Covenant In Jewish Culture Essay

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Judaism is a faith that puts much emphasis on the relationship with God in which referred as “covenant”. The idea of “covenant” is a personal relationship between God and believers that are developed individually (BBC, 2009). This relationship is mainly reflected in four aspects, including Jewish history, culture, symbol and rituals. Section one focuses on the idea of covenant and how it is conveyed through the Jewish history while section two considers the Jewish culture and symbols from which covenant takes place. Section three then examines some of the rituals in which covenant act as a basis.

The idea of covenant represents the exchange between God and the people. Jews follow God’s words and deem to bring holiness to their lives in exchange of God’s good deeds. A
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Although nearly half of the commandments are not applicable in this decade (Danzinger, 2013), these commandments have shaped the Jewish culture. Kosher food, has been a significant part of Jewish life as they strictly comply with the rules and separate food that has milk in it from food containing meat. This is based on the Torah that “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”(Deuteronomy 14:21). Jews are only allowed to consume “ritually slaughtered meat” while they cannot consume any pork, rabbit or camel (Leaman, 2014). Moreover, another part of Jewish culture that is of paramount importance is prayers recitation. Jews recite prayers three times a day, visit the synagogue on Saturdays and carry out Sabbath, which means the day of rest(Cohn-Sherbok, 2010). On day of Sabbath, Jews are not allowed to use electricity or kindling a fire as these are actions related to act of creating. Jews stop themselves from creation on Sabbath so as to make time for God and show that God is indeed in charge of their lives (Palatnik, Wein, and Shapiro, 2004). This once again, shows the covenant between God and its