Judaism and Shabbat Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Judaism and Shabbat - Essay Example In additional, they often believe that these laws and commandments were given to Moses both in written and in Oral Torah forms. However, a religious community, the Karaites movement, has historically challenged the notion that Moseswas given these laws and commandments in two forms (Herring 15). They have ever held that the laws and commandment given to Moses were only in a single form, that is, in written form but not in Oral Torah. The Karaites movement flourished during the medieval period and still has several followers in the contemporary world who have maintained that Moses was only given written Torah laws and commandments (Bank 22). Judaism has enjoyed historical continuity of over three thousand years; basically, three thousand eight hundred years since its foundation by Abraham. This makes it among the oldest monotheistic religions of the world that has survived until into the contemporary world (Miller 24). The Israelites or the Hebrew was already being referred to as Jews in the early books of Tanakh (Herring 24). The late books of Tanakh including the Book of Ester the name Jews were placed by the title the Children of Israel. The texts of Judaism, its tradition, and values had a strong influence on the subsequent Abrahamic religions that included Christianity, Baha’i Faith, and Islamic. ... By the year 2010, the entire world Jewish community was approximated to be roughly 0.2 percent or 13.4 million of the entire world’s population (Grishaver 71). Israel harbors around forty-two percent of the entire Jewish population. The same number is found in both United States and Canada with the majority of the remaining population found in Europe. Because of time and different understanding of concepts with a community, Judaism did split into movements. These movements rose due to different ideologies that might have cropped among the leaders of Judaism. The major Judaism movements of the world include Reform Judaism, Conservative Judaism, and the Orthodox Judaism. The latter movement includes sub-movements including the Modern Orthodox and Hareidi Judaism (Prager 77). There were believers who stark to the ideals of the conventional Judaism; thus, retaining the larger percentage of its teachings, beliefs, and laws. This group remained to the part of Judaism that was called Conservative movement believers who believed that the traditional and laws of Judaism should have only faced a slight changes to suit the time. The other movement that split out of the traditional Judaism was the Reform or Liberal, or the Progressive Movements. These sections of believers have the feeling that it is upon an individual believer to make a choice of the traditions and laws to follow (Herring 51). Therefore, the main course of the division may be pegged on the approach and concern to changes that should be enforced on the Jewish laws. However, Orthodox Judaism until to date maintains that the Jewish laws and Torah laws have defined origin, and are eternal and should never be changed; thus,