I don’t know if the point of Judaism is chicken soup.
But it couldn’t hurt. 
But original sin is a far different thing than it is in Christianity. Maybe I was a wishy-washy Conservative, but I never got told that I was a sinner because of Adam and Eve. Many cultures have stories about why things are not paradisical, and the Eden story seems to be one of them. It affects us in that we have to work, women suffer through childbirth, and snakes bite us. Beyond that, not much.
Heaven was kind of blurry, but I never heard about hell, never got threatened by it, and never heard a sermon on it. On Yom Kippur you pray to be written in the book of life for the next year, not to be “saved.” Like Woody Allen said, I always got taught that we achieve immortality by not dying.
There are plenty of rules about sex, but there are plenty of rules about everything. I think there are more about sex than going to the bathroom, about the same as eating, and much, much less than the ones about the Temple. No “better to marry than to burn” stuff, and no celibate priests.
The idea of Original Sin, IIUC, is that because of the sin of Adam, mankind is inherently sinful, and it is only through the grace of Jesus that he can be lifted out of that sinfulness.
Judaism has no such doctrine. True, there may be consequences due to the sin of Adam and Eve, but that’s a far cry from saying that we are all sinful. I may (under some legal systems) burden by descendants with years of debt due to a fire that I started, but that doesn’t make them arsonists.
Zev Steinhardt
I’m not sure what Junior Spaceman means by Original Sin, but Judaism does not believe that people are inherently sinful. A friend once reported to me that after a discussion during a religion class, a fellow student came to her and asked, in a tone of total belief, ‘So you believe it’s possible not to sin?’ The answer is yes, which he apparently found mind-blowing.
As a Jew who is in no way a Jewish scholar, but was raised in a very “culturally but not religiously Jewish” environment, maybe I can help you with both sticking points in a single answer.
Judaism is not ethnic based as much as it is apathetic towards conversion. We don’t care if you convert and frankly we probably think it would be a bad idea if you did.
The basic attitude towards potential converts is:
“As a non Jew you have it fairly sweet, you get God’s love by default because you are born. And because you are not Jewish you don’t have to do all the extra stuff. Good deal! Don’t be Jewish, it is a lot of work.”
If you STILL want to be Jewish after we told you all that, then we might consider it.
This is, to me, the big difference between Judaism and Christianity. Bigger than the Jesus thing. This attitude has created pools of people who don’t get a lot of fresh blood. Over the years those people develop into a distinct society set apart from the others. So we end up being a culture (I don’t like to think of it as an ethnicity) that is distinct because of our religion. But the two ARE separate. Also, only the Jews are expected to follow all these complicated rules. Everyone else is just supposed to be a good person.
Zev this is VERY simplified, but let me know if I am way off base. I have been non practicing for a while now so I may be remembering some of this wrong.
The religion defines the ethnicity. If one converts to Judaism, one is accepted as if they had been Jewish from birth. True, one can be anywhere from non-observant to atheistic, and still be a Jew. What that means depends on who you ask. To a Jew, it basically means, “You’re still one of us, we hope you come back.”
There are 613 mitzvot, and an enormous amount of text clarifying what those commandments mean. Some mitzvot are (rightly, IMO) seen as immoral or absurd in today’s enviroment. And, of course, mitzvot relating to things like temple sacrifices no longer have any currency. But, on the whole, they’re a good set of rules for living in an ordered society.
As several have pointed out, the point of obeying the mitzvot is to please God. I’d add that it’s also to please the community, without, one hopes, being a show-off about it. It’s mostly carrot, not much stick. It seems mature, to me.
I think you need to study your religions before you make a statement about the equivalency of Buddhism and Christianity.
If you want an obvious purpose, well, resurrection is a part of Jewish theology. But yeah, Judaism is a lot more focussed on this life than in the next. I don’t see what’s wrong with that, since I’m firmly convinced that this one is all we’ve got.
Finally, a lot of the point of Judaism is to be Jewish. There is always a bit of insularity involved with being Jewish, and often much more than a bit. Jews like being Jewish, and they don’t like to be thoroughly isolated from other Jews. This doesn’t mean Jews don’t feel responsibility towards others, or that they have any big secrets, or any of the other things that, through history, have led to countless murders. It means that, like all humans, they are part of a social construct, and so tend to do what’s normative within that construct. Within Judaism, there’s nothing more normative than Torah.
Academic studies of religion tend not to be “superficial.”
Superficial knowledge isn’t worth much. Unless it’s superficial knowledge of, say, a certain TV show–that has convinced you not to bother watching.
Comparative religion can be fascinating. Good old Wikipedia has a bare-bones outline–with many links to other articles. And other websites.
And I hear tell there are “books” on the subject.
I think Christians, with their conversion-based origins, often miss this point–even when it applies to themselves. For a huge number of people (most?), religion is primarily about where you were born. I’m atheist/agnostic, and I have relatives who are Catholic. They had a very hard time dealing with my (lack of) beliefs, and a huge part of it is simply that they cannot conceive of the possibility that their own beliefs would be radically different if they had been born to a family across town, who were Protestants, or across the world, who were Buddhists.
Zev and Gila (and I realise you both probably won’t read this until after Wednesday evening), what I meant with Original Sin was that the basis of the Christian idea of O.S. comes from a Jewish text, and although it is interpreted in a different way than under Judaism, Jewish theology still understands that event as a critical and terrible thing that brought sin into man.
I’ve heard of people talk about the snake being an external ‘Yetzer Hora’ (or evil inclination) that after the eating of the fruit became a part of man and woman (I’m not sure if this is Midrash, or just a recent idea). So people became ‘potential’ sinners, even though Jewish thought does not obsess over sin in the same way that Christian thought does.
The ramifications of the existence of sin - in other words, how people can properly atone for their sins, in the post-Temple world seems to be the basis of the split between the two religions - for Christians, it was obviously in faith in Jesus, and for Jews it became observance of the laws and personal atonement on Yom Kippur.
The attitude to Hell seems to be also toned down - it’s there, but it’s not the basis of the religion, and it seems not be eternal (maximum twelve months IIRC - connected to the length of mourners saying Kaddish). The worst punishment seems to be having your spirit simply destroyed. As it’s all speculative, it’s not given much central prominence.
What’s the point? Yup, chicken soup. Tonight with matza balls.
Sage Rat nails it. Judaism began as a tribal religion to keep a group cohesive, to provide a basis for rules by which we can live together and with ourselves, to provide a basis for a cogent worldview. Today it still does. It says something that those as diverse as the Orthodox and secularists and the diverse branches in various lands and others still all feel somehow bound together, whether they look alike or not, whether they were born into the faith or are Jews by choice.
Its point is not the same point as that of Pauline Christianity, which despite sharing text with Judaism owes more to Greek thinking than to traditional Jewish thought.
The point is that Jews do the right things and then maybe, by so doing they will develop a relationship with God.
And now to chop charoset!
Hag Sameach!
I don’t know if the concept of blessings and curses are in modern day Judaism, the concept of blessings is common, but not well understood IMHO in Christianity, curses are not that commonly dealt with in Christianity (as Jesus became a curse for us), but it’s still there and still can inflict. The interesting things about blessings and curses is the effect is not only upon one’s person, but upon your children, grand children and great grand children for curses (4 generations), while blessings can go even further.
To love thy neighbor and to walk humbly with thy God? Isn’t that what one of the prophets said?
Micah, I think 6:8, BUT the question is how is that to be done as a Jew specifically? We Gentiles have the Noahic Laws (against idolatry, blasphemy,
murder, theft, sexual immorality, animal cruelty, and for establishing a judicial
system) but what is required of the Jewish people to do that?
I hope Zev, Gila, or some other talmid chacham will correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t see what Christians call the Fall as a big deal in Judaism. The central point of the Garden of Eden story is, “God made man is his image,” i.e. people are holy and special. The tower of Babel is in the Bible too, but neither Jews nor Christians dwell on it, have schisms over it, and go around blowing up blasphemously tall skyscrapers because of it. It’s a story.
I’ve never heard that and it kind of messes with my head. The yetzer hora isn’t so much evil as tricky to handle. It’s part of our personality that’s made up of feelings like lust, greed, anger–hard to express correctly, but vital to our functioning.
I can say, as someone who converted to Judaism as an adult, that it is hard for someone who didn’t grow up Jewish or heavily exposed to Judaism to “get” Judaism.
There’s Jewish peoplehood and Jewish religion. There are people who practice Judaism as a religion, and people who think of Judaism as a culture. There is overlap between the two groups, but there are people who think of themselves as culturally Jewish but don’t practice Judaism as a religion.
It’s helpful to think of cultural Judaism as being like other ethnic groups. Chinese people in countries other than China eat foods associated with China, give their children Chinese names, and celebrate Chinese holidays, even though they might not practice a Chinese religion. Same with cultural Jews- they eat traditionally Jewish foods and might celebrate some Jewish holidays. People who convert to Judaism usually adopt at least some of the customs of Jewish culture.
There are a couple of differences between Judaism and Christianity that you should understand to get this part.
First, Judaism doesn’t have one belief about the afterlife that all Jews are required to hold. The Jewish Bible (same as the Protestant Old Testament) really doesn’t spend much time at all on the question of what happens to a person after they die. There’s a theory that this started out as a way to differentiate Judaism from Egyptian religion, which is quite heavily focused on the afterlife. Now, it differentiates Judaism from religions like Christianity, which at least historically have devoted a lot of energy to talking about the afterlife.
Some Jews believe in a heaven and hell (though Jewish hell is usually only for a limited time, with the possible exception of eternal hell for people on the order of Hitler or Stalin- but you pretty much have to do something at least on the order of trying to commit genocide to end up there). Some Jews believe in reincarnation. Some Jews believe that you live on after death through your descendants and the things you’ve done in the world. Some Jews just don’t think very much about the question.
Second, Judaism doesn’t say that non-Jews are automatically excluded from whatever good afterlife there might be. Quite the contrary- the Talmud says that the righteous of all nations have a share in the World to Come (the Jewish word for the afterlife, though again, we don’t get into a lot of detail about what exactly that involves, because we know we don’t actually know what happens after death). That’s why Jews aren’t really interested in converting non-Jews- we don’t think anyone’s going to hell just for not being Jewish.
I think another crucial concept to discuss in this context is the idea of “being a light unto the nations”; in other words, that from God’s point of view, the idea of Judaism is to provide the rest of humanity with a good example. When they see how devoted the Jews are to God and what high moral standards we uphold in our daily lives, they will be inspired to improve themselves within the context of their own cultures (they may also be inspired to convert to Judaism, but as Anne said, that isn’t really necessary and certainly not the “point”).
I realize this idea may sound a bit arrogant or even racist, so I want to stress that this alleged moral loftiness is not considered to be any sort of inherent trait possessed by anyone who happens to be Jewish, but is a product of serious Torah study and ritual observance, and could equally well be attained by pious and sincere adherents of other religions or secular philosophies.
See: Can you be an atheist and still be Jewish?
The Straight Dope Archives are often your friend.
I should mention- for some Jews, the point of following the rules of Judaism is tikkun olam, or repairing the world. There’s a mystical belief that, when someone acts the way they are supposed to (ie, a Jew following the rules of Judaism), it makes the universe a better place overall and brings it closer to God’s original plan. For liberal Jews, tikkun olam is more usually connected to certain mitzvot (rules), like giving charity. We want to live in a world where people help others who need help- what better way to move toward that goal than to help out someone in need when you see them?
For some Jews, at least, we keep the rules of Judaism because we think doing so will, in some way, help make the world a better place.
You and others in this thread have stated this repeatedly, but I don’t think it is correct.
It seems that there was a promise made by God to the Jews, if they followed his laws.
In this thread, we see:
E-Sabbath “the only thing promised by the Covenant is that the Jews, as a people, shall not vanish from the earth. Yep, that’s it. Follow these rules, and you won’t vanish from the earth.”
DocCathode “The Covenant twixt the Lord and Abraham was that his children would be as numerous as the stars.”
And from Wikipedia
“According to the terms of these covenants, the Israelites were told that they must worship God and obey His Law in order to receive spiritual and temporal blessing and avoid divine curse.”
You’re looking for a concise list, maybe ten or so things? Something associated with a major biblical figure? The “Dozen Requirements”, so to speak? 