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Judaism and Orthodox Judaism Loren Marks Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive All Faculty Publications 2014 Judaism and Orthodox Judaism Loren Marks Trevan Hatch Brigham Young University - Provo, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub Part of the Other Religion Commons Original Publication Citation Hatch, T. & Marks, L. (2014). Judaism and Orthodox Judaism. In L. Ganong, M. Coleman, J. G. Golson (Eds.), The ocS ial History of the American Family (pp. 781–784). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. (2,300 words; my contribution was about 90 percent). BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Marks, Loren and Hatch, Trevan, "Judaism and Orthodox Judaism" (2014). All Faculty Publications. 3039. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/3039 This Peer-Reviewed Article is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. COPYRIGHT NOTICE: The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted materials. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research. If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in pvro=><;<; of fair use that user may be liable for copyright infringement. Judaism and Orthodox Judaism 781 Judaism and patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, Israel (also called Jacob), and Joseph. The Hebrews, also called Isra­ Orthodox Judaism elites after the grandson of Abraham, eventually escaped Egypt and settled in what is today Israel lhe term Jew, which began as a tribal name and later and Palestine. became a national title, today refers to many things: Although the Israelites had become, by choice, an ethnic group, a philosophy, a religion (Judaism), geographicalJy divided into 12 territories--one for a tradition, or a way of life. Although Jews have the descendants of each of the 12 sons of Israel­ comprised a relatively small portion of the world they were unified by both a temple and legal sys­ .population (currently a mere 14, million people), tem that the God of Israel revealed to them through over the last 3,000 years the sacred texts (Hebrew Moses. The Israelites offered animal sacrifices and Bible) and monotheistic tradition of the Jewish other offerings at the temple in Jerusalem to the people have been foundational in Western civiliza­ God of Israel. The temple worship of ancient Isra­ tion. The Jews, while suffering some of the great­ elite religion is the foundation of what would later est persecutions of any group in recorded history, be called Judaism. lhe ancient Israelites were led have nevertheless managed to produce some of the politically by kings (the most famous of them being ,most influential intellectual figures to date, includ­ David and Solomon), ritually by high priests who .ing Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, and oversaw affairs of the temple, and religiously by Jesus of Nazareth. Of the 826 Nobel Prize winners prophets. Many Israelites began calling themselves to date, 187 (22 percent) have been Jewish. Jews (yehudim in Hebrew) after Judah, the name of Jews are often viewed by historians and social one of Israel's sons and a dominant tribe in Israel, as scientists-including scholars of American cul­ early as the 8th century B.C,E. Within a few hundred ~ure, family, and religion-as a fascinating group to years) by the time the Babylonians had destroyed :tudy for several reasons: (1) Judaica--referring to the temple in 586 a.c.E., members of all 12 tribes of ewish history, religion, and tradition-dates back Israel were calling themselves Jews. more than 3,000 years and contains one of the most complex histories, legal and religious systems, and Rabbis, the Synagogue, and Jewish Law philosophical traditions of any ethnic or religious Although ancient Israelite law and religion is the gr:oup; (2) Jews, because of their nature, are ideal foundation of Judaism, the religion as practiced for researching an array of important social issues, today by traditional Jews was largely developed by including assimilation, ethnicity, identity forma-­ the rabbis (masters or teachers) in late antiquity. tion, and oppression; (3) the Jewish population is "Thus, this traditional Judaism is also called Rab­ significantly more educated than the general popu­ binic Judaism. After the Jews rebuilt the temple in lation-as of 1990, 50 percent of Jewish males and Jerusalem in 516 B.C,E., they were no longer led reli­ 18 percent of Jewish females had completed at least giously by prophets but rather by scholars and rab­ me college degree, more than double and triple bis who interpreted both the written law (Hebrew ne national averages, respectively; and (4) tradi­ Bible) and the oral law (traditions). By the 1st cen­ ional Jewish groups have exceptionally high rates tury c.E., localized centers of worship had becom ,f within-faith marriage and fertility, while more common. In addition to the temple in Jerusalen tberal and secular Jews have low rates of marriage these smaller centers,proseuche (place of prayer) o nd fertility, as well as high rates of intermarriage, sunagoge (place of assembly) in Greek, were place ,roviding a study in contrasts. where Jews could gather and worship. After th, Romans sacked the temple in 70 C.E., these syna :oundations of Judaism gogues became the central places of worship ir \CCording to the Hebrew Bible, a nomadic tribe each community, and the rabbis assumed an evet ,riginally from Mesopotamia eventually settled more important role in the survival of Judaism as o Egypt in the early 2nd millennium a.c.E. 'This a religion. 1he rabbis in the first six centuries of 1eriod in Jewish history is occasionally referred the Common Era produced one of the most com­ o as the Patriarchal Period because this nomadic plex and extensive codes of religious law ever writ­ ribe was led by four generations of noble ten, totaling more than 60 tractates in more than 782 Judaism and Orthodox Judaism 30 volumes. 1his code, the Talmud, contains rab­ argued that much of}ewish belief and practice was binic discussions on Jewish law (halakha) and eth­ antiquated, superstitious, or unnecessary. Propos­ ics {based largely on the Hebrew Bible), including als from within the Jewish community to adjust, issues of business, diet, education, family life, war, reinterpret, and modernize both the belief system and worship. and the religious legal system were rejected by the particularists. Reform Judaism spread across The Struggle to Define Judaism Western Europe. By the early 1820s, a Reform 'Throughout the Middle Ages, Jews continued to Synagogue was established in Charleston, South orient themselves by the Hebrew Bible and the Tal­ Carolina. Currently in the United States, Reform mud, but they also looked to contemporary Jewish Jews comprise roughly 35 percent of the adult Jew­ intelligentsia to interpret these sources for direc­ ish population. tion on Jewish legal and religious matters. Sa'adia Orthodox Judaism as a svstematic movement Gaon (d. 942), for example, codified the first Jewish that emerged as a response to Reform Judaism. prayer book for synagogue worship (siddur), after Jews who rejected proposals for change argued that which today's prayer books are structured. Mai­ Judaism cannot be reformed because, as God's cre­ monides (d. 1204) formulated 13 principles of faith ation, Judaism transcends space and time; there­ and wrote a code of law (Mishnah Torah) meant to fore, any attempt to reform Judaism was anathemao be more accessible to the Jewish masses than the to traditional Jews. According to many traditional Talmud. 'The Mishnah Torah (retelling of the law Jews, called "Orthodox" today, Reform Judaism i: or second law) is widely consulted and studied by not considered Judaism. Orthodox Jews constitut some Jewish groups today. roughly 26 percent of the adult Jewish population i1 In the early Modern period, after they were the United States. expelled from Spain in 14-92, Jews began raising Jews who are called Conservative in Norti questions about how they-as a cultural, religious, America ("Masorti" outside North America), and social minority-could better live and survive comprising roughly 27 percent of the adult Jewish (both religiously and temporally) in the dominant population in the United States, offered a moder­ society. Two major positions dominated the dia­ ate alternative to the Orthodox and Reform posi­ logue. One position (particularism) argued that tions. Conservative Jewish synagogues range on Jews must largely remain insular and accept only the spectrum from more liberal to more traditional Jewish ways of thinking (Hebrew thought) because but typically fall somewhere in between Orthodox all .other forms of thinking (e.g., Greek philosophy) and Reform. were either inimical or superfluous to the Jewish The intense philosophical debates that startE:\ way of life. Accepting other ways of thinking, it centuries ago in Europe continue to the presen was argued, would eventually lead to mass assimi-· between the three major branches of Judaisrr. lation. The other position (accommodationism) These debates influence the Jewish
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