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Essay / Judaism - 1468
Judaism is one of the oldest religions in the world. The Jewish people were persecuted during the Holocaust and left with nothing. No rulers or any land that belonged to them, because everything was taken from them. The history of the Jewish faith begins with the Hebrew Bible or the Tanankh, considered the Old Testament by Christians (Fisher, 2005). The story begins with Moses leading the people according to God's commandments. This includes new teachings and a book called Talmund. The Jewish people believe that if they obey God's commandments, God will keep the promises he made to them. The Torah is a set of rules given to the Jewish people by Moses. It contains rules for living a moral life, they were put into a book called the Torah. The sacred texts of Judaism are the Torah which are the rules of moral life given to the Jewish people by Moses. The Talmund which are the texts studied by the rabbis, and the Tanankh which contains the writings that Christians consider to be the Old Testament. The Ten Commandments constitute the foundation of the Jewish faith. The Ten Commandments were given to the Jewish people by Moses as a guide to living a good life. They include: you shall not steal, you shall not commit adultery, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The Ten Commandments were written on stone tablets; they also included "a set of social norms, prescribed religious holidays, and detailed instructions for building a portable tabernacle with a holy ark, the Ark of the Covenant, in which to keep the stone." tablets on which God has inscribed the commandments” (Fisher, 2005). The first Jewish temple was built in Jerusalem by King Solomon, son of King David. David was a Sheppah...... middle of paper...... they endured many struggles and worked hard to stay true to their roots. There are Orthodox Jews who are traditional and stick to the Hebrew Bible. There are Hasidic groups that practice withdrawal from the rest of the Jewish community. Some Lubavitch Hasidim are loyal to the idea of getting their message to as many Jews as possible using today's technology (Fisher, 2005). The largest Jewish movement is Conservative Judaism. They are dedicated to traditional Judaism, but reaffirm it in modern terms so that it is not considered a “dead religion” (Fisher, 2008). Women have now begun to take a dynamic role in their participation rights and would like to sit with men rather than behind a curtain in a synagogue. They also wish to be ordained as rabbis. Judaism is being rediscovered and is more recognized than ever.