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Introduction

Judaism (originally from Hebrew יהודה, Yehudah, "Judah"; via Latin and Greek) is an ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the covenant that God established with the Children of Israel. It encompasses a wide body of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. The Torah is part of the larger text known as the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible, and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash and the Talmud. With between 14.5 and 17.4 million adherents worldwide, Judaism is the tenth largest religion in the world.

Within Judaism there are a variety of movements, most of which emerged from Rabbinic Judaism, which holds that God revealed his laws and commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai in the form of both the Written and Oral Torah. Historically, all or part of this assertion was challenged by various groups such as the Sadducees and Hellenistic Judaism during the Second Temple period; the Karaites and Sabbateans during the early and later medieval period; and among segments of the modern non-Orthodox denominations. Modern branches of Judaism such as Humanistic Judaism may be nontheistic. Today, the largest Jewish religious movements are Orthodox Judaism (Haredi Judaism and Modern Orthodox Judaism), Conservative Judaism, and Reform Judaism. Major sources of difference between these groups are their approaches to Jewish law, the authority of the Rabbinic tradition, and the significance of the State of Israel. Orthodox Judaism maintains that the Torah and Jewish law are divine in origin, eternal and unalterable, and that they should be strictly followed. Conservative and Reform Judaism are more liberal, with Conservative Judaism generally promoting a more traditionalist interpretation of Judaism's requirements than Reform Judaism. A typical Reform position is that Jewish law should be viewed as a set of general guidelines rather than as a set of restrictions and obligations whose observance is required of all Jews. Historically, special courts enforced Jewish law; today, these courts still exist but the practice of Judaism is mostly voluntary. Authority on theological and legal matters is not vested in any one person or organization, but in the sacred texts and the rabbis and scholars who interpret them.

 
 

Selected Article

 

Joseph's Tomb is a funerary monument located at the eastern entrance to the valley that separates Mounts Gerizim and Ebal, on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Nablus, near the site of Shechem. Biblical tradition identifies the general area of Shechem as the resting-place of Joseph and his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh. Joseph's tomb has been venerated throughout the ages by Jews, Christians and Muslims. Post-biblical records about the Tomb's location at this site date from the 4th century. The present structure, a small rectangular room with a cenotaph, dates from 1868. Modern scholarship has yet to determine if the cenotaph is the ancient biblical gravesite. No sources prior to the 5th century mention the tomb, and the structure originally erected over it appears to have been built by the Samaritans.

Joseph's Tomb has witnessed intense sectarian conflict. Samaritans and Christians disputing access and title to the site in the early Byzantine period often clashed violently. After Israel captured the West Bank in 1967, conflict from competing Jewish and Muslim claims over the tomb became frequent. Though under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian National Authority after the signing of the Oslo Accords, it remained under IDF guard with Muslims prohibited. At the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, just after being handed over to the PNA, it was looted and razed by a Palestinian mob. Following Israel's reoccupation of Nablus in the 2002 Operation Defensive Shield, Jewish groups returned there intermittently. Recently the structure has been refurbished, with a new cupola installed, and visits by Jewish worshipers have resumed. (Read more...)

 
 
 

Did You Know?

 

 
 
 
 

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History Article

 

Temple Sinai is a Reform Jewish congregation located at 2808 Summit Street in Oakland, California. Founded in 1875, it is the oldest Jewish congregation in the East Bay. Its early members included Gertrude Stein and Judah Leon Magnes, who studied at Temple Sinai's Sabbath school, and Ray Frank, who taught them. Originally traditional, under the leadership of Rabbi Marcus Friedlander (1893–1915) Temple Sinai reformed its beliefs and practices. By 1914, it had become a Classical Reform congregation. That year the current sanctuary was built, a Beaux-Arts structure designed by G. Albert Lansburgh which is the oldest synagogue in Oakland. The congregation weathered four major financial crises by 1934. It has since been led by just three rabbis, William Stern (1934–1965), Samuel Broude (1966–1989), and Steven Chester (1989–present). In 2006 Temple Sinai embarked on a $15 million capital campaign to construct an entirely new synagogue campus adjacent to its current sanctuary. Groundbreaking took place in October 2007, and by late 2009 the congregation had raised almost $12 million towards the construction. As of 2010, the Temple Sinai had nearly 1,000 member families. The rabbis were Steven Chester, Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, and Andrea Berlin, and the hazzan was Ilene Keys. (Read more...)

 
 
 

Featured Quote

" Death is merely moving from one home to another. The wise man will spend his main efforts in trying to make his future home the more beautiful one. "
— Rabbi Menachem Mendel
 
 
 

Weekly Torah Portion

Behar–Bechukotai (בהר־בחקתי)Leviticus 25:1–27:34The Weekly Torah portion in synagogues on Shabbat, Saturday, 22 Iyar, 5780—May 16, 2020"I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God." (Leviticus 26:45.)

 

On Mount Sinai, God told Moses to tell the Israelites the law of the Sabbatical year for the land. The people could work the fields for six years, but in the seventh year the land was to have a Sabbath of complete rest during which the people were not to sow their fields, prune their vineyards, or reap the aftergrowth. They could, however, eat whatever the land produced on its own.

 
The people were further to hallow the 50th year, the Jubilee year, and to proclaim release for all with a blast on the horn. Each Israelite was to return to his family and his ancestral land holding. In selling or buying property, the people were to charge only for the remaining number of crop years until the jubilee, when the land would be returned to its ancestral holder.
 

God promised to bless the people in the sixth year, so that the land would yield a crop sufficient for three years. God prohibited selling the land beyond reclaim, for God owned the land, and the people were but strangers living with God.

 

If one fell into straits and had to sell land, his nearest relative was to redeem what was sold. If one had no one to redeem, but prospered and acquired enough wealth, he could refund the pro rata share of the sales price for the remaining years until the jubilee, and return to his holding. If one sold a house in a walled city, one could redeem it for a year, and thereafter the house would pass to the purchaser beyond reclaim and not be released in the jubilee. But houses in villages without encircling walls were treated as open country subject to redemption and release through the jubilee. Levites were to have a permanent right of redemption for houses and property in the cities of the Levites. The unenclosed land about their cities could not be sold.

If a kinsman fell into straits and came under one’s authority by virtue of his debts, one was to let him live by one’s side as a kinsman and not exact from him interest. Israelites were not to lend money to countrymen at interest. If the kinsman continued in straits and had to give himself over to a creditor for debt, the creditor was not to subject him to the treatment of a slave, but to treat him as a hired or bound laborer until the jubilee year, at which time he was to be freed to go back to his family and ancestral holding. Israelites were not to rule over such debtor Israelites ruthlessly. Israelites could, however, buy and own as inheritable property slaves from other nations. If an Israelite fell into straits and came under a resident alien’s authority by virtue of his debts, the Israelite debtor was to have the right of redemption. A relative was to redeem him or, if he prospered, he could redeem himself by paying the pro rata share of the sales price for the remaining years until the jubilee.

 
God promised that if the Israelites followed God’s laws, God would bless Israel with rains in their season, abundant harvests, peace, victory over enemies, fertility, and God’s presence. But if the Israelites did not observe God’s commandments, God would wreak upon Israel misery, consumption, fever, stolen harvests, defeat by enemies, poor harvests, attacks of wild beasts, pestilence, famine, desolation, and timidity. Those who survived would be removed to the land of their enemies, where they would become heartsick over their iniquity, confess their sin, and atone. God promised then to remember God’s covenants with Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, and the ancients whom God freed from Egypt.

God told Moses to instruct the Israelites that when anyone vowed to offer God the value of a human being, a scale of values would apply. But if a vower could not afford the payment, the vower was to appear before the priest, and the priest was to assess the vower according to what the vower could afford. If the vow concerned an animal that could be brought as an offering, the animal was to be holy, and one could not exchange another for it, and if one did substitute one animal for another, the thing vowed and its substitute were both to be holy. If the vow concerned an unclean animal that could not be brought as an offering, the vower was to present the animal to the priest, the priest was to assess it, and if the vower wished to redeem it, the vower was to add one-fifth to its assessment. No firstling of a clean animal could be consecrated, for it already belonged to God. But a firstling of an unclean animal could be redeemed at its assessment plus one-fifth, and if not redeemed, was to be sold at its assessment. If one consecrated a house to God, the priest was to assess it, and if the vower wished to redeem it, the vower was to add one-fifth to the assessment. If one consecrated to God land of one’s ancestral holding, the priest was to assess it in accordance with its seed requirement. If the vower consecrated the land after the jubilee year, the priest was to compute the price according to the years left until the next jubilee year, and reduce the assessment accordingly. If the vower wished to redeem the land, the vower was to add one-fifth to the assessment and retain title, but if the vower did not redeem the land and the land was sold, it was no longer to be redeemable, and at the jubilee the land was to become the priest’s holding. If one consecrated land that one purchased (not land of ancestral holding), the priest was to compute the assessment up to the jubilee year, the vower was to pay the assessment as of that day, and in the jubilee the land was to revert to the person whose ancestral holding the land was. But nothing that one had proscribed for God (subjected to cherem) could be sold or redeemed, and no human being proscribed could be ransomed, but he was to be put to death. All tithes from crops were to be God’s, and if one wished to redeem any of the tithes, the tither was to add one-fifth to them. Every tenth head of livestock was to be holy to God, and the owner was not to choose among good or bad when counting off the tithe.

Hebrew and English textHear the parshah chantedCommentary from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University (Conservative)Commentaries from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (Conservative)Commentary by the Union for Reform Judaism (Reform)Commentaries from Project Genesis (Orthodox)Commentaries from Chabad.org (Orthodox)Commentaries from Aish HaTorah (Orthodox)Commentaries from the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (Reconstructionist)Commentaries from My Jewish Learning (trans-denominational)

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