Sunday | CLOSED |
Monday-Thursday | 9.00-18.30 |
Friday | 9.00-13.00 (winter) |
9.00-15.00 (summer) |
Sunday | CLOSED |
Monday-Thursday | 9.00-18.30 |
Friday | 9.00-13.00 (winter) |
9.00-15.00 (summer) |
This project has its origins in the many challenging questions that have been asked by children in the last years of Jewish primary Schools (Key Stage 2) to their Jewish Studies teachers.
Children are filled with questions as they begin to discover the world. Many questions do not have simple answers. Queries on subjects such as God, Israel, Evolution, divine punishment, death, self-identity, and Creation are not easy to respond to. The issues involved are often sensitive, spiritual and profound.
For a number of years, Rabbi Dr Raphael Zarum, Dean of LSJS, has been leading sessions on how to respond to these questions at our annual Teacher’s Conference. In response to requests from teachers, below are short responses to 33 questions that have been asked by young people. They have been written by Rabbi Dr Zarum and Maureen Kendler, a Teaching Fellow at LSJS, in plain language that is appropriate for the age of the children. Teachers will immediately realise the approach and language taken in each question and be able to use them in responding to children.
These 33 responses will often be the start of a conversation with a young person about key Jewish questions that interest or maybe trouble them. We hope these responses assist teachers in enabling young Jews to seek and find, learn and grow on their Jewish journey.
Any and all feedback from teachers is very welcome. Please email: lsjsadmin@lsjs.ac.uk
The 33 questions divide into a number of categories. Click on a category and then a question that you are interested in learning more about:
God is not physical. This means that you can’t touch, see, smell, taste or hear God. God is invisible. Scientists could never make a machine to detect God.
Because God is not physical, God does not walk, fly or swim. God is not big or small. God is not heavy or light. It is always easier to say what God is not, rather than what God is.
God is behind all that there is in the world and the whole universe. But God is not part of the universe. Before the universe began and after it ends, there will still be God.
God is a ‘being’, but not like any other being that we know. God is not alive and God does not die.
Because God is so hard to understand the Torah describes God a bit like a human being with feelings and a body just like we have. So the Torah talks about God getting angry (Exodus 4:14), feeling sad (Genesis 6:6), and as having eyes (Genesis 38:7), ears (Numbers 11:1), legs (Exodus 24:10), and an outstretched arm (Deuteronomy 26:8).
By imagining God to be physical, it makes it easier for us to understand how God is involved in the stories in the Torah as well as in our lives.
Here is a helpful way to think about God. Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan said:
Trying to understand God in your mind
is like trying to hold an idea in your hand.
In other words, God is one step beyond us. God really is beyond our grasp.
But, as Jews, we can know God through our prayers, through the wonders of nature, through learning Torah and through studying Jewish history.
The more you understand about yourself and the world, the more you will come to understand God.
The first of the Ten Commandments is to believe in the words, “I am the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:2). And to fully understand what they mean will take you your whole lifetime…
Yes. On planet Earth today there are almost seven and a half billion people. Remember that a billion is a million million. And of those seven and a half billion people…
Christianity, Islam and Hinduism are the three biggest religions in the world today. They all have very different ways of understanding God but they all believe that God is there.
So those three religions account for about five billion people. If you then include all the smaller religions that believe in God – and that includes the Jewish People which is made up of just fourteen million people – then you end up with the fact that over two-thirds all the people who are alive today follow religions that believe in God.
And what all these religions have in common is that belief in God means that we all have obligations to our fellow people. We must care for the poor and helpless, try to stop violence and hate, and make life better for as many people as possible. This is the role that religions can play in society in general.
We end every regular service by saying the two paragraphs of the Aleynu prayer. The second paragraph is about the future and concludes with the hope that the whole world will come to know God:
“All the world’s inhabitants will realise and know that to You every knee should bow and ever tongue should promise loyalty… on that day God will be recognised as One and God’s Name will be One.”
Here are three important things every Jew should know about God:
1. God is the Creator
God is the creator of the entire universe, and God keeps the universe going all the time. The seasons, the planets, the stars, everything in fact only continues because God keeps it going all the time. If for one moment God stopped this effort, then the universe would not be there anymore. That is why we say in our daily morning prayers,
“With care God gives light to the Earth and it inhabitants,
and in God’s goodness God renews the work of Creation all the time,
day after day.” (Shacharit, after Barechu).
2. God chose Abraham
God chose Abraham to be the start of a new nation that became the Jewish People, us. Abraham stayed faithful to God and, with his wife Sarah, taught others to believe in God too. We are their descendants and we continue to be faithful to God just like Abraham. That is why we say in our daily morning prayers,
“You are the Lord God who chose Abram and brought him out of [the city of] Ur…
and You changed his name to Abraham, and You found that in his heart he was faithful to You.” (Shacharit, before the Shirat HaYam)
3. God loves us
God loves all human beings. Added to that, God has a special relationship with the Jewish People because God make a promise to Abraham to look after them if Abraham was loyal. God wants us to love being Jewish and all that involves. That is why we say in our daily morning prayers,
“You have loves us with a great love, Lord our God…
Put in our hearts the desire to understand and think, listen, learn and teach, to care about, to do, and to keep doing, all the teachings of Your Torah in love.”
(Shacharit, before the Shema)
So who is God? God is the one who created us, chose us and loves us. We know God through what God does for us.
Thousands of years ago people believed that there were many gods who controlled the world. Each god ruled over a different part of Nature and human action. So there were gods for the sun, for rain, for animals, and for war and for love, and so on. The gods wanted to be worshipped and in return they would make life easier for the people on earth. But because there were many gods with many jobs, people thought that they competed with each other, and argued with each other, and got into fights so that they often ended up causing wars and many other problems for us humans.
Everything changed when the Torah was given. A new idea was introduced for the very first time. As it says in the first line of the Torah: “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth” (Genesis 1:1). i.e. there are not lots of gods, there is only one. One God, above all, that created all of Nature. One God who makes sure that the world runs in an ordered way and desires that people are fair and kind.
This leads to the second unique aspect of Judaism: we argue with God. We always have, from Abraham until today. When Abraham didn’t think that God was acting fairly, he argued with him. He once said to God, “Won’t the judge of the entire Earth play fair!?” (Genesis 18:19). And God listened.
Moses also argued with God as did the prophet Jeremiah. It seems from reading the Tanach (Bible) that God actually wants people to argue with Him if they think He is wrong. God wants us to challenge Him because this is a great way of educating us to stand up for ourselves and for what we think is right.
One supreme God who is welcomes being challenged is what makes the Jewish view of God so special.
Here are three different reasons:
(i) God gave us the Torah to teach us how to be better people
The Torah guides us how to life a good life,
“Love your neighbour just as you love yourself” (Leviticus 19:18)
“do not make up a lie” (Leviticus 5:22) ,
“honour your parents” (Exodus 20:5)
“do not be selfish and close your hand … rather you should open your hand and
give money to someone in need” (Deuteronomy 15:7-8).
The Torah is packed with laws that push us to improve and ask us to make every effort to be honest, fair and helpful.
(ii) God gave us the Torah to make us more like God
The Torah says, “You should follow the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 13:5). This means that God wants us to copy Him. But how exactly do you do that? The rabbis explained:
“Just as God clothed the naked – as he did for Adam and Eve – so should you;
Just as God visited the sick – as He did with Abraham – so should you;
Just as God buried the dead – as he did for Moses – so should you.” (Talmud, Sotah 14a).
(iii) God gave us the Torah as a guide book for living on the Earth
When you buy a new gadget, it comes with instructions. You could probably make it work without them but when you read the instructions you understand much more about the purpose of the gadget and how to get the most out of it.
The word for ‘instructions’ in Hebrew is horo’ot which has the same grammatical root as the word Torah. The Torah is the instruction manual that came with the world.
One midrash even says that, “God looked into the Torah in order to create the world” (Bereishit Rabbah 1:1), in other words God made the Torah as His guide for how to make the world. Now, we have the Torah as our guide for how to live.
Our Tradition teaches that it was none other than God who gave us the Torah on Mt. Sinai. So how can the Torah ever be wrong if it is from God? The problem is that in the Torah some of our greatest ancestors argued with God saying that He was wrong.
Abraham told God it would be wrong to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah if there were enough good people in the city to turn it around (Genesis 19). And Moses told God that it would be wrong to destroy the Israelites after the sin of the Golden Calf, and that God should forgive them instead (Exodus 34). In both cases, God agrees.
So the Torah contains stories where people argue with God and God listens to them. Does that mean that the Torah is always right but sometimes God is not? That would be weird!
Another problem is when we find that there are two different sentences in the Torah that could end up contradicting each other. For instance, the 4th of the Ten Commandments is to keep Shabbat, while the 5th is to honour your father and mother. But what happens if your parents tell you not to keep Shabbat? Do you follow the 5th commandment and listen to them or do you follow the 4th commandment and keep Shabbat? You simply cannot do both. Both can’t be right.
The rabbis in the Talmud (Bava Metzia 32a) answer this by looking carefully at the order of the Ten Commandments. Shabbat (the 4th) comes before Parents (the 5th) to teach you that you should honour your parents unless they tell you to ignore one of the laws of the Torah such as keeping Shabbat. In such a case you are not commanded to honour them.
So the Torah is generally right because it is from God, but when the Torah has contradictions, or things that are not clear, that make it look wrong, we look to our learned rabbis to interpret the Torah to make sense of it.
This process is still going on today. Led by our teachers we need to learn the Torah to work out what to do in very difficult situations when there are no simple right answers.
In the Torah God sends punishments for all sorts of reasons, some of which are really hard to understand.
God did not punish all the Egyptians because they had all been bad, but because their leader needed to learn a lesson about God’s power. Pharaoh was a cruel and stubborn leader and didn’t let the Israelites go, even though Moses asked respectfully over and over again. Pharaoh wanted to keep the Israelites as slaves, and did not want to understand about God.
The Egyptians were punished in two ways: firstly with the plagues. This may not have seemed “fair” to us, but God had to show them that He really meant to free the Israelites. Also, seeing the plagues would have given the Israelites great hope and courage that God was working on their side, when they would have been feeling afraid.
Sometimes when leaders – kings like Pharaoh – behave wrongly, and don’t learn their lessons, and just behave worse and worse, the sad thing is that the nation they are leading also suffer. If a school was run by a horrible Head teacher who made terrible rules and would not listen to good advice and was determined to have his way… what would happen? Bad things for sure, and it would not be fair on the school. But it might be the only way the Head would learn his lesson, and there would be change.
The second way the Egyptians were punished was when they were drowned in the Red Sea. Again, that was because they were told by Pharaoh to go and chase after the Israelites. A miracle happened for the Israelites when the sea was split but not for the Egyptian soldiers and they were drowned.
Some rabbis have suggested that another reason that many Egyptians were punished is because they were unnecessarily cruel to the Israelites. Though this cruelty was instructed by Pharaoh, many Egyptians were only too willing to go along with this.
The lesson we may learn from this is how important it is to be a good leader – if you are a leader you must use your power well to benefit everyone.
I am going to answer this question with lots more questions: If I said YES! YOU MUST! How would you feel? If I said NO! YOU DON’T HAVE TO KEEP THEM! How would you feel then?
This question sounds like you don’t want to keep the laws, why not? Do these laws seem too difficult? Do they stop you from doing other things you want to do? Do the laws make no sense to you? Do they seem irrelevant to your life? Do you dislike being made to do things?
There are some laws which probably we all agree are good ideas. For example, in Britain there is a law that we have to wear seat belts in cars. We don’t ask every time we get in the car if we have to put our seat belts on. We know why that law has been made – for our safety – and so we all keep that law. Also if we don’t keep it and are found out by a policeman – the driver will have to pay a fine.
But Jewish laws are more complicated. Some make good sense: not stealing, for example. But most people, Jewish or not, have worked that one out already. And some laws, such as keeping kosher, don’t make such clear sense at all. So, do we have to keep them, and if so, why?
Jews believe that these laws, even if we cannot always understand them, come from God, given when the Jewish religion began, and have been kept ever since. Even though its not always obvious how, following these laws helps to make us better human beings, to be more caring and understanding. We keep them not because God needs us to, but because God wants us to be better:
Rav said: The mitzvot were only given in order that we become refined by them. For does God really care whether a person slaughters an animal at the nape of the neck (which is very painful and against Jewish law) or by the throat (which is much less painful and the kosher method)? Rather, the purpose is to refine us. (Midrash, Bereishit Rabbah 44:1)
At the end of Moses’s life, when he was explaining the Torah to the Jewish People about to enter into Israel, he says: “Be careful to do as the Lord your God commanded you, do not stray to the right or left. Go along the path that the Lord your God commanded you to go, so that you will live well and it will be good for you… ” (Deuteronomy 5:29-30)
When we keep the commandments we are being faithful to God, making our lives better, and being part of our people.
It is written in Pirkei Avot, that is read in shul on Shabbat afternoons in the summer,
“Ben Azzai Said:
Run to do even an easy mitzvah (commandment), and keep away from sin,
for one mitzvah leads to another, and one sin leads to another
– for the reward of a mitzvah is another mitzvah,
and the result of a sin is another sin” (Pirkei Avot 4:2)
Ben Azzai is teaching a very important idea: a mitzvah is its own reward. In other words the good effect that a mitzvah has on you as a result of doing it is the reward itself. Similarly, when we don’t keep mitzvot (commandments) then it is a wasted opportunity and that also affects us in the long term. So we keep the mitzvot not to get prizes or to keep parents and teachers happy, but rather we keep the mitzvot for the positive effect they have on us.
For instance let’s look at the mitzvah of giving tzedakah, charity. If we try to give regularly, even small amounts, then giving becomes a habit. It becomes easy to do and more and more natural for us. We will then try to help people more and be more caring and aware of people who need our help. But if we don’t give tzedakah often, or we avoid giving when the opportunity comes, then it will become harder and harder to give and eventually we will become less caring and more selfish.
So the punishment of the mitzvah is actually the consequence of not doing it. In this world, God does not give out harmful punishments for people who do not keep the mitzvot. But the result of not keeping the mitzvot gradually affects us in a negative way by making us less sensitive and thoughtful.
Even an easy mitzvah like saying the Kiddush over wine on Friday night does, over time, have a powerful effect on our lives. Making Kiddush reminds us every week of God’s Creation and the need to relax, switch off, and spend quality time with those we love. Shabbat gives us the opportunity to do these things.
The truth is that nobody keeps all the mitzvot. Judaism is very demanding and being a good Jew is not easy. So rather than thinking about punishments, the Torah teaches us that we can do ‘Teshuvah’ (repentance). Teshuvah is about self-improvement. It means admitting to ourselves that we can always become better and make more effort as Jews.
So being a good Jew is not about how many mitzvot you keep, it is about always trying to improve on those that you do and being willing to learn and do more. In other words it is not about where you are, it is about where you are going.
1
Non-kosher food is not bad for your body. You won’t suddenly become ill if you eat it. If that were the case all Jews would be very healthy and all non-Jews would be ill, which as we know is not true!
By the way, in the past people did get infections from eating pork. Due to their digestive system, pigs have a range of parasites and diseases that easily can be passed on to humans. It is not a problem today because modern technology has enabled people to store and cook meat properly and so avoid harmful bacteria. So, in the past, because Jews did not eat pig they avoided these problems.
We are also not meant to dislike non-kosher food or think it is disgusting:
“Rabbi Eleazer said: Do not say, ‘My soul hates pig meat’… rather you should say, ‘I actually would not mind eating it, but I just cannot because God has instructed me not to.” (Rashi on Leviticus 20:26)
Perhaps the question is not about bad but about right. Then the question would be, ‘Is non-kosher food right for me?” And the answer is that keeping kosher is something we Jews have done for thousands of years and it has always been a very important part of our way of life.
Keeping kosher is about two things. It is about following a set of rules from the Torah about what you may and may not eat. We don’t know why some foods are allowed and others are not. There are lots of good ideas about this – like God wanting us to learn to separate between things, or wanting us to be very aware of everything that goes into our mouths, and much more – but in the end it comes down to saying yes to God’s commands, whether they all make sense to us or not.
The other reason to keep kosher is that it means you connect to the Jewish community, which is really important. Jews do a lot of eating! If you keep kosher at home then your table will always be a welcome place because all kinds of Jews can eat with you. Also, wherever you travel you will always remember that you are Jewish because you will be looking to find kosher food, and when you shop, cook, suddenly need an ice-cream or want to have a barbeque on holiday you will do it the Jewish way. So, when it comes down to it, it is not that kosher food is healthier for your body, but it is healthy for the kind of Jewish person you want to be.
This is a MUCH better question than “Does God answer my prayers?”
We believe that when we pray – whether alone or in shul, whether using English or Hebrew, whether saying the Shema or using our own words, whether day or night, that God does listen to our prayers.
But how do we know? We don’t. But if we pray we are doing it for two reasons, to speak to God and to say what we need to say to ourselves too. The verb to pray in Hebrew is lehitpalel. This is a ‘reflexive’ verb which means it is something you do to yourself, like washing yourself. So when we pray it changes us. How?
Just to stop what we are doing and to pray is important. It makes us think of the bigger picture outside ourselves, it can calm us down when we are angry, make us appreciate all the things we have, to count our blessings.
The shortest prayer in the Torah is one heard and answered by God: Moses simply asks God to heal his sister Miriam, “Please God, make her well” (Numbers 12:8). And she is healed. And when we read that, we think: if only we could all do that, if only all our prayers could be that simple: we say just one line, it is heard and answered the way we want it, right now.
When our ancestors were slaves in Egypt all those years ago, they cried out to God. The Torah says, “And God saw the Children of Israel, and God knew.” (Exodus 2:25). But what did God see and know? Rashi says, “God turned His heart to them and did not hide His eyes from them.” Now God does not have a heart or eyes. But what this means is that God listened to all their sufferings and did not it ignore any part of it. None of it was forgotten.
Knowing that you have been heard is an important part of moving on from where you are. You are no longer alone in your thoughts because you have shared them. God listens to all our prayers and that helps us to carry on with our lives.
When we prepare to pray there is a moment of silence before we start. This is a lovely minute to pause, to feel God listening and caring for us. We too then listen to ourselves, and so our words and thoughts matter more.
It would be so much easier if we could just ask God a question and God would answer us! How great would it be if we could just chat to God, ask our questions, talk about our troubles, and then God would tell us what we need to know and exactly what to do. Wouldn’t it be good if we could pray to God and then we would get exactly what we want?
But the world does not work like that, and that is probably a good thing. If everyone in your class at school prayed to come top in a test – who would God choose? The one who prays most, hardest, loudest? Maybe the one who comes top should be the one who worked the hardest?
We believe prayer to God – talking to God – is a very powerful and important thing. It is something that is good for us to do. Whether we pray in Hebrew using the Siddur that Jews have used for thousands of years, or we say our own words in our own language, the idea is the same. We are trying to bring ourselves to closer to God and God closer to us.
Whether we say the Shema or we say “Help me God, please” we are telling God we want to reach somewhere outside ourselves, and make a connection. The Talmud (Berachot 32b) says, “If a person sees that they pray but are not answered, they should pray again, as it says in the Psalms (27:14), ‘Hope to God, be strong and courageous, and hope to God again.’”. This is because talking to God is not like any other conversation we have, when we expect an answer back. It is not supposed to be like any other conversation. It comes from a special, deep part inside us that only works this way, like having a secret hotline phone number.
When we talk to God we can say things that we really feel, or want, that maybe we cannot say to anyone else. And although we don’t get an answer out loud – we may find that by praying thoughtfully something changes inside us, and an answer we need comes to us. This could be a new idea we have that might help or a new way that we now look at things.
Jews believe that God talks to us ‘indirectly’, i.e. not through words but through life. Ever hear the story of the man in a flood who was sitting on his house, surrounded by rising waters, praying to God to save him. Two boats and a helicopter came by but he sent both of them away saying he was waiting for God. When he drowned and went to heaven, he asked God, ‘Where were you? Why didn’t you come?’ God said, ‘I did! I sent two boats and a helicopter, why didn’t you go with them!?’
Shul is where Jews meet, especially on a Shabbat, to come together as a community. It is like having another family.
Why should you go? Imagine the Jewish People is a big cake. Your shul is a slice of that cake, it is your slice of that cake. All the shuls in the world together make up that big cake and your slice is the shul where you go. If no one went to shul, the Jewish people would fall apart, all the slices would crumble.
A shul is there for three different things:
(a) It is a place for people to pray (Beit Tefillah)
(b) It is a place to meet people (Bet Knesset)
(c) It is a place to study together (Beit Midrash)
It is not so easy to be Jewish on your own. It is easier to sing and pray together in a shul than doing that on your own at home, and it is a good place to meet your friends and learn new things. If you go often, you will start to feel at home there, and feel part of your local crowd, your community. It should feel a bit like an extension of your home.
The first shuls were built in Israel over two thousand years ago. People gathered to hear the Torah being read and study God’s commandments. There was often a guest house there too, a place for travellers to get cleaned up and stay overnight.
So Jews have always thought that community is really important. Just listen to the announcements at the end of a shul service. You will hear about people celebrating their simchas (joyous occasions like weddings and births) and you will hear sad things too, about people who have died and where you can visit those mourning for them. Whether you know all these people or not does not matter. You are part of this community, sharing in happy and sad times together, and they, in turn, will share in yours. There also announcements about shiurim (learning classes) taking place as well as chesed (care) programmes to help people. If you miss shul you will miss out on hearing about all these things and talking to people about them.
When you are in shul, try to look around and see if someone is lonely or looks as if they are a newcomer. Say hello to them, maybe ask them to sit with you. If you go to shul, enjoy being part of that community because every person there matters – including you.
This is a really important question for everyone to ask, and especially for Jews, because our tradition asks us to make the world a better and more just place.
When we thank God in our morning prayers for giving us what we need, and when we say Birkat Hamazon (Grace After Meals) to thank God for giving us food, we should have in mind those not so lucky as us.
There are people starving in the world for many different reasons, but Jews do not believe that God wants it to be like that and means it to stay that way. Many countries suffer extreme poverty because they had in a war, or because their governments did not do their job properly of looking after their people. Sometimes natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods happen, which leave people starving and homeless afterwards.
The Jewish response is not to ask why these things happen but to respond to them. We must try and help. We should not just stand by and say, ‘well these things just happen’ or, ‘it is happening so far away so it is nothing to do with us.’
At the end of Birkat Hamazon we say, “I was young and have grown older, but I have never just watched a good person be abandoned with their children begging for bread”. With these words we are saying how Jews are meant to be. We cannot see others in trouble and not help. Thanking God for what we have makes us care for others who don’t have.
There’s a story of a student who asked his rabbi a difficult question, “How can God who is perfect create a world that’s is not?” The rabbi answered, “Do you think you could do any better?” Surprised at this response, and a little nervous, the student said, “Well, I could try?!”. “Go on then,” said the rabbi, “make it better, go now!”. The rabbi wasn’t avoiding the question, he was turning the student into the answer.
So even though we may not end poverty we can help the poor. We can raise money, try to send aid to the places in the world that need it, and pray to God to end the suffering of those without enough to eat.
There are some questions that are big mysteries and we do not understand them. The world just seems to be made this way. Every living thing eventually dies; nothing and nobody lasts forever. Science has confirmed this. Plants wither, people and animals stop breathing, wood rots, metal rusts, even the stars in the sky will eventually burn up.
Living things are always changing. They never stay the same. And decay and death are part of life. They are the end of the natural cycle: birth, life, death.
This is what makes God different. We believe God is eternal which means that unlike people or animals, God does not die, God was here before we were and God carries on forever after, for all time.
When we think about an old person who has lived a long and useful life, whose body is worn out and tired, it is perhaps not so hard to think of them dieing. If that person was a part of our family or a good friend then we will really miss them and think about them afterwards, and that is a good thing. When someone dies, Jew sit shiva (a Hebrew word meaning, seven), which means their family sits at home for seven days. During this week their friends, neighbours and relations come to visit them, bring food and comfort them.
Everyone will talk about the person that died, share stories about them and say prayers together. This helps the family. Instead of asking “Why did they die?”, we ask “How did they live?”
Every year, on the day that person died, the family will light a special candle and say prayers to remember them. On Jewish festivals, in shul, a prayer called Yizkor (a Hebrew word meaning remember) gives us a chance to remember our loved ones who are no longer with us.
When Jewish people die, they are buried in a Jewish cemetery, with a gravestone that says their name, so anyone can visit and think of them there. The Jewish way is to try to make sure that the dead person lives on in our minds and hearts and prayers of those who remember them. We also care for people that are mourning, and try to make them feel looked after. Jews believe that after we die, although our bodies are buried, our souls return to God.
If we knew the answer to this, perhaps the hardest question of all, we would be like God. We don’t know. God told the prophet Isaiah:
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts and your ways are not My ways… Just as the heavens are beyond the Earth, so are My Ways are beyond your ways, and My Thoughts beyond your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-10)
It is really hard to understand the reasons for suffering, tragedies, especially when someone young dies, or something happens to someone good and we all say “WHY? They don’t deserve it!”
There is another question that goes with this too: Why do good things happen to some bad people? Why do they live long and happy lives? That does not seem fair either!
Part of being human and not being God is that we don’t know the answer. Maybe it is not our job to figure that one out.
But it hurts us and makes us angry. The world does not seem fair. Though, if you think about it, fairness is something that people decide. It’s the way you look at the world. Instead of being angry with the situation you can think about how to make it better. By trying to help, you make things fairer.
There was a family who had something very bad happen to them, their baby Aaron was born with a rare illness that had no cure. They were so shocked and asked “Why us?” They felt alone, frightened, helpless and angry and sad all at the same time. They did not know what to do.
So they made sure Aaron had the best medical help. There was not much known about his illness, they raised money to help find a cure. They set up a support group for other families whose children had the same disease. They appreciated the friends who helped them, they loved the child very much and when he died, they grieved terribly over him and their lives have never been the same again.
But the father said he had learned and gained so much from Aaron, and although he wished every day he could have him back again, he was so grateful for all the happiness that Aaron had bought into his life. And that’s where he says he saw God, in the help he had given to others, and the help that was given to him, and in the good memories of Aaron’s life.
We do not own the world, so we have to look after it. The world belongs to God and in the Creation story, God told Adam tat it was his job to look after it properly:
“When God created Adam, God took him and led him round all the trees of the Garden of Eden, and said to him, ‘See My works, how beautiful and fitting they are! All that I have created, I did it for you and your descendants. Take care that you do not destroy My world; for if you do there is no one to repair it after you.” (Midrash, Kohelet Rabbah 7:13)
So we are supposed to be the caretakers of the world and must show great respect for all things – for animals, plants, the land and trees. It is a great honour to have been given a beautiful world to care for in this way, so Jews have a responsibility to do all we can to look after the world. There is also an important mitzvah, called Ba’al Tashchit – not to waste natural resources – large and small, we must value everything in Creation.
Even when a war is being fought, there is a Torah law not to cut down fruit trees during the battle, showing how important it is to respect nature and not to destroy anything unnecessarily (see Deuteronomy 20:19-20).
So it is very important mitzvah to do all we can to preserve the environment in whatever ways we can: by recycling, not wasting food or water and being aware always that the world has been loaned to us by God – it is not ours to do what we like with it, and caring for the environment is another way to show respect and love for God.
In 1929 the American astronomer, Edwin Hubble, found evidence that the galaxies we see when we look out into space are actually drifting apart, and that therefore the universe is getting bigger. This means that if we go back in time the universe must have been smaller, and so at one point, way in the past, the universe must have had a beginning. This was an important discovery because, until then, the most commonly-held scientific view was that the universe is eternal – i.e. it has always been here and never had a beginning.
“The Big Bang” is what scientists called the theory that explains how the universe began. When it started it was very very small, hot and dense with no stars, atoms or any kind of structure – this is called a ‘singularity’. Then over 13 billion years ago, it quickly began to expand – thence the name “Big Bang” – and formed atoms, and then, eventually, stars and galaxies. In 1965, for the first time, scientists with advanced telescopes were able to detect, all over space, some of the energy – called ‘background radiation’ – that originally came from the Big Bang. This convinced most scientists that the Big Bang was the best way to explain the origins of our universe.
But what happened before the Big Bang, where did the singularity come from, and why did it suddenly begin to expand? Science cannot answer these questions because science is about the physical world, the world we can sense and measure through hearing, seeing, touching, tasting and smelling it. How the universe came about, in other words, how something came from nothing, is a question beyond science.
The opening sentence of the Torah is, “In the Beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth”, so Jews have always believed that not only did the universe have a beginning but that it was God who created it. In this sentence, the word, ‘created’ (bara in Hebrew) means made out of nothing. Only God can do that. We humans can transform stuff from one thing to another, but we cannot make something out of nothing.
So God’s creation of the universe does not contradict science. The Torah tells us how the physical universe came be, whereas science tells us how it works. What’s amazing is that God made us humans with the ability to think, measure and make scientific discoveries, which is what enables us to ask these questions and find answers in the first place!
According to modern science, the universe is about thirteen and a half billion years old, the Sun was formed about four and a half billion years ago, and the Earth was formed just thirty million years after that. That’s a lot more than seven days!
Some rabbis have explained that the word ‘day’ in the first chapter of the Genesis does not mean 24 hours, but rather millions of years. How come? The argument goes like this: the reason a day is 24 hours long is because that is the time it takes for the Earth to rotate once completely. That’s why we see the sun rising and setting, because the Earth is rotating. But according to the Torah (Genesis 1) the Earth was not created until the third day of Creation and the Sun, moon and stars were not created until the fourth day of Creation. So why would the first few days of Creation have last 24 hours each if the way you measure a day had not been created yet?
There is a sentence in the book of Psalms that can help us here, “For in Your eyes God, a thousand years is like yesterday.” (Psalms 90:4). In other words, the way God counts time is very different to us.
Another problem with the seven days of Creation is that it says at the end of each day, “And there was evening and there was morning” (Genesis 1:5,8,13,19,23,31). But if the Sun was only created on the fourth day of Creation then what does ‘evening’ and ‘morning’ mean before that?
One answer to these problems is that Creation itself is not easy to describe, so the Torah borrows terms from normal life and uses them in the Creation story to mean something slightly different. ‘Day’ then is the word used for a period of time, not necessarily 24 hours. And when you look at the Hebrew words for ‘evening’ and morning’, which are erev and boker, they can mean something else which does fit into Creation.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch wrote in his commentary to Genesis 1:5 that erev is related to the word erbuvia which means blurred or mixed up, while boker is related to the word bikoret which means distinguished or clear. So at the end of each day of Creation the Torah is really saying, “And what had been mixed up had now become clearer”.
In 1859, Charles Darwin published a book that has changed the way we all look at life. He explained that rather than God creating all the many species of animals, birds, fish and insects separately, instead God actually just made a few (or even just one) simple species and from that, over millions of years, evolved all the millions of different kinds of species we see today. This idea became know as the theory of evolution and has been reinforced by many scientific discoveries and experiments ever since.
The problem is that the Torah seems to say that God made each species separately, “according to its kind” (Genesis 1:25). However, many rabbis teach that the description of Creation in Genesis chapter 1 is not very clear and can be read in many different ways.
Rabbi J.H. Hertz, who was the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain sixty years ago wrote in his commentary of the Torah that although it is essential that Jews believe that God definitely created the world, there is no standard Jewish belief as to how God actually did it. Chief Rabbi Hertz wrote that it has been explained using ‘differing metaphors’ by the Bible, the Talmud, and by the rabbis of the Middle Ages.
So it is very easy to see Evolution as the way that the creation of life unfolded. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, the previous British Chief Rabbi, also wrote a book on the subject and explained this in similar ways.
Darwin himself wrote a letter to a friend in which he said that his theory did not have to contradict with Creation and that, in a way, God is greater for having made a form of life that could of itself evolve into other life, rather than having to create all the different species of life individually. Or in the words of Chief Rabbi Sacks, “the Creator made His creations creative”.
Before answering this, it is important to remember that not EVERYBODY hates the Jews. Sometimes when we hear the news, or we learn about the unhappy parts of our history, it is easy to become very sad and frightened and feel everyone hates us. This is not true at all.
But, at certain times in history, in certain places in the world, there has been anti-semitism, which is the word meaning “being against Jews.” There are a number of reasons for this.
One is that Jews have always been different. Because we have laws about so many aspects of our lives: how we eat, where we pray, our festivals etc., it makes us stand out. Many people did not, and still do not, understand us. This has led to fear or even hatred. This has happened to Jews over thousands of years.
Also, the Jews have often been blamed for things that were not their fault. In ancient times they were blamed for killing Jesus, which they did not do. Christians believe that Jesus was God on Earth so his death made them hate us. But this has changed now. Modern Christian leaders no longer blame the Jews.
Jews have had to move around a lot and have often been the “new arrivals” in countries where people did not always welcome them. Because Jews were forbidden to work in many jobs in Europe hundreds of years ago, they were forced to work as moneylenders which made them very unpopular too.
Another strange but true fact is that the very fact that Jews have survived so long and have often been successful, that people have sometimes been jealous of that too!
Finally, the very fact that Jews have survived so long and have often been successful means that some people have been jealous and resentful.
Anti-semitism is a terrible thing. Any hatred of a whole nation, colour, or religion is wrong. The Torah tells us to, “love you neighbour as yourself,” (Leviticus 18:19), and the Jews have suffered badly from people who have ignored that.
So there is no single answer to the question, but often a complicated mix of “reasons”; none of which are true.
Israel is one of the most important places on the planet. For Christians and Muslims alike it is a holy place that has much historic meaning. For Christians it is important because the origin of their faith took place there. It is where Jesus lived and taught. There are many churches across Israel and religious Christians from all over the world visit Israel to learn more about how Christianity began and grew. Jerusalem is also one of the three holiest sites in the world for Muslims, along with Mecca and Medina which are both in Saudi Arabia. Many Muslims visit Jerusalem to worship in a large Mosque which is on the mountain where our Temple (Bet Mikdash) was built.
For about 500 years (11th to 15th century) Christians and Muslims fought for control of Israel. Hundreds of thousands of people died, including many Jews. So when, in 1948, Israel became a Jewish state again, the many countries around the world in which Christians and Muslims live were very interested in this new nation. Remember, counted together, about half the population of the world follows the Christian or Muslim religion, so Israel is very important to billions of people.
The Torah says that Israel is, “A land which God cares about, for the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year until the end of the year.” (Deuteronomy 11:12). So God watches very carefully what goes on in Israel as does much of the world.
When you are watched that carefully, everything you do is examined very carefully. That is why Israel is in the news so often. People want to see if Israel is a good and fair nation. Many people know that Jews were treated very badly for a long time and so now that we have our own country they expect us to behave better than we were treated.
The Palestinians are large groups of people who were living in Israel before 1948. When it became a Jewish state they were very worried about how they would be treated. But the State of Israel was established as a democracy which meant that all people living there could be part of the country. Nevertheless, many Palestinians now want to have their own state in Israel. And because many of them are Muslim, many Muslim countries around the world are supportive of this.
God gave the Land of Israel to the Jewish People forever, but also said that we must treat fairly all non-Jews in Israel who are willing to live in peace with us (Leviticus 18:28). So because so much important world history, has taken place in Israel, and because of the Palestinians living there, the eyes of the world are constantly on our little country.
Israel is so important to Jews because so much of our history happened there. God sent Abraham to live there, “Leave the country where you were born and where your family live and go to the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation there…” (Genesis 12:1-2).
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their children all lived in Israel for most of their lives, until their descendants became slaves in Egypt. And this is what God said to Moses when he was instructed to save them, “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… and I will keep My promise with them…. And I will bring you [the Jewish People] to the Land…” (Exodus 6:3,4,8).
And indeed, God kept His word. Joshua and the Children of Israel took control of Israel over three thousand years ago. Later King Solomon built the first Temple (Bet Mikdash) there which lasted nearly 500 years until it was conquered by the Babylonians and the Jews were exiled (forced to leave) Israel. But due to the changing powers in the area, Jews returned just seventy years later and built a second Temple. That too lasted nearly 600 years until the Romans destroyed it in the year 70 and many thousands of Jews were killed. But they carried on living in Israel. Though no longer in control, Jews have kept on living in Israel ever since then.
Whether under Roman, Christian, Muslim, Ottoman or British rule, there have always been Jews living in Israel. And though Jews spread to live in many countries aroundthe the world, Israel has remained our homeland. Wherever Jews have lived they have prayed facing towards Jerusalem; every time they said Birkat HaMazon (Grace after Meals), they asked God to rebuild Jerusalem; and every year on Seder night they sang, LeShana Haba b’Yerushalayim, Next year in Jerusalem!
Israel is the one Jewish country in the whole world. It is the only place that will always accept Jews, from wherever they come, as its citizens. You will always find a home there. It is where the ‘state religion’ is Judaism; where the calendar follows Jewish holidays; and where the news readers on radio and television wish you a Shabbat Shalom on Friday afternoon, and a Shana Tova before Rosh Hashanah.
In fact, according to a midrash (Genesis Rabbah 1:2), the reason that the Torah starts with God creating the world is to teach that God is in charge of all the lands of this Earth and can give them to whichever nation God choses. And God chose to give Israel to the Jewish People. That is why it is ours forever and why it is so important to every Jew on Earth.
Israel is a country for all Jews, some are religious and some are not. Israel is what is called a “secular” state, and that means the laws of the country are not religious laws. So no one has to keep the Torah by law. Just like in Britain, where it is up to each person how religious they want to be, Israel is no different.
And it is important to remember that about 20% of Israelis are not Jewish, that’s one in five. There are Muslim and Christian Arabs, Druze, and many other people from different countries who also live in Israel.
Of course Israel is the easiest country to keep the Torah’s laws, and feel really Jewish. For example Shabbat is everyone’s day off, all shops are closed. On Yom Kippur there are hardly any cars on the roads. In Jerusalem there are shuls and kosher restaurants and supermarkets everywhere.
Many Israelis feel that just living in Israel is “their way” of being Jewish. They speak Hebrew which is the language of the Jewish people. They fight in the Israeli army to protect the Homeland of the Jewish People. They pay their taxes which pays for the running of hospitals, schools and many other institutions in society which benefits everyone in Israel, Jews and non-Jews alike. So these Israelis don’t feel the same need to keep the laws that many Jews keep outside of Israel.
Actually, if you think about it, all the above – speaking Hebrew, defending Israel, paying taxes – are very important parts of being a religious Jew. We Jews who live outside Israel need to appreciate everything Israelis do for the Jewish People.
Also, some Jews who come to live in Israel want to be part of the Jewish People but were not religious before they moved there, and don’t want to lead a religious way of life, though they often want to learn about Jewish history and culture and speak Hebrew. The Russian immigrants are an example of this.
Israel is a place where there are lots of ways to be and feel Jewish. For many Israelis, keeping all the mitzvot is very important. But there are many other Israelis who are not like that. And for some, just living in the Land of Israel is fulfilling the greatest mitzvah of all.
You are unique. There will never again be a person exactly like you. Your particular blend of personality, looks, feelings, background, interests and thoughts makes you like no one else. God made the world this way on purpose:
“When a person stamps many coins from the same mould, all of them are alike, but when the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be God, stamps every person from the same mould as Adam the first, not one of them looks like another. Therefore every person should say, “For me personally was the world created!” (Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5).
Your uniqueness is a tremendous gift. It encourages you to look at the world through your own eyes and work out what you think and believe for yourself. Living a Jewish life is not meant to get in the way of this, it is actually meant to help you with this. Judaism teaches you about the history of our People and our connection to God. It makes you think about why you are here and what your purpose is.
Great Jewish thinkers keep asking questions: Why is God invisible? Why do good people suffer? Why did God make the world? Why does life sometimes feel so unfair? Why do people keep making the same mistakes again and again? Why do people die? And so on. Living as a Jew encourages us not take the world for granted, but rather to look more deeply at the meaning and purpose of life. Asking questions means you are thinking, and that is always good. So never stop asking questions, especially the deep ones!
Here then are two answers to the question of your role as a Jew for you to think about:
(a) Elie Wiesel is a great Jewish writer and thinker. He survived the Holocaust. During the war, before his uncle was taken away, he said to the young Elie, “You are a Jew, your task is to remain a Jew, the rest is up to God”. Elie never forgot those words. His uncle was teaching his nephew to trust God, to keep going, to pass on his traditions to his children. We are, each of us, a link in a chain that spans thousands of years and millions of people, passing our beliefs and values through everything we say and do. That is something to be proud of.
(b) The Bible has a famous little one-line phrase that is often quoted when people ask about our task in the world, “What does God ask of you? Just to act justly, love kindness and walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8).
You can certainly be a good person without keeping the mitzvot (God’s commandments). There are seven laws that God gave to all the world to keep, to make it a good place, that are for everyone, Jewish or not. If everyone keeps those, the world would be a better place. These laws include not murdering, stealing and eating a limb from a living animal, and making sure there are courts of law. You have probably worked out for yourself that those laws are sensible ones. And you probably know other ideas about what makes a good person, such as being kind, honest, and helping others.
But being a good Jew means knowing that you are doing the mitzvot because God has told us to do them in the Torah. For example, lots of people give charity, because that is a lovely, caring thing to do. People will often drop coins into a charity box. But a Jew who is keeping the mitzvah of Tzedakah knows they have to give a certain amount: at least 10% of what they earn. They will know that they are not just doing this to be nice – Jews have an obligation to do this, and if they don’t, it is as though they are stealing – because the Torah explains that this money, this ten percent, is not actually theirs, it belongs to the poor. That’s why the Hebrew word for this is Tzedakah, which means justice, not charity. This is part of being Jewish is about: making the world a fair and just place.
Lots of people are clever and sensible enough to know they need a day off each week and to stop working, to appreciate the idea with rest and family time. But to do this the Jewish way means keeping Shabbat, every week. The laws of Shabbat enable us to rest properly. And although many people show gratitude and give thanks for the good things in life, keeping the mitzvot means making brachot, blessings, every time.
If we are left to ourselves then most of us will try to be good. We will try to act and speak in appropriate ways. The question is: how hard will we try? It’s so easy to get lazy, forgetful and even selfish. The word mitzvah means ‘commandment’ or ‘obligation’. So mitzvot are not optional, they are compulsory. This is not to scare us, but to push us to do the right thing, even when we are not in the mood, even when we are feeling lazy, and even when we are ‘not into it’. This constant encouragement is necessary for most people to keep them on the right track. Think about your own life: would you trust yourself to always be good without constant encouragement?
So leading a full Jewish life means learning about the mitzvot and trying to keep what we can. And it’s the mitzvot that help us to be a good Jew.
The answer is no! We believe that we are born Jewish. If your mother is Jewish then that’s it, you are Jewish too.
What happens if you want to stop being a Jew? Well, you can stop doing Jewish things, keeping Jewish laws and customs, or even feeling that you are part of the Jewish People. But that does not mean that you are no longer Jewish. You will always be Jewish. Even if an adult wants to stop being Jewish and joins another religion, they will still be counted as Jewish by the Jewish People.
This is a good thing and this is why… Imagine if as a grown-up you decide you don’t want anything to do with being Jewish, and you live like that for a bit. But what if later you change your mind and you now want to be Jewish again? This actually happens all the time. People want to come back again to be a part of Jewish life for all sorts of reasons, sometimes happy ones like having children of their own, and sometimes because something sad has happened like the death of a parent. Well, of course you can “come back” because you have never really left.
It is a bit like family. You are born into your family and they are yours, you are part of them! Even after a big argument when you might wish you could run away and change your family for another one, your family is still your family and your home will always be there for you. It does not matter where you are in the world, your family is still yours, connected to you for always.
And God treats us the very same way. It says in the Torah, “You are children of the Lord your God… a treasured people.” (Deuteronomy 14:1-2). We are God’s children and no matter what we do that will always be so. If you reject God and stop being Jewish, God will never give up on you. This too is in the Torah. Even if we act terribly, God says about the Jewish People, “But despite all this… I will not ignore them and I will not reject them… I will not break my Promise to them for I am God. Rather I will remember the Promise I made to their ancestors whom I brought out of the Land of Egypt…“ (Leviticus 26:44-45). We are part of God’s family so God will always accept us.
And by the way, some people want to start being Jewish, which is called becoming a ger (for a man), or a giyoret (for a woman). They have to study for a long time and live with a Jewish family to learn all the rules and the Jewish way of life. It takes a long time, because they have to be really certain they want to make such an important change in their lives. Being Jewish is a big deal!
If you don’t really like being Jewish, is there someone you can talk to about this? Someone you can trust – someone from your family, an older friend, a teacher? If you can think of someone you feel you can trust, and who will understand, ask them if you can talk to them about something important that is worrying and making you sad. Hopefully they will say yes!
Before you tell them what is bothering you, it would be good to think about why you don’t like being Jewish right now. Is it a new feeling? Has something happened that has made you feel this way? Did someone say or do something at home, school or shul or is it just a feeling that won’t go away. Try and work out what it is behind this feeling. You might want to write it down. And then write down what you do like about being Jewish if you can think of things to put on the other side of the page.
If you are born Jewish then you can’t stop being Jewish. Sometimes we feel we wish weren’t born the way we are for all sorts of reasons.
Sometimes being Jewish might seem like hard work, maybe there’s something you really want to do, a place you want to go to but you can’t because Jewish law say no. It is okay to think that and to admit it to a person you trust. In the Torah some of our ancestors found it hard to keep God’s commands and they questioned them. They talked to their spouse or to a friend, and sometimes they turned to God and asked ‘why?’. This is completely fine.
According to a midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 42:8), when God told Abraham he would have to be circumcised (i.e. have a brit milah), Abraham was not at all sure he wanted to go through with it. So he consulted with his friend Mamre who lived close by. Mamre helped Abraham by listening to him and giving him some good reasons to do as God said. God was not at all angry with Abraham and even praised Mamre for helping him.
So it is really important to be honest about how you feel, to work out what is bothering you, and with some help, to try to find a way to like being Jewish. There are many ways to enjoy a Jewish life: even if at times you are not in the mood, or are frustrated or angry about parts of it. So talk about it to someone who can help, and together you could find ways to like being Jewish, even to love it.
Being Jewish is not like other religions, where you choose to join a religion based on whether you believe in it or not, and then leave the religion if you don’t believe in it anymore. Judaism does not work like that. We are born Jewish and belong because we are born into a Jewish family. We are all part of one big family. One name for the Jewish people is the “Jewish race”, so it is more than just a religion.
If no Jews marry Jews, the next generation of Jews won’t exist. It is as simple as that! So one good reason to marry a Jew is to make sure the chain goes on, and you do not break that link in the chain. Being Jewish is a privilege, something really important and special and being a part of that should be a precious thing.
The Torah tells us not to intermarry, which means marry a non-Jew, and why it really matters:
“You should not intermarry with them. You should not give your daughter to his son, and you should not take his daughter for your son… For you are a holy people to the Lord your God. God has chosen you to be a treasured people to God, different from all the other peoples on the face of the earth.” (Deuteronomy 7:3,6)
The question is really whether you think that being Jewish matters. If it does… then you should marry someone Jewish too. Hopefully, as you get older you will know more and more about being Jewish and you will appreciate and enjoy it more and more too.
The Torah teaches us so many important values like looking after people in trouble, respecting our parents, creating a society based on justice, caring for the elderly, thanking God for what we have, sharing festivals with family and friends, being conscious of what we eat and how we talk… and so much more. These values are not ideas that we just talk about, we actually live them, everyday.
The best way to live them is to marry someone who also cares deeply about these values, so that you can live them together. That way you can share your Jewish journey and build a future together. You will pass on these values to your children by showing them what you do. Then they in turn can pass them onto their children, and so on…
By marring a Jew you make sure that good Jewish values are lived out by generation after generation of Jews.
The Jewish attitude to love and marriage is that they are very deeply connected. Marriage is a good thing, the family is vital part of Jewish life and a home is where Jewish life is made.
There is a strong Jewish idea that we are not supposed to be alone. That idea comes from the Torah as early as possible – when God created Adam. Unlike all the animals, God made the first human on their own, with no partner. Eve is only made afterwards because God says, “it is not good for a person to be alone” (Genesis 2:17). And ever since then, Jewish people have been encouraged to get married. And if you have been to a Jewish wedding, you will have seen it is – hopefully! – a great simcha, which means a really great celebration, a beautiful ceremony followed by a special meal and a great party. So, in Judaism, people don’t just get married to have children. They get married so that they can be together and share life’s experiences with someone they love, and not be on their own like the first human was.
A man and a woman both have to agree to be married – they cannot get married if one of them does not want to, because Jewish law understands that marriage can only work if both people love each other and want to be married. Marriage means commitment: at a Jewish wedding a man and a woman make special promises to look after each other and care for each other always.
They have to have a special document called a ketubah – a Jewish marriage certificate, and this must be witnessed and signed, to show they really mean it.
When Sarah died, the Torah tells us that Abraham her husband, was very sad and cried for her for a long time. Then the Torah spends a whole chapter telling the story of how Abraham found a special place to bury her and how he convinced the owner to sell it to him. This long story teaches us how much Abraham loved Sarah and how much he missed her. He wanted to do everything just right so that she would have a suitable resting place and would be remembered by all of us when we read the story. That’s one reason why the Bible says, “love is stronger than death” (Proverbs 8:6).
Everyone is very happy at a wedding and families and friends call out MAZELTOV – meaning good luck and congratulations! – at the end of the ceremony. One of the seven special blessings said about the new couple at the wedding meal asks God to, “Bring great joy to these loving friends, just as You gave joy to your creations (Adam and Eve) in the Garden of Eden.” We hope that the marriage will be happy, that the couple will be blessed with all good things in life and build a Jewish home together.
The simple answer is yes. Jewish law has always understood from Torah times, that marriages do not always work out. Things go wrong. Sometimes it is because both the husband and wife want to end it, and sometimes only one partner wants to end it.
So there is a way to end it. But before that happens, there are Jewish organisations that offer help to people who want to end a marriage to try and mend it, if possible, because marriage is so important.
But if a couple decide they definitely want to divorce, then there is a Jewish way to do it which is described briefly in the Torah (Deuteronomy 24:1). The rabbis learnt out from this verse that just as both the husband and wife must agree to marry – when divorcing, both partners must agree to do that too. The husband gives his wife a special document called a “Get” after which they are no longer married to each other.
Marriage is like tying a knot between two people and a divorce is untying that knot. A special ceremony takes place – though in private, not like a wedding where there are guests and a party – which is like untying the knot. That is when the Get is given. At a marriage ceremony, the couple agree to live together and at a divorce, they agree not to live together any more.
But as parents they have a responsibility to any children they have to look after them properly. The divorced couple must not speak badly about each other and not let their own arguments affect their children if possible.
Often people are sad and lonely after a divorce and Jewish law encourages men and women to get married again if they can. We do not look down on divorced people or regard divorce as a “sin”- in fact it is a mitzvah in the Torah to help people who do not want to be married anymore. So divorce is never a happy thing, but sometimes it is necessary, and for the best.
For a long time, this was not something spoken about very much at all by Jewish people, or by non-Jews either. In fact, a lot of people who were gay kept it secret.
So gay Jewish people found it hard to know who to speak to about this, or how to live their lives. If they did not want to marry someone of the opposite sex then it would be hard for them to still remain part of the Jewish community.
Attitudes in society have changed and now being gay does not mean that you have to keep it a secret. But it is something that is new for the Jewish community to think about and work out.
The Torah is very clear that marriage is meant to be between a man and a woman. It lists all kinds of relationships that are not allowed and includes those between members of the same sex (Leviticus 18:22).
Amongst Jews there have been many different reactions to this section of the Torah. Some people feel there is no place for gay Jews in the Jewish community. Others say that this verse is very hard to keep if you are born gay and that gay Jews should not be pushed out of the community. Some say this verse is only about a wrong action i.e. what you do, not what you are and so they think that being gay is not ‘wrong’. Some people say that this Torah law really only applies to men being together, and not women being together.
What is certain is that Jewish tradition does not believe that people should be lonely or live without love. God said, “it is not good for a person to be alone” (Genesis 2:17). One example of attitudes changing is that people are talking about this, and understanding that young Jewish gay people in the past may have felt very alone and worried about this. And that was not a good thing.
Now there are helplines and books written about this subject and many rabbis and community leaders think it is important to welcome gay people into to the community in exactly the same way that everyone else can be part of the community. Rabbi Chaim Rapoport wrote that gay Jews “should be encouraged to participate in every area of Jewish life that they feel able to… [because they] are essentially no different to any other Jew. The commandments to love and be compassionate, benevolent and kind apply to all Jews.” (Judaism and Homosexuality: An Authentic Orthodox View, 2004).
Many religions actively encourage people to convert to their faith. They say that if you do not convert then you cannot receive all of God’s blessings in this world and the next; in other words they say that “you will not go to heaven when you die”. Judaism is not like this. Judaism believes that as long as non-Jews observe the seven Noachide laws then they will can be fully rewarded by God. The seven Noachide laws are: (1) Establishing or living in a society that has a system of law (2) Not denying God; (3) Not cursing God; (4) Not committing murder; (5) Not being involved in sexual immorality; (6) Not stealing; (7) Not eating a live animal.
Jews are not allowed to convert to another religion or practice its laws because that is not the way for a Jew to serve God. Nevertheless there are many rabbis who say that non-Jews are allowed to believe and follow some other religions, such as Christianity and Islam, because they believe in one God. And therefore the values and beliefs taught by religions such as Christianity and Islam are important for the world because they teach people about God wanting us to live a good, caring and meaningful life.
It says at the beginning of the Torah that all human being were created, “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27). This implies two very important things:
So Jews do not see themselves as ‘better’ or ‘smarter’ or ‘more important’ than anyone else. In fact there is a special blessing that a Jew should say when they meet a particularly clever or wise person who is not Jewish. The blessing, which you can find in most siddurim, is this:
“Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who has given of His wisdom to human beings.”
London School of Jewish Studies
Schaller House
Wohl Campus for Jewish Education
44a Albert Road
London NW4 2SJ