Israel and Humanity - Incompatibility of the idea of a national God with the Jewish conception
II.
Incompatibility of the idea of a national God with the Jewish design.
The future of worship the God of Israel and fulfill the calling of the Gentiles throughout the other pages of the Prophets. This is even more remarkable at times when the patriotic sentiment was particularly strong and should therefore suppress any tendency, if the God of the Jews had been, as alleged, a purely national God. The two concepts, particularist and universalist, are expressed simultaneously in perfect agreement contrary, because the first answer [1] to a state of affairs that had its roots in the life of Israel, public and private and the second was a machine, even authentically Jewish and likely to delight all religious souls in Israel.
A quote from the prophet Micah will show us the approximation and union of two concepts: "For all the peoples walk, each in the name of his god, and we walk, we, on behalf of Avaya, our God, forever and in perpetuity. " This is certainly a brilliant national creed and yet the writing of this passage is presented somewhat as a consequence of the above does not allow us to believe that it is really so. And indeed, the beginning of the chapter listing in the clearest terms the conversion of the Gentiles: "It will happen in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established on the top of the mountains, that it will rise over the hills and people shall flow. Nations shall go and say, and say: "Come, and assemble at home, Avaya. the house of the God of Jacob, He will teach us his ways and walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and Jerusalem the word of the Lord "[2]. The meaning seems to be this: Until the time of this final conversion, that each nation follows its current and future lights show which is the true God. This text deserves a close passage of Isaiah when the prediction on the conversion of the Gentiles is made in exactly the same terms and ends: "O house of Jacob, come and walk in the light of LORD "[3]. That is to say: Until the day when all peoples will walk in the paths of our God, walk today, we, the family of Jacob, in the light of the Lord.
We can not draw too much attention to the fact that all texts, and they are very numerous, in which the national idea and the profession of universal faith are united, blended together, clearly show that the two doctrines away from themselves as the successive stages of spiritual evolution which would have made less of a concept to a higher concept, were developed at the same time and depend so closely [4] the one another they seem to form, we repeat, one and the same idea in two different aspects.
At the risk of surprise our readers, we say that the idea of a local God in Israel is not even conceivable. The religion of the God of Israel has no home, unless one calls this name the cradle of mankind. Name Only it begins, according to its sacred books with the world's creation and humanity which is already a decisive argument against any kind of location, but even limiting ourselves to the history of the Jewish race, we see begin with a nomadic family and continue with his descendants captive in Egypt. The rabbis have so little sympathy for the idea of God locally and nationally they are up to the very origins of humanity the Mosaic worship, and focusing in Adam, the primordial unity, all that was found by then distributed and diversified into different families land, all the national genius, and linking their religion to the first man they intended to indicate that, somehow, it suited the whole human race.
In the system instead of local deities, the god and the earth are so indissolubly united that they can not survive without each other. Also the autochtonéité she was the dominant feature of all ancient religions, and therefore it would be absurd to speak of local religion for a people who, like the Jews did not feel native. The Mosaic Law also does not begin, properly speaking, Moses and the assertion of the rabbis on this point is unfounded and has had a long prior existence, preparation time, say scholars like M . Barnouf, similar to that Judaism itself is the Christian religion which succeeded. All is certainly not wrong in this theory, since we can say generally that any previous religion is the preparation and the figure of that which must follow. But it is unacceptable, we must admit that the figure is greater than the reality itself, as would be the case if the universal religion and frankly humanitarian generations before Moses had given way to worship as we purely national claims the Mosaic was. At least we do not want to argue that mankind, instead of advancing, took a major step backwards, it seems more reasonable to believe that the religion of [5] Moses n ' has not lost the universalist nature of the one it replaced and that it was even higher in this regard. In fact, the pre-Mosaic religion, any universal as it was, had no central organization and unity, and was therefore more exposed to corrupt and hopelessly degenerate. With Moses the contrary, we see it equipped with a permanent constitution, a central fireplace and appointed agents. Appeared before the great Hebrew lawgiver, although there was a religion for all men, but after him there is one for mankind in the sense that religious unity was properly organized by him.
Some critics including everything that this localization of the Mosaic religion was unlikely, were content to say that if the God of Israel was not the sole God of the Jews, it was at least in the minds of his worshipers, their special protector. We believe we have shown in speaking of God's providence that equal justice is proclaimed in the Bible for all people indiscriminately. If the special protection it speaks to some basis of truth, it is, we shall see in his place, for Israel as a people priest, that is to say, in a sense quite universal, in the interest of all mankind. The Jews are not indeed without excuse, according to these critics, if they considered themselves the special object of divine favor. "How do the Jews a reproach of having raised such claims, Delaunay writes, when we see all the peoples of antiquity in the same mistake they boasted to have special protection from Avaya, the Greeks declared themselves as the darlings of Zeus [6].
But we admit that the comparison would not be to the benefit of Israel. The Greeks did not see Zeus in what the Jews saw in Avaya, the creator of the world and humanity and therefore their religious exclusiveness was not so heinous that it would have been among the Jews. They recognized the authority of other gods of other nations, as the special love that Zeus might have for them was incomparably less unjust than would have been driving Avaya one God the world 's attaching to the exclusion of all other peoples, only a small nation. [7] The concept of divine impartiality was so well into the spirit of Judaism, the rabbis that represents quite happy as models of religious bigotry, cried about the formula the blessing of Aaron, The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to! "How can this be said of Israel, as it is written that God is no respecter of persons? That is, they replied that Jews in the practice of performing Mosaic observances more than is required of ordinary men, even God owes them to maintain strict justice, a special look. "
