Abstract
Historically, Jewish authorities have largely looked positively upon science. Concurrently, there were specific periods and regions where (rabbinical) authorities were worried about how science influences Jewish piety and so strongly opposed contact with it. This is especially applied to “controversial” subjects (such as evolution) that seem to challenge Judaism’s beliefs. Thus, it is better to define Judaism’s relationship with science through a spectrum of philosophical approaches, which in turn have influenced science education in Jewish schools. The Conservative and Reform movements do not constrain topics of science; in contrast, Orthodox communities have developed a range of approaches from rejecting most secular learning to permitting it but applying safeguards towards “controversial” issues. This chapter provides a historical overview of the relationship of Judaism to science. Based on this overview, we examine how it has influenced science education while suggesting how to possibly avoid future clashes between Judaism and science education.
The authors contributed equally to this manuscript.
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Notes
- 1.
In this historical discussion, we address, among other things, the simple question of the rejection or the acceptance of biology, in general, as a science in antiquity. In the twentieth century, the issue of biomedical ethics has developed tremendously and so have the discussions concerning medical ethics and Jewish law. Much has been written about, including organ transplants and the definition of death, fertility issues, machines for prolonging life and disconnecting terminal patients from them, and cloning. Steinberg (2003) wrote an Encyclopaedia of Jewish Medical Ethics; moreover, Shaare Zedek Hospital in Israel has a journal dealing with such issues titled, Asiya, and much discussion can be found in legal journals as well. However, there are two reasons why this issue is not part of this short chapter: First, the research is all done on the graduate level and by experts and does not find its way to the classroom at the high school or even undergraduate level. Secondly, this issue has nothing to do with acceptance of biology or medicine and how it effects education, but very specific ethical issues within that realm.
- 2.
By necessity, we focus on primary sources of the Jewish literary tradition, such as the Bible (the Masoretic text), the Talmud (Preisler & Havlin, 1998) and the Midrash, and their interpretations. We do so because it is these source texts and their interpretations that have been used authoritatively by Jewish thinkers, and in addition it is these texts which have been used for coping with different scientific positions. In turn, this has affected the modern science education curricula in many Jewish school systems. The Talmud is the authoritative body of Jewish law and lore accumulated over a period of six centuries (c.100 BCE–c.500 CE) in both Israel and Babylonia. The Talmud has two components: the Mishnah (Kehati, 1991), the first written compendium of Judaism’s Oral Law redacted by Rabbi Judah the Prince in 200 CE, and the Gemara, an in-depth discussion of the theoretical base of the laws of the Mishnah. In addition, the Gemara includes nonlegal discussions and interpretations of Biblical texts called Aggadah as well as stories with moral implications to human behavior. The Gemara written in Babylonia is the more popular corpus and is also referred to as the Babylonian Talmud. There was a parallel Gemara written in Palestine, and it is referred to as the Palestinian or the Jerusalem Talmud (Rozenboim 2010). If “Jerusalem Talmud” is not mentioned by name in the references in this chapter, then one can assume that the Babylonian Talmud is the version being referenced. Midrashim (pl.) are rabbinic interpretations of the Hebrew Bible consisting of homily and exegesis, on both its legal ramifications and its lore. Much of the Midrashic teachings are attributed to the Tannaim (rabbinical scholars of the period of the Mishnah who lived between 100 BCE and 200 CE). Individual Midrashic commentaries continued to be composed by rabbis after 200 CE until the Middle Ages. The Talmudic and Midrashic texts are seen as the classical period of Judaism in which the oral traditions and interpretations were put to text. This literature is referred to as classical rabbinic (or Hazal in Hebrew) literature. All denominations of Judaism are in a dialogue with this classical literature whether they see it as authoritative (as does Orthodox Judaism) or not (as does Reform Judaism).
- 3.
In recent times, members of the ultra-Orthodox camp have raised concerns over the access that some computer technology gives to the media that is not in accord with their (Jewish) philosophy. As an example, some 40,000 ultra-Orthodox, US-based Jews attended a meeting at Citi Field (in New York, NY) to hear lectures about the dangers of the Internet (Grynbaum 2012). Similarly, in Israel, public calls are sometimes made to ban home computers in ultra-Orthodox communities due to their “spiritual dangers” (Ettinger 2007).
- 4.
Kalam is an Islamic school of philosophy that seeks theological principles through dialectic; it flourished in what is today modern Iraq, from the eighth to tenth century CE (Wolfson 1976).
- 5.
Halakha is the collective body of Jewish religious law, including Biblical law and later Talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions. Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly nonreligious life. Hence, Halakha guides not only Jewish religious practices and beliefs but also numerous aspects of day-to-day life.
- 6.
Kabbalah (literally “receiving”) is a discipline and school of thought discussing the mystical aspects of Judaism. It is a set of esoteric teachings meant to define the inner meaning of both the Bible and the traditional rabbinic literature (including Midrash and Talmud) as well as to explain the significance of Jewish religious observances in light of the inner soul and upper spiritual worlds. The term Kabbalah, meaning Jewish mysticism, is a term from the twelfth century CE and afterwards. However, Jewish mystical texts date back to at least the second temple period if not earlier. The best-known Kabbalistic work is the book of Zohar or more correctly Zoharic literature, which first appeared in Spain in the late thirteenth century (Dodick et al. 2010).
- 7.
In general, Orthodox Judaism is the approach to Judaism that adheres to the rabbinic interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Bible as found in the Talmudic literature. In the early nineteenth century, Orthodox Judaism divided into two different camps, the modern Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox which encompass a wide spectrum of beliefs. Nonetheless, Waxman (1998) details three major differences separating modern Orthodoxy and ultra-Orthodoxy. The first involves the ultra-Orthodox stance towards the larger society in general and the larger Jewish community, which is essentially an attitude of isolation, as opposed to the inclusive attitude of the modern Orthodox. The second is in reference to modernity, general scholarship and science, with the ultra-Orthodox being antagonistic and modern Orthodoxy being accommodating, if not always welcoming. Third, there is a basic difference between the two in their attitudes towards Zionism and active involvement in the rebirth and development of Israel, with the ultra-Orthodox being antagonistic and the modern Orthodox welcoming Zionism as a religious value. In this chapter we will use the English term ultra-Orthodox (even with its political connotations) as opposed to the Hebrew term, Haredi, as this is the more common term in English sources.
- 8.
Hasidism is a branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the internalization of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspect of the Jewish faith. It was founded in the eighteenth-century Eastern Europe by Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov (1698–1760) as a reaction against overly legalistic Judaism identified with Orthodox Jewry in Lithuania (sometimes called Mitnagdim (pl.) or “the opposition”). Today, the ultra-Orthodox community is comprised of both Hassidim and Mitnagdim.
- 9.
The ultra-Orthodox community saw support for their position in the opposition of the rabbis of the Middle Ages to philosophy. In the argument between the anti-rationalists and the Maimonidean school, for instance, they saw themselves as siding with the anti-rationalists against the Maimonidean embracing of philosophy and secular science.
- 10.
Solomon Schechter, the noted scholar of the Cairo Genizah in the early twentieth century, admits that in his youth in a village in Romania, he heard of America through Sefer Habrit (Robinson 1989).
- 11.
- 12.
The kabbalists had a different take on creationism seeing it more as an act of emanation rather than creation ex nihilo. They also differed on the question of the time that it took to create the universe (Shuchat 2009).
- 13.
One of the most famous historical examples of the use of coercive power in the Christian world was the Church’s imprisonment of Galileo as a heretic in 1613 for his support of the heliocentric theory. Bronowski (1973, p. 218) argues that “the effect of the trial and the imprisonment was to put a total stop to the scientific tradition in the Mediterranean.”
- 14.
Regarding evolution, Robinson (2006) argues that care should be taken in blindly comparing ultra-Orthodox attitudes to fundamentalist Christians too closely. The ultra-Orthodox are united in their opposition to Christian creationism as it is based on the King James Bible and not on traditional Jewish texts, which incorporate the cumulative perspectives obtained from (a large number of) traditional Torah commentaries and interpretations. In fact, Robinson (2006) could only find one source written from an ultra-Orthodox perspective whose author identifies as a creationist. Thus, at least in philosophy, if not deed, the ultra-Orthodox do differ from fundamentalist Christians.
- 15.
Of the approximately 13.5 million Jews in the world in 2010, Israel’s Jewish population accounted for 42.5 %, and the United States’ Jewish population accounted for 40 % of the total (DellaPergola 2010).
- 16.
Philosophically, Israeli-based National Religious schools are most similar to modern-Orthodox day schools outside of Israel.
- 17.
A Kollel is a Yeshiva learning program for married men.
- 18.
As we have seen, Swelitz (2006) extensively explored the historical responses of Conservative and Reform rabbis towards evolution. Using Rosenberg’s (1988) system, their responses can be classified as falling within the parallel, explanatory, and complementary approaches. They do not adopt a limiting approach, in contrast to some among the Orthodox. Looking at the Conservative movement today, although they appear to have no official position, many of their Rabbis have adopted the idea of theistic evolution. Rabbi David Fine, who has authorized official responsa for the Conservative movement’s committee on Jewish Law and Standards, expressed this idea as the following: “Did God create the world, or not? Is it God’s handiwork? Many of the people who accept evolution, even many scientists, believe in what is called ‘theistic evolution,’ that is, that behind the billions of years of cosmic and biological evolution, there is room for belief in a creator, God, who set everything into motion, and who stands outside the universe as the cause and reason for life” (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/jewsevolution.html).
- 19.
It will also be seen that almost all of the empirical studies that examine the relationship between Judaism and science education focus on the modern Orthodox, so this is another reason for this focus.
- 20.
As Schick (2009, p. 12) notes, “In the 1998 census, I reported that there were 3.26 children in the families of Modern Orthodox eighth graders as compared to 6.57 and 7.92 children respectively in yeshiva-world and Hassidic families.”
- 21.
- 22.
Heilman (2005, p. 265), based on a personal communication with Schick, who has completed a series of demographic studies on Jewish day schools in the United States, claims that “nearly two-thirds of today’s Judaica teachers in day schools come from the haredi [ultra-Orthodox] world.”
- 23.
Some Jews believe that the Earth is currently 5,722 years in age (in 2012 CE). In fact, this figure, which has also influenced Christian fundamentalists’ understanding of the Earth’s chronology, has been calculated based on the interpolation of ages of Biblical personalities mentioned in Genesis starting from Adam’s creation on the sixth day of creation (this calculation can be found in the book Seder Olam Rabbah, ascribed to the second century CE Rabbi Yossi ben Halafta). In turn, this calculation leaves the possibility of interpreting the first 6 days of creation before man’s appearance as being much longer than six 24-h days (Dodick et al. 2010).
- 24.
Theistic evolution claims that God’s method of creation was to design a universe in which various systems would naturally evolve.
- 25.
Among those of Jewish origin, who see their faith as an integral part of their lives, the Orthodox represent a higher percentage than stated; still the Orthodox do represent a minority when compared to the number of Jews belonging to movements such as the Conservative and Reform.
- 26.
Simply put, there are no science education studies that have examined Jewish attitudes/approaches towards science as a whole. All of the known studies focus on one or a few specific subjects such as geologic time, cosmology, and especially evolution, which (supposedly) are threats to the Jewish worldview.
- 27.
We could reference only one paper concerning the interaction between science education and Judaism from a non-Orthodox perspective. Authored by Rabbi Laurie Green (2012), who comes from the Reform movement, this policy paper argued for greater integration (similar to the explanatory approach) between religion and science studies for students belonging to the Reform movement.
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Dodick, J., Shuchat, R.B. (2014). Historical Interactions Between Judaism and Science and Their Influence on Science Teaching and Learning. In: Matthews, M. (eds) International Handbook of Research in History, Philosophy and Science Teaching. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7654-8_54
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