Judaism as a developing religion
From the beginning, the Jewish religion developed, underwent significant changes and gave birth to currents from different currents. The currents in today's Judaism are significantly different from the Judaism of 3,000 and 2,000 years ago, and this, for its part, is not the Judaism of before the Exodus.
From the time of King Solomon, the Temple was the center of Judaism and the exclusive site for the worship of God. The Jewish religious experience was based on a pilgrimage to the temple three times a year, and the worship of God was mainly the offering of sacrifices in the temple.
The priests functioned, among other things, as butchers and butchers. During the days of the three pilgrimages, the temple was a huge slaughterhouse bathed in blood.
The priests had their own ceremonies that included entering the Holy of Holies, but the general public did not share in this ultimate religious experience. The prayers were also conducted by the priests, and were not part of the believer's daily personal experience as is customary today.
Synagogues came into the world at a relatively late stage. They were, as their name suggests, places for gathering and sometimes for public reading, but no prayers were held there. The concept of a "rabbi" as a spiritual leader and religious authority is today a central component of the religious system. In those days he didn't exist at all.
The Pharisees replace the Sadducees
The "Sadducees", which included the priests and the aristocracy, dictated the boring and technical Judaism of the Temple. The infrastructure for today's Judaism was laid, at the end of the first century BCE, by the popular "Pharisees". The Pharisees were looking for something more attractive and popular.
The Pharisees began to look for meaning beyond the simplicity of the existing tradition. They turned to interpretations, mysticism as well as the Oral Torah and its stories, and thus won the hearts of the common people. Over time, the Pharisees became the dominant factor in the Judaism of the time.
In 70 AD, the sword of the second dynasty. Naturally, the Pharisees were more prepared than the Sadducees to face the new situation. This situation forced the sages of the generation, led by Yochanan ben Zakhai, to reshape Judaism.
And they did invent a new Judaism - Judaism without a temple. New rituals replaced the three habits. The new rituals no longer needed the Temple (the Passover Haggadah, for example, is an innovation that originated there).
Rabbis replaced the priests as religious leaders. The synagogues became the center of religious activity and brought with them the prayers and the study of the Torah. Everything has changed. There is no trace left of the somewhat primitive "Zadokite" Judaism. But even this Pharisee basis did not remain static, and Judaism continued to develop into different currents.
One stream, about two thousand years old, was the stream of Christian Jews who accepted the crucified Christ as a spiritual model. They maintained their Jewish affiliation for several decades, until Saul of Tarsus (Paul in his Roman name) changed their course and turned them into a separate religion - Christianity.
Maimonides tried to integrate into Judaism ideas he drew from the general philosophy of his time. The Beshat invented Hasidism, and Rabbi Nachman of Breslav founded his own current within Hasidism. more and more…
Currents in Judaism today
When you say "religious Jew" in Israel, you usually mean "Orthodox Jew". But this is a wrong statement. It is true that Orthodox Judaism does hold, in its own eyes, a monopoly on Judaism. It also tends to internal missionary, but it is only one current among several currents in religious Judaism today. In fact, in the Jewish world outside of Israel, this current, with all its subcurrents, is in the minority, while the currents of Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism are larger than it.
Nowadays there are different and diverse currents of religious Judaism. There are "conservative Jews", "orthodox Jews" and "reform Jews" who are all Jews in their own way. There is also "secular Judaism". The secular Jews are non-religious Jews.
Each of these streams contains its own sub-streams. Orthodox Judaism in the State of Israel includes, among other things, the state national religious community which is an example of a community that primarily demonstrates the benefits of religion. But alongside this public, Orthodox Judaism contains several extreme and particularly dangerous currents, which confirm the rule I presented in the previous chapter, which is that religion will always give birth to extreme currents.
Judaism as a nation
The term "Jew" is confusing. It is used to indicate religious affiliation and also to indicate national affiliation (belonging to the Jewish nation, or the Jewish people). These are different meanings for the same concept. Everyone who is a believing Jew, even if he is not Israeli, belongs to the Jewish people and is also a Jew in his nationality. However, many people are not religious believers, and are still an integral part of the Jewish people. I try to represent the relationship between the members of the Jewish nation and the Jewish religion in the following diagram.
The Jewish people contains those who are Jews who believe in their religion, and also those who do not. Some of those who do not consider themselves religious in the full sense define themselves as traditionalists and sit on the fence, and the other part are secularists, for whom the principles of religious belief seem completely unfounded. These and these, they are all undoubtedly Jews.
There are immigrants among us who are descendants of Jews, serve in the IDF and feel part of the Jewish people. However, their mother is not Jewish and therefore they are not Jewish enough for the Orthodox institutions. People similar to them were executed for their Jewishness less than 100 years ago. Are they not sons of Jewish people?
To separate the traditionalists who are part of the orthodox religious in the secular group is ridiculous.
We all belong to the Orthodox religious stream, but a small part has lost its way a little because of Western influences, the longing for wealth and physicality, and especially the political division that some of the media and extreme left-wing bodies want to differentiate the Orthodox, who are actually all of us, from the real Judaism and to attach to them a stigma of not contributing to the army/and the state (one that is exaggerated by the way Almost every evening we unfortunately see those who fall in the battles for our protection).
In the end, we should also not categorize those currents and people who do not respect the Orthodox religion and hope that we can all unite into one united nation that believes in its religion and country in the face of all the bitter enemies around us.
dear bird,
Some traditionalists believe and some don't, and that's how I marked this group in the diagram.
Beyond that, let me be precise and clear:
* Not all religious Jews are Orthodox - there are also Conservative and Reform
* The stigma of "not donating" was honestly earned by a large part of the ultra-Orthodox communities.
* This stigma does not apply to all of Orthodox Judaism: religious Zionism (not the extreme ultra-Orthodox party that stole this name), for example, is an example and example of contribution to the army and the state.
* Western influences (democracy and humanism for example) are not necessarily bad. Some of them are necessary for a normal life. By the way, Western culture is ultimately a reincarnation of Judeo-Christian culture.
The place I am trying to lead to is indeed the creation of a framework of a united Jewish people, which respects its tradition (including the large groups in this nation that do not believe).
And a note, with your permission:
Please spare us the labeling of "the media and extreme left-wing bodies" (if you're already writing "small", don't you?) - it really doesn't belong here, and paints a proper response in an improper light.