The Way of Torah An Introduction to Judaism

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ISBN: 9780534516031 | 0534516033
Cover: Paperback
Copyright: 4/17/2003

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This classic text from one of the leading Judaic scholars today, THE WAY OF THE TORAH introduces students to Judaism via a three-pronged examination of its history, its scriptures, and its practices. Neusner first defines Judaism across time, showing its changes and development. He then introduces students to the classic texts of Judaism, the Hebrew Bible, and beyond. Finally, the Torah and Judaism are presented in their living contexts. It is the only interpretive work that addresses Judaism within the context of religious studies in general as opposed to the many other texts that use an historical or scriptural approach exclusively.

Preface

xiii

Introduction

xix

Table of Dates

xxiii

Acknowledgments

xxix

I Defining Judaism: The Religion and its History

(36)

Judaism and the ``Old Testament''

(11)

Religion as Story

(1)

Judaism and the ``Old Testament''

(3)

Adam, Eve, and Eden; Israel and the Land: Scripture's Master Narrative of the Human Condition

(3)

From Narrative to Social Norms: How Judaism Links the Commandments to Scripture's Story of Humanity

(2)

``This is the Torah that Moses set before the Children of Israel on the Instruction of the Lord---at the hand of Moses''

(2)

The History of Judaism

(14)

Religion as a Cultural System: Ethos, Ethics, Ethnos

(1)

Judaism: The Social Entity, Way of Life, Worldview

(1)

The Four Periods in the History of Judaism

(8)

Summary: The Five Facts That Define the History of Judaism

(4)

Defining Judaism in the Context of Christianity

(9)

``To See Ourselves as Others See Us''

(1)

The Judaeo--Christian Conflict over Scripture

(1)

The Oral Torah and the Challenge of Christianity

(1)

A Family Quarrel, An Israelite Civil War

(1)

The Pharisees

(1)

Priest, Sage, Prophet: Ancient Israel's Heritage in Christian and Judaic Reconstruction

(2)

The Parting of the Ways

(3)

II Classical Judaism: The Oral Part of the Torah

(40)

What Does Judaism Mean by ``Torah''?

(9)

``It is a matter of Torah, which I need to learn.''

(2)

Torah in the Chain of Tradition from Sinai

(1)

What God Reveals, What God Conceals

(1)

Meanings of the Word Torah

(1)

Seven Meanings of Torah

(1)

The Torah's Transformative Power: The Matter of Status

(1)

Finding God in the Torah

(2)

The Mishnah

(11)

The Enigma of the Mishnah

(1)

Defining the Mishnah: The First Holy Book, After the Hebrew Scriptures, in Rabbinic Judaism

(2)

Describing the Mishnah: Its Contents and Context

(3)

The Mishnah's Judaism

(2)

Restoration to Paradise: A Steady-State World of Permanence and Order

(3)

The Mishnah and the Talmuds

(6)

The Talmuds as Commentaries to the Mishnah

(2)

The Talmud and the Mishnah as Part of the Oral Torah

(2)

Torah in Two Media, Written and Oral

(2)

The Midrash

(12)

What Is Midrash?

(3)

One Example of Midrash: How the Sages of Judaism Read the Book of Genesis as a Parable for Their Own Time

(9)

III Classical Judaism: Three Important Doctrines: Ethics, Ethos, and Ethnos

(34)

Way of Life: Women

(10)

From Document to Doctrine

(1)

Women as the Indicator of the Way of Life or Ethos of a Religious System

(2)

Proper Conduct with Women

(1)

Feminine Israel, Masculine Israel, Androgynous Israel

(6)

Worldview: The Messiah Theme

(10)

The Advent of the Messiah to the Rabbinic System

(1)

The Messiah Theme in the System of the Mishnah

(1)

How Israel Could Hasten the Coming of the Messiah

(1)

The False Messiah: Bar Kokhba

(2)

Messiah in Context: The Christian Challenge

(1)

Identifying the Messiah, Hastening His Advent

(5)

The Doctrine of ``Israel''

(12)

A Religious Structure and Its Comprehensive Metaphor

(1)

``Israel'' in the Mishnah's Judaism Without Christianity

(2)

``Israel'' in the Two Talmud's Judaism Despite Christianity

101

(1)

The Metaphor of the Family, ``Israel's Children''

102

(4)

Israel as God's People: The Gentiles' Rejection of God

106

(5)

IV Classical Judaism: The Torah's Theology

111

(22)

Hear, O Israel: The Unity of God

113

(7)

Discerning the Theology of Judaism Through the Prayers People Say

113

(1)

The Blessings Before the Declaration of the Faith in the Unity of God: Creation

114

(1)

The Blessings Before the Declaration of the Faith in the Unity of God: Revelation

115

(1)

``Hear O Israel, the Lord Our God, the Lord Is One''

116

(1)

The Blessing After the Declaration of the Faith in the Unity of God: Redemption

117

(1)

Story, Theology, and Liturgy

118

(2)

Coming Together: The Sanctity of the Family

120

(4)

The Master Narrative and the Individual's Personal Story

120

(1)

Discerning the Narrative of Judaism Through the Marriage Liturgy under the Huppah or Wedding Canopy

120

(2)

Bride and Groom, Israel and the Land

122

(1)

The Acted-Out Theology of History

123

(1)

Going Forth:

124

(5)

The Power of the Story to Transform

124

(1)

The Story of Passover, Key Chapter in Judaism's Master Narrative

124

(2)

The Thrice-Daily Exodus: Israel into the Everyday World

126

(2)

Israel in the World: ``We, therefore, hope in You, O Lord our God, that idolatry shall be removed from the earth, and false gods shall be utterly destroyed''

128

(1)

The Holy Land and Jerusalem in the Age to Come

129

(4)

From Hunger to Satiety and the Theology of Restoration

129

(1)

The Land of Israel, Jerusalem---and Day-to-Day Nourishment

129

(4)

V Classical Judaism The Torah's Way of Life

133

(30)

Life Under the Law of the Torah

135

(7)

The Six Hundred Thirteen Commandments and Their Single Purpose

135

(1)

The Righteous Shall Live by His Faith

135

(1)

``What is hateful to you, to your fellow don't do.' That's the entirety of the Torah; everything else is elaboration. So go, study!''

136

(1)

``Study is Greater, for Study Brings about Action''

137

(1)

The Cycle of the Judaic Way of Life: The Rhythm of the Year

138

(1)

The Cycle of the Judaic Way of Life: The Rhythm of the Week

139

(1)

The Cycle of the Judaic Way of Life: The Rhythm of the Private Life

139

(1)

The Halakhah

140

(2)

Hear Our Prayer, Grant Us Peace

142

(6)

Prayer and God's Presence

142

(1)

The Eighteen Benedictions

142

(4)

The Master Narrative Frames the Encounter with God

146

(2)

Sabbaths for Rest, Festivals for Rejoicing

148

(8)

The Story of Creation and of Redemption Realized in the Seventh Day, When the Torah Is Declaimed for Israel

148

(1)

Rejoicing in the Sabbath

149

(2)

The Pilgrim Festivals: Tabernacles/Huts (Sukkot)

151

(1)

The Pilgrim Festivals: Passover (Pessah)

152

(1)

The Pilgrim Festivals: Pentecost/Weeks (Shabuot)

153

(1)

The Days of Awe: New Year (Rosh Hashanah) and the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)

153

(3)

Rites of Passage:

156

(7)

Birth: The Covenant Renewed, The Story Reenacted

156

(3)

Puberty: Bar or Bat Mitzvah

159

(1)

Burial Rites

160

(3)

VI Four Types of Judaic Piety

163

(32)

The Philosopher

165

(11)

Types of Religious Expression

165

(1)

The Philosophical Formulation of the Dual Torah

165

(4)

Moses Maimonides

169

(3)

Judah Halevi

172

(3)

Philosophical Judaism

175

(1)

The Mystic

176

(8)

Mystical Knowledge and Experience in Rabbinic Judaism

176

(1)

The Zohar and Moses de Leon

176

(2)

The Book of the Pious

178

(2)

Abraham Joshua Heschel's Account of Mysticism in Judaism

180

(2)

Gershom Scholem's Account of Mysticism in Judaism

182

(2)

An Ordinary Jew

184

(5)

Hostile Stereotypes of Ordinary Jews and of Judaism

184

(1)

Life Under the Law of the Torah: Covenantal Nomism

184

(1)

Eleazar of Mainz

185

(4)

Two Extraordinary Women

189

(6)

The Feminine Half of Holy Israel

189

(1)

Gluckel of Hameln

190

(2)

Henrietta Szold

192

(3)

VII Classical Judaism in Modern Times: Reform, Orthodox, Conservative Judaisms and Zionism

195

(46)

Modern Times

197

(8)

Christianity and Judaism Together Meet Competition in Secularism

197

(1)

The New ``Urgent Question'' Facing Jews

198

(1)

The Principal Judaisms of Modernity: The Reform, Orthodox, and Conservative Judaic Religious Systems

199

(1)

Political Change and Religious Transformation: ``Emancipation''

200

(3)

What Is Zionism and How Does It Participate in the History of Judaism in Modern Times?

203

(2)

Reform Judaism

205

(7)

System Construction---Starting with Who and What Is ``Israel''

205

(1)

What Is Reform Judaism?

206

(1)

Legitimating Change by Calling It ``Reform''

207

(1)

Reform's Historicist Theology: Reform as the Natural Next Step in the History of Judaism

208

(1)

Reform Movements in Judaism: The Appeal to Historical Precedent

209

(3)

Orthodox Judaism

212

(8)

Orthodoxy and the ``Tradition''

212

(1)

Defining Integrationist Orthodox Judaism in Its Western Political Context

212

(4)

Samson Raphael Hirsch

216

(2)

Continuity or New Creation?

218

(2)

Conservative Judaism

220

(8)

Between Reform and Orthodoxy

220

(1)

``Eat Kosher and Think Traif''

220

(2)

Responding to Reform Judaism

222

(1)

History and Religion: The Power of Historicism

223

(2)

The Birth of a Judaism

225

(2)

The Middle of the Road Is Never Crowded

227

(1)

Zionism

228

(13)

Exile and Return in a Secular System: Zionism

228

(1)

The Urgent Question Addressed by Zionism: Racist Political Anti-Semitism

228

(2)

A Jewish System of the Social Order: Theory of Israel

230

(1)

Zionist Theories of Zion and Judaic Theories of Zion

231

(1)

The Ideology of ``Jewish History'' as the Continuous, Unitary Story of ``A People, One People''

232

(2)

The Renaissance of the Scriptural Narrative

234

(1)

Judaism and Zionism: Competition and Conciliation

235

(2)

History Proves . . . : Zionism and the Holocaust

237

(4)

VIII The Practice of Judaism in Contemporary North America

241

(52)

Beyond ``Emancipation'': Agudath Israel and Habad Hasidism in Contemporary North America

243

(12)

Judaic Systems Untouched by Emancipation

243

(1)

Agudath Israel

244

(1)

Hasidism in the United States

245

(1)

Hasidism: The European Origins

246

(3)

Habad or Lubavitch Hasidism

249

(1)

Habad and ``Halakhic Christianity''

250

(3)

In Context: Exemplars of Tradition or Only a Noteworthy Minority?

253

(2)

The American Judaism of Holocaust and Redemption

255

(11)

What Is ``the American Judaism of Holocaust and Redemption''?

255

(2)

To Whom Does the American Judaism of Holocaust and Redemption Present Self-Evident Truths?

257

(2)

The Worldview of ``Holocaust and Redemption'' Judaism

259

(2)

The Self-Evidence of Holocaust and Redemption Judaism as a Judaism: From Mass Murder to ``Holocaust,'' from Military Victory to ``Redemption''

261

(2)

The Ethnicization of Judaism

263

(3)

How Jews Practice Judaism in North America

266

(12)

What the Books Say, What the People Do

266

(1)

What the Jewish People in North America Do: A Social Science Portrait of the Actual Practice of Judaism

267

(1)

``Israel'': What Do the Jews Think They Are---Religion, Culture, Ethnic Group, Other?

268

(1)

Worldview

269

(2)

Way of Life

271

(2)

The American Judaism of Holocaust and Redemption

273

(1)

The Vital Center: Ethnically Jewish and Religiously Judaic

274

(1)

Why This, Not That? The American Protestant Model: Religion in Private, Politics in Public

275

(3)

Reversionary Judaisms: Forward to ``Tradition''?

278

(9)

From Secularity to Religiosity in Contemporary Judaic Life

278

(1)

Jews Converting to Judaism

278

(1)

Who Converts? The Worldview, The Way of Life

279

(2)

Reversionary Judaism as a Judaic Religious System in Its Own Right

281

(2)

Orthodox Judaisms Respond to the Reversionary Movement

283

(1)

Judaic Response to the Holocaust Through the Power of the Judaic Narrative

284

(3)

Facing the Twenty-First Century: Ethnic and Religious in Contemporary Judaism

287

(6)

Ethnic and Religious

287

(1)

Why Distinguish Secular Jewishness from Religious Judaism?

288

(1)

Judaism's Narrative: The Story of God

289

(4)

Glossary

293

(8)

Index

301

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The Way of Torah An Introduction to Judaism

Summary

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials