Judaism is the religion of the Jews, a people also known as Hebrews and Israelites. Judaism was the first successful religion based on monotheism, the belief in a single god.
The Jews saw their god, whose personal name is Yahweh, as the creator of everything. He was all-powerful and universal (everywhere). Yet he was also a personal god, directly concerned with the behavior of every individual. This belief in a single universal yet personal god later led to two new religions, Christianity and Islam.
A Holy Nation
Jews believe that Yahweh chose them as a special holy nation. In order to live in a holy way, Jews had to obey a mass of religious laws. The most important was the requirement to worship no other gods. Jews also had to set aside one day of the week, the Sabbath, for rest. They were forbidden to eat certain animal foods, such as pork and shellfish, which were called unclean. Animals permitted for food had to be killed and cooked in a particular way. The aim of these laws was to build a just society on earth in accordance with Yahweh’s wishes.
Although gentiles (non-Jews) can convert to Judaism, most Jews are born into the religion. Judaism regards Jews as God’s chosen people, and all those who are Jewish by birth are believed to be descended on the maternal side from their ancestor Abraham. Boys are circumcised as a mark of their membership in the Jewish race.
Festivals and Fasts
The Jewish year includes several great festivals, marking the changing seasons as well as important events in Jewish history. Passover was an ancient spring festival that became linked with the story of the Jews’ escape from Egypt.
According to the story, the Jews had been made slaves of the Egyptian pharaoh but were rescued when God sent a series of plagues (disasters) to punish the Egyptians. The worst plague was the killing of all the Egyptian firstborn children by an angel, who "passed over" the homes of the Jews but struck the homes of the Egyptians. The Jews were believed to have left Egypt in such a hurry that they had no time to add yeast to make their bread rise. In memory of this deliverance, during Passover, Jews eat only flat bread without yeast.
As well as the festivals, there are a number of special times when Jews fast, or give up food, drink, and other pleasures. The most important fast day is Yom Kippur, when people fast for an entire day to atone to Yahweh for their sinfulness during the previous year.
Worshiping Yahweh
Judaism changed over time. In the second millennium BCE, when the Jews lived in separate tribes, Yahweh was worshiped at sanctuaries (holy places), often on hilltops. He was offered sacrifices – animals, such as lambs and goats, that were killed and burned on raised stone platforms called altars.
According to the Bible, around 1000 BCE King David, who had united the tribes, conquered Jerusalem, which became the capital of a Jewish kingdom. David’s son Solomon built a temple in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem temple became the most important place to worship Yahweh. Even so, Jews continued to offer sacrifices in other temples and sanctuaries.
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WHY JUST ONE GOD? |
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There are different ideas about why the Jews, unlike all other ancient peoples, chose to worship just one god. The Jews’ own version, in the Hebrew Bible, is that Yahweh revealed himself as the one true god to a series of teachers and leaders. The greatest of these was Moses, a man who may have lived in the thirteenth century BCE. The Bible says that Yahweh gave Moses a set of laws, the most important of which forbade worship of other gods. However, as the stories of Moses were written down hundreds of years after his lifetime by Jews who strongly believed in just one god, their portrayal of Moses may have been influenced by their own beliefs. Monotheism (the belief in just one god) may have developed gradually. It was preached from the tenth to the sixth centuries BCE. by a succession of prophets — men and women believed to speak on behalf of Yahweh. Despite these prophets, many Jews continued to worship other gods alongside Yahweh until the sixth century BCE.
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