Lost souls swimming in a fish bowl/ External Threats in the 10th century: Karaites and the assertion of Jewish identity.

A bit of background before this post: I initially wanted to do parallel posts, one informative and one more opinionated but then I realised that summarising articles from Encyclopaedias is not as fun as it sounds. A full post on the history and development of the Karaites would be interesting to a select group of about three people (myself included). So instead I’ve tried to place it into a context that I think is fairly helpful and relevant (apologies to the purists who resent the concept of relevance, my thoughts are with you).

So who are the Karaites? The Karaites refer to the Jewish sect which emerged at some point in the 9^th century, who defined themselves by their strictly literalistic adherence to the holy scriptures of the Bible and rejection of the Oral law. Whilst some have tried to link them to other similar sects around the time of the Dead Sea scrolls, no such links have proved conclusive.

There are many stories surrounding the reasons behind their emergence, including a well-known story involving Anan, the founder, suffering injured pride when his brother was appointed exilarch instead of him. In general, historians have ascribed the movement’s emergence to enormous religious, political and economic fermentation resulting from the Arab conquests, economic grievances of poorer Jews living in sparsely populated areas and heterodox trends in elements of Babylonian Jewry.

Anan, unlike the founder of Christianity, did not try to ease the ‘yoke’ of Jewish law, but essentially made things rather more difficult. He introduced complicated regulations to the Brit Milah ceremony, did not recognise minimum quantities in forbidden foods and took several areas of Shabbat observance to the strictest possible extreme. Anan’s mantra was to search thoroughly in the Torah and not to rely on his opinion.

 As a result, after his death, the sect practically disintegrated with new movements arising and it became impossible to find two Karaites who held the same opinion on any religious issue. Anan’s supporters gradually gave way to other disparate groups, whose only real link was anti-rabbinic heresies. Between the ninth and twelfth century many sects who could be referred to as ‘Karaite’ came and went without leaving much of a trace but they paved the ground for new Karaite scholars to develop the movement’s doctrines.

Now what I am particularly interested in over here is the nature of the threat that they posed to the Jewish world. Prominent figures such as Sa’adia, Yehudah ha Levi and Maimonides dedicated serious amounts of time to polemics attacking Karaite doctrine and heresy in general.

Notably, Sa’adia’s polemics against the heretic Hiwi ensured that his Bible and commentary never gained widespread appeal. Part of his response was documenting a systematic exposition of faith somewhat similar to Maimonides’ 13 principles of faith and Yehudah Ha Levi’s principles listed in the Kuzari.

Which brings me onto the point about identity. It took me a long time to discover the importance of regular and maintained points of Jewish association, even as a fully observant Jew. For it becomes clear that the challenge that Karaites and what I will categorise as 'external threats' posed to the Jewish communities of the 10^th and 11^th centuries was something far more than one of doctrine.

If we look at how the situation is portrayed the word that comes to mind is confusion. Sa’adia describes the local communities as ‘drowning’ in doubt. In a world where religion was the central aspect of identity it is hard to downplay the significance of this loss of association.

The problems that arose were threefold: Firstly, many Jews could no longer figure out what made them distinctive living amongst another monotheistic nation in Islam. Although data is fairly scarce, it seems that there were areas where groups were unwilling to resist conversion. In addition, several had their own previously unshakeable convictions of the authenticity of tradition challenged by the emergent Karaites, and even the concept of God was seriously threatened by theories regarding the eternity of the universe and an impersonal deity of different philosophical schools.

And suddenly it was no longer was a question of communal leaders dealing with theoretical questions of faith but it was the far more pressing question of who are we? That feeling of being part of a holy nation with a particular destiny and mission was being eroded away. The lack of purpose, the lack of meaning and the lack of direction to an existence which no longer knew its goal becomes evident from examining the reactions to what had become a clear existential crisis in Jewish life. The words “ lost souls swimming in a fishbowl year after year” come to mind.  

I have recently read several accounts from people who describe their own departure from religious observance in these terms. It has also come up in conversations I have had. A loss of identification and attachment to things. Disillusionment with leadership which had represented that identity, that safe haven. 

It made me realise more and more what a responsibility any sort of communal leadership entails, because invariably you begin to represent something far greater than yourself and a failure to realise the standards you purport to represent can result in far more than merely personal disassociation.

It also made me realise increasingly the value of the communal structure and  responsibility of Jewish communities towards individuals to help them feel that association. When I write a post about the importance of the community I will draw on more personal experiences. 

How does it feel to be all alone, with no direction home, like a complete unknown? The answer to Dylan's question is: pretty rubbish. No-one wants to occupy the fishbowl (unless you’re a fish, and even that is questionable). Having that something to stay attached to will forever determine your personal relationship with the Jewish people. I remember the talks in Yeshiva that the aim of it was to make the Beis ha Midrash the place you wanted to return to at the end of the day.

 It was not only the learning but also the place, the tangible entity which represented something important to you. I think the idea is similar. Jewish identity must be linked to a concrete association with something that makes you feel you belong to something bigger, although this is often expressed through the medium of something quite trivial. It is this that called for an urgent response from leaders such as Sa'adia, and he composed many treatises attacking Karaite doctrine and trying to bolster communal spirits.

To conclude with some musings: The determined reactions to this crisis in the middle-ages often expressed themselves in the form of clear principles of faith or systematic expositions of Jewish philosophy. It has become popular over the last ten years or so amongst popular speakers and academics in the Orthodox community to decry the emphasis on ‘dogma’ and seeing principles of faith as a concession to the needs of the time. This makes little sense to me. 

The very power of these responses to the external challenges, far from imposing some sort of limitation, is that they helped create and consolidate a powerful Jewish identity. Transmitted from generation to generation, in my mind this came to define the Jewish communities themselves as part of a lived tradition, in a similar way to the 'mimetic' tradition discussed in Hayim Soloveitchik's famous essay (Thank you Avi Rosten for reminding me of this point - yes I just did that).

 For me these determined and systematic reactions touch at the very heart of the Mesorah, which includes transmitting received tradition but also building on it and translating collective experiences into important religious customs and identities. Tapping into the feeling of belonging to this chain of tradition is a crucial part of religious identification and it disappoints me when some choose to trivialise it. Something to think about, perhaps.