Beliefs & Practices

The rabbis of the talmudic era were more interested in the human response to suffering than in finding theological justifications for its existence.

Jewish lifecycle rituals reflect a communal orientation, the democratic nature of traditions, the relationship between the biological and the social, and the inevitability of evolution and change.

An early group of Jewish mystics conceived of the Hebrew alphabet as the building blocks of creation.

The findings of modern science and the tragedy of the Holocaust led some Jewish thinkers to redefine God.

Scholars debate whether the Israelites recognized only one God or worshipped only one God.

The deviant use of human freedom, not God, is the source of evil and suffering.

According to some thinkers, the events of the Nazi era initiated changes in the nature of Judaism.

Events in the "calendar" of the lifecycle are private, yet connect us to the "unseen presences" of missing family members and our entire people throughout history.

According to the kabbalists, the attributes of God relate to each other in a scripted way.

The medieval mystics made a distinction between the infinite, unknowable God and God's revealed aspects.

The biblical God is a God we can relate to.

Unlike the creation stories of other Near Eastern cultures, the biblical creation story is not concerned with God's origins.