ABSTRACT
The rabbis were unhappy with the fact that the Bible, the source of their authority, describes military defeat, the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE and exile, as punishments for Israel’s sins. Rabbinic literature does to some extent follow Scripture in accusing the Jewish people collectively of fratricidal strife, immorality, idolatry and love of Mammon, causing the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, in 70 CE. In attacking Judaism, the early Christians had lethal ammunition in Holy Writ. They cited the prophets to ‘prove’ that God had abandoned sinful Israel. To the rabbis, consequently, the prophetic attacks on their beloved people go too far. They strike back by attacking the prophets, including Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, for their diatribes against the Chosen People, instead emphasizing love, not strife, between God and Israel. Even Moses stands accused, of slandering God’s chosen people. Some rabbis go to the opposite extreme, idealizing the Jews as favored above all peoples, even above the angels. They are sensitive to the corrosive effects of loss of national morale, to which the prophets inadvertently may have contributed, leading to Jewish hostility to Jews and Judaism. The rabbis oppose Jewish self-hate, self-flagellation, self-criticism and self-estrangement. They seek to make Jewish self-love, through obedience to the divine Law, an aim of Jewish education.
