0
History of Judaism
The History of Judaism is the history of the Jewish people, their religion and culture, tracing back to the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob of the 18th c. BCE. The earliest mention of Israel as a people was discovered in an inscription on the Merneptah Stele from the 1200s BCE.
1,396 Questions
The "Jews" are a group of people that follow a religion. They are not a geographic region and do not have physical geographic characteristics.
Why did the tribes of israel need to become a nation?
During the era of the Judges, the Israelite Tribes were united only through their Torah. Politically, they were a very loosely-bound confederation. They sought to establish a monarchy that would have the power to put an end to the repeated depredations of neighboring nations (see 1 Samuel 8:20).
The Israelites at that time were coming to the end of an era which was unique in world history. They had undertaken a grand experiment: whether a nation could govern themselves for centuries without a king or organized government.
Instead, there were the officers of tens, fifties, hundreds and thousands (Exodus ch.18), and the court of Elders (Sanhedrin), who were Torah-scholars that provided Torah-rulings and guidance. Each of the leading Judges (Gideon, Deborah etc.) was a private citizen (not a head of government) who led the nation only during a brief episode of battle. (See: The Judges)
During that era (of the Judges, about 360 years), when someone raised the possibility of having a king, the answer was: God will rule over you, not a king (Judges 8:23). The events of the Exodus and the Giving of the Torah were so fresh in the nation's memory that they didn't need a king; God was their King. (The missteps which did take place in that era, is a subject beyond the scope of the present question.)
In Samuel's old age, over four centuries after the Exodus, the people (including their Torah-scholars) felt that the time had come to take a regular government. The Torah itself permitted this (Deuteronomy ch.17); and they saw that Samuel's sons didn't seem to have reached his spiritual level (1 Samuel 8:2-3).
Their usage of the expression "like the other nations around us" need not be a problem, since they were deliberately quoting the Torah itself (Deuteronomy 17:14).
What then was their mistake (why did Samuel criticize them)?
According to the Malbim commentary (on 1 Samuel), they should have waited at least until Samuel was too old to function.
According to the K'li Yakar commentary (on Deuteronomy), their precise choice of language ("for us," instead of the "over us" which the Torah had said), hinted that they wanted a king who might be affected by public pressure (which later happened with Rehoboam). See Talmud, Yoma 22b.
According to Samuel himself (1 Samuel 8:10-18), they were taking a regrettable risk because later kings might be overbearing.
One more point: in Judaism we have a general rule which is called "the descent of the generations." This means that according to our tradition, the earlier a generation lived, the higher was their spiritual level (Talmud, Shabbat 112b). No Talmud-sage would dare to negate a verse of the Prophets; and no later Rabbi would dare to belittle a Talmud-sage.
For this reason, we must not judge that generation. And concerning Saul, our tradition explicitly states that he was a righteous man (Talmud, Moed Katan 16b; and Midrash Breishit Rabah 54:4); and he unified the Israelites and defeated their enemies round about (1 Samuel 14:47).
See also:
What was the important function if the tribe of Levi?
The Levi tribe was chosen to perform holy service in the Tabernacle and Temple.
See related links for more information about the tribe of Levi.
How were the Jews persecuted in Egypt?
Biblical Period
They were enslaved with backbreaking labor (Exodus ch.1).
Modern Egypt
Jews in Modern Egypt received similar treatment to that which the Copts now receive for much of the 19th and early 20th century. They were maligned as second class citizens. With the rise of Zionism, the situation in Egypt became untenable and there were small scale riots against the Jewish community. In 1950, most Egyptian Jews fled to Israel and there only remains a small community (few hundred) in Cairo today.
a. Yahweh is the Hebrew word for God. This is the God of the Jews.
Correction:
Yahweh is an English word of Christian origin and has no historical meaning for Jews.
What year was the National Cathedral built?
Washington National Cathedral, formally known as the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, is the seat of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Washington D.C., and was built between September 29, 1907 and September 29, 1990. The building is entirely of masonry construction, consisting of over 150,000 tons of buff Indiana limestone. Of that 150,000 tons of stone, every block had a number and a specific location. Additionally, there was only one stone-setting crew working at a time. So, although the construction period lasted 83 years, 18 of which are recorded as non-construction years, the construction period was not inordinately long, particularly considering what was accomplished is the largest, completed masonry structure on the North American continent and the sixth lagest Cathedral-style church in the World.
What are some important facts about King Herod?
King Herod was appointed King of Judea by the Romans in 37 BC.
What were two steps that the Israelites took to gain independence?
They left egypt and they crossed the red sea and the travelled the desert for forty years
Why should Zola have stressed the issue of Dreyfus's Judaism less in the letter J'accuse?
It is of course hard to say if he indeed should have, because the letter as it was made a huge impact. But you could argue that using the argument would only lead to vehement denials by the authorities and to making them stick to their guns, while the letter contained already more than enough facts and analysis to clearly show a miscarriage of justice.
A couple of the things that Zola pointed out:
- the graphologists' assertion was that "the lack (!) of resemblance between Dreyfus' writing and that of the names list was "proof" that Dreyfus had somehow managed to forge his own handwriting
- the evidence clearly showed that the names list came from an infantry officer, not an artillery officer such as Dreyfus
- proof was provided that a Major Esterhazy had passed the names list to the Germans; it had been ignored, because his guilt would have implicated gross negligence at the General Staff office
- Dreyfus was denied the right to examine the documentary evidence against him.
What conflict caused Israel to split into two kingdoms?
After Solomon's death, the people approached his son Rehav'am (Rehoboam) and asked that he now lower the tax. He ignored the counsel of his elder advisers and refused the people's request. This led the Ten Tribes to turn away from him (1 Kings ch.12).
The background reason was because King Solomon had been less than perfectly righteous. This led God to punish him by diminishing his dynasty in the lifetime of his son (Rehoboam). 1 Kings ch.11. A deeper reason is that God wanted the more righteous people of Judah to be influenced by the Ten Tribes as little as possible.
Centuries later, by 738 B.C.E., both kingdoms faced new threats to their independence from the Assyrians. The Assyrians forced Israel and Judah to pay tribute. In 722 B.C.E., Assyria invaded Israel, whose army was weak, and conquered it. The kingdom of Israel ended. Around 612 B.C.E., the Assyrian Empire fell to the Babylonians.
For many years, King Nebuchadnezzar ruled Babylonia. In 586 B.C.E., Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem. When Judah's leaders resisted his rule, the Babylonians destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. They took hundreds of thousands of Jews to Babylon, some as slaves.
What are the 10 jewish plagues?
The Plagues of Egypt were sent by God to Egypt to try and convince Pharaoh to set the Jews free from slavery.
They were:
The plagues as they appear in the Bible are:
- Water, which turned to blood and killed all fish and other aquatic life
- Frogs
- Lice
- Flies or wild animals
- Disease on livestock
- Unhealable boils
- Hail and thunder
- Locusts
- Darkness
- Death of the first-born of all Egyptian humans and animals.To be saved, the Israelites had to place the blood of a lamb on their door.
This story can be found in the bible, in the book of Exodus or for an alternative it is fairly accurately represented in the Dreamworks film 'The Prince of Egypt'
Hope this helps!
What group in Judea were enemies of King Herod the Great?
A:
Most of the Jews despised King Herod the Great, both because he was an Idumean and because he was imposed on Judea by the Romans. Realising that the Jews were his implacable enemies, Herod built a string a forts all around his kingdom, including one at Macherus, which became famous when John the Baptist was executed there in about 35 CE. The forts were not intended to guard against external enemies, but to provide him with places of refuge should the Jews rise up against him.
What is the Jewish New York called?
No such place exists.
Answer:
Within New York City, Jews are most heavily concentrated in the neighborhoods of Boro Park, Flatbush, Williamsburg, Midwood, Crown Heights (all in Brooklyn); Forest Hills, Fresh Meadows (in Queens); and the Upper East Side and Upper West Side of Manhattan. There are smaller percentages of Jews throughout New York City.
In the early decades of the 1900s, the Lower East Side of Manhattan had the heaviest concentration of Jews in New York. Traces of that can still be seen.
How did the scholars at Yavneh help reshape Jewish life and traditions?
Preserve, not "reshape."
Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, disciple of Hillel, found favor in the eyes of the Roman leader Vespasian, for a reason explained in the Talmud (Gittin 56a-b), and was granted a request. He requested that the Romans (who had already begun the process of the Second Destruction) spare the town of Yavneh and its Torah-scholars. Vespasion acquiesced (Talmud, ibid), and Rabbi Yohanan gathered whatever Torah-sages he could, to Yavneh.
After the Destruction during which the Romans razed Jerusalem, it was these sages (Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Akiva and many others) who redeemed Jewish captives, distributed charity, and rebuilt whatever they could.
In matters of Torah, they recorded the laws of the Temple so that these wouldn't be forgotten, and redacted the details of such Mishna-tractates as Shekalim, Yoma, and Tamid. They finalized the text of the Haggadah shel Pesach (Passover Seder), composed prayers for the rebuilding of the Temple, and set in motion the process of redacting the entire Mishna, an effort which would be completed a century later.
Through all these actions, they gave the Jewish people new hope, showing them that the nation could continue even under the new circumstances, with its Torah and traditions (Oral Law) intact, clarified and accessible.
At that time (the Second Destruction), non-traditional sects such as the Sadducees and the Essenes, either went extinct or drifted completely way from Judaism because of the hardships the Jews were experiencing. Judaism today can name only the Torah-sages as their spiritual forebears.
