Halakha

I was born Jewish, I had no say over it. At age 5 I began a lifelong journey of discovering Judaism and my belief in god. I began this journey by being enrolled at Seattle Jewish Community School. Kindergarten began with learning to write my name in Hebrew and learning the holiday train, the basic fundamentals. This basic understanding of Judaism continued through 5th grade as I explored the different ways I can be Jewish in my future. The majority of the time we were told—to some extent—what to…

According to some theorists, modernity is a limiting factor of religion. Modernity is a key factor in the secularization theory. Many believe that with advances in science, technology, urbanization, and globalization, religion has no place in the modern world and that Americans are becoming increasingly secular (Lippy, 2013, p. 18). However, when I attended a Jewish Havdallah service, the “insiders” to the Jewish faith were able to use modernity to their advantage, but were still able to…

For over 2,000 years, Jewish people have established amongst many places with different cultures, such as Iran, Israel, western Mediterranean, North Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Their roots come from the Middle East, especially Israel. The population of Israel has a mixture of native-born Jews, Arabs, and Jewish immigrants. Arabs is the largest group which in 2007 were 1,400,000 people, which accounted for approximately 20% of the population in this country (Ben-Arye, Lev, Keshet, & Schiff…

Hinduism and Judaism are two of the oldest existing religions in the world. Judaism is one of the first religions ever created and a monotheistic one. Judaism states that they must ultimately believe in the reality of God who made an agreement between Him and the Jews. Hindus believe in several Gods and Goddesses but they are all reflections of one God, Brahman, or the Universal spirit. The Hindu God presents himself in three forms, Brahma who created the world for them, Vishnu who sustains it,…

Abandoned by Stan Telchin reveals his personally journey, 20th century viewpoints of Jewish people, and ways to reach Jewish people for Yeshua. Immediately in the first chapter, Telchin captured my attention with his testimony of the opposition he encountered after accepting Yeshua. Once it was known in the Jewish community that he had received Yeshua, Telchin was immediately pegged as an outsider. He was no longer one of “them”. He details an example of the “us” versus “them” mentality that…

A Look into the Noachide Laws and Differing Views Do the Apostles and the Jerusalem Council separate Jews and Gentiles? Countless opinions have echoed around the halls of Judaism and Christianity, views concerning the significance of Torah observation in the lives of Gentiles. Dr. Shaye J.D. Cohen, rabbi and professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy at Harvard University, provides his opinion on the relevance of Torah observance and Gentiles of the First Century. He states that…

Jewish people have faced persecution for centuries, but the Holocaust was the most devastating to the Jewish community. “Many people prefer to use the Hebrew term Shoah (destruction) to denote the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews, since it is less theologically ‘loaded’ than Holocaust” (Solomon, 119). Hitler and his Nazi regime sought to bring the final solution to the age old Jewish question, and in this process there were over 6 million Jews and several million others (Gypsies, homosexuals…

In Rabbinic Judaism, a rabbi’s main duty was to interpret religious text. Similar to how judges interpret the U.S. constitution today, a rabbi formulated his interpretations on texts directly derived from God and attempted to perceive how the text was applicable to a Jew’s daily life. Therefore, the claim, “Despite the theological claims of the Jewish tradition, it is actually not God who legislates Rabbinic Judaism, but the Rabbis,” is false because rabbis focused on making God a constant…

The word “orthodox” is modernly used to refer to “the close following of the traditional beliefs and customs of a religion” (“Orthodox”). But, historically, the word had a much more negative connotation. When a new kind of Judaism arose around the mid-18th century, people named it “orthodox” because the new formed denomination followed tradition very closely as well as seemed to refuse to integrate and evolve with society. Instead of cursing the name, the new form of Judaism accepted the word…

4. A thematic dialogue between several early Modern Jewish literature prose is this discussion of exile. This is perhaps unsurprising, given exile of the Jewish people is often a narrative framework for the Jewish way of life. The roots of this theme can be traced in to one of the inaugural Jewish literary prose authors, Medele Mocher Sforim, who writes in Shem and Japeth on the Train, “life in exile-this precious gift from God’s store- belongs only to Jews-His chosen people” (Sforim 35). In…