Classically Abby - 5 Things You DIDN'T Know About JUDAISM ✡️ ｜｜ You can be a JEWISH ATHEIST？？

00:00:00.000 Hello, Classic Crew, and welcome to today's video where we're going to be talking about

00:00:04.560 five things you didn't know about Judaism.

00:00:10.300 As you guys know, I am a religious Jew. My husband and I are aspiring to be Orthodox.

00:00:15.380 I was raised Orthodox, my husband was raised Reform, and when we met I had kind of gone

00:00:21.080 off the path a little bit and become less religious, but the two of us when we met knew

00:00:25.340 that we would like to become more religious over time. So we accept Orthodox Judaism as the

00:00:30.700 standard, even if we're not keeping it completely right now, but it's something that we aspire to

00:00:35.740 and we aim to, and it's something that we would really like to do for our children and for our

00:00:40.940 family. So at this point in my life, I would say I'm an Orthodox Jew who's not observant, essentially

00:00:46.300 saying that I accept Orthodoxy as the standard, even if I'm not necessarily keeping it. But I was

00:00:52.540 raised Orthodox Jewish, and so I know a lot about Orthodox Judaism. I know a lot about Judaism

00:00:58.400 generally, and there may be some things that you don't know about Judaism, because Orthodox Jews

00:01:02.900 make up a tiny percentage of the population of the world. So you probably don't know all that much

00:01:07.980 about Orthodox Judaism, which makes total sense. It's not that common that you're going to meet an

00:01:13.160 Orthodox Jew, depending on where you live. If you live in New York, yeah, that would make sense that 1.00

00:01:17.360 you would meet an Orthodox Jew pretty frequently, but in other parts of the country and other parts of

00:01:21.700 the world, you wouldn't necessarily meet an Orthodox Jew, and you wouldn't necessarily even

00:01:26.060 meet a Jew at all, because there are 14 million Jews. Like, overall, there are only 14 million Jews.

00:01:31.740 So today, I thought it would be fun to share five things you probably didn't know about Judaism,

00:01:36.200 so let's get into it. The first thing that you didn't know about Judaism is that you don't need 1.00

00:01:40.720 to be Jewish to go to heaven. Jews don't believe that everyone needs to be Jewish. We believe that

00:01:46.240 Jews are kind of like the firstborn. My husband came up with this idea, and I thought it was 1.00

00:01:50.560 the perfect way to describe it. A firstborn child isn't the best child. It's not the smartest child.

00:01:55.980 It's not the most loved by the parents. It just has specific responsibilities that he has to do,

00:02:02.000 that he has to kind of maintain because he's the firstborn. In our view of the world, Jews are like 0.99

00:02:06.680 that. God selected the Jewish people as the chosen people, and we were given 613 laws that we had to

00:02:14.400 keep. But that doesn't mean that we're better for having to keep those laws or better for having those

00:02:20.200 laws. But everyone else only needs to keep seven laws. Those are the seven Noahide laws. Ours are

00:02:25.920 much more specific. 613 laws, yeah, they're going to be a lot more specific than just seven. So let me

00:02:30.940 read you what the seven Noahide laws are. So the seven Noahide laws are do not deny God, do not

00:02:35.780 blaspheme God, do not murder, do not engage in forbidden relations, do not steal, do not eat of a

00:02:42.000 live animal, and number seven is to establish courts and a legal system. These laws are in place for

00:02:48.140 non-Jews to keep. But if you keep those seven laws, according to Jewish tradition, you are going to 1.00

00:02:53.680 heaven. You don't have to be Jewish. You don't have to convert. So our role as Jews is not to convert

00:02:58.120 other people. It's more just to show a good example with the way that we live our lives and to be a

00:03:02.760 light unto the nations. That's kind of our role, is to be good people, and we have a lot of specific

00:03:08.780 laws that kind of go into that. But all of this leads me into my second point, which is that we also

00:03:14.760 do not proselytize. We do not try and convert other people. We actually actively avoid converting

00:03:21.440 other nations and other people. Being a Jew is something that you are born into, and so we don't 1.00

00:03:28.100 believe that you have to be Jewish to be a good person. Also, because being Jewish, so much a part

00:03:33.680 of being Jewish is also being part of the Jewish people and the Jewish nation, we actively turn away 1.00

00:03:39.220 people who want to convert. Because we say to them, you don't need to take on this huge responsibility

00:03:45.020 of being Jewish and all of these extra laws to be a good person and for God to love you. You don't 1.00

00:03:50.080 need to do these things, so we are going to turn you away. Because since God views us as a nation

00:03:56.620 and as individuals, we're not only judged by God by our individual actions, but the nation is also

00:04:02.040 judged as a whole. We kind of are careful about who we bring into our nation. Because if somebody were 0.98

00:04:07.360 to convert and then not to keep any of the laws or not to take any of it seriously, then they're

00:04:13.520 still considered Jewish. It doesn't matter if they decide later that they don't want to be Jewish.

00:04:18.600 They are still, in the eyes of God, considered Jewish. And then that person would be judged as a

00:04:23.380 part of the Jewish people, even if they don't consider themselves Jewish. God does, and the nation

00:04:27.780 does. And so we take conversion very seriously. If you're going to convert, it's not just for you,

00:04:33.540 it's for our people. And so we actually turn away people who want to convert three times

00:04:38.780 to see if they really do want to convert, and if they really do want to be a part of our nation,

00:04:43.720 and if they really do want to accept all of this on themselves. Now, once you are converted, we love

00:04:49.360 you. We're so happy to have you. It's a wonderful thing to be Jewish, and we love the people who join

00:04:54.500 us. And converts are readily welcomed into the Orthodox community, but we don't proselytize,

00:05:00.220 and we don't encourage people to convert. Number three is that kosher doesn't mean being blessed

00:05:05.440 by a rabbi. Kosher are certain dietary restrictions and laws that Jews keep. And for the most part, 0.82

00:05:12.100 it really has to do with keeping meat and dairy separate, using separate dishes, only eating meat

00:05:18.040 that's been slaughtered in a certain way. And it's mostly just following specific rules. It's not about

00:05:23.500 a rabbi blessing a certain food or anything like that. A rabbi can't bless not kosher food and make 0.89

00:05:29.240 it kosher. So for kosher, there are a few different things that we keep in mind. We only eat

00:05:34.160 certain kinds of animals. We only eat animals that chew their cud and have a split hoof. And if it's a

00:05:40.320 fish, it needs to have fins and scales. And the meat has to be slaughtered in a certain way. It also has

00:05:46.240 to have all of the blood drained out of it. This is kind of a lot of information, but these are specific

00:05:51.320 things that we need to do for that food to be kosher. And then once it's in our kitchen, we have to keep

00:05:57.320 our meat dishes and our dairy dishes separate. The dishes themselves can be kosher or not kosher. If

00:06:03.660 you make meat in a pot and then you put dairy in that same pot a few minutes later and it's all

00:06:08.660 boiling and hot, that pot then can't be used anymore. It becomes not kosher unless you boil it

00:06:14.540 and you kind of remake it kosher. It's called koshering. So it's a kind of a complicated thing,

00:06:20.300 and it creates, I think, a very good standard for discipline. It encourages you to be very careful

00:06:27.020 about what you eat and how you eat and what you cook. Now that's not to say that it's all about

00:06:31.160 health. It's definitely not all about that. But even, for example, we wait between having meat and

00:06:37.040 dairy because we don't want to mix it even in our mouths. So the idea is that we have to wait a certain

00:06:42.340 time between having meat and dairy. So it can be one hour, three hours, or six hours. And again,

00:06:48.180 that kind of creates a discipline. As a kid, I grew up always waiting three hours and it never

00:06:52.860 even occurred to me that I wouldn't wait three hours to have something dairy. And it just forces

00:06:57.860 you to wait because, hey, that is, that's the rule. And I kind of think it's, I think it's a great

00:07:03.260 thing. Now there are a lot of people who have a lot of different reasons for why we don't mix meat and

00:07:08.380 dairy. But one of the explanations that I heard that I really liked is the idea that we don't mix life

00:07:14.500 and death in Judaism. We like to keep those things very separate. So death, the animal is dead, and 0.97

00:07:20.540 that's why you're able to eat it. And life, which is dairy, the thing that gives milk, which gives a

00:07:25.120 baby sustenance, those two things we don't mix. And in the Torah itself, it says don't cook a baby

00:07:30.980 kid in its mother's milk, which obviously sounds horrible. So the idea is that we do keep life and

00:07:37.260 death separate. And that does carry over in many different aspects of Jewish practice. Number four is that 0.61

00:07:43.280 being Jewish is both an ethnicity and a religion. So in Judaism, you can be born Jewish, but you also

00:07:49.940 can keep Judaism as religion. So we know if a child is Jewish based through the matrilineal line. 0.75

00:07:55.760 So if your mother is Jewish, then you are Jewish. If your father is Jewish and your mother is not, 0.65

00:08:00.080 then you are not Jewish. And so we know that you are born Jewish if your mother was Jewish and if her 0.50

00:08:06.340 mother was Jewish. And that means that you can be born a Jew and not actually practice any Judaism or

00:08:13.940 believe in God, which is a very confusing concept because you have people who say that they are Jewish

00:08:20.180 and don't actually keep any of the laws that Judaism is based on. You also have Judaism and

00:08:27.380 keeping the practice of Judaism. And so if you are born Jewish, you can also be keeping the laws of 0.61

00:08:34.320 Judaism. So you can have an atheist Jew and you have religious Jews. Now there are issues that do 0.54

00:08:41.000 come in when you have a Jew that doesn't believe in God speaking on behalf of religious Jews. Because 0.68

00:08:47.780 religious Jews are not only born Jewish, but they're actually keeping the written law. And that can get a 0.73

00:08:52.800 little bit fuzzy, especially for somebody who is outside of Judaism and doesn't know that there's a

00:08:57.920 difference between someone who was born Jewish and doesn't believe in God and a religious Jew and is

00:09:02.020 being given information about Judaism from someone who doesn't practice. That can be a little confusing

00:09:06.180 for people. Number five is that the Torah is actually made up of two different parts, the written Torah

00:09:11.700 and the oral Torah. So the written Torah is the Old Testament and it's made up of five books. It's the

00:09:18.340 Bible stories of Moses and of Abraham and of the creation of the world. And that is the Torah. And the

00:09:26.440 Torah is where we get everything that we practice. But it's not the only place where we get

00:09:31.140 everything that we practice because there is also the oral Torah. So at Har Sinai, at Mount Sinai,

00:09:36.960 when God gave us the Torah, he also gave us an oral tradition that was supposed to be passed down

00:09:44.300 orally forever. And the idea was that it was supposed to be a living, breathing tradition that

00:09:48.840 was passed on. And that part of the way that Judaism survives over centuries is that it's passed down

00:09:54.120 orally from father to son, from teacher to student. And for much of our history, it was passed down

00:10:00.060 orally from father to son. But when we were afraid that the oral tradition was going to be lost,

00:10:07.060 then it was written down. And that's what's called the Mishnah. And the Mishnah is the oral Torah

00:10:12.200 written down. Now, the oral Torah elucidates a lot of what's in the written Torah that's totally

00:10:19.220 unclear. For example, what is Sabbath? In the written Torah, it really doesn't explain what the Sabbath is.

00:10:25.220 But in the oral Torah, or now it's written down, but in the oral Torah, it explains what that means.

00:10:31.220 And so Orthodox Jews don't just go off of the written Torah. That's actually considered heresy to just

00:10:36.260 go off of what the written Torah says because there are so many things that are not explained in the

00:10:40.820 written Torah. The oral Torah explains all of those things in the written Torah that would not necessarily

00:10:46.280 make sense. Now, we also have the Gemara, which are commentaries and discussions and legalistic

00:10:51.780 kind of conversations that were had to understand all of those concepts. So everything that Orthodox

00:10:58.380 Jews practice is something that has been discussed, and it's fascinating to understand kind of how it

00:11:04.920 all came to be and how it is that we practice the things that we do. But the written Torah on its own

00:11:10.300 is definitely not enough for us to go off of. So those are my five things you probably didn't know

00:11:17.420 about Judaism. Let me know in the comments if you did know some of these, if you didn't know some of

00:11:21.960 these. I'd love to hear. Let me know also if you'd be interested in seeing a part two to this video

00:11:26.640 because there are many things in Judaism that people don't know about or are confused about.

00:11:32.260 And I can also do a video that's maybe a Q&A answering your guys' questions about Judaism.

00:11:37.280 Now, I do want to make clear I'm not an expert. I'm just somebody who lived Orthodox Judaism growing up.

00:11:43.500 So I know a lot from practicing it, but it's not something that I can say, oh, I'm the expert.

00:11:48.840 I'm a rabbi. I'm a Rebetzin. I'm none of that. I'm just a person who grew up Orthodox Jewish.

00:11:54.420 So let me know in the comments your guys' thoughts. Thank you so much for watching today's video.

00:11:59.440 Make sure to subscribe to my channel if you haven't already. I'd love to have you guys here

00:12:04.200 and join the classic crew. Make sure to hit that notification bell. It'll notify you of all my new

00:12:09.200 videos. If you'd like to follow me on social media, you can find me absolutely everywhere

00:12:13.600 at Classically Abbey. Thank you guys so much for watching, and I'll see you guys in my next video.

00:12:18.540 Bye!

Classically Abby - January 27, 2021

5 Things You DIDN'T Know About JUDAISM ✡️ ｜｜ You can be a JEWISH ATHEIST？？

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