Jewish Theology
Systematically and Historically Considered
By
Dr. K. Kohler
President
Hebrew Union College
New York
The Macmillan Company
1918
CONTENTS
Dedication
Preface
Introductory
Chapter I. The Meaning of Theology
Chapter II. What is Judaism?
Chapter III. The Essence of the Religion of Judaism
Chapter IV. The Jewish Articles of Faith
Part I. God
A. God As He Makes Himself Known To Man
Chapter V. Man’s Consciousness of God and Belief in God
Chapter VI. Revelation, Prophecy, and Inspiration
Chapter VII. The Torah—the Divine Instruction
Chapter VIII. God’s Covenant
B. The Idea Of God In Judaism
Chapter IX. God and the Gods
Chapter X. The Name of God
Chapter XI. The Existence of God
Chapter XII. The Essence of God
Chapter XIII. The One and Only God
Chapter XIV. God’s Omnipotence and Omniscience
Chapter XV. God’s Omnipresence and Eternity
Chapter XVI. God’s Holiness
Chapter XVII. God’s Wrath and Punishment
Chapter XVIII. God’s Long-suffering and Mercy
Chapter XIX. God’s Justice
Chapter XX. God’s Love and Compassion
Chapter XXI. God’s Truth and Faithfulness
Chapter XXII. God’s Knowledge and Wisdom
Chapter XXIII. God’s Condescension
C. God In Relation To The World
Chapter XXIV. The World and its Master
Chapter XXV. Creation As the Act of God
Chapter XXVI. The Maintenance and Government of the World
Chapter XXVII. Miracles and the Cosmic Order
Chapter XXVIII. Providence and the Moral Government of the World
Chapter XXIX. God and the Existence of Evil
Chapter XXX. God and the Angels
Chapter XXXI. Satan and the Spirits of Evil
Chapter XXXII. God and the Intermediary Powers
Part II. Man
Chapter XXXIII. Man’s Place in Creation
Chapter XXXIV. The Dual Nature of Man
Chapter XXXV. The Origin and Destiny of Man
Chapter XXXVI. God’s Spirit in Man
Chapter XXXVII. Free Will and Moral Responsibility
Chapter XXXVIII. The Meaning of Sin
Chapter XXXIX. Repentance Or the Return To God
Chapter XL. Man, the Child of God
Chapter XLI. Prayer and Sacrifice
Chapter XLII. The Nature and Purpose of Prayer
Chapter XLIII. Death and the Future Life
Chapter XLIV. The Immortal Soul of Man
Chapter XLV. Divine Retribution: Reward and Punishment.
Chapter XLVI. The Individual and the Race
Chapter XLVII. The Moral Elements of Civilization
Part III. Israel And The Kingdom Of God
Chapter XLVIII. The Election of Israel
Chapter XLIX. The Kingdom of God and the Mission of Israel
Chapter L. The Priest-people and its Law of Holiness
Chapter LI. Israel, the People of the Law, and its World Mission
Chapter LII. Israel, the Servant of the Lord, Martyr and Messiah Of the
Nations
Chapter LIII. The Messianic Hope
Chapter LIV. Resurrection, a National Hope
Chapter LV. Israel and the Heathen Nations
Chapter LVI. The Stranger and the Proselyte
Chapter LVII. Christianity and Mohammedanism, the Daughter-Religions Of
Judaism
Chapter LVIII. The Synagogue and its Institutions
Chapter LIX. The Ethics of Judaism and the Kingdom of God
List Of Abbreviations
Index
Footnotes
DEDICATION
To The Memory
Of
EDWARD L. HEINSHEIMER
THE LAMENTED PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF
THE HEBREW UNION COLLEGE
IN WHOM ZEAL FOR THE HIGH IDEALS
OF JUDAISM AND PATRIOTIC DEVOTION
TO OUR BLESSED COUNTRY WERE
NOBLY EMBODIED
In Friendship And
Affection
PREFACE
In offering herewith to the English-reading public the present work on
Jewish Theology, the result of many years of research and of years of
activity as President and teacher at the Hebrew Union College of
Cincinnati, I bespeak for it that fairness of judgment to which every
pioneer work is entitled. It may seem rather strange that no such work has
hitherto been written by any of the leading Jewish scholars of either the
conservative or the progressive school. This can only be accounted for by
the fact that up to modern times the Rabbinical and philosophical
literature of the Middle Ages sufficed for the needs of the student, and a
systematic exposition of the Jewish faith seemed to be unnecessary.
Besides, a real demand for the specific study of Jewish theology was
scarcely felt, inasmuch as Judaism never assigned to a creed the prominent
position which it holds in the Christian Church. This very fact induced
Moses Mendelssohn at the beginning of the new era to declare that Judaism
“contained only truths dictated by reason and no dogmatic beliefs at all.”
Moreover, as he was rather a deist than a theist, he stated boldly that
Judaism “is not a revealed religion but a revealed law intended solely for
the Jewish people as the vanguard of universal monotheism.” By taking this
legalistic view of Judaism in common with the former opponents of the
Maimonidean articles of faith—which, by the way, he had himself translated
for the religious instruction of the Jewish youth—he exerted a
deteriorating influence upon the normal development of the Jewish faith
under the new social conditions. The fact is that Mendelssohn emancipated
the modern Jew from the thraldom of the Ghetto, but not Judaism. In the
Mendelssohnian circle the impression prevailed, as we are told, that
Judaism consists of a system of forms, but is substantially no religion at
all. The entire Jewish renaissance period which followed,
characteristically enough, made the cultivation of the so-called science
of Judaism its object, but it neglected altogether the whole field of
Jewish theology. Hence we look in vain among the writings of Rappaport,
Zunz, Jost and their followers, the entire Breslau school, for any attempt
at presenting the contents of Judaism as a system of faith. Only the
pioneers of Reform Judaism, Geiger, Holdheim, Samuel Hirsch, Formstecher,
Ludwig Philippson, Leopold Stein, Leopold Loew, and the Reform theologian
_par excellence_ David Einhorn, and likewise, Isaac M. Wise in America,
made great efforts in that direction. Still a system of Jewish theology
was wanting. Accordingly when, at the suggestion of my dear departed
friend, Dr. Gustav Karpeles, President of the Society for the Promotion of
the Science of Judaism in Berlin, I undertook to write a compendium
(Grundriss) of Systematic Jewish Theology, which appeared in 1910 as Vol.
IV in a series of works on Systematic Jewish Lore (Grundriss der
Gesammtwissenschaft des Judenthums), I had no work before me that might
have served me as pattern or guide. Solomon Schechter’s valuable studies
were in the main confined to Rabbinical Theology. As a matter of fact I
accepted the task only with the understanding that it should be written
from the view-point of historical research, instead of a mere dogmatic or
doctrinal system. For in my opinion the Jewish religion has never been
static, fixed for all time by an ecclesiastical authority, but has ever
been and still is the result of a dynamic process of growth and
development. At the same time I felt that I could not omit the mystical
element which pervades the Jewish religion in common with all others. As
our prophets were seers and not philosophers or moralists, so divine
inspiration in varying degrees constituted a factor of Synagogal as well
as Scriptural Judaism. Revelation, therefore, is to be considered as a
continuous force in shaping and reshaping the Jewish faith. The religious
genius of the Jew falls within the domain of ethnic psychology concerning
which science still gropes in the dark, but which progressive Judaism is
bound to recognize in its effects throughout the ages.
It is from this standpoint, taken also by the sainted founder of the
Hebrew Union College, Isaac M. Wise, that I have written this book. At the
same time I endeavored to be, as it behooves the historian, just and fair
to Conservative Judaism, which will ever claim the reverence we owe to our
cherished past, the mother that raised and nurtured us.
While a work of this nature cannot lay claim to completeness, I have
attempted to cover the whole field of Jewish belief, including also such
subjects as no longer form parts of the religious consciousness of the
modern Jew. I felt especially called upon to elucidate the historical
relations of Judaism to the Christian and Mohammedan religions and dwell
on the essential points of divergence from them. If my language at times
has been rather vigorous in defense of the Jewish faith, it was because I
was forced to correct and refute the prevailing view of the Christian
world, of both theologians and others, that Judaism is an inferior
religion, clannish and exclusive, that it is, in fact, a cult of the Old
Testament Law.
It was a matter of great personal satisfaction to me that the German work
on its appearance met with warm appreciation in the various theological
journals of America, England, and France, as well as of Germany, including
both Jewish and Christian. I was encouraged and urged by many “soon to
make the book accessible to wider circles in an English translation.” My
friend, Dr. Israel Abrahams of Cambridge, England, took such interest in
the book that he induced a young friend of his to prepare an English
version. While this did not answer the purpose, it was helpful to me in
making me feel that, instead of a literal translation, a thorough revision
and remolding of the book was necessary in order to present it in an
acceptable English garb. In pursuing this course, I also enlarged the book
in many ways, especially adding a new chapter on Jewish Ethics, which, in
connection with the idea of the Kingdom of God, appeared to me to form a
fitting culmination of Jewish theology. I have thus rendered it
practically a new work. And here I wish to acknowledge my great
indebtedness to my young friend and able pupil, Rabbi Lee J. Levinger, for
the valuable aid he has rendered me and the painstaking labor he has
kindly and unselfishly performed in going over my manuscript from
beginning to end, with a view to revising the diction and also suggesting
references to more recent publications in the notes so as to bring it up
to date.
I trust that the work will prove a source of information and inspiration
for both student and layman, Jew and non-Jew, and induce such as have
become indifferent to, or prejudiced against, the teachings of the
Synagogue, or of Reform Judaism in particular, to take a deeper insight
into, and look up with a higher regard to the sublime and eternal verities
of Judaism.
“Give to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser; teach a righteous man, and
he will increase in learning.”
CINCINNATI, November, 1917.
INTRODUCTORY
Chapter I. The Meaning of Theology
1. The name Theology, “the teaching concerning God,” is taken from Greek
philosophy. It was used by Plato and Aristotle to denote the knowledge
concerning God and things godly, by which they meant the branch of
Philosophy later called Metaphysics, after Aristotle. In the Christian
Church the term gradually assumed the meaning of systematic exposition of
the creed, a distinction being made between _Rational_, or _Natural
Theology_, on the one hand, and _Dogmatic Theology_, on the other.(1) In
common usage Theology is understood to be the presentation of one specific
system of faith after some logical method, and a distinction is made
between _Historical_ and _Systematic Theology_. The former traces the
various doctrines of the faith in question through the different epochs
and stages of culture, showing their historical process of growth and
development; the latter presents these same doctrines in comprehensive
form as a fixed system, as they have finally been elaborated and accepted
upon the basis of the sacred scriptures and their authoritative
interpretation.
2. Theology and Philosophy of Religion differ widely in their character.
Theology deals exclusively with a specific religion; in expounding one
doctrinal system, it starts from a positive belief in a divine revelation
and in the continued working of the divine spirit, affecting also the
interpretation and further development of the sacred books. Philosophy of
Religion, on the other hand, while dealing with the same subject matter as
Theology, treats religion from a general point of view as a matter of
experience, and, as every philosophy must, without any foregone
conclusion. Consequently it submits the beliefs and doctrines of religion
in general to an impartial investigation, recognizing neither a divine
revelation nor the superior claims of any one religion above any other,
its main object being to ascertain how far the universal laws of human
reason agree or disagree with the assertions of faith.(2)
3. It is therefore incorrect to speak of a Jewish religious philosophy.
This has no better right to exist than has Jewish metaphysics or Jewish
mathematics.(3) The Jewish thinkers of the Spanish-Arabic period who
endeavored to harmonize revelation and reason, utilizing the Neo-Platonic
philosophy or the Aristotelian with a Neo-Platonic coloring, betray by
their very conceptions of revelation and prophecy the influence of
Mohammedan theology; this was really a graft of metaphysics on theology
and called itself the “divine science,” a term corresponding exactly with
the Greek “theology.” The so-called Jewish religious philosophers adopted
both the methods and terminology of the Mohammedan theologians, attempting
to present the doctrines of the Jewish faith in the light of philosophy,
as truth based on reason. Thus they claimed to construct a Jewish theology
upon the foundation of a philosophy of religion.
But neither they nor their Mohammedan predecessors succeeded in working
out a complete system of theology. They left untouched essential elements
of religion which do not come within the sphere of rational verities, and
did not give proper appreciation to the rich treasures of faith deposited
in the Biblical and Rabbinical literature. Nor does the comprehensive
theological system of Maimonides, which for centuries largely shaped the
intellectual life of the Jew, form an exception. Only the mystics, Bahya
at their head, paid attention to the spiritual side of Judaism, dwelling
at length on such themes as prayer and repentance, divine forgiveness and
holiness.
4. Closer acquaintance with the religious and philosophical systems of
modern times has created a new demand for a Jewish theology by which the
Jew can comprehend his own religious truths in the light of modern
thought, and at the same time defend them against the aggressive attitude
of the ruling religious sects. Thus far, however, the attempts made in
this direction are but feeble and sporadic; if the structure is not to
stand altogether in the air, the necessary material must be brought
together from its many sources with painstaking labor.(4) The special
difficulty in the task lies in the radical difference which exists between
our view of the past and that of the Biblical and medieval writers. All
those things which have heretofore been taken as facts because related in
the sacred books or other traditional sources, are viewed to-day with
critical eyes, and are now regarded as more or less colored by human
impression or conditioned by human judgment. In other words, we have
learned to distinguish between _subjective_ and _objective_ truths,(5)
whereas theology by its very nature deals with truth as absolute. This
makes it imperative for us to investigate historically the leading idea or
fundamental principle underlying a doctrine, to note the different
conceptions formed at various stages, and trace its process of growth. At
times, indeed, we may find that the views of one age have rather taken a
backward step and fallen below the original standard. The progress need
not be uniform, but we must still trace its course.
5. We must recognize at the outset that Jewish theology cannot assume the
character of _apologetics_, if it is to accomplish its great task of
formulating religious truth as it exists in our consciousness to-day. It
can no more afford to ignore the established results of modern linguistic,
ethnological, and historical research, of Biblical criticism and
comparative religion, than it can the undisputed facts of natural science,
however much any of these may conflict with the Biblical view of the
cosmos. Apologetics has its legitimate place to prove and defend the
truths of Jewish theology against other systems of belief and thought, but
cannot properly defend either Biblical or Talmudic statements by methods
incompatible with scientific investigation. Judaism is a religion of
_historical_ growth, which, far from claiming to be the final truth, is
ever regenerated anew at each turning point of history. The fall of the
leaves at autumn requires no apology, for each successive spring testifies
anew to nature’s power of resurrection.
The object of a systematic theology of Judaism, accordingly, is to single
out the essential forces of the faith. It then will become evident how
these fundamental doctrines possess a vitality, a strength of conviction,
as well as an adaptability to varying conditions, which make them potent
factors amidst all changes of time and circumstance. According to
Rabbinical tradition, the broken tablets of the covenant were deposited in
the ark beside the new. In like manner the truths held sacred by the past,
but found inadequate in their expression for a new generation, must be
placed side by side with the deeper and more clarified truths of an
advanced age, that they may appear together as the _one_ divine truth
reflected in different rays of light.
6. Jewish theology differs radically from Christian theology in the
following three points:
_A._ The theology of Christianity deals with articles of faith formulated
by the founders and heads of the Church as conditions of _salvation_, so
that any alteration in favor of free thought threatens to undermine the
very plan of salvation upon which the Church was founded. Judaism
recognizes only such articles of faith as were adopted by the people
voluntarily as expressions of their religious consciousness, both without
external compulsion and without doing violence to the dictates of reason.
Judaism does not know salvation by faith in the sense of Paul, the real
founder of the Church, who declared the blind acceptance of belief to be
in itself meritorious. It denies the existence of any irreconcilable
opposition between faith and reason.
_B._ Christian theology rests upon a _formula of confession_, the
so-called Symbolum of the Apostolic Church,(6) which alone makes one a
Christian. Judaism has no such formula of confession which renders a Jew a
Jew. No ecclesiastical authority ever dictated or regulated the belief of
the Jew; his faith has been voiced in the solemn liturgical form of
prayer, and has ever retained its freshness and vigor of thought in the
consciousness of the people. This partly accounts for the antipathy toward
any kind of dogma or creed among Jews.
_C._ The creed is a _conditio sine qua non_ of the Christian Church. To
disbelieve its dogmas is to cut oneself loose from membership. Judaism is
quite different. The Jew is _born_ into it and cannot extricate himself
from it even by the renunciation of his faith, which would but render him
an apostate Jew. This condition exists, because the racial community
formed, and still forms, the basis of the religious community. It is
birth, not confession, that imposes on the Jew the obligation to work and
strive for the eternal verities of Israel, for the preservation and
propagation of which he has been chosen by the God of history.
7. The truth of the matter is that the aim and end of Judaism is not so
much the salvation of the soul in the hereafter as the salvation of
humanity in history. Its theology, therefore, must recognize the history
of human progress, with which it is so closely interwoven. It does not,
therefore, claim to offer the final or absolute truth, as does Christian
theology, whether orthodox or liberal. It simply points out the way
leading to the highest obtainable truth. Final and perfect truth is held
forth as the ideal of all human searching and striving, together with
perfect justice, righteousness, and peace, to be attained as the very end
of history.
A systematic theology of Judaism must, accordingly, content itself with
presenting Jewish doctrine and belief in relation to the most advanced
scientific and philosophical ideas of the age, so as to offer a
comprehensive view of life and the world (“Lebens- und Weltanschauung”);
but it by no means claims for them the character of finality. The
unfolding of Judaism’s truths will be completed only when all mankind has
attained the heights of Zion’s mount of vision, as beheld by the prophets
of Israel.(7)
Chapter II. What is Judaism?
1. It is very difficult to give an exact definition of Judaism because of
its peculiarly complex character.(8) It combines two widely differing
elements, and when they are brought out separately, the aspect of the
whole is not taken sufficiently into account. Religion and race form an
inseparable whole in Judaism. The Jewish people stand in the same relation
to Judaism as the _body_ to the _soul_. The national or racial body of
Judaism consists of the remnant of the tribe of Judah which succeeded in
establishing a new commonwealth in Judæa in place of the ancient
Israelitish kingdom, and which survived the downfall of state and temple
to continue its existence as a separate people during a dispersion over
the globe for thousands of years, forming ever a cosmopolitan element
among all the nations in whose lands it dwelt. Judaism, on the other hand,
is the religious system itself, the vital element which united the Jewish
people, preserving it and regenerating it ever anew. It is the spirit
which endowed the handful of Jews with a power of resistance and a fervor
of faith unparalleled in history, enabling them to persevere in the mighty
contest with heathenism and Christianity. It made of them a nation of
martyrs and thinkers, suffering and struggling for the cause of truth and
justice, yet forming, consciously or unconsciously, a potent factor in all
the great intellectual movements which are ultimately to win the entire
gentile world for the purest and loftiest truths concerning God and man.
2. Judaism, accordingly, does not denote the Jewish nationality, with its
political and cultural achievements and aspirations, as those who have
lost faith in the religious mission of Israel would have it. On the other
hand, it is not a nomistic or legalistic religion confined to the Jewish
people, as is maintained by Christian writers, who, lacking a full
appreciation of its lofty world-wide purpose and its cosmopolitan and
humanitarian character, claim that it has surrendered its universal
prophetic truths to Christianity. Nor should it be presented as a religion
of pure _Theism_, aiming to unite all believers in one God into a Church
Universal, of which certain visionaries dream. Judaism is nothing less
than a message concerning the _One and holy God_ and _one, undivided
humanity_ with a world-uniting _Messianic goal_, a message intrusted by
divine revelation to the Jewish people. Thus Israel is its prophetic
harbinger and priestly guardian, its witness and defender throughout the
ages, who is never to falter in the task of upholding and unfolding its
truths until they have become the possession of the whole human race.
3. Owing to this twofold nature of a universal religious truth and at the
same time a mission intrusted to a specially selected nation or race,
Judaism offers in a sense the sharpest contrasts imaginable, which render
it an enigma to the student of religion and history, and make him often
incapable of impartial judgment. On the one hand, it shows the most
tenacious adherence to forms originally intended to preserve the Jewish
people in its priestly sanctity and separateness, and thereby also to keep
its religious truths pure and free from encroachments. On the other hand,
it manifests a mighty impulse to come into close touch with the various
civilized nations, partly in order to disseminate among them its sublime
truths, appealing alike to mind and heart, partly to clarify and deepen
those truths by assimilating the wisdom and culture of these very nations.
Thus the spirit of separatism and of universalism work in opposite
directions. Still, however hostile the two elements may appear, they
emanate from the same source. For the Jewish people, unlike any other
civilization of antiquity, entered history with the proud claim that it
possessed a truth destined to become some day the property of mankind, and
its three thousand years of history have verified this claim.
Israel’s relation to the world thus became a double one. Its priestly
world-mission gave rise to all those laws and customs which were to
separate it from its idolatrous surroundings, and this occasioned the
charge of hostility to the nations. The accusation of Jewish misanthropy
occurred as early as the Balaam and Haman stories. As the separation
continued through the centuries, a deep-seated Jew-hatred sprang up, first
in Alexandria and Rome, then becoming a consuming fire throughout
Christendom, unquenched through the ages and bursting forth anew, even
from the midst of would-be liberals. In contrast to this, Israel’s
prophetic ideal of a humanity united in justice and peace gave to history
a new meaning and a larger outlook, kindling in the souls of all truly
great leaders and teachers, seers and sages of mankind a love and longing
for the broadening of humanity which opened new avenues of progress and
liberty. Moreover, by its conception of man as the image of God and its
teaching of righteousness as the true path of life, Israel’s Law
established a new standard of human worth and put the imprint of Jewish
idealism upon the entire Aryan civilization.
Owing to these two opposing forces, the one centripetal, the other
centrifugal, Judaism tended now inward, away from world-culture, now
outward toward the learning and the thought of all nations; and this makes
it doubly difficult to obtain a true estimate of its character. But, after
all, these very currents and counter-currents at the different eras of
history kept Judaism in continuous tension and fluctuation, preventing its
stagnation by dogmatic formulas and its division by ecclesiastical
dissensions. “Both words are the words of the living God” became the maxim
of the contending schools.(9)
4. If we now ask what period we may fix as the beginning of Judaism, we
must by no means single out the decisive moment when Ezra the Scribe
established the new commonwealth of Judæa, based upon the Mosaic book of
Law, and excluding the Samaritans who claimed to be the heirs of ancient
Israel. This important step was but the climax, the fruitage of that
religious spirit engendered by the Judaism of the Babylonian exile. The
Captivity had become a refining furnace for the people, making them cling
with a zeal unknown before to the teachings of the prophets, now offered
by their disciples, and to the laws, as preserved by the priestly guilds;
so the religious treasures of the few became the common property of the
many, and were soon regarded as “the inheritance of the whole congregation
of Jacob.” As a matter of fact, Ezra represents the culmination rather
than the starting point of the great spiritual reawakening, when he came
from Babylon with a complete Code of Law, and promulgated it in the Holy
City to a worshipful congregation.(10) It was Judaism, winged with a new
spirit, which carried the great unknown seer of the Exile to the very
pinnacle of prophetic vision, and made the Psalmists ring forth from the
harp of David the deepest soul-stirring notes of religious devotion and
aspiration that ever moved the hearts of men. Moreover, all the great
truths of prophetic revelation, of legislative and popular wisdom, were
then collected and focused, creating a sacred literature which was to
serve the whole community as the source of instruction, consolation, and
edification. The powerful and unique institutions of the Synagogue,
intended for common instruction and devotion, are altogether creations of
the Exile, and replaced the former _priestly_ Torah by the Torah _for the
people_. More wonderful still, the priestly lore of ancient Babylon was
transformed by sublime monotheistic truths and utilized in the formation
of a sacred literature; it was placed before the history of the Hebrew
patriarchs, to form, as it were, an introduction to the Bible of humanity.
Judaism, then, far from being the late product of the Torah and tradition,
as it is often considered, was actually the creator of the Law.
Transformed and unfolded in Babylonia, it created its own sacred
literature and shaped it ever anew, filling it always with its own spirit
and with new thoughts. It is by no means the petrifaction of the Mosaic
law and the prophetic teachings, as we are so often told, but a continuous
process of unfolding and regeneration of its great religious truth.
5. True enough, traditional or orthodox Judaism does not share this view.
The idea of gradual development is precluded by its conception of divine
revelation, by its doctrine that both the oral and the written Torah were
given at Sinai complete and unchangeable for all time. It makes allowance
only for special institutions begun either by the prophets, by Ezra and
the Men of the Great Synagogue, his associates, or by the masters of the
Law in succeeding centuries. Nevertheless, tradition says that the Men of
the Great Synagogue themselves collected and partly completed the sacred
books, except the five books of Moses, and that the canon was made under
the influence of the holy spirit. This holy spirit remained in force also
during the creative period of Talmudism, sanctioning innovations or
alterations of many kinds.(11) Modern critical and historical research has
taught us to distinguish the products of different periods and stages of
development in both the Biblical and Rabbinical sources, and therefore
compels us to reject the idea of a uniform origin of the Law, and also of
an uninterrupted chain of tradition reaching back to Moses on Sinai.
Therefore we must attach still more importance to the process of
transformation which Judaism had to undergo through the centuries.(12)
Judaism manifested its wondrous power of _assimilation_ by renewing itself
to meet the demands of the time, first under the influence of the ancient
civilizations, Babylonia and Persia, then of Greece and Rome, finally of
the Occidental powers, molding its religious truths and customs in ever
new forms, but all in consonance with its own genius. It adopted the
Babylonian and Persian views of the hereafter, of the upper and the nether
world with their angels and demons; so later on it incorporated into its
religious and legal system elements of Greek and Egyptian gnosticism,
Greek philosophy, and methods of jurisprudence from Egypt, Babylon, and
Rome. In fact, the various parties which arose during the second Temple
beside each other or successively—Sadducees and Pharisees, Essenes and
Zealots—represent, on closer observation, the different stages in the
process of assimilation which Judaism had to undergo. In like manner, the
Hellenistic, Apocryphal and Apocalyptic literature, which was rejected and
lost to sight by traditional Judaism, and which partly fills the gap
between the Bible and the Talmudic writings, casts a flood of light upon
the development of the Halakah and the Haggadah. Just as the book of
Ezekiel, which was almost excluded from the Canon on account of its
divergence from the Mosaic Law, has been helpful in tracing the
development of the Priestly Code,(13) so the Sadduceean book of Ben
Sira(14) and the Zealotic book of Jubilees(15)—not to mention the various
Apocalyptic works—throw their searchlight upon pre-Talmudic Judaism.
6. Instead of representing Judaism—as the Christian theologians do under
the guise of scientific methods—as a nomistic religion, caring only for
the external observance of the Law, it is necessary to distinguish two
opposite fundamental tendencies; the one expressing the spirit of
legalistic nationalism, the other that of ethical or prophetic
universalism. These two work by turn, directing the general trend in the
one or the other direction according to circumstances. At one time the
center and focus of Israel’s religion is the Mosaic Law, with its
sacrificial cult in charge of the priesthood of Jerusalem’s Temple; at
another time it is the Synagogue, with its congregational devotion and
public instruction, its inspiring song of the Psalmist and its prophetic
consolation and hope confined to no narrow territory, but opened wide for
a listening world. Here it is the reign of the _Halakah_ holding fast to
the form of tradition, and there the free and fanciful _Haggadah_, with
its appeal to the sentiments and views of the people. Here it is the
spirit of _ritualism_, bent on separating the Jews from the influence of
foreign elements, and there again the spirit of _rationalism_, eager to
take part in general culture and in the progress of the outside world.
The liberal views of Maimonides and Gersonides concerning miracle and
revelation, God and immortality were scarcely shared by the majority of
Jews, who, no doubt, sided rather with the mystics, and found their
mouthpiece in Abraham ben David of Posquieres, the fierce opponent of
Maimonides. An impartial Jewish theology must therefore take cognizance of
both sides; it must include the mysticism of Isaac Luria and Sabbathai
Horwitz as well as the rationalism of Albo and Leo da Modena. Wherever is
voiced a new doctrine or a new view of life and life’s duty, which yet
bears the imprint of the Jewish consciousness, there the well-spring of
divine inspiration is seen pouring forth its living waters.
7. Even the latest interpretation of the Law, offered by a disciple who is
recognized for true conscientiousness in religion, was revealed to Moses
on Sinai, according to a Rabbinical dictum.(16) Thus is exquisitely
expressed the idea of a continuous development of Israel’s religious
truth. As a safeguard against arbitrary individualism, there was the
principle of loyalty and proper regard for tradition, which is aptly
termed by Professor Lazarus a “historical continuity.”(17) The Midrashic
statement is quite significant that other creeds founded on our Bible can
only adhere to the letter, but the Jewish religion possesses the key to
the deeper meaning hidden and presented in the _traditional_
interpretation of the Scriptures.(18) That is, for Judaism Holy Scripture
in its literal sense is not the final word of God; the Bible is rather a
living spring of divine revelation, to be kept ever fresh and flowing by
the active force of the spirit. To sum up: Judaism, far from offering a
system of beliefs and ceremonies fixed for all time, is as multifarious
and manifold in its aspects as is life itself. It comprises all phases and
characteristics of both a national and a world religion.
Chapter III. The Essence of the Religion of Judaism
1. We have seen how difficult it is to define Judaism clearly and
adequately, including its manifold tendencies and institutions. Still it
is necessary that we reach a full understanding of the essence of Judaism
as it manifested itself in all periods of its history,(19) and that we
single out the fundamental idea which underlies its various forms of
existence and its different movements, both intellectual and spiritual.
There can be no disputing the fact that the central idea of Judaism and
its life purpose is the doctrine of the One Only and Holy God, whose
kingdom of truth, justice and peace is to be universally established at
the end of time. This is the main teaching of Scripture and the hope
voiced in the liturgy; while Israel’s mission to defend, to unfold and to
propagate this truth is a corollary of the doctrine itself and cannot be
separated from it. Whether we regard it as Law or a system of doctrine, as
religious truth or world-mission, this belief pledged the little tribe of
Judah to a warfare of many thousands of years against the hordes of
heathendom with all their idolatry and brutality, their deification of man
and their degradation of deity to human rank. It betokened a battle for
the pure idea of God and man, which is not to end until the principle of
divine holiness has done away with every form of life that tends to
degrade and to disunite mankind, and until Israel’s Only One has become
the unifying power and the highest ideal of all humanity.
2. Of this great world-duty of Israel only the few will ever become fully
conscious. As in the days of the prophets, so in later periods, only a
“small remnant” was fully imbued with the lofty ideal. In times of
oppression the great multitude of the people persisted in a conscientious
observance of the Law and underwent suffering without a murmur. Yet in
times of liberty and enlightenment this same majority often neglects to
assimilate the new culture to its own superior spirit, but instead eagerly
assimilates itself to the surrounding world, and thereby loses much of its
intrinsic strength and self-respect. The pendulum of thought and sentiment
swings to and fro between the national and the universal ideals, while
only a few maturer minds have a clear vision of the goal as it is to be
reached along both lines of development. Nevertheless, Judaism is in a
true sense a religion of the people. It is free from all priestly tutelage
and hierarchical interference. It has no ecclesiastical system of belief,
guarded and supervised by men invested with superior powers. Its teachers
and leaders have always been men from among the people, like the prophets
of yore, with no sacerdotal privilege or title; in fact, in his own
household each father is the God-appointed teacher of his children.(20)
3. Neither is Judaism the creation of a single person, either prophet or a
man with divine claims. It points back to the patriarchs as its first
source of revelation. It speaks not of the God of Moses, of Amos and
Isaiah, but of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, thereby declaring the
Jewish genius to be the creator of its own religious ideas. It is
therefore incorrect to speak of a “Mosaic,” “Hebrew,” or “Israelitish,”
religion. The name _Judaism_ alone expresses the preservation of the
religious heritage of Israel by the tribe of Judah, with a loyalty which
was first displayed by Judah himself in the patriarchal household, and
which became its characteristic virtue in the history of the various
tribes. Likewise the rigid measures of Ezra in expelling all foreign
elements from the new commonwealth proved instrumental in impressing
loyalty and piety upon Jewish family life.
4. As it was bound up with the life of the Jewish people, Judaism remained
forever in close touch with the world. Therefore it appreciated adequately
the boons of life, and escaped being reduced to the shadowy form of
“otherworldliness.”(21) It is a religion of _life_, which it wishes to
sanctify by duty rather than by laying stress on the hereafter. It looks
to the _deed_ and the purity of the _motive_, not to the empty creed and
the blind belief. Nor is it a religion of _redemption_, contemning this
earthly life; for Judaism repudiates the assumption of a radical power of
evil in man or in the world. Faith in the ultimate triumph of the good is
essential to it. In fact, this perfect confidence in the final victory of
truth and justice over all the powers of falsehood and wrong lent it both
its wondrous intellectual force and its high idealism, and adorned its
adherents with the martyr’s crown of thorns, such as no other human brow
has ever borne.
5. _Christianity_ and _Islam_, notwithstanding their alienation from
Judaism and frequent hostility, are still daughter-religions. In so far as
they have sown the seeds of Jewish truth over all the globe and have done
their share in upbuilding the Kingdom of God on earth, they must be
recognized as divinely appointed emissaries and agencies. Still Judaism
sets forth its doctrine of God’s unity and of life’s holiness in a far
superior form than does Christianity. It neither permits the deity to be
degraded into the sphere of the sensual and human, nor does it base its
morality upon a love bereft of the vital principle of justice. Against the
rigid monotheism of Islam, which demands blind submission to the stern
decrees of inexorable fate, Judaism on the other hand urges its belief in
God’s paternal love and mercy, which educates all the children of men,
through trial and suffering, for their high destiny.
6. Judaism denies most emphatically the right of Christianity or any other
religion to arrogate to itself the title of “the absolute religion” or to
claim to be “the finest blossom and the ripest fruit of religious
development.” As if any mortal man at any time or under any condition
could say without presumption: “I am the Truth” or “No one cometh unto the
Father but by me.”(22) “When man was to proceed from the hands of his
Maker,” says the Midrash, “the Holy One, Blessed be His name, cast truth
down to the earth, saying, ‘Let truth spring forth from the earth, and
righteousness look down from heaven.’ ”(23) The full unfolding of the
religious and moral life of mankind is the work of countless generations
yet to come, and many divine heralds of truth and righteousness have yet
to contribute their share. In this work of untold ages, Judaism claims
that it has achieved and is still achieving its full part as the prophetic
world-religion. Its law of righteousness, which takes for its scope the
whole of human life, in its political and social relations as well as its
personal aspects, forms the foundation of its ethics for all time; while
its hope for a future realization of the Kingdom of God has actually
become the aim of human history. As a matter of fact, when the true object
of religion is the hallowing of life rather than the salvation of the
soul, there is little room left for sectarian exclusiveness, or for a
heaven for believers and a hell for unbelievers. With this broad outlook
upon life, Judaism lays claim, not to perfection, but to perfectibility;
it has supreme capacity for growing toward the highest ideals of mankind,
as beheld by the prophets in their Messianic visions.
Chapter IV. The Jewish Articles of Faith
1. In order to reach a clear opinion, whether or not Judaism has articles
of faith in the sense of Church dogmas, a question so much discussed since
the days of Moses Mendelssohn, it seems necessary first to ascertain what
faith in general means to the Jew.(24) Now the word used in Jewish
literature for faith is _Emunah_, from the root _Aman_, to be firm; this
denotes firm reliance upon God, and likewise firm adherence to him, hence
both _faith_ and _faithfulness_. Both Scripture and the Rabbis demanded
confiding trust in God, His messengers, and His words, not the formal
acceptance of a prescribed belief.(25) Only when contact with the
non-Jewish world emphasized the need for a clear expression of the belief
in the unity of God, such as was found in the Shema,(26) and when the
proselyte was expected to declare in some definite form the fundamentals
of the faith he espoused, was the importance of a concrete _confession_
felt.(27) Accordingly we find the beginnings of a formulated belief in the
synagogal liturgy, in the _Emeth we __ Yatzib_(28) and the _Alenu_,(29)
while in the Haggadah Abraham is represented both as the exemplar of a
hero of faith and as the type of a missionary, wandering about to lead the
heathen world towards the pure monotheistic faith.(30) While the Jewish
concept of faith underwent a certain transformation, influenced by other
systems of belief, and the formulation of Jewish doctrines appeared
necessary, particularly in opposition to the Christian and Mohammedan
creeds, still belief never became the essential part of religion,
conditioning salvation, as in the Church founded by Paul. For, as pointed
out above, Judaism lays all stress upon conduct, not confession; upon a
hallowed life, not a hollow creed.
2. There is no Biblical nor Rabbinical precept, “Thou shalt believe!”
Jewish thinkers felt all the more the need to point out as fundamentals or
roots of Judaism those doctrines upon which it rests, and from which it
derives its vital force. To the rabbis, the “root” of faith is the
recognition of a divine Judge to whom we owe account for all our
doings.(31) The recital of the _Shema_, which is called in the Mishnah
“accepting the yoke of God’s sovereignty,” and which is followed by the
solemn affirmation, “True and firm belief is this for us”(32) (_Emeth we
Yatzib_ or _Emeth we Emunah_), is, in fact, the earliest form of the
confession of faith.(33) In the course of time this confession of belief
in the unity of God was no longer deemed sufficient to serve as basis for
the whole structure of Judaism; so the various schools and authorities
endeavored to work out in detail a series of fundamental doctrines.
3. The Mishnah, in Sanhedrin, X, 1, which seems to date back to the
beginnings of Pharisaism, declares the following three to have no share in
the world to come: he who denies the resurrection of the dead; he who says
that the Torah—both the written and the oral Law—is not divinely revealed;
and the Epicurean, who does not believe in the moral government of the
world.(34) We find here (in reverse order, owing to historical
conditions), the beliefs in Revelation, Retribution, and the Hereafter
singled out as the three fundamentals of Rabbinical Judaism. Rabbi
Hananel, the great North African Talmudist, about the middle of the tenth
century, seems to have been under the influence of Mohammedan and Karaite
doctrines, when he speaks of four fundamentals of the faith: God, the
prophets, the future reward and punishment, and the Messiah.(35)
4. The doctrine of the One and Only God stands, as a matter of course, in
the foreground. Philo of Alexandria, at the end of his treatise on
Creation, singles out five principles which are bound up with it, viz.: 1,
God’s existence and His government of the world; 2, His unity; 3, the
world as His creation; 4, the harmonious plan by which it was established;
and 5, His Providence. Josephus, too, in his apology for Judaism written
against Apion,(36) emphasizes the belief in God’s all-encompassing
Providence, His incorporeality, and His self-sufficiency as the Creator of
the universe.
The example of Islam, which had very early formulated a confession of
faith of speculative character for daily recitation,(37) influenced first
Karaite and then Rabbanite teachers to elaborate the Jewish doctrine of
One Only God into a philosophic creed. The Karaites modeled their creed
after the Mohammedan pattern, which gave them ten articles of faith; of
these the first three dwelt on: 1, creation out of nothing; 2, the
existence of God, the Creator; 3, the unity and incorporeality of God.(38)
Abraham ben David (_Ibn Daud_) of Toledo sets forth in his “Sublime Faith”
six essentials of the Jewish faith: 1, the existence; 2, the unity; 3, the
incorporeality; 4, the omnipotence of God (to this he subjoins the
existence of angelic beings); 5, revelation and the immutability of the
Law; and 6, divine Providence.(39) Maimonides, the greatest of all
medieval thinkers, propounded thirteen articles of faith, which took the
place of a creed in the Synagogue for the following centuries, as they
were incorporated in the liturgy both in the form of a credo (_Ani
Maamin_) and in a poetic version. His first five articles were: 1, the
existence; 2, the unity; 3, the incorporeality; 4, the eternity of God;
and 5, that He alone should be the object of worship; to which we must add
his 10th, divine Providence.(40) Others, not satisfied with the purely
metaphysical form of the Maimonidean creed, accentuated the doctrines of
creation out of nothing and special Providence.(41)
This speculative form of faith, however, has been most severely denounced
by Samuel David Luzzatto (1800-1865) as “Atticism”;(42) that is, the
Hellenistic or philosophic tendency to consider religion as a purely
intellectual system, instead of the great dynamic force for man’s moral
and spiritual elevation. He holds that Judaism, as the faith transmitted
to us from Abraham, our ancestor, must be considered, not as a mere
speculative mode of reasoning, but as a moral life force, manifested in
the practice of righteousness and brotherly love. Indeed, this view is
supported by modern Biblical research, which brings out as the salient
point in Biblical teaching the ethical character of the God taught by the
prophets, and shows that the essential truth of revelation is not to be
found in a metaphysical but in an ethical monotheism. At the same time,
the fact must not be overlooked that the Jewish doctrine of God’s unity
was strengthened in the contest with the dualistic and trinitarian beliefs
of other religions, and that this unity gave Jewish thought both lucidity
and sublimity, so that it has surpassed other faiths in intellectual power
and in passion for truth. The Jewish conception of God thus makes _truth_,
as well as _righteousness_ and _love_, both a moral duty for man and a
historical task comprising all humanity.
5. The second fundamental article of the Jewish faith is divine
revelation, or, as the Mishnah expresses it, the belief that the Torah
emanates from God (_min ha shamayim_). In the Maimonidean thirteen
articles, this is divided into four: his 6th, belief in the prophets; 7,
in the prophecy of Moses as the greatest of all; 8, in the divine origin
of the Torah, both the written and the oral Law; and 9, its immutability.
The fundamental character of these, however, was contested by Hisdai
Crescas and his disciples, Simon Duran and Joseph Albo.(43) As a matter of
fact, they are based not so much upon Rabbinical teaching as upon the
prevailing views of Mohammedan theology,(44) and were undoubtedly dictated
by the desire to dispute the claims of Christianity and Islam that they
represented a higher revelation. Our modern historical view, however,
includes all human thought and belief; it therefore rejects altogether the
assumption of a supernatural origin of either the written or the oral
Torah, and insists that the subject of prophecy, revelation, and
inspiration in general be studied in the light of psychology and
ethnology, of general history and comparative religion.
6. The third fundamental article of the Jewish faith is the belief in a
moral government of the world, which manifests itself in the reward of
good and the punishment of evil, either here or hereafter. Maimonides
divides this into two articles, which really belong together, his 10th,
God’s knowledge of all human acts and motives, and 11, reward and
punishment. The latter includes the hereafter and the last Day of
Judgment, which, of course, applies to all human beings.
7. Closely connected with retribution is the belief in the resurrection of
the dead, which is last among the thirteen articles. This belief, which
originally among the Pharisees had a national and political character, and
was therefore connected especially with the Holy Land (as will be seen in
Chapter LIV below), received in the Rabbinical schools more and more a
universal form. Maimonides went so far as to follow the Platonic view
rather than that of the Bible or the Talmud, and thus transformed it into
a belief in the continuity of the soul after death. In this form, however,
it is actually a postulate, or corollary, of the belief in retribution.
8. The old hope for the national resurrection of Israel took in the
Maimonidean system the form of a belief in the coming of the Messiah
(article 12), to which, in the commentary on the Mishnah, he gives the
character of a belief in the restoration of the Davidic dynasty. Joseph
Albo, with others, disputes strongly the fundamental character of this
belief; he shows the untenability of Maimonides’ position by referring to
many Talmudic passages, and at the same time he casts polemical side
glances upon the Christian Church, which is really founded on Messianism
in the special form of its Christology.(45) Jehuda ha Levi, in his
_Cuzari_, substitutes for this as a fundamental doctrine the belief in the
election of Israel for its world-mission.(46) It certainly redounds to the
credit of the leaders of the modern Reform movement that they took the
election of Israel rather than the Messiah as their cardinal doctrine,
again bringing it home to the religious consciousness of the Jew, and
placing it at the very center of their system. In this way they reclaimed
for the Messianic hope the universal character which was originally given
it by the great seer of the Exile.(47)
9. The thirteen articles of Maimonides, in setting forth a Jewish _Credo_,
formed a vigorous opposition to the Christian and Mohammedan creeds; they
therefore met almost universal acceptance among the Jewish people, and
were given a place in the common prayerbook, in spite of their
deficiencies, as shown by Crescas and his school. Nevertheless, we must
admit that Crescas shows the deeper insight into the nature of religion
when he observes that the main fallacy of the Maimonidean system lies in
founding the Jewish faith on _speculative knowledge_, which is a matter of
the intellect, rather than _love_ which flows from the heart, and which
alone leads to piety and goodness. True love, he says, requires the belief
neither in retribution nor in immortality. Moreover, in striking contrast
to the insistence of Maimonides or the immutability of the Mosaic Law,
Crescas maintains the possibility of its continuous progress in accordance
with the intellectual and spiritual needs of the time, or, what amounts to
the same thing, the continuous perfectibility of the revealed Law
itself.(48) Thus the criticism of Crescas leads at once to a radically
different theology than that of Maimonides, and one which appeals far more
to our own religious thought.
10. Another doctrine of Judaism, which was greatly underrated by medieval
scholars, and which has been emphasized in modern times only in contrast
to the Christian theory of original sin, is that man was created in the
image of God. Judaism holds that the soul of man came forth pure from the
hand of its Maker, endowed with freedom, unsullied by any inherent evil or
inherited sin. Thus man is, through the exercise of his own free will,
capable of attaining to an ever higher degree his mental, moral, and
spiritual powers in the course of history. This is the Biblical idea of
God’s spirit as immanent in man; all prophetic truth is based upon it; and
though it was often obscured, this theory was voiced by many of the
masters of Rabbinical lore, such as R. Akiba and others.(49)
11. Every attempt to formulate the doctrines or articles of faith of
Judaism was made, in order to guard the Jewish faith from the intrusion of
foreign beliefs, never to impose disputed beliefs upon the Jewish
community itself. Many, indeed, challenged the fundamental character of
the thirteen articles of Maimonides. Albo reduced them to three, viz.: the
belief in God, in revelation, and retribution; others, with more
arbitrariness than judgement, singled out three, five, six, or even more
as principal doctrines;(50) while rigid conservatives, such as Isaac
Abravanel and David ben Zimra, altogether disapproved the attempt to
formulate articles of faith. The former maintained that every word in the
Torah is, in fact, a principle of faith, and the latter(51) pointed in the
same way to the 613 commandments of the Torah, spoken of by R. Simlai the
Haggadist in the third century.(52)
The present age of historical research imposes the same necessity of
restatement or reformulation upon us. We must do as Maimonides did,—as
Jews have always done,—point out anew the really fundamental doctrines,
and discard those which have lost their holdup on the modern Jew, or which
conflict directly with his religious consciousness. If Judaism is to
retain its prominent position among the powers of thought, and to be
clearly understood by the modern world, it must again reshape its
religious truths in harmony with the dominant ideas of the age.
Many attempts of this character have been made by modern rabbis and
teachers, most of them founded upon Albo’s three articles. Those who
penetrated somewhat more deeply into the essence of Judaism added a fourth
article, the belief in Israel’s priestly mission, and at the same time,
instead of the belief in retribution, included the doctrine of man’s
kinship with God, or, if one may coin the word, his _God-childship_.(53)
Few, however, have succeeded in working out the entire content of the
Jewish faith from a modern viewpoint, which must include historical,
critical, and psychological research, as well as the study of comparative
religion.
12. The following tripartite plan is that of the present attempt to
present the doctrines of Judaism systematically along the lines of
historical development:
I. GOD
_a._ Man’s consciousness of God, and divine revelation.
_b._ God’s spirituality, His unity, His holiness, His perfection.
_c._ His relation to the world: Creation and Providence.
_d._ His relation to man: His justice, His love and mercy.
II. MAN
_a._ Man’s God-childship; his moral freedom and yearning for God.
_b._ Sin and repentance; prayer and worship; immortality, reward and
punishment.
_c._ Man and humanity: the moral factors in history.
III. ISRAEL AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD
_a._ The priest-mission of Israel, its destiny as teacher and martyr among
the nations, and its Messianic hope.
_b._ The Kingdom of God: the nations and religions of the world in a
divine plan of universal salvation.
_c._ The Synagogue and its institutions.
_d._ The ethics of Judaism and the Kingdom of God.
PART I. GOD
A. God As He Makes Himself Known To Man