It was in the 60s and 70s when I read books like James Michener's The Source and Leon Uris's Mila 18 and Exodus, that I became facinated with the Jewish religion if for no other reason than the stick-to-itiveness of its followers. But I was always ignorant of the evolution of modern day Judaism, its celebrations, observances and sects, so I did a little research and ...
Three of the most important Jewish celebrations are now thought of as marking biblical events actually originated with traditionally agricultural celebrations. The first of these, Passover, was originally a celebration of the first barley harvest of the year. Passover now marks the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt after Moses brought the 10 plagues of Egypt forcing Pharaoh to release the Jews from slavery. The last of the Plagues was the death of the first born children. However this death plague "passed over" all the first born Jews, hence the name, Passover.
The modern day Passover holiday lasting seven days, begins with the Seder (ritual) meal where the food symbolizes the period of slavery and the stories of the Exodus (escape) are retold. The menu includes bitter herbs to symbolize the difficulties of slavery and Matzo or unleavened (incomplete, without yeast) bread to symbolize the speed with which the Jews fled.
The next biblical holiday, Pentecost (from the Greek for 50), celebrates God giving Moses the Ten Commandments fifty days after the Exodus. This day was formally the agricultural celebration of the wheat harvest.
The third biblical celebration is Sukkoth or Feast of the Tabernacle (tent) and is a remembrance of the forty years that the Jews spent wandering the desert after the Exodus. The idea is that God ordered the tent structure built to represent a "dwelling" for his presence with the Jews during their wandering. This celebration coincided with the agrarian final harvest celebration.
The first non-biblical celebration, Rosh Hashanah begins the Jewish New Year and according to Jewish tradition is the day where God inscribes each person's fate for the coming year into the Book of Life and waits ten days (until Yom Kippur) to "seal" the verdict. During those ten "Days of Awe", a Jew tries to amend his or her behavior and seek forgiveness for wrongs done against God and against other humans. The evening and day of Yom Kippur are set aside for public and private petitions and confessions of guilt. At the end of Yom Kippur, Jews consider themselves absolved by God. Now my research didn't say anything about what happens if someone is not absolved, so I'm guess dying in any fashion during the next year would be an answer to that question.
Yom Kippur, also known as Day of Atonement, is the holiest day of the year for the Jews. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Jews traditionally observe this holy day with a 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue services. Yom Kippur completes the annual period known in Judaism as the High Holy Days (or sometimes "the Days of Awe").
Two lesser holidays are Purim and Chanukah. Purim commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian Empire from destruction as described in a story recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther. According to the Book of Esther, Haman, royal adviser to the Persian King planned to kill the Jews, but his plans were foiled by Mordechai and Queen Esther. The day of deliverance became a day of feasting and rejoicing for Jews. Purim celebrations include public recitation of the Scroll of Esther, giving gifts of food and drink, giving charity to the poor, and a celebratory meal. Other customs include drinking wine, wearing of masks and costumes, and public celebration.
Chanukah has always been my most familiar Jewish celebration just because it coincided with Christmas, my favorite holiday. The celebration about a miracle lamp that stayed lit for eight nights with only enough oil for one night, as well as the representative eight day celebration of lighting the eight candled menorah really doesn't need a lot of explanation. The most to be said is that really Chanukah's not a very important holiday anywhere except America where it gave the Jewish kids something to brag about --- eight days of Christmas, wow, was I impressed!
Another area I found interesting is how these Celebrations evolved . In the earliest days after their release from Egyptian slavery and before the Common Era, the Jews celebrated at the Temple of Jerusalem. The Temple was where the Ark of the Covenant that held the tablets bearing the Ten Commandments were kept making it the Holiest place for the Jews. Even though the first temple was destroyed by the Babylonians around 586 BCE and the Ark disappeared, subsequent rebuilding of the Temple occurred and remained the central holy place for Jews at least until the times of Jesus. So to celebrate the Jews would need to travel to the Temple and where they would offer sacrificial lambs. After the repeated destruction of the temple, there was a change in the way Jews observed. Regionally located synagogues replaced the centrally located Temple and prayers replaced sacrifices.
There are two main religious documents of Judaism. The Torah which is what the Christian faith calls the Old Testament of the bible. The text of each book is more or less the same in Jewish translations as what you see in Christian bibles, although there are some occasional, slight differences in the numbering of verses and there are some significant differences in the translations.
In addition to the written scriptures we have an "Oral Torah," a tradition explaining what the above scriptures mean and how to interpret them and apply the Laws of the scriptures to everyday life. Orthodox Jews believe God taught the Oral Torah to Moses, and he taught it to others, down to the present day. This tradition was maintained only in oral form until about the 2d century C.E., when the oral law was compiled and written down in a document called the Mishnah. In addition to these two main works, Jews have Midrashim, which are basically stories expanding on incidents in the Bible to derive principles or Jewish law or to teach moral lessons. For example, there is a Midrash about why Moses wasn't a good speaker (he put coals in his mouth as a child basically as a way of proving that he wasn't greedy... Okay, that explains it all).
Then there are Responsa: answers to specific questions of Jewish law where committees of Rabbi interpret Jewish law to specific questions. This tradition continues to the present day, and there are several rabbis in this century who have developed responsa on issues relating to modern technologies. For example, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, who died in the 1980s, wrote responsa on such diverse topics as the permissibility of cosmetic surgery, the koshering (proper use) of automatic dishwashers, and artificial insemination. There are thousands of Responsa volumes in print.
My final question was about the different sects of Judaism: Orthodox versus what? Most of the schisms of Judaism are caused by the interpretation of the Mishna. Orthodox Jews believe that the faithful must follow the laws literally, while other sects to varying degrees feel the laws were more cultural than sacred and can in many instances be ignored. For instance Reform and Progressive Jews believe the laws against eating pork or shell fish were cautionary health rules developed in the days before refrigeration, and never intended to display devotion.
Also, interesting is that the world Jewish population is only 13.5 million people (2009 CIA figures). Of that number 43% (5.8 million) live in Israel and 39% (5.3 million) live in the U.S. The remaining 2.3 million are spread out all over the world. I find this surprising that the numbers are so small. I mean, the US has a combined population over 305 million, so the Jews account for less than 2% and they are the second largest US religion after Christians.
I just find those numbers surprising low considering the influence that people of the Jewish faith have had in so many measures of my sixty-four year life. I've always had Jewish friends and have worked for two Jewish owned businesses. Why do I know these people's religion, because one way or the another they made it known. But it's never made any difference to me.
I really learned a lot here, with the biggest surprise being how most Jew's lives, while rich in tradition, aren't as locked into the Religious dogma as I had thought.
For my next essay, I want to write down some of what I've learned about Islam, then Buddhist, then on to some Christian cults: Mormon, Catholic, ... Fascinating stuff --- to me.
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