Judaism

The history of Judaism in the United States is the story of several fresh beginnings. In the colonial period the character of the tiny American Jewish community was shaped by the earliest Sephardic immigrants. The community was officially Orthodox but, unlike European Jewish communities, was voluntaristic, and by the early 19th century much of the younger generation had moved away from the faith. By the mid-19th century a new wave of central European immigrants revived the declining community and remade it to serve their own needs. Primarily small shopkeepers and traders, the new immigrants migrated westward, founding new Jewish centres that were almost entirely controlled by laymen.

Temple Emmanuel synagogue, New York City, 1896.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Life on the frontier in an open society created a predisposition for religious reform, and it is significant that the greatest American Reform Jewish leader of the 19th century, Isaac Mayer Wise (1819–1900), was based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Wise sought to unite all of American Jewry in the new nontraditional institutions that he founded: the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (1873), Hebrew Union College (1875), and the Central Conference of American Rabbis (1889); but his ever more radical reforming spirit ultimately drove traditionalist elements into opposition.

The head of the traditionalists was Isaac Leeser (1806–68), a native of Germany, who had attempted to create an indigenous American community along the lines of a modernized traditionalism. After his death, Conservative forces became disorganized, but, in reaction to Reform, they defined themselves by their attachment to the Sabbath, the dietary laws, and especially to Hebrew as the language of prayer. Under the leadership of Sabato Morais (1823–97), a traditional Sephardic Jew of Italian birth, Conservative circles in 1886 founded a rabbinic seminary of their own, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

The eastern European immigrants who moved in large numbers to American shores from 1881 to 1914 were profoundly different in culture and manners from the older elements of the American Jewish community, and they and their descendants have made American Judaism what it is today. The bridge between the existing Jewish community led by German Jews of Reform persuasion and the new immigrant masses was the traditionalist element among the older settlers. A traditionalist, Cyrus Adler (1863–1940), cooperated with the German Reform circle of Jacob Schiff (1847–1920) in reorganizing the Jewish Theological Seminary (1902) and other institutions for the purpose of Americanizing the eastern European immigrants. Enough eastern European rabbis and scholars had immigrated, however, to create their own synagogues, which reproduced the customs of the Old World. In 1880 almost all of the 200 Jewish congregations in the United States were Reform, but by 1890 there were 533 synagogues, and most of the new ones founded by immigrant groups were Orthodox. The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, which was established in 1898 by elements associated with the Jewish Theological Seminary, was soon taken over by Yiddish-speaking recent immigrants for whom the seminary was much too liberal. In 1902 immigrant rabbis also formed their own body, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada (the Agudath ha-Rabbanim), which fostered the creation of yeshivas (rabbinic academies) of the old type. In 1915 two small yeshivas, Etz Chaim and Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Theological Seminary, merged and undertook a program of further growth, adding Yeshiva College of secular studies in 1928 and becoming Yeshiva University in 1945. The eastern European Orthodox elements concentrated primarily on Jewish education, and it was they who introduced the movement for Jewish day schools, analogous to Christian parochial schools. Gradually, an American version of Orthodoxy developed on the Neo-Orthodox model of Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–88), which combined institutional separatism with a certain openness to general culture.

The immigrants and their children had three desires: to advance socially by joining older congregations or forming their own in an Americanized image, to affirm an unideological commitment to Jewish life, and to maintain their ties to the overseas Jewish communities of their origin. With their strong sense of Jewish personhood, they introduced Zionism into American Jewish life and accepted the basic ideas of the Reconstructionism of Mordecai Kaplan (1881–1983), which was committed to Zionism. A small group of anti-Zionists remained a significant force in the 1930s and ’40s, but their central organization, the American Council for Judaism, represented the descendants of earlier German Jewish immigrants. The later immigrants took over all the earlier institutions of the Jewish community and imbued them with their own spirit.

American Jewish religious life is a continuum, from the most traditional Orthodoxy to the most radical Reconstructionism. In theory, all Orthodox groups agree on the revealed nature of all of Jewish law. For Reform groups, the moral doctrine of Judaism is divine and its ritual law is man-made; Conservatives see Judaism as the working out in both areas of a divine revelation that is incarnate in a slowly changing human history; and the Reconstructionists (who also include some Conservative and Reform Jews) view Judaism as the evolving civilization created by the Jewish people in the light of its highest conscience. The role of the rabbi is substantially the same in all three groups: no longer a Talmudic scholar but a preacher, pastor, and administrator, a cross between a parish priest and the leader of an ethnic group. Religious life for the three major Jewish denominations—Orthodox, Reform, and Conservative—revolves around the individual synagogue and the denomination to which it belongs. As religious identification has become increasingly respectable in American life, the Jews have followed the American norm, affiliating in greater numbers with synagogues, though often for ethnic or social rather than religious reasons. Judaism in other lands

Modernity came first to the Jewish people of Europe. It was therefore within the European context that representatives of important non-Ashkenazi communities—such as the proto-Zionist Sephardi Judah ben Solomon Ḥai Alkalai (1798–1878) of Sarajevo and the Luzzatto family and Elijah Benamozegh (1822–1900) in Italy—participated in variations of Jewish modernity. In England and France more so than in Germany or Russia, the central focus of Jewish experience was Wissenschaft des Judentums, with its Enlightenment ideology; there the “republic of scholarship” became the synagogue of the Jewish intelligentsia. In neither country did Reform Judaism gain a major foothold, for the Orthodox establishment liberalized its synagogue practice while retaining its essentially conservative outlook. In Anglo-Jewish life in the last decades of the 19th century, the two most pronounced modernist tendencies were the moderate, romantic traditionalism of Solomon Schechter (1847–1915) and the “renewed Karaism” of Claude Joseph Goldsmid Montefiore (1858–1938), whose version of religious reform was “back to the Bible.”

In South America and Canada, Jewish modernity appeared late, for European Jewry arrived in those places even later than in the United States, attaining significant numbers only in the 20th century. These communities were dependent on immigrant scholars and intellectuals for serious Jewish thought. Jews in the Arab lands in North Africa and the Middle East, living in traditional societies, entered modernity even later than those on the peripheries of Europe. Many of them received their first introduction to the Western world in schools set up by the Alliance Israélite Universelle (a Jewish defense organization centred in Paris), which combined Jewish education with the language and values of French civilization. Yet most of these communities remained traditionalist almost up to the moment when they were expelled or felt compelled to relocate, beginning in 1948, when the State of Israel was created. The ferment of modernity in all its forms is now being felt in their ranks. In Israel, which has received a large segment of Sephardic Jewry, the attention of these communities has turned to gaining equality with the more advanced Ashkenazim rather than to developing forms of modern Jewish thought.

Other groups that may be described as regional or ethnic include the Bene Israel, descendants of Jewish settlers in the Bombay region (now Mumbai) of India, whose deviation in some Halakhic matters from the present Orthodox consensus has raised problems for those among them who have migrated to Israel; the Falashas of Ethiopia, whose development has been almost entirely outside the mainstream described in this article; and the Black Jews of the United States, whose place in and relation to the rest of the community remains unclear. Contemporary Judaism

As a result of the Holocaust, Judaism has become a non-European religion; its three major centres, which together include more than three-fourths of world Jewry, are Israel, the Slavic region of the former Soviet Union, and the United States. Although Jews constitute only a small fraction of the population of the United States, Judaism plays an important role in American life; with Roman Catholicism and Protestantism it is regarded as one of the major American faiths. Similarly, in the international realm of Western religion, Judaism has been welcomed as a partner able to deal with other major religions as an equal on issues such as anti-Semitism, human rights, and world peace.

Within its own community, Jewry is faced with the increasing secularization of Jewish identity in its three major centres, each in its own way. In the United States the open society and the “melting pot” ideologies of past generations have fostered among many Jews a sense of Jewish identity increasingly devoid of concrete religious, national, or historical content; in the former Soviet Union, government policy from the 1930s had banned the teaching of Judaism and Jewish culture to the young and had severely discouraged any manifestation of Jewish identity as a sign of the political disloyalty of “rootless cosmopolitans”; and in Israel a secular nationalism has taken root, raising questions about the role that Judaism plays in the identity of the average Israeli.

Nonetheless, underneath the external secularization there are signs of a deep and persisting religious fervour, in which the sense of history, community, and personal authenticity figure as the intertwined strands of Jewish religious life, especially as it has been affected by the State of Israel. Some of the rituals of the Jewish tradition, especially the rites of passage at the crucial stages of individual existence, are almost universally observed; in the United States, for example, more than 80 percent of Jewish children receive some formal religious training. Among Jewish youth there is, in some circles, a quest for tradition. In the United States, Jewish communes have been established that seek new forms of Jewish expression; in Israel, groups such as Mevaqshe Derekh (“Seekers of the Way”) have tried to bridge secular Israeli culture and Jewish tradition and to maintain traditional Jewish ethical standards even in wartime; in Russia, thousands of young people gather on several occasions of the year to dance and sing and express solidarity in front of the synagogues in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Still, signs of major weaknesses persist. The rate of intermarriage among Jews in the Diaspora has increased, while regular synagogue attendance, at the very highest 20 percent in the United States, remains far below church attendance.

Despite their lack of traditional piety, there is a general sense among Jews that they remain Jews not because of the force of anti-Semitism but because of the attractiveness of their tradition and their sense of a common history and destiny. Although in 1945 the world Jewish community, decimated and horrified by the Holocaust, felt in danger of disappearing, there appeared to be no such despair in the last quarter of the century, when there was an expectation that Jewish communal feeling would remain strong—especially, for many or most Jews, in light of the existence of the State of Israel. Judaism enjoyed a heightened dignity in the eyes of the world, not only because of the creation of the State of Israel but also because of Judaism’s close relations with other world religions. Although the recurring phenomenon of the alienation of young Jews from their tradition was troubling, it was no more so than in recent past generations. Along with other major religions, Judaism’s most disturbing problem was how to deal with secular ideologies and the growth of secularism within its own ranks. Thus, at the beginning of the 21st century, it appeared that Judaism would have to contend with as many problems as the other major religions did, but it would face them with no less confidence—and with more confidence than it had felt at the start of the previous century. Arthur Hertzberg The Judaic tradition The literature of Judaism General considerations

A paradigmatic statement is made in the narrative that begins with Genesis and ends with Joshua. In the early chapters of Genesis, the divine is described as the creator of humankind and the entire natural order. In the stories of Eden, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel, humans are recognized as rebellious and disobedient. In the patriarchal stories (about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph), a particular family is called upon to restore the relationship between God and humankind. The subsequent history of the community thus formed is recounted so that God’s desired restoration may be recognized and the nature of the obedient community may be observed by his people: the Egyptian servitude, the Exodus from Egypt, the revelation of the “teaching,” the wandering years, and finally fulfillment through entrance into the “land” (Canaan). The prophetic books (in the Hebrew Bible these include the historical narratives up to the Babylonian Exile—i.e., Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings) also address the tension between rebellion and obedience, interpreting it within the changing historical context and adding new levels of meaning to the motif of fulfillment and redemption.

From this “narrative theology,” as it has been recited throughout the centuries, new formulations of the primal affirmations have been drawn. These have been clothed in philosophical, mystical, ethnic, and political vocabularies, among others. The emphases have been various, the disagreements often profound. No single exposition has exhausted the possibilities of the affirmations or of the relationship between them. Philosophers have expounded them on the highest level of abstraction, using the language of the available philosophical systems. Mystics have enveloped them in the extravagant prose of speculative systems and in simple folktales. Attempts have been made to encompass them in theoretical ethical statements and to express them through practical ethical behaviour. Yet, in each instance, the proposed interpretations have had to come to terms with the spiritual and intellectual demands arising out of the community’s experience. The biblical texts, themselves the products of a long period of transmission and embodying more than a single outlook, were subjected to extensive study and interpretation over many centuries and, when required, were translated into other languages. The whole literature remains the basis of further developments, so that any attempt to formulate a statement of the affirmations of Judaism must, however contemporary it seeks to be, give heed to the scope and variety of speculation and formulation in the past. Sources and scope of the Torah

The concept “Giver of Torah” played a central role in the understanding of God, for it is Torah, or “Teaching,” that confirms the events recognized by the community as the acts of God. In its written form, Torah was considered to be especially present in the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch), which themselves came to be called Torah. In addition to this written Torah, or “Law,” there were also unwritten laws or customs and interpretations of them, carried down in an oral tradition over many generations, which acquired the status of oral Torah.

The oral tradition interpreted the written Torah, adapted its precepts to ever-changing political and social circumstances, and supplemented it with new legislation. Thus, the oral tradition added a dynamic dimension to the written code, making it a perpetual process rather than a closed system. The vitality of this tradition is fully demonstrated in the way the ancient laws were adapted after the destruction of the Temple in 70 ce and by the role played by the Talmud in the survival of the Jewish people in exile. By the 11th century, Diaspora Jews lived in a Talmudic culture that united them and that superseded geographical boundaries and language differences. Jewish communities governed themselves according to Talmudic law, and individuals regulated the smallest details of their lives by it.

Central to this vast structure was, of course, the Jewish community’s concern to live in accordance with the divine will as it was embodied and expressed in Torah in the widest sense. Scripture, Halakhic and Haggadic Midrash, Mishna, and Gemara were the sources that Jewish leaders used to give their communities stability and flexibility. Jewish communities and individuals of the Diaspora faced novel and unexpected situations that had to be dealt with in ways that would provide continuity while making it possible to exist with the unprecedented. Prophecy and religious experience

Torah in the broad sense includes the whole Hebrew Bible, including the books of the Prophets. According to the Prophets, God was revealed in the nexus of historical events and made ethical demands upon the community. In Rabbinic Judaism the role of the prophet—the charismatic person—as a source of Torah ended in the period of Ezra (i.e., about the time of the return from the Babylonian Exile in the 5th century bce). This opinion may have been a reaction to the luxuriant growth of apocalyptic speculation, a development that was considered dangerous and unsettling in the period after the Bar Kokhba revolt, or Second Jewish Revolt (132–135 ce). Indeed, there seems to have developed a suspicion that reliance on unrestrained individual experience as a source of Torah was inimical to the welfare of the community. Such an attitude was by no means new. Deuteronomy (13:2–19) had already warned against such “misleaders.” The culmination of this attitude is to be found in a Talmudic narrative in which even the bat qol, the divine “echo” that announces God’s will, is ignored on a particular occasion. Related to this is the reluctance on the part of teachers in the early centuries of the Common Era to point to wonders and miracles in their own time. Far from expressing an ossification of religious experience—the development of the siddur (prayer book) and the Talmudic reports on the devotional life of the rabbis contradict such an interpretation—the attitude seems to be a response to the development of religious enthusiasm such as that exhibited in the behaviour of the Christian church in Corinth—as Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians reveals—and among gnostic sects and sectarians. Thus, even among the speculative mystics of the Middle Ages, where allegorization of Scripture abounds, the structure of the community and the obligations of the individual are not displaced by the deepening of personal religious life through mystical experience. The decisive instance of this is Joseph Karo (1488–1575), who was thought to be in touch with a supernal guide but who was at the same time the author of an important codification of Jewish law, the Shulḥan ʿarukh.

Admittedly, there have been occasions when Torah, even in the wide sense, has been rigidly applied. In certain historical situations the dynamic process of Rabbinic Judaism has been treated as a static structure. What is of greater significance, however, is the way in which this tendency toward inflexibility has been reversed by the inherent dynamism of the rabbinic tradition. Modern views of Torah

Since the end of the 18th century, the traditional position has been challenged both in detail and in principle. The rise of biblical criticism has raised a host of questions about the origins and development of Scripture and thus about the very concept of Torah, in the senses in which it has functioned in Judaism. Naturalistic views of God have required a reinterpretation of Torah in sociological terms. Other positions of many sorts have been and undoubtedly will be forthcoming. What is crucial, however, is the concern of all these positions to retain the concept of Torah as one of the central and continuing affirmations of Judaism. Haim Zalman Dimitrovsky Basic beliefs and doctrines

Judaism is more than an abstract intellectual system, though there have been many efforts to view it systematically. It affirms divine sovereignty disclosed in creation (nature) and in history, without necessarily insisting upon—but at the same time not rejecting—metaphysical speculation about the divine. It insists that the community has been confronted by the divine not as an abstraction but as a person with whom the community and its members have entered into a relationship. It is, as the concept of Torah indicates, a program of human action, rooted in this personal confrontation. Further, the response of this particular people to its encounter with God is viewed as significant for all humankind. The community is called upon to express its loyalty to God and the covenant by exhibiting solidarity within its corporate life on every level, including every aspect of human behaviour, from the most public to the most private. Thus, even Jewish worship is a communal celebration of the meetings with God in history and in nature. Yet the particular existence of the covenant people is thought of not as contradicting but rather as enhancing human solidarity. This people, together with all humanity, is called upon to institute political, economic, and social forms that will affirm divine sovereignty. This task is carried out in the belief not that humans will succeed in these endeavours solely by their own efforts but that these sought-after human relationships have their source and their goal in God, who assures their actualization. Within the community, each Jew is called upon to realize the covenant in his or her personal intention and behaviour.

In considering the basic affirmations of Judaism from this point of view, it is best to allow indigenous formulations rather than systematic statements borrowed from other traditions to govern the presentation. God

An early statement of basic beliefs and doctrines about God emerged in the liturgy of the synagogue some time during the last pre-Christian and first Christian centuries; there is some evidence to suggest that such formulations were not absent from the Temple cult that came to an end in the year 70 ce. A section of the siddur that focuses on the recitation of a series of biblical passages (Deuteronomy 6:4–9; Deuteronomy 11:13–21; Numbers 15:37–41) is named for the first of these, Shema (“Hear”): “Hear, O Israel! the Lord is our God, the Lord alone” (or “…the Lord our God, the Lord is one”). In the Shema—often regarded as the Jewish confession of faith, or creed—the biblical material and accompanying benedictions are arranged to provide a statement about God’s relationship with the world and Israel (the Jewish people), as well as about Israel’s obligations toward and response to God. In this statement, God—the creator of the universe who has chosen Israel in love (“Blessed art thou, O Lord, who has chosen thy people Israel in love”) and showed this love by the giving of Torah—is declared to be “one.” His love is to be reciprocated by those who lovingly obey Torah and whose obedience is rewarded and rebellion punished. The goal of this obedience is God’s “redemption” of Israel, a role foreshadowed by his action in bringing Israel out of Egypt. Unity and uniqueness

At the centre of this liturgical formulation of belief is the concept of divine singularity and uniqueness. In its original setting, it may have served as the theological statement of the reform under Josiah, king of Judah, in the 7th century bce, when worship was centred exclusively in Jerusalem and all other cultic centres were rejected, so that the existence of one shrine only was understood as affirming one deity. The idea acquired further meaning, however. It was understood toward the end of the pre-Christian era to proclaim the unity of divine love and divine justice, as expressed in the divine names YHWH and Elohim, respectively. A further expansion of this affirmation is found in the first two benedictions of this liturgical section, which together proclaim that the God who is the creator of the universe and the God who is Israel’s ruler and lawgiver are one and the same—as opposed to the dualistic religious positions of the Greco-Roman world, which insisted that the creator God and the lawgiver God are separate and even inimical. This affirmation was developed in philosophical and mystical terms by both medieval and modern thinkers. Creativity

This “creed,” or “confession of faith,” underscores in the first benediction the relation of God to the world as that of creator to creation. “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who forms light and creates darkness, who makes peace and creates all things.” It adds the assertion that his activity is not in the past but is ongoing and continuous, for “he makes new continually, each day, the work of creation”; thus, unlike the deity of the Stoic worldview, he remains actively present in nature (see Stoicism). This creed also addresses the ever-present problem of theodicy (see also evil, problem of). Paraphrasing Isaiah 45:7, “I form the light and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil,” it changes the last word to “all” (or “all things”). The change was clearly made to avoid the implication that God is the source of moral evil. Judaism, however, did not ignore the problem of pain and suffering in the world; it affirmed the paradox of suffering and divine sovereignty, of pain and divine providence, refusing to accept the concept of a God that is Lord over only the harmonious and pleasant aspects of reality. Activity in the world

The second and the third benedictions deal with divine activity within the realm of history and human life. God is the teacher of all humanity; he has chosen the people of Israel in love to witness to his presence and his desire for a perfected society; he will, as redeemer, enable humanity to experience that perfection. These activities, together with creation itself, are understood to express divine compassion and kindness as well as justice (judgment), recognizing the sometimes paradoxical relation between them. Taken together, they disclose Divine Providence—God’s continual activity in the world. The constant renewal of creation (nature) is itself an act of compassion overriding strict justice and affording humankind further opportunity to fulfill the divinely appointed obligation.

The basically moral nature of God is asserted in the second of the biblical passages that form the core of this liturgical statement (Deuteronomy 11:13–21). Here, in the language of its agricultural setting, the community is promised reward for obedience and punishment for disobedience. The intention of the passage is clear: obedience is rewarded by the preservation of order, so that the community and its members find wholeness in life; while disobedience—rebellion against divine sovereignty—shatters order, so that the community is overwhelmed by adversity. The passage of time has made the original language unsatisfactory (promising rain, crops, and fat cattle), but the basic principle remains, affirming that, however difficult it is to recognize the fact, there is a divine law and judge. Support for this affirmation is drawn from the third biblical passage (Numbers 15:37–41), which explains that the fringes the Israelites are commanded to wear on the corners of their garments are reminders to observe the commandments of God, who brought forth Israel from Egyptian bondage. The theme of divine redemption is elaborated in the concluding benediction to point toward a future in which the as-yet-fragmentary rule of God will be brought to completion: “Blessed is his name whose glorious kingdom is for ever and ever.” Otherness and nearness

Within this complex of ideas, other themes are interwoven. In the concept of the divine creator there is a somewhat impersonal or remote quality—of a power above and apart from the world—which is emphasized by expressions such as the trifold declaration of God’s holiness, or divine otherness, in Isaiah 6:3: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts….” The development of surrogate divine names for biblical usage, as well as the substitution of Adonai (“my Lord”) for the tetragrammaton (YHWH) in the reading of the Bible itself, suggests an acute awareness of the otherness of God. Yet the belief in the transcendence of God is mirrored by the affirmation of God’s immanence. In the biblical narrative it is God himself who is the directly active participant in events, an idea that is emphasized in the liturgical narrative (Haggada; “Storytelling”) recited during the Passover meal (seder): “and the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt—not by an angel, and not by a seraph, and not by a messenger….” The surrogate divine name Shekhina, “Presence” (i.e., the presence of God in the world), is derived from a Hebrew root meaning “to dwell,” again calling attention to divine nearness. The relationship between these two affirmations, otherness and nearness, is expressed in a Midrashic statement, “in every place that divine awesome majesty is mentioned in Scripture, divine abasement is spoken of, too.”

Closely connected with these ideas is the concept of divine personhood, most particularly illustrated in the use of the pronoun “thou” in direct address to God. The community and the individual, confronted by the creator, teacher, and redeemer, address the divine as a living person, not as a theological abstraction. The basic liturgical form, the berakha (“blessing”), is usually couched in the second person singular: “Blessed art thou….” This relationship, through which remoteness is overcome and presentness is established, illuminates creation, Torah, and redemption, for it reveals the meaning of love. From it flow the various possibilities of expressing the divine-human relationship in personal, intimate language. Sometimes, especially in mystical thought, such language becomes extravagant, foreshadowed by vivid biblical metaphors such as the husband-wife relation in Hosea, the “adoption” motif in Ezekiel 16, and the firstborn-son relation in Exodus 4:22. Nonetheless, although terms of personal intimacy are used widely to express Israel’s relationship with God, such usage is restrained by the accompanying sense of divine otherness. This is evident in the liturgical “blessings,” where, following the direct address to God in which the second person singular pronoun is used, the verbs are with great regularity in the third person singular, thus providing the requisite tension between nearness and otherness, between the personal and the impersonal. Modern views of God

The Judaic affirmations about God have not always been given the same emphasis, nor have they been understood in the same way. This was true in the Middle Ages, among both philosophers and mystics, as well as in modern times. In the 19th century, western European Jewish thinkers attempted to express and transform these affirmations in terms of German philosophical idealism. Later thinkers turned to philosophical naturalism, supplemented with the traditional God language, as the suitable expression of Judaism. In the first half of the 20th century the meaningfulness of the whole body of such affirmations was called into question by the philosophical school of logical positivism. The destruction of six million Jews in the Holocaust raised the issue of the validity of concepts such as God’s presence in history, divine redemption, the covenant, and the chosen people. Israel (the Jewish people) Choice and covenant

The concluding phrase of the second benediction of the liturgical section—“who has chosen thy people Israel in love”—clearly states that God’s choice to establish a relationship with Israel in particular was determined by divine love. The patriarchal narratives, beginning with the 12th chapter of Genesis, presuppose the choice, which is set forth explicitly in Deuteronomy 7:6–8 in the New Jewish Version:

For you are a people consecrated to the Lord your God: of all the peoples on earth the Lord your God chose you to be His treasured people. It is not because you are the most numerous of peoples that the Lord set His heart on you and chose you—indeed you are the smallest of peoples; but it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath He made with your fathers that the Lord freed you with a mighty hand and rescued you from the house of bondage, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Later rabbinic traditions on occasion sought to base God’s choice upon some special merit of Israel, and the medieval poet and theologian Judah ha-Levi suggested that the openness to divine influence originally present in Adam continued only within the people of Israel.

The background of this choice is the recurring disobedience of humankind narrated in Genesis 2–11 (the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, and the Tower of Babel). In the subsequent chapters of Genesis, Abraham and his descendants are singled out not merely as the object of the divine blessing but also as its channel to all humanity. The choice, however, demands a reciprocal response from Abraham and his lineage. That response is obedience, as exemplified in the first instance by Abraham’s readiness to leave his “native land” and his “father’s house” (Genesis 12:1). This twofold relationship was formalized in a mutually binding agreement, a covenant between the two parties. The covenant, thought by some modern biblical scholars to reflect the form of ancient suzerainty treaties, indicates (as in the Ten Utterances, or Decalogue) the source of Israel’s obligation—the acts of God in history—and the specific requirements those acts impose. The formalization of this relationship was accomplished by certain cultic acts that, according to some contemporary scholars, may have been performed on a regular basis at various sacred sites in the land before being centralized in Jerusalem. The content of the covenantal obligations thus formalized was Torah. Israel was bound in obedience, and Israel’s failure to obey provided the occasions for the prophetic messages. The prophets, as spokespersons for God, called the community to renewed obedience, threatened and promised disaster if obedience was not forthcoming, and sought to explain the covenant’s persistence even when it should have been repudiated by God.

The Tower of Babel, oil painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, 1563; in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.Courtesy of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The choice of Israel is expressed in concrete terms in the requirements of the precepts (mitzwot, singular mitzwa) that are part of Torah. The blessing recited before the public reading of the pentateuchal portions on Sabbath, festivals, holy days, fasts, and certain weekdays refers to God as “He who chose us from among all the peoples and gave us His Torah,” thus emphasizing the intimate relationship between the elective and revelatory aspects of God.

Israel’s role was not defined solely in terms of its own obedience to the commandments. Abraham and his descendants, for example, were seen as the means by which the estrangement of disobedient humankind from God was to be overcome. Torah was the formative principle underlying the community’s fulfillment of this obligation. Israel was to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6) functioning within humanity and for its sake. This task is enunciated with particular earnestness in the writings of the Prophets. In Isaiah 43–44, Israel is declared to be God’s witness and servant, who is to bring the knowledge of God to the nations, and in 42:6–7 it is described as a “covenant of the people, to be a light of the nations, to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prisons, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.” This double motif of a chosen people and a witness to the nations, joined to that of the righteous king, developed in the biblical and postbiblical periods into messianism in its several varieties.

The intimate relation between choice, covenant, and Torah determined the modality of Israel’s existence. Religious faith, far from being restricted to or encapsulated in the cult, found expression in the totality of communal and individual life. The obligation of the people was to be the true community, in which the relationship between its members was open, in which social distance was repudiated, and in which response to the divine will expressed in Torah was called for equally from all. One of the important recurring themes of the prophetic movement was the adamant rejection of any tendency to limit divine sovereignty to the partial area of “religion,” understood as the realm of the priesthood and cult. Subsequent developments continued this theme, though it appeared in a number of other forms. Pharisaic Judaism and its continuation, Rabbinic Judaism, resolutely held to the idea of the all-pervasive functioning of Torah, so that however the various Jewish communities over the centuries may have failed to fulfill this idea, the self-image of the people was that of a “holy community.” Israel and the nations

The double motif of “treasured people” and “witness” was not without its tensions as it functioned in ongoing history. Tensions are especially visible in the period following the return from the Babylonian Exile at the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 5th century bce. It is, however, doubtful whether the use of such terms as nationalism, particularism, or exclusivism are of any great help in understanding the situation. Emphasis has, for example, been laid upon Ezra 9:2 and 10:2, in which the reestablished community is commanded to give up wives taken from “the peoples of the land.” This is taken as an indication of the exclusive and nationalistic nature of Judaism, without reference to the situation in which a harassed contingent of returning exiles sought to maintain itself in a territory surrounded by politically unfriendly if not hostile neighbours. Nor does this recognize that foreigners were admitted to the Jewish community; in the following centuries, some groups engaged in extensive missionary activities, appealing to the individuals of the nations surrounding them to join themselves to the God of Israel, the one true God and the creator of heaven and earth.

A more balanced view recognizes that, within the Jewish community, religious universalism was affirmed by the same people who understood the nature of Jewish existence in politically particularistic (i.e., nationalistic) terms. To neglect either side is to distort the picture. In no case was the universalism disengaged from the reality of the existing community, even when it was expressed in terms of the ultimate fulfillment of the divine purpose, the restoration of the true covenantal relationship between God and all humankind. Nor was political particularism, even under circumstances of great provocation and resentment, misanthropic. The most satisfactory figure in describing the situation of the restored community, and one that continues to be useful in dealing with later episodes, is that of the human heartbeat, made up of two functions, the systole, or contraction, and the diastole, or expansion. There have been several periods of contraction and of expansion throughout the history of Judaism. The emphasis within the abiding tension has been determined by the historical situation in which the community has found itself. To generalize in one direction or the other is fatal to an understanding of the history and faith of the “holy community.” The people and the land

Closely related to the concept of Israel as the chosen, or covenant, people is the role of the land of Israel. In the patriarchal stories, settlement in Canaan is an integral part of God’s fulfillment of the covenant. The goal of the Israelites who escaped from Egypt and of those who returned from the Babylonian Exile is the same land, and entry into it is understood in the same fashion. As there was the choice of a people, so there was the choice of a land—and for much the same reason. It was to provide the setting in which the community could come into being as it carried out the divine commandments. This choice of the land contrasts significantly with the predominant ideas of other peoples in the ancient world, in which the deity or divinities were usually bound to a particular parcel of ground outside of which they lost their effectiveness or reality. Although some such concepts may very well have crept into Israelite thought during the period of the kings (from Saul to Jehoiachin), the crisis of the Babylonian Exile was met by a renewal of the affirmation that the God of Israel was, as Lord of all the earth, free from territorial restraint, though he had chosen a particular territory for this chosen people. Here again the twofold nature of Jewish thought becomes apparent, and both sides must be affirmed or the view is distorted.

Following the two revolts against Rome (66–73 ce and 132–135 ce), the Jews of the ever-widening dispersion continued, as they had before these disasters, to cherish the land. Once again it became the symbol of fulfillment, so that return to it was looked upon as an essential part of messianic restoration. The liturgical patterns of the community, insofar as they were concerned with natural phenomena (e.g., planting, rainfall, harvest, and the annual cycle) rather than historical events, were based on geography, topography, and agricultural practices of the land. Although some Jews continued to live in the land, those in the distant dispersion idealized it, viewing it primarily in eschatological terms—their destination at the end of days, in the world to come. The 11th-century poet Judah ha-Levi not only longed for it in verse but also gave it a significant role in his theological interpretation of Judaism and eventually sought to return to it from his native Spain.

It was not, however, until the 19th century that the land began to play a role other than the goal of pilgrimage or of occasional settlement by pietists and mystics. At the end of the 19th century the power of the territorial concept was released in eastern Europe in a cultural renaissance that focused, in part, on a return to the land and, in western and central Europe, in a political movement coloured by nationalist motifs in European thought. The coming together of these two strains of thought gave rise to Zionism. This predominantly political movement reflected a dissatisfaction with the overall status of the Jewish people in the modern world.

The political emphasis of Zionism aroused considerable opposition from three competing views of the status of the Jewish people. The first opposition came from some traditionalist Jews (now called “Orthodox” or “ultra-Orthodox”) who were convinced that the Jewish nation must remain a solely religious community in the Diaspora and even in the land of Israel. They accepted the political rule of the Gentiles until the time when God will send his messiah to redeem the Jewish people by supernaturally returning all of them to the land of Israel in order to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.

The second opposition came from acculturated Jews in western Europe and North America who believed that Jews are part of larger secular polities and that their role in them should be that of a communion of like-minded religious believers, similar to that of the Catholic and Protestant denominations.

The third opposition came from some eastern European Jews who maintained that the Jewish people should seek their own national status in the territories in which they were presently living, similar to the resurgence of nationalism among a number of smaller nations living under the Austro-Hungarian or Russian empires. It was not until the Nazi Holocaust in the middle of the 20th century that the vast majority of Jews regarded Zionism, if not as the solution to the “Jewish question,” then as something the Jews could not very well survive without. After this time, Jewish opposition to Zionism was confined to peripheral groups on the right who still saw Zionism as pseudo-messianism and to peripheral groups on the left who still saw Zionism as isolating Jews from more important universalist goals. Modern views of the people Israel

The nature of the people Israel and of the land of Israel has been variously interpreted in the history of Jewish thought. In modern times some interpretations have been deeply influenced by contemporary political and social discussions in the general community. Thus, for example, Zionist theoreticians were influenced by concepts of political nationalism on the one hand and by socialist ideas on the other. Further, the challenge to traditional theological concepts in the 19th century raised issues about the meaning of the choice of Israel, and Jewish thinkers borrowed from romantic nationalism ideas such as the “genius” of the people. In the 20th century, attempts were made to approach the question sociologically, dismissing the theological mode as unhelpful. The concept of the chosen people was accordingly understood as indicating a specific role deliberately undertaken by the Jewish people and similar to that espoused by other groups (e.g., manifest destiny by the American people). The establishment of the State of Israel motivated some thinkers to call for a repudiation of the idea, in keeping with the position that normal existence for the Jews requires the dismissal of such concepts. Although only a small minority of Jewish thinkers espoused this position, the concept of the choice of Israel was not without theological difficulties. In the late 20th century there were also some important attempts by Jewish thinkers to develop a theology of election.

The most important scholarship on the concept of “chosenness” was Michael Wyschogrod’s The Body of Faith (1983) and David Novak’s The Election of Israel (1995). Wyschogrod held that the people of Israel were elected because of God’s exceptional love for them and that God’s love existed prior to the revelation to Moses on Mount Sinai. Novak also accepted the traditional belief that God formed a unique relationship with Israel but maintained that God extends his covenant to the world and that the particularity of Israel’s election is implicated in the general covenant with the world and vice versa. Humanity The image of God

In Genesis 1:26, 27; 5:1; and 9:6 two terms occur, “image” and “likeness,” that seem to indicate clearly the biblical understanding of essential human nature: humans are created in the image and likeness of God. Yet the texts in which these terms are used are not entirely unambiguous; the idea they point to does not appear elsewhere in Scriptures, and the concept is not too prominent in the rabbinic interpretations. What the image and likeness of God, or the divine image, refers to in the biblical texts is not made explicit, and, in light of the fact that the texts are dominated by psychosomatic conceptions of the nature of humanity (i.e., involving both soul and body), it is not possible to escape entirely the implication of “bodily” similarity. What the terms meant in their context at the time and whether they reflect mythological usages taken over from other Middle Eastern thought are by no means certain. However, according to Akiba, the most prominent 2nd-century-ce rabbi, the “image” of God seems to mean the unique human capacity for a spiritual relationship with him; this interpretation thus avoids any suggestion of a physical similarity between God and humans. The earthly-spiritual creature

A dualistic interpretation of humanity was offered in parts of the ancient Jewish community that were deeply influenced by Greek philosophical ideas. In this understanding, the divine likeness is identified with the immortal, intellectual soul as contrasted to the body. Other ancient and modern thinkers have understood the likeness as ethical, placing particular emphasis on freedom of the will. Clearly, no doctrine of humanity can be erected on the basis of these several verses alone—a broader view must be taken. A careful examination of the biblical material, particularly the words nefesh, neshama, and ruaḥ—which are often too broadly translated as “soul” and “spirit”—indicates that these terms must not be understood as referring to the psychical side of a psychophysical pair. A human being does not possess a nefesh but rather is a nefesh, as Genesis 2:7 says, “wayehi ha-adam le-nefesh ḥayya” (“…and the man became a living being”). Humans are, for most of the biblical writers, “a unit of vital power,” not a dual creature separable into two distinct parts of unequal importance and value. While this understanding of human nature dominated biblical thought, in apocalyptic literature (2nd century bce–2nd century ce) the term nefesh was viewed as a separable psychical entity with existence apart from the body. This conception of human nature was not entirely divorced from the unitary biblical view, but a body-soul dualism (see mind-body dualism) was effectively present in such literature. In the Alexandrian version of Hellenistic Judaism, the orientation toward Greek philosophy, particularly the Platonic view of the soul imprisoned in the flesh, led to a clear-cut dualism with a negative attitude toward the body. Rabbinic thought remained closer to the biblical position, at least in its understanding of the human being as a psychosomatic unit, even though the temporary separation of the components after death was an accepted position.

The biblical view of the human as an inseparable psychosomatic unit meant that death was understood to be human dissolution. Although a human being ceased to be, this dissolution was not utter extinction. Some of the power that functioned in the unit may have continued to exist, but it was not to be understood any longer as life. The existence of the dead in sheol, the netherworld, was not living but the shadow or echo of living. For most biblical writers this existence was without experience, either of God or of anything else; it was unrelated to events. To call it immortality is to empty that term of any vital significance. The concept of sheol, however, along with belief in the possibility of the miraculous restoration of dead individuals to life and even the idea of the revival of the people of Israel from the “death” of exile, provided a foothold for the development of belief in the resurrection of the dead body at some time in the future. The stimulus for this may have come from ancient Iranian religion, in which the dualistic cosmic struggle is eventually won by life through the resurrection of the dead. This idea appeared in sketchy form in postexilic writings (Isaiah 26:19; Daniel 12:2). In this view there is life only in the psychosomatic unit now restored. This restoration was bound up with the eschatological hope of Israel and was limited to the righteous. In subsequent apocalyptic literature, a sharper distinction between body and soul was entertained, and the latter was conceived of as existing separately in a disembodied state after death. Although at this point the doctrine of the resurrection of the body was not put aside, the direction of thinking changed. The shades of sheol were now thought of as souls, and real personal survival—with continuity between life on earth and in sheol—was posited. Greek ideas, with their individualistic bent, influenced Jewish thought, so that the idea of a resurrection that was in some way related to a final historical consummation began to recede. True life after death was now seen as release from the bondage of the body, so that in place of or alongside of the afterlife of physical resurrection was set the afterlife of the immortal soul.

It was not the status of the soul, however, that concerned the biblical and rabbinic thinkers. Instead, the latter’s discussions of biblical themes emphasized the ethical import of the composite nature of human beings. Humans are in a state of tension or equilibrium between the two foci of creation, the “heavenly” and the “earthly.” They necessarily participate in both. But this means that they are the only creatures who can truly serve their creator, for they alone, partaking of both sides of creation, may choose between them. It is this ability to make an ethical choice that is the distinguishing mark of humans. It is not derived from the “heavenly” side but resides in the dual nature of human existence. This view is clearly not a type of body-soul dualism in which the soul is the source of good and the body the basis of evil. Such an attitude, however, did appear in some rabbinic material and was often affirmed in medieval philosophical and mystical speculations and by some of the later moralists. An important development of biblical-rabbinic ideas, these later commentaries represent authentic attempts to come to terms with other currents of thought and with the problems and uncertainties inherent within the earlier materials themselves. The ethically bound creature

Humankind is then viewed as ethically involved. The central theme of the first 11 chapters of Genesis focuses on this responsibility, for the implicit assumption of the pre-patriarchal stories is the human ability to choose between obedience and disobedience. Rabbinic Judaism, taking up the covenant-making episode between God and Noah (Genesis 9:8–17), developed it as the basis of humanity’s ethical obligation. All humanity, not merely Israel, is engaged in a covenant relationship with God, which was spelled out in explicit precepts—variously enumerated as 6, 7, or even 10 and occasionally as many as 30—that reflect general humanitarian behaviour and are intended to assure the maintenance of the natural order by the establishment of a proper human society. The covenant with Israel was meant to bring into being a community that would advance the development of this society through its own obedience and witness.

Human nature, viewed ethically, was explained in Rabbinic Judaism not only as a tension between the “heavenly” and “earthly” components but as a tension between two “impulses.” Here again, fragmentary and allusive biblical materials were developed into more-comprehensive statements. The biblical word yetzer, for example, means “plan,” that which is formed in human minds. In the two occurrences of the word in Genesis (6:5; 8:21), the plan or formation of the human mind is described as raʿ, perhaps “evil” in the moral sense or maybe no more than “disorderly,” “confused,” “undisciplined.” Other occurrences in the Bible do not have this modifier. Nonetheless, the Aramaic translations (Targumim) invariably replaced it with bisha (“wicked”) wherever it occurred. Rabbinic literature created a technical term, ha-raʿ (“the evil impulse”), to denote the source within humans of their disobedience, and subsequently the counter-term yetzer ha-ṭov (“the good impulse”) was used to indicate humans’ obedience. These terms more clearly suggest the ethical quality of human duality, while their opposition and conflict point to human freedom and the ethical choices humans must make. Indeed, it is primarily within the realm of the ethical that Judaism posits freedom, recognizing the bound, or determined, quality of much of humans’ natural environment or physiological makeup.

This ethically free creature stands within the covenant relationship and may choose to be obedient or disobedient. Sin, then, is ultimately deliberate disobedience or rebellion against the divine sovereign. This is more easily observed in relation to Israel, for it is in this connection that the central concern of Judaism is most evident and discussed in greatest detail. The covenant relationship is not limited to Israel, because, according to Judaic tradition, all humankind stands within a covenant relation to God and is commanded to be moral and just; therefore, the same choice is made universally. In technical language, the acceptance of divine sovereignty by the people of Israel and by individuals within that community is called “receiving the yoke of the kingship.” This involves intellectual commitment to a basic belief, as expressed by the Deuteronomic proclamation: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one!” It also imposes obligations regarding communal and individual behaviour. These two responses are understood to be inextricably bound, so that rejection of the divine sovereign is manifest as denial of God both intellectually and practically. It amounts to “breaking the yoke of the kingship.” In more specific terms, sin is sometimes summed up under three interrelated headings: idolatry, murder, and illicit sexual behaviour, each of which involves rebellion, for it involves activities that deny—if not God’s existence—his commanding relationship and the requirement of human response. Such behaviour destroys the community and sets individual against individual, thus thwarting the ultimate purpose of God, the perfected human society.

If humans are free to choose rebellion and to suffer its consequences, they are also able to turn back to God and to become reconciled with him. The Bible—particularly the prophetic writings—is filled with this idea, even though the term teshuva (“turning”) came into use only in rabbinic sources. Basically, the idea grows out of the covenant: the opportunity to return to God is the result of God’s unwillingness—despite human failures—to break off the covenant relationship. Rabbinic thought assumed that even the direst warnings of utter disaster and rejection imply the possibility of turning back to God, motivated by remorse and the desire for restoration. Divine readiness and human openness are the two sides of the process of reconciliation. What was expressed in prophetic literature in relation to the immediate historical and political situation was stated in the synagogal liturgy in connection with pentateuchal and prophetic lessons and the homilies developed from them. Thus, the divine invitation was constantly being offered. Humans are called upon to atone for their rebellion by positive action in the other direction and are summoned to reconstitute wholeness in their individual and communal life.

Jewish existence, as it developed under rabbinic leadership following the two disastrous rebellions against Rome, was an attempt to reconstitute a community of faith expressed in worship in an ordered society in which the individual would live a hallowed life of response to the divine will. Although this plan was not spelled out in detail, it was probably understood to be the paradigm for the eventual reconstruction of humanity. Medieval and modern views of man

Although the Jewish view of human nature was centrally concerned with ethics, metaphysical issues, however rudimentary in the beginning, were also included in the developing discussion. Medieval philosophers, for example, sought an accommodation between the doctrine of the resurrection of the body and the concept of the immortality of the soul. The greatest of them, Moses Maimonides (1135–1204), propounded an extremely subtle position that equated immortality with the cleaving of the human intellect to the active intellect of the universe, thus limiting it to philosophers or to those who accepted a suitable philosophical theology on faith. Little or no consensus was evident in the modern period, though the language of resurrection or immortality was still used, even when its content was uncertain. Alongside this lack of agreement, however, Judaism’s basic affirmation about human nature remained the same: a human being is to be understood, however else, as a creature who makes free ethical choices for which he is responsible. Ethics and society The ethical emphasis of Judaism

Jewish affirmations about God and humans intersect in the concept of Torah as the ordering of human existence in the direction of the divine. Humans are ethically responsible creatures who are responsive to the presence of God in nature and in history. Although this responsiveness is expressed on many levels, it is most explicitly called for within interpersonal relationships. The pentateuchal legislation sets down, albeit within the limitations of the structures of the ancient Middle East, the basic patterns of these relationships. The prophetic messages maintain that the failure to honour these demands is the source of social and individual disorder. Even the most exalted members of society are not free of ethical obligations, as is seen in the ethical confrontation of David by Nathan (“Thou art the man”) for seducing Bathsheba and arranging to have her husband killed (2 Samuel 12).

What is particularly striking about Jewish ethical concerns is the affirmation that God is not only the source of ethical obligation but is himself the paradigm of it. In the so-called Code of Holiness (Leviticus 19), imitation of divine holiness is offered as the basis of human behaviour in both the cultic-ceremonial and ethical spheres. The basic injunction, “You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am Holy,” underlay the concern for economically vulnerable members of the community; obligations toward neighbours, hired labourers, and the physically handicapped; interfamilial relationships; and attitudes toward strangers (i.e., non-Israelites). Acceptable human behaviour was therefore “walking in all His ways” (Deuteronomy 11:22). The dialectical relation between God and man in the literary prophets also exhibits divine righteousness and divine compassion as patterns to be emulated in the life of the community.

This theme, imitatio Dei (“imitation of God”), is expressed succinctly in a commentary on Deuteronomy 11:22 that answers the question of how it is possible to walk “in all His ways”: “As He is merciful and gracious, so be you merciful and gracious. As He is righteous so be you righteous. As He is holy, strive to be holy” (Sifre Deuteronomy 85a). Even more daringly, God is described as clothing the naked, nursing the sick, comforting the mourners, and burying the dead, so that human beings may recognize their own obligations. Interpenetration of communal and individual ethics

What stands out in the entire development of Jewish ethical formulations is the constant interpenetration of communal and individual obligations and concerns. A just society requires just people, and a just person functions within a just society. The concrete expression of ethical requirements in legal precepts takes place with both ends in view, so that the process of beginning the holy community and the process of forming the ḥasid (“pious”), the person of steadfast devotion to God, are concomitant. The relationship between the two is, of course, often mediated by the historical situation, so that in some periods one or the other moves to the centre of practical interest. In particular, the end of the Judaean state (70–135 ce) truncated the communal aspect of ethical obligations, often limiting discussion to apolitical responsibilities rather than to the full range of social involvements. The reestablishment of the State of Israel in the 20th century therefore reopened for discussion areas that for millennia were either ignored or treated as mere abstractions. This implies that the full ethical responsibility of Jews cannot be carried out solely within the realm of individual relationships but must include involvement in the life of a fully articulated community.

This double involvement is most vividly apparent in the biblical period, when both were equally present as divine command and demand. In the rabbinic period, because of the new political context, the communal aspect receded, so that discussion was mainly oriented toward relationships between members of the Jewish community or between individuals as such and away from political responsibilities. Nonetheless, the virtues that were understood to govern these relationships were, in their biblical setting, communal as well. Righteousness and compassion had been obligations of the state, governing the relationship between political units, as the first two chapters of Amos make evident. At the same time, as Micah 6:8 shows, doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God were obligations of the individual as well. Given the situation of the Jewish Diaspora following the revolts against Rome in the 1st and 2nd centuries ce, the individual pattern became the primary object of concern. Theoretical ethical systems were not developed until the Middle Ages, but even in the early period it was understood that the dynamic of ethical theory stood behind the practical system of Halakhah, the enumeration of legal precepts. This meant that the law assumed an ethical core that existed prior to revelation and that the laws were just and merciful because God was just and merciful. Thus an attempt was made to reduce the hundreds of precepts to a small number expressing the ethical essence of Torah. The key moral virtues

In keeping with the rabbinic understanding of Torah, study also was viewed as an ethical virtue. Passages from the Mishna, which are repeated in the traditional prayer book, enumerate a series of virtuous acts—honouring parents, deeds of steadfast love, attendance twice daily at worship, hospitality to wayfarers, visiting the sick, dowering brides, accompanying the dead to the grave, devotion in prayer, peacemaking in the community and in family life—and conclude by declaring that the study of Torah is the premier virtue. The extracts enumerated in the Mishna and the prayer book exhibit the complex variety of ethical behaviour called for within the Jewish tradition. To parental respect and family tranquillity are added the responsibility of parents for children, the duties of husband and wife in the establishment and maintenance of a family, and ethical obligations that extend from the conjugal rights of each to the protection of the wife if the marriage is dissolved. The biblical description of God as upholding the cause of the fatherless and the widow and befriending strangers, providing them with food and clothing (Deuteronomy 10:18), remained a factor in the structure of the community. Ethical requirements in economic life are expressed concretely in passages such as Leviticus 19:35–36: “You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity. You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin” (ephah and hin are units of measure); another example is Amos’s bitter condemnation of those who “sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes” (Amos 2:6). Such injunctions, together with many other specific precepts and moral requirements, established the basis for a wide-ranging program that sought to govern, both in detail and in general, the economic life of the individual and the community.

Relations within the human sphere are not the only object of ethical concern; nature also is so regarded. The animal world, in the biblical view, requires merciful consideration, so that on the Sabbath not only humans but also their domestic animals are required to rest (Exodus 20:10; 23:12). Mistreatment of beasts of burden is prohibited (Deuteronomy 22:4), and wanton destruction of animal life falls under the ban (Deuteronomy 6–7). In the rabbinic attitude toward creation, all of nature is the object of human solicitude. Thus, the food-yielding trees of a city under siege may not be destroyed, according to Deuteronomic legislation (Deuteronomy 20:14–20). The enlargement of this and other biblical precepts resulted in the generalized rabbinic prohibition, “You shall not destroy,” which governs human use of the environment. The relation to non-Jewish communities and cultures

Although the end of the Jewish state reduced the scope of ethical judgments in the political sphere, relations between the Jewish community and other polities—particularly the Roman and Christian empires and the Islamic states—provided opportunities for the exploration of the ethical implications of such encounters. Because most of these situations were characterized by gross disparities of power, with the Jews the weaker party, prudential considerations were dominant. Despite this, Jewish authorities sought to bring to bear upon these external arrangements the ethical standards that governed the internal structures.

The problem of the relationship between the Jewish community, in whatever form it has existed, and other social units has been vastly complicated. The relation is ideally that of witness to the divine intent in the world. Practically, it has swung between the extremes of isolation and assimilation, in which the ideal has, on occasion, been lost sight of. Culturally, from its earliest beginnings, the people of Israel have met and engaged the ideas, forms, behaviours, and attitudes of their neighbours constructively. Israel reformulated what it received in terms of its own commitments and affirmations. On more than a few occasions, as in the period of settlement in Canaan, it rejected the religious and cultural ideas and forms of the indigenous population. On other occasions—as in Islamic Spain from the 8th to the 15th century—it actively sought out the ideas and cultural patterns of its neighbours, viewing them from its own perspective and embracing them when they were found to be of value. Indeed, the whole history of Israel’s relationship with the world may be comprehended in the metaphor, used previously, of the heartbeat with its systole and diastole. No period of its existence discloses either total rejection of or abject surrender to other cultural and political structures but rather a tension, with the focal point always in motion at varying rates. Judaism’s adjustment to and relation with other social and political units has involved larger aspects of communal and individual life. Whether or not under such circumstances it is helpful to describe Judaism as a civilization, it is important to recognize that, viewed functionally, much more must be included than is usually subsumed under the term religion in modern Western societies. The formulation of Jewish ethical doctrines

The ethical concerns of Judaism have frequently been expressed in literary works. Not only were rabbinic writings constantly directed toward the establishment of legal patterns that embody such concerns, but in the medieval period the issues were dealt with in treatises on morals; in ethical wills, in which a father instructed his children about their obligations and behaviour; in sermons; and in other forms. In the 19th century the traditionalist Musar (“Moral Instructor”) movement in eastern Europe and the philosophical discussions of the nascent Reform movement in the West focused upon ethics. Indeed, since the political and social emancipation of the Jews, ethical and social rather than theological questions have been given priority. Often the positions espoused have turned out to be “Judaized” versions of ethical theories or political programs. In some instances, as in the case of the distinguished German Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), the result has been a compelling restatement of a secular philosophical ethics in Jewish form. In others it has resulted in no more than a pastiche. More crucial, however, is the question of the uniqueness and authority of Jewish ethics. The reestablishment of the Jewish state renewed the possibility that the full range of ethical decisions, communal and individual, may be confronted. In such a situation the ethical task of the people moves out of the realm of speculation to become actual again. The universe Creation and Providence: God’s world

Although Genesis affirms divine creation, it does not offer an entirely unambiguous view of the origin of the universe, as the debate over the correct understanding of Genesis 1:1 discloses. (Was there or was there not a preexisting matter, void, or chaos?) The interest of the author, however, was not in the mode of creation—a later concern perhaps reflected in the various translations of the verse, “In the beginning God created,” which could signify what medieval philosophers designated creatio ex nihilo (“creation out of nothing”). He was concerned rather to affirm that the totality of existence—inanimate (Genesis 1:3–19), living (20–25), and human (26–31)—derived immediately from the same divine source. As divine creation, the universe is transparent to the presence of God, so that the Psalmist said, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims [that it is] the work of his hands” (19:1). Indeed, the repeated phrase, “And God saw how good it was” (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 25, 31), may be understood as the foundation of this affirmation, for the workmanship discloses the workman. The observed order of the universe is further understood by the biblical author as the direct result of a covenantal relationship between the world and God: “So long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). This doctrine of the providential ordering of the universe, reaffirmed in Rabbinic Judaism, is not without its difficulties, as in the liturgical change made in Isaiah 45:7 to avoid ascribing evil to God. Despite the problem of theodicy, Judaism has not acquiesced to the mood reported in the Palestinian Targum to Genesis 4:8: “He did not create the world in mercy nor does he rule in mercy.” Rather, Judaism has affirmed a benevolent and compassionate God.

God’s creation, the physical world, provides the stage for history, which is the place of the human encounter with the divine. An early Midrash, responding to the question of why Scripture begins with the story of creation, asserts that it was necessary to establish the identity of the Creator with the giver of Torah, an argument basic to the liturgical structure of the Shema. This relationship is further emphasized in the Kiddush, the prayer of sanctification recited at the beginning of the Sabbath. That day is designated “a remembrance of creation” and “a recollection of the going-forth from Egypt.” Thus, creation (nature) and history are understood to be inextricably bound, for both derive from the same divine source. This being so, redemption—the reconciliation of God and man through and in history—does not ignore or exclude the natural world. Using the imagery of an extravagantly fecund world of nature, rabbinic thought expressed its view of the all-inclusive effects of the restored relationship. Humanity’s place in the universe

The human creature is, of course, subject to the natural order. Humans carry on their relationship with God in the world and through the world. The commandments of Torah are obeyed not solely as observances between humans and God but as actions between humans themselves and between humans and the world. The creation story describes the human as ruler over the earth and its inhabitants (Genesis 1:26–28; Psalms 8:5–9); nonetheless, far from being an arbitrary master, human dominion is limited by Torah. The regulations in the Torah are concerned not only with transactions between humans but also with human responsibilities to cultivated land, to the produce of the soil, and to domesticated animals. Bound in the network of existence, humans as moral creatures are responsible for creation in all its parts.

Even the destruction of the Jewish commonwealth in the 1st and 2nd centuries ce did not alienate Jews from these responsibilities, as the elaborate system of Mishna and Gemara reveals. The gradual but consistent exclusion of the Jews from immediate connection with large segments of the natural world, through legislation in Christendom and Islam, tended to dull their awareness of it. The recurring references to the natural world in the religious calendar, however, and the observation of harvest festivals even by city dwellers continued to remind the community of its ties. Thus, at the end of the 19th century, the nascent Zionist movement recognized that the regeneration of the Jewish people involved, among other requirements, a responsible relation to the natural order expressed in its attitude toward and treatment of the land.

If nature as the place of divine disclosure has, during long periods of Jewish existence, assumed a somewhat subordinate role, it has never been rejected or been seen to be irrelevant to the divine purpose. Indeed, in Jewish eschatology, its restoration is part of the goal of history. Intermediary beings: angels and demons

The exact nature of nonhuman beings mentioned in Scripture—angels, or messengers (angel is derived from the Greek word angelos, which is the equivalent of the Hebrew word mal’akh, “messenger”)—is not altogether clear, and their roles seem ephemeral (see angel and demon). In the postexilic period, perhaps under Iranian influence, and in the late biblical and postbiblical literature, these beings emerge as more complete and often as clearly identifiable individuals with their own personal names. The unfocused biblical view gave way to an elaborate hierarchy of functionaries who acted, in some apocalyptic visions, as a veritable heavenly bureaucracy. Despite a consensus concerning their existence, there was little agreement about their role or importance. In some Midrashim, God takes counsel with them; in other sources, the rabbis urge Jews not to involve them but to approach God directly.

Like their counter-figures the demons, angels have a residual existence rooted in various layers of the Jewish experience and interpretation of the universe. At some times they are highly individualized and sharply realized; at others they are much more imaginary. The medieval philosophers and the early mystics saw them through Aristotelian or Neoplatonic categories. The Kabbalists continually invented new angels and fitted them into their complicated network of cosmic existence. Their role, however, even in periods of considerable emphasis, was peripheral, and they were outside the great movements and meanings of Jewish thought.

Contemporary philosophical speculation about the nature of the universe has, of course, required a response from Jewish thinkers. But, given the particular temper of a period in which metaphysics has not been central to much of theological discussion, no major statement has developed that has taken hold of the dominant positions and attempted to view them from the Jewish creationist perspective. The attempt within Reconstructionism to provide a naturalistic framework for Judaism, while courageous, seems to be based on a philosophical naturalism that many consider outmoded. Eschatology The future age of humankind and the world

The choice of Israel, according to the Bible, occurred because of humankind’s continual failure, by rebellion against its creator, to fulfill its divine potential. The subsequent inability of Israel to become the holy community and thereby a witness to the nations gave rise to the prophetic movement that summoned the people to obedience. An integral part of prophetic summoning, side by side with threats of punishment and warnings of disaster, was the vision of a truly holy community, a society fully responding to the divine imperative. This kingdom of the future was conceived of as entirely natural, functioning as any normal social and political unit. The future kingdom would be governed by a human ruler, who would carry out his tasks within the sphere of divine sovereignty, serving primarily to exhibit his own obedience and thus to stimulate the obedience of the entire people. This future monarch was often, though not always, portrayed in terms of an idealized David, using features of his life and reign that would emphasize submission to God, social stability, economic satisfaction, and peace. During the period of the monarchy, the prophetic demand was directed toward each succeeding king, with the hope—or even the expectation—that he would be or become the new David, the ideal ruler.

The Babylonian Exile added a new measure of urgency to this expectation, but it was not expressed in any uniform fashion. The later chapters of the Book of Ezekiel provide the constitution for the new commonwealth but do not describe the peculiar characteristics of the ruler, while the later chapters of the Book of Isaiah focus on several figures—including Cyrus II the Mede, who conquered the Babylonian Empire and freed the Jews from Babylonian captivity—who are seen as the divine instruments ushering in a new era. Although the virtues ascribed to these figures are extraordinary, they are neither superhuman nor suprahuman; indeed, they are required of all Israel and of all humanity. The frustrations of the postexilic period, when several attempts to bring the holy community into being were largely thwarted by the imperial designs of the great powers—as they had been in the preexilic period—led to an emphasis on the futuristic quality of messianic hope. This was abetted undoubtedly by external influences, such as Iranian thought, in which the cosmic rather than the historic aspect of a future era dominated. Because ancient cosmic myths had been part of the Israelite intellectual inheritance, as seen in literary usages throughout Scriptures, the impact of such ideas was to reinvigorate the mythic elements in Judaism. Thus, hopes for the future at the end of the Persian period and through the Hellenistic period comprised both historical expectations focused upon an earthly community and cosmic-mythic visions that moved on a broader stage. The latter were, of course, never entirely absent from historical expectations, for a renewal of nature was viewed as integral to the functioning of true society. The obedient community required, and was to be granted, a natural world in which true human relations could exist. In its most vivid form, the apocalypse (i.e., a visionary disclosure of the future), the literature of the period affords a remarkable insight into the agonies and urgencies of the people (see apocalyptic literature). After the disappointments of the past are recounted, the present, in transparent disguise, is portrayed, and the imminent and desired intervention of God is described in awesome detail as a means of affirming and confirming the faith of those who saw themselves as the remnant, or perhaps the promise, of the holy community. The king-messiah and his reign

Israel’s hope was for the restoration of divine sovereignty over all of creation. Among the variety of expressions of such hope, that which centred around the idealized king assumed an ever more important (but never exclusive) role. Many of the writings that report the ideas and attitudes of the Jewish community in the period immediately preceding and following the rise of Christianity are either ignorant of or more probably indifferent to the personal element. God is envisioned as the protagonist of the end, actively intervening or sending his messengers (i.e., angels) to perform specific acts in ending the old era and inaugurating the new one. On the other hand, in some writings of the period the anointed king-messiah (Hebrew: mashiaḥ, “anointed”)—the title reflects the episode in 1 Samuel 16 in which David is thus singled out as the divinely chosen ruler—becomes more sharply defined as the central figure in the culminating events and, given the cosmic-mythic components, assumes suprahuman and, in some instances, even quasi-divine aspects. Although the doctrine of last things in Judaism is not necessarily messianic, if that term is properly limited to an inauguration of a future era through the action of a human, suprahuman, or quasi-divine person, the messianic version of eschatology played a more compelling role in Rabbinic Judaism than other modes. The same is true with regard to the locus of the “world (or age) to come.” Given the ingredients noted above, it was possible to construct various eschatological landscapes, ranging from the mundane to the celestial, from Jerusalem in the hills of Judah to a heavenly city. Indeed, medieval theologians, confronted with an embarrassment of riches, sought to combine them into an inclusive system that involved as many of the possibilities as could be brought together. In such patterns the messianic this-worldly emphasis was understood as a preliminary movement toward an ultimate resolution. The ideal ruler, the new David, would reestablish the kingdom in its own land (in Zion, or Palestine) and would reign in righteousness, equity, justice, and truth, thus bringing into being the holy nation and summoning all humankind to dwell under divine sovereignty. As a component of this reestablished kingdom, the righteous dead of Israel would be resurrected to enjoy a life in the true community that did not exist in their days. This kingdom, however long it was destined to endure, was not permanent. It would come to an end either at a predetermined time or as a victim of unrepentant nations and cosmic foes, at which point the ultimate intervention by God would take place. All the wicked throughout history would be recalled to life, judged, and doomed, and all the righteous would be transformed and transported into a new world; i.e., creation would be totally restored.

The particular emphases that one or the other of these ideas received and the ways in which they were interpreted—philosophically, mystically, and ethically—were determined most frequently by the situations and conditions in which the Jewish community found itself. With a considerable body of ideas at its disposal and with the details of none of them ever receiving the kind of affirmation given to statements about God, Torah, and Israel, freedom of speculation in the realm of eschatology was little restricted. Thus, Joseph Albo, in his work on Jewish “dogmas”—the Sefer ha-ʿiqqarim (1485; “Book of Principles”)—was not inhibited from denying that belief in the messiah was fundamental. The mystical movements of the Middle Ages found in eschatological hopes a crucial centre. The early Kabbala was little interested in messianism, for it reoriented such expectations in the direction of personal redemption. However, following the disasters of the late 15th–17th centuries (e.g., the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the Cossack massacre of the Jews in Poland), messianic speculation in all its varieties underwent a luxuriant growth, finally running wild in the movements surrounding Shabbetai Tzevi of Smyrna and later Jacob Frank of Offenbach. These tragedies for the Jewish communities once again resulted in deferring eschatological hopes or at least limiting their application. Secularization of messianism

In the 19th century, with the political emancipation of the Jews in western Europe and the development of an optimistic evolutionism, messianism was transformed by many liberal thinkers into a version of the idea of progress, a goal that was often thought of as immediately attainable through enlightened social and political action. When disillusionment with emancipation set in, messianism was even more completely secularized by segments of the community who saw its meaning and fulfillment in some form of socialism. In others it was absorbed into the emerging political nationalism—Zionism. Similar developments took place in eastern Europe, with parallel transformations. In the 20th century, particularly after the events symbolized by Auschwitz (a Nazi death camp in Poland, where more than one million Jews were killed), the earlier modern interpretations, particularly of messianism, but also of eschatology as a whole, were considered inadequate. Although no compelling statement was forthcoming, Jewish thinkers beginning in the second half of the 20th century attempted once again to come to grips with eschatological concepts in all their varieties and forms. Basic practices and institutions The hallowing of everyday existence

Systematic presentations of the affirmations of the Jewish community were never the sole mode of expressing the beliefs of the people. Maintaining an equal importance with speculation—Haggadic, philosophic, mystical, or ethical—was Halakhah (Oral Law), the paradigmatic statement of the individual and communal behaviour that embodied the beliefs conceptualized in speculation. Life in the holy community was understood to embrace every level of human existence. The prophets vigorously resisted attempts to limit the sovereignty of the God of Israel to organized worship and ritual. The Pharisees, even while the cult of the Jerusalem Temple was still in existence, sought to reduce priestly exclusiveness by enlarging the scope of sacral rules to include, as far as possible, all the people. Rabbinic Judaism, Pharisaism’s descendant, continued the process of democratization and sought to find in every occasion of life a means of affirming the presence of the divine. Some critics of Rabbinic Judaism, however, have seen the legal aspect of Jewish life as stifling. Although legalism is always a danger, spontaneity is not necessarily lacking in a world governed by Halakhah. Moreover, the intention of the Halakhic attitude is to remind Jews that every occasion of life is a locus of divine disclosure. This is most clearly seen in the berakhot, the “blessings,” that are prescribed to accompany the performance of a broad spectrum of human actions, from the routines of daily life to the restricted gestures of the cultic-liturgical year. In these God is addressed directly in the second person singular, his sovereignty is affirmed, and his activity as creator, giver of Torah, or redeemer—expressed in a wide variety of eulogies—is proclaimed. There are no areas of human behaviour in which God cannot be met, and the Halakhic pattern is intended to make such possibilities realities. The situation of the Jewish community, however, determines how this intention is realized. On more than one occasion, the Halakhic pattern has served as a defense against a hostile environment, thus becoming a kind of scrupulousness (an obsessive concern with minute details), but, just as often, the dynamic of the intention has broken through to reestablish its integrity and to hallow life in its wholeness.

soferModern sofer with a Torah scroll.DancingMan The traditional pattern of individual and familial practices

The traditional pattern of an individual’s life can be discerned by examining a passage from the Babylonian Talmud (tractate Berakhot 60b) that was reworked into a liturgical structure but which in its original form exhibits the intention discussed above. In this passage, the blessings accompanying one’s waking and returning to the routines of life are prescribed. There is a brief thanksgiving on awakening for being restored to conscious life; then a benediction is offered over the cock’s crowing; following this, each ordinary act—opening one’s eyes, stretching and sitting up, dressing, standing up, walking, tying one’s shoes, fastening one’s belt, covering one’s head, washing one’s hands and face—has its accompanying blessing, reminding one that the world and the life to which he has returned exist in the presence of God. These are followed by a supplication in which the petitioner asks that his life during the day may be worthy in all of its relationships. Then, as the first order of daily business, Torah, both written (Bible) and oral (Mishna), is briefly studied, introduced by doxologies to God as Giver of Torah. Finally, there is a prayer for the establishment of the kingdom of God, for each day contains within itself the possibility of ultimate fulfillment. As indicated, this was originally not a part of public worship but rather was personal preparation for a life to be lived in the presence of God (even today it is not, strictly speaking, part of the synagogue service, though it is frequently recited there).

Such individual responsibility marks much of Jewish observance, so that the synagogue—far from being the focus of observance—shares with the home and the workaday world the opportunities for divine-human encounter. The table blessings, Kiddush (the “sanctification” of the Sabbath and festivals), the erection of the booth (sukka) for Sukkoth (the Feast of Tabernacles), the seder (the festive Passover meal) with its symbols and narration of the Exodus, and the lighting of the lamps during the eight days of Hanukkah (the Feast of Dedication) are all the obligation of the individual and the family and have their place in the home. It is here too where the woman’s role is defined and where, as contrasted with the synagogue, she functions centrally. Given the traditional dietary regimen of the Jewish community—the exclusion of swine, carrion eaters, shellfish, and certain other creatures, the separation of meat and dairy products, the ritual slaughtering of animals, the required separation and burning of a small portion of dough (ḥalla) when baking, the supervision of the Passover food requirements, and many other stipulations—there exists a large and meticulously governed area in the home that is the sphere of woman’s religion. There seems not to have been a hierarchy of values in which the home-centred—as contrasted with the synagogue-oriented—practices were given an inferior status. In modern times, however—particularly in Western societies, where the pervasiveness of religious obligation has been replaced by ecclesiastical institutionalism on the prevailing Christian model—this whole crucial area has lost much of its meaning as a place of divine-human meeting. Thus, for many it is only the synagogue that provides such an opportunity, and the individual act has been reduced on the scale of values. With this downgrading, woman’s religion has lost much of its significance. However attenuated personal religious responsibility may have become, the intention of the Halakhic structure, the hallowing of the individual’s total existence, remains a potent force within the Jewish community.

synagogueOrthodox synagogue in Košice, Slovakia.Marian Gladis The traditional pattern of synagogue practices

The other focus of observance is the synagogue. The origins of this institution are obscure, and a number of hypotheses have been proposed to account for the appearance of this lay-oriented form of worship. According to various ancient sources, during the period of the Second Temple—following the return from Babylon and continuing until the Temple’s destruction in 70 ce—various non-sacrificial modes of worship emerged that were independent of the priesthood and the official cult. The reports by the philosopher Philo Judaeus and the historian Flavius Josephus in the 1st century, buttressed by the Dead Sea Scrolls, provide some knowledge of the practices of the contemporary Essenes. Rabbinic sources, including the earliest layers of the traditional order of worship, provide insights into an apparently Pharisaic mode, and passages from the Acts of the Apostles concerning James and other Jewish Christians suggest still other varieties. In any case, the practitioners of what eventually became Rabbinic Judaism observed a form of worship that, with the destruction of the Temple cult, provided a new centre and even absorbed enough from the defunct priestly institution to suggest continuity and legitimacy with the Judaic past. This was probably the basic pattern for synagogal liturgy in the millennia that followed.

The synagogue at Capernaum, northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, Israel, 3rd–2nd century bce.Lee Boltin

At the heart of synagogal worship is the public reading of Scriptures. This takes place at the morning service on Sabbaths, holy days, and festivals, on Monday and Thursday mornings, and on Sabbath afternoons. The readings from the Pentateuch are currently arranged in an annual cycle so that, beginning with Genesis 1:1 on the Sabbath following the autumnal festivals, the entire five books are read through the rest of the year. The texts for festivals, holy days, and fasts reflect the particular significance of those occasions. In addition, a second portion from the prophetic writings (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, as well as the three major and 12 minor Prophets, but not Daniel) is read on many of these occasions. The readings take place within the structure of public worship and are incorporated into ceremonies in which the Sefer Torah (“Book of the Torah”), the pentateuchal scroll, is removed from the ark (cabinet) at the front of the synagogue and carried in procession to the reading desk; from it, the pertinent text is chanted by the reader. The text for the service is divided into subsections varying from seven on the Sabbath to three at the weekday morning service, and individuals are called forward to recite the blessings eulogizing God as Giver of Torah before and after each of these. The order of worship is composed of the preparatory blessings and prayers, to which are added passages recalling the Temple sacrificial cult (thus relating the present form of worship to the past); the recitation of a number of Psalms and biblical prayers; the Shema and its accompanying benedictions, introduced by a call to worship that marks the beginning of formal public worship; the prayer (tefilla) in the strict sense of petition; confession and supplication (taḥanun) on weekdays; the reading of Scripture; and concluding acts of worship. This general structure of the morning service varies somewhat, with additions and subtractions for the afternoon and evening services and for Sabbath, holy days, and festivals.

The prayer (tefilla) is often called the shemone ʿesre, the “Eighteen Benedictions”—though it actually has 19—or the ʿamida, “standing,” because it is recited in that position. It is made up of three introductory benedictions (praise of the God of the Fathers, of God the Redeemer who resurrects the dead, and of God the Holy One who fills the earth with his glory) and three concluding acts (a prayer for the acceptance of the service, a thanksgiving, and a prayer for peace). Between the introductory and concluding sections there is a series of intermediate petitions for knowledge, well-being, acceptance of repentance, forgiveness of sin, and others. On the Sabbath and on festivals the petitions are replaced by benedictions that mention the specific occasion but are not petitionary; it is considered inappropriate to attend to workaday concerns at these times.

The general outline of this order of service is found throughout the entire Jewish world, but the details have varied in different periods and geographic and cultural areas. The public service, requiring the presence of at least 10 males, the minyan (“quorum”), is generally led by a synagogal official, the ḥazzan, or cantor, but any Jewish male with the requisite knowledge may act in this capacity, since there is no clerical class in the community to whom such leadership is limited.

The synagogue room itself has a very simple basic form, though it may be embellished considerably. The only requirements are a container for the Torah scroll(s), called the aron ha-qodesh (“the holy ark”), a chest against the east wall or a recessed closet with doors and a curtain; a prayer desk (ʿamud) facing the ark, at which the reader stands when reciting the service; and the pulpit (bima)—in or close to the centre of the room, according to some requirements—from which the Torah is read. In the Spanish-Portuguese tradition, only one desk (called teva) is used. The ark contains one or more scrolls, on which are written the Five Books of Moses. These are variously ornamented, depending upon the cultural region: European communities deck them in coverings of cloth, and Eastern communities (North African and Near Eastern) place them in wooden or metal containers. In addition, silver ornaments (rimonim) in the form of towers or crowns are often set on the tops of two rods on which the scroll is wound, and a breastplate (hoshen) and a pointer (yad) are suspended from them.

Torah crown, Poland, late 18th century; in the Jewish Museum, New York City.Graphic House/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Accommodations for the worshippers vary according to the cultural milieu, from rugs and cushions in Eastern synagogues to pews and standing desks in European ones. Given this essential simplicity, the synagogue room itself may be used for purposes other than worship—e.g., study and community assembly. Again, this varies with the cultural pattern. Ceremonies marking the individual life cycles

The life of the individual is punctuated by observances that mark the notable events of personal existence. A male child is circumcised on the eighth day following birth, as a covenantal sign (Genesis 17); the rite of circumcision (berit mila) is accompanied by appropriate benedictions and ceremonies, including naming. Females are named in the synagogue, generally on the Sabbath following birth, when the father is called to recite the benedictions over the reading of Torah. A firstborn son, if he does not belong to a priestly or a levitical family, is redeemed at one month (in accordance with Exodus 13:12–13 and Numbers 18:14–16) by the payment of a stipulated sum to a cohen (a putative member of the priestly family). At age 13 a boy is called to recite the Torah benedictions publicly, thus signifying his religious coming-of-age; he is thenceforth obligated to observe the commandments as his own responsibility—he is now a bar mitzvah (“son of the commandment”). Many Conservative and Reform congregations have instituted a similar ceremony, called the bat mitzvah, to celebrate the coming-of-age of girls. Marriage (ḥatuna, also qiddushin, “sanctifications”) involves a double ceremony, performed together in modern times but separated in ancient times by one year. First is the betrothal (erusin), which includes the reading of the marriage contract (ketubba) and the giving of the ring with a declaration, “Behold you are consecrated to me by this ring according to the law of Moses and Israel,” accompanied by certain benedictions. This is followed by the marriage proper (nissuʾin), consisting of the reciting of the seven marriage benedictions. The ceremony is performed under a ḥuppa," class="md-crosslink">ḥuppa, a canopy that symbolizes the bridal bower.

Ketubba, signed in Venice, 1711.The Newberry Library, Gift of Edward E. Ayer, 1911 (A Britannica Publishing Partner)

The burial service is marked by simplicity. The body, prepared for the grave by the ḥevraʾ qaddishaʾ (“holy society”), is clad only in a simple shroud and interred as soon after death as possible. In Israel no coffin is used. There are observances connected with death, many of which belong to the realm of folklore rather than Halakhic tradition. A mourning period of 30 days is observed, of which the first seven (shivah) are the most rigorous. During the 11 months following a death, the bereaved recite a particular form of a synagogal doxology (Kaddish) during the public service as an act of memorial. The doxology, devoid of any mention of death, is a praise of God and a prayer for the establishment of the coming kingdom. It is also recited annually on the anniversary of the death (yahrzeit). Holy places: the land of Israel and Jerusalem

The land of Israel, as is evident from the biblical narratives, played a significant role in the life and thought of the Israelites. It was the promised home, for the sake of which Abraham left his birthplace; the haven toward which those escaping from Egyptian servitude moved; and the hope of the exiles in Babylon. In the long centuries following the destruction of the Judean state by the Romans, it was a central part of messianic and eschatological expectations.

During the early period of settlement, there apparently were many sacred localities, with one or another functioning for a time as a central shrine for all the tribes. Even the establishment of Jerusalem as the political capital by David and the building of a royal chapel there by Solomon did not bring an end to local cult centres. It was not until the reign of Josiah of Judah (640–609 bce) that a reform centralized the cult in Jerusalem and attempted to end worship at local shrines. Although Josiah’s reform was not entirely successful, during the Babylonian Exile and the subsequent return, Jerusalem and its Temple defeated its rivals and became—in law, in fact, and in sentiment—the centre of Jewish cultic life. This did not inhibit, however, the rise and development of other forms of worship and even—on a few occasions—other cult centres. Nonetheless, no matter how unpopular the priesthood of the Jerusalem Temple became with some segments of the population—the Qumrān community seems to have denied its legality, and the Pharisees complained bitterly about its arrogance and exactions, attempting, when feasible, to impose and enforce Pharisaic regulations upon it—reverence for the Temple seems to have remained a widespread sentiment. With the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 ce, such reverence was transformed both by messianic expectations and by eschatological hopes into fervent devotion, which, over the following centuries, became idealized and even supernaturalized. The most ardently articulated statement of the crucial role of the land of Israel and the Jerusalem Temple is found in the Sefer ha-Kuzari of Judah ha-Levi, in which the two are seen as absolutely indispensable for the proper relationship between God and his people.

Symbolizing the significance of the land and of the city is the practice of facing in their direction during worship. The earliest architectural evidence derived from synagogue remains in Galilee indicates that the attempt was made to arrange the building in such a way that the worshippers faced directly toward Jerusalem. This practice may have continued even in the Diaspora, but at a later date the present practice of setting the holy ark in or before the east wall was established, so that “facing Jerusalem” is now more symbolic than actual. The sacred language: Hebrew and the vernacular tongues

The transformation of Hebrew into a sacred language is closely tied to the political fate of the people. In the period following the return from the Babylonian Exile, Aramaic, a cognate of Hebrew, functioned as the international or imperial language in official life and gained a foothold as a vernacular. It did not, despite claims made by some scholars, displace the everyday Hebrew of the people. The language of the Mishna, far from being a scholar’s dialect, seems to reflect popular speech, as did the Koine (common) Greek of the New Testament. Displacement of Hebrew—both in its literary form in Scriptures and in its popular usage—occurred in the Diaspora, however, as illustrated by the translation of Scriptures into Greek in some communities and into Aramaic in others. There seems also to have been an inclination on the part of some authorities to permit even the recitation of the Shema complex in the vernacular during the worship service. Struggles over these issues continued for a number of centuries in various places, but the development of formal literary Hebrew—a sacred tongue, to be used side by side with the Hebrew Scriptures in worship—brought them to an end. Although the communities of the Diaspora used the vernaculars of their environment in day-to-day living and even—as in the case of the communities of the Islamic world—for philosophical, theological, and other scholarly writings, Hebrew remained the standard in worship until modern times, when some western European reform movements sought partially—and a very small fraction even totally—to displace it. The rabbinate Legal, judicial, and congregational roles

The rabbinate, with its peculiar nature and functions, is the result of a series of developments that began after the disastrous second revolt against Rome (132–135 ce). The term rabbi (“my teacher”) was originally an honorific title for the graduates of the academy directed by the nasi, or patriarch, who was the head of the Jewish community in Palestine as well as a Roman imperial official. The curriculum of the school was Torah, written and oral, according to the Pharisaic tradition and formulation. The nasi appointed rabbis to the law court (the bet din) and as legal officers of local communities; acting with the local elders, they supervised and controlled the life of the community and its members in all aspects. A similar situation obtained in Babylon under the Parthian and Sāsānian empires, where the resh galuta, or exilarch (“head of the exile”), appointed rabbinical officials to legal and administrative posts. In time the patriarchate and exilarchate disappeared, but the rabbinate, nourished by independent rabbinical academies, survived. An authorized scholar, when called to become the judicial officer of a community, would at the same time become the head of the local academy and, after adequate preparation and examination, would grant authorization to his pupils, who were then eligible to be called to rabbinical posts. There was thus a diffusion of authority, the communities calling, rather than a superior official appointing, their rabbis. The rabbis were not ecclesiastical personages but communal officials, responsible for the governance of the entire range of life of what was understood to be the qehilla qedosha, the “holy community.”

In modern times, particularly in the Western world, the change in Jewish communal existence required a transformation of this ancient structure. The rabbinate became, for the most part, an ecclesiastical rather than a communal agency, reflecting the requirements of civic life in modern nation states. The education of rabbis is now carried on in seminaries whose structure and curriculum have been influenced by European and American academic institutions. The majority of their graduates serve as congregational rabbis, in roles similar to those of ministers and priests in Christian denominations but with some other functions deriving from the particular situation and nature of the Jewish community.

In the State of Israel certain larger areas, such as that of family law, are still reserved for the rabbinate. Even here, however, the rabbinate functions more as a counterpart to other ecclesiastical organizations, such as Christian and Muslim, than as an overarching and all-inclusive communal agency. Chief rabbinates

The existence of the offices of chief rabbi in the State of Israel derives from the situation in the Ottoman Empire, where the various religious communities functioned as quasi-political entities in a multiethnic conglomerate. Israel has two chief rabbis, one for the Ashkenazic (European) and one for the Sephardic (Eastern) community; they no longer function as the heads of whole communities but only of ecclesiastical organizations. The same is true in countries outside Israel that have the office of chief rabbi (e.g., Great Britain and France); in these countries the chief rabbi’s relationship with the government is like that of his ecclesiastical counterparts in the Christian churches. While the chief rabbis have certain kinds of limited authority because of their official position, they have jurisdiction only over those members of the Jewish community who are ready to accept it; others form their own ecclesiastical units and act without reference to the chief rabbinate. In some situations—particularly in the United States, where there is no similar structure—the title chief rabbi or grand rabbi has been assumed occasionally by individuals as a means of asserting superior dignity or even (fruitlessly) authority. General councils or conferences

The nature of the Sanhedrin in the last years of the Jewish commonwealth is a much disputed matter. The several councils mentioned in Talmudic literature are equally difficult to define with any precision. References scattered throughout medieval literature suggest the existence of councils and synods, but their composition and authority are uncertain. About the year 1000 a synod was held in the Rhineland in which French and German communities participated under the guidance of Rabbenu Gershom, the leading rabbinic authority of the region. In the late Middle Ages, representatives from the communities of Great Poland, Little Poland, Russian Poland (Volhynia), and Lithuania came together to form the Waʿad Arbaʿ Aratzot (Council of the Four Lands). At the beginning of the modern era, Napoleon in 1806 summoned the Assembly of Notables—representatives of communities under French dominion—to deal with questions arising from the dissolution of the older status of the Jews and their naturalization as individuals into the new nation-states. Decisions of the assembly that involved questions of Jewish law were subsequently submitted to a Grand Sanhedrin called by Napoleon to provide Halakhic justification for acts that the French imperial government had required of the Jewish communities.

During the 19th century the demand for the reform of Jewish life—principally the liturgy of the synagogue but many other aspects as well—prompted a series of rabbinical conferences and synods. A similar course of events took place in the United States. In both instances, after an initial period in which radicals, moderates, and conservatives argued their respective cases in the same forum, polarization set in and intellectual differences were transformed into competing organizations. In the 1970s the several tendencies within the Jewish communities in North America were institutionalized in rabbinical conferences and congregational unions—Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform—whose influence was in large measure limited to their adherents. There is also a worldwide body of Reform or Liberal Judaism—the World Union for Progressive Judaism. One result of these developments was the hardening of denominational differences, particularly in North America, especially between Orthodox and non-Orthodox (Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative) Judaisms. Modern variations

The preceding sketch of basic practices and institutions has attempted to describe the so-called traditional situation, though it has been indicated that even here there are variations—actually more than have been noted. Reference has also been made to changes that represent the abandonment of traditional practices on the basis of intellectual decisions about the nature of Judaism, its beliefs, practices, and institutions. Such changes are far too numerous to describe in detail, but it is important to indicate their motivation. The Halakhic system, both as a whole and in all of its parts, is viewed not as divinely revealed but rather as a human process that seeks to expose in mutable forms the meaning of the divine-human encounter. The practices and institutions, therefore, are understood as historically determined, reflecting the multifaceted experience of the people of Israel as they have sought to live in the presence of God. Historical scholarship has disclosed the origins, rise, development, and decline of these structures in the past and thus suggests the propriety of changes in the present and future that appear to fulfill the needs of the community and its members. However, this kind of historicism (the explanation of values and forms in terms of their historical conditions) has been applied in widely different ways since it was first used in the 19th century. Some have seen it as justifying a disengagement from much if not all of the traditional pattern and a recognition that only the spiritual essence is of consequence for Judaism. Others have argued that the burden of proof is always upon those who would introduce changes. Since the end of World War II, the question has been whether a reconstituted Halakhic system might not be a requirement of the day. The Jewish religious year

The calendar of Judaism includes the cycle of Sabbaths and holidays that are commonly observed by the Jewish religious community—and officially in Israel by the Jewish secular community as well. The Sabbath and festivals are bound to the Jewish calendar, reoccur at fixed intervals, and are celebrated at home and in the synagogue according to ritual set forth in Jewish law and hallowed by Jewish custom. The cycle of the religious year

According to Jewish teaching, the Sabbath and festivals are, in the first instance, commemorative. The Sabbath, for example, commemorates the Creation, and Passover commemorates the Exodus from Egypt over 3,000 years ago. The past is not merely recalled; it is also relived through the Sabbath and festival observances. Creative physical activity ceases on the Sabbath—as it did, according to Genesis, when Creation was completed; Jews leave their homes and reside in booths during the Sukkoth festival, as did their biblical ancestors. Moreover, Sabbath and festival themes are considered to be perpetually significant, recurring and renewed in every generation. Thus, the revelation of the Torah (the divine teaching, or law) at Sinai, commemorated on Shavuot, is considered an ongoing process that recurs whenever a commitment is made to Torah study.

An important aspect of Sabbath and festival observance is sanctification. The Sabbath and festivals sanctified the Jews more than the Jews sanctified the Sabbath and festivals. Mundane meals became sacred meals; joy and relaxation became sacred obligations (mitzwot). No less significant is the contribution of the Sabbath and festivals to communal awareness. Thus, neither Sabbath nor festival can be properly observed in the synagogue, according to the ancient tradition, if fewer than 10 Jewish males are present. Again, a Jew prays on Rosh Hashana and mourns on Tisha be-Av not only for his own fate but for the fate of all Jews. The sense of social cohesiveness fostered by the Sabbath and festival observances has stood the Jews well throughout their long, often tortuous history.

The seven-day week, the notion of a weekly day of rest, and many Christian and Islamic holiday observances owe their origins to the Jewish calendar, Sabbath, and festivals. The Jewish calendar Lunisolar structure

The Jewish calendar is lunisolar—i.e., regulated by the positions of both the Moon and the Sun. It consists usually of 12 alternating lunar months of 29 and 30 days each (except for Ḥeshvan and Kislev, which sometimes have either 29 or 30 days) and totals 353, 354, or 355 days per year. The average lunar year (354 days) is adjusted to the solar year (365¹/₄ days) by the periodic introduction of leap years in order to assure that the major festivals fall in their proper seasons. The leap year consists of an additional 30-day month called First Adar, which always precedes the month of (Second) Adar. A leap year consists of either 383, 384, or 385 days and occurs seven times during every 19-year period (the Metonic cycle). Among the consequences of the lunisolar structure are these: the number of days in a year may vary considerably, from 353 to 385 days; and the first day of a month can fall on any day of the week, that day varying from year to year. Consequently, the days of the week upon which an annual Jewish festival falls vary from year to year despite the festival’s fixed position in the Jewish month. Months and notable days

The months of the Jewish religious year, their approximate equivalent in the Western Gregorian calendar, and their notable days are as follows:

Tishri (September–October)

1–2 Rosh Hashana (New Year)

3 Tzom Gedaliahu (Fast of Gedaliah)

10 Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)

15–21 Sukkoth (Tabernacles)

22 Shemini Atzeret (Eighth Day of the Solemn Assembly)

23 Simḥat Torah (Rejoicing of the Law)

Ḥeshvan, or Marḥeshvan (October–November)

Kislev (November–December)

25 Hanukkah (Feast of Dedication) begins

Ṭevet (December–January)

2–3 Hanukkah ends

10 ʿAsara be-Ṭevet (Fast of Ṭevet 10)

Shevaṭ (January–February)

15 Ṭu bi-Shevaṭ (15th of Shevaṭ: New Year for Trees)

Adar (February–March)

13 Taʿanit Esther (Fast of Esther)

14, 15 Purim (Feast of Lots)

Nisan (March–April)

15–22 Pesaḥ (Passover)

Iyyar (April–May)

18 Lag ba-ʿOmer (33rd Day of the ʿOmer Counting)

Sivan (May–June)

6, 7 Shavuot (Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost)

Tammuz (June–July)

17 Shivaʿ ʿAsar be-Tammuz (Fast of Tammuz 17)

Av (July–August)

9 Tisha be-Av (Fast of Av 9)

Elul (August–September)

During leap year the Adar holidays are postponed to Second Adar. Since 1948 many Jewish calendars list Iyyar 5—Israel Independence Day—among the Jewish holidays. Origin and development

The origin of the Jewish calendar can no longer be accurately traced. Some scholars suggest that a solar year prevailed in ancient Israel, but no convincing proofs have been offered, and it is more likely that a lunisolar calendar similar to that of ancient Babylonia was used. In late Second Temple times (i.e., 1st century bce to 70 ce), calendrical matters were regulated by the Sanhedrin, or council of elders, at Jerusalem. The testimony of two witnesses who had observed the new moon was ordinarily required to proclaim a new month. Leap years were proclaimed by a council of three or more rabbis with the approval of the nasi, or patriarch, of the Sanhedrin. With the decline of the Sanhedrin, calendrical matters were decided by the Palestinian patriarchate (the official heads of the Jewish community under Roman rule). Jewish persecution under the Roman emperor Constantius II (reigned 337–361) and advances in astronomical science led to the gradual replacement of observation by calculation. According to Hai ben Sherira (died 1038), the head of a leading Talmudic academy in Babylonia, the Palestinian patriarch Hillel II introduced a fixed and continuous calendar in 359 ce. A summary of the regulations governing the present calendar is provided by Maimonides, the great medieval philosopher and legist, in his Code: Sanctification of the New Moon, chapters 6–10.

Fragments of writings discovered in a genizah (a depository for sacred writings withdrawn from circulation) have brought to light a calendrical dispute between Aaron ben Meir, a 10th-century Palestinian descendant of the patriarchal (Hillel) family, and the Babylonian Jewish authorities, including Saʿadia ben Joseph, an eminent 9th–10th-century philosopher and gaon (head of a Talmudic academy). Ben Meir’s calculations provided that Passover in 922 be celebrated two days earlier than the date fixed by the normative calendar. After a bitter exchange of letters, the controversy subsided in favour of the Babylonian authorities, whose hegemony in calendrical matters was never again challenged.

Calendars of various sectarian Jewish communities deviated considerably from the normative calendar described above. The Dead Sea, or Qumrān, community (made famous by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls) adopted the calendrical system of the noncanonical books of Jubilees and Enoch, which was essentially a solar calendar. Elements of the same calendar reappear among the Mishawites, a sect founded in the 9th century.

The Karaites, a sect founded in the 8th century, refused, with some exceptions, to recognize the normative fixed calendar and reintroduced observation of the new moon. Leap years were determined by observing the maturation of the barley crop in Palestine. Consequently, Karaites often celebrated the festivals on dates different from those fixed by the rabbis. Later, in medieval times, the Karaites adopted some of the normative calendrical practices while rejecting others. The Sabbath

The Jewish Sabbath (from Hebrew shavat, “to rest”) is observed throughout the year on the seventh day of the week—Saturday. According to biblical tradition, it commemorates the original seventh day on which God rested after completing the creation.

Scholars have not succeeded in tracing the origin of the seven-day week, nor can they account for the origin of the Sabbath. A seven-day week does not accord well with either a solar or a lunar calendar. Some scholars, pointing to the Akkadian term shapattu, suggest a Babylonian origin for the seven-day week and the Sabbath. But shapattu, which refers to the day of the full moon and is nowhere described as a day of rest, has little in common with the Jewish Sabbath. It appears that the notion of the Sabbath as a holy day of rest, linking God to his people and recurring every seventh day, was unique to ancient Israel. Importance

The central significance of the Sabbath for Judaism is reflected in the traditional commentative and interpretative literature called Talmud and Midrash (e.g., “if you wish to destroy the Jewish people, abolish their Sabbath first”) and in numerous legends and adages from more-recent literature (e.g., “more than Israel kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath kept Israel”). Some of the basic teachings of Judaism affirmed by the Sabbath are God’s acts of creation, God’s role in history, and God’s covenant with Israel. Moreover, the Sabbath is the only Jewish holiday the observance of which is enjoined by the Ten Commandments. Jews are obligated to sanctify the Sabbath at home and in the synagogue by observing the Sabbath laws and engaging in worship and study. The leisure hours afforded by the ban against work on the Sabbath were put to good use by the rabbis, who used them to promote intellectual activity and spiritual regeneration among Jews. Other days of rest, such as the Christian Sunday and the Islamic Friday, owe their origins to the Jewish Sabbath. Observances

The biblical ban against work on the Sabbath, while never clearly defined, includes activities such as baking and cooking, travelling, kindling fire, gathering wood, buying and selling, and bearing burdens from one domain into another. The Talmudic rabbis listed 39 major categories of prohibited work, including agricultural activity (e.g., plowing and reaping), work entailed in the manufacture of cloth (e.g., spinning and weaving), work entailed in preparing documents (e.g., writing), and other forms of constructive work.

At home the Sabbath begins Friday evening some 20 minutes before sunset, with the lighting of the Sabbath candles by the wife or, in her absence, by the husband. In the synagogue the Sabbath is ushered in at sunset with the recital of selected psalms and the Lekha Dodi, a 16th-century Kabbalistic (mystical) poem. The refrain of the latter is “Come, my beloved, to meet the bride,” the “bride” being the Sabbath. After the evening service, each Jewish household begins the first of three festive Sabbath meals by reciting the Kiddush (“sanctification” of the Sabbath) over a cup of wine. This is followed by a ritual washing of the hands and the breaking of bread, two loaves of bread (commemorating the double portions of manna described in Exodus) being placed before the breaker of bread at each Sabbath meal. After the festive meal the remainder of the evening is devoted to study or relaxation. The distinctive features of the Sabbath morning synagogue service include the public reading of the Torah, or Five Books of Moses (the portion read varies from week to week), and, generally, the sermon, both of which serve to educate the listeners. Following the service, the second Sabbath meal begins, again preceded by Kiddush (of lesser significance), conforming for the most part to the first Sabbath meal. The afternoon synagogue service is followed by the third festive meal (without Kiddush). After the evening service the Sabbath comes to a close with the havdala (“distinction”) ceremony, which consists of a benediction noting the distinction between Sabbath and weekday, usually recited over a cup of wine accompanied by a spice box and candle.

Havdala ceremony marking the end of the Sabbath with wine and candle; woodcut from a minhagim (“customs”) book, Amsterdam, 1662.Jewish Museum, New York City/Art Resource, New York The Jewish holidays

The major Jewish holidays are the Pilgrim Festivals—Pesaḥ (Passover), Shavuot (Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost), and Sukkoth (Tabernacles)—and the High Holidays—Rosh Hashana (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). The observance of all the major holidays is required by the Torah and work is prohibited for the duration of the holiday (except on the intermediary days of the Pesaḥ and Sukkoth festivals, when work is permitted to avoid financial loss). Purim (Feast of Lots) and Hanukkah (Feast of Dedication), while not mentioned in the Torah (and therefore of lesser solemnity), were instituted by Jewish authorities in the Persian and Greco-Roman periods. They are sometimes regarded as minor festivals because they lack the work restrictions of the major festivals. In addition, there are the five fasts—ʿAsara be-Ṭevet (Fast of Ṭevet 10), Shivaʿ ʿAsar be-Tammuz (Fast of Tammuz 17), Tisha be-Av (Fast of Av 9), Tzom Gedaliahu (Fast of Gedaliah), and Taʿanit Esther (Fast of Esther)—and the lesser holidays (i.e., holidays the observances of which are few and not always clearly defined)—such as Rosh Ḥodesh (First Day of the Month), Ṭu bi-Shevaṭ (15th of Shevaṭ: New Year for Trees), and Lag ba-ʿOmer (33rd Day of the ʿOmer Counting). The fasts and the lesser holidays, like the minor festivals, lack the work restrictions characteristic of the major festivals. Although some of the fasts and Rosh Ḥodesh are mentioned in Scripture, most of the details concerning their proper observance, as well as those concerning the other lesser holidays, were provided by the Talmudic and medieval rabbis. Pilgrim Festivals

In Temple times, all males were required to appear at the Temple three times annually and actively participate in the festal offerings and celebrations. These were the joyous Pilgrim Festivals of Pesaḥ, Shavuot, and Sukkoth. They originally marked the major agricultural seasons in ancient Israel and commemorated Israel’s early history; but, after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 ce, emphasis was placed almost exclusively on the commemorative aspect.

In modern Israel, Pesaḥ, Shavuot, and Sukkoth are celebrated for seven days, one day, and eight days, respectively (with Shemini Atzeret added to Sukkoth), as prescribed by Scripture. Due to calendrical uncertainties that arose in Second Temple times (6th century bce to 1st century ce), each festival is celebrated for an additional day in the Diaspora.

Pesaḥ commemorates the Exodus from Egypt and the servitude that preceded it. As such, it is the most significant of the commemorative holidays, for it celebrates the very inception of the Jewish people—i.e., the event which provided the basis for the covenant between God and Israel. The term pesaḥ refers originally to the paschal (Passover) lamb sacrificed on the eve of the Exodus, the blood of which marked the Jewish homes to be spared from God’s plague; its etymological significance, however, remains uncertain. The Hebrew root is usually rendered “passed over”—i.e., God passed over the homes of the Israelites when inflicting the last plague on the Egyptians—hence the term Passover. The festival is also called Ḥag or Matzot (“Festival of Unleavened Bread”), for unleavened bread is the only kind of bread consumed during Passover.

Leaven (seʾor) and foods containing leaven (ḥametz) are neither to be owned nor consumed during Pesaḥ. Aside from meats, fresh fruits, and vegetables, it is customary to consume only food prepared under rabbinic supervision and labelled “kosher for Passover,” warranting that they are completely free of contact with leaven. In many homes, special sets of crockery, cutlery, and cooking utensils are acquired for Passover use. On the evening preceding the 14th day of Nisan, the home is thoroughly searched for any trace of leaven (bediqat ḥametz). The following morning the remaining particles of leaven are destroyed by fire (biʿur ḥametz). From then until after Pesaḥ, no leaven is consumed. Many Jews sell their more valuable leaven products to non-Jews before Passover (mekhirat ḥametz), repurchasing the foodstuffs immediately after the holiday.

The unleavened bread (matzo) consists entirely of flour and water, and great care is taken to prevent any fermentation before baking. Hand-baked matzo is flat, rounded, and perforated. Since the 19th century, many Jews have preferred the square-shaped, machine-made matzo.

matzoMatzos.© Ewa Walicka/Shutterstock.com

Passover plate from Pesaro, Italy, 1614; in the Jewish Museum, New York City.Graphic House/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Seder plate for Passover.© iStockphoto/ThinkstockPassover eve is ushered in at the synagogue service on the evening before Passover, after which each family partakes of the seder" class="md-crosslink">seder (“order of service”), an elaborate festival meal in which every ritual is regulated by the rabbis. (In the Diaspora the seder is also celebrated on the second evening of Passover.) The table is bedecked with an assortment of foods symbolizing the passage from slavery (e.g., bitter herbs) into freedom (e.g., wine). The Haggada (“Storytelling”), a printed manual comprising appropriate passages culled from Scripture and Talmud and Midrash accompanied by medieval hymns, serves as a guide for the ensuing ceremonies and is recited as the evening proceeds. The seder opens with the cup of sanctification (Kiddush), the first of four cups of wine drunk by the celebrants. An invitation is extended to the needy to join the seder ceremonies, after which the youngest son asks four prescribed questions expressing his surprise at the many departures from usual mealtime procedure. (“How different this night is from all other nights!”) The father then explains that the Jews were once slaves in Egypt, were then liberated by God, and now commemorate the servitude and freedom by means of the seder ceremonies. Special blessings are recited over the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs (maror), after which the main courses are served. The meal closes with a serving of matzo recalling the paschal lamb, consumption of which concluded the meal in Temple times. The seder concludes with the joyous recital of hymns praising God’s glorious acts in history and anticipating a messianic redemption to come.

The Passover liturgy is considerably expanded and includes the daily recitation of Psalms 113–118 (Hallel, “Praise”), public readings from the Torah, and an additional service (musaf). On the first day of Pesaḥ, a prayer for dew in the Holy Land is recited; on the last day, the memorial service for the departed (yizkor) is added.

Originally an agricultural festival marking the wheat harvest, Shavuot commemorates the revelation of the Torah on Mount Sinai. Shavuot (“Weeks”) takes its name from the seven weeks of grain harvest separating Passover and Shavuot. The festival is also called Ḥag ha-Qazir (Harvest Festival) and Yom ha-Bikkurim (Day of First Fruits). Greek-speaking Jews called it pentēkostē, meaning “the fiftieth” day after the sheaf offering. In rabbinic literature, Shavuot is called atzeret (“cessation” or “conclusion”), perhaps because the cessation of work is one of its distinctive features, or possibly because it was viewed as concluding the Passover season. In liturgical texts it is described as the “season of the giving of our Torah.” The association of Shavuot with the revelation at Sinai, while not attested in Scripture, is alluded to in the Pseudepigrapha (a collection of noncanonical writings); in rabbinic literature it first appears in 2nd-century materials. The association, probably an ancient one, was derived in part from the book of Exodus, which dates the revelation at Sinai to the third month (counting from Nisan)—i.e., Sivan.

Scripture does not provide an absolute date for Shavuot. Instead, 50 days (or seven weeks) are reckoned from the day the sheaf offering (ʿOmer) of the harvest was brought to the Temple, the 50th day being Shavuot. According to the Talmudic rabbis, the sheaf offering was brought on the 16th of Nisan; hence Shavuot always fell on or about the 6th of Sivan. Some Jewish sectarians, such as the Sadducees, rejected the rabbinic tradition concerning the date of the sheaf ceremony, preferring a later date, and celebrated Shavuot accordingly.

In Temple times, aside from the daily offerings, festival offerings, and first-fruit gifts, a special cereal consisting of two breads prepared from the new wheat crop was offered at the Temple. Since the destruction of the Second Temple, Shavuot observances have been dominated by its commemorative aspect. Many Jews spend the entire Shavuot night studying Torah, a custom first mentioned in the Zohar (“Book of Splendour”), a Kabbalistic work edited and published in the 13th–14th centuries. Some prefer to recite the tiqqun lel Shavuʿot (“Shavuot night service”), an anthology of passages from Scripture and the Mishna (the authoritative compilation of the Oral Law). An expanded liturgy includes Hallel, public readings from the Torah, yizkor (in many congregations), and musaf. The Book of Ruth is read at the synagogue service, possibly because of its harvest-season setting.

Sukkoth (“Booths”), an ancient harvest festival that commemorates the booths the Israelites resided in after the Exodus, was the most prominent of the three Pilgrim Festivals in ancient Israel. Also called Ḥag ha-Asif (Festival of Ingathering), it has retained its joyous, festive character through the ages. It begins on Tishri 15 and is celebrated for seven days. The concluding eighth day (plus a ninth day in the Diaspora), Shemini Atzeret, is a separate holiday. In Temple times, each day of Sukkoth had its own prescribed number of sacrificial offerings. Other observances, recorded in the Mishna tractate Sukka, include the daily recitation of Hallel, daily circumambulation of the Temple altar, a daily water libation ceremony, and the nightly bet ha-shoʾeva or bet ha-sheʾuvah (“place of water drawing”) festivities starting on the evening preceding the second day. The last-mentioned observance features torch dancing, flute playing, and other forms of musical and choral entertainment.

sukkahSukkah (hut erected for the celebration of Sukkoth) with palm leaves, Herzliya, Israel, 2007.RonAlmog

Ideally, Jews are to reside in booths—walled structures covered with thatched roofs—for the duration of the festival; in practice, most observant Jews take their meals in the sukka (“booth”) but reside at home. A palm-tree branch (lulav) bound up together with myrtle (hadas) and willow (ʿarava) branches is held together with a citron (etrog) and waved. Medieval exegetes provided ample (if not always persuasive) justification for the Bible’s choice of these particular branches and fruit as symbols of rejoicing. The numerous regulations governing the sukka, lulav, and etrog constitute the major portion of the treatment of Sukkoth in the codes of Jewish law. The daily Sukkoth liturgy includes the recitation of Hallel (Psalms, 113–118), public readings from the Torah, the musaf service, and the circumambulation of the synagogue dais. On the last day of Sukkoth, called Hoshana Rabba (Great Hoshana) after the first words of a prayer (hoshana, “save us”) recited then, seven such circumambulations take place. Kabbalistic (mystical) teaching has virtually transformed Hoshana Rabba into a solemn day of judgment.

Hoshana Rabba is followed by Shemini Atzeret (Eighth Day of Solemn Assembly), which is celebrated on Tishri 22 (in the Diaspora also Tishri 23). None of the more distinctive Sukkoth observances apply to Shemini Atzeret; but Hallel, public reading from the Torah, yizkor (in many congregations), musaf, and a prayer for rain in the Holy Land are included in its liturgy. Simḥat Torah (Rejoicing of the Law) marks the annual completion of the cycle of public readings from the Torah. The festival originated shortly before the gaonic period (c. 600–1050 ce) in Babylon, where it was customary to conclude the public readings annually. In Palestine, where the public readings were concluded approximately every three years, Simḥat Torah was not celebrated annually until after the gaonic period. Israeli Jews celebrate Simḥat Torah and Shemini Atzeret on the same day; in the Diaspora, Simḥat Torah is celebrated on the second day of Shemini Atzeret. Its joyous celebrations bring the Sukkoth season to an appropriate close. Ten Days of Penitence

The Ten Days of Penitence begin on Rosh Hashana and close with Yom Kippur. Already in Talmudic times they were viewed as forming an especially appropriate period of introspection and repentance. Penitential prayers (seliḥot) are recited prior to the daily morning service, and, in general, scrupulous observance of the Law is expected during the period.

According to Mishnaic teaching, the New Year festival ushers in the Days of Judgment for all of humankind. Despite its solemnity, the festive character of Rosh Hashana is in no way diminished. In Scripture it is called “a day when the horn is sounded” and in the liturgy “a day of remembrance.” In the land of Israel and in the Diaspora, Rosh Hashana is celebrated on the first two days of Tishri. Originally celebrated by all Jews on Tishri 1, calendrical uncertainty led to its being celebrated for an additional day in the Diaspora and, depending upon the circumstances, one or two days in Palestine. After the calendar was fixed in 359, it was regularly celebrated in Palestine on Tishri 1 until the 12th century, when Provençal scholars introduced the two-day observance.

The most distinctive Rosh Hashana observance is the sounding of the ram’s horn (shofar) at the synagogue service. Medieval commentators suggest that the blasts acclaim God as ruler of the universe, recall the divine revelation at Sinai, and call for spiritual reawakening and repentance. An expanded New Year liturgy stresses God’s sovereignty, his concern for humankind, and his readiness to forgive those who repent. On the first day of Rosh Hashana (except when it falls on the Sabbath) it is customary for Jews to recite penitential prayers at a river, symbolically casting their sins into it; this ceremony is called tashlikh (“thou wilt cast”). Other symbolic ceremonies, such as eating bread and apples dipped in honey, accompanied with prayers for a “sweet” and propitious year, are performed at the festive meals.

Shofar made of ram's horn in the form of a fish, Ethiopia, 19th century; in the Jewish Museum, New York City.Graphic House/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The most solemn of the Jewish festivals, Yom Kippur is a day when sins are confessed and expiated and human beings and God are believed to be reconciled. It is also the last of the Days of Judgment and the holiest day of the Jewish year. Celebrated on Tishri 10, it is marked by fasting, penitence, and prayer. Work, eating, drinking, washing, anointing one’s body, sexual intercourse, and wearing leather shoes are all forbidden.

In Temple times, Yom Kippur provided the only occasion for the entry of the high priest into the Holy of Holies (the innermost and most sacred area of the Temple); details of the expiatory rites performed by the high priest and others are recorded in the Mishna and recounted in the liturgy. Present-day observances begin with a festive meal shortly before Yom Kippur eve. The Kol Nidre prayer (recited before the evening service) is a legal formula that absolves Jews from fulfilling solemn vows, thus safeguarding them from accidentally violating a vow’s stipulations. The formula first appears in gaonic sources (derived from the Babylonian Talmudic academies, 6th–11th centuries) but may be older; the haunting melody that accompanies it is of medieval origin. Virtually the entire day is spent in prayer at the synagogue; the closing service (neʿila) concludes with the sounding of the ram’s horn. Minor festivals: Hanukkah and Purim

Hanukkah and Purim are joyous festivals. Unlike the major festivals, work restrictions are not enforced during these holidays.

Hanukkah lamp from Hermann Stadt, Hungary, 1775; in the Jewish Museum, New York City.Graphic House/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Hanukkah commemorates the Maccabean (Hasmonean) victories over the forces of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (reigned 175–164 bce) and the rededication of the Temple on Kislev 25, 164 bce. Led by Mattathias and his son Judas Maccabeus (died c. 161 bce), the Maccabees were the first Jews who fought to defend their religious beliefs rather than their lives. Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days beginning on Kislev 25. The Hanukkah lamp, or candelabra (menorah), which recalls the Temple lampstand, is kindled each evening. One candle is lit on the first evening, and an additional candle is lit on each subsequent evening until eight candles are burning on the last evening. According to the Talmud (Shabbat 21b), the ritually pure oil available at the rededication of the Temple was sufficient for only one day’s light but miraculously lasted for eight days; hence the eight-day celebration. Evidence from the Apocrypha (writings excluded from the Jewish canon but included in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox canons) and from rabbinic literature shows an association between Hanukkah and Sukkoth, possibly accounting for the former’s eight-day duration. The celebration of Hanukkah includes festive meals, songs, games, and gifts to children. The liturgy includes Hallel, public readings from the Torah, and the ʿal ha-nissim (“for the miracles”) prayer. The Scroll of Antiochus, an early medieval account of Hanukkah, is read in some synagogues and homes.

As recorded in the biblical Book of Esther, Purim commemorates the delivery of the Persian Jewish community from the plottings of Haman, prime minister to King Ahasuerus (Xerxes I, king of Persia, 486–465 bce). Mordecai and his cousin Esther, the king’s Jewish wife, interceded on behalf of the Jewish community, rescinded the royal edict authorizing a massacre of the Jews, and instituted the Purim festival. The historicity of the biblical account is questioned by many modern scholars. It is now generally conceded that the Book of Esther was written in the Persian period (it contains Persian but not Greek words) and reflects Persian custom. Except for the Book of Esther, the earliest mention of the Purim festival is from the 2nd–1st centuries bce. The name of the festival was derived from the Akkadian pûru, meaning “lot.”

Scroll of Esther from Lwów (Lemberg), Galicia (now part of Poland), 1880; in the Jewish Museum, New York City.Graphic House/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

In most Jewish communities, Purim is celebrated on Adar 14 (some also celebrate it on the 15th, others only on the 15th). On the evening preceding Purim, men, women, and children gather in the synagogue to hear the Book of Esther read from a scroll (megilla). The reading is repeated on Purim morning. A festive meal during the day is accompanied by much song, wine, and merriment. Masquerades, Purim plays, and other forms of parody are common. Friends exchange gifts of foodstuffs and also present gifts to the poor. Aside from the Esther readings, the liturgy includes public reading from the Torah and recital of the Purim version of the ʿal ha-nissim prayer. The five fasts

Each of the fasts of the Jewish religious year recognizes an important event in the history of the Jewish people and Judaism. ʿAsara be-Ṭevet (Fast of Ṭevet 10) commemorates the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzar II, king of Babylonia, in 588 bce. Shivaʿ ʿAsar be-Tammuz (Fast of Tammuz 17) commemorates the first breach in the wall of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 ce. It initiates three weeks of semi-mourning that culminate with Tisha be-Av. Tisha be-Av (Fast of Av 9) commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in 586 bce and 70 ce. The most solemn of the five fasts, its self-denials are more rigorous than those prescribed for the others, and, like Yom Kippur, the fast begins at sunset. The book of Lamentations is read at the evening service, followed by poetic laments that are also recited on Tisha be-Av morning. Tzom Gedaliahu (Fast of Gedaliah) commemorates the slaying of Gedaliah, governor of Judah after the destruction of the First Temple. Taʿanit Esther (Fast of Esther), which commemorates Esther’s fast (compare Esther 4:16), is first mentioned in gaonic literature. The commemorative apsects of the fasts are closely associated with their penitential aspects, all of which find expression in the liturgy. Thus, Jews not only relive the tragic history of their people with each fast but are also afforded an opportunity to search within themselves and focus on their own (and their people’s) present and future. Penitential prayers (seliḥot) are recited on all fasts, and the Torah is read at the morning and afternoon services. The lesser holidays

A major festival in the biblical period, Rosh Ḥodesh (First Day of the Month) gradually lost most of its festive character. Since Talmudic times, it has been customary to recite Hallel on Rosh Ḥodesh. In the medieval period, aside from the liturgical practices carried over from the Talmudic period, it was celebrated with a festive meal. Always more diligently observed in Palestine than in the Diaspora, attempts to revive its full festive character have been made in modern Israel.

First mentioned in the Mishna, where it marks the New Year for tithing purposes, Ṭu bi-Shevaṭ (15th of Shevaṭ: New Year for Trees) assumed a festive character in the gaonic period. In the medieval period it became customary to eat assorted fruits on the holiday. In modern times it has been associated with the planting of trees in Israel.

Lag ba-ʿOmer (33rd Day of the ʿOmer Counting) is a joyous interlude in the otherwise-somber period of the ʿOmer Counting (i.e., of the 49 days to Shavuot), which is traditionally observed as a time of semi-mourning. Usually celebrated as a school holiday with outings, it is first mentioned in medieval sources, which attribute its origin to the cessation of a plague that was decimating the students of Akiba, an influential rabbinic sage of the 2nd century, and to the anniversary of the death of another great rabbi, Simeon ben Yoḥai (died c. 170 ce). The situation today

Modern attitudes toward the Sabbath and festivals vary considerably. Western secular Jews often are ignorant of, or choose to neglect, traditional observances. Attitudes of committed Jews in the Western world mostly reflect accepted Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform practice; for example, driving to synagogue services on the Sabbath is unthinkable in Orthodox circles, a matter of dispute among Conservative rabbis, and common practice for Reform Jews. Among Orthodox Jews, who best preserve the traditional observances, contemporary discussion centres mostly on technological advances and their effect on Halakhic practice. Whether or not hearing aids may be worn on the Sabbath and how crossing the international dateline affects the observance of Sabbaths and festivals typify the sort of problem addressed in Orthodox responsa (“replies” to questions on law and observance). Discussion in modern Conservative literature has raised the possibility of abolishing the obligatory character of the additional festival days in the Diaspora (except for the second day of Rosh Hashana), thus unifying Jewish practice throughout the world. Reform Jews, the most innovative of the three groups, observe neither the additional festival days (including the second day of Rosh Hashana) nor the fasts and have modified the liturgy and the observances of the holidays. More-radical Reform congregations have experimented freely with sound and light effects and other novel forms of synagogue service.

In Israel the Sabbath is the national day of rest, and Jewish holidays are vacation periods. Municipal ordinances govern public observance of the Sabbath and festivals; their enactment and enforcement vary with the political influence of the local Orthodox Jewish community. Attempts to interpret festivals along nationalistic lines are common; some kibbutzim (communal farms) stress the agricultural significance of the festivals. Independence Day is a national holiday; the preceding day, Remembrance Day, commemorates Israel’s war dead. Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance and Heroism Day)—marking the systematic destruction of European Jewry between 1933 and 1945 and recalling the short-lived ghetto uprisings—is observed officially on Nisan 27, but many religious Israelis prefer to observe it on Ṭebet 10 (a fast day), now called Yom HaKaddish Haklali (the day on which the mourner’s prayer is recited). Since the Six-Day War of June 1967, Iyyar 28—Liberation of Jerusalem Day—is celebrated unofficially by many Israelis (see Arab-Israeli wars). Appropriate services are conducted on all the aforementioned holidays by most segments of Israel’s religious community.

In Israel and the Diaspora, Jewish theologians often stress the timelessness and contemporaneity of holiday observances. Nevertheless, “revised” Passover Haggadot (plural of Haggada), in which contemporary issues are accorded a central position, appear regularly. Art and iconography The anti-iconic principle and its modifications

Although the Second Commandment (Exodus 20:4; Deuteronomy 5:8), “You shall not make yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth,” has been understood as absolutely prohibiting any and all artistic representation, this is not the only possible interpretation of these words. What is intended is a prohibition against the construction of idols, which were objects of worship in the cultural area in which the Israelites dwelt. Even in the Bible there are reports of artistic activity in the construction of the tent sanctuary and its ritual vessels (Exodus 25–31) and of the Temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings 6–7). The literalness with which the commandment was interpreted depended on the larger situation of the community, so that when there was external pressure toward religious conformity, such as during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in Antioch (175–164 bce), the anti-iconic attitude sharpened. During the Roman occupation of Israel, the presence of battle standards containing animal representations was looked upon as an affront, while extreme pietists would not even handle Roman coinage because of the images stamped on it. On the other hand, the walls of a 3rd-century-ce synagogue in Dura-Europus in Syria are covered from floor to ceiling with biblical scenes including human representations, and a number of synagogues in Palestine had elaborate mosaic floors decorated with the signs of the zodiac, representations of the seasons, and the like. Further, illuminated manuscripts from medieval Europe were frequently decorated with biblical figures, some quite clearly copied from Christian prototypes. There is also a fascinating image in a Haggada in which the human figures have bird heads. Synagogues from a later—though pre-emancipation—period (before the 18th century) were often decorated with animal representations. In the modern period the use of human representations has not been completely avoided, though nothing like the decorations of Dura-Europus has appeared. Ceremonial objects and symbols

Hanukkah lamp, silver with enamel medallions, by Johann Adam Boller, early 18th century, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; in the Jewish Museum, New York City.Jewish Museum, New York City

mezuzahMezuzah on a doorpost in the Old City of Jerusalem.© Mikhail Levit/Shutterstock.comGiven this general anti-iconic attitude, much of Jewish artistic endeavour has been directed toward the creation of ceremonial objects: Kiddush goblets, candlesticks and candelabra, spice boxes for the havdala ceremony at the end of the Sabbath, ornamented containers for the mezuzah (a parchment on which is written the passages from Deuteronomy 6:4–9 and 11:13–21, fastened to the doorpost on the right side as one enters), the silver crowns placed on the Torah scrolls, together with the mantles and breastplates for the same, and many other objects designed to embellish the performance of the large number of ritual acts of the individual and the community. All these vary in artistic quality, from the work of simple artisans to exquisitely produced works of master craftsmen.

Architecture

Dura-Europus, Syria: synagogue ruinsRuins of a synagogue, Dura-Europus, Syria.Heretiq

bird mosaicMosaic floor fragment from a synagogue or church, cut stone with mortar from Israel, late 5th–6th century ce; in the Jewish Museum, New York City.Photograph by Katie Chao. The Jewish Museum, New York City, gift of Erwin Harvith, U 7529The building of synagogues too is an expression of artistic interest and concern, as well as of religious and social function. Nothing is known of these edifices, if indeed there were any, until the Greco-Roman period. Then the Roman basilica often provided the appropriate model, because the basilican design incorporated what the synagogue required, including a spacious hall and galleries (for women). Whenever possible, synagogues were built on hilltops. At the front of the synagogue was a walled entrance court with a fountain for ablutions. Before it was destroyed, the Temple may have been oriented with its doors facing eastward, but after it was rebuilt they faced Jerusalem; still later, when the holy ark containing the Torah scrolls was placed in a fixed position, the orientation was reversed so that the central gate would not be blocked. Ultimately, however, the ark was placed in or against the east wall, without reference to the actual direction of Jerusalem. As the Diaspora grew larger, the new communities adapted the architectural forms of the surrounding culture. Many of the surviving buildings of the Muslim period in Spain have horseshoe arches and are decorated with the exquisite stucco arabesques that mark the era. The medieval period in Christian Europe saw a revival of a very strict anti-iconic attitude and a gradual rejection of the church edifice in favour of secular buildings as a model for the synagogue.

ZalaegerszegFormer synagogue, now a concert hall, Zalaegerszeg, Hungary.Kaboldy

JabnehSynagogue in Jabneh, Israel.Bukvoed

OradeaSynagogue on the banks of the Crişul Repede River at Oradea, Romania.Marcin SzalaThe increasingly limited role of the Jew in western European society and the enlargement of restrictions by church and state made it necessary to modify the structure of the synagogue. The doors no longer were in the wall facing the ark, the courtyard grew smaller, galleries were discontinued and side rooms served as the women’s section, and a double- rather than a triple-aisled construction was largely favoured. Similar developments took place in eastern Europe with the building of fortress-synagogues and the remarkable wooden synagogues of Poland. In the late 18th and the early 19th century, Baroque style had its day, followed by styles imitating Greek temples; Romanesque, Gothic, and Byzantine churches; and Moorish mosques. The various schools of functionalism and their commercial descendants have also influenced synagogue design. The best of these have brought together fine architectural design and beautifully conceived and executed decoration. The interior arrangement, even in some traditional synagogues, has been influenced by the Protestant sermon-centred form of worship, so that some of the unique forms that marked older structures are absent. The holy ark is, however, still a centre of attention and has often been treated in interesting and striking ways.

Paintings and illustrations

The use of paintings in the decoration of synagogues goes back to at least the 3rd century ce and is found in the late pre-emancipation and modern synagogues as well. Manuscripts too were illuminated with miniatures, and during the Renaissance the Scrolls of Esther and the beautifully decorated ketubbot (marriage contracts) appeared. Nonetheless, the appearance of Jewish artists in painting and sculpture is a modern phenomenon. Beginning in the 19th century, interest grew apace, and more and more Jews were to be found in these fields, often in the avant-garde. Some, such as Marc Chagall (1887–1985) and Jacques Lipchitz (1891–1973), created specifically religious art. Music

During the synagogue service, the ḥazzan, or cantor, reads the service and declaims the scriptural lessons to certain set musical modes that vary with the season and occasion. Many of these call for melodic responses on the part of the congregation. The origins of these chants are ancient, often obscure, and equally complicated. Whatever the basic materials may have been, they were enlarged, varied, and reworked through the centuries in the various environments in which the Jews lived. In modern times, musicologists began to examine the history of synagogal music, analyzing its basic structures and its relationship to the music of Christian liturgical traditions. In the 19th century in western Europe, much of the traditional synagogal music was either discarded or reworked under the influence of Western forms and styles. The introduction of the pipe organ in some more-liberal synagogues provoked a fierce controversy because of the prohibition against instrumental music in services, the general opposition to music in the liturgy as a memorial to the destruction of the Temple, and the organ’s association with Christian liturgical music. Literature

Literature has been the home of Jewish artistic activity throughout the ages. The Hebrew Bible is a work of monumental artistry, exhibiting grandeur of form and language in historical narrative, poetry, rhetoric, law, and aphorism. The extra-scriptural writings of the period disclose literary genius of a high order in translation, though in many cases the original works have vanished. Although the documents of the rabbinic tradition are not often regarded as having great literary worth, much of the material, particularly the Haggadic portions of the Midrashim, reveals a noteworthy sensitivity to language. In the medieval period, much attention was given to the production of piyyuṭim, liturgical poetry with which to embellish the siddur (prayer book), itself a collection containing much imaginative as well as pedestrian writing. In the Islamic world, under the influence of Arabic poetry, Hebrew poetry rose to great heights in both liturgical and secular forms. Important works of history written in the medieval Rhineland chronicled and commented on Jewish suffering during the Crusades. The beginnings of the Jewish form of Middle High German also appeared in this period; through the centuries it developed into an autonomous Jewish language, Yiddish, which became a literary vehicle of very high order in the 19th century. The re-creation of Hebrew as a literary language also began in the 19th century; it became the basis of the spoken vernacular of the State of Israel and of a flourishing literature. After the emancipation at the end of the 18th century, Jews in western Europe and later in the United States turned to literature in the vernaculars of their countries and produced writers of note who dealt with both Jewish and general themes.

Poster for the Thalia Theatre, on New York City's Lower East Side, 1897. Advertised plays include Shelomoh ha-Melekh (“King Solomon”), Bar Kokhba, Kol Nidre, Perikola (Lá Perichole), and Hanah'le di finisherin (“Hannah the [Garment] Finisher”). Yozef Kroger, NY/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital. id. cph 3b52232) Lou Hackett Silberman Jewish philosophy

The term Jewish philosophy refers to various kinds of reflection engaged in by persons identified as Jews. At times, as in the Middle Ages, this meant any methodical and disciplined thought pursued by Jews, whether on general philosophical subjects or on specifically Judaic themes. In other eras, as in modern times, concentration on the latter has been considered a decisive criterion, so that philosophers who are Jewish but unconcerned with Judaism or the Jewish heritage and destiny in their thought are not ordinarily classified as Jewish philosophers. Pre-Hellenistic and Hellenistic thought Bible and Apocrypha

Philosophy arose in Judaism under Greek influence; however, a kind of philosophical approach may be discerned in early Jewish religious works apparently subject to little or no Greek influence. The books of Job and Ecclesiastes (Hebrew: Qohelet) were favourite works of medieval philosophers, who took them as philosophical discussions not dependent on historical revelation. The book of Proverbs introduces, in an apparently theological context, the concept of Wisdom (Ḥokhma), which was to have a primordial significance for Jewish thought, and presents it as the first and favourite of God’s creations. It is also praised, in the book of the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), as instilled by God into all his works and granted in abundance to those he loves. It is sometimes equated with fearing God and keeping the Law. In other passages, however, piety seems to be regarded as superior to Wisdom. The Wisdom of Solomon, probably originally written in Greek, praises Wisdom, which is held to be an image of God’s goodness and a reflection of the eternal light. God is said to have given the author knowledge of the composition of the world, the powers, the elements, the nature of animals, the divisions of time, and the positions of the stars. In its vocabulary and perhaps in some of its doctrines, the work shows the influence of Greek philosophy. It also has had considerable influence on Christian theology. Philo Judaeus

The first systematic attempt to apply Greek philosophical concepts to Jewish doctrines was made by Philo Judaeus (Philo of Alexandria) in the 1st century ce. Philo was influenced by Platonic and Stoic writings and probably also by certain postbiblical Jewish beliefs and speculations. He apparently had some knowledge of the Oral Law, which was developing in his time, and he also knew of the Essenes, whom he praised highly.

Philo JudaeusPhilo Judaeus.From Les vrais pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres Grecs, Latins et Payens, Vol. 2, by André Thevet, 1584.

Philo provided Jewish religious doctrines with intellectual and cultural respectability by stating them in Greek philosophical terms. He also showed that much of Greek philosophy was consonant with Judaism as he conceived it and with the allegorical sense of biblical texts as he read them. The fact that he stressed the primacy of Jewish religious tradition over Greek philosophy may have been more than mere lip service. It may be argued that—in central points of his thought, such as his conception of Logos (the Divine Reason or Word)—Philo used philosophical notions as expressions of religious beliefs. For him, Logos is primarily an intermediary between a transcendent, unknowable God and the world. On basic philosophical and theological problems, such as the creation of the world or the existence of free will (see also determinism), Philo’s writings provide vague or contradictory answers. He placed mystic ecstasy, of which he may have had personal experience, above philosophical and theological speculations.

Philo’s approach, his method of interpretation, his way of thinking, as well as some of his ideas—especially that of Logos—exerted considerable influence on early Christian thought but not, to any comparable extent, on Jewish thought in the same period. In the Middle Ages, knowledge of Philo among Jews was either very slight or nonexistent. Not until modern times was his importance in the history of Jewish religious thought recognized. Other ancient sources

Some traces of ancient philosophy, mainly Stoic, may be found in the Mishna and in the subsequent Talmudic literature compiled in Palestine and Babylonia. Jewish theological and cosmological speculations occur in the Midrashim (plural of Midrash), which propound allegories, legends, and myths under the guise of interpreting biblical verses, and in the Sefer yetzira" class="md-crosslink">Sefer yetzira (“Book of Creation”), a combination of cosmogony and grammar that was once attributed to Abraham. There is no clear evidence of the period in which the Sefer yetzira was written; both the 3rd century and the 6th or 7th century have been suggested. The book became a key work in later Jewish mysticism. Medieval philosophy

In the 9th and 10th centuries, after a long hiatus, systematic philosophy and ideology reappeared among the Jews, a phenomenon indicative of their contacts with Islamic civilization. The evolution of Islam in the 9th and 10th centuries showed that Greek scientific and philosophical lore could be separated, at least to some extent, from its pagan associations and could be adapted to another language and another culture. It also showed that a monotheistic, prophetic religion that in all relevant essentials, including adherence to a basic religious law, was closely akin to Judaism could be the basis of a culture in which science, philosophy, and theology were an indispensable part. The question of whether philosophy is compatible with religious law (the answer sometimes being negative) constituted the main theme of the foremost medieval Jewish thinkers. From approximately the 9th to the 13th century, Jewish thought participated in the evolution of Islamic philosophy and theology and manifested only in a limited sense a specifically Jewish character. Jewish philosophers showed no particular preference for philosophical texts written by Jewish authors over those composed by Muslims, and in many cases the significant works of Jewish thinkers constituted a reply or a reaction to the ideas of Islamic philosophical and scientific writings. Jewish kalām

Although several Jewish intellectuals in 9th- and 10th-century Babylonia were steeped in Greek philosophy, the most productive and influential Jewish thinkers of this period represented a very different tendency, that of the Muʿtazilite kalām. Kalām (literally “speech”) is an Arabic term used in both Islamic and Jewish vocabulary to designate several theological schools that were ostensibly opposed to Greek, and particularly Aristotelian, philosophy. Islamic and Jewish Aristotelians regarded kalām theologians (called the mutakallimūn) with a certain contempt, holding them to be mere apologists and indifferent to the philosophical question of truth. Herein they did not do justice to their adversaries, for many representatives of kalām displayed a genuine speculative impulse. The school’s theology, forged in disputes with Zoroastrians, Manichaeans, and Christians, claimed to be based on reason. Saʿadia ben Joseph

The belief in reason, as well as some of the tenets of Muʿtazilite theology, were taken over by Saʿadia ben Joseph (882–942), who was also influenced (either directly or through the intermediary of an Arabic philosopher) by John Philoponus (6th century), a Christian philosopher who argued against certain Aristotelian and Neoplatonic positions. Saʿadia’s main theological work, Kitāb al-amānāt wa al-iʿtiqādāt (Beliefs and Opinions), is modeled on similar Muʿtazilite treatises and on the Muʿtazilite classification of theological subject matter known as the Five Principles.

Like many Muʿtazilite authors, Saʿadia set forth in his introduction a list and theory of the various sources of knowledge. He distinguished four sources: (1) the five senses, (2) the intellect, or reason, (3) necessary inferences, and (4) reliable information given by trustworthy persons. In Saʿadia’s sense of the word, intellect, or reason (al-ʿaql), is an immediate, a priori cognition, independent of sense experience. In Beliefs and Opinions the intellect is characterized as having immediate ethical cognitions—that is, as discerning what is good and what is evil—in opposition to the medieval Aristotelians, who did not regard even the most general ethical rules as knowable a priori. The third source of knowledge comprises inferences of the type “if there is smoke, there is fire,” which are based on data furnished by the first two sources of knowledge. The fourth source of knowledge is meant to validate the teachings of Scripture and of the religious tradition, which must be regarded as true because of the trustworthiness of the men who propounded them. One of the work’s main purposes was to show that the knowledge deriving from the fourth source concords with that discovered by means of the other three—i.e., that religion and human reason agree.

Saʿadia opposed Aristotle’s view that the natural order was eternal. He held, with other partisans of the Muʿtazilite kalām, that the demonstration of the temporal creation of the world must precede and pave the way for the proof of the existence of God the Creator. Given the demonstrated truth that the world has a beginning in time, it can be proved that it could have been produced only through the action of a creator. It can further be proved that there must have been only one creator.

The theology of Saʿadia, like that of the Muʿtazilites, hinges on two principles: the unity of God and the principle of justice. The latter takes issue with the view (widespread in Islam and present also in Judaism) that the definition of what is just and what is good depends solely on God’s will, to which none of the moral criteria found among human beings are applicable. According to this view, a revelation from God can convert an action generally recognized as evil into a good action. Against this way of thinking, Saʿadia and the Muʿtazilites believed that being good and just or being evil and unjust are intrinsic characteristics of human actions and cannot be changed by divine decree. The notions of justice and of good, as conceived by humans, are binding even on God himself. Indeed, the ethical cognitions of humans are the same as those of the Deity.

Saʿadia also addressed the issue of the function of religious law. Of central importance in traditional Judaism and Islam, the law was thought to have been established to compel humans to perform good actions and avoid bad ones. Because Saʿadia believed that humans have a priori knowledge of good and evil and that this knowledge coincides with the principles underlying the most important portions of the revealed law, he was forced to ask whether this law is not superfluous. He could, however, point out that, whereas the human intellect recognizes that certain actions—for instance, murder or theft—are evil, it cannot by itself discover the best definition of what constitutes a particular transgression; nor can it, on its own, determine an appropriate punishment. On both points, Saʿadia asserted, the commandments of religious law give the best possible answers.

Saʿadia called the commandments that accord with the behests of the human intellect the intellectual, or rational, commandments. According to him, they include the duty of manifesting gratitude to the Creator for the benefits he has bestowed upon humans. Saʿadia recognized that a considerable number of commandments—for instance, those dealing with the prohibition of work on the Sabbath—do not belong to this category. He held, however, that the obligation to obey them can be derived from the rational commandment that humans must be grateful to God, for such gratitude entails obedience to his orders. The Karaites

Saʿadia’s adoption of the rational Muʿtazilite theology was a part of his overall effort to consolidate rabbinical Judaism (based on the Mishna and Talmud), which was being attacked by the Karaites. This Jewish sect, founded by Anan ben David in the 8th century, rejected the authority of the Oral Law and the commentaries on it—that is, of the Mishna and the Talmud. In the 10th century and afterward, the Karaites accepted as their guides the Hebrew Bible and human reason, in the Muʿtazilite sense of the word. Their repudiation of postbiblical Jewish religious tradition facilitated a rational approach to theological doctrine. This approach led Karaite authors to criticize the adherents of rabbinical Judaism for holding anthropomorphic beliefs based in part on texts of the Talmudic period. Karaite authors propounded, in conceptual terms, a theology of Jewish history in exile (galut). Life in exile is a diminished existence; nevertheless, the good or bad actions of the Jewish people (rather than their material strength or weakness) affect the course of history. Redemption may come when all Jews are converted to Karaism.

The Karaites adopted Muʿtazilite kalām wholesale, including its atomism. The Muʿtazilite atomists held that everything that exists consists of minute, discrete parts. This applies not only to bodies but also to space, time, motion, and the “accidents”—that is, qualities, such as colour—which the Islamic and Jewish atomists regarded as being joined to the corporeal atoms but not determined by them, as had been believed by the Greek atomists. An instant of time or a unit of motion does not continue the preceding instant or unit. All apparent processes are discontinuous, and there are causal connections between their successive units of change. The fact that cotton put into fire generally burns does not mean that fire is a cause of burning; rather, it may be explained as a “habit” that has no character of necessity. God’s free will is the only agent of everything that occurs, with the exception of one category—human actions. These are causes that produce effects; for instance, one who throws a stone at someone else, who is then killed, directly brings about the latter’s death. This inconsistency on the part of the theologians was required by the principle of justice, for it would be unjust to punish someone for a murder that was a result not of this person’s action but of God’s. This grudging admission that causality exists in certain strictly defined and circumscribed cases was occasioned by moral, not physical, considerations. Jewish Neoplatonism Isaac Israeli

Outside Babylonia, philosophical studies were pursued by Jews in the 9th and 10th centuries in Egypt and in the Maghrib (northwest Africa), most notably by Isaac ben Solomon Israeli (832/855–932/955), an Egyptian-born North African who has been called “the first Jewish Neoplatonist.” In his philosophical works, such as the Kitab al-ustuqusat (“Book of Elements”) and the Kitab al-hudud (“Book of Definitions”), Israeli drew largely upon a 9th-century Muslim popularizer of Greek philosophy, Abū ğūsuf Yaʿqūb al-Kindī, and also, in all probability, upon a lost pseudo-Aristotelian text. The peculiar form of Neoplatonic doctrine that seems to have been set forth in this text had, directly and indirectly, a considerable influence on medieval Jewish philosophy.

According to Israeli, God creates through his will and power. The two things that were created first were form, identified with wisdom, and matter, which is designated as the genus of genera (the classes of things) and which is the substratum of everything, not only of bodies but also of incorporeal substances. This conception of matter apparently was derived from the Greek Neoplatonists Plotinus (205–270) and Proclus (c. 410–485), particularly from the latter. In Proclus’s opinion, generality was one of the main criteria for determining the ontological priority of an entity (its place in the hierarchy of being). Matter, because of its indeterminacy, obviously has a high degree of generality; consequently, it figures among the entities having ontological priority. According to the Neoplatonic view, which Israeli seems to have adopted, the conjunction of matter and form gives rise to the intellect. A light sent forth from the intellect produces the rational soul, which in turn gives rise to the vegetative soul.

Israeli was perhaps the first Jewish philosopher to attribute prophecy to the influence of the intellect on the faculty of imagination. According to Israeli, this faculty receives from the intellect spiritual forms that are intermediate between corporeality and spirituality. This explanation implies that these forms, “with which the prophets armed themselves,” are inferior to purely intellectual cognitions. Solomon ibn Gabirol

In its essentials, the schema of creation and emanation propounded by Isaac Israeli and his Neoplatonic source (or sources) was taken over by Solomon ibn Gabirol, a celebrated 11th-century Hebrew liturgical poet who was also the earliest Jewish philosopher of Spain. His chief philosophical work, written in Arabic but preserved in full only in a 12th-century Latin translation titled Fons vitae (“Fountain of Life”), makes no reference to Judaism or to specifically Jewish doctrines and is a dialogue between a disciple and a master who teaches him true philosophical knowledge. Despite its prolixity and many contradictions, it is an impressive work. Few medieval texts so effectively communicate the Neoplatonic conception of the existence of a number of planes of being that differ according to their ontological priority, the derivative and inferior ones constituting a reflection in a grosser mode of existence of those that are prior and superior.

One of Ibn Gabirol’s central concerns was the divine will, which appears to be both part of and separate from the divine essence. Infinite according to its essence, the will is finite in its action. It is described as pervading everything that exists and as being the intermediary between the divine essence and matter and form. Will was one of the traditional terms used by medieval theologians to identify the entity intermediate between the transcendent Deity and the world or the aspect of the Deity involved in creation. According to a statement in Fons vitae, matter derives from the divine essence, whereas form derives from the divine will. This suggests that the difference between matter and form has some counterpart in the Godhead and also that universal matter is superior to universal form. Some of Ibn Gabirol’s statements seem to support the superiority of universal matter; other passages, however, appear to imply the superiority of universal form.

Form and matter, whether universal or particular, exist only in conjunction. All things, with the sole exception of God, are constituted through the union of the two, the intellect no less than corporeal substance. In fact, the intellect is the first being in which universal matter and form are conjoined. The intellect contains and encompasses all things. It is through the grasp of the various planes of being, through ascending in knowledge to the world of the intellect and apprehending what is above it—the divine will and the world of the Deity—that humans may “escape death” and reach “the source of life.” Judah ha-Levi

Judah ben Samuel ha-Levi (c. 1075–1141), another celebrated Hebrew poet from Spain, was the first medieval Jewish thinker to base his thought consciously and consistently on arguments drawn from Jewish history. His views are set forth in an Arabic dialogue, al-Hazari (Hebrew Sefer ha-Kuzari), the full title of which is translated as “The Book of Proof and Argument in Defense of the Despised Faith.” This work is usually called Kuzari—i.e., “the Khazar.”

Basing his narrative on the historical conversion to Judaism of the Khazars (c. 740), a Turkic-speaking people in central Eurasia, ha-Levi relates that their king, a pious man who did not belong to any of the great monotheistic religions, dreamed of an angel who said to him, “Your intentions are pleasing to the Creator, but your works are not.” To find the correct way to please God, the king sought guidance from a philosopher, from a Christian, from a Muslim, and finally—after hesitating to invite a representative of a people degraded by historical misfortune—from a Jewish scholar, who then converted him to Judaism. The angel’s words in the king’s dream may be regarded as a kind of revelation. Ha-Levi used this element of the story to suggest that it is not the spontaneous activity of reason that impels human beings to undertake the quest for the true religion but the gift of prophecy—or at least a touch of the prophetic faculty (or a knowledge of the revelations of the past).

The argument of the philosopher whose advice is sought by the king confirms this point. This disquisition is a brilliant piece of writing that lays bare the essential differences between the Aristotelian God, who is wholly indifferent to human individuals, and the God of the Jewish religion. The God of the philosophers, who is pure intellect, is not concerned with the works of human beings; moreover, the cultural activities to which the angel clearly refers—activities that involve both mind and body—cannot, from a philosophical point of view, either help or hinder humans in the pursuit of the philosophers’ supreme goal, the attainment of union with the active intellect, a “light” of the divine nature. This union was supposed to confer knowledge of all intelligible things on the individual; the supreme goal, therefore, was purely intellectual in nature.

In opposition to the philosopher’s faith, the religion of the Jewish scholar in the Kuzari is based on the fact that God may have a close, direct relationship with humans, who are not conceived primarily as beings endowed with intellect. The postulate that God can have intercourse with a creature made of the disgusting materials that compose the human body is scandalous to the king and prevents his acceptance of the doctrine concerning prophecy, expounded by the Muslim sage (just as the extraordinary nature of the Christological dogmas deters him from adopting Christianity).

The Jewish scholar argues that it is contemplation not of the cosmos but of Jewish history that procures knowledge of God. Ha-Levi was aware of the odium attached to the doctrine of the superiority of one particular nation; he held, however, that this teaching alone explains God’s dealings with humanity, which, like many other things, reason is unable to grasp. The controversies of the philosophers serve as proof of the failure of human intelligence to find valid solutions to the most important problems.

Ha-Levi’s dialogue was also directed against the Karaites. He shows the necessity and celebrates the efficacy of a blind, unquestioning adhesion to tradition, which the Karaites rejected. Yet he expounds a theology of Jewish exile that seems to have been influenced by Karaite doctrine. According to ha-Levi, even in exile the course of Jewish history is not determined like that of other nations by natural causes, such as material strength or weakness; the decisive factor is whether the Jews are religiously observant or disobedient. The advent of Christianity and Islam, in his view, prepares other nations for conversion to Judaism, an event that will occur in the eschatological period at the end of history. Other Jewish thinkers, c. 1050–c. 1150

Many other Jewish thinkers appeared in Spain during the period from the second half of the 11th century to the first half of the 12th. Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda wrote one of the most popular books of Jewish spiritual literature, Kitāb al-hidāyah ilā farā’iḍ alqulūb (“Guidance to the Duties of the Heart”), which combines a theology influenced by Saʿadia with a moderate mysticism inspired by the teachings of the Muslim Sufis (see Sufism). The commandments of the heart—that is, those relating to thoughts and sentiments—are contrasted with the commandments of the limbs—that is, the Mosaic commandments enjoining or prohibiting certain actions. Bahya maintained that both sets of commandments should be observed (thus rejecting the antinomian position) but made clear that he was chiefly interested in the commandments of the heart.

Abraham bar Hiyya Savasorda, a mathematician, astrologer, and philosopher, outlined in Megillat ha-megalle (“Scroll of the Revealer”) a view of Jewish history that is reminiscent of ha-Levi but does not emphasize its uniqueness to the same degree; it is also set forth in much less impressive fashion. Living in Barcelona under Christian rule, Bar Hiyya wrote scientific and philosophical treatises not in Arabic but in Hebrew. Hebrew was also used by Abraham ibn Ezra (died 1167), a native of Spain who travelled extensively in Christian Europe. His commentaries on the Bible contributed to the diffusion among the Jews of Greek philosophical thought, to which Ibn Ezra made many disjointed references. His astrological doctrine had a great influence on some philosophers.

The last outstanding Jewish philosopher of the Islamic East, Abū al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī (who died as a very old man sometime after 1164), also belongs to this period. An inhabitant of Iraq, he was converted to Islam in his old age (for reasons of expediency, according to his biographers). His philosophy appears to have had a strong impact on Islamic thought, though its influence on Jewish philosophy and theology is very hard to pin down and may be practically nonexistent. His chief philosophical work, Kitāb al-muʿtabar (“The Book of That Which Has Been Established by Personal Reflection”), contains very few references to Jewish texts or topics. Abū al-Barakāt rejected Aristotelian physics completely. According to him, time is the measure of being and not, as Aristotle taught, the measure of motion; he also replaced Aristotle’s two-dimensional concept of place with the three-dimensional notion of space, the existence of which is independent of the existence of bodies. Jewish Aristotelianism

Jewish thinkers in Muslim Spain and the Maghrib adopted Aristotelianism (as well as systems that stemmed from but also profoundly modified pure Aristotelian doctrine) considerably later than did their counterparts in the Islamic East. Abraham ibn Daud

Abraham ibn Daud (12th century), who is regarded as the first Jewish Aristotelian of Spain, was primarily a disciple of Avicenna, the great 11th-century Islamic philosopher. He may have translated or helped to translate some of Avicenna’s works into Latin, according to one plausible hypothesis, for he lived under Christian rule in Toledo, a town that in the 12th century was a centre for translators. His historical treatises, written in Hebrew, manifest his desire to familiarize his fellow Jews with the historical tradition of the Latin world, which at that time was alien to most of them. But his philosophical work, Sefer ha-emuna ha-rama (“Book of Sublime Faith”), written in 1161 in Arabic, shows few if any signs of Christian influence.

The doctrine of emanation set forth in this work describes in the manner of Avicenna the procession of the 10 incorporeal intellects, the first of which derives from God. This intellect produces the second intellect, and so on. Ibn Daud questioned in a fairly explicit manner Avicenna’s views on the way the second intellect is produced; his discipleship did not mean total adherence. Ibn Daud’s psychology was also, and more distinctively, derived from Avicenna. The argumentation leading to a proof that the rational faculty is not corporeal attempts to derive the nature of the soul from the fact of immediate self-awareness. Like Avicenna, Ibn Daud founded psychology on a theory of consciousness.

Ibn Daud often referred to the accord that, in his view, existed between philosophy and religious tradition. As he remarked, the Sefer ha-emuna ha-rama was not for readers who, in their simplicity, are satisfied with what they know of religious tradition or for those who have a thorough knowledge of philosophy. It was intended for readers of one type only: those who, being acquainted with the religious tradition on the one hand and having some rudiments of philosophy on the other, are “perplexed.” It was for the same audience that Maimonides wrote his The Guide for the Perplexed. Maimonides

Moses Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon; 1135–1204), a native of Spain, is incontestably the greatest name in Jewish medieval philosophy, but his reputation is not derived from any outstanding originality in philosophical thought. Rather, the distinction of Maimonides, who is also the most eminent codifier of Jewish religious law, is to be found in the vast scope of his attempt, in the Dalālat al-hā’irin (The Guide for the Perplexed), to safeguard both religious law and philosophy (the public communication of which would be destructive of the law) without suppressing the issues between them and without trying to impose, on a theoretical plane, a final, universally binding solution to the conflict.

As Maimonides states in his introduction to the Guide, he regarded his self-imposed task as perilous, and he therefore had recourse to a whole system of precautions designed to conceal his true meaning from people who, lacking the necessary qualifications, might misread the book and abandon observance of the law. Maimonides himself notes that these precautions include deliberately contradictory statements meant to mislead the undiscerning reader. The apparent or real contradictions encountered in the Guide are perhaps most flagrant in Maimonides’ doctrine concerning God. There seems to be no plausible hypothesis capable of explaining away the inconsistencies between the following three views: