Ever Since Sinai

March 7, 2008
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

Ever since Sinai, every new permutation, every new movement, within Judaism has tried to trace its roots back to Mount Sinai. If you can show that your movement originated when God was still speaking directly to Moses then you can claim that yours is the authentic form of Judaism.

Orthodox and Chasidic Jews would like you to believe that theirs is the only authentic form of Judaism, that if you do not support their kind of Judaism, Judaism will not survive into the future. But there is no Orthodoxy or Chasidism in ancient times and the practices they follow do not have any credentials before the nineteenth century for the Orthodox and before the eighteenth century for the Chasidim. Both of these are modern religious movements. Neither is practicing any kind of Judaism that would be recognizable to Jews of the Bible or Talmud.

Nor do Reform or Conservative Jews practice any kind of religion that exists in the Bible or Talmud. Both of these, Reform and Conservative, are older than the modern Orthodox movement. (Orthodoxy was actually organized as a response to the early success of Reform.) But why did Reform and Conservative Judaism arise in the first place? The idea was to "reform," to "bring back" a more traditional Judaism while making it practical for modern Jews to live by. This was all accomplished according to a rule preached by the rabbis of the Talmud: "You shall not make your Judaism so severe that the average person cannot live their everyday lives by it."

In truth, ever since Sinai, every new form of Judaism has been revolutionary. Also, ever since Sinai, more than one form of Judaism always existed. Throughout Jewish history, Jews have been making choices about the kind of Judaism that they wanted to "live by." Their choices were always based on the milieu in which they found themselves, on the people among whom they lived, on who they were, on how they felt, on what they thought was "traditional," and on what changes they were able to accept without choking. Often, their choices were based on what synagogue was available or which was the closest to their home.

The idea that all these forms of Judaism are authentic goes back even before the time of the Pharisees, even before there was a single rabbi (and how could we possibly imagine any kind of Judaism today without a rabbi?). For example, our portion this week, Pikudei, includes a little section that was probably added after Sinai.

In just a few words, the Priests of Jerusalem made sure that the Jews of their time would believe that they were the only true priests that had ever existed, that God had commanded that all real priests should be descended from Aaron's family.

You shall bring Aaron and his sons forward to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and wash them with the water. Put the sacred vestments on Aaron, and anoint him and consecrate him, that he may serve Me as priest. Then bring his sons forward, put tunics on them, and anoint them as you have anointed their father, that they may serve Me as priests. This their anointing shall serve them for everlasting priesthood throughout the ages. This Moses did; just as Adonai had commanded him, so he did (Ex. 40:12-16).

Most Bible scholars believe that this part of the story of Sinai -- the anointing of the priests -- is told by the P (the Priestly) source. The priests from the family of Aaron (Aaronides or cohanim) wanted people to know that how they became an "everlasting priesthood throughout the ages." They were chosen "just as Adonai had commanded" Moses at Sinai.

There was a time when not everyone would have agreed with this statement. In biblical times, there were other priestly families. In addition to the Aaronide priests, there were Mushite priests (called this because they came from the family of Moses), and Levite priests from other families in the tribe of Levi.

In the time of David, two of these families, the Levites and the Aaronides, served as priests in Jerusalem. Unfortunately for them, the Levites championed the wrong candidate as a successor for David's throne, so when Solomon became king, he kept the priest who was loyal to him, Zadok of the Aaronides. Solomon exiled the other priest, a Levite, to the North where he later played a role in dividing the kingdom after Solomon's death. Meanwhile, the Aaronide priests became the official High Priests of the Temple. They would not be removed until the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. And their removal was a major cause of the Maccabean Revolt.

That's another whole story and another whole revolution in Judaism. But, as we see in this week's portion, hundreds of years after Sinai, when the Torah was being finalized, the Priests of the Jerusalem Temple were able to insert this little snippet of idealized history, of Aaron and his sons becoming the High Priests and of the Levites and the Mushites and the Korahites and other priestly families becoming lesser priests, as if to say, "this is how it was at Sinai and this is how it should be, now and forever."

Today, it is easy to see that the future of Judaism depends far less on Orthodoxy and Chasidism, both of which taken together form a small minority of the American Jewish population, than on the preservation of Reform Judaism, the choice of the majority of American Jews; and the preservation of the more secular Israeli Jewish population ensures a Jewish future even more than the preservation of all of American Judaism. The Jewish future always depends, to some extent, on a numbers game, pure and simple.

If you want to invest in the ultimate future of Judaism, celebrate Israel this year and every year, support Israel, and help to make Israel more of a Jewish state. If you want to invest in the future of American Judaism, celebrate CJCN and the rest of Reform Judaism in America, support the Hebrew Union College, and take part in Reform camping and conferencing. Ever since Sinai, there have always been reform movements in Judaism, they just adopt different names and different emphases in their teachings. And in the future there will always be reform Jews, they will just be reforming Reform Judaism and reforming Israeli secular religion. Mark my words. The future is always with the reformers, never with the people standing still. And let us say: Amen.