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Religion

Judaism

The religion of the Jewish people, founded on the covenant with the one God and the Torah.

Introduction

Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people, founded on the covenant between the one God and Israel, and on the Torah, God’s teaching: in the narrow sense the five books of Moses, in the wider sense the whole of Jewish teaching, written and oral. Its confession of faith, the Shema, declares: Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.

Judaism is a religion of practice as much as of belief. The commandments (mitzvot) order prayer, the Sabbath, festivals, food, family life and justice, and their interpretation, halakhah, “the way to walk”, is the work of the rabbis. Study of Torah is itself a form of worship.

Alongside law and study, Judaism has a long philosophical tradition, from Philo of Alexandria to Maimonides and modern thinkers, and a mystical tradition, from the visions of the divine throne to Kabbalah and Hasidism. These have sought to understand the hidden God, the meaning of the commandments, and the soul’s cleaving to God.

History

Historical

The Hebrew Bible tells of the patriarchs, the exodus from Egypt, the covenant at Sinai, and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, whose Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and rebuilt after the exile. The second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

Without the Temple, the rabbis reshaped Judaism around prayer, study and the commandments. The Mishnah was compiled around 200 CE, and the Babylonian Talmud by around 500. In the Middle Ages Jewish communities flourished in the Islamic world and in Christian Europe, producing philosophers such as Saadia Gaon and Maimonides, and the Kabbalah of Provence and Spain. After the expulsion from Spain in 1492, Safed became a centre of mysticism.

In the eighteenth century Hasidism arose in Eastern Europe, and the Enlightenment and emancipation brought new movements, Reform, Conservative and modern Orthodox, as well as Zionism. The Holocaust destroyed a third of the Jewish people; the State of Israel was founded in 1948.

  1. 586 BCEDestruction of the first Temple; exile in Babylon
  2. 70 CEDestruction of the second Temple
  3. c. 200The Mishnah is compiled
  4. c. 1190Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed
  5. 1492Expulsion of the Jews from Spain
  6. 18th c.The rise of Hasidism

Major thinkers

Key concepts

Important texts

Convergence and divergence

Resemblance and difference, given equal room. Each note is marked with the kind of statement it makes.

Areas of convergence

Areas of divergence

  • Devekut, with Advaita Vedānta

    Scholarship

    Jewish cleaving to God is usually described as communion within the covenant, not as the realization that the self is identical with the absolute.

Cite this entry
Chicago (bibliography)

“Judaism.” Tradition. The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society. Last modified November 7, 2026. https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/judaism.

Chicago (note)

“Judaism,” tradition, The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, last modified November 7, 2026, https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/judaism.

MLA

“Judaism.” The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, 7 Nov. 2026, www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/judaism.

BibTeX
@misc{traditions-judaism,
  title = {{Judaism}},
  howpublished = {The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society},
  note = {Tradition. Last modified November 7, 2026},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/traditions/judaism}
}

Schools and branches

Also in this tradition

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