JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

a’alei teshuvah
profaned the great Shechem temple; it was never again rebuilt,
except as a granary, as archaeological work has shown. Critics
have suggested that the narrative of Abimelech seems to
be an old pre-Deuteronomic account later inserted into the
historical work because it explicated a brief Deuteronomic
reference to an early particularist tendency in 8:33–35. In that
place it is asserted that Israel’s whoring after the Baalim consisted
of making Baal-Berith their god and forgetting YHWH
when they betrayed the family of YHWH’s charismatic deliverer.
In later circles the original significance of the “house of
Baal-Berith” had long been lost, and the element “baal” in
such a combination could only smack of the repudiated fertility
cult. Something of its earliest significance can be glimpsed,
however, in patriarchal stories connecting Abraham, Jacob,
and Joseph with the site in various ways and in the archaeology
of Shechem. The Baal-Berith temple was preceded on
the same site by a Middle Bronze Age fortress-temple, which
in turn perpetuated a piece of ground considered holy since
the first half of the 18th century B.C.E. Genesis 34:2 personifies
Shechem as one of the sons of Hamor (“ass”), reminiscent
of Amorite treaty terminology at Mari, where “killing
an ass” is a technical term for concluding a covenant. That
Joshua-Judges contains no developed conquest tradition for
the Shechem area is largely due, according to some scholars,
to the influence of the Baal-Berith sanctuary (Josh. 24). According
to tradition, such a situation had been anticipated by
the strategists (Deut. 27; Josh. 8:30–35).
The Hebrew term Baal-Berit is also applied to the father
of the child at a *circumcision (berit) ceremony, and in modern
Hebrew the term means “ally” based on the plural form
in Genesis 14:13.
Bibliography: G.E. Wright, Shechem: Biography of a Biblical
City (1965), 80–138. Add. Bibliography: T.J. Lewis, in: JBL,
115 (1996), 401–23; M. Mulder, in: DDD, 141–44.
[Robert G. Boling]
BA’ALEI TESHUVAH (pl. of ba’al teshuvah; literally “penitent
ones”). Beginning with the Bible (see Deut. 30), Jewish tradition
has always encouraged those who stray from the path of
mitzvah observance to return, to do “teshuvah” and readopt
a traditional life style. The talmudic sages speak about repentance,
“teshuvah,” on numerous occasions, their most famous
statement being, “where ba’alei teshuvah stand, a complete
ẓaddik cannot stand” (Yalkut Shimoni, Gen. 20). In the posttalmudic
period, innumerable scholars wrote about “teshuvah,”
encouraging even the observant Jew to become a ba’al
teshuvah and improve his fulfillment of God’s commandments.
Maimonides codified the laws of “teshuvah” in his Mishneh
Torah; Jonah ben Abraham *Gerondi wrote the classic, Gates
of Repentance; and in modern times, Abraham Isaac *Kook
wrote The Lights of Repentance. Unfortunately, we have no statistical
record of the number of ba’alei teshuvah throughout
history, just as we have no record of the number of Jews who
abandoned their Judaism and its observance.
In the second half of the 20th century, the words ba’alei
teshuvah took on new significance. Beginning in the 1960s in
the U.S., the rise of the counterculture in general American
society together with the search for new meaning and spirituality
led an increasing number of college-age Jews to explore
Jewish observance, many for the first time. For most of these
young Jews, the exploration led them to Orthodoxy, of one
form or another.
The essential factor that turned individual searching
into a full-fledged movement was the internal state of Orthodoxy
itself. Orthodoxy was enjoying a resurgence, following
the semi-moribund state which largely characterized it during
the first half of the century. The first to take advantage
of the new interest in Judaism was the *Chabad-Lubavitch
ḥasidic movement. By the mid-1960s, the Lubavitcher Rebbe,
Menaḥem Mendel *Schneersohn, had “emissaries” in place on
most of the large college campuses with high concentration
of Jews. Trained to reach out to other Jews, Chabad was most
instrumental in assisting numerous young people to become
ba’alei teshuvah, even if they did not become Chabad ḥasidim
per se. At the same time, the first generation of “baby-boomers”
graduated the Orthodox day schools and went to college.
Through their involvement in Hillel, Yavneh (the religious
Jewish students’ organization), and NCSY (see below)
they became a potent force in creating the Ba’al Teshuvah
movement.
The Ba’al Teshuvah movement was further bolstered by
the organized and institutionalized Orthodox community. A
number of institutions that were in place began to have an
increasing effect on the movement. The *Union of Orthodox
Jewish Congregations of America, commonly known as the
OU, established the National Conference of Synagogue Youth
(NCSY) that effectively used Orthodox college students as
counselors for the burgeoning number of non-Orthodox high
school students who were interested in Judaism and in Jewish
observance. To this day, NCSY continues to teach Orthodoxy
to non-Orthodox high school children. Yeshiva University offered
beginners-level Jewish studies for ba’alei teshuvah in its
James Strier School. Many of those who graduated from this
program went on to become Jewish educators and rabbis. Numerous
other, more “right-wing” yeshivot opened their doors
to ba’alei teshuvah. They include She’ar Yashuv, Far Rockaway,
N.Y.; Hadar Ha Torah (Lubavitcher), Brooklyn, N.Y.; Maḥzikei
Torah (Bostoner Rebbe), Brookline, Mass.; Or Yosef, Strasbourg,
France. This helps explain one of the more interesting
phenomena of the Ba’al Teshuvah movement. Throughout the
1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, increasing numbers of ba’alei teshuvah
opted for stricter norms and uncompromising observance of
“right-wing,” “yeshivish” Orthodoxy.
In the wake of the Six-Day War, the nascent Ba’al Teshuvah
movement in the former U.S.S.R. went public with
demonstrations and an open call for more observance as
well as permission to immigrate to Israel. As a result the KGB
hounded those who wished to fulfill the Zionist dream and
renew their Jewish observance. Hundreds of refuseniks were
6 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3