Road to Rabbinic Rule

Two years ago the now defunct Recovering Orthodox Jew blogger recommended I read The Roots of Rabbinic Judaism by Gabriele Boccaccini. It was well worth the time and gave me a greater understanding of the political, social, and especially the religious dynamics in play during the Second temple period (up to Daniel) that eventually evolved into Rabbinic Judaism. I'm leaving out the fascinating historical events and intrigue. Read the book.

A very interesting thing happened when the exiles of Babylonia returned to build the second temple. Members of the Davidic dynasty came along but soon disappeared. Essentially, the main priestly families (House of Zadok) became the spiritual AND political leaders (in place of the king). History was reworked to show how the covenant of kingship between God and David was really only contingent on their faithfulness and could really be abrogated (and thus they no longer have a right to rule). They re-imagined David's role as the one who paved the way for the (new) legitimate rulers, Zadokite priests, to rule via the temple his son built. They traced their divine right to rule back to Sinai, considering Moses role as one who would establish Aaron's line as the legitimate rulers. And they traced their lines specifically to Phinehas, giving him a special covenant to rule as high priest which they then used to exclude from service all the priests who had remained in the land while they were in exile. Thus, they consolidated their power through exclusion and political/historical propaganda.

Ezekiel was the earliest document that disqualified most Levites accusing then of sinfulness while focusing on the faithfulness of the Zadokites who were the PROPER sons of Levi to serve as legitimate priests. Ezekiel also restricted and altered the cultic position of the king. Originally king offered sacrifices, blessed the people, wore priestly ephod, nominated priests (who were, at that time, considered his officials). Now the king was relegated to the status of a patron of the cult.
Chronicle's rewriting emphasizes the providential role Davidic monarchy played in establishment of Zadokite rule.

It was during the second temple period and for centuries after, that the Zadokites achieved leadership role as both priests and political power.The Zadokite/priestly theology based itself on the covenantal relationship between God and man. The stability of divine order as they imagined it was in jeopardy if the covenant was not upheld. They imagined a divine order of creation establishing boundaries of time (sacred & holy days), space (sacred geography centered at Jerusalem temple), and society (hierarchy of Zadokite high priests, then Aaronite, then Levites, male Jews, women/slaves, gentiles, clean, and unclean animals). If Jews followed God's law, God agreed to constrain Himself according to the parameters of the covenant.

If man followed the Mosaic law as interpreted by them, reward follows. If a person sinned, punishment follows. However everyday experience doesn't bare out this equation. Good suffer, innocent die, a charitable person's life is cut short contrary to the teachings of the sages. Concurrently there was another competing theological ideology which we now call Sapiential Judaism. They were the skeptics like Jonah, Job, & Qoheleth who recognized the faulty equation of the Zadokites. In their view, God could not be limited by covenantal constraints and that experience teaches us about a very different reality.

Not everyone agreed with the priestly view. But these Sapiential/wisdom theologians did eventually attempt to find a way to reconcile experience with the dominant religious power, the priests. Zadokite, Enochic and Sapiential were distinct until early Hellenistic period until the balance was broken between religious and secular with the Ptolemaic tax-farming that gave actual political power to those able to find economic advantage. In 3rd cent. BCE, the economically and politically powerful Tobiad family forced compromise and the Zadokites accepted basics of Sapiential Judaism. Tobit and Ben Sira paved the path to rapprochement between Sapiential/Wisdom and Torah. Over time, Sapiential philosophy gave up some of its cosmopolitan, universal ideas to find rapprochement with the Zadokites while the Zadokites allowed room for morality, ethics, and charity to be criteria for faithfulness and worship (aside from their own agenda of priestly power).

I find this reconciliation between skeptics and fundamentalists to be very fascinating and perhaps instructive, especially considering what happened to other groups who could not reconcile with the mainstream. Unfortunately an opportunity was lost with this reconciliation. During the 3rd cent BCE, there was a high level of integration with the Hellinistic culture. Gods were demythologized and considered hero so that attending a festival would not be considered to have worshipped idolatry. There was actually a chance for Judaism to become inclusive monotheism.

It was during this period that Qoheleth was written. It denied that humans have the power to influence the times decided by God (thereby limiting his omnipotence). In the same way we can't comprehend the plans of a king because we are not privy to the whole picture so to with God's plan. Qoheleth's answer is submission to the covenant without expecting the wisdom to understand the ways of the Lord.

Other competing groups like the Samaritans were successfully cast out from the fold and are no longer recognized by the Jews as Jews. The same is true of the Enochic Judaism group. They also had pondered the problem of the existence of evil in this world. God is truly good so evil could not have emanated from Him. Instead, they created a theology based on a rebellion in heaven, fallen angels who corrupted and contaminated humanity. Only in the end of days when this creation is destroyed and a totally new creation occur, will true order be restored to the world. The Enochians could not reconcile their theology with the Zadokites, eventually they became Essenes and finally split altogether with the abandonment of ritual (loss of ethnicity) and became Christians.

The Maccabbean revolt was another stage in the evolution of Rabbinic Judaism. Daniel incorporated SOME of the Enochic theology. Suffering was now explained as originating from God but the innovation here was describing collective vs. individual punishment. The Jewish people had free will and sinned. In his view, sin requires many generation to achieve atonement for the groups unfaithfulness but the individual still can experience his personal justice when he is judged for his own faithfulness to the covenant in the afterlife. But during his life he will experience collective punishment and testing of his will. After the required period, if people are righteous and repent, God's forgiveness will follow, ushering in a glorious time with a restoration of the original Divine order.

Daniel's ideas of resurrection, end of times, and final judgment were allowed to merge with Zadokites once they downplayed the apocalyptic part and denied him status as a prophet. Daniel's innovation of collective vs individual punishment allowed for the creative reinterpretation of Zadokite texts. The creativity was on an intellectual and literary level that eventually led to the Mishnah and idea of an oral law!

The Rabbis of the Mishnah later came along and took over the role as the legitimate leaders. They created a hereditary line that avoided Aaron and his priestly descendants (tracing back toMoshe and Joshua) and showed that the leadership role would not be an inherited one like the priests had. So Davidic dynastic rule was trumped by Zadokite priestly rule in the second temple which was later assumed by the rabbis. Kings to Priests to Rabbis, oh my! Each one re-imagining or reworking or rewriting the texts to justify their legitimacy, advocate their theological perspective, and find meaning in the political, religious, and social order.

Check out Holy Hyrax for a nice post on suffering.

Triumph of Life

Rabbi Irving Greenberg, president of the Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foundation, gave an interesting lecture last night at Queens College. The topic was The Triumph of Life: Towards a Unified Theory of Judaism. His approach leaned towards the humanistic version of Judaism by showing how the stories and themes in the Bible point towards respect for human dignity with the ultimate goal of creating a better world (Tikun Olam).

I shall try to do justice to his well-presented lecture.

He began by stating that there are three main stories or themes that are central to Judaism which ultimately have one unifying idea. The themes are Creation, the Covenant, and Redemption.

The creation story teaches us that life isn’t purposeless, meaningless, or random. There is a Creator who has interest in our lives. Within the story of creation there is a threefold rhythm. The world moves from:
A. Chaos to order (big bang/universe formation)
B. Non-life to life (evolution)
C. Complexity that is manifest as increasing consciousness/will and thereby approaching god-likeness (Tzelem Elohim/image of God).

Tzelem Elohim (which is discussed in Sanhedrin 37a) is further broken down in a threefold manner. Being made in God’s image affords humans:
1. Infinite value to human life (Save a life, save the world).
2. Equality (racial, sexual, religious). No human is better than any other human just as if we were to imagine one theoretical image of God not being any better than any other likeness of ‘Him’ {Masculine. pronoun for simplicity sake and to be true to the sources, ancient Israel envisioned God as masculine. But, of course, our consciousness is raised to the point of not assigning gender to God – so says smoo}
3. Uniqueness. Just as God is unique, so too every human is unique.

The world we live is filled with social injustice and affronts to the dignity of beings created in God’s image. Sexism and racism are a quantitative denial of the dignity due to a Tzelem Elohim. Poverty is a rejection of the infinite value of human life (and all life for that matter). For pennies a day a child’s life can be saved with mosquito netting to protect them against malaria. Skimping on the cost for what should’ve been a double hull, allowed the Exxon Valdez ecological disaster to occur. Hunger is the rejection of human equality by forcing the hungry to resort to begging and dependence on others. Sickness, like a stroke, robs a man of his uniqueness. War kills infinitely valuable human beings.

This brings us to the third story, that of redemption (bypassing the second, for now). The goal of redemption is to overcome all the previously mentioned maladies (and more). The focus on redemption is for THIS world not the next. Tradition teaches that the world was intended to be perfect but it is our own task to work towards that end.

The way we get to that end is via the second story, that of the covenant. Redemption will not come about through miracles like rapture or by escaping this world (through ideas like Hinduism or Buddhism). It won’t happen through martyrdom and escape to the next world and it won’t happen if humans walk alone independent of God. It will happen through a partnership between God and humans. And in that covenant the underlying, unifying ideal is the commandment to choose life. Deuteronomy 30:15 says, “Behold, I have placed before you today life & good and death & evil.” There are no neutral acts in this world. There will be acts for good that will sustain life and evil acts that will drain life. We can choose healthy food, which will prolong our capacity for life or junk food, which can be detrimental. In our speech, we can respond in a positive affirming manner or in a degrading tone. Of the 613 commandments, 610 can be abrogated to save a life.

The final three are exceptions that prove the rule {at least to Rabbi Greenberg}.
1. If someone says you should kill John or you would be killed, the law is you should accept death. Whether you kill John or not, there will be one life lost but if you do the killing you have taken upon yourself the devaluation of life. A witness to your crime will learn from that. Should you refuse, you will affirm life and any person who hears the story should be inspired to affirm life as well.
2. Idolatry is taking something made by humans and making it absolute. The person knew the statue was made yet this person invokes that statue/god in order to control the world around him. This kind of control ends up leading to oppression. (I know, kind of weak. Can’t I just pretend by going through the motion? God knows where my heart is).

{LATER NOTE thanks to discussions with NJG: Perhaps the problem with idolatry at least from a modern viewpoint is that any social force especially one as influential as religion is, should not gain credence by accepting the use of violent coercion (threat of death) to gain adherents and control. By acquiescing, a person validates devaluing human life for the dissemination of ideology.}

3. Sexual perversion is destructive to the human psyche (like becoming obsessively focused on an act) and possible damaging to other peoples as well (some things are demeaning others devaluing). {I know, if no one is getting hurt, why get killed over this. I guess 611 out of 613 is unifying enough to prove the point that choosing life is most important.}

Tikun Olam (perfecting the world) is contagious. Start at a human pace, at home, then your community, then pan out. You start with your own poor first, and then expand to others and ultimately to all. Recognize that you are human and have flaws and failings but that should stop you from striving to do the best you can. The characters in the Bible were fallible as we are. They are truly human models trying their best, flaws and all.

We should recognize that we won’t accomplish this in our lifetime so we use the Mesorah (and the Mitzvah of Be fruitful) to pass on our increasingly evolving higher consciousness.

So choose life, mutual respect, dignity for all of God’s creation, and strive to make the world a better place. That is what Judaism is all about. That will be our redemption.