Connecting the Bible to Today Part 1: Judaism

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Welcome to Out of Zion with Susan Michael, an exploration of the Bible and the land of

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Israel.

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From ancient biblical sites to the story behind the stories, join Susan on a journey through

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the most exciting book on the planet.

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Hit the subscribe button for future episodes which will deepen your faith and bring the

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Bible to life.

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And now here's our host, Susan Michael.

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Well, hey there and welcome to the Out of Zion podcast and to our Israel Answers Teaching

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Series.

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We have been walking through the Bible the last year.

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We've dealt with a lot of biblical subjects and what I want to do now for the next few

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weeks is to connect the Bible to Israel today.

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So we're going to fill in a few gaps, bring us up to speed with modern Israel, and then

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we're going to begin to talk about some things regarding Israel, regarding Christian support

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of Israel, regarding anti-Semitism, and all kinds of related issues.

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So I'm really looking forward to our time together.

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So we left our Bible in the New Testament.

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We were talking about the early church, its Jewish roots, and we talked about how Jesus

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was Jewish, and he interacted in everyday life in his ministry with the Jewish people

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of the day.

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And a lot of the debates and the back and forth were very common and a very acceptable

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way of discussing and arguing matters regarding the law of Moses.

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So there were four main sects at the time of Jesus that we read about three of them

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in the New Testament, but there's the fourth sect is there, it's just not named.

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But the first sect, of course, are the Pharisees.

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And because Jesus spoke against hypocrisy of some of the Pharisees, we kind of tend to

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have a negative view of Pharisees, but actually we shouldn't.

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The Pharisees were the rabbis, they were the teachers of the law.

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They taught the people how to be observant of the law of Moses, and they had different

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interpretations amongst them.

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They had different schools of thought amongst them in terms of how to interpret the Mosaic

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law, how to abide by it in those days.

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And so those were the Pharisees, the fact that Jesus may have argued or I should say

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disagreed with some of them, he actually agreed with them a lot.

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And so we need to take that in its proper context.

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The second sect that we read about in the New Testament are the Sadducees.

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They were the priestly class.

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They were the aristocrats made up of the priest, the high priest, and the leading priestly

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families of the day.

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And they were the Sadducees.

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They disagreed with the Pharisees on the matters of the oral interpretation of the law, but

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they certainly believed in the law of Moses and following it strictly and especially in

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the temple sacrificial system which they were in charge of.

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Then there was a third group that we can see their activity in the New Testament, but I

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don't think they're ever actually named, and that's the Essenes.

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The Essenes were actually a reactionary group to the Sadducees.

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They felt that the priests were politically corrupt, that the services in the temple,

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the sacrificial system, therefore was not being done in a pure manner because the priests

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weren't pure, and they would have nothing to do with the temple or the priesthood.

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They really emphasized purity and holiness in your daily lives.

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They were throughout the land of Israel, the Essenes.

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And then the fourth movement are the zealots.

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And the zealots were ones that were very zealous for the law and zealous that the Jewish people

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would be sovereign over their own land and able to obey the laws of God, and they couldn't

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wait to overthrow the rule of Rome.

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And they were just looking for the right opportunity and the right moment to overthrow

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Rome.

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So these were the four main sects of Judaism during the time of Jesus.

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Something happened, though, that completely changed this mosaic of Judaism.

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And that was in 70 A.D., after a three-year siege of Jerusalem when the Roman forces destroyed

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Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and brought to an end the sacrificial system there at

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the temple.

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And this caused several changes.

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One is the Rabbi Yelkanon Ben-Zakai moved the Sanhedrin out of Jerusalem up to a town

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in the Galilee called Yavne.

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And there was another group of rabbis over in Babylon, and these two became the main

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two schools of thought within the rabbinic world, and they, in a way, had to adjust to

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Judaism without a temple, a Judaism without being present in the land, sovereignty in

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the land.

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And therefore, they became the way that Judaism carried on.

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So there were no longer any Sadducees, because there was no longer a temple or a priesthood.

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Therefore there were no longer any Essenes who were reacting against the Sadducees.

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And there were no more Zealots, because the Zealots had lost.

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Rome had won.

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And the only sack that remained then was the rabbinic tradition of Judaism.

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And they carried on, and they began a whole project of not only adjusting to a world where

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they didn't have a temple, but writing down all of the oral traditions and the rabbinic

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traditions and the rabbinic commentary on the Law of Moses.

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So this means that within Judaism they were developing their own books beyond the Bible.

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And you could say that at this point, Judaism is having to make a major adjustment.

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In a way, it's been severed from the land.

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It's been severed from the temple.

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And over the years, rabbinic Judaism became Judaism.

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And that's the type of Judaism we have today is what is known as rabbinic Judaism.

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And there are different streams within, of course, the Jewish world.

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And so here in the United States, we know the main three branches are Orthodox, Conservative,

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and Reform.

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And of course, within the Orthodox, there is several different movements.

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One the Ultra-Orthodox, or what we call the Haredi, and then there's a Modern Orthodox.

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And then of course, there is a Traditional Orthodox.

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So there's a lot of different branches, but these are your three main ones, Orthodox,

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Conservative, and Reform.

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In Israel, they go by slightly different divisions.

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And in Israel, the chief rabbi and the rabbinic courts in Israel are all of the Orthodox,

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or Ultra-Orthodox, persuasion.

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And so there is a little bit of a tangle going on between the Conservative and the Reform

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movements here in America with the Orthodox in Israel, because the Orthodox do not recognize

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them in Israel, and they are trying to get more to be accepted there in Israel.

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But in Israel, we go by four different categories.

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There is the Haredi, which are the Ultra-Orthodox.

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There is the Dati, which the translation of Dati means religious, we would call it the

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Orthodox.

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And then there is the Masorti, which that is what we would call the more traditional.

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They're a little less religious than the Orthodox.

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And then there is the Hallowni, which is translated as secular.

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And what I want to, just the one point that I want you to remember here is that as Judaism

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developed, and we have these different categories, the main defining differences in the categories

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is based on how you observe the Mosaic law, how much of it you observe.

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And it's not, Judaism is not about a creed.

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It's not about believing a certain creed that you then accept as your creed, and now you're

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Jewish.

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Judaism is about observing the law of Moses given to the people of Israel in a covenant.

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And so when we say that most of the Jews in Israel are secular, it doesn't mean that

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they're atheist or agnostic.

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There are some that are atheist or agnostic.

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It doesn't mean that they don't believe in a God.

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It means that they're not keeping kosher, they're not keeping Sabbath, they're not

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being observant.

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And the more observant you are, the more you move up the ranks from Masorti to Dati to

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Haredi.

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The Haredi movement, which is the ultra-Orthodox movement, really is only a couple hundred

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years old, and it started in Europe, and it was a little bit of a reactionary movement

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against the Enlightenment and against the assimilation of the Jewish people.

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And so they sort of taught to separate yourselves from society and to be very strict in the

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observance.

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And you can tell within the Haredi community which rabbi that they're following because

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they dress a certain way based on the school that they're following.

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And these rabbis go back two hundred years ago, and that's why some of their dress looks

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like they may become from Poland or Lithuania or Germany back 150, 200 years ago.

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And that's why the rabbi that they're following, his teaching and his doctrine, is from that

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period.

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And so they're dressing according to that.

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Of course, Christianity is different because Christianity believes in a creed.

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And we're a religion that's based on a faith.

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It is based on what you believe and not a legal observance.

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The Law of Moses, there are 613 commandments, and just a little aside for you, is that some

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of the commandments are negative, meaning they were told not to do certain things.

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And some of those commandments are positive, meaning they were commanded to do certain

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things.

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So there's both in there.

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And some of the commandments are all about the temple service and the sacrificial service.

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And those commandments cannot be kept today because there is no temple.

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And then there were some commandments that required you to be in the land of Israel.

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So of course, those commandments can now be obeyed today because the Jewish people are

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backed in the land, but they still have no temple, so they are still not able to be totally

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observant.

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So this is just to give you kind of an idea of the progression and the development of

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Judaism since the days of the Bible.

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And I'm just going to end our conversation today with this little thought.

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Today, if you Google who is a Jew, you're going to find there's a huge debate about

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this.

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And do you define Judaism today?

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Who is a Jew?

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And we tend to think Judaism is a religion, but it's actually more than that.

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It is a peoplehood.

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And sometimes I hear people use the word race, that they are a race, but they're not a race.

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There's many different races within the Jewish world.

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Just go to Israel and you'll see them.

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Black Jews from Ethiopia, Asian Jews from India and China, and Middle Eastern Jews with

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an olive complexion, and Ashkenazi Jews with a fair complexion out of Europe and Russia.

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So it's not a race.

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And there are Jews that do abide by the Jewish religion, but then there are Jews that don't

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believe in the Jewish religion.

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Even could be atheistic, yet they're considered a Jew.

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So how do you define it?

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This is the great debate.

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It is a communal identity as a people.

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It is a people, an ethnicity that comes with a set of values and kind of a DNA of how they

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approach life and see the world.

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And there is a religion for those that want to follow it.

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And most would be loyal to that religion, but they may not observe it as religiously

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as others would.

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So just an interesting little aside there of who is a Jew.

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And to be Jewish has a cultural expression, an ethnic expression, religious expression,

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political, genealogical.

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It's based on were you born to a Jewish woman or were you born to a Jewish father, different

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sects look at it different ways.

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And then there's a personal dimension.

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You can be born a non-Jew and yet convert to Judaism and become a part of the Jewish

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people.

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So interesting, isn't it?

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It's fascinating.

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There's nothing quite like it with any other religion.

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But one of the fascinating facets of being a Jew and of understanding Judaism today.

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So that's it for today.

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We've kind of brought you up to speed from the time of the Bible to today on the Jewish

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faith.

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Next week we're going to talk about Christianity.

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So I'll see you back here next week.

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And until then, God bless.

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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.

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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, CPNshows.com, YouTube, or

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wherever you like to listen and learn.

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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJUSA, All Rights Reserved.