How did major Jewish Sects act in daily life as compared to Hasidic Jews in today's world?

by Gratefulstickers
jasoncaspian

So to tackle this question we'd have to take a quick examination into Jewish life, say around the year 0. One common misconception is that there was only one or two major Jewish sects and most people fell into this if they considered themselves Hebrews. This is incorrect. There were four major groups of Jews around the year 0. They include the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and what is known as the Fourth Philosophy (Josephus even refers to these folks as Zealots). We are going to focus on two of them, since they play off each other. Keep in mind, there were actually many many many Jewish sects by this time period, however these are the largest. A professor of mine once tole us "Judaism on the 1st century is no more monolithic than Christianity is in America today" and this couldn't be more true.

First we will take a look at Pharisees. I am not as familiar with Hasidic Jewish customs today as I perhaps should be. However I am somewhat familiar with them since I believe they have similar themes in common with the Pharisees of the first century. Pharisees — probably from an ancient persian word meaning “Separated Ones" actually attempted to keep themselves separated (spiritually and at time physically) from other, non Pharisees. However, contemporary Americans today widely misunderstand who the Pharisees were because they think of the word in a condescending way. They were highly committed to following the Torah, or God’s law and attempted to do this in absolute terms and in all possible facets of life. In order to do this, they created a system of laws that complimented the Torah in what is known as the “Oral Laws.” This would eventually be written down into the Mishnah (written down around 200 CE but they existed for centuries prior)and eventually the the Talmud. They were obsessed with the idea of “getting the law right” and tried to make sure they never had a chance to make any errors with in. Hassidic Jews today still follow the teachings of the Mishnah and Talmud (if I am remembering this correctly). These two sets of laws taught that that Jews should never shave the "edges of their beards" which eventually became attributed with side burns since the Talmud believed that these were part of their beards. These oral laws dictated every action they could make in a sense and they followed them as though they were equal to the Torah. Many sources have claimed that the activism and creation of these laws by the Pharisees during this time period directly lead to the creation of Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish traditions of today.

Other Jewish sects however, looked quite different from the Pharisees and were even at odds with them at times. Sadducees, did not follow to the Oral Law at all. Now I will explain that unfortunately we don't have a ton of information on this group because they never wrote anything down. We do know that the Sadducees were often were priests in the Temple and many were among the most affluent Jews of their day. Instead of focusing on the law, the Sadducees focused on stressing the importance of worshiping and making sacrifices in the temple. Some historians have even suggested that following the law verbatim was not necessarily held by all Sadducees. EP Sanders in his book Jesus and Judaism briefly discusses the conflicts between the Sadducees and other types of Jewish sects if you are looking for more information on that.

Essenes were a group of highly reverent Jews whom are never mentioned in the New Testament, but due to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 20th century, we are the most informed about. They believed that all other Jewish sects had fallen out of favor with God and set up monastic communities to keep themselves "pure" and separated from others. Now this doesn't necessarily focus on your question, so I won't go any further. Similarly, the Fourth Philosophy doesn't directly transition well into today's understanding of Jewish believe and culture (they were primarily obsessed with violently overthrowing the Roman Occupation).

Gratefulstickers

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CheshireC4t

This depends on what kind of Jews (ashkenazi, sephardi) and what period of history you're talking about. Modern Hasidic sects draw much of their tradition from ashkenazi (Central & Eastern European vs. Spanish, North African and Middle-Eastern) traditions in the pre-industrial era as Hasidism was founded in 18th century Eastern Europe. Its main contribution to Jewish life was an emphasis on mysticism (kabbalah), spirituality and a hierarchical system of regional courts for ruling on religious matters. Hasidim these sects are often named for the communities in Europe from which they originated (i.e. Lubavitch, Breslov). For example, the Shreitimel, a cylindrical fur hat is very similar to hats worn by men and leaders throughout pre-industrial Europe.

The characteristic dress of most Hasidic Jews (fur hats, long satin coats, high socks) is largely the same as that worn by the middle-class in places like Poland, Lithuania and Russia. Jews notably did not adopt more western styles after the attempted invasion of Russia by Napoleon in 1812.

The Jewish laws that govern daily life today were written down in the oral tradition of the bible from ~200-500 CE (law outisde of the 5 books of Moses that includes the creation of law for "modern" Jewish society after the practice of animal sacrifice and the Temple service died out in the biblical era), so dietary restrictions, worship and commerce have all largely been the same since then among all Jews.

Jews have largely assimilated to whatever society they find themselves in, so Sephardi Jews have had diet and culture that is heavily based on their region of origin (Middle East, Persia, North-Africa) while Ashkenazi jews have had a diet and cultural tradition that is primarily Eastern European.

It's important to note that Hasidim is one type of strongly-Orthodox Judaism, not to be confused with Haredi Judaism. Haredis are characterized by their rejection of secular culture (intellectual, artistic and popular) and desire to focus exclusively on Jewish learning and thought and prayer. These Jews live daily lives that have changed little since the movement began as a reaction to Jewish communities modernizing with the rest of the world throughout the enlightenment.

tl;dr Daily life for Jews is largely dependent on what part of the world they live in and has changed with the times since modern Judaism evolved and was codified ~200 C.E. with the exception of a few sects like the Haredim, who began rejecting secular culture and modernization during the Enlightenment, and Hasidim who retain many cultural raditions of their pre-industrial Eastern-European antecedents.

CheshireC4t

Are you asking about specifically about ancient Hebrew sects around the year 0?