Notes for Religious Studies 369:

Introduction to Judaism

Modern Judaism

Emancipation

Definition:

The legal process, which began in Europe with the French Revolution, of granting to the Jews equal civic rights in the countries in which they reside.

By Extension:

The whole cultural and social movement promoting directly and indirectly Jewish integration.

Causes:

• Rise of nation-state and mercantilism. People were valued for their individual contributions to the national treasury.

• Liberal philosophy: Ideals of equality must be applied equally, even to Jews.

Implications of Emancipation:

Rights:

• It offered Jews rights as individuals.

  Previously they had enjoyed rights as a group.

The cost:

• The Jews were expected to give up their communal, cultural and national identities.

Challenges to traditional Jewish religious ideas:

• Messianism and National redemption

  • Often equated with ideals of Emancipation and Enlightenment, universal brotherhood, etc.

• Hope for restoration to homeland

• Ties to Jews in other countries.
  • Question of "dual loyalties."

• Perception of Galut (exile).

  • "Mission" theory of Jewish exile.

• Ideas of religious evolution and progress.

• Tension between universalism and need to proclaim superiority of Judaism.

• Use of Hebrew.

• Jewish legal autonomy as a religious value.

• Religion would now be treated only as a matter of individual belief.

  • Less emphasis on practice and observance.
  • Transformation of Rabbi into clergyman.

• New emphasis on Bible.

• Anti-Jewish assumptions in European society

  • It was assumed by Christians that the Jews were a backward, materialistic people, lacking culture and spirituality.
  • Introduction of reforms in religous practice in order to conform to the aesthetic standards of the host society.
    
    • Some felt that this was a result of the Jews' forcible segregation, and would be remedied once Jews were permitted access to more advanced ideas and culture.
    • Jews often accepted these stereotypes, and felt the need to improve themselves, in order to be worthy of acceptance by the host society.
    • Demand for vocational retraining of Jews, often based on the assumption that the Jewish concentration on banking was part of their religion!
    • It was widely assumed that European liberal Protestant culture was the embodiment of universal enlightenment.

Some issues addressed by Napoleon's Assembly of Jewish Notables:

A bronze medal depicting Napoleon presenting the tablets of the new laws to a submissive and grateful Moses

• Jewish acceptance of secular law: civil divorce, polygamy, authority of rabbis and religious courts.
• Jewish attitudes towards gentiles: Intermarriage.
• Loyalty to their country.
• Economic participation: Status of money-lending as a Jewish profession.

Click here to read the full transcript of the Assembly of Jewish Notables

The Enlightenment

Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza

• Spinoza took the medieval rationalist approach to its extreme conclusions:
  No need for religion. Philosophy alone led to virtue.
• Traditional religion was only for the unenlightened, who needed the consolation of faith, piety, and the Holy Scriptures.
• God is not the personal or transcendental. Rather, Spinoza conceived of God as deus sive natura, "God who equals nature."
  --> God is no more than the totality of the physical universe, not something that transcends it.
• Tractatus Theologico-Politicus: Pioneered critical approach to study of Bible. Challenged belief in unified, revealed Torah..
• Spinoza argued that the laws and doctrines of the Torah had no objective validity, but served the political objective of disciplining the Hebrew who had recently been released from slavery.
• Spinoza was declared a heretic by the rabbis of Amsterdam in his day and excommunicated.
  He was seen by many Jews as a prototypical heretic or atheist.

Click here to read a section from Spinoza's Theological-Political Tractate

Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86)

• Biographical background

  • A traditionally observant Jew from Dessau who also excelled as a philosopher and prominent literary figure in Berlin societ.
  • Advocates of the Enlightenment used him as an proof for their claim that even Jews could be civilized and noble if permitted access to European culture.
    Gottfried Lessing had described a figure like Mendelssohn in his play Nathan der Weise).
  • Liberal Christians claimed that their religion embodied the values of universalism, rationalism and enlightenment. Judaism was presumed to be materialistic and parochial.
    Mendelssohn was challenge by Johann Lavater to either refute Christianity or convert.
  • Mendeslssohn responded by writing Jerusalem, a plea for religious tolerance and separation of church and state:

• Mendelssohn's Philosophy of Judaism

• Religious beliefs are derived from reason and science.
  --> There cannot be beliefs that are specific to a particular religion.
  --> There is no such thing as revealed theology, or Jewish belief.
• The Torah is not a book of belief, but of "revealed legislation."
• As such, it is an internal matter for Jews and is of no interest to other peoples.
• Seen this way, Judaism is actually more universalistic than Christianity. Judaism requires only that gentiles accept the teachings of the Noachide commanements. Christianity claims that salvation is possible only through faith in Christ.

Click here to read passage from Jerusalem

Mendelssohn's Programme to reform Judaism:

• Opposition to use of Herem (ban of excommunication, the principal means of the Rabbis' control over the Jewish community).
• Weakening of central authority accelerates rise of factionalism.
• Education of the Jewish masses:
• Translation of the Bible into German (in Hebrew letters).
• New Hebrew Bible Commentary.
• Hebrew Journals