Outline the principal beliefs of Judaism and demonstrate how sacred texts and writings provide a record of the beliefs of Judaism

What this dot point is asking

NESA wants you to outline the principal beliefs of Judaism and show how its sacred texts and writings record and communicate those beliefs. Treat Judaism accurately and respectfully, name the central teachings, and connect each to where it is recorded. This is the principal beliefs and sacred texts component of the Judaism depth study, examined in both Studies of Religion I and II.

The answer

The belief in one God

The foundation of Judaism is belief in one God: a single, transcendent, eternal creator who is the source of all that exists. This belief is famously affirmed in the Shema, the declaration that the Lord is one, recited in daily prayer. The oneness of God is the bedrock of the whole tradition.

The covenant

Central to Judaism is the covenant (brit), the binding relationship between God and the Jewish people. The covenant with Abraham and renewed with Moses at Sinai establishes the people as God's people, with the promise of relationship and land, and the responsibility to live according to God's law. The covenant gives Jewish life its sense of identity, calling and history.

The moral law

Through the covenant, God gives the law (Torah), including the Ten Commandments and the wider body of commandments (mitzvot). Living according to the law is the proper response to the covenant: it sanctifies daily life and expresses faithfulness to God. The law covers worship, ethics, justice and the ordering of community.

A divinely created and ordered world

Judaism affirms that the world is created by God, is good, and is ordered toward justice and righteousness. Human beings, made in the image of God, are called to act justly and to participate in caring for and repairing the world.

How sacred texts record these beliefs

• The Tanakh. The Hebrew scriptures, comprising the Torah (the five books of Moses), the Nevi'im (Prophets) and the Ketuvim (Writings). The Torah records the covenant, the giving of the law and the foundational narratives of the people, and is the most authoritative scripture.
• The Talmud. The record of generations of rabbinic discussion and interpretation of the law, comprising the Mishnah and the Gemara. It develops how the commandments of the Torah are to be understood and applied in daily life.

These writings preserve and transmit Jewish belief and provide the authoritative basis for practice and ethics.

How the written and oral Torah work together

Judaism distinguishes the Written Torah (the text of the Tanakh) from the Oral Torah, the interpretive tradition believed to have been given alongside it and eventually recorded in the Mishnah and Gemara that make up the Talmud. This relationship is the key to a strong answer: the Written Torah states the covenant and the commandments, while the Oral Torah works out what the commandments require in practice, for example translating the command to keep the Sabbath holy into the detailed laws of Shabbat observance. The variation between Orthodox, Conservative (Masorti) and Progressive (Reform) Judaism turns largely on how binding and how open to reinterpretation this tradition is held to be, which is why naming the texts and the interpretive process demonstrates real depth. In the exam, the discriminator is showing that the Tanakh records the foundational beliefs (the one God, the covenant, the moral order) while the Talmud transmits and applies them, so the two together form a living record that has sustained Jewish identity, ethics and practice across the centuries of the diaspora.