Sourcing Practices in Judaism

It would normally be assumed by the reader without inside knowledge that facts in an article which are not attributed to a certain source or group are universally accepted. This article was prompted by the reading of several articles in the Judaism series, (most recently the one about Tu B'Shvat a Jewish holiday) where such is not the case. This article is intended to help the reader clarify the religious source of some ideas in Judaism on his/her own when WikiPedia articles do not specify that information well. This will be done largely by reading between the lines.

To begin with we must recognize a distinct split in Jewish theology: that between traditional and non-traditional Judaism. For the purpose of this article let us refer to traditional Judaism as practice going back more than 500 hundred years in its current form and let us refer to non-traditional Judaism as going back less than 200 years even in its most original form. There is really nothing in between.

The fundamental difference between the two may be defined as the question of whether Judaism is/should be defined as reflecting a timeless connection to God at the moment of Sinai Biblical Mount Sinai (and therefore never to be revised) or as reflecting the Jew's evolution in conjunction with the rest of humanity as just one cultural group belonging to the greater human culture (and therefore naturally subject to change with the times).

Knowing this, the reader has enough information to identify the source of most Jewish practices. Basically, if an activity is described firstly as having been done the same way as Jews moved from one country/society to the next over the centuries and secondly has not been revised to reflect the issues of the times or of the culture than the source is traditional Judaism (as described below). Conversely, if the practice is described either firstly as originating in the past hundred years or so or secondly as being cross connected to other things (as described below) then the source is non-traditional.

If, by the criteria mentioned above, a statement about Judaism looks traditional, this means that its source is from the traditional Jewish texts, as follows: The primary text for traditional practice is seen as the Talmud. That text assumes essentially that the reader has the 24 books of the Bible and the six orders of the Mishnah memorized and goes into lengthy discussion about how the ancient rabbis derived Jewish law from the Bible. At some point (5 or six centuries ago) the established opinions of the rabbis were codified in the Shulchan Aruch which takes the final rulings of the most accepted viewpoints up to that date and provides a common text for the populace to read and practice without having to master the Talmud. Other sources of law for traditional Judaism all link (either by understanding or by direct reference) to these works. It can be said that these works and others that link to them form a cohesive set which are collectively the source of traditional Judaism.

If, by the criteria mentioned above, a statement about Judaism looks non-traditional, this means that its source is not linked to the cohesive set of works which constitute traditional Judaism. The source of those practices can be assumed to be recent innovations designed to culturally blend Judaism with the rest of the world. Such practices are described in this article as cross connected (above) in the sense that they link to practices and concepts outside of Judaism. In other words they link to the practices of society. For example, the article about Tu Bishvat discussed the practice of a Tu Bishvat seder in which ecology is discussed. Since the ecology is a topic of current events one would assume that the source is not from the Talmud and Shulchan Aruch. Instead, this is a reference to an issue of modern society. As such the source of the practice is non-traditional versus traditional as described above

In dealing with non-traditional sourcing the article will usually (hopefully) specify the source in terms of the historical conditions under which the practice began.

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