JUDAISM
At
this point in the course we look at the traditions with which most of
us are more familiar, those that look back to the Bible story of
Abraham as a starting point for a description of the relationship of
God and man entirely different from what we have seen in Asia.
Instead of a view in which the human soul or spirit is understood as
somehow divine itself, we have a transcendent God who creates the world
and places man within it, yet assigns him a destiny that reaches even
beyond the end of the world itself. The record of how this all
started is found first off in the stories making up the first book of
the Bible (the Torah or Pentateuch), accepted by Jews, Christians, and
Muslims alike (although Muslims retell some of the incidents rather
differently in the Qur'an), and a crucial theme in the stories is the
emphasis on obedience or submission (islam
in Arabic) to what God has called for. Instead of any talk of personal
enlightenment (what we saw is so important in the Indian traditions),
the requirements for the observant Jew or Christian or Muslim find
their roots in events taking place more than four thousand years ago in
what today would be Iraq and Syria. There was a deal or covenant
between God and one man chosen to be "the father of nations."
Jerusalem today (the golden dome marks the Temple Mount,
the holiest site for Muslims after Mecca and Medina)
As
you begin this last half of the course
with the study of Judaism,
you also enter into the difficult discussion of how reliigion
intersects with politics. The Abraham story in no way envisions
the type of pluralist society with the separation of church and state
that we accept as a model in the United States. Bible stories,
which trace the manner in which Abraham's descendants attempted to
conquer the territory they saw as their promised land, repeated the
theme of a kingdom that would not allow the worship of "false gods,"
and many Jewish practices today can be explained as having their origin
in the effort of those then called the Israelites (after the name given
Abraham's grandson) to set themselves apart.
This might all be just ancient history were it not for the fact that both Jews and Muslims still look back to Abraham to justify a claim to territorial control. Modern-day Israel has been established as an explicitly Jewish state, even though Christians and Muslims are still allowed freedom of worship, while Muslims dispute the concept of any right to the ownership of land that they had occupied since shortly after the time of Muhammad, God's final prophet whose teaching superseded what had been said by earlier prophets (for example, Moses and Jesus). Jerusalem, although presently under the control of the state of Israel since 1967, is a city sacred to all three religions, and the incompatibility of their claims remains a basis for continuing violence today just as it was in the Middle Ages, when European warriors were sent by the Pope to recapture it in the Crusades.
Further complicating our discussion, there is a distinction between being a Jew by birth and being Jewish as a matter of religious choice.
Zionism, the
movement that led to the establishment of the state of Israel, was
explicitly secular and in the last century looked for a homeland for a
people that in Nazi Germany were destined for extirmination just
because of who they were, not because of what they believed.
Israel presently remains a most unusual country in that religious
expectations dictate civic practices (bus lines not running on the
Sabbath, for example) even though the majority of Jewish residents do
not see themselves as observant. In the United States what it
means to be an observant Jew runs the gamut from an ultra-orthodox
approach that esentially bans contact with the outside world to a very
relaxed approach in which old customs are continually redefined (as in
the ceremonies by which girls as well as boys are welcomed into adult
status), sometimes (as in the observance of Chanukah) to allow a closer
parallel to what goes on otherwise in the Christian world. There
is an old saying that where there are two Jews there will be three
opinions (and the joke is that the rabbi who chided his congregation
for their constant fighting over what was traditionally right was
reminded that the fighting too was traditional), and as students you
may need to keep this in mind whenever the question comes up about what
Jews "really" believe or what they "really" have to do.
Beyond the sources indicated on the lecture site, the following are other websites and YouTube videos that may allow a better feeling for the history and traditions of Judaism. For YouTube note that related videos are always suggested on the website itself.
This might all be just ancient history were it not for the fact that both Jews and Muslims still look back to Abraham to justify a claim to territorial control. Modern-day Israel has been established as an explicitly Jewish state, even though Christians and Muslims are still allowed freedom of worship, while Muslims dispute the concept of any right to the ownership of land that they had occupied since shortly after the time of Muhammad, God's final prophet whose teaching superseded what had been said by earlier prophets (for example, Moses and Jesus). Jerusalem, although presently under the control of the state of Israel since 1967, is a city sacred to all three religions, and the incompatibility of their claims remains a basis for continuing violence today just as it was in the Middle Ages, when European warriors were sent by the Pope to recapture it in the Crusades.
Further complicating our discussion, there is a distinction between being a Jew by birth and being Jewish as a matter of religious choice.
Zionism, the
movement that led to the establishment of the state of Israel, was
explicitly secular and in the last century looked for a homeland for a
people that in Nazi Germany were destined for extirmination just
because of who they were, not because of what they believed.
Israel presently remains a most unusual country in that religious
expectations dictate civic practices (bus lines not running on the
Sabbath, for example) even though the majority of Jewish residents do
not see themselves as observant. In the United States what it
means to be an observant Jew runs the gamut from an ultra-orthodox
approach that esentially bans contact with the outside world to a very
relaxed approach in which old customs are continually redefined (as in
the ceremonies by which girls as well as boys are welcomed into adult
status), sometimes (as in the observance of Chanukah) to allow a closer
parallel to what goes on otherwise in the Christian world. There
is an old saying that where there are two Jews there will be three
opinions (and the joke is that the rabbi who chided his congregation
for their constant fighting over what was traditionally right was
reminded that the fighting too was traditional), and as students you
may need to keep this in mind whenever the question comes up about what
Jews "really" believe or what they "really" have to do.Beyond the sources indicated on the lecture site, the following are other websites and YouTube videos that may allow a better feeling for the history and traditions of Judaism. For YouTube note that related videos are always suggested on the website itself.
Jews
at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem