The main beliefs of Judaism can be summarised in these 13 points:
- God exists
- God is one and unique
- God is spiritual and not physical
- God is eternal
- Prayer is to be directed to God alone and no other
- The words of the prophets are true
- Moses' prophecies are true and Moses was the greatest of the prophets
- The Written Torah (first 5 books of the Bible) and Oral Torah (teachings now contained in the Talmud and other writings) were given to Moses by God.
- There will be no other Torah
- God knows the thoughts and deeds of people
- God will reward the good and punish the wicked.
- The Messiah will come
- The dead will be resurrected.
The Jewish belief on the Messiah is that the Messiah is personal. It refers to a time in the future were their will be peace for all, and justice will be practiced. For Jews the world is plagued by injustice, terror and war, and many speak of a time of repairing or mending of the broken world.
There are 13 million Jews in the world today and of that 2 million belong to various forms of Orthodoxy.
Judaism includes various food laws, in which several foods are separated from Kosher (clean foods) and Treyf (unclean foods). Kosher foods include cow, turkey, lamb, chicken, duck, bass, goose, cod, pheasant and tuna. Pig, lobster, eel, oyster, catfish, scallops, shark, shrimp, clams and squid all fall under the Treyf foods which cannot be eaten.
Orthodox Jews pray daily, and the core of their worship is in the Sabbath. On the Sabbath all work stops, meals are prepared beforehand, so that from sunrise to sunset, Friday to Saturday is completely dedicated to rest and worship.
