🚀 go-pugleaf

On 15 Aug 2005 19:51:48 -0700, "Daniel Daly" <xadinaomega@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>Hi all
>
>Reform Karaism is the faith of the Hebrew Bible alone (no Talmud)
>from a Liberal perspective.  A website focusing on this is:
>
>http://www.geocities.com/reformkaraism
>
>Kind regards
>
>Daniel Daly
>Canberra, Australia
>Phone:  6291 4414
>email:   valandriel(atsymbol)hotmail.com

This strange schism of Judaism, similar to Sadducean Judaism, was originaly
started by Anan Ben David in Babylonia in around 767CE. It was the result of
an argument with his younger brother as to who would be Exilarch of the
large Jewish community in Babylonia. Arrested for sedition by the Caliph of
Baghdad, Anan, to save his own skin, was able to convince the Caliph that he
represented a different version of Judaism that rejected the Oral Torah. He
adopted many of the ideas of the extinct Sadducees (such as cold food and
not moving from the house on the Sabbath) which were more severe in
observance in some ways and more lenient in others. Anan wrote a new code of
Jewish law which attracted the disaffected elements of Judaism resentful
over the power and the authority of the rabbinic authorities (Geonim) in
Baylonia.

In order for Karaism to be "do-able", it has to be very liberal in
observance. Sitting in the dark on the Sabbath with only a cold meal to eat
would not be very enticing. As with all other liberal Jewish elements it is
not self-perpetuating - it very rarely carries on past the third generation,
so it must rely on fresh disaffecteds people to join up.

Les Brown