The big idea: Judaism turns on covenant — the agreement Jews hold God made with Abraham, with Moses, and with the Jewish people.
What follows from it is a way of living, far more than a list of things to believe.
Jews hold that God revealed the Torah — the five books of Moses — and that alongside it an oral Torah was given, later written down as the Mishnah and the Talmud.
That second half matters. Judaism as practised today is rabbinic Judaism, shaped by two thousand years of interpretation. Calling it "the religion of the Old Testament" misses almost all of it.
| Movement | Where it stands on the mitzvot |
|---|---|
| Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox | All the mitzvot — ritual and ethical alike — are binding, and interpretation always returns to first principles |
| Conservative | Halakhah binds, but it develops; change is made within the legal tradition rather than around it |
| Reform and Liberal | The ethical mitzvot bind; ritual mitzvot may be modified or set aside where they no longer serve their purpose |
The habit this should build: Almost every sentence about Jewish practice needs a movement attached to it.
"In Orthodox Judaism…", "Reform congregations…", "Most Conservative rabbis hold…". Without one, the sentence is usually wrong about somebody.
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The guide's first question: Jews hold that God created human beings in his image and gave them free will.
So the human condition is not a flaw to be repaired. It is a standing choice.
Yetzer ha-ra
- The bad inclination
- Not a demon, and not the body — an impulse within the person
- Rabbinic texts note that without it there would be no ambition, no building, no family
- The task is to direct it, not to destroy it
Yetzer ha-tov
- The good inclination
- Pulls towards what the Torah commands
- Strengthened by study, prayer and doing the mitzvot
- The choice between the two is renewed constantly
This is where Jewish and Christian accounts of the human condition most visibly part company, and saying so precisely is worth marks.
Judaism has no doctrine of original sin. A person is born able to choose, and remains able to choose.
Teshuvah: Because the choice is renewed, so is the remedy. Teshuvah — repentance, literally turning — is central, and the High Holy Days are built around it.
Rabbinic teaching adds a sharp condition: God forgives what is against God, but a wrong done to another person must be put right with that person first.
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The guide's own wording: "Judaism emphasizes observance in this life rather than elaborating on the hereafter."
That sentence is the answer. Jewish teaching about what comes afterwards is real but comparatively undeveloped, and deliberately so.
What Jewish teaching does look forward to
The Messianic Age
An age of peace and justice for humankind in this world. Orthodox Jews hold that an individual Messiah, a human being anointed by God, will usher it in; some Reform thought speaks instead of a messianic age brought about through human effort.
Olam Ha-Ba — the world to come
A fundamentally new age, described in Jewish sources as following the Messianic Age. What it consists of is left far less defined than in some neighbouring traditions.
Tikkun olam
Repair of the universe. The thought that human action is part of how the world is put right, which is one reason the hereafter needs less elaboration: the work is here.
Put this world right; what follows is God's business.
How Judaism answers the guide's three questions, in its own terms.
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The guide's answer is a life lived in accordance with God's will and in readiness for the Messianic Age. It names three things.
Being the Chosen People
- The House of Israel, chosen in the covenant
- Understood as chosen for responsibility, not for privilege
- Which is why Judaism does not seek converts
Obeying the mitzvot
- The commandments of the covenant revealed in the Torah
- Both ritual and ethical — the Ten Commandments mix the two
- All movements hold the ethical mitzvot binding; they differ on the ritual ones
Living by the Shema
- "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one"
- Recited morning and evening, and the central statement of God's oneness
- Its words are placed in the mezuzah on the doorpost and in tefillin
Chosen, handled properly: "Chosen People" is the guide's phrase and it is a real Jewish teaching — but Jewish sources overwhelmingly read it as chosen to keep the covenant, a burden of obligation rather than a claim to be better.
An exam answer that presents it as a claim of superiority has misrepresented the tradition.
The shape of a Jewish answer: Notice that none of the three is a belief to hold. Each is something to do — belong, obey, recite.
Judaism has few formal creeds; Maimonides' thirteen principles are the best-known attempt, and even they are not a test of membership.