Judaism (1200 BC – ) is the religion of the Jews, delivered from God through Moses over three thousand years ago. Not all Jews believe in it, but it is the religion that has set them apart as a separate people.
The Jewish faith does not have many believers – fewer than one person in 400 – but half the world believes in a religion that grew out of it. So it is important to understand no matter who you are or what you believe.
The holy book of Judaism is the Torah. Jews worship on the Sabbath in a synagogue and their ministers are called rabbis. The Sabbath goes from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. Believing Jews do not work on the Sabbath, do not eat certain things, like pork, and circumcise their boys soon after birth.
The Torah is made up of the the five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Jewish understanding of these books is given in the Talmud, the comments and teachings on the Torah by rabbis down through the ages.
Jews regard the other books of what Protestants call the Old Testament – books like Psalms, Isaiah and Job – as holy, but they are read mainly to understand the Torah.
The heart of Jewish moral teaching is the Ten Commandments of Moses.
Jews believe in one God and many of the same things as Christians and Muslims:
- God:
- is the only one and true god.
- knows everything – even the future and what you will do. He knows what you are thinking. He cannot be fooled.
- can do anything
- created the world and all that is in it as something separate from himself.
- is everywhere – but not as a world soul (pantheism)
- created time itself – so there is no such thing as “before God”. He lives beyond time: he is eternal.
- is beyond the imagination or words of man.
- loves and cares about every single person – even those who turn against him. That means our prayers matter to him. Like a good parent, he will gives us not what we want but what we need.
- has taught us what do through holy men called prophets. Their words have been put down in holy books. The differences between Jews, Christians and Muslims come largely from which books and which prophets they follow or do not follow.
- Between God and man are the angels. Satan was an angel who turned against God. The angels who followed him became demons. Satan is always trying to get us to turn against God.
- The Messiah will come to bring world peace and justice.
- After the Messiah comes the Judgement Day. God will raise the dead and then judge each person according to his actions, good and evil. The good will go to heaven to be with God to be rewarded, the evil will go to hell to be with Satan to be punished.
See also:
Abagond 
“the evil will go to hell”
Where do they get this from the Torah? I thought hell was not even mentioned in the “Old Testament”?
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The Old Testament does mention a place called Sheol. But it is not a place of punishment and endless torments. Everyone goes there. It is more like the Greek Hades – a shadowy underworld where the dead are.
From what I understand, Jews do believe in punishment in the afterlife, but it is more like purgatory than hell: the punishment does not last for ever. I do not know where in the Torah this idea comes from.
Note that Daniel does mention Gehenna, which Jesus frequently mentions as hell.
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What the hell? It says that Jewish people “follow” Moses…which isn’t really all that correct. Yes, the Israelites followed him ot of Egypt…but, we don’t follow him the way Christians follow Jesus…we don’t find him to be anything more than a righteous person…
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Hi.
I’m writing to you again about some of the things in this article. I happen to really love this site as I am black, Jewish, and fourteen (both of my parents being black). I attend Jewish boarding school in North Carolina; The American Hebrew Academy. Most everyone at this school is white, and I constantly revert back to this site to explain how I feel about certain things, and the lines of communication in my area have gotten much clearer because of it.
This particular article worries me because a couple of statements are *not* correct. Not only does this bother me, but the fact that after my previous comment it was not changed, and I was not responded to means much more. I will list the statements that simply *are not true*. (I happen to be a strictly conservative Jew, meaning that I follow many of the laws of the Torah, with the exception of those in contrast with feminism.)
1. As before, Jew DO NOT follow Moses as Christians follow Jesus OR as Muslims follow Muhammad.
2. Restrictions on eating are not limited to pork. There is an entire rule system of Kashrut. (If you do not know what that is, I suggest you google it.)
3. The Sabbath, or Shabbat is not simply observed on Saturdays. It is observed from Friday night to Saturday night. This is important because Jews do not only go to synagogue on Saturday because of it; We also attend on Friday nights.
4. Another thing that I would like to see in there is that Jews and Judaism have a general acceptance of other religions. NOT ALL, but most, and this is much more than than the other religions of the world.
I want to say again, that I love this site. But, there are articles here (not just this one) that simply do not state correct facts. I understand that your site is biased; I am not condeming that….but when you do post what you consider to be facts, I expect them to be correct. Please respond.
With respect,
Cecily
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Thanks for the corrections. I did see your first comment but got distracted. My mistake.
You are right about the first three and I corrected those.
As to #4 it is way too loose of a statement: what does “accept” mean, etc. Islam, for example, “accepts” that Christianity comes from God, despite its grave faults, like making the prophet Jesus into a god, and yet by the rules of jihad I, as a Christian, would have to convert, pay a tax or die.
I like to keep my statements to “Jews believe X” or “Jews do X”, stuff that is easier to determine whether it is true or false.
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One thing about judaism: christianity as well as islam come from it. The god is the same in all these religions which makes the religious conflicts between these three even more stupid.
I admit, I am not a religious person, but I do have personal faith. I guess I am a heathen from the perspective of these religions which is fine by me.
I have jewish friends, been in Israel etc. and have learned something about judaism from them. One thing is that in order to be a jewish, you don’t have to be a believer. You can be a jewish atheist. Many outsiders do not know this, but that is the way it is. You are jewish if your mother is jewish, regardless of your religious ideas.
I think the great strenght of judaism is in its flexibility and ability to enclose many different forms of it. And also, the real strenght is that judaism is not just a religion.
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