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Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people, with around 14 million followers (as of 2005 ). It is one of the first recorded monotheistic faiths and one of the oldest religious traditions still practiced today. The values and history of the Jewish people are a major part of the foundation of other Abrahamic religions such as Samaritanism, Christianity, and Islam.

Judaism has seldom, if ever, been monolithic in practice, and has not had any centralized authority or binding dogma. Despite this, Judaism in all its variations has remained tightly bound to a number of religious principles, the most important of which is the belief in a single, omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, transcendent God, who created the universe and continues to be involved in its governance. According to Jewish thought, the God who created the world established a covenant with the Jewish people, and revealed his laws and commandments to them in the form of the Torah. The practice of Judaism is devoted to the study and observance of these laws and commandments, as they are interpreted according to the Tanakh, Halakha, responsa and rabbinic literature.

Judaism does not fit easily into conventional Western categories, such as religion, ethnicity, or culture, in part because of its 4,000-year history. During this time, Jews have experienced slavery, anarchic and theocratic self-government, conquest, occupation, and exile; they have been in contact with, and have been influenced by, ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, and Hellenic cultures, as well as modern movements such as the Enlightenment (see Haskalah) and the rise of nationalism. Thus, Talmud professor 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."

Introduction

According to both traditional Judaism and modern scholars, a number of qualities distinguish Judaism from the other religions that existed when it first emerged. One characteristic was monotheism. The significance of this idea, according to critical historian Yehezkal Kaufman, lies in that Judaism holds that God created, and cares about, humankind. In polytheistic 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 commandments 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 in Jerusalem, priests, and made sacrifices -— but these were not the sole means of worshiping God.

Monotheism

Scholars argue as to when the notion of monotheism arose. Judaism claims that it is expressed directly in Torah (the Hebrew Bible), where God incorporates it into the Ten Commandments:

...I am the Lord your God. Do not have any other gods before Me. Do not represent gods by any carved statue or picture of anything in the heaven above, on the earth below, or in the water below the land. Do not bow down to or worship them. I am God your Lord, a God who demands exclusive worship. (Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5)

Thus the beliefs in the existence of God, God's eternal nature, God as the sole creator of all that exists, and God's determination of the course of events in this world, are the foundations of the Judaistic religion:

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt...

To turn from these beliefs is to deny God and the essence of Judaism, according to the Jewish understanding of the Ten Commandments. Furthermore, one is required to believe in God and God alone. This prohibits belief in or worship of any additional deities, gods, spirits or incarnations. The idea of God as a duality or trinity is heretical for Jews to hold; it is considered akin to polytheism.

To deny the uniqueness of God is to deny all that is written in the Torah:

You shall have no other gods besides Me...Do not make a sculpted image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above.

It is also a prohibition against making or possessing objects that one may bow down to or serve, such as crucifixes or icons, and any forms of paintings or artistic representations of God. One must not bow down to or serve any being or object but God. (See Ten Commandments: Jewish interpretation)

The significance of the idea is that an omniscient and omnipotent God created humankind as recorded in the Book of Genesis, in the Creation according to Genesis starting with the very first verse of Genesis 1:1: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," a marked contrast with polytheistic religions in which the gods are limited by their preoccupation with personal desires irrelevant to humankind, by their limited powers, or by the interference of other powers. In Judaism, God is unlimited, fully capable, and fully available to care for Creation.

Practical worship and the laws

The Torah (i.e., The Hebrew Bible) specifies a number of laws, known as the 613 mitzvot, 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 in Jerusalem, a caste of priests, and made sacrifices — but these were not the sole means of worshipping God.

As a matter of practical worship (in comparison to other religions) Judaism seeks to elevate everyday life to the level of the ancient Temple's worship by worshipping God through the spectrum of daily activities and actions. Judaism maintains that this is how the individual will merit rewards in the afterlife, called gan eden (Hebrew: "Garden of Eden") or olam haba ("World to Come"), though Judaism does not have a single concept of the afterlife, nor is the afterlife the focus of Jewish practice.

Traditional view of the development of Judaism

The subject of the Hebrew Bible 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 (ca. 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, such as Abraham; (most notably and directly), Jacob -- later known as Israel; and Moses struggle with God.

According to Orthodox Judaism and most religious Jews, the Biblical patriarch Abraham was the first Hebrew. Rabbinic literature records that he was the first to reject idolatry and preach monotheism. As a result, God promised he would have children: "Look now toward heaven and count the stars/So shall be your progeny." (Genesis 15:5) Abraham's first child was Ishmael and his second son was Isaac, whom God said would continue Abraham's work and inherit the Land of Israel (then called Canaan), after having been exiled and redeemed. God sent the patriarch Jacob and his children to Egypt, where after many generations they became enslaved. Then God sent Moses to redeem the Israelites from slavery, and after the Exodus from Egypt, God led the Jews to Mount Sinai and gave them the Torah, eventually bringing them to the land of Israel.

God designated the descendants of Aaron, Moses' brother, to be a priestly class within the Israelite community. They first officiated in the tabernacle (a portable house of worship), and later their descendants were in charge of worship in the Temple in Jerusalem.

Once the Jews had settled in the land of Israel, the tabernacle was planted in the city of Shiloh for over 300 years during which time God provided great men, and occasionally women, to rally the nation against attacking enemies, some of which were sent by God as a punishment for the sins of the people. This is described in the Book of Joshua and the Book of Judges. As time went on, the spiritual level of the nation declined to the point that God allowed the Philistines to capture the tabernacle in Shiloh.

The people of Israel then told Samuel the prophet that they had reached the point where they needed to be governed by a permanent king, as were other nations, as described in the Books of Samuel. Samuel grudgingly acceded to this request and appointed Saul, a great but very humble man, to be their King. When the people pressured Saul into going against a command conveyed to him by Samuel, God told Samuel to appoint David in his stead.

Once King David was established, he told the prophet Nathan that he would like to build a permanent temple, and as a reward for his actions, God promised David that he would allow his son to build the temple and the throne would never depart from his children (David himself was not allowed to build the temple because he had been involved in many wars, making it inappropriate for him to build a temple representing peace). As a result, it was David's son Solomon who built the first permanent temple according to God's will, in Jerusalem, as described in the Books of Kings.

After Solomon's death, his Kingdom was split into the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah. After several hundred years, because of rampant idolatry, God allowed Assyria to conquer Israel and exile its people. The southern Kingdom of Judah, whose capital was Jerusalem, home of the Temple, remained under the rulership of the House of David, however, as in the north, idolatry increased to the point that God allowed Babylonia to conquer the Kingdom, destroy the Temple which had stood for 410 years, and exile its people to Babylonia, with the promise that they would be redeemed after seventy years. These events are recorded in the Book of Isaiah and the Book of Jeremiah.

After seventy years the Jews were allowed back into Israel under the leadership of Ezra, and the Temple was rebuilt, as recorded in the Book of Ezra and the Book of Nehemiah. The Second Temple stood for 420 years, after which it was destroyed by the Roman general (later emperor) Titus. The Jewish temple is to remain in ruins until a descendant of David arises to restore the glory of Israel and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.

The Torah given on Mount Sinai was summarized in the five books of Moses. Together with the books of the prophets it is called the Written Torah. The details and interpretation of the law, which are called the Oral Torah or oral law were originally unwritten. However as the persecutions of the Jews increased and the details were in danger of being forgotten, rabbinic tradition holds that these oral laws were recorded in the Mishnah, and the Talmud, as well as other holy books.

Critical historical view of the development of Judaism

Although monotheism is fundamental to Rabbinic Judaism, many critical Bible scholars claim that certain verses in the Torah imply that the early Israelites accepted the existence of other gods, while viewing their God as the sole Creator, whose worship is obligated (a rather henotheistic point of view). According to them, it was only by the Hellenic period that most Jews came to believe that their God was the only God (and thus, the God of everyone), and that the record of His revelation (the Torah) contained within it universal truths. They posit that this attitude reflected a 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, thus leading - potentially - to the idea of monotheism, at least in the sense that "all gods are One".

New evidence supporting the existence of a polytheistic precursor to Judaism was unearthed in the discovery of Ugarit, where ancient tablets were found that describe a pantheon of gods that includes several gods mentioned in the Torah.

According to this theory, Jews began to grapple with the tension between their claims of particularism (that only Jews were required to obey the Torah), and universalism (that the Torah contained universal truths). The supposed result is a set of beliefs and practices concerning identity, ethics, and the relationships between man and nature and man and God that examine and privilege "differences" — for example the difference between Jews and non-Jews; the local differences in the practice of Judaism; a close attention, when interpreting texts, to difference in the meanings of three words; attempts to preserve and encode different points of view within texts, and a relative avoidance of creed and dogma.

In contrast to the Orthodox religious view of the Hebrew Bible, critical biblical 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).

Religious doctrine and Principles of Faith

While Judaism has always affirmed a number of Jewish principles of faith, no creed, dogma, set of orthodox beliefs, or fully-binding "catechism," is recognized, an approach to religious doctrine that dates back at least two thousand years and that makes generalizations about Jewish theology somewhat difficult. While individual rabbis, congregations, or movements have at times agreed upon a firm dogma, generally other rabbis and groups have disagreed, and because there is explicitly no central religious authority, no specific formulation of Jewish principles of faith could take precedence over any other. In attempting to define who is a Jew, the ancient historian Josephus emphasized practices and traditions rather than religious beliefs, associating apostasy with a failure to observe traditional customs, and suggesting the requirements for conversion to Judaism included circumcision and adherence to traditional customs. Notably, in Orthodox Judaism some principles of faith (e.g., the Divine origin of the Torah) are considered important enough that public rejection of them can put one in the category of "apikoros" (heretic).

Over the centuries, a number of clear formulations of Jewish principles of faith have appeared, many with common elements, and though they differ with respect to certain details, they demonstrate a wide variety of tolerance for varying theological perspectives. Of these, the one most widely considered authoritative is Maimonides' thirteen principles of faith:

• God is one - strict unitarian monotheism, in which the eternal creator of the universe is the source of morality.
• God is all powerful (omnipotent), as well as all knowing (omniscient), and the different names of God are ways to express different aspects of God's presence in the world (see also: Names 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.
• One may offer prayer to God alone — any belief in an intermediary between man and God, either necessary or 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 words of the prophets are true.
• Moses was the chief of all prophets.
• The Torah (five books of Moses) is the primary text of Judaism.
• 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 Him (see also: Jews as a chosen people).
• There will be a moshiach (Jewish Messiah), or perhaps a messianic era.
• The soul is pure at birth, and human beings have free will, with an innate yetzer ha'tov (a tendency to do good), and a yetzer ha'ra (a tendency to do bad).
• People can atone for sins through words and deeds, without intermediaries, through prayer, repentance, and tzedakah (dutiful giving of charity), if accompanied by a sincere decision to cease unacceptable actions and if appropriate amends to others are honestly undertaken, always providing a "way back" to God. (see also: Jewish views of sin)

The traditional Jewish bookshelf

Jews are often called a "People of the Book," and Judaism has an age-old intellectual tradition focusing on text-based Torah study. The following is a basic, structured list of the central works of Jewish practice and thought. For more detail, see Rabbinic literature.

• The Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and Jewish bible study, which include:
  • Mesorah
  • Targum
  • Jewish Biblical exegesis (also see Midrash below)
• Works of the Talmudic Era (classic rabbinic literature)
  • The Mishnah and its commentaries
  • The Tosefta and the minor tractates
  • The Talmud:
    • The Jerusalem Talmud and its commentaries
    • The Babylonian Talmud and its commentaries

• Midrashic literature:
  • Halakhic Midrash
  • Aggadic Midrash
• Halakhic literature
  • The Major Codes of Jewish Law and Custom
    • The Mishneh Torah and its commentaries
    • The Tur and its commentaries
    • The Shulhan Arukh and its commentaries
  • Other books on Jewish law and custom
  • The Responsa literature
• Jewish Thought and Ethics
  • Jewish philosophy
  • Kabbalah
  • Hasidic works
  • Jewish ethics and the Mussar Movement
• The Siddur and Jewish liturgy
• Piyyut (Classical Jewish poetry)

Related Topics

• Torah databases (electronic versions of the Traditional Jewish Bookshelf)
• List of Jewish Prayers and Blessings

Jewish Law and interpretation

The basis of Jewish law and tradition ("halakha") is the Torah (the five books of Moses). According to rabbinic tradition there are 613 commandments in the Torah. Some of these laws are directed only to men or to women, some only to the ancient priestly groups, the Kohanim and Leviyim (members of the tribe of Levi), some only to those who practice farming within the land of Israel. Many laws were only applicable when the Temple in Jerusalem existed, and fewer than 300 of these commandments are still applicable today.

While there have been Jewish groups which claimed to be based on the written text of the Torah alone (e.g., the Sadducees, and the Karaites), most Jews believed in what they call the oral law. These oral traditions were transmitted by the Pharisee sect of ancient Judaism, and were later recorded in written form and expanded upon by the rabbis.

Rabbinic Judaism has always held that the books of the Tanakh (called the written law) have always been transmitted in parallel with an oral tradition. To justify this viewpoint, Jews point to the text of the Torah, where many words are left undefined, and many procedures mentioned without explanation or instructions; this, they argue, means that the reader is assumed to be familiar with the details from other, i.e., oral, sources. This parallel set of material was originally transmitted orally, and came to be known as "the oral law".

By the time of Rabbi Judah Ha-Nasi (200 CE), after the destruction of Jerusalem, much of this material was edited together into the Mishnah. Over the next four centuries this law underwent discussion and debate in both of the world's major Jewish communities (in Israel and Babylonia), and the commentaries on the Mishnah from each of these communities eventually came to be edited together into compilations known as the two Talmuds. These have been expounded by commentaries of various Torah scholars during the ages.

Halakha, the rabbinic Jewish way of life, then, is based on a combined reading of the Torah, and the oral tradition - the Mishnah, the halakhic Midrash, the Talmud and its commentaries. The Halakha has developed slowly, through a precedent-based system. The literature of questions to rabbis, and their considered answers, is referred to as responsa (in Hebrew, Sheelot U-Teshuvot.) Over time, as practices develop, codes of Jewish law are written that ar