FAQ: Judaism 101

[RichardGarfinkle]

Judaism 101

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This subforum has two purposes:

1. As a gathering place for Jewish members of AW to talk together, share experiences and ideas and so on. It is a safe space for Jews.

2. As a place where non-Jewish members can come when they need understanding of Jews and Judaism and the history of both for the benefit of their lives and for their writing needs.

In all cases the first purpose has priority over the second. No one may come in here to challenge Judaism or proselytize. This policy is absolute.

Discussions of Judaism relative to other religions can be had here, but they will be from a Jewish perspective. Discussions that are more even-handed are to be had in the Comparative Religion and Philosophy subforum.

 

[RichardGarfinkle]

The rest of this thread is a primer on Judaism for our non-Jewish members. Jewish members should give it a read as well so they can see what's covered and what isn't and so they can argue about it and with it, because Judaism. Suggestions for additions and corrections will be listened to and may be incorporated.

Judaism is what is technically known as an ethnoreligion. That is, it is the religion of a particular people and only of those people. Most of the world's religions are ethnoreligions.

A people is not defined by genetics. It is defined by who the people as a group say are members of the people. The idea that it is defined by genetics is racist. If you wish to argue this point go argue with anthropology. We will not be going over that here.

Judaism allows but does not encourage conversion. The process is best analogized as becoming a naturalized citizen. There's learning, tests, questions, judges to see if one has learned what one needs to and is sincere in desire to convert. Once converted, the person is Jewish, period, done, full stop.

The history of Judaism is long and complex. There are a lot of good books on the subject. If you want to get it in smaller chunks hitting highlights, there's a good YouTube channel created by Sam Aronow (an Israeli who was born and raised in the US). https://www.youtube.com/c/SamAronow

Judaism is a religion that focuses on how people should live their lives and how they should treat each other, the world around them, and the holiness they may or may not perceive. It is often described as orthopraxic. That is, it prescribes right action or practice, as compared to orthodoxic, which involves right belief. And yes, there are Orthodox Jews, but they mostly have a strict idea of right practice.

Judaism has no requirement of belief. There are atheist and agnostic Jews. Quite a lot of us, in fact.

This focus on how to live and how to live with each other means that there are no completely abstract questions in Judaism and there are no final answers because how people are living changes and what they might need will change over time.

The concept of justice in Judaism is a matter of living properly among people and fixing any harm one has done. This kind of justice is often called restorative rather than punitive. It amounts to try not to make a mess and if you do then clean it up.

Judaism has no fixed concept of an afterlife. There are a number of different ideas of whether anything happens after people die and what happens to them (there are even Judaic variations of reincarnation). But that's not what matters. What matters is here and now and how we live.

Judaism has a very strong respect for learning and the learned. Along with practicing, it's good if people learn and consider and question all through their lives. This leads to argument. Lots and lots of argument. Argument is often seen as a good in Judaism.

Judaism is monotheistic. For some Jews this means there is absolutely and only one god. For others this can mean Jews have one god while other people have their own ways. If you wonder how this fits with atheist Jews, it's pretty simple: There is a requirement to have no other god before the god of the Torah, so you can't have more than one god. You can have less than one god.

 

[RichardGarfinkle]

Vocabulary: These are terms that non-Jews may not be familiar with. We're generally using the English ways of spelling them, but members are free to use any known spelling and pronunciation. With one exception (Israel), we're not going to list names of people or places, because there are way too many of them.

Torah: The Torah consists of the five books that are titled in English: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. All of these titles except Numbers are Greek in derivation. They exist together as a basic source to recurse through for most Judaic thinking. Torah scrolls are specially scribed and have a number of ways they need to be cared for.

Tanakh: The Tanakh is a collection of three sets of books: The Torah, the Nevi'im (or Prophets) and the Ketuvim (or Writings). Tanakh is an acronym TNK (with vowels stuck in because Hebrew doesn't exactly have vowels). The Hebrew Bible is an acceptable term, but Tanakh is often preferred. For differences with the Christian Bible see the discussion below of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity.

Talmud: The Talmud is a collection of discussions and legal opinions on how Jews should live. A lot of it is interpretations and practical decisions about the contents of the Torah. The Mishnah is the earliest part of the Talmud, followed by the Gemara. The Talmud is also called the Oral Law (where the Torah is the Written Law).

Midrash: Any interpretation of text, mostly text in the Tanakh, but there are Midrash on the Talmud and other things. The term is usually reserved for rabbinic interpretation.

Tetragrammaton: The four letter name of God in Hebrew (yod, heh, vav, heh). Jews don't pronounce this. There are various ways to deal with reading it. One of the simplest is to say adonai (Lord) when one runs into it. There are both esoteric and exoteric reasons to do this. The practice of not saying it can carry over to other related practices, so many Jews will write G-d as a way to keep the awareness going even though that isn't the holy name.

Covenant: Judaism can be seen as an agreement between God and the Jews. It's essentially God agreeing to be the god of this people, and this people agreeing that this god is their god. There's then a lot of stipulations on how this agreement is to be carried out because contracts are like that.

Rabbi: A rabbi is a combination of judge, teacher, and officiant at temples / synagogues. Rabbis have been slotted into various pastoral functions in a lot of western societies because it's easier for the society to find an equivalent of priest or pastor and give them the legal roles.

Rabbi is a hybrid job that is often equated with priest. It isn't an exact fit because Judaism has priests (the Kohens) who are all members of one lineage. Most priestly functions dictated in the Torah require the actual temple, which doesn't exist anymore, but there are still Kohens doing ceremonial and sacral tasks.


Israel: Israel has three meanings:

1. The name of Jacob after he wrestled with God. To a lot of Jews this action (wrestling with what course of action is the right one) is a fundamental metaphor for how to live. Fighting God in a Dennys' car park is a common turn of phrase these days. It doesn't have to be a Dennys, but for some reason it's always a car park.

2. The name of the Jewish people (a shorthand for "Children of Israel").

3. The name of a nation established in the Middle East following World War II.

While the first two meanings overlap strongly, the third is something else entirely. The citizens of the nation of Israel are not the same as the Children of Israel. There is an antisemitic trope that all Jews are actually loyal to the State of Israel (or should be) and bear personal responsibility for the actions of that state. Do not bring that nonsense into this board.


Diaspora: The spread of Jews across the world after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70CE by the Roman Empire. The diaspora caused a radical change in how Jews lived their lives and practiced their religion. Amongst other things Hebrew basically died out as a language of everyday use and persisted only as a sacred language until its modern form was created in the last century.

The history of the diaspora is complex and interesting. Writers wishing to learn to write about Jews in various historical periods would need to study up on the particular places and histories.

The diaspora produced different Jewish subcultures and hybrid languages. There are Jewish subcultures in India and China, for example, that are highly distinct from the European ones. The two subcultures most well-known in America and Europe are Ashkenazi (who developed the language of Yiddish) and Sephardic (who developed the language of Ladino ).



Judaism, as said, can be seen as an ongoing argument. There's an old joke: two Jews, three opinions. Frankly, that's a little low. At times the differences get large enough that groups of Jews separate into different branches. This is not schismatic so much as it is a clustering of agreement from which to get localized disagreements. Almost all of these groups and branches are descended from the Pharisaic Judaism of the Second Temple period that gave rise to the Talmud. The differences that arose came about much later.

The branches of Judaism that one is likely to encounter in the US, Canada, and Europe are:

Orthodox: Orthodox Judaism is an umbrella term for various groups that see themselves as behaving in strictest accordance with the Torah and Talmud. Orthodox Judaism arose in the 18th century CE.

Conservative: Conservative Judaism arose in the late 19th - early 20th centuries CE. It strives for a balance between tradition and modern concerns.

Reform: Reform Judaism began in the early 19th century CE. It focuses on how Judaism can find ways to adapt to the modern world without getting lost in assimilation.

Reconstructionist: Reconstructionist Judaism began in the early 20th century and takes an even more evolutionary attitude than Reform. Reconstruction considers a great many elements of Judaism as a matter of personal consideration and adaptation.



Kabbalah: An area of esoteric Judaic mysticism. Unfortunately, it was hijacked into pop culture in the 19th century by people like MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley. Most of what's available in English is not authentic, especially since most Jews who actually study it won't talk about it.

 

[RichardGarfinkle]

Judaism and Christianity:



Christianity and Judaism have a unique and fraught relationship which creates a number of issues and difficulties in interaction. We're mostly going to discuss these in terms of writing and intertextuality, but there are a few points that need to be dealt with first. The following ideas are not up for discussion on this subforum:

1. Supersessionism: This is the doctrine that Christianity supersedes / takes over from Judaism.

2. Deicide. The claim that Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus.

3. Jews need Jesus.

4. Judaism hasn't changed since the days of Jesus.

5. Jews just need to hear the gospel (We've all heard it).


Most Christians are taught that they share a holy text with Jews. This is not accurate for reasons of intertextuality. The Christian Old Testament is not the same book / books as the Tanakh, because they interrelate with different sets of texts.

The Tanakh is connected through commentary, application and culture with the Talmud and ensuing Midrash. Together they provide an evolving framework for how Jews live and what their concerns are. The errors people make in the Tanakh are human errors that need correction either then or in later times. The Torah is seen as being entrusted to the care of each successive generation of Jews, and the concept that it's their Torah now is taken seriously.

The Old Testament is connected through unification into a single book with the New Testament. This intertextual process makes the Old Testament into a prequel to the main book (the New Testament) about the main character (Jesus). This intertextual transformation makes the Old Testament a completely different book than the Tanakh.


Because most Christians read these books with their intertextual understanding, they largely lack any idea of what Judaism really is. They imagine Judaism as Christianity minus Jesus. A Christian seeking to understand Judaism needs to learn to read books they think they are familiar with in an entirely different way. This can be difficult, but it is necessary, otherwise communication is not possible. Nor would it possible to create accurate Jewish characters.


One critical element in this is to look at Jewish monotheism and see how it differs from Christian monotheism. Judaism has no, repeat no, divine humans. There are exactly zero such characters anywhere in the Tanakh. Bear in mind that this was extremely unusual for the cultures and religions in the Mediterranean and surrounding areas. Demigods, gods who had been mortal, heroes of divine ancestry, and incarnated gods were common. The divinity of Jesus fit in with Roman and Greek ideas, but it did not fit with Judaism at all. It still doesn't.


Christian monotheism is also mostly trinitarian. While there are plenty of Christian theologians who argue how three can be one, Jewish theologians reject those arguments. Three is a larger number than one, ergo polytheism.

Another distinction between the two religions is the Christian focus on personal salvation in an afterlife. Jews aren't in general concerned about that. They're living here and now and trying to make the world a better place. The argument of heaven or hell is largely irrelevant. This also gets into the distinction between reparative and punitive justice.

All of these show that while one set of texts are in theory the same, the intertextual relations and the social contextual conditions, as well as the attitude toward the self and life, have almost no overlap.

Fundamentally, the two religions have very little in common. The last two thousand years of very dark and bloody history have only made the situation worse. The only thing that is currently improving things is individuals talking to and listening to each other without trying to convert anyone.

 

[RichardGarfinkle]

Differences in Vocabulary: These are a few words and phrases that do not mean the same things in Judaism and Christianity.


Old Testament: The Old Testament is not the same as the Tanakh for the intertextual reasons discussed above.


Judeo-Christian: This term has no meaning. It was invented in the 19th century and gained in usage during the mid to late 20th century. It is used by some Christian groups in order to claim that Jews and Christians share the same views of religion and morality and share traditions and that therefore those views are not solely Christian. But the claims are always and only made for Christian ideas. Jews and Jewish authorities are not consulted.


Abrahamic Religions: This term is not as bad as Judeo-Christian but is still blurring too much in an attempt to unify Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Islam has some things in common with Christianity and other things in common with Judaism, but the three do not have coherent shared views. There are also a lot more than three Abrahamic religions. For example Baha'i, Druze, Samaritan and Rastafarian are also Abrahamic.


Messiah: This requires a bit of unpacking.

In Judaism there is a prophecy of a Messiah, a human who will do a number of things that will usher in a time of peace. Over the centuries there have been a number of claimants to the title. None have actually done the specified jobs (including building a Third Temple). The Jewish attitude toward Jesus on this point is that he didn't fulfill the prophecy, ergo he was not the Messiah. The same applies to Simon Bar Kokhba, Sabbatai Zevi and others.

In Christianity, Jesus was the Messiah, a divine being who was also human who came to bring personal salvation. That's a completely different meaning of Messiah to the Jewish one.

These are two different words from the same source that radically diverged in meaning while not diverging in pronunciation. It's best to treat them that way.



Pharisee: This is actually the most problematic word, because the Christian usage of this word is slander and antisemitism and there's no other way to interpret this.

Here's a bit of history. In the late Second Temple period there were two major political parties / schools of teaching among the Jewish leadership. The first was the Sadducees, who focused on temple activities, ritual behavior and so on. They were basically the conservative party. The Pharisees were more focused on people's lives and how the law was to be interpreted in the times and circumstances. They were basically what we would think of today as left wing.

When the Second Temple was destroyed the Sadducees were left without power base or position to defend. Their thesis was that following the laws about the temple should be the center of Jewish life. They had no way to go on. The Pharisees had the Talmud and an ability to adapt. They transformed Judaism so it could survive into and through the Diaspora.

Modern Judaism is Pharisaic at all levels and interpretations. Using the term Pharisee as a term for abusive religious authorities or would-be murderers or deicides is an insult to every Jew for the last 2000 years.

The Gospels portray the Pharisees as manipulative evil mustache-twirlers bent on getting Jesus killed. They portray the Pharisees as asking trick questions meant to entrap.

But we actually have records of some of the discussions and debates among the Pharisees of the time. Asking questions and trying to find the practical consequences of somebody's ideas was a part of Pharisaic, and now rabbinic, praxis. If anything, the questioning was a sign that Jesus was seen as one of them, a Pharisee among Pharisees, a bit radical, but hardly the only radical or revolutionary among them.

The questions the Pharisees ask in the Gospels are much too simple for actual Pharisees. They read as strawmen. As a suggestion, try reading the Gospels and Plato's dialogues wherein Socrates argues with the Sophists. In both cases the arguments made and questions asked by the opponents of the hero (Jesus or Socrates) are simplified and flattened and in each case they are dumbfounded by the responses given.

Those are signs that the strawman trope is active.

Do not use Pharisee as an insult and expect to be welcomed by any Jews.




Messianic Jew: This does not mean a Jew who is awaiting the Messiah. No one who is Jewish calls themselves a Messianic Jew. It is not a term for a branch of Judaism. It is a term for Christians pretending to be Jews.

 

[frimble3]

Thank you for starting this, RichardGarfinkle, it's fascinating, and full of stuff I never thought of, or about. (Not being raised in religion - technically I should have been Catholic.)
I suspected that 'Judeo-Christian' had little to do with the Jews, and more to do with reminding the Catholics and the Protestants that they had common roots, in hopes of stopping them from slaughtering each other.
I shall study your posts some more.