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What do Jews believe?

MARCH 18, 2021

Jewish Faith and Basic Beliefs 

Judaism is the world’s oldest monotheistic religion, dating back nearly 4,000 years. The history of Judaism is essential to understanding the Jewish faith, which has a rich heritage of law, culture, and tradition. 

What do Jews believe in?

In Judaism, we mainly believe that there is only one God. God is spiritual and not physical. God established a covenant- or a special agreement- with the Jewish people at Mount Sinai when they received and accepted the Torah. 

What is God to Jews?

God is a super being that created the universe, the world and everything in it. God is everywhere and everything because he is the creator of all existence. 

In Judaism we believe in the the holy scriptures and especially in the Torah, which was given by God to the Jewish people.

The Tanakh:  

The Tanakh includes three divisions and they include: 
  • Torah
  • Nevi’im (prophets)
  • Ketuvim (writings)

The Hebrew letters תנ”ך (pronounced: Tav-Nun-Kaf) create the acronym of the name Tanakh 

  • ת - Hebrew letter tav stands for Torah (teachings)
  • נ - Hebrew letter nun stands for Nevi’im (prophets)
  • ך - Hebrew letter kaf stands for Ketuvim (writings)


The Torah (Teachings)

All Jewish beliefs come from the Torah. The Torah is divided into the five books of Moshe: 

  • Bereishit
  • Shemot
  • Vayikra
  • Bamidbar
  • Devarim

The Torah is divided into 54 portions, the Parashot, and we read one a week over an annual cycle. The five books of Moshe can also be referred to as the Chumash. The word Chumash comes from the Hebrew word for five, Chamesh (חמש). 
The Torah is an instruction book and it is the life and existence of the Jewish people. It has Divine wisdom and is a code for how to live a moral life. The Torah was given by God to Moshe on Mount Sinai. All the Jewish people witnessed this event. In Christianity the Torah is also known as the “Old Testament”.

A few words of advice:

I do not recommend you to start reading the Torah all by yourself. Understanding the message behind the words of the Torah is not easy, especially for Torah beginners. Every translation of the original Hebrew Bible is always also an interpretation, which makes it even more difficult to understand the meaning behind each word. Instead I recommend to watch videos on Youtube of Rabbis interpreting the Torah. One of my  favorites is Aleph Beta. This will help you read and deeply understand the Torah to discover its beauty, meaning, and relevance. Besides that I recommend you to study the weekly Torah portions. I can recommend Chabad.org and my weekly Newsletter where I summarize the Parasha and provide some spiritual insights. Sign up here!
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Nevi’im (“prophets”)

The book of the prophets is the second section of the Tanakh. It talks about  the Jewish history after the Torah and it presents Israel’s history as a nation on it’s land, focused on all the Jewish prophets and Jewish kings.

Nevi’im begins with the conquest of Eretz Yisrael (The Land of Israel) under leadership of Yehoshua (Moshe’s successor) and concludes with the prophecies of Malachi to those rebuilding the Temple after their return from Babylonia. 

Each week a reading from the prophets, called a Haftarah, is read after the Torah reading in the synagogue. Each Torah portion is paired with a specific Haftarah. The stories of the Nevi’im were inspired by God's power (Ruach Hakodesh) bur written by humans.

Ketuvim (“writings”)

Ketuvim is the third section of the Tanakh and it contains poetry, philosophy and history and stories. Many of the writings are associated with the Jewish holidays and we read the according story on its High Holiday. Clues of language, literary style, and content have led scholars to see most of Ketuvim as “Second Temple” works. Unlike the two previous books (Torah and Nevi’im) Ketuvim do not present themselves as the fruits of direct divine inspiration (Ruach Hadodesh). The writings were written by humans. Below is a brief list included in the book: 

  • Psalms (“Tehillim”) written by King David
    • Poems for public celebrations in the Temple
    • Individual meditations at times of danger or suffering
  • The Five Megillot 
    (Megillot is the plural form of the Hebrew word Megilla, which means “Scroll”)​
    • Songs of Songs (Passover)
    • Ruth (Shavuot)
    • Lamentations (Tisha B’Av)
    • Ecclesiastes (Sukkot) 
    • Esther (Purim)

The Talmud (“study”) 

The Talmud is a collection of writings that covers the full range of Jewish law and tradition, it is compiled and edited between the third and sixth centuries. It’s name is appropriate as it is a text that people devote their lives to studying and mastering.  

The Talmud includes two parts: the older Mishnah and the younger Gemara. The Talmud is the comprehensive written version of the Jewish oral law and the subsequent commentaries on it. The Talmud is largely about law and it is studied, not read. The main text of the Talmud is the Mishnah- a collection of short teachings written in Hebrew.

The Mishnah (“repeating”)
​
The Mishnah is the earlier original written version of the oral law, which the Jewish people received from God at Mount Sinai but initially didn't write down. The Mishnah is a law book of explanations on how to keep the Torah law.
The Mishnah consists of six is divisions, called sedarim (“orders”): 

  • Zera’im (“seeds”) mostly agricultural laws, but also the laws of blessings and prayers
  • Mo’ed (“festival”) mostly laws of Shabbat and the Jewish High Holidays 
  • Nashim (“women”) about marriage and divorve 
  • Nezikin (“damages”) civil, criminal law and ethics 
  • Kodashim (“holy things”) laws about sacrifices, the Holy Temple, and the dietary laws
  • Taharot (“purities”) laws of ritual purity 

Gemarah 

The Gemarah the essence of the Talmud and a rabbinical commentary on the Mishnah. Along with the Mishnah, these texts make up what is known as Rabbinic Judaism- which still provides the framework for the various types of Judaism practiced today.

The Thirteen Fundamental Principles of the Jewish Faith 

Rabbi Moseh ben Maimon (“Maimonides” also known as “Rambam”) compiled the “13 prnciples of Jewish faith” and derived them from the Torah. He refers to these principles as “the fundamental truths of our religion and its very foundations.” They are as follows: 

  1. Belief in the existence of the Creator, who is perfect in every manner of existence and is the Primary Cause of all that exists. 
  2. The belief in God’s absolute and unparallel unity. 
  3. The belief in God’s non-corporeality, nor that He will be affected by any physical occurrences, such as movement, or rest, or dwelling. 
  4. The belief in God’s eternity. 
  5. The imperative to worship God exclusively and no foreign false gods. 
  6. The belief that God communicates with man through prophecy. 
  7. The belief in the primacy of the prophecy of Moses our teacher. 
  8. The belief in the divine origin of the Torah. 
  9. The belief in the immutability of the Torah. 
  10. The belief in God’s omniscience and providence. 
  11. The belief in divine reward and retribution. 
  12. The belief in the arrival of the Messiah and the messianic era. 
  13. The belief in the resurrection of the dead. ​

Creation in the Torah

In the Torah the first word is Bereishit (“In the beginning”) 

We learn God created the world, humans and everything that exists in six days and on the seventh he rested. Just like God we work and create for six days and on the seventh we rest and keep the Shabbat holy.

  1. Light
  2. Heaven
  3. Water and Land
  4. Planets
  5. Animals of The Water and Sky
  6. Animals of Land and The First Human Being 
  7. God rested and observed and appreciated his creation 

The Torah and science coexist in the world. They share a lot of compatible similarities that are linked to the creation of the world and are not contradicting at all. Jewish creation in "one day" of creation does not equal 24 hours. 

In Parshat Bereishit God created Adam, the first human being and Chava (Adam’s wife) the second human being and they lived in Gan Eden (“paradise”). God gave the human high mental ability to be able to distinguish between good and bad, he gave them power of speech to communicate with one another and a divine soul. All of these qualities make us different and superior to all animals created. 

With God's creation he granted us free will and allowed us to choose from good or evil but reminded us that every choice has a consequence. In the story there was one rule, forbidding Adam and Chava to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree. The consequence was death which translated to becoming mortal. In paradise the soul was eternal and existed forever therefore when Chava and Adam decided to eat from the fruit they left paradise and lived a mortal life on earth. 

From this story we learn the essence of the good and evil. In Judaism, yetzer hara (יצר הרע) is the so-called “evil inclination” by violating the will of God. A brief breakdown of the hebrew expression- the hebrew word רע (pronounced: ra equals to bad/evil). Hara is every thought that leads to a forbidden action or break the Torah law or any other desire to do evil. The punishment from God for evil actions (sins) are either physical or spiritual consequences. We as humans have the power to control the Yetzer hara and choose the good inclination instead.

On the other hand yetzer hatov (יצר הטוב) is the opposite, it is the “good inclination”. This hebrew expression- the hebrew word טוב (pronounced: tov equals to good).

Free choice/Free Will 

We as humans have free will- the ability to choose between good and evil. Jewish tradition assumes that our actions are significant- they must be the product of our free choice. We have the free choice to choose good or evil and we can influence our lives with these actions, God is always there and watches all the choices we make. God might give us hints but ultimately allows everything to happen. 

Heaven and Hell

What is heaven and hell for jews? In Judaism, we do not believe in hell. Instead, we believe that the soul returns to its divine source. We believe this process takes up to 12 months in which the soul re-lives its experiences on another plane, and experiences the good it accomplished during its physical lifetime as incredible happiness and pleasure, and the negative as incredibly painful. We believe all souls (including non-jews) can go to heaven and they will also have to face the sins against not keeping their 7 Noahide Laws. 

By Galya Yebra & Ilana Schiffner

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JULIA
OKTOBER 20, 2018

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About Me

Welcome to "Jewishbychoice"! 
I am Ilana! 
​German, 28 years old, converted to Orthodox Judaism, currently living in Israel. Fascinated by Torah, Spirituality and Jewish values.
​Today I share my experiences on my blog and assist people in their conversion process. I teach weekly Judaism classes and offer professional conversion coaching.

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