Judaism

Though often spoken of as a "Western" religion and linked with Christianity (as in "Judeo-Christian tradition"), Judaism has its origins in the Middle East. Judaism is a spirituality which indeed gave birth to Christianity, and later played a role during the emergence of Islam. But Judaism as we know it began almost 4,000 years ago among a pastoral/nomadic and later agricultural people, the ancient Hebrews. Judaism is characterized as a religion of deed, a "Way" by which human beings are capable of understanding and responding to God's teaching.

In Judaism as it developed, prayer services emerged which recapitulated the main stories and themes of Judaism, from the universal Creation by the Universal God to the Revelation of God's Teaching to Moses and the people at Mount Sinai to the Redemption of Israel and all humanity. It is a way of life in which all Jews are equally responsible as "a Kingdom of Priests and a Holy People."

Jews celebrate the recreation of the moral order of the world and the rebirth of the soul at the beginning of the religious year (Rosh Hashanah) and the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), a ten day period of spiritual introspection and moral resolve. The home celebration or service which relives in story and song, ritual and prayer, the Exodus from Egypt at the Passover (Pesach) season is called a Seder celebration. Its themes reenergize Jewish social consciousness, Jewish hope and vision of a better day for all.

Orthodox Judaism conceives of the entire corpus of Jewish observance, the received tradition, as equivalent to having been given by God at Sinai and therefore unchangeable except through procedures which were themselves given at Sinai. Conservative Judaism finds its way between these two positions.