Judaism

Judaism is the religious culture of the Jewish people. It is one of the first recorded monotheistic faiths and one of the oldest religious traditions still practiced today. The tenets and history of Judaism are the major part of the foundation of other Abrahamic religions, including Christianity and Islam.

Jewish prayer and practice

Prayers

There are three main daily prayer services, named Shacharit, Mincha (literally: "flour-offering") and Maariv or Arvit. All services include a number of benedictions called the Amidah or the Shemonah Esrei ("eighteen"), which on weekdays consists of nineteen blessings (one was added in the time of the Mishna, but the name remains). Another key prayer in many services is the declaration of faith, the Shema which is recited at shacharit and maariv. Most of the prayers in a traditional Jewish service can be said in solitary prayer, but Kaddish and Kedusha require a group of ten adult men (or men and women in some branches of Judaism) called a minyan (prayer quorum). There are also prayers and benedictions recited throughout the day, such as those before eating or drinking.

Related Topics:
Amidah - Shema - Minyan

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There are a number of common Jewish religious objects used in prayer. The tallit is a Jewish prayer shawl. A kippah or yarmulke (skullcap) is a head covering worn during prayer by most Jews, and at all times by more orthodox Jews — especially Ashkenazim. Phylacteries or tefillin, boxes containing the portions of the Torah mandating them, are also worn by religious Jews during weekday morning services.

Related Topics:
Tallit - Kippah - Yarmulke - Ashkenazi - Phylacteries - Tefillin - Torah

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The Jewish approach to prayer differs among the various branches of Judaism. While all use the same set of prayers and texts, the frequency of prayer, the number of prayers recited at various religious events, and whether one prays in a particular liturgical language or the vernacular differs from denomination to denomination, with Conservative and Orthodox congregations using more traditional services, and Reform and Reconstructionist synagogues more likely to incorporate translations, contemporary writings, and abbreviated services.

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Shabbat

Shabbat, the weekly day of rest lasting from Friday night to Saturday night, celebrates God's creation as a day of rest that commemorates God's day of rest upon the completion of creation. It plays an important role in Jewish practice and is the subject of a large body of religious law. Some consider it the most important Jewish holiday.

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Jewish holidays

The Jewish holy days celebrate central themes in the relationship between God and the world, such as creation, revelation, and redemption. Some holidays are also linked to the agricultural cycle.

Related Topics:
Creation - Revelation - Redemption - Agricultural cycle

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Three holidays celebrate revelation by commemorating different events in the passage of the Children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt to their return to the land of Canaan. They are also timed to coincide with important agricultural seasons. They are also pilgramage holidays, for which the Children of Israel would journey to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices to God in His Temple.

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• Pesach or Passover celebrates the Exodus from Egypt, and coincides with the barley harvest. It is the only holiday that centers on home-service, the Seder. Pesach occurs on the 15th of Nisan; Nisan is the first month of the Jewish calendar, because it was in this month that the Children of Israel left Egypt.
• Shavuot or Pentacost or Feast of Weeks celebrates Moses' giving of the Ten Commandments to the Israelites, and marks the transition from the barley harvest to the wheat harvest.
• Sukkot, or "The Festival of Booths" commemorates the wandering of the Children of Israel through the desert. It is celebrated through the construction of temporary booths that represent the temporary shelters of the Children of Israel during their wandering. It coincides with the fruit harvest, and marks the end of the agricultural cycle.
• Rosh Hashanah, also Yom Ha-Zikkaron (The Day of Remembrance) or Yom Teruah (The Day of the Sounding of the Shofar). Called the Jewish New Year because it celebrates the day that the world was created, and marks the advance in the calendar from one year to the next, although it occurs in the seventh month, Tishri. It is also a holiday of redemption, as it marks the beginning of the atonement period that ends ten days later with Yom Kippur.
• Yom Kippur, or The Day of Atonement, also called "the Sabbath of Sabbaths," is a holiday centered on redemption; a day of atonement and fasting for sins committed during the previous year. Many consider this the most important Jewish holiday.

There are many minor holidays as well, including Purim, which celebrates the events told in the Biblical book of Esther, and Chanukkah, which is not established in the Bible but which celebrates the successful rebellion by the Maccabees against the Seleucid Empire.

Related Topics:
Purim - Esther - Chanukkah - Maccabees - Seleucid Empire

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Torah readings

The core of festival and Sabbath prayer services is the public reading of the Torah, along with connected readings from the other books of the Jewish Bible, called Haftarah. During the course of a year, the full Torah is read, and the cycle begins again every autumn during Simhat Torah (?rejoicing in the Torah?).

Related Topics:
Haftarah - Simhat Torah

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Synagogues and Jewish buildings

Synagogues are a Jewish houses of prayer and study, they usually contain separate rooms for prayer (the main sanctuary), smaller rooms for study, and often an area for community or educational use. There is no set blueprint for synagogues and the architectural shapes and interior designs of synagogues vary greatly, so a synagogue may contain any (or none) of these features:

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• an ark (called aron ha-kodesh by Ashkenazim and hekhal by Sephardim) where the Torah scrolls are kept (the ark is often closed with an ornate curtain (parokhet) outside or inside the ark doors);
• a large elevated reader's platform (called bimah by Ashkenazim and tebah by Sephardim), where the Torah is read (and from where the services are conducted in Sephardi synagogues);
• an Eternal Light (ner tamid), a continually-lit lamp or lantern used as a reminder of the constantly lit menorah of the Temple in Jerusalem; and,
• (mainly in Ashkenazi synagogues) a pulpit facing the congregation to preach from and a pulpit or amud (Hebrew for "post" or "column") facing the Ark for the Hazzan (reader) to lead the prayers from.

In addition to synagogues, other buildings of signficance in Judaism include yeshivas, or institutions of Jewish learning, and mikvahs, which are ritual baths.

Related Topics:
Yeshiva - Mikvah

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Dietary laws: Kashrut

The laws of kashrut ("keeping kosher") are the Jewish dietary laws. Food in accord with Jewish law is termed kosher, and food not in accord with Jewish law is termed treifah or treif. From the context of the laws in the book of Leviticus, the purpose of kashrut is related to ritual purity and holiness. Orthodox Jews and some Conservative Jews do keep kosher, to varying degrees of strictness, while Reform and Reconstructionist Jews generally do not.

Related Topics:
Kashrut - Leviticus

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Family purity

The laws of niddah ("menstruant", often referred to euphemistically as "family purity") and various other laws regulating the interaction between men and women (e.g., tzeniut, modesty in dress) are perceived, especially by Orthodox Jews, as vital factors in Jewish life, though they are rarely followed by Reform or Conservative Jews. The laws of niddah dictate that sexual intercourse cannot take place while the woman is having a menstrual flow, and she has to count seven "clean" days and immerse in a mikvah (ritual bath) following menstruation.

Related Topics:
Niddah - Tzeniut - Sexual intercourse - Menstrual - Mikvah

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Life-cycle events

Life-cycle events occur throughout a Jew's life that bind him/her to the entire community.

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• Brit milah - Welcoming male babies into the covenant through the rite of circumcision.
• Bar mitzvah and Bat mitzvah - Celebrating a child's reaching the age of majority, becoming responsible from now on for themselves as an adult for living a Jewish life and following halakha.
• Marriage
• Death and Mourning