JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

Similarly, the midrashic interpretations of the sacrifice of
Isaac, of the dramas of Saul or of Job, are much closer to the
existentialist point of view of Kierkegaard or of Kafka than to
the systems of Maimonides or of Kant. The conflict between
Saul and David was not a matter of ethics but of good or bad
fortune. Abraham, ultimately, should have disobeyed the divine
command to sacrifice his son, which was inspired more
by Satan than by God. Job was perfectly innocent, and his inexplicable
sufferings could generate nothing but tears. These,
and similar themes, which are scattered throughout talmudic
and ḥasidic literature, were often taken up by the Jewish
existentialists of the 20th century such as Martin *Buber and
Franz *Rosenzweig. They culminate in the doctrine of radical
insecurity, whose sources one may find in the Bible, but
which finds a more cohesive expression in a talmudic formulation:
Kulei hai ve-ulai (“All this and perhaps?”). Even while
the most apparently perfect conditions can be gathered together
to weigh the balance in favor of good or evil, there yet
remains a coefficient of uncertainty which is beyond good and
evil. It is possible that events will follow the ethical expectations.
It is also possible, however, that these expectations will
not be fulfilled. It is true that this disorder is interpreted as a
voluntary (and temporary) weakness of God which permits
man to exercise his will. Thus, this metaethical Jewish view
remains ultimately ethical and never leads to a passive pessimism.
The divine transcendence does not disturb the ethical
equilibrium except in order to call upon man to reestablish,
together with God, an equilibrium which has been disrupted.
The metaethical is the price for the inalienable moral essence
of the Covenant.
[Andre Neher]
Bibliography: Bibliographies and Encyclopaedias:
N. Amsel, Jewish Encyclopedia of Moral and Ethical Issues (1994);
S.D. Breslauer, Contemporary Jewish Ethics: A Bibliographical Survey
(1985); S.D. Breslauer, Modern Jewish Morality: A Bibliographical
Survey (1986). In the Bible: F. Wagner, Geschichte des Sittlichkeitsbegriffs
(1928–36); A. Weiser, Religion und Sittlichkeit der Genesis
(1928); W.I. Baumgartner, Israelitische und altorientalische Weisheit
(1933), 4–7, 24–30; F.R. Kraus, in: ZA, 43 (1936), 77–113; Kaufmann Y.,
Toledot, 1 (1937), 27ff., 31ff., 431–3; 2 (1945), 68–70, 557–628; J. Hempel,
Das Ethos des Alten Testaments (1938); H. Duesberg, Les scribes
inspirés, 1 (1938), 92–126, 481–500; H. Frankfort, Ancient Egyptian
Religion (1948), 56–80; N.W. Porteous, in: H.H. Rowley (ed.), Studies
in Old Testament Prophecy (1950), 143–56; E. Neufeld, The Hittite
Laws (1951), 53; A. Gelin, Morale et l’Ancient Testament (1952), 71–92;
H. Kruse, in: Verbum Domini, 30 (1952), 3–13, 65–80, 143–53; H. Bonnet,
Reallexikon der aegyptischen Religionsgeschichte (1952); W.G.
Lambert, in: Ex Oriente Lux, 15 (1957–58), 184–96; idem, Babylonian
Wisdom Literature (1960); S.E. Loewenstamm, in: Sefer S. Dim (1958),
124–5; idem, in: BM, 13 (1962), 55–59; E. Jacob, in; VT Supplement, 7
(1960), 39–51; E. Hammershaimb, ibid., 73–101; M. Greenberg, in: Y.
Kaufmann Jubilee Volume (1960), 5–28. In Later Jewish Thought:
M. Lazarus, Ethics of Judaism (1900); G.F. Moore, Judaism, 2 (1927,
repr. 1958), 79–111; C.G. Montefiore and H. Loewe, Rabbinic Anthology
(1963), 490–9; Guttmann, Philosophies, index; M. Kadushin,
Worship and Ethics (1964); S. Bernfeld, Foundations of Jewish Ethics
(1967); B. Herring, Jewish Ethics and Halakhah for Our Times: Sources
ethiopia
and Commentary, 2 vol. (1984–89); L. Finkelstein (ed.), The Jews, 2
(1960 3 ), 1010–42; M.J. Routtenberg, in: F.E. Johnson (ed.), Patterns of
Ethics in America Today (1960), 7–27.
ETHIOPIA (Abyssinia), Christian kingdom in N.E. Africa.
Under Egyptian rule from 2000 B.C.E. to about 1000 B.C.E.,
Ethiopia (Heb. Kush) appears alongside Egypt in the Bible,
sharing its prophesied doom (e.g., Isa. 20:3); Tirhakah, the
pharaoh, is mentioned as king of Ethiopia during the Assyrian
conquest of the Northern kingdom (II Kings 19:9 and
Isa. 37:9). The wealth of Ethiopia and Seba are also cited (Isa.
43:3; 45:14). However, Ethiopia figures most prominently as
an example of a remote place, cf. Amos 9:7, where God rebukes
Israel saying, “Are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O
people of Israel?” Independent of Egypt, Ethiopia was ruled
by a dynasty of Arabian origin which invaded the country in
the second century B.C.E., ruled from the city of Axum, and
determined the Semitic quality of the customs and language
of the Hamitic people. The kings at Axum called themselves
negus-nagast (“king of kings”). They traced their descent to
Menelik whom they claimed to have been the son of King Solomon
and the queen of Sheba. This legend finds expression in
the classic Ethiopian chronicle of the 14th century C.E., the Kebra
Negast (“Glory of Kings”). Among other stories, the latter
describes Solomon’s seduction of and contract with the queen
of Sheba, whose son brought Judaic customs and civil law to
Ethiopia. The Holy Ark was also conveyed to Ethiopia to be
returned to Zion only when Christ would reappear in Jerusalem
and the Ethiopian Christians would reign triumphant
in the Holy City. Indeed, the Coptic Monophysite Christianity
accepted by the Ethiopians, probably in the fifth century,
retained certain Jewish elements derived from the contact and
influence of local Jews or from early Christianity itself. It is
also possible that they were influenced by South Arabian Jews
in pre-Islamic times. In the eighth century, the capital of the
kingdom was moved from Axum as a result of Muslim expansion
into Ethiopia. The Christian kings of the Zague dynasty
who strove to restore their hegemony from the 13th century
claimed descent from Solomon and maintained that the Ethiopian
aristocracy was taken from Jerusalem to Axum. The lion
of Judah has remained the symbol of the emperor of Ethiopia.
The literary language of Ethiopia is Ge’ez, a Semitic tongue,
which was replaced by Amharic. All holy works are written in
Ge’ez, including the Bible (probably translated from Greek or
Syriac) and the only complete extant versions of the apocryphal
books of Enoch and Jubilees, which were translated from
the lost Greek and included in the canon. During the Middle
Ages, most works were translated from Arabic, including the
major Jewish history, Josippon, called in Ge’ez, Zena Ayhud
(“History of the Jews”), and other Jewish chronicles and religious
works gleaned from Arabic sources.
Ethiopian Church in Jerusalem
The Ethiopian Church is one of the oldest churches in the
Holy Land. An Ethiopian convert is mentioned in the Acts of
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