Miss Buddha (104 page)

Ultimately, a correlation was made between
the messianic idea and the concept of Torah: The individual Jew, so
was the conclusion drawn, through proper study and observance of
God’s commandments, could in fact hasten the Messiah’s arrival.
Thus, each individual’s action would assume cosmic importance.

The Rabbinic Tradition

Although all forms of
Judaism have always been rooted in the Hebrew Bible, it would be
incorrect to think of Judaism as just a religion of the Old
Testament. In fact, contemporary Judaism derives from the rabbinic
movement of the first centuries of the Christian and is therefore
correctly referred to as
Rabbinic
Judaism
.

Rabbi
is Hebrew for “my teacher.”

The original rabbis were
Jewish sages well read in both the Scriptures and their own
traditions and who, based on these studies, maintained that God had
revealed not one but two Torahs to Moses on Sinai: In addition to
the written Torah, what we know as the Scripture, God also revealed
an
oral Torah
, one
that has since been faithfully transmitted by word of mouth in an
unbroken chain from master to disciple, and that is now only
preserved among the rabbis themselves.

For the rabbis, the oral
Torah was encapsulated in the
Mishnah
—that which is learned or
memorized— the earliest document of rabbinic literature, edited in
Palestine at the turn of the 3
^rd
century.

Subsequent rabbinic study
of the Mishnah in Palestine and Babylonia generated two
Talmuds
—that which is
studied—which were wide-ranging commentaries on the Mishnah. The
Babylonian Talmud, edited about the 6
^th
century, eventually became
the foundation document of rabbinic Judaism.

Worship and Practices

For the religious Jew, all life, from birth
to death, is one continuous act of divine worship. “I keep the Lord
always before me” (Psalms 16:8), a verse inscribed on the front
wall of many synagogues, characterizes this.

Prayers and Services

The Talmud and medieval law codes decree
that Jews must offer congregational prayers three times a day: in
the morning (shaharith), in the afternoon (minhah), and in the
evening (maarib), which times are believed to correspond to the
times when sacrifices were offered in the Jerusalem Temple.

This is one of the ways that rabbinic
Judaism metaphorically carries forward the structure and spirit of
the destroyed Temple cult. A company of ten men forms a
congregation, or quorum (minyan), for prayer. Should a community be
unable to gather a minyan, individual Jews are nonetheless obliged
to offer these prayers, but in a somewhat abbreviated fashion.

As a sign of their devotion to God, the
observant adult male Jew during weekday morning prayers should wear
both a fringed prayer shawl (tallith) and phylacteries (prayer
boxes, called tefillin). These two customs are derived from the
scriptural passages recited as the Shema, as is a third custom, the
placing of a mezuzah (prayer box) on the doorpost of one’s house, a
further reminder that God is everywhere.

Also, as a gesture of respect to God, the
head is covered during prayer, either with a hat or a skullcap.
Pious Jews wear a head covering at all times, in recognition of
God’s constant presence.

Torah

The study of Torah—the revealed will of
God—is also considered an act of worship in rabbinic Judaism and
passages from Scripture, Mishnah, and Talmud are recited during
daily morning services.

On Monday and Thursday
mornings, a handwritten parchment scroll of the Torah (that is,
the
Pentateuch
) is
removed from the Holy Ark at the front of the synagogue and read
and chanted before the congregation.

The major ceremonial Torah
readings take place on Sabbath and festival mornings. In the course
of a year, the entire Torah will be read on Sabbaths. In other
words, the
public reading of
Scripture
constitutes a significant part of
synagogue worship; in fact, some hold that this was originally the
primary function of the synagogue as an institution.

Benedictions

In addition to these daily prayers, Jews are
required to recite a number of benedictions throughout the day
before performing commandments and before enjoying the bounties of
nature.

A well-known benediction, usually recited by
women on Sabbath Eve before the lighting of the mandatory Sabbath
candles, is representative: “May You be blessed, O Lord, King of
the Universe, who sanctified us through His commandments and
commanded us to kindle the light of the Sabbath.”

The benedictions of enjoyments, by contrast,
reflect the Jewish conviction that the Earth does not belong to
man, but to God—humans are simply tenant farmers or gardeners. Thus
the Owner must be acknowledged before the tenant may partake of the
fruits.

The most common such benediction occurs at
meals, when breaking of bread is preceded by the following
blessing: “May You be blessed, O Lord, King of the Universe, who
brings forth bread from the earth.”

Dietary Laws

From the very outset, Jews have been
recognized among non-Jewish observers through distinctive dietary
observances, many of which relate to the ancient Temple cult. The
table at home is thought analogous to the table of the Lord that
once existed in the Jerusalem Temple, where certain animals,
considered unclean, could not be used in sacrificial service at the
altar. They are therefore not to be eaten in secular settings
either.

Such animals include pigs, donkeys, and
camels. The Bible also prohibits eating fish without fins or scales
and other creatures deemed to violate in some way certain
norms.

Edible domestic animals—though only those
that have split hooves and chew their cuds—must be properly
slaughtered (kosher) and the blood fully drained before the meat
can be eaten.

The Sabbath

The Jewish liturgical calendar honors the
divisions of time prescribed in the Torah and observed in the
Temple cult. Thus, every seventh day is the Sabbath, when no work
is performed. By this abstention, the Jew is seen to return the
world to God, its owner, acknowledging that humans extract His
produce only on sufferance.

History

Until recently, historians of the early
history of Judaism were quite confident that the biblical
literature, together with archaeological findings, could safely be
used as a guide in reconstructing the origins and history of the
Israelite nation.

However, with the increasing realization
that much of the surviving literature appears to have its reached
current form centuries or even millennia after the events
described, historians have now become more guarded.

Such well-established Biblical personalities
as the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the matriarchs
Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah cannot be found by disciplined
historical study. They only exist by way of Genesis.

Similarly, it is no longer certain when, or
under what circumstances, or if at all, the ancestors of Israel
lived in Egypt during the time of the pharaohs.

The origins of the dynasty of David are also
unclear. So, too, is the precise nature of its relations with what
the biblical historical books recall as the wicked northern kingdom
centered in Samaria.

Probably the most we can say with any degree
of certainty, is that the people recalled in the Bible as the
Israelites were a largely agricultural people acknowledging a
covenantal relationship to the God of Israel. This God, in exchange
for their love and obedience, would on His part protect them from
invasions of other peoples and the dominion of foreign gods.

By the chronicled events of the Bible,
however, Israel and its kings were often disloyal to their chosen
God and participated in a variety of activities that did in fact
constitute worship of other gods. In a tit for tat, the God of
Israel then imposed upon his people a series of punishments,
culminating, at the end, in the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple
and the expulsion of the royal house of David and its entire
priesthood from the land of Israel.

And it is here, with the exile of Israel at
the hands of the Babylonian Empire, that the history of Judaism
begins to acquire some confirmed facts and, thus, focus.

Babylonian Exile

The exile of the Israelites to Babylonia in
586 BCE was a major turning point for Judaism, which led to a
reinterpretation of Israel’s prior history and so laid the
foundation for the biblical Pentateuch, prophetic canon, and
historical books to follow.

Accordingly, the prophets Ezekiel and
Deutero-Isaiah now held that God had pressed the Babylonian Empire
into service in order to punish the Israelites for their sins. But
seeing as He was capable of this, He was also (quite logically)
capable of redeeming them from captivity if they repented.

From this developed a truly
monotheistic religion wherein the God of Israel is now seen as not
only
their
God but
as the God of universal history and the ruler of all destinies and
nations.

This messianic hope for a restored Judean
kingdom under the leadership of the royal house of David seemed to
have been vindicated when Cyrus the Great, after conquering Babylon
in 539 BCE, permitted a repatriation of subject populations and a
restoration of local temples.

The now restored Judean commonwealth did not
fully realize this hope, however, since Cyrus did not allow the
restoration of a Judean monarchy, but only a temple-state with the
high priest as its chief administrator.

Maccabean and Roman Periods

Beginning with the 331 BCE conquests of
Alexander the Great, Greek culture made southern inroads into the
Middle East, which in turn put the indigenous cultures on the
defensive.

This eventually led to the Maccabean revolt
of 165 to 142 BCE, an event which had begun as a civil war between
Jewish Hellenizers and offended nativists and ended, successfully,
in Judean political independence from Syria.

All this cultural turmoil and subsequent
warfare had a major impact on Judaism. In fact, the earliest
apocalyptic writings—the genre of cryptic revelations—were composed
during this period, and they interpreted the wars of the time as
part of a cosmic conflict between the forces of good and those of
evil that would ultimately end with victory of God’s legions—the
good guys.

This was also the first time that bodily
resurrection at the time of God’s Last Judgment was promised to
those righteous Jews who had been slain in the conflict. (Before
this time, immortality meant survival of the individual’s children
and people or in a shadowy afterlife in Sheol, the
netherworld.)

Even though the Maccabean victories launched
eighty years of Judean political independence, religious turmoil
persisted.

Though not of true lineage, the Hasmonaean
priestly family that had led the successful revolt now proclaimed
themselves hereditary kings and high priests. This affront, along
with their Hellenistic monarchical trappings, prompted fierce
opposition from groups such as the Qumran community, known to
modern scholars from the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Led by dissident priests, this sect
proclaimed that the Jerusalem Temple had been profaned by the
Hasmonaeans and saw itself as a purified Temple exiled in the
wilderness.

This Qumran group is most likely the Essenes
described by Jewish historian Flavius Josephus and other ancient
writers. Josephus also reports the existence of two other groups,
the Sadducees and the Pharisees.

The Pharisees, like the Qumran group, put
forth their own traditions of biblical law, which were then
disputed by the Sadducees, an aristocratic priestly group.

The Messianic-apocalyptic fervor was
rekindled when Judean political independence was brought to an
abrupt halt by the Romans in the middle of the 1st century BCE
which was to climax in the outbreak of an unsuccessful revolt
against Rome in 66 to 70 CE. In fact, Christianity began as one of
these messianic-apocalyptic movements.

Development of Rabbinic Judaism

The Roman destruction of the Second Temple
in 70 CE and their suppression of a second messianic revolt in 132
to 135 (led by Simon Bar Kokhba) were, for the Jews, religious
catastrophes on par with the destruction of the First Temple in 586
BCE. As a result, the existing priestly leadership was discredited
and soon ousted by the rabbinic movement.

Since the Jewish people had now—and quite
thoroughly—lost control of their political destiny, the rabbis
began instead to emphasize communal and spiritual, rather than
political, life. They taught that by conforming to the Torah as
elaborated in the rabbinic traditions (reportedly handed down by
word of mouth, remember), and through study, prayer, and
observance, the individual Jew could achieve salvation while
waiting for God to bring about the messianic redemption of Israel
as a nation.

Some rabbis even held that
if
all
Jews towed
the Torah line, the Messiah would simply be compelled to
come.

Institutionally, and going forward, the
synagogue and the rabbinic study house now replaced the destroyed
Temple.

Shift of Power

The eventual rabbinization of all Jews was a
gradual process that had to overcome strong challenges from the
Karaites and other anti-rabbinic movements.