Jewish thought

The Judaism developed the reflection as of its beginnings and put the study with the center of the Judaism, posing it even sometimes like supreme value, putting it at equal other obligations and commands. The Rabbi is initially and before all that which thoroughly knows the law to have studied it, it is a Master according to the Hebraic root of the mot. Its authority comes to him from its scholarship and its wisdom. Temptation is large to want to assimilate thought Jewish and Jewish philosophy. They are two different fields, or to be more precise, which are recut but do not recover themselves. The Jewish thought overflows Jewish philosophy, by the tackled subjects on the one hand, but especially by the adopted method. There exists a Jewish thought whose specificities are not necessarily obvious with the first access.

The Jewish thought underwent many evolutions since the birth of the Judaism 2000 years ago, like very thought alive. The Jewish thought is not exclusively that of the Hebraic bible. The bible is divided with the religions Christian and Islamic, the reading of the text and its use is specific to each one of them. For this reason, the Judaism is defined by its reading of the text, the manner of approaching it and of thinking it, of applying it and of translating it in the daily newspaper. It is possible to release from directing wire, kinds of invariants of the Jewish thought which structured the alive culture of the various generations in the various fields of the Jewish life.

Beyond these invariants and behind an apparent unit, a myriad of currents, thoughts and schools multiply throughout the history, taking again and re-using concepts and forms borrowed from the cultures in which the Jews lived. It becomes thus possible to differentiate the thought séfarade (of the Jews having lived historically in medium mainly Moslem) from a Judaism ashkénaze (of the Jews having historically lived in medium mainly Christian), and within these two main tendencies, it would be necessary to differentiate the catholic Jews of medium, of the Protestant mediums, etc the interactions are multiple and such as it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the original of the copy. It seems that the medieval aristotelicism left the Muslim world, and its comments of Aristote, to be then begun again by the Jews séfarades which knew Arabic, to be included then in the Christian world. On the other hand, it seems that Rhenish Hassidisme of the 13th century finds its source in the medieval German pietism. Lastly, it is proven that Postille of Nicolas of the Quadrant nourished comment of Rachi. These cross interbreedings very often make the analysis complex, and oblige with prudence. It is a question here of releasing the constants of the Jewish thought and of clarifying specificity of it.

Constants of the Jewish thought

The preeminence of the responsibility on the belief

It is not a question of the faith to the Christian direction of the term, related to the divine grace, such as it is expressed by Paul:

" If you confess your mouth the Jesus Lord, and if you believe in your heart that God has it ressuscity of deaths, you will be saved. Because it is by believing of the heart that one arrives at justice, and it is by confessing mouth that one arrives at the salut"

The Jewish faith raises more of the contractual register, that field of the veracity allotted to a representation or an account. God signed a contract with the Jewish people to the Sinai, each part has obligations and an interest with good end of the known as contract. The Jewish people expect from it his achievement and its happiness, God counts on the Jew to help it to complete creation. Thus the question of the Jewish belief is not fundamental.

The rite synagogal includes/understands the 13 articlees of faith of Maïmonide which affirm a certain number of beliefs like nonthe corporality of God, the resurrection of died or the arrival of the Messiah. These 13 articlees of faith were the object of violent polemics within the Jewish world, initially as for their number, but also as for the possibility of even stating them. This dispute was not the fact of minor figures of the Judaism since Nahmanide or Hadaï Crescas belonged to the principal opponents to the concept to even state Jewish articlees of faith. It was a question for these rabbis of defining the Judaism like a system of commands and laws and not as a intellectual system, beliefs. Despite everything, the popular pressure on the rabbis was such as the 13 articles of Maïmonide was included and read until today at the end of the offices. The question of the belief took in fact a place during the history, but of many Jews refuse to be defined compared to such or such belief to focus itself on fastening with a legal system (Halakha), a culture and a literature, based it even on an open reading of the Bible and rabbinical texts.

If it is a typically Jewish profession of faith, it is about the obligation to daily state the prayer known under the name of the Chema Israel, or " Listen to Israel" in French. However this profession of faith is not taken only one reference to a belief, if it is not with the unicity of God, engagement to consider it as Master. The remainder of the text affirms the responsibility for each Jew and Jewish to love God and to register his word in the daily newspaper: to repeat several times per day, at home, in way, to learn them with his children, etc the Jew is initially is before any person in charge to keep the divine word and to transmit it to his children. It does not matter that he believes or not in the arrival of a King going down from King David who will bring together indeed all the Jews out of ground of Israel to be Jewish. The belief makes it possible to define the membership in such or such current of the Judaism, but not to define which is Jewish which is not it.

The examples of the preeminence of the responsibility are numerous in the biblical text and of the pentateuque one.

" 10: 12 Now, Israel, that request of you Eternal, your God, if is not that you fear the Eternal, your God, in order to walk in all his ways, to like and serve the Eternal, your God, of all your heart and all your heart;
10:13 if it isn't that you observe the commands of the Eternal and his laws that I prescribe you today, so that you would be happy?

Thus, it is Jewish responsibility to respect the divine injunctions, to fill its share of the contract so that God fills his.

One of the most paradoxical aspects of the place of the responsibility is due to the Jewish conviction of the responsibility between the generations on the one hand, but also between the members of the community of Israel at a given time of the history. This double dimension of the collective responsibility: synchronic and diachronic, is in Talmud and the later rabbinical literature.

Intergénérationnelle responsibility

The Bible is contradictory on this point, since the idea of a repercussion of the actions of the former generations on the life of the children is in e.g. 34,7 “It sanctions the fault of the fathers on the children. ” and of another dimensioned, Deut. 24,16 known as: “the children will not die because of the fathers. ” This point caused many comments aiming at reconciling the verses, of directly divine source according to the Jewish tradition. The rabbis of Talmud advanced explanations without really concluding, proof of the embarrassment which this opposition of the verses always caused and of the impossibility in fact to solve in a completely satisfactory way such a question. Nevertheless, the question quickly, up to what point and until which generation the acts of the ancestors T it has became effects on the later generations? and that, as well with regard to the faults as the merits.

" There was in fact of Amoraïm which tried to answer the question: “until when the merit of the fathers operate did? ” Some allot to Rabbi Hiyya the opinion that the benefit of the ancestral merit ceased under the reign of Yoahaz; Samuel says that it continued until the time of Dared. Rabbi Yehoshoua Ben Lévi called “until the days of Elie”, and Rabbi Yehoudah called “until the time of Hézéquias”. It is the point of view of Rav Aha which was accepted, namely that “the merit of the fathers perdure forever, because “YHVH your God is miséricordieux God… and He will not forget the Alliance of your fathers” (Dt 4: 31)

This design is radical and extreme, but is expressed in Talmud. More often, the opinions are moderated, considering that there are consequences, but certainly not ad infinitum.

Intracommunity responsibility

For the Jewish tradition, there exists a collective responsibility. The fault of some involves the misfortune of all. This vision is not contradictory with that of autonomy or the individual responsibility. It does nothing but supplement it and is added again. This concept of collective responsibility poses many problems moral and logical, it does not prevent, it present and is developed in Talmud then the later rabbinical commentators. On this subject, as for the precedent, the rabbis of Talmud did not have of cease to try to justify these extensive designs of the responsibility. The social group has an identity and an independent clean responsibility, though strongly bound, with those of each one of its members. The expression Klal Yisrael has as a function to name the whole of the Jews on the level symbolic system and in fact a clean, collective entity of the individuals, equipped with a clean personality. As Ephraïm Urbach develops it:

L' election was that of whole people and Alliance was contracted in the condition which the Jews would be guaranteeing from/to each other (Yisra' el Aravin ze la-ze) Israel became a “nation one” under the terms of Alliance, and no one cannot be delighted when part of the community is punished or afflicted, contrary to what occurs among the other people. The latter, even if they are members of the same faith, east are not divided into drawn up nationalities the ones against the others. This mutual responsibility involves the collective punishment, without no protest being possible because this collective responsibility opens the possibility of repair and guarantees the maintenance of the particular relation of Israel to its God. The mutual guarantee, which involves the punishment on the totality of the people carrying the responsibility for the sin, implies as the guarantee as Israel will turn over on the way of the straightness and, at the same time, is an insurance of the return of the nation to its eternal existence.

This design is expressed today in the conflicts between monk and laymen. For certain rabbis like Ovadia Yossef, the arrival of the King Messiah is prevented by the lack of respect of the religious obligations on behalf of so much of Jews. In the same order of spirit, a polemic has opposite certain mediums religious by the large majority of the Jews when these monks affirmed that Shoah and the destruction of the Jewish people during the second world war were a divine punishment with the growing assimilation of the Jews of Western Europe. This type of assertion, shocking at the most point for almost the whole of the survivors and their descendants, is based in a certain manner in this wide principle of responsibility.

Jewish faith like confidence

The Jewish faith (emouna) must initially and before very getting along in the direction of confidence in justice and divine love.

" The opposite of the negation of God is the faith. But just as we note as the first is not negation of the existence of God but rejection of His providence, in the same way the belief as a God is not only recognition of Its existence but confidence in Him. "

To have faith as a God, means to rely in Its word and in particular on the possibility of transforming the world and of making it better, than it is about come from King Messie who will restore the royalty of ground David of Israel for the most religious Jews, or simply to improve the condition of the human beings whatever they are. Thus of many American Jews, whose Rabbi Joshua Heschel, engaged at the sides of the American blacks in the years 1960 so that they obtain the civic equal rights. In both cases, there is a basically Jewish optimism that the world such as it is not such as he should be and that it is necessary to have confidence in his improvement. This idea is in all the Bible, but also in the rabbinical thought to the modern currents, which they are Haredi or laymen.

The orthopraxie rather than orthodoxy

the Jewish literary tradition, that it is of Talmud or the whole of the rabbinical literature, did not stress orthodoxy, except for the concept of monotheism and adhesion to the oral law, posed like drifting of the biblical text (and especially pentateutic). The Karaïtes, not recognizing the oral law, and intending to stick strictly to the letter of pentateuque, made scission of the rabbinical Judaism. It was well in fact about a question of orthodoxy. The question thus exists well in the Judaism but on very limited points. This is such as it is quite delicate to precisely define what is the Judaism. The 13 articlees of faith of Maïmonide made the object of violent quarrels and polemics at the time of their statement.

Forever desired Judaism to stress nor to be defined by positive intellectual contents, for which it would be necessary to adhere. The only profession of faith of the Judaism remains the daily prayer " Listen to Israel". On the other hand, the question of the practice is determining for the Judaism, and the debates were always extremely rough on what it is advisable to do or not in such or such circumstance. It is adhesion with the Jewish law which makes the Judaism, even if the contents of the law is never fixed universally nor definitively. It is important to achieve the rites, and to fall under the Jewish, and rabbinical tradition even if this law is contradictory biblical letter. Thus famous the " law of Talion" present in the Bible (" life for life, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth! that which causes a lesion with a man one it will cause him) which would prove the inhumanity of the Jewish law, interpreted forever in accordance with the letter of the biblical text. The verse were analyzed by Talmud like the need for repairing the damage by evaluating its value: that of an eye or a tooth, according to the situation of that which underwent it (an eye for one-eyed does not have the same value as for that which sees of the two eyes), but never like the injunction to inflict a damage equivalent to the damage undergone in compensation. By doing this, the rabbis of Talmud consider to give a reading perfectly in conformity with the biblical text, while at the same time it goes against its immediate direction.

The faith is not adhesion with one or more dogmas but the respect of the Jewish law, as defined by the canonical texts Jewish, the first of which the talmud, and as decided by the community of the place. There exist innumerable alternatives of the same rites, and the attempts of the rabbis to the wire of the centuries, to rule in a single way on the law failed. The Mishné Torah of Maïmonide was an attempt, Shulkhan Aroukh of Joseph Karo was another. These works allowed and still make it possible to rule on the Jewish law, but they are the object them same of reinterpretation and adaptation such, which they are used today as reference more than of final code law.

The idea remains in spite of very that it is not génant, quite to the contrary, that divergent opinions, even contradictory coexist. Indeed, the Jewish thought considers that the ultimate truth, that of God, can only be approximate and not reached. The divergent opinions contain a whole a share of truth, and approach, by different ways, the ultimate truth, the divine one. The question of the action right, right and good is more important than the thought right, right and single. In the final analysis, the actions take precedence over the thoughts, the doxas or opinions.

A history to be completed

Whereas for the Christians, Jesus is the Messiah, who achieved the divine word, for the Jews the Messiah did not come yet, and consequently, the Messianic times, announced by the prophets are hoped and located in the future. The history is consequently to complete. Creation has a beginning, an announced end whose date is not known in spite of various advertisements throughout the Jewish history. If the history is to be completed, it of it is responsibility for God and the man. God and the human being is partners, each one having a share of the contract to realize. In particular, the Jewish tradition always considered that the election of the Jewish people meant very heavy responsibility with respect to God in engagement to allow the advent of Messianic times. They are not at all an additional preference and rights with respect to the other nations of the world. Within this economy, the Jews consider that they have a particular place, as being those which accepted the " yoke of the cieux" to take again the Jewish traditional expression which indicates there, the constraint of the Jewish law and its obligations. This dynamic vision of the history can be analyzed by means of the concepts of the systemy of the 20th century. Creation as a system aims at a stable condition: Messianic times. This system is composed of several actors, God, the Jews and the nations of the world (i.e nonJews). Each actor influences the system and contributes to his balance or his imbalance, but none has the means with him only of making occur Messianic times, and of completing the history. These topics were extremely developed in the Jewish mystic, the Kabbale and in particular that of Isaac Louria and its theory of the crack of the vases. According to this author (one of most important of the kabbalistic tradition), the light of creation was dispersed at the time of disobedience of Adam and Eve who ate forbidden fruit. This light is scattered in the world, and the Jew has as a task to collect this light, in order to allow the completion of the history.

The value of the tradition

Contrary to the Christian thought which puts the accent on the innovation and the change like condition of progress, with the image of Jesus, it is on the contrary allowed in the Jewish thought that the tradition has a fundamental value. The change must be able to fall under a tradition to be valid.

Thus the pharisees, the first rabbis, interpreted the biblical text and introduced radical changes while affirming continuity with the divine word received in the Sinai. The Jewish thought poses that there was a very close proximity with God during the Biblical story, and in particular for Moïse. This proximity gives its value to the tradition.

There is perpetually in the Jewish thought an outward journey return between the revival, the sometimes radical change, and the reference constants to the history, the former generations and continuity.

The Jewish thought regards as fundamental adapting to the current conditions while remaining faithful to the past, with the work of the former generations. In this respect, the memory is invested of a key function.

Methods of Jewish thought

A word revealed to reinterpret without end

Centrality of the book

The place of the Hebraic language

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