Judaism The religion of the Jews. It is the complex expression of a religious and ethnic community, a way of life as well as a set of basic beliefs and values, which is discerned in patterns of action, social order, and culture as well as in religious statements and concepts. The first section of this article treats the history of Judaism in the broadest and most complete sense, from the early ancestral beginnings of the Jewish people down to contemporary times. In the second section the beliefs, practices, and culture of Judaism are discussed. Dates are listed throughout as BCE (Before the Common Era = BC) and CE (Common Era = AD). The history of Judaism It is history that provides the clue to an understanding of Judaism, for its primal affirmations appear in early historical narratives. Many contemporary scholars agree that although the biblical (Old Testament) tales report contemporary events and activities, they do so for essentially theological reasons. Such a distinction, however, would have been unacceptable to the authors, for their understanding of events was not superadded to but was contemporaneous with their experience or report of them. For them, it was primarily within history that the divine presence was encountered. God's presence was also experienced within the natural realm, but the more immediate or intimate disclosure occurred in human actions. Although other ancient communities saw a divine presence in history, this was taken up in its most consequent fashion within the ancient Israelite community and has remained, through many developments, the focus of its descendants' religious affirmations. It is this particular claim--to have experienced God's presence in human events--and its subsequent development that is the differentiating factor in Jewish thought. As ancient Israel believed itself through its history to be standing in a unique relationship to the divine, this basic belief affected and fashioned its life-style and mode of existence in a way markedly different from groups starting with a somewhat similar insight. The response of the people Israel to the divine presence in history was seen as crucial not only for itself but for all mankind. Further, God had--as person--in a particular encounter revealed the pattern and structure of communal and individual life to this people. Claiming sovereignty over the people because of his continuing action in history on its behalf, he had established a berit ("covenant") with it and had required from it obedience to his Torah (teaching). This obedience was a further means by which the divine presence was made manifest--expressed in concrete human existence. The corporate life of the chosen community was thus a summons to the rest of mankind to recognize God's presence, sovereignty, and purpose--the establishment of peace and well-being in the universe and in mankind. History, moreover, disclosed not only God's purpose but also manifested man's inability to live in accord with it. Even the chosen community failed in its obligation and had, time and again, to be summoned back to its responsibility by divinely called spokesmen--the prophets--who warned of retribution within history and argued and reargued the case of affirmative human response. Israel's role in the divine economy and thus Israel's particular culpability were dominant themes sounded against the motif of fulfillment, the ultimate triumph of the divine purpose, and the establishment of divine sovereignty over all mankind. General observations Nature and characteristics In nearly 4,000 years of historical development, the Jewish people and their religion have displayed both a remarkable adaptability and continuity. In their encounter with the great civilizations, from ancient Babylonia and Egypt down to Western Christendom and modern secular culture, they have assimilated foreign elements and integrated them into their own socioreligious system, thus maintaining an unbroken line of ethnic and religious tradition. Furthermore, each period of Jewish history has left behind it a specific element of a Judaic heritage that continued to influence subsequent developments, so that the total Jewish heritage at any time is a combination of all these successive elements along with whatever adjustments and accretions are imperative in each new age. The fundamental teachings of Judaism have often been grouped around the concept of an ethical (or ethical-historical) monotheism. Belief in the one and only God of Israel has been adhered to by professing Jews of all ages and all shades of sectarian opinion. By its very nature monotheism ultimately postulated religious universalism, although it could be combined with a measure of particularism. In the case of ancient Israel (see below Biblical Judaism [20th-4th century BCE]), particularism took the shape of the doctrine of election; that is, of a people chosen by God as "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" to set an example for all mankind. Such an arrangement presupposed a covenant between God and the people, the terms of which the chosen people had to live up to or be severely punished. As the 8th-century-BCE prophet Amos expressed it: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities." Further, it was a concept that combined with the messianic idea, according to which, at the advent of the Redeemer, all nations would see the light, give up war and strife, and follow the guidance of the Torah (divine guidance, teaching, or law) emanating from Zion (a hill in Jerusalem that has a special spiritual significance). With all its variations in detail, messianism has, in one form or another, permeated Jewish thinking throughout the ages and, under various guises, has coloured the outlook of many secular-minded Jews (see also eschatology). Law became the major instrumentality by which Judaism was to bring about the reign of God on earth. In this case law meant not only what the Romans called jus (human law) but also fas, the divine or moral law that embraces practically all domains of life. The ideal, therefore, as expressed in the Ten Commandments, was a religioethical conduct that involved ritualistic observance as well as individual and social ethics, a liturgical-ethical way constantly expatiated on by the prophets and priests, rabbinic sages, and philosophers. Such conduct was to be placed in the service of God, as the transcendent and immanent Ruler of the universe, and as such the Creator and propelling force of the natural world, and also as the One giving guidance to history and thus helping man to overcome the potentially destructive and amoral forces of nature. According to Judaic belief, it is through the historical evolution of man, and particularly of the Jewish people, that the divine guidance of history constantly manifests itself and will ultimately culminate in the messianic age. Judaism, whether in its "normative" form or its sectarian deviations, never completely departed from this basic ethical-historical monotheism. (S.W.B.) (L.H.S.) Periodization The division of the millennia of Jewish history into periods--a procedure frequently dependent on individual preferences--has not been devoid of theological or scholarly presuppositions. The Christian world long believed that until the rise of Christianity the history of Judaism was but a "preparation for the Gospel" (preparatio evangelica) followed by the "manifestation of the Gospel" (demonstratio evangelica) as revealed by Christ and the Apostles. This formulation could be theologically reconciled with the assumption that Christianity had been preordained even before the creation of the world. On the other hand, 19th-century biblical scholars moved the decisive division back into the period of the Babylonian Exile and restoration of the Jews to Judah (6th-5th centuries BCE). They asserted that after the first fall of Jerusalem (586 BCE) the ancient "Israelitic" religion gave way to a new form of the "Jewish" faith, or Judaism, as formulated by Ezra the Scribe and his school (5th century BCE). A German historian, Eduard Meyer, in 1896 published Die Entstehung des Judentums ("The Origin of Judaism"), in which he placed the origins of Judaism in the Persian period (see below Biblical Judaism [20th-4th century BCE]) or the days of Ezra and Nehemiah (5th century BCE) and actually attributed to Persian imperialism an important role in shaping the new emergent Judaism. These theories have been discarded by most scholars, however, in the light of a more comprehensive knowledge of the ancient Middle East and the abandonment of a theory of gradual evolutionary development that was dominant at the beginning of the 20th century. Most Jews share a long-accepted notion that there never was a real break in continuity and that Mosaic-prophetic-priestly Judaism was continued, with but few modifications, in the work of the Pharisaic and rabbinic sages (see below Rabbinic Judaism [2nd-18th century]) well into the modern period. Even today the various Jewish groups, whether Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform, all claim direct spiritual descent from the Pharisees and the rabbinic sages. In actual historical development, however, many deviations have occurred from so-called normative or rabbinic Judaism. In any case, the history of Judaism here is viewed as falling into the following major periods of development: biblical Judaism (c. 20th-4th century BCE), Hellenistic Judaism (4th century BCE-2nd century CE), rabbinic Judaism (2nd-18th century CE), and modern Judaism (c. 1750 to the present). (S.W.B.) Biblical Judaism (20th-4th century BCE) The ancient Middle Eastern setting The family of the Hebrew patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) is depicted in the Bible as having had its chief seat in the northern Mesopotamian town of Harran--then (mid-2nd millennium BCE) belonging to the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni. From there Abraham, the founder of the Hebrew people, is said to have migrated to Canaan (comprising roughly the region of modern Israel and Lebanon)--throughout the biblical period and later ages a vortex of west Asian, Egyptian, and east Mediterranean ethnoculture. Thence the Hebrew ancestors of the people of Israel (named after the patriarch Jacob, also called Israel) migrated to Egypt, where they lived in servitude, and a few generations later returned to occupy part of Canaan. The Hebrews were seminomadic herdsmen and occasionally farmers, ranging close to towns and living in houses as well as tents. The initial level of Israelite culture resembled that of its surroundings; it was neither wholly original nor primitive. The tribal structure resembled that of West Semitic steppe dwellers known from the 18th-century-BCE tablets excavated at the north central Mesopotamian city of Mari; their family customs and law have parallels in Old Babylonian and Hurro-Semite law of the early and middle 2nd millennium. The conception of a messenger of God that underlies biblical prophecy was Amorite (West Semitic) and found in the tablets at Mari. Mesopotamian religious and cultural conceptions are reflected in biblical cosmogony, primeval history (including the Flood story in Gen. 6:9-8:22), and law collections. The Canaanite component of Israelite culture consisted of the Hebrew language and a rich literary heritage--whose Ugaritic form (which flourished in the northern Syrian city of Ugarit from the mid-15th century to about 1200 BCE) illuminates the Bible's poetry, style, mythological allusions, and religiocultic terms. Egypt provides many analogues for Hebrew hymnody and wisdom literature. All the cultures among which the patriarchs lived had cosmic gods who fashioned the world and preserved its order, including justice; all had a developed ethic expressed in law and moral admonitions; and all had sophisticated religious rites and myths. Though plainer when compared with some of the learned literary creations of Mesopotamia, Canaan, and Egypt, the earliest biblical writings are so imbued with contemporary ancient Middle Eastern elements that the once-held assumption that Israelite religion began on a primitive level must be rejected. Late-born amid high civilizations, the Israelite religion had from the start that admixture of high and low features characteristic of all the known religions of the area. Implanted on the land bridge between Africa and Asia, it was exposed to crosscurrents of foreign thought throughout its history. The pre-Mosaic period: the religion of the patriarchs Israelite tradition identified YHWH (by scholarly convention pronounced Yahweh), the God of Israel, with the Creator of the world, who had been known to and worshipped by men from the beginning of time. Abraham (perhaps 19th or 18th-17th centuries BCE) did not discover this God, but entered into a new covenant relation with him, in which he was promised the land of Canaan and a numerous progeny. God fulfilled that promise through the actions of the 13th-century-BCE Hebrew leader Moses: he liberated the people of Israel from Egypt, imposed Covenant obligations on them at Mt. Sinai, and brought them to the promised land. Historical and anthropological studies present formidable objections to the continuity of YHWH worship from Adam (the biblical first man) to Moses, and the Hebrew tradition itself, moreover, does not unanimously support even the more modest claim of the continuity of YHWH worship from Abraham to Moses. Against it is a statement in chapter 6, verse 3, of Exodus that God revealed himself to the patriarchs not as YHWH but as El Shaddai--an epithet (of unknown meaning) the distribution of which in patriarchal narratives and Job and other poetical works confirms its archaic and unspecifically Israelite character. Comparable is the distribution of the epithet El Elyon (God Most High). Neither of these epithets appears in postpatriarchal narratives (excepting the Book of Ruth). Other compounds with El are unique to Genesis: El Olam (God the Everlasting One), El Bethel (God Bethel), and El Ro'i (God of Vision). An additional peculiarity of the patriarchal stories is their use of the phrase "God of my [your, his] father." All of these epithets have been taken as evidence that patriarchal religion differed from the worship of YHWH that began with Moses. A relation to a patron god was defined by revelations starting with Abraham (who never refers to the God of his father) and continuing with a succession of "founders" of his worship. Attached to the founder and his family, as befits the patron of wanderers, this unnamed deity (if indeed he was one only) acquired various Canaanite epithets (El, Elyon, Olam, Bethel, qone eretz [possessor of the Land]) only after their immigration into Canaan. Whether the name of YHWH was known to the patriarchs is doubtful. It is significant that while the epithets Shaddai and El occur frequently in pre-Mosaic and Mosaic-age names, YHWH appears as an element only in the names of Yehoshua' (Joshua) and perhaps of Jochebed--persons who were closely associated with Moses. The patriarchs are depicted as objects of God's blessing, protection, and providential care. Their response is loyalty and obedience and observance of a cult whose ordinary expression is sacrifice, vow, and prayer at an altar, stone pillar, or sacred tree. Circumcision was a distinctive mark of the cult community. The eschatology (doctrine of ultimate destiny) of their faith was God's promise of land and a great progeny. Any flagrant contradictions between patriarchal and later mores have presumably been censored; yet distinctive features of the post-Mosaic religion are absent. The God of the patriarchs shows nothing of YHWH's "jealousy"; no religious tension or contrast with their neighbours appears, and idolatry is scarcely an issue. The patriarchal covenant differed from the Mosaic Sinaitic Covenant in that it was modelled upon a royal grant to favourites and contained no obligations, the fulfillment of which was to be the condition of their happiness. Evidently not the same as the later religion of Israel, patriarchal religion prepared the way for it in its familial basis, its personal call by the deity, and its response of loyalty and obedience to him. Little can be said of the relation of the religion of the patriarchs to the religions of Canaan. Known points of contact between the two are the divine epithets mentioned above. Like the God of the fathers, El, the head of the Ugaritic pantheon was depicted both as a judgmental and a compassionate deity. Baal (Lord), the aggressive young agricultural deity of Ugarit, is remarkably absent from Genesis. Yet the socioeconomic situation of the patriarchs was so different from the urban, mercantile, and monarchical background of the Ugaritic myths as to render any comparisons highly questionable. The Mosaic period: foundations of the Israelite religion The Egyptian sojourn According to Hebrew tradition, a famine caused the migration to Egypt of the band of 12 Hebrew families that later made up a tribal league in the land of Israel. The schematic character of this tradition does not impair the historicity of a migration to Egypt, an enslavement by Egyptians, and an escape from Egypt under an inspired leader by some component of the later league of Israelite tribes. To disallow these events would make their centrality as articles of faith in the later religious beliefs of Israel inexplicable. Tradition gives the following account of the birth of the nation. At the Exodus from Egypt (13th century BCE), YHWH showed his faithfulness and power by liberating Israel from bondage and punishing their oppressors with plagues and drowning at the sea. At Sinai, he made Israel his people and gave them the terms of his Covenant, regulating their conduct toward him and each other so as to make them a holy nation. After sustaining them miraculously during their 40-year wilderness trek, he enabled them to take the land that he had promised to their fathers, the patriarchs. Central to these events is God's apostle, Moses, who was commissioned to lead Israel out of Egypt, mediate God's Covenant to them, and bring them to Canaan. Behind the legends and the multiform law collections, a historical figure must be posited to whom the legends and the legislative activity could be attached. And it is precisely Moses' unusual combination of roles that makes him credible as a historical figure. Like Muhammad at the birth of Islam, Moses fills oracular, legislative, executive, and military functions. The main institutions of Israel are his creation: the priesthood and the sacred shrine, the Covenant and its rules, the administrative apparatus of the tribal league. Significantly, though Moses is compared to a prophet in various texts in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), he is never designated as one--the term being evidently unsuited for so comprehensive and unique a figure. Mosaic religion The distinctive features of Israelite religion appear with Moses. The proper name of Israel's God, YHWH, was revealed and interpreted to Moses as meaning ehye asher ehye--an enigmatic phrase (literally meaning "I am/shall be what I am/shall be") of infinite suggestiveness. The Covenant, defining Israel's obligations, is ascribed to Moses' mediation. Although it is impossible to determine what rulings go back to Moses, the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, presented in chapter 20 of Exodus and chapter 5 of Deuteronomy, and the larger and smaller Covenant codes in Ex. 20:22-23:33; 34:11-26) are held by critics to contain early covenant law. From them, the following features may be noted: (1) The rules are formulated as God's utterances--i.e., expressions of his sovereign will. (2) They are directed toward, and often explicitly addressed to, the people at large; Moses merely conveys the sovereign's message to his subjects. (3) Publication being of the essence of the rules, the people as a whole are held responsible for their observance (see also covenant). The liberation from Egypt laid upon Israel the obligation of exclusive loyalty to YHWH. This meant eschewing all other gods--including idols venerated as such--and the elimination of all magical recourses. The worship of YHWH was aniconic (without images); even such figures as might serve in his worship were banned--apparently owing to the theurgic overtones (the implication that through them men may influence or control the god by fixing his presence in a particular place and making him accessible). Though a mythological background lies behind some cultic terminology (e.g., "a pleasing odor to YHWH," "my bread"), sacrifice is rationalized as tribute or (in priestly writings) is regarded purely as a sacrament; i.e., as a material means of relating to God. Hebrew festivals also have no mythological basis; they either celebrate God's bounty (e.g., at the ingathering of the harvest) or his saving acts (e.g., the festival of unleavened bread, which is a memorial of the Exodus). The values of life and limb, labour, and social solidarity are protected in the rules on relations between man and man. The involuntary perpetual slavery of Hebrews is abolished, and a seven-year limit is set on bondage. The humanity of slaves is defended: one who beats his slave to death is liable to death; if he maims a slave he must set the slave free. A murderer is denied asylum and may not ransom himself from death, while for deliberate and severe bodily injuries the lex talionis ("an eye for an eye" principle) is ordained. Harm to property or theft is punished monetarily, never by death. Moral exhortations call for solidarity with the poor and the helpless, for brotherly assistance to fellows in need. Institutions are created (e.g., the sabbatical, or seventh, fallow year, in which land is not cultivated) to embody them in practice. Since the goal of the people was the conquest of a land, their religion had warlike features. Organized as an army (called "the hosts of YHWH" in Ex. 12:41), they encamped in a protective square around their palladium--the tent housing the ark in which the stone "tablets of the Covenant" rested. When journeying, the sacred objects were carried and guarded by the Levites (a tribe serving religious functions), whose rivals, the Aaronites, had a monopoly on the priesthood. God, sometimes called "the warrior," marched with the army; in war, part of the booty was delivered to his ministers. The period of the conquest and settlement of Canaan The conquest of Canaan was remembered as a continuation of God's marvels at the Exodus. The Jordan River was split asunder, Jericho's walls fell at Israel's shout; the enemy was seized with divinely inspired terror; the sun stood still in order to enable Israel to exploit its victory. Such stories are not necessarily the work of a later age; they reflect rather the impact of these victories on the actors in the drama, who felt themselves successful by the grace of God. A complex process of occupation, involving both battles of annihilation and treaty arrangements with the natives, has been simplified in the biblical account of Joshua's wars. Gradually, the unity of the invaders dissolved (most scholars believe that the invading element was only part of the Hebrew settlement in Canaan; other Hebrews, long since settled in Canaan from patriarchal times, then joined the invaders' covenant league). Individual tribes made their way with more or less success against the residue of Canaanite resistance. New enemies, Israel's neighbours to the east and west, appeared, and the period of the judges (leaders, or champions) began. The Book of Judges, the main witness for the period, does not speak with one voice on the religious situation. Its editorial framework describes repeated cycles of apostasy, oppression, appeal to God, and relief through a Godsent champion. The premonarchic troubles (before the kingship of Saul; see below) caused by the weakness of the disunited tribes were thus accounted for by the covenantal sin of apostasy. The individual stories, however, present a different picture. Apostasy does not figure in the exploits of the judges Ehud, Deborah, Jephthah, and Samson; YHWH has no rival, and faith in him is periodically confirmed by the saviours he sends to rescue Israel from their neighbours. This faith is shared by all the tribes; and it is owing to their common cult that a Levite from Bethlehem could serve first at an Ephraimite and later also at a Danite sanctuary. The religious bond, preserved by the common cult, was enough to enable the tribes to act more or less in concert under the leadership of elders or an inspired champion in time of danger or religious scandal. To be sure, both written and archaeological testimonies point to the Hebrews' adoption of Canaanite cults--the Baal worship of Gideon's family and neighbours in Ophrah in Judges, chapter 6, is an example. The many cultic figurines (usually female) found in Israelite levels of Palestinian archaeological sites also give colour to the sweeping indictments of the framework of the Book of Judges. But these phenomena belonged to the private, popular religion; the national God, YHWH, remained one--Baal sent no prophets to Israel--though YHWH's claim to exclusive worship was obviously not effectual. Nor did his cult conform with later orthodoxy; Micah's idol in Judges, chapter 17, and Gideon's ephod (priestly or religious garment) were considered apostasies by the editor, in accord with the dogma that other than orthodoxy there is only apostasy--heterodoxy (nonconformity) being unrecognized and simply equated with apostasy. To the earliest sanctuaries and altars honoured as patriarchal foundations--at Shechem, Bethel, Beersheba, and Hebron in Cisjordan (west of the Jordan); at Mahanaim, Penuel, and Mizpah in Transjordan (east of the Jordan)--were now added new ones at Dan, Shiloh, Ramah, Gibeon, and Gilgal, among others. A single priestly family could not operate all these establishments, and Levites rose to the priesthood; at private sanctuaries even non-Levites might be consecrated as priests. The ark of the Covenant was housed in the Shiloh sanctuary, staffed by priests of the house of Eli, who traced their consecration back to Egypt. But the ark remained a portable palladium in wartime; Shiloh was not regarded as its final resting place. The law in Exodus, chapter 20, verses 24-26, authorizing a plurality of altar sites and the simplest forms of construction (earth and rough stone) suited the plain conditions of this period. The period of the united monarchy The religiopolitical problem The loose, decentralized tribal league could not cope with the constant pressure of external enemies--camel-riding desert marauders who pillaged harvests annually or iron-weaponed Philistines (an Aegean people settling coastal Palestine c. 12th century BCE) who controlled key points in the hill country occupied by Israelites. In the face of such threats to the Israelites, local, sporadic, God-inspired saviours had to be replaced by a continuous central leadership that could mobilize the forces of the entire league and create a standing army. Two attitudes were distilled in the crisis, one conservative and antimonarchic, the other progressive and promonarchic. The conservative appears first in Gideon's refusal, in Judges, chapter 8, verse 23, to found a dynasty: "I will not rule you," he tells the people, "my son will not rule over you; YHWH will . . . !" This theocratic view pervades one of the two contrasting accounts of the founding of the monarchy fused in chapters 8-12 of the First Book of Samuel: the popular demand for a king was viewed as a rejection of the kingship of God, which was embodied in a series of inspired saviours from Moses and Aaron, through Jerubbaal, Bedan, and Jephthah, to Samuel. The other account depicts the monarchy as a gift of God, designed to rescue his people from the Philistines (I Sam. 9:16). Both accounts represent the seer-judge Samuel as the key figure in the founding of Israel's monarchy, and it is not unlikely that the two attitudes struggled in his breast. The Benjaminite Saul was made king (c. 1020 BCE) by divine election and by popular acclamation after his victory over the Ammonites (a Transjordanian Semitic people), but his career was clouded by conflict with Samuel, the major representative of the old order. Saul's kingship was bestowed by Samuel and had to be accommodated to the ongoing authority of that man of God. The two accounts of Saul's rejection by God (through Samuel) involve his usurpation of the prophet's authority. King David, whose forcefulness and religiopolitical genius established the monarchy (c. 1000 BCE) on an independent spiritual footing, resolved the conflict. The Davidic monarchy The essence of the Davidic innovation was the idea that, in addition to divine election through Samuel and public acclamation, David had God's promise of an eternal dynasty (a conditional, perhaps earlier, and an unconditional, perhaps later, form of this promise exist in Psalms, 132 and II Samuel, chapter 7, respectively). In its developed form, the promise was conceived of as a covenant with David, parallelling the Covenant with Israel and instrumental in the latter's fulfillment; i.e., that God would channel his benefactions to Israel through the chosen dynasty of David. With this new status came the inviolability of the person of God's anointed (a characteristically Davidic idea) and a court rhetoric--adapted from pagan models--in which the king was styled "the [firstborn] son of God." An index of the king's sanctity was his occasional performance of priestly duties. Yet the king's mortality was never forgotten--he was never deified; prayers and hymns might be said on his behalf, but they were never addressed to him as a god. David captured the Jebusite stronghold of Jerusalem and made it the seat of a national monarchy (Saul had never moved the seat of his government from his home town, the Benjaminite town of Gibeah, about three miles north of Jerusalem). Then, fetching the ark from an obscure retreat, David installed it in his capital, asserting his royal prerogative (and obligation) to build a shrine for the national God--at the same time joining the symbols of the dynastic and the national covenants. This move of political genius linked the God of Israel, the chosen dynasty of David, and the chosen city of Jerusalem in a henceforth indissoluble union. David planned to erect a temple to house the ark, but the tenacious tradition of the ark's portability in a tent shrine forced postponement of the project to his son Solomon's reign. As part of his extensive building operations, Solomon built the Temple on a Jebusite threshing floor, located on a hill north of the royal city, which David had purchased to mark the spot where a plague had been halted. The ground plan of the Temple--a porch with two free-standing pillars before it, a sanctuary, and an inner sanctum--followed Syrian and Phoenician sanctuary models. A bronze "sea" resting on bulls and placed in the Temple court has a Babylonian analogue. Exteriorly, the Jerusalem Temple resembled Canaanite and other Middle Eastern religious structures, but there were differences; e.g., no god image stood in the inner sanctum, but rather only the ancient ark and the new large cherubim (hybrid creatures with animal bodies, human or animal faces, and wings) whose wings covered it, symbolizing the presence of YHWH who was enthroned upon celestial cherubim. Alongside a brief, ancient inaugural poem in I Kings, chapter 8, verses 12-13, an extensive (and, in its present form, later) prayer expresses the distinctively biblical view of the temple as a vehicle of God's providing for his people's needs. Since, strangely, no reference to sacrifice is made, not a trace appears of the standard pagan conception of the temple as a vehicle of man's providing for the gods. That literature flourished under the aegis of the court is to be gathered from the quality of the preserved narrative of the reign of David, which gives every indication of having come from the hand of a contemporary eyewitness. The royally sponsored Temple must have had a library and a school attached to it (in accord with the universally attested practice of the ancient Middle East), among whose products were not only royal psalms but also such liturgical pieces intended for the common man as eventually found their way into the book of Psalms. The latest historical allusions in the Torah literature (the Pentateuch) are to the period of the united monarchy; e.g., the defeat and subjugation of the peoples of Amalek, Moab, and Edom by Saul and David, in Numbers, chapter 24, verses 17-20. On the other hand, the polity reflected in the laws is tribal and decentralized, with no bureaucracy. Its economy is agricultural and pastoral, class distinctions apart from slave and free are lacking, and commerce and urban life are rudimentary. A premonarchic background is evident, with only rare explicit reflections of the later monarchy; e.g., in Deuteronomy, chapter 17, verses 14-20. The groundwork of the Torah literature may thus be supposed to have crystallized under the united monarchy. It was in this period that the traditional wisdom cultivated among the learned in neighbouring cultures came to be prized in Israel. Solomon is represented as the author of an extensive literature comparable to that of other Eastern sages. His wisdom is expressly attributed to YHWH in the account of his night oracle at Gibeon (in which he asked not for power or riches but for wisdom), thus marking the adaptation to biblical thought of this common Middle Eastern genre. As set forth in Proverbs, chapter 2, verse 5, "It is YHWH who grants wisdom; knowledge and understanding are by his command." Patronage of wisdom literature is ascribed to the later Judahite king, Hezekiah, and the connection of wisdom with kings is common in extrabiblical cultures as well. Domination of all of Palestine entailed the absorption of "the rest of the Amorites"--the pre-Israelite population that lived chiefly in the valleys and on the coast. Their impact on Israelite religion is unknown, though some scholars contend that a "royally sponsored syncretism" arose with the aim of fusing the two populations. That popular religion did not meet the standards of the biblical writers and that it incorporated pagan elements--and that such elements may have increased as a result of intercourse with the newly absorbed "Amorites"--is likely and required no royal sponsorship. On the other hand, the court itself welcomed foreigners--Philistines, Cretans, Hittites, and Ishmaelites are named, among others--and made use of their service. Their effect on the court religion may be surmised from what is recorded concerning Solomon's many diplomatic marriages: foreign princesses whom Solomon married brought along with them the apparatus of their native cults, and the King had shrines to their gods built and maintained on the Mount of Olives. Such private cults, while indeed royally sponsored, did not make the religion of the people syncretistic. Such compromise with the pagan world, entailed by the widening horizons of the monarchy, violated the sanctity of the holy land of YHWH and turned the king into an idolator in the eyes of zealots. Religious opposition, combined with grievances against the organization of forced labour for state projects, led to the secession of the northern tribes (headed by the Joseph tribes) after Solomon's death. The period of the divided kingdom Jeroboam I (10th century BCE), the first king of the north (now called Israel, in contradistinction to Judah, the southern Davidic kingdom), appreciated the inextricable link of Jerusalem and its sanctuary with the Davidic claim to divine election to kingship over all Israel (the whole people, north and south). He therefore founded rival sanctuaries at Dan and at Bethel--ancient cult sites--and manned them with non-Levite priests whose symbol of YHWH's presence was a golden calf--a pedestal of divine images in ancient iconography and the equivalent of the cherubim of Jerusalem's Temple. He also moved the autumn ingathering festival one month ahead so as to foreclose celebration of this most popular of all festivals in common with Judah. For the evaluation of Jeroboam's innovations and the subsequent official religion of the north down to the mid-8th century, one must rely almost exclusively on the Book of Kings (later divided into two books). This work has severe limitations as a source for religious history. The material of this book, in good part contemporary, is subjugated to a dogmatic historiography that regards the whole enterprise of the north as one long apostasy ending in a deserved disaster. The culmination of Kings' history with the exile of Judah shows its provenience to have been Judahite. Yet the evaluation of Judah's official religion is subject to an equally dogmatic standard, namely, the royal adherence to the Deuteronomic rule of a single cult site. The author considered the Solomonic Temple to be the cult site chosen by God, according to Deuteronomy, chapter 12, the existence of which rendered all other sites illegitimate. Every king of Judah is judged according to whether or not he did away with all extra-Jerusalemite places of worship. (The date of this criterion may be inferred from the indifference toward it of all persons [e.g., the 9th-century-BCE prophets Elijah and Elisha and the Jerusalemite priest Jehoiada] prior to the late-8th-century-BCE Judahite king Hezekiah.) Another serious limitation is the restriction of Kings' purview: excepting the Elijah-Elisha stories, it notices only the royally sponsored cult; notices of the popular religion are very few. From the mid-8th century the writings of the classical prophets, starting with Amos, set in. These take in the people as a whole, in contrast to Kings; on the other hand their interest in theodicy (justification of God) and their polemical tendency to exaggerate and generalize what they deem evil must be taken into consideration before approving their statements as sober history. For a half-century after the north's secession (c. 922 BCE), the religious situation in Jerusalem was unchanged. The distaff side of the royal household perpetuated, and even augmented, the pagan cults. King Asa (reigned c. 908-867 BCE) is credited with a general purge, including the destruction of an image made for the goddess Asherah by the queen mother, granddaughter of an Aramaean princess. He also purged the qedeshim ("consecrated men"--conventionally rendered as "sodomites," or "male sacred prostitutes"). Foreign cults entered the north with the marriage of the 9th-century-BCE king Ahab to the Tyrian princess Jezebel. Jezebel brought with her a large entourage of sacred personnel to staff the temple of Baal and Asherah that Ahab built for her in Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel. In all else, Ahab's orthodoxy was irreproachable, though others of his court may have joined the worship of the foreign princess. That fierce opposition to the non-YWHW cults sprang up must be supposed in order to account for Jezebel's persecution of the prophets of YHWH, conduct untypical of a polytheist except in self-defense. Elijah's assertion that the whole country apostatized is a hyperbole based on the view that whoever did not actively fight Jezebel was implicated in her polluted cult. Such must have been the view of the prophets, whose fallen were the first martyrs to die for the glory of God. The quality of their opposition may be gauged by Elijah's summary execution of the foreign Baal cultists after they failed the test at Mt. Carmel, where they vied against him in a contest over whose god was truly God. A three-year drought (attested also in Phoenician sources), declared by Elijah to be punishment for the sin, must have done much to kindle the prophets' zeal. To judge from the Elisha stories, the Baal worship in the capital city, Samaria, was not felt in the countryside. There the religious tone was set by the popular prophets and the prophetic companies ("the sons of the prophets") who attached themselves to them. In popular consciousness these men were wonder-workers--healing the sick and reviving the dead, foretelling the future, and helping to find lost objects. To the biblical narrator they witness the working of God in Israel. Elijah's rage at the Israelite king Ahaziah's recourse to the pagan god Baalzebub, Elisha's cure of the Syrian military leader Naaman's leprosy, and anonymous prophets' directives and predictions in matters of peace and war all serve to glorify God. Indeed, the equation of Israel's prosperity with God's interest generated the issue of "true" and "false" prophecy that made its first appearance at this time. That prophecy of success could turn out to be a snare is exemplified in a story of conflict between Micaiah, the lone 9th-century-BCE prophet of doom, and 400 unanimous prophets of victory who lured Ahab to his death. The poignancy of the issue is highlighted by Micaiah's acknowledgment that the 400 were also prophets of YHWH--but inspired by him deliberately with a "lying spirit." The period of classical prophecy and cult reform The emergence of the literary prophets By the mid-8th century a hundred years of chronic warfare between Israel and Aram had finally ended--the Aramaeans having suffered heavy blows from the Assyrians. King Jeroboam II (8th century BCE) was able to undertake to restore the imperial sway of the north over its neighbour, and a prophecy of Jonah that he would extend Israel's borders from the Dead Sea to the entrance to Hamath (Syria) was borne out. The well-to-do expressed their relief in lavish attentions to the institutions of worship and their private mansions. But the strain of the prolonged warfare showed in the polarization of society between the wealthy few who had profited from the war and the masses whom it had ravaged and impoverished. Dismay at the dissolution of Israelite society animated a new breed of prophets who now appeared--the literary or classical prophets, first of whom was Amos, an 8th-century-BCE Judahite who went north to Bethel. That apostasy would set God against the community was an old conception of early prophecy; that violation of the sociomoral injunctions of the Covenant would have the same result was first proclaimed by Amos. Amos almost ignored idolatry, denouncing instead the corruption and callousness of the oligarchy and rulers. The religious exercises of such villains he proclaimed were loathsome to God; on their account Israel would be oppressed from the entrance to Hamath to the Dead Sea and exiled from its land. The westward push of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the mid-8th century BCE soon brought Aram and Israel to their knees. In 733-732 Assyria took Gilead and Galilee from Israel and captured Aramaean Damascus; in 721 Samaria, the Israelite capital, fell. The northern kingdom sought to survive through alliances with Assyria and Egypt; its kings came and went in rapid succession. The troubled society's malaise was interpreted by Hosea, a prophet of the northern kingdom (Israel), as a forgetting of God. As a result, in his view, all authority had evaporated: the king was scoffed at, priests became hypocrites, and pleasure seeking became the order of the day. The monarchy was godless; it put its trust in arms, fortifications, and alliances with the great powers. Salvation, however, lay in none of these but in repentance and reliance upon God. Prophecy in the southern kingdom Judah was subjected to such intense pressure to join an Israelite-Aramaean coalition against Assyria that its 8th-century-BCE king Ahaz chose to submit himself to Assyria in return for relief. Ahaz introduced a new Aramaean-style altar in the Jerusalem Temple and adopted other foreign customs that are counted against him in the book of Kings. It was at this time that Isaiah prophesied in Jerusalem. At first (under Uzziah, Ahaz' prosperous grandfather), his message focussed on the corruption of Judah's society and religion, stressing the new prophetic themes of indifference to God (which went hand in hand with a thriving cult) and the fateful importance of social morality. Under Ahaz the political crisis evoked Isaiah's appeals for trust in God, with the warning that the "hired razor from across the Euphrates" would shave Judah clean as well. Isaiah interpreted the inexorable advance of Assyria as God's chastisement; Assyria was "the rod of God's wrath." But, since Assyria ignored its mere instrumentality and exceeded in an insolent manner its proper function, God, when he finished his purgative work, would break Assyria on Judah's mountains. Then the nations of the world, who had been subjugated by Assyria, would recognize the God of Israel as the lord of history. A renewed Israel would prosper under the reign of an ideal Davidic king, all men would flock to Zion (the hill symbolizing Jerusalem) to learn the ways of YHWH and submit to his adjudication, and universal peace would prevail (see also eschatology). The prophecy of Micah (8th century BCE), also a Judahite, was contemporary with that of Isaiah and touched on similar themes (e.g., the vision of universal peace is found in both their books). Unlike Isaiah, however, who believed in the inviolability of Jerusalem, Micah shocked his audience with the announcement that the wickedness of its rulers would cause Zion to become a plowed field, Jerusalem a heap of ruins, and the Temple mount a wooded height. Moreover, from the precedence of social morality over the cult, Micah drew the extreme conclusion that the cult had no ultimate value and that God's requirement of men can be summed up as "to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God." Reforms in the southern kingdom According to Jeremiah (about 100 years later), Micah's prophetic threat to Jerusalem had caused King Hezekiah (reigned c. 715-c. 686 BCE) to placate God--possibly an allusion to the cult reform instituted by the King in order to cleanse Judah from various pagan practices. A heightened concern over assimilatory trends resulted in his also outlawing certain practices considered legitimate up to his time. Thus, in addition to removing the bronze serpent that had been ascribed to Moses (and that had become a fetish), the reform did away with the local altars and stone pillars, the venerable (patriarchal) antiquity of which did not save them from the taint of imitation of Canaanite practice. Hezekiah's reform, part of a restorational policy that had political, as well as religious, implications, appears as the most significant effect of the fall of the northern kingdom on official religion. The outlook of the reformers is suggested by the catalog in II Kings, chapter 17, of religious offenses that had caused the fall, which the objects of Hezekiah's purge closely resemble. Hezekiah's reform is the first historical evidence for Deuteronomy's doctrine of cult centralization. Similarities between Deuteronomy and the Book of Hosea lend colour to the supposition that the reform movement in Judah, which culminated a century later under King Josiah, was sparked by attitudes inherited from the north. Hezekiah was the leading figure in a western coalition of states that coordinated a rebellion against the Assyrian king Sennacherib with the Babylonian rebel Merodach-Baladan, shortly after the Assyrian's accession in 705 BCE. When Sennacherib appeared in the west in 701, the rebellion collapsed; Egypt sent a force to aid the rebels, but it was defeated. Hezekiah saw his kingdom overwhelmed and offered tribute to Sennacherib; the Assyrian, however, pressed for the surrender of Jerusalem. In despair, Hezekiah turned to the prophet Isaiah for an oracle. Though the prophet condemned the King's reliance upon Egyptian help, he stood firm in his faith that Jerusalem's destiny precluded its fall into heathen hands. The King held fast, and Sennacherib, for reasons still obscure, suddenly retired from Judah and returned home. This unlooked-for deliverance of the city may have been regarded as a vindication of the prophet's faith and was doubtless an inspiration to the rebels against Babylonia a century later. For the present, while Jerusalem was intact, the country had been devastated and its kingdom turned into a vassal state of Assyria. During Manasseh's long and peaceful reign in the 7th century BCE, Judah was a submissive ally of Assyria. Manasseh's forces served in the building and military operations of the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal. Judah benefitted from the upsurge of commerce that resulted from the political unification of the whole Near East. The prophet Zephaniah attests to heavy foreign influence on the mores of Jerusalem--merchants who adopted foreign dress, cynics who lost faith in the efficacy of YHWH to do anything, people who worshipped the pagan host of heaven on their roofs. Manasseh's court was the centre of such influences. The royal sanctuary became the home of a congeries of foreign gods--the sun, astral deities, and Asherah (the female fertility deity) all had their cults there alongside YHWH. The countryside also was provided with pagan altars and priests, alongside the local YHWH altars that were revived. Presumably, at least some of the blood that Manasseh is said to have spilled freely in Jerusalem must have belonged to YHWH's devotees. No prophecy is dated to his long reign. With Ashurbanipal's death in 627, Assyria's power faded quickly; the young Judahite king Josiah (reigned c. 640-609 BCE) had already set in motion a vigorous movement of independence and restoration, a cardinal aspect of which was religious. First came the purge of foreign cults in Jerusalem, under the aegis of the high priest Hilkiah; then the countryside was cleansed. In the course of renovating the Temple, a scroll of Moses' Torah (by scholarly consensus an edition of Deuteronomy) was found. Anxious to abide by its injunctions, Josiah had the local YHWH altars polluted to render them unusable and collected their priests in Jerusalem. The celebration of the Passover that year was concentrated in the Temple, as it had not been "since the days of the judges who judged Israel," according to II Kings 23:22, or since the days of Samuel, according to II Chron. 35:18; both references reflect the unhistorical theory of the Deuteronomic (Josianic) reformers that the Shiloh sanctuary was the precursor of the Jerusalem Temple as the sole legitimate site of worship in Israel (as demanded by Deuteronomy, chapter 12). To seal the reform, the King convoked a representative assembly and had them enter into a covenant with God over the newfound Torah. For the first time, the power of the state was enlisted on behalf of the ancient covenant and in obedience to a covenant document. It was a major step toward the fixation of a sacred canon. Josiah envisaged the restoration of Davidic authority over the entire domain of ancient Israel, and the retreat of Assyria facilitated his program--until he became fatally embroiled in the struggle of the powers over the dying empire. His death in 609 was doubtless a setback for his religious policy as well as his political aspirations. To be sure, the royally sponsored syncretism of Manasseh's time was not revived, but there is evidence of recrudescence of unofficial local altars. Whether references in Jeremiah and Ezekiel to child sacrifice to YHWH reflect post-Josianic practices is uncertain. There is stronger indication of private recourse to pagan cults in the worsening political situation. That Assyria's fall should have been followed by the yoke of a harsh new heathen power dismayed the devotees of YHWH who had not been prepared for it by prophecy. Their mood finds expression in the oracles of the prophet Habakkuk in the last years of the 7th century BCE. Confessing perplexity at God's toleration of the success of the wicked in subjugating the righteous, the prophet affirms his faith in the coming salvation of YHWH, tarry though it might. And in the meantime, "the righteous must live in his faith." But the situation in fact grew worse as Judah was caught in the Babylonian-Egyptian rivalry. Some attributed the deterioration to the burden of Manasseh's sin that still rested on the people. For the prophet Jeremiah (active c. 626-c. 580 BCE), the Josianic era was only an interlude in Israel's career of guilt that went back to its origins. His pre-reform prophecies denounced Israel as a faithless wife and warned of imminent retribution at the hands of a nameless northerner. After Nebuchadrezzar's decisive defeat of Egypt at Carchemish (605 BCE), Jeremiah identified the scourge as Babylon. King Jehoiakim's attempt to be free of Babylonia ended with the exile of his successor, Jehoiachin, along with Judah's elite (597); yet the court of the new king, Zedekiah, persisted in plotting new revolts, relying--against all experience--on Egyptian support. Jeremiah now proclaimed a scandalous doctrine of the duty of all nations, Judah included, to submit to the divinely appointed world ruler, the Babylonian monarch Nebuchadrezzar. In submission lay the only hope of avoiding destruction; a term of 70 years had been set to humiliate all men beneath Babylon. Imprisoned for demoralizing the populace, Jeremiah persisted in what was viewed as his traitorous message; the leaders, on their part, persisted in their policy, confident of Egypt and the saving power of Jerusalem's Temple, to the bitter end. Jeremiah also had a message of comfort for his hearers. He foresaw the restoration of the entire people--north and south--in the land, under a new David. And since events had shown that man was incapable of achieving a lasting reconciliation with God on his own, he envisioned the penitent of the future being met halfway by God, who would remake their nature so that to do his will would come naturally to them. God's new covenant with Israel would be written on their hearts, so that they should no longer need to teach each other obedience, for young and old would know YHWH. Among the exiles in Babylonia, the prophet Ezekiel, Jeremiah's contemporary, was haunted by the burden of Israel's sin. He saw the defiled Temple of Manasseh's time as present before his eyes, and described God as abandoning it and Jerusalem to their fates. Though Jeremiah offered hope through submission, Ezekiel prophesied an inexorable, total destruction as the condition of reconciliation with God. The majesty of God was too grossly offended for any lesser satisfaction. The glory of God demanded Israel's ruin, but the same cause required its restoration. For Israel's fall disgraced YHWH among the nations; to save his reputation he must therefore restore Israel to its land. The dried bones of Israel must revive, that they and all the nations should know that he was YHWH (Ezek. 37). Ezekiel, too, foresaw the remaking of human nature, but as a necessity of God's glorification; the concatenation of Israel's sin, exile, and consequent defamation of God's name must never be repeated. In 587/586 BCE the doom prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel came true. Rebellious Jerusalem was reduced by Nebuchadrezzar, the Temple was burnt, and much of Judah's population dispersed or deported to Babylonia. The exilic period The survival of the religious community of exiles in Babylonia demonstrates how rooted and widespread the religion of YHWH was. Abandonment of the national religion as an outcome of the disaster is recorded of a minority only. There were some cries of despair, but the persistence of prophecy among the exiles shows that their religious vitality had not flagged. The Babylonian Jewish community, in which the cream of Judah lived, had no sanctuary or altar (in contrast to the Jewish garrison of Elephantine in Egypt); what developed in their place can be surmised from new postexilic religious forms: fixed prayer; public fasts and confessions; and assembly for the study of the Torah, which may have developed from visits to the prophets for oracular edification. The absence of a local or territorial focus must also have spurred the formation of a literary-ideational centre of communal life--the sacred canon of Covenant documents that came to be the core of the present Pentateuch. Observance of the Sabbath--a peculiarly public feature of communal life--achieved a significance among the exiles virtually equivalent to all the rest of the Covenant rules together. Notwithstanding its political impotence, the spirit of the exiles was so high that foreigners were attracted to their ranks, hopeful of sharing their future glory. Assurance of that future glory was given not only in the consolations promised by Jeremiah and Ezekiel (the fulfillment of whose prophecies of doom lent credit to their consolations); the great comforter of the exile was the writer or writers of what is known as Deutero-Isaiah (Isa. 40-66), who perceived in the rise and progress (from c. 550) of the Persian king Cyrus II the Great the instrument of God's salvation. Going beyond the national hopes of Ezekiel, animated by the universal spirit of the pre-exilic Isaiah, Deutero-Isaiah saw in the miraculous restoration of Israel a means of converting the whole world to faith in Israel's God. Israel would thus serve as "a light for the nations, that YHWH's salvation may reach to the end of the earth." In his conception of the vicarious suffering of God's servant--through which atonement is made for the ignorant heathen--Deutero-Isaiah found a handle by which to grasp the enigma of faithful Israel's lowly state among the Gentiles. The idea was destined to play a decisive role in the self-understanding of the Jewish martyrs of the Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes' persecution in the 2nd century BCE (in, for example, Daniel) and later again in the Christian appreciation of the death of Jesus. The period of the restoration After conquering Babylon, Cyrus so far justified the hopes put in him that he allowed those Jews who wished to do so to return and rebuild their Temple. Though, in time, some 40,000 made their way back, they were soon disillusioned by the failure of the glories of the restoration to materialize and by the controversy with the Samaritans, and left off building the Temple. (The Samaritans were a judaized mixture of native north Israelites and Gentile deportees settled by the Assyrians in the erstwhile northern kingdom.) A new religious inspiration came under the governorship of Zerubbabel, a member of the Davidic line, who became the centre of messianic expectations during the anarchy attendant upon the accession to the Persian throne of Darius I (522). The prophets Haggai and Zechariah perceived the disturbances as heralds of an imminent overthrow of the heathen Persian Empire and a worldwide manifestation of God and glorification of Zerubbabel. Against that day they urged the people quickly to complete the building of the Temple. The labour was resumed and completed in 516; but the prophecies remained unfulfilled. Zerubbabel disappears from the biblical narrative, and the spirit of the community flagged again. The one religious constant in the vicissitudes of the restored community was the mood of repentance and the desire to win back God's favour by adherence to his Covenant rules. The anxiety that underlay this mood produced a hostility to strangers, which encouraged a lasting conflict with the Samaritans, who asked permission to take part in rebuilding the Temple of the God they too worshipped. The Jews, however, rejected them on ill-specified grounds--apparently ethnoreligious; i.e., they felt the Samaritans to be alien to their historical community of faith, especially to its messianic hopes. Nonetheless, intermarriage occurred and precipitated a new crisis when, in 458, the priest Ezra arrived from Babylon, intent on enforcing the regimen of the Torah. By construing ancient and obsolete laws excluding Canaanites and others so as to make them apply to their own times and neighbours, the leaders of the Jews brought about the divorce and expulsion of several dozen non-Jewish wives and their children. Tension between the xenophobic (fear of strangers) and xenophilic (love of strangers) in postexilic Judaism was finally resolved some two centuries later with the development of a formality of religious conversion, whereby Gentiles who so wished could be taken into the Jewish community by a single, simple procedure. The decisive constitutional event of the new community was the covenant subscribed to by its leaders in 444, making the Torah the law of the land: a charter granted by the Persian king Artaxerxes I to Ezra--scholar and priest of the Babylonian Exile--empowered him to enforce the Torah as the imperial law for the Jews of the province Avar-nahra (Beyond the River), in which the district of Judah (now reduced to a small area) was located. The charter required the publication of the Torah and the publication, in turn, entailed its final editing--now plausibly ascribed to Ezra and his circle. Survival in the Torah of patent inconsistencies and disaccords with the postexilic situation indicate that its materials were by then sacrosanct, to be compiled but no longer created. But these survivals made necessary the immediate invention of a harmonizing and creative method of text interpretation to adjust the Torah to the needs of the times. The Levites were trained in the art of interpreting the text to the people; the first product of the creative exegesis later known as Midrash is to be found in the covenant document of Nehemiah, chapter 9--every item of which shows development, not reproduction, of a ruling of the Torah. Thus, with the publication of the Torah as the law of the Jews the basis of the vast edifice of the Oral Law characteristic of Judaism was laid. Concern over observance of the Torah was fed by the gap between messianic expectations and the gray reality of the restoration. The gap signified God's continued displeasure, and the only way to regain his favour was to do his will. Thus it is that Malachi, the last of the prophets, concludes with an admonition to be mindful of the Torah of Moses. God's displeasure, however, had always been signalized by a break in communication with him. As time passed and messianic hopes remained unfulfilled, the sense of a permanent suspension of normal relations with God took hold, and prophecy died out. God, it was believed, would some day be reconciled with his people, and a glorious revival of prophecy would then occur. For the present, however, religious vitality expressed itself in dedication to the development of institutions that would make the Torah effective in life. The course of this development is hidden from view by the dearth of sources from the Persian period. But the community that emerged into the light of history in Hellenistic times is one made over radically by this momentous, quiet process. (Mo.Gr.) Judaism The Judaic tradition The literature of Judaism General considerations A paradigmatic statement is made in the narrative that begins with Genesis and concludes with Joshua. In the early chapters of Genesis the divine is described as Creator of the natural order, including mankind. In the Eden, Flood, and Tower of Babel stories, man is recognized as rebellious and disobedient. In the patriarchal stories (about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph) a particular family is called out of humankind to restore the thwarted relationship through personal and communal responsiveness. The subsequent history of the community thus formed is recounted so that the divinely sought restoration may be recognized and the nature of the obedient community may be observed: the Egyptian servitude, the going out 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) continue to deal with the rebellion-obedience tension, interpreting it within the changing historical context and adding new levels of meaning to the fulfillment-redemption motif. (The literature of the Old Testament is treated in the article biblical literature.) It is from this "narrative theology," as it has been recited throughout the centuries, that new formulations of the primal affirmations have been drawn. These have been clothed in a number of vocabularies: philosophical, mystical, ethnic, political, and 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 philosophic 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 express them through practical ethical behaviour. Yet, in each instance, the proposed interpretations have had to come to terms with the biblical affirmations and with the particular mode of understanding them required by 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 continued to provide 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 act of God. In its written form, Torah was considered to be especially present in the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch), which therefore 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 self-regenerating, endless source of guidance, 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 the Talmud played in the survival of the Jewish people in exile. By the 11th century, Diaspora Jews lived within a Talmudic culture that unified 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 embodied and expressed in Torah in the widest sense. Scripture, Halakhic and Haggadic Midrash, Mishna, and Gemara were the sources from which the leaders of the communities drew in order to provide both stability and flexibility. The dispersion of the Jews outside Palestine confronted communities and individuals with novel and unexpected situations that had to be dealt with in such a way as to provide continuity while at the same time making it possible to exist with the unprecedented. Prophecy and religious experience Torah in the broad sense includes the whole Hebrew Bible, including the prophetic books. In biblical prophecy, God is seen as continuing to be disclosed in the nexus of historical events and as making ethical demands upon the community. According to rabbinic Judaism, this source of Torah--the charismatic person--dried up 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 defensive reaction to the luxuriant growth of apocalyptic speculation about the end of the world and the kingdoms of this world, a development that was considered dangerous and unsettling in the period after the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-135 CE). Indeed, there appears to have developed an ongoing suspicion that unrestrained individual experience as the 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 Christian centuries to point to wonders and miracles in their own time. Far from expressing an ossification of religious experience--the development of the Siddur 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 such religious enthusiasm as was exhibited, for example, in the behaviour of the Christian Church in Corinth (I Cor.) 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 (16th century), 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 Shulhan 'arukh. Admittedly, there have been occasions when Torah, even in the wide sense, has been rigidly viewed and 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 checked and reversed by the inherent dynamism of the rabbinic tradition. Modern views of Torah In modern times--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 as the ideals and sancta (holy things) of the Jewish people. Other and varying positions of many sorts have been and undoubtedly will be forthcoming. What is crucial, however, is the concern of all these positions to retain--with whatever modifications are required--the concept of Torah as one of the central and continuing affirmations of Judaism. (H.Z.D.) Basic beliefs and doctrines Judaism is not and cannot be viewed as an abstract intellectual system, although some of its affirmations may be couched in such terms. 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 (see below Jewish philosophy). It insists that the community has been confronted by the divine not as abstraction but as person, with whom the community and its members enter into relationship. It is--as the concept 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 mankind. 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 communal celebration of the meetings with God in history and in nature. Yet the particular existence of the Covenant people is not thought of as contradicting but rather as enhancing human solidarity. This people, together with all men, is called upon to create political, economic, and social forms that will affirm divine sovereignty--embody it in communal existence. This task is carried out in the belief not that man will succeed solely by his own efforts in these endeavours but that these sought-after human relationships have both their source and their goal in God--who assures their actualization. Within the sphere of his existence in the community, each Jew is called upon to realize the Covenant in his 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 emerged in the liturgy of the synagogue some time during the last pre-Christian and first Christian centuries, although there is evidence 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 (order of worship, or prayerbook) that has as its focus the recitation of a series of biblical passages (Deut. 6:4-9; Deut. 11:13-21; Num. 15:37-41) takes its name from 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 unified statement about God and his relationship to the world and Israel, as well as Israel's obligations toward and response to God. In this statement, God, who is the Creator of the universe and who has chosen Israel in love ("Blessed art thou, O Lord, who has chosen thy people Israel in love"), expressed by the giving of Torah, is declared to be "one"; his love is to be reciprocated by men 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 the divine unity. 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, however, acquired further meaning. It was understood toward the end of the pre-Christian era to proclaim--over against dualistic religious formulations in the Greco-Roman world--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 over against religious positions that insisted that the Creator God and the lawgiver God were separate and even inimical. Subsequently, this affirmation was developed in philosophical and mystical terms by both medieval and modern thinkers. Creativity As has been noted, 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 world view, he remains actively present in nature. This "creed" is concerned as well to come to terms with the ever-present problem of evil. Paraphrasing Isa. 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") rather than "evil." The change was clearly made to avoid the implication that God is the source of moral evil. Judaism, however, did not flinch from confronting the problem of pain and suffering in the world and affirming the paradox of suffering and divine sovereignty, of pain and divine providence, refusing to accept the concept of a partial God--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 teacher of men through the giving of instruction (Torah; see above); he acts in the life of mankind in historical events; he has chosen a particular people--Israel--in love to witness to his presence and his desire for a perfected society; he will, as redeemer, enable man 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 mankind further opportunity to fulfill the divinely appointed obligation. Yet the basically moral nature of God is asserted in the second of the biblical passages that form the core of this liturgical statement (Deut. 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 (Num. 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 underscored by such expressions 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 this has as its countertheme the affirmation of divine nearness. 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) 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, the Present One, is derived from a Hebrew root meaning "to dwell," again calling attention to divine nearness ("presence"). 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 that of divine personhood, most particularly disclosed in the use of the pronoun "thou" in direct address to God. The community and the individual, confronted by the Creator, teacher, redeemer, addresses the divine as living person, not as 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 such vivid biblical metaphors as the husband-wife relation in Hosea; the "adoption" motif in Ezek. 16; and the firstborn-son relation (Ex. 4:22). Nonetheless, although terms of personal intimacy are used widely to express Israel's and man's relationship with God, such usage is restrained by the accompanying sense of divine otherness. This is to be seen in the liturgical "blessings," where, following the direct address to God, in which the second person singular pronoun is used, the verbs, with great regularity, are in the third person singular, thus providing the requisite tension between nearness and otherness, between the impersonal and the personal. 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 Idealist philosophy: more recently, philosophical Naturalism was offered as the suitable content of Judaism, while still retaining the traditional God language. The meaningfulness of the whole body of such affirmations, moreover, has been called into question by the philosophical schools of Logical Positivism and Linguistic Analysis. Most recently, the destruction of 6,000,000 Jews during the Nazi period has raised the issue of the validity of such concepts as God's presence in history, divine redemption, the covenant, and the chosen people. In every case, however, it is with the structure of ideas here noted that these challenges must deal. Israel (the Jewish people) Choice and covenant The concluding phrase of the second benediction of the liturgical section referred to above reads: "who has chosen thy people Israel in love." Here the basis of the relationship between God and Israel set forth in the biblical narrative is clearly and succinctly stated: the choice of this people was determined by no other factor than divine love. The patriarchal narratives, beginning with the 12th chapter of Genesis, presuppose the choice, which is set forth explicitly in Deut. 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 the 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. However understood, the background of this choice is the recurring disobedience of mankind narrated in Genesis 2-11. Abraham and his descendants are singled out not merely as the object of the divine blessing but also as its channel to all mankind. 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 "father's house" (Gen. 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) 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 may, according to some contemporary scholars, have been reenacted on a regular basis at various sacred sites in the land, eventually 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 spokesmen for God, called the community to renewed obedience, threatened and promised disaster if such was not forthcoming, and--recalling the source of the choice in divine love--sought to explain its persistence even when, strictly understood, the covenant should have been repudiated by God. The choice of Israel has its concrete expression 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. As noted, Abraham and his descendants were seen as the means by which the estrangement of disobedient mankind 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" (Ex. 19:6) functioning within mankind and for its sake. This task is enunciated with particular earnestness in the writings of the prophets. In Isa. 43-44, Israel is declared to be God's witness and servant who is to bring the knowledge of God to the nations. In chapter 42 of the same book Israel is declared to be a "covenant of the people, a light to 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" (42:6-7). This double motif of a chosen people and witness to the nations, joined to that of the righteous king, developed in the biblical and postbiblical periods into messianism in its several varieties (see below Eschatology). 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 its 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, although it appeared in a number of other forms. Pharisaic Judaism and its continuation, rabbinic Judaism, down to modern times has 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 the ideal, the self-image of the people was that of "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 beginning of the 5th centuries BCE. It is, however, doubtful whether the use of such terms as nationalism, particularism, or exclusivism (as opposed to universalism) 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 indication of the narrow, exclusivistic, nationalistic nature of Judaism, without reference to the situation in which a harassed contingent of returned exiles sought to maintain itself in a territory surrounded by politically unfriendly if not hostile neighbours. Nor does this represent racialism, since foreigners were admitted to the Jewish community, and 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, who was the one true God, the Creator of the heavens and earth. A more balanced view recognizes that within the Jewish community religious universalism was affirmed at the same time and 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 mankind. 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 the fulfillment, from the divine side, of the Covenant. The goal of the Israelites escaping from Egypt is the same land, and entry into it is understood in the same fashion. The return from the Babylonian Exile, too, is seen in the same light. As there was the choice of a people, so was there 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. Though 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, although He had chosen a particular territory for this chosen people. Here again the twofold nature of Jewish thought becomes apparent, and both sides are to 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 integral 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, viewed as paradigmatic. Although some Jews continued to live in the land, yet for most in the distant dispersion it was idealized and viewed 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 utopian concept was released in eastern Europe in a cultural renaissance that focussed, 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. The political movement reflected a dissatisfaction with the view of the Jews as merely a body or organization of religious believers--like the Christian churches--an interpretation that had become dominant following the political emancipation of the Jews in the period after Napoleon. The political emphasis of Zionism aroused considerable opposition from those Jews who were convinced of the necessity of a churchly definition of Judaism parallel to the Roman Catholic and Protestant communions. While this conflict erupted in bitter debate during the first half of the 20th century, the events of the Nazi period in Europe brought it to a close, except for some sporadic renewals on the part of some numerically insignificant groups. For the most part, although there are few satisfactory formulations--theological or secular--there is a working consensus that acknowledges a significant role to the land and recognizes that a churchly definition of the Jewish community, while strategically acceptable in some situations, does not do justice to history and is not theologically sound if it suggests that Judaism merely consists of abstract doctrines and dogmas. Some Jews, however, continue to argue that whatever the past has been, the future of the Jewish community is with those movements in the modern world that cut across or transcend the particularity Zionism represents. 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 such ideas as the "genius" of the people. Most recently, attempts have been made to approach the question sociologically, dismissing the theological mode as unhelpful. The concept of the chosen people is then understood to indicate 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 has 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 espouse this position, the doctrine of the choice is not without its theological difficulties even for those who continue to affirm it. Man The image of God In Gen. 1:26, 27; 5:1; and 9:6 two terms occur, "image" and "likeness," that seem to indicate clearly the biblical understanding of man's essential nature: he is created in the image and likeness of God. Yet the texts in which they are used are not entirely unambiguous; the idea they point to does not appear elsewhere in Scriptures; and the concept is skirted cautiously in the rabbinic interpretations. What the image and likeness of God or the divine image refer to in the biblical text is not made explicit, and, in the light of the psychosomatic unity of man that dominates the biblical concepts, it is not possible to escape entirely from 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 is a question that is by no means answered. Evidence of the problematic nature of the concept is found in rabbinic Judaism. Akiba (2nd century CE) ignored the usages in Gen. 1 and 5 and emphasized 9:6, understanding it to mean, contrary to the usual interpretation, "after an image, God made man," that is, in the Platonic sense of a heavenly archetype. He did not wish to allow any resemblance between God and any created being. Other interpretations sought to avoid the difficulty by rendering elohim (a plural form) not as "God" but as "divine beings" (i.e., angels: "God created man after the image of divine beings [elohim]"). The earthly-spiritual creature In those parts of the Jewish community of antiquity that were deeply influenced by Greek philosophical ideas, a dualistic interpretation of man was offered. Here the divine likeness suggested is that of the immortal, intellectual soul as contrasted to the body. Still other thinkers, both ancient and modern, have understood that likeness to be ethical, with particular emphasis placed on freedom of the will. What is evident is that no doctrine of man can be erected on the basis of these several verses alone, but that a broader view must be taken, in which they are assimilated. A careful examination of the biblical material, particularly the words nefesh, neshama, and ruah, which are often too broadly translated as "soul" and "spirit," indicates that these must not be understood as referring to the psychical side of a psychophysical pair. A man did not possess a nefesh but rather was a nefesh, as Gen. 2:7 says: "wayehi ha-adam le-nefesh hayya" (". . . and the man became a living being"). Man was, for most of the biblical writers, what has been called "a unit of vital power," not a dual creature separable into two distinct parts of unequal importance and value. While this understanding of the nature of man dominated biblical thought, in apocalyptic literature (2nd century BCE-2nd century CE) the term nefesh began to be viewed as a separable psychical entity with existence apart from body. Although this was not entirely divorced from the unitary biblical view, nonetheless a functional body-soul dualism was 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 man as a psychosomatic unit, although the temporary separation of the components after death was an accepted position. The biblical view of man as an inseparable psychosomatic unit meant that death was understood to be his dissolution. Yet, although man 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 of the 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. However, this concept of sheol, along with belief in the possibility of occasional miraculous restorations of dead individuals to life, and perhaps 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 began to appear in sketchy form in postexilic writings (Isa. 26:19; Dan. 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 (see Eschatology, below) 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, nonetheless, 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. Now Greek ideas, with their individualistic bent, began to have influence, so that the idea of 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 either the biblical or the rabbinic thinkers. What emerged from the latter's discussions of the biblical themes was an emphasis on the ethical import of man's composite makeup. Man is in a state of tension or equilibrium between the two foci of creation, the "heavenly" and the "earthly." He necessarily participates in both, and, as such, is the one responsible creature who can truly serve his Creator, for he alone, having both sides of creation in him, may choose between them. It is the ability to make an ethical choice that is the distinguishing mark of man. This ability is not derived from the "heavenly" side but resides in the double basis of man's existence. It is important to recognize this as something other than a 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. These are genuine variations and developments of the biblical-rabbinic ideas and may not be dismissed as aberrations. They 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 Mankind is then viewed, however this position is arrived at, as ethically involved. The first 11 chapters of Genesis are posited upon this responsibility, for the implicit assumption of the prepatriarchal stories is man's ability to choose between obedience and disobedience. Rabbinic Judaism, taking up the covenant-making episode between God and Noah (Gen. 9:8-17), developed it as the basis of mankind's ethical obligation. All men, not merely Israel, were engaged in a covenant relationship with God, which was spelled out in explicit precepts--variously enumerated as six, seven, 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. Man's nature, viewed ethically, was explained in rabbinic Judaism not only as a tension between the "heavenly" and "earthly" components but also as a tension between two "impulses." Here again, fragmentary and allusive biblical materials were developed into more comprehensive statements. The biblical word yetzer means "plan," that which is formed in man's mind. In the two occurrences of the word in Genesis (6:5; 8:21), the plan or formation of man's mind is described as ra', perhaps "evil" in the moral sense or maybe no more than "disorderly," "confused," "undisciplined." The other biblical occurrences do not have this modifier. Nonetheless, the Aramaic translations (Targumim) invariably denominated it as bisha ("wicked") wherever it occurred. Rabbinic literature created a technical term yetzer ha-ra' ("the evil impulse") to denote the source within man of his disobedience, and, subsequently, the counterterm yetzer ha-tov ("the good impulse") to indicate man's obedience. These more clearly suggest the ethical quality of man's duality, while their opposition and conflict point to man's freedom and the ethical choices he makes. Indeed, it is primarily within the realm of the ethical that Judaism posits freedom, recognizing the bound, or determined, quality of much of his existence (e.g., his natural environment or physiological makeup). It is this ethically free creature who stands within the covenant relationship and who 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 here that the central concern of Judaism is most evident and the subject discussed in greatest detail. It should be noted, however, that since, according to Judaic tradition, all mankind stands within a covenant relation to God and is commanded to be moral and just, essentially the same choice is made universally. In technical language, the acceptance of divine sovereignty by the people of Israel and by the individual 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!" At the same time it imposes obligations in terms of communal and individual behaviour. These two responses are understood to be inextricably bound together, 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 major, interrelated headings: idolatry, murder, and illicit sexual behaviour, each and all of which explicitly and implicitly involve rebellion, for they involve activities that deny--if not God's existence--his commanding relationship and the requirement of man's response. Such behaviour destroys the community and sets individual against individual, thus thwarting the ultimate purpose of God, the perfected human society. If, however, man is free to choose rebellion and to suffer its consequences, he is also able to turn back to God and to become reconciled with him. The Bible--most particularly the prophetic writings--is filled with this idea, although the term teshuva ("turning") came into use only in rabbinic sources. Basically it grows out of the covenant and God's unwillingness--despite man's failures--to break off his relationship. In rabbinic thought it is apparently 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 the immediate historicopolitical 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. Man was called upon to atone for his rebellion by positive action that repudiated his failure. He was summoned to reconstitute wholeness in his individual life and community in society. Historically viewed, Jewish existence, as it developed under rabbinic leadership, following after the two disastrous rebellions against Rome, was an attempt to reconstitute a community of faith expressed in worship and in an ordered society that would enable the individual to 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 The Jewish view of man is certainly less clearly articulated than its affirmations concerning God. Nonetheless, it is evident that its central concern was ethical. The question of how man as individual and community was to behave was the focus of interest. Yet it is also clear that metaphysical concerns, however rudimentary in the beginning, were included in the developing discussion. Medieval philosophers 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 philosophic adepts. In the modern period, the impact of various philosophical and psychological schools has further fragmented the situation so that little or no consensus is evident, although resurrection or immortality language is still used even when its content is uncertain. But alongside this lack of agreement, the view that man is to be understood, however else, as a creature who makes free ethical choices for which he is responsible remains--although variously articulated--the basic affirmation of Judaism about man. Ethics and society The ethical emphasis of Judaism Jewish affirmations about God and man intersect in the concept of Torah as the ordering of human existence in the direction of the divine. Man, however else understood, is an ethically responsible creature responsive to the presence of God in nature and in history. Although that responsiveness is expressed on many levels, it is within the horizontal relationship of man to man that it is most explicitly called for. The pentateuchal legislation sets down, albeit within the limitations of the structures of the ancient Middle East, the patterns of interpersonal relations. The prophetic messages are deeply concerned with these demands and see the disregard of them as the source of social and individual disorder. No segment of society, even the most exalted, is free of ethical obligation. Indeed, the transformation of prophetism from its earlier form as ecstaticism and soothsaying is seen in the ethical confrontation of David by Nathan ("Thou art the man") for seducing Bathsheba and arranging to have her husband killed (II Sam. 12). What is particularly striking 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 (Lev. 19), it is imitation of divine holiness that is offered as the basis of human behaviour in the ethical sphere as well as the cultic-ceremonial. Concern for the 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) were all motivated by the basic injunction, "You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am Holy." Acceptable human behaviour is, therefore, "walking in all His ways" (Deut. 11:22). The dialectic 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"), as developed in rabbinic Judaism, is expressed succinctly in a comment on the verse from Deuteronomy quoted above. In response to the question of how it is possible to walk "in all His ways," the reply is made (Sifre Deut. 85a): "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." Indeed even more daringly, God is described as clothing the naked, nursing the sick, comforting the mourners, burying the dead, so that man may recognize his 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. Although in the Book of Ezekiel (see especially chapter 18) emphasis is laid on individual responsibility, "the person who sins shall die," in contrast to the more widespread statement of communal involvement, "visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children" (e.g., Ex. 20:5), these two aspects of ethical conduct are never entirely distinguished in Judaism. The just society requires the just man, and the just man functions within the just society. The concrete expression of ethical requirements in legal precepts took place with both ends in view, so that the process of beginning the holy community and the formation of the hasid ("pious"), the man of steadfast devotion to God, were concomitant processes. 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 has, therefore, reopened for discussion areas that have for millennia been either ignored or relegated to the realm of abstraction. What this implies is that the full ethical responsibility of the Jew 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 the relationships between the members of the Jewish community or between individuals as such, and away from political responsibilities in the larger society. 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 made up the pattern of the individual's obligations as well. Given the situation of the dispersion of the Jews following the revolts against Rome in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, the individual pattern became the object of primary considerations. It is important to recognize that while theoretical ethical systems were not developed until the Middle Ages under the influence of philosophical concerns, nonetheless, even in the early period it was understood that behind the practical system of Halakha, the enumeration of legal precepts, there stood the dynamic of ethical theory. 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. A passage in the traditional Prayer Book enumerates 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 concludes by setting study of Torah as the premier virtue. Here is exhibited the complex variety of ethical behaviour called for within the Jewish tradition. To parental respect and family tranquillity are added, in other contexts, 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 the stranger, providing him with food and clothing (Deut. 10:18), remained a motivating factor in the structure of the community. Ethical requirements in economic life are expressed concretely in such a passage as Lev. 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"; and in Amos' 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 expressions of 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. Not only are relations within the human sphere the object of ethical concern but nature also is so regarded. The animal world, in the biblical view, requires merciful consideration, so that not only man is commanded to rest on the Sabbath but his domestic animals are to share the rest with him (Ex. 20:10; 23:12). Mistreatment of beasts of burden is prohibited (Deut. 22:4); and wanton destruction of animal life falls under the ban (ibidem: 6-7). In the rabbinic attitude toward brute creation, even inanimate nature is the object of human solicitude. Thus, for example, the food-yielding trees of a city under siege may not be destroyed, according to Deuteronomic legislation (Deut. 20:14-20). The enlargement of this and other biblical precepts resulted in the generalized rabbinic prohibition "You shall not destroy" that governs man's use of his environment. The relation to non-Jewish communities and cultures As noted above, the end of the Jewish state reduced the scope of ethical judgments in the political sphere; nonetheless, relations between the Jewish community and other societies--particularly political units: the Roman and Christian empires, the Islamic states, and other regimes--provided opportunities for the exploration of the ethical implications of such encounters. Since most of these were victor-victim, superior-inferior, power-powerless situations, 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 whole problem of the relationship between the Jewish community, in whatever form it has existed and does exist, and other social units has been vastly complicated. Ideally, the relation is 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 Israel has met and engaged the ideas, forms, behaviour and attitudes of its neighbours in constructive development. It borrowed as it contributed and 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 religiocultural ideas and forms of the native population. On others, it actively sought out--as in the Islamic period in Spain (8th to 15th centuries)--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. Being more than a "confession" in the Christian sense, Judaism's adjustment to and relation with other sociopolitical units involved larger aspects of communal and individual life than merely the religious. 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 common usage of "religion." The formulation of Jewish ethical doctrines The ethical concerns of Judaism have found frequent literary expression. 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 focussed upon ethics. Indeed, since the political and social emancipation of the Jews, ethical and social rather than theological questions have tended to be given priority. Often the positions espoused have turned out to be, nonetheless, "judaized" versions of philosophic ethics or of political programs. In some instances, as in the case of the distinguished German-Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen, the result has been a Jewishly compelling restatement of a secular philosophic ethics. In others, it has resulted in no more than a pastiche. More crucial, however, is the question of a unique Jewish ethics and of its authority. The reestablishment of a Jewish state renews the possibility that the full range of ethical decisions, including communal as well as individual responsibility, may be confronted. In such a situation, the ideal task of the people moves out of the realm of speculation to become actual again. The universe Creation and providence: God's world Although the first chapter of 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 Gen. 1:1 in former as in modern times discloses. (Was there or was there not a preexisting matter, void, or chaos?) Yet, basically, the interest of the author 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"); and "when God began to create," which could indicate some concept of prime matter. He was concerned rather to affirm that the totality of existence, inanimate (Gen. 1:3-19), living (20-25), and human (26-31), derived immediately from the same divine source; and, thus, that it is a universe. As divine creation, it 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" (Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 25, 31) may be understood as the ground of this affirmation, for the workmanship discloses the workman. The observed order of the universe is further understood by the biblical author to be the direct result of a covenantal relationship established 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." (Gen. 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 Isa. 45:7 to avoid ascribing evil to God. Nonetheless, despite the problem of theodicy (the problem of evil in a world made and ordered by God), Judaism has not acquiesced to the mood reported in the Palestinian Targum to Gen. 4:8: "He did not create the world in mercy nor does he rule in mercy." Rather, it has affirmed a benevolent and compassionate God. It is the physical world--divine creation--that provides the stage for history, which is the place of the divine human encounter. An early Midrash, in response to the question as to why Scripture begins with the story of creation, points out that it was necessary in order 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 Qiddush, 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 up, 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. Man's place in the universe Man as creature is, of course, subject to the natural order. It is, indeed, in the world and through the world that man carries out his relationship to God. The commandments of Torah are obeyed not solely as observances between man and God but as actions between man and man, between man and the world. Although the creation story designates man as ruler over the earth and its inhabitants (Gen. 1:26-28; see also Ps. 8:5-9), nonetheless, far from being an arbitrary master, man's dominion is limited by Torah, for its regulations are concerned not only with transactions between man and man but also lay out his responsibilities to the land he cultivates, the produce of the soil, the animals he domesticates. Bound in the network of existence he, as the moral creature, is responsible for it in all of its parts. Even the destruction of the Jewish commonwealth in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE did not alienate the Jew from these responsibilities, as the elaborate system of Mishna and Gemara gives evidence. The gradual but consistent exclusion of the Jewish community from immediate connection with large segments of the natural world, through legislation in Christendom and Islam, tended to dull the Jew's awareness of it; the recurring references to it in the religious calendar, however, and the observation of harvest festivals even by citydwellers 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. As indicated in other contexts, the particular emphasis placed on one or the other side of the frequent twofoldness of the Jewish view has depended upon the situation in which the community has found itself. 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 the nonhuman beings mentioned in Scripture--angels or messengers--is not altogether clear and their roles seem ephemeral. 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 unfocussed biblical view gave way to an elaborate hierarchy of functionaries who acted, in some apocalyptic visions, as a veritable heavenly bureaucracy. Nevertheless, despite a consensus concerning their existence, there was little agreement as to their role or importance. In some Midrashim God takes counsel with them; in other sources the rabbis urge men not to involve them but to approach God directly. Actually, they belong to that marginal area between religion and folklore. Like their counterfigures, the demons, they 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 flit in and out of the imagination like bats in the evening. The medieval philosophers Aristotelized or Platonized them; the early mystics Neoplatonized them; the Kabbalists continually invented new ones and fitted them into their complicated network of cosmic existence. Nonetheless, their role, even in periods of considerable emphasis, was peripheral. 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 yet 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, lacks the breadth and depth of the great philosophical approaches. Eschatology The future age of mankind and the world The choice of Israel, according to the biblical writings, had occurred because of mankind's continual failure, by rebellion against its Creator, to fulfill its divine potential. The subsequent failure 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 envisioning 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 sociopolitical unit and under the leadership of a human ruler, who would, however, 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 human monarch of the future was often, although not always, portrayed in terms of an idealized David, using such features of his life and reign as would underscore submission to God and emphasized 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, or the ideal ruler. The Babylonian Exile added a new measure of urgency to this expectation, although it was not expressed in any uniform fashion. The later chapters of the Book of Ezekiel provide in largely impersonal fashion 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 the Mede--who are seen as the divine instruments ushering in a new era. It is important to recognize that while such figures have extraordinary virtues ascribed to them, these virtues are neither superhuman nor suprahuman but such as are ultimately required of all Israel and of all men. The frustrations of the postexilic period, when the several attempts to bring into being the holy community had no more than partial success and were thwarted by the imperial designs of the great powers--as they had been in the preexilic period as well--led to an emphasis upon the futuristic quality of the 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. Since ancient cosmic myths--in good measure demythologized--had been part of the Israelite intellectual inheritance, evidenced at least in literary usages throughout Scriptures, the impact of such neighbouring ideas was to reinvigorate the mythic elements. Thus, hopes for the future at the end of the Persian period and on through the Hellenistic developments after c. 330 BCE comprised both historical expectations focussed upon a sociopolitical community and cosmic-mythic visions that moved on a broader stage. The latter were, of course, never entirely absent from the historical expectations and situations, 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 forms, apocalypses (i.e., visionary disclosures of the future), the literature of the period affords a remarkable insight into the agonies and urgencies of the people. After the failures, saving events, and disappointments of the past are recounted, the present, in transparent disguise, is portrayed and the immediately hoped-for 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 Put schematically, Israel's hope was for the restoration of divine sovereignty over all of creation. Concretely, that hope found a considerable variety of expressions. Of all such expressions, that which centred around the idealized king began to assume 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 and inaugurating the new era. On the other hand, in some writings of the period the anointed king-messiah (Hebrew, mashiah, "anointed")--the title reflects the episode in I Sam. 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. It is clear, then, that 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. Nonetheless, it must be recognized that 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, confronted with an embarrassment of riches, the medieval theologians sought to combine them into an inclusive system that intricately involved as large a variety 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 mankind to dwell under divine sovereignty. As a component of this reestablished kingdom, the righteous dead of Israel would be resurrected to enjoy 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 victim of the 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; all the righteous would be transformed and transported into a new world; i.e., creation would be totally restored. Particular emphases that one or the other of these ideas received, the ways in which they were interpreted--philosophically, mystically, or ethically--were determined most frequently by the situations and conditions in which the Jewish community found itself. With such a considerable body of ideas at its disposal and with the details of none of them ever receiving the kind of affirmation that statements about God, Torah, and Israel had, freedom of speculation in the realm of eschatology was little restricted. Thus, Joseph Albo (15th century) in his work on Jewish "dogmas," the Sefer ha-'iqqarim, 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 interiorized the expectations in the direction of personal redemption. Following the disasters of the late 15th to 17th centuries (e.g., the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the Cossack massacre of the Jews in Poland) however, messianic speculation in all of 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 a futurizing of the hopes or at least a limiting of their application (see also below, Jewish mysticism). 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 whose goal was often thought of as immediately attainable through enlightened social and political action. When disillusionment with the emancipation set in, messianism was even more completely secularized in some segments of the community who saw its meaning and fulfillment in some form of socialism--again, rather close at hand. In others, it was absorbed into the emerging political nationalism--Zionism. Similar developments took place in eastern Europe, with parallel transformations. In more recent times, particularly since the events symbolized by the name Auschwitz (a Nazi death camp in Poland, where millions of Jews were exterminated), the earlier modern interpretations, particularly of messianism, but also of eschatology as a whole, have been considered inadequate. Although no compelling statement has been forthcoming, Jewish thinkers in the second half of the 20th century have been attempting once again to come to grips with eschatological concepts in all of their varieties and forms.

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