Israel and Humanity - Particularism and universalism

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III.

Universalism and particularism.

The epithet applied to the local God of Israel God may have a legitimate meaning, but in no way contradicts the universalist idea, the foundation of Judaism, is that true worship of God was long based in Palestine and in the providential, this little corner of earth is destined to be still at the core, when the truth will be universally recognized. Hence this particular adaptation of the Holy Land Mosaic worship, hence, both repeated statements on the excellence and eminence of this country and all these repeated affirmations of the Bible, the rabbis and the Jewish liturgy that seem to define Palestine Judaism and sometimes even entire dominion and empire of God.

This was attributed to the holy soil of Palestine that happened to carry loads of this blessed land in other countries, in order to erect an altar and offer sacrifices. It is expected perhaps by some quotation rabbinical even kabbalistic. It is nothing: it is the Bible itself tells us the fact. When the Syrian Naaman cured of his head by Elisha, acknowledges that "there is no God in all the earth except in Israel" and urged the Prophet to accept this as evidence of his gratitude, he cried when he saw the refusal of man to God: "Since you refuse, grant that we give the land to thy servant two mules burden for thy servant will no longer offer of other gods or holocaust, or [1] sacrifice, the fact that the Lord will [2] ". Also, we could say that the cult was so local mosaic, if appropriate to Palestine that would otherwise have been transported without losing its character and original form [3]

That the action of the race is usually specially bound to soil it inhabits, is what can hardly be disputed. At this point of view the idea of divinity local, national, does not exist only in the Mosaic, but in all religions. All the gods, or rather all notions of God participate in this historic and geographic location of peoples everywhere and always the genius of each race that shaped its conception of religion, special world and life from which all civilization arises, is eminently national. Modern scholars are far from disregarding these principles. Büchner, for example, writes: "The actions and conduct of the individual depend on the character, habits and opinions of the people to which he belongs and which, in turn, and to some degree is the product necessary external relations amidst which he lives and grows "[4]. According to the Zohar, the world ( alma ), man (adam ) and the Law ( oraïta ) are the three elements harmony in the history and nature, the climate, race and religion are the three aspects of the same thing depending on whether one views the earth, its inhabitants or their god.

But just as in the diversity climate, geographical, geological different countries, there is the general nature of our planet and its relationship with the entire universe, and that besides the special laws of each place, are key principles that form the common ground of humanity, so too, in terms of religion, in particular forms which locates a cult and who, for example, seemed to attach the Mosaic exclusively to Palestine, there is the The idea for the upper and universal that knows no political boundaries or historic boundaries.

The Mosaic worship is so far from being regarded as uniquely Palestinian, that the word of Moses "in all your dwellings" does not mean anything other than the adaptation of at least part of the worship of numerous residential Israel well [5] that this word "in all your generations" aims to universalize time. The story is proof of this cosmopolitan character of Judaism that shows resistance to all dispersions and continuing to live his own life in all countries. The Holy Land, while remaining constantly the ideal center, does it make a vital point of size it is so dependent on possession of the same ground that Moses, providing for the dispersal of Jews across the face of the earth, is for precondition for their return to Palestine the faithful performance of the precepts of the Law: "If thou return unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and you your children, according to all that I command you today, the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion upon you, he will gather you again from among all the peoples where the LORD thy God scattered you. If your outcasts are at the end of heaven, the Lord your God will gather you from there, and there he will fetch you. The LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it "[6] This extraordinary ability of Jews to live in all places, to acclimatize in all regions of the earth, and this striking example in the history of humanity, totally unique and of a people and of a religion adapting to the most diverse civilizations and resistant to all revolutions, all the vicissitudes outdoor show in a striking manner that the vocation of Israel was universal and not merely national.

We are told however, that the Mosaic worship has a distinctly ethnic or it is studied at the time he seemed focused exclusively on Palestinian soil, whether we see later survive the destruction of the Jewish homeland it always presents itself as the religion of a special breed and we seek in vain in him, we are told, marks the undeniable true universalism. To this we reply that we have already said many times, but we will not tire of repeating until justice is rendered in Judaism is that in this religion, universalism and particularism are closely united and that the former serves the latter. Particularism, it is the Mosaic institutions which concern only the Jews exclusively, universalism, which contained the Noachism retains [7] and proclaims the Ethnic Mosaic. The Jewish priesthood and explains one another and form the link between the two. But Palestine and Israel are only two specific instruments providentially chosen to obtain a universal end. This country and this people have put aside their destinies linked to those of the whole human race.

Here, however, in what sense it is true that the God of Israel is a national God: that the Israelites received in the instinct of monotheism sharing more perfect than any other race. Their national God is the One God or universal, which is one and the same thing. This is one of numerous cases where the closest particularism and universalism most comprehensive in identifying a superior design to the definitions themselves. We have no difficulty in proving, when we address the question of the Mosaic Law, as it unquestionably has this double character. But it is the same doctrine of the unity of God among the Jews, as we have previously shown speaking of strict monotheism monotheism or exoteric and esoteric or emanationist. "We know," said Aben-Esra, that God is one and that religious differences arise from the creatures who suffer the action. One of the laws of divine worship is to receive the action by location. Is it not clear therefore that if the Jewish dogma is better than any other state in fully satisfy the various religious temperament, he has a character of universality which is found in no other religion? And is it not also fair to say that a conception so high and nowhere else is there is eminently national, it is not in the best claim to fame of the race which, in the interest of all, has faithfully preserved?

Of the two forms of belief in the unity of God, monotheistic or emanationist simple, we are inclined to believe that however complex the problem is, the second is that, according to data of modern science, is more suitable to meet the religious needs of the Aryan peoples. This explains why the Kabbalists tell us that their doctrine will be revealed as a whole and everyone at the time of the Messiah, that is to say when it comes to teaching religion to the Gentiles and reconcile the two religious geniuses, Semitic and Indo-European. We already know how the pure monotheistic faith consistent with the view emanationist in the design of a Supreme Unity, [8] point whose circumference is nowhere and met in a living synthesis of the infinite diversity divine attributes.

This theological idea allows us to grasp, in Judaism, the dual aspect of local God of Palestine and the universal God. The God of Palestine is the one God, the source of life in general, as the Psalms say it is the special contribution of the Semites in the religion of humanity. But it becomes the universal God by irradiation of its attributes, each of which is personified in a god of each nation. And this God is true, if we consider only a particular aspect of the Godhead, so that it remains in constant relationship with the home unit owned by the Jewish faith, he is wrong on the contrary, when the breaks bond which unites the Jewish monotheism and through him to all other aspects of the Godhead constituting the different forms of worship among the various peoples. And the metaphor of center and circumference becomes a material reality in the geographical conception of the rabbis and the Bible itself, Palestine is the central point from where and extend in all directions of lines of various religious leadership . Emanationist Monotheism, in its historical, ethnographic and geographical empire is that particular one or more attributes of God forming the special religion of every race, hence necessarily a partial, incomplete, fragmentary truth and to have real value, must be attached to the common truth, because the development of various national genius, which Jewish monotheism leaves the field open, does not take place in the order of Providence that so it not break the overall harmony in the religious development of humanity. That is, how the God of Israel is the God of Palestine, without ceasing to be no God of all the earth is a sun whose zenith is in this privileged corner of the world and from there, scatters across its rays. The various conditions which fall ethnographic these rays are like a prism that refracts the colors and broken, that is to say, the divine attributes without the prism varied shades item would not appear and there would be that the only white light, the pure monotheism.

The different aspects that each nation sees the Eternal Light were often worshiped as so many deities, and these are the sarim of the Bible and the rabbis we will discuss in more detail in Chapter following. [9]


References

  1. Page 233
  2. II Kings v. 17.
  3. V. Michaelis, Mosaic Law , Volume VIII, p. 329.
  4. Büchner, loc. cit. P. 320.
  5. Page 234
  6. Deuteronomy XXX, 2-5.
  7. Page 235
  8. Page 236
  9. Page 237