FIVE THINGS YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO                                                               KNOW ... ABOUT JUDAISM                                                            

[with Rabbi Kane]

You may attend any or all of these classes:

This year the subject will be 5 heretical movements in Judaism. Where did they come from, how did they want to change Judaism and what happened to them?

• November 7: Jewish heretics of the Rabbinic/Talmudic period: Sadducees, Essenes, Samaritans and their “cousins” As the rabbis began to assert their authority, they were often challenged by these various breakoff groups who hoped to become the normative version of Judaism. What did they believe and what did they reject? What happened to them?
• December 5: Early Christianity. Christianity originally saw itself as a segment of the Jewish community. How long did this last? What did the Jewish community do to reject them? Why did this group of “heretics” succeed where others did not?
• January 9:  The Karaites. In the early Middle Ages this community rejected the Talmud and wanted to return to a Biblical Judaism. How were their customs different from mainstream Judaism? Did they ever form their own religion? Are there any Karaites around today?
• February 6:  Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza, Shabbtai Tzvi and Jacob Frank: Heretics on the cusp of modernity. Spinoza and Shabbtai Tzvi both lived at the same time, one in eastern Europe, while the other in the west. One of them formed a messianic movement while the other challenged the tenets of Judaism from the idea of western philosophy. Both were the cause of much apostacy and pain in the 17^th-19^th century.
• March 27: Reform Judaism and Ultra-Orthodox/Chassidism. These two modern movements in Judaism share some of the criteria of earlier heretical movements. What makes them similar and different from those movements? Can we envision a future where either have split off from mainstream Judaism?