Lesson 1: Introduction
Overview of Judaism
As we have read so far, there were many pogroms or persecutions of the Jews throughout history. Before we can begin to learn about Anti-Judaism and Anti-Semitism, we need to learn what Judaism is. Who are these people we call “The Jews”? What do Jews believe?
Judaism is a religion. There are clear beliefs, a world view, and an expectation of how to live one’s life. As you might expect there are varying degrees of belief and adherence to beliefs. Many people make the mistake of thinking of “The Jews” as a monolithic group with little variation.
A simple analogy within Christianity is Christmas and Easter Christians and members of a religious order. In the first group we have Christians who come to church maybe once or twice a year. They do not attempt to live their everyday lives in accord to religious principles. In the second there are those Christians who order everything in their daily life to religious principles and beliefs.
The term “Judaism” itself was first used by Hellenized Jews to describe their religious practice, but it is of predominantly modern usage; it is not used in the Hebrew Scriptures or in Rabbinic literature and only rarely in the literature of the medieval period. The word Torah is employed when referring to the divinely revealed teachings of Jewish law and belief. Judaism is used more broadly, including also the totality of human interpretation and practice. Thus, one may speak of “secular Judaism,” referring to an adherence to values expressed by Judaism but removed from any religious context. The most important holy days in Judaism are the weekly Sabbath, the major holidays of Rosh ha-Shanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkoth, Simhat Torah, Passover, and Shavuot, and the minor holidays of Hanukkah, Purim, and Tisha B'Av.
There are three main branches of Judaism: Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform. The Orthodox hold both the written law (Scriptures) and the oral laws (commentaries on the legal portions of the Scriptures) as authoritative, derived from God, while the Reform do not see them as authoritative in any absolute sense, but binding only in their ethical content. While Orthodox Jews maintain the traditional practices, Reform Jews perform only those rituals that they believe can promote and enhance a Jewish, God-oriented life. In 1999, however, leaders of American Reform Judaism reversed century-old teachings by encouraging but not enforcing the observance of many traditional rituals. The “historical school,” or Conservative movement, attempts to formulate a middle position between Orthodox and Reform, maintaining most of the traditional rituals but recognizing the need to make changes in accordance with overriding contemporary considerations. Conservative Jews believe that the history of Judaism proves their basic assumptions: that tradition and change have always gone hand in hand and that what is central to Judaism and has remained constant throughout the centuries is the people of Israel (and their needs), not the fundamentalism of Orthodoxy nor what they consider the abandonment of traditions by Reform. A lesser known branch is the Reconstructionist movement of Mordechai M. Kaplan. This holds Judaism to be a human-centered rather than a God-centered religious civilization.
But, what do Jews believe? There are thirteen basic tenants of Judaism as developed by Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon:
- G-d exists. (Replacing the “o” with a “-“ is a way of not writing the name of G-d, and avoiding sin and/or defacing the name of G-d.)
- G-d is one and unique.
- G-d is incorporeal
- G-d is eternal
- Prayer is to be directed to G-d alone and to no other
- The words of the prophets are true
- Moses' prophecies are true, and Moses was the greatest of the prophets
- The Written Torah (first 5 books of the Bible) and Oral Torah (teachings now contained in the Talmud and other writings) were given to Moses
- There will be no other Torah
- G-d knows the thoughts and deeds of men
- G-d will reward the good and punish the wicked
- The Messiah will come
- The dead will be resurrected
An excellent site for learning more about Judaism is the site Judaism 101. The book format is terrific and easy to use. There are also links to the left that you may use instead of the tabs. There are basic, intermediate, and advanced sections to help guide you in your education.
