Foundations of Belief

God, peoplehood, the soul, and why

Who is a Jew?

Jewish identity has both a Halachic definition and a wider self-understanding. The two do not always coincide.

By The Editors

Judaism is the world’s founding monotheism. The nature of the One God is a question on which the tradition speaks in many voices.

By The Editors

Yes — and the tradition speaks of the afterlife with restraint, multiplicity, and a strong focus on this life as primary.

By The Editors

Jesus does not match the Tanakh’s Messianic criteria and his divinity violates Jewish monotheism. The answer is that simple — and that careful.

By The Editors

Halacha is the Jewish legal system — the way one walks. It is the operating language of observant Jewish life.

By The Editors

Shimon HaTzaddik: “The world stands on three things: Torah, Avodah (service of God), and acts of loving-kindness.”

By The Editors

“Repair of the world.” A term with a deep Kabbalistic origin and a wide contemporary application — both worth knowing.

By The Editors

The Journey of the Soul — Gilgul Neshamot in Jewish Thought

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Three classical answers — the rationalist, the kabbalist, and the Hasidic — and why each is illuminating.

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The Jewish discipline of character refinement — old as the Talmud, formalized in the 19th century by Rabbi Yisrael Salanter.

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The great 18th-century split that still shapes the contemporary Orthodox world.

By The Editors

The Jewish mystical tradition — the inner Torah, esoteric and beautiful, central since the 13th century.

By The Editors