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Judaizmus és közösségtörténet Kecskemét rabbijainak működése történetszociológiai aspektusból
Get PDFThirty centuries ago, the ruler of a long forgotten empire put some thoughts down on paper. Even after nearly three millennia, his thoughts still provide spiritual support and teach the modern man wisdom. During the ages, an adjective describing a human quality was added to the king's name. The (Midrash) has a story explaining this quality. When a young prince is born, Archangel Gavriel descends to the child to carry out the will of the G-d Almighty, Creator of the World, and asks him what he would choose, if the choice was offered: might and riches or wisdom. According to the legend, King Solomon, who later becomes a great ruler, chooses wisdom. The story ends by telling us that the All-creator awards him not only with wisdom, but also with might and riches, since he made an insightful and astute choice befitting a ruler.
The first citation in my essay is based on ‘Wisdom of Solomon’. The summary is also quoted from the T'nach, the Holy Book.
"A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; ...a time to keep silence, and a time to speak..."
Reading through the previous pages, one could review the historical ages of the Kecskemét Jewry, the system of their society, organisation, divisions, life – and their perishing.
In order to have a future, we need to be aware of the past. This striving has been a quality of the thinking man ever since the dawn of time.
During the past decades, the religious and cultural life of the Hungarian Jewry has become more and more concentrated in the capital, Budapest.
From the 1980s on, we can barely find a dozen bigger towns in the countryside with an active Jewish community.
In the 90s, after the political system change, religions enter an era of neo-renaissance, while provincial Judaism keeps stagnating and even disappears from many settlements in regions overall the country – in the Great Plains, North Hungary, West and East Hungary.
I have been in service of the community for over ten years now, and during this time, I have come to realise that all the way till 1944, Hungarian Jewish life meant provincial, rural communities. The heart and soul of Judaism had been mostly or even decisively outside of the capital. Provincial communities, called "Schtetl" had their own customs and traditions, which made Hungarian Jewish communities strong, colourful and versatile.
Breathing a new spiritual soul into the tired body of the provincial Jewry is an enormous task. Today, a Jewish community in the countryside counts no more than 50 to 80 people. Still, looking at the demographic data we can see that in a bigger provincial town – such as Kecskemét, which counts as many as 150,000 inhabitants with its suburbs, and about a thousand of them have ties to the Jewish traditions – there is a basis for long-term community building.
Decades are needed to get these people once again involved in everyday Jewish life. The work has already begun, but progress is slow, as everything has to be started anew; both secular and religious Jewish aspects of the community need to be re-organised. We need to find the new members of the congregation, just as they need to find their synagogue. The Hungarian Jewry cannot reach their past intellectual and spiritual heights without a complete renewal of provincial Judaism.
In the provincial towns where Hungarian Jewish culture was an important factor, there hasn't been anyone in the past more than sixty years to reach out to the others, to teach and shape future generations. But the wheels of time keep spinning: ages come and go, and our new dawn shows the way ahead of us with a bright new ray of light.
King Solomon wrote that everything had its own time. There is a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together. There is a time to keep silence, and a time to teach – a time to hear loud and clear words of wisdom both within the walls of the synagogue and outside of them
Jellegzetes hazai talajok víztartó képességének számítása és jellemzése talajtérképi információk alapján
Get PDF„Ha Isten velünk, ki ellenünk...” : Nádasdy Tamás magánélete négy megközelítésben, levéltári források alapján
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A ius talionis és az asylum városok jogi, vallási és kultúratörténeti jelentősége a tanakban
Get PDFThe cultural and legal goal of the cities of refuge was to prevent as many kinds of murder as possible and also to curtail the possibilities of blood feuds. The cities of refuge were solely for inadvertent murderers (slayers). The cities of refuge were tied to exile as a form of punishment. It meant the murderers had to leave the territory of their tribes, their families and their homes, to live in the city of refuge.
The time period of the punishment was, in all cases, correlated with life of the chief prelate of the city of refuge. As long as the chief prelate lived, the punishment continued. When the chief prelate died, the punishment ended.
Leaving home was a serious punishment itself for the fleeing slayer and at the same time it was an obvious legal restriction for those seeking revenge (revenges), as the slayer was separated from the “revenges” by the scope of authority of the cities of refuge.
If the inadvertent murderer could not be accused of any form of willfulness in relation to causality regarding the crime, then the court acting in the cities of refuge acquitted the defender and ensured refuge for him, in other words, he had to be accepted by the „goel”. Acquittal meant that the slayer could stay in the cities of refuge and the avengers could not kill him.
The legal regulation invoking the cities of refuge stopped all kinds of abuse in relation to vendettas (blood feuds). At the same time we can remark here that the slayer could continue his life with the possibility of this legal defense; if he physically got into one of the cities of refuge in an acceptable manner. However, if he was overtaken or caught during his flight to safety the avengers could kill him, due to the ancient law, which was the “blood for blood” approach.
We point out, reflecting upon the connection through the later administration of Roman law, that the witness was very important in the Israeli adjudication, and also in relation to the cities of refuge. The scope of Deut 19:15-21 definitely talks about inquisition to prove out witnesses who bear false witness and who mislead the judges in trial procedure.
In the case of two or three concordant serious testimonies, even a death penalty could be brought. That’s why a false witness could throw off the safeguards of the whole adjudication, and the judge could have no other possibility but to bring the most serious verdict. The Bible asks for a thorough inquiry out of Leviticus, requiring inquisition from the ministers in the case of witnesses.
The fundamental principal of the Israeli criminal law was the “ius talionis”, which meant, in practice, that whosoever committed a crime in something, he was likewise punished by that crime in some way.
The severe consequences and deliberative judicial process in relation to the asylum law eliminated all kinds of abuse. However, the cities of refuge could not be a refuge place for willful murderers.
In all other ways the cities of refuge belonged to the cities of Leviticus in religious, legal and cultural aspects.
The shelter provided by the cities of refuge can be understood as a personal captivity, not outside Israel, but inside the country.
As in the “galut” (exile), the Jews always longed for the homes they left behind, and so likewise, the inadvertent murderers yearned for their own homes.
The final close (judgment) of a matter of refuge was based not only on the decision of the judges but also upon the person of the prelate.
Israel had already passed on certain principals of “mispat” (equity) to the Romans, prior to its complete devastation by the Romans in AD 135. The Roman Empire readily absorbed the concept of refuge and subsequently spread it to the entire human intellectual world through the jurisdiction of the continental (Roman) law.
It is perhaps more realistic today than ever before to consider the thought of the cities of refuge, as in our world violent death is taking its victims all the time. In our time, hundreds and millions of people flee from civil wars and humanitarian catastrophes. Without any place of refuge, these masses of human beings would die. The Biblical concept of the cities of refuge is also about mankind’s ever present minorities; the fugitives of our kind have fundamental human rights.
The concept of refuge was familiar to the tribes of the Near East, but Israel excelled among them, as Israel’s solution differed in many ways from the solutions of other tribes. Its importance cannot be taken away because it can be seen that it is still practiced and known in the modern world. Consulates, embassies, churches and other sacred places acting under international law are places of refuge based upon this concept.
What can we – 21st century people – do in relation to this old Jewish Biblical Law? At least we can assure the rights of minorities in their environments, or in other words, not being fully persuaded by the majority alone, we try to assure our personal influence by using Biblical principles to assure the fundamental rights of the oppressed and the disadvantaged
Living with a Failed State: Somalia and the States of the East African Regional Security Complex 2009-2011
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