5 Things You DIDN'T Know About JUDAISM ✡️ ｜｜ You can be a JEWISH ATHEIST？？
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Summary
In this episode, we discuss 5 things you probably didn't know about Judaism, and why you don't need to be a Jew to go to heaven. We also talk about why we don't proselytize and why we do not try to convert other people.
Transcript
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Hello, Classic Crew, and welcome to today's video where we're going to be talking about
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As you guys know, I am a religious Jew. My husband and I are aspiring to be Orthodox.
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I was raised Orthodox, my husband was raised Reform, and when we met I had kind of gone
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off the path a little bit and become less religious, but the two of us when we met knew
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that we would like to become more religious over time. So we accept Orthodox Judaism as the
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standard, even if we're not keeping it completely right now, but it's something that we aspire to
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and we aim to, and it's something that we would really like to do for our children and for our
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family. So at this point in my life, I would say I'm an Orthodox Jew who's not observant, essentially
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saying that I accept Orthodoxy as the standard, even if I'm not necessarily keeping it. But I was
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raised Orthodox Jewish, and so I know a lot about Orthodox Judaism. I know a lot about Judaism
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generally, and there may be some things that you don't know about Judaism, because Orthodox Jews
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make up a tiny percentage of the population of the world. So you probably don't know all that much
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about Orthodox Judaism, which makes total sense. It's not that common that you're going to meet an
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Orthodox Jew, depending on where you live. If you live in New York, yeah, that would make sense that
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you would meet an Orthodox Jew pretty frequently, but in other parts of the country and other parts of
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the world, you wouldn't necessarily meet an Orthodox Jew, and you wouldn't necessarily even
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meet a Jew at all, because there are 14 million Jews. Like, overall, there are only 14 million Jews.
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So today, I thought it would be fun to share five things you probably didn't know about Judaism,
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so let's get into it. The first thing that you didn't know about Judaism is that you don't need
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to be Jewish to go to heaven. Jews don't believe that everyone needs to be Jewish. We believe that
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Jews are kind of like the firstborn. My husband came up with this idea, and I thought it was
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the perfect way to describe it. A firstborn child isn't the best child. It's not the smartest child.
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It's not the most loved by the parents. It just has specific responsibilities that he has to do,
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that he has to kind of maintain because he's the firstborn. In our view of the world, Jews are like
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that. God selected the Jewish people as the chosen people, and we were given 613 laws that we had to
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keep. But that doesn't mean that we're better for having to keep those laws or better for having those
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laws. But everyone else only needs to keep seven laws. Those are the seven Noahide laws. Ours are
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much more specific. 613 laws, yeah, they're going to be a lot more specific than just seven. So let me
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read you what the seven Noahide laws are. So the seven Noahide laws are do not deny God, do not
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blaspheme God, do not murder, do not engage in forbidden relations, do not steal, do not eat of a
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live animal, and number seven is to establish courts and a legal system. These laws are in place for
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non-Jews to keep. But if you keep those seven laws, according to Jewish tradition, you are going to
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heaven. You don't have to be Jewish. You don't have to convert. So our role as Jews is not to convert
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other people. It's more just to show a good example with the way that we live our lives and to be a
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light unto the nations. That's kind of our role, is to be good people, and we have a lot of specific
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laws that kind of go into that. But all of this leads me into my second point, which is that we also
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do not proselytize. We do not try and convert other people. We actually actively avoid converting
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other nations and other people. Being a Jew is something that you are born into, and so we don't
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believe that you have to be Jewish to be a good person. Also, because being Jewish, so much a part
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of being Jewish is also being part of the Jewish people and the Jewish nation, we actively turn away
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people who want to convert. Because we say to them, you don't need to take on this huge responsibility
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of being Jewish and all of these extra laws to be a good person and for God to love you. You don't
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need to do these things, so we are going to turn you away. Because since God views us as a nation
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and as individuals, we're not only judged by God by our individual actions, but the nation is also
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judged as a whole. We kind of are careful about who we bring into our nation. Because if somebody were
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to convert and then not to keep any of the laws or not to take any of it seriously, then they're
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still considered Jewish. It doesn't matter if they decide later that they don't want to be Jewish.
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They are still, in the eyes of God, considered Jewish. And then that person would be judged as a
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part of the Jewish people, even if they don't consider themselves Jewish. God does, and the nation
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does. And so we take conversion very seriously. If you're going to convert, it's not just for you,
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it's for our people. And so we actually turn away people who want to convert three times
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to see if they really do want to convert, and if they really do want to be a part of our nation,
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and if they really do want to accept all of this on themselves. Now, once you are converted, we love
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you. We're so happy to have you. It's a wonderful thing to be Jewish, and we love the people who join
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us. And converts are readily welcomed into the Orthodox community, but we don't proselytize,
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and we don't encourage people to convert. Number three is that kosher doesn't mean being blessed
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by a rabbi. Kosher are certain dietary restrictions and laws that Jews keep. And for the most part,
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it really has to do with keeping meat and dairy separate, using separate dishes, only eating meat
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that's been slaughtered in a certain way. And it's mostly just following specific rules. It's not about
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a rabbi blessing a certain food or anything like that. A rabbi can't bless not kosher food and make
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it kosher. So for kosher, there are a few different things that we keep in mind. We only eat
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certain kinds of animals. We only eat animals that chew their cud and have a split hoof. And if it's a
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fish, it needs to have fins and scales. And the meat has to be slaughtered in a certain way. It also has
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to have all of the blood drained out of it. This is kind of a lot of information, but these are specific
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things that we need to do for that food to be kosher. And then once it's in our kitchen, we have to keep
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our meat dishes and our dairy dishes separate. The dishes themselves can be kosher or not kosher. If
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you make meat in a pot and then you put dairy in that same pot a few minutes later and it's all
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boiling and hot, that pot then can't be used anymore. It becomes not kosher unless you boil it
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and you kind of remake it kosher. It's called koshering. So it's a kind of a complicated thing,
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and it creates, I think, a very good standard for discipline. It encourages you to be very careful
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about what you eat and how you eat and what you cook. Now that's not to say that it's all about
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health. It's definitely not all about that. But even, for example, we wait between having meat and
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dairy because we don't want to mix it even in our mouths. So the idea is that we have to wait a certain
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time between having meat and dairy. So it can be one hour, three hours, or six hours. And again,
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that kind of creates a discipline. As a kid, I grew up always waiting three hours and it never
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even occurred to me that I wouldn't wait three hours to have something dairy. And it just forces
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you to wait because, hey, that is, that's the rule. And I kind of think it's, I think it's a great
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thing. Now there are a lot of people who have a lot of different reasons for why we don't mix meat and
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dairy. But one of the explanations that I heard that I really liked is the idea that we don't mix life
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and death in Judaism. We like to keep those things very separate. So death, the animal is dead, and
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that's why you're able to eat it. And life, which is dairy, the thing that gives milk, which gives a
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baby sustenance, those two things we don't mix. And in the Torah itself, it says don't cook a baby
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kid in its mother's milk, which obviously sounds horrible. So the idea is that we do keep life and
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death separate. And that does carry over in many different aspects of Jewish practice. Number four is that
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being Jewish is both an ethnicity and a religion. So in Judaism, you can be born Jewish, but you also
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can keep Judaism as religion. So we know if a child is Jewish based through the matrilineal line.
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So if your mother is Jewish, then you are Jewish. If your father is Jewish and your mother is not,
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then you are not Jewish. And so we know that you are born Jewish if your mother was Jewish and if her
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mother was Jewish. And that means that you can be born a Jew and not actually practice any Judaism or
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believe in God, which is a very confusing concept because you have people who say that they are Jewish
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and don't actually keep any of the laws that Judaism is based on. You also have Judaism and
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keeping the practice of Judaism. And so if you are born Jewish, you can also be keeping the laws of
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Judaism. So you can have an atheist Jew and you have religious Jews. Now there are issues that do
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come in when you have a Jew that doesn't believe in God speaking on behalf of religious Jews. Because
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religious Jews are not only born Jewish, but they're actually keeping the written law. And that can get a
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little bit fuzzy, especially for somebody who is outside of Judaism and doesn't know that there's a
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difference between someone who was born Jewish and doesn't believe in God and a religious Jew and is
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being given information about Judaism from someone who doesn't practice. That can be a little confusing
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for people. Number five is that the Torah is actually made up of two different parts, the written Torah
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and the oral Torah. So the written Torah is the Old Testament and it's made up of five books. It's the
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Bible stories of Moses and of Abraham and of the creation of the world. And that is the Torah. And the
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Torah is where we get everything that we practice. But it's not the only place where we get
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everything that we practice because there is also the oral Torah. So at Har Sinai, at Mount Sinai,
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when God gave us the Torah, he also gave us an oral tradition that was supposed to be passed down
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orally forever. And the idea was that it was supposed to be a living, breathing tradition that
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was passed on. And that part of the way that Judaism survives over centuries is that it's passed down
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orally from father to son, from teacher to student. And for much of our history, it was passed down
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orally from father to son. But when we were afraid that the oral tradition was going to be lost,
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then it was written down. And that's what's called the Mishnah. And the Mishnah is the oral Torah
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written down. Now, the oral Torah elucidates a lot of what's in the written Torah that's totally
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unclear. For example, what is Sabbath? In the written Torah, it really doesn't explain what the Sabbath is.
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But in the oral Torah, or now it's written down, but in the oral Torah, it explains what that means.
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And so Orthodox Jews don't just go off of the written Torah. That's actually considered heresy to just
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go off of what the written Torah says because there are so many things that are not explained in the
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written Torah. The oral Torah explains all of those things in the written Torah that would not necessarily
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make sense. Now, we also have the Gemara, which are commentaries and discussions and legalistic
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kind of conversations that were had to understand all of those concepts. So everything that Orthodox
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Jews practice is something that has been discussed, and it's fascinating to understand kind of how it
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all came to be and how it is that we practice the things that we do. But the written Torah on its own
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is definitely not enough for us to go off of. So those are my five things you probably didn't know
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about Judaism. Let me know in the comments if you did know some of these, if you didn't know some of
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these. I'd love to hear. Let me know also if you'd be interested in seeing a part two to this video
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because there are many things in Judaism that people don't know about or are confused about.
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And I can also do a video that's maybe a Q&A answering your guys' questions about Judaism.
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Now, I do want to make clear I'm not an expert. I'm just somebody who lived Orthodox Judaism growing up.
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So I know a lot from practicing it, but it's not something that I can say, oh, I'm the expert.
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I'm a rabbi. I'm a Rebetzin. I'm none of that. I'm just a person who grew up Orthodox Jewish.
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So let me know in the comments your guys' thoughts. Thank you so much for watching today's video.
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Make sure to subscribe to my channel if you haven't already. I'd love to have you guys here
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