Being Jewish 101 with Jeremiah Zaretsky – CMAW033

 

//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/7149172/height/360/theme/legacy/autoplay/no/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/

What You’ll Hear:

• The Jewish community does not have consensus on the question “Who is a Jew”
• In “Jews for Jesus” from a messianic perspective, a Jewish person is someone who is a physical descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  We define being Jewish as an ethnicity
• According to the Bible, if your father was Jewish you were Jewish
• Over times, the Rabbis changed that law so that your mother being Jewish made you Jewish. This was in response to rape and pillaging of the Jewish people and to preserve the ability to identify their people
• If someone is a Jew you’re referring to ethnicity (the bloodline, like hardware).  If someone practices some of the Jewish faith or culture, anyone can do that (like software).
• The Jewish culture varies in different countries
• Referring to the Jewish people as “Jews” may be fine or derogatory depending on the context
• The 3 main branches of Judaism are Orthodox (most conservative), Conservative, and Reformed (most liberal).
• Orthodox Jews believe in the inerrancy of scripture and the oral law (the Talmad, the rabinical interpretation of the Hebrew scriptures).  They believe in the coming Messiah and the resurrection of the dead. Within Orthodox there are sub-groups of modern Orthodox, strict Orthodox, and the ultra-Orthodox (the Hasidim).
• A Reformed Jewish person would not believe in the Messiah as a person.  They would not believe in the miracles of the Bible.  There are even athiestic and humanistic synagogues that do not believe in God.  There are a large group of Jewish people who follow Buddhaism (called JewBus) and New Age.
• As the culture has shifted, there has been a deterioration between these 3 branches and in the beliefs of each
• Judaism didn’t morphe significantly until after the Temple was destroyed in 70AD.
• A Yamaka (Yittish) and Kippah (Hebrew) are two names for a skull cap or head covering for men
• Jewish people tend to vote democrat due to justice issues
• The general sentiment in our culture and in Jewish culture is whatever makes you happy and that impacts the Pro-life issue.
• A bar mitzvah is when a boy reaches age 13 (bat mitzvah for a girl).  The ceremony is only about 400 years old.  The essential elements of the ceremony is they spend a year or longer learning Hebrew.  The Torah is broken into 54 portions, so you find the portion associated with the week of your birthday and you learn to chant that in Hebrew.  You give a sermonette on the Torah portion you’re chanting on and what it means to be a man (or woman).  Then you have the party.
• For most boys their life doesn’t change that much as a result of the bar mitzvah