Judaism

Fence around the Torah

A gezeirah is a law instituted by the rabbis to prevent people from accidentally violating a Torah mitzvah. We commonly speak of a gezeirah as a "fence" around the Torah. For example, the Torah commands us not to work on Shabbat, but a gezeirah commands us not to even handle an implement that you would use to perform prohibited work (such as a pencil, money, a hammer), because someone holding the implement might forget that it was Shabbat and perform prohibited work. The word is derived from the root Gimel-Zayin-Reish, meaning to cut off or to separate.

Ketubah

A marriage contract between the father of the bridge and the groom in accordance with Jewish civil law, in which they testify that the husband guarantees to his wife that he will meet certain minimum human and financial conditions of marriage

Hellenism

In Greek, Ellinismos has been used to describe the people of Greek lineage and also to describe a set of values for living that were invented by the ancient Greeks. These values became the basis of today's Western civilization.Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in the ancient world that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Greek culture.

Covenant

It is a central element of Judaism that Abraham is seen as the father of the Jewish people and that through him and his descendants a covenant was transmitted to future generations.

Mitzvot

It is used in rabbinical Judaism to refer to the 613 commandments given in the Torah at biblical Mount Sinai and the seven rabbinic commandments instituted later for a total of 620. The 613 commandments are divided into two categories: 365 negative commandments and 248 positive commandments. According to the Talmud, all moral laws are, or are derived from, divine commandments.

chain of transmission

Rabbinic tradition conceived of the Oral Torah as an unbroken chain of transmission. The distinctive feature of this view was that Oral Torah was "conveyed by word of mouth and memorized."

Passover

The Jewish people celebrate Passover as a commemoration of their liberation by God from slavery in Egypt and their freedom as a nation under the leadership of Moses. Passover lasts for either seven days (in Israel) or eight days.

Hanukkah

a Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple (the Second Temple) in Jerusalem. Hanukkah is observed for eight nights and days. It is also known as the Festival of Lights and the Feast of Dedication. The festival is observed by the kindling of the lights of a unique candelabrum, the nine-branched menorah (also called a Chanukiah/Hanukiah).

Shavuot

a Jewish holiday that has a double significance. It marks the all-important wheat harvest in the Land of Israel; and it commemorates the anniversary of the day God gave the Torah to the entire nation of Israel assembled at Mount Sinai, although the association between the giving of the Torah (Matan Torah) and Shavuot is not explicit in the Biblical text.

Siddur

a Jewish prayer book, containing a set order of daily prayers.

Rabbi

a Jewish scholar or teacher, especially one who studies or teaches Jewish law.

Documentary Hypothesis

sometimes called the Wellhausen hypothesis,[1] proposes that the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) was derived from originally independent, parallel, and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors. The number of these narratives is usually set at four, but the precise number is not an essential part of the hypothesis.

Ashkenazim

the Jews of Germany and Northern France

Sephardim

the Jews of Iberia and the Spanish diaspora

Orthodox

the approach to religious Judaism which subscribes to a tradition of mass revelation and adheres to the interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Tanaim and Amoraim. Considers itself the only true heir to the Jewish tradition.

Kashrut

the set of Jewish religious dietary laws.

Philo

was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt.

Essenes

were a sect of Second Temple Judaism that flourished from the 2nd century BC to the 1st century AD which some scholars claim seceded from the Zadokite priests.[1] Being much fewer in number than the Pharisees and the Sadducees (the other two major sects at the time), the Essenes lived in various cities but congregated in communal life dedicated to asceticism (some groups practiced celibacy), voluntary poverty, and daily immersion. Many separate but related religious groups of that era shared similar mystic, eschatological, messianic, and asceticbeliefs. These groups are collectively referred to by various scholars as the "Essenes." Josephus records that Essenes existed in large numbers, and thousands lived throughout Roman Judaea.

Moses

One of Judaism's great figures is the man called Moshe Rabbenu('Moses our teacher') in Hebrew. The first five books of the Bible are traditionally ascribed to him. Moses is the channel between God and the Hebrews, through whom the Hebrews received a basic charter for living as God's people.

Agunah

(literally "anchored" or "chained"), is a halachic term for a Jewish woman who is "chained" to her marriage. The classic case of this is a man who has left on a journey and has not returned, or has gone into battle and is missing. It also refers to a woman whose husband refuses, or is unable, to grant her a divorce document in Jewish religious law, known as a get.

Treyf

(of food) not satisfying the requirements of Jewish law.

Sukkot

Feast of Tabernacles, has a double significance. It marks the end of the harvest time and thus of the agricultural year in the Land of Israel. The more elaborate religious significance from the Book of Leviticus is that of commemorating the Exodus and the dependence of the People of Israel on the will of God. The tabernacles of Sukkot are not only temporary booths put up to facilitate harvest but also an embodied historical memory of Israel's march through the Sinai. Throughout the holiday, meals are eaten inside the sukkah and many people sleep there as well.

Kosher

Food that may be consumed according to halakha (Jewish law) is termed kosher in English, meaning "fit" (in this context, fit for consumption).

Tanakh

The Tanakh or Mikra or Hebrew Bible is the canonical collection of Jewish texts, which is also a textual source for the Christian Old Testament.

Seder

The is a Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of Passover. The Seder is a ritual performed by a community or by multiple generations of a family, involving a retelling of the story of The liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt. Seder customs include telling the story, discussing the story, drinking four cups of wine, eating matza (unleavened bread), partaking of symbolic foods placed on the Passover Seder Plate, and reclining in celebration of freedom. The six traditional items on the Seder Plate are: Maror and chazeret: bitter herbs symbolizing the bitterness and harshness of the slavery the Hebrews endured in Egypt) Haroset: a sweet, brown mixture representing the mortar used by the Hebrew slaves to build the storehouses or pyramids of Egypt) Karpas: a vegetable other than bitter herbs, which is dipped into salt water (which represents tears) at the beginning of the Seder mirroring the pain felt by the Hebrew slaves in Egypt) Z'roa: also called Zeroah, it is special as it is the only element of meat on the Seder Plate. A roasted lamb or goat shankbone, chicken wing, or chicken neck; symbolizing the korban Pesach (Pesach sacrifice), which was a lamb that was offered in the Temple in Jerusalem. Beitzah: a roasted hard-boiled egg, symbolizing the korban chagigah (festival sacrifice) that was offered in the Temple in Jerusalem. The egg is a symbol of mourning (as eggs are the first thing served to mourners after a funeral), evoking the idea of mourning over the destruction of the Temple and our inability to offer any kind of sacrifices in honor of the Pesach holiday. Matzot: unleavened bread. When the Pharaoh freed the Israelites, it is said that they left in such a hurry that they could not wait for bread dough to rise (leaven).

Canon

The term "" refers to the closed corpus of biblical literature regarded as divinely inspired.

Temple

This was the one and only place where sacrifices and certain other religious rituals were performed.

Niddah

a Hebrew term describing a woman during menstruation, or a woman who has menstruated, and not yet completed the associated requirement of immersion in a mikveh (ritual bath). In Leviticus, the Torah prohibits sexual intercourse with a niddah and the prohibition has been maintained in traditional Jewish law.

Mikveh

a bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism. In the Hebrew Bible, the word is employed in its broader sense but generally means a collection of water. A person was required to be ritually pure in order to enter the Temple. Used by Jewish women to achieve ritual purity after menstruation or childbirth before she and her husband may resume marital relations. The mikveh provides a bathing facility that remains in ritual contact with a natural source of water.

Pareve

a classification of food in kashrut for edible substances that contain neither dairy nor meat ingredients and therefore permissible to be eaten with both meat and dairy dishes according to dietary laws.

Get

a divorce document in Jewish religious law, which must be presented by a husband to his wife to effect their divorce.

Conservative

a major confessional division within Judaism, particularly prevalent in North America, which views Religious Law, or Halakha, as both binding and subject to historical development. The movement considers its approach to Law as the authentic and most appropriate continuation of halakhic discourse, maintaining both fealty to received forms and flexibility in their interpretation. It seeks to preserve Jewish tradition and ritual but has a more flexible approach to the interpretation of the law than Orthodox Judaism.

Reform

a major confessional division within Judaism, which emphasizes the evolving nature of the religion, the superiority of its ethical aspects compared to the ceremonial ones, and a belief in a continuous revelation not centered on the theophany at Mount Sinai. It is characterized by a lesser stress on ritual and personal observance, regarding Jewish Law as of basically non-bi

Ultra-Orthodox

a stream of Orthodox Judaism characterized by rejection of modern secular culture. Ultra-Orthodox Jews regard themselves as the most religiously authentic group of Jews, although this claim is contested by other streams.

Yom Kippur

also known as the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day of the year in Judaism. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Jewish people traditionally observe this holy day with an approximate 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue services.

Cantor

an official who sings liturgical music and leads prayer in a synagogue. The cantor in the Reform movement is a clergy member who fills a diverse role within the Jewish community. Cantors lead worship, officiate at lifecycle events, teach adults and children, run synagogue music programs, and offer pastoral care.

Tefillin

are a set of small black leather boxes containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah, which are worn by observant Jews during weekday morning prayers.

Shema

are the first two words of a section of the Torah, and is the title (sometimes shortened to simply Shema) of a prayer that serves as a centerpiece of the morning and evening Jewish prayer services.

Pikuach Nefesh

describes the principle in Jewish law that the preservation of human life overrides virtually any other religious consideration. When the life of a specific person is in danger, almost any mitzvah lo ta'aseh (command to not do an action) of the Torah becomes inapplicable.

Theodicy

in its most common form, attempts to answer the question why a good God permits the manifestation of evil. Theodicy addresses the evidential problem of evil by attempting "to make the existence of an All-knowing, All-powerful and All-good or omnibenevolent God consistent with the existence of evil" or suffering in the world.[1] Unlike a defence, which tries to demonstrate that God's existence is logically possible in the light of evil, a theodicy provides a framework which claims to make God's existence probable.

Shabbat

is Judaism's day of rest and seventh day of the week

Synagogue

is a Jewish house of prayer.

Haggadah

is a Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. Reading the Haggadah at the Seder table is a fulfillment of the Scriptural commandment to each Jew to "tell your son" of the Jewish liberation from slavery in Egypt as described in the Book of Exodus in the Torah.

Dual Torah

is a creation of the rabbis during the Rabbinic Period. This belief is that God gave two Torahs at Mt. Sinai. The first one--the Written Torah--was in written form and is essentially the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. The second one--the Oral Torah--was passed down through the centuries from teacher to disciple. Eventually it was written down and incorporated into the Talmud.

Tallit

is a fringed garment traditionally worn by Jews.

Reconstructionist

is a modern American-based Jewish movement based on the conceptions developed by Mordecai Kaplan (1881-1983). The movement views Judaism as a progressively evolving civilization. It originated as a semi-organized stream within Conservative Judaism, before it seceded. Halakha, the collective body of Jewish Law, is not considered binding, but is treated as a valuable cultural remnant that should be upheld unless there is reason for the contrary. The movement emphasizes positive views toward modernism, and has an approach to Jewish custom which aims toward communal decision making through a process of education and distillation of values from traditional Jewish sources.

Septuagint

is a translation of the Hebrew Bible and some related texts into Koine Greek. As the primary Greek translation of the Old Testament, it is also called the Greek Old Testament.

Midrash

is commonly defined as the process of interpretation by which the rabbis filled in "gaps" found in the Torah. It is a literature that seeks to ask the questions that lie on the tips of our tongues, and to answer them even before we have posed them.

Rosh Hashanah

is the Jewish New Year. It is the first of the High Holy Days. Rosh Hashanah is a two-day celebration. Rosh Hashanah customs include sounding the shofar (a hollowed-out ram's horn), following the prescription of the Hebrew Bible to "raise a noise"; and eating symbolic foods such as apples dipped in honey to evoke a "sweet new year".

Masoretic text

is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Tanakh for Rabbinic Judaism.

Amidah

is the central prayer of all four services: shacharit (morning), mincha (afternoon), maariv (evening), and mussaf (additional)on the Sabbath.

Halakha

is the collective body of Jewish religious laws derived from the Written and Oral Torah. It includes the 613 mitzvot ("commandments"), subsequent Talmudic and rabbinic law and the customs and traditions compiled in the Shulchan Aruch (literally "Prepared Table", but more commonly known as the "Code of Jewish Law").

Gemara

is the component of the Talmud comprising rabbinical analysis of and commentary on the Mishnah. After the Mishnah was published by Judah HaNasi (c. 200 CE), the work was studied exhaustively by generation after generation of rabbis in Babylonia and the Land of Israel. Their discussions were written down in a series of books that became the Gemara, which when combined with the Mishnah constituted the Talmud. There are two versions of the Gemara. The Jerusalem Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi) was compiled by scholars of the Land of Israel, primarily of the academies of Tiberias and Caesarea, which was published between about 350-400 CE. The Talmud Bavli was published about 500 CE by scholars of Babylonia, primarily of the academies of Sura, Pumbedita, and Mata Mehasia. By convention, a reference to the "Gemara" or "Talmud," without further qualification, refers to the Babylonian version, see Talmud.

Mishnah

is the first major written redaction of the Jewish oral traditions known as the "Oral Torah". It is also the first major work of Rabbinic literature.[2][3]

Exodus

is the second book of the Torah. It takes its English from the event in which Moses led the Jews out of Egypt and slavery.

Abraham

known as the Patriarchs, are both the physical and spiritual ancestors of Judaism. They founded the religion now known as Judaism, and their descendants are the Jewish people.

Aggada

refers to non-legalistic exegetical texts in the classical rabbinic literature of Judaism, particularly as recorded in the Talmud and Midrash. In general, Aggadah is a compendium of rabbinic texts that incorporates folklore, historical anecdotes, moral exhortations, and practical advice in various spheres, from business to medicine.

Diaspora

refers to the dispersion of Israelites, Judahites, and later Jews out of what is considered their ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel) and the communities built by them across the world.

Babylonian exile

refers to the time period in Israel's history when Jews were taken captive by King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. It is an important period of biblical history because both the captivity/exile and the return and restoration of the Jewish nation were fulfillments of Old Testament prophecies.

Sadducees

were a sect or group of Jews that was active in Judea during the Second Temple period, starting from the second century BCE through the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. The sect was identified by Josephus with the upper social and economic echelon of Judean society.[1] As a whole, the sect fulfilled various political, social, and religious roles, including maintaining the Temple. The Sadducees are often compared to other contemporaneous sects, including the Pharisees and the Essenes. Their sect is believed to have become extinct sometime after the destruction of Herod's Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, but it has been speculated that the later Karaites may have had some roots in - or connections with - Sadducean views.

Pharisees

were at various times a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought in the Holy Land during the time of Second Temple Judaism. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Pharisaic beliefs became the foundational, liturgical and ritualistic basis for Rabbinic Judaism (the term 'Judaism' today almost always refers to Rabbinic Judaism).

Kippah

worn by Jews to fulfill the customary requirement held by orthodox halachic authorities that the head be covered at all times.

World-to-come

• Judaism believes in an afterlife but has little dogma about it • The Jewish afterlife is called Olam Ha-Ba (The World to Come)