Top 10 Googled Questions on Judaism
Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim
1. What does it mean to be Jewish?
Is Judaism a race, a religion, or an ethnicity?
Rabbi: Being Jewish means to follow the Torah (Bible), Prophets, Writings and the Oral Law: Mishna and Talmud. These contain fundamental truths, philosophies, morality and mandatory laws. To be Jewish, one need not be born to Jewish parents, as a convert follows the identical lifestyle and is Jewish 100%. Judaism is not something genetic, racial, or ethnic. Meaning it does not depend on biology or culture. Judaism can be classified as a religion but is better stated as the only religion proven to be given by God.
2. What can't Jews eat? Why do Jews keep kosher? Why can't you mix meat and dairy?
Rabbi: One benefit of a restricted diet is that it trains one in restraint, but this is not an end objective. The objective is that one who has restrained emotions frees his mind to be involved in wisdom to a far greater degree. Since wisdom is what provides man with the most enjoyable pursuit and the most fulfilling life, the restraint of the emotions is needed to enable the mind to be free from emotional urges and choices.
You'll notice that foods restricted by Kosher laws belong only to the animal kingdom, whereas all vegetation has no restriction. This is to cause man to abstain from eating disgusting creatures, which has a negative impact a the person, causing him to lose his sense of disgust. The reason we must maintain a sense of disgust is to help us avoid disgusting behavior. For it is animals alone—living beings—that man identifies with and would copy their behavior, whereas vegetation is not alive and has no behavior to copy.
Maimonides explains the restriction of eating milk and meat is because this has idolatrous origins, and God wants man to avoid all connection to idolatry. Ancient idolaters felt that by cooking the young calf in its mother's milk, this would produce some mystical good fortune. But as mysticism is pure imagination, God wants man to live in reality and avoid fantasy.
This article gives amazing psychological insight into the reasons behind kosher laws: https://mesora.org/kosher74.html
3. What is Sabbath and when does it start?
Rabbi: Sabbath is the seventh day of the week, on which God ceased His creation, as creation was complete. God commanded those who follow His Torah to mimic God by refraining from any creative action on Sabbath, what we call work. The purpose of this refrain is to create an observable replication of the Creator's rest on the seventh day, thereby publicizing the existence of the one Creator of the universe, in order to help all mankind abandon lives seeking pleasure and success alone, and instead, finding one’s true purpose in the engagement of God's great wisdom. By not being involved in creative activity and work, a person has at least one day a week he can devote to wisdom. Sabbath starts Friday evenings at sunset and ends Saturday evening about an hour past sunset.
4. What percentage of the world population is Jewish?
Rabbi: Jewish people make up approximately 0.2% of the global population.
5. What happens after we die in Judaism? What is the Jewish view of the afterlife, heaven, hell, or reincarnation?
Rabbi: When a person dies, his soul continues living, on the condition that he lived a monotheistic and moral life. His soul enjoys the afterlife in proportion to his perfection in these two areas of morality and wisdom. Torah does not speak of hell. Isaiah 64:4 teaches that no living person truly knows what the afterlife is. And this is intentional because if a person had some idea of what comes after we die, he would not focus on what God wants the person to focus on, and that is studying Torah for the enjoyment itself and not for the reward. In Genesis 15:1 God tells Abraham that his reward is great, referring to the afterlife. For the Rabbi's teach that there is no reward while physically alive for following God (Kiddushin 39b). The true reward is the eternal afterlife. Reincarnation is not found in Torah, and lacks any evidence.
6. Why do Orthodox Jewish women wear wigs?
Rabbi: As Rabbi Israel Chait taught, once a woman is married she can no longer follow the lifestyle of trying to attract men. She expresses this change towards modesty by covering her hair, her most beautiful visible attraction.
7. Do Jews believe in a Messiah?
Rabbi: Yes, he will be a descendent of King David, he will fight wars on behalf of Israel and he will build the third and final temple. He will have greater wisdom than King Solomon and will closely approximate the level of prophecy of Moses (Maimonides). All humanity will recognize that he and Israel possess the only true religion and they will all abandon their false man-made religions (Jer. 16:19). That era will be an eternal era of peace, success and great Torah wisdom.
8. Why do bad things happen to good people?
Rabbi: There are a number of reasons. First of all, even a good person can make poor choices that result in a negative state of affairs. And a good person who has some sins can receive punishments from God to correct him. As Rabbi Israel Chait taught, it's also important to recognize that what we feel is a bad event, could be perceived by a righteous person as an opportunity for perfection or something which doesn't impact him negatively as we imagine would harm us. People of great intelligence and moral character can go through circumstances that would break a normal person, since their value system tells them that this so-called “calamity” is not so bad and it will also come to pass. But a person who is perfectly righteous without sin has God's Providence to protect him, as King David said so often. We must be convinced that God has no shortage of methods to help a good person out of any problem.
9. Do Jews believe in Jesus?
Rabbi: Jesus defied Torah, which rejects him. And there are no witnesses to all the claims made about him. We must not confuse Christianity’s mass popularity, with historical truth. To this date the only religion verified of divine origin is Judaism which was given by God, witnessed by 2 million people at Mount Sinai 3300 years ago. Without witnesses to an event, any religious claim is merely that, just a claim and not fact.
10. What does “The Chosen People” actually mean?
Rabbi: In a generation of nations following idolatry, Abraham was the sole monotheist. Through reason and proofs, he taught people that stars, idols and superstitious beliefs are powerless and that there is a single cause for the universe, and to Him alone one must subjugate himself. God desires the good for mankind, so He established a nation emanating from Abraham and his seed from Jacob as a people who would eventually receive Torah for the purpose of correcting the world. In this manner, the Jews were “chosen” by God, to share God's word with all mankind.