To Life
Everyone knows that in order to truly appreciate something sometimes you have to do without. I think that this can be related to my Catholic faith and studying about the Jewish faith. After reading the book, "To Life", I value my faith that I have much more. It has also helped me to appreciate the Jewish faith. Lastly, it has enlightened my mind with appreciation for the Jewish faith and how it has been a building block for our faith.
First of all, the Jewish people have a strong belief in community. On page ten it is quoted, "people before we had a religion." To the Jews this is a very important part of their religion. By following the traditions of their ancestors (Moses, Isaac, Jacob) they believe that they will fulfill their deeds as a Jew. One specific way in which they can fulfill the Jewish tradition is by obeying the Torah. The Torah is the Law or the first five books written by Moses. It is the story of Judaism and that is where most of the history of Judaism comes from. As for the Christians they believe in what they call and "idea-the incarnation of God in Jesus, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus as a way of redeeming man from sins." As a Christian I know that our religion comes from roots of Judaism. The Jews just haven't come to understand that Jesus is the Messiah.
Secondly, some of the Jewish beliefs that Harold S. Kushner reveals in the book, "To Life" are quite strict and can be a bit of a turnoff to many non-Jews.
The Jews believe that you don't have to be in the synagogue to worship. To the Jews, "everything we do can be transformed into a Sinai experience" and the "search for holiness is not confined to a synagogue." These are the quotes that suggest that Jews believe in prayers being...
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...tself. First of all, I am a very strong Catholic who loves the Catholic faith. I am so happy I was baptized in the Catholic Church. Reading about the Jewish faith allowed me to understand what they believe better and it also increased my knowledge of the Catholic Church. I know that I will need to know this information sometime in life in order to understand different people and their beliefs! To mean the last chapter was the most disappointing because it seemed to slam all of us Catholics and non-Jews. It seemed that Kushner wanted to tell us how to live our lives and practice our religion. I learned that it is not good to push ones religion upon another too much because then it can be disturbing! Therefore, I am going to do my best at accepting others beliefs, but at the same time never forgetting that I have such a special relationship with God…I have Jesus!
...t also with acceptance as one of their own, although I never wore a Tallit or Kippah. This was a very peculiar position since I have never been so accustomed to this sort of kindness. By the end of the Jewish service, not only did I respect and appreciate their faith much more, but, in a way, I began to grow a love for it as well. While I felt no negative feelings towards the service, the most positive aspect would, most definitely, be the warmth I felt from everyone inside the Synagogue and from the presentation of the building itself. At first glance, I was not able to fully appreciate the decorations in the room, but the longer I observed I began to realize each decoration represented something significant. Overall, if I learned anything important this day it is that one thing holds true: I can still appreciate ideas and concepts even if I do not agree with them.
Hertzberg, Arthur. (1973). The Jews of the United States. New York: Quadrangle/ The New York Times Book Co.
Traditionally, Jews pray three times a day if they get the chance to do so. Studying the Torah is also considered an act of worshiping God. Jewish people celebrate the Sabbath, the seventh day of each week, which is spent in prayer and in rest.
...ands up for what is right. I feel that I can also take this opportunity to start over with my faith and see Christianity through a whole new viewpoint. I want to look back at my faith’s history and the Bible for guidance in redeveloping my faith to find where God and Jesus are truly leading me. Bonhoeffer showed me that believing in God is not merely just attending church, praying, and singing with the worship service. Being a disciple of God is so much more. It takes knowledge, openness, acceptance, and the ability to learn from my own mistakes. The main and full message that I took away from Dietrich Bonhoeffer is that I need to trust God fully and give all of myself to him whole-heartedly. Bonhoeffer himself said “We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God” and that is exactly what I am waiting for. (“Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes”, n.d.)
First of all, Christianity and Judaism both worship the same God. They both worship the same God that’s from the Bible. They pray to the same to the same God and believe that he will be forever lasting. Both religions also believe that God created the universe. Both of them believe that God is the perfect being and that he would sin. He is also in the Bible that they know about and believe that it’s the God of Adam who was the first human being ever. They worship him the by praying and singing about how great he is. They are both monotheistic.
...’t believe in the New Testament and the Christians believe in both the New and Old Testament. But in both books they talk about that they are the true path to God. Christians and Jews are not really that different; I mean Christianity did come up from Judaism.
People are in search of understanding life and the happenings that surround them. When things go wrong, people turn to God for hope and understanding. As we look at the Jewish and the Christian faiths, both of which trace their origins back past Abraham and Moses, to the original stories of the Garden of Eden, we notice basic similarities and major differences between the two religions. The three main differences between Jewish and Christianity is the concept of God, judgment, and salvation. The most eminent difference between both religions is the concept of God. Christianity believes that God is trinity which means three persons in one the father, the son and the holy spirit. However Judaism sees God as a single entity, and viewsTrinitarianism as a violation of the Bible's teaching that ...
While Christianity places emphasis on focusing on the New Covenant as told through Jesus Christ, Judaism places its emphasis on right conduct that is recorded in the Torah and Talmud. Christians believe in individual salvation from sin through repentance and receiving Jesus Christ as their God and Savior through faith. Jews believe in individual and collective participation with God through tradition, rituals, prayers and ethical actions. Christianity believes in a triune God, one person of whom became human, whereas Judaism emphasizes the oneness of God and rejects the Christian concept of God in human form. Judaism and Christianity share the belief that there is One, True God, who is the only one worthy to be worshipped. Both Judaism and Christianity believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for Jews the God of the Tanaka and for Christians the God of the Old Testament, the creator of the universe. In both religions, offenses against the will of God are called sin. These sins can be thoughts, words, or
What I have found most interesting about my studies is that Judaism is a vibrant, living religion. I have enjoyed learning how the spiritual aspects of Judaism elevate the physical world. One example of how we elevate the physical to spiritual is the way that we treat each other. It is important that we think about how we talk to others. We may not even realize it, but we are often very disrespectful. Take the subway for
After reading a few of the chapters in "Psychology Through the Eyes of Faith", I feel as if I have learned more in one sitting than many in years of my life. The chapters were not life altering, but simply stated things that I have overlooked. The topics that affected me most were on living with the mysteries of faith, benefits of true rest, and the emotion of happiness. Yes, they are really in no way related, but each of these topics impacted me in a different way, and made me think about what was being presented.
Although both religions believe in monotheism, Judaism is based on an absolute deity called Yahweh. The beginning of the Jewish religion and the creation of the world is told throughout the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible. And the Jewish teachings are known as the Torah. However, the five books of Moses are taught to be the most sacred books of all the scriptures. Just like Muslims, Jews believe that there was prophets that God sent to spread his word, but they do not stand on the belief that just one prophet heard revelations. They belief that all the prophets heard them and there teachings can be found in the Bible. The Jews feel that history begins the same way as the Muslims with the creation of the world by God, but after this they tend to veer off from the Islamic beliefs. They believe that God sent “patria...
Christianity is mainly founded on the life, death, teachings, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christianity was developed from Judaism during the 1st century, it has several different branches and forms which accompany different beliefs and practices. Christianity
Every religion has its own goal, and their own path and believe to reach their goals, however there are also many similarities in believes. Although the followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam may see things differently, they all fundamentally hold the same values and codes. To Islam, the Prophet Mohammad’s teaching is a complete and final revelation. On the other hand, according to the bible, Christianity believes that Jesus Christ is the true lord and savior will grant you the access to heaven in the afterlife. Judaism is founded by Abraham, and it is the base from which both of the other two religions sprung. Even though the three religions differ in many areas and on many aspects, they also agree on the monotheistic, the belief in ‘One True God.’ Those religions have many similarities and a number of significant differences about God, role of women, prayer, and salvation.
Judaism does not accept the thought of original sin, the idea that people are bad from birth and cannot remove sin by themselves. An act of grace provided by the sacrificial death of Jesus as resentment for all of humanity's sins. For Christians, there are no other forms of salvation other than through Jesus.
Although Christianity and Judaism are very different religions, they are similar in their inspiration of sacred texts. While Christianity has the Bible, and Judaism has the Torah, there is still a question of how those books were written, and by whom. In both the Bible and Torah, people’s personalities are ever present, and differ based on the person, indicating that they are real experiences. The Bible, and Torah, were written mostly based off human experiences, human origin only, with some excerpts from God, or Jesus himself. For example, in the Bible, “I am a free man. I am an apostle. I have seen Jesus our Lord” (Corinthians, 9:1). This passage was written by Paul, an Apostle of Jesus, in first person, indicating that it was an actual experience, and also by using “I”. Both religions are also deeply inspired by God, saying that "Scripture is not only man's word, but also, and equally God's word, spoken through man's lips or written with man's pen" (J.I. Packer, The Origin of the Bibles, 1992, p. 31). Because God highly influenced both religions, the books are both very much the same, but some things were lost through translations, and some accounts that Jews ...