Any Jews around, a genuine question

[DreamBream234]

Im a Christian, and Im curious about Judaism.

Jews believe they are the chosen people and they dont encourage converts...so why were the rest of us created....what do Jews believe will happen to the goys (non Jews).

Christians, Muslims and other faiths preach their faith so that others may be "saved" why isnt this the case for Judaism....

@User2460177 nice derailment into zionistic philosophy, clearly Orthodox Jews don’t consider the previous poster's comment to be antisemitic…

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/161006/jewish/Should-a-Jewish-State-Have-an-Army.htm

There you go.

A "quick flick through" and you're assuming a "gotcha" attitude... There is thought about every letter in the Torah, thousands of years of study, and differing opinions about almost everything.

I wasn't looking for a gotcha I asked a theological question.
The original Hebrew is "Lo tirtzach", which means "Do not murder". The Hebrew word for killing is "hariga", a completely different verb. There is a world of significance in this choice of words.
Murder is the taking of innocent life, which is always forbidden. Killing is the taking of any life, which is sometimes permitted or even obligatory. The Bible commands us to kill those who have irreversibly lost their innocence. There are two categories of such people:
1) Someone who is found guilty in a court of certain crimes, such as murder or kidnapping.
2) Someone who is posing a clear and direct threat to the lives of innocents. An example would be an armed gunman who breaks into someone else's home (Exodus 22:2).
Surely from the link you attached neither of those 2 categories apply either?

And to add - you've chosen an exceptionally ambiguous commandment as an example...

What does it mean to love yourself? Is, eg, brushing your teeth in the morning an act of loving yourself? Should you then brush your neighbour's teeth? And who is your neighbour? Everyone? Fellow Jews? Only those who are neighbourly? What about future generations to come?

It seems to me that both those categories apply. But you can continue twisting a complex reality into a simplistic lie if you'd like... I think I've contributed to the OP enough, so I'm off.

It is refreshing to hear about a religion that doesn't want to convert everyone else.
I am a committed atheist, jewish heritage on one side many, many generations ago when my paternal family came over to England escaping persecution.

I was taught love thy neighbour as thyself basically was treat others as you wish to be treated, which I've always thought as a fairly straightforward rule. And the link wasn't clear does it say "Lo tirtzach", or "hariga" in the Torah?

The point I was trying to make was in Catholicism if you break "thou shall not kill" you go to Hell for all eternity, no do overs, no amount of penitence can get you out, there's no wiggle room or loopholes to get you out of eternal damnation. So I understand Judaism believes in 7 heavens but no Hell so what does breaking a Mitzvot rule do?

I don’t know about that specific organisation “Jews for Jesus” although I’ve heard of them but Messianic Jews ie. Jews who believe in Jesus are a thing and definitely not considered automatically anti-Semitic. And yeah they’re Christians.

I think they believe there’s only a small
number who will go to heaven but then the rest of the converts will be in the new paradise which will be established on Earth after Armageddon? Not entirely sure though - could be wrong I just know a little bit from family friends!

Theres a lady I follow on Instagram who is Orthodox, she’s American so I don’t know if some things differ slightly in ways of tradition but she did a video about this.

https://www.instagram.com/miriam.ezagui?igsh=enFpM3ljNjJ3cDJw

I love watching her videos. They explain things really well and it’s an incredibly interesting religion.

Ok, a couple of things. Firstly, you could put the 'Chosen People' thing another way. According to the Torah, lots of nations were asked if they would keep the Torah and, to cut a long story short, they all said no. Then the Jews were asked and they said 'We will listen and we will do' - which means actually that they did the choosing. Judaism is all about your relationship with G-d.

To answer the question about sins, basically, if you do a mitzvah, your connection with G-d becomes stronger and you grow. If you do a 'sin', you are distancing yourself from G-d and putting a barrier up between yourself and that connection and growth. If you want to 'repent' - the Hebrew word for this is Teshuva which literally means 'to return' - ie - to find a way back to the relationship you want to have with G-d and the closeness you are meant to have. There are 3 stages to this - 1 - acknowledging that you have done something wrong. 2 - feeling sincere remorse (including sincerely apologising to anyone you might have hurt or upset and making it up to them however you can) and 3 - promising to (try) never to do it again. If you have been on that journey then you are actually a different person to the person who 'sinned' in the first place as you have had all that growth.

Loving your neighbour as yourself does in essence mean to treat other people how you would like to be treated. However, it doesn't mean to be a pushover and to not defend yourself if someone attacks you.

Sounds vastly more sensible than evangelical Christianity.

TBF the Judaism I've experienced, with a focus on critically thinking rather than blindly following, has always appealed. Dyed in the wool atheist though, so there's no hope. I think you can be born and live as an atheist Jewish person (I know a few) but converting to atheist Judaism seems odd.

There is also the line of reasoning that Jews are a race as much as a religion - it is passed through bloodline. Most Jews can trace their bloodline back through multiple generations (or at least those few who did not have families and records destroyed in the Holocaust).
In that sense, its like "choosing" to become black, or Japanese. Doesn't really work that way.

Judaism believes there are many paths to Gd, there is no "one true path". I have been taught by Christians that unless I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour I will go to Hell, even if I live a good life according to the 10 commandments, Noachide laws and 613 mitzvot. No pleasing some people.

Jehovah's Witnesses believe that - other than the very limited number who enter paradise - Christians (by which I think is limited to JWs) will be physically raised to live on Earth. Non-believers won't be resurrected, although they won't burn in hell either. JWs don't believe people go to hell.

We don't seek out converts because you don't need to be Jewish to go on your own spiritual journey, have a relationship with G-d and live a good life. If you are Jewish there are 613 laws (granted you can't keep them all as some are gender or Cohen (priest) specific or to do with having a temple, which we don't have any more) to keep. But if you aren't Jewish there are only 7 and they include things most people would agree with anyway like - don't murder and set up a court of law so that things are fair.

Thanks for the (authentic) posters willing to respond to this thread - it’s so interesting and enlightening.

Yes, Jews are a race/ethnic group but one can become Jewish through conversion. A converts children/grandchildren are likely to end up ethnicially Jewish also.

I have a parent who is a convert but lots of Jewish ancestors on the other side. (yes, with a family tree that literally goes back to King David lol) But even if I had 2 converts as parents I would still be 100% Jewish. (put it this way, Hamas did not ask people on October 7 if they were Jewish through ancestry or conversion...)

In the past, conversion to Judaism was less common because of antisemitism although it still happened rarely.

Converts are held in high regard - King David was the great grandson of a convert, Ruth. (female converts often choose the name Ruth)

The point I was trying to make was in Catholicism if you break "thou shall not kill" you go to Hell for all eternity, no do overs, no amount of penitence can get you out, there's no wiggle room or loopholes to get you out of eternal damnation

This is completely wrong.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_sin

SillySarnies, thank you for that reply. So Teshuva is kind of like going to confession for Catholics, but I was taught murder was unforgivable ( a bit of googling tells me as long as you repent you're ok so I've learnt something new) and only blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness is there something similar in the Mitzvot?

That's really interesting, so instead of passively enjoying the status of a saviour having taken responsibility for us, the Jewish thinking is to take your own responsibility. I really like that.

Irish Christian atheist here. I mention Irish as there aren't many people to ask really.

I'm Catholic too and only learnt this on Saturday while helping DS with an RE past paper question!

There is some type of Hell, I was taught (Orthodox Jewish) that when we pass away we go to either Gan Eden (heaven) or Gehenom. (hell). But Gehenom is not permanent, eventually your soul gets to go to Gan Eden. Another way I was taught is that your soul is in such anguish when you sin becasue it wants to be close to God but can't, so its in gehenom. (We don't know what Gehenom is like, it may just be further from God which is suffering for the soul).

Non Jews, as it was said before, do not need to become Jewish. We are the chosen people in that we got to spread Monotheism to other nations.

There are 7 Noahide laws for Non Jews. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/62221/jewish/The-7-Noahide-Laws-Universal-Morality.htm (I beleive there is a community of people who call themselves Noahides but don't know too much about them)

Teshuvah is complicated, in theory if you are repentant anough you can do teshuva. In reality probably many murderers/rapists/sexual predators are not able to do an authentic teshuvah. Note - in Temple times the torah had the death penalty for murderers.

This reminds me of religious Jewish kids programs in which the bad guy ends up doing teshuva and becoming a good person. (marvelous midos machine anyone. :))

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/607499/jewish/Teshuvah-Repentance.htm

This is what always gets me about organised religion.

I had a horrible Jewish boss who’d try to make me upset by screaming and yelling at me several times a day (usually because his hearing aid wasn’t switched to and he couldn’t hear me!) and it was interesting when Yom Kippur came around as I knew it was day of atonement but didn’t realise you had to reflect on this before you atoned. Anyway, after this he was still nasty to me (and others) so I think he fooled himself that he was living a good life.

He was basically a sad, lonely old man whose wife had died younger than expected, he wanted to remarry (was interested in me at one point!) but never did and really only worked for something to do and his son worked at the same practice so they went for lunch together. I don’t doubt he was a good Jew in other ways.

Similarly, with my ex colleague who bullied me and was really nasty and unpleasant to me. She was a practising Catholic and I asked her once or twice how often she went to confession and her answer was always never. I did pointedly ask her once didn’t she think she had things she needed to confess, but she wasn’t very self aware and thought she could do no wrong.