Judaism, Community and Work
By ELLEN DANNIN

Why are there any Jews today? Logic and history suggest there should be none.

Consider that 2,800 years ago, half the land where Jews lived was conquered and its inhabitants (the ten lost tribes) were forever lost to history when the Northern Kingdom ( Samaria or Shomron) fell in 722 BCE. Only a century and a half later, the rest of the country was vanquished and the people exiled to Babylon for over two generations. Unlike their co-religionists in the Northern Kingdom , they did not vanish. Return to the land of Israel was followed by centuries of turmoil, invasion, conquest, and, eventually, expulsion and dispersion throughout the world for two millennia.

Other people who lived in the area and played a part in these events are no more. Sidon , Edom , Aram , Moab , Midian, Assyria , Lydia , Phrygia , the Philistines, the Sea People and the religions they practiced are gone. Their descendants live on in their lands, but transformed. No one worships Astarte or Baal. No one brings children to be sacrificed to Moloch. And no one practices ritual prostitution to propitiate the fecundity of the fields.

So how is it that any Jews exist today – millennia after they were exiled, widely dispersed, often in peril, and with no physical ties to their land? And how is it that they practice a religion with clear ties to the practices of 2,000 years ago? Are there lessons for the United States , a country that has existed less than one-sixth of this time?

The answer lies in community as the central focus of Judaism and a demand for fair treatment of all members of that community, including workers, the poor, and resident aliens.

Judaism and Community
Of course, the Judaism of today is not the Judaism that is described in the Torah, the Books of Genesis through Deuteronomy. Contemporary Jewish religious practices were forged in exile and thus created a religion that could be carried on in exile.

The pivotal change that transformed Judaism – from a religion centered on temple sacrifice only at the Temple in Jerusalem (or, later, also at the Temples at Shiloh, Dan and Beth El) to the Judaism practiced today – took place during the fall of Jerusalem and exile in Babylon . The conquest left a people bereft of hope: “Outside the sword deals death; Indoors the plague…. [B]abes and sucklings languish in the squares of the city…. As their life runs out in their mothers' bosoms. Prostrate in the streets lie both young and old…. None survived or escaped…. Little children beg for bread; None gives them a morsel…. Their skin has shriveled on their bones….” 1

The conquest was followed by the grief and horror of exile: “By the rivers of Babylon , we sat down and wept in remembering Zion …. There, our captors asked us to cheer them with songs of Zion . How can we sing God's songs in a strange land? If I forget you, Jerusalem , I forget my right hand.” 2

With no access to the Temple , there could be no sacrifice and no role for the priests. Exile outside the land created a crisis for the continuation of a religion whose focus was Temple sacrifice.

Rather than succumbing to the destruction and disappearing, exile spurred the leaders of the Jewish people to lay the foundations for a new sort of religion. Prayer was explicitly substituted for Temple sacrifices, and study was linked to action in the world. This is captured in Mishnah Pei-ah 1:1: “These are the obligations without measure, whose reward, too, is without measure: To honor father and mother; to perform acts of love and kindness; to attend the house of study daily; to welcome the stranger; to visit the sick; to rejoice with bride and groom; to console the bereaved; to pray with sincerity; to make peace where there is strife. And the study of Torah is equal to them all, because it leads to them all.” 3

Most important, the Temple sacrifice and the three pilgrimage festivals (Passover, Shavuot, and Succot) that had created community and tied the Jewish people together were retained, but transformed in ways that forged a community. Key prayers had to be said multiple times a day and recited within a community of at least ten men. The system of kashrut (Jewish dietary laws) required special skills to ensure animals were properly slaughtered and to adjudicate whether those rules had been broken. Mourning rituals could not take place except with community participation, and participation to support mourners was mandatory. Community became – and still is – the fundamental structure of Judaism, making it portable and, ultimately allowing it to survive for millennia.

The raw materials for this Judaism are in the Torah. Springing from the 613 commandments found in Torah were rules on how to live a good and just life. In retrospect, we can see that these new rules and practices were essential to preserving a people and religion. That they worked and that there are Jews today tells us that these rules provide insights into constructing enduring communities.

Judaism and Work
The rules that control Jewish life and religious practice address questions fundamental to human existence. A fair reading of the Torah shows that its core concern is with the poor and powerless. These concerns are frequently expressed in relation to work and poverty. They include rules on work hours, wages, workplace safety, immigration, and welfare. Here are a just few examples.

Hours : The last day of a week is reserved for rest, and this applied to all members of the household. Rest from work is not reserved for the wealthy and elite, nor only for humans. It even applies to the household's animals. (Exodus 20:8-10)

Wages : Employers may not oppress a hired servant and must pay their workers at the end of each day. Failure to pay the worker by sundown is a sin. (Deut. 24:14-15)

Safety : A parapet must be built around a roof so the workers do not fall off. (Deut. 22:8)

Welfare : Some food must be left unharvested in the field and on trees and vines to feed the poor, the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow. In addition, the corners of fields must be left unmowed, leaving grain to be gathered by the poor. (Lev. 19:9-10; Exod. 22:20-23; Deut. 24: 17-21; Deut. 26:12-15; Ruth)

Equal justice : Do justice equally for the poor and rich. (Exod. 23:1-3; Deut. 1:9-18)

Rules built on these and other biblical verses exist still, often as aspirations, but also as inspirations for action. It is no accident that the root word for “charity” in Hebrew (tzedakah) is also the root for “justice” (tzedek) and “a wise person” (tzadik). This is the Judaism that emerged from exile in Babylonia .

Repairing the World
Judaism includes in its daily and weekly worship prayers that specifically honor the value of community. These include the prayer for the congregation - t'filah l'kehilah, which had its origin in Babylonia , and the aleinu (“our duty”), which presents a vision of the world as it should be. T'filah l'kehilah, the prayer for the congregation, is a sweet recognition of the work it takes to make a community function. One modern version blesses teachers, “those who provide light for the lamps, … food for guests, and donations for the poor, and all those who are faithfully occupied with the needs of the community” Some versions even bless those who sit in the pews at the back. Aleinu embodies the movement for tikun olam - human actions directed toward the moral repair of our world.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said: “Day after day we ask desperately - are we alone in this silent universe - of which we feel a part and in which we also feel like strangers?” The answer that Judaism has given is the value of community and the rules necessary to make that community function and survive. These commandments reject the values of selfish individualism and greed. They demand from us the values of community, concern for all its constituents, and just behavior. There is something we can learn from nearly 3,000 years of recorded experience of struggling – and often failing – to live a good life.

As with all rules, Jewish law has often been honored in the breach. We hear our failures in the words of the prophets, who, through the centuries, condemned us for violating our own laws. That condemnation tells us that we humans constantly fail to take the actions and embrace the values that support the endurance of a community. Nevertheless, history also tells us the actions and values that make the existence of community a blessing for its inhabitants and neighbors.

NOTES
1. Lamentations, The Five Megilloth and Jonah: A New Translation (Jewish Publication Society of America, 1969).

2. Author's translation. Psalm 137 ends with curses on the captors.

3. Union for Reform Judaism, Gates of Prayer (Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1975).

Ellen Dannin is professor of law at Penn State Dickinson School of Law (see http://www.dsl.psu.edu/faculty/dannin.cfm ). She regularly contributes Torah analysis to the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation's Divrei Torah Bank (http://www.jrf.org/recon-dt ).

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