historical perspectives: from the hasmoneans to bar kokhba in light ...

"[T]HE[Y] DID NOT READ IN THE SEALED BOOK" 107
and purpose of religious education and redistributes political power. 5
For if religion is now text-based, it must be transmitted to the next
generation by institutionalized education. In such a state of affairs,
the influence of teachers and educators increases dramatically, especially
that of the scholar, the one most deeply versed in the sacred
texts. This in turn entails a shift in political power: authority is now
vested in the Sages, masters of the canonized and sacred halakhic texts. 6
Since the text-based mode of religiosity draws knowledge from
books, it is only natural that it encourages the study of books.
Consequently, learning groups of halakha now flourish as never
before. 7 This, in turn, produces a vast literary activity. Indeed, as
Soloveitchik put it, "One of the most striking phenomena of the contemporary
community is the explosion of halakhic works on practical
observance." 8
All these characteristics of the shift from 'tradition' to the 'book,'
as discussed by Soloveitchik, are highly significant for our understanding
of Qumran and its reformative revolution, as we shall immediately
see. Yet there is another aspect to which I would also like
to draw attention. These two types of religiosity, where 'text-based
observance' is of a reformative and revolutionary character vis-a-vis
'tradition-based observance,' are known to students of religion from
other religions and periods (e.g., the seventh-century Karaite movement
in Babylon or the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation).
From a comparative perspective we may say that as a rule the 'textbased'
type of religiosity is a reaction to the 'tradition-based' one.
Thus, by its very nature, the 'text-based' mode of religiosity is secondary
and innovative. 9
This innovation is a process that reinforces itself. Once one becomes
aware of the religious demands as presented by the written sacred
text, it is difficult not to sense the discrepancy between these demands
and one's traditional practice, which intrinsically is almost always
somewhat remote from the fixed law. The awareness of this discrepancy
5
Soloveitchik, "Rupture and Reconstruction," 87.
6
Soloveitchik, "Rupture and Reconstruction," 94. See also Halbertal, People of
the Book, 6, 129.
7
Soloveitchik, "Rupture and Reconstruction," 83.
8
Soloveitchik, "Rupture and Reconstruction," 68.
9
The importance of this observation for our understanding of Second Temple
Judaism (especially the radical character of sectarian ideology vis-a-vis Pharisaic traditionalism)
will be discussed below.