Judaism is a fascinating religion. During my research for my project, I got my information from two sources: a pair of videos made by the Messianic Jew Michael Rood, and an online site dedicated to teaching people how to be a Jew.
My first bit of research occurred almost three weeks ago, when I attended a church service in which the pastor showed an hour-long segment of Michael Rood’s “A Rood Awakening.” Rood spoke a lot about Jewish culture and traditions, condemned many common Christian practices and holidays are being pagan, and so forth for an hour. The next Thursday a similar video from the same series was shown, and again I learned much about practices. On Monday I searched online for some more facts about Judaism, and found a great website called “Judaism 101” by the Jew Tracey Rich. It contains information about Jewish laws, practices, writings, and many other information, all formatted so that even a gentile such as myself could understand it. During lunch hour on Tuesday I put in another half-hour of research on this site, and that night after school I spent an hour and a half also on this site, fulfilling my five-hour requirement.
I learned an enormous amount about Judaism that I never knew before. I finally learned the definition of “Glatt Kosher,” which I had heard before but never made any connection with Judaism. I learned that the Hebrew Alphabet is read from right to left and the correct pronunciation of several Jewish words, including Yom Kippur (Pronounced Yome Kih-poor) and Jesus’ original Hebrew name (Ya-Shoe-Ah.) Laws concerning foods which I had only a vague idea of before were also highly interesting, as was the fact that the Kosher way of slaughtering an animal is considered the most humane way possible, and a Kosher diet is considered the healthiest possible diet. I also learned about the Hebrew way of reckoning days, months, and years. Very, very interesting.
This project affected me quite a lot. I’m now of the opinion that while I will never reject Jesus, Christianity is in desperate need of a reform. We break God’s law daily without ever knowing it, and worship pagan deities every time we celebrate a supposedly “Christian” holiday. I would definitely start keeping more Jewish practices if I could.
If I were to spend more time learning about this religion, I would do it by visiting a Jewish Synagogue and observing their service.
