and... here's BB!
Orthodox Jews are traditional Jews and can be divided up in many ways while still all being orthodox. When BB gets to the thread if he wants he can go into some of the differences between the modern and ultra, sefardic, hasidic, etc. They strive to keep all of the 613 mitzvot(commandments) as explained in the Talmud.
there are two main ethnic groupings, namely the ashkenazim, which means literally "germans", but actually refers to all jews of european or eastern-european extraction, in other words anyone from the original communities in france, germany, poland, russia, hungary etc. the communities in the americas are generally from these places, too.
basically, the ashkenazis refer to non-ashkenazic jews as "sephardim", which literally means "spanish". like the ashkenazic definition, it is not, strictly speaking, correct, as it does not distingmish between those descended from families from iberia (such as the Moroccan, bosnian and turkish jews) who were expelled from iberia after 1492 and those from communities that never lived in spain and portugal, such as the persians, iraqis and yemenites. these communities are more properly referred to as the "eidot mizrah" or ‘communities of the east’. there are a few more groupings like the ethiopian jews and so on, but generally this is a really heterogeneous grouping.
the sephardic and eidot mizrah communities don't have reconstructionist, liberal, reform, conservative, masorti, modern-orthodox, hasidic denominations; this only really happens in the ashkenazic world. generally, it's an ethnic identity which ranges from the secular, like the art collector charles saatchi to the ultra-orthodox, like the "shas" political party in israel.
if you want to know about the various denominations within orthodox and ultra-orthodox ashkenazic jewry, feel free to ask.
6. Christians place a lot of importance in the Garden of Eden story as the fall of man. How does Judaism treat this?
this episode is one of the most mysterious, multilayered and difficult to understand parts of the Torah. many different concepts are derived from it, particularly in the area of mysticism. this is enough for a thread on its own.
7. Faith healing plays a lot into Christianity as well. Are there elements of faith healing in Judaism?
i would say 'depends what you mean'. amulets are not the only thing; many of the hasidic rebbes are attributed mysterious healing powers by their followers and i've heard some of these stories first hand. similarly, the great sephardic kabbalists such as the baba sali are also attributed to have great healing powers. i'd say this is pretty uncommon outside the mystically-minded part of the ultra-orthodox world, but is quite popular in israel.
A statement is made that one execution in seven years is a bloody court.
in fact, that's seventy years. effectively, the standard of evidence is set so high that it's impossible to secure the death penalty. there is a considerable body of opinion that holds that the different penalties are actually meant to indicate the relative severity of the offence, rather than as actual tariffs. in other words, it shows what you deserve for committing such a dreadful sin, but stops short of carrying it out.
No. There cannot be new prophets unless certain conditions are met. I think the majority of Jewish people must be living in Israel for prophesy to happen again but I'm not sure. That's not to say there haven't been people in Jewish history who claimed to be prophets, but even if they were they would not be added to the canon, which is closed.
what we mean by prophecy is very, very specific. there are also specific ways of identifying a new prophet in an environment where prophecy is considered possible. by this logic, the only "true nevi'im" are jewish. obviously this doesn't preclude a level of prophecy for other faiths, which is assisted by the fact that the word for "prophet" in hebrew is "navi", which is different from the word in arabic used in islam, which is "rasul", meaning 'messenger'. some people have taken this to a chauvinistic extreme, unfortunately, but they're a bunch of eejits.
b'shalom
bananabrain
