In this program, we will study the historical foundations of Judaism from the time of the Torah, Prophets, and Writings through the medieval period up to modern American "denominations" of Reform, Orthodox, and Conservative Judaism.  This review relates especially to Leo Trepp, Judaism:  Development and Life, 4th ed. (Belmont, CA:  Wadsworth, 2000). 

   In all my review programs, key names are red, key concepts are blue, key places and groups are green, and key dates and festivals are pink.  You can study for a test most effectively by going through the program a couple of times before the test.  The material is not new; it is already in your textbook and class notes.  I hope this summary is helpful for you!

JEWISH SCRIPTURE

    Before I begin my review of unit 1, I would like to give you a brief overview of the earliest Jewish history, as a historical background for understanding some of the discussions among the rabbis.  You will not be tested on the material in this section on Jewish Scripture.  If you have taken Old Testament Survey, you already know this material, so you may simply skip to the next section, on Rabbinic Judaism.  If you have not studied Old Testament at the college level, this short history may be helpful for you.

    Hebrew history starts with Abraham and Sarah, the ancestors of the Jewish people.  According to Jewish scripture, when it appeared that Abraham and Sarah would not be able to have children, Sarah gave permission for Abraham to father a child by her maid Hagar.  As we will see later, Islamic scripture describes Hagar as Abraham's second wife.  The son of Abraham and Sarah was named Ishmael, and it is through him that Arabs trace their lineage.  Later Abraham and Sarah had a son together; he was named Isaac, "laughter."  Jews trace their lineage from Abraham through Isaac.  So Jews and Muslims are close relatives from the very beginning of their history.   

    Abraham and his family migrated from the Euphrates River area to Canaan, later known as Israel.  The name Isra-El, "wrestler with God," came from a dream which Abraham's grandson Jacob had.  In the dream, Jacob wrestled (or rassled, if you prefer :) with an angel, a messenger from God, all night long, until he received God's blessing and a new name, Israel.  Jacob's twelve sons were the patriarchs of twelve tribes that saw themselves as the nation of Israel.

    The Israelites migrated to Egypt and lived there for a number of generations.  But they didn't really merge with the Egyptian culture; they remained a separate people.  Eventually some of the Pharaohs, the Egyptian kings, began forcing the Israelites to work on massive construction projects in what was almost slave labor.  God spoke to a man named Moses from a burning bush, and gave him the task of liberating the Hebrews and leading them back to Canaan, their promised homeland.  With the help of his wife Zipporah, his brother Aaron, and his sister Miriam, Moses brought the Israelites out of Egypt, across the Reed Sea, to Mount Sinai.  There God gave them the Ten Commandments, spelling out their responsibilities in the covenant that God made with them.  After Moses led the Israelites to the boundary of Canaan, he was succeeded by his right-hand man, Joshua, who helped them to establish themselves firmly in the land of Canaan.

    For a number of years, the Israelites settled into the Promised Land, with the leadership of charismatic individuals known as judges.  Their first kings, Saul, David, and Solomon, each had strengths and weaknesses which the Bible portrays quite frankly.  David, even with his faults, came to be regarded as the Israelites' greatest king.  His son Solomon built a magnificent Temple in Jerusalem.  At the end of Solomon's reign, the kingdom split into the northern nation of Israel, with its capital at Samaria, and the southern nation of Judah, with its capital at Jerusalem.

    It was in this period of division that some of the greatest religious figures in all of Hebrew history arose:  the prophets.  Prophetic figures such as Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah proclaimed God's message to the people of Israel and Judah forcefully, so that the people didn't get absorbed by the surrounding culture and lose sight of who they were -- God's people.  The writings of many of the prophets were preserved and eventually came to be regarded as scripture, along with the Torah and later writings.

    Israelites from the northern kingdom were taken into captivity by the Assyrian Empire in the 700's B.C.E.  They were moved around and were forced to intermarry with people from quite different cultural and religious traditions.  People from the southern kingdom of Judah were taken into captivity in the 500's B.C.E.  But they were kept together in a prisoner of war camp near Babylon, on the Euphrates River -- ironically, not far from the ancient homeland of Abraham and Sarah!

    Prophets such as Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Second Isaiah helped the people of Judah, whom we can now call "Jews," to hold on to their covenant with God, which made them a unique people.  After a whole generation of Jews had grown up in Babylonian captivity, the Persians defeated Babylon and helped the Jews to return home and rebuild their capital, Jerusalem.  They built a second Temple, with little of the grandeur of Solomon's Temple, but it would serve as a center for Jewish worship.

    After a couple of centuries of relative peace and quiet in the Middle East under the widespread influence of the Persian Empire, a new Greek empire was established in the 300's B.C.E. by Alexander the Great.  There were some positive aspects to Greek rule, including translation of Hebrew scripture into the worldwide Greek language, and brilliant religious and philosophical contributions by the great Jewish scholar Philo, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt. 

    Jews found coping techniques to survive as a people under Greek rule, as they had preserved their distinctiveness under other empires.  They had a very difficult period during a dynasty of Syrian Greeks known as Seleucids.  Part of the Seleucid mission was to assimilate cultures and religions that they considered "primitive," such as Judaism, into a unified Greek way of life.  Seleucid rulers used harsh measures to force such assimilation.  Many Jews held onto their integrity by underground resistance, while others participated in armed resistance, led by freedom fighters known as Maccabees.  Later in this course we'll see how these patriots set the Jewish people free once again and established the festival of Hanukkah to commemorate the rededication of the Temple.  Independence lasted for about a century. 

    The Romans gradually took over the entire Mediterranean world, in the first century of the Common Era, the point at which this course begins with our study of the rabbis. But first I would like to mention two groups of non-rabbis in the Roman Empire whose story overlaps with our story.  The first group is called Zealots, because they were zealous, enthusiastic, for the cause of independence for the Jewish people.  They saw themselves as successors to the Maccabees who carried out the successful war for freedom a couple of centuries earlier.  The Zealots wanted to liberate the Jews from the Romans, just as the Maccabees had liberated them from the Greeks.  Even though they had limited resources and fought guerrilla warfare best, in 66 C.E. they launched an all-out war against the Romans.  The superior military skills, machines, and fighting forces of the Roman legions made the war a disaster for the Jewish people.  The Temple, along with much of the rest of Jerusalem, was destroyed in 70 C.E.

    The Zealots tried again in the 130's C.E., this time under the leadership of a man whom they claimed to be the Messiah:  Simon bar Kochba ("Son of the Star").  Once again, the Zealots were crushed by Roman armies, and many Jews were scattered throughout the world.  This began a period in Jewish history known as the Diaspora, "scattering."

    A second group which helps us to understand Judaism in the early centuries C.E. is the Essenes.  They lived in a number of small communities, devoting themselves to living in full commitment to Jewish law.  The Essene community about which we know the most was on the shore of the Dead Sea, a place that is today called Qumran.  There they produced what we've named the Dead Sea Scrolls, blending highly organized guidelines for community life with an apocalyptic hope for a special place at the end of history, in a great war between themselves (the Children of Light) and evil forces (the Children of Darkness).  The Essene story came to an abrupt end when a Roman army apparently destroyed the Qumran community around 73 C.E.  Their scrolls were hidden in caves and would not be discovered until the 1940's.

RABBINIC JUDAISM

    We can see the beginnings of rabbinic Judaism in interpretation of Jewish scripture, the Tanakh.  The acronym TaNaKh stands for Torah (law) + Nevee-im (prophets) + Ketuvim (writings).  Jews often call their scripture the Bible; Christians usually call it the Old Testament, since it is also the first part of a two-part Christian Bible.  The Torah gives us the foundation for all subsequent Jewish history and beliefs. In the first century of the Common Era (C.E. = A.D. in Christian terminology), there were two major groups of interpreters of the Torah. 

    The Sadducees had wealth, power, influence with the Romans, and key places in the Jewish court system.  The Sadducees based their legal decisions entirely on the Torah, which they knew up and down, back and forth.  They also were a major controlling force in the sacrificial system of the Temple.  Their one major mistake was centralization -- they focused everything on Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin and the Temple.  So when the city was destroyed in 70 C.E., their influence went down the tubes.  Their chief rivals for leadership displaced them completely.

    The other group, the Pharisees, tried their best to understand the meaning of the Jewish law, as it applied to all aspects of life.  They poured their time and energy into interpreting the 613 laws of the Torah.  The best Pharisees really practiced what they preached.  Pharisaism became the sole leadership group after the year 70.  In fact, the name "Pharisees" was no longer used, because they were no longer one of several groups; they came to be called simply the rabbis, "teachers."

    The term Tannaim is often used for the rabbis who lived right after the period of the Pharisees.  Tanna is another word for "teacher," and -im is the Hebrew masculine plural ending.  These scholars spent many hours in study of oral and written Jewish laws, often after a full day's work, in order to preserve the traditions that they considered so important.  For some time they tried to memorize all the laws and interpretations.  But finally there were just too many to remember.  Around 200 C.E., the work of the Tannaim was compiled by a man named Rabbi Judah the Prince into a book about as big as Webster's Dictionary.  Do you remember the name of that book?  It begins with M.  Hmmm... Mazda?  Mithra?  Mishnah?

    If you were thinking of  Mazda:  I'm sorry, but that's Anita Coulthard's car.  She wouldn't appreciate it if you put her Mazda on your bookshelf.  A different word, also beginning with M, identifies the first written collection of Jewish laws.  You're a little closer to the name if you thought of Mithra:  he was the Sun God of the Roman Empire, whose birthday was celebrated on December 25! 

    The correct title is Mishnah.  This word means "review" or "repetition," and it was given to the book because of all the times that the rabbis had patiently repeated these laws over and over.

    When Rabbi Judah decided to write down the various interpretations of the law, he had to make some tough decisions.  Where would he draw the line on what to include?  His book could become huge if he didn't establish some criteria.  He decided to focus on interpretations of the 365 negative laws and 248 positive laws that the rabbis had identified in the Torah, and he arranged them by subject areas. 

    Rabbi Judah also had to decide which basic method the Mishnah should follow.  There were two methods for making legal decisions, both of which were highly respected.  He could have chosen haggadah (also spelled aggadah), a storytelling approach which used legends and parables to make ethical points.  Jews value storytelling as much as the people of Old Jonesborough, but for legal decisions, Rabbi Judah the Prince felt that it would be better to use the method of halakhah, "the path of life."  The Hebrew word halak, "to walk," gave to the corresponding noun halakhah the meaning of "the way we walk" = custom, traditional law, or rule.  You'll find it spelled different ways in various translations, including halaka and halacha.

    Once Rabbi Judah had published the Mishnah, there was no need for any further interpretation.  Now the Jewish law was fixed in writing, so it could not be debated any further -- right?  Wrong!  If you say that, you don't know anything about lawyers!  They'll argue with a signpost, and then go the wrong way just to prove they're right!  Oops -- please excuse me if you're a member of the Pre-Law Society.  What I mean to say is that debate doesn't end once a law is put in writing, because it must now be interpreted and reinterpreted.  So the Mishnah was just another stage in the process of Jewish legal study.  It became the foundation for further debates and discussions about the 613 laws which the Pharisees had identified in the Torah.  Those discussions would continue all the way up to modern times.  

    Now that people didn't try to memorize all the interpretations, it was considered kosher to take notes on the rabbis' discussions of the law.  Those lecture notes, which were called the Gemara, were also compiled in the following centuries to form much larger books than the Mishnah.  The end result was the collection of Jewish laws which has the Mishnah as the core, but with all the interpretations from the Gemara, it's now encyclopedia-size and still growing.  If you asked any rabbi what the most important collection of Jewish laws is, what would the rabbi say?  Hint:  it rhymes with "foul mood," but that has nothing to do with its contents!  Yes, the Talmud!  

    The first edition of the Talmud was produced during the 300's C.E. in Palestine, so it is known as the Yerushalmi, the Jerusalem Talmud, or the Palestinian Talmud.  But it was incomplete.  A complete edition was produced around 500 C.E. in Babylonia, so it is called the Bavli, or Babylonian Talmud.  If you find a reference simply to the Talmud, you may assume that the Babylonian Talmud is meant.  It has been edited and reprinted many times in the centuries after 500, and a new edition, with the most recent interpretations, is being produced right now.

    Now I know you're wondering:  whatever happened to haggadah?  Was it just left out in the cold?  No, of course not!  Sometimes biblical principles can't be interpreted well by reason, as in the Mishnah and Talmud; they need stories to illustrate them.  Stories from the Bible were especially good foundations for understanding.  Unfortunately, no one like Rabbi Judah the Prince came along to put together all the various versions of story interpretations.  But we can see the method of haggadah most fully in rabbinic commentaries on books of the Bible.  This category of books also has a name beginning with M.

    I know what popped into your mind:  MaWa.  There are a lot of interesting stories about MaWa.  The next time that you get into a debate in MaWa, just tell the other persons that they are full of haggadah!  MaWa even sounds Hebrew:  Ma in Hebrew means "What?" and Wa in Hebrew means "and."  But the haggadic commentaries on the Bible have a Hebrew name which makes a little more sense.

    Now you're thinking that these stories must be a Mishmash.  Sometimes they have so many different ways of looking at issues that they appear to be a mishmash or hodge-podge.  I wish the editors had not simply given all the rabbinic opinions, but instead had prioritized them more carefully, showing us which ones should be taken seriously.  However, the correct name for the commentaries is not mishmash, but Midrash.  This comes from the Hebrew verb darash, which means "to search" for meaning in the scripture.

MEDIEVAL JUDAISM

    All during the Middle Ages, rabbis explored the intricacies of Jewish law.  But they did lots of other things too.  Jewish rabbis got married, raised families, worked at full-time secular jobs in many instances, and served as leaders in their communities.  There were a number of outstanding examples of Jewish medical doctors, poets, and philosophers.  My favorite of those medieval "Renaissance persons" is Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, nicknamed the Rambam or more commonly Maimonides.  He grew up in Spain, the European country which had large populations of all three Middle Eastern religions -- Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

    Unfortunately, Jews in Spain were not treated well by either Muslims or Christians.  Both groups tried to convert Jews by force.  Many Jews, including Maimonides' family, fled to places where they could remain true to their religion.  Maimonides found one nation where he, a Jew, could practice medicine and law, while in his spare time he wrote a commentary on the Mishnah.  Do you remember what that nation was?  

• Not America  -- it was not "discovered" by Europeans until three centuries after Maimonides.  Ironically, Jews were expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella, the very monarchs who funded Columbus' voyage, and in the same year:  1492!

• Not Germany -- although Jews had lived in Germany as early as the 300's C.E., they had come to be regarded as "infidels" during the Crusades.  The roots of Nazi anti-Semitism can be seen during the Middle Ages.

• Maimonides became a highly revered physician in Cairo, Egypt, treating the nobility and earning the respect of Muslims as well as of Jews in Egypt.  In his Mishneh Torah, a commentary on the Mishnah, he introduced interpretations based on science, philosophy, and practical experience as well as the traditional logical and legal arguments.

    In many countries of Europe, Jews were forced during the Middle Ages to live in separate areas of major cities, with high walls surrounding them, in order to keep them from "contaminating" nearby neighborhoods.  Gates to these ghetto areas were closed after curfew time each evening, and all Jews had to be inside.  There were severe penalties for breaking the rules.  Ironically, the nature of the ghetto encouraged even closer relationships among Jews, rather than assimilation to Gentile European culture.  So Jews developed their own language, Yiddish (from the German word jüdisch, "Jewish"), as well as their own dress codes and many other distinctive aspects of a Jewish lifestyle which would be continued long after Jews left the ghettoes!

    Finding their lives defined so narrowly by the world around them, some Jews retreated into even more detailed study of the law.  They would spend months or years in precise interpretation of obscure rules in the Torah.  But many other Jews were looking for a way out.  For centuries, Jews had hoped that the Messiah would come in their lifetime.  Remember that Jews did not and do not see Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah.  But finally, in the 1600's, there appeared a person who claimed to be the Messiah.  His name was Sabbatai Zevi; his last name was pronounced Tsvee.  He must have been convincing, because a lot of people followed him.  But Sabbatai Zevi failed in his Messianic mission and eventually converted to Islam.

    If Messianism was not the way out of the darkness, what was?  The way out was the way in.  For many medieval Jews, the mystical path to inner spiritual union with God gave them the freedom for which they longed.  Mystical movements abounded in Europe from the Middle Ages up through the eighteenth century.  Poland especially nurtured those who called themselves Hasidim, "the pious."  They would gather around a spiritual leader, learn from him, sing and dance with him, and share meals with him.  The Chosen, an outstanding novel by Chaim Potok, shows the life of a Hasidic young man in New York, trying to relate to the world outside the close-knit community in which his father is the leader.  Do you remember the Hasidic term for a mystical leader?  It begins with R.

• Rabbi?  No, rabbi is the ordinary Hebrew word used for any teacher of Jewish law.  Jesus was a rabbi, and so is the spiritual of Congregation B'nai Sholom, the Jewish synagogue near Bristol.  A similar Yiddish word refers to a Hasidic Jewish mystic.

• Rabbit?  No, Rabbit was the name of the main character in several of John Updike's novels.  He was a Christian, not a Jew.  

• The Yiddish term Rebbe is clearly a variant of the traditional Hebrew word rabbi, which simply means "teacher."  A Hasidic rebbe, also known as a Zaddik, "righteous one," is regarded by his followers much the way that a cult leader is regarded.  He is considered to have near-magical powers and can help his disciples attain mystical closeness to God because of his exalted status.  This puts a big responsibility on the rebbe!  You won't find any rebbes in southwest Virginia.  Just down the road, at Patrick Henry High School, you can see some Rowdy Rebels, but they aren't normally very mystical.  If you want to understand the mystical strand in Judaism, you can read not only Chaim Potok's novels, but also books by Elie Wiesel.  You'll also find an interesting chapter on mysticism in your reading for this class from The Source by James Michener.

JEWISH "DENOMINATIONS"

    In this course we've looked at the three major groups of Jews in America.  About one-fourth of all American Jews are Orthodox, as is Leo Trepp, the author of your textbook  Often called traditional, Orthodox Jews follow the traditions of their ancestors who bound themselves closely together in Eastern Europe.  They follow Jewish law carefully, especially dietary laws and regulations of purity.  Orthodox Jews are especially prominent in the state of Israel today.  About one-fourth of all American Jews are Reform.  The most liberal group, Reform Jews accept only those Jewish laws which can be adapted to the modern world effectively.  Reform Jews see Judaism as a progressive religion, whose ancient traditions provide symbolic foundations, not binding obligations.  About half of all American Jews are Conservative, seeking a midpoint between Orthodox and Reform Judaism.  Individual Conservative Jewish congregations have a good bit of leeway in deciding exactly where that midpoint is.  

    I hope that this brief review of the historical foundations of Judaism has been helpful for you.  Comments and suggestions are welcome.  If you would like, you can send me e-mail: fkellogg@ehc.edu

To look at one of my other syllabi or a review program in a different course, go to my Home Page.

To review a different unit in the Judaism & Islam course, go directly to one of the following:

    Unit 2, Modern Judaism
    Unit 3, Foundations of Islam
    Unit 4, Modern Islam

If you prefer, you may return to the Emory & Henry College Home Page.

Last updated:  February 12, 2009