Judaism: Difference between revisions

The Star of David and the seven-armed candle holder (menorah) are symbols of Jews and Judaism. The cube in this picture stands in the place of an old synagogue. It was put up to remember the Holocaust.

Judaism is one of the oldest religions on Earth. It was the first religion to believe in only one God (monotheism). There are about 13 million followers of Judaism worldwide, called Jews. There are Jewish laws, rules, and guidelines for all parts of life. These are taught in both written and oral traditions.

Beliefs

Maimonides was a famous Jewish teacher of the 12th century. He made a list of 13 principles that include the basic beliefs of Judaism.

1. God created everything, and continues to watch and control everything.
2. There is only one God, and God is perfect in every way.
3. God has no body, and is not like anything in the world.
4. God has always existed, and will always exist.
5. People should pray only to God.
6. The words of all the Jewish prophets are true.
7. Moses's prophecies are true, and Moses was the greatest prophet that ever existed or will exist.
8. God gave the Torah to Moses.
9. The Torah will not be changed, and there will not be another Torah.
10. God knows the thoughts and actions of all people.
11. God will reward people who act according to His rules, and punish people who do not.
12. The Messiah will come.
13. God will bring the dead back to life.

Mitzvot (Commandments)

There are various important actions in Judaism. These are called mitzvot. A mitzvah is a commandment from God to the Jewish people. Most people think of a mitzvah as 'a good deed,' or 'a good thing to do.' There are 613 mitzvot that Jews are told to do. Some are for every-day life, and some are done at special times. Many of these 613 commandments can not be done now, because the Holy Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed.

The Ten Commandments

An old torah

Religious Jews believe that Moses brought the Ten Commandments and the Torah down from Mount Sinai. The Ten Commandments are special because they were given by God told to all of Israel at Mount Sinai.

The Ten Commandments are

1. Believe in the all mighty and wonderful God.
2. Do not worship any other gods.
3. Do not use God's name for any reason.
4. Follow the rules of the Sabbath day.
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. Do not murder.
7. Do not commit adultery.
8. Do not steal.
9. Do not be a false witness.
10. Do not want things which belong to other people.

Shabbat

One of the commandments is to keep the Jewish Sabbath or Shabbat. Shabbat starts every Friday at sunset and ends on Saturday at sunset. Shabbat is a day of rest to thank God for making the Earth.

The tradition of resting on Shabbat comes from the Torah. According to the Torah, God created the world in six days and on the seventh day, Shabbat, He stopped. Many Jews go to their temple or synagogue to pray on Shabbat.

Religious Jews follow special rules on Shabbat. These rules say that no work can be done on Shabbat. This includes many actions that people might not think are work. For example, on Shabbat a Jew can not:

• Start or stop a fire
  • Drive a car (because the car will light a fire in the engine)
  • Turn on or off incandescent lights
• Cook
• Write
• Carry things in the street
• Do things that require work or physical exertion
  • Ride a bicycle
• Use electrical machines like computers

Kashrut - Jewish Food Laws

Jews who follow the religious rules called "kashrut" only eat some types of food that are prepared by special rules. Food that a Jew can eat is called kosher food.

Kosher foods

• Jews can eat any fruit or vegetable, as long as it is washed and checked to make sure there are no insects on it.
• Jews can eat any fish that has scales and fins. This includes fish like salmon and tuna.
• Jews can eat any animal that chews its cud, and has split hooves. For example, cows, sheep, deer, and goats.
• Jews can not eat the birds that are listed by name in the Torah as being unclean for people to eat.
• Foods which are cooked by someone else or come packaged (like in a can or a bottle) must be checked by a Jew who is an expert in Kashrut. The name for this person is "mashgiach," or kosher watchman. Foods bought at the store often have a symbol on them to tell the customer that the factories have been checked.
• Honey is an insect product made by bees, but it is kosher.

Non-kosher foods

• Non-kosher foods are called "treif" or "treifa." "Treif" means "torn". This is because the Torah says not to eat an animal that has been killed or torn by another animal.
• Jews can not eat animals that do not have split hooves and do not chew their cud. For example, a pig has split hooves, but does not chew its cud. For this reason, it is not kosher. An elephant does not have hooves nor does it chew its cud, so it is not kosher.
• Jews can not eat rodents, reptiles or amphibians.
• Jews can not eat any sea animal that does not have scales and fins. For example, sharks, eels, crabs, shrimp and lobsters are not kosher.
• Jews can not eat birds that eat meat, which are mentioned in a list in the Torah.
• Jews can not eat any insects, except for those that have jumping legs, like crickets.

Other Kosher Rules

There are other rules for kosher food as well.

• Animals must be killed a certain way, using a fast strike across the neck with a very sharp blade to be sure that the animal dies quickly.
• All the blood must be drained from an animal before the meat is eaten.
• A Jew cannot eat a meal that has both meat and milk in it. This comes from the rule (in the Bible) that a Jew must not cook a young goat in its mother's milk. Because of this, Jews use separate dishes and utensils for foods that have meat in it, and foods that have milk in it. After eating meat, many Jews do not eat milk products before a time period of 6 hours has passed.

Important Points in a Jewish Life

• Birth
• Brit Mila (for boys) a naming ceremony when a boy is 8 days old. It includes cutting the skin off the end of the penis. This is called circumcision.
• Pidyon haBen (for boys) is when a father does a special ceremony to claim his wife's first son from God. Levites (a tribe of Israel) and Cohanim (priests) do not do this ritual.
• Bat Mitzvah (for girls) a 'coming of age' ceremony when a girl turns 12. After the ceremony the girl is thought to be a woman.
• Bar Mitzvah (for boys) a 'coming of age' ceremony when a boy turns 13. It includes reading the Torah and special prayers. After the ceremony the boy is thought to be a man.
• Marriage
• Having Children
• Death

Kinds of Judaism

For a very long time, all jews believed the same basic things about Judaism. About 200 years ago, a small group of Jews in Germany decided to stop believing in many parts of Judaism. Those Jews were called Reform Jews.

Orthodox Jews in 1915

Today there are three main kinds of Judaism: Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism. There are also kinds with a smaller number of people, such as Reconstructionist Judaism, Karaite Judaism, and Haredi, sometimes called ultra-Orthodox. Each group has its own practices according to how it understands the Jewish laws. For example: Reform Judaism does not require eating kosher food or keeping the Sabbath the same way that Orthodox Judaism does.

Names of G-d

See the main article: The Names of God in Judaism

Names are very important in Judaism. Many Jews believe that a name not only tells you who someone is, but also tells you something about them. Names of G-d are very special in Judaism, so Jews do not write them or speak them fully but use other words instead. That is why Jews write G-d with a "-" instead of an "o"

HaShem Means "The Name". It is the word Jews use most often when not praying to talk about G-d.

Adonai means "My Lord." This name tells Jews about G-d's position. G-d is the King of the World, and his name Adonai lets us know that.

Elohim means "one who is strong enough to do everything." This name is used when talking about G-d's power to create or G-d's justice. This tells us that G-d is the creator and that G-d rules the world with just laws.

The two names above are so special that Orthodox Jews use these names only when they pray and read the Torah. When they are not praying or reading the Torah, they say "Hashem" (The Name) or "Elokim".

God - Some Jews write "God" by replacing the "o" with a dash, like this: "G-d". They do this because God's name is so holy they are not allowed to throw away a piece of paper with "God" written on it. However, if by accident "God" is written, then the paper can be disposed of in a special way and buried in a special place. Others say that "God" is just an English word, not Hebrew, and so it is not holy.

YHWH is the most sacred name of God in Hebrew, and is not pronounced by most Jews. No one knows where the name came from, or what exactly it means. It looks like the Hebrew word "hayah," which is the verb "to be." (According to Hebrew scripture, when Moses asked God who God was, God told Moses I am that I am.) Jews believe that the name YHWH shows that God is endless. Instead of trying to say it, most Jews say "haShem", which means "The Name." Some people pronounce this name as Yahweh, or Jehovah. Scholars of religion sometimes refer to "YHWH" as the Tetragrammaton, from Greek words meaning "four letters".

History

The Jewish scriptures say that Judaism began with a man named Abram who lived in the city of Ur. According to the Midrash, Abram strongly believed that the people in Ur were wrong to pray to different gods and statues. He believed that there was really only one God who was not a statue. The Torah tells that God spoke to Abram and told him to leave Ur with his family and move to Canaan, were he started a new religion. God told him that his name would be changed to Abraham. The Midrash also says that angels taught Abraham a new holy language, which Jews believe is the language today known as Hebrew. Hebrew has continued to be the language of Judaism until today. Abraham's grandson Jacob is said to be the one who first had the name of "Israel".

According to the Torah, at one time, the Hebrew people moved to Egypt because of famine in Caanan. The Pharaoh became worried that the Jews would take over, so he made them slaves. God told the Hebrew leader Moses to help free them. God sent many terrible punishments to the Egyptians to convince their Pharaoh to free the Hebrews. Finally, the Pharaoh let the Hebrews go free, but then decided to send the Egyptian army after them. The Hebrews escaped when God made the waters of the Red Sea open a path for them. The waters then returned and drowned the Egyptian army. The Torah says that after this, Moses met with God on Mount Sinai and received the Ten Commandments and the Torah from God.

The Hebrews or Israelites, in twelve tribes, began a country called Israel in Caanan. They fought many wars against other peoples in the area. The name Jew comes from the name of one of these tribes, Judah.

Later this country broke apart into two kingdoms, Israel and Judah. Israel was conquered by Assyria in the 8th century BC, and the people were taken away. Later Judah was conquered by Babylonia in the early 6th century BC, and its people were taken captive to Babylon. They were allowed to go back to Judah again when Babylon was conquered by Persia. Some Jewish people also lived in other countries.

By 50 BCE, Judah (then called Judea) was ruled by the Roman Empire. During this time, the main language of Judea was Aramaic. The Jews did not like the Roman government or customs, and often made trouble for the Romans. In 70 CE, the Romans destroyed Judea's capital city, Jerusalem.

After this, the Jewish people did not have their own country for about 1,900 years. This time is called the Diaspora, when Jews spread around the world. They lived in many other countries. Jews living in Spain and Portugal used the language Ladino (also called Judeo-Spanish). Jews living in Germany, Poland, and Russia used the language Yiddish. Even today, Jews that do not live in Israel are often said to live "in the Diaspora".

The Jewish People have always believed that they have a special mission from God. They do things in their own ways, such as having special rules about food and eating, not working on the Shabbat, keeping their own holidays, and not marrying people from other religions. Because of this, people in many different times and countries have thought that the Jews were strange, and maybe dangerous. Many countries made laws that the Jews could not work in some jobs or live in some places. Sometimes Jewish people were killed because of their religion. The word "antisemitism" describes the hatred for Jews.

During the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazi, or National Socialist government of Germany conquered most of Europe. They treated the Jews very badly, because they said that the Jews caused most of the problems for Germany in the First World War. The Nazi government killed more than six million Jewish people. Before they were killed, many of the Jews were made to be slaves, and some of them were forced to help in the killing and slavery of the others.

In 1948 after World War II, the United Nations made the country of Israel for the Jews in Palestine, which is in the same place as the original Israel, in the Middle East. The land had been part of the Ottoman Empire before World War I. Then Britain controlled the area under the oversight of the United Nations.

Many Jews moved back to Israel, starting in the late 1800s. When the country of Israel was made in 1948, there were about 600,000 Jews in it. Today there are about 5,600,000 Jews in it.

Famous Jews

Many famous people have been Jewish or have come from Jewish families.

Some famous people from Jewish backgrounds are:

• Leon Trotsky leader of the the Bolshevik Red Army
• Isaac Asimov – Famous science fiction writer
• Bob Dylan – Famous singer
• Albert Einstein – Famous physics scientist. Developed the theory of general relativity
• Sigmund Freud – Famous psychologist
• Franz Kafka – Writer
• Natalie Portman – Actress born in Israel. Played the role of Queen Amidala in the Star Wars movies
• Karl Marx – Philosopher
• Steven Spielberg – Famous Hollywood movie director.
• Baruch Spinoza – Philosopher
• Elvis Presley – musician, known as the "King" had unbroken Jewish maternal history.
• Anne Frank – Young diarist, killed in Germany during the Holocaust
• Mel Brooks – Comedian. Well-known actor and movie producer.
• Jack Black – Comedian

Other websites

• The Jewish History Resource Center Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Judaism article from the 1901-1906 Jewish Encyclopedia
• The Jewish Virtual Library
• Orthodox Judaism - The Orthodox Union: Official website
• Union for Traditional Judaism
• The United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism: Official website
• The Union for Reform Judaism (USA)
• Reform Judaism (UK): Official website
• Reform Judaism (USA): Official website
• Jewish Reconstructionist Federation: Official website
• Society for Humanistic Judaism: Official website
• World Movement for Karaite Judaism
• The Judaica Press Complete Tanach with Rashi in English
• Torah.org. (also known as Project Genesis) Contains Torah commentaries and studies of Tanakh, along with Jewish ethics, philosophy, holidays and other classes.
• The complete formatted Talmud online. Interpretative videos for each page from an Orthodox viewpoint are provided in French, English, Yiddish and Hebrew.