FROM PRIEST TO RABBI: THE FORMATION OF RABBINIC JUDAISM
By
Chief Rabbi Capers Shmuel Funnye
International Israelite Board of Rabbis
Chicago, Illinois: 7 Aviv 5777 – April 3, 2017
Preamble
Women have always served the Israelite community in positions of honor, respect, and authority. They have served as teachers and professors in the Israelite Academy for many decades. However, since the founding of the Israelite Academy in 1925, women have not been permitted ordination as rabbis nor have they been allowed to serve as full voting members of the International Israelite Board of Rabbis. This proposal calls on the Board to amend its by-laws to permit qualified female rabbis to join the Board. It further calls on the Academy to admit qualified female candidate into the rabbinic program for training leading to ordination.
This proposal explains in great historical detail the crucial difference between Levitical priests and the modern rabbi. While the Torah prohibits women from performing certain Levitical roles within the temple, rabbis came into existence after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. As this essay shows, rabbis are a post-biblical phenomenon; they are not mentioned in the Torah, nor are there any divine degrees stating the qualifications for this office. Instead, for the last two thousand years each community has set its own internal standards for rabbinic service. Therefore, the Israelite community under the auspices of its International Israelite Board of Rabbis has the responsibility and authority to define rabbinic service to meet the needs of our people in the twenty-first century.
Should this proposal be adopted by a two-thirds vote of the Board when it convenes in Atlanta, Georgia, at our International Convention in August 2017, the results will only apply to the International Israelite Board of Rabbis and its school, the Israelite Academy. Individual congregations affiliated with the Board will still maintain the right to choose the rabbis who best fit the requirements of their synagogue. This resolution gives Israelite congregations the freedom of choosing male or female rabbis with the knowledge that the inclusion of women neither violates any Torah Law concerning rabbis nor the current Halachah of the Israelite Board of Rabbis.
This paper is written for the sole purpose of explaining how the institution of the rabbinate was formed. I am writing this paper for the Israelite/Hebrew community member that may have a concern regarding calling a learned man/woman in our community rabbi. This paper is the beginning of a series of articles that I will be putting forth in an attempt to expound some scholarship on many notions that I have encountered within the Israelite community. The word rabbi has several meanings, the most common usage of the term means learned teacher.
However, the term rabbi, from the Hebrew רב (Rav), also means many, prince, and master, and the term רב’ (Rabbie) means my master, (teacher). This paper will confine itself to the title of Rabbi as meaning an ordained spiritual-teacher.
Part I The Babylonian Exile
The fall of Judah and the destruction of the Temple in 586 B.C.E. was the watershed of biblical religion. The subsequent history of Israel is as much a story about religious communities as it is about a nation. This is especially true of the exilic Hebrew community in Babylon. The fall shattered the national and territorial base of Israel’s existence. Not only did the people go into exile; the religion did as well, posing the unprecedented test of Israel’s faith.
Although Israelite religion contained many universal thrusts, it was encased in national form. The land of Israel constituted its territorial sphere making the life of Israel a historic cultural community. The Holy Land, the festivals, the Temple, the priest, was exclusively Israelite. Israelite national religion was dependent upon being in the land, thus the idea that our feast days have an agricultural element in them, i.e. the Passover, counting the Omer, Shavuot, and Sukkoth; each of these feast days was tied to the land of Israel. The role of the Temple regarding Rosh Chodesh, Yom Teruah, Yom Kippur, and the seventh day Shabbat, the Temple was the center of Hebrew/Israelite life. The whole of Israelite life was intrinsically tied to the Temple service, and the priesthood.
No other ancient religion survived long after the demise of its national shrine, this is evident, because there is no Edomite, Canaanite, or Moabite religion with us today. However, we still have the Israelite faith that today is called Judaism. This is true without a national shrine, i.e. the Temple or a priesthood that observed the sacrificial practices.
If there was a similarity between the Israelite faith and the faiths of the other Canaanite clans in the importance of land relative to their religious life, then the Israelite faith should have disappeared, just as the cult of their neighbors disappeared.
But it did not. Why? Not only did Israelite religion not die in exile, it underwent an unexpected resurgence. It was by virtue of the exilic experience that the universal thrust of biblical Judaism emerges so forcefully. The exilic experience apparently induced the community to accept the prophetic task polemiczing against idolatry everywhere, an intermittent function of Diaspora Judaism ever since. It is interesting to note that political loss spelled religious gain. It is during the exilic and post-exilic period that Israel starts to open its ranks to non-Israelites; Isaiah chapter 56 speaks of those who join themselves to G-D. These aliens adopted Israelite faith out of religious conviction. Formerly, one became “Israelized” by living in the land of Israel and assimilating the national religion, that is, non-Israelites were naturalized into the national way of life. By virtue of the Babylonian experience, avenues were created for conversion to the Hebraic way of life or Judaism. (See Ezekiel 47:22; Ezra 2:59-60; 6:21). Thus, the community of Hebrews came to be determined not only by common origin but also by common understanding. From now on the covenant was open to all. This element of the Israelite faith is unique to the ancient world. Choosing to become a part of the people Israel could choose all. Therefore, Judaism became a peculiar combination of synagogue and people to form a veritable synagogue-people. The hope was expressed that many nations would attach themselves to Hashem and become His people (Zechariah 2:15). Judaism was no longer the religion-of-one-people, but the people-of-one-religion. This Theo-political identity enabled Hebrews/Jews and Judaism to transcend the limitations of land, language, and even conflicting economic interest, making for a world people whose focus is a particular Holy Land and whose religious sentiments are primarily expressed through a particular holy tongue.
Now the question might be how can we account for the continuity, vitality, and assertiveness of this Israelite community? The idea of monotheism is not enough to sustain a group of people, not to mention a group of people exiled to a foreign land. It is not monotheism that sustains the people but rather the social realities that the exiled people faced in exile.
In biblical literature, especially the Five Books of Moses, the centrality of the priesthood is indisputable. The prominence of the Book of Leviticus in the Pentateuch is obvious. The major religious institution is the Temple. The key religious personnel are the priests. Significant Biblical personages after the patriarchal period are basically limited to the kings, priests, and prophets. Two of these institutions comprise of positions that are heredity. Only prophecy is primarily charismatic, i.e., dependent upon individual grace. A famous prophet fathered no prophet. In the priesthood and monarchy the situation was reversed. Of the three means that could lead a person to prominence two are by birth and one is by grace. Only the prophets are individually chosen by G-D to fulfill a specific function, a function that could not be bequeathed to the next generation.
The Bible, by legitimating both institutional and charismatic models of authority, structures a situation, which constantly calls for balance between the two. Dialectical tension between the two is not necessarily injurious; imbalance is. Jews call the next era of Israelite/Jewish life the rabbinic period. The biblical period is designated by its literature, the rabbinic by its leadership, indicating a significant shift in Hebraic self-understanding. The “rabbinic period” underscores the emergence of a novel type of leadership. This leadership is not of kings or of priests do we primarily hear, but of rabbis. This change reflects the emergence of new paths to prominence. The rabbinic claim to authority rests on mastery of the Written and Oral Torah and on the modeling of Judaism. The rabbinate was not a birthright. Rabbinic Judaism was wary of rabbis’ children becoming rabbis lest they arrogantly lord it over people. In reality, few prominent rabbis outside of the patriarchal house were born of famous rabbis. Indeed, some of the most famous, the tradition goes out of its way to emphasize, were thought to be descendants of proselytes. This list includes such luminaries as Hillel’s teachers, Shemaiah and Avtalion, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Meir.
The success of the rabbis represents a strategic move away from genealogy as the arbiter of religious status. Piety not paternity became decisive (Midrash on Psalms146:7). The rabbis saw themselves as successors of the prophets, but since they created institutional pathways for leadership, they were able to partially preserve the priesthood. Rabbinic success is reflected in the acceptance of their “manifesto” (Avot 1). This document traces their authority back to Moses through the prophets while, at the same time, undermining the priestly claim to authority by excluding any reference to the priesthood in the authoritative transmission of tradition. Claim is also laid to the mantle of Aaron the high priest, by suggesting that even the devolution of Aaronic authority is through discipleship rather than through genealogy. Greater is the welcome to him who does the deeds of Aaron than to him who only descends from Aaron. The credence lent to those claims was enhanced by supplanting of the Temple (II Chronicles 31:21) by the Torah as the number one pillar upon which the world stands.
Part II The Impact of the Exile
How did this come about? What happened that allowed for an alternative understanding of religious leadership to emerge? We do not have the space to delve into the deepest part of the literature at hand to elucidate at this time. However, we will give broad-brush strokes, with emphasis on those trends, which significantly influenced subsequent developments in Judaism, may be presented.
The change did not result solely from the articulation of an alternative theology. Change is not generated so simply. What is required is congruence between a theological perspective and a social reality. A theology captivates when it makes sense out of social reality. Such congruence can account for a minority perspective achieving majority status. To ascertain the religion of a typical Jerusalemite before the destruction in 586 B.C.E., it would be insufficient to peruse biblical literature. Most scholars agree that it is unlikely that biblical literature was then standard authoritative religious literature in which all were educated. Since there is no data on the rate of literacy and contours of popular religion, we have to assume that popular conceptions shared much with those of Israel’s neighbors, pending evidence to the contrary. Common to all ancient Near Eastern religions, we have is the centrality of the faith as a need of the gods. Although it is unlikely that the Israelite faith was considered a physical divine need, a significant element of the population could not imagine the destruction of the Temple. After all, “it is G-D’s Temple; it is G-D’s Temple “(Jeremiah 7:4), they repeated reassuringly. Ancient Near Eastern gods no more let their temples be destroyed than armies let their supply line be severed. Following popular conceptions, temple destruction not only indicates the impotence of the local deity, but the presence of a more powerful one. A destroyed temple by a foreign army should have triggered off mass desertion to the cause of the conquering god. “Realistic” Judeans, after assessing the situation, would have been expected to pledge allegiance to Marduk. Circumstances attest to his potency and to the impotency of their own deity. With Jerusalem overrun and the Temple destroyed, why cast your fortunes with a defeated god? If he cannot save his own temple how can he save you?
Why then did Israel maintain a distinctive religious identity once exiled to Babylon? What was their mind-set? How did they understand their reality? One would have predicted assimilation into Babylonian life not only for cogent socio-economic considerations, but for good theological ones as well. Why retain an obstructive identity, which marked one out both socially and economically, impeding one’s entry into Babylonian society?
Ancient Near Eastern theological beliefs do not provide a key for understanding the persistence of a religiously distinct Israelite community in Babylon. If the community were capable of maintaining itself intact and partially returning several generations later–a phenomenon which in those days was as remarkable as the later return in our days—then an alternative theological understanding must have prevailed.
Apparently, those who remained true to biblical faith accepted the critique of the Temple which was articulated most poignantly by the prophets. The critique undermined the absolute and autonomous value that paganism placed on the cult. It argued that the relationship between G-D and the world was in terms of grace and not necessity. G-D is not dependent on the cult. On the contrary, the cult is naught but a manifestation of divine grace. Its value is conditional. Man’s sins can mar even this value. Moreover, if the institution of a temple actually facilitates such sins, it leads to the desecration of the divine name. The expenses involved in maintaining the Temple drama and ritual require highlighting the roles of the wealthy and powerful in Temple life. This, willy-nilly, confers religious respectability on the beneficiaries of social and economic inequities. Expensive rituals, like sacrifices, permit expressions of wealth to be congruent with expressions of religiosity. This cannot help cementing the traditional unholy alliance between religion and social status.
The Temple cult can simultaneously block access, especially of the disenfranchised, to the center of religion, making for moral corruption. When the cult becomes so divorced from individual and national morality, it becomes vulnerable to the prophetic charge that it is an abomination to G-D. It is not surprising that the same individuals who fulminated against Temple abuse also berated the wealthy for their oppression of the poor, arguing that G-D sides with those most subject to social injustice. They were able to see that the distribution of suffering is at least partially dependent upon the stratification of society.
The prophetic understanding, on the other hand, sees the flow of divine grace as coordinated with the flow of human goodness. The cult was to cultivate and promote the flow. The problem, one endemic to religious institutions, is the reification of the symbol which is then thought to operate ex opera operatum. In such a case, the Temple not only does not stimulate the transforming of human character, but serves to impede moral development. The symbol then is not only dysfunctional but counterproductive. Ideally the Temple as a religious symbol points beyond itself. As the Talmud says, “One is not to revere the sanctuary, but Him who gave the commandment concerning the sanctuary (Yebamot 6b).” For those who accepted the prophetic understanding of the Temple, the question of why the Temple was destroyed calls for a different type of answer. If the destruction does not reflect divine impotence, then the alternative that it reflects divine punishment, or at least a suspension of divine protection, may seriously be entertained. This, of course, was the prophetic line. It follows that the community in Babylon which reconstituted itself as a religious community likely believed that their exile was punishment and that they were in need of atonement. Those who believed differently were psychologically unprepared to withstand the catastrophe and fell by the wayside (see Ezekiel 20).
The new social situation, however, creates new problems with regard to expiation and atonement. Initially, when Israelites congregated the priest would naturally try to dominate religious life. Lacking authorization to offer sacrifices on foreign soil, however, the priest is deprived of the support structure which maintains his special status. Bereft of a necessary function his authority and status become vulnerable.
Those who adhered to the prophetic understanding and yearned for reconciliation would seek to adhere to G-D’s word. Since punishment has resulted, according to the prophets (Isaiah 40:2), for having violated G-D’s work, it follows that repentance entailed compliance with G-D’s commandments. In light of the impossibility of priestly atonement, alternative schemes of atonement, propounded by the prophets, could make headway. The prophets, unlike the priests, would not only survive the destruction, but gain in prominence due to both the religious vacuum and their stance before the fall.
The social prominence of the prophets would incline the people to take more seriously the prophetic legacy inducing them to review it in an effort to find a way out of the contemporary morass. It is natural to assume that Israelites when congregating would examine the accumulated tradition, especially any available literary remains to discover what G-D did and does not want. The prophetic oracle would replace the priestly oracle as a source of religious guidance. Thus, the religious community would tend to become the tradition- (and ultimately book -) centered in its quest for reconciliation.
The change of symbols leads to the restricting of popular religious conceptions. The physical presence of the Temple and its imposing drama were too overwhelming for the average person to entertain an alternative religious center. This obtained especially on holidays when multitudes flocked to the Temple. The spectacle, the panorama, the priestly vestments, the awesome structure were simply too much. An argument for the centrality of Torah would not ring true lacking as it does resonance in social reality. What book-centered theologians hold may have little to do with the impact on religion. Popular religion is dependent upon the structures which mediate its message and part of the message is its medium. What is decisive is not what Moses says, but what Aaron does. The structures which mediate the message either confirm or refute it. It is not a theory of democracy which is daily confronted, but a governmental bureaucracy. An ancient Jerusalemite could not help but believe in the centrality of the Temple, of the priesthood, and of sacrifice. Their awesome physical presence blocked out alternatives from view. All this is absent in Babylon. With no supports the structure falls and a counter-theology takes root, to wit, the centrality of revelation as mediated through Scripture rather than through sacerdotal framework. Although this position may have been advocated before, it now receives an unprecedented hearing.
The quest for atonement, expiation, and reinstatement in divine grace led to the study of sacred teachings as the indispensable religious activity which, in turn, created new leaders who mastered the teachings and the accompanying hermeneutic. Competency in scriptural explication begins to exceed in social significance the sprinkling of blood on the altar.
The reordering of religious priorities creates a new order of social significance. A book-centered community generates authorities who have mastered the art of interpretation as a temple-centered community generates authorities who are adept at the cult.
This transition was more involved than the above description indicates. Initially, the priest would predominate even among the teachers as they had mastered parts of the Torah in order to function in the Temple (see Deuteronomy 33:10). It was only when some failed with regard to Torah (Micah 3:12; Zephaniah 3:4; Jeremiah 2:8; and 18:18; Ezekiel 22:26; Haggai 2:11; and Malachi 2:9) that alternatives would be sought. Even among those who succeeded, their authority would be predicated not only on their priesthood, but also on their competency in Torah. The priests, in order to maintain their position, are per-force legitimating an alternative source of authority. Religious authority is gradually becoming associated with knowledge of sacred literature rather than with cultic position. This new leadership achieves power by virtue of mediating the source of religion to the people. As long as the Temple was standing the priest was indispensable. Once the link from the divine to the human becomes a book, its mastery establishes an alternative pecking order.
Another related development is the emergence of the centrality of the Sabbath. Although the Sabbath looms prominently in the Bible-in the Decalogue and in the creation narrative-if the average Judean were asked what are the major holidays, he would undoubtedly point to the pilgrimage holidays of Passover, Shavuot, and Succoth. It was then that he witnessed masses flocking to Jerusalem. Nothing could be clearer than that the main manifestation of religion was the Temple. It was the axis around which national life revolved. The pomp and ceremony, the songs of the Levites, the ministrations of the priests, and the prostrations of the worshippers all left their indelible mark. No counter ideology would have a chance at so captivating the popular imagination. In Babylon the situation is again different. The new factor in the social impact of the Sabbath in Babylon lies in its distinguishing Israelites/Jews from their Gentile neighbors and uniting them with their Israelite/Judean compatriots, albeit not neighbors. The Sabbath, especially in exile, superimposed a spiritual neighborhood on the physical one, thereby making ideology the primary generator of community rather than geography. The Sabbath became the most opportune time to focus on Scripture. Although the Sabbath ideologically is the sign of the covenant, sociologically it is the seal of the covenant. It is the day that the exiles become the people of G-D.
It is of no surprise that the Isaiah of the Exile (Chapter 56) associates keeping of the Sabbath with holding to the covenant. Indeed, even the foreigner who attaches himself to the Lord shall be welcome in G-D’s house of prayer by virtue of Sabbath observance. It is also not accidental that the primacy of the Sabbath as the cornerstone of the covenant is underscored specifically by the prophet of the Babylonian exile, Ezekiel: “Hollow My Sabbaths, that they may be a sign between Me and you, that you may know that I, the Lord, am your G-D.” (Ezekiel 20:20) Sociologically, the Sabbath both occasioned and heightened the awareness that the Lord is their G-D.
The experience of the exile sows the seeds which allow Judaism to germinate into a book-teacher-Sabbath-centered religion in contrast to a temple-priest-sacrifice-centered religion. A territory-limited national religious culture was transformed into a world portable religious community.
Part III The Birth of Rabbinic Judaism
Aspects of the above begin to inform the social reality and constitute significant milestones on the path leading to Rabbinic Judaism. That we are on the way is attested to best by the fact that the covenant ceremony consisted exclusively of reading and explaining of the Torah. All standard cultic associations such as Temple, priest, sacrifice, or prayer were absent. Even the Levities functioned solely in a pedagogical capacity. The mention of blessings and prostrations during the ceremony are not of a cultic nature, but spontaneous responses to the reading of the Torah.
The result is that the covenant was renewed without resort to cultic confirmation. Instead, there is a re-enactment of the original covenant ceremony at Sinai. The covenant is contracted through the people hearing and having explained to them the word of G-D. They respond by committing themselves to “heeding obediently”. The ceremony ultimately led to Torah-study Judaism par excellence, namely, Rabbinic Judaism. From that time forward, the history of Judaism becomes the history of the interpretation and application of Torah. What began with Moses was consummated under Ezra. That the proto-rabbinic Jew, Ezra, was considered heir to the whole biblical heritage (and by association his successors the rabbis) lies in the fact that rabbinic tradition considered him to be a second Moses. Indeed, if not for Moses anticipating him, Ezra would have received the Torah, greater than Aaron, the re-establisher of the Torah, the high priest, and a prophet (Malachi).
Although it is true that Rabbinic Judaism emerges full-blown only centuries later by virtue of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E., its seeds were already sown by the prophets in the First Temple period. The inception of the process can be traced back at least to Jeremiah. He comes close to speaking of the Torah and the word of G-D as parallel terms: (Jeremiah 6:19, 8:8f, et al.). He was also the prophet most anxious to point out the contingency of the Temple in the scheme of biblical religion by proclaiming that G-D had not originally intended to mandate the sacrificial system (Jer. 7:22). Instead, Jeremiah held (7:23) to the Sinaic position, as did others, that Israel’s adherence to G-D’s word and covenant suffices to become His people (Exodus 19:5).
It should therefore be of no surprise that it was Jeremiah who envisioned a future when:
Men shall no longer speak of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, nor shall it come to mind. They shall not mention it, or miss it, or make another. At that time they shall call Jerusalem “throne of the Lord” and all nations shall assemble there, in the name of the Lord, at Jerusalem. (Jer.3:16f)
According to some commentators (Rashi and Abarbanel), Jeremiah looks forward to a time when the locus of the sacred will be transferred from the Ark of the Covenant to the Community of the Covenant, obviating the need for constructing another Ark. So successful would the replacement be that the old forms will not even be missed. Still Jerusalem will retain its centrality as the city of G-D. The prophet realized that G-D’s presence to be everywhere, it first must be somewhere.
If the analogy is not pressed (since historical processes are never as smooth or as unilinear as the metaphors used to grasp them make out to be), the coming-into-being of Rabbinic Judaism can be compared to the birth process, Prophecy generated the seed, the exile provided the womb, and the exilic community served as the egg. The arrival of the exiles to Babylon triggered the process of ovulation. If not for the fertilization of prophecy, the exilic community would have died in Babylon. The prophetic word, however, impregnated the exilic community producing a new conception which may be called embryonic Rabbinic Judaism. Later the fetus was transplanted into the womb of the Land of Israel. The gestation lasted throughout the Second Temple period. As the fetus grew it assumed more and more the characteristics associated with the about-to-be-born Judaism, such as the centrality of Sabbath, non-sacrificial forms of worship, Torah-study, and non-cultic forms of religious leadership. The destruction of the Second Temple ruptured the membranes removing the final barrier to the birth of Rabbinic Judaism.
I pray that this paper will be received in the spirit that it was written, which is to bring understanding to what is called Rabbinic Judaism. Torah Blessings!
References:
Solomon Goldman Lecture Series; Volume IV; 1985: Spertus College Press, Chicago Illinois
Biblical references as pointed out in the paper