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Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Judaism

It may be said that Orthodox Judaism, as it exists today, is an outgrowth that stretches from the time of Moses, to the time of the Mishnah and Talmud, through the oral law, and rabbinic literature ongoing until the present time.

These groups, broadly, comprise Modern Orthodox Judaism and Haredi Judaism, the latter also containing the smaller subgroup of Hasidic Judaism.

In this view, Orthodox Judaism can be enriched by its intersection with modernity; further, modern society creates opportunities to be productive citizens engaged in the Divine work of transforming the world to benefit humanity.At the same time, in order to preserve the integrity of halakha, any area of powerful inconsistency and conflict between Torah and modern culture must be avoided.

Thus there are those who would consider themselves "Orthodox" and yet may not be observant of, for example, the laws of family purity.) There are several Jewish laws that Orthodox Judaism has traditionally placed an emphasis on.

A few affirm self-limited omniscience (the theology elucidated by Gersonides in "The Wars of the Lord".) Orthodox Judaism maintains the historical understanding of Jewish identity. A Jew is someone who was born to a Jewish mother, or who converts to Judaism in accordance with Jewish law and tradition.

The laws contained in the Written Torah were given along with detailed explanations as how to apply and interpret them, the Oral Law. Although Orthodox Jews believe that many elements of current religious law were decreed or added as "fences" around the law by the rabbis, all Orthodox Jews believe that there is an underlying core of Sinaitic law and that this core of the religious laws Orthodox Jews know today is thus directly derived from Sinai and directly reflects the Divine will. As such, Orthodox Jews believe that one must be extremely careful in changing or adapting Jewish law. Orthodox Judaism holds that, given Jewish law's Divine origin, no underlying principle may be compromised in accounting for changing political, social or economic conditions; in this sense, "creativity" and development in Jewish law is limited.

Orthodox Judaism thus holds that the halakha represents the "will of God", either directly, or as closely to directly as possible. The laws are from the word of God in the Torah, using a set of rules also revealed by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, and have been derived with the utmost accuracy and care, and thus the Oral Law is considered to be no less the word of God. If some of the details of Jewish law may have been lost over the millennia, they were reconstructed in accordance with internally consistent rules; see The 13 rules by which Jewish law was derived.

Furthermore, Orthodox Judaism holds that, given Jewish law's Divine origin, no underlying principle may be compromised in accounting for changing political, social or economic conditions; in this sense, "creativity" and development in Jewish law is held to have been limited. Orthodox Jews will also study the Talmud for its own sake; this is considered to be the greatest mitzvah of all; see Torah study.

Haredi Judaism thus views higher criticism of the Talmud as inappropriate, and almost certainly heretical. At the same time, many within Modern Orthodox Judaism do not have a problem with historical scholarship in this area. See the entry on Higher criticism of the Talmud. Modern Orthodox Judaism is also somewhat more willing to consider revisiting questions of Jewish law through Talmudic arguments. Although in practice such instances are rare, they do exist. Notable examples include acceptance of rules permitting farming during the Shmita year and permitting the advanced religious education of women.

The organization has been in existence for 200 years, and especially after the Second World War, it began sending out emissaries ( shluchim ) who have as a mission the bringing back of disaffected Jews to a level of observance consistent with authentic and proper norms (ie, Orthodox Judaism). They are major players in what is known as the Baal Teshuva movement. Their mandate is to make nonobservant Jews more Jewishly aware.

It should not be confused with "The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America" (see above) which is a separate organization. While at one time influential within Orthodox Judaism, the Agudath HaRabbonim in the last several decades has progressively moved further to the right; its membership has been dropping and it has been relatively inactive. Some of its members are rabbis from Chabad Lubavitch; some are also members of the RCA (see above). It is currently most famous for its 1997 declaration (citing Israeli Chief Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and Modern Orthodox Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik) that the Conservative and Reform movements are "not Judaism at all." The Igud HaRabbonim, the Rabbinical Alliance of America, is a small Haredi organization. Founded in 1944, it claims over 650 rabbis; recent estimates indicate that less than 100 of its members worldwide actually work as rabbis.

Source: Wikipedia > Orthodox Judaism