The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (961 page)

(Heb., ‘enlightenment’). The Enlightenment movement of the late 18th and 19th cents. in Judaism. Those who espoused the Haskalah were known as Maskilim. Related to the secular Enlightenment, Moses
Mendelssohn
is generally considered to be the ‘father of the Haskalah’.
Prominent Haskalah thinkers included Naphtale Herz Wessely, the educationalist, who believed that Jewish children ‘were not all created to become
Talmudists
’, and David Friedlaender who rejoiced in the decline of the
yeshivot
. Throughout Europe, rich Jews rejected
Yiddish
and taught their children the language of their host nation.
In their desire for acceptance and emancipation, the Maskilim were particularly patriotic towards their host countries, and the
messianic
hope was weakened. Members of the Assembly of Jewish Notables, set up by Napoleon in 1806, described themselves as ‘Frenchmen of the Mosaic religion’. The
diaspora
was no longer seen as a punishment for
Israel's
wickedness, but the result of historical and geographical factors. Judaism was understood as a spiritual and moral creed, and from this thinking grew the
Reform
movement with its updated
Prayer
Book and its rejection of the absolute claims of
halakhah
.

 
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(Heb., ‘agreement’). Either
rabbinic
approval of
halakhic
decision, or rabbinic recommendation of a particular book (cf. in Christianity, the
imprimatur
). The first haskamah appeared in the
Agur
by Jacob Landau (1490). The haskamah is still in use. Among
Sephardi
in the West, it is spelt Ascama.

 
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Hasmoneans
.

Name given to the
Maccabees
in the
Talmud
. The Hasmoneans were a priestly family who led the rebellion against the Selucid kings in the 2nd cent. BCE and established an autonomous Jewish kingdom.

 
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Haso
(sect founder)
:

see
NICHIREN SH
SH
.

 
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(Jap., ‘eight aspects’). The eight major events of the Buddha's life. These are in fact differently listed, but a typical list is:

(i) 
g
tosotsu
, his coming down from the
Tu
ita
heaven;
(ii) 
takutai
, his conception;
(iii) 
shussh
, his birth;
(iv) 
shukke
, his renunciation of the world;
(v) 
g
ma
, his defeat of evil powers;
(vi) 
j
d
, his enlightenment;
(vii)  
tenp
rin
, his teaching of
dharma
;
(viii) 
nyunehan
, his attaining of
nirv
na
. Hasso no kegi is the Buddha's way of converting people by his manifestation of eight aspects.