RELIG 210: Introduction to Judaism February 11, 2009

 What aspects of the ritual reminded you of general concepts we discussed regarding Jewish holidays?  What did you find most surprising about the ritual?

 What social and intellectual challenges does the modern period pose to Judaism?  How do various streams of Jewish thought respond to these challenges?

 “You are eternally mighty, Adonai—reviving the dead. You redeem magnificently, sending round the winds and bringing down the rains…Who is like you, Marvel Worker, and who is comparable to you…Blow a great blast of the trumpet for our liberation, and lift up the banner to gather in our Exiles, and gather us to together from the four corners of the earth.” (The Morning Amidah)

 Timeframe?  Intellectual Trends?  Social Trends?  Political Trends?

 Socio-Political: Emancipation  Recognition of Jews as equal citizens  Expectations of citizenship  Judaism as voluntary  Intellectual: Enlightenment  Reason over revelation  The challenge to Judaism

 Corporate Community-Autonomy  Restricted Status based on Religion  Limited Interaction with Non-Jews  Religion or Nation?

 But, they say to me, the Jews have their own judges and laws. I respond that it is your fault and you should not allow it. We must refuse everything to the Jews as a nation and accord everything to Jews as individuals.  Count Clermont–Tonnerre, 1789 (On-line Reserve)

 Acculturation  Loss of Rabbinic Authority  Judaism as voluntary  Judaism as a “Religion”

The Enlightenment and Religion

 Secular and anti-religious  Reason in opposition to Revelation  Universal not particular truth

GOD TORAH ISRAEL MITZVOT MESSIAH Time/History The Structure of Judaism’s Basic Symbolic Vocabulary

 The natural Divine Law does not enjoin (prescribe) ceremonial rites, that is, actions which in themselves are of no significance and are termed good merely by tradition…or…actions whose explanation surpass human understanding. For the natural light of reason enjoins nothing that is not within the compass of reason but only what it can show us quite clearly to be a good, or a means to our blessedness.

 Autonomous Reason  “Think for Yourself!”  Scientific Naturalism  “Prove it to me!”  Historicism  “What really happened?”  Nationalism  “Where is your primary allegiance?”

Moses Maimonides (b. 1135) Spinoza

 Modernist Religious Responses  Reform  Orthodox  Positive-Historical/Conservative  Traditionalist Response  Secularist/Political Responses  Zionism  Bundism

 “The Israelites possess a divine legislation…Propositions and prescriptions of this kind were reveled to them by Moses in a miraculous and supernatural manner, but no doctrinal opinions, no saving truths, no universal propositions of reason. These the eternal reveals to us and to all other men, at all times, through nature and thing…Judaism boasts of no excusive revelation of eternal truths that are indispensable to salvation…”

 Reconcile Judaism and Enlightenment  Judaism=Religion  Universal over Particular  Ethical over Legal  Progress

 Begins in Europe moves to U.S.  1817-New Isreaslite Temple Association (On-line Reading)  God-Ideal of ethical consciousness  Torah-Revelation of Reason  Historical husk (ceremonial) vs. moral core  Israel-The Mission Theory  Mitzvah-Ethical Commandments  Messiah-Universal Integration

 Created in Response to Reform (EJ, 535)  Divine Authority of Written and Oral Torah  Reject Progress Criteria for Change  “Torah” and “Science”  Mitzvot are binding-Ethical Meaning  Messiah-Redemption in Land and Loyal Citizens

 Called Conservative in the U.S.  Accept Halakhah/Mizvot and historical change  Torah-Evolution of man’s relationship with the divine  Tradition and change

 Central and Eastern European  Similar to Orthodox (Mitzvah, Halakhah)  Reject modern political, social, philosophical thought  Premodern Messiah  Present as authentic tradition  Are they?

“…May your mind not turn to evil and never engage in corruptible partnership with those fond of innovations, who, as a penalty for our many sins, have strayed from the Almighty and His law…Be warned not to change your Jewish names, speech, and clothing--God forbid…Never say: ‘Times have changed!’…The order of prayer and synagogue shall remain forever as it has been up to now, and no one may presume to change anything of its structure.” -- Rabbi Moses Sofer,

 God-Tool for exploitation  Torah-National Culture, History  No Halakhah, Mitzvot (commandment)  Israel-Persecuted People ready for freedom  Messiah-Revolutionary Fervor

Zionism: Jewish Nationalism

 Revolutionary Social change through socialism  Join Jewish workers with non-Jewish revolutionaries

 Originates as a left branch of Conservative Judaism in 1968  “Evolving Religious Civilization”  Rejection of a Supernatural God  Torah-Jewish Folkways  Israel-Civilization, not Religion

 Major challenges of modernity  Emancipation-Voluntary  Enlightenment-Reason  Diverse Spectrum of responses  All experience significant change