Judaism

Founding Date: 2000-1500 BCE
Founding Area: Mesopotamia
Founder: Abraham
Sacred Text: Torah
Place of Worship: Temple
Religious Leader: Rabbi

Key Dates of Judaism

2000-1500 BCE: Abraham is chosen to lead	1500-1200 BCE: Exodus	1200-1050 BCE: Occupation in the Promised Land
1050-920 BCE: King David, Solomon, and Saul are Kings	920-597 BCE: Divided Kingdom (north) Israel, (south) Judah	586 BCE: Destruction of first Temple
516 BCE: 2nd Temple Built	70 AD: Destruction of second Temple	90-150: Hebrew Bible Completed
1190: Massacre of Jews during Crusade	1492: Jews expelled from Spain	1910: Jews granted full legal equality in Spain
1938: Holocaust Begins	1946: UN creates the country of Israel

History

According to the Torah, which is called the Bible for Christians, the birth of Judaism comes from one man. The name of the man is Abraham. Abraham and his wife Sarah were being talked to by God (Yahweh) and one day God told them that they would have a son. This was a wonderful thing since Abraham was 100 years old, and Sarah was 90.

So God was true to his word, and they had a boy named Isaac. Since Abraham and Sarah went so long without a child they were incredibly happy. One day God instructed Abraham to sacrifice his son to him. Since Abraham was obedient to Yahweh, he did his bidding. At the last moment, God spared Isaac from sacrifice because Abraham showed his faith to his God.

After this, Isaac had two children, Jacob and Esau. Jacob married a woman named Rachel. Jacob and Rachel had 12 children. Each child represents one of the tribes of

Israel . Each child would have a large family to populate the world.

Abraham Bonus

Abraham Bonus Worksheet

Three generations after the 12 tribes of Israel , a child was born, his name was Moses. He grew up with the Pharaoh. The rest of the story of Moses has been told numerous times so it is useless to rehash it. The most interesting part of the story is that Moses had a younger brother named Aaron. Aaron became the high priest to the temple once the Israelites settled 40 years after the Exodus.

Judaism: Daily Life and Worship

Rights of maturity occur on the onset of puberty. It is accepted that girls mature quicker than boys. At age 12, girls celebrate their bat mitzvah. This acknowledges to the Jewish community that this person is able to make adult decisions. For boys, it is called a bat mitzvah. It occurs at age 13.

It is not uncommon for boys and men to have their heads covered on the crown of their head. The outside world knows these to be called Yamulka’s. Jewish people call them kippots. The reason for wearing them is to show the outside world that they are special because they follow Yahweh. For the Jewish community it is a symbol of being a practicing Jew. As for living the good book, which is called the Torah, Jewish people have some different philosophies compared to their Christian and Muslim friends.

Jewish people believe it is good to obtain wealth because with this wealth they are able to help and contribute to those less fortunate. Jewish law can be broken if human life will be harmed.

Holidays

Rosh Hashanah: The day Yahweh created Adam and Eve This is the day that God annually judges the world Once he finds fault, he gives the world ten days to clear their behavior up.

Yom Kippur: God decides if the world deserves his forgiveness.

Passover: After the 10^th and final plague of Egypt, Moses sent death to claim the first born son of every house unless the smeared the blood of a lamb on their door.

Hanukkah: Most observed holiday, but not the holiest. The Greeks were pushing their culture onto the Jews. This culture is called Hellenistic. Once the Greeks conquered the area the Jews lived in, they were required to show the proper respect. Many Jews converted and gave in, but many battled for their religion. Jewish people were required to pray to Zeus, eat un-kosher foot, and work on the Sabbath. Resisters fought back to take the temple. Once inside the temple was desecrated with statues and other Greek symbols. To purify the temple kosher oil was needed. They only had enough for one day. To create more kosher oil, the process took eight days. By a miracle, the one lamp lasted eight days giving them the time they needed to purify the rest of the temple.

Minor holidays

Shanout: All night while in the desert the Jewish people slept in when God was going to give them the Torah . To show their regret for this disrespect, Jewish people stay up all night

Sukkot: This holiday is to commemorate the 40 years the Jewish people had to stay in the desert. Some people make a tent and live in it for 8 days.

Simchat Torah: The end of the cycle. Final day of the Torah, then it starts over again

Two new holidays have been created, but traditions and rituals for them are still being discussed. The first holiday remembers the holocaust . The second holiday is Israel’s independence day.

Beliefs

When Judaism started, it was a very unique religion. Back in ancient Mesopotamia , all the other cultures were polytheistic. Judaism was the first monotheistic religion. The only religion that believed in very few gods were the Persians. Their faith in Zoroasterism fell under the category of dualism. They believed that there were only two gods. The god of good was Zoroaster. They believed that Zoroaster battled and argued against his opposite, thus, making the struggle of good vs. evil.

The Jewish people did not believe that this could happen. Their major argument with this was if these two gods were totally against each other at every step, then how were they able to create anything. This is a reason why the Jewish people believe that there can only be one God because otherwise there would be complications at every decision.

The argument about evil and God is that it just may be, “A blessing in a not-yet-recognized form.” (Blech, 8)

The Jewish argument why Jesus can’t be the son of God and God to is that God is not human, and man can’t be a God. The Jewish people believe God holds no body.

The Trinity of God, Son, and Holy Spirit to the Christians violates this belief even further because the Holy Spirit is considered a go-between. The Jewish people believe that they can talk and pray to God directly.

Interesting enough Jewish people don’t believe in coincidence or luck. Things that fall into this category are considered as Purim. When the Persians were controlling the Jews, the Jewish king wanted to marry a certain woman. Her name was Ester. Ester’s uncle Mondecai told her not to tell the king her religion. The King’s right hand man was very cruel and arrogant. He wished all that saw him to bow to him because he was so important. The Jewish people only bow in the face of God. The right hand man force Ester’s uncle to bow and he refused. As a way to strike the Jewish people for their insubordination, he rigged a lottery that a Jew would be executed every day. The first Jew to die was Ester’s uncle. Since executions were a type of entertainment, and Ester’s religion and uncle were concealed to the king, when he appeared as the first execution, Ester confessed everything to her new husband. To make a long story short, the only execution that night was the evil right hand man. The Jews see this as God’s divine intervention with one of his children.

Creation and Misc. things

The Jewish calendar celebrated the year 5760 when the rest of the world rung in 2000. The Jewish calendar does not start with Abraham creating the religion, Moses freeing the Jews from Egypt, or when they became a nation, but rather when Adam and Eve were created.

According to the Jews in the Torah, God made man on the sixth day. Why didn't’t they just start six days earlier? The answer to this, Yahweh (God) made the sun on the forth day so this means that the first three technical days lasted millions of years. Therefore, Jewish people basically believe in evolution. Before Adam, there were semi-humans. Yahweh breathed his spirit to make them fully human.

As for the rest of the Jewish calendar, there are 12 months. Each one represents one of the original 12 tribes of Israel. They fall between the Muslims and the Christians. The Christians follow a solar calendar, and the Muslims adhere to a lunar calendar. They have leap months to fill in for the missing lunar days because a lunar year is 354 day long.

The Jewish people celebrate 2 New Years.

The first is the birth of their nation

The second is the start of human kind.

In death the Jewish people separate themselves from the other religions. To show grief, the immediate family is to tear the clothes to show how sad they are. Nowadays all they do is attach a piece of cloth on their clothing. The dead are never to be left alone because until the dead person is buried and the service concluded, their soul hovers by the body. The body of a dead person must be prepared a certain way. There is a group of people that take care of this. When a Jewish person dies, the Jewish Sacred Society is called in to prepare the body for burial.