Judaism & Modernity

Pre-modern Judaism  The ‘Kehillah’  The wall

The Challenge: Modernity  The Enlightenment  Science, reason, philosophy  Tabula rosa  Scientific revolution  Literacy, coffee, media  Religious violence

The Challenge: Modernity  The Enlightenment  Universalism  Equality  Economic / political liberties  Fraternity / tolerance  Progress  Church & State  RELIGION?

The Challenge: Modernity  For Jews  Breaking down the walls  Emancipation  Educational revolution  Communal Structure / Authority

The Challenge: Modernity Rabbi/Dr David Ellenson “Coercive belonging to a community was replaced by voluntary adherence to what might best be called a congregation.” Rabbi Yitz Greenberg One world

The Challenge: Modernity Count of Clermont-Tonnerre (Stanislas Marie) “The Jews should be denied everything as a nation, but granted everything as individuals.. there cannot be one nation within another nation.”

Responses to modernity  Assimilation  The Bund  Yiddishists  Haskalah(?)  Religious

Moses Mendelssohn

Responses to modernity  Religious  Reform  Conservative  Neo-Orthodox or M.O.  Haredi

Responses to modernity  Reform (Germany, early 1800s)

Responses to modernity  Reform (Germany, early 1800s) “Now that Jews had become integral elements of other peoples and states… all laws and institutions of Judaism which were based on the election of a particular Jewish people – yes of a particular Jewish state – and hence by their very nature implied exclusiveness and particularism… have lost all religious significance and obligation and have given way to the national laws and institutions of such lands and peoples to which the Jews belong by birth and civic relationship”

Responses to modernity  Conservative (Germany, mid1800s)

Responses to modernity  Neo-Orthodox, (Germany, mid1800s)

Responses to modernity “Now what is it that we want? Are the only alternatives either to abandon religion or to renounce our progress? We declare before heaven and earth that if our religion demanded that we should renounce what is called civilization and progress we would obey unquestioningly, because our religion is for us the word of God before which every other consideration has to give way. There is, however, no such dilemma. Judaism never remained aloof from true civilization and progress. In almost every area its adherents were fully abreast of contemporary learning and very often excelled their contemporaries. An excellent thing is the study of Torah combined with the ways of the world.”

Responses to modernity  Charedi

Basis for Receptivity to Modernity  Tzelem Elohim  Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5  … man was first created as one person [Adam], to teach you that anyone who destroys a life is considered by Scripture to have destroyed an entire world; and anyone who saves a life is as if he saved an entire world.(1) And also, to promote peace among the creations, that no man would say to his friend, "My ancestors are greater than yours."(2) And also, so that heretics will not say, "there are many rulers up in Heaven." And also, to express the grandeur of The Holy One [blessed be He]: For a man strikes many coins from the same die, and all the coins are alike. But the King, the King of Kings, The Holy One [blessed be He] strikes every man from the die of the First Man, and yet no man is quite like his friend. Therefore, every person must say, “For my sake ‎ the world was created.”(3)…

Basis for Receptivity to Modernity  Partners in Creation Now the heavens and the earth were completed and all their host. And God completed on the seventh day God’s work that God did, and God abstained on the seventh day from all God’s work that God did. And God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, for thereon God abstained from all God’s work that God created to do.

Basis for Receptivity to Modernity  Freedom  Passover  Slave ears

Basis for Receptivity to Modernity  Education Israel were crowned with three crowns: the crown of Torah, the crown of the priesthood, and the crown of royalty). The priesthood was earned by Aharon, as it says: (Numbers 25:13) It shall be for him and his descendants after him a pact of priesthood for all time..."; Royalty was earned by David, as it says: (Ps. 89:37) "His line shall continue forever, his throne, as the sun before Me; Torah lies in wait and is accessible to all of Yisrael, as it says: (Deut 33:4) "Moses commanded us the Torah, as the heritage of the congregation of Jacob." - anyone who wishes may come and take [this crown]. Perhaps you will say that the other crowns are greater than the crown of Torah*? but it says: (Pr. 8:15-16) "Through me kings rein and rulers decree just laws; through me princes rule..." - you can infer that the crown of Torah is greater than both of them.

Impact on Judaism  Opportunity  In general this is an important principle in the conflict of ideas, that when an idea comes to negate some teaching in the Torah, we must not, to begin with, reject it, but build the edifice of the Torah above it, and thereby we ascend higher, and through this ascent, the ideas are clarified (Y. Kook)  Diversity  Division  Women’s involvement  Movement and Stasis

Impact: Judaism and Wider Society  Internal  Demographic trends  What we share with whom  All options open: Integration with and without assimilation, or not  Women’s engagement  The common enemy