While mutual support and respect is a good thing, Jews and Christians need to understand that Christianity is anything but Jewish.
The essence of Christianity is the story of a man-God, an idea very common in Greek religions but alien to Judaism. Judaism has a strict law against polytheism and the very idea of a trinity or a son of god is abhorrent, actually a blasphemy. If Jesus ever made such a claim he would have been stoned to death for blasphemy rather then crucified by the Romans for sedition.
Judaism is also antithetical to Christianity in many other ways.
- The Jews are a people. Not all Jews believe in the Jewish religion
- Becoming Jewish does require religious conversion but once that has happened, as Jew, you and your children will be Jews. This true for all female Jews, there is a dispute about male decent and Israel follows the maternal rule.
- Israel was founded by secular Jews, most of whom or at least many were atheists.
- There is neither original sin nor salvation in Judaism.
- There is no concept of heaven or hell.
- The Jewish God has no pronounceable name. The letters יי are an abbreviation usually pronounced adonai. Jews also refer tom the Deity as “Hashem,” the name. The word used as a name by Christians for God is blasphemy for all Jews.
- There is no concept of evangelism.
- There is no exclusivism, no concept that somehow only a believer in the Jewish deity is a good person.
- The only revealed truth for Jews is the Torah. The rest of what Christians call an old testament is a miscellaneous collection of writings stretching over about a 1000 years before Jesus. None are considered divine.
- Jews also have an oral tradition believed to stretch back to the time of Aaron and to be important in understanding the revelations in the Torah. The scribes and scholars entrusted with authority (called smicha) to interpret this oral law have been called rabbis since the time of the destruction of the Temple. The rabbinate grew out of the Pharisees, a sect of scribes determined to preserve Judaism despite the Roman occupation.
- Although Jesus may have been a lay follower of the Pharisees, he certainly never had smicha and could not, therefore, have been a rabbi.
- There is a central principle for over 1000 years that when science and bible disagree, then the interpretation of the bible needs to be changed.
- Judaism is based on a set of 613 laws, also called good deeds, These mitzvot are followed by Jews because they are right not to please a deity.
- Jews are told to question God, even his morality.
Almost everything you write about this subject, as well as others, is nonsense.
Belief in the future advent of the Messiah is one of the fundamental requisites of the Jewish faith, concerning which Maimonides has written: “Anyone who does not believe in him, or who does not wait for his arrival, has not merely denied the other prophets, but has also denied the Torah and Moses, our Rabbi.”
Yes, Judaism believes in “heaven,” and yes, Judaism also believes in “hell.” The vast majority of Judaism, Jewish history, Jewish theology and Jews themselves unequivocally believed in Olam Habah—the world to come. The Torah refers to a place called “Sheol,” originally a physical location and later a spiritual destination for sinners and troubled souls.
What the next world is, however, is far from clear. The rabbis use the term Olam Ha-Ba to refer to a heaven-like afterlife as well as to the messianic era or the age of resurrection, and it is often difficult to know which one is being referred to. When the
does speak of Olam Ha-Ba in connection to the afterlife, it often uses it interchangeably with the term Gan Eden (“the Garden of Eden”), referring to a heavenly realm where souls reside after physical death.
The use of the term Gan Eden to describe “heaven” suggests that the rabbis conceived of the afterlife as a return to the blissful existence of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before the “fall.” It is generally believed that in Gan Eden the human soul exists in a disembodied state until the time of bodily resurrection in the days of the Messiah.
One interesting talmudic story, in which the World to Come almost certainly refers to a heavenly afterlife, tells of Rabbi Joseph, the son of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, who dies and returns back to life.
When Messiah comes, he will pronounce the unspeakable name of God. Interestingly, it so happens that a Messianic pretender used this fact to try and underscore his false claim. In 1663, Nathan of Gaza, a Jew living in the land of Israel, and a student of Kabbalah (the mystical books and practices of Judaism), became convinced that a man with the name Shabbetai Tzvi was the actual messiah. In 1665, Shabbetai Tzvi revealed his messiahship to the world, by proclaiming the Tetragrammaton – a practice forbidden by all except for the Jewish high priest in the Temple in Jerusalem on the Day of Atonement. However, after Shabbetai Tzvi later converted to Islam, hopes in the authenticity of his messiahship were dashed.
Let me start my reply with a question.
Are you Jewish? If not where do you get your knowledge?
Then, in reply:
“Belief in the future advent of the Messiah is one of the fundamental requisites of the Jewish faith,”
Judaism is not a faith. We area people with a religion.
“concerning which Maimonides has written: “Anyone who does not believe in him, or who does not wait for his arrival, has not merely denied the other prophets, but has also denied the Torah and Moses, our Rabbi.””
Have you read the book? The Rambam also says some of what he writes will nto be true and says, like Buddha, that we (Jews) need to seek our own truth. Of course he lived part of his life, it seems, as forced Muslim convert and he served as physician to a Muslim sultan. Leaving out the messiah would have been .. well .. dangerous. Aside from that, there is no mention in the Torah, the ONLY revelation in Judaism. Only Christians and Muslims regard the prophets as mseengers of the Deity. Furthermore, the Jewish concept of a messaih has nothing to do with the Muslim or Christian concept.
“Yes, Judaism believes in “heaven,” and yes, Judaism also believes in “hell.” The vast majority of Judaism, Jewish history, Jewish theology and Jews themselves unequivocally believed in Olam Habah—the world to come. The Torah refers to a place called “Sheol,” originally a physical location and later a spiritual destination for sinners and troubled souls.”
Sheol is hardly your heaven. It is a greek idea an rather vague at best.
There is no law in Judaism against there being a heaven or hell, nor is there any instance that either exists much less a reward based on either one. While some Jews may have gotten an idea of heaven from the Zorastrians or the Christians, no it is not a tenet. BTW, the Christian heaven is fullof angels, there are alos no angels, just agents or messengers f the Deity, in the Torah.
You seem to be a Jew for Jesus. Did I guess right?
“What the next world is, however, is far from clear. The rabbis use the term Olam Ha-Ba to refer to a heaven-like afterlife as well as to the messianic era or the age of resurrection, and it is often difficult to know which one is being referred to. When the does speak of Olam Ha-Ba in connection to the afterlife, it often uses it interchangeably with the term Gan Eden (“the Garden of Eden”), referring to a heavenly realm where souls reside after physical death.”
There are also Jews who believe in many things … including Buddha or physiscs. All is fine as long as the beliefs do nto violate the central concept of a single deity.
“The use of the term Gan Eden to describe “heaven” suggests that the rabbis conceived of the afterlife as a return to the blissful existence of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before the “fall.” It is generally believed that in Gan Eden the human soul exists in a disembodied state until the time of bodily resurrection in the days of the Messiah.”
Now I am pretty sure you are a Christian and likley a messianic Jew. Look, we have lived under you for at leat 1800 years. Is it a surprise that Christian ideas also appear in Judaism? But, to describe these as common among Jews much less central is an insult.
“One interesting talmudic story, in which the World to Come almost certainly refers to a heavenly afterlife, tells of Rabbi Joseph, the son of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, who dies and returns back to life.
When Messiah comes, he will pronounce the unspeakable name of God. Interestingly, it so happens that a Messianic pretender used this fact to try and underscore his false claim. In 1663, Nathan of Gaza, a Jew living in the land of Israel, and a student of Kabbalah (the mystical books and practices of Judaism), became convinced that a man with the name Shabbetai Tzvi was the actual messiah. In 1665, Shabbetai Tzvi revealed his messiahship to the world, by proclaiming the Tetragrammaton – a practice forbidden by all except for the Jewish high priest in the Temple in Jerusalem on the Day of Atonement. However, after Shabbetai Tzvi later converted to Islam, hopes in the authenticity of his messiahship were dashed.”
The Talmud is like the congressional record. There are themselves of stories there, none that by themselves imply dogma. the kabbala you cite are worse.
I assume you know that Kabbalah originates with a clear forgery? The Zohar first appeared in Spain in the 13th century, and was published by a Jewish writer named Moses de León. de Leon was an itinerant book seller and made money selling books, including the Zohar. De León’s forgery ascribed the book to a Shimon bar Yochai (“Rashbi”), a rabbi who supposed lived in the 2nd century and was inspired by the Prophet Elijah to write the Zohar. Archaelongy, anachronisms, and the fact that no mention of the Zohar or its content appears in the Talmud. Worse, the Zohar .. with its appeal to mysticism, was part of the attack on the strict logical exegis of Torah as epitomized by Maimonides. In sum, the Zohar, though revered by many Jews, is no more abook of Jewish revelation then the Book of Mormon is a book of Christian revelation.