Amanda Bohn

William Cooper
CIS 110
10 Oct 2014
Judaism is the way of life. It is following the traditionsbyparents and
grandparents(Stewart). Jews follow and take on certain norms. They learn
from what their parents taught them growing up. Judaism does not just
become their way of life it becomes their life. The jews become so involved in
following and keeping up with traditions, they do not know any different.
Judaism has special norms that set them apart from every other religion.
Judaism follows their norms through their books. The four books that they
follow by are The Talmud, the Torah, the Tanakh, and the Siddur. The
Talmud holds seven basic categories, which shares what is prohibited for the
Jews. The seven categories include growing or preparing food, making
clothing, leather working or writing, providing shelter, creating or
extinguishing fire, completing work, and transporting goods (Beaver). The
Jews must follow these laws. There are consequences if you disobey these
actions. Should I talk about the consequences? If there is a sickness or
death, the prohibitions for the rules can void to save a life. In the Torah there
are dietary or kosher food laws. A certain jewish group, the Hasidic Jews, are
a closed society and follow every aspect of their life from the Torah. The
Torah was given to Mosas. The Tanakh is also known as the bible and is an
acronym for the texts of the Torah, Prophets, and Writings (Judaism).The

Siddur is the Jews Prayer book. Judaism believes in following their beliefs
and carrying on their traditions that comes from their holy books.
A great deal of beliefs that the Jews follows comes from the books. Jewish
people have certain laws setting them apart from everyone else. Here I am
going to talk about the different laws that set them apart. Every religion
views god differently but the Jews believe in the one living God who is
transcendent, omnipotent, just and who reveals himself to human
beings(ABC net). Most jewish people will follow this closely because it is
what they believe, which was taught by their parents. Similar to Christianity,
Jews believe [t]here is one God and he alone is our God for eternity. There is
no other God and there is no multiplicity inside God (Wikispaces). They
believe there is no reason to pray any other God but the one and only. To
them, there is only one God to love and only one God that loves them. This
religion follows closely to their beliefs and traditions carried on from past
generations.
Jews do have strong beliefs but not everyone follows them the same.How
a child is taught by his or her parents determines how the child will grow up.
Even at a young age, children know about Hanukkah and that they get eight
days of presents. They assume every year that will happen and then they will
just assume that Judaism is just about getting gifts and [t]he child looks
forward to such celebrations but knows next to nothing is expected of
him(Falk). Some children do not know that there is a bigger meaning behind
Hanukkah because the gifts they get. They figure they do nothing and just get

handed gifts. Parents do not teach their child the true meaning of Judaism.
They do not get that there are certain norms and beliefs that follows. Parents
are suppose to inform their child at a young age of these norms and beliefs so
that they pursue them throughout their lifetime and keep the traditions alive to
the next generation some day. To keep on the traditions as a Jew, the parents
should guide their child into following along with the traditions.
Even though some children will take advantage of them, Judaism has
special holidays.. The judaism community celebrates holidays that no other
religion celebrates. The Jews celebrate a lot of different holidays. There are
some main ones that most people have heard about before. The main ones are:
Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish New Year; Yom Kippur, the last
10 days of penitence before the New Year; Hanukkah, An eight day festival
which commemorates the re-dedication of the temple in Jerusalem after
expelling the occupying Syrians in 164 BCE (ABC net); Passover is a
celebration of their liberation; and a Bat or Bar Mitzvah is a coming of a girl
or boys age. A Bar Mitzvah is for a guy and a Bat Mitzvah is for a girl.
The Jewish people use these holidays to celebrate their religion. In this
paragraph Im gonna talk more about how the holidays symbolize
Judaism as a community.
Although Jews stand alone in their holidays; Christianity and Judaism
have some similarities. Comparing the two, depending on the point of view it,
can either be labeled as offense or flattery. It is to believe that Christianity
grew from the root of Judaism and is centered on the belief that Jesus of

Nazareth is the hoped for Messiah of Israel who came to redeem mankind
from their sin and offense before God almighty (Beaver). Christianity came
to be because of Judaism. They may believe in two different ideas of God but
most of their beliefs are the same. Both of the religions have the idea that the
birth of God was a normal birth. They also both believe in one loving God.
They both worship God in everyday life as a creator and father. They believe
that they all belong to him as a family. There are some differences between
the two. Jews believe that Christians are wrong that Jesus is a Messiah. Jewish
people celebrate Hannuakh and Christians celebrate Christmas. Christians
believe their goal is to love God and obey all his commandments for us and
Jews goals is to celebrate life to its fullest. They also love God as much as
Christians. Although Christianity and Judaism are not completely the same,
they are very similar in the way they look at God.
Christianity and Judaism both have symbols to symbolize their religions.
Christianity has the cross but the symbols for Judaism are the Star of David
and the Menorah. The Star of David is the best known symbol of the
Jewish faith. The sign is based on the shape of Davids shield or the symbol on
his shield (Wikispaces). The dimension of g-d, The Torah and Israil, is
symbolized by the Star Of David (Silberberg). The Menorah is a nine-candle
holder that symbolizes the eight nights of Hanukkah. There is also a sevencandle holder which would usually be in temple. The two symbols symbolize
Judaism.

Judaism may have the Star of David and the Menorah to symbolize their
religion but Judaism also has a language of their own. The language of
Judaism is Hebrew. Young children will go to Sunday school to learn about
their religion and to learn the language of Hebrew. Hebrew started around 500
BC. It is known as a local language and used for religious services
(Charlesworth). During Sunday school the children learn from the Hebrew
bible. Parents send their child to Sunday school to have them learn more about
the religion and have them learn the language.
Judaism is known to be one of the oldest religion but its the oldest
monotheistic religion. The foundation of the religion lies in the original
covenant made between Abraham and God, [around] 1900 BCE, when
Abraham was called to leave his home in Ur and travel to Cannana land
which God promised to give to his descendants (ABC net). Abraham is the
reason Judaism is here today. There was a second covenant she Moses led the
Jews out of Slavery in Egypt. He took them back to lands of Canaan. These
two events is why Judaism is here thousands of years later. Im going to go
through and find more history regarding Judaism.
The Jewish norms are very important to a Jewish person. They follow
them carefully. Different concepts make a Jew who they are. It could be the
language they speak, the lessons they learn, or even the parents they have.
Each Jewish person is different but it makes them into the person they are
today.