Goodman on the meaning of “tradition”

Goodman on the meaning of “tradition”

Martin Goodman in his History of Judaism:

The past 2,000 years have witnessed a great variety of expressions of Judaism. It would be straightforward to define the essence of Judaism in light of the characteristics valued by one or another of its branches in the present day, and to trade the development of those characteristics over the centuries, and such histories have indeed been written in past centuries. But it is evidently unsatisfactory to assume that what now seems essential was always seen as such. In any case it cannot be taken for granted that there was always a mainstream within Judaism and that the other varieties of the religion were, and should be, seen as tributaries. The metaphors of a great river of tradition, or of a tree with numerous branches, are seductive but dangerous, for the most important aspects of Judaism now may have little connection with antiquity. It is self-evident, for instance, that the central liturgical concern of 2,000 years ago—the performance of sacrificial worship in the Jerusalem Temple—has little to do with most forms of Judaism today.

Goodman’s questioning of the metaphors for tradition is helpful. While there is a place for finding the origins of traditions, as Goodman goes on to explain, the discontinuities in the history of Judaism in Goodman’s case or the history of Christianity in mine are almost more striking, and harder to craft into a historical narrative.