A History of Judaism
We’re at the last Sunday of the month so time for another religious studies book, making this weeks book A History of Judaism by Martin Goodman. So let’s do this.
This book, is exactly as the title says. A History of Judaism….the religion, NOT the Jewish people. Now, there is plenty of history of the Jewish people, there has to be, since without them, there would be no Judaism. But the primary focus is on the religion itself and how it evolved over several thousand years.
And that several thousand year timespan...we’re currently in 5786, which places the start of the Hebrew calendar as 3760 years BCE….So almost 5800 years of history. Crammed into 534 pages of rhetoric. It was...A LOT to take in.
Which kind of made it a mixed bag for me. So lets’s start with the good.
Goodman does highlight the key moments in Jewish history that created the core beliefs of this oldest of human faiths. For those who are not able to count, yes, this predates both Christianity and Islam. I know there are idiots out there who think Muhammed came first. He did not.
Those key moments absolutely include the book of Moses and the lost tribes of Israel, the wandering the desert for forty years, the time in Persia, and the accords that were reached with King Cyrus of Persia, the freedoms and self-governance that came with those accords. He goes into the Maccabees, the books of Maccabees (there are three), and the miracle of Hanukkah. He explains the basically three high holy days, being Yom Kippur, Purim, and Hanukkah, why those three, how they came to be, and how, well like Christians may only go to church on Christmas and Easter, those three are the three that are most attended, and for much the same reason: Those are the holidays that really count, from a Jewish perspective.
I mean, even 5800 years later, most Jewish people will show up for those three, even when they may otherwise identify as spiritual but not religious.
Goodman absolutely discusses the various diaspora’s and destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and while the book is wonderfully apolitical, you definitely grasp the scope of why, precisely, Israel was carved out as a modern nation in which the Jewish people could settle after the Holocaust. Because truly, Jerusalem is their home land. This is where their Temple was built, and this should not be in any way confused with Synagogue.
For those who are confused, Synagogue is to Temple as Church is to Vatican. Got it? Synagogue is small, local, it’s where people study their religion, assemble for prayer, gather as a community. Which is exactly what a church is. Temple is where it all started. It’s the central place where sacrificial rituals were performed and to where Jewish communities would make a pilgrimage for religious purposes.
The various diasporas and periods of time in which Jewish communities were forced to relocate due to various political and other religious movements are discussed only in the manner in which they influenced leaps forward in religious doctrine for the Jewish community. And through this, you gain an understanding of how different communities formed, like Ashkenazi, and Hasidic, and Orthodox, and Mizrahi.
There were large sections on how the kabbalah developed, and how kabbalistic studies influenced and impacted European thought and eventually the Enlightenment movement, and then how the Enlightenment fed back into the Jewish community at large and how those communities were impacted by Enlightenment thought and philosophy.
All of this was really interesting to read through and trace the line of a people, in the famous Viking parlance, back to the beginning. It was fascinating.
Less fascinating was the infill. What do I mean by that. There were long sections of text that read like The Begats in Genesis. If you’ve ever read the bible, you know what I mean. And every time he did it, I wondered if this Rabbi was in the Rabbi trading cards from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. And then felt like a racist, so….yeah.
But, on the plus side, I did get some more books for my wish list out of it, books that are foundational Hebrew texts, written by Judaic scholars on how to worship and how to keep kosher, and what it means to be Jewish.
I’m keeping this review short, because while the interesting parts were really interesting and would suck me in, the parts that were not so interesting, I kind of skimmed through. With Charlie Brown’s teacher womp womping her way through the back of my head and another part of my brain wondering what I’d buy if I had a million dollars suddenly. I was not at my most focused with this weeks reading.
But, to be fair, I am most definitely NOT the target audience of this book. The target audience is Judaic scholars. The Jewish community at large. People who have lived in and grown up with hearing the stories contained herein, and want to know more about how X, Y, Z came to pass and influence modern day life. And while I am most definitely interested in the X Y Z, I don’t have the cultural or historical or religious background to have the perspective to know why what I’m reading is so important in context of my faith.
I feel confident that if I broke this book into smaller section, like, for example, just read the section on the Maccabees and the Temple. Then read more in depth just on the Maccabees, the context would become clear and focused for me. I do feel like this is an important book for anyone wanting to learn more about Judaism; however, I would recommend smaller, more focused reading first, and then this as on overview to tie everything together.
Because it was a lot of information, densely packaged, covering 5800 years of history. In 534 pages.
