Wow, it’s been a long time since I posted anything here, huh?

I have a lot of writing topics built up, but I wanted to note here that yesterday I had the opportunity to serve as a panelist for an Interfaith Program to Promote Harmony and Understanding, sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Northwest Indiana (of which I am currently a board member), and hosted by the Indian American Cultural Center near my home in Merrillville. A panel of laypersons representing the Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, and Sikh communities – plus me repping the Jews – answered questions about our respective faiths, followed by a meet and greet with community members. It was a delightful event and really interesting to hear about the similarities and differences among our religions.

I didn’t work entirely off my prepared notes, in the end, but I wanted to share them here for anyone coming back to take a look.

1. Describe the central tenets of your faith.

In terms of belief, there are really only a few that characterize Judaism. The foremost one is that there is only one God, creator and ruler of the universe. The second is that, although that God is universal, the people of Israel have a special relationship with God, a covenant. This covenant was made between God and the Israelites at Mount Sinai, when God gave the Torah, or God’s Teachings, to the Jewish people. 

The Torah is the foundational text of Judaism, and there are actually two parts to the revelation. The “Written Torah” consists of five books. In Hebrew the titles are Bereishit, Shemot, Vayikra, Bamidbar, and Dvarim, but in English they are known as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These 5 books make up the first section of the Hebrew Bible, or what is known to Christians as the Old Testament. Besides the Written Torah, Torah she bi’chtav, there is also an Oral Torah, Torah she-b’al peh, which was originally passed down as an oral tradition that eventually also was written down. This is what became the Talmud, which means “study”, and it’s essentially a very lengthy, broad and deep commentary on the Written Torah. 

Part of what the Torah and the Talmud teach us is a system of commandments, things that God wants us to do and not do. The Hebrew word is mitzvah, literally commandment, and the plural form is mitzvot. The Talmud tells us that there are 613 of these mitzvot in the Torah; 248 are Positive Commandments, things we must do, and 365 are Negative Commandments, things we must not do. Traditional Judaism holds that observance of these commandments is an essential part of the Jewish relationship with God. Many of them are universal or ethical rules: Don’t kill. Don’t steal. What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor – these are the words of Rabbi Hillel. However there are many other mitzvot that are specific to the Jewish people and have to do with maintaining a particular level of holiness. Observing the Sabbath is one of these, or the dietary laws of kashrut – keeping kosher, or the laws of sexual purity. These things don’t apply to the other nations of the world, but you’re supposed to hold to them if you are Jewish.

There are many other ways in which to frame the Jewish approach to living in the world. But there is another well-known saying in the Talmud that the world rests on three pillars: Al ha-torah, v’al ha-avodah, v’al gemilut chasadim – on the study of Torah; on service to God, which formerly meant literal sacrificial rites but now is carried out through prayer; and on acts of loving-kindness. These are the essence of what it means to be Jewish.

2. Tell us about an important Holiday you celebrate.

The most important holiday on the Jewish calendar is actually one that occurs every week: the Sabbath, the day of rest, which in Hebrew is called Shabbat. This observance is so important that it is enshrined in the Ten Commandments, and the biblical consequences for breaking it included the death penalty. Needless to say, this is no longer enforced to quite that degree. But as the Jewish writer Ahad Ha’am famously said: “More than Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews.” It is described as an oasis in time, a sanctuary in time as much as the Temple in Jerusalem is a sanctuary in space. Shabbat begins at sundown on Friday – actually eighteen minutes before sundown, and it is brought in with a special ritual of lighting two candles and saying a blessing. We are supposed to put on our nicest clothes, go to synagogue for a special prayer service, and return home for a festive meal. Jews who observe the Sabbath do not drive cars, use electricity, cook food, spend money, discuss work matters. or any other kinds of prohibited work. It is a day when we are supposed to put our worldly pursuits aside and create space in our lives for rest, prayer, Torah study, family and community. The Sabbath ends at sundown on Saturday evening with another short ceremony called Havdalah, or separation, which involves a candle, a cup of wine, and a box of spices, whose scent is supposed to help ease us out of the transcendance of Shabbat and ground us in our return to the workday week.

Out of the holidays that occur only once a year, the most important is probably Passover, in the spring, which commemorates the exodus of the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt into the freedom of the Promised Land, now known as the Land of Israel. The other contender is the pair of holidays coming up shortly: Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. These fall 10 days apart and together they are known as the High Holidays or High Holy Days, because they are the most spiritually elevated. So when you see Rosh Hashanah approaching on the calendar, you can wish your Jewish friends “Happy New Year!”

3. Describe a significant ritual you practice.

Judaism has hundreds of rituals, big and small, but I’m going to focus on one you can see performed in most synagogues at least once a week, and this is the ceremony of reading from the Torah, what we call the Torah Service. 

A Torah scroll is among the most sacred ritual objects in Judaism. The entire text of the 5 books of the Torah is handwritten on a parchment scroll, rolled on wooden handles. The parchment is usually about 2 feet tall, 18 to 24 inches, It is written in columns from right to left, on parchment panels that are sewn together into a long scroll. The scroll can be over 85 feet long when unrolled all the way! 

The parchment of the Torah is not supposed to be touched with your hands, so the scroll is stored and carried in a cloth cover called a mantle, which is usually beautifully decorated. It is also typical to have ornate metal decorations that hang on the scroll or the handles; sometimes this is shaped like a crown, as if for royalty, and sometimes there’s what is called a breastplate, a flat metal decoration that is similar to the breastplate once worn by the High Priest in the Temple in Jerusalem.

In every synagogue, the Torah scroll, or scrolls if they have more than one, are kept upright in a special cabinet called the Aron Kodesh, or Holy Ark, in the front of the sanctuary. During the Torah service, the ark is opened, and the scroll is carefully lifted out and carried around the congregation. Each member of the congregation typically will touch the cover of the Torah scroll as it passes by – usually not directly with their fingers, but either with the fringes on their prayer shawl or with the corner of their prayer book. Then you kiss the book or the fringes as a sign of reverence. 

When the scroll gets back up to the front of the synagogue, it is laid out on a special broad table to be opened and read. The reader uses a special pointer called a yad (the Hebrew word for hand) so that their own hands, again, do not touch the parchment. The text is written in the scroll without any vowel marks, or what we call trope marks that show how the melody is to be chanted. So the reader has to study the passage beforehand out of a different book to make sure they know how to read it from the scroll! 

When the reading is concluded, the scroll is lifted by the handles and held straight up for a few moments so that the congregation can see some of the columns of text. Then it is wrapped up in its decorations, paraded around the congregation once again, and returned to the Aron.

4. Tell us about a prayer that is central to your faith.

There is one prayer that is most central to Jewish observance throughout the ages, and that is a one-line prayer known as the Shema, which means “Hear” or “Listen”. The full text is “Shema Yisrael, HaShem Eloheinu, HaShem Echad.” Listen, Israel: HaShem is our God, HaShem is one. 

This line comes from the Torah, it is from Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4, where Moses is speaking to the Israelites before they complete their journey into the Promised Land. But it is both the simplest and the most important prayer that a Jewish person can recite. Because it is the simplest, it is often the first prayer that a young child learns to say. The Shema is recited twice a day as part of communal prayer, in the morning and evening service, and it is also recited privately before you go to sleep. It is also the last prayer you are supposed to recite before you die, so that you are sanctifying the name of God. 

When I asked my 9-year-old daughter what prayer she thought was most important, I thought the first one that would occur to her is the blessing over bread, which she learned in preschool and is supposed to be recited before every meal. But she actually thought of the prayer for healing, which is a blessing recited during the Torah service for the speedy and complete recovery of all those who are ill in the community. 

5. Tell us how you celebrate a major life event, such as the birth of a child, becoming an adult, marriage, etc.

At birth we have what is known as brit milah, the covenant of circumcision, which takes place at 8 days old. This is when a baby boy becomes a full member of the Jewish people, and his name is announced to the community for the first time. There is no physical ritual of this nature for girls, but for a baby girl there will commonly be a less formal ceremony known as a baby-naming, which can be done in the synagogue as part of the Torah service, or can be done at home with friends and family. This likewise is the first time that the baby’s name is shared publicly.

Probably the best known Jewish life cycle event is the bar or bat mitzvah, which is the religious coming-of-age when a child turns 13. Religiously, this is the transition when a young person is held to be responsible for their own observance and performance of mitzvot, such as keeping kosher or lighting Shabbat candles. It also means they are allowed to be called up to the Torah as an adult, and to carry out public ritual roles such as leading the prayer service and reading from the Torah scroll. This is how the bar mitzvah has come to be a focal point of a child’s Jewish education, and a major cultural touchstone in American Judaism. It’s not meant to be a graduation from responsibility, it means you have had your basic training and you’re ready to take on an adult role in the life of the congregation. 

I won’t get into wedding customs, although those are fun, but I will talk a little about the Jewish traditions around the end of life. When a Jewish person dies, the lifeless body is supposed to be treated with utmost care and reverence until such time as it can be buried. Jewish burials do not allow for an embalming process, this is considered desecration of the body; this is one reason Jewish funerals typically take place within a day or two after the person’s passing. There is typically a group of volunteers in the community known as the chevra kadisha, the holy society, or the burial society, who take care of the ritual requirements around caring for the body and preparing it for burial. This includes sitting with the body around the clock, washing it and dressing it a certain way in plain linen garments. This is considered the ultimate act of kindness since the deceased person can never repay it. When a loved one dies, the family members are supposed to tear their clothing as a sign of mourning – nowadays this is often done symbolically with a special ribbon pinned onto the clothing. After the funeral, the family members enter a period known as shiva, which is the Hebrew word for seven, because it lasts for up to seven days. As a sign of mourning, the bereaved family members will traditionally sit on the floor or on low stools instead of in regular chairs – this is why it is commonly known as “sitting shiva”. Mourners are not supposed to go out, so the rest of the community will come to them, to pay their respects and gather for a prayer service, where the memorial prayer called the Mourner’s Kaddish is recited. The family members will then recite the Mourner’s Kaddish every year on the Yahrzeit, or anniversary of the person’s death.

Erica Schultz Yakovetz grew up in Valparaiso and now lives in Merrillville with her husband Aaron and 9-year-old daughter Aria, who is in the 4th grade. In between, she lived in Boston and New York City for almost 25 years. Erica has been active in the Jewish community throughout her adult life, and is currently a member of Congregation Beth Israel in Munster, where she helps read from the Torah each week. In her professional life, Erica is a graphic design and communications professional, and has worked for Orthodox Jewish private schools as well as the Jewish Federation of Northwest Indiana. Visit her Etsy shop at schultzyakovetz.etsy.com for Judaica graphic art prints, stationery and more.