[nasional_list] [ppiindia] Daud "bau" Yahudi - Re: MIZONE = MISI ZIONES...?
- From: "RM Danardono HADINOTO" <rm_danardono@xxxxxxxx>
- To: ppiindia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 08:42:28 -0000
** Forum Nasional Indonesia PPI India Mailing List **
** Untuk bergabung dg Milis Nasional kunjungi:
** Situs Milis: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ **
** Beasiswa dalam negeri dan luar negeri S1 S2 S3 dan post-doctoral
scholarship, kunjungi
http://informasi-beasiswa.blogspot.com **--- In ppiindia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Lina
Dahlan" <linadahlan@...>
wrote:
>
> Penyakit lama. Konteks yang gak nyambung.
>
> 1) Mas Imuchtarom berbicara dalam konteks dan literatur AlQur'an,
> dan mbah dalam konteks wikipedia yang berbahasa Jerman.
> 2) Mas Imuchtarom berkutat pada kata 'Yahudi' itu saja, dan mbah
> berkutat pada 'Budaya Yahudi'.
>
*** Kalau membicarakan ke Yahudi-an (Yehudim), maka yang terbaik
melihat sisi penggambaran dari sumber umum, misalnya wikipedia, atau
referensi lain, tetapi tidak layak dari agama lain. Kata "Yahudi"
itu saja, tak mempunyai makna apa apa, tanpa mengkaitkannya dengan
kenyataan yang ada ribuan tahun, yakni tradisi, budaya dan agama.
-------------------------
>Sehubungan dengan rujukan yang diberikan mbah, yakni wikipedia,
saya mencoba mengklick yang bahasa Indonesia or bhs Inggris (biar
ngatri gituuu), tapi nyatanya yang bahasa Indonesia tidak sama
dengan yang berbahasa Jerman dan Inggris; begitu juga yang bahasa
Inggris. Saya kira tadinya masing2 adalah terjemahan masing-masing.
Karena saya tertarik akan kitab Musa (1 Mose 12, 1 Mose 32)yang
dikutip di wikipedia berbhs Jerman,tapi nyatanya kok tidak ada di
wikipedia bhs Indonesia or Inggris.
>
> Kembali ke soal kata 'Yahudi' dan penggunaannya, di wikipedia
berbhs Indonesia itu ada dijelaskan bhw istilah ini memang rancu.
Saya setuju dengan apa yang dituliskan dan dijelaskan oleh mas
Imuchtarom yang harus memisahkan dulu dengan jelas, mau bicara soal
Yahudi sebagai agama atau diluar agama (bangsa:Israel, rakyat:
Israel, budaya, bahasa, dll..), karena tidak semua rakyat/bangsa
Israel beragama Yahudi.
*** Justeru karena kerancuan pemakaian kata ini, saya ajak memakai
referensi yang jelas, apa yang dimaksud dengan kata itu. Kerancuan
ini jelas selali, kalau kita ingat maki makian umat Islam pada
umumnya (ingat kata kata mas Nizami, Ahmadinezad atau yang
lain ), "Yahudi itu buruk, dan harus dimusnahkan". Lha Yahudi apa
yang dimaksud?
--------------------------
> Kalau kemudian orang Yahudi (degil) ingin memberikan image bahwa
> Yahudi adalah juga nama bangsa/rakyat, saya kira mereka ingin
> pembenaran atas klaim "Bangsa Pilihan Tuhan" yang tertulis dalam
> kitab suci tersebut (supaya tergenapi). Banyak orang meng-amin-kan
> bhw Yahudi adalah juga suatu bangsa, tapi ketika sudah membaca
kitab suci yang menempatkan 'bangsa yahudi' sbg bangsa pilihan
Tuhan, hati kecilnya meringis,"mana mungkin Tuhan begitu
diskriminatif'??.
*** nah, anda sendiri sudah ikut ikut menggunakan kata Yahudi yang
rancu. Siapa yang degil? Anda kenal mereka?
--------------------------
[Saya jadi teringat nasehat Nabi SAW,"mintalah fatwa pada hatimu"]
>
> Kembali ke soal rujukan yang digunakan mbah: wikipedia. Buat saya
> rujukan ini masih blur dan tidak bisa dijadikan pegangan untuk
suatu kebenaran karena di wikipedia yang berbahasa Inggris,
Wikipedia jujur telah mewanti-wanti bhw "The factual accuracy of
this article or section is disputed" dan masih diperlukan perbaikan-
perbaikan.
>
*** TEtap saja kita masih layak memakai sumber ini, daripada secara
emosional mengkritik istilah yang tak ada definisinya. Wikipedia is
not everything, but not that bad.
-------------------------------
> Kalau memang kata 'Yahudi' diambil dari kata 'Jehudim' yang
> berbahasa Ibrani, sebaiknya bahasa Ibranilah yang menjadi rujukan.
> Menunjukkan apa kata 'Jehudim' dalam kamus Ibrani tersebut.
>
> Mengenai silsilah dalam Torah, saya rasa itu hanyalah silsilah
> keturunan bangsa (bukan agama) karena kalau dikatakan Yesus adalah
> dari BANGSA Yahudi, apakah agama Yesus Yahudi juga seperti Musa?
> Lalu, siapa yang mengatakan bhw agama Yesus adalah Kristen?
**** Ini lagi lagi spekulasi. Tak ada bukti, bahwa tradisi keagamaan
bangsa Yahudi seperti disebutkan dalam Thora adalah berbeda.
Agama Yesus itu TIDAK ada. Yesus sendiri TAK mendirikan agama. Yesus
jelas jelas menjalankan ritual yang sama dengan leluhurNya sampai
Moses dan sebelumnya, juga David.
Yang mangetakan agma Yesus adalah Kristen adalah anda. Kristiani
muncul SETELAH Kristus wafat.
-------------------------------
Kalau Musa dan Yesus satu agama, mengapa Musa mempertuhankan Yahwe
(tidak pernah menuhankan Yesus) dan mengapa kemudian Yesus
mempertuhankan dirinya? Kalau Yesus beragama Yahudi, mestinya
pengikut Yesus juga beragama Yahudi (yang tauhid kepada Yahwe) bukan
Kristen. Mintalah fatwa pada hatimu.
**** Kalau anda cermat membaca riwayat hidup Yesus, maka anda akan
lihat, bahwa sejak lahir Yesus hidup dalam ritual agama Yahudi,
seperti nenek moyangnya. Dia juga berkhotbah di synagoga dan
dipanggil rabbi. Yesus memperbaharui Perjanjian lama (Thora), dan
apa yang Dia ajarkan tertuang dalam Perjanjian Baru, yang bukan
bagian dari agama Yahudi. KeIlahian Kristus adalah bagian dari
ajaran Kristiani, yang BUKAN lagi merupakan agama Yahudi.
Kembali pada pokok pembicaraan, dimana bung Imuch muncul, adalah
masalah budaya dan bangsa daripada para nabi, yang adalah nabi nabi
Yahudi.
Yahudi dalam literatur Inggris disebut Jew. Dan budaya Yahudi adalah
Jewish Culture. Ini dapat anda baca di library.
Bagaimana perkembangan dari budaya dan agama Yahudi menjadi
Kristiani lihatlah pustaka dalam bahasa Inggris dibawah ini, yang
walau panjang namun cukup ilmiah (bukan tulisan emosi menggebu yang
sangat mentertawakan).
Judaism
To complement this article, which was taken from the 1910 Catholic
Encyclopedia, New Advent recommends a prayerful reading of "Nostra
Aetate" from the Second Vatican Council.
At the present day, the term designates the religious communion
which survived the destruction of the Jewish nation by the Assyrians
and the Babylonians. A brief account of Judaism thus understood may
be given under the following heads:
(1) Judaism before the Christian Era;
(2) Judaism and Early Christianity;
(3) Judaism since A.D. 70;
(4) Judaism and Church Legislation.
I. JUDAISM BEFORE THE CHRISTIAN ERA
Upon the return from Babylon (538 B.C.), Juda was conscious of
having inherited the religion of pre-Exile Israel. It was that
religion which had prompted the exiles to return to the land
promised by Yahweh to their ancestors, and they were now determined
to maintain it in its purity. From the Captivity they had learned
that in His justice, God had punished their sins by delivering them
into the power of pagan nations, as the Prophets of old had
repeatedly announced; and that in His love for the people of His
choice, the same God had brought them back, as Isaias (40-46) had
particularly foretold. Thence they naturally drew the conclusion
that, cost what it may, they must prove faithful to Yahweh, so as to
avert a like punishment in the future. The same conclusion was also
brought home to them, when some time after the completion of the
Temple, Esdras solemnly read the Law in their hearing. This reading
placed distinctly before their minds the unique position of their
race among the nations of the world. The Creator of heaven and
earth, in His mercy towards fallen man (Genesis 1-3), had made a
covenant with their father Abraham, in virtue of which his seed, and
in his seed all the peoples of the earth, should be blessed (Genesis
12, 18; II Esdras 9). From that time forth, He had watched over them
with jealous care. The other nations, once fallen into idolatry, He
had allowed to grovel amid their impure rites; but He had dealt
differently with the Israelites whom he wished to be unto Him "a
priestly kingdom and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:6). Their repeated
falls into idolatry He had not left unpunished, but He kept alive
among them the revealed religion which ever represented God as the
true and adequate object of their devotion, trust, gratitude, of
their obedience and service.
All the past misfortunes of their race were thus distinctly seen as
so many chastisements intended by God to recall His ungrateful
people to the observance of the Law, whereby they would secure the
holiness necessary for the blameless discharge of their priestly
mission to the rest of the world. They, therefore, pledged renewed
faithfulness to the Law, leaving it to God to bring about the
glorious day when all the earth, with Jerusalem as its centre, would
recognize and worship Yahweh; they broke every tie with the
surrounding nationalities, and formed a community wholly sacred unto
the Lord, chiefly concerned with the preservation of His faith and
worship by a strict compliance with all the ritual prescriptions of
the Law. On the one hand, this religious attitude of the Judean Jews
secured the preservation of Monotheism among them. History proves
that the Persians and the Macedonians respected their religious
freedom and even to some extent favoured the worship of Yahweh. It
remains true, however, that in the time of the Machabees, the
children of Israel escaped being throughly hellenized only through
their attachment to the Law. Owing to this attachment, the fierce
persecutions which they then underwent, confirmed instead of rooting
out their belief in the true God. On the other hand, the rigour with
which the letter of the Law became enforced gave rise to a
narrow "legalism". The mere external compliance with ritual
observances gradually superseded the higher claims of conscience;
the Prophet was replaced by the "scribe", the casuistic interpreter
of the Law; and Israel, in its sacred isolation, looked down upon
the rest of mankind. A similarly narrow spirit animated the
Babylonian Jews, for it was from Babylon that Esdras, "a ready
scribe in the Law of Moses", had come to revive the Law in
Jerusalem, and their existence in the midst of heathen populations
made it all the more imperative for them to cling tenaciously to the
creed and worship of Yahweh.
Apparently, things went on smoothly with the priestly community of
Juda as long as the Persian supremacy lasted. It was the policy of
ancient Asiatic empires to grant to each province its autonomy, and
the Judean Jews availed themselves of this to live up to the
requirements of the Mosaic Law under the headship of their high-
priests and the guidance of their scribes. The sacred ordinances of
the Law were no burden to them, and gladly did they even increase
the weight by additional interpretations of its text. Nor was this
happy condition materially interfered with under Alexander the Great
and his immediate successors in Syria and in Egypt. In fact, the
first contact of the Judean Jews with hellenistic civilization
seemed to open to them a wider field for their theocratic influence,
by giving rise to a Western Dispersion with Alexandria and Antioch
as its chief local centres and Jerusalem as its metropolis. However
much the Jews living among the Greeks mingled with the latter for
business pursuits, learned the Greek language, or even became
acquainted with hellenistic philosophy, they remained Jews to the
core. The Law as read and explained in their local synagogues
regulated their every act, kept them from all defilement with
idolatrous worship, and maintained intact their religious
traditions. With regard to creed, worship, and morality, the Jews
felt themselves far superior to their pagan fellow-citizens, and the
works of their leading writers of the time were in the main those of
apologists bent on convincing pagans of this superiority and on
attracting them to the service of the sole living God. In fact,
through this intercourse between Judaism and Hellenism in the Græco-
Roman world, the Jewish religion won the allegiance of a certain
number of Gentile men and women, while the Jewish beliefs themselves
gained in clearness and precision through the efforts then made to
render them acceptable to Western minds.
Much less happy results followed on the contact of Jewish Monotheism
with Greek Polytheism on Palestinian soil. There, worldly and
ambitious high-priests not only accepted, but even promoted, Greek
culture and heathenism in Jerusalem itself; and, as already stated,
the Greek rulers of the early Machabean Age proved violent
persecutors of Yahweh worship. The chief question confronting the
Palestinian Jews was not, therefore, the extension of Judaism among
the nations, but its very preservation among the children of Israel.
No wonder then that Judaism assumed there an attitude of direct
antagonism to everything hellenistic, that the Mosaic observances
were gradually enforced with extreme rigour, and that the oral Law,
or rulings of the Elders relative to such observances appeared in
the eyes of pious Judean Jews of no less importance than the Mosaic
Law itself. No wonder, too, that in opposition to the lukewarmness
for the oral Law evinced by the priestly aristocracy -- the
Sadducees as they were called -- there arose in Juda a powerful
party resolved to maintain at any cost the Jewish separation --
hence their name of Pharisees -- from the contamination of the
Gentiles by the most scrupulous compliance, not only with the Law of
Moses, but also with the "Traditions of the Elders". The former of
these leading parties was pre-eminently concerned with the
maintenance of the status quo in politics, and in the main sceptical
with regard to such prominent beliefs or expectations of the time as
the existence of angels, the resurrection of the dead, the reference
of the oral Law to Moses, and the future Redemption of Israel. The
latter party strenuously maintained these positions. Its extreme
wing was made up of Zealots always ready to welcome any false
Messias who promised deliverance from the hated foreign yoke; while
its rank and file earnestly prepared by the "works of the Law" for
the Messianic Age variously described by the Prophets of old, the
apocalyptic writings and the apocryphal Psalms of the time, and
generally expected as an era of earthly felicity and legal
righteousness in the Kingdom of God. The rise of the Essenes is also
ascribed to this period.
II. JUDAISM AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY
At the beginning of our era, Judaism was in external appearance
thoroughly prepared for the advent of the Kingdom of God. Its great
centre was Jerusalem, the "Holy City", whither repaired in hundreds
of thousands Jews of every part of the world, anxious to celebrate
the yearly festivals in the "City of the Great King". The Temple was
in the eyes of them all the worthy House of the Lord, both by the
magnificence of its structure and by the wonderful appointment of
its service. The Jewish priesthood was not only numerous, but also
most exact in the offering of the daily, weekly, monthly, and other,
sacrifices, which it was its privilege to perform before Yahweh. The
high-priest, a person most sacred, stood at the head of the
hierarchy, and acted as final arbiter of all religious
controversies. The Sanhedrin of Jerusalem, or supreme tribunal of
Judaism, watched zealously over the strict fulfilment of the Law and
issued decrees readily obeyed by the Jews dispersed throughout the
world. In the Holy Land, and far and wide beyond its boundaries,
besides local Sanhedrins, there were synagogues supplying the
ordinary religious and educational needs of the people, and wielding
the power of excommunication against breakers of the Law, oral and
written. A learned class, that of the Scribes, not only read and
interpreted the text of the Law in the synagogue meetings, but
sedulously proclaimed the "Traditions of the Elders", the collection
of which formed a "fence to the Law", because whoever observed them
was sure not to trespass in any way against the Law itself. Legal
righteousness was the watchword of Judaism, and its attainment by
separation from Gentiles and sinners, by purifications, fasts,
almsgiving, etc., in a word by the fulfilment of traditional
enactments which applied the Law to each and every walk of life and
to all imaginable circumstances, was the one concern of pious Jews
wherever found. Plainly, the Pharisees and the scribes who belonged
to their party had generally won the day. In Palestine, in
particular, the people blindly followed their leadership, confident
that the present rule of pagan Rome would speedily come to an end at
the appearance of the Messias, expected as a mighty deliverer of the
faithful "children of the kingdom'. Meantime, it behooved the sons
of Abraham to emulate the "righteousness of the Scribes and the
Pharisees" whereby they would secure admittance into the Messianic
world-wide empire, of which Jerusalem would be the capital, and of
which every Jewish member would be superior in things temporal as
well as spiritual to the rest of the world then rallied to the
worship of the one true God.
In reality, the Jews were far from prepared for the fulfilment of
the promises which the almighty had repeatedly made to their race.
This was first shown to them, when a voice, that of John, the son of
Zachary and the herald of the Messias, was heard in the wilderness
of Juda. It summoned, but with little success, all the Jews to a
genuine sorrow for sin, which was indeed foreign to their hearts,
but which could alone, despite their title of "children of Abraham",
fit them for the kingdom near at hand. This was next shown to them
by Jesus, the Messias Himself, Who, at the very beginning of His
public life, repeated John's summons to repentance (Mark 1:15), and
Who, throughout His ministry, endeavoured to correct the errors of
Judaism of the day concerning the kingdom which He had come to found
among men. With authority truly Divine He bade His hearers not to be
satisfied with the outward righteousness of the scribes and the
Pharisees if they wished to enter into that kingdom, but to aim at
the inner perfection which alone could lift up men's moral nature
and render them worthy worshipers of their heavenly Father. The
Kingdom of God, He plainly declared, had come upon His
contemporaries, since Satan, God's enemy and man's, was under their
eyes cast out by Himself and by His chosen disciples (Mark 12:20;
Luke 10:18). The kingdom which the Jews should expect is the Kingdom
of God in its modest, secret, and as it were, insignificant origin.
It is subject to the laws of organic growth as all living things
are, and hence its planting and early developments do not attract
much attenti0on; but it is not so with its further extension,
destined as it is to pervade and transform the world.
This kingdom is indeed rejected by those who had the first claim to
its possession and seemingly were the best qualified for entering
into it; but all those, both Jews and Gentiles, who earnestly avail
themselves of the invitation of the Gospel will be admitted. This is
really a new Kingdom of God to be transferred to a new nation and
governed by a new set of rulers, although it is no less truly the
continuation of the Kingdom of God under the Old Covenant. Once this
kingdom is organized upon earth, its king, the true son and lord of
David, goes to a far country, relying upon His representatives to be
more faithful than the rulers of the old kingdom. Upon the king's
return, this kingdom of grace will be transferred into a kingdom of
glory. The duration of the kingdom on earth will outlive the ruin of
the Holy City and of its Temple; it will be coextensive with the
preaching of the Gospel to all nations, and this, when accomplished,
will be the sign of the near approach of the kingdom of glory. In
thus describing God's kingdom, Jesus justly treated as vain the
hopes of His Jewish contemporaries that they should become masters
of the world in the event of a conflict with Rome; He also set aside
the fabric of legalism which their leaders regarded as to be
perpetuated in the Messianic kingdom, but which in reality they
should have considered as either useless or positively harmful now
that the time had come to extend "salvation out of the Jews" to the
nations at large; plainly, the legal sacrifices and ordinances had
no longer any reason of being, since they had been instituted to
prevent Israel from forsaking the true God, and since Monotheism was
now firmly established in Israel; plainly, too, the "traditions of
the Elders" should not be tolerated any longer, since they had
gradually led the Jews to disregard some of the most essential
precepts of the moral law embodied in the decalogue.
Jesus did not come to destroy the Law or the Prophets, that is those
sacred writings which He, no less than His Jewish contemporaries,
distinctly recognized as inspired by the Holy Spirit; His mission,
on the contrary, was to secure their fulfilment. Indeed, He would
have destroyed the Law, if He had sided with the Scribes and the
Pharisees who had raised a fence to the Law, which actually
encroached upon the sacred territory of the Law itself; but He
fulfilled it by proclaiming the new Law of perfect love of God and
man, whereby all the precepts of the Old Law were brought to
completion. Again, He would have destroyed the Prophets, if like the
same Scribes and Pharisees, He had pictured an image of God's
kingdom and God's Messias solely by means of the glorious features
contained in the prophetical writings; but He fulfilled them by
drawing a picture which took into account both glorious and
inglorious delineations of the Prophets of old, setting both in
their right order and perspective. The Kingdom of God as described
and founded by Jesus has an historical name. It is the Christian
Church, which was able silently to leaven the Roman Empire, which
has outlived the ruin of the Jewish Temple and its worship, and
which, in the course of centuries, has extended to the confines of
the world the knowledge and the worship of the God of Abraham, while
Judaism has remained the barren fig-tree which Jesus condemned
during His mortal life.
The death and resurrection of Jesus fulfilled the ancient types and
prophecies concerning Him (cf. Luke 24:26, 27), and the visible
bestowal of the Holy Ghost upon His assembled followers on Pentecost
Day gave them the light to realize this fulfilment (Acts 3:15) and
the courage to proclaim it even in the hearing of those Jewish
authorities who thought that they had by the stigma of the Cross put
an end forever to the Messianic claims of the Nazarene. From this
moment the Church which Jesus had silently organized during His
mortal life with Peter as its head and the other Apostles as his
fellow-rulers, took the independent attitude which it has maintained
ever since. Conscious of their Divine mission, its leaders boldly
charged the Jewish rulers with the death of Jesus, and
freely "taught and preached Christ Jesus", disregarding the threats
and injunctions of men whom they considered as in mad revolt against
God and His Christ (Acts 4). They solemnly proclaimed the necessity
of faith in Christ for justification and salvation, and that of
baptism for membership in the religious community which grew rapidly
under their guidance, and which recognized the risen Son of God as
its Divinely constituted "Lord and Christ", "Prince and Saviour", in
a real, although invisible, manner, during the present order of
things. According to them, these are plainly Messianic times as
proved by the realization of Joel's prophecy concerning the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon all flesh, so that the
Jews "first" and next the Gentiles are now called to receive the
Divine blessing so long promised in Abraham's Seed for all nations.
Much as in these early days the infant Church was Jewish in external
appearance, it even then caused Judaism to feel threatened in its
whole system of civil and religious life (Acts 6:13-14). Hence
followed a severe persecution against the Christians, in which Saul
(Paul) took and active part, and in the course of which he was
converted miraculously.
At his conversion Paul found the Church spread far and wide by the
very persecution meant to annihilate it, and officially pursuing its
differentiation from Judaism by the reception into its fold of
Samaritans who rejected the Temple worship in Jerusalem, of the
Ethiopian eunuch, that is, of a class of men distinctly excluded
from the Judaic community by the Deuteronomic Law, and especially of
the uncircumcised Cornelius and his Gentile household with whom
Peter himself broke bread in direct opposition to legal traditions.
When, therefore, Paul, now become an ardent Apostle of Christ,
openly maintained the freedom of Gentile converts from the Law as
understood and enforced by the Jews and even by certain Judeo-
Christians, he was in thorough agreement with the official leaders
of the Church at Jerusalem, and it is well known that the same
official leaders positively approved his course of action in this
regard (Acts 15; Galatians 2). The real difference between him and
them consisted in his fearlessness in preaching Christian freedom
and in vindicating by his Epistles the necessity and efficiency of
faith in Christ for justification and salvation independently of
the "works of the Law", that is, the great principles acknowledged
and acted upon before him in this Christian Church. The result of
his polemics was the sharp setting forth of the relation existing
between Judaism and Christianity; in Christ's kingdom, only
believing Jews and Gentiles recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
(cf. Matthew 8:11); they are coheirs of the promise made to the
father of all the faithful when he was as yet uncircumcised; the Law
and the Prophets are fulfilled in Christ and His body, the Church;
the Gospel must be preached to all nations, and then the
consummation shall come. The result of his consuming zeal for the
salvation of souls redeemed by the blood of Christ was the formation
of religious communities bound together by the same faith, hope, and
charity as the churches of Palestine, sharing in the same sacred
mysteries, governed by pastors likewise vested with Christ's
authority, and forming a vast Church organism vivified by the same
Holy Spirit and clearly distinct from Judaism. Thus the small
mustard seed planted by Jesus in Judea had grown into a great tree
fully able to near the storms of persecution and heresy (see EPISTLE
TO THE COLOSSIANS; EBIONITES; GNOSTICISM).
III. JUDAISM SINCE A.D. 70
While Christianity thus asserted itself as the new Kingdom of God,
the Jewish theocracy, guided by leaders unable "to know the signs of
the times", was hastening to its total destruction. The Romans came,
and in A.D. 70 put an end forever to the Jewish Temple, priesthood,
sacrifices, and nation, whereby it should have become clear to the
Jews that their national worship was rejected of God. In point of
fact, Judaism, shorn of these its essential features, soon
"assumed an entirely new aspect. All the parties and sects of a
former generation vanished; Pharisees and Sadducees ceased to
quarrel with each other; the Temple was supplanted by the synagogue,
sacrifices by the prayer, the priest by any one who was able to
read, teach, and interpret both the written and the oral law. The
Sanhedrin lost its juridical qualification, and became a consistory
to advise people in regard to the religious duties. Judaism became a
science, a philosophy, and ceased to be a political institution"
(Schindler, "Dissolving Views in the History of Judaism").
This new system, treated at first as simply provisional because of
the surviving hope of restoring the Jewish commonwealth, had soon to
be accepted as definitive through the crushing of Bar-Cochba's
revolt by Hadrian. Then it was that Rabbinical or Talmudical Judaism
fully asserted its authority over the two great groups of Jewish
families east and west of the Euphrates respectively. For several
centuries, under either the "Patriarchs of the West" or the "Princes
of the Captivity", the Mishna "Oral Teaching" completed by Rabbi
Juda I, committed ultimately to writing in the form of the Jerusalem
and Babylonian Talmuds, and expounded by generations of teachers in
the schools of Palestine and Babylonia, held undisputed sway over
the minds and consciences of the Jews.
In fact, this long acceptation of the Talmud by the Jewish race,
before its centre was shifted from the East to the West, so
impressed this Second Law (Mishna) upon the hearts of the Jews that
down to the present day Judaism has remained essentially Talmudical
both in its theory and in its practice. It is indeed true that as
early as the eighth century of our era the authority of the Talmud
was denied in favour of Biblical supremacy by the sect of the
Karaites, and that it has oftentimes since been questioned by other
Jewish sects such as Judghanits, Kabbalist, Sabbatians, Chassidim
(old and new), Frankist, etc. Nevertheless, these sects have all but
disappeared and the supremacy of the Talmud is generally recognized.
The most important religious division of Judaism at the present day
is that between "Orthodox" and "Reform" Jews, with many subdivisions
to which these names are more or less loosely applied. Orthodox
Judaism included the greater part of the Jewish race. It distinctly
admits the absolutely binding force of the oral Law as finally fixed
in the "Shulhan Aruk" by Joseph Caro (sixteenth century). Its
beliefs are set forth in the following thirteen articles, first
compiled by Maimonides in the eleventh century:
I believe with a true and perfect faith that God is the creator
(whose name be blessed), governor, and maker of all creatures; and
that he has wrought all things, worketh, and shall work forever.
I believe with perfect faith that the creator (whose name be
blessed) is one; that there is no unity like unto his in any way;
and that he alone was, is, and will be our God.
I believe with a perfect faith that the creator (whose name be
blessed) is incorporeal, that he has not any corporeal qualities,
and that nothing can be compared unto him.
I believe with a perfect faith that the creator (whose name be
blessed) was the first, and will be the last.
I believe with a perfect faith that the creator (whose name be
blessed) is to be worshipped and none else.
I believe with perfect faith that all the words of the prophets are
true.
I believe with perfect faith that the prophecies of Moses our master
(may he rest in peace) were true; that he was the father and chief
of all prophets, both of those before him and those after him.
I believe with perfect faith that the Law, at present in our hands,
is the same that was given to our master Moses (peace be with him).
I believe with perfect faith that this Law will not be changed, and
that no other Law will be revealed by the creator (blessed be his
name).
I believe with a perfect faith that God (whose name be blessed)
knows all the deeds of the sons of men and all their thoughts; as it
is said: "He who hath formed their hearts altogether, he knoweth all
their deeds".
I believe with a perfect faith that God (whose name be blessed)
rewards those who keep his commandments, and punishes those who
transgress them.
I believe with a perfect faith that the Messias will come; and
although he tarries I wait nevertheless every fay for his coming.
I believe with a perfect faith that there will be a resurrection of
the dead, at the time when it shall please the creator (blessed be
his name).
With regard to the future life, Orthodox Jews believe, like the
Universalists, in the ultimate salvation of all men; and like the
Catholics, in the offering up of prayers for the souls of their
departed friends. Their Divine worship does not admit of sacrifices;
it consists in the reading of the Scriptures and in prayer. While
they do not insist on attendance at the synagogue, they enjoin all
to say their prayers at home or in any place they chance to be,
three times a day; they repeat also blessings and particular praises
to God at meals and on other occasions. In their morning devotions
they use their phylacteries and a praying scarf (talith), except on
Saturdays, when they use the talith only. The following are their
principal festivals:
Passover, on 14 Nisan, and lasting eight days. On the evening before
the feast, the first-born of every family observes a fast in
remembrance of God's kindness to the nation. During the feast
unleavened bread is exclusively used; the first two and last days
are observed as strict holidays. Since the paschal lamb has ceased,
it is customary after the paschal meal to break and partake as
Aphikomon, or after-dish, of half of an unleavened bread cake which
has been broken and put aside at the beginning of the supper.
Pentecost, or the feast of Weeks, falling seven weeks after the
Passover and kept, at present, for two days only.
Trumpets, on 1 and 2 Tishri, of which the first is called New
Years's feast. On the second day they blow the horn and pray that
God will bring them to Jerusalem.
Tabernacles, on 15 Tishri, lasting nine days, the first and last two
days being observed as feast days. On the first day they carry
branches around the altar or pulpit singing psalms; on the seventh
day, they carry copies of the Torah out of the ark to the altar, all
the congregation joining in the procession seven times around the
altar and singing Ps. xxix. On the ninth day they repeat several
prayers in honour of the Law, bless God for having given them His
servant Moses, and read the section of the Scriptures which records
his death.
Purim, on 14 and 15 Adar (Feb.-March), in commemoration of the
deliverance recorded in the Book of Esther; the whole Book of Esther
is read several times during the celebration.
Dedication, a feast commemorative of the victory over Antiochus
Epiphanes and lasting eight days.
Atonement Day, celebrated on 10 Tishri, although the Jews have
neither Temple nor priesthood. They observe a strict fast for twenty-
four hours, and strive in various ways to evince the sincerity of
their repentance (see JEWISH CALENDAR).
Reform Judaism, which traces back its origin to Mendelssohn's time,
is chiefly prevalent in Germany and the United States. It has very
lax views of biblical inspiration and bends Jewish beliefs and
practices so as to adapt them to environment. It is a sort of
Unitarianism coupled with some Jewish peculiarities. It disregards
the belief of the coming of a personal Messias, the obligatory
character of circumcision, ancient Oriental customs in synagogue
services, the dietary laws which but few reform Jews observe out of
custom or veneration for the past, the second days of the holy days,
all minor feasts and fast-days of the year (except Hanukha and
Purim), while it uses sermons in the vernacular and adds in some
places Sunday services to those held on the historical Sabbath Day,
etc. Nominally, for all, the Sabbath is the day of rest; but only a
small number even of the Orthodox Jews keep their places of business
closed on that day, owing to the commercial demands of modern life
and the police regulations usually enforced in Christian lands
concerning the ordinary Sunday rest. Intermarriage with non-Jews is
generally discountenanced even by Reform Jewish rabbis, and as a
fact, has never been frequent, except of late in Australia. Of late,
the use of Hebrew has been revived particularly in Palestine Jewish
colonies, and a number of Jewish journals and reviews are published
in that tongue in the East and in certain countries of Europe.
Yiddish, or Judeo-German, is by far more prevalent, and is used in
the large cities of Europe and North America for weekly and daily
papers.
The Yeshibas, or high schools of Talmudic learning, where the time
was exclusively devoted to the study of rabbinical jurisprudence and
Talmudic law, have been partly replaced by seminaries with a more
modern curriculum of studies. In 1893 Gratz College, thus named from
its founder, was started in Philadelphia for training religious
school-teachers. Young Men's's Hebrew Associations, begun in 1874,
now exist in nearly all the large cities of the United States. Of
wider import still is the development of the Sabbath schools which
are generally attached to Jewish congregations in the same country.
The recent Zionist movement claims a passing notice. Since 1896 the
scheme for securing in Palestine a legal home for the oppressed
Hebrews has rapidly taken a firm hold of the Jewish race. To many,
Zionism appears as calculated to bring about the realization of the
old Jewish hope of restoration to Palestine. To others, it seems to
be the only means of obviating the impossibility felt by various
peoples of assimilating their Jewish population and at the same time
of allowing it the amount of freedom which the Jews consider
necessary for the preservation of their individual character. By
others again, it is regarded as the practical answer to the anti-
Semitic agitation which has prevailed intensely through Western
Europe since 1880, and to the lack of social equality, which Jews
repeatedly find denied them, even in countries where they possess
civil rights and attain to high political and professional
positions. Since 1897 Zionism holds annual international congresses,
counts numerous societies and clubs, and since 1898 has a Jewish
Colonial Trust. There is no Jewish Church as such, and each
congregation is a law to itself. Owing to this, the ancient
distinction between the Sephardim and the Askenazim continues among
the Jews. As of yore, the Sephardim, or descendants of Spanish and
Portuguese Jews, readily organize themselves into separate
congregations. Even now, they are easily distinguished from the
Askenazim (German or Polish Jews) by their names, their more
Oriental pronunciation of Hebrew, and their peculiarities in
synagogue services.
IV. JUDAISM AND CHURCH LEGISLATION
The principal items of Church legislation relative to Judaism have
been set forth in connection with the history of the Jews. There
remains only to add a few remarks which will explain the apparent
severity of certain measures enacted by either popes or councils
concerning the Jews, or account for the fact that popular hatred of
them so often defeated the beneficent efforts of the Roman pontiffs
in their regard.
Church legislation against Jewish holding of Christian slaves can be
easily understood: as members of Christ, the children of the Church
should evidently not be subjected to the power of His enemies, and
thereby incur a special danger for their faith; but more
particularly, as stated by a recent Jewish writer:
"There was good reason for the solicitude of the Church and for its
desire to prevent Jews from retaining Christian slaves in their
houses. The Talmud and all later Jewish codes forbade a Jew from
retaining in his home a slave who was uncircumcised"
(Abrahams, "Jewish Life in the Middle Ages").
The obligation of wearing a distinguishing badge was of course
obnoxious to the Jews. At the same time, Church authorities deemed
its injunction necessary to prevent effectively moral offences
between Jews and Christian women. The decrees forbidding the Jews
from appearing in public at Eastertide may be justified on the
ground that some of them mocked at the Christian processions at that
time; those against baptized Jews retaining distinctly Jewish
customs find their ready explanation in the necessity for the Church
to maintain the purity of the Faith in its members, while those
forbidding the Jews from molesting converts to Christianity are no
less naturally explained by the desire of doing away with a manifest
obstacle to future conversions.
It was for the laudable reason of protecting social morality and
securing the maintenance of the Christian Faith, that canonical
decrees were framed and repeatedly enforced against free and
constant intercourse between Christians and Jews, against, for
instance, bathing, living, etc., with Jews. To some extent,
likewise, these were the reasons for the institution of the Ghetto
or confinement of the Jews to a special quarter, for the prohibition
of the Jews from exercising medicine, or other professions. The
inhibition of intermarriage between Jews and Christians, which is
yet in vigour, is clearly justified by reason of the obvious danger
for the faith of the Christian party and for the spiritual welfare
of the children born of such alliances. With regard to the special
legislation against printing, circulating, etc., the Talmud, there
was the particular grievance that the Talmud contained at the time
scurrilous attacks upon Jesus and the Christians (cf. Pick, "The
Personality of Jesus in the Talmud" in the "Monist", Jan., 1910),
and the permanent reason that
"that extraordinary compilation, with much that is grave and noble,
contains also so many puerilities, immoral precepts, and anti-social
maxims, that Christian courts may well have deemed it right to
resort to stringent measures to prevent Christians from being
seduced into adhesion to a system so preposterous" (Catholic
Dictionary, 484).
History proves indeed that Church authorities exercised at times
considerable pressure upon the Jews to promote their conversion; but
it also proves that the same authorities generally deprecated the
use of violence for the purpose. It bears witness, in particular, to
the untiring and energetic efforts of the Roman pontiffs in behalf
of the Jews especially when, threatened or actually pressed by
persecution they appealed to the Holy See for protection. It
chronicles the numerous protestations of the popes against mob
violence against the Jewish race, and thus directs the attention of
the student of history to the real cause of the Jewish persecutions,
viz., the popular hatred against the children of Israel. Nay more,
it discloses the principal causes of that hatred, among which the
following may be mentioned:
The deep and wide racial difference between Jews and Christians
which was, moreover, emphasized by the ritual and dietary laws of
Talmudic Judaism;
the mutual religious antipathy which prompted the Jewish masses to
look upon the Christians as idolaters, and the Christians to regard
the Jews as the murderers of the Divine Saviour of mankind, and to
believe readily the accusation of the use of Christian blood in the
celebration of the Jewish Passover, the desecration of the Holy
Eucharist, etc.;
the trade rivalry which caused Christians to accuse the Jews of
sharp practice, and to resent their clipping of the coinage, their
usury, etc.;
the patriotic susceptibilities of the particular nations in the
midst of which the Jews have usually formed a foreign element, and
to the respective interests of which their devotion has not always
been beyond suspicion.
***************************************************************************
Berdikusi dg Santun & Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg
Lebih Baik, in Commonality & Shared Destiny.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia
***************************************************************************
__________________________________________________________________________
Mohon Perhatian:
1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik)
2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari.
3. Reading only, http://dear.to/ppi
4. Satu email perhari: ppiindia-digest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
5. No-email/web only: ppiindia-nomail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
6. kembali menerima email: ppiindia-normal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:ppiindia-digest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
mailto:ppiindia-fullfeatured@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
ppiindia-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
** Forum Nasional Indonesia PPI India Mailing List **
** Untuk bergabung dg Milis Nasional kunjungi:
** Situs Milis: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ **
** Beasiswa dalam negeri dan luar negeri S1 S2 S3 dan post-doctoral
scholarship, kunjungi
http://informasi-beasiswa.blogspot.com **
Other related posts:
