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Creating Judaism: History, Tradition, Practice, by Michael L. Satlow
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How can we define "Judaism," and what are the common threads uniting ancient rabbis, Maimonides, the authors of the Zohar, and modern secular Jews in Israel? Michael L. Satlow offers a fresh perspective on Judaism that recognizes both its similarities and its immense diversity. Presenting snapshots of Judaism from around the globe and throughout history, Satlow explores the links between vastly different communities and their Jewish traditions. He studies the geonim, rabbinical scholars who lived in Iraq from the ninth to twelfth centuries; the intellectual flourishing of Jews in medieval Spain; how the Hasidim of nineteenth-century Eastern Europe confronted modernity; and the post-World War Ii development of distinct American and Israeli Jewish identities. Satlow pays close attention to how communities define themselves, their relationship to biblical and rabbinic texts, and their ritual practices. His fascinating portraits reveal the amazingly creative ways Jews have adapted over time to social and political challenges and continue to remain a "Jewish family."
- Sales Rank: #58753 in Books
- Published on: 2006-12-19
- Released on: 2006-12-18
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .80" w x 6.00" l, 1.06 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 340 pages
Review
This book will give readers a new perspective on a very old product of human creativity.
(CHOICE)
Review
Creating Judaism is a work of uncommon synthesis that draws upon frameworks provided by the academic study of religions to offer a sympathetic and insightful overview of the nature and development of Judaism from ancient to modern times. Michael Satlow displays exceptional erudition and range in these pages, and he allows the reader to understand the dynamism and diversity as well as the coherence that has marked Judaism as a religious tradition throughout the ages. Creating Judaism will be of genuine interest and import to students of Judaism and scholars of religion alike. I recommend it most highly.
(David Ellenson, President, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion)
Satlow's insightful, lucid, and often daring account locates each period of Jewish history in its larger immediate context yet linked in complex, unforeseen ways to antecedent Jewish collective identities, sacred texts, and ritual practices. Judicious, erudite, and speaking in his own personal voice, Satlow adroitly describes how the Jewish heritage has repeatedly remolded itself—and what that flexibility signifies today. A book of great value to sophisticated novices and informed academics alike.
(Robert M. Seltzer, professor of Jewish history, Hunter College, and the author of Jewish People, Jewish Thought: The Jewish Experience in History)
About the Author
Michael L. Satlow is associate professor of religious studies and Judaic studies at Brown University. He is the author of Jewish Marriage in Antiquity and Tasting the Dish: Rabbinic Rhetorics of Sexuality.
Most helpful customer reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Intriguing study of Judaism
By chubchik
I got this book after listening to prof. Satlow's Podcast "From Israelite to a Jew" which dealt with formation of Judaism in the post-exilic period. The book is an intriguing study of what do we mean by Judaism. The modern understanding of Judaism turns out to be a 19th century construct which greatly simplified the real state of affairs. Satlow defines Judaism as a conversation or a family of conversations between the Jewish people of various localities and time periods. The Jewish people is the persistent constant through history while the sets of rules and practices that constitute Jewish religious beliefs and observances are a multiplicity of intertwining currents that constantly alter their course depending on historical time, locality and social environment. As a graduate student in the study of religion, and as a Jew from Soviet secular background who is interested in his religious heritage, I appreciate the complexity of Jewish intellectual and religious landscape which Satlow has painted. The book is very readable and while a rigorous academic inquiry also bears the personal touch of the author's beliefs. The book can serve as a great introduction to the study of Judaism as well as a thoughtful inquiry into its roots. I highly recommend to anyone interested in Judaism and its history. The bibliography at the end of the book is very helpful for futher reading. It includes books and scholarly articles for a more in depth study.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
35,000 feet view of Judaism. Putting things into perspective
By Mark Ellins
I bought this book because of Michael's excellent Podcast of "From Israelite to Jew". He concluded the Podcast before the birth of the Rabbis and promised he would write a book explaining the phenomena. This book is a light attempt at the subject and up until modern times. On the positive side, I enjoyed the 35,000 feet view of the evolution of Judaism. He touched on the history in a perfect manner and showed us milestones of how Judaism twisted and turned throughout the centuries. He showed the beginning of Jewish philosophy with Philo, through the RAMABAM, Kabalah, Chasidism and eventually to the break-off sects during the emancipation of Jews in Europe. He hit it on the nose in explaining how Judaism morphed into what it is today. As a historian, he briefly showed what has happening in parallel in the non-Jewish world and how it could have influenced Jewish thought. I enjoyed this perspective very much. As a Jew, we sometimes dive deep into the technical part without ever seeing a birds-eye view of where we came from and how we got it here in terms of thought. We study Torah, HALACHA and Talmud as a type of competition of who can be most overloaded with Jewish thought without really sitting back and understanding the triggers and origins of these thoughts and practices.
The real problem of this book is that is was too light for such an important subject. Michael skims over the history and in several instances says, "it would take too long to explain in detail". Again if you, the reader, are looking for a light version of Jewish thought history than this is a perfect book. If you want a little more intelligent meat, than you will be left hungry with this book. But Michael is a very good writer and I promise you will not be bored.
This book is for beginner plus Jews. You have to have some background to Judaism and know a little about the history and practices but you do not have to be an expert. I would recommend reading a beginners book on Judaism before reading this. For non-Jews, I think this book can be interesting as to see how religion can morph because of social changes and reality on the ground. Last his bibliography is very good at the end.
Enjoy!!! I know I did.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Useful history undermined by shoddy illogical scholarship and theology
By Stephen Baldwin
Publisher: Columbia University Press (December 19, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0231134886
ISBN-13: 978-0231134880
Tyler Kranjac's rather dramatic and not particularly informative 1-star review has not been received favorably by the Amazon public; probably because of the lack of a real review, perhaps also the images conjured in the minds of his readers of his attempt to get himself uncircumcised. But having read Satlow's book, in a strange way, I think that Tyler has a point. While Satlow does indeed introduce many points of interest to the non-specialist, there are serious limitations in his method, in his logic, in his theology, and in his scholarship. I address each of these, in no particular order, in the coming paragraphs...
The Book: Chapters
1. Promised Lands: Compares American versus Israeli Judaism
2. Creating Judaism: Origins
3. Between Athens and Jerusalem
4. The Rabbis
5. Rabbinic Concepts
6. Mitzvot
7. The Rise of Reason
8. From Moses to Moses
9. Seeing God
10. East and West
In addition, the book provides a useful historical timeline and, especially for the non-Jewish reader, a glossary of terms.
Method:
Satlow's approach is non-essentialist - that is, as he describes, there is no such thing as "Judaism". There is no set of core beliefs that delineate it. We are dealing with a family of Judaisms, some of which have overlapping characteristics, others have none; all authenticate themselves "locally"; but there is no "standard" or canonical Judaism by which we might adjudge one flavor to be more authentic than another. There is no "essence" of Judaism, no defining characteristics.
What Satlow does, is to "map" these identities according to the way they define themselves to three general areas: Israel, textual tradition, and religious practice. The various Judaisms "understand themselves" and place themselves on one or more of these maps to greater or lesser degrees. Just in case you might be thinking that given these maps, there may be some Jewish "essentials" after all, Satlow counters by stating that a "community" is identified as Jewish if they identify themselves as Jewish according to their own understanding of that term...
Not only this, Judaism is presumed to be a human creation: "Throughout this book I presume that religion is a human creation and thus subject to the same critical scrutiny as any other human phenomenon." (page 17.) With regard to presuppositions, Satlow is a humanist. For him, Judaism's theological claims have no more intellectual validity than the Flying Spaghetti Monster so beloved of the New Atheism. Herein lies the first problem. Satlow's humanism is simply presumed, not proven (impossible in any case) or argued, just stated. But according to the Jewish scriptures, The Hebrews/Jews exist only because of God's divine intervention and self-revelation. But scientific humanism has no place for God, so the origins of Judaism by definition must have human origins. Further, scientific humanism will never ever detect signals of transcendence because they fall outside of its remit. It is concerned with the entities which comprise the Universe, and the relationships and connections between those entities. God is not a member of the Universe and so to closed minds, scientific analyses of the Jewish scriptures will never yield anything of any value in these respects. Such is the corner into which Satlow has painted himself.
And here my troubles begin. THE most basic reading of the Torah, whether one is the truest believer or die-hard atheist cannot be construed as anything other than the origins of Judaism as a divine self-revelation of God to Abram -- regardless as to what happened to Judaism later, and regardless as to whether one believes the story to be true.
Theology and Scholarly Reading of the Biblical Text:
Here is a condensed version of my criticism of Satlow as a poor logician and a worse scholar:
1. Satlow p76: "God made a covenant with Abram...if they would do what God demanded...God would make them numerous...": If you read the text (Genesis 12), you will observe that God makes no demands of Abram whatsoever. God declares that he will bless Abram unconditionally. No conditions are mentioned. Note also Satlow's tone: "what God demanded" - the confrontational nature of his description. His tone is problematic throughout his passages dealing with theological issues.
2. Consider p165: "Jews did not need the Rabbis to tell them that the God of Israel likes prayer" - how is prayer described here? Not the vital pulsating communication with God that can cause things to happen as described elsewhere in the Bible. Satlow condescendingly relegates prayer as something with which we may "butter up" God, make him feel good.
3. P79-80: The alleged 2 creations of Genesis 1 and 2: A careful reading of the text dispels the idea of contradiction. For fuller details see e.g. the relevant sections of Victor Hamilton's excellent commentary on Genesis (2 vols).
4. Logic: p80: "Sometimes God seems to get angry. An emotion utterly unbefitting a supreme transcendent being": Where is the logic here? Why does transcendence preclude emotion?
5. Logic: p80: Satlow questions whether the Bible even teaches monotheism. He is unable to distinguish between Yahweh's claim to be the only true God, and the existence of other false "gods" - Satlow incredibly sees an admission here that there are other "gods" out there ontologically similar to Yahweh. On page 82, he asserts that "nowhere does the Hebrew Bible directly command belief in anything, even in God." This is an astoundingly stupid observation that scarcely needs any comment given that God's existence is stated from Genesis 1:1 and God continuously interacts with humankind henceforth...
6. Exegesis: p82: The sacrificial system according to Satlow is to curry favor with God who was waiting to jump on anyone who made the slightest mistake. Any reading of the Biblical text will inform that sacrifices were for forgiveness of sins or offerings made in gratitude to God for his goodness.
7. Exegesis: p83: The prophets "have little or no will of their own" - again, any reading of the Bible will illuminate Satlow's shallow expositions. For example, Elijah and Jonah are quite happy to put their case to God and argue.
8. Exegesis: p83: The prophets as functionaries of the temple: Again, another astounding statement, backed up by nothing. Simply asserted and in direct contradiction to the Biblical texts. The prophets were mostly speaking against the political and religious establishment of their day who killed many of them - per the words of Jesus. Abraham Heschel (The Prophets, Chapter 15) deals with this issue.
9. A minor stylistic point is Satlow's overuse of the verb "to shape" and its cognates. We are frequently shaping shapes or being shaped into shapely shapes.
I'll stop there. I trust the reader gets a flavor. I should add that Satlow`s book contains much more that Biblical exegesis which is useful. My criticisms major on his view of Jewish origins and his views of the Tanakh. His book is, in my opinion, fatally undermined by these glaring inconsistencies some of which are illustrated above.
Conclusion:
While this is a book written by a competent professional historian, his presuppositions, bad logic, and even worse theological analyses deeply compromise what would otherwise be a useful, well-written book. The reader will undoubtedly learn (as indeed I did) about Judaism in its variety of flavors, and something of the origins and developments of those flavors. But underlying the story as Satlow tells it is his humanism which, with its concomitant theological blindness entails a divorce between the rich symbolism of Jewish practices and their substance. The rituals are meaningless because [according to Satlow] there are no realities behind them. What is left are his shortcomings and an abiding emptiness. I am left asking, at the end of it all, What's the point? That is the pertinent question that Tyler asked himself. At least the Flying Spaghetti Monster is edible [does he come cooked or uncooked?] Of course, we may consider a much more glorious outcome if, contra Satlow, the Jewish Bible is speaking the truth...
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