Warning: this is a very rabbinical-student-geek-type entry. Feel free to skip. I don't mean to offend anyone, I'm just thinking out loud.
I believe that we grant "sacredness" and "authenticity" to texts, that they are not intrinsic to them (e.g. I don't believe that sacredness is inherent to the Koran or Christian Testament, though billions of others around the world disagree). I believe that the Torah is sacred because we make it so. But I also attribute its sacredness to its being a whole text that shapes the boundaries of ancient and modern Jewish identity. In fact, I believe that historically, the Bible was formed in order to create a national identity for those returning from the Babylonian exile. When we deconstruct the Bible, we find that different authors incorporate their own ideological elements into different sections. Authorial intent varies practically by chapter and verse. The text loses unity.
So why exactly do Reform Jews consider the Bible sacred?
If it's the traditions that arise from the Torah that make it sacred, the actual halacha and symbols and rituals, then does tearing apart the reasons for those rituals lessen its holiness? In class we learned that putting blood on the doorposts of a house wasn't done solely for Passover, but was in fact an ancient protection rite done every New Year. The Priestly writers appropriated it for their own purposes. It's like Christmas and Hannukah, people appropriating the pagan ritual of a Festival of Lights at the darkest time of the year; they took an already existing ritual and gave it new meaning. Does knowing that make the things in the Bible less holy?
The quality of the sacred can't be attributed to the age of the documents themselves. Many Biblical poems and writings are over 2000 years old, but I don't venerate Egyptian or Sumerian texts that are of equatable age.
It can't be the history that flows from the text either. No matter how much of Tanach is historically accurate, people's belief in the books have inspired actions and created the flow of history. But I don't hold the American Constitution or the Code of Hammurabi sacred, and those have inspired political and historical changes as well.
It can't be the content of the Bible. To be honest, most of the Pentateuch (Gen, Ex, Lev, Num, Deut) after Genesis is really boring, and aside from anthropological curiosity I don't care about sacrifices in the Temple or the sociocultural aspects of life in the 10th or 7th century BCE. In the grand scheme of things Israel was a little backwater. I find Roman, Grecian, and Asian history much more exciting, with their dynasties and life and death and epic gods and goddesses. BUT - even saying all that - ancient Israeli, aka ancient Jewish history, still feels sacred to me.
And maybe that's the key. The Bible tells the story of a people that I consider to be my people, the Jews. Perhaps that assumed identity makes it sacred, no matter the relation of the text to a historical truth. If I believe the evidence of my History and Bible classes, the 12 tribes may not have descended from the same origins, and the story of the matriarchs and patriarchs may have been a historical fiction so that disjointed nomads in one geographical location could feel connected. The Bible can then be considered a collection of disparate texts, redacted for the purpose of nationalist near-propaganda.
Does this mean that the sacred nature of the Bible is torn to shreds, and I am left bereft, with no rock on which to stand? Or can the Torah be sacred because it is unified under an ideology of creating an enduring nationality of Judaism? I want to believe that non-historicity and a meticulous redaction of the Bible with a specific purpose in mind can be amalgamated with a sense of the holy. For if I don't, and the sacred nature of Torah falls, then the sacred nature of Torah-based Mishnah falls. And then the sacred nature of Mishnah-based Talmud. And then the sacred nature of Judaism as I know it today. And then teaching Torah and the concept of klal Yisrael (worldwide Jewish community) falls too. And my love for Judaism becomes very, very convoluted.
Opinions? What do other people think?
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
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3 comments:
"Does this mean that the sacred nature of the Bible is torn to shreds, and I am left bereft, with no rock on which to stand? Or can the Torah be sacred because it is unified under an ideology of creating an enduring nationality of Judaism? I want to believe that non-historicity and a meticulous redaction of the Bible with a specific purpose in mind can be amalgamated with a sense of the holy."
Christians have this same struggle, albeit most do not realize or care to recognize the controversy. I can't express it as eloquently as you, but you know what I mean when I say the Christian Bible is even more messed up and, perhaps, corrupt? When you start to learn these things it definitely shakes your faith, but I do think that the sacredness is not lost because you have to take into account first the faith that motivated the redaction in the first place, and second, the faith that has grown and endured because of it. It almost 2 in the morning, so I'm not sure if this is coherent....love ya!!
An inane story/example. I while ago I randomly grabbed a small pair of scissors that was floating around the house and declared that they were now my sewing scissors - they were sacred, set apart, not to be used to cut paper, tape, sticky stuff, food containers, etc. There wasn't anything particularly special about them (ok - it was the pair with the purple handles) but the fact that I chose them to be special, made them special.
I think the fact that we, as a people, chose the Tanach to be special/sacred/set-apart makes it so. There's hardly anything that has value unless we assign it and agree on it.
"..you have to take into account first the faith that motivated the redaction in the first place, and second, the faith that has grown and endured because of it." -- Yeah, I think that's the key. Maybe it's sacred because of the history and what else people have done for it. The "facts" of the writing, so to speak, don't matter so much. And hey, that's completely coherent - I'm impressed for 2am!
Sheryl, I agree - we have to say something is special before anything will be. The scissors are a great example! As long as you didn't start doing sacrifices at the altar of the sewing machine.... :)
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