The particular emphases that one or the other of these ideas received and the ways in which they were interpreted—philosophically, mystically, and ethically—were determined most frequently by the situations and conditions in which the Jewish community found itself. With a considerable body of ideas at its disposal and with the details of none of them ever receiving the kind of affirmation given to statements about God, Torah, and Israel, freedom of speculation in the realm of eschatology was little restricted. Thus, Joseph Albo, in his work on Jewish “dogmas”—the Sefer ha-ʿiqqarim (1485; “Book of Principles”)—was not inhibited from denying that belief in the messiah was fundamental. The mystical movements of the Middle Ages found in eschatological hopes a crucial centre. The early Kabbala was little interested in messianism, for it reoriented such expectations in the direction of personal redemption. However, following the disasters of the late 15th–17th centuries (e.g., the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the Cossack massacre of the Jews in Poland), messianic speculation in all its varieties underwent a luxuriant growth, finally running wild in the movements surrounding Shabbetai Tzevi of Smyrna and later Jacob Frank of Offenbach. These tragedies for the Jewish communities once again resulted in deferring eschatological hopes or at least limiting their application. Secularization of messianism
In the 19th century, with the political emancipation of the Jews in western Europe and the development of an optimistic evolutionism, messianism was transformed by many liberal thinkers into a version of the idea of progress, a goal that was often thought of as immediately attainable through enlightened social and political action. When disillusionment with emancipation set in, messianism was even more completely secularized by segments of the community who saw its meaning and fulfillment in some form of socialism. In others it was absorbed into the emerging political nationalism—Zionism. Similar developments took place in eastern Europe, with parallel transformations. In the 20th century, particularly after the events symbolized by Auschwitz (a Nazi death camp in Poland, where more than one million Jews were killed), the earlier modern interpretations, particularly of messianism, but also of eschatology as a whole, were considered inadequate. Although no compelling statement was forthcoming, Jewish thinkers beginning in the second half of the 20th century attempted once again to come to grips with eschatological concepts in all their varieties and forms. Basic practices and institutions The hallowing of everyday existence
Systematic presentations of the affirmations of the Jewish community were never the sole mode of expressing the beliefs of the people. Maintaining an equal importance with speculation—Haggadic, philosophic, mystical, or ethical—was Halakhah (Oral Law), the paradigmatic statement of the individual and communal behaviour that embodied the beliefs conceptualized in speculation. Life in the holy community was understood to embrace every level of human existence. The prophets vigorously resisted attempts to limit the sovereignty of the God of Israel to organized worship and ritual. The Pharisees, even while the cult of the Jerusalem Temple was still in existence, sought to reduce priestly exclusiveness by enlarging the scope of sacral rules to include, as far as possible, all the people. Rabbinic Judaism, Pharisaism’s descendant, continued the process of democratization and sought to find in every occasion of life a means of affirming the presence of the divine. Some critics of Rabbinic Judaism, however, have seen the legal aspect of Jewish life as stifling. Although legalism is always a danger, spontaneity is not necessarily lacking in a world governed by Halakhah. Moreover, the intention of the Halakhic attitude is to remind Jews that every occasion of life is a locus of divine disclosure. This is most clearly seen in the berakhot, the “blessings,” that are prescribed to accompany the performance of a broad spectrum of human actions, from the routines of daily life to the restricted gestures of the cultic-liturgical year. In these God is addressed directly in the second person singular, his sovereignty is affirmed, and his activity as creator, giver of Torah, or redeemer—expressed in a wide variety of eulogies—is proclaimed. There are no areas of human behaviour in which God cannot be met, and the Halakhic pattern is intended to make such possibilities realities. The situation of the Jewish community, however, determines how this intention is realized. On more than one occasion, the Halakhic pattern has served as a defense against a hostile environment, thus becoming a kind of scrupulousness (an obsessive concern with minute details), but, just as often, the dynamic of the intention has broken through to reestablish its integrity and to hallow life in its wholeness.
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The traditional pattern of individual and familial practices
The traditional pattern of an individual’s life can be discerned by examining a passage from the Babylonian Talmud (tractate Berakhot 60b) that was reworked into a liturgical structure but which in its original form exhibits the intention discussed above. In this passage, the blessings accompanying one’s waking and returning to the routines of life are prescribed. There is a brief thanksgiving on awakening for being restored to conscious life; then a benediction is offered over the cock’s crowing; following this, each ordinary act—opening one’s eyes, stretching and sitting up, dressing, standing up, walking, tying one’s shoes, fastening one’s belt, covering one’s head, washing one’s hands and face—has its accompanying blessing, reminding one that the world and the life to which he has returned exist in the presence of God. These are followed by a supplication in which the petitioner asks that his life during the day may be worthy in all of its relationships. Then, as the first order of daily business, Torah, both written (Bible) and oral (Mishna), is briefly studied, introduced by doxologies to God as Giver of Torah. Finally, there is a prayer for the establishment of the kingdom of God, for each day contains within itself the possibility of ultimate fulfillment. As indicated, this was originally not a part of public worship but rather was personal preparation for a life to be lived in the presence of God (even today it is not, strictly speaking, part of the synagogue service, though it is frequently recited there).
Such individual responsibility marks much of Jewish observance, so that the synagogue—far from being the focus of observance—shares with the home and the workaday world the opportunities for divine-human encounter. The table blessings, Kiddush (the “sanctification” of the Sabbath and festivals), the erection of the booth (sukka) for Sukkoth (the Feast of Tabernacles), the seder (the festive Passover meal) with its symbols and narration of the Exodus, and the lighting of the lamps during the eight days of Hanukkah (the Feast of Dedication) are all the obligation of the individual and the family and have their place in the home. It is here too where the woman’s role is defined and where, as contrasted with the synagogue, she functions centrally. Given the traditional dietary regimen of the Jewish community—the exclusion of swine, carrion eaters, shellfish, and certain other creatures, the separation of meat and dairy products, the ritual slaughtering of animals, the required separation and burning of a small portion of dough (ḥalla) when baking, the supervision of the Passover food requirements, and many other stipulations—there exists a large and meticulously governed area in the home that is the sphere of woman’s religion. There seems not to have been a hierarchy of values in which the home-centred—as contrasted with the synagogue-oriented—practices were given an inferior status. In modern times, however—particularly in Western societies, where the pervasiveness of religious obligation has been replaced by ecclesiastical institutionalism on the prevailing Christian model—this whole crucial area has lost much of its meaning as a place of divine-human meeting. Thus, for many it is only the synagogue that provides such an opportunity, and the individual act has been reduced on the scale of values. With this downgrading, woman’s religion has lost much of its significance. However attenuated personal religious responsibility may have become, the intention of the Halakhic structure, the hallowing of the individual’s total existence, remains a potent force within the Jewish community.