Two quick corrections to my post in deference to
The Face of Jacob.
1) Sects was, perhaps, incorrect terminology in describing the types of Judaism and the variety of beliefs.
Denomination is a better word. There are 5 major different denominations of Judaism
2) Secular Judaism was a totally incorrect statement. I meant to say
Humanistic Judaism. Humanistic Judaism is non-theistic, The focus is more on traditions and ethnicity rather then religion, though one
can be a Humanistic Jew even if one adheres to some of the religious aspects. My brother is a Humanistic Jew.
Reform Jews are a group of Jews that follow the commandments that they want and don't follow the commandments that they don't want. You can see gay reform rabbis - this is crazy, how can you be a rabbi and to support gay relations? A rabbi is a Torah scholar and God commanded not to do these kind of things so how do these "rabbis" called themselves as ones? Reform Judaism doesn't represent the Jewish nation.
Reform Jews (as most Conservative Jews) accept that modern conditions and situations sometimes require reinterpretation by the Rabbinnate in order for Judaism to evolve with the changing world and conditions. This is a
non-fundementalist view, and neither seperates many Jews from their modern situations, but also allows for 'gray areas' to be dealt with.
Homosexuality, since you brought it up, is a good example of this kind of evolution. With what we know now about homosexuality, Reform Judaism (and, to some extent, North American Conservative Judaism) have re-evaluated the laws on this and have used the evolutionary beliefs and reinterpretation to accept homosexuality. These types of Rabbinical reinterpretive studies to deal with modern life allows Judaism to progress without the 'black and white' fundamentalist dogma that plagues other religions.
You may not agree with this, but Reform Judaism
is a Jewish denomination...similar to how Quakerism and Roman Catholicism are both Christian denominations, though with different interpretations and beliefs in dealing with modern life.
You are very wrong regarding the secular Jews and you don't understand at all the meaning of the secular Jews. I'm a secular Jew. A secular. Not an atheist!. To be a secular Jew it doesn't mean that you don't believe in the Torah or in the prophecies. Not at all. A secular Jew means that you deal in your free time in "secular" things like watching television, going to the cinema, sports etc and you deel less with "religious spiritual" things like learning Torah etc. You don't have to be an orthodox Jew from a religious neighbourhood and to wear black all day in order to believe in the Torah and in the prophecies. Of course there are atheist among the secular Jews but their numbers are very very low. In Israel most of the Jews are religious and traditionals and there are also secular Jews in Israel. God judge the Jews by their acts aka fulfilling commendments. As a "secular" Jew I believe in all that written both in the Torah and in the other books of the Tanach and also in the Jewish Messiah. I believe in the Talmud which is the Orall law.
Corrected. Thanks for the clarification.
Not true. Jews who believes in Jesus are not Jews any more. The believing in Jesus is consider to be "Kofer Ba Ikar" which means a Jew who believes in Jesus is deny the main thing and that is that the belief that a man is God or his son is in the opposite of the main ideas of the Torah. The facts are that Jesus wasn't a rabbi and he never authorized to be one. Not every group of people who speaks in the name of Judaism is telling the truth or to be consider as real Jews.
Not true. It is not against Judaism to believe that Jesus existed as a human being. It is against Judaism to believe that Jesus was the Messiah or that he was God-like in any way. Since there is no authoritative way to prove whether Jesus was a rabbi or not, my comment stands; '
Depending on the sect, anywhere from believing that Jesus never existed, to believing that he was a scholarly rabbi.'
40% of the Jews in America are assimilated and this is the reason why you are saying these wrong things.
Have no idea what you are trying to say here, but I am not saying 'wrong things', and you offer no proof that I am. I am just saying things you don't agree with, which, as usual, you don't like.
Who are those sects? There are no sects in the Jewish nation but only groups that the only difference between them is there level of perseverance: there are groups who work and study Torah like Bnei Akiva and there are groups that their work is to study Torah. There are groups that their men have a short beard and there are groups that their men have long beard. I'm not saying that all the groups are follow all the commandments but at least they don't preach to others not to follow some commandments like in a way that you may smoke for yourself but you can't preach to everybody that smoke is good for the health and you aren't allowed to distort the Torah.
Since I don't live in Israel, my information on Jewish
denominations there comes purely from research. There seem to be 3 distinct denominations: secular, traditional, and religious (hiloni, masorti, and haredi, respectively). With the exception of the religious, Jews from the other two denominations seem to span the spectrum in their beliefs, ranging from, what in the US would be seem as Humanistic to Conservative. Admittedly my knowledge on Judaism in Israel is limited. My information was obtained from
Religion in Israel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and some of the external links at the end of the article. Feel free to provide more information on Judaism
in Israel.
You asked about the main belief of the Jews and you mentioned the Messiah. The Messiah isn't the main agenda of the belief of the Jews. I'll tell you what is the main agenda: The main agenda is to follow the commandments that God gave to the children of Israel (Jews) when he took them out of slavery in ancient Egypt. The commandments are behavior orders that in them God is telling the children of Israel how to live their life: what to do and what not to do, when to do and how to do - this is the main thing that the Jews believe in.
Regarding the Messiah - Indeed, this part belongs to the future and the believing in the Messiah is one of the 13 principles that the Jews believe in:
Jewish principles of faith - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I made a post about the Jewish Messiah and you can find it
here.
For the most part I agree with this, though there is certainly more to Judaism. I was responding to
Rhapsody1447's specific questions.
