Are there any Jews or Muslims out there please? A serious question (not evangelism) follows.?

Question

I believe that baptism is common to Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and that all three would probably see it as pointing back to Abraham crossing the Euphrates as he made his way from Ur to the promised land and later, of Moses leading the Children of Israel out of Egypt and across the Red Sea.

Could you please explain what role it plays in your belief system?
When and why does it takes place?
Do you have debates about baptismal regeneration in your religion?

No replies from Christians please.

An indication of your school of thought/teaching would be appreciated.

Answer 1

In response to answer #2, I have one correction to make. A mikveh does not have to be specifically a man-made pool. The provisions of Talmud for the nature of a valid mikvah is aimed at man-made mikvehs, however, it must be noted that all the world's lakes, rivers, seas and oceans are considered to be valid mikvehs and have been so since the beginning. See Genesis 1:10 as proof "And G-d called the dry Eretz (land), and the MIKVAH (gathering) of the waters He called seas..." In Russia the Jewish community will chop holes in the ice covering the lake and imerse in the middle of winter. Of course they were smart and had a roaring fire with hot blankets waiting for them afterwards. Many Jewish communities don't have a man-made mikvah and will use locally available natural collections of water.

To understand the use of the Mikvah, you must first understand the concept of the two states of being - Tahor (pure) and Tamai (impure). A quick reading of Leviticus 15 would give a good start for your understanding of this matter. Scripture indicates many things which bring a person into a state of Tamai: being in a building with a corpse, touching a grave, having a discharge, touching something contaimated by someone with a discharge, etc.

In each case the person is instructed to bath and remain ritually impure until the beginning of the next day (sunset). While in America it seems like the mikvah is just for women (it has become something like the Jewish beauty salon), in Europe many of the Orthodox men would go to the mikvah daily. The mikvah is unlike Christian baptism in that you are not permitted to wear anything into the mikvah, not so much as a hair ribbon nor even lipstick (speaking for women of course). So before the mikvah can be used the user must wash completely and go over all their hair with a finetooth comb making sure that no hairs are stuck together, they scrape their skin to remove any dead skin cells and adhesions. Only after they are completely clean are they to enter the mikvah. I doubt if any Christian group would go through all of this prior to baptism, nor are they likely to do this in a completely naked state. Although I am told that 2000 years ago the baptisms were conducted naked to show that they were bringing nothing of themselves in, this stopped being the practice after perhaps 3 centuries. The other obvious difference is that Christians usually only go through one baptism in their life (unless they change denominations), while in Judaism the mikvah is used frequently.

Obviously "baptismal regeneration" is not something that is debated in Judaism. But there are plenty of debates on the subject of the mikvah. There is an entire Tractate Mikvaot in Talmud that debates many different aspects of the practice. I assume you are asking whether the water itself is what makes a person pure - I guess I would say no more so than the ashes of the red heifer would purify a person. It isn't the water that does it, but we are still commanded to obey the practice as an act of faith. Obedience in faith grants us Chesed (mercy) from Above. The mikvah is one of the many mitzvot that we can act in faith to perform.

As noted by another person here, the mikvah is also used as part of the conversion process. That is about as close to the concept of "baptismal regeneration" as Judaism would approach. The perspective convert has to talk to a group of rabbis, do the various things which they would instruct, (circumcision for males obviously), make an acknowledgment of faith, renounce all other religious systems, and finally, go through the waters of mikvah. Did the water "regenerate" the person and make them a Jew? No, not really, but it is part of the process. I have heard that 2000 years ago there was some degree of this sort use of the mikvah going on in Judaism where if you wanted to enter into the school of a particular rabbi he would have you go through the mikvah first. And perhaps that was the concept that was being practiced by "John the Baptist". Actually of course, Hebrew has no letter "J" so "John" wasn't his name. Rather his name was "Yochanan". And "Baptist" wasn't even a word back then. The Greek word BAPTISMO meant "immersion". The only reason that "Baptism" came to be an English word is the fact that so many Christian groups were no longer practicing immersion (they were pouring or sprinkling instead) that the translators of the Bible decided it would be prudent not to translate the word because it would cause too many people to ask questions, and those questions might tend to lead people back to following the Biblical practices of the Jewish community. So, they adapted the Greek word. The Latin Vulgate did this first by adapting the Greek word into BAPTISMUM -- again no more a Latin word than the word "baptism" is an English word. So, when the early Jewish "Christians" started taking Gentiles into the faith, they were probably thinking very much along these lines of Jewish conversion when they had them immersed in water. It was determined that physical circumcision was no longer a primary prerequist for this conversion, but certainly the statement of faith and immersion of water were still mandated. The Gentile (a word from the Latin meaning "pagan") was to give up their pagan beliefs and accept a new faith. They had to move towards living lawfully, by not practicing idolatry, not eating strangled meat, and avoiding blood. (Acts 15:20) They didn't say anything about them no longer lying or no longer living as theives, so presumably they expected them to continue learning of the instructions of G-d and to continue moving towards a righteous lifestyle. Otherwise it would mean that they were expecting this new believer to live as a man of lawlessness, which presumably would not be the case.

You might try an experiment in your own life and see if you find this practice is spiritually helpful to you. At the end of your work week, when you are burdened by the cares and concerns of the mundane world, go and wash yourself completely and then go sit in a hot tub, and meditate on the nature of pure versus impure, pray a bit and then immerse yourself. You would probably find that before your heart was feeling anxious about a multitude of problems, but that afterwards you felt much calmer and more spiritually focused. You might try this as an experiment in your own life and see how you feel.

Don't worry about this somehow violating the Christian principle of "one faith, one baptism". If it were a violation of that then it would also have to mean that you could never practice your faith again after practicing it once. Rather understand this to mean a continual practice of the one faith and that, even if you enter into sin, you still repractice your faith. Likewise, even if you enter into impurity (as you read of in Leviticus 15), you can still reimmerse yourself in water.

Answer 2

Well I am a Christian, but I feel comfortable answering for two reasons:

1. There is no provision in the YA terms of service that allows a uiser to forbid others from answering.

2. Muslims and Jews do not baptize. Islam's "initiation" if you will is saying the prayer called the Shahada, but this is not related to baptism in any way, does not involve any water or another person. Judaism had the mikveh, but if the "Antiquities" historian Josephus was correct, John's baptismal movement does not appear to be related to that - Josephus, like the Christian scriptures, calls what John did "baptism" too.

The mikveh pool has rigorous requirements in terms of size and depth, (and those requirements existed even back then, since the pools at Masada met the requirements), whereas John just baptized in an ordinary un-approved river, without all the ritual requirements normally associated with the mikveh. Also a mikveh is not a rite of initiation and can be used many times, where baptism is a "once only" affair.

Answer 3

I'm Jewish. There is no such thing by us as baptism. Although, the baby does have a Bris (circumcision) which brings him into the covenant of G-d. This comes from the bible when G-d instructed Abraham to have a bris and we Jews do it since then. (Abraham's son Ishmael was 13 at the time and also had a Bris. Therefore many Muslims have a bris at age 13).

If someone converts to Judaism - no matter how old - he must have a bris. Part of the process of conversion is going into a "Mikvah" as others mentioned before. A person who is born Jewish does not have to go into the "Mikvah" when they are born - only a woman after her menstruation cycle.

Every religious (orthodox) Jew follows these rules and there are no debates about it. It is not exactly being baptized but as close a connection that I can get.

Answer 4

In Muslim culture, there is no baptism but ablution and a bath. Before the prayer or recitals we perform ablution or take a full bath. There are details. When the ablution only and when the complete bath. In ablution, they wash hands,mouth,nostrils,face, elbows, then wipe with wet fingers( to remove the dust if any) the knap,ears and then feet are washed. It is not once in a life time. Bath is a necessity after copulation with married partner, male or female. They also wash genitals after the natural matter is evacuated. Then they perform ablution before offering ritual prayer or reciting The Book. A new born baby is given a wash. After about a week, the head is shaven, and the male-baby may be circumcised then or any time later. Contrary to hearsay, females are NOT to be circumcised. This may have been a custom with some tribe, but not a religious order. Hence no female circumcision. Both men and women are required to remove pubic and armpit hair, and trim the nails of hands and feet.

Answer 5

Hello :)

I'm a Muslim.

There is no such thing as baptism in Islam. We believe that everyone, regardless of any differentiating factors whether it be race, status, ethnicity, etc., is born Muslim. To be born Muslim means simply to be born with the inherent belief that there is but one God and with an inherent understanding of what is right and wrong. The fact that there are so many different religions/beliefs in the world is simply the product of the child being taken out of this natural state of Islam by his parents/society etc.

I would like to add that we Muslims also believe that a lot of people, regardless of what they claim to believe, are Muslim. Essentially that they do believe there is no God but the one true God who created everything. Who is the first and the last, who has power over everything. "Who begets not, nor is he begotten." ((Quran) I do not remember the number of the chapter/verse off the top of my head but if you like, I can find out for you))

Peace :)

Answer 6

Mikvah is a "ritual bath" used for immersion in a purification ceremony within Judaism. Its main use nowadays is by Jewish women to achieve ritual purity after menstruation or childbirth. Immersion in a mikvah is also required during a traditional conversion to Judaism

Answer 7

I'm Jewish