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96-527: Neo-Hasidism , Neochassidut , or Neo-Chassidus , is an approach to Judaism in which people learn beliefs and practices of Hasidic Judaism , and incorporate it into their own lives or prayer communities, yet without formally joining a Hasidic group. Over the 20th century neo-Hasidism was popularized by the works of writers such as Hillel Zeitlin , Martin Buber , Abraham Joshua Heschel , Lawrence Kushner , Zalman Schachter-Shalomi , and Arthur Green . Neo-Hasidism

192-404: A Berakah is said also at evil tidings. Hence, although the experience of God is like none other, the occasions for experiencing Him, for having a consciousness of Him, are manifold, even if we consider only those that call for Berakot. Whereas Jewish philosophers often debate whether God is immanent or transcendent , and whether people have free will or their lives are determined, halakha

288-400: A minyan and be a shaliach tzibbur . In Modern Orthodox neo-Hasidic groups, women may not count in a minyan or be a shaliach tzibbur, in alignment with Orthodox Jewish law. Judaism Judaism ( Hebrew : יַהֲדוּת ‎ , romanized :  Yahăḏūṯ ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of

384-606: A candidate for the World Zionist Congress on the Green Zionist Alliance slate. In 2010, Waskow joined in founding the Green Hevra, a network of Eco-Jewish organizations, and served on its stewardship committee till 2013. In 2012 he became a member of the steering committee of Interfaith Moral Action on Climate. He is also a practitioner of nonviolent civil disobedience who has been arrested in climate protests in

480-597: A centralized authority that would dictate an exact religious dogma. Because of this, many different variations on the basic beliefs are considered within the scope of Judaism. Even so, all Jewish religious movements are, to a greater or lesser extent, based on the principles of the Hebrew Bible or various commentaries such as the Talmud and Midrash . Judaism also universally recognizes the Biblical Covenant between God and

576-551: A few, primarily the Chabad and Bratslav (or Breslov) Hasidim, adopted an attitude of outreach to the larger Jewish community, seeking to win more Jews to the Hasidic way of life. Equally important was Abraham Joshua Heschel , a Holocaust refugee and scion of Hasidic royalty, who began his academic career in America with a life-saving but difficult wartime stint at HUC. In 1946, he moved to

672-611: A general term that refers to any Jewish text that expands or elaborates on the original Five Books of Moses . Representing the core of the Jewish spiritual and religious tradition, the Torah is a term and a set of teachings that are explicitly self-positioned as encompassing at least seventy, and potentially infinite, facets and interpretations. Judaism's texts, traditions, and values strongly influenced later Abrahamic religions, including Christianity and Islam . Hebraism , like Hellenism , played

768-491: A loosely defined project of creating an alternative, informal type of Jewish community first proposed by Reform theologian Jakob Petuchowski in the 1960s. While the movement spanned a broad spectrum of spiritual proclivities, some Jews in the founding circles, like Arthur Waskow , Arthur Green , and Michael Lerner , under the combined influence of Heschel and Schachter-Shalomi, took up the project of further exploring Hasidism and recasting it in an American idiom. Havurat Shalom ,

864-459: A means of experiencing God". Reflecting on the contribution of the Amoraim and Tanaim to contemporary Judaism, Professor Jacob Neusner observed: The rabbi's logical and rational inquiry is not mere logic-chopping. It is a most serious and substantive effort to locate in trivialities the fundamental principles of the revealed will of God to guide and sanctify the most specific and concrete actions in

960-521: A means to learn the contents of God's revelation, but an end in itself. According to the Talmud: These are the things for which a person enjoys the dividends in this world while the principal remains for the person to enjoy in the world to come; they are: honoring parents, loving deeds of kindness, and making peace between one person and another. But the study of the Torah is equal to them all. (Talmud Shabbat 127a). In Judaism, "the study of Torah can be

1056-518: A parallel oral tradition, illustrating the assumption that the reader is already familiar with the details from other, i.e., oral, sources. Halakha , the rabbinic Jewish way of life, then, is based on a combined reading of the Torah, and the oral tradition—the Mishnah, the halakhic Midrash, the Talmud and its commentaries. The halakha has developed slowly, through a precedent-based system. The literature of questions to rabbis, and their considered answers,

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1152-514: A permanent king, and Samuel appointed Saul the king. When the people pressured Saul into going against a command conveyed to him by Samuel, God told Samuel to appoint David in his stead. Rabbinic tradition holds that the details and interpretation of the Law, called the Oral Torah or "Oral Law," were originally unwritten traditions based on the Law given to Moses at Sinai. However, as the persecutions of

1248-680: A person who is literally in a state of devekut (communion) with God in a way that most people are not; that a rebbe (or tzaddik) has purged his heart of the Evil Inclination . Further, Hasidim compare their Rebbe with God, in that the tzaddik becomes a channel for the divine will. In contrast, these beliefs are completely rejected by neo-Hasidism. Adherents of neo-Hasidic Judaism view their rabbis and prayer group leaders as people who are superior only in academic credentials - for instance, someone with rabbinic ordination and an academic record of studies in some topic (liturgy, rabbinic literature etc.)

1344-550: A positive commandment is to be fulfilled: The ordinary, familiar, everyday things and occurrences we have, constitute occasions for the experience of God. Such things as one's daily sustenance, the very day itself, are felt as manifestations of God's loving-kindness, calling for the Berakhot . Kedushah , holiness, which is nothing else than the imitation of God, is concerned with daily conduct, with being gracious and merciful, with keeping oneself from defilement by idolatry, adultery, and

1440-681: A reward for his act of faith in one God, he was promised that Isaac , his second son, would inherit the Land of Israel (then called Canaan ). Later, the descendants of Isaac's son Jacob were enslaved in Egypt , and God commanded Moses to lead the Exodus from Egypt. The Law was given at Sinai —the Torah , or five books of Moses. These books, together with the Nevi'im and Ketuvim , are known as Torah Shebikhtav , as opposed to

1536-520: A seminal role in the formation of Western civilization through its impact as a core background element of Early Christianity . Within Judaism, there are a variety of religious movements , most of which emerged from Rabbinic Judaism , which holds that God revealed his laws and commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai in the form of both the Written and Oral Torah. Historically, all or part of this assertion

1632-467: A theologian of stature with the publication of his books God in Search of Man and The Prophets. With that fame came an interest in his Hasidic roots and their role in his teachings. His social activism in the 1960s and 1970s further endeared him to many young Jews. Several of Heschel's students at JTS during the turbulent 1960s and early 1970s eventually became involved in the embryonic Havurah movement,

1728-595: A walk-in to end racial segregation by a Baltimore amusement park, and continuing through his arrest at the US Capitol in 2016 in a protest calling for more democratic election processes in the US — getting what he called "Hyper-Wealth" out of election campaigns and ending voter suppression aimed at disfranchising especially racial and ethnic minorities, the poor, the young, and the old— and most recently with arrests in Philadelphia at

1824-476: Is Maimonides ' thirteen principles of faith , developed in the 12th century. According to Maimonides, any Jew who rejects even one of these principles would be considered an apostate and a heretic. Jewish scholars have held points of view diverging in various ways from Maimonides' principles. Thus, within Reform Judaism only the first five principles are endorsed. In Maimonides' time, his list of tenets

1920-481: Is a system through which any Jew acts to bring God into the world. Ethical monotheism is central in all sacred or normative texts of Judaism. However, monotheism has not always been followed in practice. The Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh ) records and repeatedly condemns the widespread worship of other gods in ancient Israel . In the Greco-Roman era, many different interpretations of monotheism existed in Judaism, including

2016-587: Is also the source of the Hebrew term for Judaism, יַהֲדוּת Yahaḏuṯ . The term Ἰουδαϊσμός first appears in the Koine Greek book of 2 Maccabees in the 2nd century BCE (i.e. 2 Maccabees 2:21, 8:1 and 14:38) . In the context of the age and period it meant "seeking or forming part of a cultural entity". It resembled its antonym hellenismos , a word signifying people's submission to Hellenistic cultural norms. The conflict between iudaismos and hellenismos lay behind

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2112-537: Is an esoteric tradition in Judaism in Kabbalah , Rabbinic scholar Max Kadushin has characterized normative Judaism as "normal mysticism", because it involves everyday personal experiences of God through ways or modes that are common to all Jews. This is played out through the observance of the halakha , or Jewish law, and given verbal expression in the Birkat Ha-Mizvot , the short blessings that are spoken every time

2208-661: Is called the Jerusalem Talmud . It was compiled sometime during the 4th century in Palestine. According to critical scholars , the Torah consists of inconsistent texts edited together in a way that calls attention to divergent accounts. Several of these scholars, such as Professor Martin Rose and John Bright , suggest that during the First Temple period the people of Israel believed that each nation had its own god, but that their god

2304-442: Is heavily associated with and most often thought of as Orthodox Judaism . 13 Principles of Faith: In the strict sense, in Judaism, unlike Christianity and Islam, there are no fixed universally binding articles of faith, due to their incorporation into the liturgy. Scholars throughout Jewish history have proposed numerous formulations of Judaism's core tenets, all of which have met with criticism. The most popular formulation

2400-486: Is not a denomination of Judaism, but rather an approach to Judaism which can be found in all movements of Judaism, both Orthodox and non-Orthodox. Among non-Orthodox Jews one can find adherents of neo-Hasidism in Conservative , Reform , Reconstructionism , and Aleph: The Alliance for Jewish Renewal . In the 1970s and 1980s a similar movement amongst baalei teshuva — within more "traditional" Orthodoxy —was observed in

2496-702: Is premundane and has no peer or associate; (3) the whole universe is created; (4) God called Moses and the other Prophets of the Biblical canon; (5) the Law of Moses alone is true; (6) to know the language of the Bible is a religious duty; (7) the Temple at Jerusalem is the palace of the world's Ruler; (8) belief in Resurrection contemporaneous with the advent of the Messiah; (9) final judgment; (10) retribution. In modern times, Judaism lacks

2592-599: Is referred to as responsa (Hebrew Sheelot U-Teshuvot ). Over time, as practices develop, codes of halakha are written that are based on the responsa; the most important code, the Shulchan Aruch , largely determines Orthodox religious practice today. Jewish philosophy refers to the conjunction between serious study of philosophy and Jewish theology. Major Jewish philosophers include Philo of Alexandria , Solomon ibn Gabirol , Saadia Gaon , Judah Halevi , Maimonides , and Gersonides . Major changes occurred in response to

2688-578: Is regarded as the first Jewish diaspora . Later, many of them returned to their homeland after the subsequent conquest of Babylon by the Persian Achaemenid Empire seventy years later, an event known as the Return to Zion . A Second Temple was constructed and old religious practices were resumed. During the early years of the Second Temple, the highest religious authority was a council known as

2784-589: Is respected as an academic. No human is considered to be more holy than any other. Neo-Hasidism aims to be more egalitarian. Neo-Hasidim reject the Hasidic doctrine of bonding with the Tzadik (התקשרות לצדיקים); Hasidic Jews view their Rebbe as an intermediary between God and man (albeit in a functional and not an essential sense). Hasidic Jews are seek to bind themselves to God by virtue of being bound to their rebbe. Such ideas are largely rejected by Jews outside of Hasidic Judaism, including by neo-Hasidism. Neo-Hasidim reject

2880-418: Is that halakha should be viewed as a set of general guidelines rather than as a set of restrictions and obligations whose observance is required of all Jews. Historically, special courts enforced halakha ; today, these courts still exist but the practice of Judaism is mostly voluntary. Authority on theological and legal matters is not vested in any one person or organization, but in the sacred texts and

2976-791: Is the Torah , the first five books of the Hebrew Bible , a collection of ancient Hebrew scriptures. The Tanakh, known in English as the Hebrew Bible, has the same contents as the Old Testament in Christianity . In addition to the original written scripture, the supplemental Oral Torah is represented by later texts, such as the Midrash and the Talmud . The Hebrew-language word torah can mean "teaching", "law", or "instruction", although "Torah" can also be used as

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3072-582: The Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy ), 2 Macc. ii. 21: "Those that behaved themselves manfully to their honour for Iudaisme." At its core, the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh is an account of the Israelites ' relationship with God from their earliest history until the building of the Second Temple ( c.  535 BCE ). Abraham is hailed as the first Hebrew and the father of the Jewish people. As

3168-636: The Enlightenment (late 18th to early 19th century) leading to the post-Enlightenment Jewish philosophers. Modern Jewish philosophy consists of both Orthodox and non-Orthodox oriented philosophy. Notable among Orthodox Jewish philosophers are Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler , Joseph B. Soloveitchik , and Yitzchok Hutner . Well-known non-Orthodox Jewish philosophers include Martin Buber , Franz Rosenzweig , Mordecai Kaplan , Abraham Joshua Heschel , Will Herberg , and Emmanuel Lévinas . 13 Principles of Hermeneutics: Orthodox and many other Jews do not believe that

3264-759: The Great Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE), the Romans sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple. Later, Roman emperor Hadrian built a pagan idol on the Temple Mount and prohibited circumcision; these acts of ethnocide provoked the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–136 CE), after which the Romans banned the study of the Torah and the celebration of Jewish holidays, and forcibly removed virtually all Jews from Judea. In 200 CE, however, Jews were granted Roman citizenship and Judaism

3360-589: The Israelites from slavery in Ancient Egypt with more modern liberation struggles such as the Civil Rights Movement and the women's movement . Through the 1960s, Waskow was active in writing, speaking, electoral politics , and nonviolent action against the Vietnam War . After 1963, he participated in sit-ins and teach-ins and was arrested many times for protests against racial segregation ,

3456-741: The Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative); Rabbi Laura Geller , ordained by the Hebrew Union College (Reform); and feminist theologian Dr. Judith Plaskow . Waskow's best-known books include Godwrestling , Seasons of Our Joy , Down-to-Earth Judaism: Food, Money, Sex, and the Rest of Life , and Godwrestling — Round 2: Ancient Wisdom, Future Paths . With Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB, and Murshid Saadi Shakur Chisti, he co-authored The Tent of Abraham . With Rabbi Phyllis Berman he co-authored Tales of Tikkun: New Jewish Stories to Heal

3552-399: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America , the intellectual center for Conservative Judaism . There he still found himself marginalized for his Hasidic interests and customs, yet he surrounded himself with a small circle of devoted students (and eventual congregational rabbis ) drawn to his mystically flavored phenomenology. As the 1960s began, Heschel was achieving increasing recognition as

3648-510: The Jewish people . Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of observing the Mosaic covenant , which was established between God and the Israelites , their ancestors. The religion is considered one of the earliest monotheistic religions in the world. Jewish religious doctrine encompasses a wide body of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. Among Judaism's core texts

3744-710: The Kohanim and Leviyim (members of the tribe of Levi ), some only to farmers within the Land of Israel. Many laws were only applicable when the Temple in Jerusalem existed, and only 369 of these commandments are still applicable today. While there have been Jewish groups whose beliefs were based on the written text of the Torah alone (e.g., the Sadducees , and the Karaites ), most Jews believe in

3840-680: The Maccabean Revolt and hence the invention of the term iudaismos . Shaye J. D. Cohen writes in his book The Beginnings of Jewishness : We are tempted, of course, to translate [ Ioudaïsmós ] as "Judaism," but this translation is too narrow, because in this first occurrence of the term, Ioudaïsmós has not yet been reduced to the designation of a religion. It means rather "the aggregate of all those characteristics that makes Judaeans Judaean (or Jews Jewish)." Among these characteristics, to be sure, are practices and beliefs that we would today call "religious," but these practices and beliefs are not

3936-713: The Oxford English Dictionary the earliest citation in English where the term was used to mean "the profession or practice of the Jewish religion; the religious system or polity of the Jews" is Robert Fabyan's The newe cronycles of Englande and of Fraunce (1516). "Judaism" as a direct translation of the Latin Iudaismus first occurred in a 1611 English translation of the Biblical apocrypha (the Deuterocanonical books in

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4032-672: The Patriarch Abraham as well as the additional aspects of the Covenant revealed to Moses , who is considered Judaism's greatest prophet . In the Mishnah , a core text of Rabbinic Judaism , acceptance of the Divine origins of this covenant is considered an essential aspect of Judaism and those who reject the Covenant forfeit their share in the World to Come . Establishing the core tenets of Judaism in

4128-493: The halakha whereas its ultimate goal is to bring the holiness down to the world. Mordecai Kaplan , the founder of the Reconstructionist Judaism , abandons the idea of religion for the sake of identifying Judaism with civilization and by means of the latter term and secular translation of the core ideas, he tries to embrace as many Jewish denominations as possible. In turn, Solomon Schechter 's Conservative Judaism

4224-524: The oral law . These oral traditions were transmitted by the Pharisee school of thought of ancient Judaism and were later recorded in written form and expanded upon by the rabbis. According to Rabbinical Jewish tradition, God gave both the Written Law (the Torah ) and the Oral Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai . The Oral law is the oral tradition as relayed by God to Moses and from him, transmitted and taught to

4320-461: The rabbis and scholars who interpret them. Jews are an ethnoreligious group including those born Jewish, in addition to converts to Judaism . In 2021, the world Jewish population was estimated at 15.2 million, or roughly 0.195% of the total world population, although religious observance varies from strict to none. In 2021, about 45.6% of all Jews resided in Israel and another 42.1% resided in

4416-413: The 20th century romance between (idealized) Hasidism and non-Orthodox Jews. Following World War II , when the Hasidic centers of Central and Eastern Europe were decimated, some of the surviving communities relocated to America, creating new opportunities for American Jews to have direct experience with them, their practices and their beliefs. Most of these communities remained determinedly insular, but

4512-814: The 20th century, such as Tales of the Hasidim and the Legend of the Baal Shem Tov . In these books, Buber focused on the role of story telling and the charisma of early Hasidic masters as a vehicle for personal spirituality. As such, these books represent one aspect of Buber's larger project of creating a new form of personalistic, existential religiosity. Buber came under considerable criticism, especially from younger contemporary Gershom Scholem , for having interpreted Hasidism in an eccentric way that misrepresented Hasidic belief and literature. Nevertheless, Buber's sympathetic treatment of Hasidism proved attractive to many and started

4608-575: The Conservative movement. The following is a basic, structured list of the central works of Jewish practice and thought: The basis of halakha and tradition is the Torah (also known as the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses). According to rabbinic tradition, there are 613 commandments in the Torah. Some of these laws are directed only to men or to women, some only to the ancient priestly groups,

4704-443: The Earth: 4,000 Years of Ecology in Jewish Thought and his essay on “Jewish Environmental Ethics: Adam and Adamah,” in Oxford Handbook of Jewish Ethics and Morality . Other activities included the Green Menorah organizing project of The Shalom Center, the Interfaith Freedom Seder for the Earth and climate-focused public actions drawing on traditional liturgies for Tu B’Shvat, Passover, Tisha B’Av, Sukkot, and Hanukkah, and running as

4800-433: The Great Assembly, led by Ezra the Scribe . Among other accomplishments of the Great Assembly, the last books of the Bible were written at this time and the canon sealed . Hellenistic Judaism spread to Ptolemaic Egypt from the 3rd century BCE, and its creation sparked widespread controversy in Jewish communities, starting "conflicts within Jewish communities about accommodating the cultures of occupying powers." During

4896-600: The Hasidic doctrine of dynastic succession. In Hasidic communities, the son (or son-in-law) of a Rebbe usually becomes the next rebbe. In contrast, this dynastic succession is rejected by neo-Hasidim. Neo-Hasidim reject the Orthodox doctrine of strict gender differentiation in observance. In Hasidic Judaism, most mitzvot, including wearing tallitot , tefillin , writing a mezuzah scroll, and teaching Torah to groups including men are done by only men. Neo-Hasidism allows women to do some or all of these. In non-Orthodox neo-Hasidism, women are equal to men in every way: they can count in

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4992-471: The ICE offices in protest of US governmental hostility to refugees and immigrants—he was arrested about 26 additional times, each time for a non-violent protest against racism, militarism, polluting the Earth, or interference with democratic process. He claimed each as a public honor and religious act, in the spirit of the remark by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel after the Selma March for voting rights: "I felt as if my legs were praying." He continues to be

5088-485: The Jewish community and in the Jewish Renewal movement. Others, such as Green and Lawrence Fine, became leading scholars in the Jewish academic world, bringing an appreciation of Hasidism and an interest in adapting its ideas and customs to contemporary mores and life. Through books like Tormented Master, The Language of Truth and Your Word Is Fire, Arthur Green (and others) made Hasidism both more accessible and compelling for Jews seeking personal spirituality amidst

5184-517: The Jews increased and the details were in danger of being forgotten, these oral laws were recorded by Judah ha-Nasi in the Mishnah , redacted c.  200 CE . The Talmud was a compilation of the Mishnah and Gemara , rabbinic commentaries redacted over the next three centuries. The Gemara originated in two major centers of Jewish scholarship, Palestine and Babylonia ( Lower Mesopotamia ). Correspondingly, two bodies of analysis developed, and two works of Talmud were created. The older compilation

5280-439: The Oral Torah, which refers to the Mishnah and the Talmud . Eventually, God led them to the land of Israel where the tabernacle was planted in the city of Shiloh for over 300 years to rally the nation against attacking enemies. As time passed, the nation's spiritual level declined to the point that God allowed the Philistines to capture the tabernacle. The people of Israel then told Samuel that they needed to be governed by

5376-526: The Streets" as a part of Occupy Wall Street . Since spring 2012 he has been a member of the Coordinating Committee of the US National Council of Elders, a network of veteran activists of the crucial justice and peace movements of the mid-20th century who are continuing their nonviolent social action and are partnering with the new movements of the 21st century. Waskow pioneered in the development of Eco-Judaism in theology, liturgy, daily practice, and activism—through his books mentioned above as well as Torah of

5472-534: The US Capitol, at the White House, and at Philadelphia conclaves of fracking corporate leaders. In 2007, Newsweek named him one of the fifty most influential American rabbis. In that year also, the Neighborhood Interfaith Movement of Philadelphia presented him its Rev. Richard Fernandez Religious Leadership Award, and the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation presented him its Peace and Justice Award. The Forward named him one of America's "Forward Fifty," creative leaders of American Jewish life. In 2014 he

5568-416: The US, influenced by Shlomo Carlebach , Aryeh Kaplan , Zvi Aryeh Rosenfeld and others, and reflecting the prevailing counterculture movement . To some extent, it has persisted to this day in such phenomena as the Carlebach minyan and the growth in the Breslov movement . Martin Buber helped initiate interest in Hasidism among modernized Jews through a series of books he wrote in the first decades of

5664-452: The United States and Canada, with most of the remainder living in Europe, and other groups spread throughout Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Australia. The term Judaism derives from Iudaismus , a Latinized form of the Ancient Greek Ioudaismos ( Koinē Greek : Ἰουδαϊσμός , from the verb ἰουδαΐζειν , "to side with or imitate the [Judeans]"). Its ultimate source was Hebrew : יהודה , romanized :  Yehudah Judah ", which

5760-455: The Vietnam War, the Soviet Union 's oppression of Jews , South African apartheid , and the Iraq war . In 1967, he was the co-author, with Marcus Raskin, of " A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority ," a widely influential manifesto in support of those who resisted the military draft during the Vietnam War. In 1968, he signed the " Writers and Editors War Tax Protest " pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against U.S. involvement in

5856-445: The Vietnam War. Since 1969, Waskow has taken a leadership role in the Jewish Renewal movement. In 1971, he helped found the Fabrangen Havurah in Washington, DC. He notes that his experience at Fabrangen inspired his 1978 book Godwrestling . From 1982 to 1989, Waskow was a member of the faculty of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College , where he taught courses on contemporary theology and practical rabbinics. He also taught in

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5952-401: The Wounded World , A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven: The Jewish Life-Spiral as a Spiritual Journey , and Freedom Journeys: Tales of Exodus and Wilderness Across Millennia . He was the managing co-editor of Trees, Earth, and Torah: A Tu B'Shvat Anthology , and he edited Torah of the Earth: 4,000 Years of Jewish Thought on Ecology (2 vols). Waskow took pioneering roles in supporting

6048-453: The authority of the rabbinic tradition , and the significance of the State of Israel . Orthodox Judaism maintains that the Torah and halakha are divine in origin, eternal and unalterable, and that they should be strictly followed. Conservative and Reform Judaism are more liberal, with Conservative Judaism generally promoting a more traditionalist interpretation of Judaism's requirements than Reform Judaism. A typical Reform position

6144-430: The basis of the Talmud. According to Abraham ben David , the Mishnah was compiled by Rabbi Judah haNasi after the destruction of Jerusalem, in anno mundi 3949, which corresponds to 189 CE. Over the next four centuries, the Mishnah underwent discussion and debate in both of the world's major Jewish communities (in Israel and Babylonia ). The commentaries from each of these communities were eventually compiled into

6240-576: The belief in the omni-significance of Scripture, in the meaningfulness of its every word, letter, even (according to one famous report) scribal flourish; second, the claim of the essential unity of Scripture as the expression of the single divine will. Arthur Waskow Waskow was born in Baltimore , Maryland . He received a bachelor's degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1954 and a Ph.D. in American history from University of Wisconsin–Madison . He worked from 1959 to 1961 as legislative assistant to Congressman Robert Kastenmeier of Wisconsin. He

6336-471: The belief that God is one and is concerned with the actions of mankind. According to the Hebrew Bible, God promised Abraham to make of his offspring a great nation. Many generations later, he commanded the nation of Israel to love and worship only one God; that is, the Jewish nation is to reciprocate God's concern for the world. He also commanded the Jewish people to love one another; that is, Jews are to imitate God's love for people. Thus, although there

6432-438: The coining of the term "Neo-Hasidism (NH)." A few formalized groups and institutions, such as P'nai Or congregation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Elat Chayyim Retreat Center in Falls Village, CT, are heavily influenced by NH. NH also enjoyed a period of pre-eminence at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Seminary (RRC) during Arthur Green's tenure there as dean. In the past several years, many in modern-Orthodoxy began exploring

6528-411: The dangers of global warming and the climate crisis. In 1993, Waskow co-founded ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal . Between 1993 and 2005, he performed research, wrote, and spoke on behalf of ALEPH. Waskow was ordained a rabbi in 1995 by a transdenominational beth din (rabbinical court) made up of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi , with Lubavitch Hasidic lineage; Rabbi Max Ticktin , ordained by

6624-404: The delegation agreed to nominate Reverend Channing Phillips , chair of the delegation, for President, the first Black American to be nominated at a major party convention. Waskow was a contributing editor to Ramparts magazine, which published his "Freedom Seder " in 1969. The "Freedom Seder" was the first widely published Passover Haggadah that intertwined the archetypal liberation of

6720-403: The establishment of the authority of rabbis who acted as teachers and leaders of individual communities. Unlike other ancient Near Eastern gods, the Hebrew God is portrayed as unitary and solitary; consequently, the Hebrew God's principal relationships are not with other gods, but with the world, and more specifically, with the people he created. Judaism thus begins with ethical monotheism :

6816-770: The flagship of this experimental quasi-communal movement which was started jointly by Green and Schachter-Shalomi in Boston, produced the greatest artifact of Havurah Judaism, the Jewish Catalog series, a set of three books devoted to "do-it-yourself" Judaism, written with a healthy dose of information and enthusiasm for things Hasidic.Havurah communities influenced by Hasidism were also influenced by Kabbalah. These future neo-Hasids focused on selected attractive aspects of traditional Hasidism while rejecting teachings they found incompatible with modern egalitarian commitments, such as Hasidism's attitudes toward women, sexuality, and non-Jews. A few of these devotees, like Waskow and Lerner, became writers of note and public square intellectuals in

6912-577: The full presence and equality of women and of LGBTQ people in all aspects of Jewish life and religion, including same-sex marriage; in mobilizing opposition in the Jewish and general communities to the Vietnam and then the Iraq wars; beginning in 1969, after his first summer-long sojourn in Israel and visits to the Occupied Territories, urging a two-state peace settlement between Israel and Palestine; in treating

7008-473: The interpretations that gave rise to Christianity. Moreover, some have argued that Judaism is a non-creedal religion that does not require one to believe in God. For some, observance of halakha is more important than belief in God per se . The debate about whether one can speak of authentic or normative Judaism is not only a debate among religious Jews but also among historians. In continental Europe , Judaism

7104-497: The modern era is even more difficult, given the number and diversity of the contemporary Jewish denominations . Even if to restrict the problem to the most influential intellectual trends of the nineteenth and twentieth century, the matter remains complicated. Thus, for instance, Joseph Soloveitchik's (associated with the Modern Orthodox movement ) answer to modernity is constituted upon the identification of Judaism with following

7200-484: The next few centuries. Later, two poetic restatements of these principles (" Ani Ma'amin " and " Yigdal ") became integrated into many Jewish liturgies, leading to their eventual near-universal acceptance. The oldest non-Rabbinic instance of articles of faith were formulated, under Islamic influence, by the 12th century Karaite figure Judah ben Elijah Hadassi : (1) God is the Creator of all created beings; (2) He

7296-614: The outwardly focused and sometimes spiritually dry world of the formal American Jewish community. Among the liberal movements, the Reform community remained resistant to this trend for a longer period, but a few rabbis, such as Herbert Weiner and Lawrence Kushner , also started translating Hasidism into a Reform idiom, expanding its influence. This overlapping of amorphous interest in Hasidism among academics, seekers, religious functionaries, intellectuals, "alternative" rabbis and teachers, has led to

7392-412: The planetary climate and extinction crises as a profound concern of Torah, necessitating action by the Jewish community; and in urging the Jewish community to treat the increasing concentration of top-down power by small minorities of the ultra-rich and by giant corporations as the reappearance of "pharaoh" in modern American life. In 2011, he (with Daniel Sieradski) co-inspired the creation of "Kol Nidre in

7488-466: The religion departments of Swarthmore College , Temple University , Drew University , and Vassar College . He founded The Shalom Center in 1983 and serves as its director. At first the center primarily addressed the threat of nuclear war; as the times demanded, it turned its focus toward ecology and human rights, then opposition to attacks on American Muslims and to the US War in Iraq, and more recently

7584-451: The revealed Torah consists solely of its written contents, but of its interpretations as well. The study of Torah (in its widest sense, to include both poetry, narrative, and law, and both the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud) is in Judaism itself a sacred act of central importance. For the sages of the Mishnah and Talmud, and for their successors today, the study of Torah was therefore not merely

7680-431: The sages ( rabbinic leaders) of each subsequent generation. For centuries, the Torah appeared only as a written text transmitted in parallel with the oral tradition. Fearing that the oral teachings might be forgotten, Rabbi Judah haNasi undertook the mission of consolidating the various opinions into one body of law which became known as the Mishnah . The Mishnah consists of 63 tractates codifying halakha , which are

7776-419: The shedding of blood. The Birkat Ha-Mitzwot evokes the consciousness of holiness at a rabbinic rite, but the objects employed in the majority of these rites are non-holy and of general character, while the several holy objects are non-theurgic. And not only do ordinary things and occurrences bring with them the experience of God. Everything that happens to a man evokes that experience, evil as well as good, for

7872-624: The sole content of the term. Thus Ioudaïsmós should be translated not as "Judaism" but as Judaeanness. Daniel R. Schwartz, however, argues that "Judaism", especially in the context of the Book of Maccabees, refers to the religion, as opposed to the culture and politics of the Judean state. He believes it reflected the ideological divide between the Pharisees and Sadducees and, implicitly, anti-Hasmonean and pro-Hasmonean factions in Judean society. According to

7968-669: The texts and way of life of Chasidic masters. Most notable are Chabad works (such as the Tanya ) and the writings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov . Rabbi Moshe Weinberger , founding rabbi of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, New York , is widely considered the "senior spokesman" of the Neo-Hasidic movement in Modern Orthodoxy. By definition, neo-Hasidic Judaism has significant differences from Hasidic Judaism. Hasidic Jews view their rebbe as

8064-589: The theology and practice of Jewish renewal); Vassar College (1999 on Jewish Renewal and Feminist Judaism); from 1982 to 1989 on the faculty of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (contemporary theology and practical rabbinics); and in 2005 on the faculty of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute for Religion (the first course on Eco-Judaism in any rabbinical seminary). Beginning with his first arrest in 1963, in

8160-455: The thought of Martin Buber and on the Book of Genesis and its rabbinic and modern interpretations); Temple University (1975–76 on contemporary Jewish theology and 1985–86, on liberation theologies in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam); Drew University (1997–1998, on the ecological outlooks of ancient, rabbinic, and contemporary Judaism and on the synthesis of mysticism, feminism, and social action in

8256-562: The two Talmuds, the Jerusalem Talmud ( Talmud Yerushalmi ) and the Babylonian Talmud ( Talmud Bavli ). These have been further expounded by commentaries of various Torah scholars during the ages. In the text of the Torah, many words are left undefined, and many procedures are mentioned without explanation or instructions. Such phenomena are sometimes offered to validate the viewpoint that the Written Law has always been transmitted with

8352-626: The workaday world. ... Here is the mystery of Talmudic Judaism: the alien and remote conviction that the intellect is an instrument not of unbelief and desacralization but of sanctification. To study the Written Torah and the Oral Torah in light of each other is thus also to study how to study the word of God. In the study of Torah, the sages formulated and followed various logical and hermeneutical principles. According to David Stern, all Rabbinic hermeneutics rest on two basic axioms: first,

8448-774: Was a senior fellow at the Peace Research Institute from 1961 through 1963. He joined Richard Barnet and Marcus Raskin and helped to found the Institute for Policy Studies in 1963, and he served as resident fellow until 1977. In 1968 Waskow was elected an alternate delegate from the District of Columbia to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago . His delegation was pledged to support Robert F. Kennedy , and after Kennedy's assassination, Waskow proposed and

8544-579: Was centered on a pantheon of gods much like in Greek mythology . According to the Hebrew Bible , a United Monarchy was established under Saul and continued under King David and Solomon with its capital in Jerusalem . After Solomon's reign, the nation split into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel (in the north) and the Kingdom of Judah (in the south). The Kingdom of Israel was destroyed around 720 BCE, when it

8640-602: Was challenged by various groups such as the Sadducees and Hellenistic Judaism during the Second Temple period ; the Karaites during the early and later medieval period; and among segments of the modern non-Orthodox denominations. Some modern branches of Judaism such as Humanistic Judaism may be considered secular or nontheistic . Today, the largest Jewish religious movements are Orthodox Judaism ( Haredi and Modern Orthodox ), Conservative Judaism , and Reform Judaism . Major sources of difference between these groups are their approaches to halakha (Jewish law),

8736-686: Was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire ; many people were taken captive from the capital Samaria to Media and the Khabur River valley. The Kingdom of Judah continued as an independent state until it was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE. The Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and the First Temple , which was at the center of ancient Jewish worship. The Judeans were exiled to Babylon , in what

8832-595: Was criticized by Hasdai Crescas and Joseph Albo . Albo and the Raavad argued that Maimonides' principles contained too many items that, while true, were not fundamentals of the faith Along these lines, the ancient historian Josephus emphasized practices and observances rather than religious beliefs, associating apostasy with a failure to observe halakha and maintaining that the requirements for conversion to Judaism included circumcision and adherence to traditional customs. Maimonides' principles were largely ignored over

8928-446: Was honored by T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights with its first Lifetime Achievement Award as a Human Rights Hero. In 2015, The Jewish Daily Forward named him one of "America's most inspiring rabbis". In 2017, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College awarded Waskow its once-a-year honorary doctorate of humane letters . Waskow taught as a Visiting Professor in the religion departments of Swarthmore College (1982–83, on

9024-402: Was identical with the tradition understood as the interpretation of Torah, in itself being the history of the constant updates and adjustment of the Law performed by means of the creative interpretation. Finally, David Philipson draws the outlines of the Reform movement in Judaism by opposing it to the strict and traditional rabbinical approach and thus comes to the conclusions similar to that of

9120-410: Was recognized as a religio licita ("legitimate religion") until the rise of Gnosticism and Early Christianity in the fourth century. Following the destruction of Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Jews, Jewish worship stopped being centrally organized around the Temple, prayer took the place of sacrifice, and worship was rebuilt around the community (represented by a minimum of ten adult men) and

9216-613: Was superior to other gods. Some suggest that strict monotheism developed during the Babylonian Exile, perhaps in reaction to Zoroastrian dualism. In this view, it was only by the Hellenistic period that most Jews came to believe that their god was the only god and that the notion of a bounded Jewish nation identical with the Jewish religion formed. John Day argues that the origins of biblical Yahweh , El , Asherah , and Ba'al , may be rooted in earlier Canaanite religion , which

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