Religious Studies 130

Judaism

Fall, 2007 M.W.F. 1:00 to 1:50 Chemistry 1171 Syllabuses: http:www.religion.ucsb.edu/syllabuses.html

Richard D. Hecht, Professor Office: 3076 HSSB Office phone: 893-4552 Office hours: W. 10:00 to 12:00 or by appointment e-mail: ariel@religion.ucsb.edu

Course Description:

This course is intended to accomplish two purposes – an introduction to Jewish Studies and an introduction to the religious traditions of the Jews. It is not an introduction to the history of Jewish ideas nor is it an introduction to the study of Jewish history, although both are important to our course of study. Our central concerns will how the Jewish tradition can and is studied, the variety of symbols used by Jews, and the multiplicity of their meanings. We will examine in some detail four central symbolic structures of Judaism: land, people, time and law. We will explore the mythological and ritual dimensions of each of these structures and the different scholarly approaches that are used to study each. These symbolic structures have been and continue to be used by Jews to understand themselves and their worlds. We will be concerned with the ways in which these symbols relate to one another and how these symbols structure Jewish reflection on the fundamental issues of human life. Indeed, we will argue that Jewish identity in history and in the contemporary world in which Jews live in pluralistic and open societies is directly related to the power or force of these symbols. In 2005, Jews marked 350^th anniversary of American Jewry. In 1654, 23 Dutch Jews who were themselves refugees from Curacao settled in New Amsterdam, beginning the history of our Jewish community. Hence, woven throughout our discussion of land, people, time and law will be an on-going conversation in the class about how these symbolic structures are experienced by Jews in their lived experience in the United States, as well as in other places in Europe and in Israel. What dilemmas do Jews face in an open and pluralistic society such as ours? How do these symbols contribute to ways in which Jews negotiate the boundaries of their identities and relationships with other ethnic, religious, and racial communities? And, finally, how are the symbolic structures of Jewish life deployed, interpreted and re-interpreted, and re-invested with meaning in vastly different societies?

Required Texts:

1. S.Y. Agnon, Days of Awe: A Treasury of Jewish Wisdom for Reflection, Repentance, and Renewal on the High Holy Days.

2. David Grossman, See Under: Love.

3. Arthur Hertzberg, Judaism: The Key Spiritual Writings of the Jewish Tradition.

4. Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath.

5. Rachel Biale, Women and Jewish Law: The Essential Texts, Their History, and Their Relevance for Today.

6. Nahum N. Glatzer, ed., The Schocken Passover Haggadah.

7. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man.

Course Requirements:

1. Careful preparation of all reading assignments.

2. A mid-term examination on Friday, 26 October. The mid-term will be an essay examination and will be worth 20% of the course grade.

3. The completion of a reflective essay on David Grossman’s See Under: Love. Grossman is one of the most acclaimed contemporary Israeli writers; in November he will receive the prestigious Israel Prize which is a state prize recognizing the contributions of an individual to the state of Israel and to Jewish life there and throughout the world. This was his third novel and the one which brought him international acclaim after The Runner and The Smile of the Lamb. Your essay assignment is to consider this question: How does Anshel Wasserman overcome the effects of the Holocaust? In responding to this question your essay should include all of the following: 1) a short summary of the novel which is no more than one page; 2) is this a “good” novel or a “not-so-good” novel and why are you led to this conclusion? Here, think about characterization, narrative, the use of language, etc. 3) what insight does this novel provide into the issues and questions which motivate Momik Neuman and the other major characters of the novel? 4) How does this novel reflect the major symbolic structures we have discussed across the quarter? Your essay should be 10 to 12 pages in length. This is not a research paper. It is an essay in which you integrate this book into the fundamental structure of the course and allows you the opportunity to reflect upon the substance of the course and to write an essay in response to the matters of the course through Grossman’s novel. You may of course read reviews of the book, but nothing else is necessary to complete this paper. Your essay must be turned in at the beginning of lecture Wednesday, 28 November. I will not accept papers turned in later and outside of class. Your essay must be technically perfect with no typographical errors or misspellings. You should use a manual of style for all matters relating to the essay. Your essay will be evaluated on the basis of how well you respond to the four issues and questions of the assignment as well as the quality of your writing in completing this essay. This assignment will be worth 35% of the final course grade. The essay will be returned at the final course meeting.

4. You must attend two of the three outside class presentations described below. At the class session immediately following the presentations, each student will turn in a single page comment on three important ideas, elements, or interpretations from each presentation. The comments must be word-processed. No late assignments will be accepted and both assignments must be completed to meet this course requirement. There are no substitutes for this requirement. This element of the course will constitute 10% of the final course grade. Those students who attend all three events and complete three comments will be given 5% extra-credit on the final course grade.

5. A comprehensive final examination on Thursday, 13 December 4:00-7:00. The final exam will be worth 35% of the final course grade. The exam will ask you to write on a number of questions which comprehensively test your control of all the course materials.

Required Outside Class Presentations:

Sunday, 21 October at 3:00 p.m. Gershom Gorenberg, “The Struggle for the Temple Mount,” Corwin Pavilion, free. Gershom Gorenberg, American-educated journalist who has lived in Jerusalem since 1977, co-authored Shalom, Friend: The Life and Legacy of Yitzhak Rabin, winner of the National Jewish Book Award, and wrote The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. According to The New Republic, "Few American journalists understand evangelical theology well enough to explain the Christian Right, few Israeli journalists take messianic Zionism seriously enough to explain the right-wing settlers, and few of either investigate Islam as more than a caricature. Gorenberg has the intellectual depth and journalistic curiosity to do all three, and as a result, his warnings chill the bone." His most recent book, The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967--1977, was hailed by The New York Times Book Review as "Remarkably insightful . . . A groundbreaking revision that deserves to reframe the entire debate." Gorenberg served as an editor and writer for The Jerusalem Report from 1983 until 1990. He was a co-founder, senior editor and columnist for The Jerusalem Report from 1990 until 2006. Currently Gorenberg is a senior correspondent for The American Prospect and a regular contributor to The New Republic and to the Hebrew edition of Ha'aretz. This lecture is sponsored by the Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Foundation Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies University of California, Santa Barbara.

Thursday, 29 November at 4:00 p.m. Jody Myers, “Kabbalah in the Contemporary American Religious Landscape,” McCune Conference Room, 6^th floor of the Humanities and Social Science Building, free.

Jody Myers is Professor of Jewish Studies and Religious Studies at Cal State Northridge, and the Director of Jewish Studies at CSUN. She is the author of Seeking Zion: Modernity and Messianic Activism in the Writings of Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer (2003) and Kabbalah and Spiritual Quest: The Kabbalah Center in America (2007). This lecture is sponsored by the Jewish Studies Initiative, the Jewish Studies Research Focus Group of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, and the Department of Religious Studies.

Sunday, 9 December at 3:00 p.m. Michael Oren, “Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East,” Victoria Hall, 33 West Victoria Street, Santa Barbara, free. Michael Oren, American-Israeli scholar, historian, and author, is well known for his best-selling and highly acclaimed books on Middle Eastern history. Born an American citizen, his many publications include the best-selling Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East, which was listed as a New York Times bestseller and won the National Jewish Book Award and the Los Angeles Times History Book of the Year Award. He is also the author Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East; 1776 to the Present which quickly became a New York Times bestseller. Oren is a Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and a contributing editor to The New Republic. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard University and Yale University. This lecture is sponsored by by the Herman P. and Sophia Taubman Foundation Endowed Symposia in Jewish Studies University of California, Santa Barbara. The lecture notes for this presentation may be turned in with your final examination.

Two Important Notes.

Note on use of e-mail: Electronic messages to me should be restricted to the following areas. First, if you have an emergency which requires you to miss a class, you should send me an e-mail message. Second, you may contact me through e-mail with regard to questions from your reading or lecture materials, but my answers in this context will necessarily be relatively short and schematic. Third, I do not accept written work via the e-mail. You must be in class on the days where you are required to turn in your written work. Fourth, and most importantly, I will not respond to questions about grades on the mid-term, the writing assignment, or the final examination through e-mail. Your work is far too important to be reduced to the brief nature of electronic communications. These questions should be discussed in my office hours or in scheduled appointments.

Note on plagiarism: The faculty in Religious Studies believes plagiarism to be one of the most serious infractions of student conduct within the learning community. All faculty members of the department have agreed that we will pursue disciplinary actions in all cases of plagiarism and that we will ask the Dean of Students and the Dean of Undergraduate Studies not only to suspend the offending student from the university but also prohibit the student from taking any further courses in Religious Studies. Make certain in your paper and in the examinations that you attribute all materials cited directly or indirectly, verbatim or paraphrased in your essays.

Lecture Topics and Reading Assignments:

September 28-October 5 – Introduction: From Abraham to the Goldeneh Medineh.

1. The contexts of the study of Judaism and the disciplines of Jewish Studies.

2. Outsiders and Insiders.

3. A brief overview of Jewish history.

October 8-12 – Who is a Jew?

1. Jewish identity determined by Jewish law or halakhah.

2. The problematics of Jewish identity

Reading Assignment: Hertzberg, Judaism, pp. 1-28.

October 15-19 -- The Structure of Space in Judaism.

1. The cosmology of ancient Israel.

2. Holy Land: eretz-yisrael as sacred space.

3. Galut: Sacred space reversed.

4. Temple, synagogue and home.

Reading assignment: Hertzberg, Judaism, pp. 203-234 and 294-320.

* Gershom Gorenberg lecture.

October 22 – Special classroom discussion with Gershom Gorenberg.

October 24-31 -- Sacred Time Part I – The Shabbat

1. Shabbat as paradigm for sacred time in Judaism.

2. Labor and rest.

3. The feminization of time.

4. "The days of the Messiah" and "the world to come."

Reading assignment: Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath and Hertzberg, Judaism, pp. 170-178, 271-286.

* Friday, 26 October -- mid-term examination.

November 2-5 – Sacred Time Part II – Yamim Nora’im.

1. Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur: The world created and the judged.

2. The festival of Sukkot.

Reading assignment: S.Y. Agnon, Days of Awe and Hertzberg, Judaism, pp. 178-202.

November 7-14 -- Sacred Time Part III – Pesach.

1. The ritual recreation of people.

2. The structure of the Passover Seder.

3. Yetzirat mitzrayyim and the organization of history.

Reading assignment: Glatzer, ed., The Passover Haggadah. Please bring this volume to class during this section of the course.

* Veterans’ Day Holiday, Monday, 12 November.

November 16-19 -- The Structure of Peoplehood in Judaism.

1. Avraham avinu: Covenant and election.

2. The social metaphors of Judaism.

3. Moshe rabbenu: Moses as paradigm for human life.

4. Religious leadership.

Reading assignment: Hertzberg, Judaism, pp. 29-84.

November 21-26 -- The Cycle of Life.

1. Rites of passage in Judaism.

2. Conception and birth.

3. Bar mitzvah.

4. The symbolism of marriage.

5. The symbolism of conversion.

6. Death.

Reading Assignment: Hertzberg, Judaism, pp. 99-140 and Biale, Women and Jewish Law.

* Thanksgiving Holiday recess, Friday, 23 November

November 28-December 5 -- The Structure of Law in Judaism.

1. Holy Law and Holy Book: The Cosmic Law.

2. The Rabbis' Torah.

3. Torah and interpretation.

4. Halakhah in contemporary situations: The status of women in religious law; electricity and the Shabbat; reinstitution of the sacrificial order; conquest, the Land of Israel and peace; organ transplants and determination of death.

* Wednesday, 28 November – Reflective essay turned in at beginning of lecture. No exceptions will be made for late papers.

* Myers lecture, Thursday, 29 November.

Reading assignment: Hertzberg, Judaism, pp. 85-98, 141-169, and 235-271 and Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man.

December 7 -- Summary and Conclusion.

* Oren lecture, Sunday, 9 December.