I guess I feel the need to start off with a disclaimer.  Judaism is a diverse religion, with a multitude of traditions, rules, opinions, and approaches to life.  My goal here is to boil it down for people coming in with little to no previous knowledge, but in doing so, I have no doubt that others will happen upon this page and think that this or that wasn’t described the way they would have liked it to be.  Again, I am no scholar of Judaism.  I’m just trying to take my experience and knowledge as someone deeply involved in the community and synthesize it for you in an easy-to-understand way.

Denominations

As I mentioned, I define myself as an Orthodox (or specifically, “Modern Orthodox”) Jew.  Questions For My Jewish Friend is about giving you a window into the world of Orthodox Judaism.  Orthodox Judaism is not the only kind of Judaism, however.  There are a few other denominations (or organized movements) within Judaism which each have different approaches to the religion, and therefore have fairly different daily lives.  You don’t convert between them or anything; you just practice what resonates the most with you.  Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox are the 3 major denominations in North America, in addition to Reconstructionist which is a smaller movement.  Read more…

Theology

If I had to sum up Orthodox Jewish theology, I would explain it as a legal system.  This is very different from the Western conception of religion that I most often see, and it’s something my non-Jewish friends often have the hardest time grasping.  Judaism isn’t a simple, straight-forward model of “do the right thing,” which is the very simplistic way that I might boil down a lot of other religious models I’ve stumbled across.  Don’t get me wrong; of course Judaism believes in doing the right thing, but we think “the right thing” is very specifically dictated by a system of laws found in the Talmud.  Read more…

Diversity in Judaism

Although my hope is to give you an eye into Orthodox Judaism, suggesting that there’s one “Orthodox Judaism” and that it can be lumped together is totally not the case.  This is true for a number of reasons.  For one, Judaism largely developed into two major groups based on where you were from; there groups are known as Ashkenazim and Sephardim.  This roughly means Jews of Eastern-European descent and Jews of Spanish or Middle Eastern descent.  Read more…

Jewish Ideas

Jewish texts are beyond vast, and so I’ll definitely only be able to give you a taste of what Judaism is about.  With that in mind, I thought I would highlight some cool Jewish ideas for you that will help you get a sense of what we’re all about.  Read more…