Интересная книга Липмана Бодольфа
Sep. 10th, 2007 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ymarkovЧитаю интересную книгу - The Binding of Isaac, Religious Murders And Kabbalah: Seeds Of Jewish Extremism And Alienation? by Lippman Bodoff
Для тех, кто читает по-английски, просканировал часть предисловия.
Most of the articles in this collection are devoted to attempts by Jews in every place and time to find an identity and a mission, in a changing world, that can embrace wisdom as well as holiness, nationhood and religion, in all their required and beneficial aspects. This struggle has been made more difficult by the preeminent power and influence in Jewish life of those religious elements described by McNeill that relate to holiness, but only weakly, if at all, to wisdom.
If Jews and Judaism are to survive and thrive, be a light unto the nations, and live in a way that sanctifies God’s name, I believe they must accept the tensions that contribute to Jewish creativity — confident that, with new opportunity to live in their own state, they will harness those tensions seeking wisdom and holiness to achieve a new creativity in all aspects of hokhmah, while retaining a guiding, proud, Jewish religious identity.
Despite the language in some articles that are directed at the emerging “Modern Orthodox” movement, I believe this book will be of interest to all Jews, as well as non-Jews, who are interested in Judaism and Jewry as a religion, a culture, and a nationality. The essays in this book touch upon major points of this historical highway traversed by Judaism over the last two thousand years. The Akedah, as the “Binding of Isaac” is known in Hebrew, as it was intended to condemn religious sacrifice, and as it was transformed primarily to explain and justify the trials and travails of Jews after the destruction of the Temple, is the subject of Chapter 1.
Chapter 2, “Exegesis,” provides examples of the still relevant Biblical stories that can and should serve as a unifying cultural element for all Jews, religious and secular. Unfortunately, it seems to be the case that our “best and brightest” students generally receive little education in the Jewish Bible, consisting of the Torah, or Pentateuch, the Prophets and the “Writings” (generally described with the Hebrew acronym Tanakh); they move quickly to either Talmudic or secular studies.
Chapter 3, “Jewish History,” discusses the dangerous precedents set for Jews by misreading the Akedah as a portrait of Abraham eager to kill Isaac at God’s command — despite God’s earlier universal command to humanity in the Noahide Laws against human sacrifice or other murders — and the misapplication of that misreading at Masada, and again during the First Crusade. Chapter 3 also introduces the early modern tension experienced by the Court Jews, between being Jewish and engaging with the non-Jewish world. Finally it introduces the idea that Jewish destiny, even God’s promises to permanently return the Jewish people to their land, can be forfeited, at least for long periods of time, by Jewry’s quietism, its failure to pursue an active program of nationalism — looking toward a Jewish return to its own land and political sovereignty — and to make its case to the world for a role in history by achievements that advance world moral, political and material progress.
Chapter 4 is the pivot of this book, as it describes in detail how Judaism developed from its rational, cultural, classical interest in every aspect of God’s creation and human activity to its current, largely insular, rigid and kabbalistically oriented Orthodoxy in which holiness, religious greatness and political wisdom — and even Divine miracles and magic — are claimed by certain sages and ascribed to them by their followers, thereby relieving the latter of their responsibility, as in Classical Judaism, to become involved in the legal and ethical texts of Judaism and the worthwhile knowledge of the Gentile world. In brief, Orthodoxy today is mystical in outlook, with little interest in hokhmah, general knowledge and wisdom, even as to Jewish nationalism in its land. From this standpoint, only the Modern Orthodox can be considered as carrying on the Classical Biblical and Rabbinic Judaism of the first millennium. Perhaps an outstanding illustration of this gulf within Orthodoxy today is the Hasidic-kabbalistic view ascribing messianic and even (by some) Divine attributes to the recently-deceased Lubavitcher Rebbe. David Berger is perhaps the only Orthodox scholar to protest this development and to draw attention to the lack of any significant support for his concerns, even by the Orthodox community — which, as shown above, is not surprising.
Chapter 5 discusses how Jewish literature arose as a modern reaction to the challenge of the European Enlightenment and Jewish Emancipation in the 18th to 19th centuries. It seeks to describe the difficulty of developing a Jewish identity — in exile and even in the Land of Israel — that embraces Jewish religion and world wisdom, especially in anti-religious or anti-Semitic environments. This literature also sought to describe how important it is for Jews to take the first step in addressing the concerns of, hopefully, enlightened Gentiles who view Jews in their midst as potentially good, valuable and contributing citizens but (until recently) backward and uncreative. A major exception here were the effective business contributions by Sephardi exiles (from Spain and Portugal) who settled in port cities like Amsterdam, London, Hamburg, and other similar locales.10 This new Jewish literature sought to encourage introduction of some modern elements into Jewish education, the wider use of Hebrew and other modern languages, and emphasized the importance of creativity in the sciences, social sciences and the humanities, not inconsistent with Jewish law. In many ways, it reflected the underlying problem faced by the 18th century Court Jew, trying to live in a traditional religious world and a modern secular world at the same time and do justice to both. Classical Judaism, Maimonidean Judaism, and Modern Orthodoxy all take the position that this is necessary and possible. The prevalent Orthodox position is that it is neither, and disciplines and studies designed to prove otherwise are a waste of time, a distraction from sacred study, and a temptation to abandon Judaism altogether.
Chapter 6 discusses the current debate between religious and secular viewpoints, within the Judeo-Christian ambit, on the proper relationship between “Church” (religion) and State, and between scientific and religious beliefs. Secular Jews strongly believe that there must be separation in both areas: between Church and State, and between religion and science. Orthodox Jews are divided: Haredi Orthodox want financial support from the State, and no interference. Modern Orthodox favor some support and some standards in all government supported educational institutions. In the religion-science debate, secular Jews see a vast, unbridgeable, permanent gulf. Haredi Jews see the same gulf, but they do not accept scientific evidence that questions or impugns any traditional religious beliefs and ideas. Modern Orthodox are able to see convergence and consistency between science and religion. They posit that religion must be based on truth. So must science. Each must evolve as the other evolves in terms of their ideas, where possible, and their relationship to each other.
Unfortunately, as in the case of literature, most Jewish achievements in science have come from disaffected, alienated and secular Jews, and not from the religiously observant. Indeed, in the scientific field, it is primarily Christian scientists who have led the way in publicly demonstrating in recent years that the materialistic understandings of creation of the universe and the evolution of Earth’s living creatures are scientifically flawed theories in light of the latest scientific evidence, and these majestic, awesome developments are more rationally explained by a purposeful guiding force. It is unfortunate, but not surprising, that religious Jews have not played a leading role in this new debate. It is also more likely to find nonreligious Jewish organizations fighting recent trends in the public schools to treat materialist “explanations” of creation and evolution as theories, not proven facts. This hardly is conducive to better relationships, at the important personal and local level, between Jews and their Gentile neighbors, especially when Jews seek their favor and support on other issues. Worse, it is simply unseemly for non-scientists to take a Jewish position on scientific subjects on which scientific debates are now in progress.
Chapter 7 deals with Jewish music, primarily liturgical. Here we find a pattern of battles between rabbis and lay religious scholars, on the one hand, and those musically endowed to lead prayer services, on the other. The issue has been drawn not only over length of service, excessive liturgical repetitions and musical embellishments, but also with regard to innovations in the chants and melodies used. Here, too, we find what I believe is a conflict between current, prevailing Orthodox views, and Jewish history. The prevailing view is that fixed traditions must not be breached. In fact, the existing chant modes were all, at one time, innovations based on the music of other peoples in various geographic areas. Indeed, it is hard to believe that the Levites, the original preceptors of the liturgy in Temple times, did not engage in the composition of new chants and melodies for the Israelites, because the first chants and melodies, so far as we know, were also composed and, logically, this did not justify any view that no further development should be allowed. In fact, new music was composed by some of the Talmudic Sages.
I wish to conclude by commenting on the message of the structure of this book. The Akedah (Binding of Isaac) chapter, the Exegesis chapter and the Mysticism chapter tell how classical Judaism, designed to guide Jews in every facet of an active, and interactive, life in this world, was transformed by the exilic oppression under a powerful and hostile European Christianity into an insular, withdrawn, ascetic, ecstatic, magical and mystical culture. As a result, and as is reflected by what is contained and not contained in the succeeding chapters involvingJewish history, literature (non- sacred), science, and music, not much happened in Jewry in these areas until the European Enlightenment and Jewish Emancipation. Virtually no writing of history took place, despite Moses’s injunction to the Israelites to remember the past and learn from it (Deut 32:7), and despite the message of the stories in the Torah that people and peoples can learn from the past, correct what they have done wrong, redeem themselves, and progress in all ways in their lives toward a better future each day. The Talmud is based on just such an idea: How to live, to treat family, friends, enemies, strangers, and nature, and move forward. Exile will not last forever — God promised that — but it probably will not end tomorrow. Here is a formula for life, and follow it, say the Sages, along with Jeremiah’s injunction (Jer. 29:4—7) to seek the welfare of the people where your exilic wanderings may take you. There is little writing of history (historiography) because exilic Jewry starts out by living in relative peace with uninterested if not uncaring neighbors, followed by a second millennium of living under the hate, hostility, and religious power of a supremacist, conversionist religion, and a cycle of catastrophes which — notwithstanding the opinion of the eminent historian, Salo Baron, that Jewish history was less lachrymose than most thought — left indelible memories of fear and unbearable vulnerability between catastrophes, small and large, that seemed to have no reason to end.
This history of Jewish history writing, or historiography, is therefore very brief, and covered succinctly in a brilliant, short book, Zakhor, by the historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, must reading for every Jew, religious or secular. There was Josephus’s historical writings; the anonymous 10th century rewrite of that history in Yosippon; some histories of Jewish halakhic development; and, for a brief moment, especially during the 16th century, primarily by Jewish scholars influenced by Sephardi culture, under the cloud of the 1492 expulsion and the light of the Italian Renaissance, which ends as abruptly as it begins. The writing of real history in the modern sense of the term is not resumed again for some two centuries, as part of the Jewish Enlightenment and Emancipation.
We find the same situation in (fiction) literature. Besides rabbinic parables, and a few important memoirs (which are not fiction!), we don’t find Jewish fiction until the haskalah, the 1 8th century Jewish Enlightenment, burst forth with fictional satire, irony, and similarly disguised and not so disguised criticism of Jewish culture in its superstitious insularness, and lack of a comprehensive education even in Jewish areas, like the Hebrew language, Jewish history, not to mention the sciences, or even music — which was largely uncomposed folk melodies and styles with little regard for creative, aesthetic, meaningful artistry for the liturgy of the Sabbath and holidays.
Very few were trained in these cultural disciplines. There is the poverty of a cloistered, text-focused life; narrow, brief education; and no accumulation of resources on a family, community or national or multinational level that the “best and the brightest” of Jewish youth — in the rapidly exploding Ashkenazi population of the last four centuries — could rely upon for financial support, and which could provide them the pride and energy to pursue the explosion of knowledge with their individual interests and talents. As for science, Kabbalistic Jews do not do science; they have no time for it, no interest in it, and no room in their theology or theosophy to study anything but magical and mystical rites and mystical ideas that inoculate them from even considering scientific knowledge produced by others, much less using their minds to help their own people and their national and world community.
In contrast, there is richness in Classical Judaism, a love of life, and a continuing religious interest in making it better, morally and materially, for all, that gradually disappears from the 13th to the end of the 16th century — just when ideas and inventions, science, and medicine, literature and music, begin to explode in the non-Jewish European and American worlds. We were hurt too much, perhaps; I would say very much, enough to explain the cocoon-like response of mysticism — but not enough to explain why the Talmudic Sages responded so differently, so actively, creatively, courageously, to their catastrophe. They not only didn’t kill their families and themselves to avoid the temptations and pressores of joining their new rulers, political and religious. They created a formula for continued life, engagement with the world, and creativity. Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai may have looked down on Roman bridge-building podivities. But the Talmud in reporting the story sounds impressed, as if say — if we rely only on the Romans to build our bridges, what kind of a nation are we, or can we be? There is hokhmah among the nations that is worthy of our emulation, to use it and to contribute to it.
Для тех, кто читает по-английски, просканировал часть предисловия.
Most of the articles in this collection are devoted to attempts by Jews in every place and time to find an identity and a mission, in a changing world, that can embrace wisdom as well as holiness, nationhood and religion, in all their required and beneficial aspects. This struggle has been made more difficult by the preeminent power and influence in Jewish life of those religious elements described by McNeill that relate to holiness, but only weakly, if at all, to wisdom.
If Jews and Judaism are to survive and thrive, be a light unto the nations, and live in a way that sanctifies God’s name, I believe they must accept the tensions that contribute to Jewish creativity — confident that, with new opportunity to live in their own state, they will harness those tensions seeking wisdom and holiness to achieve a new creativity in all aspects of hokhmah, while retaining a guiding, proud, Jewish religious identity.
Despite the language in some articles that are directed at the emerging “Modern Orthodox” movement, I believe this book will be of interest to all Jews, as well as non-Jews, who are interested in Judaism and Jewry as a religion, a culture, and a nationality. The essays in this book touch upon major points of this historical highway traversed by Judaism over the last two thousand years. The Akedah, as the “Binding of Isaac” is known in Hebrew, as it was intended to condemn religious sacrifice, and as it was transformed primarily to explain and justify the trials and travails of Jews after the destruction of the Temple, is the subject of Chapter 1.
Chapter 2, “Exegesis,” provides examples of the still relevant Biblical stories that can and should serve as a unifying cultural element for all Jews, religious and secular. Unfortunately, it seems to be the case that our “best and brightest” students generally receive little education in the Jewish Bible, consisting of the Torah, or Pentateuch, the Prophets and the “Writings” (generally described with the Hebrew acronym Tanakh); they move quickly to either Talmudic or secular studies.
Chapter 3, “Jewish History,” discusses the dangerous precedents set for Jews by misreading the Akedah as a portrait of Abraham eager to kill Isaac at God’s command — despite God’s earlier universal command to humanity in the Noahide Laws against human sacrifice or other murders — and the misapplication of that misreading at Masada, and again during the First Crusade. Chapter 3 also introduces the early modern tension experienced by the Court Jews, between being Jewish and engaging with the non-Jewish world. Finally it introduces the idea that Jewish destiny, even God’s promises to permanently return the Jewish people to their land, can be forfeited, at least for long periods of time, by Jewry’s quietism, its failure to pursue an active program of nationalism — looking toward a Jewish return to its own land and political sovereignty — and to make its case to the world for a role in history by achievements that advance world moral, political and material progress.
Chapter 4 is the pivot of this book, as it describes in detail how Judaism developed from its rational, cultural, classical interest in every aspect of God’s creation and human activity to its current, largely insular, rigid and kabbalistically oriented Orthodoxy in which holiness, religious greatness and political wisdom — and even Divine miracles and magic — are claimed by certain sages and ascribed to them by their followers, thereby relieving the latter of their responsibility, as in Classical Judaism, to become involved in the legal and ethical texts of Judaism and the worthwhile knowledge of the Gentile world. In brief, Orthodoxy today is mystical in outlook, with little interest in hokhmah, general knowledge and wisdom, even as to Jewish nationalism in its land. From this standpoint, only the Modern Orthodox can be considered as carrying on the Classical Biblical and Rabbinic Judaism of the first millennium. Perhaps an outstanding illustration of this gulf within Orthodoxy today is the Hasidic-kabbalistic view ascribing messianic and even (by some) Divine attributes to the recently-deceased Lubavitcher Rebbe. David Berger is perhaps the only Orthodox scholar to protest this development and to draw attention to the lack of any significant support for his concerns, even by the Orthodox community — which, as shown above, is not surprising.
Chapter 5 discusses how Jewish literature arose as a modern reaction to the challenge of the European Enlightenment and Jewish Emancipation in the 18th to 19th centuries. It seeks to describe the difficulty of developing a Jewish identity — in exile and even in the Land of Israel — that embraces Jewish religion and world wisdom, especially in anti-religious or anti-Semitic environments. This literature also sought to describe how important it is for Jews to take the first step in addressing the concerns of, hopefully, enlightened Gentiles who view Jews in their midst as potentially good, valuable and contributing citizens but (until recently) backward and uncreative. A major exception here were the effective business contributions by Sephardi exiles (from Spain and Portugal) who settled in port cities like Amsterdam, London, Hamburg, and other similar locales.10 This new Jewish literature sought to encourage introduction of some modern elements into Jewish education, the wider use of Hebrew and other modern languages, and emphasized the importance of creativity in the sciences, social sciences and the humanities, not inconsistent with Jewish law. In many ways, it reflected the underlying problem faced by the 18th century Court Jew, trying to live in a traditional religious world and a modern secular world at the same time and do justice to both. Classical Judaism, Maimonidean Judaism, and Modern Orthodoxy all take the position that this is necessary and possible. The prevalent Orthodox position is that it is neither, and disciplines and studies designed to prove otherwise are a waste of time, a distraction from sacred study, and a temptation to abandon Judaism altogether.
Chapter 6 discusses the current debate between religious and secular viewpoints, within the Judeo-Christian ambit, on the proper relationship between “Church” (religion) and State, and between scientific and religious beliefs. Secular Jews strongly believe that there must be separation in both areas: between Church and State, and between religion and science. Orthodox Jews are divided: Haredi Orthodox want financial support from the State, and no interference. Modern Orthodox favor some support and some standards in all government supported educational institutions. In the religion-science debate, secular Jews see a vast, unbridgeable, permanent gulf. Haredi Jews see the same gulf, but they do not accept scientific evidence that questions or impugns any traditional religious beliefs and ideas. Modern Orthodox are able to see convergence and consistency between science and religion. They posit that religion must be based on truth. So must science. Each must evolve as the other evolves in terms of their ideas, where possible, and their relationship to each other.
Unfortunately, as in the case of literature, most Jewish achievements in science have come from disaffected, alienated and secular Jews, and not from the religiously observant. Indeed, in the scientific field, it is primarily Christian scientists who have led the way in publicly demonstrating in recent years that the materialistic understandings of creation of the universe and the evolution of Earth’s living creatures are scientifically flawed theories in light of the latest scientific evidence, and these majestic, awesome developments are more rationally explained by a purposeful guiding force. It is unfortunate, but not surprising, that religious Jews have not played a leading role in this new debate. It is also more likely to find nonreligious Jewish organizations fighting recent trends in the public schools to treat materialist “explanations” of creation and evolution as theories, not proven facts. This hardly is conducive to better relationships, at the important personal and local level, between Jews and their Gentile neighbors, especially when Jews seek their favor and support on other issues. Worse, it is simply unseemly for non-scientists to take a Jewish position on scientific subjects on which scientific debates are now in progress.
Chapter 7 deals with Jewish music, primarily liturgical. Here we find a pattern of battles between rabbis and lay religious scholars, on the one hand, and those musically endowed to lead prayer services, on the other. The issue has been drawn not only over length of service, excessive liturgical repetitions and musical embellishments, but also with regard to innovations in the chants and melodies used. Here, too, we find what I believe is a conflict between current, prevailing Orthodox views, and Jewish history. The prevailing view is that fixed traditions must not be breached. In fact, the existing chant modes were all, at one time, innovations based on the music of other peoples in various geographic areas. Indeed, it is hard to believe that the Levites, the original preceptors of the liturgy in Temple times, did not engage in the composition of new chants and melodies for the Israelites, because the first chants and melodies, so far as we know, were also composed and, logically, this did not justify any view that no further development should be allowed. In fact, new music was composed by some of the Talmudic Sages.
I wish to conclude by commenting on the message of the structure of this book. The Akedah (Binding of Isaac) chapter, the Exegesis chapter and the Mysticism chapter tell how classical Judaism, designed to guide Jews in every facet of an active, and interactive, life in this world, was transformed by the exilic oppression under a powerful and hostile European Christianity into an insular, withdrawn, ascetic, ecstatic, magical and mystical culture. As a result, and as is reflected by what is contained and not contained in the succeeding chapters involvingJewish history, literature (non- sacred), science, and music, not much happened in Jewry in these areas until the European Enlightenment and Jewish Emancipation. Virtually no writing of history took place, despite Moses’s injunction to the Israelites to remember the past and learn from it (Deut 32:7), and despite the message of the stories in the Torah that people and peoples can learn from the past, correct what they have done wrong, redeem themselves, and progress in all ways in their lives toward a better future each day. The Talmud is based on just such an idea: How to live, to treat family, friends, enemies, strangers, and nature, and move forward. Exile will not last forever — God promised that — but it probably will not end tomorrow. Here is a formula for life, and follow it, say the Sages, along with Jeremiah’s injunction (Jer. 29:4—7) to seek the welfare of the people where your exilic wanderings may take you. There is little writing of history (historiography) because exilic Jewry starts out by living in relative peace with uninterested if not uncaring neighbors, followed by a second millennium of living under the hate, hostility, and religious power of a supremacist, conversionist religion, and a cycle of catastrophes which — notwithstanding the opinion of the eminent historian, Salo Baron, that Jewish history was less lachrymose than most thought — left indelible memories of fear and unbearable vulnerability between catastrophes, small and large, that seemed to have no reason to end.
This history of Jewish history writing, or historiography, is therefore very brief, and covered succinctly in a brilliant, short book, Zakhor, by the historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, must reading for every Jew, religious or secular. There was Josephus’s historical writings; the anonymous 10th century rewrite of that history in Yosippon; some histories of Jewish halakhic development; and, for a brief moment, especially during the 16th century, primarily by Jewish scholars influenced by Sephardi culture, under the cloud of the 1492 expulsion and the light of the Italian Renaissance, which ends as abruptly as it begins. The writing of real history in the modern sense of the term is not resumed again for some two centuries, as part of the Jewish Enlightenment and Emancipation.
We find the same situation in (fiction) literature. Besides rabbinic parables, and a few important memoirs (which are not fiction!), we don’t find Jewish fiction until the haskalah, the 1 8th century Jewish Enlightenment, burst forth with fictional satire, irony, and similarly disguised and not so disguised criticism of Jewish culture in its superstitious insularness, and lack of a comprehensive education even in Jewish areas, like the Hebrew language, Jewish history, not to mention the sciences, or even music — which was largely uncomposed folk melodies and styles with little regard for creative, aesthetic, meaningful artistry for the liturgy of the Sabbath and holidays.
Very few were trained in these cultural disciplines. There is the poverty of a cloistered, text-focused life; narrow, brief education; and no accumulation of resources on a family, community or national or multinational level that the “best and the brightest” of Jewish youth — in the rapidly exploding Ashkenazi population of the last four centuries — could rely upon for financial support, and which could provide them the pride and energy to pursue the explosion of knowledge with their individual interests and talents. As for science, Kabbalistic Jews do not do science; they have no time for it, no interest in it, and no room in their theology or theosophy to study anything but magical and mystical rites and mystical ideas that inoculate them from even considering scientific knowledge produced by others, much less using their minds to help their own people and their national and world community.
In contrast, there is richness in Classical Judaism, a love of life, and a continuing religious interest in making it better, morally and materially, for all, that gradually disappears from the 13th to the end of the 16th century — just when ideas and inventions, science, and medicine, literature and music, begin to explode in the non-Jewish European and American worlds. We were hurt too much, perhaps; I would say very much, enough to explain the cocoon-like response of mysticism — but not enough to explain why the Talmudic Sages responded so differently, so actively, creatively, courageously, to their catastrophe. They not only didn’t kill their families and themselves to avoid the temptations and pressores of joining their new rulers, political and religious. They created a formula for continued life, engagement with the world, and creativity. Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai may have looked down on Roman bridge-building podivities. But the Talmud in reporting the story sounds impressed, as if say — if we rely only on the Romans to build our bridges, what kind of a nation are we, or can we be? There is hokhmah among the nations that is worthy of our emulation, to use it and to contribute to it.
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Date: 2007-09-19 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-19 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-15 01:39 pm (UTC)http://aleph518.huji.ac.il/F/M4XA5HJQBR48UTT2NPEHUHJY361LM421TF4D9E64KXQ8137KDK-62286?func=item-global&doc_library=NNL01&doc_number=002512930&year=&volume=&sub_library=