What Is Judaism?

 

Dennis Prager has a really interesting article out, called “What Is Judaism?” Mr. Prager has written and taught on the subject (including two years as a member of the Brooklyn College Department of Judaic Studies). This is how he leads:

If you’ve ever wondered what Judaism is, here is a list of its principal beliefs. This is not an official list, but these beliefs have been widely held by religious Jews for thousands of years.

The 27-item list boils down the essentials of Judaism. Here are the first three to get a feel for his article.

I. There is one universal God.
This God is the Creator of the world and the God of all humanity.

II. One universal God means there is one universal morality.

III. God is:
a) Incorporeal (not physical): All matter comes to an end.
b) Eternal: All matter has a beginning and an end. But God exists outside of time.
c) Outside of nature: God is not in nature. And nature is not divine.
d) Personal: God knows each of us.
e) Good: God is moral, just and compassionate.

Of course, my mind went to how Christianity differs to any of his points. Excluding where obviously something is specific to Judaism, such as the Torah as central, I thought I found three points that were at least different in perspective or emphasis. Let me take them one at a time.

V. God’s primary demand is that people be good.
Therefore, God cares more about how we act toward one another than how we act toward Him — just as we humans care more about how our children treat one another than how they treat us.
Therefore, right behavior matters more than intentions and even more than faith.

(1) I don’t know if in Christianity one could say that God cares more about how we act toward each other than to God. When Christ is asked what is the greatest commandment He says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” (Mat 22:37-40). It’s really equal, not one greater than the other. If anything, greater would be love of God.

(2) Intentions do matter. If your intentions are good, but you miscalculated, then it is not a sin. If you attempt to help an old woman across the street and you trip and fall and bring the woman down, then not only was it not a sin, but your conscience was working in the proper way. If you think that global warming is destroying the earth and you try to advocate laws to save the planet, that is acting morally. If you think that global warming is a waste of money and you are acting to stop the waste of money toward the environment, then you are also acting morally. Your intention matters.

VI. There is an afterlife — God rewards the good and punishes the bad.
If good people and bad people have the same fate, there is either no God or a God that is not just.

The fate of your soul is not a simple summation of good and bad. Obviously we all do good and bad things. The fate of your soul rests on the state of your heart at death. You can be a bad sinner all your life, but if you have a change of heart—a true and sincere change of heart—you can be saved. Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a literary example. But the key is sincere contrition. God knows if it was sincere and the habit of constant sin leads to a hardening of the heart, making it extremely difficult to change.

VIII. Reward in the afterlife (“heaven”) is available to all good people, not just good Jews.

Now here you might have a variety of views within the various Christian denominations. On the one extreme, you have those where faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is absolutely fundamental. You cannot be saved without that as a founding principle. On the other extreme, salvation could be open to all people who have shown love to their neighbor. I lean to the latter but it comes down to the state of the heart.

Those are the ones I found distinctions. But, not being Jewish, I found this one very interesting.

XIV. Judaism, too, has a trinity: God, Torah and Israel (meaning Jewish peoplehood and the Land of Israel).
The removal of any one of them is no longer Judaism. It would be as if the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit were removed from Christianity.

I never thought about Judaism that way, but I can see his point.

This all rests on Prager’s understanding of Judaism. He certainly knows more about it than I do. (Side note, I got one of my degrees from Brooklyn College, where he taught.) I wonder if any of the Jewish people here would dispute any of Prager’s points, and do any of the Christians here see other distinctions. Of course, do you even agree with my distinctions?

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  1. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Manny (View Comment):
    And no the Trinity is nowhere in the OT. Suggestions of the various persons of God do not equate to the Trinity. My opinion, of course.

    By that criterion, is the Trinity in the NT?

    • #61
  2. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):
    And no the Trinity is nowhere in the OT. Suggestions of the various persons of God do not equate to the Trinity. My opinion, of course.

    By that criterion, is the Trinity in the NT?

    No.

    • #62
  3. Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu Inactive
    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu
    @YehoshuaBenEliyahu

    Manny (View Comment):
    Could you still be a Jew if you believed in the Greek gods as dieties, even though you are ethnically Jewish?

    If your mother is a Jew, you are a Jew.  Even if you converted to Catholicism, for example, and became a cardinal — e.g. the famous case of Jean-Marie Lustiger — you are still considered a Jew.  There are three sins in Judaism for which there is no forgiveness:  idol worship, murder (even if someone says “kill this person or you will be killed” you cannot kill that person) and illicit relations (adultery and incest).  Now if someone quietly believed in Greek gods but did not have statues of them around, did not bow to them or bring offerings to them, I do not think this would necessarily be a problem.  The issue really is doing so demonstrably, in public.  By the way, burning incense in front of a statue of Buddha is an example of idol worship.  There is one other matter, however, and that’s what we call “the captive child.”  The case is one in which a Jewish child was captured and raised in a pagan relgion.  The child grows up unaware of his true identity and bows to an idol.  Such a child is not considered to have violated G-d’s commandment since he didn’t know otherwise.  Nowadays, we are forgiving of Jews who don’t observe very much, benevolently assigning to them “the captive child” designation.  Even if they have Jewish parents, their parents may not know much about Jewish observance so you cannot blame the child, even upon growing up, of knowing little.

    • #63
  4. OmegaPaladin Moderator
    OmegaPaladin
    @OmegaPaladin

    I’m curious – I’ve read stories of non-Jews having faith in God in the Old Testament era.   What do Jews believe in terms of Gentiles who believes in God or desires to worship God?  I know conversion is not encouraged at all, but clearly Gentiles worshiping God was welcomed back in the day.

    What counts as idolatry?  If Cardinal Lustiger knelt before the Eucharist or a crucifix, was that idolatry?

    • #64
  5. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):
    And no the Trinity is nowhere in the OT. Suggestions of the various persons of God do not equate to the Trinity. My opinion, of course.

    By that criterion, is the Trinity in the NT?

    No.

    I think it depends on what we mean by “suggestion.” To be more precise, it seems that the meaning of the doctrine is such that it can be broken down into 7 atomic propositions:

    1. There is one G-d.
    2. G-d the Father is G-d.
    3. G-d the Son, Jesus Christ, is G-d.
    4. G-d the Holy Spirit is G-d.
    5. G-d the Father is not the same Person as G-d the Son.
    6. G-d the Father is not the same Person as G-d the Holy Spirit.
    7. G-d the Son is not the same Person as G-d the Holy Spirit.

    I do think we can find all 7 points in the NT as solid interpretations of relatively clear passages.  Somewhat more than mere “suggestion.”  However, nowhere in the NT is the whole doctrine laid out or formally stated.

    (And do I need to define “atomic proposition”? It’s a logic class term. It means a statement not made of other statements; e.g., “I eat cookies and I eat cheese” is not atomic because it’s made of the two statements “I eat cookies” and “I eat cheese.”)

    • #65
  6. Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu Inactive
    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu
    @YehoshuaBenEliyahu

    OmegaPaladin (View Comment):
    What counts as idolatry? If Cardinal Lustiger knelt before the Eucharist or a crucifix, was that idolatry?

    Some consider this idolatry, yes.  Although Christians and Jews are closer today than ever before and Islam is the enemy of both, Islam is more palatable when it comes to idol worship since, like Judaism, there are no pictures, sculptures, or other images in mosques, just as their are none in synagogues.  That Islam has become a cult of death for some of its practitioners, well, that’s a discussion for another time.

    • #66
  7. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):
    And do I need to define “atomic proposition”?

    • #67
  8. Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu Inactive
    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu
    @YehoshuaBenEliyahu

    OmegaPaladin (View Comment):
    What do Jews believe in terms of Gentiles who believes in God or desires to worship God?

    The more the merrier. Jews do not feel superior to any group of people and worship of G-d, whoever is doing it, is to be welcomed.

    • #68
  9. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):
    And no the Trinity is nowhere in the OT. Suggestions of the various persons of God do not equate to the Trinity. My opinion, of course.

    By that criterion, is the Trinity in the NT?

    No it’s not.  It’s a derived concept.  But it’s not derivable, as far as I can see, from the OT.  

    • #69
  10. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):
    Could you still be a Jew if you believed in the Greek gods as dieties, even though you are ethnically Jewish?

    If your mother is a Jew, you are a Jew. Even if you converted to Catholicism, for example, and became a cardinal — e.g. the famous case of Jean-Marie Lustiger — you are still considered a Jew. There are three sins in Judaism for which there is no forgiveness: idol worship, murder (even if someone says “kill this person or you will be killed” you cannot kill that person) and illicit relations (adultery and incest). Now if someone quietly believed in Greek gods but did not have statues of them around, did not bow to them or bring offerings to them, I do not think this would necessarily be a problem. The issue really is doing so demonstrably, in public. By the way, burning incense in front of a statue of Buddha is an example of idol worship. There is one other matter, however, and that’s what we call “the captive child.” The case is one in which a Jewish child was captured and raised in a pagan relgion. The child grows up unaware of his true identity and bows to an idol. Such a child is not considered to have violated G-d’s commandment since he didn’t know otherwise. Nowadays, we are forgiving of Jews who don’t observe very much, benevolently assigning to them “the captive child” designation. Even if they have Jewish parents, their parents may not know much about Jewish observance so you cannot blame the child, even upon growing up, of knowing little.

    I guess that’s your rules.  It strikes me as very odd.  Is that written anywhere in the Bible?  Where does that come from?

    • #70
  11. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu (View Comment):

    OmegaPaladin (View Comment):
    What counts as idolatry? If Cardinal Lustiger knelt before the Eucharist or a crucifix, was that idolatry?

    Some consider this idolatry, yes. Although Christians and Jews are closer today than ever before and Islam is the enemy of both, Islam is more palatable when it comes to idol worship since, like Judaism, there are no pictures, sculptures, or other images in mosques, just as their are none in synagogues. That Islam has become a cult of death for some of its practitioners, well, that’s a discussion for another time.

    So if there are no images allowed in Judaism, how come Moses is commanded to make two statues of cherubim in Exodus chapter 25 and have them placed in the temple?  I’m sincerely asking.  I don’t know the answer to that.

    • #71
  12. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    J Climacus (View Comment):

    If you’ve ever wondered what Judaism is, here is a list of its principal beliefs

    Is Judaism primarily identified as a set of beliefs? That’s true of Christianity, but then Christianity is an orthodoxic religion, whereas I thought Judaism was more an orthopraxic religion. Jews are identified not so much by what they believe, but by what they do and by their connection to the historic Jewish people, with whom God made His covenant thousands of years ago. “Judaism” is the continuing story of Jews and the working out of their covenant with God through history.

    Am I wrong about this?

    Actually there is an element of Christianity that is very much orthopraxic.  Once a person is baptized, it is an irrevocable change to the soul.  From paragraph 1272 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “1272 Incorporated into Christ by Baptism, the person baptized is configured to Christ. Baptism seals the Christian with the indelible spiritual mark (character) of his belonging to Christ. No sin can erase this mark, even if sin prevents Baptism from bearing the fruits of salvation. Given once for all, Baptism cannot be repeated.” That is outside one’s will, so very much orthopraxic.  I believe most Christians follow that.

    But on second thought, I’m not sure if all Christians acknowledge that.  I assume the Orthodox and the Coptics do.  I’m always uncertain what Protestants believe.

    • #72
  13. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Manny (View Comment):

    J Climacus (View Comment):

    If you’ve ever wondered what Judaism is, here is a list of its principal beliefs

    Is Judaism primarily identified as a set of beliefs? That’s true of Christianity, but then Christianity is an orthodoxic religion, whereas I thought Judaism was more an orthopraxic religion. Jews are identified not so much by what they believe, but by what they do and by their connection to the historic Jewish people, with whom God made His covenant thousands of years ago. “Judaism” is the continuing story of Jews and the working out of their covenant with God through history.

    Am I wrong about this?

    Actually there is an element of Christianity that is very much orthopraxic. Once a person is baptized, it is an irrevocable change to the soul. From paragraph 1272 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “1272 Incorporated into Christ by Baptism, the person baptized is configured to Christ. Baptism seals the Christian with the indelible spiritual mark (character) of his belonging to Christ. No sin can erase this mark, even if sin prevents Baptism from bearing the fruits of salvation. Given once for all, Baptism cannot be repeated.” That is outside one’s will, so very much orthopraxic. I believe most Christians follow that.

    But on second thought, I’m not sure if all Christians acknowledge that. I assume the Orthodox and the Coptics do. I’m always uncertain what Protestants believe.

    We often have different theologies of baptism than you folks, but we’re all about orthopraxy.

    At least those of us who are still orthodox are.

    • #73
  14. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    J Climacus (View Comment):

    If you’ve ever wondered what Judaism is, here is a list of its principal beliefs

    Is Judaism primarily identified as a set of beliefs? That’s true of Christianity, but then Christianity is an orthodoxic religion, whereas I thought Judaism was more an orthopraxic religion. Jews are identified not so much by what they believe, but by what they do and by their connection to the historic Jewish people, with whom God made His covenant thousands of years ago. “Judaism” is the continuing story of Jews and the working out of their covenant with God through history.

    Am I wrong about this?

    Actually there is an element of Christianity that is very much orthopraxic. Once a person is baptized, it is an irrevocable change to the soul. From paragraph 1272 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “1272 Incorporated into Christ by Baptism, the person baptized is configured to Christ. Baptism seals the Christian with the indelible spiritual mark (character) of his belonging to Christ. No sin can erase this mark, even if sin prevents Baptism from bearing the fruits of salvation. Given once for all, Baptism cannot be repeated.” That is outside one’s will, so very much orthopraxic. I believe most Christians follow that.

    But on second thought, I’m not sure if all Christians acknowledge that. I assume the Orthodox and the Coptics do. I’m always uncertain what Protestants believe.

    We often have different theologies of baptism than you folks, but we’re all about orthopraxy.

    At least those of us who are still orthodox are.

    Oh are you Protestant Saint Augustine?  Given your handle here on Rico, I had assumed you were Catholic.  What denomination are you a part of?

    • #74
  15. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Manny (View Comment):

    Oh are you Protestant Saint Augustine? Given your handle here on Rico, I had assumed you were Catholic. What denomination are you a part of?

    Southern Baptist. It’s on my profile page.

    (I’m not convinced Augustine’s a Catholic anyway.)

    • #75
  16. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    Oh are you Protestant Saint Augustine? Given your handle here on Rico, I had assumed you were Catholic. What denomination are you a part of?

    Southern Baptist. It’s on my profile page.

    (I’m not convinced Augustine’s a Catholic anyway.)

    Oh he most definitely is.  ;)

    • #76
  17. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Manny (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    Oh are you Protestant Saint Augustine? Given your handle here on Rico, I had assumed you were Catholic. What denomination are you a part of?

    Southern Baptist. It’s on my profile page.

    (I’m not convinced Augustine’s a Catholic anyway.)

    Oh he most definitely is. ;)

    I wrote a whole book about him recently, and the question barely even came up. (The answer certainly didn’t.)

    • #77
  18. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    Oh are you Protestant Saint Augustine? Given your handle here on Rico, I had assumed you were Catholic. What denomination are you a part of?

    Southern Baptist. It’s on my profile page.

    (I’m not convinced Augustine’s a Catholic anyway.)

    Oh he most definitely is. ;)

    I wrote a whole book about him recently, and the question barely even came up. (The answer certainly didn’t.)

    What books have you published?  Are you on Amazon?

    Now that I think of it, my Catholic Book Club will be reading City of God in the coming year.

    • #78
  19. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Manny (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    Oh are you Protestant Saint Augustine? Given your handle here on Rico, I had assumed you were Catholic. What denomination are you a part of?

    Southern Baptist. It’s on my profile page.

    (I’m not convinced Augustine’s a Catholic anyway.)

    Oh he most definitely is. ;)

    I wrote a whole book about him recently, and the question barely even came up. (The answer certainly didn’t.)

    What books have you published? Are you on Amazon?

    Now that I think of it, my Catholic Book Club will be reading City of God in the coming year.

    https://www.amazon.com/Mark-J-Boone/e/B01F6Y9RSU/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

    • #79
  20. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    Oh are you Protestant Saint Augustine? Given your handle here on Rico, I had assumed you were Catholic. What denomination are you a part of?

    Southern Baptist. It’s on my profile page.

    (I’m not convinced Augustine’s a Catholic anyway.)

    Oh he most definitely is. ;)

    I wrote a whole book about him recently, and the question barely even came up. (The answer certainly didn’t.)

    What books have you published? Are you on Amazon?

    Now that I think of it, my Catholic Book Club will be reading City of God in the coming year.

    https://www.amazon.com/Mark-J-Boone/e/B01F6Y9RSU/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

    Thanks.  And I’ve never checked your profile page before until now.  That has to be the most extensive profile page on Ricochet!  LOL.  You must put a lot of work into keeping that up!  Your Amazon page mentioned you blog.  Do you have a link for that?

    • #80
  21. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Manny (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    Oh are you Protestant Saint Augustine? Given your handle here on Rico, I had assumed you were Catholic. What denomination are you a part of?

    Southern Baptist. It’s on my profile page.

    (I’m not convinced Augustine’s a Catholic anyway.)

    Oh he most definitely is. ;)

    I wrote a whole book about him recently, and the question barely even came up. (The answer certainly didn’t.)

    What books have you published? Are you on Amazon?

    Now that I think of it, my Catholic Book Club will be reading City of God in the coming year.

    https://www.amazon.com/Mark-J-Boone/e/B01F6Y9RSU/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

    Thanks. And I’ve never checked your profile page before until now. That has to be the most extensive profile page on Ricochet! LOL. You must put a lot of work into keeping that up! Your Amazon page mentioned you blog. Do you have a link for that?

    Yes, my Ricochet profile page.

    Seriously, the only other place I blog is ThinkingThroughChristianity.com.  And not too frequently.

    • #81
  22. Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu Inactive
    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu
    @YehoshuaBenEliyahu

    Manny (View Comment):

    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):
    Could you still be a Jew if you believed in the Greek gods as dieties, even though you are ethnically Jewish?

    If your mother is a Jew, you are a Jew. Even if you converted to Catholicism, for example, and became a cardinal — e.g. the famous case of Jean-Marie Lustiger — you are still considered a Jew. There are three sins in Judaism for which there is no forgiveness: idol worship, murder (even if someone says “kill this person or you will be killed” you cannot kill that person) and illicit relations (adultery and incest). Now if someone quietly believed in Greek gods but did not have statues of them around, did not bow to them or bring offerings to them, I do not think this would necessarily be a problem. The issue really is doing so demonstrably, in public. By the way, burning incense in front of a statue of Buddha is an example of idol worship. There is one other matter, however, and that’s what we call “the captive child.” The case is one in which a Jewish child was captured and raised in a pagan relgion. The child grows up unaware of his true identity and bows to an idol. Such a child is not considered to have violated G-d’s commandment since he didn’t know otherwise. Nowadays, we are forgiving of Jews who don’t observe very much, benevolently assigning to them “the captive child” designation. Even if they have Jewish parents, their parents may not know much about Jewish observance so you cannot blame the child, even upon growing up, of knowing little.

    I guess that’s your rules. It strikes me as very odd. Is that written anywhere in the Bible? Where does that come from?

    It’s written several times (about the violations for which there is no forgiveness) in the Babylonian Talmud or Oral Law, which has the same status as the Torah (Pentateuch) or Written Law.  You can find it in Yoma 82a, Ketuvot 19a, and Sanhedrin 74a.  These three violations are punishable by death, along with others. But only for these three is there no forgiveness.  But there is another aspect to this.  In a time of persecution, when there is a general decree from an oppressive regime that keeping any commandment (from either the Written or Oral Law) is forbidden, then violation of any commandment is punishable by death, a sentence to be handed down by a rabbinical court.  All that being said, to my knowledge, there is not a single case of capital punishment for any of these violations recorded in the Talmud.  The harshness of a death penalty for certain violations or sins, in practice, served as a warning to avoid them.

    • #82
  23. Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu Inactive
    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu
    @YehoshuaBenEliyahu

    Manny (View Comment):

    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu (View Comment):

    OmegaPaladin (View Comment):
    What counts as idolatry? If Cardinal Lustiger knelt before the Eucharist or a crucifix, was that idolatry?

    Some consider this idolatry, yes. Although Christians and Jews are closer today than ever before and Islam is the enemy of both, Islam is more palatable when it comes to idol worship since, like Judaism, there are no pictures, sculptures, or other images in mosques, just as their are none in synagogues. That Islam has become a cult of death for some of its practitioners, well, that’s a discussion for another time.

    So if there are no images allowed in Judaism, how come Moses is commanded to make two statues of cherubim in Exodus chapter 25 and have them placed in the temple? I’m sincerely asking. I don’t know the answer to that.

    These cherubim (angels) were meant to remind the people of their fidelity or violation of G-d’s commandments, which is why they adorned the cover of the ark that housed the 10 Commandments and the Torah.  When the people behaved properly, the angels turned towards and embraced one another.  When the people went astray, the angels faced away from each other.  The sight of the estranged angels was meant to influence the people to change their ways.

    • #83
  24. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):
    Could you still be a Jew if you believed in the Greek gods as dieties, even though you are ethnically Jewish?

    If your mother is a Jew, you are a Jew. Even if you converted to Catholicism, for example, and became a cardinal — e.g. the famous case of Jean-Marie Lustiger — you are still considered a Jew. There are three sins in Judaism for which there is no forgiveness: idol worship, murder (even if someone says “kill this person or you will be killed” you cannot kill that person) and illicit relations (adultery and incest). Now if someone quietly believed in Greek gods but did not have statues of them around, did not bow to them or bring offerings to them, I do not think this would necessarily be a problem. The issue really is doing so demonstrably, in public. By the way, burning incense in front of a statue of Buddha is an example of idol worship. There is one other matter, however, and that’s what we call “the captive child.” The case is one in which a Jewish child was captured and raised in a pagan relgion. The child grows up unaware of his true identity and bows to an idol. Such a child is not considered to have violated G-d’s commandment since he didn’t know otherwise. Nowadays, we are forgiving of Jews who don’t observe very much, benevolently assigning to them “the captive child” designation. Even if they have Jewish parents, their parents may not know much about Jewish observance so you cannot blame the child, even upon growing up, of knowing little.

    I guess that’s your rules. It strikes me as very odd. Is that written anywhere in the Bible? Where does that come from?

    It’s written several times (about the violations for which there is no forgiveness) in the Babylonian Talmud or Oral Law, which has the same status as the Torah (Pentateuch) or Written Law. You can find it in Yoma 82a, Ketuvot 19a, and Sanhedrin 74a. These three violations are punishable by death, along with others. But only for these three is there no forgiveness. But there is another aspect to this. In a time of persecution, when there is a general decree from an oppressive regime that keeping any commandment (from either the Written or Oral Law) is forbidden, then violation of any commandment is punishable by death, a sentence to be handed down by a rabbinical court. All that being said, to my knowledge, there is not a single case of capital punishment for any of these violations recorded in the Talmud. The harshness of a death penalty for certain violations or sins, in practice, served as a warning to avoid them.

    Interesting.  So does a convert ever really become a Jew?  So if a woman converts to Judaism, are her children Jews?  

    • #84
  25. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    Yehoshua Ben-Eliyahu (View Comment):

    OmegaPaladin (View Comment):
    What counts as idolatry? If Cardinal Lustiger knelt before the Eucharist or a crucifix, was that idolatry?

    Some consider this idolatry, yes. Although Christians and Jews are closer today than ever before and Islam is the enemy of both, Islam is more palatable when it comes to idol worship since, like Judaism, there are no pictures, sculptures, or other images in mosques, just as their are none in synagogues. That Islam has become a cult of death for some of its practitioners, well, that’s a discussion for another time.

    So if there are no images allowed in Judaism, how come Moses is commanded to make two statues of cherubim in Exodus chapter 25 and have them placed in the temple? I’m sincerely asking. I don’t know the answer to that.

    These cherubim (angels) were meant to remind the people of their fidelity or violation of G-d’s commandments, which is why they adorned the cover of the ark that housed the 10 Commandments and the Torah. When the people behaved properly, the angels turned towards and embraced one another. When the people went astray, the angels faced away from each other. The sight of the estranged angels was meant to influence the people to change their ways.

    Yes, but aren’t they images?  They are statues.  

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