Religions Of The World (1998) | Episode 1 | Judaism | Ben Kingsley

[Music] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] establish peace goodness blessing graciousness kindness and compassion upon us upon all your people the house of israel [Music] when we talk of judaism and jews we first have a problem of definition judaism is much more comprehensive than a religion it has been suggested that judaism is better described as a civilization of course jews have a theology and a unique conception of god but that's only the first step judaism obligates its followers to a whole way of life including a code of laws and the practices and a system of ethics jewish

life includes a broad concept of holiness that embraces a holy people the holy land of israel the holy city of jerusalem and the holy tongue of hebrew judaism is not to be seen as a parallel term to christianity or buddhism for example [Music] for most of its history judaism has been an all-embracing system of theology laws ethics and customs all for a special people with a special language and a cherished homeland yet in the modern world the nature of being a jew is especially complicated judaism today has become pluralistic much of it corresponds with the

traditional meaning of the word religion but some of it would not be identified as religious in the eyes of many non-jews so as we embark on our journey let us be prepared sometimes to explore areas that may seem to be unusual components of religion but which are integral parts of the unique tradition of judaism [Music] jewish history began when the patriarch abram living in the land we now call iraq received a divine call that's described in the bible the lord said unto abram get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy

father's house unto the land that i will show thee and i will make of thee a great nation and i will bless thee and make thy name great and be thou a blessing abram father of the jewish people had one of the greatest of human inspirations the biblical story is that the jewish people began really with abraham's realization that there was only one god and that that god ruled all people in all history uh all nations and that god wanted people to be moral and good and it was really abraham's descendants that gradually grew into

the jewish people this monotheism was the greatest jewish contribution to humankind and it was the founding principle of judaism the bible relates that abraham made a covenant a kind of pact or contract with god it is a promise that his family will multiply as the sand on the seas and that they will live in this land that is controlled by their god they would be a mighty nation and their home would be the land of canaan later known as the land of israel within a few centuries after the patriarchs the israelites were enslaved in egypt

but under the leadership of moses and following a series of extraordinary experiences that the bible describes as miracles they escaped from the pharaoh's harsh persecution to the wilderness of sinai on route they crossed the red sea the bible says the sea miraculously parted to enable them to pass on mount sinai moses received from god the basic revelation that would guide the jewish people throughout their history from the mountain he brought down an entire code of laws and ethics and at its core stood the ten commandments i am the lord your god who brought you out

of the land of egypt out of the house of bondage you shall have no other gods before me you shall not take the name probably got more than just the ten commandments but some of the law also may have developed later on so moses maybe established the basic framework for the law and then the details were worked in as the community underwent historical experience but really what makes israel different from its surrounding canaanite populations and the [ __ ] the moabites and the other people was their legal system and was their moral system and was

their religious system their belief in one god that really did distinguish them from the other peoples who were living in the area shall not covet the mosaic code is known in hebrew as the torah torah means instruction could be used as a word for law could be sometimes in the very specific sense torah refers to the first five books of the ibra bible after forty years wandering in the sinai wilderness the twelve tribes of the children of israel reached the promised land and conquered it it took time for them to settle but they eventually became

a united kingdom ruled first by saul saul's successor david made jerusalem his capital he created a strong unified israel that jews have never forgotten and which they have longed to recreate david's successor solomon built the temple in jerusalem in about 960 bce this temple was the focus of the israelite cult which in scholarly terms means a system of religious worship or ritual the israelite cult centered around a sacrificial system it was centralized by moses in a portable sanctuary to be carried through the sinai wilderness this sanctuary would receive a permanent focus in the temple built

by king solomon in jerusalem the promised land of israel was seen as the holy land when king david made jerusalem his capital it became the holy city king solomon built the temple special holiness was now attached to this site which was seen as god's home on earth when the temple was dedicated solomon prayed hear the plea of your servant and of your people israel when they pray toward this place oh here in heaven your dwelling place heed and forgive the people of the unified kingdom were known as the children of israel or israelites this name

is based on the name israel which god had given to jacob the third patriarch and ancestor of the people what we also know is that after they did constitute a single community of the 12 tribes that that lasted only a very short time really under saul and then david and solomon and after solomon that community that confederation broke apart into two groups a northern group of somewhere between seven and ten of the tribes and then the southern group with the remaining tribes the northern group called israel lasted for about another 200 years and then was

conquered by the assyrians and essentially disappear from history we really don't know what happened to them the word jew now was applied to the whole people and eventually the word judaism was coined to refer to their religion another early name for the people was hebrews after israel fell the kingdom of judah remained independent for more than a century until 586 bce when judah was captured by the babylonians the temple was destroyed the elite of judah was exiled to babylonia they managed to retain their identity but the psalms record their anguish [Music] by the rivers of

babylon there we sat down yea we wept when we remembered zion upon the willows in the midst thereof we hanged up our harps for they that had led us captive asked of us words of song and our tormentors asked of us mirth sing us one of the songs of zion how shall we sing the lord's song in a foreign land if i forget the o jerusalem let my right hand forget her cunning let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if i remember thee not if i set not jerusalem above my chiefest joy

this jewish faithfulness was rewarded after a few decades of captivity when cyrus the persian ruler who had conquered babylonia permitted them to return to jerusalem those who returned rebuilt the temple when the survivors of the exile in babylonia were allowed to come back and rebuild near the end of the 6th century bce they built what we now call the second temple and that temple survived all the way down into the roman period the repatriates canonized the official version of the pentateuch the first five of the sacred books that would constitute the hebrew bible from the

period of the first temple through the babylonian exile and then into the early years of the second temple israel was gifted with a series of prophets the utterances of fifteen of these prophets were gathered with some historical writings to produce a second collection of jewish scripture which was added to the pentateuch eventually there was a third section known as the hagiographer which was a collection of additional literary and historical writings the three parts together constituted the bible of the jews and it would prove to be one of the most influential documents in world civilization the

second temple was rebuilt around 520 bce it would remain standing for some six centuries for most of this period the jews did not enjoy full sovereignty and so they lived from 5 16 before the common era until the destruction of the second temple in 70 of the common era in that land though never or rarely in total freedom because one empire after another conquered that area it was almost a crossroads of civilization they were ruled for several centuries by persians then by greeks and syrians but in the second and first centuries bce there was a

glorious period of independence under the hasmonean rulers also known as the maccabees the maccabees come into the picture about 165 and it was after um the the area of palestine had come under a syrian hellenistic control and they tried to introduce hellenistic ideas into judea judea at that point was on the border between them and their rival egypt and they wanted to ensure that judah was well established in their kingdom and well built into their security system so they introduce a lot of changes put their own families into power try to introduce their own religious

ideas and so forth in order to assimilate the province into the rest of their empire and that created the first backlash which eventually resulted in the revolt of the maccabees [Music] this was to be the last period of full freedom for the jews for over 2 000 years it ended when the romans conquered judea in 63 bce the last century of this second temple period was marked by intensive unrest among the jews which was coupled with hope for the arrival of a messiah who would restore the glory of the jewish people judaism's greatest crisis came

in the year 70 ce [Music] the jews of palestine rebelled against their roman rulers after four years of bitter warfare including a lengthy siege of jerusalem the rebellion was crushed jerusalem and its temple were destroyed this marked the final end of jewish independence the romans deported masses of jews from their land beginning what jews called their exile it would last almost 19 centuries [Music] [Applause] [Music] the roman response to the rebellion that finally led to the destruction of the temple was devastating to the population in the land of israel and it really stopped being the

the center of uh jewish life the centers moved elsewhere but judea was that was devastated it was depopulated the temple was gone uh so other areas had to kind of pick up the slack after that for example the jews who remained in babylonia after the exile founded a babylonian jewish community that lasted for 20 centuries the jews managed to maintain a sense of community in surah and pumbadita in babylon in alexandria and egypt in rome in greece there were jewish communities that set themselves apart from the larger community so that they could live by their

own laws and follow their own traditions instead of being temple centered judaism now became synagogue centered for centuries jews had endeavoured to visit the jerusalem temple as often as possible on one of the pilgrimage festivals passover pentecost and tabernacles but this had become increasingly difficult as the jewish diaspora extended there was a need for a local outlet for communal worship and out of this developed the synagogue the synagogue was a revolutionary concept at a time when pagan temples were perceived to be the day at his physical place of residence when worship was expressed through sacrifice

and shrines were accessible only to the priestly caste [Music] apart from the law dictated to moses on sinai god had given moses further oral instructions these were handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation and they were continually expanded so that by the first century ce this oral tradition had reached enormous proportions well the first piece of rabbinic literature we have the earliest is the mishnah was probably edited between 200 and 250 of the common era and is the first attempt to explain how to use the bible and the laws and the rules

of the bible in everyday life in the roman world the next important compilation was the talmud the talmud was put in the form that we now have it probably around 550 or 600 of the common era so about 400 years after the missionary and it's a series of discussions cases precedents of how to interpret and how to apply mishna's understanding of biblical law to the new situations the talmud is a massive work of some three million words it is a complete library comprising a vast and detailed code covering the entire gamut of religious and civil

life interspersed is lighter narrative material including anecdotes and legends this doesn't seem to have any religious overtones it's stuff level law school stuff and what's it got to do with religion but it does because it means that people's relationships with others are not going to be based on the power that one person has or the other person lacks instead they're going to be based on a principle of what is right and what is wrong as enunciated in the rest of the bible all coming roughly under thou shalt not steal if it's not yours leave it

alone and it has been through the torah through the talmud and through our prayer book that the jewish community wherever they have been have managed to survive as a community [Music] by the early centuries ce the jewish dispersion had reached arabia in the south armenia and persia to the east and the atlantic ocean to the west jews also followed in the wake of the roman armies into northern europe where they established new communities but the triumph of christianity in the fourth century heralded tragedy for the jews well with the rise of christianity in about the

fourth century um it it did change the social uh and political situation of the jews in what was left of the roman empire as the roman empire collapsed the church really became the one institutional structure that still survived and it became the de facto government that replaced the roman empire the byzantine emperors introduced anti-jewish laws that were the foundation for centuries of terrible persecution this legislation was meant to isolate and humiliate the jews and to outlaw their close connection with christian society as the centuries passed the church made harsher and harsher laws against the jews

jews were marked out as pariahs and they constantly were the victims of discrimination jews were forced to wear special clothing or special badges they were subject to attacks expulsions and massacres [Music] under these circumstances it was not surprising that jews confined to their own ghettos became intensely introspective and immersed themselves in their own culture but there were exceptions in certain places and times jews also participated in the italian renaissance with contributions in science literature philosophy music and even dance yet overall the persecutions continued judaism has always had a basic strain of optimism the jews did

not believe in original sin and after the exile they were sure that eventually god would bring his people back to their land safe from their tormentors the prophet jeremiah had foreseen such a result i myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where i have driven them and i will bring them back to their fold and they shall be fruitful and multiply through all of this the great ideal of jewish society continued to be study and the learned man the scholar and rabbi was the paragon the jews had pioneered a

universal education in temple times and they always ensured that their sons studied often at the talmudic academies that flourished in many communities adults also found time each day to pour over the talmud sometimes this intensive study evoked a negative reaction for example an 18th century piotistic movement known as hasidism rejected the intellectual element of religious life in favour of a more emotional approach the hacienim led by their founder the baal sheim tov the master of the good name in the medieval period wanted to bring back into judaism the celebration of life and the joy and

that which was always characteristic of jewish life in its singing and dancing with the torah and its feeling of fulfillment in this relationship with god following the american and french revolutions the jews were no longer seen as inferiors with no rights now they became equal citizens many jews began to question traditional teachings and practices new forms of judaism emerged one of the most influential solutions was reform judaism reform came along in the early 19th century and under the impact of modern biblical scholarship determined that they no longer believe that god gave torah complete and finally

at sinai but the torah was written by many men over several centuries therefore it is not god given but god inspired traditional rabbinic judaism now was called orthodox to distinguish it from reformed judaism while the jews always knew what they believed it took a couple of thousand years for them to organize their theology and creed systematically unlike christianity judaism never had an official dogma laid down by its authorities it's true that the bible is filled with fundamental statements of jewish belief but they are scattered the most crucial sentence appears in the book of deuteronomy hero

israel the lord our god the lord is one this sentence affirms both monotheism and the people's submission to the one god [Music] the biblical concept of creation has various important implications the universe is seen to be homogeneous planned and formed by a single mastermind this universe is not random but rather it has a purpose there was no element of chance in the creation of the structure of the cosmos every detail was divinely planned god did not retire after creation but instead remains involved in all the affairs of the universe emerging as the god of history

god's providence continually ensures the existence of the world which he could bring to an end just as he brought it into being the human being fashioned in the divine image is the climax and the purpose of creation god an image god doesn't have any image but man has the has characteristics of god himself that sets him apart from all other creatures god has intelligence on his level his way man has a mind whatever intelligence other creatures might have none of them will devise the theory of relativity man can it's an intelligence perhaps more important even

than that i say perhaps man can make a moral choice i decide whether to steal or not to steal whether he whether to humiliate another person or not to humiliate to sin to humiliate a person i decide that it's my moral choice no instinct compels me to do right or wrong there is no power on heaven or earth that compels man to sin or do a good deed it's man's decision no one compels god no one compels man that's why we are in his image and this is the essence of judaism now the ancient jews

believed that if they followed mosaic law they were performing god's will and that god was beside them in jewish tradition the men came to the synagogue three times a day to worship and in order to maintain a sense of community the rabbis required that there be a minion a minimum number of ten men gathered to worship in order to participate in the full worship experience this was very important that they depended on each other to maintain this worship relationship with their god they composed the prayers of our prayer book about let's say 25 centuries ago

they went through the bible and found expressions that are appropriate for prayer one place it says heal me o god and i will be healed well there you got it great it's a wonderful prayer they made one change in it not heal me but heal us but i will be healed we will be healed this idea there's a dependency a community stays there forever it continues always the individuals are replaced the community continues to go so the community has responsibility for everybody in the community the traditional synagogue was the center of all community activity here

the jew lived much of his life dreamed his dreams and communed with both god and neighbor the synagogue is the focus of community for jews the synagogue essentially in our tradition is a house of worship a house of study and a house of fellowship and it is these three aspects of synagogue life that brings the community together and keeps it together [Music] avadim jewish life has always revolved around two centers the synagogue and the home the home really has been the sanctuary of israel and even though following the destruction of the temple the whole synagogue

movement developed it was still in the home that sabbath was observed the holidays and there was the richness of the tradition that kept the family observant of that which was holy and that which was precious in their lives [Music] guidelines for the relationship between parents and children are well developed in jewish law and literature children are seen as an extension of the parents and the ideal family is characterized by unbounded mutual love and mutual responsibilities children are taught to respect and honor their parents children are also treasured in jewish life and in former times barrenness

or what we would call infertility was seen as a terrible curse if a wife had no children after 10 years of marriage jewish law and custom permitted bigamy in order to produce children [Music] jewish life receives a very special meaning and rhythm from its kaleidoscopic variety of festivals feasts and family occasions these events punctuate the jewish year and give it spice and a unique character see this is one of the wonderful things about judaism to me is that it is a celebration of life in our holidays and our daily activities but if you would ask

what is the most important holiday that you celebrate i would say the sabbath on the sabbath once a week the jew devotes himself to his family his community and his god it is a day that you are cut off from the labors and the worries that afflict the person for six days a week and it's a time when the family is together when there's a special meal on friday evening and the family relaxes around the dinner table and sings sabbath songs and then goes to synagogue or temple to attend worship services with the community but

the sabbath is also a time for study [Music] the three festivals the passover the feast of weeks and the feast of booths or tabernacles continue to be kept in the synagogue and the home and they remained joyous occasions the first of these three annual feasts is the spring passover festival in ancient times passover marked the beginning of the barley harvest and it also was the anniversary of the exodus from egypt in ancient days the pilgrims in jerusalem and passover would sacrifice and eat the pascal lamb in grateful remembrance of these events the last supper of

jesus is generally regarded as having been a passover meal the passover festival lasts for a week and in memory of their forefathers plight jews are commanded to eat only unleavened bread which takes the form of wafers the feast of weeks occurs 50 days after passover in temple times this agricultural festival celebrated the first fruits of the early summer and the pilgrim brought an offering to the temple from the wheat harvest the feast of weeks falls on the date traditionally linked with the giving of the torah to moses on mount sinai so the feast is also

known as the feast of the giving of the law the third of the three main pilgrimage festivals occurs in the fall when the harvest has been gathered it's called the feast of booths or the feast of tabernacles this was the most joyful of the three festivals it received its historical symbolism by commemorating the 40-year wanderings of the children of israel in the wilderness during that time the israelites lived in tent like booths or tabernacles jews during this festival live in booths constructed in their gardens or on the balconies or roofs of their houses those are

the very joyful experiences now we have solemn occasions too in jewish life the holiest days of the year are rosh hashanah the religious new year and 10 days later yom kippur the day of atonement in the fall of the year and these are the times when the focus is not on the home as it is in the other holidays but on the synagogue or the temple when jews gather to ask god's forgiveness for the sins of omission or commission of the past year and to seek to begin a new year with a clean slate those

are the major solemn occasions and festivals that we celebrate though i have to add that hanukkah which is the only holiday we celebrate that is not based in hebrew scriptures has become a major holiday probably because it is at the same season of the year as christmas but it is a time for joy and celebration based on a wonderful story of the first victory for religious liberty in recorded history found in the apocrypha in the first and second books of maccabee and then we celebrate purim which again is a minor holiday because it isn't found

in torah but is found in the hebrew scriptures uh that celebrates again the emancipation of jews from the tyranny of a despot who would destroy us when the jews were in persia an enemy rose against them and the queen was a jewish queen and she helped and saved her people at that time they have a big celebration kids get into costumes then and all kinds of cavorting goes on and they have a great great time they love it freedom is a theme that enters into all of these major holidays the aspiration to be free to

worship the one god and to live at peace as a community the second cycle of special jewish occasions consists of the milestones in family life these milestones start with marriage which in jewish tradition has two main purposes procreation and companionship weddings can be held anywhere but the synagogue is a favored venue the ceremony is held in the open air if possible to recall god's promise to abraham that his progeny would be as numerous as the stars at the jewish marriage ceremony a canopy is held over the couple to symbolize the home that they are about

to establish after marriage the next event in the family cycle is the birth of a child adam and eve were ordered by god to be fruitful and multiply and this was seen by jews as the first of the commandments if the child is a boy a circumcision ceremony takes place one week after birth among young jewish couples today there is a growing custom to hold a name-giving feast also for a daughter [Music] elohim on reaching the age of 13 a jewish boy is seen as an adult and he becomes responsible for his own deeds and

religious observance [Music] only since the middle ages has this been the occasion for a special ceremony but now the bar mitzvah has become one of the central events in the jewish life cycle in the 20th century a parallel ceremony has been introduced for girls at the age of 12 called the bat mitzvah [Music] jewish laws of mourning are detailed burial should occur as soon as possible a practice reflecting judaism's origin in a hot climate orthodox jews oppose cremation because they believe that it denies the possibility of bodily resurrection but cremation is permitted in reform judaism

since life is so precious jewish tradition says that death must not be precipitated by euthanasia or by the smallest action that may hasten death overall the the basic ethical principle is that if a human life is at stake any other law falls to the side saving human life takes precedence over everything there are only three prohibitions that are higher than preservation of life that is you can't do these things even if it means somebody else dies and that's in committing incest committing murder yourself or idolatry but anything else the preservation of life takes precedence from

the mosaic code the rabbis have derived 613 commandments for the jew to observe as we have seen many of these relate to the synagogue and family life to feasts and to fasts hundreds of the commandments relate to the temple ritual and to agricultural life in ancient israel and these have been unused for almost two thousand years but other commandments affect every corner of everyday life the most obvious are the dietary or kosher laws many kinds of animals are totally forbidden including shellfish and any form of pigment there are basic rules for the ritual slaughter of

animals to ensure a quick and humane death other rules prescribe how to properly draw off the blood which is seen as the seat of life the rabbis also derived from the bible a ban on eating milk products together with meat products the link to the holy land is a vital strand of judaism [Music] it was integral from the very outset in the covenant between god and abraham the religious quality of life in the land of israel was seen as superior to life elsewhere not only could more of the commandments be observed there in israel and

especially in jerusalem the jews saw himself as being closer to god's presence jerusalem represented the place where god's presence was felt you could quote see god but you could feel it there like you feel it nowhere else in the world it represented the the high point in a certain sense of jewish history king david king solomon a marvelous time and it has always been the the symbolic spiritual center of the jewish people we went away from jerusalem we will come back to jerusalem back to jerusalem certainly the state of israel is of primary concern to

jews throughout the world today beginning in the latter part of the 19th century when jews were expelled from russia and from poland for most of eastern europe the migration back to the holy land began once again in earnest and then along came hitler and the tragedy of the holocaust and part of that tragedy was that those jews who might have escaped the nazi tyranny had no place to go i think what happened is that as the as the modern west was taking shape through the renaissance and and later on is that the problem of the

jewish community of what to do with jews became built into western culture and western civilization and they continued to be a problem all the way up until the 20th century you take the united states today you know in some parts of the country jews were not allowed years ago for the same reason that nazi germany killed six million jews for no other reason that they were jews and we were hated in russia just because we were a minority we were jewish people and in 1918 they had programs [Music] on the jewish people he had bands

that came into the to our city and killed in one day 500 people mainly looking for man [Applause] and that was in 1918 i was 13 years old already so i can remember all these atrocities the men were laying in the street and then two days later they gave us permission to out of that up and bury them in the cemetery the holocaust is certainly worse than any kind of persecution that ever went before but it had a lot of continuities the idea of segregation the idea of ghettos the idea of wearing special badges to

indicate who jews were of restrictions on on economic activity all of that none of that was unprecedented all of that had roots earlier on in the western world so i mean the problem of the jews in the west was built in and it continued to shape events for hundreds and hundreds of years really down to our own century western churches now stood aghast over the realization that traditional anti-semitism among christians and anti-semitic stereotypes created down the ages had contributed to an atmosphere in which a holocaust was possible christian churches began condemning all forms of anti-semitism

and a dialogue between jews and christians soon developed [Music] in the past century the concept of the return to zion was transformed by the political zionist movement and it culminated in the establishment of the state of israel in 1948 it's historic we didn't have a country until 1948. in 1948 you know we finally got our country back [Music] where does judaism stand today well it is intensely pluralistic today some 12 million jews live in the world about 6 million in the united states and 4 million in israel these two communities are the twin poles around

which jewish religious and cultural life now revolves early in the 20th century a french jewish writer edmond fledge had tenuous early ties with judaism then under the impact of french anti-semitism flag became a strongly committed jew he wrote a credo that beautifully expresses a modern jewish outlook i'm a jew because born of the jewish people and having regained them i wish them to live after me more living than in myself i am a jew because the jewish faith demands of me no abdication of mind i am a jew because the jewish faith requires of me

all the devotion of my heart i am a jew because in every place where suffering weeps the jew weeps i am a jew because every time when despair cries out the jew hopes i am a jew because the word of judaism is the oldest and the newest i am a jew because the promise of judaism is a universal promise i am a jew because for jews the world is not yet completed men are completing it i am a jew because for jews man is not created men are creating him i am a jew because above

the nations and israel the jew places man and his unity i am a jew because above man image of the divine unity judaism places the divine unity and its divinity [Music] [Music] you