Download How Judaism Began

How
Judaism
Began
This ancient
religion gave rise
to Christianity
and Islam. How
did it begin?
by Matt Friedman
ounded thousands of
years ago, Judaism (JOOdee-ihz-uhm) VJ3S the first
major religion to teach a belief in
one God. Jews trace their ancestry
to Abraham, who lived sometime
between 2000 B.C. and 1800 B.C.,
in the tegion we know as the Middle East. Jews believe that God
promised to protect Abraham's
people if they remained faithful to
Him. Abraham was chosen in part
because he was the first to profess a
belief in only one God.
The Torah tells that some of
WORDS TO KNOW
l
• Exodus: many people leaving a
place at once; the flight of the
Israelites from Egypt.
• kosher: food that fulfills the
requirements of Jewish laws.
•seder: Passover feast.
• Torah: the first five books of the
Hebrew Bible, wbicb Christians call
the Old Testament.
• Yom Kipput: the holiest day of the
Jewish calendar during which Jews
fast and ask forgiveness from God.
JUNIOR
SCHOLASTIC
! goes before the Pharaoh to
Israelites' deliverance.
Abrahams descendants, who later
became known as Israelites, moved
to Egypt, where they prospered.
After a while, however, a cruel
Egyptian Pharaoh (ruler) ordered
that they be enslaved.
Centuries of slavery shook the
faith of the Israelites. In about 1300
B.C., the Torah says, God chose
Moses to go before the Pharaoh
and demand their deliverance
(rescue). But the Pharaoh would
not yield. God then set plague after
plague upon the Egyptian people—
from diseases that devastated catde
to the Nile River's turning to blood.
With each display of divine power,
the Israelites' faith in God grew.
But the Pharaoh still would not
budge. Finally, God unleashed a
devastating tenth plague: The Angel
of Death killed the first-born son of
each Egyptian family. With the
death of his own soti, the Pharaohs
will was broken at last. He allowed
Moses to lead the Israelites out of
Egypt. They left in such a rtish that
the breads they had been baidng did
not have time to rise.
Today, the annualfeastof
Passover celebrates the Exodus and
the "passing over" of the Angel of
Death, who spared the Israelites'
first-born sons. The most important
symbol at a seder is unleavened
(unraised) bread, or marzo.
Israel and Beyond
According to theTorah, God
gave the Ten Commandments and
other laws to Moses after the Exodus. These laws taught Jews the
proper way to live and worship in
their chosen land.
The Jews formed the kingdom
of Israel around 1029 B.C., in the
land promised to Abraham. By
950 B.C., they completed the First
Temple in their capital, Jerusalem,
for the worship of God. Years later,
the Babylonians destroyed it. The
Romans destroyed the Jews' Second Temple in 70 A.D. But its
Western Wall—also called the
Wailing Wall—still stands.
After the Roman conquest,
which began in 63 B.C., decades
of unrest followed. Many Jews
were forced to leave their homeland, renamed Syria Palaestina by
the Romans.
As outsiders in other countries,
Jewish people often faced persecution. For example, when Czar
Alexander II of Russia was murdered
in 1881, Russian Jews were blamed.
Hundreds of them were killed in
attacks called pogroms (pahGROMS), or organized massacres.
During World War II (19391945), Nazi Germans killed 6 million Jews in Europe. After this
Holocaust, the desire of Jews to
reunite in Israel grew even stronger.
At the time, most people in what
w;is then called Palestine were Arabs.
But a growing number of Jews also
lived there. Internationa! pressure to
create a new Jewish homeland
increased. In 1947, the United
Nations proposed to divide Palestine
into two independent states, one
Jewish and one Arab.
The Jews in Palestine accepted
the plan, but the Arabs opposed it.
In 1948, Jewish leaders declared
Israel to be an independent nation.
"Closer to God"
Today, the world's 15 million
Jews live their heritage—and interpret the Torah—in various ways.
The Four main branches of
Judaism—Orthodox, Conservative,
Reform, and Reconstructionist—
range from strictly following Jewish
law (Orthodox) to holding to spiritual principles, rather than an exact
interpretation of holy texts (Reconstructionist). Some people consider
themselves to be Jewish by birth
and by culture, even though they
are not religious.
As a Reform Jew, 13-year-old
Amanda Garfinkel of Westfield,
New Jersey, attends her synagogue
(place of worship) many Saturdays
and takes Judaism classes. She likes
it when rabbis discuss how the
Torah applies to modern life.
"They give life lessons that I ftnd
meaningful," says Amanda.
Shimon Newmark, an Orthodox
Jew from Baltimore, Maryland, lives
the Torah's laws every day. Last
June, when he turned 13, he celebrated his bar mitzvah—a boy's
entrance into Jewish adulthood.
"Bar mitzvah is the day that you
become obligated to all the laws,"
says Shimon. 1 his includes tasting
on Yom Kippur, studying the
Torah and the Talmud (a collection
of rabbis' interpretations of Jewish
laws), and giving to charity. Shimon
also keeps kosher, which means eating only foods that Jewish laws say
are clean. For example, eating pork
is forbidden because the pig is considered an unclean animal.
According to Jewish tradition,
fulfilling these obligations is not a
chore—it represents a chance to
grow. As Shimon says, "It brings
you closer to Cod." '*^
urn
THINK ABOUT IT
; An Israeli boy reads from the
tkiring his bar mitzvah at the
Western (or Wailing) Wall in Israel
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
all accept a belief in one God.
What other characteristics do
these major religions share? How
can people of different religions
find common ground?
NOVEMBER
15.
TB