Leaving a Covenantal Religion: Orthodox Jewish Disaffiliation from an Immigration Psychology Perspective

This study explored psychological variables associated with disaffiliation from Orthodox Judaism (a covenantal community), and subsequent wellness. A web-based survey (N = 206) assessed factors previously used to study immigrants: push (distress within origin community), pull (toward destination community), and goal attainment. Psychological and emotional wellness, perceived stress, overall health, and loneliness were also assessed. Findings included: 1) strong pull toward opportunities for physical and ideological autonomy; 2) those who experienced more push toward disaffiliation, reported decreased current wellness; 3) goal attainment was associated with increased wellness 4) significant differences in the experiences of disaffiliation between men and women; 5) most who disaffiliated left religion altogether; those who remained religious decreased their participation, few joined non-Jewish faith communities. Results demonstrate that this immigration paradigm can be adapted to advance research on individuals who disaffiliate from covenantal communities.

Political philosophy, Jewish

Jewish ideas about politics are embedded in the traditional genres of Judaic discourse, more often legal or homiletic than systematically philosophical. A defining feature of this tradition is its historical setting, as for most of their history the Jews lacked a state. Still, central issues of political thought were addressed primarily in the context of Judaism’s characteristic political entity, the medieval kahal – the by and large autonomous urban Jewish community. Discussions of issues such as authority, justice, or membership were informed by the Talmudic legal tradition, by biblical memories of Israel’s monarchic period and by dreams of restoration, inspired by ancient prophecies regarding the messianic era. The central form defining political authority and allegiance is the covenant, enacted at Sinai between God and the Israelite people, whom He had elected and liberated from Egypt. The people recognized God’s supreme authority, consenting to live by His teachings, the Torah. The significance and demands of this divine election, and the parameters and requirements of membership of the covenantal community, are much-debated issues in the Jewish political tradition. Of equal concern are the concrete implications of divine sovereignty. On one view, this precludes any institutionalized form of human authority. On other views, divine authority is invested in one or more of various human agents, from kings and priests to prophets and rabbis; strikingly, the latter used their own reason to interpret God’s words, and in their assemblies would take a vote to decide among interpretations. In uneasy co-existence with these, the tradition includes prominent justifications for human political agency, the legitimacy of which derives not from divine authorization but from popular consent. Living as a (sometimes) tolerated minority under non-Jewish rulers, the Jews dreamed of redemption, imagining the messianic king as leading them to triumph. Yet the foundational tale in Genesis is of humankind as one family, and the biblical prophets envisage world peace. Since 1948 the state of Israel has become the locus for re-examination of the Jewish political tradition. A crucial question has been to what extent this tradition, which includes proto-democratic as well as theocratic elements, can inform political discourse in a modern democracy whose citizens are mostly Jewish but include also significant non-Jewish minorities.

“Aunt Jane” or Joseph’s Adopted Daughter?

This chapter examines the period during which the Latter-day Saints built “the City of Joseph” in Nauvoo, Illinois. During this time, in a limited manner the Mormons attempted to create a Zion that included people of African descent. Both contemporaneous and retrospective archival records from this period portray Joseph Smith Jr. as a prophet who welcomed blacks as (all but) full members of the Mormon covenantal community. Yet Joseph and other Smith family members were far from colorblind. In fact, the Smiths’ willingness to accept black Mormons like Jane Manning James was predicated on the black Mormons’ ability to overcome the legacy of spiritual inferiority of the cursed lineages into which they were born. If they remained faithful to the gospel, then their cursed bloodlines would be purified. This inward change meant that these black Saints could become equal to their white brethren and (eventually) white themselves.

Etiese perspektiewe op haatspraak in die lig van die derde gebod

Hierdie artikel fokus op die implikasies van die derde gebod met betrekking tot haatspraak in Suid-Afrika (SA) vandag. Die artikel gaan uit van die standpunt dat die name van God op sy wese dui. Die name van God soos dit in die bybelse openbaringsgeskiedenis ontwikkel word, druk die gemeenskapskarakter van God se verhouding met mense en die skepping uit. Die betekenis van die name kulmineer in die Nuwe-Testamentiese uitdrukkings Vader en God is liefde. Alle verbale gedrag wat hierdie gemeenskaps- en liefdesverhouding inhibeer, oortree die derde gebod. Die misbruik van die Naam van God vind onder andere plaas wanneer mense, wat na die beeld van God geskep is, gedegradeer word deur haatspraak, omdat sodanige degradering die gemeenskap en liefde tussen God en die mens skend. Ten slotte word sekere gevalle van haatspraak soos dit vandag in Suid-Afrika voorkom, teologies-eties belig teen die agtergrond van die betekenis van die derde gebod. Hierdie vorms sluit religieuse, rassistiese, xenofobiese, seksistiese en homofobiese haatspraak in.This article focuses on the implications of the third commandment for hate speech in modern-day South Africa. The article contends that the names of God are expressions of his Being. The names of God as they are developed in the biblical history of revelation express his creation of covenantal community and restored relations with humankind and creation. The meaning of the names of God culminates in the New Testament expressions Father and God is love. Verbal actions that inhibit the new community created by God or violate love transgress the third commandment. Misuse of the name of God occurs among others when people, created in the image of God, are verbally degraded by hate speech because such degradation violates the community of love between God and humankind. In conclusion, the article indicates forms of hate speech in South Africa that should be dealt with in the light of the third commandment. These are acts of racist, xenophobic, sexist, religious and homophobic hate speech.

Love and Hate at Qumran: The Social Construction of Sectarian Emotion

Employing a “social constructionist” approach, according to which emotions are culturally conditioned expressions of values, this study considers how the sect behind 1QS used the emotions of love and hate to teach its members the proper ways of evaluating the world. Sectarian love and hate were vehicles through which the sect communicated core beliefs about election and revelation. Because his entrance into the sect was made possible by divine love, the initiate was expected to recognize his utter dependence on the divine will by loving those whom God loves and hating those whom he hates, thereby affirming his place in the covenantal community. Since divine love and hate manifested itself in the selective revelation of knowledge, sectarian love and hate required the unselfish disclosure of knowledge to other group members and the concealment of the same knowledge from outsiders. This link between the emotions of love and hate and an ethic of disclosure and concealment left its mark on routine sectarian conduct in the practice of reproof. Reproof of insiders and the conscious withholding of reproof from outsiders was a “socially dictated performance” of either love or hate that demonstrated the sectarian’s commitment to communal beliefs about covenant, knowledge, divine will, and relations with outsiders.