IB World Religions 6.4.5. Authority and Schools of Thought: from Ultra-orthodox to Liberal Notes

6.4.5. Authority and Schools of Thought: From Ultra-Orthodox to Liberal

Tenakh and Talmud

1. Every Jewish movement draws its authority from the same two bodies of text, the Tenakh and the Talmud. They divide over how those texts bind, not over which texts count.
2. Tenakh is an acronym for Torah, Nevi'im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings), and it is the Hebrew Bible arranged in the Jewish order.
3. The Talmud is the Mishnah, compiled by about 200 CE, with the Gemara, the rabbinic debate recorded around it. Two exist, and the Babylonian Bavli, closed around 500 CE, carries more weight in practice than the Yerushalmi.
4. Rabbinic authority rests on the claim of a dual Torah, one written and one oral. Orthodox Judaism holds both were given at Sinai, while non-Orthodox movements hold that the texts had human authors writing over a long period.
5. Rulings move from Talmud into codes and then into cases. The principal codes are Maimonides' Mishneh Torah and Joseph Karo's Shulchan Arukh of 1565, to which Moses Isserles added the Mapah recording Ashkenazi practice.
6. There is no central hierarchy and no office that rules for all Jews. Authority is textual and argumentative, which is why the sources preserve minority opinions instead of deleting them.

Prophets, priests and rabbis

1. Authority in biblical Israel ran through two offices. Nevi'im (prophets) spoke in God's name, and kohanim (priests) served the Temple and ruled on purity and sacrifice.
2. Tradition holds that prophecy ceased with Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, so Jews do not treat the office as available now.
3. The priesthood lost its central function when the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, and the sacrificial system ended with it.
4. Authority passed to the rabbis, teachers whose standing came from learning rather than from birth. Yochanan ben Zakkai and the academy at Yavneh are credited with steering that change.
5. Pirkei Avot 1:1 states the chain deliberately: Moses received Torah at Sinai and gave it to Joshua, then the elders, then the prophets, then the men of the Great Assembly.
6. Semikhah (ordination) certifies that a rabbi has the learning to rule, and confers no priestly status and no power to forgive. Kohanim keep limited ritual roles today, such as the priestly blessing, but they no longer govern.

Binding and modifiable mitzvot

1. Tradition counts 613 mitzvot in the Torah. Ethical mitzvot govern conduct between people and ritual mitzvot govern conduct between a person and God, and the Ten Commandments contain both.
2. All movements hold the ethical mitzvot binding on every Jew. The disagreement is entirely about the ritual ones.
3. Ultra-Orthodox and Orthodox Jews hold every mitzvah binding, ritual and ethical alike, because obligation rests on God's command rather than on whether a reason can be seen.
4. Non-Orthodox movements hold ritual mitzvot to be modifiable, and abandonable where their purpose is judged to have lapsed. Kashrut and the prohibited categories of Shabbat work are the examples usually given.
5. Halakhic argument also separates d'oraita, obligations from the Torah, from d'rabbanan, obligations of rabbinic origin. Even in Orthodoxy the second group is more readily adjusted.
6. Practice has since moved in both directions. Late twentieth-century Reform saw a marked return to kashrut, Hebrew and traditional observance, chosen for meaning rather than required by law.

The spectrum of movements

1. The usual spectrum runs Ultra-Orthodox, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Liberal. What it grades is the standing of halakhah, not the intensity of belief.
2. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, usually called Haredi, keep halakhah in full and limit accommodation to surrounding culture. Authority concentrates in leading rabbis and heads of yeshivot.
3. Within Haredi Judaism, Hasidic communities add the personal authority of a rebbe, while the Litvish stream keeps authority with the yeshiva and its scholars.
4. Modern Orthodox Jews keep halakhah in full while engaging with secular education and, for many, with the State of Israel.
5. Conservative Judaism holds halakhah binding but historically developing, and issues rulings through its Committee on Jewish Law and Standards.
6. Reform Judaism, which began in nineteenth-century Germany, gives decisive weight to informed personal choice. Its rabbinic bodies issue responsa and platforms that guide rather than bind.
7. Liberal Judaism in Britain and Reconstructionist Judaism in the United States go further still, treating Judaism as an evolving religious civilisation rather than a fixed legal system.

The Beth Din

1. A Beth Din, meaning house of judgement, is a rabbinic court. It classically sits as three dayanim (judges), and the plural is battei din.
2. Its work covers conversion, the granting of a get (bill of divorce), supervision of kashrut, and arbitration of civil disputes where both parties agree to be bound.
3. It applies existing halakhah rather than making new law. Codes, precedent and responsa limit what it may rule.
4. In most countries it has no coercive power and its authority is accepted voluntarily. In England its arbitration decisions can be enforced through the civil courts under the Arbitration Act 1996.
5. In Britain the London Beth Din serves the United Synagogue, while separate Sephardi, Federation, Masorti and Reform courts also sit.
6. Non-Orthodox movements run their own courts, and Orthodox authorities do not accept their conversions or divorces. This is one of the sharpest practical frictions between the movements.

Israel's laws of status

1. Israel has no civil marriage. Questions of personal status, chiefly marriage and divorce, are handled by the courts of the recognised religious communities.
2. For Jewish citizens this means the Chief Rabbinate and the state rabbinical courts, which apply Orthodox halakhah. Under that rule a Jew is someone born to a Jewish mother or converted under recognised rabbinic authority.
3. The Law of Return of 1950, amended in 1970, uses a wider definition, granting immigration rights to anyone with one Jewish grandparent or a Jewish spouse.
4. The two definitions therefore come apart. A person may immigrate and become a citizen under the Law of Return and still be unable to marry through the Rabbinate.
5. Israeli Supreme Court rulings have gradually widened official recognition of non-Orthodox conversions for registration purposes, while marriage has remained with the Rabbinate.
6. The arrangement is argued over inside Israel. Orthodox authorities defend it as preserving one halakhic standard, while non-Orthodox movements and many secular Israelis press for a civil option.