The Judaism Portal 5 Av 5786Judaism (Hebrew: יַהֲדוּת, romanized: Yahăḏūṯ) is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of observing the Mosaic covenant, which they believe was established between God and the Jewish people. The religion is considered one of the earliest monotheistic religions. Judaism as a religion and culture is founded upon a diverse body of texts, traditions, theologies, and worldviews. Among Judaism's core texts are the Torah (Biblical Hebrew: תּוֹרָה, lit. 'Teaching'), the Nevi'im (נְבִיאִים, 'Prophets'), and the Ketuvim (כְּתוּבִים, 'Writings'), which together compose the Hebrew Bible. In Modern Hebrew, the Hebrew Bible is often referred to as the Tanakh (תַּנַ׳׳ךּ, Tanaḵ)—an acronym of its constituent divisions—or the Miqra (מִקְרָא, Miqrāʾ, '[that which is] called out'). With some differences in order and content, what Christianity calls the Old Testament has the same books as the Hebrew Bible. (Full article...) Selected Article Temple Israel is a Reform Jewish congregation in Memphis, Tennessee. It is the only Reform synagogue in Memphis, the oldest and largest Jewish congregation in Tennessee, and one of the largest Reform congregations in the United States. It was founded in 1853 by mostly German Jews as Congregation B'nai Israel. Led initially by cantors, in 1858 it hired its first rabbi, Jacob Peres, and leased its first building, which it renovated and eventually purchased. The synagogue was one of the founding members of the Union for Reform Judaism. It experienced difficulty during the Great Depression—membership dropped, the congregational school was closed, and staff had their salaries reduced—but conditions had improved by the late 1930s. In 1943 the synagogue changed its name to Temple Israel, and by the late 1940s membership had almost doubled from its low point in the 1930s. Rabbi Jimmy Wax became known for his activism during the Civil Rights era. In 1976 the congregation constructed its current building, closer to where most members lived. Wax retired in 1978, and was succeeded by Harry Danziger, who brought traditional practices back to the congregation. He retired in 2000, and was succeeded by Micah Greenstein. As of 2010[update], Temple Israel has almost 1,600 member families. Greenstein is the senior rabbi, and the cantor is John Kaplan. (Read more...) Did You Know?Did you know...
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Weekly Torah PortionVa'etchanan (ואתחנן)
Deuteronomy 3:23–7:11
“And now, O Israel, give heed to the laws and rules that I am instructing you to observe, so that you may live to enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you.” (Deuteronomy 4:1.)
 Moses pleaded with God to let him cross over and see the land on the other side of the Jordan River. But God was wrathful with Moses on account of the Israelites and would not listen, telling Moses never to speak of the matter again. God directed Moses to climb the summit of Pisgah and gaze about to look at the land. And God told Moses to give Joshua his instructions and imbue him with strength and courage, for Joshua was to lead the people and allot to them the land. Moses exhorted the Israelites to heed God's laws, not to add anything to them, and not to take anything away from them, so that they might live to enter and occupy the land that God was giving them. Moses noted that in the sin of Baal-peor, God wiped out every person who followed Baal-peor, while preserving alive those who held fast to God. Moses argued that observing the laws faithfully would prove to other peoples the Israelites’ wisdom and discernment, for no other great nation had a god so close at hand as God, and no other great nation had laws and rules as perfect as God’s.  Moses urged the Israelites to take utmost care not to forget the things that they saw, and to make them known to their children and children's children: How they stood before God at Horeb, the mountain was ablaze with flames, God spoke to them out of the fire, and God declared to them the Ten Commandments. At the same time, God commanded Moses to impart to the Israelites laws for them to observe in the land that they were about to occupy.  Because the Israelites saw no shape when God spoke to them out of the fire at Horeb, Moses warned them not to make for themselves a sculptured image in any likeness whatever — the form of a man, woman, beast, bird, creeping thing, or fish. And when they looked up and saw the Sun, Moon, stars, and heaven, they were not to be lured into bowing down to them or serving them, for God allotted those things to other peoples, but God took the Israelites and brought them out of Egypt to be God’s very own people. Moses said that God was angry with him on account of the Israelites, and God swore that Moses would not enter the land but would die in the land east of the Jordan. Moses cautioned the Israelites not to forget the covenant that God concluded with them, and not to make a sculptured image, for God is a consuming fire, an impassioned God. Moses called heaven and earth to witness against the Israelites that should they make for themselves a sculptured image when they were in the land, then God would scatter them among the peoples, leaving only a scant few alive. There in exile they would serve man-made gods of wood and stone, that would not be able to see, hear, eat, or smell. But when they were in distress and they searched for God with all their heart and soul, returned to God, and obeyed God, then they would find God, even there. For God is a compassionate God, Who would not fail them, let them perish, or forget the covenant that God made with their fathers. Moses invited the Israelites to consider whether in any time or space any people had ever heard the voice of a god speaking out of a fire and survived, or any god had taken one nation from the midst of another by prodigious acts and awesome power as their God had done for them in Egypt before their very eyes. Moses said that it had been clearly demonstrated to them that the Lord alone is God and there is none beside God. Moses thus admonished them to observe God’s laws and commandments, which Moses enjoined upon them that day, that it might go well with them and their children, and that they might long remain in the land that God was assigning to them for all time. Then Moses set aside three cities of refuge on the east side of the Jordan to which a manslayer who unwittingly slew a person without having been hostile to him in the past could escape and live: Bezer among the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead among the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan among the Manassites. Moses summoned the Israelites and called on them to hear the laws and rules that he proclaimed that day, to study them and observe them faithfully. At Horeb, God made a covenant with them — not with their fathers, but with them, the living, every one of them. God spoke to them face to face out of the fire on the mountain. Moses stood between God and them to convey God’s words to them, for they were afraid of the fire and did not go up the mountain. God said the Ten Commandments: 
God spoke these words to the whole congregation at the mountain, with a mighty voice out of the fire and the dense clouds, and God inscribed them on two tablets of stone, which God gave to Moses. When the Israelites heard the voice out of the darkness and saw the mountain ablaze with fire, the tribal heads and elders asked Moses to hear all that God had to say and then tell the people, and they would willingly obey.   And Moses imparted God’s instruction, the Shema and V'ahavta, saying: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when thou rise up. And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house, and upon your gates.” Moses exhorted the Israelites, when God brought them into the land and they ate their fill, not to forget the God who freed them from bondage in Egypt, to revere and worship only God, and to swear only by God’s name. Moses warned the Israelites not to follow other gods, any gods of the people about them, lest the anger of God blaze forth against them and wipe them off the face of the earth. Moses warned the Israelites not to try God, as they did at Massah, but to keep God’s commandments and do what is right in God’s sight, that it might go well with them, that they might be able to possess the land, and that all their enemies might be driven out before you them. And when their children would ask the meaning of the commandments, they were to answer that they were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and God wrought before them marvelous and destructive signs and portents, freed them with a mighty hand to give them the land, and then commanded them to observe all these laws for their lasting good and survival. Moses told the Israelites that when God brought them to the land and dislodged seven nations before them — the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites — the Israelites were to doom them to destruction, grant them no terms, and give them no quarter. The Israelites were not to intermarry with them, for they would turn the Israelites' children away from God to worship other gods, and God’s anger would blaze forth against the Israelites and wipe them out. The Israelites were to tear down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred posts, and consign their images to the fire. The Israelites were a people consecrated to God, and God chose them from all the peoples on earth to be God’s treasured people. God chose them not because they were the most numerous of peoples, but because God favored them and kept the oath God made with their fathers. Moses told them to note that only God is God, the steadfast God who keeps God's covenant faithfully to the thousandth generation of those who love God and keep God’s commandments, but who instantly requites with destruction those who reject God. Hebrew and English text TopicsAssociated WikimediaThe following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
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