Key Religious Beliefs of Judaism - Essay Example

These beliefs constitute a significant part of “The Thirteen Principles of Faith” which is the heart of the Torah according to Maimonides, the Jewish philosopher, and rabbi who compiled and referred to it as “Shloshah Asar Ikkarim” in Hebrew (Maimonides). Talmud, being the central text of Judaism or the most essential collection of the Jewish oral tradition, necessitates for its rabbinic substance to be put in translation from written principles and thought into actual behavior by each Jew.

Through “The Thirteen Principles of Faith”, the Jews acknowledge the existence of one Creator who, in perfect unity or singularity, is considered the ‘primary cause’ of all that exists. Moreover, God is absolute, non-corporeal, and eternal by nature so that it is an imperative principle for the Jews to worship this same God alone and cast off the rest which is false gods. While the prophet Moses is regarded by the Jews as highly crucial in conveying the chief prophecy and the “Ten Commandments” of God, the revelation at Mt. Sinai is taken as a profoundly valuable occurrence in which Hashem (God) revealed in front of 600,000 Jews at the foot of the mountain that He chose these people to comprise His nation. By “The Thirteen Principles of Faith”, the Torah is further believed to possess divine origin and immutability. The omniscience and providence of God, as well as the divine reward and retribution, are altogether inclusive of the core principles of Judaism which similarly hold in great account the Jewish faith upon the coming of the ‘Messiah’ and the resurrection of the dead.

On the other hand, the dispersal of the Jewish people from their ancestral homeland which is widely known as the ‘Diaspora’ began the time when a population of Jews was exiled from Israel by their Babylonian conquerors in the 6th century (587 BCE) and from Judea by the Romans around 70 CE. It was particularly commemorated in biblical history that the immediate cause of Diaspora, based on these events, was the destruction of the First Temple which led to the expulsion of the Jews to different parts of Babylon (under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar) and other regions of the Middle East, Egypt, and Judea. Then when the Jews revolted against the Roman Empire, marking the First Jewish-Roman War, they were counteracted and defeated by the Roman army under emperor Hadrian so that which brought to the ruin of Jerusalem and the abolition of the Second Temple (Goldschmidt & Davidson, 280).

As a major consequence, the dispersed Jews lost their power and independence and their weakened state of religious faith for a considerable period was unable to save or protect them from the inevitable experience of persecution and socio-religious seclusion by the non-Jewish Christian and Muslim communities. According to the Holy Scripture (the Bible), such numerous exiles were a grave punishment for the Jews who were found guilty of utter disobedience to Jewish laws and God’s commandments. God had turned away from their deliberate lack of faith, leaving the Jews to suffer from being heavily unaccepted and persecuted by the non-believers.