Although Judaism might be categorized as a type of ethnicity or race, Judaism is a religion. Religion is commonly defined as a community of people who believe in the same laws and traditions. These beliefs sprang from Abraham’s concept of monotheism. Through generations, this devotion to one god culminated in the Ten Commandments being communicated through Moses on Mt. Sinai, following the Jews escape from Egypt. These commandments stressed the “obedience and loyalty to YHWH,” the one and only god (237). Over time, social and cultural lifestyles have developed around Judaism as a core religion.
Although Judaism contains many different levels of commitment and belief (reformed, conservative, orthodox, hectic, reconstrutionist, kabala), “generally the unifying feature among all Jews is a belief in the oneness of God…” (233). Judaism is all about following gods covenant; it is not distinguished by skin color or how a person looks; a person can even convert. God never communicates ideas of certain ethnicity or race in the Talmud or Torah. Jews have displayed the physical characteristics of nearly every race. There are African Jews, European Jews, Asian Jews and they have all spoken many different languages. Hebrew has seemed to be the central language that has been another factor of unification between the Jews. This has been a language that has communicated the dictums and beliefs of the Jewish religion.
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2 comments:
Hey Ali cat, I agree with the thesis of your blog about Judaism being foremost a religion. The statement made in the second paragraph about jews being of many different races and languages strongly supports your thesis. But I feel that the last couple of sentences about Hebrew, though interesting, stray a little from your central thesis. Overall though I think the essay is interesting and well written.
Well thanks eva for your writing tips! I just thought that it was nice to point out that even though there are many different races and they all speak different languages, there is this one language that connects them all - Hebrew.
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