Judaism to (1800)

Biblical forms of Judaism share a concept of a unified mythical body of the people of Israel, made up of the individual Israelites. Identity is attained by participation in the broader group, which is the main bearer of identity. In the pseudepigraphic intertestamental texts, and in many Hebrew discussions from late antiquity and the Middle Ages, Israel is sometimes described as an angel appointed over the nation. In rabbinic literature, this corporate personality was sometimes called Knesset Yisrael, the assembly of Israel, a concept close to the contemporaneous Ecclesia, and Kelal Yisrael, the entire people of Israel, was described by dicta like "All the [individuals belonging to] Israel are friends" or alternatively, "are warrant of each other." One of the main assumptions in this layer of thought is the common experience shared at the Sinaitic revelation, on the one hand, and the concept of an elect people on the other hand. This corporate personality is understood both as an organic internal cohesion and as separated from all the other nations. In some kabbalistic forms of Judaism since the Middle Ages, this cohesion is portrayed as depending on a union between Israel, God, and the Torah. Some more philosophically oriented forms of Judaism conceived of man as essentially the intellect and, consequently, of Israel as an intellectual attainment.

The destiny of this corporate personality is imagined to be a central issue of human history in general, and the vicissitudes of the Jews are related to their disobedience of the divine imperatives, which attracts divine intervention in the course of history and nature. Thus matters related to exile and redemption, including the various concepts of Messiah, are related to the centrality of corporate personality. According to some rabbinic views, the exile is not only a matter of the Jewish people, but God too—or sometimes his presence, the Shekhinah—participates in it. The historical vicissitudes are seen not as accidents, unrelated or meaningless events, but as part of a broader story that gravitates around the ritual order, namely the fulfillment of the divine will by a very definite national entity, whose emergence and continuity is one of the main concerns of these literatures