by Egyptians; and an escape from Egypt; under an inspired leader for the descendants of those who later formed a league of Israelite tribes. To disallow these events would make their centrality as articles of faith in the later religious beliefs of Israel inexplicable.

Traditional Birth of the Nation

Tradition gives the following account of the birth of the nation. At the Exodus from Egypt (13th century BCE), YHWH showed his faithfulness and power by liberating Israel from bondage and punishing their oppressors with plagues and drowning at the sea. At Sinai, he made Israel his people and gave them the terms of his Covenant, regulating their conduct toward him and each other so as to make them a holy nation. After sustaining them miraculously during their 40-year wilderness trek, he enabled them to take the land that he had promised to their fathers, the patriarchs. Central to these events is God's apostle, Moses, who was commissioned to lead Israel out of Egypt, mediate God's Covenant to them, and bring them to Canaan.

Behind these legends and the multiform law collections, a historical figure must be posited to whom the legends and the legislative activity could be attached. It is precisely Moses' unusual combination of roles that makes him credible as a historical figure. Like Muhammad at the birth of Islam, Moses fills oracular, legislative, executive, and military functions. The main institutions of Israel are his creation: the priesthood and the sacred shrine, the Covenant and its rules, the administrative apparatus of the tribal league. Significantly, though Moses is compared to a prophet in various texts in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), he is never designated as one,the term being evidently unsuited for so comprehensive and unique a figure.

Is it a Mosaic Religion?

The distinctive features of Israelite religion appear at the time of Moses. The proper name of Israel's God, YHWH, was revealed and interpreted to Moses as meaning ehye asher ehye,an enigmatic phrase (literally meaning "I am. Shall be what I am. Shall be") suggestive of the infinite. The Covenant, defining Israel's obligations, is ascribed to Moses' mediation on Mt. Sinai. Although it is impossible to determine what rulings go back to Moses, the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, presented in chapter 20 of Exodus and chapter 5 of Deuteronomy, and the larger and smaller Covenant codes in Ex. 20:22-23:33; 34:11-26)contain early covenant law. We observe that: (1) the rules are formulated as God's utterances,i.e., expressions of his sovereign will. (2) They are directed toward, and often explicitly addressed to, the people at large; Moses merely conveys the Lord's message to his subjects. (3) Promulgation being an essential of the enforceability of the rules, the people as a whole are held responsible for their observance.

The liberation from Egypt laid upon Israel the obligation of exclusive loyalty to YHWH. This meant eschewing all other gods,including idols venerated as such,and the elimination of all recourse to esoteric magic. The worship of YHWH was to be without any icons (without images). Such idols and shrines as might serve to worship him were banned,(the inference being that through them men may influence or control the god by fixing his presence in a particular place and making him accessible there). Though a mythological background lies behind some cultic terminology (e.g., "a pleasing odor to Y YHWH," "my bread") sacrifices are rationalized as tributes or regarded purely as a sacrament; i.e., as a material means of relating to God. Hebrew festivals also have no mythological basis. They either celebrate God's bounty (e.g., at the ingathering of the harvest) or his saving acts (e.g., the festival of unleavened bread, which is a memorial of the Exodus).

The values of life and limb, labor, and social solidarity are protected in the rules on relations between man and man. The involuntary perpetual slavery of Hebrews is abolished, and a seven-year limit is set on bondage. The humanity of having slaves is defended: one who beats his slave to death is liable to death; if he maims a slave he must set the slave free. A murderer is denied asylum and may not ransom himself from death, while for deliberate and severe bodily injuries the lex talionis ("an eye for an eye" principle) is ordained. Harm to property or theft is punished monetarily, never by death. Moral exhortations call for solidarity with the poor and the helpless, for brotherly assistance to fellows in need. Institutions are created (e.g., the sabbatical, or seventh, fallow year, in which land is not cultivated) to embody these canons in practice.

Since the goal of the people was the conquest of the land of others ( The Canannites), their religion had warlike features. Organized as an army (called "the hosts of YHWH" in Ex. 12:41), they encamped in a protective square around the tent housing the ark in which the stone "tablets of the Covenant" rested. When journeying, the sacred objects were carried and guarded by the Levites (a tribe serving religious functions), whose rivals, the Aaronites, had a monopoly on the priesthood. God was called "the warrior," marched with the army; in war and part of the booty was delivered to his ministers.

The Conquest and Settlement of Canaan

The conquest of Canaan was remembered as a continuation of God's marvels at the Exodus. The Jordan River was split asunder, Jericho's walls fell at Israel's shout; the enemy was seized with divinely inspired terror; the sun stood still in order to enable Israel to exploit its victory. Such stories are not necessarily the work of a later age; they reflect rather the dazzling impact of these victories on the actors in the drama, who felt themselves successful by the grace of God.

A complex process of occupation, involving both battles of annihilation and treaty arrangements with the natives, has been simplified in the biblical account of Joshua's wars. It ignores the terrifying aspects of the genocide of the Canaanites. In modern times it is not possible to believe that GOD forgives such mortal sins. The Bible's record justifies this seizure of the land of another tribe of humans. It seems clear that this is the seed of the justification of Wars that is popular among preachers to this day. (We must thank GOD for the conscientious objectors who speak out for the right choice, pacifism and diplomacy over the use of deadly violence. It is hypocritical for one side to claim that their side of the war is just). Gradually, the unity of the invaders dissolved (most scholars believe that the invading element was only part of the Hebrew settlement in Canaan; (Other Hebrews, long since settled in Canaan from patriarchal times, may have joined the invaders' covenant league). Individual tribes fought and probably negotiated to get their way with more or less success against the residue of Canaanite resistance. New enemies, Israel's neighbors to the east and west, appeared. The period of the judges (leaders or champions) began.

The Book of Judges, though the main witness does not speak with one voice on the religious situation. It describes repeated cycles of apostasy, oppression, appeal to God, and relief through a God sent champion. The individual stories, however, present a different picture. Apostasy does not figure in the exploits of the judges Ehud, Deborah, Jephthah, and Samson; YHWH has no rival, and faith in him is confirmed by the saviors he ostensibly sends to rescue Israel from their neighbors. This faith is shared by all the tribes; and the religious bond, preserved by the common cult, was enough to enable the tribes to act more or less in concert under the leadership of elders or an inspired champion whenever there was a time of danger or religious scandal.

Testimonies point to the Hebrews' adoption of Canaanite cults,the Baal worship of Gideon's family and neighbors in Ophrah in Judges, chapter 6, is an example. The many cultic figurines (usually female) found in Israelite levels of Palestinian archaeological sites gives some credence to the sweeping indictments of the framework of the Book of Judges. But these phenomena belonged to some localized private, popular religion; the national God, YHWH, remained one. Baal sent no prophets to Israel,though YHWH's demand for exclusive worship was obviously not effectual. Nor did Baal's cult conform to later orthodoxy. Micah's idol in Judges, chapter 17, and Gideon's ephod (priestly or religious garment) were treated as apostasies by the writer(s). This was in accord with the dogma that other than orthodoxy there is only apostasy,heterodoxy (nonconformity) being unrecognized and simply equated with apostasy. This problem has not been solved. Over time, the sects known as the Conservative, Orthodox, the Reformed, and others demonstrate the vitality of diversity within the Hebrew religion.

As a practical matter, a single priestly family could not operate all these established sanctuaries. Though Levites rose to the priesthood; at private sanctuaries even non-Levites were consecrated as priests. The Ark of the Covenant was housed in the Shiloh sanctuary, staffed by priests of the house of Eli, who traced their consecration back to Egypt. But the ark remained portable for times of war. Therefore, Shiloh was not regarded as its final resting place. The law in Exodus, chapter 20, verses 24-26, authorizing a plurality of altar sites and the simplest forms of construction (earth and rough stone) suited the plain conditions of this period and were an act of wisdom.

The Period of Classical Prophecy and Cult Reform - The Emergence of the Literary Prophets

By the mid-8th century a hundred years of chronic warfare between Israel and Aram had finally ended,the well-to-do expressed their relief in lavish attentions to the institutions of worship and their private mansions. But the strain of warfare showed in the polarization of society between the wealthy few who had profited from the war and the masses whom it had ravaged and impoverished. It is amazing that hope springs eternally from the detritus of selfish human activities Hope animated society, as the survivors turned to a new breed of prophets who now appeared,the literary or classical prophets. .

The idea that violation of the socio-moral injunctions of the Covenant would bring down the wrath of G,D was first proclaimed by Amos. Amos almost ignored idolatry, denouncing instead the corruption and callousness of the oligarchy and rulers. The religious exercises of such villains he proclaimed were loathsome to God

The troubled society's malaise was interpreted by Hosea, a prophet of the northern kingdom (Israel), as a forgetting of God. As a result, in his view, all authority had evaporated: the king was scoffed at, priests became hypocrites, and pleasure seeking became the order of the day. The monarchy was godless; it put its trust in arms, fortifications, and alliances with the great powers. Salvation, however, lay in none of these but in repentance and reliance upon God.

It was the Jerusalem Temple that adopted foreign customs. It was at this time that Isaiah prophesied in Jerusalem. His message focused on the corruption of King Judah's society and religion, stressing the new prophetic themes of the wrong of indifference to God. And the relatively lesser importance of social morality. The political crisis evoked Isaiah's appeals for trust in God, with the warning that his "hired razor from across the Euphrates" would shave Judah clean as well. Isaiah interpreted the inexorable advance of Assyria as God's chastisement; Assyria was "the rod of God's wrath." But, Assyria ignored that it was an instrumentality and exceeded in an insolent manner its proper function, God, when he finished his purgative work through Assyrian force, would break Assyria on Judah's mountains. Then it was said, the nations of the world, who had been subjugated by Assyria, would recognize the God of Israel as the lord of history. A renewed Israel would prosper under the reign of an ideal Davidic king. All men would flock to Zion (the hill symbolizing Jerusalem) to learn the ways of YHWH and submit to his adjudication, and universal peace would prevail (see also eschatology). We are still waiting for this grand idea to hold sway over the human race.

The prophecy of Micah (8th century BCE, was contemporary with that of Isaiah and touched on similar themes (e.g., the vision of universal peace is found in both their books). Unlike Isaiah, however, who believed in the inviolability of Jerusalem, Micah shocked his audience with the announcement that the wickedness of its rulers would cause Zion to become a plowed field; Jerusalem would be a heap of ruins; and the Temple mount a wooded height. Moreover, Micah prophesied the precedence of social morality over cultic faith and worship without service. Micah drew the extreme conclusion that the cult had no ultimate value and that God's requirement of men can be summed up as "to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God." This may explain why Micah is not very popular among the Evangelical Christians.

Reforms in the Southern Kingdom

According to Jeremiah (about 100 years later), Micah's prophetic threat to Jerusalem had caused King Hezekiah to placate God,possibly an allusion to the cult reform instituted by the King in order to cleanse Judah from various pagan practices such as the fetish of Moses bronze serpent. The sweeping reform did away with the local altars and stone pillars, the venerable (patriarchal) antiquity of which did not save them from the taint of imitation of Canaanite practice. Hezekiah's reform movement is the first historical evidence for Deuteronomy's doctrine of cult centralization.

Hezekiah was the leading figure in a western coalition of states that coordinated a rebellion against the Assyrian king Sennacherib but it was defeated. Hezekiah saw his kingdom overwhelmed and offered tribute to Sennacherib; Sennacherib, however, pressed for the surrender of Jerusalem. In despair, Hezekiah turned to the prophet Isaiah for an oracle. Isaiah stood firm in his faith that Jerusalem's destiny precluded its fall into heathen hands. The powerful Sennacherib, for reasons still obscure, suddenly retired from Judah and returned home. This unlooked-for deliverance of the city may have been regarded as a vindication of the prophet's faith. While Jerusalem was intact, the country had been devastated and its kingdom turned into a vassal state of Assyria.

During Manasseh's long and peaceful reign in the 7th century BCE, Judah was a submissive ally of Assyria. Manasseh's forces served in the building and military operations of the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal. Judah benefited from the upsurge of commerce that resulted from the political unification of the whole Near East. The prophet Zephaniah attests to heavy foreign influence on the mores of Jerusalem. The royal sanctuary became the home of a congeries of foreign gods,the sun, astral deities, and Ashram (the female fertility deity). All had their cults there alongside YHWH. The countryside also was provided with pagan altars and priests, alongside the local YHWH altars that were revived. Presumably, at least some of the blood that Manasseh is said to have spilled freely in Jerusalem must have belonged to YHWH's devotees. Probably by way of later censorship no prophecy is dated to his long reign. In the course of renovating the Temple, a scroll of Moses' Torah (by scholarly consensus an edition of Deuteronomy) was found.

Anxious to abide by its injunctions, Josiah had the local YHWH altars polluted to render them unusable and collected their priests in Jerusalem. The celebration of the Passover that year was concentrated in the Temple, as it had not been "since the days of the judges who judged Israel. To seal the reform, the King convoked a representative assembly and had them enter into a covenant with God over the newfound Torah. For the first time, the power of the state was enlisted on behalf of the ancient covenant and in obedience to a covenant document. It was a major step toward the fixation of a sacred canon. Later, there is evidence of recrudescence of unofficial local altars. Whether references in Jeremiah and Ezekiel to child sacrifice to YHWH reflect post-Josianic practices is uncertain. There is stronger indication of private recourse to pagan cults in the worsening political situation. Confessing perplexity at God's toleration of the success of the wicked in subjugating the righteous, the prophet affirms his faith in the coming salvation of YHWH, tarry though it might, in the meantime, it bolstered the maxim, "the righteous must live in his faith."

For the prophet Jeremiah (active c. 626-c. 580 BCE), the Josianic era was only an interlude in Israel's career of guilt that went back to its origins. His pre-reform prophecies denounced Israel as a faithless wife and warned of imminent retribution. Jeremiah now proclaimed a scandalous doctrine of the duty of all nations; Judah included, to submit to the divinely appointed world ruler, the Babylonian monarch Nebuchadnezzar. In submission lay the only hope of avoiding destruction; a term of 70 years had been set to humiliate all men beneath Babylon. Imprisoned for demoralizing the populace, Jeremiah persisted in what was viewed as his traitorous message

Jeremiah also had a message of comfort for his hearers. He foresaw the restoration of the entire people,north and south,in the land, under a new David. And since events had shown that man was incapable of achieving a lasting reconciliation with God on his own, he envisioned the penitent of the future being met halfway by God, who would remake their nature so that to do his will would come naturally to them. God's new covenant with Israel would be written on their hearts, so that they should no longer need to teach each other obedience, for young and old would know YHWH.

In Babylonia, the prophet Ezekiel, Jeremiah's contemporary, was haunted by the burden of Israel's sin. He envisioned the Temple as present before his eyes, and described God as abandoning it and Jerusalem to their fates. Ezekiel prophesied an inexorable, total destruction as the condition of reconciliation with God. The majesty of God was too grossly offended for any lesser satisfaction. The glory of God demanded Israel's ruin, but the same cause required its restoration. Israel's fall had disgraced YHWH among the nations; to save his reputation he would therefore restore Israel to its land. The dried bones of Israel must revive, that they and all the nations should know that he was YHWH (Ezek. 37). Ezekiel, too, foresaw the remaking of human nature, but as a necessity of God's glorification. The doom prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel came true. Rebellious Jerusalem was reduced by Nebuchadnezzar, the Temple was burnt, and much of Judah's population dispersed or deported to Babylonia.

The Period of Exile

The survival of the religious community of exiles in Babylonia demonstrates how well rooted and widespread the religion of YHWH was. Abandonment of the national religion as an outcome of the disaster is recorded by a minority only. There were some cries of despair, but the persistence of prophecy among the exiles shows that their religious vitality had not flagged.

The Babylonian Jewish community, in which the cream of Judah lived, had no sanctuary or altar developed in their place can be surmised: fixed prayer; public fasts and confessions; and assembly for the study of the Torah, which may have developed from visits to the prophets for oracular edification. The absence of a territorial focus spurred the formation of a literary-ideational centre of communal life. It is of great significance that the sacred canon of Covenant documents became the core of the present Pentateuch. Observance of the Sabbath,a peculiarly public feature of communal life,achieved a significance among the exiles virtually equivalent to all the rest of the Covenant rules together. Notwithstanding its political impotence, the spirit of the exiles was so high that foreigners were attracted to their ranks, hopeful of sharing their future glory. Assurance of that future glory was given not only in the consolations promised by Jeremiah and Ezekiel (the fulfillment of whose prophecies of doom lent credit to their consolations).

A great comfort for the exiled was the writer or writers of what is known as Deuteron-Isaiah (Is. 40-66). He perceived in the rise and progress (from c. 550) of the Persian king Cyrus II the Great the instrument of God's salvation. Going beyond the national hopes of Ezekiel, animated by the universal spirit of the pre-exilic Isaiah, Deutero-Isaiah saw in the miraculous restoration of Israel a means of converting the whole world to faith in Israel's God. Israel would thus serve as "a light for the nations so that YHWH's salvation may reach to the end of the earth." In his conception of the vicarious suffering of God's servant,through which atonement is made for the ignorant heathen,Deutero-Isaiah found a handle by which to grasp the enigma of faithful Israel's lowly state among the Gentiles. The idea was destined to play a decisive role in the self-perception by the Jewish martyrs of the Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanies' persecution in the 2nd century BCE also for example, Daniel, and, later again in the Christian appreciation of the death of Jesus.

The Period of the Restoration

After conquering Babylon, Cyrus justified the hopes put in him by allowing those Jews who wished to do so to return and rebuild their Temple. Though, in time, some 40,000 made their way back, they were soon disillusioned by the failure of the glories of the restoration to materialize and by the controversy with the Samaritans, that they left off building the Temple. The Samaritans were a judaized mixture of native north Israelites and Gentile deportees who had been settled by the Assyrians in the erstwhile northern kingdom. Zacharias urged the people too quickly to complete the building of the Temple. The labor was resumed and completed in 516 BCE, but the prophecies remained unfulfilled. And the spirit of the community flagged again.

The one religious constant in the vicissitudes of the restored community was the mood of repentance and the desire to win back God's favor by adherence to his Covenant rules. The anxiety that underlay this mood produced hostility toward strangers, which encouraged a lasting conflict with the Samaritans who had asked permission to take part in rebuilding the Temple of the God they too worshipped. The Jews, however, rejected them on ill-specified grounds,apparently ethno-religious; i.e., they felt the Samaritans to be alien to their historical community of faith, especially to its messianic hopes. Nonetheless, intermarriage occurred and precipitated a new crisis when, in 458, the priest Ezra arrived from Babylon, intent on enforcing the regimen of the Torah. By construing ancient and obsolete laws that had excluded Canaanites and others so as to make them apply to their own times and neighbors, the leaders of the Jews brought about the divorce and expulsion of several dozen non-Jewish wives and their children. Tension between the xenophobic (fear of strangers) and xenophilic (love of strangers) in post-exilic Judaism was finally resolved some two centuries later with the development of a formula of religious conversion, whereby Gentiles who so wished could be taken into the Jewish community by a single, simple procedure.

The decisive constitutional event of the new community was the covenant subscribed to by its leaders in 444, making the Torah the law of the land: by way of a charter granted by the Persian king Artaxerxes I to Ezra,scholar and priest of the Babylonian Exile. The charter empowered him to enforce the Torah as the imperial law for the Jews of the province Avar-nahra (Beyond the River), in which the district of Judah (now reduced to a small area) was located. The charter required the publication of the Torah and the publication, in turn, entailed its final editing,now plausibly ascribed to Ezra and his circle. Survival in the Torah of remnants of earlier patent inconsistencies and disaccords with the post-exilic situation indicate that its materials were by then sacrosanct, as so compiled but no longer created. But these remnants made necessary the immediate invention of a harmonizing and creative method of text interpretation to adjust the Torah to the needs of the times.

Torah in the broad sense includes the whole Hebrew Bible, including the prophetic books. In biblical prophecy, God is seen as continuing to be disclosed in the nexus of historical events and as making ethical demands upon the community. According to rabbinic Judaism, this source of Torah,the charismatic person,dried up 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 defensive reaction to the luxuriant growth of apocalyptic speculation about the end of the world and the kingdoms of this world, a development that was considered dangerous and unsettling in the period after the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-135 CE). Indeed, there appears to have developed an ongoing suspicion that unrestrained individual experience as the 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 Christian centuries to point to wonders and miracles in their own time. Far from expressing an ossification of religious experience,the development of the Siddur 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 such religious enthusiasm as was exhibited, for example, in the behavior of the Christian Church in Corinth (I Cor.) 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 (16th century), 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 Shul?an arukh.

Admittedly, there have been occasions when Torah, even in the wide sense, has been rigidly viewed and 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 checked and reversed by the inherent dynamism of the rabbinic tradition.

The Levites were trained in the art of interpreting the text to the people; the first product of the creative exegesis later to be known as Midrash is to be found in the covenant document of Nehemiah, chapter 9,every item of which shows development, not reproduction, of a ruling of the Torah. Thus, with the publication of the Torah as the law of the Jews the basis of the vast edifice of the Oral Law characteristic of Judaism was laid.

Concern over observance of the Torah was fed by the gap between messianic expectations and the gray reality of the restoration. The gap signified God's continued displeasure, and the only way to regain his favor was to do his will. Thus it is that Malachi, the last of the prophets, concludes with an admonition to be mindful of the Torah of Moses. God's displeasure, however, had always been signaled by a break in communication with him. As time passed and messianic hopes remained unfulfilled, the sense of a permanent suspension of normal relations with God took hold, and prophecy died out. God, it was believed, would some day be reconciled with his people, and a glorious revival of prophecy would then occur. For the present, however, religious vitality expressed itself in dedication to the development of institutions that would make the Torah effective in life. The course of this development is hidden from view by the dearth of sources from the Persian period. Still, the community emerged into the light of history in Hellenistic times as one made over radically by this momentous, quiet process.

Religious Rites and Customs in Palestine: The Temple and Synagogues circa 538 BCE

The most important religious institution of the Jews until its destruction in 70 was the Temple in Jerusalem,the Second Temple, erected 538-516 BCE. Though services were interrupted for three years by Antiochus Epiphanies (167-164 BCE) and the Roman general Pompey desecrated the Temple (63 BCE), Herod lavished great expense in rebuilding it. However, the high priesthood itself became degraded by the extreme Hellenism of such high priests as Jason and Menelaus. The institution of the Temple declined when Herod began the custom of appointing the high priests for political and financial considerations. Sharp divisions among the priesthood itself, but also the multitude of Jews suffered from the bitter class warfare that ultimately erupted in 59 CE between the high priests on the one hand, and the ordinary priests and the leaders of the populace of Jerusalem on the other.

Though the Temple remained central to Jewish worship, synagogues probably already emerged during the Babylonian Exile in the 6th century BCE. According to interpretation of some scholars, a synagogue existed even within the precincts of the Temple; and certainly by the time of Jesus. References to Galilean synagogues in the New Testament indicate that synagogues were common in Palestine. Hence, when the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, the spiritual vacuum was hardly as great as it had been after the destruction of the First Temple (586 BCE).

The chief legislative, judicial, and educational body of the Palestinian Jews during the period of the Second Temple was the Great Sanhedrin (council court), consisting of 71 members, among whom the Sadducees were an important party. The Sanhedrin's members shared the government with the king during the early years of the Hasmonean dynasty, but beginning with Herod's reign their authority was restricted to religious matters. In addition, there was another Sanhedrin, set up by the high priest, which served as a court of political council, as well as a kind of grand jury. With the fall of the Temple in 70AD we observe the conclusion of the early development of the Torah and the Talmud which are among the greatest elements of Judaism's contribution to law and order for all of mankind which is not to say that such was the limit of civilizing contributions of Judaism to western civilization. The lasting impact of the Jews, as civilizing exemplars for western man was profound and well established before the Diaspora. Their rejection of the Samaritans and others who sought to join with them in loving and worshipping G,D, reinforced the sad reality that by their own action it appeared they had chosen to be outsiders among the diverse ethnic groupings within the West.

Religious and Cultural Life During the Diaspora

During the Hellenistic-Roman period the chief centers of Jewish population outside Palestine were in Syria, Asia Minor, Babylonia, and Egypt, each of which is estimated to have had at least 1,000,000 Jews. The large Jewish community of Antioch,which, according to Josephus, had been given all the rights of citizenship by the Seleucid founder-king, Seleucus Nicator (died 280 BCE),attracted a particularly large number of converts to Judaism. It was in Antioch that the apocryphal book of Tobit was probably composed in the 2nd century BCE. This book sought to encourage wayward Diaspora Jews to return to their Judaism. As for the Jews of Asia Minor, whose large numbers were mentioned by Cicero (1st century BCE), their choosing not to join in the Jewish revolts against the Roman emperors Nero, Trajan, and Hadrian seems to indicate that they had sunk deep roots into their surrounding environment. Yet, in Babylonia, in the early part of the 1st century CE, two Jewish brothers, Asinaeus and Anilaeus, who had established an independent minor state; their followers were so meticulous in observing the Sabbath that they joined in assuming that it would not be possible to violate the Sabbath even in order to save themselves from a Parthian attack! In the early part of the 1st century CE, according to Josephus, the royal house and many of their entourage in the district of Adiabene in northern Mesopotamia were converted to Judaism; some of the Adiabenian Jews distinguished themselves in the revolt against Rome in 66 CE. (See below Judaism under Roman rule).

The largest and most important Jewish settlement in the Diaspora was in Egypt. However, it had antecedents before the Diaspora. There is evidence (papyri) of a Jewish military colony at Elephantine (Yeb), Upper Egypt, as early as the 6th century BCE. These papyri reveal the existence of a Jewish temple,which most certainly would be considered heterodox,and some syncretism (mixture) with pagan cults. Alexandria, the most populous and most influential Hellenistic Jewish community in the Diaspora, had its origin when Alexander the Great assigned a quarter of the city to the Jews. Until about the 3rd century BCE the papyri of the Egyptian Jewish community were written in Aramaic. With the exception of the Nash papyrus in Hebrew, it was after that that all papyri until 400 CE were in Greek. Similarly, of the 116 Jewish inscriptions from Egypt, all but five are written in Greek. The process of Hellenistic acculturation is, thus, obvious.

The Hellenistic Period

The most important work of the early Hellenistic period, dating, according to tradition, from the 3rd century BCE, is the Septuagint, a translation of the Pentateuch into Greek. (The translation of the whole Hebrew Bible was completed during the next two centuries.) The fact that, in the Letter of Aristae's along with the works of Philo and Josephus that this translation was itself regarded as divinely inspired led to the neglect of the Hebrew original. The translation shows some knowledge of Palestinian exegesis and the tradition of Halakha (the Oral Law); but the rabbis themselves, noting that the translation diverged from the Hebrew text, apparently had ambivalent feelings about it, as is evidenced in their alternate praise and condemnation of it. The fact that such a concept as Torah was translated as nomos ("law") and tzedaqa as dikaiosyne ("justice") opened the way to anti-legalisms in early Christianity and to Platonic interpretations. The introduction of such Greek mythological terms as "Titans" and "Sirens" paved he way for the syncretism of Judaism and paganism.

The establishment of a temple at Leontopolis in Egypt (c. 145 BCE) by a deposed high priest, Onias IV, indicates that the temple was clearly heterodox. However, this temple never really offered a challenge to the one in Jerusalem and was merely the temple of the military colony of Leontopolis. It is significant that the Palestinian rabbis ruled that a sacrifice intended for the temple of Onias might be offered in Jerusalem. That the temple of Onias made little impact upon Egyptian Jewry can be seen from the silence about it on the part of Philo, who often mentions the Temple in Jerusalem. The temple of Onias, however, continued until it was closed by the Roman emperor Vespasian in 73 CE.

It is significant that the chief religious institutions of the Egyptian Diaspora were synagogues. As early as the 3rd century BCE there were inscriptions mentioning two proseuchai, Jewish prayer houses. In Alexandria there were numerous synagogues throughout the city, of which the largest was so famous that it is said in the Talmud that he who has not seen it has never seen the glory of Israel.

Jewish Literature from Egypt

Egyptian Jews composed poems and plays, now extant only in fragments, to glorify their history. Philo the Elder (c. 100 BCE) wrote an epic On Jerusalem in Homeric hexameters. At about the same time, a Jewish poet wrote a didactic poem, ascribing it to the pagan Phocylides, though closely following the Bible in some details; the author disguised his Jewish origin by omitting any attack against idolatry from his moralizing. A collection known as The Sibylline Oracles, contained Jewish and Christian prophecies in pagan disguise. It is possible that the Oracles were known to the Roman poet Virgil when he wrote his fourth Eclogue.

The greatest achievement of Alexandrian Judaism was in the realm of wisdom literature and philosophy. In a work on the analogical interpretation of the Law of Moses, Aristobulus in the 2nd century BCE anticipated Philo in attempting to harmonize Greek philosophy and the Torah. He used the method of allegory to explain anthropomorphisms in the Bible, and to assert that the Greek philosophers were indebted to Moses. The Wisdom of Solomon, dating from the 1st century BCE, shows an acquaintance with the Platonic doctrine of the preexistence of the soul and with a method of argument known as sorites that was favored by the Stoics (Greek philosophers). During the same period the author of IV Maccabees showed an intimate knowledge of Greek philosophy, particularly of Stoicism.

Philo a Major Jewish Philosopher of Religion

By far the greatest figure in Alexandrian Jewish literature is Philo, who has come to be recognized as a major philosopher. His synthesis of Greek philosophy, particularly that of Plato, and of the Torah, and his formulation of the Logos (Word, or Divine Reason) as an intermediary between God and the world, helped lay the groundwork for Neo-Platonism (a philosophy dealing with levels of being), Gnosticism (a dualistic religious movement teaching that matter is evil and that spirit is good), and significantly the philosophical framework of the early Christian Church Fathers.

Philo neither was a devotee of Judaism neither as a mystic cult nor as a collateral branch of Pharisaic Judaism; he a Diaspora Jew with a profound knowledge of Greek literature who, though almost totally ignorant of Hebrew, tried to find a modus Vivendi between Judaism and secular culture.

The Jewish Community of Rome

Mention should be made of the Jewish community of Rome. Numbering perhaps 50,000, it was, to judge from the inscriptions in the Jewish catacombs, predominantly Greek-speaking and almost totally ignorant of Hebrew. References in Roman writers, particularly Tacitus and the satirists, have led scholars to conclude that the community,which was influential, to judge from the pagan jibes,observed the Sabbath and the dietary laws and was active in seeking converts. It was probably from this base that Peter and late Paul sought their first City of Rome converts to their form of Christianity which was the seed of Roman Catholicism.

The Power of Hellenization over the Hebrew Faith

It was the Hellenization of the Diaspora Jews that stands out. It can be seen not merely in their literature but even more in the papyri and art objects that have recently been studied at great length. The fact that,to judge from other papyri,at least three-fourths of the Egyptian Jews had personal names in Greek, rather than Hebrew, origin is significant. The only schools which mention the Sabbath are schools intended for adults and that, on the contrary, Jews were extremely eager to gain admittance for their children to Greek gymnasia. There they would have to make compromises with their Judaism an indication of its lower standing in their scale of values. Furthermore, there are a number of violations from the norms of Halakha (which precluded the charging of interest for a loan). Most notably in 11 of the known extant loan documents only two are without interest. There are often striking similarities between the documents of sale, marriage, and divorce of the Jews and of the Greeks in Egypt. The fact that the Jewish community of Alexandria was preoccupied in the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE with obtaining rights as citizens,which certainly involved compromises with Judaism, including participation in pagan festivals and sacrifices,shows how far they were ready to deviate.

Philo mentions Jews who scoffed at the Bible, which they insisted on interpreting literally, and of others who failed to adhere to the biblical laws that they regarded as mere allegory. He writes, too, of Jews who observed nothing of Judaism except the holiday of Yom Kippur. At least they were loyal Jews in their contributions to the Temple tax and in pilgrimages to Jerusalem on the three festivals. Actual apostasy and intermarriage were apparently not common, but the virulent anti-Semitism and the pogroms perpetrated by the Egyptian non-Jews must serve as a deterrent.

Palestinian Literature

During this period literature was composed in Palestine in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Most of the works composed in Hebrew, many of them existing only in Greek,Ecclesiastics, I Maccabees, Judith, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Baruch, Psalms of Solomon, Prayer of Manasseh,and many of the Dead Sea Scrolls are generally conscious imitations of biblical books. , often reflecting the dramatic events with an apocalyptic tinge (involving the dramatic intervention of God in history).

The literature in Aramaic consists of the following: (1) biblical or Bible-like legends or midrashic (interpretive) additions,Testament of Job, The Martyrdom of Isaiah, Paralipomena of Jeremiah, Life of Adam and Eve, the Dead Sea Genesis Apocryphon, Tobit, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon; and (2) apocalypses,Enoch (perhaps originally written in Hebrew), Assumption of Moses, the Syriac Baruch, II (IV) Esdras, and Apocalypse of Abraham.

In Greek the chief works by Palestinians are histories of the Jewish War against Rome and of the Jewish kings by Justus of Tiberias (both are lost) and the history of the Jewish War, originally in Aramaic, and the Jewish Antiquities by Josephus (both written in Rome).

The wisdom literature composed in Hebrew, the book of the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus (c. 180-175 BCE), modeled on the book of Proverbs, and identified Wisdom with the observance of the Torah. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, probably written in the latter half of the 2nd century BCE, patterned on Jacob's blessings to his sons, are now thought to belong to eschatological literature related to the Dead Sea Scrolls. The identification of Wisdom and Torah is stressed in the Mechanic tract Pirqe Avot ("Sayings of the Fathers"), which, though edited 200 CE, contains the aphorisms of rabbis dating back to 300 BCE.

Books such as the Testament of Job, the Dead Sea Scroll Genesis Apocryphon, the Book of Jubilees (now known to have been composed in Hebrew, as seen by its appearance among the Dead Sea Scrolls), and Biblical Antiquities, falsely attributed to Philo (originally written in Hebrew, then translated into Greek, but now extant only in Latin), as well as the first half of Josephus' Jewish Antiquities, often show affinities with rabbinic Midrashim (interpretive works) in their legendary accretions of biblical details. Sometimes, as in Jubilees and in the Pseudo-Philo work, these accretions are intended to answer the questions of heretics, but often, particularly in the case of Josephus, they are apologetic in presenting biblical heroes in a guise that would appeal to a Hellenized audience.

Apocalyptic trends, given considerable impetus by the victory of the Maccabees over the Syrian Greeks, and are of particular importance for their influence on both Jewish mysticism and early Christianity. These books, which have a close connection with the biblical Book of Daniel, stress the impossibility of a rational solution to the problem of theodicy,how to reconcile the righteousness of God with observable evil. They also stress the imminence of the day of salvation, which is to be preceded by terrible hardships, and presumably reflected the current historical setting. In the book of Enoch there is stress on the terrible punishment inflicted upon sinners in the Last Judgment, the imminent coming of the Messiah and of his kingdom, and the role of angels.

The sole Palestinian Jewish author writing in Greek whose works are preserved is Josephus... Josephus' Jewish War is often quite deliberately parallel to Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War; and his Jewish Antiquities is quite deliberately parallel to Dionysius of Halicarnassus' Roman Antiquities, dating from earlier in the same century. When one considers this potpourri of Words - Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek- that translators faced when rewriting in English, German Latin, and other languages. One is mystified even perplexed by the literalists contention that they live by the "Inspired Word" found in the King James version. Translators are not perfect.

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New Parties and Sects Emerge In Palestine

Under Roman rule a number of new groups, largely political, emerged in Palestine. Their common aim was to seek an independent Jewish state. All were zealous for, and strict in their observance of, the Torah.

The Herodians were a political group that after the death of Herod,whom they apparently regarded as the Messiah,sought the reestablishment of the rule of Herod's descendants over an independent Palestine

The Zealots' party, founded c. 6-9 CE, refused to pay tribute to the Romans and advocated overthrowing them on the ground that they should acknowledge God alone as their master. A priestly, eschatologically oriented resistance movement, the Zealots were particularly dedicated to keeping the Temple and its cult pure and used guerrilla tactics toward that end.

The Sicarii (Assassins), so-called because of the dagger (sica) they carried, arose c. 54, according to Josephus, as a group of bandits who kidnapped or murdered those who had found a modus Vivendi with the Romans. It was they who made a stand at the fortress of Masada near the Dead Sea, committing suicide rather than be captured by the Romans (73CE). ( Our use of the 8 day candlelabra is no endorsement of the assassination tactics).

A number of other parties,various types of Essences, Damascus Covenanters, and the Qumran Dead Sea groups,were distinguished by their pursuit of an ascetic monastic life, disdain for material goods and sensual gratification, sharing of material possessions, concern for eschatology, strong apocalyptic views in anticipation of the coming of the Messiah, practice of ablutions to attain greater sexual and ritual purity, prayer, contemplation, and study. The Essenes were like the Therapeutae, a Jewish religious group that had flourished in Egypt two centuries earlier, but the latter actively sought "wisdom" whereas the former were anti-intellectual. Only some of the Essenes were celibate. The Essenes have been termed Gnosticizing Pharisees because of their belief, shared with the Gnostics, that the world of matter was evil; some have seen in them the influence of quasi-monasticism.

The continuing recent discoveries of scrolls in caves of the Dead Sea area have focused attention on the groups that lived there. On the basis of paleography, carbon-14 testing, and the coins discovered there, most scholars accept a 1st-century date for them. A theoretical relationship of the communities with John the Baptist and the nascent Christian groups remains in dispute, however.

The sectaries have been identified variously as Zealots, an unnamed anti-Roman group, and especially Essenes; but a major difference between the Qumran groups and the Essenes is that the former were militarily activist (the discovery of hymns and a calendar at Masada,a stronghold of the Sicarii,that had previously been found at Qumran, may indicate a connection between the groups), while the latter were, for the most part, pacifist. These groups had secret, presumably apocalyptic, teachings; among the scrolls are some in cryptographic script and reversed writing. Yet, despite their extreme piety and legalistic conservatism, they apparently were aware of the effects of Hellenism, to judge from the presence of Greek books at Qumran.

It has long been debated whether the Gnostic systems of the 1st and 2nd centuries go back to the collapse of the apocalyptic strains in Judaism. A final transforming catastrophic event was expected. The Temple was destroyed in 70. It is doubtful that there is any direct Jewish source for this form of Gnosticism, though some characteristic Gnostic doctrines are found of particularly apocalyptic among 1st-century Jews,the dichotomy of body and soul and a disdain for the material world, a notion of esoteric knowledge, and an intense interest in angels and in problems of creation is extant.

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ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY: THE EARLY CHRISTIANS AND THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

The rise of Christianity attracted little attention among pagans and Jews at the beginning. Nevertheless, Christianity was by far the most important "sectarian" development of the Roman period.

The 20th century revisions, largely due to the discoveries at Qumran. Have changed the view by many scholars. Christianity is no longer "sectarian" or peripheral to Jewish development but, as part of a broad spectrum of attitudes within Judaism.

Jesus himself, despite his criticisms of Pharisaic legalism, may now be classified as a Pharisee with strong apocalyptic inclinations; he proclaimed that he had no intention of abrogating the Torah, but of fulfilling it.

It is not unreasonable to perceive a direct line between Jewish currents, both in Palestine and the Diaspora during the Hellenistic Age, with Christianity; particularly, in the traditions of martyrdom; proselytism; monasticism; mysticism; liturgy; and religious philosophy. This is especially true of the mutually held doctrine of the Logos (Word) as an intermediary between God and the world and the synthesis of faith and reason.

The Septuagint, (Greek version of the Old Testament including the Apocalypse), in particular, played an important theoetical role in the knowledge transfer of Greek philosophy into the theology of the Church Fathers. Certainly, it was practical to use it in converting Jews and Jewish "sympathizers" to Christianity.

The connection of nascent Christianity with the Qumran groups may be seen in their dualism and apocalypticism; but there are differences; notably in the conception of the Incarnation; in their relationship of the Son and the Father; and in Jesus' vicarious suffering for sinners as against the personal, direct, suffering of the Qumran Teacher of Righteousness.

A major difference was that the Qumran group constituted an esoteric movement, militant, with enforced community of goods, concerned with strict observance of the Torah, especially with its calendar. In contrast, early Christianity was pacifist, was open to all, and represented a New Covenant, with emphasis that was away from the Torah ritual and with voluntary community of possessions. In general, moreover, Christianity was more positively disposed toward Hellenism than was Pharisaism, particularly under the leadership of Paul, a thoroughly Roman citizen who was a Hellenized Jew.

When Paul proclaimed his antinomianism (against Torah observance as a means of salvation) many Jewish followers of Jesus became Jewish Christians and continued to observe the Torah. Their two main groupings were the Ebonite's, or "sectaries," in the Talmud,who accepted Jesus as the Messiah but denied his divinity. Others were the Nazarenes, who regarded Jesus as both Messiah and God, but regarded the Torah as binding upon Jews alone.

The percentage of Jews converted to any form of Christianity was small, as can be seen from the frequent criticisms by Christina writers about the Jews for their stubbornness. In the Diaspora, despite the strong influence of Hellenism, there were relatively few Jewish converts, though the Christian movement had some success in winning Alexandrian Antiochian Jews.

There were four major stages in the final break between Christianity and Judaism: (1) the flight of the Jewish Christians from Jerusalem to Pella across the Jordan in 70 CE and their refusal to continue the struggle against the Romans. (2) The effects of patriarch Gamaliel II prayer in the Eighteen Benedictions against such heretics (c. 100CE), (3 and 4) the failure of the Christians to join the messianic leaders in the revolts against Trajan (115-117) and Hadrian (132-135), respectively. Note that most of the writings that were later identified as the Gospel Canon it were compiled after this final schism.

Judaism under Roman Rule

When Pompey entered the Temple in 63 BCE as an arbiter in the civil wars, and in the struggle of the Pharisees against both Jewish rulers, Judaea became a puppet state of the Romans. During the civil war between Pompey and Julius Caesar.Herod, king of Judaea, an admirer of Greek culture, supported a cult worshipping the Emperor and built temples to Augustus in non-Jewish cities. Herod was by origin an Idumaean, thus he was regarded by many Jews as a foreigner. (The Idumaeans, or Edomites, were forcibly converted to Judaism by John Hyrcanus) After the death of Herod's son and successor Archelaus in 6 CE, his realms were ruled by Roman procurators, the most famous or infamous of whom, Pontius Pilate (26-36), attempted to introduce busts of the Roman emperor into Jerusalem. This act uncovered the intense religious zeal of the Jews in opposing this measure. When Caligula ordered the governor of Syria, Petronius, to install a statue of himself in the Temple, a large number of Jews proclaimed they would suffer death rather than to permit such a desecration. Petronius in response succeeded in getting the Emperor to delay. The procurators of Judaea succeeded in polarizing the Jewish population and bringing on an extremely bloody war with Rome in 66-70. The climax of the war was the destruction of the Temple in 70CE, though, according to Josephus, the Roman general, (and later emperor) Titus, sought to spare it. The war was not ended, however, until 73, when the Sicarii at Masada committed suicide rather than submit to the Romans.

The extant papyri indicate that the war against Trajan (115-117), involving the Jews of Egypt, Cyrenaica, Cyprus, and Mesopotamia (only to a minor degree those of Palestine), was a widespread revolt under a Cyrenian king-messiah, Lukuas-Andreas. It aimed at freeing Palestine from Roman rule. The same spirit of freedom impelled another messiah, Bar Kokhba, who had the support of the greatest rabbi of the time, Akiba, in his spontaneous uprising (132-135). The bloody battles were followed by defeat of Bar Kokhba. The result was Hadrian's decrees prohibiting circumcision and public instruction in the Torah. Having suffered such tremendous losses on the field of battle, Judaism turned its dynamism to the continued development of the Talmud (see below Rabbinic Judaism [2nd-18th centuries]).

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The Role of the Rabbis within the Roman Empire

The politically moderate and quietist rabbinic elements became the leaders of cohesion within Jewish society. With Jerusalem off limits to the Jews, rabbinic ideology and practice, which were not dependent on Temple, priesthood, or political independence for their vitality, provided a viable program for autonomous community life and thus filled the vacuum created by the suppression of all other Jewish leadership. The Romans, confident that the will for insurrection had been shattered, relaxed the Hadrianic prohibitions of Jewish ordination, public assembly, and regulation of the calendar. Rabbis who had fled the country returned to reestablish an academy in the town of Usha in Galilee.

The strength of this somewhat sycophantic rabbinate lay in its ability to represent simultaneously the interests of the Jews and the Romans, whose religious and political needs, respectively, now chanced to coincide. Those rabbis were regarded favorably by the Romans, as a politically submissive class, which, with its wide influence over the Jewish masses, could translate the Pax Romana (the peace imposed by Roman rule) into Jewish religious precepts.

On the other hand, to the Jews, the rabbinic ideology gave the appearance of continuity to Jewish self-rule and freedom from alien interference. The rabbinic program fashioned by Johanan ben Zakkai's circle had replaced sacrifice and pilgrimage to the Temple with study of Scripture, prayer, and works of piety, thus eliminating the need for a central sanctuary (in Jerusalem). At last, Judaism became a religious association capable of fulfillment anywhere.

Judaism was now, for all intents and purposes, a Diasporic religion even on its home soil. Any sense of real break with the past was mitigated by continued adherence to purity laws (dietary and bodily) and by assiduous study of Scripture. This study included those legal sections that historical developments had now made obsolete. The reward held out for scrupulous study and fulfillment was the promise of messianic deliverance; i.e., divine restoration of all those institutions that had become central in Jewish notions of national independence,the Davidic monarchy, Temple service, the ingathering of Diaspora Jewry,and, above all, the assurance of personal reward to the righteous through resurrection and participation in the national rebirth. This coming together of fundamental theology with affirmation of certain sanctuaries and rituals was of great importance. It gave form to the definitive ideas that makeup Jewish group and self-identity to this day.

The Effects of the Reign of Simeon ben Gamaliel , the Patriarch (135 -175 CE)

Under the leadership of Simeon ben Gamaliel (reigned c. 135-c. 175), the son of the previous patriarch (the Roman term for the head of the Palestinian Jewish community) of the house of Hillel, in association with rabbis representing other schools and interests, the patriarch managed to concentrate all communal authority in his office. The dominating role of the patriarchate reached its zenith in the days of his son and successor, Judah the Prince, whose reign (c. 175-c. 220) marked the climax of this period of rabbinic activity, otherwise known as the "age of the tannaim" (teachers). Apart from the right to teach Scripture publicly, the most pressing need felt by the surviving rabbis was for the reorganization of a recognized body that would reactivate the functions of the former Sanhedrin. To pass on disputed questions of law and dogma. A high court was, accordingly, organized. Armed with wealth, Roman backing, and dynastic legitimacy (which the patriarch now traced to the house of David), Judah sought to standardize Jewish practice through a corpus of legal norms that would reflect recognized views of the rabbinate on every aspect of life. The Mishna (collection of rabbinic law) that soon emerged became the primary source of reference in all rabbinic schools and constituted the core around which the Talmud (commentary on Mishna, literally "teaching") was later compiled. It remains the best single introduction to the complex of rabbinic values and practices as they evolved in Roman Palestine.

The Making of the Mishna

Although the promulgation of an official corpus represented a break with rabbinic precedent, Judah's Mishna did have antecedents. Rabbinic schools had compiled for their own reference collections of their exegesis and application of Scripture to problematic situations (i.e., Midrash, "investigation" or "interpretation"; plural Midrashim). They had been recorded in terse legal form. By 200 CE several such compilations were circulating in Jewish schools and were being utilized by judges. While adhering to the structural form of these earlier collections.

Judah the Prince compiled a new one in which universally accepted views were recorded alongside those still in dispute, thereby largely reducing the margin for individual discretion in the interpretation of the law. The authority of his office and the obvious advantages of a unified system of law soon outweighed dissenting tendencies, and his Mishna attained quasi-canonical status, becoming known as "The Mishna" or "Our Mishna." For all its clarity and comprehensiveness, its phraseology was often obscure or too terse to satisfy all needs. A companion known as the Tosefta ("Additions") was compiled shortly thereafter in which omitted traditions and explanatory notes were recorded. Since, however, neither compilation elucidated the processes by which their decisions had been elicited, various authorities set about collecting the midrashic discussions of their schools and recording them in the order of the verses of Scripture. During the 3rd and 4th centuries the tannatic Midrashim on the Pentateuch brought forth were compiled and introduced as school texts. Fundamentally legal in character, this literature was designed to regulate every aspect of life,the six divisions of the Mishna on agriculture, festivals, family life, civil law, sacrificial and dietary laws, and purity encompass virtually every area of Jewish experience,and, accordingly, also recorded the principal Pharisaic and rabbinic definitions and goals of the religious life.

One tract of the Mishna, Avot ("Sayings of the Fathers"), treated the meaning and posture of a life according to Torah, the Kabbalah passages made reference to the mystical studies into which only the most advanced and religiously worthy were initiated; e.g., the activities of the Merkava, or divine "Chariot," and the doctrines of creation (see below, Jewish mysticism). The rabbinic program of a life dedicated to study and fulfillment of the will of God was thus a graded structure in which the canons of morality and piety were attainable on various levels, from the popular and practical to the esoteric and metaphysical. Innumerable sermons and homilies preserved in the midrashic collections, liturgical compositions for daily and festival services. The mystical tracts circulated among initiates all testify to the deep spirituality that informed rabbinic Judaism.

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Palestine (c. 220-c. 400)

The promulgation of the Mishna initiated the period of the amoraim (lecturers or interpreters). These teachers made the Mishna the basic text of legal exegesis. The curriculum now centered on the elucidation of the text of the standard compilation, harmonization of its decisions with extra-Mishnaic traditions recorded in other collections, and the application of its principles to new situations. The records of these amoraic studies have been preserved in the form of two running commentaries on the Mishna known as the Palestinian (or Jerusalem) Talmud ("Teaching") and the Babylonian Talmud. They reflect the study and legislation of the academies of the two principal centers of Jewish concentration in the Roman and Persian empires of that time. (Talmud is also the comprehensive term for the whole collections, Palestinian and Babylonian, containing Mishna, commentaries, and other matter. (See below, the literature of Judaism.)

The principal agencies mediating the rabbinic way of life and literature for the masses were the school. Tannaitic law made education of male children a religious duty. Introduced at the age of five or six to Scripture, the student advanced at the age of 10 to Mishna and finally in mid-adolescence to Talmud or the processes of legal reasoning. Regular reading of Scripture in the synagogue on Mondays, Thursdays, the Sabbaths, and festivals, provided for lifelong instruction in the literature and the values elicited from it. The amoraic emphasis on the moral and spiritual aims of Scripture; along with its ritual which is reflected in the midrashic collections which are predominantly like sermons rather than legal in content.

An amoraic sermon conceded that of every thousand beginners in primary school only one would be expected to continue as far as Talmud. In the 4th century, however, there were enough advanced students to warrant academies in Lydda, Caesarea, Sepphoris, and Tiberias (in Palestine). There leading scholars trained disciples for communal service as teachers and judges. In Caesarea, the principal port and seat of the Roman administration of Palestine, pagans, Christians, and Samaritans maintained renowned cultural institutions. The Jews, too, established an academy that was singularly free of patriarchal control.. In CE350 the studies and decisions of the authorities in Caesarea were compiled as a tract on the civil law of the Mishna. Half a century later, the academy of Tiberias issued a similar collection on other tracts of the Mishna, and this compilation, in conjunction with the Caesarean material, constituted the Palestinian Talmud.

The adoption by the Empire of Christianity as the religion had no direct effect on the religious freedom of the Jews; i.e., on their freedom to worship and observe their life rules. However, the ever-mounting hostility between the two religions resulted in severe curtailment of Jewish disciplinary rights over their co-religionists; interference in the collection of patriarchal taxes, restriction of the right to build synagogues, and, finally, upon the death of the patriarch Gamaliel VI in c. 425, the abolition of the patriarchate and the diversion of the Jewish tax to the imperial treasury.

The principles of the regulation of the Jewish calendar had been committed to writing c. 359 by the patriarch Hillel II, this, coupled with the widespread presence of rabbis, ensured continuity of Jewish adherence. Even the Emperor Justinian's (527-565 CE) restrictions on synagogal worship and preaching apparently had no devastating effect. A new genre of liturgical poetry, combining ecstatic prayer with didactic motifs, developed in this period of political decline and won acceptance in synagogues in Asia Minor as well as beyond the Euphrates.

Babylonia (200-650)

Christendom became increasingly unfriendly. Jews drew consolation in the knowledge that in nearby Babylonia (then under Persian rule) a vast population of Jews continued to live under a network of effective and autonomous Jewish institutions and officialdom. Steadily worsening conditions in Palestine had drawn many Jews to Persian domains, where economic opportunities and the Jewish communal structure enabled them to gain a better livelihood while continuing to live in accordance with their ancestral traditions. To regulate internal Jewish affairs and ensure the steady flow of taxes, the Parthian had appointed c. 100 CE a "head of the [Jews in exile",who claimed more direct Davidic descent than the Palestinian patriarch). He ruled over the Jews as a quasi- prince. In c. 220 two Babylonian disciples of Judah the Prince, Abba Arica and Samuel bar Abba, began to propagate the Mishna and related tannaitic literature as the yardsticks of normative practice. As heads of the academies at Sure and Neared, respectively, Abba and Samuel cultivated a native Babylonian rabbinate, which increasingly provided the manpower for local Jewish courts and other communal services a rabbinate that endured uninterruptedly until the middle of the 11th century.

Paradoxically, Babylonian rabbinism derived its ideological strength from its fundamentally unoriginal character. The values embodied in the laws, however, and the core of the legal-theological system,ranging from doctrinal faith in the revelation and election of Israel, to the requirement that the individual live by the canons of Jewish civil and family law, and the establishment of a network of communal institutions modeled on those of the mother country,remained intact, thereby ensuring a basic continuity and uniformity to rabbinically oriented communities everywhere. The real contribution of the Babylonian rabbinate to Jewish religion lay, accordingly, in its demonstration of how Palestinian Judaism was to be implemented on Gentile soil. Since historic circumstances made Babylonia the mediator of this tradition to all Jewish communities in the High Middle Ages (9th-12th centuries), the Babylonian version of Jewish religion became synonymous with normative Judaism and the measure of Judaic authenticity everywhere.

"The law of the [Gentile] government is binding," the principle formulated by Samuel, head of the academy at Nehardea (died 254), summarizes the essential novelty in rabbinic reorientation to life on foreign soil. Babylonian teachers now rationalized the legitimacy of governmental authority in this respect de jure, thus, enjoining the Jews political quietism and submissiveness as part of their religious theory. In all other areas of civil law, the Jews were instructed by their rabbis to bring their litigations to Jewish courts and thus to conduct their businesses as well as their family lives by rabbinic law. Clearly, there was great risk in choosing to be "outsiders" in the midst of others. Though it was for worthy reasons, it resulted in some animosity and envy among the unlettered illiterate gentiles who felt the Jews were being arrogant and setting themselves up as preferred by the same God that they worshiped.

While the rabbis could obviously more effectively impose their discipline in matters of public law than in private religious practice, the density of the Jewish population in many areas of Parthia (northeastern Iran) and Babylonia facilitated the application of moral and disciplinary pressures. The most effective vehicle for the dissemination of their teachings was the Talmadic Rabbinate. This, while rabbis constituted a distinct class within the community, their efforts were oriented toward making as much of the community as possible members of an elite of learning and religious scrupulosity promoted harmonious relations that obtained with but few interruptions over the centuries between the Sasanian rulers and their Jewish subjects gave the Jewish population the air of a quasi-state, which the Jewish leadership frequently extolled as superior to the Jewish community of Palestine.

The enduring vigor of Jewish faith throughout these centuries is graphically demonstrated by the missionary activity of Jews throughout the ancient Middle East, especially in the Arabian Peninsula. Proud Jewish tribes living in close proximity to each other in the vicinity of Yathrib (later Medina, Mu?ammad's home city), engaged in agriculture and commerce while proclaiming the superiority of their monotheistic ethos and eschatology (doctrine of last things). Jewish missionaries, however, continued to compete with Christian missionaries and thus helped lay the groundwork for the birth of an indigenous Arabic monotheism, Islam,that was to alter the course of world history.

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Triumph of the Babylonian Rabbinate

The lightning conquests in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Iberian Peninsula by the armies of Islam (7th-8th centuries) provided the environmental framework for the basically uniform (i.e., Babylonian) character of medieval Judaism. As a "people of the Book" (i.e., of the Bible), the Jews were permitted by the Muslims to live under the same autonomous structure that had developed under Arsacid and Sasanian rule. The heads of the two principal academies were now formally recognized by the exilic (appointed Jewish leader), and through him by the Muslim caliphate (religio-political rulers), as the official arbiters of all questions of religious law and as the religious heads of all Jewish communities that came under Muslim rule.

Known as geonim (plural of gaon, "Excellency"),; and conducting high courts manned by scholars assigned graded ranks, they drew their financial support from Jewish communities assigned to them by the exilarch. Religious questions and contributions were solicited from all Jewish communities, and these along with formal gaonic replies ( responses ) were regularly publicized at the semiannual kalla convocations. Under the strong leadership of Yehudai, Gaon of Sura (presided 760-763), the Babylonian rabbinate exerted vigorous efforts to replace the Palestinian Mishna wherever it was still in vogue, including the study of Palestinian amoraic legal literature, by Babylonian practice and texts. It was in this way that Babylonia Talmud became the unrivalled standard of Jewish norms everywhere. The success of this campaign is evidenced by the fact that the term Talmud, when unqualified, has ever since meant the Babylonian Talmud. Indeed, even in Palestine the Babylonian corpus displaced its older rival and caused the study of Palestinian Talmudic literature to be confined to circles of legal specialists.

Anti Rabbinic Reactions

The firm, and on occasion oppressive, tactics of exilarchs and geonim generated anti-rabbinic reactions, especially in outlying areas where enforcement was difficult. This took the form of sectarian and messianic revolts. The new sect advocated a threefold program of (1) rejection of rabbinic law as a human fabrication and therefore an unwarranted, un-authoritative addition to Scripture, (2) a return to Palestine to hasten the messianic redemption, and (3) a re-examination of Scripture to retrieve authentic law and doctrine. The most momentous consequence of these new studies was the invention of several systems of vocalization for the text of the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament) in Babylonia and Tiberias in the 9th and 10th centuries.

In the face of sectarian challenges, the geonim intensified their efforts against any deviation from Rabbinate norms and began to issue handbooks of Jewish law that set forth in concise and unequivocal terms the standards for correct practice. A number of these codes attained authoritative status in local schools and further helped give a unitary stamp to medieval Judaism.

The geonim, however, were powerless to halt several social developments in the 9th century that progressively undermined their hold even over Rabbinate communities. One was the renascence of Greek philosophy and sciences in Arabic translation; coupled with the progressive urbanization of the upper classes of all religio-ethnic groups in the centers of political, commercial, and cultural activity. This generated a new intelligentsia that cut across religio-ethnic lines. Widespread skepticism in basic doctrines of faith such as creation, revelation, and retribution was most poignantly represented by latitudinarianism (the tendency to be flexible and tolerant about deviations from orthodox beliefs and doctrines) and by antinomian (anti-Mosaic-law) Gnostic groups that negated divine providence and omniscience.

Gaonic difficulties were compounded by the rise in North Africa and Spain of populous and wealthy Jewish communities, this was thanks to the development of their own local schools and native talent, ignored the Babylonian academies. To the delight of dissidents and the chagrin of the faithful, competition between the Babylonian academies turned to internecine hostility. Outlying areas of Persia had to be quelled with armed force. The Palestinian Rabbinites revived their own academies. Their presidents now appealed for support in other Diaspora lands and challenged the authority of the Babylonians to serve as final arbiters on such matters of public import as the regulation of the calendar. By 900 the Rabbinite community of Babylonia was in a state of chaos and dissolution.

The Gaonate of the Egyptian Jew - SaAdia Ben Joseph

In a bold effort to restore discipline and respect for the gaonate, a great exilarch, David ben Zakkai (916/917-940), bypassed the families from whom the geonim had traditionally been selected and in 928 appointed Sa'adia ben Joseph al-Fayyumi to head the academy of Sura. His gaonate gave an official stamp to his many works, which responded to the ideological challenges to Rabbinism by restating traditional Judaism in intellectually cogent terms. Sa'adia thus became the pioneer of a Judeo-Arabic culture that was to come to full flower in Andalusian Spain a century later - the Sephardic developments. His translation of the Bible into Arabic and his Arabic commentaries on Scripture made the rabbinic understanding of the Bible accessible to the masses of Jews. His poetic compositions for liturgical use provided the stimulus for the revival of Hebrew poetry. Above all, his rationalist commentary on the puzzling "Book of Creation" and his brilliant philosophic treatise on Jewish faith, Beliefs and Opinions, synthesized the Torah (the divine law in the Five Books of Moses and the rabbinic understanding of this revelation) and "Greek wisdom" in accordance with the dominant Muslim philosophical school of Calm. In this way he made Judaism philosophically respectable and the study of philosophy a religiously acceptable pursuit.

Far from tightening the gaonic hold over the Jewish communities of the Arabic world, Sa'adia's works actually provided the wherewithal for ever-greater intellectual and religious self-sufficiency. Circumstances beyond anyone's control, however, were bringing the curtain down on the effectiveness of exilarchate and gaonate. Still, by 1038, the consequences of four centuries of gaonic activity had become indelible. The Babylonian Talmud had become the agent of basic Jewish uniformity; the synthesis of philosophy, and the Babylonian tradition had become the hallmark of the Jewish intelligentsia. The Hebrew classics of the past had become the texts of study in Jewish schools everywhere.

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The Two Major Branches - Askenazi and Sefardic

Despite the fundamental uniformity of medieval Jewish culture, the cultural-political divisions within the Mediterranean basin, in which Arabic-Muslim and Latin-Christian civilizations coexisted as discrete and self-contained societies, shaped the character of the Jewish subculture of the area. Two major branches of rabbinic civilization developed in Europe, the Ashkenazic, or Franco-German, and the Sefardic, or Andalusian-Spanish. These sects were distinguished most conspicuously by their varying pronunciation of Hebrew, the numerous differences between them in religious orientation and practice derived, in the first instance, from the geographical fountainheads of their culture,the Ashkenazim (plural of Ashkenazi) tracing their cultural heritage to Italy and Palestine -the Sefardim (plural of Sefardi) to Babylonia. Both of them were affected by the influences of their respective immediate milieus. While the Jews of Christian Europe wrote for internal use almost exclusively in Hebrew, those of Muslim areas regularly employed Arabic for prose works and Hebrew for poetic composition. Whereas the literature of Jews in Ashkenazic areas was overwhelmingly religious in content, that of the Sefardi was well endowed with secular poetry and scientific works inspired by the cultural tastes of the Arabic literati. Most significantly, the two forms of European Judaism differed in their approaches to the identical rabbinic base that both had inherited from the East and in their radically different attitudes to Gentile culture and politics. The acceptance of over a million Khzars in Russia must have been disruptive to Judaism.

Sefardic Developments in Muslim Spain

In Muslim Spain, Jews frequently served the government in official capacities, they therefore, not only took an active interest in political affairs but also engaged in considerable social and intellectual intercourse with influential circles of the Muslim population. Since the support of letters and scholarship was part of state policy in Muslim Spain, and since Muslim savants traced the source of Muslim power to the vitality of the Arabic language, scripture, and poetry, Jews looked at Arabic culture with undisguised admiration and unabashedly attempted to adapt themselves to its canons of scholarship and good taste. The hallmark of the cultured Jew accordingly became a polished command of Arabic style and the ability to display the beauty of his own heritage through a philological mastery of the text of the Hebrew Bible and through the composition of New Hebrew verse, now set to an alien Arabic meter. Since Arabic philosophers and scientists promulgated syntheses of Greek philosophy with the revelation to Mu?ammad, rationalist study of the Jewish classics and defense of rabbinic faith in philosophic terms became the dominant motifs in the Andalusian Jewish schools (in southern Spain).

The atmosphere generated a fever of literary creativity in classical Jewish disciplines as well as in the sciences cultivated by the Arabs that has gained for the period the title of "the Golden Age of Hebrew literature" (c. 1000-1148). What distinguished the Jewish culture of this age were not only the supreme literary merit of its Hebrew poetry, and the new spirit of relatively free and rationalist examination of hallowed texts and doctrines. This was a major extension of Jewish cultural perspectives to totally new horizons,mathematics, astronomy, medicine, philosophy, political theory, aesthetics, belles-lettres.

There was a frequent overlapping of the Sefardic religious leadership with the new Jewish courtier class. Unprecedented heights were attained by Jews as high officials in Granada and Seville. The prestigious distinctions of these men and of their protégés in Jewish and worldly letters restored the ancient integration of culture with practical life. It generated a Jewish form of neo-classicism expressed by the identification of the Jewish elite with the biblical age of Jewish power and artistic creativity. The application of Arabic philology to Hebrew accordingly provided the principles of Hebrew grammatical study down to modern times. The anticipations of modern higher biblical criticism by the revival of Hebrew poetry, liturgical as well as secular, translated the new preoccupation with language and beauty into art.

Andalusian Jewry saw its greatest achievements. Solomon ibn Gabirol, Moses ibn Ezra, and Judah ha-Levi who were but the acknowledged supreme geniuses of a form of expression that became a passion with thousands the length and breadth of Spain. But by far the most enduring consequence of the new temper was their redefinition of religious faith in the light of Greco-Arabic philosophical theories.

Moses Maimonides' Synthesis of Judaism and Medieval Aristotelianism

Moses Maimonides' epoch-making synthesis of Judaism and medieval Aristotelianism fixed philosophic inquiry as an enduring subject on the agenda of rabbinic concerns. A new class of philosophers that emerged in the 13th century and sponsored the translation of Arabic literature into Hebrew and of Hebrew and Arabic literature into Latin, brought Jews and their thought into the mainstream of Western philosophy and gained for them the position of middlemen of culture between East and West. These powerful trends of Sefardic Judaism did not result in a delegation of the rabbinic class to a second place. Rather they shaped a fresh approach to rabbinic texts that paralleled in many respects those adopted in biblical exegesis. Strict adherence to consistency, systematization, and philological exactitude yielded new codes that often diverged from gaonic judgments.

In this area, too. It was Moses Maimonides who through his code of Jewish law, Mishne Torah, brought the Sefardic principles of comprehensiveness, lucidity, and logical arrangement to their apex. Written in Mishnaic Hebrew, the work remains to this day the only comprehensive treatment of all of Jewish law, including those fields that are not applicable in the Diaspora (agriculture, purity, sacrifices, and Temple procedure). With Maimonides, however, the pure Sefardic tradition came to an end. This was because the Almohad (Berber Muslim reformers) invasion of Spain in 1147-48CE wiped out the Jewish communities of Andalusia and drove thousands either to northern Spain and Provence or, as in the case of Maimonides' family, to North Africa and Egypt. It was in this way that Sefardic Jewry suddenly encountered a discrete, mature, Jewish culture - the Askenazi - that for centuries had been developing independently and along quite different lines. It is likely that their immigration to France and Germany brought news of the Berber Muslim hostility.

Ashkenazic Developments

The rabbinate of Ashkenazic Jewry, into whose communities the Sefardim had been thrust by political events, regarded their own heritage and the Christian world in which they lived from a perspective shaped exclusively by rabbinic categories. From the world of the Talmud and Midrash they drew their school texts and the values that determined their judgments. Sensing no intellectual challenge by Christian faith, which they regarded with thinly concealed contempt, they constituted for the most part a merchant class that lived in urban centers under their own complex of laws and institutions but, of course, under the protection of Christian ecclesiastical and temporal rulers. However, except for mercantile relations, Christian society was closed to them. This was because of age-old ecclesiastical prohibitions forbidding all social intercourse with them.

The Arab conquest of Spain and southern France, the rise of the Carolingians (the 8th-10th-century dynasty that ruled France and Germany), and the 12-decade interlude of suppression by the Visigoths (589-711) finally came to an end. The Roman precedents of toleration and autonomy again became in vogue. Merchants and rabbis moved from Italy to France and the Rhineland and infused new energies into the Jewish communities there. An indigenous regional religious leadership began to emerge at the very time that Andalusian Jewry was entering its Golden Age. Although the bloody upheavals of the First Crusade (1096-99) especially in the communities of the Rhineland unleashed a tide of Christian hatred, periodic violence, and progressive restrictions on Jewish activities. The terrorized Jewish communities that had attained sufficient resilience to reestablish their communal institutions shortly afterward continued the cultivation of their deeply ingrained traditions.

By 1150 Ashkenazic Jewry had generated a culture pattern of its own with an indigenous literature that ranged from the popular homily to the esoteric tract on the nature of the divine glory. Study of the Bible and Talmud was oriented toward a mystical pietism in which prayer and contemplation of the secrets embedded in the liturgy were to lead to religious experience. Significantly, the fathers of the Ashkenazic tradition were remembered as liturgical poets. These initiates into the divine mysteries, and the early codes of the Franco-German schools heavily weighted their discussions of liturgical usage with mystical pietism.

After the Second Crusade (1147-49), the German Jewish mystics (also called ?asidim, or pietists) placed heavy emphasis on the merits of asceticism, martyrdom and lifelong disciplines of penitence, thus adapting to Jewish idiom the features of saintliness celebrated in the universe of discourse of which they were a part. For the masses of Jews the cultural fare consisted principally of biblical tales and instruction, as interpreted by rabbinic Midrash. Study of the lives of scholars and saints, and liturgical poetry reaffirmed the election of Israel and faith in messianic redemption. The chief vehicle of popular instruction consisted of anthologies from the Rabbinic writings and commentaries on Scripture, of which the most popular was that of Rabbi Solomon ben Issac of Troyes, known as Rashi. Who composed a succinct commentary on the Talmud that, unmatched for compact thoroughness and lucidity, achieved an authority approaching that of the text itself.

The Bible and Talmud had an impact that was apparent in communal decision and in the bearing of the leadership at home, in the marketplace, and in the synagogue. Furthermore, the Ashkenazic rabbis occasionally gathered in regional synods to enact legislation on problems of a general nature for which there was no adequate precedent in the literature. Among the most enduring of these measures were the prohibition of bigamy and arbitrary divorce and severe economic penalties for abandonment of wives. Of far more immediate concern to the average Jew were the rabbinic pronouncements on circumvention of the Talmudic prohibitions against usury, relaxation of prohibitions regarding traffic with Gentiles in wines, and the adoption of severe disciplinary measures, such as excommunication, against informers and those appealing, to Gentile authorities in cases involving Jews.

Kabbalah - Mystical Traditions -The Zohar

A new religious trend began in Provence (a province of southeastern France) in the 13th century with the introduction into the Talmudic academies of a novel form of mystical study known as Kabbalah (literally, "tradition"), which soon spread to northern Spain. Expressing Gnostic-type doctrines in rabbinic guise, the devotees of Kabbalah devised an esoteric vocabulary that reinterpreted the Bible and rabbinic law as allegories of the various modes in which God is manifested in a spiritual universe, access to which was reserved for initiates.

The most renowned literary product of this new circle was the Zohar ("The Book of Splendor"), a vast mystical commentary on the Pentateuch by Moses de Leon (c. 1275). The Zohar, with later additions, became the Bible of Jewish mystics everywhere. Although some of the theological notions of the Kabbalists deviated from basic postulates of Jewish monotheism, the insistence of the mystics on unflagging ritual orthodoxy and on a nominal acceptance of the biblical text as divine revelation helped them avert the suspicions aroused by Jewish Aristotelians. In time, this esoteric knowledge even won for them the status of rabbinic elite. Indeed, some of the mystics lent their support to the ant-philosophic campaign that began in Montpellier, in southern France, c. 1200. This trend condemned the study of philosophy as generating skepticism, latitudinarianism, and disrespect for traditional literature. (For a fuller discussion of Kabbalah see below, Jewish mysticism.)

Religious Conflicts, Disasters, and New Movements

Basically, the conflict between "fundamentalist" and philosopher in Provence and northern Spain represented a clash between two mature Jewish subcultures of diverse geographic origins - the Sefardic and Ashkenazic Both forms of speculation sought salvation for exceptional individuals through knowledge and thus provided an immediate substitute for messianic deliverance from exile and servitude. Each group charged the other with distortion of tradition, and each issued apologias (defenses or justifications) and excommunications characteristic of medieval doctrinal controversy. While the rifts within communities attained bitter proportions, the common threat posed by ecclesiastical attacks on the Talmud in public disputations and by the expulsion of the Jews from France in 1306 prevented open rupture or resolution of the conflict. Since that time, these two strands of orthodoxy representing the two forms of medieval metaphysical speculation have lived side by side in an uneasy truce.

Most rabbinic circles of the 14th and 15th centuries displayed a progressive dogmatism and insistence on uniformity of practice. The increasing hardening of ideological lines, however, did not eliminate independent thinking. In Muslim areas, the Maimonidean regimen of philosophic contemplation was extended by Maimonides' son Abraham to a quest for pietistic ecstasy that betrayed many features of ?ufism (Islamic mysticism).

Christian Dominance By The Use Of Terror Forced Judaism Underground- 1391

Anti-Jewish riots and massacres of 1391 and a wave of apostasy in the wake of the disputation of Tortosa (1411-14),which ended with a papal bull forbidding Talmudic study, compelling attendance at Christian sermons, and other onerous measures,struck catastrophic blows in the Spanish communities and fed the anti-intellectualism of the rabbinate. Re-assertions of traditional faith could not overcome the ideological and social fragmentation that had split the Spanish communities into congealed strata that were often in open conflict with each other. Widespread marranism (ostensible conversion to Christianity) polarized the community and left deposits of bitterness that extended to those returning to the fold. The expulsions from Spain (1492) and Portugal (1497 and 1506) dealt the final blow and drove the escaping leadership into intensified pursuits of mystical escape from, and rationalization of, the endless calamities that befell their flocks.

In Italy and the Ottoman Empire (Asia Minor, northeastern Africa, and southeastern Europe), the two principal centers of refuge for the exiles of the Iberian Peninsula. a legalistic Kabbalism that insisted on strict observance of the law as a precondition of mystical practice and study, became the dominant spirit of a rabbinic leadership that, in these terribly adverse circumstances, turned inward to produce works of encyclopedic proportions and staggering erudition in every field of Jewish learning.

Inspired by ancient Jewish tradition about the coming of the messianic era,when the messiah would come to bring on the rule of God,that it would be preceded by horrendous catastrophes, a group of single-minded rabbis established a community in Sefat (Safed), Palestine. There they anticipated the new dawn of all life which was to be conducted on principles of saintliness and mystical contemplation. Under the leadership of one Jacob Berab, the ancient practice of ordination was reinstituted in 1538 to form the nucleus of a revived Sanhedrin to administer ritual procedures requiring ordained authorities. This effort failed because of rabbinic opposition. Still there were messianic hopes that sparked the campaigns of tragic consequences by David Reubeni and Solomon Molkho in Italy, which ended in their being burned at the stake by the Christian authorities. In ?efat, itself, Kabbalism soon entered a new phase under the inspiration of Isaac Luria and ?ayyim Vital, who confided to their disciples that the calamities of Israel were but a mirror of the captivity into which the divine sparks of the Godhead itself had fallen. Liturgical innovations and a novel mystical theology were formulated to redeem the imprisoned elements of divinity and thereby restore creation to the harmony intended for it (see also below, Jewish mysticism).

Venice Initiates Christian Enforcement of Ghetto Communities -1516 CE

The ideas that G-D himself was not quite omnipotent, at least with respect to the fate of his chosen people, was cautiously hinted in a Hebrew work of history (1550) by Solomon ibn Verga, who saw the Jewish problem as a sociopolitical one to which theological answers were futile. Such a guarded rationals favoring Hope was debated by a number of courageous thinkers in 16th-century Italy. This was despite the Christian church's oppressive policy of enforcing enclosure by ghettoization (the segregation of the Jewish community into a restricted quarter, begun by Venice in 1516) which was soon extended to all major Italian cities. The spirit of the Renaissance and the passion for historical criticism had captivated many Jews. Catholic scholars and prelates occasionally employed rabbis to instruct them in the Hebrew language and in the secrets of the Kabbalah, which some Christians believed actually verified the postulates of their own faith. Contacts with Christian scholars in turn introduced Jews like Azariah die Rossi, whose Meorhenayim ("Enlightenment of the Eyes") inaugurated critical kind of study of rabbinical texts, and to the revival of bodies of literature that had been lost to the Jewish community, such as the works of Philo and Josephus (see above Hellenistic Judaism from the 4th century BCE-2nd century CE). However, such happenings were decidedly in the minority and contrary to the dominant trend.

Temporary Kabbalic Hysteria- The Wide Spread Acceptance of ate False Messiah

Dogmatic Kabbalism was spreading and finally came to social expression in 1666 with the widespread acceptance of the views of a pseudo-messiah Shabbetai Tzevi (Sabbatai Zevi). Most of European and Ottoman Jewry were swept into a hysterical pitch in the belief that the end was now finally at hand. When the pseudo-messiah converted to Islam after being apprehended by the Ottoman government, mass despondency took the form of crypto-Shabbetaianism in which the apostasy of the messiah was explained as a form of voluntary crucifixion for the sake of the Jews. A witch-hunt on the part of traditionalists to uncover the cells of heresy unsettled Jewish communities everywhere by an emphasis on greater rigidity than before.

(Note by the Spiritual but Not Religious: The failure of the Christian Millenarians in 1840, and the re-run of a similar hysteria now extant in the early years of the 21st century is another tragic demonstration of how humans, in this case Christians, use fantasy to ignore the historical record. They repeat the false hopes for an end to suffering (after they slaughter the infidels). These evangelical Christians are using naïve belief and uninformed desire for yet another version of the End-Time and the Rapture - A Sequel. Obviously, they are being misled by those who can profit from this desire to turn fantasy into reality. A healthy dose of skepticism could help these people to turn again to a less vengeful and more compassionate God.)

Massacres and Impoverishment t- A Dark Hour for Rabbinic Judaism - 1648 -1750 CE

The following century (to c. 1750) was the darkest in the history of rabbinic Judaism. Scholarship ebbed in quality and popular religion descended to a mechanical state such that Jews had never before experienced. The massacres and impoverishment of Polish Jewry after 1648 brought a pall over the growing eastern European centers of Jewish life. Antinomian eruptions of extreme neo-Shabbetaians under the leadership of another self-proclaimed messiah and later Catholic convert, Jacob Frank (1726-91), alarmed Gentile authorities almost as much as they did Jews. (The apparent fossilization of Judaism referred to above was only on the surface. Beneath the surface many were restlessly searching for new avenues of faith, and the 18th century saw fresh responses that set the history of the Jews and of Judaism on new directions and spelled the beginnings of a new era).

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The New Situation - 1750 CE

The various criteria used to mark off dividing points in the history of the Jews and Judaism (see above General observations) are especially notable when it comes to setting a starting date for the modern period. Some historians put it in the late 17th century with the appearance of such men as the philosopher Benedict de Spinoza, who ceased, in part to believe in the inherited faith. At the same time they ceased to be Jews (i.e., to consider themselves and be considered as Jews). Other Israeli scholars feel the new situation started about 1700 with the first stirrings of that new then continuing, emigration from the Diaspora to the Holy Land that is on-going to the 21st century by way of the creation of the State of Israel. Political and social historians set the start as it in the mid- and late-18th-century processes that led to the American and French revolutions and to the results that flowed from these two epochal events. Among the changes is the emancipation of Jews from discriminatory and segregate laws and customs, the attainment of legal status as citizens, and the freedom of individual Jews to pursue careers appropriate to their talents in many places. All these varying approaches appear to have one thing in common,the view that the post-medieval forms of Jewish experience assumed the end of the doctrine of the Exile, whereby Jews saw themselves as a people waiting out centuries of woe in alien lands until the moment of divine redemption. It seems that Jewish modernity for most scholars, then, is marked by the end of a passive waiting on the Messiah and the beginning of an active pursuit of personal or national fulfillment on this earth and preferably in one's lifetime.

Although the 18th century Haskala (Enlightenment) among the Ashkenazim of central and eastern Europe is often taken as the starting point of Jewish modernity, the process of Westernization had begun a good deal earlier among the Sefardim in western Europe and Italy. The Sefardic Marranos who moved to such communities as Amsterdam and Venice in the 17th century to declare themselves as Jews carried with them the Western education that they had acquired while living as Christians in the Iberian Peninsula. Their healthy habits of skeptical criticism had kept them from assimilating into the majority during their Marrano years. Some, such as Spinoza, a son of Marranos, used these skills and attitudes in analyzing all of the biblical tradition, including especially their religion. In Italy there was an older Jewish community that had never been sealed off culturally from the influence of its environment; some of its figures were influenced by, and participated in, the main currents of the Renaissance.

Increased contact with Western languages, manners, and modes of living came to but did not come to the Ashkenazim until the 18th century when new economic opportunities created such possibilities along with the needs for Jewish bankers and factors in various German principalities. There were Jewish provisioners for the armies in most of the European countries. Jewish capitalists were permitted to live in such places as Berlin because they opened new factories or were otherwise helpful to the expansion of the economy,all of these Jews were in increasing contact with Gentile society. Most of them began to look upon the goal of their personal lives as the winning of full acceptance. It followed that around this wealthy element there arose a number of intellectuals who agitated for the end of ghetto ways as the necessary preamble to the emancipation of the Jews.

The Haskala, or Enlightenment - In Central Europe

The philosopher Moses Mendelssohn was by far the most outstanding figure of the 18th-century Jewish Enlightenment. It was he who, while remaining a devoted adherent of Orthodox Judaism, turned away from the traditional Jewish preoccupation with the Talmud and its literature toward the intellectual world of the European Enlightenment. He became the foremost Jewish representative of it. Mendelssohn did not attempt a philosophical defense of Judaism until pressed to do so by Christians who questioned how he could remain faithful to what they saw as an unenlightened religion. In his response, Jerusalem, published in 1783, Mendelssohn defended the validity of Judaism as the inherited faith of the Jews. He defined it as revealed divine legislation; declaring himself at the same time to be a believer in the universal religion of reason of which Judaism was to him but one historical manifestation.

Aware that he was accepted by Gentile society as an "exceptional Jew" who had embraced Western culture, Mendelssohn's message to his own community was to become Westerners, in effect, to seek out the culture of the Enlightenment. To that end he joined with a poet, Naphtali Herz (Hartwig) Wessely, in translating the Torah into German, combining Hebrew characters with modern German phonetics. In an effort to displace Yiddish, he wrote a modern biblical commentary in Hebrew, the Behur ("Commentary"). Within a generation, Mendelssohn's Bible was to be found in almost every literate Jewish home in central Europe. It served to introduce its readers to German culture. Through his personal example, and his life's work, Mendelssohn made it possible for his fellow Jews to join the Western world without sacrificing their Judaism. He had convinced them that their intellectual processes were those of universal reason, with which Judaism was in accord.

Mendelssohn's work was carried forward by a group of Jewish intellectuals who had gathered around him in his lifetime. They formed the nucleus of the Berlin Haskala, which was most active in the 20 years following their mentor's death. In the pages of their Hebrew-language periodical, ha-me?assef ("The Collector"), they preached the virtues of secular culture and used Hebrew as a vehicle by which to introduce that culture. To achieve their goal of an enlightened Judaism, the leaders of the Berlin Haskala publicized the need for secular education.

In response to the Holy Roman emperor Joseph of Austria's Edict of Toleration of 1781, Naphtali Wessely welcomed the efforts and issued an urgent call for the reform of Jewish education as a prelude to full emancipation.

Purely secular subjects,mathematics, German, and world history and literature,were to take precedence over the traditional Jewish studies. The study of the Bible, since it was generally acknowledged to be a fundamental part of Western culture, was to be emphasized at the expense of the more traditional learning in the Talmud. Following this model, modern Jewish schools were established by Jewish intellectuals and businessmen in several German cities, among them Frankfurt and Hamburg. As its educational activities began to bear fruit in the wide dissemination of secular culture, the Berlin Haskala abandoned the use of Hebrew for German and gradually disintegrated. Unlike Mendelssohn himself, the immediate descendants of his circle and his own children were unable to strike a balance between Jewish and secular culture; their Western education undermined their religious faith and they perceived their identity as Europeans rather than as Jews.

One of Mendelssohn's disciples, David Friedlaender, offered to convert to Christianity without accepting Christian dogma or Christian rites; he felt that both Judaism and Christianity shared the same religious truth but that there was no relation at all between Judaism's ceremonial law and that truth. The offer was refused unless Friedlaender would acknowledge the superiority of Christianity and make an unconditional commitment to it, which he was not prepared to do. Unlike Friedlaender, many others who began by following Mendelssohn chose to leave the Jewish faith as the only way to win full acceptance in the European community of which they felt themselves a part.

The Haskala, or Enlightenment- In Eastern Europe

The Haskala, thus, was quickly played out in central Europe; as an idea its further spread continued in eastern Europe, particularly in the Russian Empire, where it flourished in the middle third of the 19th century. Then Christian hatred resulted in the pogroms of 1881. Sane Jews lost faith in the goodwill of Russians to accept "enlightened" Jews. Still hope springs from the heart and it was a tenet of the Russian Haskala that the tsar was a benevolent leader who would bestow emancipation upon his Jewish subjects as soon as they proved themselves worthy of it. Therefore, it was the task of the Jews to transform themselves into model citizens, enlightened, unsuperstitious, and devoted to secular learning and productive occupations. They sought to follow the example of the Berlin Haskala. A Russian Hebrew-language writer, Isaac Baer Levinsohn, published a pamphlet, Te?uda be-Yisrael ("Testimony in Israel") citing the benefits of secular education.

At the same time, writers such as Joseph Perl and Isaac Erter, though Orthodox Jews themselves, wrote virulent satire that attacked the superstitious folk customs of the masses. Such works opened the way to the anticlericalism which was to become characteristic of the Russian Haskala.

In the 1840s and 1850s the emphasis shifted from satire and attack on the cultural parochialism of the Pale of Settlement (the regions to which the Jews were restricted) to a romanticization of life outside the Pale, including periods of the Jewish past. Thus, there arose on Russian soil, Hebrew poets and novelists, such as Michal Levensohn and Abraham Mapu, to contribute their talents to the creation of a modern Hebrew literature. With the climate of government reforms in the 1860s, the Russian Haskala entered a "positivist" phase, calling for practical social and economic reforms. Hebrew-language journals were established with Hebrew essays and didactic poetry that called for religious and cultural reforms. In particular, was work of such stylists as the poet Y.L. Gordon and the essayist Moses Leib Lilienblum. In addition, abandoning the original Hebrew and German orientation of the Russian Haskala, a number of Jewish intellectuals became Russifiers by founding Russian-language Jewish weeklies devoted to "patriotism, emancipation, modernism." Like their contemporary fellow Jews in western Europe, they declared themselves to be Russians by nationality and Jews by religious belief alone.

In 1863 a group of wealthy Jews in St. Petersburg and Odessa created the Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia for the purpose of educating Jewry into "readiness for citizenship." The goal of all segments of the Russian Haskala in the 1860s and 1870s was to turn Jews into good Russians. They sought to make their Jewishness a matter of personal idiosyncrasy alone. The period of reaction that set in with the pogroms (massacres) of 1881was to prove how deluding the hopes of the Haskala had been.

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One element of Westernization that the Haskala had championed was the reform of religion. It began in western Europe, particularly France, during the Napoleonic period (1800-15) when certain aspects of Jewish belief and observance were seen as incompatible with the new position of the Jew in Western society. Napoleon convoked a Sanhedrin (Jewish legislative council) in 1807 to create a new, modern definition of Judaism in its renunciation of Jewish nationhood and national aspirations. In addition, it protested that rabbinic authority was purely spiritual, and, it took the position that recognition of the priority of civil over religious authorities even in the matters of intermarriage should be a given.

In areas other than France, the rationale for reform, at least in its early years, was more aesthetic than doctrinal. The external aspects of worship,i.e., the form of the service,appeared unacceptable to the newly Westernized members of the Jewish bourgeoisie in both Germany and the United States. Their standards of cultural acceptability had been shaped by the surrounding society. They desired above all to resemble their Gentile peers. Thus, there was the short-lived Reform temple established in Seesen, by the pioneer German reformer Israel Jacobson in 1810. It sought to enshrine order and dignity of a Protestant type in the service and introduced an organ, sermon, and prayers in German, in place of Hebrew, to create a more Germanic uplifting spiritual experience. The more radical temple in Hamburg (established 1818) adopted all of Jacobson's reforms and published its own much-abridged prayer book, which deleted almost all the references to the long-awaited restoration of Zion. Reformers in Charleston, South Carolina, introduced similar changes in the synagogue ritual in 1824, They sought a non-national Judaism similar in form to Protestantism and adapted to the surrounding culture. It was apparent to the reformers that within Western society Judaism would have to divest itself of its alien customs and conform to the cultural and intellectual standards of the new "age of reason." Assimilation, blending in, was in full force in Europe as it was the USA.

In Germany Reform, in the 1840s,became institutionalized. It was a matter of organizing formal belief and practice. At a series of synods held at Brunswick (1844), Frankfurt (1845), and Breslau (1846) the first theological rationalization for changes was created as introduced by the previous generation. Judaism, it was declared, had always been a developmental religion that conformed to the demands of the times. Since now the Jews were not a nation, they were no longer bound by their entire religious-political code of law, but only by the dictates of moral law. Thus, those rituals which stood in the way of full Jewish participation in German social and political life were no longer considered valid expressions of Jewish religious truth. The use of Hebrew in religious services was limited; practices such as the dietary laws and circumcision and all national messianic hopes were discarded upon the altar of the "spirit of the times." Messianism in Reform Judaism was transmuted into active concern for social welfare in the present, and the Jewish role in history became Diaspora-centered, a mission to the Gentiles.

Although Reform was initiated in Europe, it did not enjoy a successful career, there, because many central European governments that regulated the existence of religious communities would not recognize more than one form of Judaism in any one locale, change was difficult. Reform achieved its greatest success when it was imported into the United States along with the massive German-Jewish immigration of the 1840s and it coalesced with earlier American trends toward reform. By 1880 almost all of the 200 synagogues in the United States had become Reform, amalgamating in the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (formed 1873). In 1885 the Reform philosophy was given its most comprehensive formulation in the so-called Pittsburgh Platform, drawn up by a conference of Reform rabbis.

This manifesto declared that Judaism was an evolutionary faith, and no longer a national faith, and that it was now to be de-oriental zed. While the preservation of historical identity was considered beneficial, the maintenance of continuity of tradition was not. The Talmud was to be considered merely as religious literature, and not as legislation. The rationalist principles of the Pittsburgh Platform remained the official philosophy of the American Reform movement until a later generation, seeking to meet different emotional and intellectual needs, reintroduced the concept of the Jewish people-hood into the Columbus Platform of 1937, which also reemphasized Hebrew and traditional liturgy and practices. Classical (19th-century) Reform was very much a late child of the Enlightenment,. By mid-20th century, its Enlightenment philosophy appeared antiquated to many Jewish thinkers.

The Conservative Religious Movement

If Reform was a child of Enlightenment rationalism, Conservative Judaism was a child of historical romanticism. It began in 1845 when Zacharias Frankel and a group of followers seceded from a second Reform synod at Frankfurt over the issue of the limiting the use of Hebrew to a small core of prayers. For Frankel, Hebrew represented the spirit of Judaism and the Jewish people, and Judaism itself was not merely a theology of ethics but the historical expression of the Jewish experience; this definition he called "positive-historical Judaism." Although Conservative Judaism conceived of Judaism as a developmental religion, it charted its course through close study of the tradition and the will of the people, and thus came to largely traditional conclusions about religious observance.

The Orthodox Religious Developments - In Western and Central Europe

The bulk of the official Jewish establishment in western and central Europe, though affected by the efforts at religious reform, remained Orthodox (a term first used by Reform leaders to designate their traditionalist opponents). Under the leadership of Samson Raphael Hirsch, a more modern and militant form of Neo-Orthodoxy arose, based in Frankfurt am Main, asserted its right to break with any Jewish community that contained Reform elements and to form an independent community. The thinking of this group was profoundly influential, for it indicated the possibility of living a ritually and religiously full life while being integrated into Western society. It accomplished this by positing a theoretical division between religion and culture; the Jews were to remain Orthodox in religion (although deferring their messianic aspirations to the unforeseeable future) while becoming Western in manners and culture.

This form of Orthodoxy, which became the intellectual model for Western Orthodoxy, continued into the late 20th century in the United States in a variety of religious and academic institutions (such as the Yeshiva University and the bulk of English-speaking Orthodox synagogues), It coexists in substantial tension with a number of Orthodox groups, most notably the Lubavitcher and Satmar Hasidim (for Hasidism, see below), and some Talmudic academies that saw the Western world itself as the enemy and chose to recreate the ghetto as a sanctuary.

The Orthodox Religious Developments - In Eastern Europe

By the mid-18th century Orthodoxy in Eastern Europe, Judaism having been convulsed by frantic messianism and stifled by the sterility of purely legalistic scholarship, was ripe for another revival. The experience of Shabbetaianism (the first messianic movement to excite virtually all of world Jewry) had revealed in the mid-17th century the pervasiveness of Jewish fatigue with the enervating effects of the hiatus caused by Exile. There was a fervent longing for messianic redemption. At the same time, the nihilistic sect of the Frankists (the followers of Jacob Frank) in the 18th century had transmuted that messianism into a virtual hysteria for "This World Now". Talmudic piety and study, sunk in into excessive control by pettifoggers (acute logical distinctions that often became mere hairsplitting). Still, it was refreshed by the new critical methods of Elijah ben Solomon, the gaon of Vilna. Although essentially a legal rigorist, he was open to Western scientific learning insofar as it helped him to elucidate Talmudic texts.

Orthodox religious expression also was raised to a new level with the development of ?asidism (Pietism) by Israel Baal Shem Tov in the mid-18th century. Although ?asidism contained elements of social protest, being at least in part a movement of the poor against the wealthy communal leadership, and, of the unlearned against the learned,though many of its leaders were well-versed in Talmudic learning. Hasidism was essentially a non-messianic outcry in the name of religious emotion, emphasizing prayer and personal religious devotion here and now. Contemporary scholarship is investigating the linkage between ?asidism and the era of European Christian pietistic movements.

The major innovation that ?asidism introduced into Jewish religious life was the charismatic leader, the rebbe who served as teacher, confessor, wonder-worker, God's vicar on earth, and occasionally aiding by atonement through sacrifice. Although the earliest rebbes were democratically chosen, the position of leadership passed to their descendants on the presumption that they had inherited their fathers' charisma and thus created spiritual dynasties. ?asidism spread throughout eastern Europe and enjoyed its greatest success in Poland.

In Lithuania, Hasidism was notably unsuccessful. There the traditional rabbinic class, under the leadership of Elijah, the Vilna gaon, was able to stave off its influence by issuing a ban of excommunication (Herem, "anathema") against the new movement. The tactic (a complete boycott and cutting off of communication) was widely embraced by various non-?asidic rabbis, who earned for themselves among the Hasidim the title of Mitnaggedim (Opponents). Yet, the anathema proved largely ineffective in areas where the rabbis had lost the respect of the masses. Worse, it called forth a round of counter-excommunications by the ?asidic rebbes. With the passage of time, Hasidim and Mitnaggedim abandoned their conflict and came to see each other as allies against the threat to all Orthodox Jewish religion of Haskala and secularization.

The impact of ?asidism on eastern European Jewry cannot be overemphasized; even in Lithuania, where it did not take firm hold, it stimulated the growth of a home-grown pietism in the Musar (ethicist) movement of the mid-19th century, and it renewed the Talmudic energies of its opponents.

Developments in Scholarship

As Jews moved into Western society in central Europe, there arose a group of young Jewish intellectuals who devoted themselves to Jewish scholarship of a far different type from traditional Talmudic learning or medieval philosophy. In their work these intellectuals presented archetypes of what modern Jews should become. Moritz Steinschneider, who owes his fame to towering achievements in bibliography, was concerned above all with the contribution of Jews to science, medicine, and mathematics. Nineteenth-century Jewish scholarship set out to praise Judaism as one of the cofounders of the Western tradition, and thus to argue that whenever the Jews were not excluded from European society they have produced great culture. They would repeat such accomplishments under conditions of social and political equality.

The sponsors of the MeetingHouse strongly support this reality. We view Jews as exemplars of Western culture and urge that other western educational systems as well, as parental training of their children should emulate the virtuous ways of the Jewish heritage and culture. Many other first-rank scholars in Europe, Israel, and the United States have made notable contributions to the study of Jewish history, rabbinics, and mysticism. This great emphasis on historical research and knowledge from a wide variety of perspectives tended to propose veneration for the Jewish past as a substitute for waning religious faith.

Jewish-Christian Relations

Jewish-Christian relations in the 19th century were strained at best and often erupted into open conflict. Established Christian power , and Roman Catholicism in particular, staunch upholders of the old order, identified the Jews as the major beneficiaries of the French Revolution and as the bearers of a liberal, secular, anticlerical, and often revolutionary threat. Clerical anti-Semitism in France allied with the anti-Semitism of the traditional right. These movements contended with those who affirmed the results of the French Revolution in the great convulsion of the "Dreyfus affair" toward the end of the 19th century.

In Russia the conflict of the Jews and the Orthodox Church released the most open and virulent manifestations of religious anti-Semitism. To the church, the Jews were the enemy seeking to undermine Russian Orthodoxy and the tsar, the very foundations of Russian tradition. The Tsar and the church fanned the coals of hate. The church and the tsarist authorities went so far as to condone, and even encourage, the inhuman violent criminal pogroms that were perpetrated against the Jews in 1881-82 and again in 1905.

Russian Orthodoxy was active, as well, in spreading the awful slander of the so-called blood libel, a superstitious belief in Jewish ritual murder which had reemerged even in the 19th century, in Damascus in 1840 (in which instance the French Consul in Syria initiated the accusation). This defamation of a whole ethnic class was clearly against any correct conception of God. In Hungary in1882. torture was used to obtain false confessions. Nevertheless the courageous accuseds were ultimately cleared. To the sorrow of man the Christians continued group libel of the Jews in modern times. An infamous recurrence was the Beilis case of 1911-13. In this case, the tsarist government, with church complicity, sought, unsuccessfully, to convict a Jewish bookkeeper in Odessa, Crimea of ritual murder.

The Rising Torrent of Anti-Semitic Group-Libel Inundated Good Christian Behavior with A Flood Of Evil Propaganda

From Russian Orthodox circles, the group libel of the so-called Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, which was a criminal treatise based on whole cloth fraudulent slander poured forth hate against the Jews. The small book alleged to document an international Jewish conspiracy to conquer the world by subverting the social order through Liberalism, Freemasonry, and other modern movements. The evil fiction appeared around the turn of the century and enjoyed a phenomenal success as a best seller even though it was an abomination and insidious evil anti-Semitic propaganda.

In spite of the fact that much of the modern anti-Semitism was obvious false representations about racism, pagan practices, and usually left-wing activities; these libels were not enough. Christians also attributed to Jews secular anti-Semitism against older Christian teachings. The defamer's assertions persisted in to the 20th century. Most Christians had moved toward mutual understandings of the virtues of serving God. In fact, in the early decades of the 20th century, some liberal Christian voices were raised against anti-Semitism. For example, the United States the National Conference of Christians and Jews was founded (1928) as a response to anti-Semitism propagated in Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent newspaper.

Brave minorities of the Christian churches spoke out during the 1930s against the Nazi persecution of the Jews, but the majority of Christian religious figures in Europe remained silent. This included Cardinal Pacelli, later to be Pope Pius who had made a concordat of cooperation with Hitler. Hitler has never been excommunicated. Worse, in Germany under the leadership of Hitler and his supporters , even during the Holocaust (near extermination of European Jews) silence, and in many cases complicity, reigned.

In response to the great sin of the Holocaust, however, the World Council of Churches denounced anti-Semitism, ex post facto in 1946. In 1965, John Roncalli, the beloved Pope John , caused the adoption of the Roman Catholic Church's Schema on the Jews and other non-Christian religions by the Second Vatican Council. This major policy reversal revised Roman Catholics' traditional attitude toward the Jews as the killers of Christ. A growing sense of ecumenism (of fellowship and common concerns) has been shared by Jews and Christians alike. Although there remain many difficulties related to the question of the place that Zionism and the State of Israel hold within Judaism, the older forms of official church anti-Semitism have radically lessened.

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The most striking of the new phenomena in Jewish life is Zionism, which, insofar as it has focused on the return to Zion (the poetic term for the Holy Land), is a resonating re-echo of older religious themes. It has stressed a concentration of the Jews in a secular nation-state. However, it is also 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 more virulent form of racist anti-Semitism in the last decades of the 19th century forward into the 20th century. Zionism reacted to anti-Semitic contentions that the Jews were aliens in European society and could never hope to be integrated into it in any numbers. Zionism transformed this ostracism into a basic premise that there was an obvious need for a program of national regeneration and resettlement. Zionism has come to occupy a place in Jewish life as the "social gospel",which shows that the way to achieve the Kingdom of God is for Jews as with Christians is to have an economic and social life way of life that is fulfilling in the religious sense of the word. The founding of Israel as the new centre of Jewish energies, creativity, and renewal serves as the secular religion of many Diaspora Jews.

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The story of Judaism in the United States begins in the colonial period with tiny American Jewish community shaped by the earliest Sefardic immigrants. The communities were officially Orthodox but, unlike European Jewish communities they were voluntaristic. By the early 19th century there was a significant drift of the younger generation from Judaism. In the mid-19th century the new wave of central European immigrants revived the declining American Jewish communities and remade them, generally serving their own needs. The eastern European immigrants who moved in large numbers to the American shores in the years from 1881 to 1914 were profoundly different in culture and manners (e.g. Fiddler on the Roof)from the older elements of the American Jewish community, and it is they, and their descendants, who made American Judaism as it is today.

Primarily petty shopkeepers and traders, the new immigrants migrated westward, founding new Jewish centers which were almost entirely controlled by laymen. The exigencies of life on the frontier within an open society created a predisposition for religious reform, In that day the greatest American Reform Jewish leader of the 19th century was Isaac Mayer Wise, who was based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Wise sought to unite all of American Jewry in the new nontraditional institutions that he founded, but his ever more radical reforming spirit ultimately drove the traditionalist elements within the American Jewish community into opposition. The head of the traditionalist circles had been Isaac Leeser, a native of Germany, who attempted to create an indigenous American community along the lines of a modernized traditionalism. After his death the 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

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. Whereas in 1880 almost all of the 200 Jewish congregations in the United States were Reform, by 1890 there were 533 synagogues, and most of the new ones founded by immigrant groups were Orthodox. 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, which combined institutional separatism and cooperation with other Jewish groups in umbrella organizations.

Generally, the immigrants and their children had three desires; to upgrade themselves socially by joining older congregations or forming their own in an Americanized image; to affirm an un-ideological commitment to Jewish life; and to maintain their ties to the overseas Jewish communities of their origin. With their strong sense of Jewish peoplehood, they introduced Zionism into American Jewish life A small group of anti-Zionists remained a significant force in the 1930s and 1940s, 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

American Jewish religious life is a continuum,from the most traditional Orthodoxy to the most radical Reconstructions. In theory:

All of the Orthodox groups agree on the revealed nature of all of Jewish law.

The Reform groups emphasize the moral doctrine of Judaism as divine and its ritual law is man made.

The 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 Deconstructionists (who include both Conservative and Reform Jews) view Judaism as the evolving civilization created by the Jewish people in the light of its highest conscience.

What really marks the various bodies in the mind of the Jewish community is their difference in ritual practices, yet, the ritual variations shade from one group into the other. In the USA, the role of the rabbi is substantially the same in all three groups; he is no longer a Talmudic scholar but a preacher, pastor, and administrator, a cross between a parish priest and the leader of an ethnic group.

Although there was some cooperation among the three major Jewish denominations,Orthodoxy, Reform, and Conservatism,the real effort of organized Jewish religion in America in the late 20th century revolved around the individual synagogue and the denomination to which it belonged. As religious identification became increasingly respectable for Jews in American life, the Jews followed the American norm, affiliating in greater numbers with synagogues, though often for ethnic or social, rather than religious reasons.

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Modernity came first to the Jewish people in Europe. Therefore, it was within the European context that representatives of important non-Ashkenazi communities participated in variations of Jewish modernity. In England and France at the outset, enlightenment ideology was the central focus of Jewish experience for modernist than in Germany or Russia. The "republic of scholarship" became the synagogue of the Jewish intelligentsia. In neither Germany nor Russia did Reform Judaism gain a major foothold. The Orthodox establishment remained the official synagogue, liberalizing its synagogue practice while retaining its essentially conservative outlook. In Anglo-Jewish life in the last decades of the 19thcentury the two most pronounced modernist tendencies were a moderate romantic traditionalism and the renewal of a version of religious reform a kind of "back to the Bible."

Outside of Europe, in such places as South America and Canada, Jewish modernity appeared later. European Jewry arrived in those places later than in the United States, attaining a significant number only in the 20th century. These communities have been dependent on immigrant scholars and intellectuals for serious Jewish thought.

Jews in the Arab lands, in North Africa and the Middle East who lived within more 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 widespread schools set up by the Alliance Israelite Universelle (a Jewish defense organization centered in Paris), which combined Jewish education with the language and values of French civilization. Yet, most of these communities remained traditionalist almost to the moment when they were expelled or felt compelled to relocate, since 1948, when the state of Israel was created.

The ferment of modernity in all its forms is now being felt in their ranks. In the Israel, that has received a large segment of Sefardic Jewry. The attention of these communities has turned to attaining equality with the more advanced Ashkenazim rather than developing some 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 who have migrated to Israel; the Falashas, the Jewish community of Ethiopia whose development has been almost entirely outside the main stream 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.

Contemporary Judaism

As a result of the Holocaust, Judaism has become a non-European religion. Its three major centers, which together include more than three-fourths of world Jewry, are Israel, the Slavic region of the former Soviet Union; and the United States of America. In the USA, though the Jews constitute only a small fraction of the population Judaism occupies a role far surpassing its numerical importance. This is in part because as an ethnic group many are exemplars of American constitutional ideals.

One observes that Jewish men and women are strongly represented as judges in the federal jurisdiction. More to their credit, since the federal judiciary is in a way a meritocracy resulting from its nomination and confirmation process the presence of them in disproportionate numbers is because as individuals they are so well respected by others. Judaism is regarded with Roman Catholicism and Protestantism as one of the major American faiths. Similarly, in the international realm of Western religion, after World War II, Judaism has been welcomed as a partner able to deal with other major religions as an equal on such issues as anti-Semitism, human rights, and world peace.

The rights and needs of the world Jewish community, including Israel, have triggered deep conflicts with which Judaism has been involved with the Arab and Communist worlds. Ideological and ethnic (racists) friction between Israel and the Arab states has created deadly tension with Islam. The political stand of Israel and the treatment of the Jewish minority within the erstwhile Soviet Union led to open clashes with the Communist leadership. Some of the diatribes and charges that have issued from the Arabs and Communists in this struggle have at times repeated the offensive older forms of anti-Semitism. In the long-range view, the problems of Judaism and Islam seem more soluble than those of Judaism and such secular ideologies as Communism. The leadership of most of the major religions of the world is increasingly seeking accommodation with each other. But, all are confronted within their own ranks as well as from outside with hostile religious ideologies which have retained their proselytizing elan. As some religions are becoming more welcoming to converts. Christian and Islam sects are becoming more aggressive in promoting the idea of the superiority of their exclusionary creed. The spiritual but not religious people, see these competing claims for the privilege of being the exclusive representative for God as a very dangerous trend.

Within its own community Jewry is faced with the increasing secularization of Jewish identity in its three major centers, each in its own way. In the United States the open society and the melting pot ideologies of past generations have fostered among many Jews a sense of Jewish identity increasingly devoid of concrete religious, national, or historical content. In the former Soviet Union Republics government policy from the 1930s forward had banned the teaching of Judaism and Jewish culture to the young. and severely discouraged any manifestation of Jewish identity as a sign of the disloyalty of "rootless cosmopolitans" to the Russian national republics. The place of Judaism and Jews in the fragmented new states is still being worked out with some signs of ugly anti-Semitism arising again.

In Israel though a secular nationalism has taken root, the Conservative and Orthodox peoples are exhibiting some intolerance toward the Reformed Jews. The beloved "Open Door to Jews" policy for Israel has inundated Zionists with large numbers of Russian Jews and North African Jews who do not have the Zionist spirit. This has raised serious questions as to the role that Judaism plays in the identity of the average beleaguered Israeli. Nonetheless, underneath the external secularization there are clear signs of persisting deep Jewish religious fervor with the intertwined strands of Jewish religious life seeming to unravel toward the end of redefining the personal identity of Israeli citizens and residents.

Some of the rituals of the Jewish tradition, especially the rites of passage at the crucial stages of individual existence, are almost universally observed; in the United States. For example, more than 80 percent of Jewish children receive some formal religious training. Among Jewish youth there is, in some circles, a quest for tradition.

In Russia, thousands of young people gather on several occasions of the year to dance and sing and express solidarity in front of the synagogues in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Still, signs of major weaknesses persist. The rate of intermarriage among Jews in the Diaspora has increased. Regular synagogue attendance, at the very highest 20 percent in the United States, remains far below church attendance for Christians. Along with other major religions, Judaism's most disturbing problem yet to be solved was how to deal with secular ideologies and the growth of secularism within its own ranks. Yet, there is a general sense among Jews that they remain Jews not because of the force of anti-Semitism but because of the attractiveness of their tradition and their sense of a common history and destiny.

If in 1945, the world Jewish community, decimated and horrified by the terror of the Holocaust, felt in danger of disappearing there appears to be no such despair in the last quarter of the century on into the 21st century. There is a reasonable expectation that Jewish communal feeling will remain strong, especially, for many or most Jews. In the light of the existence of Israel,. Judaism enjoys a heightened dignity in the eyes of the world. This is not only because of the creation of the State of Israel, but also because of its close relations with other world religions. Although the virulent anti-Semitism of many within Islam who are led by Saudi Arabia's Whahabist is a dangerous problem is still to be solved; hopefully, through diplomacy. The recurring phenomenon of the alienation of young Jews from their tradition is troubling, it is no more so than in recent past generations. Thus, at the end of the 20th century, it appears that Judaism will have to contend with as many problems as other major religions. Still, such problems are faced with no less confidence than at times in the past, and with more confidence than it had felt earlier in the century.

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The Literature of Judaism

General Considerations

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 act of God. In its written form, Torah was considered to be especially present in the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch), which therefore 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.

Central to this vast structure was, of course, the Jewish community's concern to live in accordance with the divine will embodied and expressed in Torah in the widest sense. Scripture, Halakhic and Haggadic Midrash, Mishna, and Gemara were the sources from which the leaders of the communities drew in order to provide both stability and flexibility. The dispersion of the Jews outside Palestine confronted communities and individuals with novel and unexpected situations that had to be dealt with in such a way as to provide continuity while at the same time making it possible to exist with the unprecedented.

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Modern Views of Torah

In modern times,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 as the ideals and sancta (holy things) of the Jewish people. Other and varying positions of many sorts have been and undoubtedly will be forthcoming. What is crucial, however, is the concern of all these positions to retain,with whatever modifications are required,the concept of Torah as one of the central and continuing affirmations of Judaism.

Basic Beliefs and Doctrines

Judaism is not and cannot be viewed as an abstract intellectual system. Further, the response of this particular people to its encounter with God is viewed as significant for all mankind. 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 behavior, from the most public to the most private. Thus, even Jewish worship is communal celebration of the meetings with God in history and in nature. Yet the particular existence of the Covenant people is not thought of as contradicting but rather as enhancing human solidarity. This people, together with all men, is called upon to create political, economic, and social forms that will affirm divine sovereignty,embody it in communal existence. This task is carried out in the belief not that man will succeed solely by his own efforts in these endeavors but that these sought-after human relationships have both their source and their goal in God,who assures their actualization. Within the sphere of his existence in the community, each Jew is called upon to realize the Covenant in his personal intention and behavior. 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.

God

An early statement of basic beliefs and doctrines emerged in the liturgy of the synagogue some time during the last pre-Christian and first Christian centuries, although there is evidence 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 (order of worship, or prayer book) that has as its focus the recitation of a series of biblical passages (Deut. 6:4-9; Deut. 11:13-21; Num. 15:37-41) takes its name from 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 unified statement about God and his relationship to the world and Israel, as well as Israel's obligations toward and response to God. In this statement, God, who is the Creator of the universe and who has chosen Israel in love ("Blessed art thou, O Lord, who has chosen thy people Israel in love"), expressed by the giving of Torah, is declared to be "one"; his love is to be reciprocated by men 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.

Unity and Uniqueness

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 over against religious positions that insisted that the Creator God and the lawgiver God were separate and even inimical. Subsequently, this affirmation was developed in philosophical and mystical terms by both medieval and modern thinkers.

Creativity

As has been noted, 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 world view, he remains actively present in nature. This "creed" is concerned as well to come to terms with the ever-present problem of evil. Paraphrasing Isa. 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") rather than "evil." The change was clearly made to avoid the implication that God is the source of moral evil. Judaism, however, did not flinch from confronting the problem of pain and suffering in the world and affirming the paradox of suffering and divine sovereignty, of pain and divine providence, refusing to accept the concept of a partial God,a God that is Lord over only the harmonious and pleasant aspects of reality.

Activity in the World

The second and the third benedictions deal with divine activity within the realm of history and human life. God is teacher of men through the giving of instruction (Torah; see above); he acts in the life of mankind in historical events; he has chosen a particular people,Israel,in love to witness to his presence and his desire for a perfected society; he will, as redeemer, enable man 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. There is a divine law and judge. Support for this affirmation is drawn from the third biblical passage (Num. 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."

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 Idealist philosophy: more recently, philosophical Naturalism was offered as the suitable content of Judaism, while still retaining the traditional God language. The meaningfulness of the whole body of such affirmations, moreover, has been called into question by the philosophical schools of Logical Positivism and Linguistic Analysis. Most recently, the destruction of 6,000,000 Jews during the Nazi period has raised the issue of the validity of such concepts as God's presence in history, divine redemption, the covenant, and the chosen people. In every case, however, it is with the structure of ideas here noted that these challenges must deal.

ISRAEL (the Jewish people)

Choice and Covenant

The concluding phrase of the second benediction of the liturgical section referred to above reads: "who has chosen thy people Israel in love." Here the basis of the relationship between God and Israel set forth in the biblical narrative is clearly and succinctly stated: the choice of this people was determined by no other factor than divine love. The patriarchal narratives, beginning with the 12th chapter of Genesis, presuppose the choice, which is set forth explicitly in Deut. 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 the 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 choice of Israel has its concrete expression 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.

A more balanced view recognizes that within the Jewish community religious universalism was affirmed at the same time and 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 mankind. 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 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 the fulfillment, from the divine side, of the Covenant. At the end of the 19th century the power of the utopian 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 colored by nationalist motifs in European thought. The coming together of these two strains of thought gave rise to Zionism. The political movement reflected a dissatisfaction with the view of the Jews as merely a body or organization of religious believers,like the Christian churches,an interpretation that had become dominant following the political emancipation of the Jews in the period after Napoleon. The political emphasis of Zionism aroused considerable opposition from those Jews who were convinced of the necessity of a churchly definition of Judaism parallel to the Roman Catholic and Protestant communions.

The events of the Nazi period in Europe brought it to a close, except for some sporadic renewals on the part of some numerically insignificant groups. For the most part, although there are few satisfactory formulations,theological or secular,there is a working consensus that acknowledges a significant role to the land and recognizes that a churchly definition of the Jewish community, while strategically acceptable in some situations, does not do justice to history and is not theologically sound if it suggests that Judaism merely consists of abstract doctrines and dogmas. Some Jews, however, continue to argue that whatever the past has been, the future of the Jewish community is with those movements in the modern world that cut across or transcend the particularity Zionism represents.

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. Most recently, attempts have been made to approach the question sociologically, dismissing the theological mode as unhelpful. The concept of the chosen people is then understood to indicate 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 has 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.

Man The Image of God

In Gen. 1:26, 27; 5:1; and 9:6 two terms occur, "image" and "likeness," that seem to indicate clearly the biblical understanding of man's essential nature: he is created in the image and likeness of God. Yet the texts in which they are used are not entirely unambiguous; the idea they point to does not appear elsewhere in Scriptures; and the concept is skirted cautiously in the rabbinic interpretations. What the image and likeness of God or the divine image refer to in the biblical text is not made explicit, and, in the light of the psychosomatic unity of man that dominates the biblical concepts, it is not possible to escape entirely from 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 is a question unanswered.

This anthropological ancient image can not be reconciled with Man's modern view of the Universe. Better a mysterious intelligent designer than an Old Man with a Magic Finger somewhere in the sky. There is conflict in modern times arising out of how God should be defined in view of modern knowledge. The MeetingHouse takes up the question at the hyperlink (within the site) labeled - The Problem of God, and, Tolerance. There we confront the issues of how God is seen and defined. What is evident is that no doctrine of man can be erected on the basis of these several verses of Genesis, alone, but that a broader view must be taken if they are assimilated

Man the Human - The Earthly-Spiritual Creature

Rabbinic thought remained closer to the biblical position, at least in its understanding of man as a psychosomatic unit, although the temporary separation of the components after death was an accepted position. The biblical view of man as an inseparable psychosomatic unit meant that death was understood to be his dissolution. For most of the 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. However, this concept along with belief in the possibility of occasional miraculous restorations of dead individuals to life, provided a foothold for the development of a belief in the resurrection of the dead body at some time in the future.

The stimulus for this may have come from Zoroastrianism, an ancient Iranian religion, in which the dualistic cosmic struggle is eventually won by life through the resurrection of the dead. (see MeetingHouse hyperlink- Zoroastrianism). Although at this point the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was not put aside, nonetheless, 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. 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.

The status of the soul was not the concern, however, among either the biblical or the rabbinic thinkers . What emerged was Man is in a state of tension or equilibrium between the two foci of creation, the "heavenly" and the "earthly." Humans, necessarily participates in both, and, as such, is the one responsible creature who can truly serve his Creator. Man alone among the creatures has both sides of creation in him, thus he may choose between them. It is the ability to make an ethical choice that is the distinguishing mark of man. This ability is not derived from the "heavenly" side but resides in the double basis of man's existence. It is important to recognize this as something other than a body-soul dualism. Such an attitude, however, did appear in some rabbinic material and mystical speculations. These are genuine variations and developments, they may not be dismissed as aberrations. They represent authentic attempts to come to terms with Man's uncertainty as to the meaning of his life.

Human's Are The Ethically-bound Creature

Mankind is then viewed as ethically involved. The first 11 chapters of Genesis are posited upon this responsibility, Man's ability to choose between obedience and disobedience. All men, not merely Israel, were engaged in a covenant relationship with God, which was spelled out in explicit precepts,variously enumerated as six, seven, or even 10 and occasionally as many as 30,that reflect generally humanitarian behavior and are intended to assure 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.

Man's nature, viewed ethically, was explained in rabbinic Judaism not only as a tension between the "heavenly" and "earthly" components but also as a tension between two "impulses." These more clearly suggest the ethical quality of man's duality, while their opposition and conflict point to man's freedom and the ethical choices he makes. Sin, then, is ultimately deliberate disobedience or rebellion against the divine sovereign. This is more easily observed in relation to Israel, for it is here that the central concern of Judaism is most evident and it is discussed in greatest detail. It should be noted, however, that since all mankind stands within a covenant relation to God and is commanded to be moral and just, essentially the same choice is made universally.

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!" At the same time it imposes obligations in terms of communal and individual behavior. These two responses are understood to be inextricably bound together, so that rejection of the divine sovereign is manifest as denial of God both intellectually and practically. In more specific terms, sin is sometimes summed up fewer than three major, interrelated headings: idolatry, murder, and illicit sexual behavior, each and all of which explicitly and implicitly involve rebellion, for they involve activities that deny,if not God's existence,his commanding relationship. Such rebellious behavior destroys the community and sets individual against individual, thus thwarting the ultimate purpose of God, a perfected human society.

Judaism gives a saving grace, in that man is free to choose rebellion and to suffer its consequences, but he is also able to return to God and to become reconciled with him. The Bible,most particularly the prophetic writings,is filled with this idea, although the term. Basically it grows out of the covenant and God's unwillingness,despite man's failures,to break off his loving relationship. It is apparently 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. Thus, the divine invitation was constantly being offered. Man was called upon to atone for his rebellion by positive action that repudiated his failure. He was summoned to reconstitute wholeness in his individual life and community in society.

Historically viewed, Jewish existence, following after the two disastrous rebellions against Rome, was an attempt to reconstitute a community of faith. It is expressed in worship and in an ordered society that would enable the individual to live a hallowed life of response to the divine will. It was probably understood to be the paradigm for the eventual reconstruction of humanity.

Medieval and Modern Views Of Man

Certainly, the Jewish view of man is less clearly articulated than its affirmations concerning love and obedience to God. Nonetheless, its central concern was ethical. 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 philosophic To call it immortality is to empty that term of any vital significance.., the view that man is to be understood, however else, as a creature who makes free ethical choices for which he is responsible remains the basic affirmation of Judaism about man.

Ethics and Society - The Ethical Emphasis of Judaism

Jewish affirmations about God and man intersect in the Torah as the ordering of human existence toward reconciliation with the divine. Man, however else understood, is an ethically responsible creature responsive to the presence of God in nature and in history. Man's responsiveness to G,D is expressed on many levels, it is within the horizontal relationship of man to man that it is most explicitly expected. The pentateuchal legislation such as the Mosaic Codes laid down, the expected patterns of interpersonal relations.

The prophetic messages are deeply concerned with these demands. Disregard of them is a source of social and individual disorder. No segment of society, even the most exalted, is free of ethical obligation. Indeed, the transformation of prophetism from its earlier form of ecstaticism and soothsaying to the ethical plane is seen as the ethical confrontation of David resulting from seducing Bathsheba and arranging to have her husband killed (II Sam. 12). What is striking, is the affirmation that God is not only the source of ethical obligation but moreover HE is himself the paradigm of it.

In the so-called Code of Holiness (Lev. 19), it is imitation of divine holiness that is offered as the base of proper human behavior in the ethical sphere as well as the cultic-ceremonial. Concern for the poverty stricken members of the community; toward neighbors; hired laborers; the physically handicapped; interfamilial relationships; and attitudes toward strangers (i.e., non-Israelites) were all motivated by the basic injunction, "You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am Holy."

Acceptable human behavior is, therefore, "walking in all His ways" (Deut. 11:22). This is compared with Taoism most noble entreaty - learn to walk with the Tao (God). This theme, "imitatio Dei ("imitation of God"), as developed in Judaism, is expressed succinctly in the verse from Deuteronomy quoted above.

In response to the question of how it is possible to walk "in all His ways," the reply is made (Sifre Deut. 85a): "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." Indeed even more daringly, God is described as clothing the naked, nursing the sick, comforting the mourners, burying the dead, so that man may recognize his own obligations.

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.

The just society requires the just man, and the just man functions within the just society. The concrete expression of ethical requirements in legal precepts took place with both ends in view. The reestablishment of the State of Israel in the 20th century has, therefore, reopened for discussion areas that have for millennia been either ignored or relegated to the realm of abstraction. What this implies is that the full ethical responsibility of the Jew cannot be carried out solely within the realm of individual relationships but must include involvement in the life of a fully articulated community. 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 made up the pattern of the individual's obligations as well. Given the situation of the dispersion of the Jews following the revolts against Rome in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, the individual pattern became the object of primary considerations. It is important to recognize that while theoretical ethical systems were not developed until the Middle Ages under the influence of philosophical concerns, nonetheless, even in the early period it was understood that behind the practical system of Halakha, the enumeration of legal precepts, there stood the dynamic of ethical theory. An attempt was made to reduce the hundreds of precepts to a small number expressing the ethical essence of Torah.

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To study the Torah, was viewed as an ethical virtue. A passage in the traditional Prayer Book enumerates a series of virtuous acts,honoring 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. To parental respect and family tranquility are added the responsibility of parents for children, the duties of husband and wife in the establishing and maintaining a family. There are 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 the stranger, providing him with food and clothing (Deut. 10:18), remained a motivating factor in the structure of the community.

Ethical requirements in economic life are expressed concretely in such a passage as Lev. 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"; and in Amos' 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 expressions of 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.

Not only are relations within the human sphering the object of ethical concern but nature also is so regarded. The animal world, in the biblical view, requires merciful consideration, so that not only man is commanded to rest on the Sabbath but his domestic animals are to share the rest with him. (Ex. 20:10; 23:12). Mistreatment of beasts of burden is prohibited (Deut. 22:4). The wanton destruction of animal life falls under the ban (ibid em: 6-7). In the rabbinic attitude toward brute creation, even inanimate nature is the object of human solicitude. Thus, for example, the food-yielding trees of a city under siege may not be destroyed, according to Deuteronomic legislation (Deut. 20:14-20). The enlargement of this and other biblical precepts resulted in the generalized rabbinic prohibition "You shall not destroy" that governs man's use of his environment.

The Relation To Non-Jewish Communities And Cultures

The end of the Jewish state reduced the scope of ethical judgments in the political sphere. Nonetheless, relations between the Jewish community and other societies,particularly political units: the Roman and Christian empires, the Islamic states, and other regimes,provided opportunities for the exploration of the ethical implications of such encounters. Most of these were victor-victim, superior-inferior, power-powerless situations, with the Jews the weaker party. Of course, prudential considerations were dominant. Still, Jewish authorities sought to bring to bear upon these interactions the ethical standards that governed their own communities.

The whole problem of the relationship between the Jewish community and other social units has been a swing between the extremes of isolation and assimilation, in which the ideal has, on occasion, been lost. Culturally, from its earliest beginnings, the people of Israel had met and engaged the ideas of neighbors It borrowed as it contributed and reformulated what it received in terms of its own commitments and affirmations. Sometimes as in the period of settlement in Canaan, it rejected the religio-cultural ideas and forms of the native population. At other times, it actively sought out,as in the Islamic period in Spain (8th to 15th centuries) the ideas and cultural patterns of its. No period of its existence discloses either total rejection of or abject surrender to other cultural and political structures. Judaism's adjustment to and relation with other sociopolitical units involved larger aspects of communal and individual life than merely the religious. It is helpful to describe Judaism as a civilization this is because it is important to recognize that much more must be included than is usually subsumed under the common usage of "religion."

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Creation and Providence: God's World

The first chapter of Genesis affirms divine creation, but, it does not offer an entirely unambiguous view of the origin of the universe. as the debate in modern times discloses there is the question: Was there or was there not a preexisting matter, void, or chaos? However, in his time, the interest of the author was not in the mode of creation, it was a later concern. Various translations of the verse: "In the beginning God created," could signify what medieval philosophers designated creation ex nihilo ("creation out of nothing"); and "when God began to create," could indicate some concept of prime matter. Taoism seems to have accepted the basic ambiguity between chaos and order. The Jewish writers seemed to be concerned BOUT affirming that the totality of existence, inanimate (Gen. 1:3-19), living (20-25), and human (26-31), was derived immediately from the same divine source; and, thus, that it is a universe.

As divine creation, it 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" (Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 25, 31) may be understood as the ground of this affirmation.

The observed order of the universe is further understood by the biblical author to be the direct result of a covenant established 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." (Gen. 8:22). This doctrine of the providential ordering of the universe in Judaism, is not without its difficulties. There is the problem of theodicy (the problem of evil in a world made and ordered by God). Judaism has not acquiesced to the mood reported in the Palestinian Targum to Gen. 4:8: "He did not create the world in mercy nor does he rule in mercy." Instead, it has affirmed a benevolent and compassionate God.

It is the physical world that provides the stage for history, which is the place of the divine creation and the human encounter. An early Midrash, in response to the question as to why Scripture begins with the story of creation, points out that it was necessary in order to establish the identity of the Creator with the Giver of Torah. The prayer of sanctification recited at the beginning of the Sabbath 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. 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, the view expressed by Judaism is of an all-inclusive effect of the restored relationship.

Man's Place in the Universe

Man as creature is subject to the natural order. It is in the world and through the world that man carries out his relationship to God. The commandments of Torah are obeyed not solely as observances between man and God but as actions between man and man, between man and the world. Although the creation story designates man as ruler over the earth and its inhabitants (Gen. 1:26-28; see also Ps. 8:5-9) Nonetheless, Man is not an arbitrary master, man's dominion is limited by Torah. Torah's regulations are concerned not only with transactions between man and man but also lay out his responsibilities to the land he cultivates, the produce of the soil, the animals he domesticates. Bound by the network of existence man, as the moral creature, is responsible for it in all of its parts.

The destruction of the Jewish commonwealth in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE did not alienate the Jew from these responsibilities, The system of Mishna and Gemara gives evidence. The gradual but consistent exclusion of the Jewish community from immediate connection with large segments of the natural world, through legislation in Christendom and Islam, probably, dulled the Jew sensate awareness of nature, however the observation of harvest festivals even by city dwellers continued to remind the community of its ties. By 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 an affirmative attitude toward and treatment of the land. Nature (the ecological environment) 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.

Intermediary Beings: Angels and Demons

The exact nature of the nonhuman beings mentioned in Scripture,angels or messengers,is not clear. Their roles seem ephemeral. In the postexilic period, perhaps under Persian (Zoroastrian) influence and in late biblical and post-biblical literature these beings emerge as more complete and often as clearly identifiable individuals with their own personal names. The unfocussed biblical view gave way to an elaborate hierarchy, a veritable heavenly bureaucracy. Nevertheless, there was little agreement as to their role or importance. In some Midrashim God takes counsel with them. In other sources the rabbis urge men not to involve them but to approach God directly.

Actually, they belong to that marginal area between religion and folklore. Like their counter-figures, the demons, they 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 flit in and out of the imagination like bats in the evening. The Cabbalists continually invented new ones and fitted them into their complicated network of cosmic existence. Nonetheless, their role, even in periods of considerable emphasis, was peripheral. They were outside the great movements and meanings of Jewish thought. But, the mythical "Handwriting on the Wall" is one of the most compelling stories from the Old Testament.

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The Future Age of Mankind And The World

According to biblical writings, Israel was chosen because of mankind's continual failure, by rebellion against its Creator, to fulfill its divine potential. The subsequent failure 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 was the envisioning 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 sociopolitical unit and under the leadership of a human ruler, who would carry out his tasks within the sphere of divine sovereignty, He would serve primarily to exhibit his own obedience and thus to stimulate the obedience of the entire people. This human monarch of the future was often an idealized David, using such features of his life and reign as would underscore submission to God emphasizing social stability, economic satisfaction, and peace. During the period of the monarchy, the prophetic demands we redirected toward each succeeding king, with the hope that he would be or become the new David, or the ideal ruler.

The Babylonian Exile added a new measure of urgency to this expectation, The later chapters of the Book of Ezekiel provide in largely impersonal fashion the constitution for the new commonwealth. while the later chapters of the Book of Isaiah focus on several figures,including Cyrus the Mede,who are seen as the divine instruments ushering in a new era.

It is important to understand that while such figures have extraordinary virtues ascribed to them, these virtues are neither superhuman nor supra-human but such as are ultimately required of all Israel and of all men. The frustrations of the postexilic period, when the several attempts to bring about the holy community were unsuccessful, some were thwarted by the imperial designs of the great powers. This led to an emphasis upon the futuristic quality of the messianic hope. This was abetted undoubtedly by external influences, such as Iranian thought such as Zoroastrianism wherein the cosmic rather than the historic aspect of a future era dominated. Since ancient cosmic myths,in good measure demythologized,had been part of the Israelite intellectual inheritance throughout Scriptures, the neighboring ideas were as to reinvigorate the mythic elements. Thus, hopes for the future focused upon a socio-political community along with cosmic-mythic visions that moved on a broader stage 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 forms, apocalypses (i.e., visionary disclosures of the future), the literature of the period affords a remarkable insight into the agonies and urgencies of the people. After the failures, saving events, and disappointments of the past are recounted, the present, in transparent disguise, is portrayed and immediately the hoped-for 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 and the promise of the holy community.

The King- Messiah and His Reign

Israel's hope was for the restoration of divine sovereignty over all of creation. All such expressions centered on an idealized king who began to assume an ever more important (but never exclusive) role. Analogies to Christ the King are inappropriate, because the Jewish community in the period immediately preceding and following the rise of Christianity are either ignorant of or more probably indifferent to such personification.

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 and inaugurating the new era Nonetheless, it must be recognized that 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 city such as Jerusalem in the hills of Judah to a heavenly city. 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 mankind to dwell under divine sovereignty. As a component of this reestablished kingdom, the righteous dead of Israel would be resurrected to enjoy life in the true community that did not exist in their days. This kingdom, however long it was destined to endure, was not permanent.

Judgment Day It would come to an end either at a predetermined time or as victim of the 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; all the righteous would be transformed and transported into a new world; (The Rapture) i.e., creation would be totally restored. Particular emphases that one or the other of these ideas received, the ways in which they were interpreted,philosophically, mystically, or ethically,were determined most frequently by the situations and conditions in which the Jewish community found itself. Such details never received any kind of affirmation that they were statements by God. Still, Torah, and Israel had a freedom of speculation in the realm of eschatology. It was little restricted no matter how speculative. The mystical movements of the Middle Ages found in eschatological hopes a crucial center.

The early Kabbalah was little interested in messianism because it interiorized the expectations to flow toward personal redemption. Following the appalling conduct of the Christians of the late 15th to 17th centuries (e.g., the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the Cossack massacre of the Jews in Poland) there was a revival of messianic speculation which underwent a luxuriant growth. finally it culminated in mass hysteria 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 a factorizing the

Secularization of Messianism

In the 19th century, the political emancipation of the Jews in western Europe nurtures the development of an optimistic evolution of messianism. It was transformed by many liberal thinkers into a version of the idea of progress. Its goal was often thought of as immediately attainable through enlightened social and political action. When disillusionment with the emancipation set in, messianism became even more completely secularized when some segments of the community saw its meaning and fulfillment in some form of socialism,again, rather close at hand.

In others, it was absorbed into the emerging political nationalism, Zionism. In more recent times, particularly since the events symbolized by Auschwitz (a Nazi death camp in Poland, where millions of Jews were exterminated), the earlier modern interpretations, particularly of messianism, but also of the theology of death and destiny (eschatology) have been considered inadequate. Although no compelling statement has been forthcoming, Jewish thinkers in the second half of the 20th century on into the 21st century have been attempting, once again, to come to grips with eschatological concepts. Hope can be intellectualized without amplifying it. Israel! O, Israel, how long can you wait! 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. Like the Christians who believe in the Second Coming the passing of thousand of years has not quenched this hope of ultimate fulfillment.

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, 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. Theological concepts in the 19th century raised issues about the meaning of the choice of Israel. Jewish thinkers borrowed from romantic nationalism such ideas as the "genius" of the people.

Most recently, attempts have been made to approach the question sociologically, dismissing the theological mode as unhelpful. The concept of the chosen people is then understood to indicate a specific role deliberately undertaken by the Jewish people. This similar to that espoused by other groups (e.g., "Manifest Destiny" by the American people). The establishment of the State of Israel has motivated some thinkers to call for a repudiation of the idea saying that normal relations for the Jews with others requires the dismissal of such concepts

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The Image of God

Just as there is only one God; there is only one human race. Evidence of the problematic nature of the concept found in Genesis is found in rabbinic Judaism. Akiba (2nd century CE) ignored the usages in Gen. 1 and 5 and emphasized 9:6, understanding it to mean, contrary to the usual interpretation, "after an image, God made man," that is, in the Platonic sense of a heavenly archetype. He did not wish to allow any resemblance between God and any created being. Other interpretations sought to avoid the difficulty by rendering elohim (a plural form) not as "God" but as "divine beings" (i.e., angels: "God created man after the image of divine beings [elohim") Other major religions such as Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, make no effort to turn the unknowable, un-seeable, God into an image.

Death as Dissolution of Life Not Utter Extinction

The biblical view of man as an inseparable psychosomatic unit meant that death was understood to be his dissolution. Yet, although man ceased to be, this dissolution was not utter extinction. To call it immortality is to empty that term of any vital significance. Some of the power that functioned in the unit may have continued to exist, but it was to be understood as no longer life. 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. At this point the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was not put aside. Nonetheless, the direction of thinking was changing. The shades of sheol were now thought of as souls, and real personal survival,with continuity between life on earth and in sheol. Greek ideas, with their individualistic bent, began to have influence. Therefore, the idea that resurrection was in some way related to a final historical consummation, began to recede. Life after death was now being seen as release from the bondage of the body, so that in place of, or alongside of, the afterlife of physical resurrection was also set the afterlife of the immortal soul.

It was not the status of the soul, however, that concerned either the biblical or the rabbinic thinkers. It is the ability to make an ethical choice that is the distinguishing mark of man. This ability is not derived from the "heavenly" side but resides in the double basis of man's existence. It is important to recognize this as something other than a body-soul dualism in which the soul is the source of good and the body the basis of evil

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(Note: 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 Context for Mysticism - Nature and Characteristics

The term mysticism applies whenever a person is convinced that it is possible to establish direct contact, apart from sense perception and intellectual apprehension, with the divine,it is a reality that is indefinable by pure logic and believers say it is 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 restricted within precise limits. The boundary line that separates mysticism from metaphysics and cosmology (doctrines on the basic nature or structure of being and the world) is not clear. Nor is there a clearly defined boundary of mysticism from theosophies (systems of thought claiming special insights or revelation into the divine nature); and, various forms of occultism (the study and control of supernatural powers); and, from theurgy (the art of compelling or persuading divine powers) and even magic, often thought of as of the lowest kind of mysticism. .

Consider this, if mysticism is defined as the search for direct contact with the divine it seems to be incompatible with Judaism, the religion. the fact is mysticism is a part of judaism.

Three Types of Jewish Mysticism

Three types of mysticism may be discerned in the history of Judaism: the ecstatic, the contemplative, and the esoteric. Though they are distinct types, in practice there are frequent overlaps and mixtures between them.

The first type, Ecstatic, is characterized by the quest for God,or, more precisely, for access to a supernatural realm, which is itself still infinitely remote from the inaccessible deity. By means of ecstatic experiences; this method is sometimes tainted by the hubris of humans compelling God - theurgy.

The second, Contemplative, follows the way of metaphysical, meditation pushed to the limit, always bearing in its formulations the imprint of the cultural surroundings of the respective thinkers. It appears they were exposed to influences from outside Judaism. This was the case with Philo of Alexandria (c. 15 BCE-after 40 CE) and a few of the Jewish thinkers of the Middle Ages, who drew their inspiration from Greco-Arabic Neo-Platonism and sometimes also from Muslim mysticism.

The third type of mysticism , Esoteric claims an esoteric knowledge (hereafter called esoterism) that explores the divine life itself and its relationship to the extra-divine level (the natural, finite realm) of being, a relationship that is subject to the "law of correspondences." From this perspective, the extra-divine is a symbol of the divine; that is, a divine reality reveals another, superior reality, whence, reciprocal action of the one on the other (which corresponds to it) exists.

This form of mysticism, akin to gnosis,the secret knowledge claimed by Gnosticism, a Hellenistic religio-philosophical movement,but purged, or almost purged, of the dualism that characterizes the latter, is what is commonly known as Kabbalah.

Kabbalah - Esoteric Jewish Mysticism

Kabbalah, (literally "tradition").is a term used to designate technical methods, used for highly diverse ends. They range from the conditioning of the aspirant to ecstatic experiences; to magical manipulations of a frankly superstitious character. If the concept of spiritual energy acting on matter and at a distance originally underlay these practices; to many it finally became unrecognizable and all that remained was a collection of "tricks of the trade." The revival of interest in the 21st century may be because of re-generation in the West of a revival of meditation, prayer, and self-hypnosis.

The decided preference by Judaism, Christianity and Islam for the doctrine of correspondences was regarded by ancient and medieval science to reconcile the results of rational reflection with the data of revelation. In particular, it had the result of turning speculations on the origin and order of the universe toward mysticism.

It should be noted that the quest for God implies the search for solutions to problems that go beyond those of religion and that arise even when there is no interest in the relationship between man and supernatural powers. Man ponders the problems of his origins, his destiny, his happiness, his suffering,questions that arise outside of religion, as well as within non-mystical forms of religious life. It can be said that the presence or absence of religious institutions or dogmas is of little importance when it comes to these questions. They were all formulated within non-mystical Judaism and served as the basis and framework for the setting and solution of problems in the various forms of Jewish mysticism.

This mysticism, especially in its "Kaballahistic" form, brought about profound transformations in the concepts of the, world, God and "last things" such as resurrection, last judgment, messianic kingdom, etc., which are set forth in biblical and rabbinical Judaism. Nevertheless, Kabbalah cannot be conceived as outside of an exegesis of revealed Scripture and rabbinical tradition. .Jewish mysticism's -Kabbalah, though it has its own set of problems about the origins of the universe and of man, of evil and sin, of the meaning of history, of the afterlife and the end of time, is rooted in the very ground of Judaism.

Main Lines of Historical Development

A study of the main lines of Jewish mysticism, following its actual historical development, reveals that during a very long period, from its origins in the 1st century CE to the middle of the 12th century, only the first two types - ecstatic, and contemplative- outlined above existed. It was not until the second half of the 12th century that esoterism (Kabbalah) became clearly discernible; from then on it continued to develop in various forms up to very recent times.

Early Stages- To The 6th Century CE

The centuries that followed the return from the Babylonian Exile (in the 6th century BCE) witnessed the growth and intensification of reflection on the intermediary beings between man and God. There was meditation on the divine appearances - whose special place of occurrence had formerly been the most sacred part of the Jerusalem Temple. There was more speculation on the coming into being and organization of the universe and on the creation of man. None of these themes was absent from the Bible, which was held to be divinely revealed, but each had become the object of a constant ideological readjustment that also involved the infiltration of concepts from outside.

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 its counterpart demonology (doctrine about devils); mythical geography and uranography (description of the heavens). There was speculation on the divine manifestations,which had as background the Jerusalem Temple worship and the visions of the moving "Throne" (the "Chariot," Merkava) in the prophecy of Ezekiel; on the double origin of man, a being formed of the earth but also the "image of God"; on the end of time; on resurrection (a concept that appeared only toward the end of the biblical period); and on rewards and punishments in the afterlife.

As early as the 1st century CE, and probably even before the national calamity of 70CE, there were certainly 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, the Song of Solomon,and reflection on the end of time, resurrection, and the afterlife were not only a matter of exegesis and of attaching new ideas to texts recognized to be of divine origin but also a matter of inner experience. The literary crystallization of all this ferment was accomplished in writings, such as the book of Enoch, of which Pharisaic (rabbinical) Judaism,which became the normative Jewish tradition after the Roman conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE),retained almost nothing. Even the vestiges of it tended to obfusicatein its own writings. The Talmud and the Midrash (rabbinical legal and interpretative literature) touched these themes only with great reserve, often unwillingly.

(Note: The obvious similarities between this Kabbalahistic speculation and John's Revelation in the New Testament point to a speculation that the early Christian writers plagiarized from these sources, and other Middle Eastern religions, to piece together their story of Armageddon. - Revelations)

It was, however, probably in other circles that speculation on the invisible world was engaged in and where the search for the means of penetrating it was carried out. It is undeniable that there exists 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 Yorde Merkava 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 (Shi?ur qoma, "Divine Dimensions").

In addition, a few documents have been preserved that attest to the existence of methods and practices having to do with the initiation of carefully chosen persons who were made to undergo tests and ordeals in accordance with psychosomatic criteria borrowed from physiognomy (art of determining character from physical, especially facial, traits).

Some theurgic efficacy was attributed to these practices, Certainly, 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.)

In the domain of other Western Literature - there are many similarities between concepts reflected in unquestionably Jewish texts, and, the documents of contemporary non-Jewish esoterism. Upon review, it becomes difficult, sometimes impossible, to distinguish the giver from the receiver. Two facts are certain however that Gnostocism, never ceases to exploit in its own way biblical themes (such as the tale of creation and speculation on angels and demons) that have passed through Judaism. Whatever their original sources may have been. Jewish esoterism may have borrowed this or that motif from ancient gnosis or syncretism (fusion of various faiths). Furthermore, it may even rise to a very high rank in the hierarchy of beings-supernatural such as the angel Metatron, also known as "little Adonai" (i.e., little Lord or God). 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, it is noteworthy that during the centuries that separate the Talmudic period (2nd to 5th centuries AD), from the full resurgence of Jewish esoterism in the middle of the 12th century, the texts that have been preserved progressively lose their density and affective authenticity and become merely literary exercises that are more grandiloquent than substantial.

Sefer Yetzira

In the ancient esoteric literature of Judaism, a special place must be given to the Sefer Yetzira ("Book of Creation"). It deals with cosmogony and cosmology (the origin and order of the universe). Creation, it affirms, with a clearly anti-Gnostic insistence. It is the work of the God of Israel and took place on two different levels: the ideal- immaterial level, and 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 to be taken merely as arithmetical symbols: they are cosmological factors…First is the spirit of God,with all the ambiguities that this term rua? has in Hebrew. 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 are considered to be adequate transcriptions of the sounds of the language which are in turn instruments of creation.

The basic idea of this singular speculation is that speech (that is, language composed of words, which are in turn composed of letters/sounds) is not only a means of communication but also an operational agent destined to produce being,it has an ontological value. This value, however, does not extend to every form of language; it belongs to the Hebrew language alone. To those who are 21st century people who are spiritual but not religious one is forced to the inference that it is devoid of gender. Perhaps, one of the strength of Taoism (Yin and Yang) is that life and living have gender. One can make similar comparisons with Hinduism.

The universe is produced by means of the sefirot and the letters. It is constituted according to the law of correspondences between the astral worlds, the seasons that mark the rhythm of time, and man in his psychosomatic structure.

Note: In 2004, Greg Braden asserted that human genetic code , the DNA/RNA language of life, is linked to the biblical alphabets. Braden said that regardless of race, religion, heritage, or lifestyle, the letters that are the message are the same in each cell of every man, woman, and child past or present. He finds God's Name in the biblical code of Exodus chapter 3 =YHVH. At the burning bush God identified himself as "Ehyeh-Asher Ehyeh" (I AM THAT I AM). The unspeakable name of God. We are reminded that we are made only in the image of God. Braden goes on to say that according to our DNA we share three of these letters representing the gases: hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. The one letter that sets us apart from God is the element carbon. God is a part of all that is including each of us." His book is a prayer that we (humans) will comprehend the oneness of being eliminate war and turn to peace as our endeavor. Branden, Greg, The God Code, Hay House, Inc. P. O. Box 5100, Carlsbad, CA, 92018-5100.

One is thrilled by the hope expressed. Though much is to be learned about the true locale of the origins of various colors of the human species, the Han people of China, the Aryans and Dravidians of India and others may have difficulty believing that their DNA Code is the same as letters from the Hebrew alphabet. Perhaps, linguistic scientists can explore the commonality of these letters. Yet, one can not deny that under the skin we are all the same genus, homo sapiens . Further research is a way to comprehension. Perhaps, an examination of the DNA of a Neanderthal would help.

It is said that during an interview when Albert Einstein was asked about his understanding of what God is like. In his answer he alluded to the fact that Although the Creator is not seen we are shown evidence of His existence in each moment of each day. "My comprehension of Good, Einstein shared, ".… comes from the deeply felt conviction of a superior intelligence that reveals itself in the knowable world." This insight helps to explain why the Torah, Talmud, and Rabbinical writings are not the complete basis of Judaism. The mysticism of the Kabbalah is needed to consider the mystery of life.

The "Book of Creation" certainly 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 in commenting on it, pulling it in their own direction, and adjusting it to their respective ideologies. Even more important is the fact that Kabbalah (see below the making of the Kabbalah) borrowed a great part of its terminology from it (sefira, among others), naturally 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 (later called Iraq). Babylonian Judaism had its own social and ideological characteristics, which put it in opposition to Palestinian Judaism in various aspects, including esoterism. as well as other manifestations of the life of the spirit. The joint doctrinal influence of the two centers spread during the period from the mid-8th to 11th century among the Jews established in North Africa and Europe. Mystical doctrines also filtered in, but very little is known about the circumstances and means of their penetration.

The Arabic-Islamic Mystical Influence (7th-13th century)

Arabic- Islamic culture provided another important influence in Jewish mystical development. A considerable part of Jewry had fallen under Muslim domination in the 7th and 8th centuries and participated in the new Arabic-Islamic civilization. The Jews of Asia, Africa, and Spain soon adopted Arabic as the prevailing language of culture and communication. By way of Arabic-language culture, elements of Greek philosophy and Islamic mysticism penetrated Judaism and contributed to the deepening of certain theological concepts that were Jewish in origin but had become the common property of all three religions of the Book and the Word. This mystical influence affirmed the divine unity, purged of all anthropomorphism from the idea of God. The approach was to the divine by progressing on a spiritual path that led through ascetic-discipline (both physical and intellectual) to a detachment from this world, thereby freeing of the soul from all that distracts it from God.

Greek philosophy with Islamic mysticism, moreover, raised very serious questions that threatened many traditional beliefs, such as the creation of the world, the providential action of God, miracles, eschatology (doctrines about the resurrection of the body, rewards, and especially material punishments in the hereafter). Even in the Christian West, where cultural contacts between the majority society and the Jewish minority rarely reached the breadth and intensity of the Judeo-Arab relations; Jewish intellectuals were unable to remain totally impervious to the incursions of the surrounding civilization. Moreover, at the beginning of the 12th century, if not earlier, European-Judaism received part of the intellectual Arabic and Judeo-Arabic heritage through translations or adaptations into Hebrew, its only common cultural language.

The Making of the Kabbalah (c. 1150-1250)

It was in these circumstances that, starting around 1150 that manifestation of markedly theosophical ideologies appeared in the south of present-day France (in the regions of Provence-Languedoc-Roussillon). Two types can be distinguished at the outset, which are very different as to their manner of appearance, their form, and their content.

Sefer ha-bahir

The first type is represented in fragmentary, poorly written, and badly assembled texts that began to circulate in Provence-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 whole body of texts was probably imported from the Near East (Syria-Palestine-Iraq), is known as the "Midrash of Rabbi Nahunta ben Havana" (from the name of a 2nd-century rabbi) or Sefer ha-bahir, "Book of Brightness" (from a characteristic word of the first verse of Scripture being elucidated in the work). The authorities cited are all inauthentic (as was often the case in late works), and the content of this Midrash, even its non-mystical content, is entirely Gnostic. It is a Gnosticism that tries nevertheless to escape any ontological dualism (and, as a matter of fact, succeeds).

Its object is to present the origin of things and the course of history centered naturally on that of the chosen people with their vicissitudes caused by obedience to God and by sin. The people are bound and conditioned by the manifestation of divine powers. These "powers" are not "attributes" derived and defined by philosophical abstraction, (although that is one of the terms used to designate it) they are hypostases, in effect, (essences or substances). They are powers inseparable from God, but each one is clothed in its own personality. Each operates in its own manner, in leaning toward severity or mercy, in dynamic correspondence with the behavior of man, especially of the Jew, in the visible world. They are ranked in a hierarchical order, which is not yet as fixed as it became starting with the second generation of Kabbalists in Languedoc and Catalonia. (see below The school of Gerona [Catalonia]). The rich nomenclature used to designate the "powers" exploits the resources of both the Bible and rabbinical tradition, of the "Book of Creation," 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.

All of this combines to give a symbolical rendering of the myth, cosmology, sacred history, and eschatology through which an anonymous group of theosophists attempt to formulate their doctrine: a Gnostic myth, except for the adjustments that eliminate the radical depreciation of the visible world.

Thus, according to the Sefer ha-bahir, the universe is the manifestation of the hierarchically organized divine powers. The one that is at the bottom of the hierarchical ladder 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 but profoundly transformed.

It has become a hypostasis; by a bold innovation, moreover. I t 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. This facilitates an 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. The solidarity and linked destiny of the latter is joined with the human group in question. As a matter of fact, 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. In the same document one can find the resurgence of a notion fought against by the older theologians,that of metensomatosis, the reincarnation into several successive bodies of a soul that has not attained the required perfection in a previous existence.

School of Isaac the Blind

Parallel to the appearance of the Sefer ha-bahir but independent of it, another theosophical tendency unfolded in Languedoc as a movement. The two movements would take only about thirty years to converge, to constitute what may conveniently, though not quite precisely, be called classical Kabbalah. 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 second theosophic school was Isaac ben Abraham, known as Isaac the Blind. For this theosophist, among whose extant works there is, in particular, a very obscure commentary of the "Book of Creation," the general vision of the universe proceeds from the link that he discovered between the hierarchical orders of the created world and the roots of all beings implanted in the world of the sefirot.

This is in some way realized in the life of prayer of the contemplative mystic who is privileged to have supernatural inspirations, "appearances" of the prophet Elijah, by means of concentration, of orientation of action and thought (kawwana), and of "adhesion" ( devequt ) thereby being-with-God. Though 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 "Book of Creation," accomplished by Isaac, or by others in the doctrinal environment inspired by his teachings, is and remains the foundation of Kabbalah whatever enrichment, adjustments, even changes of orientation and sometimes radical modifications the composite may have undergone at a later date.

The 10 Sefirot

It is in this environment that the nomenclature of the 10 sefirot became more or less fixed. It is important to remember that for whatever variant terminologies and even divergent concepts as to the nature of these entities may exist elsewhere,e.g., as internal powers of the divine organism (Gnostic point of view) - as hierarchically ordered intermediaries between the infinite and the finite (Neoplatonic concept) - or simply as instruments of the divine activity - such, neither partake of the divine substance or being outside it.

Today, Kabbalah is about wrestling with the complex and paradoxical nature of life. The Jewish mystical tradition with its thousands of sacred texts is confusing. But, in essence, Kabbalah is about what made the mundane body holy. Being closer to God than being with God but more so being God. The Jewish tradition is not about magical formulae or secret numbers. Kabbalah is more about questions and answers which require that we struggle with life. Kabbalah tries to cause one to focus on being present, aware, and conscious. Kabbalah asserts a more mystical (deeper) understanding of the Torah and Talmud. An example, given is that the Talmud would say one should bless a glass of water before drinking it. Why? Talmud would say you make a blessing because you are thinking of God. Kabbalah would say the blessing is about drawing Godliness into the cup, and realizing the enlivening force in the water is continuous, as such a aspect of Godliness.

Kabbalahistic principles are universal truths of life, and so can be studied by anyone of any faith. It is about being in that noisy place in the head because we are complex. We are meant to think, to be in turmoil, to wrestle down the angel of truth. The outside wall of the structure contains within it parallel worlds. You can move in and out of these worlds. The outside wall is the reality of Essence. Essence contains everything, the infinite, the finite, light and dark, space and no space, time and no time, good and bad, and no good or bad. Essence is the source of eternal light - a metaphor for the manifestation of the divine. A line comes down from the light in the finite with 10 points called sferios into the world of creation, the world of matter. These lines and points allow us to perceive anything that is material, time and space, you and me. The sferios are 10 distinct aspects of the divine.

In our daily lives, we experience our feelings, other people, or things as separate from one another and from us. Kabbalah strives to help us move into a more expansive state of awareness so we always remember and know that everything is an expression of and a part of essence. You can shift from one room to another in the structure to get help and heal others. Remember, there are parallel worlds and realities, multiple floors of the house where multiple truths are operating at the same time. Stuck in anger? Shift. We live in a world of paradox. Go to a more peaceful place or time. Breathe deeply of the essence. You can look at the world as insane and nothing is connected, and wonder why? Or you can look at the world of tikkun which means reconciliation, everything is connected and in order. Life is paradoxical. Both are true. As you can see this Kabbalah is designed to help you reconnect with the divine source the infinite light, at all times. It is the ego that feels disconnected by negative emotions.

Kabbalah teaches we have a transcendent soul that inhabits a finite body. But thoughts can not grasp the essence. We can only be aware of essence through the heart (the heart is, here, a metaphor for knowing, sensing, being non-linear and not rational. Don't try to understand it. This is radical non-duality. You don't have to read a poem or actually see a sunset to get a glimpse of the infinite essence. Kabbalah is based on the verse from Job, "I see God from my own flesh." The deeper we look at what goes on within the more access we have to what is going on in all the cosmos. The goal is not to eradicate your ego, but to render it transparent so you can live eternally, fully, as a true expression of who you are on all levels: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Live fully. Be joined with all of creation, the one, unity.

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Relation To Non-Judaic Religions

Exclusivist and Universalism Emphases

The biblical tradition out of which Judaism emerged was predominantly exclusivist ("no other gods"). The gods of other nations were regarded as "no gods" and their worshippers as deluded. At the same time, the God of Israel was acclaimed as the sole lord of history, and the Creator of heaven and earth.

The unexpected universalistic implications of this exclusivist 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 nature of the 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, and 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; indeed, it is this universalistic theme that underscores that special relation. 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 is it a fanatical intolerance, but rather a subtle interplay of affirmation and rejection. The latter is directed primarily against the worship of finite things or aspects,idolatry,the basic failure of the peoples who are the objects of the same divine solicitude as is Israel. If the religions of those nations are rejected it is because of their failure fully and truly to know God, the peoples themselves are not. Living under the covenant with Noah, their fulfillment of such responsibilities provides for their acceptance. They are not expected to live within the realm of Torah. (see also Relations with other religions below).

Relation to Christianity

Judaism's relation to Christianity is a complicated one because of the close historical interconnections between them. From a Judaic standpoint, Christianity is or was a Jewish "heresy". As such it may be seen somewhat differently than other religions. Its claims over and against Judaism as the true fulfillment of the covenant and, thus, as the true Israel have 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 and even to argue that, in a special way, being derived from Judaism, it was fulfilling,at least on the moral plane,a divine purpose.

In modern times the relation has undergone changes necessitated by the newer situations into which the Jewish community has moved. This does not mean that the polemical-apologetic stance has come entirely to an end. The rejection of Judaism as a living religion by Christians continues, argued not so much on dogma but on scholarly grounds. The Jewish response to this has often been counter-criticism. 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 it is far too early to know exactly what will emerge. At the same time, it must be noted that there are those who see no need for such a movement, arguing that the failure of the Christian churches in recent years to respond in a responsible way to the tragedies of Jewish existence precludes any real engagement of one with the other until redemptive atonements are carried out. Otherwise, the spiritual but not religious observe that Christianity seems to continue to use Judaism as its scapegoat for the miseries of living. Perhaps, in part, that gives some cause for the impetus of the growing popularity of Buddhism in the West. It certainly is one explanation for the disaffection of the spiritual but not religious from institutional 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. Mu?ammad held that the faith he proclaimed was none other than the pristine religion of Abraham, the father of Ishmael,progenitor of the Arabs,as well as of Isaac, from whom the people of Israel descended. It was a Muhammad inspiration that the pure religion had been distorted both by Judaism and Christianity; and Mu?ammad, the "seal" of the prophets, had been called by God to restore it to its purity.

The confrontation between Judaism and Islam, as that with Christianity, was colored by political and social considerations both before and after Islam moved out of Arabia to build a world empire which included the conquest and settlement of Palestine. The subsequent period of intellectual development of the Islamic world, and the emergence of Islamist theologians and philosophers of the highest order who challenged Judaism, had considerable influence on the rise of Islam's 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.

The crucial point of dispute here was the nature of prophecy because of Mu?ammad's claim concerning his culminating role in the prophetic tradition. The medieval period saw polemics directed against that claim as in the case of the theological work of Moses Maimonides, More nevukhim (The Guide of the Perplexed ), an exposition of the nature of prophecy that, without directly dealing with Mu?ammad's claim, may be understood to undercut it.

Nonetheless, Islam, too, was understood to contribute to the fulfillment of the divine purpose. 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. Once the political problems in the eastern Mediterranean between the State of Israel and the Arab world have been meliorated, the contiguity of the two communities suggests an inevitable renewal of conversations among the religious as on many other levels.

Relations with Other Religions

Judaism's encounters with Western 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 Sasanian Empire, Judaism was forced to deal with Zoroastrianism, but the response has 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 and Far East. But, beyond a few tentative explorations nothing tangible has appeared. What seems certain is that, considering the growing interest in and exchange between East and West, 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 should, indeed, in the future seek a new way of understanding and relating to the varieties of religious systems facing it on the world scene of globalization.

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Its Historic Role

Given the relationship between Judaism and Christianity,the dominant religious force in the development of Western culture,the role of Judaism in that development was significant. Although the 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 that was sharply debated in the 2nd century CE,was crucial. Not only was the development of its ideas and doctrines deeply influenced by Judaism, but it received as well 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; and ultimately, at the beginning of the modern era, their liberation from the shackles of discrimination, segregation, and rejection was understood by many to be the touchstone of all human liberty.

Until the final ghettoization of the Jew at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance, intellectual contact between Judaism and Christianity, and thus with Western culture, did not cease. Jerome translated the Hebrew Bible into Latin with the aid of Jewish scholars. Luther's, translations into German were with the aid of commentaries beholden to Jewish authors. Jewish thinkers mediated the remarkable intellectual achievements of the Islamic world to Christian Europe and added their own contributions as well. Even heresies within the church found, on occasion, their inspiration or prototype in Judaism.

Its Present Role

In the modern world at the same time that the influence of Jews has increased in almost every realm of cultural life, the impact of Judaism 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 and beginning of the 19th centuries, while eager to grant political equality to the individual Jew, did so with the implicit and explicit requirement that conformity through reforms of Judaism be mutually agreed. 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 social milieu Indeed, for some, Judaism and 19th-century European thought were held to be 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 century,scientists, politicians, statesmen, scholars, musicians, artists,their activities cannot. Except in rare instances, they are acting as Westerners not acting as though deriving from Judaism as it has been sketched above.

Future Prospects

Two events of the 20th century have, however, confronted Judaism in such ways as to suggest that its wrestling with them and their profound challenge to it may presage a new role and a new influence for Judaism: "Auschwitz" (The Holocaust ) - and the establishment of the State of Israel.

The premeditated murder of some 6,000,000 European Jews by the Nazis for no other reason than that they were Jews, has shaken Jewish thinkers to their very core. Indeed, so traumatic was this event, that for almost two decades following it, no substantial attempt was made to plumb its meaning.

At the same time, the reappearance of the State of Israel, viewed for the most part from outside the Jewish community as nothing more than a political event, has set in motion an entirely different chain of theological inquiry. These two happenings have in as yet unpredictable ways, begun to work and to move within the thought of contemporary Judaism. Out of this working and moving there may emerge an inescapable spiritual impact upon Western culture and civilization. Most Western nations and people have, as yet, resolutely refused to face the realities these fateful occurrences represent.

If contemporary Judaism is able to say what they mean, however haltingly, it will have renewed its potent relationship to the Western world. With globalization, the religions of the Book (The Word) will learn more that is enlightening about Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and the Eastern world, given the nature of contemporary society as affected by the internet. Judaism has the capacity to lead us toward the dark of isolation or aid all humans to better understand how to serve God on this good Earth. The global warming is a universal challenge.

Web Sites:

Other Recommended Readings:

• Robinson, George, Essential Judaism - A complete guide to beliefs, customs, and rituals. Pocket Books, New York, NY, USA, 2000.

Acknowledgment: This compilation was, in part, from the Encyclopedia Britannica 2005, Ultimate Reference Suite CD, with grateful acknowledgement to the writers: Freidman, Garson Cohen, and Lou Hackett Silverman in the Article - Judaism, and other sources. There are significant changes, deletions, and revisions for which we are along responsible.