Download Page 1 n—fi- _ _ ` 210 A VERY BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO

n—fi-
W
210
‘
A VERY BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO JUDAISM
_
_
w
is the oldest surviving religion of the
about 4,000 years ago when the
Western World.
people, led by
Mam,
It began
migrated from
They worshipped a God called El Shaddai
Mesopotamia and settled in Palestine.
whom they regarded as the Creator of heaven and earth and the source of all moral
law.
Abraham's grandson, {£13, was also called
became knpwn as the Children of Israel.
fig},
and therefore his descendants
During his bifetime, owing to a famine,
they left Palestine for Egypt, where they lived for some 400 years.
end of that time they were enslaved, until liberated by a new leader,
led them into the wilderness of Sinai.
now called
Towards the
Ms, who
There, in the name of the God of Abraham,
M1, he proclaimed to them the Ten Commemdments and many other laws,
knmvn collectively as the Tigrih, that is, the Teaching, which they pledged them—
selves
a.11d
all their future generations to obey.
Moses died, and his guccessor,
..
back into Paiestine.
W; ’—
githe
so
Israelites across the Jordan,
MiezffitissLIEl/gazflfztablished a monarchy
Solomon's death, it split up.
Piggy, then Solomon, [After
Eventually, the northern kingdom, Israel, was conquered by Assyria, leaving only
under king
§§L_1_1,
then
m-
M w
From this time, therefgore, the people became known
Hiu‘r
R» (M
Judah was also conquered, by the Babylonians, and its people
the southern kingdom, Judah.
as Judeans, or
J_e_w_s,
exiléd to Babylonia.
131-11;
they survived, and when Babylonia KKK fail to Persia,
they were pemittedjfto return to Palestine
and.
rebuild their Temple‘én—
During all these centuries there appeared a succession of prophets, such as
liaiall and Jeremiah,
who further refined the Jewish ieligion.
were cgmmitted to writing.
So were their lawsand legends, and eventually all these
writings were put together to become the ID
o 16.
Testament
Their prephecie;
ewfiBile, known to Christians as the
r‘" E"
nLEO BAEAVK C IN UR
.
I
~
\
5
LES—2&1
‘
..,
About
~
— 2 —
.
E500 13.0.
.
the Middle East was conquered from the Persians by the Greeks.
Then,
in the 2nd century B.C., the Jews rebelled against the Greeks and once again established
an independent Jewish State.
as the Pharisees.
About the same time there arose among them a new séct, known
They tried to democrat ise Judaism by taking it out of the Temple into
the Synagogue, a new institution where communal prayer and the study
W
W
M
61‘
Scripture took
the place of sacrifice, and Where the lay people enjoyed the same privileges as the
LLULLQMI,
Mum Lia» Wakexlu‘i
TL PhD/(w; Lew ei/zl-[t‘ {dun-Ci
priests.
'
(,2.
acmflzm
wart
QM“ M
In the first century B.C. Jndea. once again lost its independence and became
a.
oppressed by the Romans, the Jews began to dream about a saviour,
Roman province.
known as the Messiah, which means the Anointed One, who, they hoped, would liberate
themmxfifim
become their king, and usher in a Golden Age for all mankind.
From
time-to time an indivisual claimed to be this Messiah, or was so acclaimed by his
followers.
One of them was Jesus of Nazareth.
and practice, and he taught Judaism.
is not certain.
He was a Jew by birth and upbringing, belief
Whether he believed himself to be the Messiah
But he became the leader of what seemed to many to be a messianic
But many of his followers
movement, and as such, he was exgecuted by the Romans.
continued to believe in him.
shortly return.
Tgey believed that he
112341
ascehded to heaven and would
But they remained Jews and continued to practise Judaism.
It was
only when, through Paul's missionary activities, their ideas cauglt on among non—Jews
that these constructed out of them a new religion, Christianity, which was in some ways
very'likn Judaism and in some>ways very unlike it.
About a generation after the death of Jesus the Jews of Palestine rebelled against
the Romans, who [crushed the rebellion and destroyed the Temple.
Pharisees and their synagogues, Judaism surfiived,
the Middle East.
The Jews also
not.
But thanks to the
only in Palestine but all over
maimed creative. For instance, they wrote
a huge
literature, consisting of laws and legends ectpounding and supplementing the
1316.
'
Testament, known as the
’Fl‘gllnid.
I; the course of the centuries more and more Jews moved westwards from the
Middle East and established communities all over Europe.
’l‘herej‘fiiiéx
however,
perseéuted by the
they were almost constantly
Christian Church, often massacred, and finally deprived of all citizenship riglts
I; was only when the power of the Church declined, and.
and herded into {mitt—05.
especially in consequence of the French Revolmtion with its motto of liberty,
But their new freedom was
equality and fraternity, that their lot improved.
Soon they were persecuted again, no longer from religious but from
short-lived.
political motives, especially in Germany and Russia, and in our own century, under
the Nazis, six million Jews, about one—third of their total number in the world,
were murdered,
LL
MAJ
KL.
low
J'
19‘ lc°l°°””'/
[<
'
By that time many Jews had become convinced that they would never attain any
2:13.41». [4, [K fife“ 4 ’4 Zw‘I A
and Lawrurfuk—J If A
lasting seéuxity as long as they lived as minorities among non—Jews, Illfiez‘ailepe
"44¢:q
°
31:11
"
A
éovanM/[owcvd
112;.
~
w
~
~
o the'
cient homeland Palestine .
v
MIG. A
frfwffiwnl‘, hard/- [fizW-lu‘
flag/V
voted. in favour o
~
a Jewish State and an Arab State side by side.
~
Soon after that the British,_a:—-$he
withdrew, and the Jews of Palestine proclaimed the $tate of Israel.
But the Arab States'rmvw nnnny+nfl Han vnr+i+irm D1 L7
up an Arab‘State in the area
Israel in a series-of wars.
akitotted fior it,
’“1.
:‘r‘4‘rwa7
instead of Setting
thertried to destréy the State of
1
T; this day, as we all know, real peace has not yet
been achieved, and therefore the security which the State of Israel was supposed
to provide for the Jewish people still remains elusive.
Today there are about 15 million
Jew
in the world. 6 million of them live
in the United States of America, 3 million in Israel, about the same number in
the Soviet Union.
400,000 of them
“S”
3d
IL flwtt
Wm
The remaining 3 million are scatted all over the world.
Britain.
'zV‘L LW/‘I EAInJA/wwu
.live in
WP” W“
[a
A K 0"“ “I”
About
Au.“ A Mk" Auk“ M
_
g;
_‘
So much, than, for the history 9f Judaism.
Now
me say a little about its
191;
JEdaism teaches that there is One God.
teachings and practices.
He is the
Creator of the universe, and His greatness is such that no human being can fully,
or anything like fully, understand Him.
W
He is not to be identified with the
universe, still less any part of it, whether mineral, vegetable, animal or human.
U
MW
.
But J daism also teaches that He is a moral God, a
u
He is an invisible God.
God.
of
justice and mercy, and that what He demands of human beings above all else is that
—
9—1
i~
min—,L
Lonncwi, "LWC‘yw
m'piSm. In
jaunt/Li."
they should practise justice and mercy towards one anather,
Judaism further teanhes
that God has made Hfmself ‘mm‘m to mankknd and, in particular, that He has rgvealed
..
His will to the Jewish people in the Torah.
specaal responsibility:
t'o
proclaim the Unity of God, to set an example of loyalty
to Him, and to work for the coming of the
One God
alt].
Therefore the Jewish people have a
Lam'w:
’3“
/~
a
when all men will worship the
obey His commandments and therefore live together in brbtherhood
and.
peace.
Finally, a few words about the practiées of Judaism.
u
First and foremost, of
course, J daism requires its adherents to lead a good life.
But in order that
they may acguire the necessary spiritual and moral strength, it also requires them
to practise a well-defined discipline of study, prayer and Observances.
Tfierevis
therefore a great emphasis on reli ious educ tion, not only for children but for
7;“ u
adults as well.
be“ (1M;
Ideal
3;,
Jews are suppos
morning, afternoon and evening.
so—called
Ma,
.
to pray three times daily, in the
Twice a day they are supposed to recite the
which is a passage from the book of Deuteréjnomy beginning:
"Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is
0;;9.
And you shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might,"
Public wprship takes place mainly on the Sabbath and Festivals.
coutse, in the synagogue.
That is, of
There are nowadays two kinds of synagogue.
I; the
f5"
so-called Orthodox synagogues the service is conducted entirely in Hebrew, it is
without instrumental music,
chanted rather than spoken, and the. women are segregated from the men. In the
..
“ £21m ,N.
so—called Ref%m ’or Liberal syn gogues, the service is conducted partly in Hebrew
and partly in English, it is spoken rather than chanted, though there is also a lot
of singing, usually led by a choir with organ accompaniment, and men and women Si t
Sabbath or Festival morning, the most important part of the serv ce is the reading
V
A
of Scripture. Tgere are two lessons, one from the Five Books of M ses, which is
'
r‘
.
read from a parchment scroll; the other,from the Prophets, is read from a book.
But the Sabbath and Festivals are not only occasions for
are also observed at home.
-
2‘
Hum
13113110
vorship.
MAL»?
They
For instance, the Sabbath, which lasts from Friday evening
till Saturday evening, is ushered in by the lighting of candles, which is the privilege
of the mother, followed by the drinking of some wine and the eating of some bread,
with blessings generally recited by the father, and then a festive meal.
K1011
Ml
The Jewish year begins in the autumn with a New Year festival on which a ram's
solemn
T is is followed 10 days later
by the most
gm [4.4
festival of all, the Day of Atonement, when most Jew: observe a complete
horn is blown as a call to repentance.
fast and spend the whole day in the synagogue praying.
Em.
j
fax
yful festivals, in the spring summer and autumn.
5
The spring festival is called
I
A
If commemorates the E odus from Egypt and is celebrated in the home with
an elaborate meal and many colourful rituals.
bread is eaten.
.
There are also three
During this festival only unleavened
Jinn/Moi
w
The summer festival is called Pentecost.
4.
IL
commemorates the
Revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai and involves the reading of the Ten Commandments.
'
w’
-
—
The autxjnm festival is called Tabernacles.
It is mainly a harvest festival and
involves the building of a booth or tabernaclesi made but of foliage and decorated
~
with vegetables, fruit and flovmrs.
There are also some minor festivals.
The
most important of these occurs in December gnd lasts for eight days. It is called
I
Chanukkah or the Feast of Dedication.
It commemorates the successful 2&3
uprising of the Jews of Palestine in the
211d
century 13.0. against the Greeks, who
had tried to compel them to give up their religion, and involves the lighting of
candles, one on the first. night, two on the second, and so on, until all
are lit on the last night, and for which a
BM spscial eight-branched
eight
cmdlestick is
used.
Needless to say, there are also special ceremonies to mark the various stages
in the life of a Jew, such as birth, confirmation, marriage and death.
But to
describe these would. take too long, and I think it is betfier that I should now
stop
and invite you to ask any questions you wish.