Vivisecting Judaism
Apr. 2nd, 2009 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ymarkovThe Pentateuchal code includes religious as well as civil laws. In this it finds no parallels in either the ancient codification of the Near East or in modern codes. We can now gain a better understanding of the anti-Maimonidean opposition. A fundamental doctrine taught by the geonim and major Andalusian thinkers is that the Torah constitutes a two-dimensional system, one that, for lack of a better term, we may call "theological," embracing the institutions, doctrines, and commandments intended to develop the human mind and spirit. The other is the "political," embracing the institutions, doctrines, and commandments intended for the welfare of public and social life. Awareness of this two-dimensionality helped the Jews appreciate the uniqueness of their system vis-a-vis Christianity and Islam. Elie Benamozegh (1823-1900) - a rabbi that modern Jewry is in dire need of discovering - observed that the failure of Christianity and Islam rested on their inability to grasp the two-dimensionality of the Torah - that one half alone is a mutilated, dysfunctional system. Each in its own way proceeded to dismember Judaism. Christianity took one half, the spiritual, defaulting the political dimension of the Torah:
Christianity attached itself exclusively to the first. All other aspects of the Torah, the political in particular, are not only dead but also deadly. Islam took the other half:
Although Islam had borrowed many elements from Jewish faith and religion, it had adopted from Judaism above all its mundane and political side." A one-half 'Judaism' is a mutilated Judaism. It will inevitably lead to either spiritual or political barbarism, or to both:
One, by excluding the spiritual part of Judaism, made its politics degenerate into barbarism; the other, because it loosened itself from the social life of Judaism, had transformed its religion into asceticism. From one side or from the other, always a mutilated Judaism, deformed in one of its essential parts. Because both these systems were essentially one-dimensional, "religion" was often associated with intolerance and violence.
The above, however, gives no sense of the problem. Intolerance and violence are not exclusive to "religion:" they are present in all one-dimensional systems and ideologies, including those professing to be secular and rational. "Religion as madness," observed Wittgenstein (1889-1951), "is a madness springing from irreligiousness."
[...] Since it is not possible for a single individual to fulfill the Torah in its entirety, if one had fulfilled a single commandment she or he has participated in the berit and therefore is "religious"-no matter whether that misvah is "honoring one's parents," or "sending the bird away before taking her nestling," etc. The diversity of commandments is so great and the opportunities so many that it would be difficult to find a single Jew who in the course of his or her life had not fulfilled at least one of the misvot of the berit. This is a fundamental article of Jewish faith. It was formulated by R. Hananya ben Aqashya (second century) and is contained in a most popular Mishnah-passage (M. Mak. 3:17), usually recited when concluding Pirqe Abot, before saying the Qaddish. It proclaims that the great variety of "instruction and commandments" contained in the Torah is because God wished "to warrant Israel merit (le-zakkot et Israel)" Maimonides explained:
It is one of the Law's fundaments of faith, that if a person had executed [even] one of the 613 commandments of the Law, in a proper and satisfactory manner, without associating with it some mundane designs at all, but did it for its own sake, as [an act of] love...that person has gained the rights to the life in the World to Come. R. Hananya is teaching that . the great variety of commandments assure that during the whole course of one's life a person would have the opportunity to perfectly fulfill [at least] a single [commandment].
It follows that the current division of "religious/secular" (dati/hiloni) is contrary to the fundaments of the Torah: another instance of spiritual assimilation to non-Jewish conceptual models. The diversity of views and attitudes prevalent among Jews warrants appreciation, rather than soblanut (tolerance), because it is only through the dynamic interaction of all the members of the team that my acts gain meaning and coherence.
From One-dimensional Jew, Zero-dimensional Judaism
...that between the two objects, the two interests that Judaism embraces, that are the subjects of its dogmas, of its cult, of its hopes, - in between the present life and the life of the future, the heavens and the earth, the natural and the supernatural...
Christianity attached itself exclusively to the first. All other aspects of the Torah, the political in particular, are not only dead but also deadly. Islam took the other half:
It is the other half of Judaism, the side that Jesus left, that Mohammed erected as a supreme principle, as a foundation stone of its system.
Although Islam had borrowed many elements from Jewish faith and religion, it had adopted from Judaism above all its mundane and political side." A one-half 'Judaism' is a mutilated Judaism. It will inevitably lead to either spiritual or political barbarism, or to both:
One, by excluding the spiritual part of Judaism, made its politics degenerate into barbarism; the other, because it loosened itself from the social life of Judaism, had transformed its religion into asceticism. From one side or from the other, always a mutilated Judaism, deformed in one of its essential parts. Because both these systems were essentially one-dimensional, "religion" was often associated with intolerance and violence.
You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so-called ages of faith, when men really did believe in the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.
The above, however, gives no sense of the problem. Intolerance and violence are not exclusive to "religion:" they are present in all one-dimensional systems and ideologies, including those professing to be secular and rational. "Religion as madness," observed Wittgenstein (1889-1951), "is a madness springing from irreligiousness."
[...] Since it is not possible for a single individual to fulfill the Torah in its entirety, if one had fulfilled a single commandment she or he has participated in the berit and therefore is "religious"-no matter whether that misvah is "honoring one's parents," or "sending the bird away before taking her nestling," etc. The diversity of commandments is so great and the opportunities so many that it would be difficult to find a single Jew who in the course of his or her life had not fulfilled at least one of the misvot of the berit. This is a fundamental article of Jewish faith. It was formulated by R. Hananya ben Aqashya (second century) and is contained in a most popular Mishnah-passage (M. Mak. 3:17), usually recited when concluding Pirqe Abot, before saying the Qaddish. It proclaims that the great variety of "instruction and commandments" contained in the Torah is because God wished "to warrant Israel merit (le-zakkot et Israel)" Maimonides explained:
It is one of the Law's fundaments of faith, that if a person had executed [even] one of the 613 commandments of the Law, in a proper and satisfactory manner, without associating with it some mundane designs at all, but did it for its own sake, as [an act of] love...that person has gained the rights to the life in the World to Come. R. Hananya is teaching that . the great variety of commandments assure that during the whole course of one's life a person would have the opportunity to perfectly fulfill [at least] a single [commandment].
It follows that the current division of "religious/secular" (dati/hiloni) is contrary to the fundaments of the Torah: another instance of spiritual assimilation to non-Jewish conceptual models. The diversity of views and attitudes prevalent among Jews warrants appreciation, rather than soblanut (tolerance), because it is only through the dynamic interaction of all the members of the team that my acts gain meaning and coherence.
From One-dimensional Jew, Zero-dimensional Judaism
