Poster for the Thalia Theatre, on New York City's Lower East Side, 1897. Advertised plays include Shelomoh ha-Melekh (“King Solomon”), Bar Kokhba, Kol Nidre, Perikola (Lá Perichole), and Hanah'le di finisherin (“Hannah the [Garment] Finisher”). Yozef Kroger, NY/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital. id. cph 3b52232)
Lou Hackett Silberman
Jewish philosophy
The term Jewish philosophy refers to various kinds of reflection engaged in by persons identified as Jews. At times, as in the Middle Ages, this meant any methodical and disciplined thought pursued by Jews, whether on general philosophical subjects or on specifically Judaic themes. In other eras, as in modern times, concentration on the latter has been considered a decisive criterion, so that philosophers who are Jewish but unconcerned with Judaism or the Jewish heritage and destiny in their thought are not ordinarily classified as Jewish philosophers. Pre-Hellenistic and Hellenistic thought Bible and Apocrypha
Philosophy arose in Judaism under Greek influence; however, a kind of philosophical approach may be discerned in early Jewish religious works apparently subject to little or no Greek influence. The books of Job and Ecclesiastes (Hebrew: Qohelet) were favourite works of medieval philosophers, who took them as philosophical discussions not dependent on historical revelation. The book of Proverbs introduces, in an apparently theological context, the concept of Wisdom (Ḥokhma), which was to have a primordial significance for Jewish thought, and presents it as the first and favourite of God’s creations. It is also praised, in the book of the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), as instilled by God into all his works and granted in abundance to those he loves. It is sometimes equated with fearing God and keeping the Law. In other passages, however, piety seems to be regarded as superior to Wisdom. The Wisdom of Solomon, probably originally written in Greek, praises Wisdom, which is held to be an image of God’s goodness and a reflection of the eternal light. God is said to have given the author knowledge of the composition of the world, the powers, the elements, the nature of animals, the divisions of time, and the positions of the stars. In its vocabulary and perhaps in some of its doctrines, the work shows the influence of Greek philosophy. It also has had considerable influence on Christian theology. Philo Judaeus
The first systematic attempt to apply Greek philosophical concepts to Jewish doctrines was made by Philo Judaeus (Philo of Alexandria) in the 1st century ce. Philo was influenced by Platonic and Stoic writings and probably also by certain postbiblical Jewish beliefs and speculations. He apparently had some knowledge of the Oral Law, which was developing in his time, and he also knew of the Essenes, whom he praised highly.
Philo JudaeusPhilo Judaeus.From Les vrais pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres Grecs, Latins et Payens, Vol. 2, by André Thevet, 1584.
Philo provided Jewish religious doctrines with intellectual and cultural respectability by stating them in Greek philosophical terms. He also showed that much of Greek philosophy was consonant with Judaism as he conceived it and with the allegorical sense of biblical texts as he read them. The fact that he stressed the primacy of Jewish religious tradition over Greek philosophy may have been more than mere lip service. It may be argued that—in central points of his thought, such as his conception of Logos (the Divine Reason or Word)—Philo used philosophical notions as expressions of religious beliefs. For him, Logos is primarily an intermediary between a transcendent, unknowable God and the world. On basic philosophical and theological problems, such as the creation of the world or the existence of free will (see also determinism), Philo’s writings provide vague or contradictory answers. He placed mystic ecstasy, of which he may have had personal experience, above philosophical and theological speculations.
Philo’s approach, his method of interpretation, his way of thinking, as well as some of his ideas—especially that of Logos—exerted considerable influence on early Christian thought but not, to any comparable extent, on Jewish thought in the same period. In the Middle Ages, knowledge of Philo among Jews was either very slight or nonexistent. Not until modern times was his importance in the history of Jewish religious thought recognized. Other ancient sources
Some traces of ancient philosophy, mainly Stoic, may be found in the Mishna and in the subsequent Talmudic literature compiled in Palestine and Babylonia. Jewish theological and cosmological speculations occur in the Midrashim (plural of Midrash), which propound allegories, legends, and myths under the guise of interpreting biblical verses, and in the Sefer yetzira" class="md-crosslink">Sefer yetzira (“Book of Creation”), a combination of cosmogony and grammar that was once attributed to Abraham. There is no clear evidence of the period in which the Sefer yetzira was written; both the 3rd century and the 6th or 7th century have been suggested. The book became a key work in later Jewish mysticism. Medieval philosophy
In the 9th and 10th centuries, after a long hiatus, systematic philosophy and ideology reappeared among the Jews, a phenomenon indicative of their contacts with Islamic civilization. The evolution of Islam in the 9th and 10th centuries showed that Greek scientific and philosophical lore could be separated, at least to some extent, from its pagan associations and could be adapted to another language and another culture. It also showed that a monotheistic, prophetic religion that in all relevant essentials, including adherence to a basic religious law, was closely akin to Judaism could be the basis of a culture in which science, philosophy, and theology were an indispensable part. The question of whether philosophy is compatible with religious law (the answer sometimes being negative) constituted the main theme of the foremost medieval Jewish thinkers. From approximately the 9th to the 13th century, Jewish thought participated in the evolution of Islamic philosophy and theology and manifested only in a limited sense a specifically Jewish character. Jewish philosophers showed no particular preference for philosophical texts written by Jewish authors over those composed by Muslims, and in many cases the significant works of Jewish thinkers constituted a reply or a reaction to the ideas of Islamic philosophical and scientific writings. Jewish kalām
Although several Jewish intellectuals in 9th- and 10th-century Babylonia were steeped in Greek philosophy, the most productive and influential Jewish thinkers of this period represented a very different tendency, that of the Muʿtazilite kalām. Kalām (literally “speech”) is an Arabic term used in both Islamic and Jewish vocabulary to designate several theological schools that were ostensibly opposed to Greek, and particularly Aristotelian, philosophy. Islamic and Jewish Aristotelians regarded kalām theologians (called the mutakallimūn) with a certain contempt, holding them to be mere apologists and indifferent to the philosophical question of truth. Herein they did not do justice to their adversaries, for many representatives of kalām displayed a genuine speculative impulse. The school’s theology, forged in disputes with Zoroastrians, Manichaeans, and Christians, claimed to be based on reason. Saʿadia ben Joseph