In modern times, particularly in the Western world, the change in Jewish communal existence required a transformation of this ancient structure. The rabbinate became, for the most part, an ecclesiastical rather than a communal agency, reflecting the requirements of civic life in modern nation states. The education of rabbis is now carried on in seminaries whose structure and curriculum have been influenced by European and American academic institutions. The majority of their graduates serve as congregational rabbis, in roles similar to those of ministers and priests in Christian denominations but with some other functions deriving from the particular situation and nature of the Jewish community.
In the State of Israel certain larger areas, such as that of family law, are still reserved for the rabbinate. Even here, however, the rabbinate functions more as a counterpart to other ecclesiastical organizations, such as Christian and Muslim, than as an overarching and all-inclusive communal agency. Chief rabbinates
The existence of the offices of chief rabbi in the State of Israel derives from the situation in the Ottoman Empire, where the various religious communities functioned as quasi-political entities in a multiethnic conglomerate. Israel has two chief rabbis, one for the Ashkenazic (European) and one for the Sephardic (Eastern) community; they no longer function as the heads of whole communities but only of ecclesiastical organizations. The same is true in countries outside Israel that have the office of chief rabbi (e.g., Great Britain and France); in these countries the chief rabbi’s relationship with the government is like that of his ecclesiastical counterparts in the Christian churches. While the chief rabbis have certain kinds of limited authority because of their official position, they have jurisdiction only over those members of the Jewish community who are ready to accept it; others form their own ecclesiastical units and act without reference to the chief rabbinate. In some situations—particularly in the United States, where there is no similar structure—the title chief rabbi or grand rabbi has been assumed occasionally by individuals as a means of asserting superior dignity or even (fruitlessly) authority. General councils or conferences
The nature of the Sanhedrin in the last years of the Jewish commonwealth is a much disputed matter. The several councils mentioned in Talmudic literature are equally difficult to define with any precision. References scattered throughout medieval literature suggest the existence of councils and synods, but their composition and authority are uncertain. About the year 1000 a synod was held in the Rhineland in which French and German communities participated under the guidance of Rabbenu Gershom, the leading rabbinic authority of the region. In the late Middle Ages, representatives from the communities of Great Poland, Little Poland, Russian Poland (Volhynia), and Lithuania came together to form the Waʿad Arbaʿ Aratzot (Council of the Four Lands). At the beginning of the modern era, Napoleon in 1806 summoned the Assembly of Notables—representatives of communities under French dominion—to deal with questions arising from the dissolution of the older status of the Jews and their naturalization as individuals into the new nation-states. Decisions of the assembly that involved questions of Jewish law were subsequently submitted to a Grand Sanhedrin called by Napoleon to provide Halakhic justification for acts that the French imperial government had required of the Jewish communities.
During the 19th century the demand for the reform of Jewish life—principally the liturgy of the synagogue but many other aspects as well—prompted a series of rabbinical conferences and synods. A similar course of events took place in the United States. In both instances, after an initial period in which radicals, moderates, and conservatives argued their respective cases in the same forum, polarization set in and intellectual differences were transformed into competing organizations. In the 1970s the several tendencies within the Jewish communities in North America were institutionalized in rabbinical conferences and congregational unions—Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform—whose influence was in large measure limited to their adherents. There is also a worldwide body of Reform or Liberal Judaism—the World Union for Progressive Judaism. One result of these developments was the hardening of denominational differences, particularly in North America, especially between Orthodox and non-Orthodox (Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative) Judaisms. Modern variations
The preceding sketch of basic practices and institutions has attempted to describe the so-called traditional situation, though it has been indicated that even here there are variations—actually more than have been noted. Reference has also been made to changes that represent the abandonment of traditional practices on the basis of intellectual decisions about the nature of Judaism, its beliefs, practices, and institutions. Such changes are far too numerous to describe in detail, but it is important to indicate their motivation. The Halakhic system, both as a whole and in all of its parts, is viewed not as divinely revealed but rather as a human process that seeks to expose in mutable forms the meaning of the divine-human encounter. The practices and institutions, therefore, are understood as historically determined, reflecting the multifaceted experience of the people of Israel as they have sought to live in the presence of God. Historical scholarship has disclosed the origins, rise, development, and decline of these structures in the past and thus suggests the propriety of changes in the present and future that appear to fulfill the needs of the community and its members. However, this kind of historicism (the explanation of values and forms in terms of their historical conditions) has been applied in widely different ways since it was first used in the 19th century. Some have seen it as justifying a disengagement from much if not all of the traditional pattern and a recognition that only the spiritual essence is of consequence for Judaism. Others have argued that the burden of proof is always upon those who would introduce changes. Since the end of World War II, the question has been whether a reconstituted Halakhic system might not be a requirement of the day. The Jewish religious year
The calendar of Judaism includes the cycle of Sabbaths and holidays that are commonly observed by the Jewish religious community—and officially in Israel by the Jewish secular community as well. The Sabbath and festivals are bound to the Jewish calendar, reoccur at fixed intervals, and are celebrated at home and in the synagogue according to ritual set forth in Jewish law and hallowed by Jewish custom. The cycle of the religious year