Wednesday, April 16, 2014

How do Jews try to live

We are not broken, We don’t need to be saved, 
and We have everything we need to create
 a paradise on earth .

"How do Jews try to live?’ Judaism is less a set of beliefs than a way of living in the world, of being mindful. Mindful that everything and everyone around us springs from the creative will of a single, divine Being.
Do not do to others what is hateful to you.  Lift up the poor. Welcome the stranger.  Savor each moment.  Count your blessings and be thankful for them.  Learn to understand what is holy and keep it holy.
Love your neighbor as yourself, seem to be the one sentence that is most often say in Judaism.
We do not write G-d's name in a place where it may be discarded or erased. Treating G-d's name with reverence is a way to give respect to G-d. So even though on a computer the name is not really being erased (and perhaps is not really there in the first place), and "G-d" is only an English term used to translate G-d's holy name, it is in keeping with this respect that I write "G-d".
We call G-d HaShem which in hebrew means "The Name".

PRAYERS
We pray different. We say the Shema 2 times a day.  Some pray 3 more times a day facing Israel.  But we have blessing to say over our food, drink, children.  However when it comes to prayers it is mostly a prayer of thanks for what G-d has done.  We do not pray vanity prays.  For example if your neighborhood has a house on fire and you are driving home you do not start to pray that it is not your house on fire (Vanity  Prayer).  If you are worried about what to do we are not told to pray on it.  We are to talk to the Rabbi, read the Torah for an answer or think on it.  I have found this works.  When I am worried about what to do I think on it for a few days and then I start to feel a peace about it.I figure out what to do with my religion and heart guiding me.  Then I know what to do.

So why pray if it isn't going to get you to heaven and it doesn't get you what you want here on Earth?  You pray and do good deeds to feel closer to G-d.  Feeling closer to G-d is the greatest reward and it is the secret to happiness.
"To define religion primarily as a quest for personal satisfaction or salvation is to make it a refine kind of magic." Abraham Joshua Heschel


Olam Ha-Ba: The World to Come
Traditional Judaism firmly believes that death is not the end of human existence. However, because Judaism is primarily focused on life here and now rather than on the afterlife, Judaism does not have much dogma about the afterlife, and leaves a great deal of room for personal opinion.

Judaism is focused on life and how to live it. Non-Jews frequently ask me, "do you really think you're going to go to Hell if you don't do such-and-such?" It always catches me a bit off balance, because the question of where I am going after death simply doesn't enter into the equation when I think about the mitzvot. We perform the mitzvot because it is our privilege and our sacred obligation to do so. We perform them out of a sense of love and duty, not out of a desire to get something in return.(Judaism 101 http://www.jewfaq.org/olamhaba.htm) The concept of "life after death," in the Jewish view, is not encouraged as the motivating factor in performance of Judaism. Indeed it is held that one can attain closeness to God even in this world through moral and spiritual perfection.

ACTION
 Judaism is an action religion.  We don't say put it in G-d's hands.  G-d put us here not so he could live our lives for us but so that we may live.  We make our decisions as any religious person would with the thought of our religious beliefs to guide us.  We can petition him for things.  However, we must still act.
In Jewish synagogues the opening page of the prayer book says: "Pray as if everything depended on God; act as if everything depended on you."

Forgiveness
 is also an action word.  We don't ask for forgiveness as other religions do.  We atone for our offenses.
Ask G-d to atone us for our offenses against him and show that we are truly sorry.  And ask for atonement for our offenses against the people we have offended.  Again it takes action. Atonement is an outward action that covers over the error.

Life- right here on earth right now is a gift.  Jews belief you make it great and fill it with meaning.  You are not here to get by until you get to go to heaven as christians say to do.  We live it now this life and this world is what matters right now.

"Tzedakah" is the Hebrew word for the acts that we call "charity" in English: giving aid, assistance and money to the poor and needy or to other worthy causes. However, the nature of tzedakah is very different from the idea of charity. The word "charity" suggests benevolence and generosity, a magnanimous act by the wealthy and powerful for the benefit of the poor and needy. The word "tzedakah" is derived from the Hebrew root Tzadei-Dalet-Qof, meaning righteousness, justice or fairness. In Judaism, giving to the poor is not viewed as a generous, magnanimous act; it is simply an act of justice and righteousness, the performance of a duty, giving the poor their due.

You are the owner of your own Judaism. It is not for any other Jew to tell you what is or isn't Jewishly acceptable. Your politics? Your level and style of observance? Your dress? What you put in your mouth? Your struggles with God? To wrestle with and wrestling with your path in this world is about as Jewish as it gets.

Being Jewish is not easy, but being a convert is difficult. We take no step on our Jewish paths lightly. We examine, and turn over, sit with,live, test, poke, prod, try, succeed, fail, hope, suffer, wonder, and reach out for G-d and the Jewish community. Every moment of our lives.

Judaism is based on the Jewish idea of absolute Monotheism, that G-d is One. However, Christians and Hindus are free to reject the Jewish claim, which is what makes them Christians or Hindus. Were they to accept the Jewish understanding of one G-d, would leading them to the Jewish understanding that G-d is One and Indivisible, it would be a first step to abandoning their own religions, just as if Jews were to accept the Christian belief of a trinity it would be a first step in abandoning their Judaism.

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