Judaism: an evolving religious civilization

As we grew as a people, we developed particular relationships to the land, to the agricultural cycle, to our own life cycle and to the world around us.

Editor’s note: Voices is a weekly commentary by a panel of Maine columnists who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.

Most Jews see ourselves as part of a people, united by common cultural practices. We are a people, a culture, a heritage, an ethnic group. We are an evolving religious civilization.

The Jewish people began as a tribe 4,000 years ago. Our father was Abraham, our mother was Sarah. We were based in the land of Canaan, modern day Israel. Our tribe developed a common language, Hebrew. We became known originally as the Hebrews. At first it was our particular location and language and some unique practices, such as an aversion to human sacrifice, which distinguished us from other ancient Near Eastern tribes.

As we grew as a people, we developed particular relationships to the land, to the agricultural cycle, to our own life cycle and to the world around us. Our calendar is based on the monthly lunar cycle and balanced by the annual solar cycle. We established holidays based on our planting and harvest cycle. Agriculturally, Passover celebrates our first spring harvest and the planting of the barley seed. Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, coming seven weeks after Passover, celebrates the barley harvest, the major grain harvest of the year. Sukkot, the Booth or Tabernacle Festival, celebrates the final fall harvest before the long winter season.

As we evolved as a people with a unique history, our holidays not only celebrated our connection to a land, the land of Israel, but also celebrated our connection to our history, our slave experience, our wandering and our Torah or Bible. We began to apply historical events, historical memories, to our holidays. Passover commemorated the 300 years we spent as a slave group in Egypt. Shavuot marked the time when we received our Torah, our Five Books of Moses. Sukkot commemorated the 40 years of wandering between Egypt, our land of bondage, and Israel, our land of freedom. Later, additional important historical markers were added to our calendar year.

The spiritual component of these holidays is critical as well. Passover celebrates the spiritual aspects of freedom, past and present. Shavuot honors revelation. And Sukkot touches on our feelings of frailty.

Naturally, we also developed unique life-cycle celebrations. We marked the birth of a child, we marked their coming of age (turning 13) through the bar or bat mitzvah celebration. We have our own ceremonies to celebrate a person’s marriage, to mark a divorce and to honor one’s death.

Added to this we developed a spiritual consciousness, a unique relationship to and definition of God. From the time of Abraham until today, the Jewish people have wrestled with the concept of a One God who is not human and is imageless and nameless, this very abstract concept of what is unknown, mysterious, awesome and magical about life and the universe. Our God is Process; our God is “Was/Is/Will Be” – a verbal construct denoting our relationship as a unique people to the universe in which we live.

“Judaism is an evolving religious civilization,” wrote Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, one of the most significant Jewish thinkers of the 20th century. We are, primarily, a civilization, a people, a culture. The main modifier is that we are a “religious” civilization. We have a theology, with holidays, life cycles, and prayer times. And, we are an “evolving” civilization.

Judaism today, while maintaining significant links to who we were in the past, is constantly evolving and growing. Cultures cannot survive over thousands of years unless there is the ability to adapt to the ever-changing world around us. Judaism has changed significantly – from a people primarily based in the land of Israel, to a people primarily based in the Diaspora or outside the land of Israel. The Babylonian conquest of Israel in 586 BCE (Before the Common Era) and later the Roman conquest of Israel in 70 CE (the Common Era) are two examples of some of the many historical events which forced our Jewish system to adapt to the new realities we faced as a people.

Jews today establish our own connections to this multifaceted gem of Judaism. Our gem includes the Jewish facets of prayer, art, dance, Hebrew language, Zionism or our love for the land of Israel, theology, texts and literature, study, philosophy, history, holidays, Jewish law, Jewish lore and more. Every Jew connects to some of these aspects of our rich Jewish heritage and culture.

So, finally, what is a Jew? Put simply, a Jew is someone who shares our common past, history and traditions and someone who shares our common fate, destiny and future.

Rabbi Barry Krieger is the rabbinic facilitator for the Hillel organization at the University of Maine in Orono. The views expressed are solely his own. He can be reached at bkrieger56@aol.com.