Do you have questions about Traditional Judaism?

[Moishe3rd]

Peace be upon you,

I have a question I wish to be answered. So I know there are branches of Judaism & that they don't accept each other as legit.
Basically Orthodox is accepted by everyone, but they don't accept everyone else, is this true? And is it really like that in practice or just in theory? I mean like Orthodoxs walking around telling Reforms they are not real Jews, etc.

Thanks in advance.

No.
Everyone who is born of a Jewish mother is a Jew, not matter if they are totally divorced from being a Jew.
Torah observant Jews, ie: "Orthodox", might indicate to non observant Jews that they should be observant Jews and obey the Laws of the Torah and G-d but - we all still be Jews.

 

[Moishe3rd]

One more question @rosends .....is being Jewish generally regarded as a nationality or a religion? For example I have seen someone described as a Jewish atheist. Can there be such a thing?



I heard someone say once that to ask 10 Jews a question is to get 10 answers and they will all be right.....is that what you mean here? Is there no definitive answer from anyone on the meaning of this anecdote?



How do Jewish people today feel about keeping the law? Does today's world make it harder?

Being a Torah observant Jew is neither a religion, nor a nationality. It is a way of life.
Anyone born of a Jewish mother or who converted to become a Jew according to Jewish Law - is a Jew. Soooo... I guess you'll have to decide whether that means its a religion or a nationality.

Another way of putting that would be that if there are two Jews having a discussion, there will be three different opinions.... Jews tend towards contentiousness.
We learn that the reason that the Second Temple was destroyed was because of Baseless Hatred of one Jew towards another Jew. We learn that the reason that the Temple has not been rebuilt for the last 2,000 years is because we still suffer from Baseless Hatred.

No. Today's world makes it wonderfully easy to keep Jewish Law. It is a joy and blessing that Jews in even the recent past could not even dream of having it so easy!
Easy. Good. Not difficult at all!

 

[Moishe3rd]

what is the age of mankind, when was adam and eve? not the earth.

Either 5,774 years or - according to Rabbi Isaac of Acco; about the 12th century; about 15 billion years... That would be the generations of Man BEFORE Adom and Chava though....
On the Gripping Hand, the question might be when did Adam become Adam as opposed to a hominid animal? I suspect somewhere around 6,000 years ago or so....

 

[jaybird]

thanks for the replies guys. the 6k years im assuming is the generation calculations like the traditionalist do on my end. but i think a lot about the ancient megalith sites all over the world, the underwater cities, precession dating and oral tradition (many of the oral traditions around the world sync) which all point to a much older date. the stories of the ancient cultures can also be found in the Tanakh but their dates are much older.
i think mankind is much older than we think and i believe the Tanakh to be correct as well and maybe we are missing something.