Judaism
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE JEWS
By: Jim Lederman(printed with the kind permission of Jim Lederman)
Modern Jewish history began in 586 B.C.E. It is a story of experimentation, regression, self-interest, opportunism, religious, feudal and colonialist oppression, repeated failures in governance and occasional, lasting, universally-relevant insights. The traits, values, beliefs and actions that led to the Jews' social and economic development were only rarely the result of a revolution in thinking and practice. For the most part, the culture was the product of willful, incremental and cumulative change.
The tale begins with the conquest of the Kingdom of Judea by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. Judea was a petty monarchy trapped between the cyclical great empires of the Nile Valley and Mesopotamia. For hundreds of years, Judea had been led successively, by warriors, charismatic leaders, a theocracy, and a hereditary monarchy that shared its powers with a hereditary priestly class. Like many other nations, the Judeans' spiritual life and social order was focused on their cult of sacrifice and, in their case, was centered in the political capital of Jerusalem.
As was customary at the time, the defeated residents of Judea were exiled. The same fate had befallen the residents of the Kingdom of Israel (the so-called Lost Ten Tribes) after they had been conquered by the Assyrians in 722 B.C.E.
The Judeans, however, carried with them a number of concepts-many of which differed fundamentally from those of the nations surrounding them-that were to be essential to their future survival. These included a realization of the fallibility of leadership, an evolving codex of law, a tradition of social and political criticism, a growing belief in the idea of personal responsibility before God, and the beginnings of Messianism.
Unlike the sagas of great leaders recorded by the contemporaneous nations around them, the Judeans inserted into their stories of each previous national hero- whether it was Abraham, Moses, David or Solomon-an element of personal moral failure. Thus, no leader or pretender could claim perfection or omniscience without being derided. The idea of leadership by popular selection, rather than leadership by right or privilege was just beginning to take hold. It would prove to be one of the most vexing issues the people would face during the next two and a half millennia. The codex, which had been rediscovered during the reign of Josiah (692-609 B.C.E) and eventually became the Torah, was portable; and, since its moral legal teachings were believed to be God-given, they were neither locale-specific nor subject to the whims of Kings. The very exile the people were suffering with was seen to vindicate, for the displaced Judeans, the belief in the need for and the efficacy of self-criticism. For it was those social and political critics, who came to be known as the Prophets, who had predicted the fall of the kingdom because of the people's moral failings in their relations with each other. With the fall of the Temple, emphasis also shifted somewhat from exculpating sins through sacrifice to individual self-criticism, activist repentance and personal responsibility to act within the law. Unlike the explanations or justifications for individual or national failures, such as fatalism or the hope for an after-life that would be better, that were advanced by other nations, the new Messianism was forward-looking and centered on a belief that the Messiah could be hastened by the collective good deeds and piety of a mass of individuals. The need to know what God decreed as being correct human behavior was about to become a national obsession.
Having only one dogma, recited at least three times a day, "Hear O Israel, the Lord Your God. The Lord is one," the religion of the Judeans was about to become one focused almost entirely on what was believed to be divinely-inspired legislation regulating human activity. In addition to the laws that regulated their own lives, the Jews judged the morality or immorality of others by whether those non-Jews obeyed the seven, less-stringent Noahide Laws of the Torah-no matter what, and no matter how abhorrent, the non-Jews other underlying beliefs and dogmas might be.
The minimalist belief structure and the dependency on legislation was about to become the jumping off point for a mass project in the engineering of human behavior.
The exile was relatively short and was canceled by Cyrus of Persia when he conquered Babylon in 538 B.C.E. Liberation seemed to validate all the prophesies and the value of the norms the Judeans had brought with them. It had been norms such as keeping the Sabbath, circumcision and the ban on intermarriage that both separated them from their surrounding neighbors and provided cohesion for the group-thus acting to prevent total assimilation.
However, only a minority took advantage of their new-found liberty and returned to the Land of Israel. From here on, the fate of the Hebrews would not be totally at the mercy of the vicissitudes of one geographic locale. In Egypt, a sizeable community of Judeans, which had sided with the Egyptians against Nebuchadnezzar, had also taken up residence, especially in the Nile Delta and Aswan.
The Diaspora had begun, and with it, the need for a common language of discourse and secure lines of communication. To that end, there was a requirement for commerce to carry the communications efficiently and cheaply, and a common system of jurisprudence to settle commercial disputes that might otherwise disrupt the flow of information, services and goods.
Lacking a coastline (which was controlled by the Philistines) or a navigable river, but sited almost midway along the Fertile Crescent, the Judeans were in a perfect position to undertake overland trade. They had co-religionists at both terminals of the trade route and were in need of additional income since agriculture was always subject to droughts or attacks by locusts or the predations of plundering, invading armies. International commerce meant that there had to be as much domestic stability as possible. The primary means used to create stability was enforcement of the rule of law. To that end, Ezra, the leader of the returnees, decreed that the Torah should be read out at regular public assemblies-a custom that remains to this day. Occasional oral readings, however, were insufficient; and widespread literacy was also required to prevent criminals from claiming that they were ignorant of the law. Fortunately, there was a class of individuals, the Levites, who were both educated, and landless and in need of jobs. They were an ideal cadre to become teachers.
Trade also meant that the merchant class had to become multi-lingual. As will be shown below, with the compilation of the Talmud in the 5th century C.E., mass multi-lingualism was to become a defining national characteristic for other reasons as well. Unlike some other cultures before and since, there was almost no resistance to learning other languages. A very similar situation was to be repeated later on the plains of Poland.
With the need for multi-lingualism, combined with the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander of Macedon (332 B.C.E), Greek was introduced-and with it the entire compendium of Hellenistic culture. While the wealthy and educated were drawn to Greek culture, the religious authorities were far less sanguine about its impact. A tension developed between the commercial elite, who were and are the primary tax base for secular activities as well as the source of financial support for the overseers of religious purity, and the religious authorities over how much and which elements of a foreign culture were and are admissible. It is a tension that continues to this day.
This tension created a fascinating and unique dynamic. While the established and wealthy classes needed literacy to accumulate financial wealth, the religious authorities (unlike in later Catholic Europe) discovered that they needed mass literacy in order to maintain their position against the assault by pagan influences. In the past, the unlettered had had a tendency to be enticed into believing in the superstitions and beliefs of the pantheists around them-notably the cults of Baal (to whom children were sacrificed) and Astarte (the goddess of love). Mass literacy, however, despite its high cost, offered the possibility of mass indoctrination in Mosaic Law at an early age-with the human products of such popular schooling becoming a strong political and social counterweight to the power of the Hellenizing wealthy and cosmopolitan. The decision had far-reaching economic and social repercussions. In purely econometric terms, henceforth a greater social value would be placed on national unity and strength than on individual gain.
During the prophetic period, power and wealth had led to corruption within the religious and civil elite and the financial ruin of the agrarian masses. There was a justified fear that the curse would return. It was a fact of life that the more centralized and inbred the regime, the greater the chances for high-level corruption. The problem is still being tackled today in different forms. The religious leadership understood that corruption was a source of social unrest and, in the past, had even led to revolution and regicide.
The situation was particularly acute when, during periods of drought or pestilence poor farmers would take loans at high interest from those with acquired capital, which often could not be repaid. As during the Great Depression in the United States, homes and farms were repossessed. Destitute farmers sold their children and even themselves into slavery. This was not just a social issue, though. As a threat to national stability, and as a means necessary to hold the potentially-corruptible cosmopolitan wealthy in check, popular support for a voluntary, awe, obedience and moral-based, rather than a coercive, fear-based religious code of behavior was a political issue too. The idea of Hell as a threat-and even the very word-is never mentioned in the Torah. Instead, so that God would not be vengeful for individual and collective human misdeeds, there is a long list of proactive obligations to the Almighty that were in the process of becoming entrenched.At this time, the idea of an afterlife, apparently appropriated from the Hellenists, appears. However, it was in no way a vision that permitted believers to ignore the here and now. The very opposite was true. It was anti-predeterministic and affirmed freedom of will and accountability before God and man. The concept of fear and otherworldly devils became important only with the advent of mysticism in the 10th century. They were also among the first elements to be excised from the belief structure by the 18th century reformers.
One means to control corruption was to institute readings from the books of the Prophets at the same time the Torah was read-a practice that continues to this day. However, admonishments were insufficient. In order to ensure the continued support of the masses, the priests enforced the sabbatical and jubilee years when the slaves would be freed and land returned to its original owners. That practice continued until what were to become known as the Jews became nationally landless following the Roman conquest. As will be shown further on, following that conquest, new practical ameliorants had to be found to maintain popular religious and national loyalty during times of physical and financial duress-without undermining the sources of religious and civil taxation. As well, the list of proactive obligations had to be clarified and codified.
To alleviate the uncertainties caused by the rapid social and economic change that was then occurring, the religious and civil authorities were increasingly compelled to expand the law by delivering judgments that would create universally-binding precedents within the community. Since it was believed that continuous divine revelation had come to an end with the completion of the prophetic period, a new concept that would allow for authorized and popularly-sanctioned changes in what was claimed to be an ultimate and unalterable body of divine law was needed.
A concept that had evolved during the Babylonian exile-that of continuous interpretation of the law by scholars-was reinvigorated. The introduction of scholarship as a profession open to anyone was to have a profound effect. It introduced the idea of a state or community-supported meritocracy and a new and alternate vehicle for social mobility for those lacking in hereditary credentials for public office, or business acumen, or financial capital. This form of social mobility, while slow in developing, gathered enormous momentum with the advent of the rabbinic period that arose contemporaneously with the arrival of Roman influence and power.
By the second century B.C.E., Judea was divided into three religious/political camps remarkably similar in ideology to those that exist in Israel today. The Pharisees, by far the most popular party, favored legal interpretation and adaptation. The Sadducees were change-resistant, believed in word literalism when it came to divine law, and were affiliated with the aristocracy and monarchy. Using today's political language, the Sadducees can be termed progress-resistant, politically-reactionary, hierarchical and autocratic. The Pharisees can be called centrist to liberal progressives, populists, legal expansionists, and diffusers of power. Both groups were led by renowned scholars, who came to be known as "rabbis" (masters) who used newly-founded academies as their political power bases. Among their major differences was the Sadducic emphasis on the centralized sacrificial cult based in Jerusalem, while the Pharisees offered prayer in local meeting-houses, that came to be known as synagogues, as a legitimate alternative. The Zealots were militant religious nationalists and usually led by warriors and successful generals.
Most of the battles for power between the Pharisees and the Sadducees were fought out in the seventy-member Sanhedrin-the highest court of religious and civil law. By this point, scholars had largely displaced political appointees in legal adjudication. The Zealots, an offshoot of the Pharisees, operated largely independently and gained their followers through preaching and displays of success in armed combat.
The method of discussion in the Sanhedrin was a direct import from the open and aggressive debating formats used by the Hellenic philosophers. This technique meshed well with the direct speech and absence of generalities and flowery language that the Judeans had become accustomed to from the Torah narratives. The form was dialectical in nature and with slight modifications, came to be known as "Talmudic logic." Significantly, the debates were open to anyone who chose to attend. And, since Jews were forbidden by the rabbis to take part in Hellenistic physical sports because they were also integral to and reminders of pagan religious festivities, by the time of the Talmudic period, the intellectual jousting matches could attract thousands of spectators.
In general, the Pharisees were in the ascendancy and won most of the debates over a period of two centuries. However, in what came to have important future ramifications, the dissenting arguments were scrupulously recorded.
To give but one example of the intellectual acrobatics and enormous change in law that the Pharisees were able to effect, the legal requirements needed to impose capital punishment were altered beyond previous recognition. While the Torah is replete with listings of capital crimes, the rabbis, by majority vote, decided that the death penalty could only be imposed if there were two witnesses to the crime, who were not related to each other, who had personally warned the perpetrator not to act as he did. That decision effectively put an end to capital punishment. When it came down to crimes against property or personal injury, the rabbis sided with the principles of reconciliation, compensation and restitution over imprisonment or death-or, during the Roman period, an appearance in the gladiators' ring.
Meanwhile, the intransigence of the Zealots led to three hopeless wars with the Romans that, in turn, led to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 73 A.D. and, eventually, the total loss of statehood.
The loss of the Temple and the Roman cancellation of the monarchy was the death-knell for the Sadducees and the monarchy-but not for the idea of orthodoxy as such. The priestly class, unless its members chose and were capable of becoming scholars, was made almost irrelevant-and is so today. Many Judeans were carried off to Rome as slaves. Others left for places as far away as today's Yemen. It is at this point, with the beginning of the final dispersion, that this people can begin to be called "Jews," rather than locale-specific Judeans.
Fortunately, some of the leading rabbis managed to escape the inferno in Jerusalem and joined with others in the town of Yavneh to try to reconstitute some form of, at least, a semi-autonomous government. A basis already existed. The system of local governance that had evolved under the Pharisees in the second and first centuries B.C.E. was modified and expanded. This political and social construct became the basis for a state within a state; and, eventually, in a further modified form, a model for almost all future Diaspora communities.
There was no formal separation between religion and state, but there was a definite division of labor. The rabbis and scholars were charged with legislation through biblical interpretation and reinterpretation, teaching and the adjudication of disputes. This was as close to the Platonic ideal of the philosopher king as any nation has ever reached. What might be termed the "lay leadership" was mandated to manage the day-to-day affairs of the community. Reading from the Torah and leading prayer services was given over to any male member of the community-each in turn. Henceforth, there would be no intervention or intercession by priests between man and God. However, in later centuries, Messianic mystics and their followers would revive the role of intercessionists for their particular rabbi-and even for dead popular saints.
Prayer, instead of sacrifice, as the focus of worship, meant that first and foremost, education and literacy had to be expanded so that everyone could read from the prayer book-and if honorable enough, be given the privilege of leading the service and of reading from the Torah. The school system grew to include education and literacy that was available to everyone-including girls. The wealthy paid for private tutors, while the education for the poor was provided in primary schools and paid for by the community. For those who merited it, high schools were established. The best students, those who could keep up with the intellectual rigor, could join local institutions of higher learning (Batei Midrash). Proven potential scholars would be invited to join academies led by the great rabbis of the time. While some students could enter academies because of family connections, most were awarded places on the basis of merit.
Experienced, proven, civil managers were given the tasks of controlling finances, checking weights and measures in the markets, running public services such as sanitation, maintaining public institutions such as the baths, supervising the police, and collecting fines. Each synagogue had seven such managers headed by a man who was both wealthy and of unimpeachable character. The establishment of these criteria was a reaction to the corrupt system that had existed under the monarchy. A man with both attributes was assumed to be incorruptible. The decision that a quorum of 10 adult males was required in order to hold communal services and say certain prayers meant that there would be a tax base in most locales for the provision of basic civic and religious services. It also made for an inclusionary, rather than exclusionary, society. Finding "the tenth man" for services-whoever he might be and whatever his level of religious practice might be-became almost a daily ritual in itself.
In each town with at least 120 adult males, a 23 man-court was established to try cases. Since certain legal recourses such as the jubilee year were no longer available, their loss was ameliorated by the introduction of the institution of charity for the destitute. Daily soup kitchens were established and dole payments were made before the Sabbath each week. However, in order to prevent intemperate demands for transfer payments, and in order to preserve productive private capital, the rabbis decided that no one should be expected to give more than one-fifth of his income as charity.
One of the most revolutionary and important decisions of the period was to agree not only to accept the validity of documents signed by non-Jews, but also even those signed in non-Jewish courts.
In 132 C.E., in the midst of all this feverish reorganizational activity, the Zealots launched the third and final war against the Romans-in part as a result of punitive Roman taxation, in part out of religious and nationalist ideals, and in part as a result of a faulty assessment of Roman military power at the time, which was focused on wars in the east. The results were disastrous and traumatic. Jerusalem was leveled. Fifty fortresses and a thousand villages were destroyed. The economy was ruined. The price for the purchase of a slave on the open market fell to that of a horse. Any hope for rebuilding the Temple and for reestablishing the monarchy and the priestly class evaporated.
Once again, though, fatalism was rejected. Self-criticism and repentance were viewed as being proactive prerequisites for redemption. Messianism, as a forward-looking ideal, was revived. Most importantly, an updated codex of law such as that which had successfully bound the Jews together during the trials of the Babylonian exile, would be asked to perform the same task again. Already begun, the job of codifying what had been oral Jewish law, and which had been dispersed through hundreds of judicial decisions and legal precedents, became a matter of urgency.
The task of organizing the project was given to the head of the Sanhedrin, who by this time was called the Patriarch and had the status of a local king under the Romans. The result was the "Mishnah," a codex organized into 6 "orders;" and then subdivided into 63 tractates, which were further subdivided into chapters and finally paragraphs. The format is particularly interesting and is used to this very day in Israeli courts when judges hand down their learned judgments. First, a question was raised. Then, each argument and dissenting opinion was recorded in turn to show that no consideration had been overlooked. The reasoning behind each was transparent, direct and accessible to any reader. Even comments or assessments by an apostate or non-Jewish scholar were included if they were viewed as thoughtful and germane to the issue at hand. The final decision, taken by majority vote, was left for last. Altogether, while many people are mentioned anonymously, the names of 148 individuals are included.
The Patriarchate, however, had one fatal flaw. Like the monarchy and the priestly class before it, the position became hereditary. Brilliant scholarship gave way to mediocrity and corruption in the appointment of judges. Discussion continued, but it was not of a high level. The results of the discourses are recorded in what is called the "Jerusalem Talmud"-an incomplete work of lesser scholarship than the Mishnah. Eventually, under growing pressures against Jews by Christian ecclesiastical figures anxious to separate their new religion from that of the Jews, and jealous Christian merchants, the position of Patriarch was abolished by the Roman emperor Theodosius II. In 425 C.E., formal Jewish governance in the Land of Israel came to an end.
In Babylonia, however, the very opposite occurred. Since the return from exile under Ezra, the Babylonian Jews had always deferred to the Judeans in all matters of law. With the redaction of the Mishnah, though, the rabbis in Babylonia felt free to discuss matters of law on their own. The basic principles of law were now in written form and since all the previous arguments had been laid out with clarity and precision, there was no need to rehash old debates. Henceforth, all lawmaking would be forward-looking and designed to cope with new or previously-unexplored problems and realities. The result, after three centuries of work and the participation of some two thousand scholars, was an encyclopedic commentary on the Mishnah called the "Babylonian Talmud." It included not only direct legal issues, but also asides in such fields as medicine, astronomy and mathematics. This work, finished in about 500 C.E., forms the basis of Jewish civil, criminal and religious law to this day. Although finally written down, it is still known as the Oral Law (as distinct from the Bible, canonized in about 90 C.E., which is known as the Written Law).
The completion of the Talmud enshrined forever the principles, most of them Pharisaic in origin, that would make Jews everywhere a progress-prone people when and if they chose to set progress and adaptation as a group objective-and when and if their neighbors permitted them to advance socially, economically and culturally. Foremost among these principles was mandatory, universal literacy. Everyone, without exception, was expected to know and obey the law.
However, the Talmud, by its very existence, also introduced the concept of knowledge as a portable common and individual commodity that should be accessible to anyone. Unlike the Greeks and later Christianity, man's discoveries and intellectual endeavors would no longer be the private preserve of an elite. In fact, as Christian, Zoroastrian, and later Moslem persecutions of the Jews increased and Jews dispersed throughout Europe, western and central Asia and North Africa, portable knowledge in any form, what we today call intellectual property, would become to Jews the ultimate measure of personal wealth. While real property could be burned or stolen, knowledge of any subject or skill in any form could be kept safe in the mind of anyone who survived.
The most obvious and immediately-defining trait among Jews for centuries was their multilingualism. All Jewish children who were capable of attending classes were taught two languages in primary school-the Hebrew of the Bible and the Mishnah, and the Aramaic in which the Talmud was written. To this would be added the local vernacular and, in places where they developed, "Jewish" vernaculars such as Yiddish in eastern Europe, Mougrabi in North Africa, and Ladino in places to which the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492. In addition, in cosmopolitan cities such as Alexandria and 19th century Warsaw, the languages used in international trade would be added. And in war-torn places such as the plains of Poland, fluency in whatever language the most recent occupying power used was also necessary. This enabled to Jews to have access to and to build their individual and collective treasury of any knowledge available at the time-so long, of course, as it was in a language that they understood. Access to knowledge, especially proprietary information gained from afar, enabled them to enter such diverse fields as trade, medicine, and specialized manufacturing where intellectual property is the most important form of capital.
While literacy and sought-after access to the knowledge previously accumulated by other cultures were necessary preconditions for progress, they were insufficient predictors of economic and social advancement. To these two traits must be added the element that most modern economists believe is the absolute essential prerequisite for economic and social development: adherence to the preeminence of the principle of the rule of law. While non-Jews, in their day-to-day dealings with Jews tended to focus only on those obvious and visible issues of religious law and belief on which they differed from the Jews-such as the prohibition on the eating of swine or the absolute adherence to the Sabbath day-they tended to ignore completely the rich body of tort and commercial law embedded in the Talmud.
Moreover, the principle that underlay Jewish law was that almost anything that was ethical and was not specifically forbidden by law or precedent was permissible. Thus, for example, the Catholic prohibitions on teaching the discoveries of Galileo and Copernicus passed the Jews by entirely. The didactic and dialectic nature of Talmudic-style debate in which all Jewish children were brought up, fitted in easily with the development of the modern scientific method. The Talmudic quotation emblazoned above the ark of the Torah in many synagogues "Know before whom thou standest," was an invitation and even a commandment to explore and investigate the God-created natural world. This stood in stark contrast to the later Moslem concept of fatalism and resignation, and the Catholic concept of submission to authority.
In terms of governance, the model which had been developed during the early Mishnaic period was adopted almost everywhere except in Babylonia, where the exilarchy, the hereditary leadership that traced its alleged roots to King David, persisted into the 12th century. With certain notable exceptions such as when a particularly great mind would appear on the scene somewhere-someone whose judgments and thoughts were immediately accepted as legally-binding by most Jews everywhere-there was almost complete local autonomy in matters such as customs and modes of self-governance. While not democratic in the modern sense of the word, the political system was, in a majority of cases, consultative, consensual and cooperative. Nonetheless, there was a tendency during times of great duress to regress and to rely on oligarchs for communal leadership-or to seek solace in hereditary hierarchies, of which Hassidic rabbinical "courts" are the best current example.
Social status and social mobility were predicated on an individual's personal accomplishments and his pursuit of excellence. Scholarship remained the highest social value. However, skilled, knowledge-based employment came a close second. High deference was given to earned income and low deference to inherited wealth, unless the individual used some of the windfall money for important group social purposes. There were formal punishments for breaches of group behavior such as shunning, banishment and excommunication, but these were rarely applied. For the most part, the strongest penalties were popular ones: dismissal out of hand of a person's ideas and, worst of all, being ignored as a person of no account.
Economically, individuals were allowed to retain and build on their capital; and interest was allowed.
Learning, even for its own sake, was defined publicly as legitimate work-even though families involved may have looked askance at the idea. Importantly, though, most of the underlying skills and disciplines needed for productive study were easily transferable to professions and trades in the economic marketplace. In this, the Jews to this day differ significantly from other cultures. The British speak of "reading" a subject at university as though it were an avocation for the leisure class. Americans talk of "studying" a subject for the purposes of passing an examination. Traditional Jews, however, always use the term "learning" a subject because of the belief in the need to internalize what is taught or found on the printed page. Moreover, while education in many other cultures is performance-directed through the imposition of centralized testing, traditional Jewish education emphasizes the need to learn how to learn so that the activity can be continued outside the confines of formal schooling.
Community investments concentrated on education, maintenance of cemeteries, ritual baths, and aid to the financially distressed. During those times when slavery, holding whole towns to ransom by nobles, and kidnapping by brigands were common, redeeming the captive or slave through the payment of communally-raised funds was considered to be an overwhelming imperative. Since prayer could take place anywhere, synagogue construction was a relatively low priority and was only undertaken when there were sufficient funds. Most synagogues were initially built as schools or as adjuncts to existing schools.
Also established as identifiable group and individual personality traits by this time were certain defining personal behaviors, the product of group priorities, that many non-Jews took and still take to be aggressive, arrogant, abrasive, offensive, insulting or just impolite. However, in hindsight, they were critical to national survival and, when external circumstances permitted, allowed the Jews to flourish. These included a preference for deference that was earned over courtesy that was expected; cleanliness, hygiene and ritual purity over tidiness; precision in intellectual thought over punctuality; immediate interruptions to correct mistakes over staid politeness; direct, even blunt speech over euphemisms and generalities; self-selection of leaders over managerial authority; and dignity that was bestowed over respect that was demanded. However, important Pharisaic concepts such as confrontation, competitive debate, argument, and sourcing of ideas over blind acceptance of faddism or fiat, and demands for adaptation over fossilized conventional wisdom, were often abandoned during periods of severe distress and persecution when intense orthodoxy as a palliative for pain and anguish invariably took hold. Intra-group competition, during periods when group survival was at stake, was frowned upon. In times of relative freedom, these suppressed behaviors would return to blossom like hibernating flower seeds in the desert after the first rains.
Lacking an autonomous, physically-defensible territorial base, Jewish development was highly influenced by the external environment in which the Jews lived. Persecution was rife. During the second millennium of the Common Era, hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed just for being who they were. In both Moslem and Christian countries, they were subject to restrictions, and punitive and unequal taxation. Often, they were given the choice of conversion or death. They were expelled from fundamentalist Almohades-controlled Spain in the 12th century, from England in 1290, from France in 1394, and from Catholic Spain in 1492. In Germany and central Europe, they were subject to almost continuous decimation by mobs. Nonetheless, each time tragedy struck, they were able to rebuild in a new place or rise phoenix-like when external circumstances had altered.
It is, therefore, worthwhile examining some of the elements and processes that were essential for survival under the conditions of extremis in which the Jews lived-and especially those which were critical for renewal.
There seems little doubt that the culling the Jews underwent left a body of true believers who would remain faithful to their precepts. However, belief alone would have been insufficient for such a daunting undertaking as surviving and ultimately thriving against all odds when faced with the most ruthless and hateful instruments of state.
One little-noticed historical incident had an overwhelming impact. In 638 a small group of grammarians, who came to be known as the Masorites, gathered in Tiberias and set about the task of vowelizing Hebrew script. Hebrew is normally written only with consonants. As a result, written words can easily be misread, mispronounced and misinterpreted. By adding marks above and below the letters to indicate vowels and tones, and by determining the rules under which the marks would be used, the Masorites fixed not only the grammar of the language, but also the pronunciation of each word. Thus, no dialects could be created. As a result, Jews always had a common language of written and oral communication-no matter where they lived. This, in turn, meant that any knowledge available could be transferred from one Jewish community to another. This enabled trade, even under the harshest of circumstances. Moreover, a common language that was mutable enough to absorb new words but fixed in its overall structure was critically important when one community needed knowledge in order to catch up rapidly on world developments in science, the humanities and other fields that they had missed during periods of persecution, isolation and oppression. Today, English plays the same role.
Another factor was the structure of community governance. Community life revolved around the synagogue, the school which served as a meeting place when there was no specific house of worship, or just a room in a teacher's home. Instead of building centralized cathedral or mosque-type buildings, any community of any size had a multitude of synagogues or prayer quorums in which a person could find an amiable and amicable social environment.
Recent studies on terrorism have shown that continuous violence can and does make large segments of a population physically ill, and psychologically incapacitated and non-functioning. Psychologists in Israel have found that the only effective antidote to what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in civilians is to ensure that in the midst of seeming chaos and uncertainty, certain "islands of resilience" remain available to victims of violence. These "islands" include activities which enable individuals to believe that, despite the surrounding confusion, there are certain things on which they can rely for support and daily sustenance. Specifically, they include such daily actions as going to work or school, checking that there are health services available and having a forum immediately available for group support. The Jews could always find the needed archipelago in the local synagogue-paid for and managed autonomously-which also acted as a school, a labor exchange, a referral service and a daily community center. This differed strongly from other cultures whose places of worship were single-purpose edifices controlled by an often socially-isolated elite. In this sense, the synagogue also played much the same role as the taverna, pub, club or coffee house did in other cultures-except that, unlike drinking holes elsewhere, it was not socially-stratified to the same extent.
The nature of Jewish family life also fostered communal stability. There was the commandment "be fruitful and multiply" to be obeyed, which helped sustain communities after they had been decimated by mob violence. Parents knew that widows and orphans would be cared for by the community if there were no relatives capable of assuming the responsibility. The institution of the matchmaker became almost sacrosanct. Of particular importance, though, was the fact that relatively early marriage lessened communal turmoil. Since polygamy was forbidden to European Jews and was frowned on amongst Jews in Moslem-controlled countries unless the husband was sufficiently wealthy to treat all his wives equally, there were few desperate young men without a woman-and few women without male or communal support. Husbands with families usually tend to be less prone to violence, less mobile and more averse to unnecessary risk-taking. The ready availability of divorce, by mutual consent and on the basis of a pre-nuptial contract that stipulated payments to the wife in the event of a permanent separation, provided an outlet for intolerable family tensions.
Jewish development over two millennia appears on the surface to have been the sum total of short eruptions of indigenous innovation. However, a closer look demonstrates that the level and extent of change was closely linked to the Jews' external environment. The more open the surrounding society was to intercourse, the greater was the level of Jewish originality and invention. When, cyclically, societies contracted into themselves, Jews suffered as outsiders. Even a cursory glance at historical processes shows that personal contact, continuous local intellectual input and relative freedom from want or persecution, though, while necessary for development, were insufficient. Without additional input, intellectual incest can be the result. A far more accurate indicator of innovation was the extent of translation into the vernacular (not the language of the elite, if it existed) of foreign language texts undertaken by the surrounding society. Translation was not only a signpost for the level of openness to different and avant-garde ideas in that society, it provided access to new knowledge for Jews to contemplate and digest with the aid of their own intellectual frameworks.
The degree of openness of the surrounding society also helped to determine Jewish communal thought processes that, in turn, influenced the pace of change. The greater the degree of rationalism, the more rapid was the speed of intellectual development. Throughout Jewish history, there were always periods when rationality or orthodox word-literalism was in the ascendant. Certainly, there were no formal restrictions on rationalism. As early as the 10th century, the "genius of the age," Saadia Gaon, declared that rationality and belief were not mutually exclusive. Five centuries later, Maimonides, the greatest philosopher of his time, directly confronted the teachings of Aristotle. In general, progress-resistant orthodoxy was particularly strong during periods of duress and isolation when people needed fixed ideas and patterns of behavior on which to cling in order to ride out the surrounding storm. On the other hand, in freer societies, the need to confront the ideas swirling around in the open led to an increase in the importance of the rationalism needed to collate, sift through and cope with new ideas. It was during such times that Jewish scholarship focused on what came to be termed euphemistically as "supplementing" the Talmud. In many cases, these were not just explanations or clarifications, but included wholesale innovations designed to bring Jewish thinking up to date with the rest of the world-while not abandoning the bedrock of tradition.
When neither reason nor orthodoxy provided adequate responses to distress, there was always a tendency to latch on to the words of charismatic false Messiahs. When such individuals were uncovered for who they were, there was invariably a severe psychological trauma and collapse among his followers that could last, in some cases, for generations.
The rise or fall in personal reliance on mysticism-a direct offshoot of religious orthodoxy that began in 10th century Babylonia-does not seem to have been influenced heavily by external economic conditions. It crossed time-periods and socio-economic lines. Mysticism's impact, though, has been substantial. Surveys conducted by the Bank of Israel and the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics indicate that those ultra-Orthodox who have mystical beliefs are less open to innovation and are less economically productive-by a very substantial margin-than neighbors on the same street or even in the same apartment building. As a result, mystics, in addition to not adding to the common weal, tend to be a serious economic drain on communal resources by creating demands for transfer payments necessary for basic sustenance. Moreover, the influence of mystics, especially during times of distress, can be disproportionate to their numbers.
Such was the case when a mystic scholar in the Galilee town of Safed, Joseph Karo, published his book on Jewish Law in 1567. He titled it Shulchan Aruch, "The Table is Set." The book was a monumental piece of scholarship, but was to have disastrous consequences for Jewish cultural and economic development for centuries to come. In it, Karo assembled all the laws, customs and regulated behaviors that had been the product of scholars before him; and declared that the project was now complete and the decisions inviolable. This "how-to" manual of Jewish practice was accepted by most Jews of the time, and remains to many orthodox Jews today, the final word on the subject. As a result, for centuries, the book effectively closed the door on Talmudic "supplementalist" intellectual challenge and adaptation. Scholarship degenerated into narrow scholasticism. Rabbis who practiced these excursions into minutiae became more isolated from the common people and their problems-and more conservative, absolutist and autocratic in their legal judgments. Common people were left bereft of activist religious and social leadership.
What saved the Jews from self-destruction through fossilization and the inevitable economic ruin that intellectual calcification creates, was the traditionally malleable nature of the Jewish approach to human authority in matters of personal belief and conscience; and the belief in the fallibility of every man and woman. Among Jews, human authority was and remains individually selected. Moreover, excommunication is difficult. The sheer legal obstacles involved in formal exclusion from the group tend to foster at least a grudging and even openly-angry tolerance for what might be viewed by some as heretical ideas. Such limitations put brakes on the power of autocrats and allow for changes in leadership through desertions.
The first mass revolt against rabbinical isolation, asceticism and narrow-mindedness was not an attack on orthodoxy as such. That would come much later in a different place. The time was 1636. Jews throughout Eastern Europe were facing pogroms, famine and destitution. The great scholars had no response. They shut themselves up in their studies. The leader of the rebels, who came to be known as the Baal Shem Tov ("The Owner of a Good Name"), was a pious, unassuming, mystical lime-quarrier from the Carpathian mountains who preached a simple message: that every human occupation was a form of worship; that God should be worshipped with joy; and that even an ignorant person who worshipped God with joy would find more acceptance in the eyes of the Almighty than a dry scholar. The idea of there being such a thing as legitimate, God-sanctioned happiness that could arise from any day-to-day action, such as even menial labor, caught on like wildfire and spread rapidly to become a mass movement that the Baal Shem Tov's followers called "Hassidism" (Pietism). The leading scholar of the day, to whom everyone up to that point had deferred, roused himself sufficiently from his books to try to excommunicate the seeming heretic, but to no avail. Hassidism drew its strength because it was a bottom-up, publicly-responsive, decentralized mass movement-a scenario that was to be repeated when the anti-Orthodox Haskala, or "Enlightenment" movement began a century later.
The originator of the movement was Berlin-based Moses Mendelson, a fervently rationalist scholar and philosopher from Dessau (1729-86). A fully-practicing Jew, he believed that nationality and state citizenship were divisible. The Jews, he asserted, should acquire full civil and political emancipation (with all the duties and responsibilities that true citizenship entailed) while remaining committed to their Jewish national identity. To that end, they should become fully at home with the German language and its secular culture as it had progressed since the Reformation. This would entail a restructuring of the education system to include modern science and humanities.
His successors in Germany and America went further and began to alter outward forms of worship such as changing the prayer book and introducing organs into the service.
The reaction was not long in coming. Orthodox rabbis, fearful of assimilation and the loss of autonomy through the abolition of separate Jewish courts that had tried civil matters between Jews, launched a virulent campaign against change. Surrounding Christians were of mixed views. Reactionaries opposed giving Jews any new rights. Others acquiesced to civil but not political emancipation. Still others believed that what the Catholic Church had failed to accomplish over centuries by forced conversion, could now be accomplished through state nationalism and state legislation that would encourage Jews to assimilate. These conflicting approaches, combined with the influence of the American Constitution and the introduction of the Napoleonic Code in those parts of Europe controlled by the French Empire, created a raft of incoherent and often contradictory civil and political reforms in western and central Europe. In many regions, even after legal reforms, restrictions on entry into professions, admission to guilds and limitations on residence that had been left over from the Middle Ages remained in place.
Many Jews took the path of least resistance and assimilated or converted-composer Felix Mendelson, the grandson of Moses, being one of them. The models for these ex-Jews were the German Protestants and the secular French Deists.
In eastern Europe, where the conservative Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches prevailed, change for Jews and non-Jews alike was slower. There were no local economic or social models for Jews to be attracted to or to emulate. By the mid-19th century, four schools of Jewish thought had emerged: Traditional Orthodoxy, called by the Hassidim "Misnagdim," Hassidim, Hebraists, and Yiddishists (or Bundists). The reform movement in Germany had been a top-down elitist enterprise by scholars. In eastern Europe, where the majority of European Jewry lived, the Orthodox remained hierarchical, while the progressivists were bottom-up revisionists. The Hebraists modernized and revived the Hebrew language; and became the precursors of the Zionists. The Yiddishists believed in local political and civic reform; and preached adaptation to the surrounding environment. In the space of only a few decades, both these latter groups produced an astonishing flowering of translation, original literature, and philosophical and political debate.
The residues of Christian reaction and anti-Semitism, however, remained. The pogroms in eastern Europe created a mass immigration to America that began in the 1880s. The notorious Dreyfus trial, in which a French Jewish army captain was tried and sentenced unjustly for treason based on false evidence by anti-Semites, led directly to the advent of political Zionism. In North African Moslem countries, untouched by the Reformation and the subsequent chaos, there were no mass movements. In the areas of French Metropolitan rule and French influence, modern, French-speaking schools sponsored by the Alliance Israelite, became available to the Jewish bourgeois elite-and with it, French culture and translations and progress. The ancient Jewish civilization in Iraq only began to modernize with the British occupation following World War I.
In America, with its legal freedoms, the Jews achieved levels of success and innovation such as had not been seen since the pre-Mishnaic period. There had already been a core of successful Spanish-Portuguese and German Jews in America prior to the mass migration. Most engaged in banking, trading and merchandising. Almost all had adopted the manners and many of the outward appearances of the surrounding WASP elite. The sudden arrival of waves of poverty-stricken and English or German-unlettered Jews was a source of consternation-and even revulsion-to them. Almost immediately, though, the system of Diaspora self-governance and community assistance swung into action providing education, material and spiritual assistance, and community services.
The objective for almost all the new arrivals was to enter the middle class within one generation. To that end, dual-income families with a reduced number of children became the norm. Savings were used for investment in businesses and education, rather than conspicuous consumer-spending. Since the Jews had no tradition of primogeniture except among certain small, isolated elites, if there was insufficient income to send more than one child on for higher education, the most talented-not necessarily the oldest-was chosen for the privilege by general family consent.
Nonetheless, already-familiar-if now informal-restrictions on housing, jobs and education remained. Jews were excluded from certain residential areas, and professions and trades such as the police or locomotive engineering; were limited in professional studies (Yale, for example, only dropped its quota system in 1962); and were refused membership in private clubs whose priority is business networking. Partly out of necessity and partly out of will and communal-attachment, Jews tended to congregate in certain geographical urban areas, creating a critical mass of self-reinforcing, group-assisted, progressive inventiveness. The result was a burst of competitive entrepreneurship based on intellectual capital, hard work, and innovation-first among Jews themselves and only then face-to-face with the wider population.
The results have been nothing less than astonishing. By the end of the second millennium, little more than a century after the mass migration began, Jews, who make up only 0.021 percent of the world's population and about 2 percent of the North American population (depending on the definition of who is a Jew) , had won about fifteen percent of the Nobel prizes. To give but a few other examples of adaptation and success: In the United States, Jewish households' median income is $54,000 compared to a national average of $42,000. Thirty six percent of Jewish households earn over $75,000 per year versus 18 percent of American households as a whole. Overall, 60 percent of Jewish adults occupy high-status and education-intensive jobs such as the free professions and technical professions, management, executive, business and finance positions as compared to 46 percent of the American population as a whole. Fifty-five percent of American Jews hold B.A.s as compared with a national average of 29 percent. Twenty-five percent hold graduate degrees compared to 6 percent of the rest of the population. As of 1999, thirty percent of the Supreme Court law clerks and 26 percent of the law professors were Jewish.
In the arts, during the 20th century, Jews dominated the field of classical music performance, wrote some of the best and most successful novels, and can even be said to have created the "American Dream" and American pop culture by inventing those most quintessential of American communications media: Hollywood, mass television and the modern Broadway musical.
It is foolish to generalize about members of any culture-most of all, the fractious Jews. Lacking defining dogmas, there are simply too many gradations of belief and practice to make blanket judgments. In terms of personal and group financial and time resources devoted to religious practice, Jews today can be roughly subdivided into the following categories:
The ultra-Orthodox, both Misnagdic and Hassidic, live for their religion. It dominates every aspect of their lives. Their form of religion, with its voluntary enclaving and its relative uniformity of belief and action is believed by its adherents to be a family-like, God-protected safe-haven from vicissitudes and external dangers. With certain notable exceptions, they are the Jews most isolated from their surrounding societies and the least willing to adapt and change-and are thus the most progress-resistant.
For the Modern Orthodox, religion is a way of life that doesn't prevent them from partaking of aspects of modern life that do not conflict with traditional law. They tend to gravitate to teaching, the free professions and basic science where they can set their own time and work schedules so as not to create situations that conflict with their beliefs and practices, such as keeping the Sabbath and the holidays.
To liberals, who usually affiliate with the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements, religion is viewed as a guide to life-but one which is adaptable to new circumstances.
People who label themselves as "cultural" or secular" Jews, tend to believe that, despite their rejection of formal religion or theism, there are values that arose from the religion that remain relevant to them.
Some commonalities with Jews are also present among those who have assimilated or converted to other religions. Many have internalized, to a greater or lesser extent, values and patterns of behavior taught to them by grandparents or by parents at an earlier stage in their lives. This group, in particular, demonstrates that some Jewish values, especially those most useful in day-to-day life, are transferable to other cultures.
The Jews' very success in outperforming, in aggregate, measurable terms, the inventors of the modern capitalist system, the Protestants, appears to have exercised, perplexed and even exasperated many economists and historians. Some, such as Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman , have struggled to grasp why Jews, who have done so well under capitalism, consistently vote for centrist or left-of-center political parties-especially on domestic issues. Friedman and others ascribe this phenomenon to Mishnaic Law, the fact that Jews have more intellectuals and intellectuals tend to be leftist, and that Jews are reacting to stereotypes of them that were common in 19th century Europe. These stereotypes ranged from Jews controlling world finances and banking, to Jews being dirty, slovenly and poor . Each argument by Friedman can be refuted in turn. Most Jews today know little of traditional Mishnaic and Talmudic law. Not all Jews are intellectuals and not all intellectuals are leftist. These stereotypes certainly did not apply to North African or Iraqi Jews who have been no less successful in the world of commerce or philanthropy once they arrived in a receptive environment in France, Canada or Israel.
The answer would appear to be much simpler-and it has important implications for other cultures seeking economic and social development. The capitalist system cares little about personal beliefs, presumptions and assumptions. It is sensitive primarily to personal behaviors that can be altered without undermining cherished beliefs and other cultural values. The Modern Orthodox Jews are a particular case in point. The financial success of Asians who have recently reached the United States is another example.
Although their stories are peopled by vastly different characters, the folklore of Protestants and Jews is remarkably similar. They revolve around ordinary people, caught in extraordinary situations, who emerge victorious. They honor plucky individuals who are able to stand up to seemingly-insurmountable odds and emerge successfully through actions, imagination, adherence to ethical norms and/or hard work.
In terms of theological and social beliefs-and beyond the obviously divisive question of whether Jesus Christ is the Savior-Jews and Protestants could not be more different. Protestantism believes in individual salvation. Judaism is based on the possibility of group redemption. As a result, Protestantism was highly influenced by Hobbesian concepts of egocentric and utilitarian markets. Jews, on the other hand, believe in strength and survival arising from individual efforts that strengthen the group. Protestantism believes that the yields of the earth are gifts of God. Jews believe that man was given dominion on earth as a trust-to be protected and improved. Protestant culture is one founded on certainty of belief. Jewish Pharisaic culture is based on perpetual uncertainty-other than the belief in one God. Despite these fundamental differences, though, there is a neo-Darwinian convergence in certain of their public behaviors.
The element of perpetual uncertainty, when combined with the idea of responsibility to the immediately-surrounding group, is usually then translated into a broader feeling of personal responsibility for all the citizens of the country in which Jews live. In terms of practical action, the combination of uncertainty and individual responsibility has meant that in almost all democratic countries in which they are citizens, Jews tend to vote in disproportionately higher numbers than the surrounding population.
Jewish newspapers and magazines are preoccupied by three subjects that focus on national uncertainty: the rise in global anti-Semitism, the fate of Israel, and high levels of assimilation that threaten to undermine group strength. Polls indicate that 72 percent of American Jews believe that they share a common destiny with Jews in Israel . The same can be said for their attitude toward Jews elsewhere in the world. The idea of group identity melded with a common sense of destiny has only been reinforced by recent events such as the Holocaust, Israel's interminable wars, terror attacks on Jewish targets world-wide, and 9/11. If the pollsters, though, had asked the same question of American Jews about having a common destiny with the rest of American society, one can conjecture that the results would have been similar, if not higher . This is a far cry from the polar-opposite, idealized American belief in the supremacy of the "rugged individualist."
Central to Jewish beliefs is the concept of Tikkun Olam, "repairing the world." Almost by definition, this demands individual civic participation and social, economic and political innovation-and even contrarianism. Jews have been at the forefront of the battle for racial equality-not only for themselves, but for other minorities such as Blacks as well. Deference is given to any culture that acts in accordance with what Jews believe is God's moral code. Even atheists can be deferred to if their actions are contiguous with those precepts. As a result, evangelism is discouraged and there is a belief that Jews can learn from other ethically-based cultures. This perception, in itself, leads to openness to others' needs, ideas and aspirations. Beyond group moral judgmentalism, though, there are also important economic consequences that then arise. For nothing more distorts free markets, and creates greater market inefficiencies, than ignorance of others' needs, intellectual blindness, and monopolies that unilaterally exclude certain types of human capital because of irrational prejudice.
As mentioned above, Judaic culture is centered on law, which can be amended or reinterpreted as needs arise-so long as the will exists. Jews have a long tradition of self-criticism and a belief in man's fallibility in interpreting the will of God. A close reading of data on job slots that Jews tend to fill indicates that almost all such professions, from doctors, merchants and teachers to lawyers and scholars who must constantly undergo peer review, are based on human contact, communication and feedback. Israeli experts on cross-cultural problems that emerge following business mergers with foreign firms have found that Israelis demand far higher levels and more constant feedback than do individuals in other cultures . In addition to acting as an ameliorant to uncertainty, feedback also leads to constant mid-course corrections in rapidly changing social and economic environments-yet another decided market advantage.
One feature of Jewish communal life that cannot be underestimated in its importance to development is the pride the group takes in members' individual achievements in business, science and the humanities. In some societies, this sort of group behavior is viewed as parasitic or a source of destabilizing envy. However, among Jews, the group, instead of reacting with jealousy, repays the individual through the lavish and supportive feedback it gives successful innovators-including using them as models for themselves and their children.
It is no wonder, therefore, that in that most competitive, intellectually-risky, individualistic, ruthless, imaginative, innovative, bottom-up, cross-cultural, status-driven, consumer-oriented, feedback-craving, market-driven of all businesses, the mass media, Jews have achieved their greatest successes. Today, most of the largest mass media outlets such as CBS, NBC, ABC and most of the major Hollywood studios, which were founded by Jews, have been sold to international conglomerates. Nonetheless, as of last count, fully 56 percent of Hollywood executives and producers involved in the biggest-grossing movies were Jews.
History shows that Jews tend to be most successful in intellectually-open, free-market societies that are governed by the rule of law. What makes the Jewish case particularly interesting, though, is that, with the exception of the unusually privileged, Jews have succeeded more than the surrounding population under almost all types of political and economic regimes-communist, socialist, capitalist, democratic or authoritarian-so long as local laws and regulations were not directed specifically against them.
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Jewish tradition holds that life, and living in the world, is essentially an incomplete, individual and group, "work-in-progress." Death is not sought. There are no wakes or forms of ancestor worship in Judaism, only mourning for loss. Final judgment is based on the sum of a life as it was lived. With the exception of mystics, to the vast majority of Jews, the dead are not intermediaries-merely historical examples. The typical honorific that is given to someone who has passed away is Zachur LaTov, "May he/she be remembered for good."
All human activities and policies must, therefore, be directed towards the living and the living-to-be-and thus must also be future and long-term oriented. This, in turn, demands continuous social entrepreneurship and social engineering that can only be halted with the coming of the Messiah. Belief, according to Jews, is insufficient to discharge the human obligations delineated in the covenants God has made with mankind. Participatory activism by everyone to improve the world is, therefore, a human obligation. The guide to what should be done, and the ways in which it should be done, are embodied in a code of laws to which everyone must adhere-especially the Jews themselves.
The basic rules of ethical behavior are believed to be immutable. However, implementation is subject to conflicting views and interpretations, debate and change. Thus, among Jews, uniqueness or novelty is not automatically disdained-and appreciation for the potential value of invention is carried over into almost all aspects of human activity. New ideas, though, are subjected to a rigorous process of selection. Although the traditional literature does not describe the procedure in these terms, in practice, Jews approach new problems or situations by using a multi-stage technique: proposition, referral to previous sources, argumentation, systemization, debate, legalization, institutionalization, examination over time, and finally validation through mass internalization of beliefs and practices.
Among Jews, there is an existential tension between innovation based on rationalism, and protective orthodoxy; between the desires for group survival, and individual expression; and between regulation, and creative freedom and personal responsibility. The ideas, however, are not viewed as mutually exclusive. It is the Jews' learned ability to function within this matrix of tensions that has enabled them to fully integrate their concepts of social justice within a framework that also includes, among other things, fierce intellectual and economic marketplace competition.
Leadership is self-selected and devolves to those who exhibit continuing merit in belief and practice. Merit is assigned based on proof over time. It is an award that can be withdrawn. While Jewish law requires obedience and obeisance to the sovereign (in the case of democracies this includes the will of the majority), this does not preclude the idea that one can be a member of a loyal opposition without being treasonous.
At any one time, a half-dozen or more rebellions or debates of greater or lesser import among Jews may be underway-and this is accepted as normative behavior. For example, in the last decade, among traditional Jews, there has been a bitter debate about the role women can play in leading worship. In the secular arena, a major "silent" Jewish rebellion against majority rule in the United States is currently underway. The sovereign majority, through its representatives, has declared a cut in taxes, which has meant a decline in educational services. As a result, although they continue to adhere to their legal obligation to pay property taxes for services they do not use, a rapidly increasing number of Jews are deserting the public school system (of which they had previously been among the most ardent supporters) and are sending their children to Jewish day schools. Principals at these schools report that, in most cases, unlike other religious or private school systems, many of these newcomers to the system are not seeking increased spirituality or social prestige for their children, but rather a higher (and usually more financially costly) level of education. Since quality education is deemed by consensus to be a group priority, some of the additional costs are borne voluntarily by the community as a whole-including by pensioners who have no personal stake in the matter. Critical to the success of any initiative is the ability to reach group consensus. If that fails, the fall-back position is invariably desertion from the current leadership-and either isolation or the formation of a new sub-group within the framework of the tradition.
In most cases, violence and law-breaking in the service of ideals is frowned upon. Passivity and fatalism, though, are also rejected. Instead, the terms for permitting the use of violence in self-defense, or the timing of, the rationale for and the tactics to be used in non-violent protest, are subject to vigorous ongoing dispute.
A central aspect of Tikkun Olam is the belief in the need to establish a level playing field for all. Utopian egalitarianism is, in general, rejected as denying the God-given uniqueness and creativity present in each individual. Instead, the purpose of almost all Jewish Law that does not deal directly with behavior towards the Divine is to encourage fairness in human relations. Quality education for even those with natural and economic handicaps, immediate feedback to encourage corrections in thought and behavior, universal adherence to criminal, commercial and tort law, and independent adjudication of disputes are considered essential resources required to achieve this ideal.
Activism to "repair" human-created law where it is faulty or inadequate is deemed to be an obligation. For the most part, behaviors are viewed as means that can be altered, not objectives in themselves.
Individual and group self-criticism, self-assistance, and a willingness to battle corruption are perceived to be required traits and assets.
Notably, among Jews, in almost all matters, immediate responsibility for creativity and action lies with the individual; but long-term success belongs to the group that sets the norms that foster accomplishment.