What exactly do Jews believe?

Started by Daniel, January 22, 2019, 03:18:56 PM

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Daniel

Anyone know anything about rabbinical Judaism?

Do they believe in original sin? Redemption? Heaven and hell?

Why do they believe that the 613 laws are no longer in effect?

Gardener

"If anyone does not wish to have Mary Immaculate for his Mother, he will not have Christ for his Brother." - St. Maximilian Kolbe

Daniel

#2
Quote from: Gardener on January 22, 2019, 03:20:05 PM
Which Jews?
I'm not sure... I don't know much about Judaism. But I'm guessing the various Jewish sects or traditions or whatever must all have some sort of unity in their beliefs?

aquinas138

Quote from: Daniel on January 22, 2019, 03:22:39 PM
Quote from: Gardener on January 22, 2019, 03:20:05 PM
Which Jews?
I'm not sure... I don't know much about Judaism. But I'm guessing the various Jewish sects or traditions or whatever must all have some sort of unity in their beliefs?

Not really; certainly not in the sense of dogmatic beliefs in the way Christians do. Even within subgroups like the Haredi, there is variation of belief. The main divisions of Orthodox-Conservative-Reform have more to do with how strictly halakha must be observed; I guess implicit in this would be a difference in belief with respect to the origin (divine vs. human) of the Torah and associated rabbinical laws. Still, differences in Judaism have more to do with praxis than doctrine.
What shall we call you, O full of grace? * Heaven? for you have shone forth the Sun of Righteousness. * Paradise? for you have brought forth the Flower of immortality. * Virgin? for you have remained incorrupt. * Pure Mother? for you have held in your holy embrace your Son, the God of all. * Entreat Him to save our souls.

Xavier

Many Jews today, sadly, do not at least esteem the Law of Moses and the Teaching of the great Prophets of Israel as highly as they ought to, firmly believing in all it teaches, and seeking to learn where God's Promises have been fulfilled; for, if they did this, united to a virtuous life and ardent prayer to God, they would quickly receive the light and grace to embrace the Truth of Jesus Christ and be saved.

"Rabbinic Judaism", which is based on the Talmud, has many false precepts. The 613 precepts itself (with some 250 "thou shall" and close to 365 "thou shall not") hopelessly complicate attempting to practice what God revealed. That's why Our Lord Jesus, taking the Law back to its purity, summed it up in Two Great Commandments,

Gospel of St. Matthew 22:34 But the Pharisees hearing that he had silenced the Sadducees, came together: 35And one of them, a doctor of the law, asking him, tempting him: 36Master, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? 37 Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. 38 This is the greatest and the first commandment. 39And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 40 On these two commandments dependeth the whole Law and the Prophets." https://biblehub.com/drb/matthew/22.htm

In the time of Our Lord Jesus, there were two main schools of Judaism. One of Hillel and one of Shammai. That of Shammai was false and rigorist. The school of Hillel was close to the truth. Gamaliel, a great Rabbi in Israel and teacher of St. Paul - himself formerly a great Rabbi - was of this school, related to Hillel, and he later became a Christian. True Judaism finds its fulfilment and completion in Jesus Christ.
Bible verses on walking blamelessly with God, after being forgiven from our former sins. Some verses here: https://dailyverses.net/blameless

"[2] He that walketh without blemish, and worketh justice:[3] He that speaketh truth in his heart, who hath not used deceit in his tongue: Nor hath done evil to his neighbour: nor taken up a reproach against his neighbours.(Psalm 14)

"[2] For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man."(James 3)

"[14] And do ye all things without murmurings and hesitations; [15] That you may be blameless, and sincere children of God, without reproof, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; among whom you shine as lights in the world." (Phil 2:14-15)

Kreuzritter

The religion of Abraham, Moses and David, and that practised by the Hebrews of the First Temple, was Christianity awaiting Christ, not the unitarian, law-obsessed Judaism which repressed the earlier faith as idolatry and later tried to violently expunge it in the first century.

What happened in Israel during the Second Temple was akin to what happened in the Middle East under Islam or, to a somewhat lesser degree, Europe under the Reformers, namely, it fell to an ass-backwards, iconoclastic historicism that sought to "purify" the religion of its supposedly pagan corruptions and rediscover the "true" faith, with the temple scribes even going to task on the sacred scriptures to expunge what was incompatible with their beliefs - only some of these redactions are recorded, but the skeletal marks of it are all over the place.

It's not that the Sanhedrin thought that Jesus proclaiming himself Son of God Most High implied Jesus placing himself on equal footing with God, but that they knew it was a claim by Christ to be the God of Israel, YHWH, who is the Son of God Most High, El ELyon, the Father.

John Lamb

For a profound example of what Kreuzritter is saying, check out this lecture:
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUkhWBKCuXc[/yt]


This lecture goes over how the ancient rabbis actually found plenty of evidence of there being at least "Two Powers" in the Godhead in the Old Testament, but after Christ they would later outlaw this old rabbinical tradition because it seemed too favourable to Christianity and the notion of the Trinity.

The lecturer is a biblical scholar who isn't a Catholic but isn't an average Protestant either. So while you can't trust everything he says you don't seem to get the standard anti-Catholic vitriol either; he's generally safe to listen to I've found.
"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

Vetus Ordo

What exactly do Jews believe?

Loaning money at high interest.
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

Miriam_M

Quote from: Gardener on January 22, 2019, 03:20:05 PM
Which Jews?

Indeed.  This is precisely the point.  Jews vary in their beliefs, even within one particular movement of Judaism.  Interestingly, the greatest variation is not within Reform Judaism, but within Conservative Judaism, because that is really the middle ground for Jews not comfortable with the demands of Orthodox Judaism yet not politically aligned with the looser, more liberal, and less traditionally oriented Reform Jews.

In Conservative Judaism you will find Jews who keep kosher laws (like Orthodox Jews) and those who don't (like most Reform Jews).  But even within Reform Judaism, practices and beliefs vary.

What one could say about all Jews is that belief does not necessarily predict what we would call doctrine or formal belief, because doctrine is not structured like in Catholicism.  That is why you see the variation.  The reaction to this fact might be to conclude that Jews are "just like Protestants" in this respect, but all Jews honor tradition (and traditional belief) vastly more than most Protestants do.

Even a particular Rabbi of a congregation does not call his congregants to account for variations in belief.  What a Jew will do, if he wants his private belief authenticated, is to discuss it with his Rabbi -- as to whether it concords with or can be reconciled with core Jewish beliefs.  Keep in mind that core Jewish beliefs are fewer than (obviously) Christian beliefs are.  And while there are Jewish writers who can be legitimately called theologians, that theology is not within a "system" such as Catholic theology -- especially pre-V2 --has always been.  The most systematized kind of theology in Judaism is actually scripture study; it is complex and integrated because it compares texts with each other and puts them in literary and spiritual context. 

In addition, Jewish scripture scholars and students engage in their own form of Lectio Divina, in that they employ Midrash -- a practice and discipline which seeks to more openly (less intellectually, perhaps) allow the interpreter to "move" from one spiritual concept in a passage to another spiritual concept not necessarily contained within it, but eliciting a spiritual or theological concept, more poetically or intuitively, if you will.  While there are established Midrashic commentaries (published scholarly interpretations based on Midrash), the exercise in itself can be practiced by the contemporary Jew knowledgeable enough to make that exercise fruitful.

Regarding Heaven and Hell:
The most unanimous belief in "some kind of an afterlife" is that which exists among the Chasidim, the most devout sect of Orthodox Judaism.  Yet even then, the form of that afterlife lacks the specificity found in Catholicism, especially in Catholic visionary literature.

Kreuzritter

Quote from: Miriam_M on January 23, 2019, 02:57:32 PM
Regarding Heaven and Hell:
The most unanimous belief in "some kind of an afterlife" is that which exists among the Chasidim, the most devout sect of Orthodox Judaism.  Yet even then, the form of that afterlife lacks the specificity found in Catholicism, especially in Catholic visionary literature.

They would, since their religion is essentially Lurianic Kabbalism with the Zohar next to holy scripture. But that Chasidism is called "Orthodox Judaism" says a lot about what "Orthodox Judaism" is.