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Judaism: The Basic Tenets Of The Jewish Faith

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The essential tenant of Judaism that separates it from other religions we have studied, is its monotheism faith in a singular all powerful and knowing God who created the Heavens and Earth, man, and every living thing. Smith stated, “where the Jews differed from their neighbors was not in envisioning the Other as personal but in focusing its personalism in a single, supreme, nature-transcending will”. (Smith, 1991, p. 273) Were Buddhism and Hinduism worshiped numerous God’s and perceived all things in nature to be sacred or having the potential for sacredness the Jews saw nature as an expression of a single Lord of all that human being would never be able to fully comprehend the nature of God’s fullness. (Smith, 1991, pp. 273-274) An influential scholar in Judaism during Medieval times was Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, under the guidance by Torah presented 13 principles that Jews strive to live by; many of these tenets address God’s oneness, other tenets speak to the Jewish belief in God speaking to and though prophets with Abraham being most prominent among the prophets, and the last few principle address their believe in God being able to see the deeds of man, punish and reward those deeds, the return of a messiah and the resurrection of the dead. …show more content…
(The Basic Tenets of the Jewish Faith, n.d.) One way in which the Jewish faith is similar to those we have previously discussed is the heavy reliance on orality early in the faith through the prophets who would travel around carrying the messages from God to the people through spoken word, dancing and

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