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judaísmo
Por Ellis T. Rasmussen

Outro em uma série de artigos que tratam das religiões do mundo

Judaísmo é um termo que abrange amplamente todas as facetas do modo de vida

dos judeus.

Em seus aspectos teológicos, abrange algumas doutrinas distintas a respeito do

único Deus, cujo nome pronunciamos “Jeová”. No entanto, os judeus nunca o
pronunciaram; por uma questão de reverência, eles o chamaram de Adonai, ou seja,
o Senhor.

Como uma filosofia de vida e vida, desenvolvida ao longo dos séculos a partir de
princípios da Torá e dos ensinamentos dos profetas e grandes rabinos, o Judaísmo
historicamente alcançou todas as atividades da vida dos judeus.

Como forma de adoração ao Senhor, os rituais, liturgias, festas e jejuns do

judaísmo também surgiram da Bíblia, com modificações ao longo dos séculos
engendradas pelas experiências dos povos judeus em muitos países; mas sempre
tiveram o propósito básico de manter o povo na lembrança de Deus e de seu dever
para com ele.

Como ética, o princípio mais característico do Judaísmo é a justiça. Tal ideal

raramente foi alcançado, seja dentro da comunidade judaica ou com outras
comunidades, mas continua sendo o grande desideratum daqueles que têm fé para
lutar pelo ideal.

Judaísmo é, portanto, um termo que abrange amplamente o modo de vida de um

povo sem terra, mas habitando muitas terras por muitos séculos, desde sua
descendência original de Judá e outros filhos de Israel.

Historicamente, as fontes das doutrinas, filosofias, ética, moral, políticas e práticas

do Judaísmo tiveram seu início na Bíblia. No entanto, infinitas proliferações de
definições, análises, exemplificações, refinamentos e elucidações deram origem a
coleções de livros-fontes secundárias, como o Talmud, a Mishna, a Gemara e o
Midrash. Estas são as obras dos grandes rabinos dos primeiros séculos da era atual.
Esses pais do judaísmo tornaram sua literatura volumosa e o escopo de seus
interesses quase infinito.

Apesar das muitas fontes de suas definições, prescrições e proscrições, o Judaísmo

permaneceu uma instituição surpreendentemente monolítica até o início do
período moderno de "iluminismo" secular. Este período trouxe para o judaísmo,
como para muitos outros sistemas, um século e meio de reexame e modificação.

Um resultado dessas influências posteriores foi o surgimento de três diversificações

principais e várias diversificações menores de adoração e prática. Eles são

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geralmente identificados como movimentos ortodoxos, conservadores e

reformistas. Esses são paralelos, é claro, aos movimentos de muitas outras culturas
dos séculos XIX e XX. E também, como outras comunidades religiosas, os judeus
estão sofrendo em alguns países modernos com a apostasia de uma geração que
tende a se assimilar nas culturas maiores ao seu redor. É irônico que na América
livre, por exemplo, o “etnocídio” por assimilação possa realizar o que séculos
tortuosos de expurgos e pogroms jamais poderiam realizar. Como uma nova
dispensação surgirá e trará o judaísmo ao seu destino é amplamente desconhecido
pelos líderes e pelo povo do judaísmo hoje,

A palavra Judá é uma forma anglicizada de um nome hebraico-israelita mais

apropriadamente pronunciado "Yehudah". Tradicionalmente, acredita-se que seja
derivado do verbo hebraico yadah, que significa louvar. Há comentários indicando
a consciência dessa ideia básica na história do nascimento de Judá e de sua
recepção posterior da bênção patriarcal do Pai Israel. (Ver Gênesis 29:35 e Gênesis
49: 8. ) O homem chamado Judá era um dos doze filhos de Jacó, que também era
chamado de Israel; Jacó era um dos dois filhos de Isaque; Isaac foi um dos vários
filhos de Abraão; Abraão era hebreu (descendente de Eber) e semita (descendente
de Shem). (Para a sequência genealógica de Sem até Israel, ver Gênesis 10: 21–24;
Gênesis 11: 14–27 ; Gênesis 17: 5 ; Gênesis 21: 3 ; Gen. 25:26 ; Gen. 29:35 ; Gen.
32:28 .)

O termo judeu é uma derivação do inglês tardio, abreviado do antigo inglês Iudeas
e, em última análise , do latim Jude (nós). O latim veio, é claro, através do grego
Iouda, em última análise , do hebraico Yehudah. Judaísmo, como palavra inglesa,
também é emprestada do latim.

Obviamente, os judeus não são genealogicamente os únicos descendentes de Israel,

nem os únicos descendentes de Abraão, nem os únicos hebreus, nem os únicos
semitas. Eles são, no entanto, as pessoas mais comumente associadas a esses nomes
bíblicos entre os povos do mundo hoje.

Seria inútil tentar descrever a ascensão da religião do Judaísmo à parte de uma

descrição da ascensão do povo. O povo de Israel foi um povo escolhido por Deus
para viver um modo de vida específico, e esse modo de vida é o que chamamos de
sua religião. Embora toda a sua missão fosse exemplificar uma religião, não havia
nenhuma palavra no hebraico bíblico para religião. Os conceitos associados ao que
chamamos de religião foram referidos pelos escritores do Antigo Testamento com
termos como o caminho, a lei, a Torá. As pessoas não foram designadas como
religiosas ou irreligiosas, mas apenas como obedientes ou desobedientes ao Senhor,
à sua palavra e ao seu caminho.

Tudo começou com o chamado divino de Abraão. Ele foi chamado pelo Senhor
para ser o antepassado de uma grande posteridade que se tornaria uma bênção ou
fonte de bênçãos para todos os povos da Terra. Essas bênçãos incluiriam não apenas
o conhecimento, mas também um relacionamento de convênio com o Senhor. Os
corolários de tal aliança seriam a exigência de que o povo vivesse e se comportasse
para com Deus e o homem de acordo com as leis e princípios de Deus, e ensinasse a
outros a fazê-lo; e para aqueles que cumprissem os requisitos, o Senhor proveria
ajuda na vida e na salvação após a morte.

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Moisés expressou os requisitos da seguinte maneira: “Eis que vos ensinei estatutos
e julgamentos, assim como o Senhor meu Deus me ordenou, para que o façais na
terra a que ides para possuí-la.

“Portanto, mantenha-os e faça-os; porque esta é a vossa sabedoria e o vosso

entendimento aos olhos das nações, que ouvirão todos estes estatutos e dirão:
Certamente esta grande nação é um povo sábio e entendido.

“Pois, que nação há tão grande que tenha Deus tão perto de si como o é o Senhor
nosso Deus em todas as coisas que o invocamos?

"E que nação há tão grande, que tenha estatutos e juízos tão justos como toda esta
lei que hoje coloco diante de vocês?" ( Deut. 4: 5-8 .)

No outro extremo da existência nacional de Israel, pouco antes de dez tribos serem
levadas ao cativeiro e “perdidas” até os últimos dias, o grande profeta Isaías
também deixou clara a missão: “É uma coisa leve que deves sê meu servo para
levantar as tribos de Jacó e restaurar os preservados de Israel: Eu também te darei
como luz para os gentios [isto é, as outras nações], para que possas ser minha
salvação até os confins da terra. ” ( Isa. 49: 6 )

Ambas as facetas ecoaram do chamado original a Abraão: “Eis que te conduzirei

pela minha mão e te tomarei para colocar sobre ti o meu nome, sim, o Sacerdócio.
…

“E farei de ti uma grande nação, e te abençoarei acima da medida, e tornarei

grande o teu nome entre todas as nações, e serás uma bênção para a tua
descendência depois de ti, que em suas mãos eles levarão este ministério e
Sacerdócio para todas as nações ”. ( Abr. 1:18 , Abr. 2: 9. )

Foi assim que, séculos depois que Abraão viveu e morreu, a família de Israel,
crescida até as proporções de uma pequena nação, foi conduzida para fora do
Egito, onde foram primeiro hóspedes, depois escravos, e preparada pelo Senhor
por meio do grande profeta e legislador, Moisés, para se tornar “um reino de
sacerdotes, uma nação dedicada” e para ser o próprio “tesouro real” de Deus por
meio do qual ele poderia estender, operar e defender seu reino na terra (ver Ex. 19:
1-6 ) Após um período de vida no deserto durante o qual as pessoas mais velhas e
intransigentes pereceram e as mais jovens e mais tratáveis ​foram preparadas para
viver de acordo com a Torá de Deus (ou seja, o "ensino", "orientação" e "instrução"
de Deus) conforme dado a e por meio de Moisés, Israel foi colocado sob a
liderança de Josué para ser conduzido à terra prometida.

Eles que foram treinados por Moisés e estabelecidos por Josué não tiveram muito
sucesso em transmitir seus padrões e práticas para a segunda e terceira gerações
depois deles, e nos dias dos juízes após o tempo de Josué “surgiu outra geração
depois deles, que não sabia o Senhor, nem ainda as obras que fizera por Israel. E os
filhos de Israel fizeram o que era mau aos olhos do Senhor, servindo aos baalins; E
eles abandonaram o Senhor Deus de seus pais, que os tirou da terra do Egito. … ”(
Juí. 2: 10-12.) Às vezes, nos dias de alguns dos grandes juízes, havia melhorias por
algumas décadas, mas a apostasia sempre voltava, e as espirais de mudança
pareciam prosseguir cada vez mais para baixo. Ao final do período dos juízes,
Israel havia alcançado extremos tão ridículos do mal que o leitor do relato
dificilmente poderia conceber que a nação algum dia cumpriria seu destino.

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Mas outro grande líder, dedicado ao Senhor antes de seu nascimento, foi
levantado. Samuel se tornou sacerdote e profeta, juiz e capitão de Israel, e trouxe
reformas massivas. No entanto, um líder só pode liderar quando o povo o segue e o
povo pede um rei como o fizeram as nações ao seu redor.

A história subsequente dos reis de Israel, sejam os três reis em sucessão sobre o
Israel unido ou a contagem deles depois que Israel foi dividido, mostra poucos
exemplos do ideal em Israel. De acordo com a estimativa dos autores da Bíblia,
virtualmente todas as pessoas da nação do norte das dez tribos de Israel “fizeram o
que era mau aos olhos do Senhor”; e assim aconteceu que duzentos anos depois
que Efraim e as outras tribos das dez tribos do norte se separaram de Judá e seus
poucos afiliados parciais da tribo, a terra de fato “expeliu” as dez tribos do norte.
Deus retirou sua mão de proteção e o império em expansão da Assíria os
conquistou em 721 aC Eles têm sido as dez tribos perdidas desde então, exceto por
alguns milhões de membros das tribos de Efraim e Manassés, predominantemente,
que estão sendo identificados pelos patriarcas da Igreja nestes últimos dias.

Antes de serem levados, o Senhor enviou os grandes “profetas escritores”, como

Amós, Oséias, Miquéias e Isaías, para advertir Israel de que, a menos que se
arrependessem rapidamente, o cativeiro seria iminente. Não conseguindo alcançar
o arrependimento, os profetas então advertiram que os israelitas iriam para o
exílio; mas embora eles tivessem se esquecido de Deus, ele não os havia esquecido;
ele enviaria “caçadores” e “pescadores” (como Jeremias disse mais tarde) para
encontrá-los, e eles acabariam saindo dos países do norte para construir a Sião
ideal e se preparar para o estabelecimento do reino do Messias.

To some extent Judah’s descendants have remained as witnesses of the power of

faith and fidelity to the one God, and of the moral and ethical values and the
validity of his laws for man if man will live them.

Even the concise histories of Judah from the end of the Old Testament on require a
thousand pages to so much as touch upon the major movements of the long exile.
Few people outside the Jewish culture know about or read the valuable apocryphal
books about the significant days of the heroic Maccabees, who tried to lead Judah
to independence again (160–60 B.C.) after the Babylonians, the Persians, and the
Macedonian Greeks and Syrians had ruled them. The tragedy of the fraternal and
internecine strife that opened the way for the entrance of Rome’s legions into the
frequently unholy Holy Land is little known.

Better known to Christians, of course, is the history of the rejection of Jesus of

Nazareth as the Messiah by the religiopolitical leaders of the Jews and their
instigation of his crucifixion. It is less well known that Jesus’ disciples were also
Jews, and that thousands of converts during the mission of the apostles were also
Jews (e.g. Acts 3:11 to Acts 4:5). And largely unthought and unspoken among
Christians is the fact that thousands of Jews then living and millions born since
then have had nothing to do with the rejection and crucifixion of Jesus.

Millions of so-called Christians have thought it a service to God to visit the sins of
the religious and political leaders who instigated the crucifixion upon the heads of
the children and children’s children of all Jews unto the third and fourth
generation and unto the three-hundredth and four-hundredth generation—piously
or impiously ignorant that God himself said through Moses, “The fathers shall not

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be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the
fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin.” (Deut. 24:16.)

So it has been that with little heed for the degree to which the Jew has kept or not
kept the commandments and the faith of God, and with malice arising out of
malaise engendered by a multitude of reasons, so-called Christians have persecuted
and pillaged Jews for nineteen hundred years from Italy to Spain, from Spain to
Gaul, to Germany, England, the Netherlands, Poland, and Russia.

Fortunately for the world there have been places where Judaism has been able to
flourish and has made its contributions to religion and to cultures since the earliest
postbiblical times. Jewish communities in Mesopotamia, descended from the early
Babylonian exiles, and later from exiles of Roman times, were able to produce
many of the important commentary works on the Bible. The biblical books
inherited from Ezra’s collection and “canonized” at Yavneh (also spelled Javneh,
Jabneh, Jamnia) about A.D. 90 in the days of the great Johanan ben Zaccai were
cherished and studied by scholarly Jews in Mesopotamia for nearly ten centuries
after the decimation of Jewry in Judea by the Romans. Only the little group of
Jewish scripturalists who managed to survive in Galilee in the second century A.D.
and who produced the Mishna (about A.D. 200) rivaled the contributions of the
Jews in Babylonia who produced the monumental Babylonian Talmud. It is the
codification of much of the ancient oral law that had developed out of the
teachings of the rabbis concerning the scriptures over the centuries as a kind of
“hedge about the Law.” It contains definitions and interpretations of the
applicability of many facets of the Torah, intended to keep the would-be obedient
from coming even close to violating the great, revealed Law of Moses. Only after
conflict arose between Jews and the followers of Islam was it urgent for major
Jewish communities to locate elsewhere.

The preservation of learning by an important Jewish community in Spain in the

ensuing centuries was accomplished by the great poets, philosophers, and learned
men—Samuel the Nagid, Solomon Ibn Gabriol, Jacob al-Fasi, Judah Ha-Levi,
Abraham Ibn Ezra, Moses Maimonides. These are the names of but a few of scores.

In the twelfth century in Spain the Jewish communities came to grief in their
relationships with Islam, and that grief was matched by the despair and death
suffered by the Jewish communities of the Franco-German areas of the Rhineland.
Jews had migrated there since the early centuries of the Roman empire and had
lived with heathens and Christians in tolerable coexistence until the time of the
crusades.

There were times, however, when the great rulers themselves sought benevolences
from Jewish doctors in the dark ages, recognized Jewish philosophers in the
renaissance, borrowed from Jewish financiers in the early era of liberation, or
listened to Jewish musical compositions in later times of culture and
enlightenment.

There were by the nineteenth century great waves of migration of Jews from
Europe to America, Africa, Australia, and elsewhere, depending upon the pressures
in one place and the tolerances in another.

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There were times when there was a rise of hope and idealism, such as that which
once centered around a so-called messiah, Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676); that which
attracted the enlightened to the scholarly, liberal, quasi-assimilationist
emancipator, Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786); or that which led the despairing to
the mystic who created a mode of “joy in misery” (Hasidism), “The Besht”—Israel
Baal Shem Tob (1700–1760); or the intellectual aura that surrounded the great
publicists, essayists, and poets of the late nineteenth century.

It was the poets and the essayists who stirred the hapless people to new hope and
resolution and led them to seek new places and ways of survival after the
disenchantment of seeing the failure of the great humanitarian enlightenment
movement. During the last decades of the nineteenth century, the leaders of Jewish
communities throughout Europe realized that there was nothing more to hope for
in “enlightened” western Europe. Even cultured France, with the much-touted
“liberty, equality, and fraternity,” showed that there was no guarantee of such
privileges for “Frenchmen of the Mosaic persuasion” in the Dreyfus affair. And the
interruption of the trend toward relaxation of the economically disabling and
discriminatory laws against Jews in Germany left more frustration and
disillusionment.

Intermittent favors from an occasional, kindly disposed czar or czarina in Russia

were more than counterbalanced by intermittent pogroms. The very word pogrom
came from there, being a Russian word for organized massacre, devastation,
destruction. The poverty-stricken “Pale of Settlement” in eastern Poland and
western Russia became one large and nonviable ghetto. The confined Jewish
quarters of the cities—the original ghettos—were intolerable to people beginning to
see that things should not be so in civilization.

It was the urgent need for relief from the whole morass of human degradation that
gave birth to the hope and stimulus to the plans for a Jewish homeland. Though it
soon became evident that neither Uganda, nor Madagascar, nor Argentina, nor any
other place but the ancient homeland would satisfy more than a modicum of
people, practical plans for purchasing land there were often frustrated by the
difficulties of negotiating with the Turkish overlords of the time. The political plans
of those who hoped to move enough people into the ancient homeland so that they
could gain recognition as a de facto state seemed to many unpracticable. The whole
idea of a man-made Zion was repulsive to the religious who looked forward to the
coming of the Messiah to establish Zion. Yet the pressures of persecution, and the
urge of their tired souls to find some way to survive, took wave after wave of
immigrants to the ancient homeland. Best known of the Zionists was Theodor
Herzl (1860–1904), whose proposal for a Jewish State (in the essay Judenstaat)
appeared in 1896, and under whose aegis the first Zionist Congress took place in
Basel in 1897.

There are signs that the freedom and acceptance Jews have enjoyed in the United
States may, ironically, bring about by assimilation what no despotism has been able
to bring about by persecution, purge, or pogroms. This danger is recognized in
leading Jewish journals today. There is a continuing discussion of ways, plans, and
programs to interest Jewish young men and women in marrying only within the
Jewish ethnic group and in raising their children to be practicing, observant Jews.

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For the rising generation in Judaism, the luster, the appeal, or indeed the needs for
the old ideals and hopes have been dimmed. Community survival against militant
enemies has been a strong motivator. A sense of mission, a hope for Zion, a trust in
the Lord, a belief in the Messiah, a vision of a better world to come—these have all
strengthened Judaism in the past. But something has happened in the minds of
many young Jews, as in the minds of many of their contemporaries of other faiths.
Some of the factors can be briefly characterized.

The hope for a return to Zion, for instance, is different today. The Zion achieved by
the men and the movements of the turn of the century and hastened by the
fearsome Nazi holocaust of this century does not look like the Zion that people of
the past longed for.

The Zion seen today in tightly ringed and trouble-plagued little Israel seems to
many to have little of the promise the prophets told about; and the cataclysm of six
million executions in the 1930s and 1940s left some survivors with questions about
the availability of divine aid in time of dire need. The absence of any evidence that
the Messiah and redemption will indeed appear soon has invited skepticism.

The question, therefore, that arises in the minds of the young generation of today
is: Why should I raise my children to be Jewish? A survey of the articles of the last
five years in such journals as Judaism, Commentary, and the Journal of Jewish
Communal Service gives the impression that no set of ready answers has yet been
found to satisfy those who ask that question.

The best known voice of the Orthodox Jews is that of Mordecai Kaplan and the
“reconstructionist” movement. Its approach is not unlike that of those who are
concerned about holding to the tried-and-true ideals among the orthodox of the
Christian churches.

The voices of the great middle-road body of Judaism, the multifaceted Conservative
movements, are the thousands of socially conscious, progressive, yet tradition-
oriented rabbis and their thousands of programs, such as the young peoples’
activity groups, action groups, and interaction groups in community centers,
synagogues, and schools.

The softer, more alluring, and less anxiety-ridden voices of the leaders of Jewish
Reform congregations are also calling Jewish youth. They appeal for the effective
continuation of Jewish fellowship and brotherhood and for retention of some
modified forms of traditional worship, but they are permissive of integration of
Jews with others in the common milieu of the socioeconomic and political world of
the modern state.

For Judaism in the rest of the world, the problems of American Judaism are
quantitatively and qualitatively significant. There are more millions of Jews in
America now than there were in all of Europe before the holocaust. The spiritual
problems of American Jewry are of the same urgency as are the spiritual problems
of Jews elsewhere in all of the progressive cultures of the world. Only a vital
religious culture that possesses a rational theology will be able to survive. A
proven, practical, and effective educational, social, and marriage and family
program is needed. A philosophy of life, a promising eschatology, and a concept of
a Savior, salvation, and eternal life are all urgent today in a viable religious culture.

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The state of Israel is an explosive human aggregate under tetrahedral pressures. (1)
It has socioeconomic problems sufficient to destroy its viability. (2) There are
political problems that would likely have disabled it already except for other
problems, the urgency of which have forced political coalitions and cooperation for
survival. (3) Most threatening are the international relations with immediate
neighbors, and through them some dangerous ramifications among the superstates
of the world. These are capable of triggering a war of annihilation for the entire
world. (4) There are religious problems for which no man among them has a
practical solution. The fulfillment of the prophetically predicted program of the
Messiah would be needed to save the Jews in Israel, for if any one of the four sides
of the tetrahedron were to collapse, the other forces would crash in upon it in
confusion.

The irony of the religious problem is that the religious leaders in Israel should be
able to offer solutions rather than adding aggravations to the many other national
ills.

The troubled religious situation there originated in the days of the rise of such
movements as political Zionism, practical Zionism, and cultural Zionism in the late
1800s. The nonreligious Zionistic movements brought many people to the ancient
land of Israel for urgent practical, political, and cultural reasons, but they did not
accomplish age-old religious ideals. In the opinion of the orthodox, the other
movements usurped the domain of the Messiah and set up merely another secular,
mundane, political nation in the Near East. When the religious leaders could not
counter the success these movements had, they joined the immigrations. They also
organized pioneers to go to the land of Israel, striving to keep religion from
perishing there for lack of adherents and active worship. Their religious
organizations abroad became religiopolitical parties in the Jewish substate during
the British mandate, and remain as such in the nation since independence. Because
there are so many political parties in Israel, the small group of religious voters
(about 14 percent of the electorate in all elections during the first twenty years) can
command enough seats in the Knesset (parliament) to merit a place in the cabinet
and on occasion demand concessions for their programs. Their gains have only
imitated the nonreligious parties, however. Religion in Israel awaits fulfillment
through other means.

The mission of Abraham’s descendants through Israel was, as earlier noted, to bear
the witness of the true and living God unto the nations of all the world, and to
bring the blessings of his acquaintance and his covenants to all. Paul, in his famous
letter to the gentile Christians of Galatia, made it plain that all people who are of
the faith in Christ Jesus and baptized unto his name become the adopted seed of
Abraham and heirs to the mission and joint heirs to the promise inherent in the
Abrahamic covenant with God. But there is almost no similarity in the concept of
this mission as seen by Jews and by Christians. Those among the Jews who still feel
there is a mission for Judaism to accomplish do not think in terms of converting the
world to Judaism, as many Christians think of converting all to Christianity. The
mission is conceived by the orthodox more in terms of living in such a way that
others may see that the laws and the ways of those who worship the one God are
good, and that he is good.

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There are also differences in Jewish and Christian concepts of the work of the
Messiah, the saving of the world, the setting up of the kingdom of the Lord, and
the identity of the Messiah. Jews expect the Messiah to be a mortal descendant
from the loins and lineage of David. Most Christians expect him indeed to be the
descendant of David but see him specifically as Jesus of Nazareth.

What, then, is the concept of the “chosen people” today? David Ben-Gurion, who
lives in the quiet of a Negev agricultural settlement after his many years of working
for the founding and the defending of modern Israel, sums it up:

“If a Jew had been asked two centuries ago: What is a Jew?—he would have
answered simply and with complete inner confidence: A Jew is a descendant of
Abraham our father, who obeys the commandments and hopes for the coming of
the Messiah. This answer would at that time have been satisfactory to any Jew
wherever he might live, but today it would not satisfy a large part of our people,
perhaps the greater part. Ever since the Emancipation, the Jewish religion has
ceased to be the force which joins and unites us. Nor is the bond with the Jewish
nation now common to all Jews, and there are not many Jews in our times who
hope for the coming of the Messiah.

“If those who fought for Jewish Emancipation in Germany and France had been
asked a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago: What are the Jews?—they would
have replied: a religious community—the Jews are Germans or Frenchmen of the
Mosaic faith.

“Most of the Jews of Russia, Poland, Galicia, or Rumania would have replied a
century ago: The Jews are a minority in exile completely different from the people
among whom they live; and fifty years ago many of them would have added: And
they aspire to return to Zion. Not many of the Jews of America, even those who
continue to call themselves Zionists, would give the last answer today, for it is their
desire to become rooted in their new country, as an organic part of America, like all
the other religious and national groups which reached America a generation or a
few generations ago. Nor is religious Jewry any longer an integral and internally
united entity.” (David Ben-Gurion, “Vision and Redemption,” in Jacob Baal-
Teshuva, ed., The Mission of Israel [New York: Robert Speller & Sons, 1963], p. 219.)

Nevertheless, this prophetic destiny remains to be fulfilled. The Old Testament

prophets were explicit about it, and the Book of Mormon prophets are very
explicit: When they shall come to know the true Messiah, they and all families of
the earth shall be blessed and the covenant shall be fulfilled. (See 3 Ne. 20:25–46.)

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