Judaism

In his essay entitled “O dvoystvennosti verkhovnoy vlasti u khazarov”, Vasili V. Grigoriev described the Khazar as follows: “The Khazar people were an unusual phenomenon for Medieval times. Surrounded by savage and nomadic tribes, they had all the advantages of the developed countries: structured government, vast and prosperous trading, and a permanent army.

At the time, when great fanatism and deep ignorance contested their dominion over Western Europe, the Khazar state was famous for its justice and tolerance. People persecuted for their faiths flocked into Khazaria from everywhere. As a glistening star, it shone brightly on the gloomy horizon of Europe, and faded away without leaving any traces of existence.”

This paper introduces to a reader who the Khazar people are and their role in Jewish history.

Khazars and Judaism

Originally, the Khazars practiced Shamanism and phallic worship with the sky god Tengri as the focus. Subordinate Gods whom the Khazars worshipped include fertility goddess Umay, Kiara, a thunder god, and Erlik, the god of death

Due to the persecution of Jews under Heraclius, Leo III, Justinian II, and Romanos I, Jews fled to Khazaria. The Mazdak revolts also caused Jews from Persia to flee to Khazaria. It was said that Jewish merchants from this age regularly traded in Khazaria. They may have wielded strong economic relations in Khazaria.

Sometime in the 8th century or 9th, the Khazar royalty converted to Judaism and most of the population followed. The reason for the conversion, as some historians say is that the King cannot anymore endure the nasty forms of sexual excesses of his people. King Bulan abolished shamanism and the worship of phallic objects. He decided against Christianity and Islam and selected Judaism.

The King and his nobles were converted immediately by the rabbis from Babylonia. Phallic worship was then forbidden. Kings requested for rabbis to open schools and synagogues in the nation. Judaism has become the religion of Khazaria.

The conversion of King Bulan started the new policy that only a Jew can occupy the Khazar throne. The kingdom became a theocracy where the leaders imposed religion as the guide to everyday life. Judaism provided not only religious but also civil laws.

The writing of Karen Armstrong actually notes the human views of the existence of God in three major designs of religious belief in society today, namely that of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

One reason is that the roots of the Jewish religion go back some 4,000 years in history and other major religions are indebted to its Scriptures to a greater or lesser degree. Christianity, founded by Jesus (Hebrew, Ye‧shu′a‛), a first-century Jew, has its roots in the Hebrew Scriptures. And as any reading of the Qur’ān will show, Islām also owes much to those scriptures. (Qur’ān, surah 2:49-57; 32:23, 24) Thus, when we examine the Jewish religion, it could be noted that the roots of other religions are well examined just the same.

Simply put, Judaism is the religion of a people. Therefore, a convert becomes part of the Jewish people as well as the Jewish religion. It is a monotheistic religion in the strictest sense and holds that God intervenes in human history, especially in relation to the Jews. Jewish worship involves several annual festivals and various customs. (See box, pages 230-1.) Although there are no creeds or dogmas accepted by all Jews, the confession of the oneness of God as expressed in the Shema, a prayer based on Deuteronomy 6:4 (JP), forms a central part of synagogue worship: “Hear, o Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

This belief in one God was passed on to Christianity and Islām. According to Armstrong: “This sublime pronouncement of absolute monotheism was a declaration of war against all polytheism . . . In the same way, the Shema excludes the trinity of the Christian creed as a violation of the Unity of God.” The three major monotheistic religions of the world are Judaism, Christianity, and Islām.

But by the time Muḥammad appeared toward the beginning of the seventh century C.E., the first two religions, as far as he was concerned, had wandered from the path of truth. In fact, according to some Islāmic commentators, the Qur’ān implies a rejection of Jews and of Christians in stating: “Not (the path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray.” (Surah 1:7, MMP) Why is that?

A Qur’ānic commentary states: “The People of the Book went wrong: The Jews in breaking their Covenant and slandering Mary and Jesus, and the Christians in raising Jesus the Apostle to equality with God” by means of the Trinity doctrine.—Surah 4:153-176, AYA. The principal teaching of Islām, for utter simplicity, is what is known as the shahādah, or confession of faith, which every Muslim knows by heart: “La ilāh illa Allāh; Muḥammad rasūl Allāh” (No god but Allah; Muḥammad is the messenger of Allah). This agrees with the Qur’ānic expression, “Your God is One God; there is no God save Him, the Beneficent, the Merciful.” (Surah 2:163, MMP)

This thought was started 2,000 years earlier with the ancient call to Israel: “Listen, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah.” (Deuteronomy 6:4) Jesus repeated this foremost command, which is recorded at Mark 12:29, about 600 years before Muḥammad, and nowhere did Jesus claim to be God or to be equal to Him.—Mark 13:32; John 14:28; 1 Corinthians 15:28. Regarding God’s uniqueness, the Qur’ān states: “So believe in God and His apostles. Say not ‘Trinity’: desist: it will be better for you: for God is One God.”(Surah 4:171, AYA)

However, we should note that true Christianity does not teach a Trinity. That is a doctrine of pagan origin introduced by apostates of Christendom after the death of Christ and the apostles.

The story of “Bee Season” is focused on an apparently warm home which will prove to be in fact a mere holding pen for four individuals spinning in completely separate universes. It is the kaleidoscopic portrait of a modern American family whose picture-perfect surface conceals an underlying world of secret turmoil.

The focal center of the novel is Eliza Naumann, the nine-year-old student who discovers that she has a talent for competitive spelling. Although the book is set in the competitive world of spelling bees, the contest is just one of the many plot devices in this family drama.

On the surface, the Naumann family appears to be ideal – upper middle-class, highly accomplished, deeply spiritual, and seemingly tightly knit. But it will gradually reveal that the picture-perfect family is, in fact, comprised of individuals on disparate (and often desperate) paths toward their own notions of transcendence – quests that lead them to pursue intense and even dangerous spiritual experiences. Eliza’s unlikely emergence has the effect of tearing the fragile fabric that has thus far held them together. The plot examines faith, spirituality and what happens to a family’s own belief system when changes occur.

Eliza was “a student from whom great things should not be expected”; thus when Eliza is forced to compete in her first spelling bee, she is certain that this event, like so many others, exists only to “confirm, display or amplify her mediocrity. ” Yet when the words start coming, she realizes she can not only spell the words directed at her but, as if by magic, everyone else’s words as well. She wins the school’s contest, and then a few district and regional ones, before heading to Washington for the national bee.

Her father Saul, the cantor at Beth Simcha synagogue, sees Eliza’s skills and begins training her for spelling competitions and for greater, more spiritual challenges ahead. Saul’s obsessive attention to Eliza comes at the expense of her older brother Aaron, who is being bullied at school and who feels his own religious aspirations, closely modeled on his father’s, unfulfilled. Miriam is the Naumann wife and mother, who’s already pronounced remoteness from her husband and children, grows apace while Eliza and Saul are sequestered in his study, poring over dictionaries.

Apparently, like most families, the Naumanns seem to have settled comfortably into a routine, each member playing an accepted role in the day-to-day family drama. Saul is the family anchor, preparing the meals, running the household, and nurturing his son Aaron’s interest in Judaism. Miriam, a brilliant high-powered lawyer, with a voracious intellect and a compulsion toward order slips easily into the role of wage-earner, happy to leave the emotional demands of family life and parenting to her husband. Aaron is the smart, socially isolated, and physically awkward teenager who thrives under his father’s attention.

Amid this dazzling display of intellectual power and intensity, Eliza, an unremarkable student, is resigned to remaining in the shadows. She’s among those sad-sack C students who “never get picked for Student of the Week” and “never get chased by boys at recess. ” While other kids are singled out for gifted-and-talented programs, Eliza is shuffled off into classrooms where the walls are covered with posters of kittens dangling from ropes above slogans like “Hang in there” and “If at first you don’t succeed. . . .” Even her mother considers her “a gosling born into a family of ducks.

” But her surprising triumph launches Eliza into the spotlight, radically altering the family dynamics. Through her success in the contest she becomes her father’s protege, thus taking the place of her brother, in which point the fragile equilibrium of forces in the family is shattered. The image of perfect consensus is changed as Eliza’s new discovered talent places her in the center of her father’s preoccupations. It propels her from the ignominy of being an ordinary pupil to the triumph of shining in local, state, and national spelling competitions.

Because she can spell — intuitively, hypnotized by the combining and recombining letters — she replaces her older brother Aaron in the attentions of their cantor. In considering the composition of the action, which for much of its part takes place inside the characters’ hearts and minds, winning the contest represents the crucial element that triggered the demise of the equilibrium that was apparent in the Naumanns house. By shattering the image of harmony and consensus the proof of parallel existences emerged for each member of the family.

Eliza, when replacing her brother in her father’s perception, destroyed the silent consensus that ordered their lives up until then. From that moment, her family would grow apart. Thus, more realities surface in perceiving her family. The myth of the perfect family falls to pieces. Faced with a sudden change and forced by the circumstances to adapt to the new situation, each of the characters would show that their personality has a three dimensional development. Therefore, each of them is portrayed in three circumstances: in relation with his own self, with his family and in connection to the outside world.

In dealing with the new reality, the characters receive a multiple perspective for analysis. On the one hand, there is Miriam, Eliza’s mother. Her character, defined by the three dimensions of her life, seems quite contradictory. In relation to the outside world, she is a brilliant, long hours working lawyer. In a slightly opposing image is her attitude which unfolds in relation with the other members of her family. It is obvious that her children baffle her; she is so uncomfortable with them that when one of them asks her about the boyfriends she’d had before marriage, she blushes.

“She wishes there were a book on the subject, slim as it would be, a ‘Mother’s Dating Life’ she could substitute for conversation in the tidy manner of ‘Where Do Babies Come From? ” In the relationship with Saul she is a complex yet mysteriously troubled wife. She always saw him as the man who talked about fixing the world, “restore what had been shattered” and she thought he could heal her. Social exchange theory explains the relationship with another person as depending on the perception of the balance between giving and receiving.

The fact that Miriam never felt saved by her husband, that her expectations were unanswered and somewhat betrayed can explained the estranged connection and the unspoken sadness between them. She finds Eliza and Saul’s shared focus on studying with their father a painful reminder of the connection she once had with her husband and her own parents, who died tragically when she was a young girl. The sudden discovery of her daughter’s ability to apply the concentration and the desire for perfection that define her own self-image triggers a flood of contradictory emotions and sends her life spiraling out of control.

Always emotionally absent, she falls deeper into her secret life of petty theft, thus revealing her most hidden side. Therefore, a central theme for Miriam becomes the kaleidoscope from her childhood that she brings to Eliza. The kaleidoscope is important to Miriam because it is a device that gathers shards together and no matter their movement, they stay together. When Miriam gives the kaleidoscope to Eliza after the spelling bee she wants to share an important and precious secret of how to survive.

Secondly, there is Aaron who is defined through the social relationship as facing typical teenager problems; inside the family his father’s attention is a guiding light in his pursuit of becoming an eminent rabbi. When this place is taken by Eliza and he is exiled from his father’s inner sanctum of Jewish music and Hebrew learning, he seeks out other forms of spirituality than the Naumanns’ Judaism. Formerly his father’s assistant at the synagogue, he comes to see the family as an encumbrance for reaching perfection.

Exploring his spiritual needs he hungers for his own means of transcendence and he finds a community of Hare Krishnas, who’s chanting, rituals, and self-abnegation appeal to his need for a warm community, near to God and thus detaching himself from the family. Yet, the center element of the novel is the developing relation between Elisa and her father. At a first glace, Saul is the distracted father, who spends most of his time in his study, researching forms of Jewish mysticism and worrying about the transcendence he’ll never achieve.

His relationship with his daughter was mostly based on her achievements at school and the image depicted by those, therefore he could not have taken her into consideration, as “he only learns of his daughter’s exclusion through one of his congregants who, after Shabbat services, announces loudly enough for the people on the other side of the cookie table to overhear that her son has been identified as Talented and Gifted”. Thus, his attention was focused on Aaron because “Eliza hasn’t tendered Saul the congratulatory note Aaron delivered at her age, the one that made Saul feel like a sweepstakes winner”.

But when Elisa wins the spelling bee, he begins to take notice of her. Motivating her talent as having religious connections, Saul sees something Kabbalistic in the way Eliza can intuit spelling words by having the letters fall into place all on their own — a hint of a talent far beyond his own abilities. As they practice together for the national spelling competition, he leads her carefully through an old Jewish mystical text and toward a state of biblioglossic transcendence in which the alphabet begins to crack open and reveal a hint of the light of God.

He feels that Eliza is breaking through the illusion of reality and getting closer to God – something he has wanted to do all his life. He begins to see Eliza as able to fulfill his own dreams of transcendence. The scenes with Eliza and the Abulafia exercises in the reading room were compelling for showing the crossing form the family perspective in which Saul is just happy father to a superior one in which he is trying to take Eliza into his personal spiritual quest. Their relationship transcends the ordinary world. He wants to be her spiritual teacher, but he doesn’t see the effect on her and the family.

Throughout the novel, he sees his family as a means of achieving a higher goal, of transcendence to a superior apprehension of the world. And he sees this possibility first in Aaron, then in Eliza, whom he considers to be “pretty special”. In their house of closed doors, Eliza pursues her father’s tutorials, as he directs her study for the spelling bees. First dictionaries, then incantatory repetitions of letters and combinations of letters, then initiation into the meditation of the medieval mystic Abraham Abulafia:

“Letters,” Saul says. “Abulafia believed that, by concentrating on letters, the mind could loose itself from its shackles to commune with a presence greater than itself. “Do you mean,” Eliza whispers, “that I’ll be able to talk to God? ” (pp. 172-73) She masters the techniques of mystic concentration: “She could feel the different vowels in her marrow, her bones chimes through which the letters blew” (p. 190). Then she surpasses her father’s knowledge.

Alone with Abulafia she experiences a religious ecstasy that rips through her body and mind, with visions, pain, “crawling Sects and crashing waves” (p. 268), her own disembodied voice, “infinite human and animal possibilities” (p. 269). Possibly, she sees God: “the shape’s face is every face ever formed” (p. 269); she feels herself disintegrate and return anew. In fact, the experience is for her a try to find a new place in the world, one which leads away both from the front stage reality of the spelling bees contests and from the hidden, back stage of his father’s personal quest.

In uniting the contemporary realistic tradition in which “Bee Season” is written-the tangible world of cereal boxes, grade school hallways, kaleidoscopes, Friday night synagogue services-with an ancient discipline derived from wonder and longing for God, Goldberg has painted a original picture of the particular unhappiness experienced by one family as a result of resistance to change. Bibliography Goldberg, Myla. Bee Season. New York: Anchor, 2001.

The Jews lived to preserve their culture; that essentially represented the fundamental goal of life to the Jews. The Jews observed the decadence of the Sumerians as a cause of cultural diffusion, and wanted to make sure that same thing would not happen to them. Eventually, the Jews did become vulnerable to cultural diffusion around the 4th century CE when the Greek-Macedonians from the West came; the great and advanced Greek culture was adorned by the Jews, and as a result, the Greeks Hellenized the Jews.

The Hellenized Jews and Greeks eventually translated the Torah and the Tanakh from the Hebrew language, to Greek. Before the Greeks, the Jews resisted cultural diffusion between many civilizations. The Jews culturally diffused with the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Neo-Babylonians, and the Persians religiously, culturally, and politically, as did the Hebrews also represent continuity with these civilizations. The Sumerians culturally diffused and represented continuity religiously, culturally, and politically with the Jews.

First, cultural diffusion occurs with the story of Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch and the founder of Judaism, who originates from the city of Ur in Sumer. Around 2200 BCE, during the invasions among the Sumerian city-states, Abraham believes his Sumerian God had abandoned him, so he abandoned the Sumerian Gods, and founded Judaism. This accounts for the continuity and parallels between the Sumerians and the Hebrews. A second one of these instances of continuity occurs in the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh and the Flood story in the Genesis.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the hero Utnapishtim tells the great king Gilgamesh of how he built a boat and survived a great flood that lasted for six days and six nights. In the Genesis story of “Noah’s Ark”, God tells Noah to build an ark and take all the animals on board, for he wants to flood the Hebrews for forty days, to teach them to be loyal to their God. In both stories, the great flood happens, and Utnapishtim and Noah build boats to be safe from the ravaging waters; also, in both stories, the destruction of human kind happens.

The Hebrews must have adapted the Epic of Gilgamesh, before writing “Noah’s Ark”. Lastly, around 1300 BCE, the twelve Jewish tribes fought over territory with one another; though, when these disputes stopped, and the Jews abandoned this tribal government structure, they adapted to a monarchy like the Sumerians’, a type of government which unified the twelve tribes. The Babylonians represent continuity and cultural diffusion culturally and religiously with the Jews. First, the Code of Hammurabi and the Ten Commandments represent cultural continuity and cultural diffusion.

The Code of Hammurabi, the laws that dictated the lines along with the Babylonians should live, influenced the Hebrews in the creation of the Ten Commandments. In the Code of Hammurabi, the Babylonians utilized the concept of lex talionis, or the law of retaliation equal to offense; the Hebrews used this same concept in the creation of the Ten Commandments. The Hebrew priest wrote the Ten Commandments on steles; the Babylonians first found these steles, and wrote the Code of Hammurabi on them. The Ten Commandments paralleled the purpose of the Code of Hammurabi: to explain the relationship between man and God.

Just as how Hammurabi climbed a mountain and received the Code of Hammurabi from the Babylonian chief God, Marduk, Moses climbed Mount Sinai, encountered God, and received the Ten Commandments. Second, Lilith the Goddess of the Euphrates River in Babylonian religion, represented continuity from the Babylonians to the Jews; the Jews however invoked the Goddess Lilith with a different meaning from the Babylonians. The Assyrians represented cultural diffusion and continuity with the Jews politically and culturally.

First, in the 7th century BCE, the Assyrians arose, and conquered the Kingdom of Israel, representing cultural diffusion; the Assyrian rulers used a reign terror, or ruled by fear, which ultimately led to their military success. The Assyrians did not conquer the Kingdom of Judah, for they agreed to pay tribute. Second, the Assyrians developed an efficient imperial government, and constructed magnificent cities; the Assyrians built a city Nineveh in Babylon, and preserved many Sumerian books and literature in huge libraries there, representing continuity from Sumerian culture to Assyrian culture.

Lastly, the Assyrians constructed roads and highways, which acted as agents of cultural diffusion, and allowed for contact with other peoples, such as the Hebrews. The Jews and the Neo-Babylonians culturally diffused and participated in continuity of religious, cultural, and political ideas with the Jews. First, the Assyrian Empire, who previously conquered the Jews, fell to King Nebuchadnezzar of the Neo-Babylonians.

Nebuchadnezzar strongly disliked the Jews, and did not allow them religious tolerance, leading to the Babylonian Captivity. In this period in the 6th century BCE, Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem, and enslaved the Jews in Babylon. Second, during the Babylonian Captivity, Nebuchadnezzar built a magnificent palace and ziggurat in Babylon, decorated with blue tile; this represents continuity from the Sumerians, who first built ziggurats as temples of worship, and frequently traded and used blue tiles in their art.

Lastly, during the Babylonian Captivity, the Jews represented continuity in the fact that they wrote down stores in the Torah, and Jewish priests ritualized common Jewish worship, such as Passover and Seder. The fact that the Torah, compiled in this setting, has been passed down in writing until present day, and that the Jews were able to preserve their culture and religion, and resisted cultural diffusion during the captivity demonstrate the continuity of the Jews until present day.

The Persians represented cultural diffusion and continuity with the Jews religiously, politically, and culturally. First, Cyrus the Great of the Persians eventually conquered the Neo-Babylonians in 550 BCE, and expands the Jewish empire, representing cultural diffusion. He believes in religious tolerance, and thus frees the Jews from their captivity, and allows the Jews to return home and practice their religion freely, as long as they obey him; Cyrus the Great also allows the Jews to build the Second Temple of Jerusalem.

Second, the Persians build the first main road in the Mesopotamian region, which allowed for the transfer of information and for cultural diffusion. Lastly, a wise man named Zoroaster founded the religion Zoroastrianism. He saw the force of light, good as Ahura Mazda, and the force of dark, bad as Angra Mainya. The Jews favored this religion, and liked that there was a counterforce which attempted to undermine God’s will, so they incorporated that idea into Judaism, and called the bad force Satan. This represents syncretism, or religious cultural diffusion between Zoroastrianism and Judaism.

The Jews culturally diffused with the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Neo-Babylonians, and Persians and Zoroastrians religiously, culturally, and politically, as did the Jews use ideas from these civilizations. The Jews fulfilled the purpose of their life, to resist cultural diffusion and maintain their own culture and religion, until the 4th century CE at the time of the Greek-Macedonian invasion. The Greek-Macedonians eventually lured the Jews into combining ideas and culturally diffusing, with their highly intellectual and great civilization from the West.

Eventually, the Greeks Hellenized the Jews, and the Hellenized Jews translated the Torah, written during the Babylonian Captivity, and the Tanakh from Hebrew, to Greek. The Jews were remarkable in the fact that they resisted cultural diffusion even during times of invasion, as in the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian conquests. The Jews have been remembered for their great advancements and contributions, most profoundly, the Hebrew Bible that has been compiled from the Torah and the Tanakh.

The apostle Paul was a great letter writer. He supplied fourteen of the letters found in the Christian Greek Scriptures of the Holy Bible. Paul especially encouraged the circulation of his letters, he writing to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians and Hebrews generally.

In his letter to the Christians at Colossae, he said in his conclusion, “When this letter has been read among you, arrange that it also be read in the congregation of the Laodiceans and that you also read the one from Laodicea.” (Col. 4:16) Even the apostle Peter, when he was writing from Babylon in Mesopotamia, spoke of his familiarity with the letters of Paul. All the evidence is that those first-century Christians were sharing the “word of life” with others in this dying world.

Paul, above all else, had a keen appreciation of the honor bestowed upon him to be the apostle to the nations: “I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who delegated power to me, because he considered me trustworthy by assigning me to a ministry, although formerly I was a blasphemer and a persecutor.” Moreover, far from being proud because of his office, he humbly asked his brothers to pray for him that he might have the needed freeness of speech to give a good witness.

However, once a ruthless persecutor of Christians, now he was as gentle with those whom he taught as a nursing mother with her own children, exhorting was and consoling them as a father does his children. Nevertheless, he could also express righteous indignation, as when he rebuked Peter for his vacillation and those of his fellow citizens who opposed the truth.

Though well educated, Paul did not call attention to himself nor did he need to resort to written letters of recommendations. Those to whom he brought the truth were living letters that could be read by all men. Within chapters six and seven, the book of Reverend Frank Matera entitled New Testament Theology addresses the different issues pointed out by Paul in his letters to the Galatians, the Romans, The Philippians, the Colossians and the Ephesians.

CHAPTER 6: A THEOLOGY OF RIGHTEOUSNESS: Galatians and Romans

The letter to the Galatians showed how much passion Paul particularly have with regards the righteousness of the gospel and how much he detests those who intensely goes against the principles and rules set straight by the gospel.

Paul’s exclamation, “O senseless Galatians,” is no evidence that he had in mind only a certain ethnic people who sprang exclusively from Gallic stock in the northern part of Galatia. Rather, Paul was rebuking certain ones in the congregations there for allowing themselves to be influenced by an element of Judaizers among them, Jews who were attempting to establish their own righteousness through the Mosaic arrangement in place of the ‘righteousness due to faith’ provided by the new covenant.

Racially, “the congregations of Galatia” to whom Paul wrote were a mixture of Jews and non-Jews, the latter being both circumcised proselytes and non-circumcised Gentiles, and no doubt some were of Celtic descent.

All together, they were addressed as Galatian Christians because the area in which they lived was called Galatia. The whole tenor of the letter is that Paul was writing to those with whom he was well acquainted in the southern part of this Roman province, not to total strangers in the northern sector, which he apparently never visited. The letter reflects many traits of the people of Galatia in Paul’s time. Gallic Celts from the N had overrun the region in the third century B.C.E., and therefore Celtic influence was strong in the land.

The Celts, or Gauls, were considered a fierce, barbarous people, it having been said that they offered their prisoners of war as human sacrifices. They have also been described in Roman literature as a very emotional, superstitious people, given to much ritual, and this religious trait would likely influence them away from a form of worship so lacking in ritual as Christianity.

Even so, the congregations in Galatia may have included many who formerly had been like this as pagans, as well as many converts from Judaism who had not entirely rid themselves of scrupulously keeping the ceremonies and other obligations of the Mosaic Law. The fickle, inconstant nature attributed to the Galatians of Celtic descent could explain how at one time some in the Galatian congregations were zealous for God’s truth. Later, they became an easy prey for opponents of the truth who were sticklers for observance of the Law and who insisted that circumcision and other requirements of the Law were necessary for salvation.

The Judaizers, as such enemies of the truth might be called, apparently kept the circumcision issue alive even after the apostles and other elders in Jerusalem had dealt with the matter. Perhaps, too, some of the Galatian Christians were succumbing to the low moral standards of the populace, as may be inferred from the message of the letter from chapter 5, verse 13, to the end.

At any rate, when word of their deflection reached the apostle, he was moved to write this letter of straightforward counsel and strong encouragement. It is evident that his immediate purpose in writing was to confirm his apostleship, counteract the false teachings of the Judaizers, and strengthen the brothers in the Galatian congregations.

It is through this letter that Paul has awaken the people with regards the truth that fraud of beliefs has made their hearts and conscience harden from the possibility of being able to please the one true God whom they prefer to worship. Consequently, their choice of going against the supposed true and righteous path has led them to becoming detestable to the eyes of God, thus it is required that they immediately change their views about the said matter.

By the time he wrote Romans, Paul had already completed two long preaching tours and was well along on the third. He had written five other inspired letters: First and Second Thessalonians, Galatians, and First and Second Corinthians.

Yet it seems appropriate that in our modern Bibles, Romans precedes the others, since it discusses at length the new equality between Jews and non-Jews, the two classes to whom Paul preached. It explains a turning point in God’s dealings with his people and shows that the inspired Hebrew Scriptures had long foretold that the good news would be proclaimed also to the non-Jews.

Paul, using Tertius as secretary, laces rapid argument and an astounding number of Hebrew Scripture quotations into one of the most forceful books of the Christian Greek Scriptures. With remarkable beauty of language, he discusses the problems that arose when first-century Christian congregations were composed of both Jews and Greeks. Did Jews have priority because of being Abraham’s descendants?

Did mature Christians, exercising their liberty from the Mosaic Law, have the right to stumble weaker Jewish brothers who still held to ancient customs? In this letter Paul firmly established that Jews and non-Jews are equal before God and that men are declared righteous, not through the Mosaic Law, but through faith in Jesus Christ and by God’s undeserved kindness. At the same time, God requires Christians to show proper subjection to the various authorities under which they find themselves.

Ancient polytheistic religion compared to Judaism Ancient polytheistic and Judaism are two of the most opposite beliefs possible. Polytheistic belief is the belief in more than just one god.

Polytheism was brought to this world by the ancient Egyptians and the ancient Greeks. The Greek gods often took on the form of being humans while the Egyptian gods were the main cornerstone to their beliefs and religion. Judaism or the belief of Monotheism is the belief in one main god. Monotheism we brought to the world by the Jewish culture. It was originated from the Hebrew bible and is one of the oldest religions still living today.Judaism was a monotheistic religion of the Jews having its spiritual and ethical ideas embodied mainly in the Torah and the Talmud. The Torah and the Talmud are part of the sacred book of the Jews which is the bible.

The first civilization appeared to have arisen in Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia was founded by a group of people called the Sumerians during the fourth millennium B. C. E. It lies in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley. The Sumerians and their successors were polytheistic which means they worshiped many gods and goddesses. Their Gods and Goddesses were visualized in human form, with human needs and weaknesses.

The Mesopotamians believed that the human race was created to serve the gods. The Mesopotamian temples were run like great households where the gods were fed fantastic meals, entertained with music, and honored with ritual. The Mesopotamians had a very gloomy picture of the afterworld. They were confined to a dusty dark netherworld, doomed with hunger and thirst unless someone offered them food or drink. There was no reward in being religious because everyone was in equal misery. Religion played a huge part in the literature and art of Mesopotamia.Poems were told of the deeds of the gods, like how the world was created.

Also poems were told of the great hero king Gilgamesh, who tried to escape death by going on a journey to find the sole survivor of the great flood. The religious architecture was in the form of temples in the cities. As the Mesopotamian civilization rose up in the valley of Tigris and Euphrates, the Egyptian civilization was centered on the Nile River. The Egyptians were also a polytheistic religion, in that they believed in many gods. Egyptian Gods have human bodies, with human or animal heads, and wear crowns or thorns.Egyptian Gods were gods of different things such as the sky, sun, earth, and music. The Egyptians worship took place at small shrines; they left offerings to the chosen gods as well as simple prayers.

The Egyptians believed that there afterlife was full of dangers, but those dangers could be overcame by magical spells in the Book of the Dead. Also the Egyptians believed in the preservation of the body and that it was essential for the afterlife. The Hittites were an Indo-European, speaking a language that was related to the Greek and Sanskrit.The Hittites adopted Mesopotamian writing along with many other aspects of the Mesopotamian culture, including polytheism. The discovery of iron was found in the Hittites region, somewhat before the creation of their kingdom. The discovery led to the making of iron weapons and tools rather than copper ones. The Discovery of the iron led to the beginning of the Iron Age.

Other ancient societies that were polytheistic were the Persians, and the Assyrians. The Israelites possessed little worldly power or wealth, but they created a powerful religion, known as Judaism which is a form of monotheism.Judaism was the first and the longest lasting form of monotheism in a world of polytheism. Judaism is a part of two other religions that have played a big role in the history of the world, Christianity and Islam. Monotheism is the belief in one universal god, who was the creator and ruler of the universe. The Jewish God is neither a natural force nor like human beings, or any other kind of creature; he is so elevated that those who believe in him may not picture him in any form. I personally best relate to Judaism and believing in one single god because I practice the religion of Christianity.

I believe the words of the bible and how God is said to have created all forms of life and all things. I grew up in a religious family where we attended masses weekly on Sunday mornings and prayed before and after our meals. I believe that the religion you have been raised up into plays a huge role on your worldview that you best identify with. Along with your family I also believe it’s your own personal ethics that play a role in your worldview of religion. Your ethics are based on what you believe is right or wrong.In my religion of being a Catholic, I believe that God created all things and sent Adam and Eve to represent him in man form. I also believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross, rose to heaven and then came back to earth for human salvation and to save us from sin.

The reason I don’t believe in Polytheism is because I find it hard to believe that there would be gods for many different parts of our world. I also think that if a God is suppose to be worshipped and treated like an all-mighty that there should only be one person or God treated with the most significant amount of respect.

Heschel and Hasidic Judaism Glenn Dynner Abraham Joshua Heschel glorifies Eastern European rabbinic culture as an advanced, pious sect of Judaism, offering equality to men and women, an easily comprehensible and fair hierarchy of religious power, purity of mind and spirit, and a straightforward and simple path to heaven. Heschel; American rabbi, and leading Jewish theologian and philosopher, describes Hasidic Judaism as a near perfect religious society.

Heschel references many Jewish ideologies that assist in proving the superiority of Hasidic Judaism to various other religions; including dissimilar sects of Judaism. Though Heschel’s argument is strong and he makes many valid points supporting the superiority of the Hasidim, such as the increased vivacity of Jewish life, there exists numerous instances in which he glosses over an ugly, hidden reality of Hasidic life in order to produce a more pristine picture of Hasidic existence.

What Heschel fails to mention in his essay, are the numerous power struggles endured by Hasidic leaders, false claims of messianic power, clear evidence of sexism, and an institution that includes an obscure hierarchy that imparts confusion and uncertainty to both leaders of Hasidism and followers alike. Scholars; Jacob Frank, Baal Shem Tov and Solomon Maimon offer new insight, and dissimilar views on the merits of Hasidism in Eastern European culture.

Like the distinguished Christian reformists known as the Puritans; the Jewish sect of Hasidism transpired from the dissatisfaction of a small minority who sought to improve the individual’s religious experience by assuming more stringent methods of observations and religious rituals and practices. Eighteenth century Poland served as the venue for this particular religious revitalization. The Hasid recognized strict, relatively inflexible practices that focused even the most mundane, routine chore around the worship of the Jewish God. Hasidism; the plural of Hasid derives from the verb “Hasid” meaning pious or evote. Unlike previous sect of Judaism who’s followers worshipped God only in the vicinity of a temple on Friday nights, the Hasid show devotion to God through everyday actions and practices. In his essay; East European Jews In Two Worlds: Studies From the Yivo Annual, Heschel depicts how the Hasid revitalize Judaism through the democratization of Jewish study and worship, a renewed sense of proximity to deity, the introduction of God into everyday activity, a consciousness of the significance of personal actions, and a new sense of self importance and personal responsibility to God.

Hasidic Judaism appeals mainly to Jews who feel the conventional form of religious worship and study has become stale and unsentimental. Many of the Hasid grew to resent the tired hierarchal religious structure found in Jewish communities. Hasidism was able to provide the discontent with a renewed feeling of individual significance and proximity to God. The Hasid succeeded in democratizing the study and worship of God, expelling the tired patriarchal rule of worship, and re-instating an egalitarianism society in which each individual experienced a personal relationship with God.

In his eulogy on Jewish life in Eastern Europe, Abraham Joshua Heschel discusses the numerous developments made by Rashi, and the Hasid who’s ambition it was to revitalize Jewish religious, and everyday life. By combining both everyday chores, and religious worship, the Hasid were able to establish a way of life that was constantly illuminated by God’s love and glory. Heschel comments on the infusion of religious piety into everyday life. He explains how worship and religious studies evolved from mundane weekly choirs, to an outlet in which life maintained vigor and meaning. The pattern of life was not limited to religious activities. Not only what is to be done on the Sabbath, but also what is to be done in the course of the week, has a definite form. The pattern of prescribes the kinds of food to be eaten on certain days, the manner of putting on and off the shoes, the deportment in the street. ” (Heschel, 6). This renewed sense of proximity to deity made Jewish worship much more than a weekly, mechanized due to be paid to God. Heschel explains how Hasidic Judaism re-energized Jewish spirituality and conviction. Hassidim”, he explains, “brought down heaven upon the earth. They (The Hasid) banished melancholy from the soul and uncovered the great fortune of being a Jew. Jewishness meant rebirth. ” (Heschel, 13). Worship was no longer realized through a step-by-step, formal document; worship was realized with each beat of the believer’s heart. The Sabbath, like worship, was no longer confined by days of the week, nor by the walls of the synagogue. Hasidism introduced a new phase of modernity and democratization into the Jewish religion.

Knowledge became a right of the male masses; wealth no longer determined who had the privilege to study the Torah. Heschel describes this transformation in his eulogy on Jewish life in Eastern Europe; “Scholarship”, he says, “ceased to be the monopoly of the few, and became widely disseminated. ” (Heschel, 7). Hasidic Judaism breathed into the religion a new consciousness of the significance that individual deeds and actions had not only on the self, but also the general well being of the Jewish population.

The common folk developed a more refined awareness of the actions and beliefs necessary to adapt in order to restore Judaism to its formal glory. For the Hasidim the Kabbalah reinforced a new awareness of their individual deeds, it could even make “every Jew believe himself somewhat of a Messiah”. (Heschel, 13). Every Jew had the opportunity to find happiness and fulfillment through faith and study. This mentality produced a new sense of self-importance and responsibility to God. Man was born with one mission; to prefect the world by resembling the scattered Sparks of Holiness in the world.

Heschel describes the charge each individual Hassidim hopes to assist; “The send of man’s life”, he says, “lies in his perfecting the world. He has to distinguish, gather, and redeem the Sparks of Holiness scattered throughout the darkness of the world. ” (Heschel, 13). Life for the Hasidim was a mission that God entrusted to each individual. Solomon Maimon; Jewish scholar of the Talmud, and tutor of the young, disputes that Hasidism democratized scholarship. Maimon goes so far as to call religious teachers “tyrants”.

Maimon’s description of these oppressive teachers discredits Heschel’s claim that the Hasid provided religious tolerance and acceptance. Maimon continues to describe an environment that did not provide religious stimulation, but instead suppressed individual thought and progress. Along with the many changes of the fifteenth century, Gutenberg’s printing press was instrumental in spreading Hasidism. This new technology allowed for the spread the Hasid’s literature, captivating new audiences, wherever they spread.

Hasidic Judaism has not gone without it’s fair share of dispute and controversy; often from leaders of exterior Judaic sects. Of these disputes, three men; Baal Shem Tov, Sabbatai Sevi, and Jacob Frank, have been most instrumental in challenging the legitimacy of Hasidism. Jacob Frank; a self-declared messiah and well-known religious authority, is often considered to be the founder of the “anti- Talmudists”. He rejects the Talmud in recognition of the “Zohar”, a doctrine that allowed Christianity and Judaism to coexist side-by-side.

Frank encouraged his followers to seek out “heretics” and expose them as enemies of the Zohar. Though Frank was able to fuse Christianity and Judaism by referring to himself as an embodiment of one of the three Christian divinities, his teachings and beliefs were far from perfect. Though traditional Jewry was far from perfect, it is unclear whether any of Frank’s so called “improvements”, were beneficial to the Judaism. Jacob Frank spread his religion by taking advantage of the curiosity Jews had about the Christian sect.

Through his work, Frank was able to create a bridge connecting the old religion with the new. Though his followers were looking for a revived, democratic religion that valued truth, and certainty, what many Frankists found were a series of confusing, somewhat irrational claims against the Talmud and the Torah. Frankism was simply to radical, to be accepted by the masses without significant criticism. When many of these dishearten Jews scrutinized Frankism, they found further confusion, bizarre insinuations, and ultimately a man whose main goal was self-proclaimed fame.

In hindsight, Frank appears to have little attachment to Judaism, many, myself included, believe that he used Judaism to promote his own reputation and wealth. At the peak of his popularity, Frank was imprisoned and chooses to convert to Christianity, rather then remain loyal to his own teachings. Frankism immediately lost the majority of its followers, many receding to their initial religion. Another Messianic movement, Sabbateanism, founded by Sabbatai Sevi, another self-proclaimed messiah, emerged in the year 1665. Sabbateanism, like Frankish called for a revitalization of Judaic-religio spirit.

Sabbateanist claimed that Messianic times had/ become and persuaded followers to disregard the commandments explained in the Torah; calling them unnecessary, and pre-messianic. Sabbateanist engaged in “sinful” behavior such as polygamy and breaking the Sabbath in order to prove that messianic times had come. These activities general leant to increases upheaval and unrest. Temptations such as these disprove that Heschel’s belief that Hasidic Judaism is indeed a perfect institution. It is arguable that it was the discontentment of the Hasid that allowed these different sects of Judaism to arise.

Bal Shem Tov; the alleged founder of Hasidic Judaism, warns against the human tendency to doubt and question, The Baal Shem Tov cautioned the Hasidim: “Every time you experience a worry or doubt about how God is running the world- that’s Amalek launching an attack against your soul. We must wipe Amalek out of our hearts whenever- and whenever- he attacks so that we cannot serve God with complete joy. ” The Bal Shem Tov’s warning suggests that the Hasidic Judaic community has within its people those whose belief is not entirely inflexible.

Religious phenomenons such as these disprove Heschel belief in this type of peaceful religious community. In his writings, Heschel’s teachings lend to the impression that the Jewish Rabbinic hierarchy found in Jewish communities was dignified, distinguished and without flaw. This hierarchy; often referred to as the “Kahal”, is far from perfect. A diagram showing the hierarchy of the Judaic powers demonstrates that a Rabbi’s power was only authentic in his own jurisdiction (the Jewish community), and that local powers in the government could easily censure or nullify any of the Rabbi’s decrees.

The Kahal demonstrates that while the Rabbi’s possessed some power, most of it was symbolic, and susceptible to Gentile rule. Though Hasidism did enjoy mass popularization and followings, the religion itself is far from perfection. Like most religious facts, the Hasid experience significant doubt, internal struggle, religious hypocrisy, and many other imperfections that keep Hasidism from reaching any kind of perfection. Though these faults did exist, Hasidism is undoubtedly accredited with the revitalization of Judaism faith and spirituality.