Judaism Essays - Jewish Theology, God In Judaism, Yahweh, Torah

Judaism Essays - Jewish Theology, God In Judaism, Yahweh, Torah Judaism Judaism and God Jews, among the other peoples of the Middle East in the second millennium, B.C., were unique in their conception of the divine as a single entity. Thus, they can rightly be considered the first monotheistic religion in the western tradition. Not only did the Jews describe monotheism for the first time, but they also described a God as a personal being with a supreme and transcendent will. The Egyptians, Syrians, and Babylonians of the day in contrast had assigned a deity to each major power of nature. Compared to these other polytheistic religions, the singular achievement of Jewish monotheism is the focus that it introduces to ones religious life. As Huston Smith explains, If God is that to which one gives oneself unreservedly, to have more than one god is to live a life of divided loyalties. (275) Judaism insists that ther e is a single, consistent way in which life is to be lived to reach fulfillment. Comparing Judaism to the Greek and Roman conceptions of the divine, one finds these other Mediterranean polytheistic gods to be amoral and rather indifferent towards human. For Jews, God is righteous and just, He protects His people, and He possesses infinite loving-kindness. Judaism also holds an overwhelmingly positive view of creation. The Greeks, with their selfish and marauding gods, and the Hindus, who told of the inevitability of sadness and suffering, certainly did not share this optimism. Remember the stories that begin in Genesi s, the first book in the Jewish holy book, the Torah (the first five books of the Christian Old Testament). In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. Judaism relishes this buoyant and affirmative attitude towards creation. Jewish Philosophy Unlike many of the previously examined eastern traditions, Judaism places an extreme emphasis on the role of free choice in the human condition. Humans, Jews believe, were created by God, but because they possess free will they manage to behave less than perfectly. Consider the story of the Garden of Eden. True, Adam and Eve were seduced by the snake. Their lapse in judgment, however, teaches that humans, once created, are free to make or break themselves, forging their destinies throug h their own decisions. People, Jews believe, are the beloved children of God. God allows them to make mistakes, but always in the hope that they learn from them and improve their condition. Looking at history, Jews see the hand of God constantly intervening in Eden, at the Flood, during the Exod us, and on and on. Each event was a teaching experience for the Jewish people. The Torah tells of how God acts in response to human disobedience. And while there constantly seems to be a tension in the Torahs stories between the way things are and the way things ought to be, Judaism never surrenders to a fatalism that says that life can never be improved. Judaism, out of which grew both Christianity and Islam, is responsible for no less than the moral foundation of the western world. This faith recognizes that humans are social creat ures, yet are often barbaric with each other. The Torah, as a result, contains 613 commandments regarding our behavior, and the core of the Ten Commandments prescribes the rules that make collective or community life possible. Do not murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not bear false witness. Taken individually, any one of these offenses has the potential of escalating to the point where the community is ripped apart. Jews, through most of their history, have been an oppressed people. Their stories in the Torah often detail how justice, ultimately, is done, and how the downtrodden always must maintain hope for a better future. This hope gave the Jews a forward and upward-looking cast of mind, expectant for the Promised Land. Jewish Practice It is often said that Jews are unite d more by what they do than what they believe. For example, Judaism does not declare an official creed (besides monotheism) that one must believe to belong to the faith. Jews range from those who believe that God dictated every letter