Pharisees and Sadducces - Acts 22:30-23:11

OK I am using this portion of scripture to mainly speak of the world view of Harry Kemelman, who is the author of the "day, the Rabbi " series. The first one is called "Friday the Rabbi Slept Late". These are fun mysteries without lots of sex and violence. My wife and I love them. As a student of cultures and sub-cultures I especially love this series.

Several times in each book there is a scene where the rabbi speaks of what Judaism is and what it is not. By and large I agree with his view. The view is definitely one of the Sadducees.

At the time of Jesus Christ there were two major schools of thought in Judaism: Pharisee and Sadducee. Jesus most definitely fell on the side of the Pharisee. But over time the Pharisee view fell out of favor and has almost died out.

As we read in the Acts scripture Sadducees felt there was no afterlife, no angels, nothing spiritual, which I assume means no healing, no real way of experiencing God, at least spiritually. The Pharisees believed all of those spiritual things were real. God can be experienced. He intervenes into our world.

But the view of the Sadducee is the take that Kemelman's rabbi, Rabbi Small takes. God cannot be known really. Judaism has become a religion of dietary rules and moral laws. Jews follow the laws and obey the moral laws simply because God said so. But there is no expectation that one will receive benefits from all this. The major rites of the Jewish religion occur at home among family, not at church or synagogue.

Speaking my opinion now this change in Judaism is for two major reasons. First the temple was destroyed. It was not rebuilt and likely will never be rebuilt. So the major rites of the Old Testament which involved the temple cannot be done anymore. Our sensibilities have changed much over the centuries. Today one cannot even imagine ritually killing animals in the name of God. We wonder why anyone would do it and what would it prove?

Secondly the hope of a religious savior, however one envisions that, has died. They partially died as a result of the destruction of the temple. But also the time that the savior was to come, according to most views of the prophets, was at the time that Jesus came. Since no other man that the Jews could accept did come and Jesus has been such a world wide success the Jews are left with a big problem. Their leaders quickly closed ranks after Jesus died and reportedly rose from the dead. They decided anyone who believed Jesus was the Jewish messiah would be declared not a Jew. Some were stoned and killed.

As Rabbi Small has said, Judaism is about ritual and laws, not about beliefs. One can be an atheist and still confidently attend services and do the rituals. But he doesn't mention the only exception is one cannot accept Jesus as the Jewish savior. That puts one outside the pale of Jewishness.

But since the Jews had no alternative to put forward as the savior who is definitely predicted in their scriptures they have decided over time that no savior will come. So they have had to redefine what God had meant. Whenever the prophets speak of an individual they have decided this refers to Israel as a group. The talk of a savior is to be "spiritualized". Often it actually works pretty well.

Anyway this is the view of Kemelman's rabbi. He expresses it very well, certainly better than I have.