On Leo Baeck's Exposition Of The Essence Of Judaism

Leo Baeck (1873-1956) was an important 20th century thinker of liberal Judaism. He was a rabbi of progressive Judaism, a theologian, a leader of the German Jewish organizations and a spiritual leader of the German Jews during the Nazi reign. His main research areas were the history of religion and religious philosophy. In addition to his criticism, interpretation and reformation of Jewish theology, his major academic contribution was combining his own research on the history of Jewish philosophy with classical mysticism. He re-interpreted the essence of Judaism from a modern perspective, and adopted the same perspective to interpret the history of Jewish existence which was largely recorded in the Bible. The purpose was to explain the meaning of the very existence of Jews. In the literature of modern Jewish philosophy, Baeck is referred to as an outstanding member of the "the new generation thinkers" whose thoughts were based on the thought of Hermann Cohen.As a new-generation thinker after Hermann Cohen, Baeck had a clear purpose for his research on Jewish history and Jewish philosophy, i.e. to explain the essential characteristics of Judaism that could keep up with the times. He explained the essence of Judaism in his few major works. Several of his papers contained in Judaism and Christianity:Essays, analyze the differences between the two religions from the perspective of their relationship, and interpret the essence of Judaism through a comparative study of the two religions. His work titled This people Israel:The Meaning of Jewish Existence was primarily carried out during his time in a concentration camp. On the basis of the biblical description of Jewish history, this work links the meaning of Jewish existence with Jew's faith in God, and expounds on the practical nature of Judaism as a kind of ethical monotheism from the perspective of history of ideas. In Comparison with these two works, the Essence of Judaism, written in the early 20th century, is more significant for it is in this work that Baeck systematically expounded his views on the essence of Judaism. Influenced by the western Enlightenment and rationalism, Baeck explored the essence of Judaism from a unique perspective substantially different from other writers and philosophers. It differs from Herman Cohen's rationalism, which advocates a rational transformation of Judaism on the basis of a rational theory of knowledge. It also differs from Martin Buber's existentialism, which explains the essence of Judaism in light of the relationship between God and an individual's existence. It differs even more from Rosenzweig's mysticism, which explains the essence of Judaism from a revelation point of view.Baeck's explanation of the essence of Judaism is rational, but it is rational in a practical sense rather in the sense of a theory of knowledge, Even though existentialism and mysticism were encompassed in his explanation of the essence of Judaism, he reformed them. He stressed the essence of Judaism should be explored from the Jews' practice of it, from Jewish life, from Jews'devout faith in God, and from Jewish ethics and obligations. He emphasized the Jewish faith should be established from an ethical point of view, and he understood Judaism as being ethical monotheism. He believed Judaism mainly involved practical activities rather than being a speculative theological system. Thus it does not focus on abstract concepts, rather, it focuses on people, their lives, their conscience and their will power. The core belief is the ethical obligation people have toward each other.Baeck presents his view on the essence of Judaism mainly from the perspectives of God, man and the prophet.Baeck carefully investigated the main concepts of Jews, those of God and those of man. He believed that by understanding the unity of these concepts one would be able know the nature of Judaism. He provides a strong and intense character for his concept of God, emphasizing that love is much more important than thought and that faith in God is much more fundamental than talking about God. He stressed that man could only become close to God by complying with God's commandments and being ethical rather than becoming close through theoretical discussions or engaging in mythical practices. It is argued that'God's kingdom'is an ideal created by man. Man is created according to the image of God and'love'is the basic religious experience of knowing well that one is created by God who created infinity and eternity. The purpose of the commandments is to guide one toward an ethical life. When one follows them, one gains an ethical freedom, which in turn highlights the essence of belief. In order to achieve freedom and realize the full meaning of faith, man must repent and convert to God so as to strengthen his moral sense. Judaism can only be ethical monotheism. Man believes in God and at the same time believes in himself. Life is filled with freedom of choice and moral responsibility. Man achieves eternal morality by loving God.Baeck thought that Jewish ethical monotheism was optimistic, and ethical optimism reflected the essence of the Jewish spirit. This Jewish optimism was manifested in its perception that the spiritual reality of man's own life, of their fellow citizens'life and of human beings as a whole was based on God's universality. Once this was acknowledged, man developed beliefs in themselves, in their fellow citizens and in human beings as a whole. These are the three aspects of man's belief in goodness. Baeck believed that only by knowing about man's own soul, about their own psychic personality and about the mystery of the existence of his soul could man obtain certainty and freedom in the spiritual relationship that was related to man's life. On the contrary, only by knowing our fellow citizens' souls and by having the sense of summoning ourselves, a sense also shared by other people, could our personality find its own responsibility and appearance. To believe in others, men believe themselves, and vise versa. Finally, only when human life becomes oneness is one's personality able to relate to a fellow citizen's personality. In this way the goodness advocated by Judaism finds certainty in God and its responsibility in humans. The ultimate belief is that the road of life comes from God and finally returns to God. And it is man's faith in God that guides him to discover gradually the value of his own souls, the value of his fellow citizens and the value of human beings as a whole.Leo Baeck thought that the nature of Judaism could be grasped by understanding the Jewish prophets. He pointed out that the most significant characteristic of a Jewish prophet's view was direct viewing and practice. Prophets neither care about Logos, nor do they give undue importance to academic explanations of Jewish doctrine. A Prophet's thought come from the heart and is the product of the prophet's innermost experience. Prophets grasp all the things God shows to them through feelings. Their attitude to God is absolutely trustful. For this reason they pay much more attention to thinking about life than thinking about God.In Baeck's opinion, faith in God and in humans focuses on the understanding of the commandments. One of the important roles of the commandments is for us to know ourselves as well as to know things greater then us, thus to have a sense of humility by recognizing our position in the infinite world. And we learn to respect ourselves in the same way. Baeck fought against dualism which advocated that all ethical correctness and mistakes ultimately were only hypothetical, and all morality was nothing but eulogy of power. In his view, Judaism promotes commandments to a spiritual level and preaches unconditional ethics. Judaism never accepts the dharma that different people and nationalities have different standard of correctness and mistakes.Leo Baeck believed that Jewish belief enabled human beings to be aware of secrets and the commandments. Judaism not only fights against authoritative and prayerful worship which churches depend on to achieve secular success, but also fights against irreligious ethics and civilization. He firmly believed that the future of religion and morality depended on man's faith in monotheism, which gives life to man and requires of man a sacred lifestyle. On the one hand, he was tolerant and thought it hard to unify humans who were created in God's image and held different beliefs. On the other hand, he looked forward to a day when all men could grasp the teachings of the prophets and would share a common belief:life in this world is only a beginning, and men can achieve eternal life if they follow God's commandments on goodness. Then men would be able to perceive that eternal happiness is greater and much more important than earthly merriment..Leo Baeck firmly believed that Judaism links human together with monotheistic beliefs that deeply penetrate people's thoughts and values.In Baeck's opinion, when one compares Judaism with Christianity and classifies piety as to how it has become various types of religion over time, two forms emerge. There is classical religion and there is romantic religion. Although they are intrinsically linked in origin and exert mutual restraint on each other, still, their doctrines separate them. These two religions, Judaism and Christianity, confront each other as a classical religion and a romantic religion. Baeck argued that Judaism took universalism as its task and mission, which were to be fulfilled by their subordinates—Christianity and Islam.As a Jewish philosopher and a rabbi, Baeck understandably fought against atheism and materialism. He opposed a materialist interpretation of the Bible, and believed that all the things, including the Bible, that rely on such semiotics as language to convey messages are much richer than what it reveals publicly. However, the materialist interpretation of the Bible narrowly focuses on substance, i.e. sentences in the Bible, which only results in getting the shallowest possible meaning.Baeck believed divinity and non-divinity to be contradictory and conflict ridden, which was exemplified in the fact that all dharma was a kind of contradiction and conflict. Goodness is divinity, and non-goodness is non-divinity. He held that goodness and dharma of divinity struggled with the evils of non-divinity. He bound divinity with dharma and so his understanding of non-divinity was that it was a kind of parochial non-dharma atheism. He did not recognize the value of either atheism or materialism.Nevertheless, being a contemporary religious philosopher, he affirmed the philosophy of materialism. Moreover, he even suggested the concept of Jewish concepts and materialism were compatible. In his opinion, the standpoint of Judaism is immortality, an invisible psychic concept which is intangible and hard to describe. On the one hand, he believed that Judaism attached greatest importance to temporal life; on the other hand, he also believed Judaism did not completely affirm the temporal world. He held that it was important to recognize the deficiency and limitations of the temporal world. All of this embodies the duality of his thought.The thesis concludes that in Leo Baeck's understanding, the essence of Judaism is a religious consciousness leading to spiritual freedom. His belief in rational practice is largely in harmony with Kantian moral theology and ethics, which embodies the profound influence the German rationalist tradition had exerted on him.Baeck created a concept of God's that has had a positive meaning for the modern day development and creative transformation of Jewish theology. This transformation of Judaism is not simply the transformation of traditional Jewish theological style, but rather it is a kind of theological construction, dual in nature, completely new, and completely pioneering. God creates men who are responsible for their own behavior and who find the meaning of life through their own independent choices. The fundamental significance of this active construction lies in that it proves Judaism is constructive and room for its development is boundless.