{"id":75601,"date":"2020-06-05T15:16:43","date_gmt":"2020-06-05T12:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=75601"},"modified":"2020-06-05T15:16:43","modified_gmt":"2020-06-05T12:16:43","slug":"judaism-goes-democratic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/judaism-goes-democratic\/","title":{"rendered":"Judaism Goes Democratic"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"75601","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":64460,"related_cahpter":"496","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"When a (smart) bastard outranks the high priest\r\n\r\n","content":"

The people of Israel, as imagined in both Rabbinic and Biblical sources, is not homogenous \u2014 rather, it consists of a range of sub-groups, defined by lineage, which have different obligations and restrictions not necessarily shared by members of other groups. Mishnah Kiddushin 4:1 lists no less than <\/span>ten <\/span><\/i>such castes, most of which are no longer operative parts of the Jewish people as we know it today. However, the basic categories of Israelites, Levites, and priests remain. In contemporary Judaism, the most significant distinction is that between priests and non-priestly Jews. Although most laws pertaining to the priestly caste are obsolete, some still carry real force, touching not merely synagogue ritual but matters of marriage and burial as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

The place of the priestly caste in Jewish tradition is an ambivalent one. One one hand, there are texts which, while never going so far as to abolish the status, display a \u2018democratizing\u2019 impulse which attributes priestly characteristics to the people as a whole; thus Exodus 19:6 describes the Israelites as \u201ca kingdom of priests and a holy nation,\u201d and Numbers 15 commands the people to attach tassels to their garments similar to one on the vestments of the High Priest. Some emphasize the role of the priests as a spiritual elite, tasking them with being the teachers of Torah to Israel alongside their sacrificial duties (Deuteronomy 33:10). Others strike a balance \u2014 one mishnah (Horayot 8:3) states that a strict caste hierarchy obtains when all individuals are equal in their knowledge of Torah, but that \u201cif the <\/span>mamzer<\/span><\/i> [someone descended from a forbidden sexual relationship] was a scholar and the high priest an ignoramus, the scholar <\/span>mamzer <\/span><\/i>takes precedence over the ignorant high priest.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One moment in this chapter of Ezekiel seems to suggest a rather extreme version of the ideology which elevates the priestly role. The final verse states that \u201cpriests shall not eat anything, whether bird or animal, that died or was torn by beasts\u201d (44:31) \u2014 which suggests that, in Ezekiel\u2019s mind, no such restriction obtains for non-priestly individuals. Such a ruling would seem to contradict a number of texts from the Torah, such as Leviticus 17 (declares such\u00a0 meat to be defiling for ordinary Israelites) and Deuteronomy 14 (which straightforwardly forbids consumption). If we follow Ezekiel\u2019s line of thought, we could imagine a Judaism in which many, even most mitzvoth are restricted to a clerical elite.<\/span><\/p>\n

While some would no doubt welcome the expanded menu which such a Judaism implies, it is significant that the mainstream of Jewish thought did not evolve in this way. This main current is characterized by a qualified anti-elitism, which accepts a certain amount of hierarchy while insisting that mitzvot are the heritage and duty of the entire Jewish people. This impulse underlay the transformation of Judaism into a fundamentally scholastic culture, rather than a sacramental one, in which it is\u00a0 possible to imagine an ordinary person as the spiritual superior of the High Priest.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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