World Religion Research Paper

Judaism

Exile and the Triumph of Monotheism: Rabbinic Judaism

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The Prophets

As the Jews became farmers, they adopted many of the rituals, practices, and holidays of the locals. Some of this involved worshipping Ashtoreth and Baal—the fertility deities. A small minority of Yahweh worshippers decried this. After all, the Sinai Covenant said the Israelites would enjoy good crops and be allowed to stay in the land—if they obeyed God’s laws. Worshipping other gods was a major violation of the covenant.

People called Nevi’im or “prophets” arose during the time of the kings to decry this. They believed God was talking to them and through them. The Yahweh-only worshippers were for a long time a small group. But they fought for their vision. They argued both for a land of justice and of the worship of Yahweh alone.

Elijah is said to have battled the priests and prophets of Baal. A contest was held to light a fire. The Baal priests prayed in vain, then Elijah called upon Yahweh and the wood was lit. The Baalists were then killed.

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The Still, Small Voice After the killing of the priests of Baal, Elijah fled:

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper [others, “a still small voice”]. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face… I Kings 19: 11:13

God was not in any of the forces of nature, but was a “still small voice” in a realm apart.

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Isaiah’s Vision

God was OTHER. Unlike the beliefs of the pagans or pantheists, God was separate from the Creation.

In 742 BCE, a Judean royal named Isaiah had a vision of God on his throne in Heaven, surrounded by a court of angels, directly above the Temple, and once again the Otherness of God is stressed as the angels cry out:

Holy! Holy! Holy! Is the Lord of Hosts! His glory fills the whole earth!

Isaiah 6:3

These lines became part of an important prayer in Judaism, the Kaddish.

Now holy implies moral excellence today, but at the time kadosh meant otherness, separateness…

In short, the angels are crying out “Other! Other! Other! Is Adonoi Ts’vaot!

Isaiah was terrified by this vision. An angel then placed a live coal on his tongue, so that he could utter the word of God.

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Jonah Jonah is told by God to go Nineveh to tell them to repent.

Instead, he goes in the opposite direction, attempting to hide from, run from God.

He boards a ship, and a great storm nearly destroys the ship.

To save the ship, he is reluctantly thrown overboard by the sailors, who learn that Jonah is hiding from God.

He is swallowed by a whale or a fish, spends three days, is spat out after praying, then completes his mission.

His tale is read on the afternoon of Yom Kippur by Jews, because of the themes of repentance and of God’s forgiveness that it contains.

Christians believe that the escape from the fish was a type of resurrection which prefigured Christ’s resurrection.

His tale is also retold in the Koran.

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Isaiah on the need for good moral actions

Why have we fasted,' they say, 'and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?' "Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD? "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-- when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Isaiah 58: 3-7 (NIV)

This is part of the Haftorah—reading from the prophets—read on Yom Kippur morning. 6

Discovery of a Scroll of the Law, 622 BCE

The scroll laid down several laws. One of these was that sacrifices could not be at any altar, but only at the Temple. The sacrificial cult—the core of the Yahweh religion to most people—was thus centralized at the Temple…

Sacrifices could only be at the Temple. It’d be a terrible shame if something bad happened to the Temple…

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Jeremiah predicts a New Covenant The old Sinai Covenant had been made with the nation as a whole. The New Covenant would be made with each individual—moral and spiritual renewal—it would be written on their hearts and conscience. “I will be their God, and they will be my people”.

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Origin of Synagogue Worship

During Jeremiah’s life, in 586 BCE, Babylon conquered Judea, destroyed the Temple, and took many leading Judeans to Babylon.

Without a temple, how could they worship? How could they sacrifice?

It was forbidden by Deuteronomy to sacrifice anywhere but the Temple.

They began to gather in houses and study the sacred texts.

They began to form a liturgy.

They modeled it on the Temple Service.

For example, where there would have been an additional sacrifice at the Temple because it was a holiday, they would add an additional prayer.

Most importantly, the exiles in Babylon totally rejected the worship of other gods—even their existence. Isaiah may have been the first to reject the very existence of other gods—now it became the belief of all Jews. The Jews became a nation of monotheists.

Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon, and permitted the Judeans—or Jews—to return to Judea and rebuild their Temple about 538 BCE. But many Jews remained in Babylon—the beginning of the Diaspora. And while sacrifices returned, the new way of worshipping also remained and spread.

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Hellenistic World

Israel was now part of a great empire, the Persian Empire. Perhaps in the rule of Ahashuerus, who the Greeks called Artaxerxes, there may have been a terrible incident whereby Haman attempted to wipe out the Jews. This plot was foiled thanks to Queen Esther, who was Jewish, and is celebrated in the festival of Purim.

Esther is the only book of the Bible where God is not mentioned by name, but He is alluded to.

The Persian Empire was conquered by Alexander the Great about 330 BCE.

He died in 323, aged 32. His empire was broken up among his major generals. General Ptolemy became Pharaoh and his descendants ruled Egypt until the death of Cleopatra 300 years later. The Seleucids ruled Syria and Babylonia, and their kingdom controlled Judea. An independent Greek kingdom called Bactria ruled Afghanistan, about 238, the non-Greek Parthians took over Persia, and Macedonia dominated Greece.

This entire region became “Greekified”—or Hellenized.

The new civilization, Greek but with elements of the civilization of the native peoples, was known as Hellenistic. Greeks left Greece and formed new cities, and Greek became the language of trade and culture among many peoples—though it was a new version called Koine. In Egypt, the great port city of Alexandria was formed, with a Great Library which gathered much of the knowledge of the ancient world. Gymnasiums were found throughout the ancient east. Here young men would exercise— naked—and attend classes. It was sort of like a Y, except for the naked part. Mainly Greeks went here—the nudity requirement kept most non –Greeks out. If a young non-Greek man was to strip down and enter the gymnasium, he had become for all intents and purposes a Greek, alienated from his old background.

A sizable amount of Jews joined gymnasia and otherwise Hellenized.

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Hanukkah Tensions between the Greeks and Hellenized Jews on one side and more traditional Jews erupted into war in the 140s BCE. Led by the warrior Judah Maccabee, a small independent Jewish kingdom was established which lasted about a century. This is commemorated by Hanukkah.

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Syncretism

The Greeks began to worship local gods in their new kingdoms.

An idea arose that the gods of each country were really the same gods, just viewed differently. Aphrodite was Ishtar, Hermes was Thoth, Poseidon was Dagon. It was a very tolerant and ecumenical belief.

The Greeks began worshipping Egyptian goddesses like Isis, whose worship spread throughout the Greek and later Roman worlds. She was the goddess of motherhood, and friend to the downtrodden.

Barren women would pray to her image for a child.

Another popular cult was the cult of Serapis. He was created by a Ptolemy, who was looking for a god that both the Greeks and Egyptians could worship. He was a combination of Osiris and Apis the bull-god. His temple was one of the greatest temples of the pagan world, and was destroyed about 390 AD by a Roman emperor. Serapis was depicted as a bearded human.

Osiris had risen from the dead, and many early Christians seem to have also worshipped Serapis in the early days before becoming full Christ worshippers.

In fact, it is possible that the depiction of Jesus with a beard, the way we think of him now, resembles Serapis.

Top: Isis

Bottom: Serapis with a donation pot on his head

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Greek philosophy There seems to have been a spiritual hunger—people searched for new Gods, seriously examined Judaism, and developed new philosophies. Epicureans believed that pleasure was the sole good. Stoics rejected hedonism and believed in living a life of virtue. Cynics believed the purpose of life was to live in virtue, in agreement with nature.

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Judea under the Romans

By the 60s BCE, Rome gained control of Judea, eventually establishing Herod the Great as king. Many Jews were extremely unhappy at this development, and believed it a sign that the End-times had come.

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The Pharisees and Oral Law

There were three important groups in Roman- controlled Judea: the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes.

Crucial to the Pharisee’s form of Judaism was a belief in an “Oral Torah”—teachings passed to Moses by God and transmitted orally to later generations. These were interpretations of the Torah, and when a Pharisee spoke of Torah, he meant both the Written and Oral Law.

While the Torah doesn’t say much about life after death, the Pharisees insisted that the Oral Law incorporated a belief in the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the dead. The average people began to believe these Pharisees were the people to follow.

Another group, mainly from priestly families, accepted only the written Torah, and rejected the idea of life- after death. These were the Sadducees.

A third group were the Essenes, devout Jews who lived in almost monastic conditions and often engaged in celibacy. This is the only time we see anything resembling monks in Judaism. They believed everyone else was morally and spiritually corrupt, and spoke and wrote of the end of the world and the coming of a messiah. Their writings are preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls (next slide). These were discovered in 1947.

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Dead Sea Scrolls

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Roman Views of Jews and Judaism

Judea’s religion was considered weird by many of the rest of the empire.

As the historian Tacitus put it, “Things sacred with us with them have no sanctity.”

They wore beards while most people, except philosophers, were clean-shaven. Everyone was happily conflating Zeus and Marduk, Venus and Ishtar, saying they were different views of different gods, but the Jews insisted they were all unreal.

Jews had spread throughout the Empire in small communities, and the Romans tolerated their differences as long as they paid taxes, kept the peace.

The Romans were willing to tolerate local and ancient customs if the people were law-abiding.

Despite this, stories were told about the Jews that made fun of their religion, or totally misunderstood it. Tacitus, a respected historian, echoed others who said that the Jews had been led out of the desert by donkeys, and there was a donkey’s head in the Holy of Holies, which the Jews worshipped. Graffiti of Jews worshipping donkeys has been found.

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Destruction of the Second Temple, 70 CE There was a group of revolutionaries, called Zealots, who wished to expel the Romans. They believed that God would grant them victory. They revolted in 66 CE. The First Roman War ended in 70 BCE, though a small group held out at Masada until 73 CE.

At the end of the war, in 70 CE, the Temple was destroyed.

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Bar Kochba Rebellion In the 130s, a revolt was led by Bar Kokhba against the Romans. Many considered him to be the Messiah. His revolt failed. Jews were banned from Jerusalem, and the bulk of the population was sold into slavery. Many were expelled, or left. The population was devastated. The Romans encouraged non-Jewish settlement. While there was no formal exile of the remaining Jews, Jews became scattered and there was no Jewish government recognized by the Romans. The Jewish population of the homeland became a very small number, though the area was never quite free of Jews. Thus began the Diaspora of the Jewish people.

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THE FORMATIVE AGE—OR RABBINIC AGE

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Rabbis Synagogues had the advantage of being able to be built anywhere, unlike the Temple.

Also, they did not require priests. Anyone could lead the service or the synagogue.

A Jewish prayer service merely requires a prayer leader with some knowledge of the liturgy, and a quorum (or minyan) of ten—ten men for Orthodox, ten men and women for Conservative and Reform Jews.

No priest—indeed, no rabbi--required.

A clergy developed of people learned in the study of the Torah.

They became known as Rabbis—“My Master” in Hebrew.

A similar development would be seen in Protestantism and Islam, where a clergy developed of people learned in the Bible or the Koran.

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Hillel

One of the greatest rabbis, he died about 4 BCE. When asked to teach the Torah on one leg, he articulated the above version of the Golden Rule.

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The Talmud

The Rabbis discussed and debated various points of Jewish law. Their discussions were eventually put into the Talmud.

They would develop a body of ritual observance or Jewish law known as halacha.

The Talmud is divided into 63 volumes, but there are two main divisions.

The Mishnah (repetition) is in Hebrew. It formulates halacha.

The later work, the Gemara (completion) is in Aramaic and continues the discussion from where the Mishnah ended.

Modern Talmuds usually contain the Mishnah in the center, surrounded by Gemara and commentaries, most especially by a French Rabbi from circa 1100, known today as Rashi.

The Talmud was completed by about 500 CE.

To be an Orthodox rabbi, much familiarity with the Talmud is required.

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Perkei Avot

• Much of the Talmud deals with ritual, how to observe Sabbath, how to perform sacrifices, but the best known book of the Talmud deals mainly in ethics.

• It is called Pirkei Avot—The Ethics of the Fathers. It is traditionally read every Sabbath between Passover and the holiday Shavuot, and is included in many prayer books.

• It begins with a statement of the origins of the Oral Law: • • Moses received the Torah from Sinai and gave it over to Joshua.

Joshua gave it over to the Elders, the Elders to the Prophets, and the Prophets gave it over to the Men of the Great Assembly.

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Perkei Avot 2

• They would always say these three things:

• Be cautious in judgment. • Establish many pupils. • Build a fence to protect the Torah.

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Perkei Avot 3

Shimon the Righteous was among the last surviving members of the Great Assembly. He would say: The world stands on three things: Torah, the service of G‑d, and deeds of kindness.  

He [Hillel] would also say: If I am not for myself, who is for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?  

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More sayings from Ethics of the Fathers

• "Your house should be open wide, and you should make the poor members of your household." (1:5) • "Meet every person with graciousness." • What is the right path a man should choose? Whatever is honorable to himself, and honorable in the eyes of

others." (2:1) •   • "Let your friend's honor be more dear to you than your own." (2:15) • Do His will as if it were your own, so that He will do His will as if it were yours. Nullify your own will before His so

that he will nullify the will of others before you." (2:4) • "Be amongst the students of Aaron: Love peace and pursue peace. Love people and bring them close to Torah."

(1:12) • "The more charity, the more peace" (2:8) • "Keep far from an evil neighbor, do not befriend a wicked person, and do not despair of divine retribution" (1:7) • "Love work, and despise official positions, and do not become too acquainted with the governing power." (1:10) • "One who makes a name great, destroys it" (1:13) • "Anyone who works for the community, let your work with them be for the sake of Heaven... And as for you all, I

will make your reward great as though you had accomplished all the work." (2:2) • "Be cautious regarding the ruling power. Because they only befriend a person when it serves themselves. They

appear as friends when it suits them, but they do not stand by a man in his time of need." (2:3) • "Do not separate yourself from the community, and do not be sure of yourself until your day of death." • "If you have learned much Torah, do not flatter yourself about it, because it was for this purpose you were

created." (2:9) • "Let all your deeds be for the sake of Heaven." (2:12)

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More Sayings from Perkei Avot

• "Torah learning is best combined with an occupation, because the effort of both will keep one from sin. Torah study alone without work will in the end be nullified and lead to sin." (2:2)

• "One who uses the crown will pass away" (1:13)

• "All my life I was raised amongst the Sages, and I never found anything better for a person than silence... one who talks too much causes sin." (1:17)

•   • "Do not speak (excessively) much with women. This regards a man's own wife, how much more so

regarding another man's wife!" (1:5) •   • "Sages, you should be careful in what you say, lest you merit exile and be sent to a place of evil waters, and

your pupils who follow you will die, and the name of Heaven will be disgraced." (1:11) •   • "Say little and do much." (1:15)

• "Do not say something that cannot be understood, thinking it will be understood later." (2:5)

• "He saw a skull floating on the water, and said to it, 'Because you drowned others, they drowned you. And they will also eventually be drowned because they drowned you.'" (2:7)

•   • Another teaching of Rabbi Akiva: Everything is foreseen, yet freedom of choice is granted. The world is judged

favorably, yet all depends on the preponderance of good deeds. (3:19) •  

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Meaningful Prayer

• "Be careful when reciting the Shema and tefillah. Do not pray as though by rote, but plead for mercy and grace before God." (2:18)

• The Shema is a very important prayer, proclaiming God’s unity • Tefillah is prayer in general

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Maimonides After the exile, Jews could be found in many lands.

Jews were tolerated in Muslim lands, and were

often treated better than the Christians treated them.

In Muslim Spain, many rose to prominence, and the period is often referred to as the Jewish Golden Age.

The most famous Jew of this time period was the Aristotelian philosopher Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides (1135-1204) or the Rambam.

Maimonides was a great philosopher, and much of Orthodox theology derives from his writing, especially his codification of Jewish law, the Mishneh Torah.

Born in Cordoba, he found refuge in Egypt under Saladin. He was a famed doctor as well as philosopher.

As an Aristotlean, he was interested in logic and clarity. He listed the 613 commandments (mitzvot), and noted many could not be fulfilled without the Temple.

He set out The Thirteen Principles of Jewish Belief, which is as close as Judaism has to a creed.

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Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles of Jewish Belief

• 13 Principles of Faith Summarized: • I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, Blessed be His Name, is the Creator and Guide of everything that has been created; He alone has

made, does make, and will make all things. • I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, Blessed be His Name, is One, and that there is no unity in any manner like His, and that He alone is

our God, who was, and is, and will be. • I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, Blessed be His Name, has no body, and that He is free from all the properties of matter, and that

there can be no (physical) comparison to Him whatsoever. • I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, Blessed be His Name, is the first and the last. • I believe with perfect faith that to the Creator, Blessed be His Name, and to Him alone, it is right to pray, and that it is not right to pray to any

being besides Him. • I believe with perfect faith that all the words of the prophets are true. • I believe with perfect faith that the prophecy of Moses our teacher, peace be upon him, was true, and that he was the chief of the prophets,

both those who preceded him and those who followed him. • I believe with perfect faith that the entire Torah that is now in our possession is the same that was given to Moses our teacher, peace be upon

him. • I believe with perfect faith that this Torah will not be exchanged, and that there will never be any other Torah from the Creator, Blessed be His

Name. • I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, Blessed be His Name, knows all the deeds of human beings and all their thoughts, as it is written,

"Who fashioned the hearts of them all, Who comprehends all their actions" (Psalms 33:15). • I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, Blessed be His Name, rewards those who keep His commandments and punishes those that

transgress them. • I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah; and even though he may tarry, nonetheless, I wait every day for his coming. • I believe with perfect faith that there will be a revival of the dead at the time when it shall please the Creator, Blessed be His name, and His

mention shall be exalted for ever and ever. • [See Birnbaum at p. 157][]

•

• The Hymns Yigdal and Ani Ma’ami [I believe] are based on these thirteen principles— • • Not to be confused with thirteen attributes of God (or Mercy) from Exodus. •

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Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews These are the main ethnic divisions of the Jewish people. They differ mainly in food, dress, and pronunciation of Hebrew. The

differences are similar to the differences between different ethnic communities in Catholicism—Irish Catholics differ somewhat from German and Italian Catholics, for example, but are all Catholics.

The Sephardim come from Spain Ashkenazi come from Germany and

Eastern Europe

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Traditional Ashkenazi foods The vast majority of American Jews are Ashkenazi, and their foods have become familiar to many American non-Jews.

Gefilte Fish Chicken Soup with Matzoh Balls

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Mysticism

Mysticism may be found in many religions. It may be defined as:

1. The experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality reported by mystics

2. The belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience (as intuition or insight)

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Kabbalah Kabbalah is the most important form of Jewish mysticism.

Its ‘’Bible” is a book of commentary on the Bible called the Zohar.

In Kabbalah, there is a belief similar to that of the Greek philosophers—that God is ultimately unknowable. This unknowable God is called Ein Sof- the limitless- However, God “emanates”, and these emanations are knowable by people.

The most important of these “emanations” are the Sephirot, or Divine Attributes. They have been called one light poured into Ten Vessels. One of these is the Shekhina, or Divine Presence. The Shekhina is seen as female, or the Female Divine Presence.

According to the great Kabbalaist Rabbi Isaac Luria, the world is created and sustained through these sephirot.

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The Breaking of the Vessels

In one Kabbalistic tale, God withdrew his substance to fill up the vessels, but three broke.

Not only is this the origin of evil, but the “sparks” fell to Earth.

The seven lower recipients of the Sephirot were not in the three pillar arrangement needed for the direction of Kindness, rigor and mercy. The lights tried to enter in their respective recipients, but their force was overwhelming and, unable to hold their lights the recipients broke. The lights stayed in the world of Atsilut, their recipients fell to the lower worlds.

This caused an important damage called Shvirat HaKelim – the breaking of the vessels. The recipients of the seven Sephirot, which did not contain their lights, fell to the world of Beriah (creation). This imperfect arrangement is the first origin of damage and of the Sitra A’hra (negative side) – “evil”.

Luria believed we all have this divine spark, and that we could liberate it by observing the Mitzvoth, and by self-discipline and meditation. He also believed in reincarnation as the soul tries to return to its source.

Kabbalah masters were often thought to have magic powers, and some even created amulets.

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The Baal Shem Tov Luria died in 1572. About 1700, the Baal Shem Tov was born in Poland, and based his teachings on Lurianic Kabbalah.

He too taught the necessity of releasing the sparks of holiness within, to hasten the approach of the Messiah.

His real name was Israel ben Eliezer, but he was called Baal Shem Tov (Master of the Good Name) by his disciples.

His disciples believed he had hidden knowledge, and knew the secret names of God.

He was not a great scholar, but engaged in faith healings and exorcisms.

To the Besht, as he is sometimes called, God is everywhere, and everyone was potentially capable of communing with God. Ordinary actions, if performed in a spirit of joy and love, become acts of spiritual devotion and make everyday life sacred.

For example, cleaning a home before a holiday could be an act of spiritual devotion. Eating kosher was a way of raising up the sparks. Dancing could be an act of spiritual devotion.

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Hassidim

The Baal Shem Tov’s followers were called Hasidim—pious ones.

They were all urged to get a spiritual guide, a tsaddik (righteous one—a saint) to provide a living example.

After his death, many groups arose, led by their Tsaddik, or Rebbe. They became dynastic rulers, often passing the Rebbe position to their sons.

Many Orthodox opposed Hassidism as too mystical.

There are many Chassidic sects today, among which are the Satmars and the Lubavitch.

To the right—The late Lubavitcher Rebbe

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