Judaism

• What is the mitzvah? (covalent)

  • ‘Commandment’ - good deed
  • Gives guidance for how to live in the world
  • some Jews take that guidance very seriously
• Bar mitzvah= ‘son of commandment’

  Bat mitzvah = ‘ daughter of the commandment’
• Against the mitzvah

  • others don’t seem to make sense like mitzvah not to combine wool and linen
  • not even the holiest rollers can do every mitzvah, some are obsolete like stoning while others are not actually possible like anything involving the temple which destroyed 2000 years ago
• It’s a mitzvah to not combine milk and meat

  some will wait 6hrs between eating a burger and eating cheese
• Why take mitzvot?

  • The same reason kids follow their parents rules
  • they must trust the source
  • you might not feel like practicing every day, over time the commitment gets easier and the discipline will go stronger and faster. just like the same way of practicing a piano.
  • the point is that the better connecting to the mitzvot the better connection to the holy.
• Key moral princooled

  • justice - brings out what is fair and right , according to the law , or making up for a wrong that has been committed/ “ to do justice and to love goodness“ ( micah 6:8)
  • healing the world - to help Hods work in sustaining the world , example: a charity which can help the poverty
  • kindness to others- “ love your fellow as yourself“ Leviticus 19:18
• Sanity of life 


  life is scared and holy because it has been created by God

  jews have a duty to save a persons life if they can , even if this breaks a Jewish law this is called pikuach nefesh

  • God has the right to take a life away Jews are against murder or active euthanasia as these quicken a persons natural death
• sanity of life evidence


  in genesis 2 when it tells how God breathed life into adam and the whole creation - life is there for scared because it was given by God

  • God gave us life so that means he is the only one that can take our life away.
  • “ he who destroys one soul of a human being, the scripture considers him as if he destroyed a whole world “ Sanhedrin 4:5
• Pikuach nefesh


  Pikuach nefesh emphasises how valisble human life is to Jews, as it puts human life above Jewish law

  s belief in the sanity of life is behind the concept of pikuach nefesh.

  example of the laws that could be broken to save a persons life is:

  • jews are required to observe Shabbat
  • im the talmud - rescuing a child from the sea or putting out a fire
  • driving a sick person to hospital or performing a life saving operation
• Against sanity of life

  • difficult to know what’s Gods plan for a person is
  • whether trying to save a patient is interfering with his plan or not example: some Jews tho k the duty to preserve life means a patient should be kept alive at all costs
  • a pairnts destj shouldn’t be prolonged if they are in great pain
  • pikuach nefesh shows how a human life is valuable so they should try and save them no matter what because it can be part of Gods plan