Toto, We're Not in Kansas Anymore

For hundreds of years, Jewish religious worship was centered in the Temple. Sacrifices, rituals of the Day of Atonement, gatherings of men, women, and children on Sukkot of the Shemittah year for the Hakhel reading, all created a focus on the Temple as the place to which one comes to be close to God and revel in His presence. Although the first Temple was burnt down, only seventy short years later, a new one was rebuilt and ritual life continued. One can only imagine the shock and despair that overtook the Jewish people when the second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE. Life as they knew it came to an abrupt halt, and now they had to deal with the new reality they faced: how do they continue being Jewish without a temple? How can one's sins be atoned without the rituals of the Day of Atonement conducted by the High Priest in the Temple? In short, the dilemma was one that Jews have encountered time and time again throughout history: how does Judaism endure when reality changes? This is the very question with which the Pharisee leaders, who at that time first became referred to as "Rabbis," struggled. They knew that mourning was necessary, but that it had to be limited at some point, and life had to continue. The Tosefta in Sotah describes how, after the destruction, there were many ascetics who refused to drink wine or eat meat. Rabbi Yehoshua asked them why they would not eat meat, to which they replied: "How can we eat meat? Every day the daily sacrifice used to be offered upon the altar, and now it is no longer [offered]." When he asked why they would not drink wine, they answered similarly: "How can we drink wine? Every day it was poured out for libation on the altar, and now it is no longer [poured]." Rabbi Yehoshua responded: "Let us not eat even figs and grapes, for they used to bring first-fruits from them on Shavuot. Let us not eat bread, for they used to bring the two loaves and the showbread from them. Let us not drink water, for they used to offer libations from it on Sukkot." They were silent. Rabbi Yehoshua made it clear that it was necessary to adapt to the new circumstances in order to preserve Judaism for the coming generations, but how should one go about doing so? One thing was crystal clear: it was absolutely imperative to defend the validity of Scripture and the Oral Law from the groups, both Jewish and Christian sects, who rejected the Oral Law. By remaining true to the text and its traditions, Judaism would survive against their attacks. However, it was also important to recognize the "dynamic" quality of the law, which would allow Judaism to adapt to the changing times. "God knew that the laws of this Torah needed extension or contraction, whenever place, event and circumstances so required,... He therefore empowered the sages of every generation, ... to repeal some of the positive commandments of the Torah and some of its prohibitions, whenever the special situation and event so required. However, such a repeal should not be made for ever ... By this arrangement, the Torah preserved its identity, but allowed proper treatment for each time and event." Armed with the firm belief in the truth of the halakhic system, the Rabbis developed creative solutions to the issues of the day. One burning concern was where the religious rituals would take place now that there was no central temple. The solution was the synagogue. Synagogues already existed around Israel, even in Jerusalem, before the destruction of the second temple. The Theodotus Inscription in a synagogue in Jerusalem tells us the functions of the synagogue as a place for the reading of the Torah, the study of the commandments, the housing of guests, and the provision of food for those in need. After the destruction, the synagogue became the primary holy place in which worship would occur. Inscriptions on the Ein Gedi and Beit Alpha synagogues also contain biblical themes, calendrical matters, and names of builders or donors. Worship moved from one central location to individual communities. There were also economic matters that needed to be attended to. The Jewish community of Palestine was in ruins, with the land taken over the by the Romans. The Rabbis enacted legislation that helped reestablish the community. The Mishnah in Gittin describes the law of sikrikon, (literally "thief" in Greek) a Roman soldier to whom Jews sold their land in exchange for their lives, who then sold the land for a profit. If a Jew bought land from a sikrikon and subsequently bought the land from its original [Jewish] owner, the sale is void . If he bought the land from the original owner and then paid the sikrikon, the sale is valid…This is the teaching of the earlier Rabbis. A later Rabbinic court said: Whoever buys land from a sikrikon must pay the original owner a fourth [of the value of the land]. When is this? When they [the original owners] do not have [the sum of the value of the land] in their possession, but if they do have [the sum of the value of the land] in their possession, they precede any man [in the right to buy back the land]. Rabbi [Judah the Prince] convened his court [to discuss this law] and they decided that if the land was in the possession of the sikrikon for twelve months, whoever bought the land first has the rights to it, but he must pay the original owners a fourth. The law provides a way for Jews to repurchase the land from the Romans and help reestablish the community. Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai also instituted a number of enactments that preserved Jewish ritual practice outside the temple, and established Yavneh as the new spiritual center. This included calendrical matters, such as determining the new month, and the testimonies accepted for this determination, as well the controversial decision to blow the shofar on Rosh ha-Shanah even if it fell on the Sabbath. The adaptation of the Rabbis to the new situation included many new and sometimes controversial elements. This was just the first of many occasions in which this would be necessary. One of the most significant times, subsequently, was seventeen hundred or so years later, in the 18th century Enlightenment, when these same values would be challenged, and again, Rabbis would have to evaluate how to reconcile ancient tradition and a new world. The Age of Enlightenment brought with it enormous change and an emphasis on reason, personal freedom, liberty and natural rights. Radically departing from the religious authority of the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment taught people that reason is the primary legitimate source of authority. Moses Mendelssohn, the father of Jewish Enlightenment, therefore distinguished between two types of truths in the Bible: eternal and historical. The eternal truths were based on reason and on metaphysics that were universal for all of mankind. The historical truths, though, are specifically Jewish law, as they were given to the Jews by revelation at Mount Sinai. Therefore, advocates of Jewish enlightenment said, religion should be guided by human will and action, not by belief or dogma. Spinoza also believed that the jurisdiction of the Rabbis and their authority collapsed with the destruction of the Second Temple. Rabbis today, he asserted, have no right to enforce Jewish law among members of the community. As a result of this, many Jews stopped observing Jewish law, and began viewing Torah simply as an ethical guide. Assimilation and intermarriage became serious dangers. It was against this backdrop that official groups called Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist Judaism developed. Like the Pharisees in the second Temple who defended the validity of the Oral Tradition against the Sadducees, Samaritans and other sects who would recognize only the written Scripture, Orthodox Jews stood firmly by the validity, relevance and legislature of Scripture and Oral law, at a time when other groups were dismissing it as an outdated book of law, or reinterpreting tradition to fit the spirit and the culture of the time. In the 19th century this spirit was progress; in the 20th century it also included such ideals as freedom, equality, democracy and autonomy. This struggle, in fact, continues today, as secularized Jews in America continue to abandon their halakhic observance and assimilate at an alarming rate. This time, rather than simply contending with a fear that Judaism would cease to exist the rabbis have to find a way to reconcile and integrate the ancient traditions of Torah with the modernist ideals of the secular world, which had literally changed the thinking of the entire Western world. Two of the most popular approaches are those of the ultra-Orthodox, who isolate themselves from secular society and live in insular communities, and the Modern or Centrist Orthodox, who believe that integrating the best of the secular world into their Torah lifestyle actually enhances it. Placing these two monumental world changes that had such tremendous impacts on the Jewish community side by side, and comparing the responses of the Rabbinic authorities in each situation, we have to wonder why their reactions differed so much in each case. There is no one clear answer, and possibly not even any answer, but there is always room for speculation. From a more pragmatic perspective, maybe one can argue that it has to do with how much Torah and Halakhah were adhered to as binding legislature. At the time of the Temple's destruction, the laws as stated in Torah and explicated by the Oral Law were strictly followed in the Temple service. Once the Temple was gone, and its ritual worship became an impossibility, the Rabbis had to reinterpret and reapply halakhic concepts to almost reconstruct Judaism for the new reality. Moreover, without this reapplication that led to a different model of ritual worship, there would be no more Judaism. It was absolutely imperative that the rabbis adapt Jewish practice, because there was no way that Judaism could continue otherwise. However, they never rejected any of the law as obsolete and not legally binding. Torah never became, as it did for Reform, simply a moral and ethical guide that is not meant to be taken as actual law. After the Enlightenment, however, there was no danger that Judaism would actually end. Religion could still be observed the way it had been for the past thousand years, by those who wished to observe it that way. The issue was, now that we have this new set of ideals called Modernity, can Judaism incorporate some of them into our religious lifestyle, or if we open the door slightly to allow in some good ideals, will it subsequently be shoved open too wide for us to control the incoming tide? Perhaps the ultra-Orthodox saw the potential dangers and decided to simply slam the door without testing the waters. Modern Orthodoxy, on the other hand, saw the potential of the good, and was willing to allow a small, carefully filtered, stream of pure spring water to trickle in. On a more fundamental level though, perhaps Modern Orthodoxy views Modernity as being as monumentally significant as the Hurban was. As such a dramatic and new change that has so clearly and widely impacted the world, it requires not just a passive reaction that refuses to have anything to do with new issues that arise, and does not wholeheartedly embrace the changes without suspicion, but a conscious and proactive search for value in this new entity, even if it is secular. Two hundred years after the Enlightenment, we are still evaluating. With the changing times, some technical points have changed. But what we must keep asking ourselves is: even with those necessary changes, are we succeeding in maintaining the true spirit of our Jewish tradition and commitment to Halakhah the way it was two thousand years ago?

Rena Wiesen is a fifth year student at SCW majoring in Nutrition and Communications and is a Staff Writer for Kol Hamevaser.