
Judaism is one of the world's oldest religions, dating back nearly 4,000 years, and is considered the original Abrahamic faith. As a monotheistic faith, followers of Judaism believe in one God who revealed himself through ancient prophets, including Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Solomon, and others.
The Jewish sacred text is called the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible. It includes the same books as the Old Testament in the Christian Bible, but they're placed in a slightly different order. The Torah—the first five books of the Tanakh—outlines laws for Jews to follow and is sometimes also referred to as the Pentateuch.
The origins of the Jewish faith are explained throughout the Torah. According to the text, God first revealed himself to a Hebrew man named Abraham, who became known as the founder of Judaism. Jews believe that God made a special covenant with Abraham and that he and his descendants were chosen people who would create a great nation.
Jewish people believe in the Torah, which was the whole of the laws given to the Israelites at Sinai. They believe they must follow God's laws, which govern daily life.
The practice of Judaism has been devoted to the study of Torah and the observance of its laws and commandments. In normative Judaism, the Torah, and hence Jewish law itself, is unchanging, but interpretation of the law is more open. It is considered a mitzvah (commandment) to study and understand the law.
The proper counterpart for the general English term faith in Judaism would be the concept of Emunah (אמונה), which can be more accurately described as an innate conviction, a perception of truth that transcends (...) reason. Emunah can be enhanced through wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and learning of sacred Jewish writings.
There are a number of basic principles that were formulated by medieval rabbinic authorities. These are put forth as fundamental underpinnings inherent in the acceptance and practice of Judaism. The most accepted version in extent is the opinion of Maimonides, which includes 13 principles of faith.
Judaism is based on a strict monotheism, and a belief in one single, indivisible, non-compound God. The Shema Yisrael, one of the most important Jewish prayers, encapsulates the monotheistic nature of Judaism: Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God; the LORD is one.
Judaism affirms the existence and uniqueness of God, and stresses performance of deeds or commandments alongside adherence to a strict belief system. In contrast to religions such as Christianity, which demand a more explicit identification of God, faith in Judaism requires one to honour God through adherence to God's instructions (Torah) and the practice of all of the mitzvot.
What You'll Learn
- The Torah: The first five books of the Hebrew Bible, a collection of ancient Hebrew scriptures, are the core texts of Judaism
- The Ten Commandments: The holy laws handed down to Moses by God
- The Talmud: A collection of teachings and commentaries on Jewish law
- The Mishnah: A text that describes and explains the Jewish code of law
- The Oral Torah: A tradition of oral law, much of it later codified in sacred writings
The Torah: The first five books of the Hebrew Bible, a collection of ancient Hebrew scriptures, are the core texts of Judaism
The Torah is the core text of Judaism, comprising the first five books of the Hebrew Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These books are also known as the Chumash or the Five Books of Moses. The Torah is a collection of ancient Hebrew scriptures, and the word itself means 'teaching', 'law', or 'instruction'.
The Torah is a sacred text outside of Judaism, too. It is common to all different versions of the Christian Old Testament, and in Islam, it is known as the Tawrat.
The Torah starts with God creating the world and ends with the death of Moses, just before the people of Israel cross to the Promised Land of Canaan. It includes the Ten Commandments and other religious obligations and civil laws, such as the celebration of Passover.
The Torah is read publicly, and this forms the basis of Jewish communal life. It is read every Monday and Thursday morning at a synagogue, but only if there are ten males over the age of 13 present.
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The Ten Commandments: The holy laws handed down to Moses by God
Judaism is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, characterised by the belief that the Written Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) was given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. The Torah is a central text of the Jewish spiritual and religious tradition, and is considered to be a set of teachings that are explicitly self-positioned as encompassing at least seventy, and potentially infinite, facets and interpretations.
The Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue, are a list of religious precepts that, according to passages in Exodus and Deuteronomy, were divinely revealed to Moses by God and engraved on two stone tablets. They are a summary of the hundreds of laws found in the Old Testament Law, and are designed to guide Israel into a life of practical holiness. The Commandments are written with room for varying interpretation, reflecting their role as a summary of fundamental principles.
The Commandments are:
- Worship no other God but Me.
- Do not make images to worship.
- Do not misuse the name of God.
- Observe the Sabbath Day (Saturday). Keep it Holy.
- Honour your father and your mother.
- Do not murder.
- Do not commit adultery.
- Do not steal.
- Do not bear false witness against your neighbour.
- Do not covet your neighbour's house, wife, or his slaves, or his animals, or anything of your neighbour.
The Commandments are called 'עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים' ('aséret haddevarím' or 'the ten words') in Biblical Hebrew, and are mentioned at Exodus 34:28, Deuteronomy 4:13 and Deuteronomy 10:4. The stone tablets, as opposed to the commandments inscribed on them, are called 'לוּחוֹת הַבְּרִית' ('lukhót habberít' or 'tablets of the covenant').
The Ten Commandments are considered to be of central importance to the Jewish faith, and are still recited in the synagogue three times a year: as they come up during the readings of Exodus and Deuteronomy, and during the festival of Shavuot.
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The Talmud: A collection of teachings and commentaries on Jewish law
The Talmud is a collection of teachings and commentaries on Jewish law, written in Hebrew and Aramaic. It is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law and theology. It is composed of two parts: the Mishna, a written compendium of the Oral Torah; and the Gemara, an elucidation of the Mishna and related Tannaitic writings. The Talmud was compiled in the 5th century by Rav Ashi and Ravina II, in Babylonia, and is composed of 63 tractates. The Talmud is the basis for all codes of Jewish law and is widely quoted in rabbinic literature.
The Talmud is divided into six sections: Zera'im, Mo'ed, Nashim, Nezikin, Kodashim, and Taharot. The Mishna is written in Hebrew, while the Gemara is written in Aramaic. The Talmud is studied by Orthodox Jews, who believe that all of the practices in the Torah must be obeyed without question. Conservative and Reform Jewsbelieve that the ancient laws and practices must be interpreted for modern life, with more concern for community practices than ritual practices.
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The Mishnah: A text that describes and explains the Jewish code of law
The Mishnah is a text that describes and explains the Jewish code of law. It is a written collection of the Jewish oral traditions known as the Oral Torah. The Mishnah was redacted by Judah ha-Nasi, probably in Beit Shearim or Sepphoris, between the end of the second century CE and the beginning of the third century. The Mishnah is also the first work of rabbinic literature, with the oldest surviving material dating to the 6th to 7th centuries BCE.
The Mishnah is divided into six orders, or 'sedarim', each containing 7-12 tractates, or 'masechtot', 63 in total. Each masechet is further divided into chapters, or 'peraqim', and then paragraphs, or 'mishnayot'. The word 'mishnah' means a single paragraph of the work, i.e. the smallest unit of structure, leading to the use of the plural, 'Mishnayot', for the whole work.
The six orders of the Mishnah are:
- Zeraim ("Seeds"), dealing with prayer and blessings, tithes and agricultural laws (11 tractates)
- Moed ("Festival"), pertaining to the laws of the Sabbath and religious festivals (12 tractates)
- Nashim ("Women"), concerning marriage and divorce, some forms of oaths and the laws of the nazirite (7 tractates)
- Nezikin ("Damages"), dealing with civil and criminal law, the functioning of the courts and oaths (10 tractates)
- Kodashim ("Holy things"), regarding sacrificial rites, the Temple, and the dietary laws (11 tractates)
- Tohorot ("Purities"), pertaining to the laws of purity and impurity, including the impurity of the dead, food purity, and bodily purity (12 tractates)
The Mishnah was compiled in a time when the persecution of Jews and the passage of time raised the possibility that the details of the oral traditions of the Pharisees from the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE) would be forgotten. It is a document that describes a life of sanctification, in which the rituals of the Temple are adapted for communal participation in a world that has no Temple, which escapes the ups and downs of history.
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The Oral Torah: A tradition of oral law, much of it later codified in sacred writings
Judaism is characterised by the belief that the Written Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) cannot be correctly interpreted without reference to the Oral Torah. The Oral Torah, or Oral Law, is a tradition of oral law that was passed down orally for generations, from Moses on Biblical Mount Sinai during the Exodus from Egypt, until its contents were finally committed to writing following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The Written Torah mentions each of the commandments, or Mitzvos, only in passing or by allusion, and it is the Oral Law that fills in the gaps. The Oral Law is crucial to the normative practice of Judaism today. The prescriptions for daily life found in the Bible are typically cryptic, vague, and even contradictory, and the Oral Law expounds at great length on these sources, providing a vast literature that translates scriptural sources into a guide for daily living.
The major repositories of the Oral Torah are the Mishnah, compiled between 200–220 CE by Judah ha-Nasi, and the Gemara, a series of running commentaries and debates concerning the Mishnah, which together form the Talmud, the preeminent text of Rabbinic Judaism. In fact, two "versions" of the Talmud exist: one produced in the Galilee c. 300–350 CE (the Jerusalem Talmud), and a second, more extensive Talmud compiled in Jewish Babylonia c. 450–500 CE (the Babylonian Talmud).
The Talmud's discussions follow the order of the Mishnah, although not all tractates are discussed. Generally, a law from the Mishnah is cited, which is followed by a rabbinic deliberation on its meaning. The discussion often, but not always, results in a decision regarding the more persuasive or authoritative position based on available sources or anecdotal evidence.
The term "Oral Torah" should not be understood as a monolith. The Jewish Encyclopedia divides the Oral Torah into eight categories, ranked according to the relative level of authoritativeness, which are found within the Talmud, the Tosefta and the halakhic Midrashim.
- Explanations of those laws of the written law, which are not fully intelligible without the explanations, and therefore presuppose an oral interpretation. Such explanations are connected in some way with Scripture.
- Ancient halakhot which have no connection with Scripture and can not be connected with it, thus deriving their authority only from the tradition which ascribes them to Moses on Sinai. (In the case of these two groups, it is impossible to ascertain which elucidations and rules were really given to Moses on Sinai, and which were added later.)
- Laws found in the prophetic books. Some of these originated at the time of the Prophets; but others are much older, perhaps having been transmitted orally, and committed to writing by the Prophets. They are called also "Dibre Ḳabbalah" (Words of Tradition).
- Interpretations and regulations defining many written laws, as well as new laws, formulated by the early scribes, beginning with the time of Ezra. These are called also "Dibre Soferim" (Words of the Scribes).
- Interpretations and regulations covering the written law, as well as new halakhot, which the Tannaim deduced from Scripture by means of hermeneutic rules or by logical conclusions. There are differences of opinion among the scholars in regard to most of these explanations and definitions; but they are of equal weight with the written law, and are called also "Debar Torah" (Regulation of the Torah).
- Customs and observances ("taḳḳanot") which were introduced at various times by different scholars. They are ascribed partly to Moses, partly to Joshua, but chiefly to the members of the Great Synagogue or the Soferim ("Scribes"), and are called also "Dibre Soferim" ("Words of the Scribes").
- Statutes and decisions ("gezerot") decreed by the Sanhedrin or court, and generally accepted. Such laws could be abrogated only by another court greater than the first one in numbers and scholarship.
- Statutes and regulations for which the scholars had no tradition or allusion in Scripture, but which they accepted as standards after deriving them from the customs and laws of the country in which they were living. These are called "Hilkhot Medinah" (Statutes of the Country).
The laws in the last three groups were not considered equal in validity to the written law ("De'oraita"), but were regarded merely as rabbinical regulations ("de-rabbanan").
The interplay of the Oral and Written Law is also seen in the Rabbinic tradition, which identifies several characteristics of the Written Law, suggesting the existence of a parallel Oral tradition. Here, the Oral Law must have been disseminated at the same time as the Written Torah because certain Torah commandments would be indecipherable without a separate explanatory codex (and, presumably, God would not demand adherence to commandments that could not be understood). Many terms used in the Torah are left undefined, such as the word totafot, usually translated as "frontlets," which is used three times in the Pentateuch (in Exodus 13:9 and Deuteronomy 6:8 and 11:18) but only identified with tefillin in the Mishnah (see Menachot 3:7). Similarly, many procedures are mentioned without explanation or instructions, or assume familiarity on the part of the reader. For example, the discussion of shechita (kosher slaughter) in Deuteronomy 12 states "you shall kill of your herd and of your flock which God Lord has given you, as I have commanded you," without any clear indication of what had been "commanded"; only in the Oral Torah are the various requirements of ritual slaughter explicated.
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Frequently asked questions
Judaism is one of the world's oldest religions, dating back nearly 4,000 years, and is considered to be the original Abrahamic faith. Followers of Judaism believe in one God who revealed himself through ancient prophets, including Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Solomon, and others. The Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, is the most important of several sacred texts.
The Tanakh, or the Hebrew Bible, is the sacred text of Judaism. It includes the same books as the Old Testament in the Christian Bible, but in a slightly different order. The Torah is the first five books of the Tanakh and outlines laws for Jews to follow.
Observant Jews recite prayers three times daily: Shacharit, Mincha, and Ma'ariv, with a fourth prayer, Mussaf, added on Shabbat and holidays. At the heart of each service is the Amidah or Shemoneh Esrei. Another key prayer is the Shema Yisrael, or Shema, a recitation of a verse from the Torah: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God; the Lord is one!"
Shabbat, the weekly day of rest, is a pivotal day in Jewish practice. It lasts from sunset on Friday to nightfall on Saturday and is governed by a large corpus of religious law. Observant Jews are forbidden to engage in any activity that falls under 39 categories of melakhah, or "work".
Jewish holy days, or chaggim, celebrate landmark events in Jewish history, such as the Exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Torah, and also mark the change of seasons and transitions in the agricultural cycle. The three major festivals are Sukkot, Passover, and Shavuot, known as the regalim, or "footsteps", as it was once customary for Israelites to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices in the Temple.