andrewducker | Interesting Links for 18-05-2018

Crossposts: https://andrewducker.livejournal.com/3687682.html

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The person(s) responding to the question about the difference between Christianity and Judaism is/are Orthodox, and thus take a somewhat different and more technically theological tack than I as a Reform Jew would do.

However, they've gotten the main points that aren't technical but about the basic feel and point of the religions:

1) Judaism is focused on this world, not on an afterlife. Sufficient digging can unearth a traditional Jewish concept of the afterlife, but it's vague and I've never seen it discussed. We're just not interested in it.

2) Judaism is about practicing the religion in daily life, not about subscribing to a creed.

Of course, Jewish sects differ about what practice of the religion means. Orthodox traditionally mean by this following the halakha, the rabbinical Jewish law (an immensely complex concept embodied in a core of aspirational but often vague divine commandments, several layers of voluminous and extremely detailed rabbinical commentary, and a body of case law still being added to). Reform treat halakha as voluntary, and interpret tikkun olam as pursuing social justice in the world and mitzot as doing good deeds for others. (Both terms cited in the post in their Orthodox meaning of following commandments.)

But Reform agree with Orthodox that there is one Jewish creed: the Sh'ma, which in the brief form we use it is 12 words long (in Hebrew) and says that God is one and indivisible, and is to be praised. The Christian Trinity is a repulsively blasphemous concept to Jews. That leads to:

3) Whatever Jesus may have been, he wasn't the Jewish Messiah. Even if he was God the Son (whatever that means). That's not what the Jewish Messiah was there to do, and in fact Jesus's words can be read as saying "Scrub that stuff: I'm here to do something else." Either you accept that change of plans as legitimate, in which case you become Christian, or you don't, in which case you stay Jewish.

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Interesting Links for 18-05-2018

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