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Max Heindel
An Elementary Treatise Upon Man's Past Evolution,Present Constitution And Future Development
- Esotericism
- English
- 161313 Words
- Ages 18 and up
This book is written by Max Heindel, the founder, and Messenger of The Rosicrucian Fellowship. This is a reference book of the Fellowship students and Probationers. This book is also referred as Cosmo-Conception or Mystic Christianity.
The founder of the Christian Religion stated an occult maxim when He said: “Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall not enter therein” (Mark 10:15). All occultists recognize the far-reaching importance of this teaching of Christ and endeavor to “live” it day by day.
When a new philosophy is presented to the world it is met in different ways by different people.
One person will grasp with avidity any new philosophical effort in an endeavor to ascertain how far it supports his own ideas. To such an one the philosophy itself is of minor importance. Its prime value will be its vindication of HIS ideas. If the work comes up to expectation in that respect, he will enthusiastically adopt it and cling to it with a most unreasoning partisanship; if not, he will probably lay the book down in disgust and disappointment, feeling as if the author had done him an injury.
Another adopts an attitude of skepticism as soon as he discovers that it contains something which HE has not previously read, heard, or originated in his own thought. He would probably resent as extremely unjustified the accusation that his mental attitude is the acme of self- satisfaction and intolerance; such is nevertheless the case; and thus he shuts his mind to any truth which may possibly be hidden in that which he off-hand rejects.
Both these classes stand in their own light. “Set” ideas render them impervious to rays of truth. “A little child” is the very opposite of its elders in that respect. It is not imbued with an overwhelming sense of superior knowledge, nor does it feel compelled to look wise or to hide its
nescience of any subject by a smile or a sneer. It is frankly ignorant, unfettered by preconceived opinions and therefore eminently teachable. It takes everything with that beautiful attitude of trust which we have designated “child-like faith,” wherein there is not the shadow of a doubt. There the child holds the teaching it receives until proven or disproven.
In all occult schools the pupil is first taught to forget all else when a new teaching is being given, to allow neither preference nor prejudice to govern, but to keep the mind in a state of calm, dignified waiting. As skepticism will blind us to truth in the most effective manner, so this calm, trustful attitude of the mind will allow the intuition, or “teaching from within,” to become aware of the truth contained in the proposition. That is the only way to cultivate an absolutely certain perception of truth.
The pupil is not required to believe off-hand that a given object which he has observed to be white, is really black, when such a statement is made to him; but he must cultivate an attitude of mind which “believeth all things” as possible. That will allow him to put by for the time being even what are generally considered “established facts,” and investigate if perchance there be another viewpoint hitherto unobserved by him whence the object referred to would appear black. Indeed, he would not allow himself to look upon anything as “an established fact,” for he realizes thoroughly the importance of keeping his mind in the fluidal state of adaptability which characterizes the little child. He realizes in every fiber of his being that “now we see through a glass, darkly,” and Ajax-like he is ever on the alert, yearning for “Light, more Light.”
The enormous advantage of such an attitude of mind when investigating any given subject, object or idea must be apparent. Statements which appear positively and
unequivocally contradictory, which have caused an immense amount of feeling among the advocates of opposite sides, may nevertheless be capable of perfect reconciliation, as shown in one such instance mentioned in the present work. The bond of concord is only discovered by the open mind, however, and though the present work may be found to differ from others, the writer would bespeak an impartial hearing as the basis of subsequent judgment. If the book is “weighed and found wanting,” the writer will have no complaint. He only fears a hasty judgment based upon lack of knowledge of the system he advocates—a hearing wherein the judgment is “wanting” in consequence of having been denied an impartial “weighing.” He would further submit, that the only opinion worthy of the one who expresses it must be based upon knowledge.
As a further reason for care in judgment we suggest that to many it is exceedingly difficult to retract a hastily expressed opinion. Therefore it is urged that the reader withhold all expressions of either praise or blame until study of the work has reasonably satisfied him of its merit or demerit.
The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception is not dogmatic, neither does it appeal to any other authority than the reason of the student. It is not controversial, but is sent forth in the hope that it may help to clear some of the difficulties which have beset the minds of students of the deeper philosophies in the past. In order to avoid serious misunderstanding, it should be firmly impressed upon the mind of the student, however, that there is no infallible revelation of this complicated subject, which includes everything under the sun and above it also.
An infallible exposition would predicate omniscience upon the part of the writer, and even the Elder Brothers tell
us that they are sometimes at fault in their judgment, so a book which shall say the last word on the World-Mystery is out of the question, and the writer of the present work does not pretend to give aught but the most elementary teachings of the Rosicrucians.
The Rosicrucian Brotherhood has the most far-reaching, the most logical conception of the World-Mystery of which the writer has gained any knowledge during the many years he has devoted exclusively to the study of this subject. So far as he has been able to investigate, their teachings have been found in accordance with facts as he knows them. Yet he is convinced that The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception is far from being the last word on the subject; that as we advance greater vistas of truth will open to us and make clear many things which we now “see through a glass, darkly.” At the same time he firmly believes that all other philosophies of the future will follow the same main lines, for they appear to be absolutely true.
In view of the foregoing it will be plain that this book is not considered by the writer as the Alpha and Omega, the ultimate of occult knowledge, and even though it is entitled The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, the writer desires to strongly emphasize that is not to be understood as a “faith once for all delivered” to the Rosicrucians by the founder of the Order or by any other individual. It is emphatically stated that this work embodies only the writer's understanding of the Rosicrucian teachings concerning the World-Mystery, strengthened by his personal investigations of the inner Worlds, the antenatal and postmortem states of man, etc. The responsibility which devolves upon one who wittingly or unwittingly leads others astray is clearly realized by the writer, and he wishes to guard himself as far as possible against that contingency, and also to guard others
against the possibility of going wrong inadvertently.
What is said in this work is to be accepted or rejected by the reader according to his own discretion. All diligence has been used in trying to understand the teaching; great pains have been taken to put it into words that shall be easily understood. For that reason only one term has been used throughout the work to convey each idea. The same word will have the same meaning wherever used. When any word descriptive of an idea is first used, the clearest definition possible to the writer is given. None but English terms and the simplest language have been employed. The writer has constantly endeavored to give as exact and definite descriptions of the subject under consideration as possible; to eliminate all ambiguity and to make everything clear. How far he has succeeded must be left to the student to judge; but having diligently used every possible endeavor to convey the teaching, he feels compelled to guard also against the possibility of this work being taken as an authoritative statement of the Rosicrucian teachings. Neglect of this precaution might give undue weight to this work in the minds of some students. That would not be fair to the Brotherhood nor to the reader. It would have a tendency to throw the responsibility upon the Brotherhood for the mistakes which must occur in this as in all other human works. Hence the above warning.
During the four years which have elapsed since the foregoing paragraphs were written, the writer has continued his investigations of the invisible worlds, and experienced the expansion of consciousness relative to these realms of nature which comes by practice of the precepts taught in the Western Mystery School. Others also who have followed the method of soul-unfoldment herein described as particularly suited to the Western peoples, have likewise been enabled to
verify for themselves many things here taught. Thus the writer's understanding of what was given by the Elder Brothers has received some corroboration and seems to have been substantially correct, therefore he feels it a duty to state this for the encouragement of those who are still unable to see for themselves.
If we had said that the vital body is built of prisms instead of points, it would have been better, for it is by refraction through these minute prisms that the colorless solar fluid changes to a rosy hue as observed by other writers beside the author.
Other new and important discoveries have also been made; for instance, we know now that the Silver Cord is grown anew in each life, that one part sprouts from the seed atom of the desire body in the great vortex of the liver, that the other part grows out of the seed atom of the dense body in the heart, that both parts meet in the seed atom of the vital body in the solar plexus, and that this union of the higher and lower vehicles causes the quickening. Further development of the cord between the heart and solar plexus during the first seven years has an important bearing on the mystery of childlife, likewise its fuller growth from the liver to the solar plexus, which takes place during the second septenary period, is a contributory cause of adolescence. Completion of the Silver Cord marks the end of childlife, and from that time the solar energy which enters through the spleen and is tinted by refraction through the prismatic seed atom of the vital body located in the solar plexus, commences to give a distinctive and individual coloring to the aura which we observe in adults. [more]
Keywords: rosicrucian fellowship, max heindel, cosmo
$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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shawnti
judaism
by shawnti
- History
- English
- 12608 Words
- No Age Recommendation
- 1420
- 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]
Keywords: judaism
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