Victor Noel B.

Alamis, RPm
World Religion

Judaism
Lesson 3
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are traditionally called the Abrahamic religions. They
highlight and trace their common origin to the patriarch Abraham or recognize a spiritual
tradition identified with him. Abraham appears in the sacred texts of all of these religions.
The major Abrahamic religions in chronological order of founding are: Judaism (late sec-
ond millennium BCE), Christianity (first century CE), and Islam (seventh century CE).

Judaism is the religion of the Jews. The terms

“Judaism” and “Jews” were derived from the
word “Judah”, the name of the fourth of the
twelve son of Jacob (Jacob was the son of
Isaac, who was son of Abraham). One
becomes a Jew either by ancestry, when one
of his/her parents or both of them are Jews, or
by religious affiliation or conversion, when
he/ she professes faith in Judaism. We shall,
in this lesson, mean by “Jews” as followers or
converts of Judaism. The Jews are also called
“Hebrews” (as Abraham was called a
“Hebrew”) and Israelites (as Jacob was also called “Israel”). The Jews consider
themselves as “God’s chosen people”. The founders of Judaism were Abraham
(2,000 BC) and Moses (1391-1271 BC).

Sacred Texts

o Tanakh- the primary sacred text of the Jews; the Hebrew Bible. It consists
of the Torah (The Teachings), Nevi’im (The Prophets), and Kethuvim
(The Writings). The Tanakh generally corresponds to the “Old Testament”
(but some Jewish scholars do not accept this term) of the Christian Bible.
The supplementary sacred texts are the Talmud and the Midrash. The
Talmud consists of the books of Mishnah (originally the Oral Torah, which
 was meant to supplement the Written Torah of the Tanakh) and Gemara (the
legal and ethical commentaries on the Mishnah). The Midrash, written
around the layout of the Tanakh, are stories that relate to the words,
themes, or stories in the Tanakh.

Basic Doctrine

o The 613 Mitzvot: the rules Moses received from God, which include the
Ten Commandments; they were identified and itemized by Moses Mai-
monides or Rambam, the Jewish philosopher and rabbi and Torah
Scholar.
o The 13 Principles of Faith; the core beliefs of Judaism as summarized by
Moses Maimonides:
 1.God exists;
 2. God is one and there is nothing else like him;
 3. God is spiritual in nature; he does not have corporeal aspects
(physical form);
 4. God is an everlasting God, without beginning or end;
 5. God alone is the appropriate object of worship and prayer;
 6. The Hebrew prophets spoke the truth from God;
 7. Moses was the greatest of God’s prophet;
 8. God gave Moses the both written and oral Torah;
 9. There is and will no other Torah than the one revealed to Moses;
 10. God is aware of every thought and action of human beings;
 11. The righteous will receive a reward from God; he will punish
the wicked;
 12. The promised Messiah will come at the proper time;
 13. All human beings who have ever lived will be raised from the
dead.
o Monotheism; the belief that there is only one God, the creator of the
world and the author of the divine laws both written and oral, which were
given to Moses
o The Afterlife: while believing in the afterlife, the Jews, however, have no
precise doctrines indicating the specific nature of the afterlife. Some be-
lieve in reincarnation, while some believe in something similar to the
Christian heaven and hell (the difference, However, is that Jews believe
that punishment in hell is only temporary---there is specified time for the
 punishment after which either the soul is completely destroyed or it goes
to a state of remorse).
o The Messianic Age: the belief in the coming of the Messiah and the resur-
rection of the righteous dead (dead Jews who lived a righteous life). The
Messiah is conceived by some Jews as a human being, not a god or
demigod, who will be a political and military leader who will deliver the
Jews all over the world from oppression, will establish peace on earth, will
establish a world government base in Israel, and will rebuild the temple of
Jerusalem, among others.

Abraham Moses

Practices

o Daily Prayers: three daily prayer services during the day (morning,
afternoon, evening) done in one’s home or in the synagogue, facing the
site of the temple in Jerusalem

o Sabbath Day: the most sacred day of the week, occurring every sunset on
Friday until sunset on Saturday; strictly no work; dedicated solely to
prayer and rest from the usual everyday activities.
o Circumcision: done on male infants on the eight day after the birth;
signals their entry into the covenant of God and the Jewish patriarchs.

o Rite of Passage: a ceremony that marks the entry of Jewish boys and girls
into maturity in their faith; underwent by boys at the age of 13 (afterwards
a boy is called a bar mitzvah, meaning “son of the commandment”). And
by girls at the age of 12 (afterwards a girl is called a bat mitzvah, meaning
“daughter of the commandment”)

o Festival:

 Pilgrim Festivals; Pesah (Passover), Shavu ‘ot (Pentecost) , and

Sukkot (booths—reminder of the booths in the desert where the
Israelites lived after being delivered by God from their slavery in
Egypt)

 Days of Awe (days of Repentance/High Holy Days): Ro’sh ha-

Shanah (Jewish New Year, celebrating God’s creation of the world).
Ten days of repentance (the ten days in between the Ro’sh ha-
Shanah and Yom Kippur). Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).

Challenges

o Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust: Anti-Semitism is the attitude of

hatred towards the Jews, manifested in social and legal
discriminations of Jews and violent attacks against them. This
attitude culminated in the holocaust referring to the systematic
state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and
children and millions of others by Nazi Germany and its
collaborators during World War II.

o Zionism: the movement that realized that dream of the Jews to go

back to their promised; and Canaan or Palestine (now called Israel),
and to establish their own state.