TWO SIDES TO JUDAISM: UNIVERSALISM and PARTICULARISM • with Rabbi Michael Skobac • Jews for Judaism

[Music] so there's an old story that has probably been told too often about a rabbi who was asked to settle a dispute between two of his congregants and the first one shared his tale of Woe and his complaints and the rabbi listened carefully and the rabbi said I think you're entirely correct the second congregant protested and said wait a minute you haven't heard my sight of the story and the rabbi said please explain and the second fellow went on to explain to the rabbi how he saw things in the dispute and the rabbi said you know you're also right now the rabbi's wife had been listening to the discussion and she couldn't believe her ears and she came into the room and she said incredulously to her husband what do you mean you're also right they can't both be right and the rabbi looked at her for a moment and said you know dear you're also right now this is meant to be a humorous little story but the idea is taken quite serious iously in the talmud in tractate aan 13B Rabbi ABA said in the name of Samuel that for three years the house of Hillel I mean the school of Hillel and the house of shamai argued these two major schools of Jewish thought the the Disciples of Hillel and The Disciples of shamai argued for three years one said that the law follows our view and the other said no the law follows our view and finally a Heavenly voice came forth and said these and these are the words of the Living God but in practice we follow the school of hillo now either or thinking is really a logical fallacy that implies the necessity of choosing only one of two possible Alternatives the passage in the talwood that we just saw drives home the point that when there seem to be two conflicting possibilities both can be true there's no need to choose one over the other unfortunately the tendency to fall back into either either or thinking negatively impacts the way many people think about Judaism in order to avoid nuance and Paradox people tend to gravitate towards simplistic absolute and unqualified perspectives is Judaism oriented to particularism or is it oriented towards universalism who do we really care about fellow Jews or the rest of humanity should our Focus be inward or outward there are many Jews today who stress universalism they emphasize ethical values and concern for improving the lives of all Humanity protecting the environment and fighting hatred and Prejudice wherever it might be but they may dismiss the importance of observing many ritual commands of the Torah and denigrate what they consider to be parochial Jewish concerns I know of someone who recently wrote about belonging to a synagogue where the main concern is tikun repairing the world embracing everyone peace and social justice and she went on to say that there's a new member of their congregation who was born Jewish but who converted to Christianity and is now serving on the board of this synagogue now she said she understands that the synagogue seeks to embrace everyone but was incredulous that no one else in this congregation felt that this problem that this person serving on the board was problematic on the other hand there are many Jewish people whose concerns are exclusively internal with virtually no involvement with the World At Large they seek isolation and seek to erect as many barriers as possible from the rest of the world Rabbi May salvic tells an interesting anecdote about his grandfather Rabbi Aaron salivic during the late 1960s some of you may remember there was a tremendous humanitarian crisis facing the people of bafra as a result of the Nigerian civil war over a thousand children were dying of starvation every single day and this led to a massive International relief effort and airlifts someone at the time told Rabbi morai gifter who was the head of the tels yiva the rabinal school in Ohio that Rabbi Ain salvic was very concerned about the suffering in bafra Rab gifter replied that not only is raron the only head of the Yeshiva school a rabinal school he's the only one that speaks about bafra he's the only Yeshiva Sage who ever even heard of bafra now when we reflect about Judaism it is self-evident that ideas of particularism and being a distinct people separate from the rest of the world are baked into the cake in the very first verse in the Torah dealing with the story of the Jewish people this comes through loud and clear in Genesis 12:1 God speaks to Abraham and says go for yourself from your land from your relatives and from your father's house to the land that I will show you Abraham is instructed to separate himself and his family from their Origins and their surroundings and to relocate to a separate special land Rabbi Jonathan saaks of blessed memory the former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom observed that the central Narrative of the Torah the five books of Moses is the promise and the journey to the land of Israel now why is the land of Israel so important and Rabbi saak explained that it's the place that God chose for Jewish people to create an entire Society according to the teachings of the Torah in Israel Jews conduct their lives in the language of the Bible Hebrew the language of Holiness in Israel Jews live within time as defined by the Jewish calendar and space saturated in Jewish history only there can Jews form a majority only there are they able to construct a political system an economy and an environment on the template of Jewish values there alone can Judaism be what it was meant to be not just a code of conduct for individuals but an architecture of a society this special holy land was the place designated for the nation of Israel who are charged with being a holy people in Exodus chapter 19 19:6 before the revelation of the Torah at Mount Si God speaks to the Jewish people and tells us that we are to be a kados a holy nation and later in Leviticus 19:2 the almighty charges each Jew to be holy according to zman of liadi the first rabbi of the kabad laich kic movement in his classic work Tanya chapter 46 he writes that Holiness implies aloofness being separate and being apart in a sense all the Commandments of the Torah serve to transform us into a holy people the blessing that we recite before performing mitzvot before performing The Commandments says say blessed are you Lord our god king of the universe who has made us holy with his Commandments the Commandments serve to sanctify us make us holy which means to make us a separate distinct people and the Torah expands on this idea of Holiness in The Book of Leviticus 20 verse 26 where God says you shall be holy for me for I the Lord am Holy and I have separated you from the Nations to be mine now billum was a pagan Prophet who was hired by balak the king of Moab to curse the people of Israel but at every turn he was frustrated and God transformed his curses into blessings in his very first attempt he says in numbers 23:9 for from its Origins I see it rocklike and from hills do I see it behold it is a nation that dwells apart and not reckoned among the nations in Genesis 14:3 Abraham is referred to as an EV an i this is usually rendered as a Hebrew but I comes from a root meaning the other side across over on the other side and we see that Joseph and Jonah and other descendants of Abraham are also called I in the Torah and the meaning is that Abraham and his progeny stand on the other side distinct from the rest of the world in the 17th chapter of Genesis God gave Abraham the physical sign of circumcision to mark his uniqueness in his flesh and we know that Judaism has special dress and special ornaments that are worn to identify the Jew and a muza on the doorposts and Gates of our homes to Market as a Jewish residence this principle of preserving the distinct and separate identity and status of the Jewish people is an overarching concern of the Torah one example is the prohibition against marrying people who were not Jewish we see this in for example Deuteronomy chap 6 7:3 which says you shall not intermarry with them you shall not give your daughter to their son you shall not take their daughter for your son one of the main institutions of Jewish life is the complex system of dietary laws these practices are an important force in maintaining Jewish unity and they serve as a barrier against assimilation among many other benefits and reasons for the dietary laws when eating in a non- kosher restaurant or in the non- kosher home of Gentile neighbors and business associates is not possible there places we simply cannot eat because the food is not Kosher and therefore Jews will then tend to eat in kosher restaurants and in each other's homes and there's a bonding that's created and a Feeling of community among fellow Jews who are also observing the dietary laws the Torah itself Associates the dietary laws with the maintenance of the Jewish people as a separate people both in Leviticus 20: 25 and 26 and in Deuteronomy chapter 14: 2- 4 now in order to give more Force to the biblical dietary laws the rabbis instituted additional restrictions and these include for example Bish akum the prohibition against eating food that was cooked by a non-jew even if the food is otherwise 100% kosher in addition the sages prohibited drinking many kinds of alcoholic beverages with non-jews my manes in his code of Jewish law in the laws of forbidden Foods chapter 17 explains these restrictions and he writes there are activities that are not actually forbidden by the Torah that our sages have prohibited in order to ensure that Jews and non-jews don't intermar these prohibitions were instituted so that a Jew will not come to eat in the home of a non Jew and socialize with them while it's clear that Judaism has a strong particularistic bent with a determined concern to maintain the special separate identity of the Jewish people and to prevent their assimilation into the World At Large there is more to the story on the one hand this is all true it's all true about what we've said in terms of the particularistic goals and concerns of Judaism but as tevia would say in Fiddler on the Roof there is another hand consider the fact that the Torah begins on an extremely Universal note there's no mention of the Jewish people until the 12th chapter of the book of Genesis the Torah begins with the creation of world and where all human beings are created in the image of God while there's no mention of the Torah and the specific directives for the nation of Israel until the 20th chapter in the book of Exodus no mention of Judaism at all until halfway through the book of Exodus our sages teach that the oldest spiritual path in the world goes all the way back to Adam and to Noah these are the universal laws of morality that the Creator revealed to those people those first human beings that we refer to as the noahide laws it's impossible to imagine that God would create the world and then essentially ignore it for 2500 years until he would finally reveal the Torah to the children of Israel it's impossible to imagine how would God allow Humanity to go without any instructions for 2500 years furthermore we see throughout the Book of Genesis that that god holds people accountable for their behavior so it's clear that Humanity had been appraised by God of his absolute standards for human life and this universal code of morality and ethics predates Judaism by nearly 2500 years but when we examine the Torah itself as well as IC literature we will find that it is not singularly concerned only about the Jewish people the entire world is part of the torah's purview let's share a number of examples Jerusalem we know is the capital of Israel and the Holy Temple in Jerusalem the focal point of our spiritual life yet speaking of non-jewish people God says in the book of Isaiah chap 57 I will bring them to my Holy Mountain and I will cause them to rejoice in my house of prayer their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be acceptable upon my Altar for my house God says shall be called a house of prayer for All Peoples not just for his nation of Israel the midash tanuma has a fascinating insight about the architecture of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem the midash there teaches that when someone normally wants to make a window in their home they make it wide on the inside and narrow on the outside why is that so that it should draw in the light yet the windows of the Holy Temple were wide on the outside and narrow on the inside why was that the midis teaches so that the light of the temple would leave and illuminate the world the light of the temple is not only meant for Israel it's meant for the entire world according to our literature the Torah itself was intended for all of mankind the midash teaches that before revealing the Torah to Israel the almighty offered it to all the nations of the world God offered it to everyone but they didn't want to live according to the restrictions of the Torah and the sages also teach that the Torah was revealed in the desert in a no man's land and not in the land of Israel and this again was to reinforce the idea that it is ultimately intended for everyone it's not just a document for the Jewish people it was given in a no man's land in a Wilderness to just drive home the point that it's accessible and open to everyone the sages also teach that Moses translated the Torah into 70 languages and the commentaries explain that this was so that the 70 Nations of the world would have access to the Torah and so along these lines the tomwood teaches and tracted bakama 38a that a gentile who devotes himself to the study of Torah is considered as the high priest now we know that each week in the synagogue a portion of the five books of Moses is read publicly the entire Torah all five books BS of Moses are divided up to be read over the course of a year and each portion that we read has a name that is derived from the opening words of that section the portion that contains the story of the revelation of the Torah at Mount Si runs from Exodus 18 to Exodus 20 and the name of that portion is not what you might expect it to be the name is not Moses the portion is named after Moses non-jewish father-in-law yro or Jethro because he came to embrace the Torah he was an idolator who came to embrace the vision of the Torah we can see another universalistic dimension to the Torah in the three Pilgrim festivals the three holidays when Jews were required to travel and spend the holiday in Jerusalem at the Holy Temple these three holidays are Passover that commemorates The Exodus of the Jews from Egypt after 210 Years of Slavery Passover is also referred to as Manu the time of our freedom the second of the pilgrim festivals is called Shavuot which means weeks because it falls out seven weeks after Passover and Shavuot is also called Matan toru the time of the giving of our Torah and the third Festival is called sukot which means Tabernacles or booths and it commemorates how the Israelites lived in booths for 40 years wandering in the desert after leaving egyp Egypt and how God miraculously provided for them and this holiday is called Zan simu the time of our rejoicing now the three festivals also correspond to three agricultural periods Passover is called aiv the Spring Time holiday Shavuot is called the Festival of the first fruits andot is referred to Asif the Festival of the Harvest in gathering there's another lens with which to look at these three holidays France Rosen was a German Jew born around a hundred years ago and as a young man he knew little about Judaism and he decided to get baptized and convert to Christianity on the evening before his baptism he decided to give J Judaism one last try and he went into a small synagogue it happened to be the evening of yum kipur the holiest day of the year the prayers that night were very powerful and they made a tremendous impact on Rosen so he resolved not to convert and to devote himself to seriously stud studying Judaism he became a Jewish philosopher of note and his most famous work was called the star of redemption and one of the themes that he develops is the historical progression from creation to Revelation to Redemption this is one of his Stars one of his triangles if you imagine two inverted triangles form a star so one of his triangles is this Triad of creation Revelation and Redemption first God creates the world he then Reveals His Torah to the world and in the future the world will be redeemed during the Messianic Utopia the three Pilgrim festivals correspond to these three themes Passover is corresponding to Creation because Passover over marks the birth of the nation of Israel Shavuot corresponds to Revelation because this is the holiday celebrating the revelation of the Torah at Mount Si and sukot corresponds to the theme of redemption as we will soon discuss in the beginning of the Passover story God sent Moses to tell Pharaoh thus says the Lord Israel is is my son my first born Rabbi Abraham iben Ezra explains that this means that they were the first of my children to serve me when God says Israel is my son my firstborn it means that Israel were the first of my children to serve me and this implies of course that God has other children not just Israel and that they will one day come to serve God one of my first teachers of Torah was Rabbi Benjamin ble and he writes that the holidays the holiday commemorating Israel's acceptance of the Torah is called the Festival of first fruits but first fruits are not the final Harvest God will not be content until all his children acknowledge Him and submit themselves to follow him so Shavuot is the holiday commemorating the first fruits of God as he said the the Jews Israel were the first of my children to acknowledge me but we know that sukot is the holiday of the final harvest the final in gathering it's going to be the final Gathering of all of God's children and there will be a universal acceptance of God and that time will be a time of true rejoicing that's why sukot is called the time of our rejoicing what greater rejoicing can you have when the whole world finally becomes perfected sukot is the holiday of universalism the Torah mandates that we sacrifice 70 Bulls on the holiday of sukot during the seven days of this festival and our sages explain that these 70 Bulls are offered on behalf of the 70 nations of the world on the holiday of sukot we pray for rain this is not a parochial Jewish concern the whole world needs rain on sukot we wave the four species of plants to all six directions of our universe north south east west up and down the prophet Zakaria in chapter 14 of his book is read publicly in the synagogue on the first day of the holiday of sukot and in verse 16 of this chapter we read that it will come to pass that everyone that is left from all the nations that came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the king the Lord of hosts and to keep the Festival of sukot the Prophet zakara is telling us that sukot is going to become a universal holiday not just for Jews all the non-jews will celebrate sukot in the future and in the ninth verse of this this chapter zakara explains that this Universal celebration of sukot will be part of a general Universal Embrace of God he writes there that in that day the Lord will be one and his name will be one and this final joyous ingathering of all humanity is alluded to in the well-known prayer called the shma that we recite twice a day the first verse of the shma prayer is found in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse4 and we say sh Ison elu Adonai here o Israel the Lord Is Our God the Lord is one and Rashi explains the ultimate meaning of this verse he writes the Lord who is at present our God but not yet the god of the Nations he is destined to become the one God as it says in the prophet zapia 3:9 for then I will turn to the peoples a pure language that they may all call upon the name of the Lord to serve him with one consent this is the great Messianic utopian vision that is summarized by Isaiah in 11:9 where he writes they will neither hurt nor destroy in all of my sacred Mountain for the Earth will be as filled with the knowledge of the Lord as water covering the seabed and so we have here the theme of the Brotherhood of mankind all of mankind embracing each other as brothers B based upon the fatherhood of God when all of the world comes to acknowledge the fatherhood of God we all become brothers and Isaiah sees this as the mechanism through which we will finally have world peace now what will bring about this Global transformation what will be the Catalyst to bring about the final Harvest when the entire world will Embrace God scripture makes it very clear that this will take place through the agency of Israel through the agency of the Jewish people at the very beginning of the Jewish story when God tells Abraham to go forth from his land and his relatives to the land that God will show him the passage in Genesis 12 continues and God says and I will make you a great nation I will bless you you and I'll make your name great and you will be a blessing and I'll bless those who bless you and he who curses you I will curse and all the families of the Earth shall bless themselves by you now we saw before that in Exodus 19:6 God tells the people of Israel that they will be a holy nation but the verse also says that we will be a Kingdom of priests now we know that among the 12 tribes of Israel the kohanim the priests were one family from the tribe of Ley now while the priests had the responsibility of serving in the temple there were too many priests to all be there at the same time so they were rotations there were shifts and the average P priest served in the temple only about two days a year the average priest was only serving in the temple about two days a year so what do they do for the rest of the time so the prophet malahi in chapter 2:7 says the lips of the priest should Safeguard knowledge so the main vocation of the priest was as teachers of Torah so Rabbi Yehuda Hali explains in his famous work kuari chapter 2 that just as the priests of Israel were teachers for the rest of Israel when God calls Israel a kingdom of priests it means that the Jewish people will be the teachers of mankind Isaiah 42:6 says says that Israel is to be a light to the nations of the world Isaiah 43 Verse 10 says that Israel are to be God's witnesses to the world to testify about God's reality Isaiah CH 49 repeats the idea that Israel is to be a light to the Nations and we see finally in Isaiah 60 veres 1-3 God tells us that ultimately the nations of the world will come to Israel's light and will walk by it the prophet Zakaria 8:23 says in those days it will happen that 10 men of all the languages of the Nations will take hold they will take hold of the corner of the Garment of a Jewish man saying let us go with you for we have heard that God is with you it's the Jewish people that will ultimately bring the rest of the world to God and if you pay attention to the Liturgy on rosashana the Jewish New Year and yum kipur the day of atonement this is one of the main themes of those days for example we read in the main prayer that said numerous times times on those holidays and so too oh Lord Our God instill Terror upon all your works and let your dread fall upon all you have created let all works rever you and all creatures prostrate themselves before you let them all become a single Society to do your will wholeheartedly for as we know Lord Our God that the Dominion is yours might is in your hand and strength is in your right hand and your name inspires awe over all that you have created now in light of all of this it's clear that Torah and Judaism are saturated with universalism because this is the ultimate agenda of the Torah and if Israel is to be the Catalyst that will transform form the world and bring them into a relationship with God particularism is necessary if we don't maintain a distinct identity if we absorb the ethos of the world our message will lose its Clarity preserving the separateness of Israel is essential for both preserving in the Integrity of our message and preserving a means to transmit it we are particularistic because we have a universal vision and our universalism is facilitated by our particularism now this Dynamic is beautifully Illustrated in the famous prayer called alenu that concludes each of the three daily prayer services and is a central part of the rosashana Liturgy I'm just going to share this prayer where you see these two themes of particularism and universalism basically wed they're wed together because they go together they're not two separate two contradictory agendas so the prayer says it is our duty to praise the master of all to ascribe greatness to the molder of Prim primeval creation for he has not made us like the nations of the land and has not imp placed us like the families of the Earth for he has not assigned our portion like theirs nor our lot like all of their multitudes but we Bend our knees and bow and acknowledge our thanks before the king who Reigns over Kings the Holy One blessed is he he stretches out heaven and establishes Earth's Foundation the seat of his of his homage is in the heavens above and his powerful presence is in the loftiest Heights he is our God and there is none other true is our King there is nothing beside him as it is written in his Torah you are to know this day and take to your heart that the Lord is the only God in heaven above and on earth below there is none other and now we have the second paragraph therefore we put our hope in you Lord Our God that we may soon see the mighty your Mighty Splendor to remove detestable idolatry from the earth and false gods will be utterly cut off to perfect the universe through the almighty sovereignty then all of humanity will call upon your name to turn all of the Earth's Wicked towards you all of the world's inhabitants will recognize and know that to you every knee should bend every tongue should swear before you oh Lord Our God they will bend every knee and cast themselves down to the glory of your name they will render homage and they will all accept upon themselves the Yoke of your kingship that you may Reign Over them soon and eternally for the kingdom is yours and you will reign for all eternity in glory as it is written in your Torah the Lord shall reign forever and ever and it is said the Lord will be king over all of the world on that day the Lord will be one and his name will be one [Music] n [Music] [Music]