Judaism is the religion and culture of the Jewish people and the first recorded monotheistic faith. The tenets and history of Judaism constitute the historical foundation of many other religions, including Christianity and Islam.
Judaism does not easily fit into common Western categories, such as religion, race, ethnicity, or culture. This is because Jews understand Judaism in terms of its 4,000 year history. During this stretch of time, Jews have experienced slavery, anarchic self-government, theocratic self-government, conquest, occupation, and exile; they have been in contact, and have been influenced by ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, and Hellenic cultures, as well as modern movements such as the Enlightenment and the rise of nationalism. Thus, Daniel Boyarin has argued that "Jewishness disrupts the very categories of identity, because it is not national, not genealogical, not religious, but all of these, in dialectical tension."
Two things distinguish Judaism from the other religions that existed when it first developed. First, it was monotheistic. The significance of this belief is not so much the denial of other gods. Although this element is fundamental to Rabbinic Judaism, according to most critical Bible scholars the Torah often implies that the early Israelites accepted the existence of other gods. Rather, the significance lies in that Judaism holds that God created and cares about people. In polythestic religions, humankind is often created by accident, and the gods are primarily concerned with their relations with other gods, not with people. Second, the Torah specifies a number of laws to be followed by the Children of Israel. Other religions at the time were characterized by temples in which priests would worship their gods through sacrifice. The Children of Israel similarly had a temple, priests, and made sacrifices -- but these were not the sole means of worshipping God. In comparison to other religions, Judaism elevates everyday life to the level of a temple, and worships God through everyday actions.
By the Hellenic period, most Jews had come to believe that their God is the only God (and thus, the God of everyone), and that the record of His revelation (the Torah) contains within it universal truths. This attitude may reflect growing Gentile interest in Judaism (some Greeks and Romans considered the Jews a most "philosophical" people because of their belief in a God that cannot be represented visually), and growing Jewish interest in Greek philosophy, which sought to establish universal truths. Jews began to grapple with the tension between the particularism of their claim that only Jews were required to obey the Torah, and the universalism of their claim that the Torah contained universal truths. The result is a set of beliefs and practices concerning both identity, ethics, one's relation to nature, and one's relation to God, that privilege "difference" -- the difference between Jews and non-Jews; the differences between locally variable ways of practicing Judaism; a close attention to different meanings of words when interpreting texts; attempts to encode different points of view within texts, and a relative indifference to creed and dogma.
The subject of the Hebrew Bible (similar to the Christian Old Testament) is an account of the Israelites' (also called Hebrews) relationship with God as reflected in their history from the beginning of time until the building of the Second Temple (approx. 350 BCE). This relationship is generally portrayed as contentious, as Jews struggle between their faith in God and their attraction for other gods, and as some Jews (most notably, Abraham, Jacob -- later known as Israel—and Moses) struggle with God. Modern scholars also suggest that the Torah consists of a variety of inconsistent texts that were edited together in a way that calls attention to divergent accounts (see Documentary hypothesis).
While Judaism has always affirmed a number of other Jewish Principles of Faith, it has never developed a fully binding catechism. It is difficult to generalize about Jewish theology because Judaism is non-creedal; that is, there is no agreed-upon dogma (set of orthodox beliefs) that most Jews believed were required of Jews. While individual Jewish rabbis, or sometimes entire groups, at times agreed upon a firm dogma, other rabbis and groups disagreed. With no central agreed-upon authority, no one formulation of Jewish principles of faith could take precedent over any other.
The ancient historian Josephus emphasizes practices and traditions rather than beliefs when he describes the characteristics of an apostate (a Jew who does not follow traditional customs) and the requirements for conversion to Judaism (circumcision, and adherance to traditional customs). Despite the above, in Orthodox Judaism some principles (e.g. the Divine origin of the Torah) are considered important enough that public rebellion against them can put one in the category of "apikoros" (heretic).
In the last two centuries the Jewish community has divided into a number of Jewish denominations; each has a greatly different understanding of what principles of belief a Jew should hold, and how one should live as a Jew. Most of Orthodox Judaism holds to one particular form of Jewish theology, based on Maimonides' 13 principles of Jewish faith. Orthodox Jews hold that these principles are unchanging and mandatory; non-Orthodox forms of Judaism hold that these principles have evolved over time, and thus allow for more leeway in what individual adherents believe.
Orthodox Judaism (includes Hasidic Judaism, Haredi Judaism or Ultra-Orthodox Judaism and Modern Orthodox Judaism) - this denomination holds that the Torah was written by God and Moses, and that the original laws within it are binding and unchanging. While Orthodox Judaism is in many senses what Judaism has been since the Middle Ages, its formation as a movement was a direct response to the formation of Reform Judaism.
Conservative Judaism. Outside of the USA it is known as Masorti Judaism. "Masorti" is its official title in the State of Israel as well, although most Israelis use the word in a more general sense (see below). In the philosophy of this movement, the Torah, while unchanging, is subject to interpretation.
Reform Judaism (outside of the USA also known as Progressive Judaism, and in the U.K. as Liberal Judaism) originally formed in Germany as a reaction to traditional Judaism, stresses integration with society and a personal interpretation of the Torah. The original intent was to keep Jews "in the fold" who might otherwise leave the religion and community.
Reconstructionist Judaism started as a stream of philosophy by a rabbi within Conservative Judaism, and later became an independent movement.
Many religious Jews do not look at one's denomination as a valid way of designating Jews; instead, they label Jews on a graduated spectrum of religious observance. According to most Orthodox Jews, Jewish people who do not keep the laws of Shabbat and Yom Tov (the holidays), Kashrut, and family purity (taharat ha-mishpacha), to at least a mimimal level, would be classed as non-religious or frei (free of the yoke of the Torah). Any Jew who keeps at least those laws would be considered frum (observant and religious), but their level of frumkeit (religiosity) would depend on how careful they are about the details and on how many stringencies they take it upon themselves to keep.
The main articleJewish views of religious pluralism describes how Judaism views other religions; it also describes how members of each of the Jewish religious denomination view the other denominations.
A number of formulations of Jewish beliefs have appeared, most of which have much in common with each other, yet they differ in certain details. A comparison of several such formulations demonstrates a wide array of tolerance for varying theological perspectives. Below is a summary of Jewish beliefs. A more detailed discussion of these beliefs, along with a discussion of how they developed, is found in the article on Jewish principles of faith.
Monotheism - Judaism is based on strict unitarian monotheism, the belief in one God. God is conceived of as eternal, the creator of the universe, and the source of morality.
God is one - The idea of God as a duality or trinity is heretical for Jews to hold; it is considered akin to polytheism. Interestingly, while Jews hold that such conceptions of God are incorrect, they generally are of the opinion that gentiles that hold such beliefs are not held culpable.
God is all powerful (omnipotent), as well as all knowing (omniscient). The different names of God are ways to express different aspects of God's presence in the world. See the entry on The name of God in Judaism.
God is non-physical, non-corporeal, and eternal. All statements in the Hebrew Bible and in rabbinic literature which use anthropomorphism are held to be linguistic conceits or metaphors, as it would otherwise be impossible to talk about God.
To God alone may one offer prayer. Any belief that an intermediary between man and God could be used, whether necessary or even optional, has traditionally been considered heretical.
The Hebrew Bible, and much of the beliefs described in the Mishnah and Talmud, are held to be the product of divine Revelation. How Revelation works, and what precisely one means when one says that a book is "divine", has always been a matter of some dispute. Different understandings of this subject exist among Jews.
The Torah (five books of Moses) is the primary text of Judaism. Rabbinic Judaism holds that the Torah is the same one that was given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai. Orthodox Jews believe that the Torah that we have today is exactly the same as it was when it was received from God by Moses with only minor scribal errors. Due to advances in biblical scholarship, and archeological and linguistic research, most non-Orthodox Jews reject this principle. Instead, they may accept that the core of the Oral and Written Torah may have come from Moses, but the written Torah that we have today has been edited together from several documents.
God will reward those who observe His commandments, and punish those who violate them.
God chose the Jewish people to be in a unique covenant with God; the description of this covenant is the Torah itself. Contrary to popular belief, Jewish people do not simply say that "God chose the Jews." Jews believe that they were chosen for a specific mission; to be a light unto the nations, and to have a covenant with God as described in the Torah. This idea is discussed further in the entry on the chosen people. Reconstructionist Judaism rejects the concept chosenness as morally defunct.
The messianic age. There will be a moshiach (messiah), or perhaps a messianic era.
The soul is pure at birth. People are born with a yetzer ha'tov, a tendency to do good, and with a yetzer ha'ra, a tendency to do bad. Thus, human beings have free will and can choose the path in life that they will take.
People can atone for sins. The liturgy of the Days of Awe (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) states that prayer, repentance and tzedakah (dutiful giving of charity) atone for sin. A more detailed discussion of the Jewish view of sin is available in the entry on sin.
A Jewish person who ceases practicing Judaism and becomes a non-practicing Jew is still regarded as Jewish. A Jewish person who does not accept Source | Copyright
