Question: How did Judaism start?
Answer: The following is a brief overview of the history of Judaism:
ABRAHAM: FATHER OF MONOTHEISM:
Abraham was born in 1812 BCE in the city of Ur in Ancient Mesopotamia. According to Jewish tradition, he spent the first 40 years of his life questioning the polytheistic ideas of the surrounding culture, eventually coming to the conclusion that all of existence comes from a single source – a primal infinite Being that we call God. Once he was confident in the truth of his theory, he began to publicize his ideas through writing, teaching and public debates, and eventually built a movement of tens of thousands of people committed to a belief in one Creator and the philosophical principles which are an outgrowth of that belief. G-d then appears to Abraham for the first time and tells him that his biological descendants will eventually grow into a nation which will live by the philosophical principles that he had developed and will be given the Land of Canaan as a national homeland (Genesis 12:1).
FROM FAMILY TO NATION: 500 years:
THE WOMB OF EGYPT AND THE COVENANT AT MOUNT SINAI
Abraham passes on his philosophical system to his son, Isaac, who in turn passes it on to his son Jacob (also called Israel – see Genesis 35:10), who then hands it over to his twelve sons (the families founded by these twelve individuals eventually grew into the twelve tribes of Israel). A famine occurs in the Land of Canaan in 1522 BCE, forcing Israel and his 70 member family down to Egypt (Genesis 46:8), where after 210 years (94 of them as slaves), they grow into a People of approximately 3 million, retaining their separate philosophical, cultural and linguistic identity as Hebrews. They are led out of Egypt by Moses the Prophet in 1312 BCE, and about 50 days later, find themselves awestruck at the foot of Mt Sinai, where God reveals Himself to the Nation as a whole, and proclaims the 10 Commandments. God seals a covenant with the Israelites, whereby they commit themselves (and their descendants) to follow the path of life which God will reveal for them (a path that would incorporate the philosophical system developed by Abraham). Moses then ascends Mt Sinai alone, and God teaches him all the details of that path. The enormous body of legal and moral principles revealed to Moses form the content of what is called “TORAH” – the term incorporating the Five Books of Moses as well as the Oral tradition found in the Mishna and Talmud (36 volumes).
A NATIONAL HOMELAND: 1200 YEARS
In 1272 BCE, after 40 years of traveling in the Sinai Desert, the Israelite Army, led by Joshua, conquers the Land of Canaan and inaugurates a period of over 1200 years of National experience in the Land of Israel, focused around the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem which existed for approximately 800 of those years (combining the 1st and 2nd Temple periods).
EXILE AND RETURN:
In 70 CE the Roman army destroys the Second Temple (the first was destroyed by the Babylonians about 500 years earlier) and from this point onwards, the majority of Jews live in various communities outside the Land of Israel. For the next 1900 years, the Jews in exile pray 3 times daily to be able to return to their homeland and in 1948 the dream is realized with a majority vote in the United Nations to allow the re-establishment of a Jewish State in the Land of Israel.