Al Reguel Ajat

Sherwin Theodore Wine (1928-2007) was born in Detroit, Michigan. He was the son of parents originally from Poland, affiliated with the Conservative movement, who kept a kosher home and observed the Sabbath. He studied at the University of Michigan, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in humanities. In 1951, he enrolled at Hebrew Union College, where he graduated with a degree in Reform rabbi. He served as a chaplain in the U.S. Army during the Korean War.

In 1958, he formed a Reform congregation, called Beth El, in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. In 1963, a disaffected group from Temple Beth El asked him to form a new congregation in a Detroit suburb. What bothered them was the traditional language used in the service. Wine did so, eventually deciding to remove the word «God» from the prayers and instead use phrases that exalted Jewish history, culture, and ethics. This decision was the turning point in the development of Humanistic Judaism as a distinct position within the Jewish world. In 1971, the congregation moved to its own building and changed its name to the Birmingham Temple. The Torah was placed in a space in the temple library, and a statue with the word Adam written in Hebrew was placed in place of the Aron Hakodesh.

Humanism is a philosophical and ethical position that puts the human person first. Its followers prefer critical thinking and convincing evidence over unquestioning acceptance of dogma or superstition. Human freedom and progress are paramount to them, and they are typically aligned with secularism. It is a non-theistic (Godless) philosophy of life, centered on human action, as it understands the world through science, rather than through a revelation, such as that described in the Torah that Moses experienced at Sinai.

The new movement attracted people from other places, and in 1969, Wine formed the Society for Humanistic Judaism, which currently includes nearly 30 congregations in the United States and Canada. In 1985, he founded the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, with the aim of preparing leaders and rabbis for the movement, both in the United States and Israel.

Jewish holidays and the life cycle are celebrated in Humanistic Judaism with a different meaning. For example, Rosh Hashanah is considered a time of reflection and renewal, and Yom Kippur is a celebration of inner strength and self-worth. They place more emphasis on the writings of Jewish scholars of the last 250 years, who have integrated the concepts of the Haskala, the Jewish Enlightenment, into their philosophy than on ancient texts.

The movement defines Judaism as the historical and cultural experience of the Jewish people. In their ceremonies and celebrations, they use human-centered language and do not mention God. They maintain that it is humankind’s responsibility to solve humanity’s problems alone and not to wait for divine help. In short, the philosophy of Humanistic Judaism is human-centered and celebrates Jewish culture, but without supernatural components.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Material from the Society for Humanistic Judaism and other sources.

In the Jewish calendar, there are six days on which one must fast. Two of them, Yom Kippur and Tishah b’Av, are major fasts that last a full day, from sunset on the evening of the first day until sunset on the second day. The other four are minor fasts and last only from sunrise to sunset on the same day. Of all these, Yom Kippur is the only one commanded in the Torah. The other five were established by the rabbis.

Tisha b’Av, the fast of the 17th of Tammuz, the fast of Gedaliah (the 3rd of Tishrei), and the fast of the 10th of Tevet, have their origins in the destruction of the first Temple in Jerusalem at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. The siege of Jerusalem began on the 10th of Tevet, the Babylonians entered the city on the 17th of Tammuz, and the destruction of the city on the 9th (Tishah). These fasts were suspended during the Second Temple period, but were reinstated after the Temple was destroyed. Today, with the creation of the State of Israel and the unification of Jerusalem, some branches of liberal Judaism hold that these fasts are no longer justified.

The Fast of Gedaliah commemorates the assassination of Gedaliah ben Ahikam. Gedaliah was a wise, gentle, and modest man who was appointed governor of the Land of Israel by Nebuchadnezzar, seeking to ensure that the country would not be completely desolate. He sought to ensure that the peasants would remain and continue farming the land. Under Gedaliah’s administration, the Jewish community began to prosper, and some exiles returned to their homeland. He ruled from Mizpah, where the prophet Jeremiah also lived.

But Gedaliah could not continue his mission. He was assassinated by Yishmael Ben-Nataniah with the help of the king of Ammon. Yishmael Ben-Nataniah murdered Gedaliah, his followers, and even the Babylonian guards who were there. This massacre is what we remember in the Fast of Gedaliah, and it had very important consequences in the history of the Jewish people. Finally, the fourth minor fast is that of Queen Esther, commemorated the day before Purim. It commemorates her fast before entering with King Achashveri to pray for the lives of the Jews.

In ancient times, in the Middle East, it was customary to use prayer and fasting to ask favors from the gods. In the Bible, on many occasions, a special fast was declared to ask God for His help in resolving a particular matter. But our sages and prophets emphasized the fact that fasting is not an end in itself, but rather the means through which man must demonstrate sincere repentance. The prophet Isaiah (58:3) distinguishes between a fast that is not accompanied by true repentance and therefore is not accepted by God, and a true fast that leads to God’s merciful forgiveness.

In the time of the Second Temple, some viewed fasting as an ascetic exercise, depriving oneself, for religious reasons, of the normal pleasures and satisfactions of life. This attitude was condemned by the rabbis. They even viewed Torah study as diminished if fasting was performed at the same time. Afflicting our bodies with fasting should be done to give us time to reflect on our actions, with the desire for inner change, and not to turn it simply into an external, ceremonial ritual.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Encyclopaedia Judaica and other sources.

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, 1937-2020, was born in Jerusalem to a completely secular and Zionist family. His father was one of the few from the Land of Israel who volunteered to support the Republic in the Spanish Civil War. At the age of ten, he hired a tutor to teach him Talmud. The father told him: “I don’t care if you’re an atheist, but I don’t tolerate any member of my family being ignorant. It’s a shame for a Jew to be ignorant.” Shortly before his bar mitzvah, Adin voluntarily decided to practice Orthodox Judaism. Steinsaltz said: “I’m more observant than my father, but my father is more Jewish than I am.

Steinsaltz studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, while also studying to be a rabbi. After graduating, he dedicated himself to establishing experimental schools and, at the age of 24, became the youngest school director in Israel. In 1965, he founded the Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications and began his monumental work of translating the Talmud into Hebrew, along with its commentary, to enable Hebrew and non-Aramaic speakers to decipher the complicated text of the Gemara, which was written in ancient Aramaic without punctuation. It took him 45 years to complete the project. In addition to the Hebrew translation, he has translated portions of the Talmud into English and other languages.

Steinsaltz Editions have opened the world of the Talmud to thousands of people outside the walls of yeshivas, including women, who were traditionally not taught Talmud. In his editions, Rabbi Steinsaltz placed Rashi’s commentary in a different place than the traditional texts, and for this reason some ultra-Orthodox rabbis did not accept his work and prohibited its use. But over time, this negative attitude faded. He said: «I never thought that spreading ignorance had any benefit, except for those in a position of power who want to deprive others of their rights, to keep them subservient.»

Steinsaltz has written more than sixty books, mostly on theology, but he has also written on zoology and social studies, and even a detective novel. One of the best-known is «The Thirteen Petalled Rose,» his classic work on Kabbalah. His commitment to education has led him to establish a network of schools and institutes both in Israel and in the countries of the former Soviet Union.

For Steinsaltz, the Talmud is the cornerstone of Jewish culture. It’s true that the origin of the Talmud is the Bible, but the influence of the Talmud is fundamental. Perhaps because it wasn’t created by isolated individuals, but rather by hundreds and hundreds of scholars, in houses of study, in a millennia-long process that still continues. Steinsaltz says: «The Talmud is the central pillar for understanding anything about Judaism, more so than the Bible. The Talmud is not a divine gift given to the Jewish people. The Jewish people created it, but at the same time, the Talmud created the Jewish people. In many ways, we are Talmudic Jews.»

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Articles by Irene R. Prusher, Raphael Ahren, Nathan Jeffay, and other sources.

Eugene Borowitz (1924-2016) was born in Columbus, Ohio, to parents originally from Lithuania who spoke Yiddish at home. He proudly stated that he was the product of a mixed marriage between a cerebral Lithuanian grandfather and an emotional Hasidic grandfather. He earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy at Ohio State University and then entered Hebrew Union College, where he received his rabbinical degree and later his doctorate in Hebrew letters with a specialization in rabbinic literature.

For over fifty years, Rabbi Borowitz taught theology at Hebrew Union College, the Reform rabbinical seminary. His teachings changed the approach of Reformism, where individual autonomy and the rejection of halacha were the main paradigm of the movement. He proposed a Judaism where the individual lives the biblical covenant with God, fulfilling his mitzvoth, commandments, while retaining the freedom to make his own religious decisions, based on knowledge and personal commitment.

Borowitz said that, derived from the ideas of the Enlightenment and Modernity, humankind thought that with the sole use of reason we would have solid and universal values. That we would find our ethical system for ourselves, since we are thinking beings. That we don’t need it imposed on us from outside, as divine commandments do. But that didn’t work, Eugene tells us. The Holocaust and its horrors proved otherwise. The people of Kant and Schiller, with all their culture, took evil to unimaginable extremes. We believed that reason and science would be the basis for elevating humanity to higher levels, but what they did was make everything relative and plunge humanity into a vacuum of values. Morality lost its religious basis.

Yet, Borowitz said, most Jews do not want to return to living in a ghetto. We can no longer renounce the benefits that modernity brought us, such as equality and pluralistic democracy. We, he said, non-Orthodox Jews, would like to be more religious and lead a «more Jewish» life, but without losing our right to determine for ourselves which aspects of Judaism we accept and observe.

He called it renewing the Covenant with God, bringing modernity, equality, and democratic pluralism into creative conversation with the particularities and traditional practices of rabbinic Judaism. It meant moving from a modern Judaism that sought to be universal to a postmodern Judaism that manifests itself in a particular truth. The reformism of modernity sought to conquer, control, and banish the past, while postmodernism rescues and allows some traditions of the past to influence the present and the future.

Borowitz did not consider himself a «rationalist.» His principles were grounded in his own particular experiences and those of his community, avoiding positions based on reason and the universal. But he also did not accept the orthodox position that denies the autonomy of the individual and only accepts complete obedience to the law, regardless of one’s own conscience.

Eugene Borowitz was undoubtedly one of the most influential thinkers of Reform Judaism. In his writings, he was able to reconcile personal freedom with the ancient tradition of Judaism.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Eugene B. Borowitz, «Renewing the Covenant,» and other sources.

Hermann Cohen (1842-1918) was born in Coswig, a town in central Germany with a small Jewish community. Despite its size, in 1800 the community received permission to build a synagogue on the same street where the Cohens would later live. Hermann’s father was both the cantor and the teacher of the community’s youth. The Cohen family home reflected traditional Jewish values. Gerson and Friederike Cohen, on Shabbat, welcomed Jewish travelers passing through the town. It was customary for the father to engage his guests in Talmudic discussions at the end of dinner. It was in this environment that Hermann’s deep Jewish roots were forged, which gave him a vast knowledge of Judaism and motivated him to take an active stance against antisemitism. Hermann studied at the Dessau Gymnasium, the Breslau Theological Seminary, and the universities of Breslau, Berlin, and Halle. He was one of the founders of the “Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaft des Judenthums«, the Society for the Study of the Science of Judaism. In 1873, he began his career as a professor at the University of Marburg. It was there that he wrote most of his works on mathematics and neo-Kantian philosophy. He died in Berlin in 1918.

Cohen wrote two books and more than sixty articles on Jewish philosophy. In them, he argues that the goal of religion is to fill in those aspects that define a moral life and that are beyond the capabilities of philosophy, such as, for example, understanding sin, revelation, repentance, anguish, and guilt. Philosophy only defines the universal, so it cannot deal with these kinds of concepts that arise only in relation to the individual. Therefore, it is religion, not philosophy, that teaches a person to be ethical, to face guilt, and to repent of their actions without abandoning their moral responsibility.

Cohen viewed Judaism as the purest monotheistic religion. He understood it as the religion of reason that would put an end to paganism and myths and ideally lead us to a world where ethical values ​​would be universal. He understood Judaism as the religion of ethical monotheism. He saw the coming of the Messiah more as the final stage in the development of a Jewish social ethic than as the arrival of a redeemer. He agreed with Kant that ethics should be universal.

Hermann Cohen’s influence on 19th-century Jewish philosophy was enormous. His emphasis on the universal ethics of Judaism, as the instrument for improving the world, allowed for the integration of Jews into modern society, but without losing their particularities. As a scientist, Cohen saw how the laws of the physical world are immutable, but ethical principles depend on human will for them to be fulfilled. He saw in God the rational explanation for why those principles should be adhered to. God and humankind are partners in the creation of a humanity governed by universal ethical principles.

Hermann Cohen significantly influenced the work of Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig. He differed with Buber, as he did not believe Zionism was the solution. He was an idealist: for him, ideas, principles, and values ​​took priority over reality. Hermann Cohen saw the world as what it could or should be, unlike those who only see it as it is.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: An Introduction to Modern Jewish Philosophy by N. M. Samuelson and other sources.

The Mishnah, the first written work of Jewish oral tradition, contains in its fourth book, «Nezikin,» which means «damages,» everything related to civil and commercial law. In the Talmud, ten tractates comment on the topics discussed in Nezikin. And for civil law alone, three of those ten were required. These tractates are: Bava Kamma, which means «the first gate,» deals with damages to persons and their property, loans and interest, and stolen goods; Bava Metzia, «the middle gate,» deals with lost and recovered property, fraud, usury, buying and selling, leasing, and the rights of wage earners; and Bava Batra, «the last gate,» deals with real estate, possessions, inheritances, partnerships, evidence, and testimony.

The Shulchan Aruch, the most widely used code of laws and precepts in Judaism, codifies in its fourth and final book, Choshen Mishpat, «Body of Judgment,» the laws of public, criminal, and private law discussed by our sages in Nezikin and its ten tractates in the Talmud. Choshen Mishpat is the least known of the four books of the Shulchan Aruch, for the simple fact that it is rarely used in daily Jewish practice. In most cases, when a legal matter arises, these are resolved within the laws of the country of residence.

Jewish civil law is a rather complicated subject. Not so much because of the number of laws it comprises, which are many, but because of its moral undertones. People are very zealous in defending their property. But this defense cannot be seen in isolation from the general moral code that governs the well-being of the entire society. Jewish law seeks, in a just and practical way, to strike a balance between the well-being of society at large and the property rights of an individual. This is the ethical foundation of civil law, as set forth by our sages.

Where do these commandments come from? From verses in the Torah, such as Exodus 22:9: «In every kind of fraud, whether it concerns an ox, a donkey, a sheep, garments, or anything lost, of which it may be said, ‘This is it,’ the case of both shall be brought before the judges; and whoever the judges find guilty shall pay double to his neighbor.” Some scholars, such as Frankel, believe that most of the legal cases dealt with in Talmudic law are similar to those in the Roman code. It should be remembered that the Mishnah was compiled during the time of Roman rule. But there is an important difference between the two codes: the Roman method seeks a single universal legal principle, while the Talmud is distinguished by legal promulgations based on specific cases, presented with precision and creativity, but with an ethical foundation.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: The Jewish Encyclopedia, The Steinzalt edition of the Talmud, and other sources.

“It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, boring, stifling, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes a relic instead of a living spring; when religion speaks only in the name of authority instead of with the voice of compassion, its message is meaningless.” Thus begins Abraham Joshua Heschel his book, “God in Search of Man.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) was born in Poland to a Hasidic family. He was descended from a prominent line of rabbis, on both his father’s and mother’s sides. He was educated in the traditional Orthodox manner, for which he received the title of rabbi, Smicha. He later earned his doctorate from the University of Berlin and was ordained as a liberal rabbi at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, where he studied with Chanoch Albeck, Ismar Elbogen, and Leo Baeck.

In October 1938, he was arrested in Frankfurt by the Gestapo and deported to Poland. Six weeks before the German invasion, Heschel managed to reach London with the help of Julian Morgenstern, president of the Hebrew Union College. Unfortunately, his entire family perished in the Holocaust. Back in the United States, in 1940, he began teaching at the Reform seminary in Cincinnati and in 1946 accepted a position as professor of Jewish ethics and mysticism at the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary, where he worked until his death.

In addition to writing a series of works that greatly influenced Jewish theology, Heschel was an activist in major social movements. He marched in Salem with Martin Luther King Jr., advocating for the rights of people of color. He said that walking with King, «it seemed as if his legs were praying.» He said that «racism is man’s gravest threat to man: the greatest hatred for the least reason.» He also actively opposed the Vietnam War. He represented the American Jewish community at the Second Vatican Council, where he successfully eliminated ancient discriminatory prayers and practices of the Catholic Church regarding the Jewish people. He argued that no religious community could claim a monopoly on religious truth. For him, «the opposite of goodness was not evil, but indifference.»

In his book «The Sabbath,» Heschel distinguishes between the «kingdom of space» and the «kingdom of time.» He argues that in our daily lives, we first attend to what our eyes perceive, what our fingers touch. Reality is translated into objects that occupy space. Time, on the other hand, is not perceived by the eyes nor can it be touched by the fingers. Many religions believe their deity resides in space, in cathedrals, rivers, or mountains. In the realm of space, one has power over things, but in the realm of time, one is oneself. The highest goal of spiritual life is not the accumulation of things, but sacred moments. What God first designated as sacred was not a thing or a place, but a time: the Sabbath. Judaism, says Heschel, teaches us to appreciate the sanctity of time. For Heschel, Jewish cathedrals are palaces in time, not in space.

By Marcos Gojman:

Bibliography: Abraham Joshua Heschel: “God in Search of Man,” “The Sabbath,” and other sources.

Reform Judaism was founded in Germany in the early 19th century, as a result of the Emancipation that brought Jews out of the ghetto and gave them equal rights. The first Reform synagogue was founded in Seesen, Germany, in 1810, and in the United States, it was founded in Charleston in 1836.

From its beginnings, classical Reform Judaism eliminated the mandatory observance of the commandments. It views Judaism as a constantly evolving revelation, where its ethical aspects are more important than its rituals. It places greater importance on its members having a personal spiritual experience than on adhering to a set of established beliefs and rites. Reform Jews engage in dialogue with tradition, listen to it, and then practice their Judaism in their own way. This highly individualistic stance resulted in a lack of clear principles governing the general conduct of its members, which allowed for a great diversity of rituals in their temples.

They introduced unison prayer in the country’s language, the use of the organ and a choir, weekly sermons, the attire of the rabbi and the chazzan that imitated Christian pastors, and encouraged Friday night services to allow their members to continue with their work on the Sabbath. They consider the teachings of the biblical prophets to be central to Judaism, so Tikkun Olam, the betterment of the world, is central to their community activity. They rejected the concept of Judaism as a people and considered themselves citizens of the Jewish religion, thus opposing the Zionist movement.

In the wake of the tragedy of the Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, the situation of Soviet Jewry at the time, and especially the effect that the Six-Day War had on the entire Jewish world, the movement changed. The new Reform Judaism now accepts that they are part of a global Jewish community, and therefore participates in and supports Israel in all areas. They also propose a «return to tradition,» reintroducing customs that held sentimental value, such as the Bar Mitzvah ceremony or using more Hebrew in prayer, although their members and congregations have the final say. They promote complete equality in terms of gender and sexual preference. Their Outreach program seeks to attract mixed marriages, with the goal of integrating non-Jewish couples. In 1983, they recognized that Judaism could be transmitted through both the mother and the father, as long as the children receive a Jewish education. Their pluralistic stance attracted new members, making it the largest Jewish movement in the United States.

In 1999, they adopted the «Declaration of Principles of Reform Judaism» in Pittsburgh, which was approved after heated discussion among delegates. Even so, each community and each member of Reform Judaism is free to follow these principles or not. The recommendations of the governing bodies of the Reform movement are not binding. Eugene Borowitz tells us: “Reform Jews can choose for themselves not only what they believe but also how they should act as Jews. This freedom of choice is unusual in religion, because most religions emphasize discipline and obedience.” In the Reform movement, everyone can design their own Judaism like a custom-made suit.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Explaining Reform Judaism, by Eugene B. Borowitz and Naomi Patz, and other sources.

The rabbis’ great achievement after the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE) and the failed Bar Kokhva rebellion (132 CE) was to adapt Judaism so that it was no longer tied to the Temple and now based its existence on portable elements, such as the Torah, prayer, and halakha, among other things. The rabbis sought to ensure that people everywhere could learn about Judaism in a simple way, for which they wrote midrashim, short writings that sought to explain religious rules (Midrash Halakha) or non-normative topics (Midrash Agadah).

The Agadah, which in Hebrew means to relate, covers a wide range of topics. They range from interpretations of biblical texts, legends that do not appear in the Bible, stories developed about biblical characters and their achievements, sermons that were given in ancient synagogues, fragments of popular folklore, anecdotes about the lives of the wise men and their times, and all rabbinic thought in general, such as their ideas about God, creation, the reason for the commandments, etc., in addition to popular topics about magic, angels, demons, folk medicine, astrology, and others.

The rabbis wrote these midrashim from the late Second Temple period until after the 11th century CE, and they can be found in a large number of texts, such as the Midrash Tanhuma, written between the 7th and 10th centuries CE, which in its section Pekudei 3 tells us: “Before a human being begins to form in his mother’s womb, God decrees what he will ultimately become: male or female, weak or strong, poor or rich, short or tall, lanky or handsome, skinny or fat, humble or daring… But God does not decide whether a person will be righteous or wicked, a matter that He leaves to man. Then He orders the angel in charge of souls in Paradise to bring Him a particular soul and asks it to enter the drop of semen the angel holds in his hand. The soul resists, saying… Why do you want me, who am pure and holy, to enter that drop?” fetid? God answers: The world I am about to bring you into will be more beautiful than the one in which you have lived. The soul enters the drop and the angel leads it to the mother’s womb. Once inside, the angel lights a lamp so that the new being can see the world from one end to the other. The angel then leads her to the Garden of Eden, where he shows her the righteous seated in glory with crowns on their heads. Do you know who they are, the angel asks? No, my lord. In the beginning, all these you see were formed like you in the mother’s womb. Then they went out into the world and fulfilled the precepts of the Torah, which is why they earned the merit of being here. Just so you know, said the angel, in the end you too will leave this world.”

In this small section alone (the Midrash is much longer) we find a wealth of concepts and values ​​that, as Maimonides said, must be approached metaphorically, not literally. This narrative is not found in the Bible. It comes from the creativity of one of our sages. They were interested in understanding all facets of the world and, in the case of this midrash, explaining what it takes to be a righteous man. Studying midrashim is embarking on an extraordinary journey that leads us to the profound values ​​of Judaism.

By Marcos Gojman

Bibliography: Sefer Ha Aggadah, by Chaim Nachman Bialik and Yehoshua Hana Ravnitzky, and other sources.