Question for the Jewish community?

Question

do you believe in angels?
Is Hannukah the biggest holiday and if not, what is?
are there different groups like in the Christian community i.e. Catholic, Christian, Baptist and so forth
what types of gifts do you exchange on hannukah

Answer 1

1) Judaism does believe in Angels.

They appear all through the Bible and Talmud.

There is a prayer called Shma al HaMitah that observant Jews say before they go to bed. One of the prayers asks that 4 major angels be stationed at the 4 sides of the bed while we sleep and another prayer asks that 60 minor ones be stationed around the bed to protect against harmful spiritual beings.

2) Hannukah is religiously the most minor of the commonly celebrated holidays. That's because it's a rabbinical Holiday, and most of the others are directly from the Torah. The other Rabbinical holiday, Purim, is bigger because Kabbalists put a lot of emphasis on it.

The biggest Jewish holiday in importance is the weekly Sabbath, followed by Yom Kippur.

COmmercially Hannukah is the biggest Jewish holiday in North AMerica because the Jews there make it big so there kids don't feel left out.

3) THere are different groups, but they are split differently than in Christianity. In Christianity the splits are over how they interpret different ideas from the BIble. The splits in Judaism arose in the last 200 years and are over how they relate to the idea of G-d.

In AMerica and Europe (in Europe names differ) the split is something like this:

Orthodox Judaism believes in a literal, personal G-d who gave the TOrah at Mt. SInai and will judge people for their actions.

Reform believes these things are metephores and each person should figure out what's right for himself.

Conservative is somewhere in the middle. I dn't really know what that means.

Within Orthodoxy there are thousands of groups with differences in practice and outlook. Most of the time they all respect the other has a point, or a tradition, and will marry without qualms. If they don't marry each other it has more to do with feuds between the groups based on history and some idea of how to proceed against some challenge than disagreement about religious ideas. They don't think each other are going to hell.

THe exception is that Haredim and Modern Orthodox won't marry each other, because Haredim consider Modern Orthodox to be like Reform, and Modern Orthodox wouldn't be attracted to Haredim anyway.

4) Gift giving on Hannukah is an American invention to make the kids not feel left out during the Christmas season. Families who do this tend to have different ways of doing it. Most give a little gift each of the 8 days. SOme really interesting people make the gift bigger every night.

Traditionally children recieved Chanukah Gelt, which was a few coins and some nuts and candy to go play dreidel with. They and their friends would play this spinny top gambling game, called dreidel, with the nuts and candy. The Jews played dreidel in the Hannukah story to disguise from their oppressors they were really learning Torah.

At the end, whatever candy you lose you can go replace withthe Hannukah gelt.

Answer 2

I believe in angels. I have one on each should who look out for me. Some Jews say there are 5 angels-back, front, each side, and overhead.

Hanukkah is a minor holiday. Rosh Hanshana, Yom Kippur, Passover, are three of our important holidays.

There are Orthodox, Conservatives, and Reform-----each having a different viewpoint of how observant they should be.

Gifts are usually for children. Tho anyone can get them. The gifts are like your Christmas gifts. Except for one particular gift for the children---this is gelt (gold money). It is candy wrapped to look like gold coins.

Answer 3

1. No.
2. No - Sabbath.
3. Yes. Reform, conservative, orthodox, a few others.
4. The sames kinds of things that you folks do.

Answer 4

i dated a guy who's cousin was 1/2 jewish does that count

Answer 5

Jews are nothing like Christians they don't even believe in Jesus for Christ sake