The most important and foundational things to know about Judaism, including core beliefs, practices, texts, figures, and holidays. Everything you wanted to know about Judaism, condensed into a top 10 list:

One God

The foundation of Judaism is the belief in the one true eternal Creator God, the source of all things in the cosmos and beyond. God is referred to by many different names and titles in the Torah (more on the Torah below), but the most significant of these is יהוה, a name that is unpronounced (for how can infinity be contained within one word?) Instead, Jews refer to God as Adonai (in our prayers) or Hashem (in day-to-day speech). The deeper meaning of this Ineffable Name is that it is a conjugation of the verb to be, lihyot, in past (hayah, היה), present (hov’eh, הווה), and future (ihyeh, יהיה) tense combined. God is infinite, and spans all time. Other titles for God in the Torah are Elohim (always used in the singular, but technically in the plural to indicate that God is the root of all powers and forces), El Shaddai (“the Sufficient God”), El Elyon (“The Supernal God”), El Chai (“the Living God”), and Makom (literally “Space”, denoting God’s existence throughout all dimensions and across space). Another foundational belief of Judaism is that God not only created the cosmos, but also delivered a set of teachings and laws referred to as the Torah (literally “instruction”).

Two Worlds

Every letter in Hebrew is also a number. The first letter of the Torah is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, beit, meaning “house” and having a numerical value of two. Among other things, this is to indicate that we live in an inherently dualistic universe: there’s good and evil, light and dark, hot and cold, war and peace, physical and spiritual, male and female, positive and negative, right and left, particles and antiparticles, etc. Similarly, there is “this world” (Olam haZe) that we know and currently inhabit, with all of its tests and challenges, pleasures and pains, positives and negatives; as well as a peaceful and paradisaic “World to Come” (Olam haBa). While the body may die and decompose, the soul continues to live on, whether in other realms or returning to this one as a gilgul (“reincarnation”) in a new body.

Three Patriarchs

God originally created a perfect world, inhabited by Adam and Eve, the first civilized humans imbued with a divine soul. The first couple made a choice (eating from the “Tree of Knowledge”) that brought evil into the picture. With each generation, the world got more and more sinful, until ten generations later, in the time of Noah, God “reset” civilization with a Great Flood. Ten more generations later the world had again descended into sin and suffering. This time, there was a man who recognized the world cannot continue as is, and decided to launch a “reset” movement of his own. This man was Avraham (“Abraham”), who became the first of Judaism’s Avot, “Patriarchs”. Abraham started to teach the world about monotheism, justice, righteousness, morality, and ethics. God then chose Abraham to forge a new covenant (brit). Henceforth, Abraham and his descendants would be God’s “representatives” on Earth, tasked with spreading the light of truth and divine morality. As part of the covenant, God promised Abraham and his descendants the Holy Land of Israel. This is the land in which Abraham dwelled in the second half of his life.

Abraham’s covenant with God passed on to his son Itzhak (“Issac”), and then to his son Ya’akov (“Jacob”). Ya’akov went on to have twelve sons, and to be renamed “Israel”, with each of his sons eventually fathering a distinct tribe. One of these sons, Yosef (“Joseph”) rose to power in neighbouring Egypt. He went on to welcome the rest of his family to settle in Egypt temporarily while a drought raged in the Holy Land. In Egypt, the Twelve Tribes of Israel turned into a very large nation before being terribly enslaved. Centuries later, God liberated the Israelites in miraculous fashion, and brought them back to their Promised Land. This series of events is commemorated on the great holiday of Pesach (“Passover”).

Four Matriarchs

Ya’akov fathered his twelve sons (plus a daughter) through four wives: Rachel, Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah. The mothers prophetically named each of their children as they were born. The fourth son of Leah was called Yehudah (“Judah”) from the root word meaning “to thank” (lehodot). Later in history, most of the other tribes were defeated by larger empires and exiled around the world. The Kingdom of Yehudah lasted the longest, and maintained its identity in the short Babylonian Exile, following the destruction of the first Jerusalem Temple (previously built by King Solomon).

During the Babylonian Exile and subsequent period under Persian rule, all the other Israelite tribes were assimilated into the tribe of Judah (Yehudah), which thus became another name for the people of Israel. “Judaism” (Yahadut) became the name for the official religion and religious practices of the “Judah” nation. “Judaism” is essentially first mentioned in that form in the Book of Esther, which recounts how many Gentiles were mityahadim, or converting to “Judaism”, following the great victory of the Jews over their enemies in the Persian Empire. This miraculous event is celebrated each year on the holiday of Purim. (Aside from converts that become Jewish by choice, Judaism is passed on matrilineally. Any person born to a Jewish mother is automatically Jewish.)

“Judaism” is a fitting name for the religion of Judah because much of Judaism is centered around gratitude (the meaning of Yehudah’s name), and thanking God for all that He provides us. There are three daily prayers in Judaism, and additionally a Jew recites blessings of gratitude on everything from eating a small snack to getting a new suit; upon hearing thunder, sighting the new moon, and many other natural phenomena.

Five Books

After liberating the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, God led the people through the Wilderness to a place called Mount Sinai. There, He uttered ten statements, often referred to as the “Ten Commandments”, during a profound national revelation witnessed by the entire nation. This incredible event is commemorated and celebrated on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. The leader of the people at the time was Moshe (“Moses”), who then ascended the mountain to learn directly from God, and begin recording God’s Word. These divine instructions were recorded in a five-volume book called the Torah (literally “Instruction”).

The first of the five books is Beresheet (“Genesis”), recording the history of the world from Creation until the arrival of Ya’akov and his family of seventy in Egypt. The second, Shemot (“Exodus”), describes the bondage in Egypt, the subsequent redemption of the people, the events at Mount Sinai, and the structure of the Mishkan, the mobile sanctuary that God commanded the Israelites to build and carry with them through the Wilderness. The third book, Vayikra (“Leviticus”), is mostly focused on priestly rituals and sacrificial offerings. In the middle of Vayikra is the so-called “Holiness Code” that includes famous adages like “love your fellow as yourself”. The fourth book, Bamidbar (“Numbers”), tells the story of the Israelites during their forty years in the Wilderness. Finally, Devarim (“Deuteronomy”), summarizes and builds on much of what the Torah said previously, and records the final inspiring words of Moses to his people before his passing at the age of 120. The Torah ends with something of a cliffhanger, as the Israelites are at the border ready to enter the Promised Land.

Six Orders

While writing the Torah, Moses also received a set of oral instructions and explanations from God. Moses relayed these teachings as he was presenting the written Torah to the people, and explaining God’s laws. These teachings are referred to as the “Oral Torah”, and bring the “Written Torah” to life! They were transmitted by prophets, elders, kings, priests, parents, and teachers for centuries. In the first century of the Common Era, the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed by the Romans, and a large majority of the Jewish people were scattered across the Roman Empire and beyond. This tragic event, along with other tragedies in Jewish history, is commemorated on the ninth day of the month of Av, or Tisha b’Av, a solemn fast day on the Jewish calendar.

Amidst the exile, destruction, and harsh conditions that Jews had to endure, the oral teachings of Judaism began to be written down to preserve them so that they would not be lost. The core of the oral law is called the Mishnah (literally “repetition”, as they were learned and memorized by rote repetition), first put to writing in the second century of the Common Era. The Mishnah is arranged into six sedarim, “orders”. Many more teachings of an allegorical nature were recorded in texts of Midrash (literally, “exegesis”), while mystical secrets were preserved in texts of Kabbalah (“reception”). In the centuries that followed, these teachings were further debated and discussed by the Jewish Sages, and these debates and discussions were recorded in the Gemara or Talmud (literally “learning”).

Seven Days

The Torah begins with the account of Creation, teaching that God brought forth the cosmos and everything in it over the course of six days, and then rested on the seventh. Of course, an infinite and omnipotent God unbounded by time or space has no need for a “week” or for a day of rest. The Torah presents us with this account because it is for us to learn how to structure our own lives and divide up our schedules. We are taught to be productive six days of the week, and then make sure to have a day of complete rest from our labours on Shabbat (the “Sabbath”). Keeping the Sabbath is absolutely vital, and the laws of Shabbat are among the most extensive in Judaism.

Going back to Creation, the seven-day narrative is not entirely allegorical, and does, in fact, contain many cosmic truths about the origins of our universe and planet. Countless texts and commentaries have been written about this one chapter of the Torah (including an entire multi-volume series called Tikkunei Zohar that spends hundreds of pages exploring the Torah’s first word, Beresheet!) In recent centuries and decades, discoveries by scientists have only confirmed the Torah’s account of Creation, including that there were once “large lizards” (taninim gedolim) that no longer exist, and that all things emerged from a “singularity” of energy and light at the start of time.

Eighth Transcendence

The reason that seven is particularly special is because it represents the internal, spiritual world. Everything in our three-dimensional physical universe has six sides. The number six therefore represents the physical, external, material world. The seventh is what’s “inside the box”, representing the inner dimensions. Eight, meanwhile, is about transcending the box entirely and connecting to the infinite. (It is fitting that the global symbol for infinity is a sideways eight!) The number eight appears throughout Judaism and Jewish practice. The concluding holiday of the high holiday season in the Jewish month of Tishrei is called Shemini Atzeret, “the eighth rest stop”, and comes right at the end of Sukkot, when we dwell in huts filled with God’s “Clouds of Glory”, giving us a taste of the transcendent. A couple of months later, we celebrate Chanukah and kindle lights for eight nights to reveal some of God’s infinite, transcendent light to the world. And every male child is circumcised on the eighth day as a sign of the covenant, and to bind him eternally to his Creator. Female children are not circumcised, for they are said to be born automatically “circumcised”! Women naturally have a stronger bond with their Creator, gifted with the divine power of producing new life.

Nine Immortals

Fundamental to Judaism is the belief that a person who is righteous, moral, and follows God’s law with the right intentions, will be immortalized and live on, even after the body dies and decays. According to Jewish tradition, there were nine special people in history who were so great that not only did their souls live on, but even their bodies did, too. The first of these was Hanokh (“Enoch”), a descendant of Adam in the pre-Flood generations. The Torah tells us that he did not die, but was simply “taken” by God. In mystical texts, it is revealed that he was transfigured into a chief angel called Metatron, who later played a key role in teaching and guiding Moses, and later still encountered some of our greatest sages, including Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva. Other chief angels important in Judaism are Michael, Israel’s guardian angel, and Gabriel, the angel typically tasked with meting out God’s justice, as well as Raphael, literally “God’s healer” and Uriel, “God’s light”.

Another of the “nine immortals” is Eliyahu (“Elijah”), one of the great prophets described in the Tanakh. The Tanakh refers to the entire corpus of Holy Scriptures, starting with the Torah of Moses, followed by the works of later prophets, or Nevi’im in Hebrew, and concluding with holy texts composed by other great leaders like Kings David and Solomon, called Ketuvim (“Writings”). “Tanakh” is an acronym for these three parts of the Scriptures, arranged into a total of 24 books.

Eliyahu is a key figure in the Tanakh, which describes how he did not die either, but was rather taken up by God in a “fiery chariot”. Because he didn’t die, Jewish tradition expects Eliyahu to return at the End of Days, to identify Mashiach, the true “Messiah”, and to help restore the world to an idyllic Garden of Eden-like state. On the holiday of Pesach (mentioned above), Jews commemorate the Exodus out of Egypt, or the “First Redemption”, with a special meal and seder, at the end of which we symbolically open the door in the hopes of Eliyahu’s return, and the subsequent “Final Redemption”.

Meanwhile, the “fiery chariot” that took up Eliyahu was also seen by other prophets like Ishayahu (“Isaiah”), Daniel, and Yechezkel (“Ezekiel”), who gave the most detailed description in the first chapter of his book—one of those 24 in Tanakh. The details of this “chariot”, or Merkavah, are a central focus of Jewish mysticism, or Kabbalah. Another major focus of Kabbalah is the notion of Ten Sefirot:

Ten Sefirot

When reading the first chapter of the Torah, one finds that God “speaks” ten times in bringing the cosmos into existence. These “Ten Utterances” allude to ten divine energies through which God created the universe. These energies are called Sefirot, and imbue every aspect of Creation. They parallel the ten base digits (from 0 to 9) that give us all of mathematics, correspond to the various celestial bodies in the solar system, and to our own body parts. All patterns of “ten” in the Torah relate directly to the Ten Sefirot, including the Ten Commandments, the Ten Plagues that God brought forth upon Egypt before the Exodus, the Ten Trials of Abraham, and the Ten Trials of the Israelites in the Wilderness.

Together with the 22 divine letters of the Hebrew alphabet (“the language of Creation”), the Ten Sefirot make up the “32 Paths of Wisdom”. The Ten Sefirot also correspond to the special Ten Days of Repentance at the start of the Jewish month of Tishrei. These are the days from the holiday of Rosh Hashanah, best known as the “Jewish New Year” but also, more significantly, a “Judgement Day” when all of mankind is judged at the Heavenly Tribunal for their actions in the past year. At the end of the Ten Days of Repentance is Yom Kippur, the “Day of Atonement”, when a repentant person’s sins can be forgiven by God, and the person can start the new year with a clean slate.

Finally, the Ten Sefirot also correspond to the major stages of history. Right now, we are in the ninth stage, corresponding to the ninth Sefirah of Yesod, or “Foundation”. This era comes with many tests and tribulations, as we see all around us in the world today. With the forthcoming arrival of Mashiach, we will transition into the tenth and final stage, Malkhut, “Kingdom”, referring to a renewed divine kingdom on Earth when the peoples of the world will finally unite and live in peace and prosperity, and as the prophet Zechariah wrote, “God will be king upon the entire Earth; on that day God will be one and His name one.”

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Lots more information:

What Are the Jewish People “Chosen” For?
Archaeological Evidence for the Torah
Jewish Prophecies That Have Been Fulfilled
Understanding the Arab-Israeli Conflict