The Jews, or Hebrews, contributed to civilization more than any other nation; they have given religion to three quarters of the world and have influenced the affairs of Mankind more, and more happily, than any other Nation, ancient or modern. - John Adams, Second President of the United States (1797–1801)
Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are beyond any question, the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has appeared in the world. - Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister (1940–1945/1951–1955)
After having talked about the four ancient worldviews – the Fertile Crescent (Sumer, Egypt, Akkad, Babylon, Persian Empire), the India of the Indus Valley, the China of the Yellow River and the Mayan, Aztec, and Inca of Central and South America – the medieval worldview comes next. However, before we speak of this worldview, we will have to talk about the Christian worldview because it greatly influenced the former. On the other hand, before talking about the Christian worldview, it is only right that we should speak about the Hebrew biblical worldview, since Christianity began as a sect of the Jewish religion, that is Judaism.
Someone might ask, "So now we go from talking about worldview to talking about religion?" Yes and no. Yes, because after the introduction of monotheism, religion began to influence people's lives more and more until it became a way of conduct. Polytheism was only a mythological explanation of reality. And no because monotheism, in addition to being an explanation of reality, is also a way of life. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are, at the same time, a religion, and a way of seeing the world, a way of being in it.
By biblical worldview, we mean the way the Jewish people see the world, see themselves in the world, and how they should live in it. Of course, by Bible we mean only the books that the Jewish people understand as canonical, excluding Tobit, Judith, Esther, and 1 Maccabees from the Old Testament, as well as the entire New Testament.
Nature of the Hebrew People
A Jew is a symbol of civil and religious tolerance. ‘So, show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt’ … A Jew is the symbol of eternity. The nation which neither slaughter nor torture could exterminate, which neither fire nor sword of civilizations were able to erase from the face of the earth, the nation which first proclaimed the word of the Lord, the nation which preserved the prophecy for so long and passed it on to the rest of humanity, such a nation cannot vanish. A Jew is eternal; he is an embodiment of eternity." Leo Tolstoy (1829-1910)
The Hyksos, the Etruscans, the Celts, the Franks, the Vikings, the Visigoths, the Suebi and so many other peoples no longer exist; the people of Israel, who predates many of them, still exists today. Israel is today what it has always been, a bridge, a place of passage between Africa, Asia, and Europe. Ancient peoples disappear giving way to other peoples. The Jewish people never constituted an empire, never dominated other peoples, on the contrary, because of its geographical location in the Fertile Crescent, it was always part of an existing empire.
Egypt extended its power over Israel, as did Babylon, the Persian Empire, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, the Ottoman Empire, and the British Empire, until the United Nations in 1948 gave the Jewish people the land of their ancestors, the result of the commotion of the whole world caused by the Nazi extermination of 5 million of them.
David defeats Goliath, Jacob defeats his brother Esau, not by physical strength or force of arms, but by intelligence. This people has no parallel, it stands out for its intelligence, it is in fact the people with the most Nobel Prizes in modern times. It represents less than one percent of humanity but has received 20 percent of the Nobel Prizes. Jews may live in another country and have that country’s nationality, but they never stop being Hebrews, in fact, they are Hebrews first, and only then do they take American, Canadian, or other nationality.
It was their passion for the search of meaning, purpose, morality, and respect for human dignity that gave the Jews the idea of progress, their commitment to a better and more just, peaceful, and fraternal world. Among the most famous Hebrews we cite the following:
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) – among the 30 most famous and important Jews in history is a German, one of the most important figures of the 20th century, especially for his theory of relativity. He was the winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Sigmund Freud (1885-1939) – Freud is considered one of the most important intellectuals of the 20th century. He was a physician, of Austrian and Czech descent, and of Jewish origin. He is known as the father of psychoanalysis.
Julius Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) – known as the father of the atomic bomb. He was an American Jew and was his country's first theoretical physicist.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) – philosopher, economist, journalist, intellectual activist and communist, Marx was the one who forever changed social sciences with his analyses of capitalism and surplus value. Moreover, he is considered the father of modern communism, historical materialism, and scientific socialism. Convinced that revolution was the way to overcome the crises of capitalism, his major work was Das Kapital published in 1867.
Outside of Israel, within any society, the Jews are like the oil in the soup: never mix and always manage to float, to hover above everything and everyone. Despite all the exiles they suffered, and scattered in more than 100 nations for over 2,000 years, the Jews have always kept their identity, and never lost the hope to say every year at Passover "next year in Jerusalem”.
Perhaps in this difference lies the origin of racism against this people; for being different and not like everyone else, for having a well-defined identity and not like a people with blurred outlines , for calling themselves God’s chosen people implying that others were not chosen. Personally, I think they are a people to be envied because they are intelligent and rich; they occupy the best places in the world of finance, economics, and science.
They are the chosen people, but they think that God elected them by privilege. God never chooses anyone by privilege, but rather for a mission. The mission of the Hebrew people was to be the cradle of the Messiah, of the savior of humanity. God decided to incarnate in a member of this people, for being a people who had already reached the highest point in the development and progress of religious sentiment. Some contemporaries of the Jewish people were still animistic, others polytheistic, only the Hebrews were monotheistic, believing in a personal and spiritual God, creator of everything and everyone.
There is certainly a nationalistic and even racist current in the Jewish people, headed by the prophet Elijah, the one expected before the coming of the Messiah, the one who always has a reserved place at every Passover meal. However, undeniably one of the longest books of the entire Old Testament, the one found in the best condition of all those at Qumran, is the book of a prophet of lesser importance to Judaism. Isaiah is a Christian “avant la lettre”, he is a universalist, he understands that salvation comes to all peoples who are to meet at a banquet in Jerusalem. (Isaiah 25:6)
Perhaps much of the importance of this people and its narrative, the Bible, for better or for worse, comes from the fact that it was the cradle of Christianity. If this were not so, perhaps it would not have been all that important. The dialogue between a Christian and a Jew can never exist and the only possible conclusion is to agree to disagree. This is because the existence of one requires the non-existence of the other. If the Messiah has already come, the Jewish people should have ceased to exist like so many others by becoming Christians. On the other hand, if the Messiah has yet to come, then Christianity should not exist.
There is a rabbinic anecdote that tries to solve this impasse. It goes like this: when the Messiah comes, a Christian and a Jew will ask him if this is the first time he is here or if it is the second, since Christians are waiting for the second coming of Christ. And the Messiah will answer, for you, Hebrew, it is the first, for you, Christian, it is the second.
Origin of the Jewish People
The history of Israel is the story of a man who wanted to be different. According to the Bible, the patriarch Abraham from Ur, in Mesopotamia, moved with his flocks and people to the land of Canaan in the area of the Jordan River. Historically, it is believed that this may have effectively happened around 1700 B.C. The motivation for this migration would have been the scarcity of food in Canaan, while in Egypt there was an abundance of fertile lands.
The arrival of the Hebrews in Egypt would have coincided with the period when the region was under the rule of the Hyksos, a people of Semitic origin, like the Hebrews. This made it possible for the Hebrews to settle in Egyptian territory without any problems, and even to occupy prominent positions in Egypt’s administration.
After the expulsion of the Hyksos, the Hebrews would have been punished for collaborating with the invaders. The Hebrews, enslaved by the Egyptians, achieved their liberation through Moses around 1300 B.C.
The deliverance from Egypt and the return of the Hebrews to Canaan shaped the so-called Exodus. Historians claim that the migration of Hebrews from Egypt to Canaan did happen, although they claim that the number of Hebrews who migrated may not have been as large as the biblical narrative suggests. Therefore, we can say that the story of the Exodus really occurred, but it was presented in a mythicized form in the Bible.
In any case, the Hebrews lived as nomads in the Sinai Peninsula and then sought to settle in Canaan, but the region was occupied by the Canaanites. The biblical narrative reports that the Hebrews conquered the land. However, there is not much evidence that points to a full-scale military invasion; most likely the Hebrews infiltrated slowly over time.
Contributions and Greatness of the Jewish People
Scattered all over the world, they have influenced cultures globally; this great influence or contribution, more than financial, economic, or political, was more spiritual and cultural. While in most of the Middle Ages in Europe not even kings could read and write, the Jews of Christ's time were 0% illiterate, because the rite of passage from childhood to adulthood involved the boy reading the Torah in front of the community.
Monotheism
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and will all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Yet, O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay, and you are our potter… Isaiah 64:8
The progress of monotheism over polytheism is the union among humans under the one God whom they can call Father. The French Revolution, however secular it may seem, would not be possible in a country with a polytheistic worldview such as India, where the existence of various gods justifies the existence of castes and where men are not equal. Human equality and dignity do not coexist with polytheism, they are the achievement of monotheism.
The idea that there is only one God the Father, creator of heaven and earth, is perhaps Jerusalem's greatest contribution to Western civilization. Both the Greeks and the Romans were polytheists; polytheism does not lead to unity or harmony among peoples, nor to the unification of concepts such as truth and justice. The idea that there is only one God leads to the cohesion of peoples, to unity in diversity.
Equality Before the Law
The same primacy of law, the fact that everyone is equal before the law, would be more difficult to maintain in polytheism: everyone is equal before the law because everyone is equal before God, because there is only one God who is the creator and father of everything and everyone.
On Mount Sinai, Moses gave the people a compass, a GPS, not only to facilitate social coexistence like the Hammurabi code of the Babylonians, but also a comprehensive code covering all aspects of human life. Monotheism, in this sense, made a distinction between to be and should be, both from an individual and a social point of view.
Moral Conscience and Social Responsibility
Monotheism humanized God, in the way that he would become a model for humanity. As Feuerbach would say, it was not God who created man in his image and likeness, but man who created God in his image and likeness.
Religion for Jews is for life. As a guide and model to follow, religion becomes a complex system of laws, norms, and rules to follow in order to modify life. Until this moment, this had never happened. Religion came to influence human conduct, both from an individual and a social point of view. Keep in mind that before the Jewish monotheism, in all polytheisms, the Greek, the Roman, the Hindu, or the ancient Chinese, gods are as good or as bad as humans. That is, they are not the way, the truth, and the life, they are no one’s role model. Ethics comes from philosophy both in the Chinese culture (Confucius) as well as the Greek (Aristotle).
The concepts of freedom (loving God above all things) and equality (loving your neighbor as yourself) are best explained from a religious point of view. They are Jewish concepts, and so it is understood that without Judaism there would have been no French Revolution. In Israel there were never castes or blue-blooded people, everyone considered himself or herself equal before God and before each other, with the same dignity and social responsibility, subjected to as many duties as rights.
Linear conception of time – paradigm of progress
In Ancient Greece and the Far East, a circular understanding of time has always prevailed: from the cosmic point of view, with the 365 days that the Earth takes to go around the sun, from the point of view of Nature, with the changes in climate and the four seasons of the year: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. From these facts, the myth of the "eternal return" was born in philosophy, in science the idea that "There is nothing new under the sun", and in religion the belief in "reincarnation".
Human time, as a straight time – From an existential and human point of view, each day that passes is one more day that we are going to live, and one less day that we have left to live. Conceiving time as a straight line, coming from the past, passing through the present, and heading towards the future, is not something that can be observed in nature.
Time in a straight line is the time of individual and community history, the time that integrates the idea of moral progress: today was better than yesterday, tomorrow will be better than today. In philosophy, Heraclitus' maxim "we do not bathe twice in the waters of the same river" shares this understanding of time, the same is true in cosmology and religion, which convey the notions of the beginning and the end of the world.
This is also the Jewish conception of time: the exit from Egypt (land of slavery), the passage through the desert (place of suffering, penance, purification, and effort), and the entrance into the Promised Land, where milk and honey flow (land of freedom, rewarded effort, and finished work).
Holiness of Life
Sons are indeed a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Psalms 127:3
You shall not murder. Exodus 20:13
As a gift from God, life belongs to Him; it comes from Him and it returns to Him, we are not its owner, but its administrator, and we will be accountable for this administration. We can live it as we please, but we cannot extinguish it, from conception to natural death life is sacred, it is an absolute value.
Dignity of the Human Person
Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping think that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Genesis, 1:26-27
The human person may have been the result of the evolution of time. However, only we have evolved to the point of self-awareness of seeing ourselves as different from all other creatures. We were created in the image and likeness of God, like Him we are also creators, the only difference is that He has the ability to create out of nothing while we create from created things or given elements.
The Universality of Rest
For six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in ploughing time and in harvest time you shall rest. Exodus 34:21
For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore, the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it. Exodus 20:9-11
We do not know who invented work, it probably has no inventor or founder. However, rest does have an inventor, it was invented by the Jewish people. The idea of a day consecrated to God, the Sabbath, the origin of the Sabbath rest and also of the sabbatical year (a year in which one does not work, but studies or does any other activity), belongs to the Jewish people.
Of course, to justify it to the people, the anthropomorphism that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh is used. It is not that the peoples before the Jewish people did not rest, they certainly did, but only the masters rested, the slaves always worked. Rest was not democratic or universal; what is exceptional about the Jewish people is that rest is mandatory for everyone, masters, slaves, foreigners and even working animals such as donkeys and oxen.
Conclusion - concepts such as the sanctity of life, the dignity of the human person, freedom, equality, social responsibility, universal rest, progress in every sense, justice, and peace are today part not only of the worldview of the Jewish people, but also part of the “furniture” of the human mind.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC