The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1187 page)

(
c.
1075–1141).
Jewish philosopher and poet. Judah spent much of his life travelling round the various Jewish communities of Spain. He was a close friend of Abraham
ibn Ezra
who quoted his works of grammar and philosophy. Towards the end of his life, he travelled to
Erez Israel
, but probably died on the way there in Egypt. According to legend, he was trampled to death in one of the gateways of Jerusalem.
About 800 of his poems have survived, including love poems, laments, lyric poetry, and songs of
Zion
. His philosophy is contained in his
Kitab al-Hujja wa-al-Dalil fi Nasr al-Din al-Dhalil
(The Book of Argument and Proof in Defence of the Despised Faith), generally known as
Sefer ha-Kuzari
(The Book of the Kuzari, 1506). For both Abraham Isaac
Kook
and Franz
Rosenzweig
it was seen as a most faithful picture of the unique attributes of Judaism.

 
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(late 2nd cent. CE).
Jewish leader and legal expert. Judah ha-Nasi, a direct descendant of
Hillel
, devoted his life as
nasi
to building up the unity of the Jewish people in
Erez Israel
and spreading the knowledge of
Torah
. His name is particularly associated with the redaction of the
Mishnah
.

 
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Judah Loew ben Bezalel of Prague
(Der Hohe Rabbi Loew, known as Maharal mi-Prag
,

c.
1529–1609).
Jewish leader and legal expert. Judah Loew served as
Chief Rabbi
in Posen and Prague. He was the outstanding leader of his day, renowned for his piety, who produced highly influential works on ethics, philosophy, and homiletics. He was an early advocate of the view that ‘the state’ is an unnatural compromise, which will wither away when the true conditions of human freedom are realized. He regarded Israel's vocation to be the proleptic representation of the harmony which will, eventually, be the world's final condition. There has been a revival of interest in his work in the 20th cent., but the well-known legend that he was creator of the Prague
golem
is unfounded.

 
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(2nd cent. BCE).
Jewish warrior. Judah Maccabee was the third son of Mattathias, the
Hasmonean
, who led the revolt against the rule of Antiochus Epiphanes in
Erez Israel
. The story of his campaigns is told in the
Books of
Maccabees
.

 
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Judaism
.

The name ‘Judaism’ emerged at around the opening of the Christian era (
2 Maccabees
2. 21, 8. 1, 14. 38; Galatians 1. 13). Like other aggregating names of major religions, it is misleading if it implies that there is uniformity of belief and practice among all Jews. Yet it is appropriate if it draws attention to a shared genealogy (identified through having a Jewish mother, and going back to ‘our fathers
Abraham
,
Isaac
and
Jacob
’; see
PATRIARCHS
) and to a sense of being a people chosen to receive God's guidance in
Torah
—though the emphasis on being a
chosen people
has itself been questioned during the 20th cent. Today a distinction is frequently drawn between ‘secular’ or ‘cultural’ Judaism (denoting those who accept the history and values of Judaism, but who do not observe the details of Torah) and ‘religious’ Judaism, which implies acceptance of Torah. Even then, there are major differences in the ways in which Torah is brought to bear on life, among the major divisions of
Orthodox
,
Reform
,
Conservative
,
Progressive
,
Reconstructionist
, and Liberal Judaism.
The origin of the Jewish people and of Judaism cannot be traced historically with any certainty. The major sources of information are contained in those books which came to be believed as having come from the initiative and inspiration of God, and which became
scripture
, i.e. Torah, Nebi’im (
Prophets
), and Kethubim (
Writings
), hence the abbreviated name.
Tanach
. From these books, it seems clear that a kinship group, the bene Jacob (descendants of Jacob) gradually ceased to be nomadic and settled in areas of Canaan. Different parts of the kinship group followed different histories (a dramatic part of which was an enslavement in Egypt and an escape now commemorated in
Passover
; another was a covenant with a god Yhwh at Sinai). As the tribes began to settle, so they began more formally to unite in the defence, and later conquest, of territory, making a covenant, not only with each other, but also under the demand and protection of Yhwh (how this name was originally pronounced is unknown; conventionally it is transliterated as
Yahweh
, but Orthodox Jews would not attempt to pronounce it at all: see
HA-SHEM
). Thus Israel is a proleptic community, established by God in the midst of time, to represent that harmony which was intended by God in creation, and which will in the end be the whole human case, ‘when the knowledge of God shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea’ (Habakkuk 2. 14). Under David,
Jerusalem
was captured, and there the Lord's anointed (
ha-M
sh-iach
= the Messiah) mediated between God and people; there too the
Temple
was built where worship and
sacrifices
surrounded the
Holy of Holies
, the inner sanctuary where only the
high priest
entered on the
Day of Atonement
(Yom Kippur). Yet ritual action and kingly control were never self-sufficient: they were monitored by prophets who spoke directly from God,
koh amar Adonai
, ‘Thus says the Lord … ’. In this way the triple cord of Israel's religion (prophet, priest, and king) was woven together.
At the time when Jesus was alive, Judaism was a successful missionary religion, winning many converts to its ethical and obedient monotheism. During this period there were many conflicting interpretations of what it must mean in practice and in detail for Jews to fulfil the commands of the covenant. (e.g.
Sadducees
,
Pharisees
,
Dead Sea Scrolls
). Nevertheless, there was a common sense that the final control and outcome of history is in the hand of God, and that God would send a messiah to restore the independent kingdom of the Jews, or of heaven; and this led to increasing restlessness under Roman occupation, culminating in two revolts against Rome, in 66–70/2 and 132–5 CE, which left the Jews a people no longer in possession of their holy land and places.
The reconstruction and continuity of Judaism was achieved by the
rabbis
, beginning at
Jabneh
. They sought and achieved a practice of Judaism which no longer possessed a Temple. The family and the synagogue became the centres of Jewish life. The period of Rabbinic Judaism saw a gathering together of the many interpretations of the original written Torah, which thus came to form a ‘second’ Torah,
Torah she be‘al peh
(oral Torah): this produced
halakhah
, that by which Jews can walk in knowledge that this is the received application of Torah to life. This voluminous interpretation was gathered first in
Mishnah
, then in
Talmuds
; and eventually it was organized in Codes (
codifications of Law
), notably the Code of
Maimonides
and Joseph
Caro's
Shul
n Arukh
. At the same time, Judaism was graphically expressed and sustained through its stories,
Aggadah
, and its biblical exegesis,
midrash
. But the fact remained that Jews were now dispersed throughout the world (
diaspora
): the two major communities (between whom many differences, especially of custom, persist) were the
Sephardim
(from Spain after the expulsion in 1492, and in the Mediterranean) and the
Ashkenazim
(originally in Europe, but after the many
pogroms
, culminating in the
Holocaust
, now scattered again, but numerous in the USA). Both communities and traditions are present in Israel.
Two other major developments were those of
Kabbalah
and
asidism
. At the same time, Jewish philosophers made important connections between the inherited faith and the quest for wisdom and truth.
Throughout this whole period of
galut
(exile) from the Jewish homeland, the memory of
Zion
and the prayer for restoration and return (especially in the
liturgy
) has been constant. The pogroms of 1881–2 forced many Jews to return to Palestine from where the
Zionist
movement rapidly spread into Europe. Zionism received a major boost during the First World War, particularly through the
Balfour Declaration
; and it became inevitable during and after the ‘war against the Jews’ waged by the Nazis and their followers from 1933 onward.
Anti-Semitism
remains a real and vicious illustration of the depravity of the human herd; but marrying out of Judaism threatens a serious dissipation of its numbers; and assimilation jeopardizes the identity of Jews in a pluralist and pluralizing world. But the tenacity of Jewish faith, which has endured millennia of hatred and murder, remains undiminished.