Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [421]
But the privileging of early Rabbinic interpretations which one finds in most contemporary varieties of contemporary Hasidism and Ḥaredi Judaism has the same effect as scriptural fundamentalism in other religious communities. Or, to put it another way, Jewish fundamentalists do evince scripturalism because Rabbinic writings are part of Jewish Scripture in Jewish fundamentalist groups, as they are in all Rabbinic Judaism. Thus, with a wider view of Scripture, Ḥaredi Judaism can be seen as fundamentalist. The strict scripturalism in fundamentalist Judaism resides in its rigid interpretation of a certain few Rabbinic rulings, not Biblical writ itself, together with innovations in the tradition, which are then viewed as its original intent.
This, it shares with all the other forms of fundamentalism. One views the same characteristics of suspicion of the secular state and xenophobia in Ḥaredi Judaism that one sees in the other varieties of fundamentalism. In the Jewish case, fundamentalist ire is turned against gentiles, all viewed as potential or actual anti-Semites, all capable of another Holocaust, and the modern secular state of Israel, which has forgotten its religious constitution. This seems another variation on the theme of fundamentalist opposition to modern secular states, which is also strong in Islam and Christianity.83 It is also a dualism that drives group definition and, sometimes, missionary activity to convert other Jews to their group.
One key that ultra-Orthodox Judaism in Israel is fundamentalist is that Ḥaredi Jews justify their opposition to the modern state and modern Zionism on religious rather than political grounds: The modern Israeli state was the result of a political action and not brought about by the coming of the Messiah.84 Therefore, it is to be shunned, though one may accept all its social services. Like other fundamentalisms, there is no possible interim position. When forced by political life to barter, the ultra Orthodox are willing to trade their support on virtually any issue for continued civil support for the laws of Judaism. So while they do not accept the validity of the state, they constantly pressure the state for more special rulings which agree with their interpretation of Rabbinic Judaism. The Jewish variety of fundamentalism relies on different justifications in history and Scripture than those of Christianity and Islam but the effect is pretty much the same. The ulta-Orthodox notions of the afterlife are suited for Talmud study. Traditionally the great scholars are those who are called to the heavenly Yeshivas, but even ordinary members of the movement are so rewarded when they die settling the Holy Land.
Both Christianity and Islam promote Scripture as their authority (just the plain meaning of Scripture). Both depend on tendentious univocal interpretations that come from their respective interpretive traditions rather than Scripture itself. So the big difference between Jewish fundamentalism and the other two is that the former can sometimes acknowledge that their beliefs are Rabbinic interpretations rather than Scripture itself because they also posit that that interpretation is part of the canon and divinely ordained. But this is not a complete contrast either because fundamentalist Islam makes frequent use of dubious hadiths (traditions from the prophet but not texted in the Quran), and fundamentalist Christianity quite often enshrines the Biblical exegesis of its founder figures and preachers.
The Bellwether Role of Women
FUNDAMENTALISM all over the world calls for a return to traditional roles for women. Perhaps