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I have been meeting many newbies and even gentiles that are curious about Judaism so on this page are some important things to know about Jewish religon. It is not the be all or end all. I am not a biblical scholar nor have I any degree in comparative religon. This is from my experiences and readings. I also do not mean for this to be controversial so there will be no discussions of gun control or abortion etc. Just the facts as I know and live them.
Jews Do NOT accept Jesus as their messiah, anyone who says different would find a rude awakening when they entered a synogogue and found no mention of his name. Jews are still waiting for the messiah.
Jews can disagree on many issues and still be considered Jews except for the issue of the Messiah, once one starts preaching about Jesus, the line has been crossed and that person or persons are considered apostates, somewhere between non Jews and Jews. Jews For Jesus may well be born Jews but once they beleive that Jesus is the messiah they won't be considered Jews. They are Christians as far as most Jews are concerned. Others might describe them as apostates or just misguided in their definitions.
As for the rest of Judaism, we have some movements: Conservatives, Reconstructionists, Reform and Orthodox. The difference is in the obediance to the HALAKHA or Jewish Rabbinic Law as laid down over many centuries and is still evolving. However the Reform movement has declared it null and void and refuses to be guided by it, causing endless controversy within Judaism. More on this later. The other groups to a degree are guided by but have their own interpretation. This is why we have all these groups.
There is no pope or central authority figure.
There is a book or rather a set of 64 or more books called Talmud. They are the commentaries on the commentaries on the commentaries of Jewish Law handed down over a thousand years ago. Jews except Reform beleive that when Moses brought down the written law or teaching as Torah is called, he also brought down the Oral Law.
The oral law was passed down by word of mouth from Moses to Joshua to the Judges, to Prophets to people who cannonized what many of you call the Old Testament, then it was passed to the rabbis in the first century C.E. who had to write it down because the Jews were in exile and they wanted to find a way to keep the faith alive.
Not every Jew beleives the Talmud evolved quite that way. It was certainly written down in the first century C.E. but there are Jews who beleive that it was not directly divinely dictated from Moses on down as the Orthodox Jews believe.
The Torah is both the Five books of Moses and the rest of the books that many of you call Old Testament, becasue they are all derived from the five books. Jews call them TaNaKh an acronym for each set of books. Torah the five books, Neviim the major prophets, and finally Ketuviim the writings which is everything else. However it is all Torah but if one wants to avoid confusion, call it the Tanakh.
There are also Jews that are offended by the title Old Testament. Testament means promise and Jews do not beleive that there is a new promise or an old one, Just one promise. To be sensitive about things they also refer to it as Tanakh or Torah or oral law or oral teaching.
Kosher. It does not mean that a rabbi has blessed the food. The kosher laws are listed in the Book of Leviticus, ch. 11, the entire chapter. Kosher means fit as in fit to eat. The talmud has more discussions about the laws. In such a big world, Jews need to know which products are kosher,so they look for the symbols OU or K on the packaging. It means that a rabbinical authority has inspected the process of creatihng the food to make sure no unkosher ingredients were included.
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Orthodox Union-rabbinical certifying org.
Kosher information ie: restaurants, products
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