Ted Falcon - Judaism for Dummies: 2nd Edition

Judaism For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2019 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2019945778

ISBN 978-1-119-64307-4 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-64308-1 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-64311-1 (ebk)

1. Chapter 7
2. Chapter 17

1. Chapter 3
2. Chapter 4
3. Chapter 5
4. Chapter 11
5. Chapter 12
6. Chapter 14
7. Chapter 15
8. Chapter 18
9. Chapter 21
10. Chapter 22
11. Chapter 25

Were amazed by how many people have become interested in Judaism in recent years. Some people interested in Judaism are in search of meaningful connections to the past. Some have a hunger for deeper understanding and ritual, a longing for something precious to pass on to their children, something nourishing and loving to live by. For many Jews (and non-Jews, too) this has meant exploring the rich tapestry of Judaism some discovering the religion for the first time, others re-examining the lost or forgotten traditions from their youth.

For non-Jews, perhaps this interest follows an increasing awareness of the significance of Judaism as the source and inspiration for both Jesus and the Old Testament. People seem to have a greater openness these days to appreciating the depth of Judaism without seeing it as a threat to other faiths.

For Jews, perhaps this resurgence of interest stems from a community recovering from Holocaust horrors and rediscovering that the faith and practice still exist. Certainly, much of the interest seems to come from the increasing realization that Judaism has much to offer in the mystical, meditative, and spiritual realms.

The problem facing many people interested in Judaism is that the vast majority of Jewish books on the market today either tackle one particular subject in great depth (such as 300 pages just on the holiday of Sukkot), or they approach Judaism from an orthodox perspective (These are the 613 things you should do if you know whats good for you). We dont find anything wrong with either of these approaches, but we want to offer something different. We believe that even a subject as deep and important as Judaism can be fun to read about. And the more you find out about the subject, the more fun it is.

With that in mind, we offer you Judaism For Dummies. Wherever youre coming from whether youre interested in the religion or the spirituality, the culture or the ethnic traditions this book offers you a glimpse into Judaism that youve never seen before, one that helps you appreciate what all the excitement is about.

Even better, weve packaged all this great information in easy-to-read chapters that are organized in easy-to-access chunks.

We use practices throughout this book that might take some getting used to. First, when we discuss dates, we dont use BC and AD, because theyre based on Christian theology. Instead, we use BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (in the Common Era).

We also do our best not to assign a gender to God. As we describe in , Judaism makes it very clear that God is neither male nor female. However, when we feel that something is being lost by not using masculine or feminine pronouns, we leave them in.

Additionally, to help you navigate this book as you begin to navigate the world of Judaism, we use the following conventions:

• Italic text highlights new words and defined terms. We italicize Hebrew words when we first define them and then use regular font for subsequent appearances of the term.
• Boldfaced text indicates keywords in bulleted lists and the action part of numbered steps.
• Monofont text highlights a web address.

You cant read about Judaism without bumping into the Hebrew language, and we include a lot of Hebrew throughout this book. However, there are a few things you need to know about reading Hebrew. For example, the Hebrew language is read right-to-left.