The eyes of history

When examining history, the history writer is studying the past through the lenses of the times in which he/she lives and therefore the study is a reflection of the time he/she lives in at least to the same extent as the time he/she describes.

An example. My Synagogue's Adult Education committee is presenting a lecture on the European Origins of Conservative Judaism. In the middle of the 19th century, primarily in Germany, various people reacted to the spread of Reform Judaism (a branch of Judaism that denied "all" tradition and wanted to abandon all but the name of Judaism). These people said: We are not Orthodox but we are also not Reform. We want to formulate something in the middle. A book I am reading now called "From Text to Context: The Turn to History in Modern Judaism" - the title says it all. These people who later were to become known as Conservative, basically transformed Judaism from a "religion" to a "science" ("The Wissenschaft der Judentums") (German for the science of Judaism). They said: Don;'t just read the text, see the context!! (In other words, the historical context).

So, why are we talking about this now???? What's the relevance??? What's the contemporary meaning? Well, the Conservative Judaism is in crisis. And yes, there are a whole long list of reasons for this. But because it is in crisis, talking about the movement's origins makes sense.

 Again, we are studying history through the lens of today!