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eBooks „alien“

446 eBooks were found for the search term „alien“.

Books (446)

Tyler Feist ThunderBird

Fiction
English
3140 Words
Ages 14 and up
349
0

It was raining. But it usually rained. At least that’s what I had noticed. When I had first moved here from Texas it was fine, but now it rained every day. I had moved from the top of the world to the bottom, the middle of southern California. My name is Luke Taylor, or at least it was before the games, but where are my manners, you don’t even know what the games are. Every two years an alien species hosts a series of tests, they make the contestants fight physical and mental challenges. Of course for a 16 year old this would seem impossible. Let me take you back to where it all began. It was night and I sat in his bed. Three years ago that night his dad had passed away from heart failure, on my birthday, I had only been eleven. But here I was sitting in my room on his birthday crying. Early that morning, I had gone into my father’s study and found an old journal that his father had written as a boy. I had read about how my dad had skipped school, how he had been the weird kid at school, because he didn’t care what everyone else thought. I thought about my friend Shawn and how he thought like that. It drove the teacher’s crazy, and most of the popular people, but his real friends thought he was amazing for being that way. Although sometimes it got him in a lot of trouble, like the time he told the principal he looked stupid in a school t-shirt, or the time the science teacher’s jacket caught on fire, he told her she looked hot. That was Shawn. I kept reading about my dad, and how he had once jumped off his house onto a trampoline. It sounded fun until, I found out the trampoline ripped when his dad had landed. That changed my mind very quickly. Then I read about how his dad had accidentally knocked a replica sword of the wall into a fish tank, at his friend’s house. It only impaled two fish. By then I couldn’t take it anymore, if I kept reading he might not be able to stop laughing. I got up and went to his back yard. I hopped the fence; it was only five feet tall, had a solid top, and was made of metal. Behind my house was a canyon; all around the canyon were pieces of a plane that had crashed forty-three years ago, twenty –nine years before I was born. I liked to explore the wreckage. I walked down a hill into the tail of the plane where the luggage usually was. I started looking around; I found a golf club, a brief case filled with socks, a broken rusted phone, and a little item that looked like a sports wrist watch. I pressed a button on it and the watch and it wrapped itself around his wrist. I pulled on it trying to get it off, but it wouldn’t budge. I started pressing buttons trying to get it to let go and I suddenly felt a sharp pain. The second button shot a signal flare up into the sky from the center of the watch, and that’s when everything went dark. When I woke up his head hurt like crazy. The watch was gone but instead I had a ring. It made me look like I was married. I scanned my surroundings, and found that I was strapped to an operation table that was in the middle of what looked like a jail cell. I wondered what had happened. Just then a man walked into the cell, he was tall, maybe 5/4, had white hair, pale white skin, and a long scruffy beard. He walked up to me and started to examine me. [more]

Keywords: Games, Genetics, Fantasy, Fiction

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George Eliot Silas Marner By

Literary Criticism
English
70708 Words
No Age Recommendation
170
0

In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the farmhouses—and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had their toy spinning-wheels of polished oak—there might be seen in districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the hills, certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawny country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race. The shepherd's dog barked fiercely when one of these alien-looking men appeared on the upland, dark against the early winter sunset; for what dog likes a figure bent under a heavy bag?—and these pale men rarely stirred abroad without that mysterious burden. The shepherd himself, though he had good reason to believe that the bag held nothing but flaxen thread, or else the long rolls of strong linen spun from that thread, was not quite sure that this trade of weaving, indispensable though it was, could be carried on entirely without the help of the Evil One. In that far-off time superstition clung easily round every person or thing that was at all unwonted, or even intermittent and occasional merely, like the visits of the pedlar or the knife-grinder. No one knew where wandering men had their homes or their origin; and how was a man to be explained unless you at least knew somebody who knew his father and mother? To the peasants of old times, the world outside their own direct experience was a region of vagueness and mystery: to their untravelled thought a state of wandering was a conception as dim as the winter life of the swallows that came back with the spring; and even a settler, if he came from distant parts, hardly ever ceased to be viewed with a remnant of distrust, which would have prevented any surprise if a long course of inoffensive conduct on his part had ended in the commission of a crime; especially if he had any reputation for knowledge, or showed any skill in handicraft. All cleverness, whether in the rapid use of that difficult instrument the tongue, or in some other art unfamiliar to villagers, was in itself suspicious: honest folk, born and bred in a visible manner, were mostly not overwise or clever—at least, not beyond such a matter as knowing the signs of the weather; and the process by which rapidity and dexterity of any kind were acquired was so wholly hidden, that they partook of the nature of conjuring. In this way it came to pass that those scattered linen-weavers—emigrants from the town into the country—were to the last regarded as aliens by their rustic neighbours, and usually contracted the eccentric habits which belong to a state of loneliness. [more]

Keywords: Silas Marner, George Eliot

$1.99

H. P. Lovecraft At the Mountains of Madness

Horror
English
41283 Words
Ages 8 and up
224
2

At the Mountains of Madness is a novella by horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The story has inadvertently popularized the concept of ancient astronauts, as well as Antarctica's place in the "ancient astronaut mythology". The story is told in first-person perspective by the geologist William Dyer, a professor at Miskatonic University. He writes to disclose hitherto unknown and closely kept secrets in the hope that he can deter a planned and much publicized scientific expedition to Antarctica. On a previous expedition there, scholars from Miskatonic University led by Dyer discovered fantastic and horrific ruins and a dangerous secret beyond a range of mountains higher than the Himalayas. A smaller advance group, led by Professor Lake, discovered and crossed the mountains and found the remains of fourteen ancient life forms, completely unknown to science and unidentifiable as either plants or animals. Six of the specimens are badly damaged and the others uncannily pristine. Their highly evolved features are problematic: their stratum location puts them at a point on the geologic time scale much too early for such features to have naturally evolved. When the main expedition loses contact with Lake's party, Dyer and the rest of his colleagues travel to their last known location to investigate. Lake's camp is devastated, and both the men and the dogs slaughtered, while a man named Gedney and another dog are unaccounted for. Near the camp they find six star-shaped snow mounds, and one specimen buried under each. They discover that the better preserved life forms have vanished, and that some form of dissection experiment has been done on an unnamed man and a dog. Dyer elects to close off the area from which they took their samples. Dyer and a graduate student named Danforth fly an airplane over the mountains, which they soon realize are the outer walls of a huge, abandoned stone city of cubes and cones, utterly alien compared with any human architecture. Because of their resemblance to creatures of myth mentioned in the Necronomicon, the builders of this lost civilization are dubbed the "Elder Things". By exploring these fantastic structures, the men are able to learn the history of the Elder Things through interpreting their magnificent hieroglyphic murals: The Elder Things first came to Earth shortly after the Moon was pulled loose from the planet and were the creators of life. They built their cities with the help of "Shoggoths", biological entities created to perform any task, assume any form, and reflect any thought. As more buildings are explored, a fantastic vista opens of the history of races beyond the scope of man's understanding, including the Elder Things' conflicts with the Star-spawn of Cthulhu and the Mi-go, who arrived on Earth some time after the Elder Things themselves. [more]

Keywords: at the mountains of madness, h p lovecraft, gothic horror, mystery, thriller and suspense, ancient astronauts theory

$2.99

Original:Perugu.Ramakrishna Flemingo

Translation:Jagadhaatri

Poetry
English
3399 Words
No Age Recommendation
670
3

FLEMINGO..(lONG POEM ON MIGRATED BIRDS) Time is infinite Time is a canoe Time is a winged dove Time is desert silence Time is the rumble of the oceans Time is the showering rain droplet It is the tremor of the heart Time is the lingo of history Time is an eternal test A non stop journey is time A ceased path is time Time is life Time is a flow Time is death Time is the opportune right Time is a tide Time is the breath Time is invisible Time is tangible Time is a scene of beauty The breath of an atom is time The tune of an iota is time Time is the play of life and death Time is the envoy of peace and terror There is no shore that the time has not touched And no ray of light untouched by time Time is the manifestation of the ancient Brahman The modern interpretation of duty is time Time is earthly and heaven Time is eternal Time is the river of life Life is a journey In the stream of time! (2) Journey Is a feature of instability The flow A lively spirit Flower voyages Pollinated From flower to flower The bird travels As love From shore to shore As a lineage Procreation Is the maternal instinct And desire for procreation Is the essence of the expansion of the soul Copulation Is it only pertaining to the man alone? Justice in creation Flourishes in plural Many rain droplets do make a rain Umpteen leaves do make a tree Millions of cells do make one creation Loneliness is not the trait of the world Embossing fetus in the ovum The bird blows the warmth of breath The cosmic universe is Perceived in totality by the inner eye (3) Every move is a journey Every death is a journey Every birth is a voyage Flight is the winning spirit of the migrating birds The effort of the ocean of love Is to procreate As the oceans run With the feet of waves As the air flows In wavy winds As life continues With the unending breaths As the world rounds in Non stop news In wings and wings Do fly and arrive these birds The creatures with passion and patience Thousands of kilometers of restless journey To the destination afar In search of wonderlands A partly witness of the Irrepressible instinct The soaring birds flying Like hunks of the rainbow Like the seven colored sankranthi(pongal rangoli) The flowing sea of the bird flock Floats on the treasures of the blue oceans The jingling song of the migrating birds Is a travel A stopover A sojourn A libido All are the traces of the moving time…. (4) The bird is the Infinite freedom with sprouted wings The eyes filled with a fear And a shiver As the soldier of the border forces The bird is a being, all time alert Onlooker with a quest It is the bird that Smears a mosaic of colors To the ends of the wings And tips of the tails The bird is the one Which casts net and Catches hold of the Jet velocity And the splendor of winds In the moment of hunger It is the bird that Surgically operates the available food And feeds on it as a fork Welcoming a dawn The bird is the Wake up call To the society Crossing a cold night Slivering the foggy morn With its beak Flying fast with its legs apart Runs the bird in prey hunt Testing the air contaminated From the farthest branch Of a tall tree It is the bird that removes the pollution On a sunny afternoon On a choicest water meadow It is the bird that Jumps and thumps And somersaults Playing water khabaddi Fluttering the body Dries its wings Measuring the distance of thousands of miles It is the migrating bird That carries The history of the other side of the world To the culture this side And the race of that land To this generation here The bird is the flying goddess of passion A flying message of peace Completing the journeys By the twilight of dusk Gathering near the tree It is the bird that gets ready for a chorus concert It is the bird that reflects The mynahs of poesy Gandharvas (divine singers) of music And the doyens of music Hunger, sleep, love, and passion Are similar to all the living beings Between birth and death Birds too have relations They are not promiscuous Birds too have a social life They do not know social betrayal The bird that unfolds its broad wings of vast feels Seldom knows selfishness It does not contract with narrow mindedness To the lady bird That sits over in hatching With all balance and patience The snacks of Pulicot Brought tucked in the bags beneath its nose Is fed in pecks and perks by the male The bird is beyond jealousy and hatred To the villagers who saved it from Any one shooting a bullet The bird as a good Samaritan in ardent gratitude, Makes the land fertile with its drops Gifting a three times crop and leaves the land The bird must be a role model for the man..!! For sincerity and commitment And discipline. (5) Exodus is an unending journey Migration an age old fete When the hues of life’s backdrop change Exodus is a weapon When the clouds anger Making scarce a droplet of rain The village turns an exodus To the anna datha (farmer) The farmer’s life turns a coolie Exodus transports a generation Exodus changes the way of life At times migration in life Encircles as a whirl pool At times drowns as a typhoon It makes you travel out to the continents For the sake of the tiny belly There is no race and no religion The hunger’s language is universal It may sojourn over anywhere Will make you do anything Stretches its hand until the belly is filled From a dark continent On to the dais of light From an icy country To the warm place Builds the bridge of the seasons (6) The pelicans moving on the wings of time The flamingos that ram in the air car The Painted storks flown in like kites Fluttering on the Konkanai Sails of the waves are the black cranes As the ambassadors of many countries Have taken part in the international conference The nature is all over colorful messages of love All the festivals of love of the bird tourists Are happily celebrated by the youth On all the branches of the land are the happy resorts In whichever village lost is the eye It is the hustle of the moving colorful dreams Are the goods of the empires of Manmadha(god of love) The secrets of Mithuna rasi(Zodiac sign pertaining to love) The hundred puzzles of the colorful flying boats All over the Pulicot lake is the congregation of romantic heroes All over the sky of Pulicot are the airs of emotions Each bird is a hoisted flag of poesy The colorful parrot is a short poem of dreams The dark legged crane that has soiled its feet in the dirt of darkness Washes them in the blue Pulicot The myriad colored sea-parrot Dives into the waters as the water drawing pulley Alone a great sage Stands on single foot in penance When in the shades of waters narayani(heron) appears He chants the manthra of gutakayaswaha(i.e. to swallow it) Folding its wings to the sides of time Gudaswami(the paddy bird or pond heron) Takes thrice a dip in the Pulitheertham(name of a place) As if thousands of women Are stilled as a picture In the postures of classical Indian dances On the dais are the postures of the imitating flamingos The everlasting fight of the usurpers for the water treasure And for the enticing damsels As if the Nelapattu has blown the snake charm Every now and then they journey to the home Naughty kids being the waves, Floating are the winged boats The structure that has turned The Pralaya Kaveri(stormy Kaveri) Into pranaya Saveri(lovable Saveri(a raga)) In the radiant jugalbandi of the jalatharangini Is the passionate shower of dazzling ragas As soon as it dawns in Pulicot Spreading the colorful carpet Entwining the hues of spring and winter Flows as a soaring garden of blooms Watering the mouth of the awaiting sea. (7) The bird guests under the boundless skies Are the messiahs of universal brotherhood The romantic tales carried over by the great poets The Manmadhas(gods of love) who well knew the secrets of love Lovers they are, who have left their family and place With an ardent desire to beget off springs Though in the size of a seed, but vast are their hearts Their eyes are like lamps without wicks To spread light is their message To perceive life is their philosophy Life is a penance Life is radiance Life is a dawn Life is providence Life a tune of the creation From generation to generation pervades life From earth to heaven is the debate of puranas Life is an eternal stream of time! The birds are the flags hoisted by the King of time!! (8) There – On each branch is a concert In each nestle, a sonata Every tree a cluster of myriad hues A bird fete all over the lands Chirps and tickles Coos and laughs Many a confluences of umpteen springs of ragas Many a sum of joy With the exciting songs of the round eyed ones The climate is delighted In the highways of power filled skies A colorful dream unfolds The milky-way Turns a rosy hued stream In the time of saran navarathri Saphari Theerdham(name of a place) Relaxes in the conference of arts The banjara(wagabond) birds that have come Croon the songs of coos They spread out the treasure troves of love Onto the nest of the worlds To the noises of the love making birds All the stars peer down to the earth The ways of love of the romantic hearts Breathe out the passions in loneliness Stretching his hands of rays, sun of the dawn Applies henna in stealth Unfolding the doors of their hearts The blooms color themselves in serenity Color is the manifestation of spirit of life! The lands that were not greeted till the day before Today are, the life of the birds summit The trees that were faded till the day before Are today the strings played veenas Thousands of flute songs of Krishna Now the morns of Nelapattu Are the wavy streams of sweet melodies Now the evenings of Nelapattu Are the springs of songs of the elixir of love A pelican tucks in its lover Into the nestle of its wings A painted stork nearing it Woos its beloved with its long snout The sabari crane in the tune of passion Loses himself to the sweet song of its lady love Turning its body into breath the wood pecker Smears all over the body of its heart throb Not only the floods of milky bosoms But the ardor of sperm too flows In the great yagna of the Santhana Lakshmi(the goddess of children) Millions of lives are dawned (9) Not only the Devakakulu But all the birds are the ancient kith and kin! All our visiting birds are Manvanthara purandharas!(the age old lords of Heaven) We assume the Bulbul to be an alien When have we seen it as a peace monger? We feel the blind crane as the evil spirit Have we ever counted it as the Charioteer of virtue? Though the python is black in color It is as good hearted as the dark lord (Lord Krishna) All the beautiful dances of the red breast are The festoons of light of the happy family ways In the life rituals of the branches Pour in the fuel of lively smiles In the bright journey of procreation, both the branches Ignite the lights of new radiances Numerous tales of love, umpteen loves Each branch is the cottage of Vathsayana(the author of Kama Sutra) Every nestle is a sound of music No creation, no rains, no destruction No progress of the world is possible without the family life Children are to the man, seeds of time And the ovum is the radiance of dynamism for the bird From the seed the tree and from the tree the seed Is the first step to the world’s progress To the yagna(ritual sacrifice) of the migrating birds The flourishing Kadapa tree is the dais The tree is the green flag hoisted by the nature The tree is the comfort to the exhausted mankind To the alien birds that crossed the oceans The tree is the temple of conjugal bliss To the on spreading bird dynasties The tree is the temple of the secret of creation (10) Time is always an open book All are open truths that are snuggled into it Time is a teacher that seldom taught anything to anyone Time is the emissary that tells every one everything The foreign birds are the prophets of yoga of life They are the bosom friends that do not know the hatreds of the borders They are the alien yogis that do not have lust They are the enlightened ones that have seen the secret of the kala chakra(the cycle of time) Greets in the universal lingo, and ecstasies They are well cultured ones that conduct unity camps Holy souls overflow in joy To the emigrant flock with the touch of this land In the lush green shade Appear the dreams of morrow’s generation That’s why I say bird is the indication of time It is the symphony of the past, present and future The holy fire of confluence is the endorsement of trikala tantra Bird loves a bird Soul copulates with the soul Nelapattu is the dais of the perseverance of Poundarika Nelapattu is the indication of age old yagas The sowing of seeds of life from generations Nature is the balancing measure here It is here that nature takes another breath And here the world gives birth to another creation This little land after crossing over the oceans Is a living home for a race It is a pillow of the joys and sorrows Where the dharma of Buddha has excelled It is the stage of dance for the danseuse Rathi Devi(wife of kamadeva, the lord of love) That knew the mystic tune or the tune of mysticism It’s the moment that seeks the justification of the soul Having understood the inevitability of the mortal body Forgetting the body pleasure, and pleasure of the body Manmadha becomes a passionate yogi here It’s the nature that fulfils it’s duty on this land Turning to be a man, it furthers the creation Congregation of birds that have no disparities An egalitarian equality The fragrance of passion to the ones who open eyes And to the eyes closed sages The liberation of the soul Time, changing colors as seasons For a minute, ecstasies as birds It’s here that begins an end To the time infinite The foundation is laid here From the end to the endless (11) Flamingo offers with love to its lady The bedisa(silver fish) that it brings with its nose How much it longs for its lover When it succeeds to fly in whirls Catching the vanjaram(the scomber or the seer -fish )in the net of its nose Fluttering its wings dreams of off springs Who must have taught so many tunes to these birds? How was such passion adorned to these round eyed ones? Which bird was that have shown way to this place? That results every year in this compulsory family fair The ecstasy of life in the foreyard of Nelapattu Wings sprout to the nestlings The tiny fish school, become their food grains Pulicot is the field of water crop The tiny shrimp is the fruit of the crop Fluttering its wings the blue flamingo Hounds the snake fish The crooked nose lakumuki(king fisher) bird Chase the mattagidasa(the sucking fish, called the Echeneis)) Having shattered the line of the girasa(short) fish The baby paraja(Rasica) crow feels joyous The sky seems congested To the nestlings that got wings The blue lake is the food store To the red breast that has learnt to fly In the battle for food To the shouts of hunger and The dance of the Bharatha(Titlark or Pippit called in Dakhini Chendul)) bird Searching for prey Bulbul is the food Hunger is the age old enemy to all the living beings To gratify hunger is peace for any being Even the gods of heaven savor elixir in hunger When big fish is swallowing the small ones Why is it wrong if birds feed on fish? As if the rainbows had bathed As the Apsaras (divine courtesans of the heaven)cast their charms Festival of colors on the waves of Pulicot A divine game of the baby sparrows The water meadow filled with children Looks like a conference of joy and gay In the eyes of the bird watchers Reflects a kaleidoscope of colors From Nelapattu to Pulicot This bird festival Flows like a stream of water colors The celebration reaches the skies Neither trap nor net, and no hook Beak is the mere weapon The battle of hunger seldom stops Even in tides and in the nets of waves and typhoons All the expertise lies in hunting However a great jalapushpam(fish) The test is to catch the prey with its beak Is the sanguine trait shared Pulicot is the resort for a change of climate For the progress of the breed the trunks of Nelapattu are the residencies The Pralaya Kaveri is now the grace f love Every nestling born here is morrow’s bird The yester born narayana(the common heron) The water parrot that fed on this land Having breathed his first in the nest of this tree Can the alien Sabari ever forget? The colorful dreams of the pelicans The blooms of hope of their beautiful nights The cool breeze and the odor of the soil of Nelapattu Can the red breast ever lose memory of this honeymoon? The ecology of India echoed with The divine violin notes of gratitude The land is infinite and sky vast As the flow of time the ocean too is boundless The one who called these foreign birds as aliens The one who made immigration as inheritance If he goes from this village Begets a child in that great nation Earns a green card and citizenship But how can the egg laid here be an alien? Can the way of pariga(the rose colored Starling or theCholam bird. Pastor roseus) brought up in the Pralaya Kaveri be changed? This soil is remembered by every bird And hence every year it turns up to its motherland! (12) The scene of the skies blooming in myriad colors On the branches of the rubber trees is The sweet home of the flamingo and pelican Reflects the groping families of man In the spreading apartment culture In the shades of the hoods of the waters of Pralaya Kaveri Joyously bathes the Siberia Forgetting the tiresomeness of thousands of miles As the armed forces of navy The meghmalhar(a raga that invokes rain God) song of the bird How many brushes of the artist must have bowed in reverence? To this sea parrot Umpteen canvases must have lost their faces In the symphony of the chirps of love birds is The still picture of the happy NRI doves The music of sarigama (the seven music notes)that teaches the soaring music to the heart At least once in a year…… The passion for the embrace of the motherland The longing to kiss the soil of birth The son of the soil who lost his inner face Forgetting the roots of life in the battle Having turned into a machine At least …now Have to transmigrate into the bird! Conclusion All the souls become one The cosmic treasures become divine souls In the confluence of the water treasures of India Taking a holy dip turn to be the holy souls What may be the divinity of the migrating birds They always worship Narayana in waters. Telugu original: Perugu Ramakrishna Eng trans: Jagaddhatri [more]

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BAD Agar, Adrassil Secret War: Upon Blood Sands

Science Fiction
English
8623 Words
Ages 16 and up
130
0

Attelus and Kalakor didn't bother with stealth or subtlety, and the Space Marine led the way as they stepped out of the corridor and onto the hangar's catwalk. Instantly las and solid shots rained against Kalakor's power armour, and Kalakor raised his bolter and replied in kind. Attelus slipped past Kalakor and, in a split second, took in his surroundings. The docking bay was now crawling with dozens of cultists and guardsmen. Two huge, hunched, horned daemons were amongst them, standing head and shoulders taller than any of the Resurrected. Grinning, Attelus smashed aside a few shots and vaulted over the handrail. His sword sliced through one unlucky cultist from head to the groin as he was in mid-fall. Attelus landed into a kneel then lunged across six metres to cut through the chest of a guardsman as he was raising his lasgun. The throne agent whipped out his foot in a hook kick which sent the corpse's upper half flying and spinning, then smashing into the skull of a charging cultist who collapsed and crashed into a guardsman beside him. He laughed and dashed aside a withering hail of shots that followed him as he continued to sprint. A cultist stepped into his path; a chainsword held ready. Attelus slid into a kneel, and the chainsword swing, which was meant to tear through his torso, passed over his head. Attelus gutted the cultist with a horizontal cut, darted onto the screaming cultist's flank, then onward, so the rounds raining in his wake tore the heretic to shreds. He charged for the enemy flank, a Marangerian trooper roared at Attelus, stabbing with a bayonet. Attelus sidestepped, then bisected the Maragerian's skull with a downward, diagonal stroke. A cultist let out an enraged screech and came at Attelus, but before Attelus could counter the cultist's stabbing combat blade, the bastard's head exploded in a haze of red and sent spinning back, the neck spewing out a thick tendril of blood. Attelus back-pedalled a Velrosian sergeant's whirling chainsword, then his sword parried through a swinging lasgun. Attelus sent a side-kick that bashed in the last guardsman's face. Attelus' backswing then opened the sergeant's throat. He carried his slash into a 180-degree arc that sliced through the elbows of a cultist as he was in the midst of a wild overhead chop. A thrusting bayonet made Attelus duck, then as the enemy guardsman was about to swing out the butt of his lasgun Attelus kicked him under the jaw with his boot knife; Attelus pulled his foot out and kicked the man back into his ally. Attelus blocked a slashing axe, then weaved beneath another cutting chainsword. He then impaled the axe-wielding cultist through the skull, pulled out his blade, then sliced straight diagonally from the shoulder to hip of the guardswoman sergeant with the chainsword. A split second later, one of the daemons burst through its Resurrected allies; it snarled and, with a sword as long as it was tall, smashed out a downward, diagonal strike. Attelus danced back of it, then ducked its huge reverse swing. The second daemon pushed past the first's left and swung down vertically. Attelus dashed out of its path, and the black, hazed with blood-red blade hit the deck with a deafening clang and smashed in some of the steel. "Get out of the way," Kalakor said over the vox, and Attelus started darting toward the stairs. Two frag grenades clanged at the daemons' clawed feet and exploded. It sent them and the six nearest Resurrected flying. Attelus sprinted up the stairs while drawing his autopistol from its chest holster and stood beside Kalakor. "You are a fool," said the Raven Guard as he fired bolter round after bolter into the enemy horde, which seemed to grow and grow. "Why did you abandon cover and an elevated position?" Attelus took cover behind the marine and added his piddling fire to Kalakor's roaring deluge. "Mostly out of fun," said Attelus. "And a little so I can be a distraction for you to be able to kill as many of the enemy as possible." Kalakor sighed. "You aim for the mortals; I will take care of the Bloodletters." "Bloodletters?" said Attelus while sending a cultist cracking, bouncing down the stairs with around to the chest. "Is that what they're called?" With incredible speed, Kalakor ejected his empty clip and reloaded. "You are a part of the Inquisition, but you do not know what those daemons are named?" Attelus shrugged as he darted back from a brief fusillade. "We're Ordo Hereticus; the daemonic isn't our speciality. I do know that they are in the service of the blood god, though." "But you still ally with Xenos, despite the fact that you are not Ordo Xenos, but the alien is not your speciality, either." Attelus said nothing, just cut down a guardsman as he was starting to advance up the stairs. His vox bead beeped. "We're about to enter the city," said Darrance. "Get ready for-" "Yes, yes," said Attelus. "Evasive manoeuvres, we know." "Hold on to me," said Kalakor as he magneti [more]

Keywords: warhammer, 40k, warhammer 40k, fanfic, inquisition, inquisitor, space marine, action, 40000, khorne, cult, chaos, imperial guard, war, badss

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shawnti judaism

by shawnti

History
English
12608 Words
No Age Recommendation
1416
19

Judaism (from the Latin Iudaismus, derived from the Greek Ioudaïsmos, and ultimately from the Hebrew יהודה, Yehudah, "Judahin Hebrew: יַהֲדוּת, Yahedut, the distinctive characteristics of the Judean ethnos is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people.Originating in the Hebrew Bible (also known as the Tanakh) and explored in later texts such as the Talmud, it is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the covenantal relationship God developed with the Children of Israel. According to Rabbinic Judaism, God revealed his laws and commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai in the form of both the Written and Oral Torah. This was historically challenged by the Karaites, a movement that flourished in the medieval period, retains several thousand followers today and maintains that only the Written Torah was revealed. In modern times, liberal movements such as Humanistic Judaism may be nontheistic. Judaism claims a historical continuity spanning more than 3,000 years. It is one of the oldest monotheistic religions, and the oldest to survive into the present day. The Hebrews / Israelites were already referred to as "Jews" in later books of the Tanakh such as the Book of Esther, with the term Jews replacing the title "Children of Israel". Judaism's texts, traditions and values strongly influenced later Abrahamic religions, including Christianity, Islam and the Baha'i Faith.Many aspects of Judaism have also directly or indirectly influenced secular Western ethics and civil law. Jews are an ethnoreligious group and include those born Jewish and converts to Judaism. In 2010, the world Jewish population was estimated at 13.4 million, or roughly 0.2% of the total world population. About 42% of all Jews reside in Israel and about 42% reside in the United States and Canada, with most of the remainder living in Europe. The largest Jewish religious movements are Orthodox Judaism (Hareidi Judaism and Modern Orthodox Judaism), Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism. A major source of difference between these groups is their approach to Jewish law. Orthodox Judaism maintains that the Torah and Jewish law are divine in origin, eternal and unalterable, and that they should be strictly followed. Conservative and Reform Judaism are more liberal, with Conservative Judaism generally promoting a more "traditional" interpretation of Judaism's requirements than Reform Judaism. A typical Reform position is that Jewish law should be viewed as a set of general guidelines rather than as a set of restrictions and obligations whose observance is required of all Jews.Historically, special courts enforced Jewish law; today, these courts still exist but the practice of Judaism is mostly voluntary. Authority on theological and legal matters is not vested in any one person or organization, but in the sacred texts and the many rabbis and scholars who interpret these texts. Unlike other ancient Near Eastern gods, the Hebrew God is portrayed as unitary and solitary; consequently, the Hebrew God's principal relationships are not with other gods, but with the world, and more specifically, with the people He created.Judaism thus begins with an ethical monotheism: the belief that God is one, and concerned with the actions of humankind.According to the Hebrew Bible, God promised Abraham to make of his offspring a great nation.Many generations later, he commanded the nation of Israel to love and worship only one God; that is, the Jewish nation is to reciprocate God's concern for the world. He also commanded the Jewish people to love one another; that is, Jews are to imitate God's love for people. These commandments are but two of a large corpus of commandments and laws that constitute this covenant, which is the substance of Judaism. Thus, although there is an esoteric tradition in Judaism (Kabbalah), Rabbinic scholar Max Kadushin has characterized normative Judaism as "normal mysticism", because it involves every-day personal experiences of God through ways or modes that are common to all Jews. This is played out through the observance of the halakhot and given verbal expression in the Birkat Ha-Mizvot, the short blessings that are spoken every time a positive commandment is to be fulfilled. The ordinary, familiar, everyday things and occurrences, we have constitute occasions for the experience of God. Such things as one's daily sustenance, the very day itself, are felt as manifestations of God's loving-kindness, calling for the Berakhot. Kedushah, holiness, which is nothing else than the imitation of God, is concerned with daily conduct, with being gracious and merciful, with keeping oneself from defilement by idolatry, adultery, and the shedding of blood. The Birkat Ha-Mitzwot evokes the consciousness of holiness at a rabbinic rite, but the objects employed in the majority of these rites are non-holy and of general character, while the several holy objects are non-theurgic. And not only do ordinary things and occurrences bring with them the experience of God. Everything that happens to a man evokes that experience, evil as well as good, for a Berakah is said also at evil tidings. Hence, although the experience of God is like none other, the occasions for experiencing Him, for having a consciousness of Him, are manifold, even if we consider only those that call for Berakot. Whereas Jewish philosophers often debate whether God is immanent or transcendent, and whether people have free will or their lives are determined, Halakha is a system through which any Jew acts to bring God into the world. Ethical monotheism is central in all sacred or normative texts of Judaism. However, monotheism has not always been followed in practice. The Jewish Bible (Tanakh) records and repeatedly condemns the widespread worship of other gods in ancient Israel. In the Greco-Roman era, many different interpretations of monotheism existed in Judaism, including the interpretations that gave rise to Christianity. Moreover, as a non-creedal religion, some have argued that Judaism does not require one to believe in God. For some, observance of Jewish law is more important than belief in God per se. In modern times, some liberal Jewish movements do not accept the existence of a personified deity active in history. Core tenetsMain article: Jewish principles of faith 13 Principles of Faith: 1.I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, Blessed be His Name, is the Creator and Guide of everything that has been created; He alone has made, does make, and will make all things. 2.I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, Blessed be His Name, is One, and that there is no unity in any manner like His, and that He alone is our God, who was, and is, and will be. 3.I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, Blessed be His Name, has no body, and that He is free from all the properties of matter, and that there can be no (physical) comparison to Him whatsoever. 4.I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, Blessed be His Name, is the first and the last. 5.I believe with perfect faith that to the Creator, Blessed be His Name, and to Him alone, it is right to pray, and that it is not right to pray to any being besides Him. 6.I believe with perfect faith that all the words of the prophets are true. 7.I believe with perfect faith that the prophecy of Moses our teacher, peace be upon him, was true, and that he was the chief of the prophets, both those who preceded him and those who followed him. 8.I believe with perfect faith that the entire Torah that is now in our possession is the same that was given to Moses our teacher, peace be upon him. 9.I believe with perfect faith that this Torah will not be exchanged, and that there will never be any other Torah from the Creator, Blessed be His Name. 10.I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, Blessed be His Name, knows all the deeds of human beings and all their thoughts, as it is written, "Who fashioned the hearts of them all, Who comprehends all their actions" (Psalms 33:15). 11.I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, Blessed be His Name, rewards those who keep His commandments and punishes those that transgress them. 12.I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah; and even though he may tarry, nonetheless, I wait every day for his coming. 13.I believe with perfect faith that there will be a revival of the dead at the time when it shall please the Creator, Blessed be His name, and His mention shall be exalted for ever and ever. -MaimonidesScholars throughout Jewish history have proposed numerous formulations of Judaism's core tenets, all of which have met with criticism. The most popular formulation is Maimonides' thirteen principles of faith, developed in the 12th century. According to Maimonides, any Jew who rejects even one of these principles would be considered an apostate and a heretic. Jewish scholars have held points of view diverging in various ways from Maimonides' principles. In Maimonides' time, his list of tenets was criticized by Hasdai Crescas and Joseph Albo. Albo and the Raavad argued that Maimonides' principles contained too many items that, while true, were not fundamentals of the faith. Along these lines, the ancient historian Josephus emphasized practices and observances rather than religious beliefs, associating apostasy with a failure to observe Jewish law and maintaining that the requirements for conversion to Judaism included circumcision and adherence to traditional customs. Maimonides' principles were largely ignored over the next few centuries. Later, two poetic restatements of these principles ("Ani Ma'amin" and "Yigdal") became integrated into many Jewish liturgies,[citation needed] leading to their eventual near-universal acceptance. In modern times, Judaism lacks a centralized authority that would dictate an exact religious dogma.Because of this, many different variations on the basic beliefs are considered within the scope of Judaism.Even so, all Jewish religious movements are, to a greater or lesser extent, based on the principles of the Hebrew Bible and various commentaries such as the Talmud and Midrash. Judaism also universally recognizes the Biblical Covenant between God and the Patriarch Abraham as well as the additional aspects of the Covenant revealed to Moses, who is considered Judaism's greatest prophet. In the Mishnah, a core text of Rabbinic Judaism, acceptance of the Divine origins of this covenant is considered an essential aspect of Judaism and those who reject the Covenant forfeit their share in the World to Come The basis of Jewish law and tradition (halakha) is the Torah (also known as the Pentateuch or 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 farmers 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 whose beliefs were 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 (which derives from the Pharisees) has always held that the books of the Torah (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 haNasi (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 are based on the responsa; the most important code, the Shulchan Aruch, largely determines Orthodox religious practice today. Jewish philosophyMain article: Jewish philosophy Jewish philosophy refers to the conjunction between serious study of philosophy and Jewish theology. Major Jewish philosophers include Solomon ibn Gabirol, Saadia Gaon, Judah Halevi, Maimonides, and Gersonides. Major changes occurred in response to the Enlightenment (late 18th to early 19th century) leading to the post-Enlightenment Jewish philosophers. Modern Jewish philosophy consists of both Orthodox and non-Orthodox oriented philosophy. Notable among Orthodox Jewish philosophers are Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and Yitzchok Hutner. Well-known non-Orthodox Jewish philosophers include Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Mordecai Kaplan, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Will Herberg, and Emmanuel Lévinas. Related Topics Torah databases (electronic versions of the Traditional Jewish Bookshelf) List of Jewish prayers and blessings Rabbinic hermeneutics13 Principles of Hermeneutics: 1.A law that operates under certain conditions will surely be operative in other situations where the same conditions are present in a more acute form 2.A law operating in one situation will also be operative in another situation, if the text characterizes both situations in identical terms. 3.A law that clearly expresses the purpose it was meant to serve will also apply to other situations where the identical purpose may be served. 4.When a general rule is followed by illustrative particulars, only those particulars are to be embraced by it. 5.A law that begins with specifying particular cases, and then proceeds to an all-embracing generalization, is to be applied to particulars cases not specified but logically falling into the same generalization. 6.A law that begins with a generalization as to its intended applications, then continues with the specification of particular cases, and then concludes with a restatement of the generalization, can be applied only to the particular cases specified. 7.The rules about a generalization being followed or preceded by specifying particulars (rules 4 and 5) will not apply if it is apparent that the specification of the particular cases or the statement of the generalization is meant purely for achieving a greater clarity of language. 8.A particular case already covered in a generalization that is nevertheless treated separately suggests that the same particularized treatment be applied to all other cases which are covered in that generalization. 9.A penalty specified for a general category of wrong-doing is not to be automatically applied to a particular case that is withdrawn from the general rule to be specifically prohibited, but without any mention of the penalty. 10.A general prohibition followed by a specified penalty may be followed by a particular case, normally included in the generalization, with a modification in penalty, either toward easing it or making it more severe. 11.A case logically falling into a general law but treated separately remains outside the provisions of the general law except in those instances where it is specifically included in them. 12.Obscurities in Biblical texts may be cleared up from the immediate context or from subsequently occurring passages 13.Contradictions in Biblical passages may be removed through the mediation of other passages. -R. Ishmael Orthodox and many other Jews do not believe that the revealed Torah consists solely of its written contents, but of its interpretations as well. The study of Torah (in its widest sense, to include both poetry, narrative, and law, and both the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud) is in Judaism itself a sacred act of central importance. For the sages of the Mishnah and Talmud, and for their successors today, the study of Torah was therefore not merely a means to learn the contents of God's revelation, but an end in itself. According to the Talmud, These are the things for which a person enjoys the dividends in this world while the principal remains for the person to enjoy in the world to come; they are: honoring parents, loving deeds of kindness, and making peace between one person and another. But the study of the Torah is equal to them all. (Talmud Shabbat 127a). In Judaism, "the study of Torah can be a means of experiencing God". Reflecting on the contribution of the Amoraim and Tanaim to contemporary Judaism, Professor Jacob Neusner observed: The rabbi's logical and rational inquiry is not mere logic-chopping. It is a most serious and substantive effort to locate in trivialities the fundamental principles of the revealed will of God to guide and sanctify the most specific and concrete actions in the workaday world .... Here is the mystery of Talmudic Judaism: the alien and remote conviction that the intellect is an instrument not of unbelief and desacralization but of sanctification." To study the Written Torah and the Oral Torah in light of each other is thus also to study how to study the word of God. In the study of Torah, the sages formulated and followed various logical and hermeneutical principles. According to David Stern, all Rabbinic hermeneutics rest on two basic axioms: first, the belief in the omnisignificance of Scripture, in the meaningfulness of its every word, letter, even (according to one famous report) scribal flourish; second, the claim of the essential unity of Scripture as the expression of the single divine will. These two principles make possible a great variety of interpretations. According to the Talmud, A single verse has several meanings, but no two verses hold the same meaning. It was taught in the school of R. Ishmael: 'Behold, My word is like fire—declares the Lord—and like a hammer that shatters rock' (Jer 23:29). Just as this hammer produces many sparks (when it strikes the rock), so a single verse has several meanings." (Talmud Sanhedrin 34a). Observant Jews thus view the Torah as dynamic, because it contains within it a host of interpretations According to Rabbinic tradition, all valid interpretations of the written Torah were revealed to Moses at Sinai in oral form, and handed down from teacher to pupil (The oral revelation is in effect coextensive with the Talmud itself). When different rabbis forwarded conflicting interpretations, they sometimes appealed to hermeneutic principles to legitimize their arguments; some rabbis claim that these principles were themselves revealed by God to Moses at Sinai. Thus, Hillel called attention to seven commonly used in the interpretation of laws (baraita at the beginning of Sifra); R. Ishmael, thirteen (baraita at the beginning of Sifra; this collection is largely an amplification of that of Hillel).Eliezer b. Jose ha-Gelili listed 32, largely used for the exegesis of narrative elements of Torah. All the hermeneutic rules scattered through the Talmudim and Midrashim have been collected by Malbim in Ayyelet ha-Shachar, the introduction to his commentary on the Sifra. Nevertheless, R. Ishmael's 13 principles are perhaps the ones most widely known; they constitute an important, and one of Judaism's earliest, contributions to logic, hermeneutics, and jurisprudence. Judah Hadassi incorporated Ishmael's principles into Karaite Judaism in the 12th century.Today R. Ishmael's 13 principles are incorporated into the Jewish prayer book to be read by observant Jews on a daily basis. Jewish identityOrigin of the term "Judaism"The term Judaism derives from the Latin Iudaismus, derived from the Greek Ιουδαϊσμός Ioudaïsmos, and ultimately from the Hebrew יהודה, Yehudah, "Judah"; in Hebrew: יַהֲדוּת, Yahadut. It first appears as the Hellenistic Greek iudaismos in 2nd Maccabees in the 2nd century BCE. In the context of the age and period it held the meaning of seeking or forming part of a cultural entity, that of iudea, the Greek derivative of Persian Yehud, and can be compared with hellenismos, meaning acceptance of Hellenic cultural norms (the conflict between iudaismos and hellenismos lay behind the Maccabeean revolt and hence the invention of the term iudaismos). The earliest instance of the term in English, used to mean "the profession or practice of the Jewish religion; the religious system or polity of the Jews", is Robert Fabyan's The newe cronycles of Englande and of Fraunce a 1513. As an English translation of the Latin, the first instance in English is a 1611 translation of the Apocrypha(Deuterocanon in Catholic and Orthodox Christianity), 2 Macc. ii. 21 "Those that behaved themselues manfully to their honour for Iudaisme." Distinction between Jews as a people and JudaismAccording to Daniel Boyarin, the underlying distinction between religion and ethnicity is foreign to Judaism itself, and is one form of the dualism between spirit and flesh that has its origin in Platonic philosophy and that permeated Hellenistic Judaism. Consequently, in his view, Judaism does not fit easily into conventional Western categories, such as religion, ethnicity, or culture. Boyarin suggests that this in part reflects the fact that much of Judaism's more than 3,000-year history predates the rise of Western culture and occurred outside the West (that is, Europe, particularly medieval and modern Europe). During this time, Jews have experienced slavery, anarchic and theocratic self-government, conquest, occupation, and exile; in the Diasporas, 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, which would bear fruit in the form of a Jewish state in the Levant. They also saw an elite convert to Judaism (the Khazars), only to disappear as the centers of power in the lands once occupied by that elite fell to the people of Rus and then the Mongols. Thus, 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." In contrast to this point of view, practices such as Humanistic Judaism reject the religious aspects of Judaism, while retaining certain cultural traditions. Who is a Jew?Main article: Who is a Jew? According to traditional Jewish Law, a Jew is anyone born of a Jewish mother or converted to Judaism in accordance with Jewish Law. American Reform Judaism and British Liberal Judaism accept the child of one Jewish parent (father or mother) as Jewish if the parents raise the child with a Jewish identity. All mainstream forms of Judaism today are open to sincere converts, although conversion has traditionally been discouraged since the time of the Talmud. The conversion process is evaluated by an authority, and the convert is examined on his or her sincerity and knowledge. Converts are given the name "ben Abraham" or "bat Abraham", (son or daughter of Abraham). Traditional Judaism maintains that a Jew, whether by birth or conversion, is a Jew forever. Thus a Jew who claims to be an atheist or converts to another religion is still considered by traditional Judaism to be Jewish. According to some sources, the Reform movement has maintained that a Jew who has converted to another religion is no longer a Jew, and the Israeli Government has also taken that stance after Supreme Court cases and statutes.However, the Reform movement has indicated that this is not so cut and dry, and different situations call for consideration and differing actions. For example, Jews who have converted under duress may be permitted to return to Judaism "without any action on their part but their desire to rejoin the Jewish community" and "A proselyte who has become an apostate remains, nevertheless, a Jew". The question of what determines Jewish identity in the State of Israel was given new impetus when, in the 1950s, David Ben-Gurion requested opinions on mihu Yehudi ("who is a Jew") from Jewish religious authorities and intellectuals worldwide in order to settle citizenship questions. This is still not settled, and occasionally resurfaces in Israeli politics. Jewish demographicsMain article: Jewish population The total number of Jews worldwide is difficult to assess because the definition of "who is a Jew" is problematic; not all Jews identify themselves as Jewish, and some who identify as Jewish are not considered so by other Jews. According to the Jewish Year Book (1901), the global Jewish population in 1900 was around 11 million. The latest available data is from the World Jewish Population Survey of 2002 and the Jewish Year Calendar (2005). In 2002, according to the Jewish Population Survey, there were 13.3 million Jews around the world. The Jewish Year Calendar cites 14.6 million. Jewish population growth is currently near zero percent, with 0.3% growth from 2000 to 2001. Jewish religious movementsMain article: Jewish religious movements Rabbinic JudaismRabbinic Judaism (or in some Christian traditions, Rabbinism) (Hebrew: "Yahadut Rabanit" - יהדות רבנית) has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century CE, after the codification of the Talmud. It is characterised by the belief that the Written Torah (Law) cannot be correctly interpreted without reference to the Oral Torah and by the voluminous literature specifying what behavior is sanctioned by the law (called halakha, "the way"). The Jewish Enlightenment of the late 18th century resulted in the division of Ashkenazi (Western) Jewry into religious movements or denominations, especially in North America and Anglophone countries. The main denominations today outside Israel (where the situation is rather different) are Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform. Orthodox Judaism holds that both the Written and Oral Torah were divinely revealed to Moses, and that the laws within it are binding and unchanging. Orthodox Jews generally consider commentaries on the Shulchan Aruch (a condensed codification of halakha that largely favored Sephardic traditions) to be the definitive codification of Jewish law. Orthodoxy places a high importance on Maimonides' 13 principles as a definition of Jewish faith. Orthodoxy is often divided into Modern Orthodox Judaism and Haredi Judaism. Haredi Judaism is less accommodating to modernity and has less interest in non-Jewish disciplines, and it may be distinguished from Modern Orthodox Judaism in practice by its styles of dress and more stringent practices. Subsets of Haredi Judaism include: Hasidic Judaism, which is rooted in the Kabbalah and distinguished by reliance on a Rebbe or religious teacher; and Sephardic Haredi Judaism, which emerged among Sephardic (Asian and North African) Jews in Israel. Conservative Judaism, known as Masorti outside the United States and Canada, is characterized by a commitment to traditional Jewish laws and customs, including observance of Shabbat and kashrut, a deliberately non-fundamentalist teaching of Jewish principles of faith, a positive attitude toward modern culture, and an acceptance of both traditional rabbinic and modern scholarship when considering Jewish religious texts. Conservative Judaism teaches that Jewish law is not static, but has always developed in response to changing conditions. It holds that the Torah is a divine document written by prophets inspired by God and reflecting his will, but rejects the Orthodox position that it was dictated by God to Moses. Conservative Judaism holds that the Oral Law is divine and normative, but holds that both the Written and Oral Law may be interpreted by the rabbis to reflect modern sensibilities and suit modern conditions. Reform Judaism, called Liberal or Progressive Judaism in many countries, defines Judaism as a religion rather than as a race or culture, rejects most of the ritual and ceremonial laws of the Torah while observing moral laws, and emphasizes the ethical call of the Prophets. Reform Judaism has developed an egalitarian prayer service in the vernacular (along with Hebrew in many cases) and emphasizes personal connection to Jewish tradition. A Reform synagogue with mixed seating and equal participation of men and womenReconstructionist Judaism, like Reform Judaism, does not hold that Jewish law, as such, requires observance, but unlike Reform, Reconstructionist thought emphasizes the role of the community in deciding what observances to follow. Jewish Renewal is a recent North American movement which focuses on spirituality and social justice, but does not address issues of Jewish law. Men and women participate equally in prayer. Humanistic Judaism is a small non-theistic movement centered in North America and Israel that emphasizes Jewish culture and history as the sources of Jewish identity. Jewish movements in IsraelMain article: Religion in Israel Most Jewish Israelis classify themselves as "secular" (hiloni), "traditional" (masorti), "religious" (dati) or Haredi. The term "secular" is more popular as a self-description among Israeli families of western (European) origin, whose Jewish identity may be a very powerful force in their lives, but who see it as largely independent of traditional religious belief and practice. This portion of the population largely ignores organized religious life, be it of the official Israeli rabbinate (Orthodox) or of the liberal movements common to diaspora Judaism (Reform, Conservative). The term "traditional" (masorti) is most common as a self-description among Israeli families of "eastern" origin (i.e., the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa). This term, as commonly used, has nothing to do with the official Masorti (Conservative) movement. There is a great deal of ambiguity in the ways "secular" and "traditional" are used in Israel: they often overlap, and they cover an extremely wide range in terms of ideology and religious observance. The term "Orthodox" is not popular in Israeli discourse, although the percentage of Jews who come under that category is far greater than in the diaspora. What would be called "Orthodox" in the diaspora includes what is commonly called dati (religious) or haredi (ultra-Orthodox) in Israel. The former term includes what is called "Religious Zionism" or the "National Religious" community, as well as what has become known over the past decade or so as haredi-leumi (nationalist haredi), or "Hardal", which combines a largely haredi lifestyle with nationalist ideology. (Some people, in Yiddish, also refer to observant Orthodox Jews as frum, as opposed to frei (more liberal Jews)). Haredi applies to a populace that can be roughly divided into three separate groups along both ethnic and ideological lines: (1) "Lithuanian" (non-hasidic) haredim of Ashkenazic origin; (2) Hasidic haredim of Ashkenazic origin; and (3) Sephardic haredim. Alternative JudaismMain article: Alternative Judaism Karaite Judaism defines itself as the remnants of the non-Rabbinic Jewish sects of the Second Temple period, such as the Sadducees. The Karaites ("Scripturalists") accept only the Hebrew Bible and what they view as the Peshat ("simple" meaning); they do not accept non-biblical writings as authoritative. Some European Karaites do not see themselves as part of the Jewish community at all, although most do. The Samaritans, a very small community located entirely around Mount Gerizim in the Nablus/Shechem region of the West Bank and in Holon, near Tel Aviv in Israel, regard themselves as the descendants of the Israelites of the Iron Age kingdom of Israel. Their religious practices are those of Judaism, but they regard only the written Torah as authoritative scripture (with a special regard also for the Book of Joshua). Jewish observancesJewish ethicsMain article: Jewish ethics Jewish ethics may be guided by halakhic traditions, by other moral principles, or by central Jewish virtues. Jewish ethical practice is typically understood to be marked by values such as justice, truth, peace, loving-kindness (chesed), compassion, humility, and self-respect. Specific Jewish ethical practices include practices of charity (tzedakah) and refraining from negative speech (lashon hara). Proper ethical practices regarding sexuality and many other issues are subjects of dispute among Jews. PrayersMain article: Jewish services A Yemenite Jew at morning prayers, wearing a kippah skullcap, prayer shawl and tefillinTraditionally, 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 in many services is the declaration of faith, the Shema Yisrael (or Shema). The Shema is the recitation of a verse from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4): Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad—"Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God! The Lord is One!" Most of the prayers in a traditional Jewish service can be recited in solitary prayer, although communal prayer is preferred. Communal prayer requires a quorum of ten adult Jews, called a minyan. In nearly all Orthodox and a few Conservative circles, only male Jews are counted toward a minyan; most Conservative Jews and members of other Jewish denominations count female Jews as well. In addition to prayer services, observant traditional Jews recite prayers and benedictions throughout the day when performing various acts. Prayers are recited upon waking up in the morning, before eating or drinking different foods, after eating a meal, and so on. The approach to prayer varies among the Jewish denominations. Differences can include the texts of prayers, the frequency of prayer, the number of prayers recited at various religious events, the use of musical instruments and choral music, and whether prayers are recited in the traditional liturgical languages or the vernacular. In general, Orthodox and Conservative congregations adhere most closely to tradition, and Reform and Reconstructionist synagogues are more likely to incorporate translations and contemporary writings in their services. Also, in most Conservative synagogues, and all Reform and Reconstructionist congregations, women participate in prayer services on an equal basis with men, including roles traditionally filled only by men, such as reading from the Torah. In addition, many Reform temples use musical accompaniment such as organs and mixed choirs. Religious clothingFurther information: kippah, tzitzit, and tefillin A kippah (Hebrew: כִּפָּה, plural kippot; Yiddish: יאַרמלקע, yarmulke) is a slightly rounded brimless skullcap worn by many Jews while praying, eating, reciting blessings, or studying Jewish religious texts, and at all times by some Jewish men. In Orthodox communities, only men wear kippot; in non-Orthodox communities, some women also wear kippot. Kippot range in size from a small round beanie that covers only the back of the head, to a large, snug cap that covers the whole crown. Tzitzit (Hebrew: צִיציִת) (Ashkenazi pronunciation: tzitzis) are special knotted "fringes" or "tassels" found on the four corners of the tallit (Hebrew: טַלִּית) (Ashkenazi pronunciation: tallis), or prayer shawl. The tallit is worn by Jewish men and some Jewish women during the prayer service. Customs vary regarding when a Jew begins wearing a tallit. In the Sephardi community, boys wear a tallit from bar mitzvah age. In some Ashkenazi communities it is customary to wear one only after marriage. A tallit katan (small tallit) is a fringed garment worn under the clothing throughout the day. In some Orthodox circles, the fringes are allowed to hang freely outside the clothing. Tefillin (Hebrew: תְפִלִּין), known in English as phylacteries (from the Greek word φυλακτήριον, meaning safeguard or amulet), are two square leather boxes containing biblical verses, attached to the forehead and wound around the left arm by leather straps. They are worn during weekday morning prayer by observant Jewish men and some Jewish women. A kittel (Yiddish: קיטל), a white knee-length overgarment, is worn by prayer leaders and some observant traditional Jews on the High Holidays. It is traditional for the head of the household to wear a kittel at the Passover seder in some communities, and some grooms wear one under the wedding canopy. Jewish males are buried in a tallit and sometimes also a kittel which are part of the tachrichim (burial garments). Jewish holidaysMain article: Jewish holiday Jewish holidays are special days in the Jewish calendar, which celebrate moments in Jewish history, as well as central themes in the relationship between God and the world, such as creation, revelation, and redemption. ShabbatMain article: Shabbat Two braided Shabbat challahs placed under an embroidered challah cover at the start of the Shabbat mealShabbat, the weekly day of rest lasting from shortly before sundown on Friday night to nightfall Saturday night, commemorates God's day of rest after six days of creation.It plays a pivotal role in Jewish practice and is governed by a large corpus of religious law. At sundown on Friday, the woman of the house welcomes the Shabbat by lighting two or more candles and reciting a blessing. The evening meal begins with the Kiddush, a blessing recited aloud over a cup of wine, and the Mohtzi, a blessing recited over the bread. It is customary to have challah, two braided loaves of bread, on the table. During Shabbat Jews are forbidden to engage in any activity that falls under 39 categories of melakhah, translated literally as "work". In fact the activities banned on the Sabbath are not "work" in the usual sense: They include such actions as lighting a fire, writing, using money and carrying in the public domain. The prohibition of lighting a fire has been extended in the modern era to driving a car, which involves burning fuel, and using electricity. Three pilgrimage festivalsMain article: Shalosh regalim Sukkahs in JerusalemJewish holy days (chaggim), celebrate landmark events in Jewish history, such as the Exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Torah, and sometimes mark the change of seasons and transitions in the agricultural cycle. The three major festivals, Sukkot, Passover and Shavuot, are called "regalim" (derived from the Hebrew word "regel", or foot). On the three regalim, it was customary for the Israelites to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices in the Temple. Passover (Pesach) is a week-long holiday beginning on the evening of the 14th day of Nisan (the first month in the Hebrew calendar), that commemorates the Exodus from Egypt. Outside Israel, Passover is celebrated for eight days. In ancient times, it coincided with the barley harvest. It is the only holiday that centers on home-service, the Seder. Leavened products (chametz) are removed from the house prior to the holiday, and are not consumed throughout the week. Homes are thoroughly cleaned to ensure no bread or bread by-products remain, and a symbolic burning of the last vestiges of chametz is conducted on the morning of the Seder. Matzo is eaten instead of bread. Shavuot ("Pentecost" or "Feast of Weeks") celebrates the revelation of the Torah to the Israelites on Mount Sinai. Also known as the Festival of Bikurim, or first fruits, it coincided in biblical times with the wheat harvest. Shavuot customs include all-night study marathons known as Tikkun Leil Shavuot, eating dairy foods (cheesecake and blintzes are special favorites), reading the Book of Ruth, decorating homes and synagogues with greenery, and wearing white clothing, symbolizing purity. Sukkot ("Tabernacles" or "The Festival of Booths") commemorates the Israelites' forty years of wandering through the desert on their way to the Promised Land. It is celebrated through the construction of temporary booths called sukkot (sing. sukkah) that represent the temporary shelters of the Israelites during their wandering. It coincides with the fruit harvest, and marks the end of the agricultural cycle. Jews around the world eat in sukkot for seven days and nights. Sukkot concludes with Shemini Atzeret, where Jews begin to pray for rain and Simchat Torah, "Rejoicing of the Torah", a holiday which marks reaching the end of the Torah reading cycle and beginning all over again. The occasion is celebrated with singing and dancing with the Torah scrolls. Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah are technically considered to be a separate holiday and not a part of Sukkot. High Holy DaysMain article: High Holidays Jews praying in a synagogue on Yom Kippur, from an 1878 painting by Maurycy GottliebThe High Holidays (Yamim Noraim or "Days of Awe") revolve around judgment and forgiveness. Rosh Hashanah, (also Yom Ha-Zikkaron or "Day of Remembrance", and Yom Teruah, or "Day of the Sounding of the Shofar"). Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year (literally, "head of the year"), although it falls on the first day of the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar, Tishri. Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of the 10-day period of atonement leading up to Yom Kippur, during which Jews are commanded to search their souls and make amends for sins committed, intentionally or not, throughout the year. Holiday customs include blowing the shofar, or ram's horn, in the synagogue, eating apples and honey, and saying blessings over a variety of symbolic foods, such as pomegranates. Yom Kippur, ("Day of Atonement") is the holiest day of the Jewish year. It is a day of communal fasting and praying for forgiveness for one's sins. Observant Jews spend the entire day in the synagogue, sometimes with a short break in the afternoon, reciting prayers from a special holiday prayerbook called a "Machzor". Many non-religious Jews make a point of attending synagogue services and fasting on Yom Kippur. On the eve of Yom Kippur, before candles are lit, a prefast meal, the "seuda mafseket", is eaten. Synagogue services on the eve of Yom Kippur begin with the Kol Nidre prayer. It is customary to wear white on Yom Kippur, especially for Kol Nidre, and leather shoes are not worn. The following day, prayers are held from morning to evening. The final prayer service, called "Ne'ilah", ends with a long blast of the shofar. PurimMain article: Purim Purim street scene in JerusalemPurim (Hebrew: פורים (help·info) Pûrîm "lots") is a joyous Jewish holiday that commemorates the deliverance of the Persian Jews from the plot of the evil Haman, who sought to exterminate them, as recorded in the biblical Book of Esther. It is characterized by public recitation of the Book of Esther, mutual gifts of food and drink, charity to the poor, and a celebratory meal (Esther 9:22). Other customs include drinking wine, eating special pastries called hamantashen, dressing up in masks and costumes, and organizing carnivals and parties. Purim is celebrated annually on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Adar, which occurs in February or March of the Gregorian calendar. HanukkahMain article: Hanukkah Hanukkah (Hebrew: חֲנֻכָּה‎, "dedication") also known as the Festival of Lights, is an eight day Jewish holiday that starts on the 25th day of Kislev (Hebrew calendar). The festival is observed in Jewish homes by the kindling of lights on each of the festival's eight nights, one on the first night, two on the second night and so on. The holiday was called Hanukkah (meaning "dedication") because it marks the re-dedication of the Temple after its desecration by Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Spiritually, Hanukkah commemorates the "Miracle of the Oil". According to the Talmud, at the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem following the victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Empire, there was only enough consecrated oil to fuel the eternal flame in the Temple for one day. Miraculously, the oil burned for eight days - which was the length of time it took to press, prepare and consecrate new oil. Hanukkah is not mentioned in the Bible and was never considered a major holiday in Judaism, but it has become much more visible and widely celebrated in modern times, mainly because it falls around the same time as Christmas and has national Jewish overtones that have been emphasized since the establishment of the State of Israel. Other holidaysMain article: Tisha B'Av Main articles: Yom Hashoah and Yom Ha'atzmaut Tisha B'Av (Hebrew: תשעה באב‎ or ט׳ באב, "the Ninth of Av") is a holiday of mourning and fasting commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. The modern holidays of Yom Ha-shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) and Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) commemorate the horrors of the Holocaust and the achievement of Israel independence, respectively. Torah readingsMain article: Torah reading The core of festival and Shabbat prayer services is the public reading of the Torah, along with connected readings from the other books of the Tanakh, called Haftarah. Over the course of a year, the whole Torah is read, with the cycle starting over in the autumn, on Simchat Torah. Synagogues and religious buildingsMain article: Synagogue Interior of the Esnoga synagogue in AmsterdamSynagogues are Jewish houses of prayer and study. They usually contain separate rooms for prayer (the main sanctuary), smaller rooms for study, and often an area for community or educational use. There is no set blueprint for synagogues and the architectural shapes and interior designs of synagogues vary greatly. The Reform movement mostly refer to their synagogues as temples. Some traditional features of a synagogue are: The ark (called aron ha-kodesh by Ashkenazim and hekhal by Sephardim) where the Torah scrolls are kept (the ark is often closed with an ornate curtain (parochet) outside or inside the ark doors); The elevated reader's platform (called bimah by Ashkenazim and tebah by Sephardim), where the Torah is read (and services are conducted in Sephardi synagogues); The eternal light (ner tamid), a continually lit lamp or lantern used as a reminder of the constantly lit menorah of the Temple in Jerusalem The pulpit, or amud, a lectern facing the Ark where the hazzan or prayer leader stands while praying. In addition to synagogues, other buildings of significance in Judaism include yeshivas, or institutions of Jewish learning, and mikvahs, which are ritual baths. Dietary laws: KashrutMain article: Kashrut The Jewish dietary laws are known as kashrut. Food prepared in accordance with them is termed kosher, and food that is not kosher is also known as treifah or treif. People who observe these laws are colloquially said to be "keeping kosher". Many of the laws apply to animal-based foods. For example, in order to be considered kosher, mammals must have split hooves and chew their cud. The pig is arguably the most well-known example of a non-kosher animal. Although it has split hooves, it does not chew its cud.For seafood to be kosher, the animal must have fins and scales. Certain types of seafood, such as shellfish, crustaceans, and eels, are therefore considered non-kosher. Concerning birds, a list of non-kosher species is given in the Torah. The exact translations of many of the species have not survived, and some non-kosher birds' identities are no longer certain. However, traditions exist about the kashrut status of a few birds. For example, both chickens and turkeys are permitted in most communities. Other types of animals, such as amphibians, reptiles, and most insects, are prohibited altogether. In addition to the requirement that the species be considered kosher, meat and poultry (but not fish) must come from a healthy animal slaughtered in a process known as shechitah. Without the proper slaughtering practices even an otherwise kosher animal will be rendered treif. The slaughtering process is intended to be quick and relatively painless to the animal. Forbidden parts of animals include the blood, some fats, and the area in and around the sciatic nerve. Jewish law also forbids the consumption of meat and dairy products together. The waiting period between eating meat and eating dairy varies by the order in which they are consumed and by community, and can extend for up to six hours. Based on the Biblical injunction against cooking a kid in its mother's milk, this rule is mostly derived from the Oral Torah, the Talmud and Rabbinic law. Chicken and other kosher birds are considered the same as meat under the laws of kashrut, but the prohibition is Rabbinic, not Biblical. The use of dishes, serving utensils, and ovens may make food treif that would otherwise be kosher. Utensils that have been used to prepare non-kosher food, or dishes that have held meat and are now used for dairy products, render the food treif under certain conditions. Furthermore, all Orthodox and some Conservative authorities forbid the consumption of processed grape products made by non-Jews, due to ancient pagan practices of using wine in rituals. Some Conservative authorities permit wine and grape juice made without rabbinic supervision. The Torah does not give specific reasons for most of the laws of kashrut.However, a number of explanations have been offered, including maintaining ritual purity, teaching impulse control, encouraging obedience to God, improving health, reducing cruelty to animals and preserving the distinctness of the Jewish community. The various categories of dietary laws may have developed for different reasons, and some may exist for multiple reasons. For example, people are forbidden from consuming the blood of birds and mammals because, according to the Torah, this is where animal souls are contained. In contrast, the Torah forbids Israelites from eating non-kosher species because "they are unclean". The Kabbalah describes sparks of holiness that are released by the act of eating kosher foods, but are too tightly bound in non-kosher foods to be released by eating. Survival concerns supersede all the laws of kashrut, as they do for most halakhot. Laws of ritual purityMain article: Tumah The Tanakh describes circumstances in which a person who is tahor or ritually pure may become tamei or ritually impure. Some of these circumstances are contact with human corpses or graves, seminal flux, vaginal flux, menstruation, and contact with people who have become impure from any of these. In Rabbinic Judaism, Kohanim, members of the hereditary caste that served as priests in the time of the Temple, are mostly restricted from entering grave sites and touching dead bodies. Family purityMain article: Niddah An important subcategory of the ritual purity laws relates to the segregation of menstruating women. These laws are also known as niddah, literally "separation", or family purity. Vital aspects of halakha for traditionally observant Jews, they are not usually followed by Jews in liberal denominations. Especially in Orthodox Judaism, the Biblical laws are augmented by Rabbinical injunctions. For example, the Torah mandates that a woman in her normal menstrual period must abstain from sexual intercourse for seven days. A woman whose menstruation is prolonged must continue to abstain for seven more days after bleeding has stopped. The Rabbis conflated ordinary niddah with this extended menstrual period, known in the Torah as zavah, and mandated that a woman may not have sexual intercourse with her husband from the time she begins her menstrual flow until seven days after it ends. In addition, Rabbinical law forbids the husband from touching or sharing a bed with his wife during this period. Afterwards, purification can occur in a ritual bath called a mikveh. Traditional Ethiopian Jews keep menstruating women in separate huts and, similar to Karaite practice, do not allow menstruating women into their temples because of a temple's special sanctity. Emigration to Israel and the influence of other Jewish denominations have led to Ethiopian Jews adopting more normative Jewish practices. Life-cycle eventsLife-cycle events, or rites of passage, occur throughout a Jew's life that serve to strengthen Jewish identity and bind him/her to the entire community. Brit milah - Welcoming male babies into the covenant through the rite of circumcision on their eighth day of life. The baby boy is also given his Hebrew name in the ceremony. A naming ceremony intended as a parallel ritual for girls, named zeved habat or brit bat, enjoys limited popularity. Bar mitzvah and Bat mitzvah - This passage from childhood to adulthood takes place when a female Jew is twelve and a male Jew is thirteen years old among Orthodox and some Conservative congregations. In the Reform movement, both girls and boys have their bat/bar mitzvah at age thirteen. This is often commemorated by having the new adults, male only in the Orthodox tradition, lead the congregation in prayer and publicly read a "portion" of the Torah. Marriage - Marriage is an extremely important lifecycle event. A wedding takes place under a chupah, or wedding canopy, which symbolizes a happy house. At the end of the ceremony, the groom breaks a glass with his foot, symbolizing the continuous mourning for the destruction of the Temple, and the scattering of the Jewish people. Death and Mourning - Judaism has a multi-staged mourning practice. The first stage is called the shiva (literally "seven", observed for one week) during which it is traditional to sit at home and be comforted by friends and family, the second is the shloshim (observed for one month) and for those who have lost one of their parents, there is a third stage, avelut yud bet chodesh, which is observed for eleven months. Community leadershipClassical priesthoodThe role of the priesthood in Judaism has significantly diminished since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, when priests attended to the Temple and sacrifices. The priesthood is an inherited position, and although priests no longer have any but ceremonial duties, they are still honored in many Jewish communities. Many Orthodox Jewish communities believe that they will be needed again for a future Third Temple and need to remain in readiness for future duty. Kohen (priest) - patrilineal descendant of Aaron, brother of Moses. In the Temple, the kohanim were charged with performing the sacrifices. Today, a Kohen is the first one called up at the reading of the Torah, performs the Priestly Blessing, as well as complying with other unique laws and ceremonies, including the ceremony of redemption of the first-born. Levi (Levite) - Patrilineal descendant of Levi the son of Jacob. In the Temple in Jerusalem, the levites sang Psalms, performed construction, maintenance, janitorial, and guard duties, assisted the priests, and sometimes interpreted the law and Temple ritual to the public. Today, a Levite is called up second to the reading of the Torah. Prayer leadersFrom the time of the Mishnah and Talmud to the present, Judaism has required specialists or authorities for the practice of very few rituals or ceremonies. A Jew can fulfill most requirements for prayer by himself. Some activities—reading the Torah and haftarah (a supplementary portion from the Prophets or Writings), the prayer for mourners, the blessings for bridegroom and bride, the complete grace after meals—require a minyan, the presence of ten Jews. The most common professional clergy in a synagogue are: Rabbi of a congregation - Jewish scholar who is charged with answering the legal questions of a congregation. This role requires ordination by the congregation's preferred authority (i.e. from a respected Orthodox rabbi or, if the congregation is Conservative or Reform, from academic seminaries). A congregation does not necessarily require a rabbi. Some congregations have a rabbi but also allow members of the congregation to act as shatz or baal kriyah (see below). Hassidic Rebbe - rabbi who is the head of a Hasidic dynasty. Hazzan (note: the "h" denotes voiceless pharyngeal fricative) (cantor) - a trained vocalist who acts as shatz. Chosen for a good voice, knowledge of traditional tunes, understanding of the meaning of the prayers and sincerity in reciting them. A congregation does not need to have a dedicated hazzan. Jewish prayer services do involve two specified roles, which are sometimes, but not always, filled by a rabbi and/or hazzan in many congregations. In other congregations these roles are filled on an ad-hoc basis by members of the congregation who lead portions of services on a rotating basis: Shaliach tzibur or Shatz (leader—literally "agent" or "representative"—of the congregation) leads those assembled in prayer, and sometimes prays on behalf of the community. When a shatz recites a prayer on behalf of the congregation, he is not acting as an intermediary but rather as a facilitator. The entire congregation participates in the recital of such prayers by saying amen at their conclusion; it is with this act that the shatz's prayer becomes the prayer of the congregation. Any adult capable of reciting the prayers clearly may act as shatz. In Orthodox congregations and some Conservative congregations, only men can be prayer leaders, but all Progressive communities now allow women to serve in this function. The Baal kriyah or baal koreh (master of the reading) reads the weekly Torah portion. The requirements for being the baal kriyah are the same as those for the shatz. These roles are not mutually exclusive. The same person is often qualified to fill more than one role, and often does. Often there are several people capable of filling these roles and different services (or parts of services) will be led by each. Many congregations, especially larger ones, also rely on a: Gabbai (sexton) - Calls people up to the Torah, appoints the shatz for each prayer session if there is no standard shatz, and makes certain that the synagogue is kept clean and supplied. The three preceding positions are usually voluntary and considered an honor. Since the Enlightenment large synagogues have often adopted the practice of hiring rabbis and hazzans to act as shatz and baal kriyah, and this is still typically the case in many Conservative and Reform congregations. However, in most Orthodox synagogues these positions are filled by laypeople on a rotating or ad-hoc basis. Although most congregations hire one or more Rabbis, the use of a professional hazzan is generally declining in American congregations, and the use of professionals for other offices is rarer still. Specialized religious rolesDayan (judge) - An ordained rabbi with special legal training who belongs to a beth din (rabbinical court). In Israel, religious courts handle marriage and divorce cases, conversion and financial disputes in the Jewish community. Mohel (circumciser) - An expert in the laws of circumcision who has received training from a previously qualified mohel and performs the brit milah (circumcision). Shochet (ritual slaughterer) - In order for meat to be kosher, it must be slaughtered by a shochet who is an expert in the laws of kashrut and has been trained by another shochet. Sofer (scribe) - Torah scrolls, tefillin (phylacteries), mezuzot (scrolls put on doorposts), and gittin (bills of divorce) must be written by a sofer who is an expert in Hebrew calligraphy and has undergone rigorous training in the laws of writing sacred texts. Rosh yeshiva - A Torah scholar who runs a yeshiva. Mashgiach of a yeshiva - Depending on which yeshiva, might either be the person responsible for ensuring attendance and proper conduct, or even supervise the emotional and spiritual welfare of the students and give lectures on mussar (Jewish ethics). Mashgiach - Supervises manufacturers of kosher food, importers, caterers and restaurants to ensure that the food is kosher. Must be an expert in the laws of kashrut and trained by a rabbi, if not a rabbi himself. HistoryMain article: Jewish history OriginsMain article: Origins of Judaism Further information: Ancient Semitic religion Scenes from the Book of Esther decorate the Dura-Europos synagogue dating from 244 CEAt its core, the Tanakh is an account of the Israelites' relationship with God from their earliest history until the building of the Second Temple (c. 535 BCE). Abraham is hailed as the first Hebrew and the father of the Jewish people. As a reward for his act of faith in one God, he was promised that Isaac, his second son, would inherit the Land of Israel (then called Canaan). Later, Jacob and his children were enslaved in Egypt, and God commanded Moses to lead the Exodus from Egypt. At Mount Sinai they received the Torah - the five books of Moses. These books, together with Nevi'im and Ketuvim are known as Torah Shebikhtav as opposed to the Oral Torah, which refers to the Mishna and the Talmud. Eventually, God led them to the land of Israel where the tabernacle was planted in the city of Shiloh for over 300 years to rally the nation against attacking enemies. As time went on, the spiritual level of the nation declined to the point that God allowed the Philistines to capture the tabernacle. The people of Israel then told Samuel the prophet that they needed to be governed by a permanent king, and Samuel appointed Saul 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. The Western Wall in Jerusalem is a remnant of the wall encircling the Second Temple. The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism.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, Solomon, to build the first permanent temple and the throne would never depart from his children. Rabbinic tradition holds that the details and interpretation of the law, which are called the Oral Torah or oral law, were originally an unwritten tradition based upon what God told Moses on Mount Sinai. However, as the persecutions of the Jews increased and the details were in danger of being forgotten, these oral laws were recorded by Rabbi Judah haNasi (Judah the Prince) in the Mishnah, redacted circa 200 CE. The Talmud was a compilation of both the Mishnah and the Gemara, rabbinic commentaries redacted over the next three centuries. The Gemara originated in two major centers of Jewish scholarship, Palestine and Babylonia. Correspondingly, two bodies of analysis developed, and two works of Talmud were created. The older compilation is called the Jerusalem Talmud. It was compiled sometime during the 4th century in Israel. The Babylonian Talmud was compiled from discussions in the houses of study by the scholars Ravina I, Ravina II, and Rav Ashi by 500 CE, although it continued to be edited later. Some critical scholars oppose the view that the sacred texts, including the Hebrew Bible, were divinely inspired. Many of these scholars accept the general principles of the documentary hypothesis and suggest that the Torah consists of inconsistent texts edited together in a way that calls attention to divergent accounts. Many suggest that during the First Temple period, the people of Israel believed that each nation had its own god, but that their god was superior to other gods. Some suggest that strict monotheism developed during the Babylonian Exile, perhaps in reaction to Zoroastrian dualism. In this view, it was only by the Hellenic period that most Jews came to believe that their god was the only god, and that the notion of a clearly bounded Jewish nation identical with the Jewish religion formed. John Day argues that the origins of biblical Yahweh, El, Asherah, and Ba'al, may be rooted in earlier Canaanite religion, which was centered on a pantheon of gods much like the Greek Pantheon. AntiquityMain articles: Ancient Israel and Judah, Babylonian captivity, Hellenistic Judaism, Hasmonean Kingdom, Iudaea Province, and Bar Kokhba revolt The United Monarchy was established under Saul and continued under King David and Solomon with its capital in Jerusalem. After Solomon's reign the nation split into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel (in the north) and the Kingdom of Judah (in the south). The Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrian ruler Sargon II in the late 8th century BCE with many people from the capital Samaria being taken captive to Media and the Khabur River valley. The Kingdom of Judah continued as an independent state until it was conquered by a Babylonian army in the early 6th century BCE, destroying the First Temple that was at the center of ancient Jewish worship. The Judean elite were exiled to Babylonia and this is regarded as the first Jewish Diaspora. Later many of them returned to their homeland after the subsequent conquest of Babylonia by the Persians seventy years later, a period known as the Babylonian Captivity. A new Second Temple was constructed, and old religious practices were resumed. During the early years of the Second Temple, the highest religious authority was a council known as the Great Assembly, led by Ezra of the Book of Ezra. Among other accomplishments of the Great Assembly, the last books of the Bible were written at this time and the canon sealed. Hellenistic Judaism spread to Ptolemaic Egypt from the 3rd century BCE. After the Great Revolt (66–73 CE), the Romans destroyed the Temple. Hadrian built a pagan idol on the Temple grounds and prohibited circumcision; these acts of ethnocide provoked the Bar Kokhba revolt 132–136 CE after which the Romans banned the study of the Torah and the celebration of Jewish holidays, and forcibly removed virtually all Jews from Judea. In 200 CE, however, Jews were granted Roman citizenship and Judaism was recognized as a religio licita ("legitimate religion"), until the rise of Gnosticism and Early Christianity in in the fourth century. Following the destruction of Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Jews, Jewish worship stopped being centrally organized around the Temple, prayer took the place of sacrifice, and worship was rebuilt around the community (represented by a minimum of ten adult men) and the establishment of the authority of rabbis who acted as teachers and leaders of individual communities (see Jewish diaspora). Historical Jewish groupings (to 1700)Around the 1st century CE there were several small Jewish sects: the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes, and Christians. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, these sects vanished. Christianity survived, but by breaking with Judaism and becoming a separate religion; the Pharisees survived but in the form of Rabbinic Judaism (today, known simply as "Judaism"). The Sadducees rejected the divine inspiration of the Prophets and the Writings, relying only on the Torah as divinely inspired. Consequently, a number of other core tenets of the Pharisees' belief system (which became the basis for modern Judaism), were also dismissed by the Sadducees. (The Samaritans practiced a similar religion, which is traditionally considered separate from Judaism.) Like the Sadducees who relied only on the Torah, some Jews in the 8th and 9th centuries rejected the authority and divine inspiration of the oral law as recorded in the Mishnah (and developed by later rabbis in the two Talmuds), relying instead only upon the Tanakh. These included the Isunians, the Yudganites, the Malikites, and others. They soon developed oral traditions of their own, which differed from the rabbinic traditions, and eventually formed the Karaite sect. Karaites exist in small numbers today, mostly living in Israel. Rabbinical and Karaite Jews each hold that the others are Jews, but that the other faith is erroneous. Over a long time, Jews formed distinct ethnic groups in several different geographic areas — amongst others, the Ashkenazi Jews (of central and Eastern Europe), the Sephardi Jews (of Spain, Portugal, and North Africa), the Beta Israel of Ethiopia, and the Yemenite Jews from the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Many of these groups have developed differences in their prayers, traditions and accepted canons; however these distinctions are mainly the result of their being formed at some cultural distance from normative (rabbinic) Judaism, rather than based on any doctrinal dispute. PersecutionsMain articles: Persecution of Jews, Antisemitism, and History of antisemitism Antisemitism arose during the Middle Ages, in the form of persecutions, pogroms, forced conversion, expulsions, social restrictions and ghettoization. This was different in quality to any repressions of Jews in ancient times. Ancient repression was politically motivated and Jews were treated no differently than any other ethnic group would have been. With the rise of the Churches, attacks on Jews became motivated instead by theological considerations specifically deriving from Christian views about Jews and Judaism. HasidismMain article: Hasidic Judaism Hasidic Judaism was founded by Yisroel ben Eliezer (1700–1760), also known as the Ba'al Shem Tov (or Besht). It originated in a time of persecution of the Jewish people, when European Jews had turned inward to Talmud study; many felt that most expressions of Jewish life had become too "academic", and that they no longer had any emphasis on spirituality or joy. His disciples attracted many followers; they themselves established numerous Hasidic sects across Europe. Hasidic Judaism eventually became the way of life for many Jews in Europe. Waves of Jewish immigration in the 1880s carried it to the United States. The movement itself claims to be nothing new, but a refreshment of original Judaism. Or as some have put it: "they merely re-emphasized that which the generations had lost". Nevertheless, early on there was a serious schism between Hasidic and non-Hasidic Jews. European Jews who rejected the Hasidic movement were dubbed by the Hasidim as Misnagdim, (lit. "opponents"). Some of the reasons for the rejection of Hasidic Judaism were the overwhelming exuberance of Hasidic worship, its untraditional ascriptions of infallibility and alleged miracle-working to their leaders, and the concern that it might become a messianic sect. Since then differences between the Hasidim and their opponents have slowly diminished and both groups are now considered part of Haredi Judaism. The Enlightenment and New Religious MovementsMain articles: Haskalah and Jewish religious movements In the late 18th century CE, Europe was swept by a group of intellectual, social and political movements known as the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment led to reductions in the European laws that prohibited Jews to interact with the wider secular world, thus allowing Jews access to secular education and experience. A parallel Jewish movement, Haskalah or the "Jewish Enlightenment", began, especially in Central Europe and Western Europe, in response to both the Enlightenment and these new freedoms. It placed an emphasis on integration with secular society and a pursuit of non-religious knowledge through reason. With the promise of political emancipation many Jews saw no reason to continue to observe Jewish law and increasing numbers of Jews assimilated into Christian Europe. Modern religious movements of Judaism all formed in reaction to this trend. In Central Europe, followed by Great Britain and The United States, Reform Judaism and Liberal Judaism developed, relaxing legal obligations (especially those that limited Jewish relations with non-Jews), emulating Protestant decorum in prayer, and emphasizing the ethical values of Judaism's Prophetic tradition. Modern Orthodox Judaism developed in reaction to Reform Judaism, by leaders who argued that Jews could participate in public life as citizens equal to Christians, while maintaining the observance of Jewish law. Meanwhile, in the United States, wealthy Reform Jews helped European scholars, who were Orthodox in practice but critical (and skeptical) in their study of the Bible and Talmud, to establish a seminary to train rabbis for immigrants from Eastern Europe. These left-wing Orthodox rabbis were joined by right-wing Reform rabbis who felt that Jewish law should not be entirely abandoned, to form the Conservative movement. Orthodox Jews who opposed the Haskalah formed Haredi Orthodox Judaism. After massive movements of Jews following The Holocaust and the creation of the state of Israel, these movements have competed for followers from among traditional Jews in or from other countries. Spectrum of observance Judaism has spread to all corners of the world. Seen here is a synagogue in downtown Mumbai.Countries such as the United States, Israel, Canada, United Kingdom, Argentina and South Africa contain large Jewish populations. Jewish religious practice varies widely through all levels of observance. According to the 2001 edition of the National Jewish Population Survey, in the United States' Jewish community—the world's second largest—4.3 million Jews out of 5.1 million had some sort of connection to the religion. Of that population of connected Jews, 80% participated in some sort of Jewish religious observance, but only 48% belonged to a synagogue, and fewer than 16% attend regularly. Birth rates for American Jews have dropped from 2.0 to 1.7. (Replacement rate is 2.1.) Intermarriage rates range from 40-50% in the US, and only about a third of children of intermarried couples are raised as Jews. Due to intermarriage and low birth rates, the Jewish population in the US shrank from 5.5 million in 1990 to 5.1 million in 2001. This is indicative of the general population trends among the Jewish community in the Diaspora, but a focus on total population obscures growth trends in some denominations and communities, such as Haredi Judaism. The Baal teshuva movement is a movement of Jews who have "returned" to religion or become more observant. Judaism and other religionsChristianity and JudaismMain article: Christianity and Judaism See also: Judeo-Christian, Christianity and antisemitism, Judaism's view of Jesus, Cultural and historical background of Jesus, and Christian-Jewish reconciliation This section requires expansion. Historians and theologians regularly review the changing relationship between some Christian groups and the Jewish people; the article on Christian-Jewish reconciliation studies one recent issue. Islam and JudaismMain article: Islam and Judaism See also: History of the Jews under Muslim rule and Islam and antisemitism The relationship between Islam and Judaism is special and close. Both religions claim to arise from the patriarch Abraham, and are therefore considered Abrahamic religions. As fellow monotheists, Muslims view Jews as "people of the book", a term that Jews have subsequently adopted as a way of describing their own connection to the Torah and other holy texts.In turn, many Jews maintain that Muslims adhere to the Seven Laws of Noah. Thus, Judaism views Muslims as righteous people of God. Jews have interacted with Muslims since the 7th century, when Islam originated and spread in the Arabian peninsula, and many aspects of Islam's core values, structure, jurisprudence and practice are based on Judaism. Muslim culture and philosophy have heavily influenced practitioners of Judaism in the Islamic world. In premodern Muslim countries, Jews rarely faced martyrdom, exile or forcible conversion, and were mostly free in their choice of residence and profession. Indeed, the years 712 to 1066 CE under the Ummayad and the Abbasid rulers have been called the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain. Non-Muslim monotheists living in these countries, including Jews, were known as dhimmis. Dhimmis were allowed to practice their religion and to administer their internal affairs, but they were subject to certain restrictions that were not imposed on Muslims.For example, they had to pay the jizya, a per capita tax imposed on free adult non-Muslim males,and they were also forbidden to bear arms or testify in court cases involving Muslims. Many of the laws regarding dhimmis were highly symbolic. For example, dhimmis in some countries were required to wear distinctive clothing, a practice not found in either the Qur'an or hadiths but invented in early medieval Baghdad and inconsistently enforced. Jews in Muslim countries were not entirely free from persecution—for example, many were killed, exiled or forcibly converted in the 12th century, in Persia and by the rulers of the Almohad dynasty in North Africa and Al-Andalus. At times, Jews were also restricted in their choice of residence—in Morocco, Jews were confined to walled quarters (mellahs) beginning in the 15th century and increasingly since the early 19th century. In the late 20th century, Jews were expelled from nearly all the Arab countries. Most have chosen to live in Israel. Today, antisemitic themes have become commonplace in the propaganda of Arab Islamic movements such as Hizbullah and Hamas, in the pronouncements of various agencies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and even in the newspapers and other publications of Refah Partisi. Syncretic movements incorporating JudaismThere are some movements that combine elements of Judaism with those of other religions. The most well-known of these is Messianic Judaism, which arose in the 1960s. It blends evangelical Christian theology with elements of Jewish terminology and ritual. The movement states that Jesus is part of the Trinity, and salvation is only achieved through acceptance of Jesus as one's savior.Some members of the movement are ethnically Jewish, and some of them argue that Messianic Judaism is a sect of Judaism. Jewish organizations and religious movements reject this, stating that Messianic Judaism is a Christian sect. The most controversial of these groups is the American organization Jews for Jesus, which actively proselytizes ethnic Jews through numerous missionary campaigns in major American cities. Other examples of syncretism include Judeo-Paganists, a loosely organized set of Jews who incorporate pagan or Wiccan beliefs with some Jewish religious practices, like Messianic Judaism; Jewish Buddhists, another loosely organized group that incorporates elements of Asian spirituality in their faith; and some Renewal Jews who borrow freely and openly from Buddhism, Sufism, Native American religion, and other faiths. The Kabbalah Centre, which employs teachers from multiple religions, is a New Age movement that claims to popularize the kabbalah, the Jewish esoteric tradition [more]

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