Shalom all! Our second day of Jewish History in Kitat Kalanit was great. It seems like the students are starting to get over their jet lag a bit. Many of them have created and started updating their blogs. Check 'em out from the list on the right. For the first part of class we did a general overview of issues affecting Israel. I think an important part of spending a semester here is learning about issues that Israel, as a Jewish state is dealing with. I gave a brief overview of our neighbors: Lebanon (war-torn, home base to Hezbollah, a terrorist organization supported by Iran), Syria (in the middle of a three way civil war between long-time dictator Assad, original rebels, who were mostly secular, and Islamist rebels, like Al Qaeda), Jordan (ruled by a "benevolent" monarch, 50% Palestinian, friendly peace with Israel), and Egypt (one of the main "Arab Spring" countries, historically important because of the Nile and its large population). We also mentioned a few issues within Israel: the thousands of African refugees and what should be done about it (our obligation as Jews to help the less fortunate, especially given our own experiences trying to leave Europe compared with the economic and demographic difficulties involved in absorbing them), the divide between secular and ultra-orthodox (especially regarding ultra-orthodox men not working or serving in the army) and the Gaza blockade and a short discussion about which sorts of materials Israel should allow to enter the strip (construction materials being one contentious item).
After spending yesterday trying to deal with the "Jewish" part of "Jewish History", today we started to deal with the "History" part. We talked about the difficulty (and probably impossibility) of "unbiased history." The obvious problem is that everyone has an agenda. An account of America's westward expansion will sound quite different from the perspective of an Iroquois. But even if that weren't true we'd still have to deal with the fact that we never get to see all the evidence. The materials that have made it to our generation (be it art, architecture, texts, oral traditions, pottery shards or anything else you can think of) are all we have to go on. So even if a certain type of pottery was quite rare, if it's what we've seen the most in archaeological ruins (perhaps because it survived best for some reason) we might reasonably conclude it was a prominent form of pottery.
Having finally dealt with the name of the course (you can see why covering 4000 years in four months is so tough!), we had to decide where to begin. Even a much simpler question, such as "When does American history begin?" turns out to be quite complicated. Suggestions in class included Columbus's arrival, the Declaration of Independence and the Vikings brief visit years before Columbus. Instead of trying to give ourselves a firm start date we switched gears and tried to talk about which sources we might use to talk about the beginning of Jewish history. While there are a few external sources we'll refer to as often as possible (such as the Merneptah Stele, generally considered the earliest mention of "Israel" in external sources), the Tanakh is far and away the most detailed source for early Jewish history (and many aspects of Middle Eastern history in general).
It's convenient for our purpose that the Tanakh tells us so much, but is it history? Some students had no problem using the Tanakh as history, despite some of the supernatural events (or divinely caused events, depending on your point of view). Others felt like it's a religious text, and as such can't be used for any modern conception of "history". Most students fell somewhere in the middle, accepting that it's an important historical source, while taking much of what's written with a grain of salt.
To delve a little further into this question I had the students read the story of Noah (starts in Genesis 6 for those of you following along at home) in the Tanakh. Several of the students noted that the story seems to repeat itself, and it also has differing details in different sections. For example, is Noah supposed to bring two pair of animals or seven? There are hundreds of traditional explanations for these seeming discrepancies; perhaps the Tanakh is emphasizing certain points, or perhaps there should be two of some animals and seven of others. We then read the story divided in two (each verse is put in one version or the other, none of them are used twice) and I think some of the students were quite surprised to see that both versions end up being a pretty complete version of the story, something that certainly wouldn't happen with other books. The two versions also have different tones and somewhat different vocabulary. Given these facts the conclusion of most modern Westerners is that there are likely different authors, from different time periods and/or regions with one or more editor. This idea is known as the Documentary Hypothesis.
For traditional Jews this is unequivocally blasphemy. And, as you can imagine, considering the amount of time traditional Jewish scholars spent studying the Tanakh, they noticed many of the issues I've mentioned (along with numerous other seeming inconsistencies, such as the fact that Moses, who received the Torah from Hashem, dies before the end of the Tanakh) and found solutions that don't involve multiple authors. For Reform Jews, the documentary hypothesis is both wonderful and extraordinarily problematic. On the one hand, we can use our modern analytical skills on our holy text. We don't have to feel like we left our critical thinking skills outside. On the other hand, if the Tanakh has multiple authors, isn't it just some book?
Even though there's plenty of evidence pointing toward multiple authorship the case is hardly clear cut. In both Christianity and Islam Hashem's will is made known to the people through a central prophet/leader. In Judaism, by contrast, Hashem appears before all of Am Yisrael at Mt. Sinai (Genesis 19). If the Tanakh is merely a human creation, this story is problematic. At what point can you start telling the people that their parents or grandparents or great grandparents saw Hashem at Mt. Sinai? Wouldn't they wonder why their parents hadn't told them about it? Does this mean there's at least something divine about the Tanakh? Also, I feel confident we can all think of examples in which science was wrong (the world isn't flat, the sun doesn't revolve around the earth, atoms are not the smallest particles, nutrition is more than balancing carbohydrates, proteins and fats). So while the modern, rational, scientific perspective is an important and useful one for thinking about the world, it may not be the final word.
After trying to think a bit about the origin of the Tanakh, I asked the students whether that really matters. Perhaps the mere fact that the brightest Jewish minds have been studying the Tanakh for thousands of years is enough? If so, would another book have served just as well? Also, there's other famous literature whose authorship is unclear. Homer may well have been compiled from many different sources. To this day there are arguments about who the real Shakespeare is. Their books have survived because they say something beautiful and/or true about the human condition. Is that enough to make a book holy? Does are central book need to be holy? Is it enough if it's divinely inspired but corrupted by inevitable human error? Does it matter?
After spending yesterday trying to deal with the "Jewish" part of "Jewish History", today we started to deal with the "History" part. We talked about the difficulty (and probably impossibility) of "unbiased history." The obvious problem is that everyone has an agenda. An account of America's westward expansion will sound quite different from the perspective of an Iroquois. But even if that weren't true we'd still have to deal with the fact that we never get to see all the evidence. The materials that have made it to our generation (be it art, architecture, texts, oral traditions, pottery shards or anything else you can think of) are all we have to go on. So even if a certain type of pottery was quite rare, if it's what we've seen the most in archaeological ruins (perhaps because it survived best for some reason) we might reasonably conclude it was a prominent form of pottery.
Having finally dealt with the name of the course (you can see why covering 4000 years in four months is so tough!), we had to decide where to begin. Even a much simpler question, such as "When does American history begin?" turns out to be quite complicated. Suggestions in class included Columbus's arrival, the Declaration of Independence and the Vikings brief visit years before Columbus. Instead of trying to give ourselves a firm start date we switched gears and tried to talk about which sources we might use to talk about the beginning of Jewish history. While there are a few external sources we'll refer to as often as possible (such as the Merneptah Stele, generally considered the earliest mention of "Israel" in external sources), the Tanakh is far and away the most detailed source for early Jewish history (and many aspects of Middle Eastern history in general).
It's convenient for our purpose that the Tanakh tells us so much, but is it history? Some students had no problem using the Tanakh as history, despite some of the supernatural events (or divinely caused events, depending on your point of view). Others felt like it's a religious text, and as such can't be used for any modern conception of "history". Most students fell somewhere in the middle, accepting that it's an important historical source, while taking much of what's written with a grain of salt.
To delve a little further into this question I had the students read the story of Noah (starts in Genesis 6 for those of you following along at home) in the Tanakh. Several of the students noted that the story seems to repeat itself, and it also has differing details in different sections. For example, is Noah supposed to bring two pair of animals or seven? There are hundreds of traditional explanations for these seeming discrepancies; perhaps the Tanakh is emphasizing certain points, or perhaps there should be two of some animals and seven of others. We then read the story divided in two (each verse is put in one version or the other, none of them are used twice) and I think some of the students were quite surprised to see that both versions end up being a pretty complete version of the story, something that certainly wouldn't happen with other books. The two versions also have different tones and somewhat different vocabulary. Given these facts the conclusion of most modern Westerners is that there are likely different authors, from different time periods and/or regions with one or more editor. This idea is known as the Documentary Hypothesis.
For traditional Jews this is unequivocally blasphemy. And, as you can imagine, considering the amount of time traditional Jewish scholars spent studying the Tanakh, they noticed many of the issues I've mentioned (along with numerous other seeming inconsistencies, such as the fact that Moses, who received the Torah from Hashem, dies before the end of the Tanakh) and found solutions that don't involve multiple authors. For Reform Jews, the documentary hypothesis is both wonderful and extraordinarily problematic. On the one hand, we can use our modern analytical skills on our holy text. We don't have to feel like we left our critical thinking skills outside. On the other hand, if the Tanakh has multiple authors, isn't it just some book?
Even though there's plenty of evidence pointing toward multiple authorship the case is hardly clear cut. In both Christianity and Islam Hashem's will is made known to the people through a central prophet/leader. In Judaism, by contrast, Hashem appears before all of Am Yisrael at Mt. Sinai (Genesis 19). If the Tanakh is merely a human creation, this story is problematic. At what point can you start telling the people that their parents or grandparents or great grandparents saw Hashem at Mt. Sinai? Wouldn't they wonder why their parents hadn't told them about it? Does this mean there's at least something divine about the Tanakh? Also, I feel confident we can all think of examples in which science was wrong (the world isn't flat, the sun doesn't revolve around the earth, atoms are not the smallest particles, nutrition is more than balancing carbohydrates, proteins and fats). So while the modern, rational, scientific perspective is an important and useful one for thinking about the world, it may not be the final word.
After trying to think a bit about the origin of the Tanakh, I asked the students whether that really matters. Perhaps the mere fact that the brightest Jewish minds have been studying the Tanakh for thousands of years is enough? If so, would another book have served just as well? Also, there's other famous literature whose authorship is unclear. Homer may well have been compiled from many different sources. To this day there are arguments about who the real Shakespeare is. Their books have survived because they say something beautiful and/or true about the human condition. Is that enough to make a book holy? Does are central book need to be holy? Is it enough if it's divinely inspired but corrupted by inevitable human error? Does it matter?
Wow! I am SO envious of my kid for being a part of this program (and I don't think he's even in this particular class)! What an amazing opportunity it is to be able to study history from this perspective and from a teacher who prompts students to consider such broad questions.
ReplyDeletePersonally I don’t know where I believe our Jewish history starts. Many of the traditions that my family participates in are things passed down from generation and we continue to do them because we see our other Jewish friends doing it. I don’t want to say that I don’t believe in the story’s said in the Tanakh but a lot of them sound unrealistic and a little fairy tale like, such as Noah’s Ark. All Jewish people have different views on traditions but the story’s in the Tanakh are universal to Jews all over the world and brings us together. Therefore I believe if we had to pick one place to start our Jewish history I would use the stories in the Tanakh because all Jews agree on the stories so its a good place to start our history.
ReplyDeleteThat's a really interesting point, Alexandra. It sounds like you're saying that the stories themselves don't matter that much. What's important is that all of Am Yisrael has the same stories. If that's true, do you think we could use other stories? Could we have something else that connects all of us?
ReplyDeletevery interesting
ReplyDelete