Tenets of Judaism the Jewish Faith, Formally

¶ … Tenets of Judaism

The Jewish faith, formally called Judaism, has several divisions, or main components, and those are Orthodox Judaism, Reform Judaism, Reconstructionist Judaism, Kabballism, and Conservative Judaism. Within each of these components of Judaism, there are various movements which choose to observe and emphasize certain specific aspects of that branch which are particularly appealing to that movement. In the United States, according to The World Almanac 2002 there are 1,500,000 members of the Reform Judaism movement; there are 1,075,000 members of Orthodox Judaism; there are one and a half million Conservative Jews, and approximately 65,000 members of the Jewish Reconstructionist group. World-wide, there are an estimated 13 million Jews of various movements.

Reform Jews consider the Oral Law to have come from man, rather than God, and the Reform movement places a great deal of emphasis upon moral and ethical teachings, rather than the ritualistic observances of other Jews. Conservative Jews -- contrary to their name -- are progressive in the sense that they believe the practice of Judaism may be adjusted to be more relevant to the specific times; that willingness to make adjustments, helps each new generation find relevancy for their lives. Kabbalism is the belief in ancient Jewish mysticism -- the supernatural -- as an avenue for God's word to be shared among the Jews. Reconstructionist Judaism was founded by Mordecai M. Kaplan (1881-1982); this branch of Judaism "attempts to focus on Judaism as a civilization and culture constantly adapting to insure survival in a natural social process" (American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, 2003).

The Orthodox Jewish movement, like other Jewish components, cannot be defined as a cohesive, unified sect of believers. There are differing groups within the overall category of "Orthodox Judaism." According to the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE), which is found on the Internet (www.us-israel.org/index.html), the branches of Orthodox Judaism include: "Traditional," "Centrist/modern/cosmopolitan," "Yeshivish," the "Dati" and the Chareidi." The Centrist/modern/cosmopolitan approach to Orthodox Judaism tends to include a vigorous believe in Zionism, which is the movement that strongly believes Jews should have a homeland and return to that homeland, and that Jews should have "sovereignty" in the Land of Israel.

But there is one aspect of Orthodox Judaism which is shared by all branches within that component: for Orthodox Jews, they all have faith that the tenets of their orthodoxy has literally been given to them from the precise, actual word of God. That is, Orthodox Jews believe no human wrote down an interpretation of what he or she thought God was saying to the Jewish people. Rather, Orthodox Jews believe the Torah -- both the Written Torah and Oral Torah -- alludes to "Written Law" (AICE, 2003). Also, many Orthodox Jews observe the tradition of praying three times each day (Lewis-Clark College, 2003) -- in the morning, in the late afternoon, and after sunset. Keeping the Sabbath is also very important to Orthodox Jews (Sabbath is observed from sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday), and Orthodox Jewish men wear skullcaps as a sign of their deep respect for God.