From Sinai to the Modern World: The Journey of Judaism and the Jewish People – Part 1

The Relationship Between Judaism and Modern Israel

All of these are words with distinct yet not necessarily related meanings. Strictly speaking, we couldn’t even build an honest Venn diagram utilizing those words because while there is some overlap, they most certainly are not synonymous terms. Not every Jew is a Zionist. Not every Israeli is Jewish. Not every Jew even necessarily follows the religion of Judaism. There is much to unpack, so let’s go all the way back to the beginning.

With the divine revelation on Sinai, a new and unique national religion¹ was born. This nascent faith was unique yet relatively typical in its national and territorial nature. A theocratic confederation emerged at this holy mountain in the desert, one that would become the theocratic Kingdom of Israel. More than one thousand years later, that kingdom would divide into the “Northern Kingdom” (known as Israel) and the “Southern Kingdom” (known as Judah). Generally speaking, the Southern Kingdom comprised the Tribe of Judah, the Tribe of Benjamin, and the Levites that inhabited the cities in those territories. The ten remaining tribes formed the Northern Kingdom.

These two Israelite kingdoms generally followed the “Israelite” religion throughout the monarchy. That all changed with the Babylonian Exile. Israelites and Israelite religion went into the Babylonian Exile—Jews and Judaism came out of it, but with a few notable differences. The returning exiles were focused on rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. Hence, we refer to this era as the “Second Temple period.” How much we know about the development of Judaism in the early Second Temple period is a matter of scholarly debate. However, the historian Josephus offered a brief outline of how two primary sects emerged, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, and how the latter fractured into several sects. At this period, the words Jew (Judean) and Judaism arose. “Jew” described an ethnicity encompassing more than one tribe, referring specifically to the indigenous peoples that originated from the Kingdom (later “Satrapy”) of Judah. “Judaism” is a modern term for the ethnic religion of those people.

Until the mid-second century, Judaism expected its adherents to have a personal relationship and experience with the Divine. This emphasis shifted after a series of failed revolutions based on metaphysical and prophetic experiences. Until this point, Judaism saw a relationship with God and faithfulness to the Torah as necessary to bring about the final redemption. Following the various Jewish attempts to resist Rome, study and faithful observance of Torah re-emerged as the primary focus. This development resulted in an explosion of literature addressing how to keep the various commandments of the Torah in their most minute details. The Mishnah and Talmud emerged as the movement’s two primary texts, with much of the rest being commentary on them. We’re not suggesting Judaism’s mystical side disappeared entirely. It just passed into the background and became the provenance of scholars who wanted to broaden their horizons.

During this period, Judaism became largely monolithic. As one would expect in a movement of this size, there were minor national differences, and others were tied to the significant academies. Critical points of liturgy and practice were universal. This state of affairs continued until the Enlightenment (c. 17th century) when Judaism branched out in several directions. Four unique branches of “mystical Judaism” emerged: 

The Vilna Gaon

The Baal Shem Tov

The RaMChaL 

The RaShaSh   

These groups tended to be regionally localized, so while they differ somewhat, they share many essential features. Each tried to revitalize Judaism, or what would become known as Orthodox Judaism, during this period. As Judaism came up for air after 500 years of persecution, finally having a chance to breathe a bit, Jews began to see dry ritual as lacking. In response, Jewish scholars of the time sought to breathe life into it by reviving Judasim’s mystical aspects, which encouraged personal transformation and relationship with God. Another critical feature was seeing the ritual as more than just faithfulness to the Torah, but participating in redemption by building the kingdom one observance at a time. This emphasis led to an explosion of sects of Hasidic Jews, Misnagdim (European Jews who prefer the Vilna Gaon over Hassidic Philosophy), and Sephardic Judaism (Jews from Spain, North Africa and the Middle East that accepted either the Rashash or RaMChaL). Later, the modern Orthodox movement emerged from this, with less emphasis on the mysticism from centuries earlier.

Not all Jews during the Enlightenment decided to embrace mysticism. Some chose to take a more humanistic approach. The “Reform Movement” was born in a synagogue called Adath Jeshurun in Amsterdam. This Jewish denomination emphasizes the evolving nature of Judaism, the superiority of its ethical aspects to its ceremonial ones, and belief in a continuous revelation closely intertwined with human reason and not limited to the theophany at Mount Sinai. An intensely liberal strand of Judaism, it is characterized by little stress on ritual and personal observance, as it regards Jewish law as non-binding and the individual Jew as autonomous.

Reform Judaism’s libertine mindset leaves it vulnerable to external influences and progressive values.

Interestingly, these two movements—Orthodox and Reform—gave birth to a third: Conservative Judaism. Under the leadership of Rabbi Zecharias Frankel, Conservative Judaism values the scholastic Enlightenment and Jewish acculturation central to the Reform movement while maintaining a highly theistic view of a personal God. Frankel and his followers (and their successors) rejected the idea of defined theology as foreign to Judaism and saw praxis as dependent upon community acceptance. In other words, intellectual work matters but not apart from the community’s consensus.

Another “child” of the Enlightenment—one typically embraced by all three of the major denominations of Judaism—is the ideology known as Zionism. Recently, outsiders have imposed unconventional definitions upon Zionism, even to the point that it is becoming increasingly challenging to find valid information on Zionism. “Zionism” refers to Jewish self-determination. More specifically, Zionism works for the establishment of a Jewish state within indigenous Jewish lands (namely historical Judea). However, not all Jews are necessarily Zionists. With the rise of Fascist “Blood and Soil Nationalism,” it became increasingly clear that Jewish existence outside of its own land would only ever be tenuous and that the Jewish people would only ever have genuine self-determination in their land. One need not be a Jew to be a Zionist. Even before the rebirth of the State of Israel (c. 1948), many Christians were Zionists. 

“Blood and Soil Nationalism” came to a head in the early 20th century, leading to widespread persecution of Jews worldwide and specifically in Germany under the Nationalist Socialist (Nazi) party. This development resulted in the industrialized extermination of six million Jews and people of Jewish descent. While “Jewish” had always been an ethnicity, it primarily referred to people who practiced the Jewish faith. As a historical norm, if one converted to another religion (or renounced all faith), one was generally no longer considered “Jewish.” However, as a tool of Nazi demographic reforms, anyone with a single Jewish grandparent was considered Jewish. While “Jewish” had always been an ethnicity, this shift served to highlight that fact in a sinister way and would become important when the modern nation of Israel was born.

Following the horrors of early 20th-century European nationalism and the nightmare of the Holocaust, Israel was reborn as a modern nation-state. Central to this historic development was the opportunity for ethnically Jewish people to return to their indigenous lands. Based on the Nuremberg laws, anyone who had a Jewish grandparent possessed a legal right to immigrate to Israel. This process was complicated by the fact that the land of Israel was not sitting empty. There were Bedouins, Samaritans, Druze, Arab Christians, and Arab Muslims living in the land. Israel offered all these people full and equal citizenship, which many accepted. So, while Israel currently has 6.5 million citizens of Jewish descent, it also has 3 million citizens of other ethnic descent. Consequently, not every Israeli is Jewish.

As the Middle East continues to dominate our headlines, there is no shortage of voices opining over what truly is a complex and diverse situation. It’s nearly impossible for anyone to hope to make sense of these current events without having a cursory understanding of who is involved.

Hopefully, this overview sheds some light on these terms—and Judaism in general—so you can have a better understanding of reality.

¹ We shouldn’t think of “religion” in our modern sense, as the ancient world typically didn’t delineate between citizenship, culture, and religious practice/worship.