Judaism

What is a Jew? Just as no one Christian speaks for all Christians and no one Muslim speaks for all Muslims, no one Jew speaks for all Jews. There is diversity in all these religions. However, there are some basics. There is an ethnic and cultural component to Judaism as well as a system of beliefs. There is a history and an attachment to a land. There is general agreement on some things but not others. There are divisions in Judaism just as there are in the other major religions.

Judaism gets its name from Judah, son of Jacob, whose name became Israel in Genesis and who is the son of Isaac, son of Abraham. Judah also became the name of the tribe of the people of Israel and the name of the land which was Canaan, where the Israelites eventually settled before being conquered and displaced. The conquered land was still referred to as Judaea, and the displaced Israelites were called Judaeans or Jews.

Before all this, however, in approximately 1250 B.C.E., Moses led the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt. While they were wandering around in the desert, close to Mount Sinai, Moses delivered God’s Ten Commandments and the system of laws and instructions known as the Torah, which is central to the Jewish system of beliefs.

Under the Kingdom of David and Solomon, in about 950 B.C.E. a temple was built in Jerusalem. It was believed that God dwelt here, but it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. A second temple was established in 515 B.C.E., but it was destroyed by Romans in 70 C.E.. After this, God’s presence was believed to be in the discussions among the Rabbis who interpreted the Torah. They added to the literature with the Mishnah and the Talmuds of Babylonia and Palestine.

In the 12th century, a philosopher named Maimonides emerged and tried to formulize a list of Judaism’s “principles.” These principles are that a Jew must accept:

1. The existence of God.
2. God’s unity.
3. God has no corporeal aspect.
4. God is eternal.
5. God alone (and no intermediaries) should be worshipped.
6. Belief in prophecy.
7. Moses was the greatest of prophets.
8. All of the Torah in our possession is divine and was given through Moses.
9. The Torah will not be changed or superseded.
10. God knows the actions of man.
11. God rewards those who keep the Torah and punishes those who transgress it.
12. Belief that the Messiah will come.
13. Belief in the resurrection of the dead.

Maimonides is respected by many Jews but not all. Some have tried to adjust this list. Some have criticized Maimonides for being too rational, not mystical enough. A mystical system of contemplation is Kabbalah. Hasidisic Jews use this system of contemplation.

Jews celebrate several holidays throughout the year. They celebrate Passover, Rosh ha-Shana, Yom Kippur, and Hanukah.

There are important days and events in a person’s life. Jewish males are circumcised. They celebrate rites of passage for boys and girls, bar mitzvahs for boys and bat mitzvahs for girls.

Jews have not encouraged marriage outside of their religion, so it has become very ethnic, but Judaism does except converts from outside the ethnic boundaries. It is not racist.

Jews have been dispersed around the globe but are trying to reestablish their homeland. They are considered God’s chosen people, and some think this means God wanted them to shine a light on religion around the world. However, Jews have been discriminated in many places. They had to leave Britain and Spain and were massacred in Russian slums before the German Holocaust. Still, they persist.

bis bald,

Nick

Post 1

Wednesday, August 23, 2006 - 9:10pm

Mr. Otani,

Beyond the Torah and strictly religious considerations, and considering the fact that a great many Jews are self identified secular [don't believe in God, necessarily], what cultural values do you identify as specifically Jewish [that is, purposely taught as important values] that explain the success of Jews everywhere?

Mike Erickson

Post 2

Wednesday, August 23, 2006 - 10:28pm

I'm not sure I can answer your question, Mike. I've known a few Jewish people in my life, and they were not much different from me or others. Most were not religious, but they had a respect for their traditions and history. They had strong feelings about Nazism and the holocaust, but they had an identifable sense of humor, which seemed Jewish. I don't know how to describe it otherwise.

There are Jewish people in almost every culture, and they know their traditions and history. They have lots in common about which they talk.

I know that Jews in Europe in the middle-ages were forced to be money lenders because of the discrimination against them getting other jobs. Money lending was not consdered a respectable occupation. It was making money from money rather than producing a good or service. Still, people did do business with them.

Spinoza was an excommunicated Jew. The group which excommunicated him had to be careful about getting along with the Christians who were allowing them sanctuary.

All groups have had their problems with discrimination, but it seems the Jewish people have had the most. If they are God's chosen people, it seems God chose to punish them the most.

There are Jews now who are successful and in powerful positions in show business and other noticable places. I'm not sure I can make generalizations as to why. What do you think?

bis bald,

Nick

Post 3

Wednesday, August 23, 2006 - 11:12pm

I have known several Jewish people, a couple were friends at one time, one was a physics professor, several more at various workplaces. If I had to make generalizations I would say they were all characterized by very high work ethic, love of knowledge, and a zest for living. And a certain "self possession" which I don't really know how to describe. I've been visiting a website "jewishworldreview.com" off and on for some time and reading the columns and articles, ignoring the overtly religious stuff, and trying to get a sense of the "life lessons" taught to and by Jews. Working hard, common sense [Jewish common sense of course] and don't be a putz seem to pervade the articles. Treating people with respect when they deserve it regardless of who they are is important. They believe in helping others but they have a much different take on it than Christians. Helping someone anonymously has a higher moral value than being overt about it, which I think is interesting. I'd be very interested in others take on this.

Post 4

Friday, August 25, 2006 - 11:59am

My understanding is that the Jewish "historical sense" - that history is destiny, and one must understand it, and that in the case of the jews themselves it is one of constant struggle - is passed on from parents to children and leads to the conclusion that life requires struggle and hard work. Hence, effort, study, good grades, hard work, mastery of whatever one undertakes...and success.

Post 5

Friday, August 25, 2006 - 2:09pm

Herzog, by Saul Bellow, may be example of fictionalized autobiography. Saul Bellow was born in Quebec on June 10, 1915 to parents who were Russian-Jewish, and his father was a businessman and bootlegger. These are the same circumstances given to Moses Herzog. The settings, around the East Coast and Chicago, were also places where Saul Bellow grew up. Moses Herzog, however, was in his mid-forties during the beginning of the sixties. He would have lived through WWII, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the beginning of the Vietnam War. Saul Bellow saw the same things but would have been older. Still, it’s possible he put a lot of himself into this fictional character and this novel.

There is an anonymous third-person narrator who tells us of Herzog’s thoughts and history, and we can read Herzog’s many letters which he composes during his experiences. The thoughts, however, seem to jump around like the steam of consciousness style of modernist writers. Sometimes we are in the present, experiencing things as the characters experience them, but sometimes we learn about characters and events through flashbacks and memories.

Moses Herzog is a professor of Romanticism, and he has written a book called, Romanticism and Christianity. However, he has a grant to complete another volume of this work but cannot get a focus on his research which has piled up in his closet. He has just been divorced from his second wife and things don’t seem to be going well for him. He has problems concentrating on his teaching and is, therefore, not effective, and he notices that his hair is falling out, a sign of his increasing age.

When he speaks to a relative of his wife’s, Aunt Zelda, he learns that part of the problem, a reason why his wife left him, was, she puts it delicately, he was selfish. He knew this translated to “he was a pre-mature ejaculator.” He couldn’t satisfy his wife sexually.

Well, this may have been embarrassing to Moses, but he did have other girlfriends with whom he did not have that problem. He just couldn’t prove it to Aunt Zelda.

Later, he finds out that his second wife, Madeleine, was having an affair with his best friend, Valentine Gersbach, who was his neighbor for many years and has a wooden leg. Their psychiatrist, Dr. Edvig, promoted the affair between Madeleine and Gersbach, thus betraying Moses Herzog.

Herzog is concerned about his daughter, June. He receives a letter from the babysitter which informs him that Gersbach once left June in the car while having a dispute with Madeleine.

As Herzog travels around, from appointment to appointment and to visit places in New York, he writes letters. He sits in cabs and trains and writes to politicians, philosophers, and other people. Some of these letters get finished, but some of them seem just an exercise which distracts Herzog from his suffering, like a drug or alcoholic addiction. It is his escape or catharsis . And, some of these letters are well written and make good points. They show Herzog’s talent and perception. In a long letter to Dr. Edvig, Herzog includes the following:

Quote:

I’m sure you know the views of Buber. It is wrong to turn a man (a subject) into a thing (an object). By means of spiritual dialogue, the I-It relationship becomes an I-Thou relationship, god comes and goes in man’s soul. And men come and go in each other’s bed’s too. You have a dialogue with a man. You have intercourse with his wife. You hold the poor fellow’s hand. You look into his eyes. You give him consolation. All the while, you rearrange his life. You deprive him of his daughter….

The name “Moses” may have some significance as a symbol in the story. The Biblical Moses floated around in a basket for awhile before he was found. This could be the way Moses Herzog is lost.

Herzog visited his lawyer who convinced him to carry an insurance policy which would turn June over to Gersbach if Moses died. He didn’t like this at first because it seemed like the lawyer was telling him that he looked like he may die soon. He also thought that it blamed him somehow for the divorce. The whole injustice of the situation bothered him, that Madeleine locked him out, yet he was being nice to her. His lawyer, however, convinced him that he was being nice to June, the daughter.

Skipping over lots of detail, Herzog finally met his daughter, who seemed happy. They visited an aquarium but had an automobile accident in which the daughter was okay but Moses was temporarily knocked unconscious. He was detained by police until his brother, Will, bailed him out. Herzog had to deal with the thought that his concern for his daughter ironically put her life in danger.

He returned to his home in the Berkshires and arranged a night with Ramona, his new girlfriend. He seemed to be more content now. He didn’t feel the need to write letters compulsively.

Romanticism and some of the modern philosophers mentioned in the story talk about pain and suffering. Blake tells us how suffering is necessary for positive progress. Nietzsche said, “That which doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger.” Even Hegel and Marx spoke of the opposing forces which lead to a synthesis. Herzog was suffering, and he was trying to rationalize that suffering was good for character.

At the end, Herzog seems at the end of his suffering. However, this could just be an upswing in a continuous series of ups and downs, which is life.

bis bald,

Nick

Post 6

Friday, August 25, 2006 - 4:18pm

It's interesting to me though that Rand, Brandens, and their "inner circle" were mostly secular Jews, right? Did they go to extra length to rid themselves of their "Jewishness"?

Post 7

Friday, August 25, 2006 - 6:22pm

You aren't the only one to notice this "extra length" you refer to. I suspect that this was a matter of sticking to the subject; ethnicity would have distracted from the literary and intellectual product that Rand and the people around her were selling.

Some have tried to read pervasive (but coded) Jewish meanings into her writings and life story. The attempts I've seen have seemed to me full of non-sequiturs and implausible stretches, motivated more by a desire to reach a preconceived conclusion than by the evidence.

Peter

Post 8

Friday, August 25, 2006 - 6:35pm

It's interesting to me though that Rand, Brandens, and their "inner circle" were mostly secular Jews, right? Did they go to extra length to rid themselves of their "Jewishness"?

I think when Peikoff wrote The Ominous Parellels, he had a chance to assert his Jewishness by talking about some of the attrocities performed on Jews in Nazi Germany. It's like what Steven Spielberg did with Schindler's List.

bis bald,

Nick

Post 9

Friday, August 25, 2006 - 9:18pm

Another question: today, is Objectivism particularly attractive to people with Jewish heritage? It appears to me not to be so.

Post 10

Friday, August 25, 2006 - 10:32pm

Objectivism is supposed to be universal. It is supposed to apply to all humans, Jewish or not. Jewish people are just as human as other humans.

I did say, in my initial essay, that no one Jewish person speaks for all Jewish people. So, I don't know if reactions from different Jewish people are any more noteworthy than reactions from non-Jewish people.

However, there is something about Rand's writing style which reminded a Jewish reviewer from the National Review of the kind of authoritarianism used by the Nazis who commanded Jews into the ovens. This is why William F. Buckley never read Atlas Shrugged.

bis bald,

Nick

Post 11

Saturday, August 26, 2006 - 10:44am

I wonder if this aversion Nick speaks of could be due to the similarities of Rand"s writings to some of Nietzsche's philosophy such as man being the highest order, and the rejection of a supreme being. The Nazis used some of his works in their propaganda, but Nietzsche was reportedly neither a Nationalist or a anti-Semite.

L W

Post 12

Saturday, August 26, 2006 - 11:19am

Most defintely, Nietzsche was not a Nazi nor an anti-Semite. He criticized Jews for the same reason he criticized Christians and Buddhists and many relgious types who had a slave mentality. However, he also hated the strong anti-Semites, like his former friend, Wagner, and his sister's husband. The Nazis focused on some of Nietzsche's Superman philosophy and will to power, but they didn't read where he hated Germans and National Socialism.

Especially in her non-fiction, Rand has a strong, dogmatic style of writing which was popular among left-wing radicals during the sixties and also used by facists in the 50s. It is sterio-typcal of hate literature from the Klan and other such groups. This could be what puts off some people. However, Rand is very much opposed to facism and bigotry. She supported natural rights for all humans. Some people just don't get past her polemical writing style.

bis bald,

Nick

Post 13

Monday, August 28, 2006 - 7:40am

This is interesting. I'd thought that Rand's temperament and style, to a certain degree, came from her Russian Jewish upbringing. Yet, others would read Nazis authoritarianism in her. Oh, well.

Post 14

Monday, August 28, 2006 - 9:59am

Hong,

I can only speak for myself, but when I first started reading Rand(The Fountainhead) I found it very hard going even though I have always been an avid reader. For some reason I am still not sure of today I perceived a sense of coldness about it that I never truly shook throughout the length of the book.

Luckily I kept going and finished it and then turning to Atlas Shrugged my perception of her and her writing started changing. This was helped by reading what others on various forums were saying in regards to her life and the intent behind her philosophy.

I would imagine that those who would equate Rand to Nazism have not truly looked at what she has to offer and either arrived at a initial misconception, then chose not to go any further, or as in a lot of cases have taken some other person's word for it rather than doing their own investigation.

L W

Post 15

Monday, August 28, 2006 - 12:32pm

Hi LW,
I also found that Rand's literary style is too forceful for me. It seems that the development of her novels is driven more by her philosophy than by realism. I understand that hers is a particular literary style, though not my most favorite one. But, since I've leant a little bit of her ideas before reading the fictions, it wasn't really hard going for me.

Yes, I think those who compared Rand to Nazism were simply dishonest and vicious.

Post 16

Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 9:17pm