What do the Jews Actually Believe？ ｜ Judaism Explained

Here we are in the ancient world. What do you think would be the easiest way to get into trouble? Stealing something? Killing someone? What if I told you that you could get into trouble for believing something different? One group's main crime was that they only believed in one God. Hey, I'm Mr. Booze, and today we're going to be talking about Judaism. You've heard of the Jews, but what did they really believe? Have you heard of Abraham? He was a shepherd who lived in Mesopotamia in the city of Ur. He was a rich man who had everything he ever wanted. One day, he had this weird experience where he talked to a god that told him to leave everything behind and follow him. Abraham listened and left behind his homeland. This story is believed by Muslims, Christians, and our focus today, Jews. Abraham is the father of all three of these religions. But what makes Judaism different from these? The big difference is that the Jews follow a family. Most Jews today can trace their family history all the way back to that guy we were talking about, Abraham, and his family. That makes it very unique. Instead of just being a belief, Jews are like a connected family. So what did the Jews believe? The main belief of Judaism is that there is one God. This is that same God that talked to Abraham. This God created everything and is above all the other so-called gods. This makes Jews monotheistic. Being a monotheist means you believe in only one God. Pretty much all other religions at this time believed in multiple gods. This means that they were polytheists. This made the Jews very different than other religions. Why would you only have one God? What does this God even want from you? For the Jews, this answer came from Moses. Moses helped free the Jews when they were slaves in Egypt. Moses did this with the help of God, sending disastrous plagues to Egypt, like turning the Nile River into blood, and killing the Egyptian livestock. Moses also received the Ten Commandments from God, which are the ten laws that the Jews are to follow. Some of these include, you shall not steal, and honor your parents. Along with those ten, the Jews also received 613 commandments from God. The Jews thought it was extremely important to follow these commands. If you've heard of the Jews, you've probably heard of Israel. That's because the Jews began settling in an area on the east side of the Mediterranean Sea. This land was named after one of their ancestors, who was named Israel. In Israel, they had kings. Some of the more famous kings of Israel were King David and King Solomon. Probably the most important thing these two did is that they built a temple here to worship God. This was the most important place for the Jews. They believed that God was actually inside the temple. Like I said at the beginning, a lot of bad things happened to the Jews. Take for example the time the Jews were defeated by Babylon and sent into exile. That was bad. But then Persia took over Babylon, and the Persians captured the Jews. Then they decided one day to let the Jews go back home. They were away from their home for hundreds of years, but they always thought that God would help them in their time of need. Now these are some interesting stories, but how do we know any of this stuff? All the stories we've talked about so far come from a collection of scrolls called the Torah. This is the Jews' holy text, and they gather together once a week to read it in a synagogue. The day they gather together is called the Sabbath. On this day, they believe that God does not want them to work. In fact, one of the Ten Commandments is that they are not to work on the Sabbath. So a review. The Jews gather in a synagogue on the Sabbath to read the Torah. This is a way they worship God. Remember I said at the beginning that the Jews were persecuted for their belief in one God? Well that really happens around the first century. At the peak of Rome's power, they take over Israel and the Jews. Now the Jews are very strange to the Romans. The Romans are polytheists, or believe in multiple gods, while the Jews are monotheists and believe only in one God. At first the Romans let the Jews worship their God, but after a lot of fights over this, the Romans ended up not treating the Jews very well. They taxed them a lot and forced them to work for them. After about a hundred years of being under the Romans, some of the Jews got sick of it. They started a revolt and started fighting against the Romans. The Romans absolutely destroy them. They kill thousands of Jews and do the worst thing a Jew could imagine. They destroy the temple. The Jews at this point are terrified. The Romans now hate them and their temple is destroyed. This leads to a large percentage of the Jews leaving their home in Israel and going to different parts of the world. Most of the leaving Jews go to Europe and then hundreds of years later, they end up in America. All of the Jews leaving Israel and going throughout the world is known as the Diaspora. Since the Jews were all over the world and did not have the temple, they had to make some changes. A lot of the laws that they had had to do with the temple, but the temple was gone. The Jews still read the Torah, but they needed some new laws for their new homes. This led to what is known as Rabbinic Judaism. In this new form of Judaism, teachers called Rabbis teach the people how to live. They then created new law books such as the Talmud. If you talk to a Jew today, they probably are a Rabbinic Jew. Today Jews are all over the world. In fact, the country with the most Jews in the world is the United States. The Jews and their scrolls have had an enormous impact on America. Many of our basic laws are influenced by the Ten Commandments. Judaism impacted the Islamic religion and Christianity, and it was the first major monotheistic religion. From its very beginning, Judaism has survived against the odds and influenced our thoughts to this day.