Religion 101 (4 page)

Alexander (356–323
B.C
.) was the son of Philip of Macedon, king of what had been up to that point a minor realm on the Greek Peninsula. Young Alexander was tutored by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (though it’s unclear how much influence this had on him) and succeeded to the throne when his father was assassinated in 336. In the next thirteen years, he would create the largest empire the world to that point had known.

Alexander struck first against the Greeks’ old enemy, the Persians. At the battle of Issus in 333, he definitively broke the power of the Persian ruler Darius III and swept over the remnants of the Persian kingdom. He expanded into Egypt, where he founded the city of Alexandria, including its great library (one of the glories of the ancient world).

Alexandria after Alexander

The library of Alexandria became one of the most important repositories of learning in the ancient world. Ships entering the city’s port were searched for books; those that were found were confiscated and added to the library’s collection (although copies were returned to their owners). The library also contained a zoo and an astronomical observatory. Among the library’s holdings were a book by Aristarchus of Samos (310
B.C.
–c. 230
B.C.
), who first proposed that the earth travels around the sun; and Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c. 276
B.C.
–c. 195
B.C.
), who correctly calculated the circumference of the globe.

In 326, Alexander invaded India and marched his men as far as the Indus River. He would have gone farther, but his men were close to revolt, and he was forced to turn back. In 323 he died of a fever near the city of Babylon. He was thirty-three years old.

Hellenism

The conquests of Alexander were not merely military; they were cultural as well. Greek culture spread throughout the Mediterranean and beyond. As it did so, it fused with native cultures to form what historians call Hellenism. New gods were added to the Greek pantheon (and Greek gods found their way into the religious practices of Egypt, Persia, and elsewhere).

The impetus for this came from Alexander himself, who was extremely tolerant of and interested in foreign customs. The Greeks identified local gods with their Greek counterparts:

The Egyptians deified Alexander and made worship of him part of their daily rituals. (He was also, of course, venerated as the ruler of Egypt.) Contemporary accounts say Alexander sacrificed to Egyptian gods and encouraged the building of new temples.

As he conquered Persia, Alexander followed a similar pattern of tolerating those religious beliefs he found and attempting to integrate them into the Greek religious system. In India he was fascinated by what contact he had with Hindu Brahmins and hermits, although he seems not to have had any interaction with followers of the Buddha, who preceded him by about 200 years.

Overall, Alexander was responsible for one of the greatest expansions of religious belief in world history and for the fusing of complex religious traditions that would continue to influence one another for the next 500 years.

CHAPTER 2
JUDAISM

Judaism is more than just a religion. Jews have been regarded as a “people,” a “nation” (though, for most of its existence, one without a homeland), a “race,” and a “culture.” Consequently, it has never been clear who is a Jew nor what exactly defines “Judaism.”

First and foremost, it must be remembered that Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people. Though over the centuries Jews have dispersed among the nations, a strong sense of kinship has remained among them. Some Jews like to think of themselves as “the tribe”; for instance, the Yiddish word
landsman
(countryman) is used fondly to refer to another Jew.

This explains why some Jews feel a connection when introduced to someone who is also Jewish, feel a sense of pride when a Jew is honored for a major accomplishment, or bear an inordinate sense of loss when learning something terrible befell a fellow Jew.

To be a Jew means to feel that wherever a Jew is persecuted for being a Jew — that means you.

— Amos Oz, Israeli writer

The “Chosen” People

Judaism teaches that God made an eternal covenant with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Israel), and that every Jew participates in this covenant as a part of the Chosen People.

However, being “chosen” by God does not in any way impart a notion of superiority. In fact, according to one rabbinic interpretation, the Hebrews were not the first to be offered God’s covenant and to receive the Torah — this took place only after all the other nations turned it down!

Judaism is a living religion that functions in terms of many relationships: between God and the Jewish People; between God and each individual Jew; and among all humans. Judaism is not practiced in a cloistered environment — it is a religion of the community. This is why prayer takes place in groups of ten or more (a
minyan
), and holidays are celebrated in the home, where family and friends gather together.

The Canons of Judaism

There is not a single accepted definition of Judaism acknowledged as absolute dogma. However, Judaism does encompass certain tenets that all religious Jews adhere to. Maimonides, a twelfth-century influential Jewish thinker, outlined these tenets as the Thirteen Principles of Faith.

1. God exists.
   
2. God is one and unique.
   
3. God is incorporeal.
   
4. God is eternal.
   
5. Prayer is to be directed to God alone and to no other.
   
6. The words of the prophets are true.
   
7. Moses’ prophecies are true, and Moses was the greatest of the prophets.
   
8. The written Torah (first five books of the Bible) and the oral Torah (teachings contained in the Talmud and other writings), were given to Moses.
   
9. There will be no other Torah.
   
10. God knows the thoughts and deeds of men.
    
11. God will reward the good and punish the wicked.
    
12. The Messiah will come.
    
13. The dead will be resurrected.
    

It’s a Way of Life

It is crucial to remember that Judaism is not merely a set of ideas about the world. Perhaps more importantly, it is a blueprint for a way of life. To follow Judaism means more than praying or contemplating, having faith, or believing in a supreme being or an afterlife. Following the dictates of Judaism means taking action. Jews cannot excuse themselves from this requirement by claiming that one person cannot possibly make a difference in the world. Such an attitude is anathema to Judaism, which emphasizes the significance of the individual.

In the Talmud, the Jews are taught that every person is like a balanced scale — a person’s deeds will tip the scale either toward good or toward evil.

A Jew is defined by his actions more than his intentions. It is his actions that bind him to his community and, through it, to the larger human community.

— Elie Wiesel, writer and human rights activist

God holds people responsible for their actions and teaches us to follow His high standards of ethical behavior. His expectations apply to all human beings, even those who have lost contact with God. In Micah 6:8, it is written that God requires that we “do justice … love goodness and … walk modestly with … God.”

THE KABBALAH

Source of Jewish Mysticism

The Kabbalah is a mystical tradition within Judaism. Mysticism refers to the belief that personal communication with or experience of God, or the Divine, is possible through intuition or sudden insight rather than through rational thought.

While it is difficult to know the historical origins of Kabbalah with absolute certainty, discovered texts indicate that it surfaced in the late 1100s in southern France in the area of Provence, and soon spread to northern Spain. The first unequivocal kabbalistic text,
Sefer HaBahir
, is written as though it has a readership that is familiar with its kabbalistic terminology, even though such terms had never appeared in writing before. The earliest Kabbalists speak of the oral transmission of secret knowledge from master to disciple throughout the generations, so there was evidently a kabbalistic community already in existence when
Sefer HaBahir
was written.

What’s It Mean?

The term
Kabbalah
comes from the Hebrew root word
l’kabel,
which means “to receive,” so
Kabbalah
means “received teachings.”
Kabbalah
also denotes “tradition,” meaning a body of knowledge and customs passed down from one generation to another. Kabbalah also has the connotation of the
oral
transmission of tradition and knowledge containing the inner and secret mystical teachings of the Torah.

Despite the fact that Hebrew had ceased to be the spoken language of the Jews even before the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in
A.D.
70, the vast majority of kabbalistic texts are written in Hebrew. A particularly striking exception for the history of Jewish mysticism is that the most influential kabbalistic text of all, the
Zohar
, is mostly written in Aramaic. Since the
Zohar
is so heavily quoted in later sources, it is very common to find Hebrew kabbalistic texts from the end of the 1200s sprinkled with Aramaic phrases. Over the centuries some kabbalistic texts were translated into other languages such as Latin beginning in the late fifteenth century. In our own day some kabbalistic texts are finding their way into English translations of varying quality.

In the thirteenth century, Spanish Kabbalists spoke of the Torah existing on four different levels. Moshe de Leon coined the term
Pardes
to refer to these four levels.

Pardes
, which literally means “orchard” but also has the connotation of Paradise, refers to mystical knowledge.

Moshe de Leon treated this term as an acronym for the four levels of reading Torah. Each of the consonants in the word Pardes stands for one of the levels of meaning in the Torah. The
p
stands for
pshat
or the simple, literal meaning of the words. The
r
stands for
remez
, which means “hint,” but in medieval Hebrew came to stand for the allegorical reading of the text that was the mainstay of Jewish philosophy. The
d
stands for
d’rash
, which essentially means “to investigate, to seek out, to expound” and here refers to Aggadic and Talmudic interpretations. The
s
stands for
sod
, the secret meaning of the text. Kabbalah itself is understood as constituting this secret meaning of the Torah.

All the levels of the Torah complement each other. Kabbalists often use the analogy of a nut to visually communicate the relationship between these levels. The outer shell conceals the soft, deep core that is the most nourishing part of the nut.

An Unsolved Mystery

Some of the most basic questions about
Sefer HaBahir
remain unanswered. The
Bahir
is acknowledged by all modern scholars as the first true work of Kabbalah because it contains the major elements that distinguish Kabbalah from other, earlier forms of Jewish mysticism. While traces of the earlier mystical traditions are evident in the
Bahir
, a new literature had clearly emerged.Although it is unclear where the book first appeared, it may have been in Germany in the area where another very important mystical school flourished. This other school was called Hasidei Ashkenaz, which means the German Pietists (that is, very pious people), and is also known as the Hasidim of Medieval Germany. The other possible location of the
Bahir
’s origin is Provence in southern France. The latest research points toward a German origin with a later editing stage in Provence.

It is a common assertion among Kabbalists that God and Torah are one. In other words, Torah at its deepest level contains the essence of divinity. What exactly does this mean?

By equating the Torah with God’s essence, Kabbalists emphasize the primacy and strength of language in Judaism. The power of language is evident in the Creation story in Genesis, where it says, “Let there be … and there was.”

The perception that God and Torah are one lends a completely new meaning to the study of Torah. Recognizing the spiritual power of the letters of the Torah makes meditating on a passage of Torah particularly potent. For Kabbalists, texts are important and are to be meditated upon. Studying a spiritual text is not like reading a novel or a history book. There is a layering of words, a trait of kabbalistic literature that becomes more apparent the more times you go over the same passages. Re-examining a certain passage and using it as a focus of meditation can suddenly reveal its many meanings to you. All of this is part of altering your consciousness, the result of spiritual meditation.

Heavenly Messengers: Maggidim

One more avenue of attaining secrets of Torah is through the phenomenon of maggidim. The term
maggid
has numerous meanings, the most common of which is the “traveling preacher.” However, in this case a maggid is a disembodied heavenly messenger that visits someone to reveal secrets of Torah and often appears as a voice emerging from the person visited by the maggid. Probably the most famous maggid is the one that appeared with regularity to Rabbi Yosef Karo. Historically, this phenomenon began to be spoken of during the sixteenth century. A number of well-known Kabbalists were visited by maggidim. In addition to Yosef Karo, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto and the Vilna Gaon also claimed to have been visited by maggidim.