MY FAMILY
THE BETA ISRAEL CURRICULUM
HALAKHIC PLURALISM
After examining these examples, teachers should ask students whether they think it’s possible to have two authentic but different traditions in Jewish law – namely Ethiopian Jewish law and rabbinic halakha. Can such “halakhic pluralism” – recognition and validation of multiple approaches to serving G-d – succeed? Students should be encouraged to offer views from both personal and academic perspectives. Students should then read the following excerpt by Rabbi Dr. Sharon Shalom and share their thoughts:
“[My grandfather] was a man I esteemed greatly, who had a powerful fear of God. He was righteous and honest. He knew the book of Psalms by heart, and he was a Jew with all his heart and might. He had a pure soul. [When he died] I asked myself, where does he sit now – in the Garden of Eden? I thought that beyond any doubt, my grandfather must be sitting in the same room with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Aaron, David, and Solomon. He was sitting with all the tzaddikim, the Prophets, the Tannaim, and the Amoraim. Then I reached an earth-shattering conclusion: a man like my grandfather, whose worship of Heaven was based on the Ethiopian tradition, had reached the status of sitting up there with all the righteous people. For the first time, I understood that there were many channels to worshipping God, and all of them are equally legitimate.”72
72 Shalom, From Sinai to Ethiopia, 14.
