This may sound like a simple question, but every time I speak with a Jewish person and ask them if they believe in God they talk about all kinds of things but they never give me a straight answer. They say that they don't believe in anything that is not in the Torah, and I ask them well then who do you pray to? And they say we pray to the Torah.
I don't understand do Jewish people pray to the book? Or do they worship the scrolls that the Rabbi's write, like the Rabbis are the descendants of God.
Answer
Yes.
Belief in God is axiomatic to Judaism.
Jewish prayer features, at least twice a day, every day, the Shema, a compact assertion of this belief from Deuteronomy 6:4:
Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one.
Jews traditionally teach this prayer to our children almost starting at birth. I strongly suspect that almost any Jew with any knowledge of Jewish prayer knows this one.
According to the Sefer Hachinuch, this verse constitutes an actual commandment to believe in God.
Of course, there are plenty of individual Jews who believe all kinds of things, including atheism. I have never heard before of someone praying to the Torah.
No comments:
Post a Comment