Jewish Body example essay topic

Hence, it is here that we can appreciate the central importance occupied in Judaism by the belief in the belief in the resurrection of the dead. The belief in the resurrection of the dead expresses the absolute truth that the expiration and corrosion of the body is but only a temporary phenomenon. The truth of the matter is that the body is a very sublime entity, in fact an eternal one. Rabbi Shneur Zalman explains in the Tanya (chap 49) that the Torah statement of G-d having "chosen us from every other nation and tongue" (Daily Morning Prayers) applies to the body which "bears in its corporal state an identical resemblance to the bodies of the nations of the world" (Tanya, chap. 49). G-d did not chooses the Jewish soul at Sinai, but the Jewish body.

What Rabbi Shneur Zalman means to say with this radical pronouncement is this: One cannot contend that the element of the Jew chosen by G-d is the soul, for what kind of choice could there possibly be with a soul. The nature of real choice is that it can only exist amongst identical, or at the very least, extremely similar objects. If one is told to choose between a pile of ashes and a pile of gold, is there really a choice? Must one enter into any conscious or even subconscious to determine which one should select? Real choice exists only where the objects to be chosen are alike. Thus, the quality of "chosen" possessed by the Jewish must pertain to the body and not the Jewish soul.

For the Jewish soul, by virtue of its inordinately high spiritual character, made a choice between it and another spiritual form impossible. The Jewish soul is said to be a part of G-d Himself. What choice could there be? What emerges from this proof is that the body is the possessor of sublime virtue and is the chosen of G-d.

G-d's choice has lent to it the quality of permanence. G-d chose the body not for seventy or eighty years, but for all time. And although the body may die and disintegrate, this is only a provisional state. In the messianic epoch the body will once again rise in the resurrection and will exist for ever and ever.

The belief in the resurrection of the dead forms a basic foundation of the Jewish faith. Thanks to this belief, one knows that the physical body, to which one dedicates one's entire effort in Torah and mitzvot, and for whose elevation one toils eighty or ninety years, is an eternal entity. One's struggle on behalf of the body will never be in vein. The body dies temporarily, only to reawaken to everlasting eternal life.

As the famous principle of Talmudic law teaches, "Any change that reverts back to its original condition is not considered to be a change at all" (Bava Kamma 67 a; Sukkah 30 b). Thus, the ongoing battle to purify, refine, and uplift the body and all of material existence has an eternal result. As one can see the Pittsburgh Platform is much more humanistic and tolerant to other religions. 3. The formation of Holy Scriptures of Christianity, Judaism and Islam was influenced by many political and social events. Many scientists suggest their origins to be not the divine inspiration but the borrowing from older ones and adapted to the particular region and epoch.

The sacred books that make up the anthology modern scholars call the Hebrew Bible - and Christians call the Old Testament - developed over roughly a millennium; the oldest texts appear to come from the eleventh or tenth centuries BCE. War songs such as Exodus 15 and Judges 5 are very archaic Hebrew and celebrate Israelite victories from the time preceding the Israelite monarchy under David and Solomon. However, most of the other biblical texts are somewhat later. And they are edited works, collections of various sources intricately and artistically woven together..