Religion

The World's

Religions

HUSTON SMITH

.. .. HarperSanFrancisco

A Dl11l11o" 0{ H~rpaCoI'i~I'HMubm

UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON ROESCH LIBRARY

TIlE WORLD'S REI. IC IONS: A Completely Revised alld U,xlated Edition afThe Religions of Man . Copyright © 1991 by Huston Smith. Origi. nal copyright © 1958 by Huston Smith; copyright rcnewed in 1986 by Huston Smith . All rights rcserved. Printed in the United States of AmeriC'd_ No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quot-dtions embodied in critical articles and reviews. For infor- mation address IIarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.

Ubrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smith, Huston. The wurld's religions I Huston Smith.

p. cm. He". and updated ed. of : The rcli~,'ions of man . 1958. Includes bibliob'11lphical refere nces and index. l. Religions. I. Smith , Ilustoli. Heligiolls of man.

BL80.2.S645 1991 291-dc20

ISBN 0-06-250799-0 ISBN 0-06-2508 U-3 (pbk.)

II. Title

90-56449 CIP

91 92 93 94 95 M-V 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

111is edition is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute 7..39,48 Standard.

VII. Judaism

In has been estimated Ihal one- third of our Western civili .. .ation bears the marks of its Jewish ancestry. We feel its force ill ihe names we give to our children: Adam Smith , Noah Webster, Abraham Lin· coin, Isaac Newton, Rebecca West, Sarah Teasdale, Crandma Moses. Michelangelo felt it whe n he chiseled his "David" and I)mnted the Sistine Ceiling; Dante when he wrote the Divine Comedy and Mil- ton, Paradise Lost The United Stales carries the indelible stamp of its Jewish heritage in its collective lifc: the pll rase "by their C reator- in the Declarotion of Independe nce; th e words "Proclaim Liberty throughout the land" on the Liberty De ll. The real impact of the ancient Jews. however, lies in the extent to which Westen l civiliza- tion took over their angle of vision 0 11 the deepest questions life poses.

When. mindful or the impact the Jewish perspective has had 0 11 Western culture, .... '8 go back to the land. the people. and the history that made this impact. we are in ror a shock. We might expect these to be as impressive as their innuc nce, but they are not. Ln time span the Hebrews were latecomers on the stage of history. By 3000 S.C.E. (Before the Common Er.l. as Jews prefer to render the period s.c.). Egypt already had her pyramids, and Sumer and Akkad were world empires. By 1400 Phoenicia was colonizing. And where were the Jews in the midst of these mighty eddies? They were overlooked. A tiny band of nomads milling around the upper regions of the Arnbian desert, they were too inconspic uous for UIC brrcul powers eYen to IIOtice.

2"

!7! TilE WORI.D"S RELIGIO\jS

When they finally settled down, the land they chose was equall y unimpressive One hundred and fifty miles in length from Dall to Beersheba, about fift y miles across at Jerusalem but much less at most places, Canaan was Q postage stamp of a country, about one- eighth the size of Illinois. Nor does the terrain make up for what the region lacks in si7..e. Visitors to Creece who climb MOlillt Olympus find it easy to imagine that the gods chose to live the re. Cannan. br contrn.~ t, was a Mmi ld and monotonous land. Did the PropllCts fl ash thei r lightning of cOllviction from these quiet hills where everything is open to the sky?'" Edmund Wilson asked ou a visit to the 1I0ly Land. KWerc the savage wars of Scripture fought here? J low vcry unlikely it seems that [the Bible e merged) from the history of these calm little hills, dotted with stones and flocks. under pale and trans- parent skies.'" Even Jewisll history, when viewed from without. amounts to liltle. It is certainly not dull history, but by extemaJ stan- dards it is \'ery much like the histories of countless other liltle pea-- pies, the people of the Balkans, say, or possibly the Native tribes of North America. Small peoples are always getting pushed around. They get shoved out of the ir lands and try desper.lIely to scramble back into them. Compared with the his tories of Assyria. Babylon, Egypt, and Syria. Jewish history is strictly minor league.

If the key to the achievement of the Jews lies neither in their antiquity nor in the proportions of 111e irland and history, where does it lie? This is one of the greatest puzzles of history, and a number of anS\.llers have heeD proposed. The lead I1lat we shaJl foliOlN is thjs: What lified the Jews from obscurity to peml(lnent religiousgreatncss was their pa.~sjon for meaning.

Meaning in God

Min the beginning Cod .... " From beginning to egd. the Jewish (IUest for meaning was rooted in the ir understanding of Cod.

Whatever a peoples' philosophy, it lII ust take account of the Mo tl l er.~ There are two reasolls for this. First, no one seriously claims to be self.-erealed; and as they are not, othe r people (being likewise human) did lIot bring I1lcmselvcs into being eil1ler. From this it fo l- lows that humankind has issued from something other tha.n itself. Second. everyone at some point 6nds his or her power limited. It may be a rock too large to lift. or a tidal wave that sweeps one's village

JUDAISM !73

away. Add therefore to the Other from which one has issued, a gener- alized Other that underscores one's limi tations.

Mergi ng these two ineluctable .. others." people wonder if it Is meaningful. Four characteristics could keep it from being so; if it were prosaic, chaotic, amoraJ, or hostile. The triumph of Jewish thought lies in its refusal to surrender meaning to any of these alternatives.

The Jews resisted the prosaic by personifyi ng the "Otber." lnthis they were at one wi th their ancient contemporaries. The concept of the inanimate-brute dead matter gO\'Cmed by blind, impersonal la\llS-is a late projection. For early peopl~ the SUII that could bless or scorch , the earth th at gave of its fertil ity, the gentle rains and the terrible stonn $, the mystery of birth and the reality of death were 1I0t to be explained as clots of matter regu lated by mechanical laws. They were parts of a world that was pervaded by feeling and purpose throughout.

It is easy to smile at the anthropomorphism of the early He- brews. who could imagi ne ultimate reality as a person \.\Ialking in the garden of Eden in the cool of the morning. But when we make our way through the poetiC concreteness of the perspective to its under- lyi ng claim- that in the 6nal analysis ultimate reality is more like a person than like a thing, more like a mind than like a machine-we must llSk ourselves two questions. Fi rst. what is the evidence against this hypotheSiS? It seems to be so completely lacking that as knoYll- edgeable a philosopher-scientist as Alfred North Whitehead could embrace the hypothesis without reserve. Second. is the concept intrinSically less exalted than its al ternative? The Jews were reaching out for the most exaJ ted concept of the Ol1ler that they could con- ceive, an Other I1l3t embodied such inexhaustible worth that human beings would never begill to fathom its fu llness. The Jews found greater depth and mystery in people than in any of the other wonders at hand. How could they be true to this conviction of the Other's worth except by extending aud deepening the category of the per- sonal to include it?

Where the Jews differed from their ne ighbors "'35 Dot i.11 envi- Sion ing the Other as personal but in focusing its personalism in a si ngle. supreme, nature-transcending will. For the Egyptians. Baby- lonians. S}'Tians. and lesser Medi terranean peoples of the day, each major p<w.·er of nature was a distinct deity. The stonn was the stonn-

274 THE WORW'S RELIGIONS

god, the sun the sun-god, the rain the rain-god. When we tum to the Hebrew Bible "'e find ourselves in a completely different atmosphere. Nature here is an expression of a Single Lord of all being. As an authority on polytheism in the ancient Middle East has written:

\Vhen we read in Psalm 19 tlwt , lie heavens declare tile glory of God; and thefinlloment slwweth h is handiwork," we hear a voice which mocks the belief, of Egyptians and Babylonian$. The lleavens, which were to tile psalmist a witness of Cod's greatne.u. were to the Mesopotamiall$ tIle very majesty of godhead, the highest ruler, ArlU. To the Egyptians the heavens si.gnified Ote mys· tery of tile divine mother tlmmg/i wlwm man was reborn. In EgytJt and MesolHJtamia the divine was comprehended as imma- nent: the gods were In nature. Tile Egyptiall$ saw in the .tun all that a ilion may know of the creotor; the AJesI}JJOtamions viewed the $1111 (M tile god Slwm08h, tlte guarantor of justice. B"t to tile psalmist tile sun was Cod's devoted servant wilD is as a bride- groom coming out of II is chamber. and "njoicetll as a s trong man to run a met'. "Tile Cod of tile IM'almists and the Pt'OJJhets was not in nature. He trrmscended naturE. ..• It would ,~eem that the Hebrews, no less lIwn tile Creeks, broke with the mode of specul(l- lion wlliol had lJr"tooiled "1' to their time. t

Though the Hebrew Bible contains references to gods other than Yahweh (misread Jehovah in many translations), this does not upset the claim that the basic contribution of Judaism to the re li- gious thought of the Middle East was monotheism. For a close read- ing of the text shw'S that tltese othe r gods dilfe red from Yallwe h in two respects. First, they owed their origin to Yahweh -"You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you" (Psalm 82:6). Second, unljke Yallweh, they were mortal - "You shall die like mortals, and fall like any prince" (Psalm 82:7). nlese differences are clearly of sufficient importance to place the Cod of Israel ill a category that diffe rs from tha t of the other gods, not merely in degree but in kind. They are not Yallweh's rivals; they are Cod's subordinates. From a very early elate, possibl y from the very Ix.oginning of the biblical record, the Jews were monotheists.

l11e significance of this achieveme nt in re ligious thought lies ultimately in the focus it introduces into life. If Cod is that to which

JUDAISM

one gives oneself unreservedly, to have more than one Cod is to live a life of divided loya1ties. Iflife is to be whole; if one is not to spend one's days darting from one cosmic bureaucrat to another to discover who's in charge that day; if, in short, there is a consistent way in which life is to be lived if it is to move toward fuJfiUme nt, a way that can be searched out and approximated, the re must be a singleness to the O ther that supports this way. That there is, has been the foundation of Jewish belief. "I-lear, 0 Israel, the Lord our Cod, the Lord is O ne

w

(Deuteronomy 6:4). T here reVlains the question of wheth er tJle Othe r, nO\V seen as

personal and ultimately one, was e ither amoral or hostile. If it were e ithe r, this too could frustrate meaning. Interpersonal life obviously nows more smoothly when people behave morall y; but if ultimate reality does not support such behavior, if the world is such that morality does not pay, people face an impasse as to how to live. As to the O ther's disposition toward people, its power so obviously out· weighs human power that if its intents run counter to human well- be ing, human life. rar from being full y meaninb.ful, can be nothing but a grune of cat-and-mouse. This insight caused Lucretius, a short distance around tJle Medite rranean in Rome. to preach a theism on grounds that were actually re ligious. If the gods are as the Roman beHeved them to be-immoraJ, vindictive, and capricious - mean- ingful existence requires that tJley be opposed or rej{,'Cted.

The Cod or the Jews possessed none of these traits. which in greater or lesser degree charac teri7.ed the gods of their neighbors. It is here that we come to the supreme achievement of Jewish thought - not in its monotheism as such, but in the character it ascribed to the Cod it intuited as One. The Creeks.. the Romans, the Syrians, and most of the other Medite rranean peoples wou ld have said tv.'O things about their gods' characters. First, they tend to be amoral; second, toward humankind they are preponderant1y indilferent. The Jews reversed the thinking of their contemporaries 011 both these counts. Whereas the godsorOlympus tirelessly pursued beautiful wome n, the COO of Sinai watched over widoYo'S and orphans. While Mesopotamia's Anu and Canaan's EI were pursuing dle ir aloof ways, Yahweh speaks the name of Abrallam, lifting his people out of slavery, and (In E1.ekiel's vision) seeks out the lonely, heartsick Jewish exiles in Babylon. Cod is a Cod or righteousness, whose loving·kindness is from everlasting to {,wrlast- ing and whose tender mercies are in aU his works.

276 TilE WORLD'S RELIC IONS

Such, then, was the Ilcbrews' conception of the Other that con~ fronts human beings. It is not prosaic, for at its center sits enthroned a Being of awesome majesty. II is not chaotic, for it coheres in a divine unity. The reverse of amoral or indifferent. it centers in a God of righ- teousness and love. Are we surprised. then, to find the Jew exclaim- ing with the exultation of frontier discovery: "Who is like you among the goos, 0 Ynh"''eh?'' "What great nation has a God like the Lord?'"

Meaning in Creation

In Tile Brothers KllrW"Ul:DV Dostoevsky has Ivan blurt out: "I don't accepl this ,,"'Orld of COO'S, and although 1 know it exists, I don't accept it at all. Irs not thai J don't accept Cod. you must understand, it's the world creatQd by Him I donl and can not accept."

Ivan is not alone in find ing Cod, perhaps, good. but the world nol. Entire phi losophies have done the same-Cynicism in Greece, Jainism in India. Judaism, by contrast. affirms tbe world's goodness, arriving al thai conclusion through its assumption thai Cod created it. " LIl the beginning Cod created the heavens and tile earth" (Cenc- sis 1:1) and pronounced it to be good.

What does it mean to say thai the universe, tile entire realm of nat- ural existence as we know it. is Cod-created? Philosophers might look to such a statement as explanation for tile means by which the world came into bei ng, but that is a purelycosmogonicquestion tllat has no bearing on how we live. Did the world have a first cause or not? Our answer to that question seems unrelated to the way life feels to us.

There is another side to tile affirmation that the universe is God· created. however. Approached from this second angle, the assertion speaks not to the way tile earth originated but to the chantcter of its agent. Unlike tile first issue, this one affects us profoundly. Everyone at times finds himself or herself asking whether life is worthwhile, which amounts to aski ng whether. when the going gets rough. il makes sense to continue to live. Those who conclude tlmt it does not make sense give up, if not once and for al1 by suicide, then piecemeal. - by surrendering daily to the encroaching desolation of the years. Whatever else the word Cod may mean. it means a being in whom powe r and value converge. a being whose will cannot be tlwJarted and whose will is good. In this sense, to affinn that existence is Cod- created is to affirm its unimpeachable wortll.

JUDA ISM !77

There is a passage in T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Partl} that speaks to this point. Celia, who has been not just disappointed but disi ll u- sioned in love. goes to a psychiabist for help and begins her first ses- sion with this surprising statement:

I must leU IJOU That I slwuld really like to think there's something

I.OfOtIg with me- Because, if there isn't. tI&en them's $Ofnething

wrong With the world itself-and that's much I1lOf"2

frig»'en;ng) Tlwt would be terriMe. So rd rather believe Tltere is something wrong with me, that could be put

right,

These lines speak to the most basic decision life demands. Things repeatedly go wrong in life. When tlley do, what are .... 'C to conclude? Ultimately, tile options come down to two. One possibility is that the fault lies in the stars, dear Brutus. Many have so concl uded. They range all the way from quipsters who propose that the beSI educat ional toy ..... -e could give to childre n is jigsaw pu ... .zIes in which no two pieces fit together. to Thomas Hardy, who in ferred tllat the »O'\\''Cr that spawned a universe so inherently tragic must be some sort of dumb vegetable. In Somerset Maugharn's Of IllIman Bondage tile principal character, Phil ip, was given a Persian rug by a Bohemian roue who assured him that by studying the carpet he would be able to comprehend life's meaning. The dOllor died, and I)hilip was still in tile dark. H(MI could the involved pattern of a Persian rug solve the problem of life's meaning? When the answer finally dawned on him. it seemed obvious: Life has no meaning. "For nothing was the re a why and a wherefore."

11lis is one possibili ty. The other possibility is thal when tllings go wrong the fault lies not in the stars but in ourselves. Nei ther answer can be objectively validated, but there is no doubt as to which elicits the more creative response. In the one case human beings are helpless, for lheir troubles stem from the botched character or exis- tence itself, which is beyond their power to remedy. The other possi- bility challenges people to look closer to home- to search fnr causes or thei r problems in places where tlley can effect changes. Seen in

276 TilE WOR1#O'S RELJG10NS

Such , then, was the Hebrews' conception of the Other that con- fronts human beings, It is not prosaic, for at its cen ter sits e nthroned a 8e ingof awesome majesty. It is not chaotic, for it coheres in a divine unity. nle reverse of amoraJ or indifferent. it centers in a Cod of righ- tcousness and 10\.'e. Are we surprised, then, to find the Jew exclaim- ing with the exultation of frontie r discovery: "Who is like you among the gods. 0 Yahweh?" "What great nation has a Cod like t1le Lord?"

Meaning in Creation

In Tile Brothert Knruma;:.oo Dostoevsky has Ivan blurt out: "I don't accept this world of Cod's, and although I know it exists, I don't accept it a t all. Ifs not that I don't accept Cod, you must understand, it's the world creat9d by I-lim I don't and cannot accept."

' van is not alone in finding Cod, perhaps, good, but the world not. Entire philosophies have done the same-Cynicism in Crt..'ece, Jainism in India. Judaism, by controlS t, affirms the world's goodness, arrivillg at that conclusion through its assumption thai Cod created it. K'n the beginning Cod created the heavens and the earth" (Cene- sis 1:1) and pronounced il lo be good.

What docs it mean 10 say that the universe, lheentire realm or nat- ur.t1 existence as we know it, is Cod-created? Philosophers mighllook to such a statement as explanation for the means by which t1le world came into being, but thai is a purely cosmogonic question that has no bearing on how we live. Did the world have a first cause or not? Our answer to that question seems unrelated to the way lire reels 10 us.

There is anothe r side to the affirmation that the universe is Cod- created, hm'C'Ver. Approacbed rrom this second angle, the assertion speaks not 10 Llle way the earth originated but to the charac te r of its agent. Unlike the first issue, this one affects us proroundly. Everyone at times finds himself or herselr asking whether life is worthwhile. which amounts 10 asking whether, when the going gels rough. it makes sense to continue to live. Those who conclude that it does not make sense givc up. ir not once and for all by suicide, then piecemeal. - by surrendering daily to the encroaching desolation or the years. Whalever e lse the word Cod may mean, it means a being in whom power ami vuJue converge, a be ing whose will cannot be t1wnrlcd and whose wi ll is good . In this sense, to affirm tJmt existcnce is God- created is to affirm its uniml>eachable worth.

JUDAISM '" There is a passage in T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party that speaks

to this point. Celia, who has been not just disappointed but disillu- sioned in Ioyc. goes to a psychiatrist ror help and begins her first ses- sion with tJlis surprising statemenl:

I must tell you That I slwtJd really like to think tlJerf!s something

wn:mg with me- BecatUe, if there isn't, '/lefl tlleres something

wrong With the world itself- and that s much more

frightening! That would be terrible. So I'd ruther believe There is sometlting wrong with me, that COtdd be put

riglJI..

These lines speak to the most basic decision lire demands. Things repeatedly go wrong in life When they do. what are we 10 conclude? Ultimately, the options come down to two. One possibility is thai the rault lies in the stars, dear Brutus. Many have so concluded. They range all the way from quipsters who propose that the best educational toy .... 'e could give to children is jigsaw puzzles in which no lwo pieces fit together, 10 Thomas Hardy, who inrerred Ihat t1le po ..... er that spawned a universe so inherently tragic must be some sort of dumb vegetable. In Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage the principal character; Philip, was given a Pe rsian rug by a Bohemian rou6 who assured him tJlat by studying the carpet he would be able to comprehend life's meaning. The donor died, and Philip was still in the dark. How could tJle involved pattern or a Persian rug solve the proble m or lire's meaning? When the answer finally dawned on him, it seemed obvious: Life has no meaning. "For not1ling was there a why and a wherefore. R

This is one possibili ty. The olher possibility is Llmt when things go wrong the rault lies not in the stan but in ourselves. Neither answer can be objectively vaJidated, but there is no doubt as to which elicits the more creative response. In the one case human beings a re helpless, ror their troubles stem from the botched character or exis- tence itselr, which is beyond tJleir power to remedy. The other possi- bility challenges people to look closer to home- to search for causes or their problems in places where LlICY can effect changes. Seen in

278 TilE WORUYS RELIC IONS

this light, the Jewish affirmation that the world is Cod-created equipped the m with a constructive premise. Ilowever desperate Llleir lot, hOW'e\ler deep the valley of the shadow of death they found the m- selves in, they never despaired of life itself. Meaning was alW'dYS wait- ing to be won; the opportunity to respond creatively was never absent. For the world had been fash ioned by the Cod who not only meted out the heavens with a span, but whose goodness endured forever.

Thus fclr we have been speaking of the Jewish estimate of crea- tion as a whole, hut one element in the biblical account deserves special attclItion: its regard for nature- the physical, material com- ponent of eristence.

Much of Creek thought takes a dim viC'N of matter: Likewise Indian philosophy, which considers maiter a barbarian, spoiling everything it touches. Salvation ill snch contexu involves freeing the soul from its mate rial cont'.liner.

How different the first chapter of Ce nesis, which (as we have seen) ope ns witJI the words "In tJle begin ning Cod created LlIC heavens and theetJrlh ," empllasis now added, WId climaxes willI Cod reviewing Meverythillg that he had made. and behold, it was very good." We ought to let our millds dwell 011 thai adjectiYe "very," for it gives a lilt to the en tire Jewish, and subsequen tly Western , view of nature. Pressing for meaning in every direction, the Jews refused to abandon the physical aspects of existence as illusory, defective. or unimportant. Fresh as the morning of Creation, nature was to be relished. The abundance of food made the Promised Land "a good land. a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waten weLJjng up in valleys and hi lls. a land of wheat atld barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey. a land where you may eal bread without scarcity" (Deuteronomy 8:7-8). Sex, too, was good. An occasional minOrity movemenllike the Essenes might haveconcludcd the opposite, butJews as a whole hold marriage in high regard. TIle entire assumption behind the prophets· den unciation of the inequalities of wealth that confronted them W'dS the reverse of the opinion thai possessions are bad. They are so good tllal more people should have more of them.

Such an affirmative and buoyant attitude toward nature does seem to set Judaism off from hulia's basic outlook . It does not, how- ever, distinguish it from Eust Asia, where the appreciation of nature is profouud. Whal divides Llle Hebraic from the Chinese view of

JUDAISM .,. nature does nol come out until we note a tllird verse in this crucial fi rs t chapter ofCenesis. In vene 26 Cod says of the people he intends to create: "Let them have dominion ... over all tile earth ." How much this differs from the Chinese altitude toward nature can be seen by recalling its opposite sentiment in tile Tho Te Clling:

Tlwse wllO would take over the ea nh Arut sha,>e it to thei,. will Never, I notice, 8UCCeed.

If we propositionalize the three key assertions about nature in tile opening chapter of Cenesis-

Cod created tile eon/l; le t [human being.tJ Imoe dominion over the earlll; behold. it was oery gDlXl . ..

-we find an appreciation of nature. blc llded with confidence in human powers to work witll it for the good. that in its time was excep- tional . It was, a .. we well know, an attitude that was destined to bear fruit , for it is no accident that modem science 6rst e merged in the Westem world. Archbishop William Temple used to say that Judaism and its offspring, Chris tianity, are the mosl materialistic religions in the ..... ,orld . When Islam is added to tile list. the Semitically Originated religions emerge as exceptional in in sisting that human beings are ineradicably body as we ll as spirit and that this coupling is not a lia- bility. From this basic premise three corollaries follow: (I) that the material aspects ofJjfe are important (hence the strong emphasis in tile West Oll humanitarianism and social service); (2) that matter can participate in the condition of salvation itself (affinned by the doc- trine of the Resurrection of the Body); and (3) tllat nature can host the Divine (the Kingdom of Cod is to come "on Earth ," to which Christianity adds its doctrine of the lncamation).

Meaning in Iluman Existence

The most crucial element in buman tllinldng is self-directed. What does it mean to be a human self. to live a human life?

Here. too, tile Jews looked for meatling. They were intensely interested in human nature. but 1I0t for the brute facts of tile case..

280 TIlE WORLD'S RELiCIONS

They wanted truth-for-life. They wanted to understand the human condition so as to avail themselves of its highest reaches.

The Jews were acutcly awarc of human limitations. Compared with the majcstyofthe heavens, people arc "dust" (Psalm 103:14); fac- ing the forces of nature they can be "crushed like a moth" Gob 4:19). Thcir time upon the earth is swiftly spent, like grass that in the mom- ing flourishes. but "in the even ing fades and withers" (Psalm 90:6). Even this bricf span is laced with pain that causes our years to end "as a sigh" (Psalm 90:9). Not once but repeatedly the Jews were forced to the rhetorical question: "'What are human beings" that Cod should give them a second thought? (Psalm 8:4).

Considering the freedom of Israel's thought and her refusal to repress doubts when she felt them, it is not surprising to find that there were moments when they suspected that "human beings. are only animals. For the fate of humans and the fatc of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other" (Ecclesiastes 3:18-19). Here is a biological interpretation of the human species as uncompromisi ng as any the nineteenth century evcr produced. The significant pOint, however, is that this passing thought did not prevail. The striking fca- ture of thc Jewish view of human nature is that wi thout blinking its frailty, it wcnt on to affirm its unspeakable grandeur. We are a blcnd of dust and divinity.

The word Imspeakable two scntcnce above is not hyperbole. The King James Versionlranslates the central Jewish claim concerning the human station as follows: "Thou hast madc him a little 1fN..-er than the angels" (Psalm 8:5). That last word is a straight mistranslation, for the original Hebrew plainly reads "a liUle lowe r than the gods [or Codr- the number of the Hebrew word 'elohim is indetenn inate. Why did the translators reduce deity to angels? The ans ..... 'Cr seems obvious: It was not erudition that they lacked, but rather the boldncss -one is tempted to say nerve-of the Hebrews. We can respect their reserve. It is one thing to write a Hollywood script in which everyone seems wonder- ful; it is another thing to make such characters seem real. The one charge that has never been leveled against the Bible is that its charac- ters are not real people. Even its greatest heroes, like David, are presented so unvamished, so "warts and a11 ,~ that the Book of Samuel has heen called the most honest historical writing of the ancient \\1>rld. Yet no amount of realism could dampen the aspiration of the Jews. Hum an beings who on occasion so justly deserve the epithets "mag-

JUDAISM 281

got and wonn" (Job 25:6) are equally the beings whom Cod has "crowned wi th glory and honor" (psalm 8:6). There is a rabbinic say- ing to the effect that whenever a man or woman walks down the street he or she is preceded by an invisible choir of angels crying, "Make way, make way! Make way for the image of Cod."

In speaking of the realism of the Jewish view of human nature we have thus far emphasized its recognition of physical limitations: weakness, susceptibility to pain. life's brevity. We shall not have plumbed the full scope of its realism, however, until we add I1mt they saw the basic human limitation as moral rather t1lan physical. Human beings are not only frail ; they are sinners: '" was born guilty, a sinner when my mothcr conceived me" (Psalm 51:5). It is totally false to claim this verse for the defense of either the doctrine of total human depravity or the notion that sex is evil. These are both imported notions that have nothing to do with Judaism. The verse does. how- ever. contribu te something of great importance to Jewish anthropol- ogy. The word sin comes from a root meaning "to miss the mark,M and this people (despite their high origin) manage continually to do. Meant to be noble, I1ley are usually something less; mean t to be generous, they withhold from others. Created more than animal, they often sink to being nothing else.

Yet Il ever in these "missi ngs" is the misstep required. Jews have never questioned human freedom . The first recorded hu man act involved free choice. In eating Eden's forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve were, it is true, seduced by the snake, but they cou ld have resisted. The snake merely tempted them; it is clearly a story of a human lapse. J nanimate objects cannot be other than they are; they do what nature and circumstance decree. Human beings, once created, make or break themselves. forging tJleir own destinies through their deci- sions. "Cease to do evil, leam to do good" (lsaiall 1:16-17)-only for human beings does this injunction hold. "1 have set beforc )'011 life and death ... therefore choose lifc" (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Finally, it followed from the Jewish concept of tJleir Cod as a lov- ing Cod that people are Cod's beloved children. I n one of the ten- derest metaphors of the entire Bible, Hosea pictures Cod yeaming over people as though they were toddling infants:

It was I who taught EplulJim to walk, I took them up in my anns;

182 T II_E WORLD'S RELICIONS

, led them with corch oj human kindneu, with bands oj love.

, roo" to tllefll like tlwse wlto lift inJaliu to thei,- cheek.!. How carl I give you Ill', £pllmim?

How can I hatlli '10 11 over, 0 b rael? My heart recoiU within me,

my compassion grow" roonn and tender: (Hosea U:3--4.8)

Evell in this world, immense as it is and woven of the mighty »O\\>'ers of nature, me n and women can wa1k with the confidence of children in a home in which they are fuU y accepted.

What are the ingn..'<iients of the most creatively meaningful image of human existence that the mind can conceive? Iwmove human frailty-as grass. as a sigh, as dust, as moth-crushed-and the estimate becomes romantic. Remm't! grandeur-a little I~'er tllan God - and aspiration recedes. Remove sin - the tendency to miss the mark -and se ntimentality threatens. Bemove freedom-choose ye this day!- and responsibility goes by the board . Remove. finall y, divine paren tage and life becomes estranged, cut loose and adrift on a cold. indifferent sea. With all that has been discovered about human life in the intervening 2,500 years. it is difficult to find a flaw in this assessment.

Meaning in lIislon)

Let us begin with a contrast. MAccording to most classical philoso- phies and religions," a historian writes, "ultimate reali ty is disclosed when man, e ither by rationa1 contemplation or mystic ascent, goes beyond the flow of evenl5 whicb we call 'history: The goal is the apprehension of an order of reality unaffected by the unpredictable fortunes of mankind. In Ilinduism. for instance. the world of sense experience is regarded as maya, illusion: tlle religious man, there- fore. seeks re lease from the wheel ofljfe in order that his individual- ity may fade oul into tlle World-Soul. Brahma. Or, Greek philoso- phers looked upon the world as a natural process which, like the rotation of the seasons, aJways foUows the same rational scheme. The philosopher, however, could soar above the recurring cycles of his- tory by fixing his mind upon the unchanging absolute which belongs to the eternal order. Hoth of these views are vastly different from the

JUDAISM !83

BihlicaJ claim that Cod is found withi n the limitations of the "",oorld of change and struggle. and especially that he revea1s himself in events which are unique, particular. and un repeatable For the Bible, history is neither m.aya nor a circular process of nature; it is the arena of God's purposive activity,'"

What is at stake when we ask if there is meaning in history? At stake is our whole atti tude toward the sociaJ order and collective life within it. If we decide thai history is meaningless. it fo llows that the sociaJ, political. and cult'ural contexts of life do not warr.lJlt active concem , Life's pivotal problems will be judged to lie elsewhe re. in tlle extellt to which we can rise above circumstances and triumph over them. To the extent that v.-e see things this way, we shall take lit- tle interest in, and feel Little responsibility fo r, the problems thai beset societies. cultures. and civilizations,

The Ilebrew estimate of history was tile exact opposite of this attitude of indifference. To the Jews history W.l$ of toweri ng sig- nifi cance. It was important. fi rs t, because they were convinced tllat the context in which life is lived affects that life in cvcry way, setting up its problems. delineating its opportunities, conditioning its out - comes. It is impossible to talk about Adam and NoaJl (the same may be said of every major biblicaJ character) apart from the particular circumstances-in t.his case Eden and the Flood- that e nveloped them and in response to which their lives took fo nn . The events lhe Hebrew Bible relates are profoundly eontextuaJ.

Second, if contexts are crucial for life, so is collective action; social action as ..... 'e usua1ly caJl it There are times when the only way to get things changed is by working together - planning, organizin~, and then acting in CO L1cert. 111e destiny of the Hebrew slaves m Egypt is not depicted as depending on the extent t.o which ~e: individually Mrose aboveM their slavery by cultivating a bbcrty of Splnt that could toJcrdte physical chains. They needed to stand up coUec· tively and break for tJle desert. .

Third, history was important for the Jews because they saw It ~ a field of opportunity. As it was ruled by Cod - tlle Mtheater of Gods glory: John Calvin claimed. extrapolating from this Old Testament base-nothing in history happens accidentally, YaJlwe h's hand was at work in every event - in Eden. lhe Flood, tJle Exodus. the Babylo- nian Exile-shaping each sequence into a teaching experience for

his peopl e.

t.84 TIlE WORI.D'S RELICIONS

Finally, history was important because life's opportunities are not monotnously alike. Events. all of them important, are not equally important. It is IIOt the case that anyone. anywhe re and at any time. can turn to history and find awaiting an opportunity equivalent to all others in time and place. Each opportunity is unique. but some are decisive: "TIlere is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." History must, therefore. be attended 10 carefull y, for when opportunities pass they are gone forever.

This uniqueness of events is epitomized in the Hebrew notions (a) of Cod's direct inlervention in hislory at certain critical points. and (b) of a chosen people as recipie nts of Coo's unique challe nges. Both are vividly illustrated in the epic of Abraham. This epic is introduced by a remarkable prologue. Ge nesis I - U, which describes the steady dete rioration of the world from its original. pristine good- ness. Disobedience (eating the forbidden fruit) is followed by murde r (Cain of Abel), promiscuity (the sons of Cod and the daughters of men), incest (the sons of NOall), until a (lood is needed to sluice out the mess. III tl le midsl of the corruption, Cod is nol inactive. Ab'ainst its backdrop, in the last days of tl le 5umeric unive rsal stale. God calls Abraham. He is to go fortll into a new land to establish a new prople. The moment is decisive. Because Abraham allswers its call, he ceases 10 be anonymous. He becomes tlle first Hebrew. the first of a "chosen people."

We shall need to return to this "chosen people" theme, but for tlle present " 'e must ask what g:.lve the Jews tlleir insigh t into his- tory's Significance. We have noted the kind of meaning tlle)' found in history. What enabled them to see history as embodying this meaning?

For India, human destiny lies outside hislory a1togetller. There tlle world tllat houses humanity is (as we have seen) tlle ~middle world." Cood and evil, pleasure and pain, right and wrong are woven inl'o it in relatively C<lual proportions as its warp and weft. And so ~i~gs will remain . All thought of cleaning up the world and chang- IIlg Its character appreciably is mistaken in principle. The nature reli- gions of Israel's neighbors reached tll e same conclusion bya different route. For them, human destiny laywitllill his tory al l right. but in his- tory as currently constituted. not as it might become. We can see why change-speci fi cally change for the beller-did not suggest itself to nature religionists. If one's eye is on nature preeminentl y, olle does

JUDAISM ISS

notloak beyond it for fulfillment e lsewhere. But neither-and this is the point -does one dream of improving natu re or the social orde r that is its extension, for these are assumed to be ingrained in the nature of tll ings and not subject to human alteration. The Egyptian no more asked whetller the SWI god Ra was shi ning as he should shine than the modem astronome r asks whethe r the sun is expend- ing itself al a proper rate; for in nature tlle accent is on what is, not what should be - the is rather than the ought.

TIle israe li tes' historical outlook differed from that or India and Middle Eastern polytheism because tlley had a different idea or Cod. Had the issue been raised to the level of conscious debate, they wou ld have argued against India that God would not have created people as material beings if mailer were adventitious to their destiny. Against tlle nature polytheists the Jews would have argued that nature is not selr-sufficient. Because nature was creat'ed by Cod, Cod cannot be asSimilated to it. The consequence of kt."Cping Cod and nature distinct is momentous. for it means that the ~ought~ cannot be assimi lated to the "isH_ Cod's will transcends (alld can differ from) immanent actuality. By the double stroke of involving human life with tlle natural order but not cOll61ling it to that order. Judaism established history as both important and subject to critique. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

The nature polythe isms that surrounded Judaism all buttressed tlle status quo. Conditions might not be all the heart desired, but what impressed the polytheist was that they could be a lot worse. For if the powers of nature reside in many godS- in Mesopotamia their number reached into the thousands- there W.LS always the danger that these gods might fall oul among the mselves with resulting chaos. 50 religion's attention was directed toward keeping tllings as Lhey were. Egyptian religion repeatedly contrasted "passionate pe0- ple" to "silenl people, ~ extolling the latte r because they didn'l cause trouble. Small wonder thai no nature polytheism ever spawned a principled revolution. Traditionally. Indi an religion likewise had a conservative cast; for if polytheisllls feared change, Il induism con- sidered substantive sociaJ change 10 be impossible.

1n Judaism. by contrast. llistory is in tension between its divine possibilities and its manifest fnlstrations. A sharp tension exists between the ought and tlle is. Consequently. Judaism laid the groundwork for social protest. When things are not as they should be.

186 T HE WO RLO'S RELIC IONS

change in some fonn is in order. TIle idea bore fruit. It is in the lands that have been affected by the Jewish historicaJ perspective, one that influenced Christianity and to some extent Islam. that the chief thrusts for social beUe nnent have occurred. The prophets set the pattern. · Protected by religious sanctions, the prophets of Judah were a reforming political force which has never been surpassed and perhaps never equalled in subseClue nt world history." On fire with the conviction that things were 110t as tilt.,), should be, they created in the name of the Cod for whom they spoke an atmosphere of reform that "put Hyde Park and the best days of muckraking newspapers to shame. ".

Meaning in Morality

Human bei ngs are social creatures. Separoted from thei r kind al birth, they never become human; yet living with others., they are often barbaric The need for morality stems from this double fact. Nobody likes moral rules ally more than they like stop lights or "no left turn" signs. But without moral constraints, human relations would become as snarled as traffic In the Chicago loop if everyone drove at will .

The Jewish fonnulation of "those wise restraints that make men free" is contained in her Law. We shall have occasion to note that this Law contai ns ritualistic as .... -ell as ethical prescriptions, but for the present we are concerned with the latter. According to the rabbinic view, the Hebrew Bible contains no less than 613 commandme nts that regulate human behavior. Four of these will suffice fo r our pur- poses: the four ethical precepts of the Ten Commandments. for it is through these tllat Hebraic morality has had its greatest impact. Appropriated by Christianity and Islam. tlle Ten Commandments constitute the mora1 foundation of most of the Weste rn "'"Orld.

There are four danger zones in human lire tllat can cause unlimited trouble ir they get out of hand: rorce. wealth, sex, and speech. On the animal level these are .... -eU contained. Two scarcely surface as problems at all. The spoken word does not, for animals cannot communicate enough to seriously deceive. Neitller. really, does wealth , for to become a serious social problem the drive forpos- sessions requires foresight and sustained greed at levels unknown In the animal kingdom. As for sex and force, tlley too pose no serious

JUDAISM 287

proble ms. Pe riodicity keeps sex from becoming obsessive, and inbuilt restraints hold violence in check. With the curious exception of ants. intraspecial warfare is seldom found. Where it has broken out, the species has usually destroyed itself.

With human beings things are differe nt. Jealousies. hatreds. and revenge can lead to violence that. unless checked, rips c~mmUl~ities to pieces. Murder instigates blood feuds tllat dmg on mdefi llliely. Sex, if it violates certain restraints, can rouse passions so inte nse as to destroy entire communities. Simi larly with then and prevarication. We can imagine societies in which people do exactly as they please on these counts, but none have been fou nd and anthropologists have nOW covered the globe. Apparently, if total pennissiveness has ever been tried, its inventors have not survived for anth ropologists 10 study. Pe rhaps here. more than anywhere else, we encounter hu man constants. Parisians are cousins to Bongolanders; twentieth-century sophisticates are related to aborigines. All must CQntain tlleir appe- tites if history is to continue.

What the Ten Commandments prescribe in these areas are the minimum standards thai make collective life possible. In this sense the Tell Commandments are to the social order wllat the opening chapter of Genesis is to the natural order; witllout each tllere is only a foml less void. Whereas Genesis structures (and thereby creates) the physical ..... o rld, tile Ten Commandments structure (and thereby make possible) a social "'"Orld. Regarding force. they say in effect: You can bicker and fight, but killing within the in-group will not be per· milled, for it instigates blood feuds that shred commuuity. There.fore tlwu slwh. not murder: Similarly with sex. You can be a rounder, nlrla- lious, even promiscuous, and though we do not commend such behavior, ..... e will not get the law after you. But at one point we drolw the line: Sexual indulgence of married persons outside the nuptial bond will not be allowed, for il rouses IJaSsions the community can· not tolerate. Therefore thoo alwlt not commit adultery. As for posses- sions, you may make }Uur pile as large as you please and be shrewd and cunning in tile enterprise. One thing. though, you may nol do, and that is pilfer directly off someone else's pile, for this outrages the sense of rair play and builds animosities that become wlgovcrnable. Therefo re thou sllalt not steal. Finally, regarding the spoken "-"Oret, you may dissemble and equivocate, but there is one time when we re<luire thai you tell the truth , the whole truth , and nothing but the

!88 TIlE \o,.'ORLD·S RELICIONS

truth. If a dispute reaches such proportions as to be brought before a tribunal , on such occasions the judges must know what happened. If you lie then. while under oath to tell the truth. the penalty wiU be severe ThO« shalt not beD,. false witness.

The importance of tile Ten Commandments in their e thical dimensions lies not in their uniqueness but in their universality, not in their finality bUI in thei r foundational priority. They do not speak the final word on the topics they touch; they speak the words that must be spoken if other words are to follow. This is why, over three thousand years after Mount Si nai, they continue as the -mora! espe- mnto" of the world. This led Heine to exclaim of the man who received them; "How tiny docs Sinai appear when Moses stands upon it," and the biblical writers to assert categorically. "There arose not in IsraellanotherJ prophet like Moses" (Deuteronomy 34:10).

Meaning in Jmtice

It is Lo a remarkable group of men whom we call the prophe ts more than to any others that Western civilization owes its convictions CI) that the futu re of any people depends in large part on the justice of its social order, and (2) that individuals are responsible for the social structures ofthc ir society as well a.~ for Uleir direct personal dealings.

When someone today is referred to as a prophet or is said to prophesy, ..... -e think of a soothsayer-someone who foretclls Ule future. This was not the original meaning of the world. "Prophet" comes from the Creek v.'Ord IJro,l/letet, in which pro means "for" and phetes means -to speak." l1IUS, in its ori!,rinal Creek, a prophet is someone who "speaks for" somcone else This meaning is faiUlful to the original Hebrew. When Cod commissions Moses to demand from Pharaoh the release of his people and Moses protests that be cannot speak, Cod says, "'Your brother Aaron shall be your prophet" (Exodus 7:1).

Iffor the Il ebrews the generic meaning of the ..... 'Ord prophet was "one wbospeaks on the authOrity of another," its specific meaning (as used to refer to a distinctive group of people in the biblical period) was "one who speaks for Cod." A prophe t differed from other men in that his mind, his speech, and occa~ ionall y even his body could become a conduit through which Cod addressed immediate histori- cal conditions.

JUDAISM ... A review of Ule prophetic movement in Israel shows it not to have

been a single phenomenon. Moses stands in a class by himself, but the prophetic movement passed through three stages, with the divine working differently in each or them.

11le first is the stage of the Prophetic Cuilds, or which the ninth and ten th chapters of First Samuel provide one of the best glimpses. In Ulis stage prophecy is a group phenomenon. Prophets are not here identified as individuals because their talent is not an individual pos- session. Traveling in bands or schools, prophecy ror them was a field phenomenon that required a critical mass. Contemporary psycholo- gists would consider it a form of collective, self-induced ecstasy. Witll the help of music and dancing, a prophetic band would work itself inloa stateoffrenzy. Its members ..... ,ould lose their self-consciousness in a collective sea of divine intoxication .

There W'olS 110 ethical rumensiou to prophecy in this guild stage. The prophets assumed Ulat they were possessed by the divine only because the experience brought an inrush of ecstatic power. In the second stage, ethics entered. This was Ule stage of Ule Individual Pre-Writing Prophets. Being alive and in motion, prophecy now began to launch individuals like rockets from the bands that fonned their base Their names have come down to us - Elijah, Elisha. Nathan, Micaiah , Ahijall, and others - but !LS they were still in the pre-writing stage, no books of the Bible carry their names. Ecstasy still figured large in their prophetic experience, and po ....... er, too. for when .. the hand of the Lord" visited these men they outran chariots for thirty miles and were caught up frolll the plains and cast on mou ntaintops.5 But two things were different. Though these proph- e ts too had agui ld base, they could receive the divine visitation while they were alone And second. the divine spoke through them more clearly. No longer did it manifest itself as an overpowering emotion only. Emotion backed Cod's demand for justice.

Two episodes from the Bible may be drawn from many to make this point. One is the storyofNaboth who, because he refused to turn over his family vineyard to King Ahah, WIlli framed on false charges of blasphemy and subversion and then stoned; as blasphemy was a capi- tal cri me, his property then reverted to Ule throne. When news oflhis travesty reached Elijall. the word of the Lord came to him, saying, "Co down to mtlet Ahab king of brae!. Say to him, 'Thus says the Lord. You have killed and taken possession. In the place where dogs

£90 THE WORLD'S REUCIONS

licked up the blood of Naooth, dogs will also lick up your blood'· (l Kings 21:18-19).

The story carries revolutionary significance for hwnan history, fo r it is the story of how someone without official position took the side of a wronged man and denounced a king to his face on grounds ofinjustice. One will search the annab of history in vain for its paral- lel. Elijah was not a priest. li e had no formalauthorilyfor the terrible judgment he delivered. The normal pattern of tJle day would have ca1led for him to be struck down by bodyguards on tJle spot. But the fact that he was Mspeaking for" an authority not his own was so trJ.lIS- parent that the king accepted Elijah's pronouncement as just.

The same striking sC<luence recurred in the incident of David and Bathsheba. From the lOP of his roof David glimpsed Bathsheba bathing and "'allIed her. There was an obstacle, how\::\'Cr: she was married. 10 the royalty of those days tllis was a small matter, David simply moved to get rid of her husband. Uriall was ordered 10 the front lines. carryi ng instructions that he be placed in the tllick of the fighting and support withdrawn so he would be killed. Everything went as planned; indeed, the procedure seemed routine until Nathan the prophet got wind of it. Sensing immediately tllat Mlhe thing that David had done displeased tile Lord: he went straight to th e king, who had absolute power over his life, and said to him:

rllUs says t~ Lord, l/ae Cod of Israel: ")'OU IlOve stnu:k clown Uriah with the 3WQrd, and have taken his wife to he you,.. wife, /so/ I will mise Ill} trouhle against you within yOIl,.. 0W11 IlOUSe; arid I will take yoo,.. wives before yo.,,.. eyes, arlcll.tive them to your neigh- IJOr, and lae shall lie witll you,.. wive.r in t~ sight of this very .run. For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all lsruei. Because you have utterly &COnJed the Lord, the cllild thot is born to you sllOlI die. M (2 Samuel 12:7,9, ll- 12, 14)

The surprising point in each of these accounts is not what the kings do. for t.hey were merely exercising the universally accepted prerogatives of royaJty in their day. TIle revolutionary and unprece- dented fact is the way the prophets challenged their actions.

We hU\'C spoken of the Prophetic Cuilds and the Individual Pre- Writing Prophets. The third and climactic phase of the prophetic movement arrived with the great Writing Prophets: Amos, Hosea, Micah , Jeremiall, Isaiah, and the rest. Again at this stage, ecstasy W.LS

JUDAISM 291

not absent from the prophetic experience; Ezekiel 1-3, Jeremiah I , and Isaiah 6 (where the prophet "saw the Lord, high and exalted1 are among tile most impressive tlleophanies on record. 11le Pre-Writing Prophets' ethical em phasis, too, conlinuoo, but here there was an important developme nt. Whe reas II Nathan or an Elijah perceived Cod's displeasure at individual acts offlagranl injustice. an Amos or an Isaiah could sense Cod's disapproval of injustices that were less conspicuous because they were perpetrated not by individuals through specific acts but were concealed in the social fabric Whereas the Pre-Writing Prophets challenged individual s, the Writ- ing Prophets challenged corruptions in the social order alld oppres- sive institutions.

The Writing Prophet,s found the mselves in a time tllat was shot through with inequities. special privilege, and injustices of tJle most fl agrant sort. Wealth was concentrated in the hands of rich granqces, paupers were br.lJlded like cattle and sold as slaves, and debtors were trJ.ded for a pair of shoes. It was a world in which masters punished their slaves at wi ll, women were subjugated to men, and unwJ.nled children were ahandoned to die in lonely places.

As a threat to tJle contemporary social health of the body politic, this moral delinquency was one important fact of Jt:Wish political life at the time, but there was another. Danger within was matched by danger from withoul'; for. sandwiched between the colossal empires of Assyria and Babylonia to the cast, Egypt to the south. and Phocnicia and Syria to the north . Isr.tel and Judall were in danger or being crushed. In similar situations the other peoples of Ihe region assumed that outcomes rested on the relative strengths of the national gods involved -in other words, on a simple calculus of power ill which questions of morality "'Cre irrelevant. Such an interpretation, however, drains opportunity, and hence meaning. rrom such situations. If eventualities are strictly detennined by power, there is little that a smallnatioll can do. The Jews resisted this reading, oul of what we have targeted as their unquenchable passion for meaning. Even where it seemed almost impossible to do other- wise. they refused to concede thai any event was meaningless in the sense of leaving no room for a creative response involving a moral choice. ThUs, what other nations would have interpreted as simply a power squeeze, they saw as Cod's WIInling to clean up their national life: establish justice throughout tile land, or be destroyed.

!92 TilE WORI.D'S RELIGIONS

Stated abstractly, the Prophetic Principle can be put as follows: TIle prerequisite of political stability is social justice, for it is in the nature of things that injustice will not e ndure. Stated theologically the point reads: God has high standards, Divinity wiJl not put up for· ever with exploitation, corruption, and mediocrity. This principle does not contradict what was said earlier about Yah""'t:h's love. On the whole the prophel5 join the psalmists in speaking more of love than of justice. Later, a Rabbi was to describe the relationship between the two as follows:

A A,"ing had some empty glasses. He said: Mlf J "our hot water irlto Olefll they wiU crack; if I pour ice-cold water into them they will also cmck''" What did tile king do? He mixed tile hot and the cold water together and ,JOUred it into them atlll they did rio t crack. Eoen $0 did the Holy One, blessed be He. say: ~/f I create the world on the basis of the attribute of mercy alone, the worlds sins will greatly multiply. If I create it on the basis of the attribute ofjustice alone, how could the world eruluw I will therefore create it with both the attributes of mercy alld j ustice, and may it endu~!"

TIle prophel5 of lsmel and Judah are one of the most amazing groups of individuals in all Itistory. In the midst of the mora.! desert in which they found themselves. they spoke words the world has never bee n able to forgel. Amos, a simple shepherd but no straw blowu north by accident; instead, a man with a mission, stern and rugged as the desert from which he came, a man with all his wits ahout him and every faculty alert, crying in the crass marketplace of Bethel, MLct justice roll down !.ike waters. and righteousness like a mighty stream." Isaiah , city-bred, stately, urbane, eloquent, hut no less aflame with mora.! passion, cryi ng out for one ~who will bring forth justice in all the earth ," Hosea, Micah , Jeremiah -what a company they makel The prophets come from all classes. Some are sophisti· cated, others as plain and natural as the hillsides from which they corn e. Some bear God roaring !.ike a lioo; others hear the divine decree in the ghostly stillness that follows the storm.

Yet one thing is common to them all: the conviction that every human being, simply by virtue of his or her humanity, is a child of God and therefore in possession of rights that even kings must respect. The prophets enter the stage of history like a strange, elemen tal, explosive force. They live in a vaster world than their

JUDAISM 293

compatriots. a world in which pomp and ceremony, wealth and splendor count for nothing, where kings seem small and the power of the mighty is as nothing compared with purity, justice, and mercy. So it is that wherever men and women have gone to history for encouragement and inspiration in the age·long struggle for justice, tJley have found it more than anywhere else in the ringing proclama· tiolls of the prophets.

Meaning in Suffering

From the eighth to the sixth centuries B.C.E., during which Israel and Judah tottered before the aggressive power of Syria, Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon, the prophet.s found meaning in their predicament by seeing it as God's way of underscoring the demand for righteousness. Cod was engaged in a great controversy with his people, a con· troversy involving moml issues not evident to the secular observer. To correct a wayward child a parent may coax and cajole, but if words fail action may prove to be necessary. Similarly, in tJle face of Israel 's indifference to God's commands and pleadings. Yallweh had no alter. native but to let the Ismelites know who was God-whose will must prevail. It was to make this pOinl thai Cod was using Israel 's enemies against her.

Thus says tlte Lord: For thrne transgression" of Israel,

and for four, I will rIOt revoke lite p lmis/lFlumt; because they sell the righteous for silver;

ond tlte needy for a 1lair of SIHldais- Therefore arl adversary shall surround the land ,

arid strip you of your deferl.ge; and your strongholds shall he pl,mdered. (Amos 2:6; 3:11)

Jeremiall takes up the refrain. Because the Jews had forsaken righ· teousness, it is Cod's decision to ~make this city a curse for all the nations of the earlh~ (jeremiah 26:6).

We can appreciate the mor..a..l courage required to come up WitJl this interpretation of impending doom. How much easier to assume that God is on our side. or resign oneself to defeal.

The climax, however, is yet to come. Defeat was not averted. In 721 S.C.E. Assyria "came down like a wolf on the fold" and wiped the

29-t THE WORLD'S REJ.lCIONS

Northern Kingdom from tlle map forever, converting its people into ~the Te n Lost Tribes orlsrael.· Ln 586 Judah, the Southem Kingdom . was conquered, though in this case its leadership remained intact as Nebuchadnez:t.ar marched it collectively into captivity in Babylonia.

If ever tllere was a time when the possibility of meaning seemed unlikely, tllis WdS it. The Jews had bungled their opportunity and in consequence had been brought low. Surely now the prophets might be expected to concede tlleir people's doom with a self-serving ") told you so."

This retort , a blend of vindic tiveness and despair, was not in the prophets' vocabulary. The most staggering fact in tile Jewish quest for meaning is the way in which in this blackest hour, when meaning had been exhausted in the deepest strata the Jews had yet mined, the prophets dug deeper still to uncover an entirely new vCill . Not to have done so would have amounted to accepting the prevailing view that the victors' god W.lS stronger than the god or the defeated, a logic that WQuld have ended the biblical faith and tlle Jewish people along witll it . The rejection of tha t logic rescued the Jewish future. A prophet who wrote in sixth century Babylonia where his people were captives - his name has been lost, bUI his WQrds come down to us in the latter chapters of the book of Isaiah - argued that Yahweh had not been worst'ed by the Babylonian god Mllfduk; history was still Yall- web's province. 111is meant that there must have been point in the Israelites' defeat; the challenge was agaiu to see it. The point that "Second Isaiahw saw was 1I0t this time punishment. The Israelites needed to /eanl something that tllCir dereat would teach, but their experience would also be rede1111Jtioe for Lhe world.

Olllhe leanling side, there are lessons and insights Lhat suffering illumines as nothing e lse can. in this case the experience of defeat and exile was teaching the Jews the true worth of freedom, which. despite their early Egyptian captivity, they had come to hold too lightly. Lines have come down to us that disclose the spiritual agony of the Israelites as displaced persons-how heavily they felt tlle yoke of captivity, how fervently tlley louged for their homeland .

By die riven of BahywrI - tllere we sa t down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.

On the willows ll&ere we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songy,

and our tonmmton asked f or min/l, saying. "'Sing us one of tile sarlI}! of Zion!'"

JUDA ISM

How could we sirlg tile Lord's song in a foreign land? If I f orgt you, 0 Jerusalem, let my right 'll Hid wither!

...

Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth. (Psalm 137:1-6)

Sometimes a single phrase is e nough to convey the poignancy and pathos of their plight : "Is it nothing to you, oh you who pass by; or MHow long, 0 Lord, how long?"

When Cyrus, King of Persia, conquered Babylon iu 538 and per- mitted the Jews to return to Palestine, the prophets saw anotllc r les- SOli that only suffe ring can fully impart: the lesson tllat those who remain faithful in adversity will be vindicated. In the end their rights will be restored.

Co out from Babylon, declare this witll a S/lOut of joy, ",-oclaim it,

slmd it fortll to tile fmd of tile eart/,; say. -TIle Um1 has redeemCl1 His Seroallt Jacob."

(Isaiah 48:20- 22)

But what the Jews might themselves learn from tllcir captivity was not the only meaning of their ordeal . Cod was using them to introduce into history insights tllal all peoples need but to whieh they are blinded by ease and complacency. Cod was burning into tlle hearts of the Jews through their suffering a passion for frt!edom and justice that would affect aJl humankind.

Illtloe given you as a fig/It to the nations, to o,xm tile eyes tliat an: blind,

to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from tile prison those wlw sit irl darkness. (baiah 42:6-7)

Stated abstractly, the deepest meaning tlle Jews found in their Exile was the meaning of vicarious suffering: meaning that enters lives thai are willing to endure pain that others might be spared it. Second Isaiall related this general principle to the experience of his people by envisioning a day when tlle nations of the earth would see that the tiny nation they once scorned (here personified as an indi- vidual) had actually been suffering on their behalf:

296 TilE WORLD'S RELICIONS

Surely lae has home our infirmities and carried our diseases;

yet we tJCCOtjnted him stricken , stnu:k down by Cod, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities;

"1}On him was the punis/unent that "lIlde us whole. a ,ld by his IJmises we an:: healed .

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all tunled to our own way;

and the Lord has laid Of! llim tile iniquity of lIS aU. (Isaiah 53:4-6)

Meaning in Messianism

Though the Jews were able to find their suffering meaningful. mean· ing for them did not end the re. Il climaxed in Messianism.

We can work our way into this concept by way of an arresting facl. The idea of progress- belief that the conditions of life can improve, and that history can in this sense get somewhere- ori&rinated in tile West. Insofar as other peoples have come to this notion, they have acquired it from the West.

Striking as this fact is, it seems explicable. If we confine ourselves to the two olher enduring civilizations-South Asian, centering in India. and East Asian. centering in China and its cultural offshoots7

-we find that their presiding outlooks were forged by people who were in powe r; in India these were the brohmbls, and in China the literati. By contrast, the West's outlook .... 'US decisively shaped in this matter by th e Jews, who for most of their formative period were underdogs. Ruling classes may be satisfied with the s tatus quo, but underdogs are not. Unless Iheir spirits have been crushed, which tile Jewish spirit never was. oppressed people hope for improvement. TIlis hope gave the biblicaJ Jews a forward and upward looking cast or mind. They were an expectant people-a people who were waiting, if not to throw off the yoke of the oppressor, then to cross over inlo the promised land.

Sweet, sweet the open ,.,,,-eading fl€lds LAy decked in shining green;

So to the Je.w& fair Canaan stood, While Jordan rolled between.

JUDAISM '"

To sum up the matter: Underdogs have only one direction to look. and il was the upward tilt orthe JC'Nish imagination thai eventu· all y led tile West to conclude that the conditions of life as a whole might improve.

Hope has more purchase on Ihe human heart when it is ren· dered concrete, so eventually Jewish hope came to be personi6ed in Ihe figure of a coming Messiah . Literal ly. MessiaJl (from the Hebrew masllinh) means "anoinled~; but as kings and high priests were anoinled with oil , the terms became a title oOlOnor, signifying some· one who had been elevated or "chosen." During the Babylonian Exi le the Jews began to hope for a redeemer who would effecl the "i ngatllering orthe exiles" to their native homeland. After the second destruction or the Temple (70 C.E.), the honorific title "Messiah" was used to designate the person who would rescue them rrom that diaspora.

Things. though, are never tllis simple, and in the course of time the messianic idea became complex. Its animating concept was always hope. and this hope always had two sides to it: the J>Oli tico· national side (which foresaw the triumph of the Jews over their ene- mies and their elevation to a position ofimportance in world affairs). and a spiriluaJ·universal side (in which their politicaJ triumph .... ,ould be attended by a moral advance of worldwide proportions).

1'hey shall beat their swords into I)WwsIIOrt!S, and their SJJear'$ into pruning IlOOks;

nation shall fUJt lift 1111 sword against nation, n(.'ither 811011 tlley lean, war any more. (Isaiah 2:4)

These th ree features or the messianic idea - hope. national resti· lulion , and world upgTlIde-remained constant, but within tllis sta· ble frarnev.'O rk diffe ring scenarios were scripted.

One important difference concemed the way the messianic age \YOuld arrive Some expected an actual Messiah to appear-a priest or king who, as God's deputy. , ..... o uld effect the new order. On Ole other side were those who tllOught Cod would dispense with a human agent and inte rvene directl y. The latter view. appropriately called the messianic expectation, hoped for "an age in which there

298 TilE WORLD'S RELIGIONS

would be political freedom, moraJ perfection, and earthly bliss for the people of Israel in their own land, and also for the entire human race .. • nle fi rst concept includes everything in the second, but adds the figure of a lofty and exalted political and spiritual human person- ality, who comes to prellare the world for the Almighty's kingdom.

A second tension reflected the restorative and utopian impulses within Judaism generaJly. Restorative Messianism looked for the recreation of past conditions, typically the Oavidic monarchy but now ideali .. .ed. Here hope turned backward to the reestablishment of an original state of things aud to a "life lived with the ancestors." But Messian ism also accommodaled Judaism's forward-looking impulse. so there were versions that 'were utopian in envisioning a slate of things that never before exlst'ed.

Finally, Messianists differed concerning whethe r the new order would be continuous with previous history or would shake the \\.'Orld to its foundalions and replace it (in the End of Days) with an aeon that was supernaturally different in kind. As the power of the Jews dwindled In the face of a rising Europe. and hope of political restora- tion in Israel seemed increasingly impossible. the expectation of a miraculous redemption strangled political yearnings. Apocalypti- cism, elements of which are visible in the prophets themselves. replaced hopes for military victory. The Messianic Age would break in at any mome nt , abruptly and cataclysmicaUy. Mountains would crumble and the seas boil. The laws of nature would be abrogated to make way for a divine order Lhal was unimaginable save that the "'birtll pangs of the Messianic Age"- its fearful images excited by ter- rors the Jew'S were actually experiencing-would be fo llowed by peace. nllis even tJlis apocalyptic version contained a utopian ele- ment. Peril and dread YolCre balanced by consolation and redemption.

In all th ree of these polarities the alte rnatives we re deeply inte rtwined, while being contradictory by nature. The messianic idea crystallized and retained its vitaJity out of the tensions created by its ingredient opposi tes. Nowhere do we find a pure case of one without the other; only the proportions between them fluctuated, often wildly. The direction in which the pendulum swung was deter- mined by historical events and the individual character of their proclaimers, a number of whom - the "false mess iahs~assumed the messianic Litle for themselves and in severaJ instances attracted large follOWings. In periods when the Is raelites were still living an irlde-

JUDAISM , .. pendenl political life in their own land. ethical perfection and earthly bliss were emphasized; whereas in periods of subjugation and exile the yeanl ing for political freedom was more prominent. In times of national freedom the worldwide, universalistic part of the hope was basic; but in times of trouble and distress the nationalistic element came to the fore. Throughout. however, the political compo- nent went ann in arm with the ethical, and the nationalistic with the universal . Political and spiritual longings united, as did hopes for themselves and the world at large. Both themes figure ill Zionism, the modem movement for political and spiritual renewal of the Jew- ish people. which helped the Jews return to PO.destine and found the State of Israel in 1948.

So we return to the underlying messianic theme, which is hope. Moving into Christianity, it took the foml of tJle Second Coming of Christ. In seventeenth-century Europe il surfaced as the idea of his- torical progress, and ill the nineteenth centu ry it assumed Marxist idiom in the vision of acoming classless society. But whether we read it in its Jewish, its Christian, its secular, or its heretical version. th e underlying theme is tJle same. MThere's going to be a great dayl" That says it prosaicall y. Martin Luthe r King, Jr., drawing his images from the Prophet Isaiah. said it rhetorically in his address to th e audience of 200,000 in the 1968 civil rights March on Washington.

I have a dream today. I llave a dream tllat one day even; ualley sllall be exalted,

every hill mad mountain sliaLl be made low, tile rouWI Illace& will be made 11/aill, and the crooked pllJCU will be made stroight. and the glory oj tile Lord shall be reveoled. alld all flesh shall see it Wl!I!tller:

The llallowing of Life

Up to this point in our effort to enter the Jewish perspective, we have been dealing with ideas as these occurred to the Jews in their strug- gle to make sense out of life. As all entrance to Judaism this serves a purpose, for ideas have a universality that makes them intelligible even to outsiders. We have reached a point, however, wllere (if we are to moyc deeper into the understanding of this faith) we must table further conSider'dtion of Jewish ideas and look at Jewish practices.

300 THE WORLD'S RELIGIONS

We must consider Jewish cere monies and observances, for it is gene rally agreed that Judaism is less an orthodoxy than an orthopraxis; Jews are united more by what Uley do than by what they think. One evidence of this is that Jews have never promulgated an offi cial creed that must be accepted to belong to this faith. Obser- vance, on the oUler hand - Ule circumcision of males. for example- is decisive. This emphasis on practice gives judaism something of an oriental fl avor; for whereas the West. in fl uenced by the Creek par- tiality for abstract reason. empha.~ izes theology and creed. the East has approached religion through ritual and narrative. The difference is between the abstract and the concre te. Does Plato or Dostoevsky get close r to reality? 15 love better expressed through words or an embrace?

Before turning to Jewish ritual as such, it will be well to speak briefly of ri tual in general, for despite its place in every religion we have thus far not addressed it directly. From a narrowly rational or utilitarian poin t of view, ritual is nonsense, a waste anyway we look at it. All that money lavished on candles, cathedrals, prayer books, and incense; all the lime spent ill ",'Orship and sacrame nt; all the energy that goes in to rising up and sitting down , kneeling and prostration, circumambulation and Singing- to what end? It isn't cost effective, we say. Moreover, it has abou t it an arbitrariness that makes it almost incomprehe nsible from the outside. A popular magazine carries a photograph of a chief-of-st-.lte rubbing noses with an Eskimo. To Eskimos rubbing noses is a fri endship ritual. 1b us it's simply funny.

Yet with all its arbitrariness and seeming waste, ritual plays a part ill life tlmt nothing else can fi ll. a part that is by no means con6nt:d to re ligion. For one thing, it eases us through tense situations and times of anxiety. Sometimes the anxiety is mild - during introductions, for example. J am introd uced to a stranger. Not knowing how he or she will respond, J don't know how to proceed. What should I say? What should I do? Ritual covers my uncertainty and a ..... kwardness. It te lls me to extend my hand and say "'How do you do?"' or ''I'm pleased to meet you.~ And in so doing it brings form out of chaos. It provides the mom ent J need to get my bearings. The awkwardness is over. J have recovered my balance and am ready to explore freer behavior.

If ..... e need ritual to help us through situations as incolisequential as a casual introductioll , how much more when we find ourselves really at a loss. Death is the glaring example. Stunned by tragic

JUDAISM 301

bereavement. we would founder completely if we "'eTC thrown on our own and had to think our way til rough the ordeal . This is why death. with its funerals and memorial services, its w.dces and sitting slliva, is the most ritualized rite of passage. Ritual. with its prepared score to orchestrate the occasion, channels our actions and feelings at a time when solitude would be un bearable. And in the process it softens Ule blow. MAshes to ashes, dust to dust"-the words don't say whose ashes, for tllis is everybody; aU of us. Ritual also rouses cour- age: ~The Lord giveth and the Lord take th away; blessed be the uame of the Lord!" Finall y, ritual sets death in perspective, connecting this particular death wiUI Its universal arche type. The deceased takes his or her place in the company of humankind, one step in the e ndJess march oflife into death and death into life again, with the continuum stretching both ways toward e tenlity.

From the triviality of an introduction to the trauma of death , ritual smooths life's transitions as perhaps nothing else can. But it also serves another function . In times of happiness it can intensify experience and raise joy to celebration . Here the examples are birth- days, weddings, and most simply a famil y'S evening meal. Here, in this best meal of the day, when perhaps for the first time the family is relaxed and together, a blessing can be somcthing more than the starting line for a food race. It can hallow the occasion. 'nle opposite of dead weight. it consecrates a daily pleasure.

Against these background observations conceming tile place of ritual in life generally, we tum now to its place inJuclaism. where it aims to hallow life-ideall y, allJife. 111e nineteenth chapter of Levitictls cap- sules the point when God say:s to Moses, "You shall be holy for I. your God, am holyr What does holiness involve? To many modems the word is empty; but those who feel the stir of wonder and can sense the inef- fable pressing in on their lives from every side will know what Plato was talking about when he wrote, "First a shudder runs through you, and thcn the old awe creeps over you." Those who have had such experi- ences will know the blend of my:stery. ecstasy. and the numinous, which received classic description in Rudolph Otto's The Idea oJ tlte Holy.

To speak oflhe hallowing of life in Judaism is to refer to its con- viction that all life down to its smallest e lement can. if rightly approached, he seen as a reOcctioli of the infini te source of hoLiness, which is Cod. The !lame for this right approach to life and Lhe world is piety, carefully distinguished from piosity, its counterfeit. In Judaism

302 TilE WOKI.I)'S RELIGIONS

piety prepares the way ror the coming or Coo's kingdom on earth: the time when everything will be redeemed and sancti6ed and the holi- ness or aU Cod's creation will be transparentJ y evident.

The secret or piety consists in seeing the entire world as belong- ing to Cod and reflecting Cod's glory. To rise in tJle morning on see- ing lhe light or a new day, to eat a simple meal, to see a stream running between mossy stones, to watch the day slowly turn into evening-even small things like these can mirror Cod's majesty. 10 the religious man ," wrHes Abraham Heschel , Mit is as ir things stood with tllei,- backs to liim, tlleir /acu tUfTW.'d to God. .. To accept the good things or lire, most of which come to us quite apart from our own efforts, as if they were matters of course without relating tJlem to Cod, is quite wrong. In tJle ThImud to eat or drink without firstmak- ing a blessing over the meal is compared to robbing God of his prop- erly. Through all Judaism rUllS this double theme: We should enjoy life's goodness, and at the same time we should augment this joy by sharing it witJI Cod,just as ally joy we feel is augmenled when shared witJl fri ends. Jewish law sanctions all the good things of life-eating, marriage, children, nature. while elevating them all to holiness. It teaches thai pt:ople should eat, thai they should prepare the ir tables inlhe presence oftJle Lord. It teaches that people should drink, that they should use wine to consecrate tJle Sabbath. It teaches that peo- ple should be merry, that they should dance around the Torah.

If we ask how this sense of the sanctity of all things is to be pre- served against Ihe backwash of the world's routine, the Jew's chicf answer is: through tradition . Without attention, the human sense of wonder and the holy will stir occasionally, but to become a steady flame it must be tended. One of the best ways to do this is to steep oneself in a history that cries aloud of Cod's providential acts and mercy in every generation . Against those who would throw the past 3W'dY with both hands that they may grasp the present more finnl y, Judaism accounts the memory of thc past a priceless treasure. The most historically minded of all the religions, it finds holiness and his- tory inseparable. In sinking tJle roots ortheir lives deep into tile past, the Jews draw nourishment from events in which Cod's acts were clearly visible. The Sabbath eve wi til its candles and cup of sancti- fication , the Passover feast with its many symbols, the austere solem· nity of the Day of Atonement, tile mm's hom sounding the New Year, the scrol l of the Toruli adorncd with breastplate and crOWII- the Jew

JUDAISM 303

finds nothing less than the meaning orlife in these tJlings, a meaning that spans the centuries in affinning Cod's great goodness to Cod's people. Even when Jews recall their tragedies and tJle price their sur- vival has exacted of tllem, they are vividly aware of Cod's sustaining hand. MTo live by tJ1C Law.- writes a recent Jewish philosopher, Mis to live within time tJle life of etern ity.'"

The basic manual for the 1.a1lowing of life is this Law, the first five books of the Bible, the Torah. When in tile traditional synagogue ser- vice the lime comes for returning the Torah to tJle Ark, the people recite a line from the Book of ProYerbs: - It is a tree or life to those who grasp it.- There is meaning in this simile, for a tree is symbolic of lire itself, of the miracle whereby inert e lements of sun and rain and soil are drawn into the mystery of growth. So, too, for the Jews, tbe Torah . It too is a creative power that can elicit and sustain holi- ness in the lives of tJlOse whose flowering world would otherwise become dry stones. Mit is a tree of life to those who grasp it ."

Revelation We have followed tile Jews ill their interpretation of the major areas of human experience and found tJlem arriving at a more profound grasp of meaning than any of their Mediterranean neighbors; indeed, a grasp that in its essentials has not been surpassed. This raises the question: What produced this achievement? Was it an accident? Did the Jews simply stumble by chance on Ihis cache or insight? Ir they had struck profundity in oneor two areas, this thesis might be plausi- ble: but as they rose to genius on every basic question, it seems inadequate. Is the alternative. then, that tJle Jews were innal'ely wiser than other peoples? The Jewish doctrine that humanity consti tutes a single family-symbolically announced in the story of Adam and Eve-expressly precludes such a notion , The JeMi' own ans .... <er is Lhat they did not reach tJlese insights on their own. nley were revealed to them.

Bevelation means disclosure. When someone says, ~l t came as a revelation to me, M the meaning is that something hitherto obscure becomes clear. A veil has lifted, UJ.d what was concealed Is now reveaJed. As a theological concept revelation shares this basic mean· ing, while focusing on disclosure of a specific sort: Goo's nature and will for humankind.

364 TilE \\'ORLl)'S RELIGIONS

As the record of these disclosures is in a book. there has been a tendency to approach revelation as if it "'ere primarily a verbal phenomenon; to think of it as what Cod said eithe r to the prophets or to other biblical writers. TIl is. however, pu ts the cart before the horse. For the Jews Cod revealed himself first and foremost in actions- not words but deeds. This comes out dearly in Moses' instruction to his people. "When you r children ask you in time to come, 'What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the ordinances that tlle Lord. our Cod has commanded you?' then you shall say to your son, 'We were I'haraoh's slaves in Egypt, but the Lord. brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand'-(Deuteronomy 6:21 - 22). TIle Exodus, that incredible event in which Cod liberated an unorganized, enslaved people from the mightiest power of the age. was not only the event that launched tlle Israelites as a nat ion. It was also the first dear act by which Yally,'eh's character was made known to them.

It is tme that Genes is descri!Jes a number of divine revelations that preceded the Exodus, but the accounts of them were wri tten later in the light of tlle decisive Exodus event. That Cod was a direct party to lheir escape from Pharaoh, the Jews did not doubt. "8y every known sociological law," writes Carl Mayer, "the Jews should have perished long ago. M The biblical writers would have gone further, contending tllat by every knO'Nn sociological law the Jews should not have become a distinct people in tlle first place. Yet here was the fact: a tiny, loosely related group of people, who had no real collective identity and were in servitude to the great power of the day, had succeeded in making their getaway, eludi ng the chariots of their pursuers. As acutely aware of the ir own weakness a.'i of Egypt 's strengtll , it seemed to the Jews impossible that their libe ration was the ir own doing. It was a minacle. -8y the grace of Cod, Israel W'.LS saved from death and delivered from the power of the Egyptians" (Exodus 12:50).

Vividl y cognizant of Cod's saving power in the Exodus, the Jews proceeded to review tlleir earlier history in the light of this divine intervention , As their li beration had obviously been engineered by Cod, what of the sequence that led up to it? Had it been mere chance? The Jews saw Cod's initiative at work in every step of their corporate existence. II was no vagnbond impulse that prompted Abraham to leave his home in Ur and assume the long, uncharted

JUDAISM 303

trek toward Canaan. Yah'4'eh had called him to father a people of des- tiny. So it had been throughout: lsaac and Jacob had been providen- tially protected and Joseph exalted in Egypt for the express purpose of preserving Cod's people from famine. From the perspective of the Exodus, everything fell into place. From the beginning Cod had been leading, protecting. and shaping his people for the decisive Exodus even t that made of tlle Israelites a nation.

The Exodus, we are saying, was more than a historical divide that tumed a people into a nation. It was an episode in wh ich this people became Clllerwheimingly aware of Cod's reality and character. But to put it tllis way, saying that the Jews perceioed Cod's character, is again to put tlle matter backward. As God took the initiative, it was Cod who showed the Jews his nature. God should be the subject of the assertion, not its object.

And what was the nature of the Cod that the Exodus disclosed? First, Yahweh was JlO"'-'erfu l-able to outdo the mightiest power of the time and whatever gods might be backing it. But equally, Yallweh was a Cod of goodness and love. Though this might be less obvious to outsiders, it was O\Ierwhelmingly evident to the Jews who .... 'Cre its direct recipients. Repeatedly, their gratitude burst forth in song: -Happy are you, 0 Israel; who is like you-a people saved by Yah- ..... e h?" (Deuteronomy 33:29). Had they themselves done anything to deserve this miraculous release? Not as far as they cou ld see. Free- dom had come to tJlem as an act of sheer, unmerited grace, a clear instance of Yahweh's unanticipated and astonishing 1000e for tllem. It is of small moment whetller the Jews recognized at once that this 1000e was for all humanity, not just for themselves. Once the realiza- lion of Cod's 1000e had taken root, the Jews soon came to see it as extendt.-d to everyone. 8y the eighth century B.C.E. thc Jews would be hearing Cod saying, "Arc you not like the Ethiopians to me?" But the fact of Cod's love had to be grasped before its range could be explored, and it was in the Exodus that this fact W.LS brought home to tllem.

Besides Cod's power and ICJI.Ie. the Exodus disclosed a Cod who was intensely conCCnJed with human affairs. Whereas the surrou nd· ing gods were primarily natu re deities, reifi cations of the numinous awe that people feel fo r nature's grand phenome na. tlle Israelites' Cod had (.'OlIle to them not through sun or storm or fertility but in a historical event. The di1ference in religiolls meaning was decisive.

306 TilE WORLD'S REUCIONS

TIle Cod that the Exodus disclosed cared enough about a human sit- uation to step in and do something about it. That re31i7.ation changed Israel's religious agenda forever. No longer would the Jews be party to cajoling nature's forces. They would rivet their attention on discern- ing Yahweh's will and trying 10 enacl it.

Given these three basic disclosures of the Exodus-of God's power, goodness, and concern for history-the Jews' other insights into Cod's nature followed readily. From the goodness of that nature it followed that Cod would want people to be good as well; hence Mount Sinai, where the Ten Commandments were estabUshed as the Exodus's immediate corollary. The prophets' demand for justice extended God's requirements for virtue to the social sphere- institutiona1 structures, too, are accountable. Fina1ly, suffering must carry significance because it was unthinkable that a Cod who had miraculously saved his people would ever abandOD them completely.

The entire gest31t, when it burst upon the Jews, took shape around the idea of the covenant A covenant is a contract, bul more. Whereas a contract (to build a house, ror example) concerns only a part of the lives of those who entcr into it. a covenant (such as mar- riage) involves the pledging oftotaJ selves. Anothcr difference is that a contract usually has a tenninatioll date. whereas a covenanllasts till death. To the Jews, Cod's self-disclosure in the Exodus was the invita- tion to a covenant. Yahweh would continue to bless the Israelites if they, ror their part, would honor the laws they had beell given,

You have seen wlwt I did. to tile Egyptians, arid how 1 boro you 01'1 eagks wil'lgs al'lli broul!Jzt you to myself. Now tllerefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenmlt, you sllall he my troasured pos,Yessiol'l out of all tilit 1>eoples. Indeed, tile whole elJrth i$ mine, but you sllall be for me a l1riestiy kingdom al'lli a holy nation. (Exodus 19:4-6)

Once the covenant relation was clearly fonnu lated at Sinai, those who wrote the Bible saw the Abraham epic in its Ugbt as well. In the last days of the Sumerian univers31 state, rrom all the peoples of the Euphrates, God c31led Ab.raham and entered into covenan t with him. If Abraham would be faithful to God's will. Cod would not only give him a goodly land as inheritance but would cause his descendants to be numbered as the sands of the sea.

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We entered this chapter via the Jewish passion for meaning. As our understanding of the religion deepened, however. we came to see that iJle key had to be recast. Meaning was secured. but from the Jewish perspective, not because they sought it exceptionally. It was rC\le31ed to them - not told to them but shown to tJlem through Yahweh's amazing actions. The sequence began with the Exodus- disclosure of Yahweh's power, goodness. and concern. From those we can understand how the rest followed.

But why was this disclosure made to the Jews? Their own answer has been: Because we were chosen. TIlis sounds so simple as to seem ingenuous, Clearly, tJle answer needs scrutiny.

The Chosen People

There is a familiar quatrain that runs:

llow odd OfG<ld To choose TheJews.

Certainly, the idea that a univers31 God decided that the divine nature should be uniquely and incomparably disclosed to a single people is among the most difficult notions to take seriously in the entire study of religion. It is awkward not only for seeming to violate prinCiples of imparti31ity and fair play, but also because many early peoples considered themselves speci31; one thinks of the Japanese, whose creation myth presents them as direct descendants of the Sun Coddess Amaterasu. When Moses tells the Jews, "The Lord Cod has chosen you to be a people for His own possession, ou t of 311 the peo- ples that are on the face of the earth" (Deuteronomy 7:6), is there any reason to think that .... 'C are in tJle presence of anyiJling more than routine religious chaUVinism?

Il is true that theJewish doctrine of the election begins in a con· ventional mode, but almost al once it takes a surprising turn. For unlike other peoples, the Jews did not see themselves as singled oul for privileges. They were chosen to serve, and to suffer the trials thai service would often exact. By requiring tJlat they wdo and obey a11 that the Lord has spoken," their election imposed on them a far more

308 mE WORLD'S REUCIONS

demanding morality than was exacted of their peers. A rabbinic theory has it that Cod initially offered the Torall to the world at large, but only the Jews were willing to accept its rigors. And (the thesis whimsically concludes) even they did so 011 impulse. 1I0t realizing what they were getting into. For ~You only have J known of aU the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniqui- ties· (Amos 3:2). Nor was this all. We have seen thai Second Isaiah's doctrine of vicarious suffering meant that the Jews were elected to shoulder a suffering that would otherwise have been distributed more widely,

How different From the usual doctrine of election this Jewish version tunIS out to bel How much more de manding; how unattrac- tive to normal inclinations. Still, the problem is nol resolved . For grrult that Cod called the Jews to heroic ordeal, not sinecure; the Fact thai they were singled out for a special role in the redemption of the world still looks like favoritism. The Bible makes no attempt to avert this suspicion. MIt was not because you were morc ill number than other people, , , , but because the Lord loves you [that he] has chosen you to be a people for his own- (Deuteronomy 7:6-8).

This rankles. Flying as it does ill the face of democratic senti- ments, it has provoked a special theological phrase to accommodate it: -the scandal of particularity." It is tlle doctrine tllat Cod's doings can Focus like a bllnling glass on particular times, places. and peo- ple(s)-in tlle interest, to be sure, ofinlentions that embrace human beings ulliversally.

We shall not be able to validate this doctrille, but there are t"-"O things that we call do. We can understand what led the Jews to adopt the concept. and what it did for them.

Our search for what led the Jews to believe that lhey were cho- sen will carry us past an obvious possibility- national arrogance-to the facts oftlleir history that we have already rehearsed. Israel came into being as a nation through an extraordinary occurrence, in which a milling band of slaves broke the shackles of the tyrant of their day and were lifted to the status of a free and self-respecting people. Almost immediately afterwards they were brought to an understand- ing of God tlmt was Ilead and shoulders above that of their neighbors. and deduced from it standards of morality and justice that still chal- lenge the world. TIuough tllC three thousand years that have followed, they have continued their existence in the Face of unbelievable odds

JUDAISM 300

and adversity, and have contributed to civili7.ation out of all propor- tion to their numbers.

From beginning to end-this is the point that lies at the heart of the matter-the story of the Jews is unique. According to expecta- tions they should not have escaped from Pharaoh in the first place. Wby their God, Yahweh, became in their eyes a God of righteous- ness, whereas Chemosh. god of the Moahites, and other local deities did not, is, as even such a protagonisl of nalural explanations as Well- hausen admitted, Ma question to which one can give no satisfactory answer." The prophetic protest against social injustice is ulliversally conceded to be "without close parallel in tlle ancient world."ID And 10 the already quoted judgment that Mby every sociolobricallaw the Jews should have perished long ago." we can now add that of the phi- lo~opher Nicholas Berdyaev: MThe continued existence of Jewry dowll the centuries is rationally inexplicable."

If what these Facts and judgmellts attest is true a lld Jewish his- tory has been exceptional, there are two possibilities. Either the credit belongs to the Jews themselves, or it belongs to Cod. Civen this alternative, the Jews instinctively turned the credit Codward. One of tlle striking features of this people has been tlleir persistent refusal to see anything innately special about themselves as people. According to a midrnsllic legend. when Cod took clay for the making of Adam he gathered it From every part of the world and from every color of earth to insure the universality and basic homogeneity or the human race. So the specialiless of the Jewish experience must have derived rrom Cod's having chosen them. A concept that appean; at first to be arrogant turns out to be the humblest interpretation die Jews could give to the facts of their origin and survival.

It is possible. of course, to resent particularism even he re, but one must ask whethe r in doing so we would not be resenting the kind of world we have. For like it or not. this is a world of particulars, and human minds are tuned therelo. Nothing registers on human atten- tion until it obtrudes From its background. Apply this point to theol- ogy and what does it give us? God probably blesses us as much through tlle air we breathe as through other gifts; but if piety had to wait For people to infer God's goodness from the availability of oxy- gen, it would have been long in coming. The same holds for history. If relier from oppression were routine, the Jews would have taken their liberation for granted. Chalk it up to human obtuseness, the

3JO TIlE WORLO"S REUCIQNS

fact remains that divine favors could envelop human ity as the sea envelops 6sh; were they automatic they would be dismissed as com- monplace. This being so. perhaps only the individual, the unique, the particular could have brought the divine to human attention,

Today Jewish opinion is divided on the doctrine of the election , Some Jews believe that it has outgrown whatever usefulness or objec- tive validity it may have had in biblicaJ times. Other Jews belieo.re that until the world's redemption is complete, Cod continues to need pe0- ple who are set apart, peculiar in the sense of being Cod's task force in history. For those who think in this second way, the ",'Ords of Isaiah speak not onlyoftJle past but witJl continuing, contemporary meaning.

Li.Jten to me. 0 coastlands. pay attention, you people8 from far away!

TIle Lord called me from before I wa.r born. while 1 wa..t in my mother's womb he named me.

lie made my mouth like a SM,.,) sword. in his quiocr he hid me away.

And he said to me. '"You are my .JerOOnt. Israel, in whom I will be glorified. (Isaiah 49:1-3)

Ismol

This chapter is about to conclude, and everything we have spoken of took place in the biblical period. There are reasons for this. Fi rs t, it was in biblical times that most of the great fonnative ideas of Judaism took shape; second. those ideas constitute the side of Judaism that is most accessible to outsiders for whom this book is primarily in. tended. If. however, this chapter were to create the impression tJlal Jewish creativity stopped witJ} the closing of the Hebrew canon , Ihat would be reductionism of the grossest sort. Judaism cannot be reduced 10 its biblical period. What happened was this. In 70 c.£. tJle Romans desb'O)'ed the Temple in JerusaJem that the Jews had rebuilt on returning from their Babylonian exile, and the focll5 of Judaism shifted from the sacrificial rite of the Temple to the study of the Torah and its accompanying Oral Tradition in academies and synagogues. Thenceforth il was not tJle priests, who were no longer functional, but the rabbis (literally teachers) who held Judaism together, for their synagogues became cent'ers nol only for study but for worship

JUDAtSM 3JJ

and congregational life in general. Rabbinic Judaism grounded itself in the com mandment to make the study of tJle Torah a lifelong endeavor, and Judaism acquired a distinctly intellectual dimension and character. Through the tradition oflbrah-study as it developed in tJle ThJmud, the mind was made integral to religious life and men- tal e nergies .... 'Cre introduced in to piety. Study, including the kind of constant. unceasing questioning and the rigid sellse of IOl,ric that per- vades the lhlmud, became a way of worship. In this complex, the Bible became a reveaJed text inviting and requiring inte rpretation. and int'erpretation W.lS raised to tJle status of revelation itself.

The rabbinic accomplishment of keeping Judaism alive for the two·thousand years of its diaspora is one of the wonders of history, but for the reasons that .... 'Cre given above we shall not pursue it here. Instead, having taken note of rabbinic Judaism, we shall jump the two mWenniaofthe Common Era to close this chapter with a look at the l\I.'Cntieth cen tu ry.

Judaism is the faith ofa people. As such it contai ns. as one of its features. faith in a people - in Ihe significance of the role the Jews have played and will play in human history. 11Jis faith calls for the preservation of the Identity of the Jews as II distinct people. In the past Jewish self-identit'y posed no policy proble m. During the bibli- cal period the Jews needed to be separate to keep their distinctive viewpoint from being compromised by neighboring polytheisms. This WdS the basis of the repeated prophetic demand thai the Jews remain a "peculiar" people. Later, especially in post-medieval Europe up to Ule French Revolution, the Jews were forced 10 be sepa- rale. Required to live in ghettos surrounded by wdlls whose gates ....'Cre locked at night , they had no alternative hut to live a life that largely turned inward.

Since the French Ib>olullon the issue of Jewish ide ntity has become something of n problem. With the emancipation of the Jews and their entry into the political, professionaJ , and cultwullife of the countries in which they live, the world no longer requires that the ir identity be retained. Nor is Ulere the clear ethical discrepancy thai once compelled Jews to remain aloof from their neighbors on moral grounds. Today, if Jewish distinctness is to continue, the case for it must be argued.

Within Judaism itself the arguments differ. Some Jews adhere to the religious thesis of the preceding section: as Cod has chosen

312 TilE wQnLO'S RELIGIONS

Isntel to be a uni<lue instrument for good, the shape and edge of that instrument shou ld be retained. Other Jews argue fo r distinctiveness on grounds of culturn1 plurn1ism. A hcalthy individual identity depends on a sense of one's origi ns, onc's roots. The inclusion of multiple heritages In a society is an advantage, for unifonnity breeds sameness and diminishes creativity. Marx. Einstein, and Freud have contributed enormously to modem thought. It seems reasonable to assume Ihat their JC'Nishness had something to do with making them great.

If the argument thus far has carried .... -eight and we have been able to calch some of the Jews' sense of the importance of maintain· ing their identity, in what does this identity consist?

Not doctrine, for there is nOl11ing one 11m to believe to be a Jew. Jews run the gamut. from those who believe that every letter and punctuation mark of the Tonth was dictated by Cod, to those who do not belie\le in God at al1. Indeed, it is impossible to name any onc thing that of itself suffices to make one a Jew. Judaism is a com plex. It is like acircle that is whole but divisible into sections that converge in a com mon center. There is no authorit y that says that a Jew must affirm all (or anyone) of these sections or face excommunication . Still, the more sections one embodies, the more Jewish one will be.

Cenern1ly speaking, the four great sectors of Judaism that consti· tute its spiritual anatomy are faith . observance, culture, and nation, Its faith has a1ready been described. Jews approach it from inte llec- tual angles that range from fundamentalism to ultra·libern1ism, but the direction in which their faith looks is much the same. TIlis can also be said of Jewish observance. Differen t groups of Jews vary markedly in their interpretation and practice of basic rituaJs such as the Sabbath, dietary laws, daily prayers, and the like. But ho ..... ever great the difference in extent of observance, its intent is the same- the ballowing of life, as that has been described. What remains is to say a few words about the other two components of Judaism; namely, cu lture and nation .

Culture. denoting as it does a tota1 way of life, defies exhaustive description. It includes mores, art fomls, styles of humor, philosophy, a literature, and much else. Its ingredients are so numerous that we shall have to limit ourselves to three. Jewish culture includes a Ian· guage, a lore, and an affinit y for a land.

Its lore is npparcnt, for much of it has spilled over into Western culture generall y. There is an aura that surrounds the Hebrew sCrip.

J UDAISM 313

tures' characters and events that d\Wrfs Olympus, but for Judaism this is onl y the beginning. The lbrn11 is followed by the Th1mud, a vast compendium of history, 11lW, folklore, and commentary that is the basis of post-biblica1 Judaism. This in tum is supplemented by the midl'Wlhim, an a1most equal collection of legend, exegesis, and homily. which began to develop before the biblicaJ canon was fixed and reacbed its completion in the late Middle Ages. The whole pro- vides an inexhaustible mine for scholarship. anecdote, and cultural identi ty.

In addition to its lore, every people has its language and its land. For the Jews these are. respectively, Hebrew and Israel.U Both are sacred fo r their associations. As it was in Hebrew and the 1I0ly Land that Revelation came to the Jews, regard for that Revelation extended to those contexts. Jews conduct all or part of their prayers in Hebrew, and consciousness of the Holy Land enlivens their reading of the Torn11 and their study of rabbinic literahlre. It is one of the par.adoxes of Judaism that during the 1'\'-'0 thousand years in which it crossed every national boundary and had no habitation but human hearts, it retained its passion for the land of Us birth . Prayers for lheir return to Zion figured in every public service and every private devotion, including the night prayer after retiring. The toast, "Next )'eat in Jcru salcm,w carries so much hope and feeling that people other than Je ..... s sometime:. illvoke it.

In the opening pages of this chapter we quoted Edmund Wilson as describing Palestine as "'mild and monotonous." To the Jew this characterization seems incredible, for it is a wonderful land even physically. Much ofits terrain is spectacular: the course from Jerusa- lem to the Dead Sea that faJls 3,481 feet in thirty-five miles, the Jor· dan that cuts deeply through rock as it winds south from Mount J lermon. the spiny ridge that runs southward fro m Mount Carmel by the sea, the rough wilderness of Tekoah that runs southward into the desolation of the Negev in sharp contrast to the lush greenness along the banks of south Jordan . There are pinnacles of cypress thai reach up like dark spires. -mountains that skip like roms. [andl hills like lambsw (PsaJm U4:4). the Fields of Esdraelon thai slope upward to Galilee in broad checke rboards of brown and green, and harbors deep with the blue ohhe Mediterranean. a1l batJled in a brilliant sun- light and limpid air that Jjfts the expectant spirit. History cries out frolll e\lery city and hillside, storied in the past. A brooding sense of

314 T HE WORLO·S RELIC IONS

the ages is present everywhere, now as when the ancient Hebrew seer beheld. enthroned, the "Ancient of Days."

But to speak of this land is to cuter the fourth componen t of totaJ Judaism, its nation. For we live in a century whe n. for the fi rs t time since their compulsory dispersion in 70 C.E., ~estine has been restored to the Jews.

The reasons leading to the establishmenl of the modem state of Israel in 1948 are complex. Beyond the powerful religious puU toward return , the chief contributing motifs were four:

1. The argumen l from securi ty. The 1938-1945 Nazi. instigated Holocaus t in which six million Jews-oue-thin! of their totaJ number-were killed. confinned for many a conviction that had been growing since the renC'>v.1l of pogroms in Russia in 1881; that the Jews could nol hope for securi ty in European life and civilization. TIley needed a place where the ir wounded and te rrori7.ed, still forlu · nale to be among the living, might gather to breathe the ai r of free· dom and securit y.

2. The psychological argument. Some we re COllvinced that it was psychologically unhealthy fo r the Jews to be everywhere in minority status; that this was breeding in them a subservience aud self- rejection that ouly a nation of their own could correct.

3. The cultural argument. The stuff of Judaism was running thin and its tradition was bleeding to death . Somewhere in the world there needed to be a land where Judaism was th e dominant ethos.

4. The social. utopian argument. Somewhere in the world there should be a nation dedicated 10 the his torical realization of prophetic ideals and ethics - a better .... -ayoflife in its totality. including economic structures, than history had yet evinced. Long before the Holocaus t. a smal l but determ ined number of Jewish dreamers, most of the m in eastern Europe,. longed for a chance to refashion society in more healt.hful ways. Beginning in the late eighteen hundreds, severaIgener- alions of pioneers made their Wd.Y to Palestine to forge a life in which tJley would be free to ordain all aspects of their existcnce. Debarred from fl!.rriculture in the lands they lef\' tJ)ey hoped to give birth to a new huma.nity tJl rough a way orHre built on tJle foundation of physical labor and life on the land. ·l1le kilJlJutzim, collective agriculture reulements, thai they founded were all expression of that idealism.

JUDAISM '" Whatever the reasons tJlat have gone Into her creation, Isreal is

here. Her achievements have been impressive. Her land reclamation, her hospitality to Jewish immigrants (a true ingathe ring of exiles) he r provisions for the laboring class, her new patterns of grou p living, he r intellectual and cultural vi tality-all have combined to make Israel an exciting social experiment.

But the twentieth century has also produced two agon izing problems for the Jev.rs. TIle first relates to the Holocaust . What mean- ing can the concept of a Chosen People have in the face of a Cod who penniued this e nonnity, they wonder. Some go so far as 10 ask if even their postulate of a righleous Cod continues 10 make sense.

TIle other agonizing problem relates to the idealistic argument fo r the sta te orIsrael that was mentioned. Having all but scripted the ideals of freedom and justice for Western civiIi7..3tion, if not for the enlire world, Jews now find themselves withholding these rights - for security reasons, forced to withhold the m, many Jews believe- from Palestinians whose territories they occupy as a result of the 1967 war. The tension between Palestinian national rights and Ismcli securit y is acute and unresolved.

Without presuming to answer these problems, we can appreci. ate the burdens they place 011 the conscie nce of tJlls exceptionall y conscientious people. Facing their gravity, tJley take courage in the fact that at least they are now politically free to confront them. As the Star of David waves over their spiritual homeland. the first flug of Uleir own in almost twenty centuries, the dominant thought in tJle minds of the Jews is; Am YUrtU!1 cJlOi, TIle people of Israel live I How wonderful to be living when all this is happening.

Suggestions for Further Reading

Robert M. Seltzer·s Jewish People, Jewish Thought (New York; Mac- millan , 1980) complements this chapter by giving proportionate attention to the post·biblical era. Barry W. 1I0lz (ed.), Back to the Sources (New York; Simon and Schuster, 1986) introduces the reader to different kinds of Jewish texts.

Jewish Wlmhlp by Abraham Millgram (Philadelphia; Jewish Publication SOCiety, 1971) describes and explains that aspect of this religion.

316 THE WORLD'S RELIC IONS

For the mystical dimension of Judaism, see David Ariel, The Mystic Quest .. All Itltrrxluctiofl to Jewisll Mysticism (Northvale. NJ : Jason Aronsoo, 1988); Daniel Chanan Matt (trans.), Tile Zolwr (New York: Paulisl Press. 1983). and Adin Sleinsaitz. Tile Tilirteen PetlJlIed Rose (NC'N York: Basic Books. 1980).

On the H olocaust and its impact on Jewish thinking, Michael R. Marrus's Tile Holocaust in History (New York: New American Library, 1989) provides both a reliable introduction to the subject and an authoritative summary for the expert. Simpler and more com- pact is Nora Levin's, Tile Holocaust (New York: Schocken, 1973).

Notes

1. The New Yorker (December 4. 19(4): 204-5. 2. fl enri Frankfort , TIle Int€llet:tool M Wfltllnl of ;,rident Marl (Chicago:

Uniwrsity o f Chicago PrcS5, 1946), 363. 3 . Bernard Anderson. 1iedi&covering the Bible (New York; Haddam House.

1957), 26-28. 4 . w. F. Albrig ht , lo A,J,JroacllU to WorM PI'.lU¥ (New York: Harper Bros.

)943).9. 5. See 1 Kings 18:46 and 2 Kings 2:16. 6. Quoted by Aba Hillel Silver, Wh/!1ll /udaism Differed. 1956. Reprint. (North·

vale. Nj : JlL'ion Aroosoo, 1987), 109. 7. I am thinking or civilizations here as possessing large cities and cumulative

written rt.'Cords. By this definition othe r parts of the world are rich in cultures - to be considered in chapter 9. "The Primal Religions~-bu t are not, strictly st>ealcing , civili7.ations. My definition is descriptive. not nor· mativc.

8. j oseph Klausner, The MellUlilic ldl!a In " rod (New Yorlc: Mac millan, 1955), 9.

9. Abraham Hesche!. 10. C. Emest Wright. The Old Te,tament Against It. Enmrrmment, (Chicago:

Alex R. Allellson, 1950). 60. 1 L Respecting He brew, save for the fact that the canonical prayers are to be

sn.id in lIebrew, my state ment oversimplifies things 5l'Imewhat. for there are also otller jewish language" nle two Thlmuru are written in Aramaic, and a whole family oflanguages (Yiddish . Ladino. judeo-Arabie. Judeo-Pcrsian. and 50 on) emerged lIS jews adoplt.-d the language of tile IMnds in which they lived but wrote that Ilinguage using the Hebrew alphabet. In many cases a rich culture and literature evol\-eJ in which the specific language is a key element.