Introduction
What does the emergence of historical consciousness in modern Judaism entail? It is a western civilization that took place sometimes back and transformed the older version of Ashkenazic Judaism into modern Judaism. It was more of a change that occurred in the way we look at things or simply our perception. The values, institutions, and ideas became modern and westernized after this transformation occurred it is like it became a platform for the translation from the past to the modern ideologies, values, and ideas. The main focus of the essay will be on the emergence of the historical consciousness in modern Judaism, which is the sole purpose of this research.
Main text
The historical awakening is what led Jews to change their way of thinking. People started thinking of ideas that were not known there before. The argument was that history was not simply the act of putting down data for the sake of being read in future but it was recorded so that we could be able to look at the past transactions and analyze them so as to come up with the results to the disturbing future questions. The Judaism of the past was destroyed by the wissenschafts ideas. It rendered the former way of thinking weak especially when Gans released his Hebrew chronicle that comprised of two parts. This chronicle successfully became the bridge that was formerly used to shift from the past to the modern times.
This made the Gentile Jewish history to be forgotten and then was replaced with the history of his time. Also, the Azariah De Rossi’s essay collections played a part in making people start being less influenced by the Jewish sources of history that have been preserved in the books that were written by the Jewish Writers. All past works and languages that existed in Jewish history from this time were depicted as awkward.
The two writers in their documents restricted the misuse of traditions, which were no longer useful they instead reasserted the messianic influence and the sacred practices for the past times so that they could be used in modern times. However though this strategy for the intellectuals still worked, it only produced excellent results when applied to a new Jew who had not been ‘spoilt’ by the past traditions.
This historic transformation coincided wit the time when Germany’s university was also being revamped. With time, the Jews population in schools surpassed the whole Jewish community by 1830. Due to this kind of socialization, many of these Jewish students did not come so strongly engrossed with the stereotypes and traditions of the past times and this made notions of the western world to be easily accepted.
“No Jewish figure understood more presciently the futility of persisting in a policy of cerebral segregation and literary censorship, giving the penetration of western learning into Jewish consciousness.” (Modern Jewish History pdf, 178).
Though contemporary writers such as Gans and Azariah De Rossi had managed to convince a lot of people to adapt to the western ideologies, the course of their work was made bumpy by criticism that came from the opponents such as Nachman Krochmal. This writer was not widely traveled and for this reason, he was seen as a conservatism who in his masterpiece, “The Guide for those perplexed by time in our day 1851” urged people not to forget about their traditions. (Modern Jewish History pdf, 178). This led to division among those that have been transformed before. This is evident in the Steinschneiders memorable program.
Sooner than later that the historians started detecting the traits of Greek, Roman as well as Islamic trends in what could have been referred to as modern Judaism. In making Judaism’s transformation a reality, the Wissenschaft ideology was put in the only books that were available to the people. This was a premeditated step designed to check the spread of other beliefs apart from Judaism. For example, the school curriculum of Ashkenazi Yeshiva was introduced to help in the spread of Judaism.
The main focus of this curriculum was on Halakhah but later Haskalah, German Biblical literature started being read by many but its introduction was not with some resistance. This small disagreement was raised to a new height by Zunz who in 1818 led this small division into a topic of discussion in schools (Modern Jewish History, pdf 180).
The bid for conceptual advancement led to the discovery of text materials that were not yet published such as siddur of Saadia, David Reuben’s Diary, and the Nebukhim Maimonides Arabic as well as the Yehuda Halevi’s Divan. Also, this expansion involved the re-appropriation of some texts such as the Talmud. The uncovering of the unpublished work completely changed the scholarly agenda. Some of the terms that were tenaciously held by the Jews were subjected to closer scrutiny to establish their applicability. These were terms like Jerusalem, Philosophic notions, and liturgical compendia as well as midrashic collections.
The historians who were determined to bring Judaism consciousness to the people worked without getting tired to increase the volume of the right Jewish sources. The collection of these sources were expanded to include even the works written in other languages apart from Jewish and as a result of this, the Hebrew and Aramaic books found their way in the Jewish sources. The move to incorporate other works in Judaism reflected how Jewish historians were flexible and ready to adapt to the new changes.
Even the writer like Jost while revising the commonwealth history much more preferred to depend on Josephus, unlike Gans who used Josippon. The idea of relying on other works of literature apart from Judaism along portrayed how changing the Jewish literary was advancing and also showed how the literature was changing over time.
There were also some efforts to secularize some Judaism terms for example the literature of “etwas uber die rabbinic literature” the terms were used well so as not to be in conflict with other terms. The secularization involved balancing all these terms whether Hebrew and Jewish without losing the scope of the work. By 1850, stein Schneider had released the survey of the Jewish literature that showed the ingenuity to apply different languages in expressing the Jewish conceptions. The success of this secularization led to the production of the Jewish literature two volumes. This work was produced by Gusta Karpeles created another platform apart from that of the pasta where Judaism was viewed as a religious thing only but Karpele’s work of 1886 was more than that.
Cognitive thinking as a means of acquiring knowledge was in line with the Wissenschaft and was nothing more than a western ideology. The past way of thinking of the Jews that was prevalent during the rabbinic era was seen as exegetical and somehow commentary came to be viewed differently that is, as an intellectual expression.
“A sacred text called for elucidation application and renewal and midrash evolved into a mode of cognition, an expression of piety and an instrument of revitalization and episodic” (Modern Jewish History. Pdf 183).
Later in the phase of Judaism Geiger made very important contributions to the continuing debate something that gave an impetus to the development of consciousness. His arguments backed those of Creizenachs by adding a historical dimension to his. Geiger portrayed rabbinic exegesis as ideologies that are not aware of the importance of history in shaping the meaning of the text. What made Geiger become the German spokesman on reforms was because he dropped his criticisms that were directed against rabbinic Judaism.
As Fassel did not put it in a dialect, the bid to seek self-knowledge.
Increased the level of exploitation and to reverse this situation, the literature in the ancient texts to be explained so as to make more Jews aware of the modern information. The Jewish terms values, institutions had to be integrated with the western know-how. There was also a trial to reject the usage of the concept Wissenschaft des Judentums in the lessons about rabbinic literature. As Graetz saw rabbinic Judaism as a free religion that is not directed to one. Later he also came with more reforms while he tried to initiate his own program of publishing the philosophy of the Jews. (Modern Jewish History. Pdf 195).
Conclusion
From the reading, we can infer that the emergence of the historical consciousness in modern Judaism led to a lot of other big transformations later in the period. The people who were credited with the work of instilling consciousness in the Jews are people like Gans and De Rossi. They incorporated the western ideas into Judaism and this became the point of departure that is from the past form of Judaism to the modern conscious form of Judaism.
Reference
Modern Jewish History. The Emergence of Historical Consciousness in Modern Judaism.