Nadene Goldfoot
We need to go back to our 119th cousins, Abram and his family to appreciate how he broke away from a polytheistic society that practiced human sacrifice and what a revelation his idea was. His father seemed to agree with him as he was an idol-maker who knew what a farce he was contributing to the society, but he was talented with making idols and it was a good living. I say our 119th with a generation being 25 years and Abram was born in about 1948 BCE, some 3,969 years ago.
Jumping ahead to 1942 in Portland, Oregon, unaware of the misery in Europe
A generation of 25 years makes a big difference. My mother was born in 1914, so at age 25, the year was then 1939, when the Nazis of Germany were attacking Poland on September 1, and she was married and I was 5 years old. That was quite a generation. The Pilgrims came over from Holland in 1620 to America. That was 401 years ago. It was this difference for the Israelites to have been taken captive by Egypt, and then released 400 years later by Moses.
I can go back in my genealogy to 1730 in Lithuania with my 5th great grandfather, Iones/Jonah Goldfus. That's good considering that George Washington was born in 1732 and president of USA in 1789. We notice that changes have been slow, granted, but as we approach today's era, inventions and technology have grown at a super-fast rate.
Part I The First 2,000 Years
It was Abram, also called Abraham, who set the stage for monotheism, and our religion of Judaism is purely monotheistic without question. It is so monotheistic that we believe in an unseen G-d, exclusively ONE. We make no pictures, no idols of our G-d. That's the way that Abram believed and to do so, had to leave his homeland of Ur of the Chaldees and move to a new land, the land of Canaan.
Abram and Sarai had Isaac and Isaac had Jacob who had 12 sons and a daughter. Those 12 sons, begat by 4 wives, were the original men of the 12 tribes of Jacob who were the beginnings of our people, for our religion started off as a belief of our family. They were to set the example of life with one G-d and how it differed from life of other people.
These Israelites were taken captive by the Egyptians who held them as slaves so they were in Egypt 400 years. It took Moses,(b: 1391-d: 1271) a prince of Egypt who had been born to Israelite slaves, to regain their freedom and head back on a trek of 40 years to Canaan once again. It was he who wrote for 40 years the rules to follow after slavery for all that time, and how they would continue their monotheistic life and how they would treat each other. He died just outside of Canaan at age 120, having started his trek at age 80. Wisdom can come with age, but he got his directly from G-d who had nudged him to return to Egypt in the first place with this grand mission. The 12 tribes reached Canaan with 601,730 people and it was Joshua who became their leader and arranged where they would live in Canaan. The land had become more populated than 400 years ago, and they had to fight for some of their land, but then they also had to fight to get there in the first place some of the time. The young men were warriors already, strong and able, out of Egypt's slave schedule and following Moses's rules.
David, son of Jesse, of the tribe of Judah became king of Israel and ruled from 1010 to 970 BCE. His son, Solomon, ruled from 961 to 920 BCE. He built the Temple. The Cohens officiated at the temple, teaching the people of their religious heritage. This is how they received their direction. The Levites also had responsibilities as teachers of the communities. They were directed to live in the homes of their students, and were not allotted any land like the others were for that reason. The rest, the Israelites, were to live according to the laws of Moses and had Levites to question if they needed answers. Cohens and Levites were from the tribe of Levi, and it was the Cohens who were the direct descendants of Aaron, brother of Moses.
Assyrians leading away the Israelites
With Assyria taking away 27,290 people; the young adults, prosperous-looking from the 10 northern tribes of Israel in 721 BCE, and we were left with Judah, the largest tribe originally with 76,500 people and Benjamin, with 45,600 people.
There had been a lot of fighting going on in and around the northern tribes. In 735 BCE, Ahaz, king of Judah, attacked by Pekah of Israel who was in alliance with Damascus, Philistia, and Edom, appealed for help to Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria; and as a result, Israel lost its territory in Transjordan and Galilee, while Philistia, Tyre, Moab, and Edom became Assyrian provinces. The attempt of Hosea of Israel in 726 BCE to throw off the yoke, led to the King of Assyria, Shalmaneser V's siege of Samaria, dying during the siege, and its capture in 721 BCE by his successor, Sargon II(reigned from 721-712 BCE). Sargon exiled 27,290 of the Samarian (northern 10 tribes) inhabitants. Sargon in 720 BCE had defeated the military alliance which included the remnants of the Israelites of Samaria.
According to Sargon's own inscriptions, 27,290 Israelites were deported from Israel and resettled across the Assyrian Empire, following the standard Assyrian way of dealing with defeated enemy peoples through resettlement. This specific resettlement resulted in the famous loss of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. It is alternatively plausible that Shalmaneser had resolved the siege of Samaria before he was deposed by Sargon: Sargon being the captor Samaria derives from Sargon's own inscriptions, whereas both the Bible and the Babylonian Chronicle ascribe the victory to Shalmaneser.
He, in turn, was also assassinated and succeeded by Sennacherib, king of Assyria 705-691 BCE, son of Sargon II.
Hoshea was the king of Israel from 732 to 721 BCE. He had conspired against King Pekah of Israel, assassinated him, and seized the throne. This surely went against the teachings of Moses. Assyrian sources relate that Hoshea ascended the throne with Assyrian help, and his kingdom was confined to the surroundings of Mt. Ephraim. Eventually, true or not, he rebelled against Assyria and was imprisoned by Shalmaneser, when the besieged and captured Samaria (II Kings 17:1-6).
Losing the 27,290 Israelites happened after settling in Canaan, a period of 1,227 years earlier, so the 2 tribes should have amounted to many more people than the original number. They were the 2 southern-most tribes that the Assyrians didn't bother to reach at that point. Maybe they didn't know about them. They were the poorer tribes and Assyrians were after riches, including people who were valuable assets. The Assyrians had taken away the best of 10 tribes, and in their place had brought along people they didn't want in their homeland, their resettlement program, so now the northern tribes had a mixed population of people who were the monotheistic Israelites and polytheistic Assyrians-possibly even their unwanted slaves. They did not assimilate.
First Temple of Solomon destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II in 586 BCE
Babylon, the cradle of humanity; where King Hammurabi, the great law-giver had also lived and ruled from 1728-1686 BCE; land of Shinar or also known as land of Kasdim (Chaldees), which would include Ur, where Abraham and Sarah had come from; the state that took over from Assyria, attacked Judah and Benjamin 2 times; once in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE, taking away most of the population. The Temple was destroyed in the take-over.
It was Nebuchadnezzar II (604-561 BCE) who inherited the Assyrian Empire and after his conquest of Judah, exiled many Jews to Babylon. We can also count the previous Israelites taken earlier and now are adding more to what is now a large Jewish population, for the people of Judah and Benjamin are called Jews.
King Ahasueros chose Esther for a wife, unbeknown to him that she was of the tribe of Judah. Haman, his chief minister had a resentment against Jews, especially her uncle, Mordecai, and so he planned to kill all Jews in the Empire. Esther hears of it and tells her husband. Haman and his sons were hanged.
Zerubbabel led the first group of Jews, numbering 42,360, who returned from the Babylonian captivity in the first year of Cyrus the Great, the king of Persia b: 480 BCE, the grandson of King Jehoiachin who reined in Judah from 598 to 597 BCE. Illustration by William Hole 1846 - 1917 Most had never been in Jerusalem for 48-50 years was a long time being away. Initially, around 50,000 Jews made aliyah to the land of Israel following the decree of Cyrus as described in Ezra, whereas most remained in Babylon. Later, an unknown number of exiles returned from Babylon with Ezra himself.
In 458 BCE, Ezra received the requisite permission from Artaxerxes I of Persia and went to Jerusalem with 1,754 returning exiles. Ezra, together with Nehemiah-governor of Judah in 444 BCE, persuaded the people to keep the Torah, to observe the Sabbath and the sabbatical year, to pay their Temple dues, and to reject intermarriage with gentiles by 444 BCE. After 12 years, Nehemiah returned to Susa, but later went back to Jerusalem to renew his drastic activity. In 433/2, he took steps against mixed marriages, etc, in conjunction with Ezra. His work was decisive in the rebuilding of Judah. His memoirs form the basis of the biblical Book of Nehemiah, which is a continuation of the Book of Ezra in the Hagiographa.
On the stage are both the Pharises and Sadducees.
This 2nd Temple period brought about the Pharisees, Cohens that created a religious and political party, maybe a continuation of the Hasideans, it was a pretty narrow body, closed to the masses for it was their job to discuss Judaism and where it was going. Their job was to try to imbue the Israelites with a spirit of holiness by propagating traditional religious teaching. The gulf between the Pharisees and those ignorant of the Law or not practicing it was complete as they ate apart from others instead of using themselves as examples near them. Perhaps they were afraid of starting to copy those that didn't know the law! To keep apart and follow the rules was difficult for some who were not as strong mentally. They introduced the Water-Drawing Festival to the dismay of the Sadducees.
The Sadducees were another group of Cohens in control over the Temple, probably descendants from Zaddok, the high priest whose descendants served as the high priest until 162 BCE. They were most influential in the political and economic life. Religion for them was belonging to the Temple Cult without a basis of abstract faith. They did not believe in a future world, resurrection, or the immortality of the soul and also rejected the existence of angels and spirits. They put their belief in the Written Law only, so this showed up with their thinking severely in cases involving the capital penalty.
King Cyrus issued decree for the Jews to return from Babylon to their native land and rebuild the Temple c. 539-538 BCE. The vessels of gold and silver were returned to Sheshbazzar, Prince of Judah, to be brought back to Zion. Ezra I: 5. ' Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem'.
Alexander the Great was a hero to the Jews, king of Macedonia, a Greek province, from 356 to 323 BCE and his death ushered in Hellenism. The Talmud reports that he had visited Jerusalem and paid honor to the high priest, Jaddus. He suppressed a Samarian revolt which gave the Jews of Jerusalem the occasion to stress their own loyalty. We find David the subject in the Talmudic, Midrashic and medieval Jewish stories.
Palestine was under Greek rule and Judea was surrounded by a ring of hellenized cities, simultaneously, the Jewish Diaspora was expanding rapidly in Egypt, Cyrenaica, Syria and Asia Minor, which were all in a process of hellenization. By the 3rd century BCE, the Jews of Egypt had adopted Greek and the Septuagint translation of the Bible had been completed. Errors in translation were made for certain words.
Antagonism between the traditional and hellenizing Jews in Jerusalem who were led by Tobias brought on Antiochus IV Epiphanes' attempt to suppress Judaism and the Hasmonean revolt. it took John Hyrcanus and Alexander Yannai to break the power of the Greek cities in Palestine, but later these were restored and strengthened as a result of Roman intervention aided by the Herods who had the power.
Judah the Maccabee born in 200 BCE died in 160 BCE. He was the eldest son of Mattathias, the Hasmonean. He took his father's place in the Jewish revolt against Antiochus Epiphanes (167/6 BCE), inflicted successive defeats on Syrian armies by is exploitation of ambush, rapid movement, and night-attacks, military moves unheard of. He was killed in battle at Elasa, but is the prototype of heroism among the Jews and was regarded by the Christians as one of the military celebrities of antiquity.
Skipping ahead to 70 CE, Our 2nd Temple was burned down along with our capital city of Jerusalem by the Romans who had occupied Jerusalem. Thousands of Jews were first starved and then killed. Others were taken as slaves. We remember this by fasting every year on this date.
Losing the 2nd Temple of Solomon caused the development of synagogues to take its place. In fact, sources of the 1st century CE show that the synagogue was already then an ancient institution, starting with the Babylonian exiles. There were synagogues throughout Palestine from 135 onward before the destruction of the Temple, including several in Jerusalem one even on the Temple hill. In the Diaspora (outside of Judah) evidence in Egypt goes back to the 3rd century BCE, where a contemporary inscription refers to right of asylum in the synagogue. The Great Synagogue of Alexandria, with separate sections for each trade-guild, was famed in Roman times.
Synagogues were known throughout Greece and the Greek islands, Syria, Cyprus, Asia Minor, and Cyrenaica. After the destruction of the 2nd Temple, they increased in importance, and beautiful examples have been excavated in Palestine and Syria from the ensuing period. At this time, they were placed on a high spot, sometimes outside the city, one end of the building being oriented toward Jerusalem. They served as places of prayer, study, and public assembly, and some had accommodation for travelers.
From early times in Israel there existed a tradition of interpretation and analysis of the Written Law we accept by Moses, called the Torah. It's the 5 books of Moses. This was handed down orally from generation to generation. The importance of this oral Law was emphasized by the tradition that it was given to Moses on Sinai together with the written Law. During the 2nd Temple Period, the ancient oral tradition was upheld by the Pharisees and supported by the majority of the populace. It was not recognized by other sects; the Sadducees and the Essenes; who, possessed their own tradition regarding the interpretation of the Written Law. These 2 sects disappeared after the destruction of the Temple in 70 and so the Pharisaic view won national acceptance, and the oral Law was studied in the various academies. Rejected views were taught theoretically.
A complete outline, known as the Mishnah, apparently incorporating earlier versions, was compiled by Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi and became the basis for study. The discussion of these laws, remained oral and was only recorded several centuries later as the Talmud (Gemara).
After the redaction of the Talmud, study centered around the written text, still known as the Oral Law because its roots lie in the oral tradition. During the Gaonic Period, the Karaites rejected the oral Law and denied the validity of the Talmud.
1930s and Germany started special programs against Jews. In 1939 they invaded Poland which had the highest population of Jews. Their program was the extermination of all Jews on the planet. They managed to kill 6 million Jews in this 2nd World War. It ended in 1945.
Judaism has had Reform Judaism breaking off as a reaction to the Napoleonic Emancipation, and began in Germany with the formation of small synagogues by laymen such as Israel Jacobson who shortened the service, introduced the vernacular, utilized an organ like the Christians used, and made the vernacular sermon a regular feature, also like most churches, and maintained the ceremony of group-confirmation. The 1st Reform Synagogue was in Charleston, South Carolina in the early part of the 19th century, about 1875. It declared that historic Judaism continuously adopted itself in its environment in order to strengthen its impact upon society.
They wanted to modernize Judaism and so should make similar modifications to correspond to the current situation. They abandoned the doctrine that it is Jewish destiny to be miraculously transported by the Messiah to the Holy land, there to have the entire levitical and temple apparatus recreated for him. They have substituted the idea of the Messiah to a Messianic Age. Reform is very popular in the USA. Israel is going by the Orthodox movement since it is a Jewish state.
From Reformed Judaism returned some of what was left out and we had Conservative Judaism maintain that in its most creative epochs, Judaism was responsive to the changing religious, moral, social, and economic needs of the Jewish people. They say that in the periods of vitality, far from being a static self-contained datum, was the developing religious culture of a people that could assimilate influences from other cultures and yet retain its distinctive ethos. Solomon Schechter, a founder and leader, spent his youth within the orbit of the traditional Judaism of pre-world War I eastern European Jewry. Conservatives oppose extreme changes in traditional observances. However, it permits certain modifications of halakhah (laws) , like in the text of the traditional Ketubbah (wedding certificate) , and the sitting of men and women together during worship instead of being apart as in the Orthodox.
Doesn't some of this remind you of Hellenization? That's already happened a long time ago. With the rebirth of Israel, Judaism has a chance to continue.
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregation_Beth_Israel_(Portland,_Oregon)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zerubbabel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Zion#:~:text=Initially%2C%20around%2050%2C000%20Jews%20made,from%20Babylon%20with%20Ezra%20himself.
https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1939-1941/german-invasion-of-poland#:~:text=Julien%20Bryan%20Archive-,September%201%2C%201939,on%20Warsaw%2C%20the%20Polish%20capital.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_II
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/simchat-beit-hashoavah-the-water-drawing-festival/
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