Judaism + Covenant?

Question

I was in class today and i asked this question to my religious teacher and he didnt know the answere...

What is the importance of the covenant for the jewish people??

Answer 1

I find it most interesting - and sad - that your religious teacher could not answer... and it seems that few on Yahoo Answers can either. I am quite flabbergasted and expected at least a few Jewish replies to your question.

You asked, "What is the importance of the covenant for the jewish people??"

There are a few covenants between God and people so I will restrict my answer to the Abrahamic covenant specifically because that is the most important of all.

A covenant is a union of two or more lives. Covenant is when two become one. The very fact that God chose to deal with His people by means of covenant shows that He wants to be one with Mankind, that He wants an intimate and real relationship with us.

God promised Abraham that He would bless him. That speaks of a father / son relationship because the blessing almost always comes from a father to his son. God promised Abraham that he would then become a father of a multitude. This man whose heart was so full of love that he took on a fatherly role in the lives of his nephew and servant would finally become a father himself...

His wife, Sarai, was barren but because of His covenant promise to Abraham, God miraculously allowed her to fall pregnant at 89 years of age and Isaac was born. The Jews come through Isaac so without the covenant they would not even exist today.

God also promised Abraham that through him ALL the families of the earth would be blessed. That happened by Jesus being born from Abraham's lineage because in Jesus all the families of the earth can now enter into a covenant relationship with God as their father.

Therefore, as a gentile believer in Jesus, I would have to say that the covenant means everything, really. Without the covenant there would be no Jewish nation at all and there would be no hope - not for the Jews or for the world.

I hope that helps you!

God bless

Answer 2

Covenant Judaism

Answer 3

According to Wikipedia, the covenant was made between God and the Jewish people's representative, Abraham. So, the covenant is important to all Abrahamic religions, which would include both Christianity and Islam. The word "covenant" refers to any number of agreement made between the Israelites and God as well as the "new covenant," which Christians see as the final fulfillment of these earlier covenants.

Wikipedia goes on to state, "God's covenants with the Israelites are foundational to the Torah, as well as to the Tanakh in general, and form the grounds for the claim that the Israelites are God's "chosen people." According to the terms of these covenants, the Israelites were told that they must worship God and obey His Commandments in order to receive spiritual and temporal blessing and avoid exposure to the effects of the curse." So I guess, really, that's why the covenant was so important to the Jewish people. It essentially established the Jewish religion and it's rules and became the "Chosen People" of God.

Answer 4

You can't learn the importance unless you become Jewish and live as a Jew.

It's not that it's some secret we don't tell people. It's just impossible to learn the inner workings of a relationship without having that relationship.

Shalom,
Gershon

Answer 5

They were protected except when they sinned. They were taken out of the land of Egypt. They received the Ten Commandments. They were protected from their enemies in the desert. They were given the promise land, etc etc etc.