Welcome to our A-Z of Faith Series: articles written by Peter Mansfield, an insurance litigator and member of our church leadership team. We hope you find these reflections on faith and religion insightful!
Since its foundation, possibly 3,500 or so years ago, Judaism has never been a large faith.
It currently has just 14.7 million adherents, which makes it only the tenth largest religion in the world, less than half the size of Sikhism and about the same as Spiritism.
Judaism does not claim to be a faith for all people everywhere, at least not in the way that Islam or Christianity do. As Yuval Noah Harari says, Judaism "focuses on the fate of one small nation and one tiny land". Its remarkable story is that, despite that 'one small nation' not even existing for many hundreds of years, and despite the Jewish people being scattered across the globe, and despite frequent persecution, Judaism has survived.
The story of Judaism begins with G-d's promise to Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation. And so it happened. Abraham's grandson, Jacob, fathered 12 sons, who became (subject to a couple of adjustments) the 12 tribes of Israel. It should be noted that, because the name of G-d is to be respected, it is not written in full.
The core belief of Judaism is that G-d is the only god and is creator of the universe. G-d is concerned with the actions of mankind and, through his covenant with Abraham, has a uniquely close relationship with his chosen people, Israel.
It was to Israel that G-d gave the Law (Torah) through the prophet, Moses. The Torah is found in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and its principles are further discussed in Rabbinical commentaries such as the Talmud.
The Torah contains within it a body of 613 laws, of which 369 (according to certain Rabbinical traditions) remain applicable. Central to the Torah are the Ten Commandments, four of which relate to our relationship with G-d and the others to our relationship with others.
It is this dual relationship, to G-d and to others, that is central to Jewish belief and action. As explained by Laura Weakley, the Torah is "a spiritual way to understand life as well as providing instructions on getting closer to Adonai (G-d)". Meir Kahane describes it as a "blueprint for this life".
Perhaps more than any other religion, Judaism is rooted in history. The holy days of Hanukkah, Purim, Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot all remember specific events in the Jewish story that occurred more than 2000 years ago. To be Jewish is to be part of a culture, a people, a history.
As such, being Jewish has two interconnected meanings. It means a person of the Jewish faith, but it also means being ethnically Jewish. You can therefore have Jewish atheists in a way that you cannot have Christian or Islamic atheists. David Baddiel, who has spoken and written extensively about anti-semitism, is both Jewish and a patron of Humanists UK. Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein were all secular Jews.
In fact being Jewish is even more than just faith or ethnicity. As HarvardX says: it is "the group memory of the manifold communities and cultures formed through the ages... It includes the whole range of Jewish education and family life, food and festival, music and dance, and custom and humour. Judaism is not just a religion; it is the sum total of all the diverse elements that make Jews distinctive."
Written by Pete Mansfield
