NOTE: I posted this video a few weeks ago but then removed it because, following some feedback, I decided to make some important changes. Those changes have now been incorporated and what you're watching here is the new, updated version.
@@GordonWrigley There are lots of little changes throughout but the two sections with the most "new" information are 19:46 (more about the Ashkenazi/Sephardi distinction) and 35:50 (more about Judaism outside of the US).
Matt, people on your sub Reddit said the first version of this video was very North American centric and could be misleading for people who aren’t informed on Judaism, as someone who isn’t Jewish how was the last video misleading?
@@caseycrowe3805In the first video, I pretty much only talked about Judaism in the US. In this new version, I also talk about Israel and some other countries.
I am Iranian Jew and an ICU nurse. Many times I have to work over Shabbat therefore I can’t observe it. I often feel bad about it . Thank you Matt for saying „pikuach nefesh“ . I really appreciate it .
If you eventually cover most Abrahamic religions, would you consider making a HUGE chart of all Abrahamic denominations. It could include the Christian denomination chart, the Jewish denomination chart, a potential Islamic denomination/school chart, and perhaps certain Dualistic movements, the movements of the black book, Druze and even Sikhism. Although this chart could only be made if you do an full Islamic denomination/school chart.
@@UsefulCharts Suggested title for your poster all about desert monotheism: _It Came from the Desert_ (Make sure there's no trademark, etc. trouble from the makers of the 1989 computer game. There shouldn't be. That company went defunct in 1991.)
@statutesofthelord in what ways? As a student of history and a jew im curious what he said was wrong (I can't seem to find anything but im in no way an expert on the subject)
@@jessd7947I was raised a Catholic and belief was never anywhere near enough for salvation. 90% of church sermons were about the importance of being virtuous, practicing tolerance and whatnot. Half of it was about the here and now and not about salvation. Overall, salvation was a natural consequence of a virtuous life. I think the author's view of Christianity was quite stereotypical, to be honest. It sounded like what other religions say about Christianity to feel like they're the adults in the room--the ones who follow rules to be virtuous, while Christians are just doing what they're told because they're afraid of hell.
@@VictorVæsconcelosI’d disagree. I grew up mainly conservative Protestant Christian and salvation was very much emphasized as a main part of Christianity because the view I taught was that salvation through belief made it different from many others. Not only that it was taught that this salvation is a gift and should be believed and accepted.
Wow!!! You converted!! Im just now starting the converting process to Judaism and this video is helping me to understand so much. Please continue to make videos about judaism if its ever in your interest (I'd love any resources you could give). I meet with a Rabbi in 2 days (on Friday) and Im so nervous and excited
Please find an Orthodox Rabbi and do a real Jewish conversion.. if you do. Reform and conservative is man made rules or lawless.. that is not Jewish and converting via them will not be considered Jewish when u go to Israel. It's simple.. you want to follow the laws given by God.
@@lovemytechy I agree with this (if perhaps worded a bit more soft lol). However it should be noted that Orthodox Judaism isn't easy and can be too much for most people. This isn't to say you should convert to Reform or Conservative since in all honesty that isn't actually converting. We'd love to have you! but it's in fact better to be a good non-Jew than to become Jewish if you aren't ready for it. And btw to all non-orthodox Jews, I'm not hating, I promise. I'd also feel like an observant Jew if I'd been born Conservative. However, if you trace its roots to its inception, you'll find there really isn't any basis for it being called "Judaism". I can gladly elaborate if anyone is perturbed by this.
Well said... @@WhoChus a good Jew is a life time work.. a good non Jew is as well.. just try to reach for your max potential in the correct path. Don't change the goal.. change yourself... No one can change a single law of God. Yes it's hard .. try your best no one expects more
Henry Abramson is great! Really enjoyed his lectures on Jewish history as they were some of the first quality ones that I could find on UA-cam back in the day. Also I found his commentary and expertise on Ukrainian history important in light of recent events
Mad respect im an isreali but i try my best to understand palstine i kinda get why they hate as in the arab isreali war we were evll but i dont get it if taiwan atked china they would die same thing with isreal and palstine but taiwan is improving it self palstine isnt.
As an Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Christian, we believe faith alone cannot save you, faith without work is dead. Just wanted to share that, God bless !
@KeenanModica whoaaaa. If Keenan says, it's true for sure. It seems you have known Catholics from all over the world for saying that. Am I right? Also We don't need to be around telling everyone we meet that we follow God's commandments. Such a pharisee thing to be doing without being asked about.
@@Joedem92i live in a catholic majority country. there are those that say they're devout catholic yet cheat on their partners + abuse their kids + do shit that's not in the commandments
They do ofc Im Turkish and i even know about that :D i cant belive how ignorant you are... Well assuming you are american or european whatever. I mean you have a wide christian enviroment, so you shouldve known some facts about your enviromental society's religion. I guess
Truly amazing video! As a Chasidic Orthodox Jew, i must say that this is the first time I see an observation on Judaism that's unbiased (especially about the chasidic community). So many good points about the origin and current status of all denominations.
@@CharlotteIssyvoo hello! I just wanted to ask why you put jews in quotations for the mixed messianic part. My Mom's side was reform but became messianic, and my dad's side is african american with a few denominations of christianity mixed in. I grew up away from Jewish circles and culture besides food and high holy days, so I'm just wondering how messianics are perceived within the community. I've moved away from it myself, I'd say I'm back to the reformed tradition, but I've just had little interactions with so I'm unfamiliar with really most of it haha Also sorry for the long reply, I hope it didn't come off negatively :) Edit- also my mom's side is ashkenazi if that changes anything
@@CharlotteIssyvoo ahhh I see, that's interesting! I've never heard someone refer to the trinity as polytheism, but that actually makes a lot of sense. I'm 19, so I'm just kinda starting to figure out the "doing Jewish" thing. kinda funny how the timing is similar haha. I'd like to talk to a rabbi, but I also don't exactly look Jewish (at least what americans consider Jewish), so I've kinda felt out of place in synagogues (although I've only been once or twice). Do you know if that's something I should worry about? This is probably a stupid question and you don't have to keep responding I'm sure you have other things to do, but can you make an appointment with a rabbi? Like how would that work?
@@CharlotteIssyvoo Okay! That's a lot to think about. I'm starting college in the next few weeks, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to start learning as soon as I want, but it'll definitely be on my mind. I'll at least have a base to start reading from the video! Maybe I'll be able to make room to speak to a rabbi. It'll probably be easier to without being at home, my parents probably wouldn't take much of a liking to me meeting a rabbi haha. I really appreciate your time and willingness to share! I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who grew up away from the tradition/religion. I'm not sure if the phrase is used in greeting/passing, but Tikkun Olam! :)
@@CharlotteIssyvooDoes this view of Messianic Jews diverge from the general principle Matt described about "what you believe" _not_ being a primary line of division?
@@Spearca I sometimes joke that Jews believe in one God at most, and that it isn't Jesus. Many Jews, especially those who aren't Orthodox, generally don't care that much about theological beliefs. Some can even be quite chill about incorporating concepts from other faiths, such as Buddhism. The view of Messianics tends to be harsher because (a) some groups are seen as primarily Christians looking to target Jews to convert and sometimes using Hebrew terms to hide their intentions, and (b) there is a history of Jews being persecuted for not believing in Jesus. This negative view generally doesn't apply to people who clearly identify as Christian, but who incorporate certain practices like Sabbath observance for their own religious reasons.
Much improved, but I will make a few comments: 1) In the US, there is also a large "denomination" that calls itself "traditional". These congregations keep the original orthodox prayer liturgy order in the synagogue, but members of the congregation can cover the full spectrum of religious practice, from orthodox to practically secular. This is in comparison to conservative and reform Judaism that made various changes to the liturgy and practices in the synagogue to be more practical, inclusive and attractive. 2) Within Israel you will find that even the secular Jews will adhere to many Jewish customs and very rarely marry outside the faith (in contrast to North American non-orthodox Jews who now have a 70% intermarriage rate). Most secular Jews (i.e. not orthodox, conservative or reform) in Israel will have a circumcision ceremony for newborn males, a bar/bat-miztvah for young teens, have a Jewish wedding officiated by an orthodox rabbi, be buried by an orthodox burial society and their family will observe the traditional "shiva" for the deceased. Most secular Jews in Israel will also participate in a family Shabbat dinner, Pesach seder, light Chanuka candles and attend a synagogue while fasting on Yom Kippur. Not sure this qualifies as an official theological denomination, but it does describe the practice of a very large chunk of Jews on earth today.
That second point is really interesting, because it largely parallels the practice of secular people in culturally Christian countries like the scandinavian countries, or the way many Japanese people approach Shinto-Buddhism. Maybe it’s just what happens when a religious group is in the majority in a country - its traditions become mainstream practices regardless of personal faith, and that cultural momentum means those who are otherwise uninterested in religion will continue performing them unless they explicitly convert to a different religion?
@@CanonessEllinor With one main caveat. Secular people in Christian countries and the far east will usually identify as having "no religion" in a census, but will happily participate in local holidays that have religious origins. In Israel the vast majority of secular people will openly identify as Jewish even though they might actually be atheist. The main difference being that Judaism (at last in Israel) has reverted to being a tribal identity with some of the tribe members having different levels of observance of the tribal religion.
1) that basically how israel works 2) basically because Jews from communities that formed Israel hasn’t had the breaking into denominations occur to us so Orthodox Judaism is just Judaism and how hardline you decide to follow it (the range he mentioned) doesn’t change what Judaism in its core is and to person the real main difference is what you need to do to be considered Jewish
@@CanonessEllinorbasically when the religion and culture are same thing and what is the religion is accepted is what cause this mentality (you can have your own opinion about the religion but the religion doesn’t going to change)
@@banto1I would argue in israel we are experience fusing into one Israeli community and it start to effects some aspects with some traditions that have been very specific becoming Jewish wide (like mimona being post Passover celebrations for Moroccan Jews in recent years becoming more general Israeli celebration)
I'm Israeli jew - love your vids and find them super informative. one thing I think you should elaborate more upon is jews in Israel, besides them being the 2nd biggest if the biggest jewish population, their judaism is deeply rooted in the country politics and grasp of judaism as a whole. one major theme is the spectrum found in Israel between secular-zionists and ultra orthodox-antizionists. this is fascinating because some jews chose to combine the religious part with the zionist part (called kipa sruga or knitted Yamaka) while others saw the religion in direct opposition to zionism (neturei karma). this is while most zionists are actually secular (secular must serve in the army, pay taxes etc..), that's because Israel wasn't founded as a religious entity at all, mostly serving a safe haven for jews from the diaspora.
It’s fine there are more ultra Orthodox Jews who are Zionist, the Torah is the biggest advocate for Zionism, Neturi Karta is still stuck in the past on the three oaths not realizing those oaths aren’t an eternal thing and the nations of the world violated the third oath The creation of the state of Israel was a prophesied thing and has created the pathway for the coming of the messiah, Israel has been established all that’s left is the messiah to come and fulfill the prophecies and Israel will be prosperous and successful with all Jews world wide living there
Hey Matt, this is exceptional. I loved how clearly you mentioned the differences between the concept of denominations in Christian and Jewish traditions. I humbly would like to request you to make a video on the differences between old testament in the Christian Bible and the Hebrew Bible. Also, I can see from the comments that your next project involves Hindu philosophical schools and denominations. I am very excited about it. Although the denominations part would be very difficult to put together, but the philosophical schools would surely be a great first step towards a comprehensive series on Hinduism. I am happy to provide any kind of help in case you need it. I am from India and have been brought up in a Hindu household. However I identify as an agnostic atheist now.
There is so much syncretism and borrowing across traditions in Eastern religions that it hard to draw linear phyolgenetic trees without all the lines attaching to every element, especially if you go beyond India into China, Japan and South East Asia. In terms of text an evolution graph can be found in wikipedia by searching "Texts_of_the_OT.svg". What is also interesting is that different churches have different sets of books that they consider part of the OT , but I think Matt may have done a video on that already.
He did make one about the difference between the Tanakh and Old Testament in his Bible series (besides what he mentioned I will say Hebrew was translated in some cases to other languages in incorrect ways to make some lines talk about Jesus while in Hebrew some part never mentioned)
I would very much appreciate and value a comparison. It took 40 plus years before it dawned on me that the Old Old Testament was transcribed from The Torah for a biased Christian narrative. I studied religious texts at university and learned how the Old and New Testaments were for propaganda, and that the New Testament was carefully crafted to fulfill the prophecies from the Old Testament... but a comparison to The Torah was never even mentioned,more rather we were led to believe that the first five books of the Old Testament is The Torah. I'm ashamed to admit that I have never read the Jewish text.
Always fascinating Useful Charts. I am a Christian (Church of England) but am deeply interested and fascinated too with Judaism and Islam. Thanks for explaining the history of Jadaism. ✝️✡️☪️
They left out the most important denomination to us: Messianic Judaism! (Not sure if you're really Christian or just trying to bait clicks, if actually Christian you can easily imagine why they left this group out)
@@fearofaflatearthMessianic Jews aren’t considered part of Judaism though, they are just ethnic Jews who are Christian, but like they follow the gospels ,they don’t follow the laws of Moses, they believe in the trinity, every aspect of them is Christian and nothing Jewish involved
@@fearofaflatearth No he didn't exclude messianic jews l. He said they were Christian and has them on a separate video and said they were in section.or chapter 8.
@@erdood3235 Mainly the racial aspect between sepharadi and ashkenazi jews in israel, and the fact that in israel religion is (sadly imo) heavily involved in politics.
@@erdood3235 Some propaganda inserted in there about Ashkenazi Jews. In reality their origin is still an open question. These propaganda studies don't share their data to all academics. That's why I'm more inclined to believe transparent researchers like Eran Elhaik and historians like Shlomo Sand. I always intuitively believe that the idea that all Jews are related to Palestine as utter nonsense and makes zero sense when compared to the development of all other ethnic groups and civilizations on earth. It wasn't until I read Sand's book that it all finally makes sense. The Jews in Palestine, well, we call it today, the Palestinians. Other Jews across the world are different peoples with different cultures that adopted Judaism along the way with certain percentage of intermarriages with the Jewish diaspora. That's how other ethnic groups and civilizations were formed and I don't see how the Jews are somehow different. Look at Britain, its core population is a mix of native and invaders that forms the English people. Same with Palestine, the natives (at some times in the past identified themselves as Jews) mixed with various invaders and eventually formed the Palestinian people. Neither the Palestinians, Egyptians, Iraqis or Syrians are Arabs. They are all Arabized native populations.
Yasher koach! Really well researched and presented-an excellent introduction and a great contribution to improving general understanding of our people. I will send a link to several contacts that require and welcome the information.
A vast improvement, sir! But I promise I'll take a different tone and emphasis with my own video in a few weeks. ETA: Kabbalah dates back quite a bit further back than Luria; he is just the most widely accepted authority on it. And Jewish mysticism in general goes back to the Roman era.
Something important I'd dissent from is the characterization in Conservative Judaism of Jewish law as being binding. It's actually much more similar to Reform, and can be considered an offshoot thereof. Ironically considering your caveat at the beginning of the video, the difference between Conservative and Orthodox largely stems around belief. The value Conservative Judaism places on Jewish law is _symbolic_ rather than _material._ As I said in my video on the Hamburg Temple Disputes, "the traditional belief in a coming messiah was wholly irrational, and had no bearing on the reality of Jewish life…but so what? It’s religion! It’s allowed to be irrational!"
I just don't understand one thing. Why didn't he mention THE main difference between Christianity and Judaism. Judaism is not a religion. It is an ethnoreligion and a nation. As well as about Zionism being only a political movement.
@@SamAronow I think the reason you think that Conservative Judaism is more similar to Reform is that you grew up in California, where Conservative tend to be more religiously liberal. However, if you go to the East Coast, you'll find many Conservative congregations that are much closer to Modern Orthodoxy than Reform (except they don't have a mechitza). There's really quite a range. The othe reason you might think that is that Conservative Judaism has trended more liberal over time, and Reform Judaism as well as Modern Orthodoxy has trended more traditional over time. But in the past, Conservative synagogues tended to be much more similar to Modern Orthodox than with Reform. And with all that being said, the actual position of the Conservative movement is indeed that halacha is binding, even if they think that halacha is an evolving process that can adapt with the times. Perhaps only a minority of Conservative Jews treat halacha as binding and actually follow Conservative halacha, but that is the official position of the movement.
In terms of the history, I think that Matt Baker was correct. Now there are two different "origin stories" of the Conservative movement. One is that the Conservative movement was inspired by Frankel's Positive Historical Movement and formed in response to excesses of Reform as exemplified by the Trefa Banquet. The other is that the Conservative Movement was pretty much the same as Modern Orthodoxy until the 1940s and 1950s when they broke with Modern Orthodoxy over their liberal use of takkanot (rabbinic decrees) that upended aspects of Jewish law. Both stories are correct. The former is more the story of the precursors to the Conservative movement, but the latter story actually is how Conservative Judaism became its own denomination. JTS was founded after the Trefa Banquet made it clear that American Jewry could not be united under a Reform banner. However, the founders had no concept that they were founding a new denomination. In the decades that followed, the terms "Conservative" and "Orthodox" were used interchangeably, and what was considered "Orthodox" was much more expansive than it is today. And after Schechter founded the United Synagogue, it was not clear that its rabbinical council, the RA, was any more or less liberal than that of the "Orthodox" RCA. There were RCA-affiliated synagogues with microphones on Shabbat and without mechitzas, and there were RA-affiliated synagogues without microphones and with mechitzas. However, in the 1940s, the RA rearranged its law committee into the CJLS, which started to regularly pass "takkanot," which the RCA rejected as incompatible with Orthodoxy. From that point on, it became clear that Conservative was going to be its own denomination.
@@SamAronow While I generally agree with your criticisms, I think we have to acknowledge that these are issues where there can be debate and require vast simplification even to talk about as an introduction. I was disappointed with the old video because I thought he was presenting as fact things that were simply wrong.
I remember as a kid, the idea that religious belief was the most important thing was so indoctrinated into me that any time I heard of a religion or a denomination I'd never heard of, my first reaction would be, "oh, what do they believe?" In high school, I made friends with a Sikh. One day I asked him what Sikhs believe, and I was dumbfounded when he said, "I dunno," with a shrug. It was only after watching this video (well, the first version that was posted weeks ago) that I understood that Christianity is kind of strange in this respect.
asking them what they believe might be the wrong question. it might be better to ask questions like, what is the most important thing in life, or how did the world come to be, or who are your gods?
@@ochem123If you watched his previous video on Christian denominations, you'll find that various people who would call themselves Christians don't believe in the same thing. Which one of these is the "true" form of Christianity?
I just saw your wonderful video about the different Jewish movements. It is really a great synthesis. I very much appreciate the clarity and historical rigour you have to deal with these matters. Very difficult task, and congratulations for a great work. Of course Sam Aronow will bring his own views on the matter. Welcome to both of you for your openness and good will.
Thank you for the information. I've been battling depression my entire life, however its been even worse over the last few years. I've ALWAYS wanted to serve God, but I've been told I'm not good enough, worthless. I had no guidance in life. I cried throughout this video. You helped to answer some of my questions. I've had so many questions about God and religion and when I ask, people get mad at me instead of talking with me to explain things. I struggle with trusting ANYONE because of how much I've been hurt, since birth. 😢 THANK YOU. I can't tell you enough how just listening to this is comforting.
Excited to rewatch it! thank you for being awesome! Update: This is terrific!! and I still think the first section should be required viewing for all Christians.
I agree completely with your whole comment. The speed limit analogy resonated with me. Incidentally, I always get shocked reactions when I say that “Christianity without Jesus” is Islam. Islam and most modern Protestant Christian denominations are very similar, other than the question of Jesus’s divinity and some surface-level cultural differences. Of course, I say this as someone with a traditional Christian background and who is thus looking at both from the outside.
@CharlotteIssyvoo Hi, I studied Islam from different aspects. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on how you perceived The Islamic religion is Christianits with Jesus😊
I was waiting for Argentina be mentioned. It was like the 38th minute, i was losing my expectations and then you mentioned it. I'm happy. Greetings from Argentina
Thanks, Matt. Very enlightening. I as a born and raised Roman Catholic am seeing similar patterns emerge in Catholicism: certain ultra-orthodox streams arising, progressive movements gaining momentum as well, 'traditional' liturgical observers with more progressive social or doctrinal views. I particularly note similar trends in Catholicism (especially in North America and Europe) evolving along the same patterns as "Hiloni, Masorti, Dati, Haredi" divides you described. Of course, other Catholics may not see it that way, but it's a pattern I personally have been noticing.
@@HarshitGarg-CRA I don't particularly care one way or the other, but unless you want Christianity to eventually die out or be made irrelevant, I think you should be happy that there are some people who try to follow god's teachings while also living a life compatible with tolerance and acceptance of others.
I am a Catholic, I have a BA in Catholic theological studies and I teach theology in a Catholic high school. You are not wrong. There are "Trads," mainline novus ordo, the sui juris churches, charismatics, neo-cat, progressives, the list goes on. Catholicism, not unlike Judaism can be seen as ethno-religious too.
Jewish and Catholic religions are similar in that they both believe you have to keep the Ten Commands. But with the Catholics, it is 91/2, for they dismiss the command to make no similitudes, likenesses, or images. True Christians are no longer under the law, whether that of Moses or natural/patriarchal law.
@@UsefulCharts were the images of R Karo and Isserliss the ones from Unpacked? They (with those backgrounds) look identical to the ones they used in their Jewish History Explained series. I know the illustrations of the rabbis are probably public domain, but the backgrounds probably aren't (I think Unpacked created those).
I appreciate your insight and perspective. It's true that for Christians, belief is a fundamental aspect, but there's also a strong emphasis on translating those beliefs into actions. I understand and respect the distinction you've pointed out. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, and I value the opportunity to learn from different viewpoints. 🙏
Thank you for making this updated video. I noticed the changes made here and there, and I really liked the final output, and I am happy that you took the time to repost the video updated rather than just putting some comments on the original. Very well done!
Very interesting, thanks! I often feel too awkward to ask my Jewish friends stuff like this because I fear they'll feel like I'm testing them or something, in addition to not knowing how "practicing" (to use another probably-inapplicable Christian term) they consider themselves. As a sidenote, with regard to remark about the New Testament not having nice things to say about the Pharisees, something I learned growing up (Eastern Orthodox Christian who went to a Catholic school) was that the reason Jesus seemed harder on the Pharisees was because they were closer to "getting it," so to speak, in addition to simply being more popular with the Jewish people of the time. That they differed from the Sadducee elites in believing in angels and the resurrection of the dead and such, but were simply too wrapped up in making people follow the letter of the law. Obviously I'm no scholar and this is of course a Christian perspective, but it's always something I found interesting, nonetheless.
Hi! I’d say the more appropriate term to use instead of “practicing” is “observant.” For us Jews, the distinction (at least in practical terms) is about how strictly one observes the religious rules/laws (Halacha), which can vary within denominations and communities. For example: I grew up Conservative, but fairly assimilated and largely non-observant (e.g., we didn’t keep kosher, consistently attend shul or observe Shabbat, etc.), though our identity as Jewish was a central element of our lives. I raised my kids in a more Renewal/Reconstructionist way, at least in terms of the communities we were part of, but far more focused on culture than religion (though ironically we celebrated far more holidays than my family of origin had and my kids had a more thorough Jewish education than I had!). Now, my adult kids and I all think of ourselves as primarily atheist, with an ongoing sense of Jewish cultural connection, but very little observance of holidays or other traditions. Frankly, I think of it as a spectrum, like a lot of other elements in life! Just my 2 shekels worth, if you find the info useful!
@@AJX-2agreed! Orthodox Jew here, if someone asks me about my religion in good faith, even if they don't use the exact right words, I'd be happy to talk about it.
@@literaterose6731 I like your post, it mirrors my experience in how religion is essentially a mix of belief and customs in arbitrary/individual percentages of the two. Here are three people in my family who all claim to be eastern orthodox christian: My grandmother used to say how she felt god in her heart and that god helped her in life, however she once also said that she doesn't believe that Jesus resurected as "no one has ever risen from the dead". It essentially means she was a theist of some sort but not really christian, however she followed the eastern orthodox christian traditions from her village for her entire life. Interestingly enough she was also the first person in the family to come to terms with me leaving the faith and stopping observing those traditions. Then we have my dad who doesn't care about the theology, and actively refuses to talk/learn about it just saying "I don't know and I don't need to know" and that he just does what everyone else does. He never goes to church unless he absolutely has to and observes only the few most important holidays. He is highly fearful of death and my guess is that is what is fueling his religious behavior (being respectful to god so he doesn't end up in a bad place, basically Pascal's wager), while whether he actually believes in anything is questionable. And last we have my brother who, in true pre-protestant fashion, only cares about what the church says. He has never touched the bible, doesn't know any of the gospels and stories, doesn't even know the name of god (the father, he knows Jesus's name of course) and I doubt that he could explain the trinity. He considers that the church and its traditions are basicaly applied theology so he can just follow those instructions and not have to think about it himself. Oh and in the end he correlates ethnicity with religion and says that because I am not religious he is a better/more of (our ethnicity) than I am. Well, there you go. And thanks for the 2 shekels!
One time I was in a local Judaica store to get a mezuzah and klaf for a friend that just bought a house. A man walked in and asked if they had any books about the different movements in Judaism. The two employees immediately became irate, pretended not to know what he was talking about, insisted that there was only one Judaism, then kicked him out. I would give my pinky toe to see the look in my face because in addition to not being Jewish, I worked for the Union for Reform Judaism at the time😅 I asked my coworkers what the interaction was about and they explained that some Jews believe they’re the only ones, that Jews of other movements aren’t really Jewish and shouldn’t qualify for the Law of Return. I giggled because they could have been describing Baptists 😂
@@MrBrashRooster not my experience. None of my family were that way. None of my friends either. Some had Jewish best friends. As far as the theology of who is saved, those ministers are right about what The Bible says. If you aren’t saved, you don’t go to heaven. That’s their belief system. Yours is different. But you may want to consider their beliefs more closely, just in case they are right. In any case, this is not the forum to go off on that diversion. Just remember, it’s not good to judge groups by the actions of few. As a Jew, you should understand this principle quite well.
That's an attitude some Haredim / Orthodox people have, yes. Though I find that level of rudeness about it fairly extraordinary. I'm not Jewish but have lived my life surrounded by Jewish folks (including within my extended family). I've met some grumpy Haredim having a bad day and never seen dogma turn into hostility. On the other hand, I HAVE seen dogma turn into hostility in the mouths of quite a few very devout Christians and Muslims. I can offer no explanation why other than to point to the history of those two religions.
@@RobespierreThePoof…so let me get this straight ..someone points out the rudeness /attitudes and ‘dogma turned hostility’ that these Jews were undeniably practicing ’ .. and your reaction is to first explain it away saying ‘ I know Jews .. & Jews don’t do that .. “however I see Christians and Muslims turn dogma into hostility regularly”. ??? Ok got it . Lmfao . Religion a nutshell folks
…THIS comment right here !!!! Thank you for sharing honestly and opening eyes. How true -yet how sad . These folks (both Jewish!! lol ) can’t even get some gifts in the same store - without hateful rhetoric and action . AND ….listen carefully ** a “holier than thou attitude.. “. Amazing!! Devout religion in its finest moments . All across the world ! I have to wonder how even ‘other believers’ would have made out …if they explained at said store that day , who they were, and what they were doing at the store ... or even 🤔should it have been a different faith in a different store. Doesn’t appear to matter. …Ahh The loving power and beauty and grace of ????--
Great video! I'm one of those who suggested some changes in the first video, and I have to say I respect you a lot for making the effort and creating a whole new video! Shabbat Shalom :)
The fact that this video is about Judaism and Christians are complaining about Matt’s simplification of Nicene Christianism faith and belief. Calm down guys. He meant to differentiate Christianity from Judaism. in the end all Christians believe in Christ and Jews do not, everything else he discussed in on the Christian denominations series. Great video Matt. Very informative.
I would say it's not correct to say all Christians believe in Jesus and Jews do not. It would imho be more accurate to say Christianity teaches Jesus is Messiah, son of God with most Christian denominations believing that Jesus is God while no branches of Judaism hold that Jesus was/is the Messiah and definitely do not believe him to be any more divine than any other human being. Messianic Judaism is a denomination of Christianity with a large portion of their adherents being Jews. ☺️
The issue I have is that, as stated in the video, Christians base their views based on the Apostle Paul; but Matt waves Paul aside because what Paul states doesn’t aline with modern jewish beliefs. To hold this belief of argument is to hold that Paul: a 1st Century Jew, highly educated as a Pharisee, from a family of highly educated Pharisees, who was close enough to the High Priest and Council to be entrusted with persecuting Christians… didn’t understand his own religion or culture, which is just an insane argument. A better phrasing for Matt would have been, Christians base their understanding of Judaism on ancient Judaism not modern Judaism, and that Modern Judaism has changed greatly since the 2nd temple was destroyed. The current phrasing implies Christians are just idiots who never understood the OT.
@@tkdmike9345 There is zero evidence that Paul was at all educated in the Judaism of the Second Temple. His writings are replete with the type of ignorance that would disqualify him from the education of a typical 9 year old. He was a Roman.
Thank you for making this. I've recently been doing some research into 2nd Temple Worship and seeing the progression afterwards was very informative. I happen to grow up in an area where there was a significant Orthodox population. Thank you again.
great video and very needed in my eyes two things that came to mind 1. I think you should have talked about the fact that if an Ashkenazi/Sephardic Jew finds himself living in a community dominated by the other the person was just expected to attend synagogue and adopt at least partly the minhagim of the other while also keeping his own minhag 2. kinda disappointed by the part about Hasidic Judaism mostly because well Chabad isn't actually the largest Hasidic group that title belongs to the Ger Hasidic dynasty I do feel like a video about Hasidism and Hasidic dynasties is right up your alley as it is very connected to Genealogy, Judaism & Theology (note I am definitely biased due to my family's strong Hasidic past i am actually a direct descendent of the first Ger rebbe my family was also prominent in the Ostravetser Hasidism although i am actually Hiloni myself)
I also consider Breslov Chassidim to be important, since there is the fact that many of their teachings have been incorporated by some Litvaks and Modern Orthodox here in America, and in Israel, while most Chassidim are Chareidi, a group of Breslovers formed a Dati version of their Chassidism, though many Chareidi and American Breslovers denɨgɾate the Dati Breslovers with the term "Na-Nach" (though the Na-Nach strain of Breslovers does include many Chareidi Breslovers in Israel, and many Non-Na-Nach Breslovers are ʙlɨnded to the difference.)
1. Generally it was just living in the local culture of your community, there is reason one of the most common family names for mena Jews is ashkenazi while they themselves are mizrahi or Sephardic 2. Yep entering into rabbinic dynasty and yeshivas that comes from them are their own rabbit holes
My best friend is an Ashkenazi Jew, and as a Mormon Christian I’ve always wondered what words like Sephardic, Hasidic, Orthodox, and more actually mean. This video was very informational! Thanks!
Where are you from? I assume you're in a big city perhaps salt lake City. The reason why I ask is because there aren't many Jewish people outside of the city and I was curious that any cities that there might be Muslims. I find Islam and Mormonism overlap greatly. Especially in terms of the origins. As well as some sorbid practices and beliefs such as the belief of polygamy both in the heavens and on earth
@@nickmoser7785 My friend and I live in a weird overlap between 3 cities in Oregon, between Portland, Beaverton and Hillsboro. According to Pew Research Center’s 2014 study, 4% of my home state is LDS (Mormon), 2% Jewish and 1% Islamic. However, for Portland singularly my religion makes up still about 4%, though Jewish population is lower at only 0.1% and Islamic believers are at practically 0%. I hear comparisons between my faith and Islam often, and while I do agree the coincidental similarities are there, they’re nothing more than general, surface level observations.
Fantastic! I learned so much and it gave me a deeper perspective into my Ashkenazi roots. My brother has been DNA tested as a descendant of Aaron-Moses’s brother, thus the men in my immediate family are Kohens. Would love to learn more about that lineage.
There is no DNA test that can confirm you as a descendant of Aaron. You can be confirmed as belonging to the same haplogroup that many modern day Kohanim belong to but that doesn't say anything definitive.
I love your English, it's easy for me as a nonnative to comprehend❤ Can you summarize the biblical epics? It would be better if you compare them to the Quran version❤
Thank you for uploading this video! It's definitely very helpful. I would say that, as a Christian, I'm glad that you presented this. I truly enjoyed it's great detail. At the same time, I do think that some Christian belief (or the assertions of Paul) aren't quite worded accurately here. The historic Christian belief about Jews is not really about a "salvation" focused goal. Rather, it is based more upon the understanding that Jews were chosen by God above all other peoples because of Abraham's faith in God. This was the crux of what Paul wrote regarding the Law. He wasn't saying that Jews attempt to be saved by following the Law of Moses. Rather, he was pointing out that strict adherence to the Law -- including each sacrifice -- is unable to be a final atonement for sin. In fact, Paul pointed out that this isn't the focus of what it meant to be a Jew in the First Century either. Paul pointed out that the stipulations of the Law along with the traditions passed down by Rabbis was unable to accomplish this atonement -- something argued to be necessary to stand before God in eternity. So, Paul pointed out that the Jews -- the descendants from Abraham's grandson, Jacob -- were chosen by God because of Abraham's faith. He pointed out the passage in Genesis where it mentions that "Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness" (Genesis 15:6). Paul pointed out that this covenant with Abraham predated Moses and the Law. More than four centuries after Abraham, the Law included very detailed requirements (most of which were Temple and service-oriented). It wasn't focused on salvation but atonement through customs and practices. Despite this, Paul argued that God's covenant with Abraham was everlasting. This is why many Christians -- particularly evangelicals and practicing protestants -- support Israel. We perceive that this covenant with Abraham -- including the land of promise -- is everlasting. According to the New Testament, salvation is a state of having been eternally atoned for. Like Abraham, a person must "believe." This is what makes them "saved." As such, many of the New Testament statements about salvation also include the need to believe. Obviously, there is the Messianic focus to this belief. The New Testament teaches that Jesus was the Messiah. He was a son of David -- but also the very Son of God (i.e., God becoming flesh and walking upon the earth he created). So, the basis for Christianity is that the Son of God (i.e., God born in the flesh) would walk on this earth and eventually become the final atoning sacrifice for humanity. Obviously, people would never be perfect. However, the Book of Hebrews (likely written by a Levite Christian named Joseph Barnabas a year or two before the destruction of the Temple) was written to other Jewish Christians. In it, the writer stated that Jesus was a great "high priest" -- not by Levitical genealogy but a high priest in the order of Melchizedek (the priest and king of Salem who Abraham offered a tithe to long before the Law). He then encourages the readers to remain steadfast, faithful and patient despite the growing persecution at that time. After all, the Book of Hebrews was likely written after the execution of Peter and Paul (both Jewish Christians) but also a year or so before the destruction of the Temple by future emperor Titus. As I stated before, I truly appreciate your videos! They are so wonderfully enlightening!
Great explanation we support Israel and the true God chosen Jews. Praying more understand we still pray to the Father YHWH in Jesus name the only one worthy to atone for sin which we all are sinners without him 🙏
Good Job! I wish you would have paid a little attention to the other regional Jewish groups with different Minhag/traditions, even if they have mostly been absorbed into Israel: -ancient Juhuro Jews of the Caucasus mountains. -old Chinese Jews. -various Indian Jewish groups: the ancient Cochin in South India, the old Bene (note: not Beta) Israel in Maharajah/Mumbai, the Paradesi (once Sephardi refugees from Portugal) in Madras area. -Bukharan Jews of Central Asia which are a subset of the Mizrahi. But that is a wish list, you still did a good job.
Most currently living in Israel and basically were even in existence very small with largest being the Central Asia and caucuses ones that had at top tens of thousands over all the regions in questions
@@chimera9818 The Bene Israel were around 30,000 in India, and today there are around 90,000 of Bene Israel descent. They had more contact with other Jewish communities earlier than the Beta Israel (Ethiopian) Jews did, but they are also really ancient with roots going back around 2,500 years. They had separated from other Jewish communities prior to the writing of the Talmud, so their tradition included Biblical but not rabbinic practices.
Hello and shalom! This is wonderfully explained and presented. Indeed, it also matches mostly with a talk I had once planned to do myself, and I'm happy that my notes for that are obviously not entirely wrong, and rather confirmed by many other sources. As another outsider who was raised Christian and is strongly considering conversion, I find this presentation highly useful.
Amazingly informative! I was born Jewish, lived in Israel for a total of nine years. I went to high school and learned Jewish history as taught by Israeli high schools in the 70s. Some of this I had learned at that time, however it was easy to get confused about the branches and timelines. 😂 You laid this out clearly and concisely making it easy to understand. I look at Judaism differently now and really don't think of myself as Jewish anymore. However I am still fascinated with this history. By the way, that reform Jews eat shellfish and other non kosher foods, has nothing to to with the climate or environment. They eat this way for their own reasons and have done so for as long as i can remember. However, I appreciate your kind spin and perhaps now Tikkun Olam is now the reason for eating shrimp! 😂
Good for you! Similar to you, I was born into a Hindu family but later just grew out of it. Following any religion without the basic empathy towards all humans is meaningless. And when we do have compassion, respect and empathy towards each other, we really don't need a religion come to think of it.
As a reform Jew, I found this video really fun and pretty complete as a first dip into the theme. If you ever plan on making something more in depth I would add a bit more about the major events that brought on the "ruptures" between the different denominations, there are some great and fun stories to be told there. Other than that, I would really like to thank you for making this video. I'm from Brazil, and here we have some difficulty in explaining these differences, including to other jews, since many, if not most, live secular lives but end up attending sinagogues that are mostly some type of orthodox, which is the most common denomination we have, even if they themselves don't agree with the orthodoxy. Finally, I would like to ask you if you plan on selling this chart on the website, I would really like to have it hanging on my wall. Thanks, again :)
I could watch stuff like this all day, I love learning about different religions and the history and variety of beliefs within them. I really enjoyed this and am looking forward to your upcoming videos on other religions!
One correction regarding the use of electricity on Shabbat by Orthodox and Conservative Jews. The modern rationale used for limiting electricity is no longer due to analogies between electricity and fire (as they understand that they are scientifically disparate), but rather because of completing a circuit. Completing a creative task is one of the 39 Melakhot, or 39 basic tasks that were performed in the Temple that are now limited as “labour” on shabbat. Closing a circuit is considered completing the task, and potentially also as building, another prohibited action
Thanks for this! I do want to point out that healthy Christianity does think about the here and now and living a holy life benefits the world. That said the emphasis on this really varies and I would say it is seen in the most pronounced fashion in Catholics, Methodists, and Eastern Orthodoxy. But you are totally right about what we are looking for in a church. My church is going through the process of finding a denomination that suits us and belief is one of the first things we are trying to verify. But as Methodists we are interested in practice too, which has been neglected by some liberal Methodist groups. Very cool to learn about this!
Big fan of your posts and this is great by the way. I would slightly disagree with the the act of faith not being as important to Jewish people as opposed to living by the laws. I live in a Hasidic area of London UK, and a couple of my Hasidic neighbours have both said to me that it's integral to them that Moses wrote the first five books of the pentatuch ( my word not theirs) and it's also offensive to question their books. Personally I would call that faith but there you go. Keep up the good work and I always follow your content.
… ahh so it’s offensive to question their books. 👍 gotcha. Now what if I DID question the books ? Or questioned like the Koran , …or the Bible or something ? Or better yet .. what if THEY (the Hasidic neighbors ) questioned one those books ?? Lmfao
It also likely depends on how religious you are. I'm reform and I'm pretty sure some of my Hebrew School teachers said things like "yeah I don't really believe in some things but whatever." I was taught to question what God is, and if God even exists.
Nicely presented, carefully done! One nit: See if you can pronounce Hebrew words with the accent at the end. Like kabbaLAH, hiloNI, daTI, hareDI. Israelis tend to do that, and it sounds better to my ear too. Otherwise, toDAH rabBAH.
Matt, yes Dr. Henry Abramson is great. This was a great video, too. I appreciate the statement of belief discussion. it helps me understand the difference between my Jewish faith and Christianity. We have an amazing Synagogue in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. It was originally a Sephardic Jewish Congregation from 1794. Since 1833, we are one of five synagogues in the world with a sand floor. During this time of a great shipping economy, we experienced an internal reform movement bringing in an organ and choir, influenced by the Haskalah that you described. Then came 1871 hurricanes, an earthquake and disease and we lost a lot of members. At the end of the age of sail in late 19th Century, our economy declined greatly. Then, our governance became more Ashkenazi Jewish, with several Lithuanian families. After two world wars and tourism, we became more affluent in thinking and financially. We formally changed to Union for Reformed Judaism in 1948. Come Visit! I give the tours.
I appreciate this video. My wife and I recently became interested in learning more about Judaism, and this video was both informative and educational. We are enjoying all of these on UA-cam.
This was a very informative video! While I love watch Sam Aronow's videos to learn about Jewish history, this video helped clear up some of the Jewish terms he uses (such as Mitnagdim and Mitzvot) that I'm not really exposed to as a Christian in a Christian community. Also, while I appreciated the first video as it was the first time someone straightened out my ashamedly Christian view of Judaism, I love this one because not only did you keep that, you went more into detail about Judaism such as with the Jewish sub-cultures as well as Judaism in countries besides the US.
I'm American and here we like to categorize people based on their religion. At least those of us who are Christian do. In college, I met some people from New Zealand who were shocked that Americans they met would ask them what religion they are. They felt that this was a very intrusive question and led to judgmental attitudes on the part of the Americans who asked them. Up to that point, I assumed this was a common question anyone around the world would ask.
There are regional differences here in the US as well. I was shocked when traveling in the South by how many people would ask things like "what church do you go to?" In the northeast, where I am from, that would be considered a shockingly intrusive, rude, and just plain *weird* question to ask a person. It would be pretty weird to ask someone outright about their religion too, come to think of it, unless you knew them fairly well.
@@bobfoster687 I suppose it could be. From the tone, though, I got the impression that it was more of a friendly "Oh, you're new to town?" sort of question. It seemed both genuinely friendly and very casual. From the reactions I would sometimes get when I'd tell them I'm Jewish, I think that a lot of people -- especially in rural areas -- were genuinely flustered by meeting someone who seemed relatively "normal" by their standards, but who wasn't some variety of Protestant.
Hi Matt, thanks so much for incorporating my comment about mentioning the Messianic Jews. I still think they blur the line between Christianity and Judiasm so much that they belong to this family tree too (basically for the reasons I mentioned in the prior version of this video), but giving them an honorable mention and directing viewers to your other video where you talk about them in more detail was a good alternative imo.
Messianics are not Jews. They’re Christians who keep Jewish traditions & lie about being Jews. It’s like saying a Christian can also believe in Mohammed & accept the Quran but not be a Muslim while training a Christian.
Got an idea for you. A timeline of religions. And sort of connect the dots between them and how they evolved/progressed thru time. If you could go as far back as possible to whatever has been discovered thus far from history up to modern times. I think it'd make for an interesting video. Btw the videos are great. Appreciated.
UsefulCharts, ReligionforBreakfast and now Dr Henry Abramson,so cool. It's like the multiverse of monotheistic discourse. Now we need some Esoterica, Sam Aronow, Let's Talk Religion , Al Muqadimmah
Thank you so much for explaining this so thoughtfully. I'm Reconstructionist but have gone to Conservative and Reform temples. Most Christians are totally bewildered by all of this, so just going to start sending them this video. Appreciate your work immensely
Overall, i think this is nicely done. I have a quibble with the way you describe the orthodox approach to halacha as unchanging. There is actually quite a lot of halachic innovation happening in the orthodox world with respect to technology and cultural influences (e.g. the Zomet Institute, or ORA re: agunot). I think it would be more accurate to describe the orthodox approach to halacha as being bound by and respecting halachic precedent.
I completely understand why you have an issue with the description of our approach to halacha as being unchanging, with us rather being bound to halachic precedent, but I understand why he labeled it as unchanging per se- particularly as compared to Conservative and Reform Jews, the halacha tends to remain much the same. We're simply expanding and recalculating.
For anyone interested in Kabbalah, ancient Israelite/Jewish Afterlife (there is a lot such as Sheole, paradise, full body recantation, and more,) Essenses (the children of life in some of their texts), Occult/Mystical Judaism, I would like to Point inthe direction of Esoterica, Dr Justin Sledge, is amazing teacher and has some the best humor. I suggest his series on the apocryphal books or Enoch, which is very eye opening. I hope Matt doesn't mind
As a Christian I find these all so fascinating I love studying different religions and believe that there is much Christianity can learn from Jewish teachings and views of Scripture. Thank you so much and look forward to more videos.
NOTE: I posted this video a few weeks ago but then removed it because, following some feedback, I decided to make some important changes. Those changes have now been incorporated and what you're watching here is the new, updated version.
Thank you!
My best wishes to you and all your loved ones.
i watched the original, is there a summary of the main changes?
@@GordonWrigley There are lots of little changes throughout but the two sections with the most "new" information are 19:46 (more about the Ashkenazi/Sephardi distinction) and 35:50 (more about Judaism outside of the US).
Matt, people on your sub Reddit said the first version of this video was very North American centric and could be misleading for people who aren’t informed on Judaism, as someone who isn’t Jewish how was the last video misleading?
@@caseycrowe3805In the first video, I pretty much only talked about Judaism in the US. In this new version, I also talk about Israel and some other countries.
I am Iranian Jew and an ICU nurse. Many times I have to work over Shabbat therefore I can’t observe it. I often feel bad about it . Thank you Matt for saying „pikuach nefesh“ . I really appreciate it .
By saving lives, you are not violating Shabbat, you are honoring it. Your career is nothing but a kiddush haShem.
@@fslknsadglkdahawerykljwa3aw643 you are very kind . Thank you so much ! ♥️🫶🏼
you still living in iran?
how was the treatement?
@@Rafael-vi4to no we live in Germany since 1981
@@m.eshaghi8181Out of all countries you chose Germany?
If you eventually cover most Abrahamic religions, would you consider making a HUGE chart of all Abrahamic denominations. It could include the Christian denomination chart, the Jewish denomination chart, a potential Islamic denomination/school chart, and perhaps certain Dualistic movements, the movements of the black book, Druze and even Sikhism. Although this chart could only be made if you do an full Islamic denomination/school chart.
Yup. I've been toying with the idea already.
@@UsefulCharts have you done a chart on Islamic schools/denominations? I'm not muslim myself but I think it would be an interesting video idea.
Akhenaten 101
And Baha'i too
@@UsefulCharts Suggested title for your poster all about desert monotheism: _It Came from the Desert_
(Make sure there's no trademark, etc. trouble from the makers of the 1989 computer game. There shouldn't be. That company went defunct in 1991.)
Not only do I find out that you're Jewish I also find out you're a fellow convert this has made my day
Bro your profile pic is jewish version of now time saudi flag 😂. No way it is actually a flag?
I’m Catholic from the US. This was very interesting and informative. I love learning about religions and cultures.
And, the video was inaccurate in some instances.
Because the Star of David was used as a national symbol hundreds if not thousands of years after the Torah was written.
@statutesofthelord in what ways? As a student of history and a jew im curious what he said was wrong (I can't seem to find anything but im in no way an expert on the subject)
@@jessd7947I was raised a Catholic and belief was never anywhere near enough for salvation. 90% of church sermons were about the importance of being virtuous, practicing tolerance and whatnot. Half of it was about the here and now and not about salvation. Overall, salvation was a natural consequence of a virtuous life.
I think the author's view of Christianity was quite stereotypical, to be honest. It sounded like what other religions say about Christianity to feel like they're the adults in the room--the ones who follow rules to be virtuous, while Christians are just doing what they're told because they're afraid of hell.
@@VictorVæsconcelosI’d disagree. I grew up mainly conservative Protestant Christian and salvation was very much emphasized as a main part of Christianity because the view I taught was that salvation through belief made it different from many others. Not only that it was taught that this salvation is a gift and should be believed and accepted.
Wow!!! You converted!! Im just now starting the converting process to Judaism and this video is helping me to understand so much. Please continue to make videos about judaism if its ever in your interest (I'd love any resources you could give). I meet with a Rabbi in 2 days (on Friday) and Im so nervous and excited
Please find an Orthodox Rabbi and do a real Jewish conversion.. if you do. Reform and conservative is man made rules or lawless.. that is not Jewish and converting via them will not be considered Jewish when u go to Israel. It's simple.. you want to follow the laws given by God.
@@lovemytechy I agree with this (if perhaps worded a bit more soft lol). However it should be noted that Orthodox Judaism isn't easy and can be too much for most people. This isn't to say you should convert to Reform or Conservative since in all honesty that isn't actually converting. We'd love to have you! but it's in fact better to be a good non-Jew than to become Jewish if you aren't ready for it. And btw to all non-orthodox Jews, I'm not hating, I promise. I'd also feel like an observant Jew if I'd been born Conservative. However, if you trace its roots to its inception, you'll find there really isn't any basis for it being called "Judaism". I can gladly elaborate if anyone is perturbed by this.
Well said... @@WhoChus a good Jew is a life time work.. a good non Jew is as well.. just try to reach for your max potential in the correct path. Don't change the goal.. change yourself... No one can change a single law of God. Yes it's hard .. try your best no one expects more
@@lovemytechywelll idk technically he wouldn’t be Jewish by blood either way
@@lovemytechy& God expects you to do your best not try love.
Henry Abramson is great! Really enjoyed his lectures on Jewish history as they were some of the first quality ones that I could find on UA-cam back in the day. Also I found his commentary and expertise on Ukrainian history important in light of recent events
Same!
As a Muslim, this was very interesting and eye opening. Props!!!!
Liar
@@saladin333LMAO you ok there bud?
Sadly, this video had some serious inaccuracies.
Beware!
@@saladin333 Are your pants 👖 on fire 🔥?
Mad respect im an isreali but i try my best to understand palstine i kinda get why they hate as in the arab isreali war we were evll but i dont get it if taiwan atked china they would die same thing with isreal and palstine but taiwan is improving it self palstine isnt.
Now, this is the type of quality I have come to expect from your channel. Good job.
Thank you!
Nice seeing you here
As an Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Christian, we believe faith alone cannot save you, faith without work is dead. Just wanted to share that, God bless !
Como cristiano católico mexicano creemos también sin obras la fe está muerta.
For catholics, belief in Jesus is of course a thing but we also hold on to traditions and practices, so we do care what we 'do' too
No you don’t!
I’ve never met a Catholic that said they kept the commandments of God
@@KeenanModica That’s ridiculous. We, of course, follow the commandments!
@KeenanModica whoaaaa. If Keenan says, it's true for sure. It seems you have known Catholics from all over the world for saying that. Am I right?
Also We don't need to be around telling everyone we meet that we follow God's commandments. Such a pharisee thing to be doing without being asked about.
@@Joedem92i live in a catholic majority country. there are those that say they're devout catholic yet cheat on their partners + abuse their kids + do shit that's not in the commandments
They do ofc
Im Turkish and i even know about that :D i cant belive how ignorant you are...
Well assuming you are american or european whatever.
I mean you have a wide christian enviroment, so you shouldve known some facts about your enviromental society's religion.
I guess
Truly amazing video!
As a Chasidic Orthodox Jew, i must say that this is the first time I see an observation on Judaism that's unbiased (especially about the chasidic community).
So many good points about the origin and current status of all denominations.
@@CharlotteIssyvoo hello! I just wanted to ask why you put jews in quotations for the mixed messianic part. My Mom's side was reform but became messianic, and my dad's side is african american with a few denominations of christianity mixed in. I grew up away from Jewish circles and culture besides food and high holy days, so I'm just wondering how messianics are perceived within the community. I've moved away from it myself, I'd say I'm back to the reformed tradition, but I've just had little interactions with so I'm unfamiliar with really most of it haha
Also sorry for the long reply, I hope it didn't come off negatively :)
Edit- also my mom's side is ashkenazi if that changes anything
@@CharlotteIssyvoo ahhh I see, that's interesting! I've never heard someone refer to the trinity as polytheism, but that actually makes a lot of sense. I'm 19, so I'm just kinda starting to figure out the "doing Jewish" thing. kinda funny how the timing is similar haha. I'd like to talk to a rabbi, but I also don't exactly look Jewish (at least what americans consider Jewish), so I've kinda felt out of place in synagogues (although I've only been once or twice). Do you know if that's something I should worry about? This is probably a stupid question and you don't have to keep responding I'm sure you have other things to do, but can you make an appointment with a rabbi? Like how would that work?
@@CharlotteIssyvoo Okay! That's a lot to think about. I'm starting college in the next few weeks, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to start learning as soon as I want, but it'll definitely be on my mind. I'll at least have a base to start reading from the video! Maybe I'll be able to make room to speak to a rabbi. It'll probably be easier to without being at home, my parents probably wouldn't take much of a liking to me meeting a rabbi haha.
I really appreciate your time and willingness to share! I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who grew up away from the tradition/religion. I'm not sure if the phrase is used in greeting/passing, but Tikkun Olam! :)
@@CharlotteIssyvooDoes this view of Messianic Jews diverge from the general principle Matt described about "what you believe" _not_ being a primary line of division?
@@Spearca I sometimes joke that Jews believe in one God at most, and that it isn't Jesus. Many Jews, especially those who aren't Orthodox, generally don't care that much about theological beliefs. Some can even be quite chill about incorporating concepts from other faiths, such as Buddhism. The view of Messianics tends to be harsher because (a) some groups are seen as primarily Christians looking to target Jews to convert and sometimes using Hebrew terms to hide their intentions, and (b) there is a history of Jews being persecuted for not believing in Jesus. This negative view generally doesn't apply to people who clearly identify as Christian, but who incorporate certain practices like Sabbath observance for their own religious reasons.
Much improved, but I will make a few comments:
1) In the US, there is also a large "denomination" that calls itself "traditional". These congregations keep the original orthodox prayer liturgy order in the synagogue, but members of the congregation can cover the full spectrum of religious practice, from orthodox to practically secular. This is in comparison to conservative and reform Judaism that made various changes to the liturgy and practices in the synagogue to be more practical, inclusive and attractive.
2) Within Israel you will find that even the secular Jews will adhere to many Jewish customs and very rarely marry outside the faith (in contrast to North American non-orthodox Jews who now have a 70% intermarriage rate). Most secular Jews (i.e. not orthodox, conservative or reform) in Israel will have a circumcision ceremony for newborn males, a bar/bat-miztvah for young teens, have a Jewish wedding officiated by an orthodox rabbi, be buried by an orthodox burial society and their family will observe the traditional "shiva" for the deceased. Most secular Jews in Israel will also participate in a family Shabbat dinner, Pesach seder, light Chanuka candles and attend a synagogue while fasting on Yom Kippur. Not sure this qualifies as an official theological denomination, but it does describe the practice of a very large chunk of Jews on earth today.
That second point is really interesting, because it largely parallels the practice of secular people in culturally Christian countries like the scandinavian countries, or the way many Japanese people approach Shinto-Buddhism. Maybe it’s just what happens when a religious group is in the majority in a country - its traditions become mainstream practices regardless of personal faith, and that cultural momentum means those who are otherwise uninterested in religion will continue performing them unless they explicitly convert to a different religion?
@@CanonessEllinor With one main caveat. Secular people in Christian countries and the far east will usually identify as having "no religion" in a census, but will happily participate in local holidays that have religious origins. In Israel the vast majority of secular people will openly identify as Jewish even though they might actually be atheist. The main difference being that Judaism (at last in Israel) has reverted to being a tribal identity with some of the tribe members having different levels of observance of the tribal religion.
1) that basically how israel works
2) basically because Jews from communities that formed Israel hasn’t had the breaking into denominations occur to us so Orthodox Judaism is just Judaism and how hardline you decide to follow it (the range he mentioned) doesn’t change what Judaism in its core is and to person the real main difference is what you need to do to be considered Jewish
@@CanonessEllinorbasically when the religion and culture are same thing and what is the religion is accepted is what cause this mentality (you can have your own opinion about the religion but the religion doesn’t going to change)
@@banto1I would argue in israel we are experience fusing into one Israeli community and it start to effects some aspects with some traditions that have been very specific becoming Jewish wide (like mimona being post Passover celebrations for Moroccan Jews in recent years becoming more general Israeli celebration)
Really an amazing video on Jewish denominations. I think you really incorporated the feedback well Thanks!!
Thank you for your help!
Technically in israel it isn’t denominations but range of what people believe but yeah
סרטון מ ע ו ל ה !!! מלמד, מבהיר, מסדר את הראש. תודה רבה לכותב/עורך/יוזמ/ת😍
I'm Israeli jew - love your vids and find them super informative. one thing I think you should elaborate more upon is jews in Israel, besides them being the 2nd biggest if the biggest jewish population, their judaism is deeply rooted in the country politics and grasp of judaism as a whole.
one major theme is the spectrum found in Israel between secular-zionists and ultra orthodox-antizionists. this is fascinating because some jews chose to combine the religious part with the zionist part (called kipa sruga or knitted Yamaka) while others saw the religion in direct opposition to zionism (neturei karma).
this is while most zionists are actually secular (secular must serve in the army, pay taxes etc..), that's because Israel wasn't founded as a religious entity at all, mostly serving a safe haven for jews from the diaspora.
It’s fine there are more ultra Orthodox Jews who are Zionist, the Torah is the biggest advocate for Zionism, Neturi Karta is still stuck in the past on the three oaths not realizing those oaths aren’t an eternal thing and the nations of the world violated the third oath
The creation of the state of Israel was a prophesied thing and has created the pathway for the coming of the messiah, Israel has been established all that’s left is the messiah to come and fulfill the prophecies and Israel will be prosperous and successful with all Jews world wide living there
Hey Matt, this is exceptional. I loved how clearly you mentioned the differences between the concept of denominations in Christian and Jewish traditions. I humbly would like to request you to make a video on the differences between old testament in the Christian Bible and the Hebrew Bible.
Also, I can see from the comments that your next project involves Hindu philosophical schools and denominations. I am very excited about it. Although the denominations part would be very difficult to put together, but the philosophical schools would surely be a great first step towards a comprehensive series on Hinduism. I am happy to provide any kind of help in case you need it. I am from India and have been brought up in a Hindu household. However I identify as an agnostic atheist now.
There is so much syncretism and borrowing across traditions in Eastern religions that it hard to draw linear phyolgenetic trees without all the lines attaching to every element, especially if you go beyond India into China, Japan and South East Asia.
In terms of text an evolution graph can be found in wikipedia by searching "Texts_of_the_OT.svg".
What is also interesting is that different churches have different sets of books that they consider part of the OT , but I think Matt may have done a video on that already.
He did make one about the difference between the Tanakh and Old Testament in his Bible series (besides what he mentioned I will say Hebrew was translated in some cases to other languages in incorrect ways to make some lines talk about Jesus while in Hebrew some part never mentioned)
I would very much appreciate and value a comparison. It took 40 plus years before it dawned on me that the Old Old Testament was transcribed from The Torah for a biased Christian narrative. I studied religious texts at university and learned how the Old and New Testaments were for propaganda, and that the New Testament was carefully crafted to fulfill the prophecies from the Old Testament... but a comparison to The Torah was never even mentioned,more rather we were led to believe that the first five books of the Old Testament is The Torah.
I'm ashamed to admit that I have never read the Jewish text.
Always fascinating Useful Charts. I am a Christian (Church of England) but am deeply interested and fascinated too with Judaism and Islam. Thanks for explaining the history of Jadaism. ✝️✡️☪️
They left out the most important denomination to us: Messianic Judaism! (Not sure if you're really Christian or just trying to bait clicks, if actually Christian you can easily imagine why they left this group out)
@@fearofaflatearth Given the inclusion of explicitly secular branches, I don't think there was anything sinister afoot
The Abrahamic religions are very deep and have a very strong influence on history and political, legal and moral reality. I am a Muslim.
@@fearofaflatearthMessianic Jews aren’t considered part of Judaism though, they are just ethnic Jews who are Christian, but like they follow the gospels ,they don’t follow the laws of Moses, they believe in the trinity, every aspect of them is Christian and nothing Jewish involved
@@fearofaflatearth
No he didn't exclude messianic jews l. He said they were Christian and has them on a separate video and said they were in section.or chapter 8.
As an israeli, this video felt like walking through a minefield. I applaud you for managing to avoid most of them 😅
What are the mines?
I'm a Jew from Israel
@@erdood3235 probably my guess us acting like how stuff works in israel is exactly same as the western ref mentality
@@erdood3235
Mainly the racial aspect between sepharadi and ashkenazi jews in israel, and the fact that in israel religion is (sadly imo) heavily involved in politics.
you are a what?
@@erdood3235 Some propaganda inserted in there about Ashkenazi Jews. In reality their origin is still an open question. These propaganda studies don't share their data to all academics. That's why I'm more inclined to believe transparent researchers like Eran Elhaik and historians like Shlomo Sand.
I always intuitively believe that the idea that all Jews are related to Palestine as utter nonsense and makes zero sense when compared to the development of all other ethnic groups and civilizations on earth. It wasn't until I read Sand's book that it all finally makes sense.
The Jews in Palestine, well, we call it today, the Palestinians. Other Jews across the world are different peoples with different cultures that adopted Judaism along the way with certain percentage of intermarriages with the Jewish diaspora.
That's how other ethnic groups and civilizations were formed and I don't see how the Jews are somehow different.
Look at Britain, its core population is a mix of native and invaders that forms the English people. Same with Palestine, the natives (at some times in the past identified themselves as Jews) mixed with various invaders and eventually formed the Palestinian people.
Neither the Palestinians, Egyptians, Iraqis or Syrians are Arabs. They are all Arabized native populations.
I learned so much! Thanks for educating me, and for being committed to educating responsibly!
Yasher koach! Really well researched and presented-an excellent introduction and a great contribution to improving general understanding of our people.
I will send a link to several contacts that require and welcome the information.
A vast improvement, sir! But I promise I'll take a different tone and emphasis with my own video in a few weeks.
ETA: Kabbalah dates back quite a bit further back than Luria; he is just the most widely accepted authority on it. And Jewish mysticism in general goes back to the Roman era.
Something important I'd dissent from is the characterization in Conservative Judaism of Jewish law as being binding. It's actually much more similar to Reform, and can be considered an offshoot thereof. Ironically considering your caveat at the beginning of the video, the difference between Conservative and Orthodox largely stems around belief. The value Conservative Judaism places on Jewish law is _symbolic_ rather than _material._ As I said in my video on the Hamburg Temple Disputes, "the traditional belief in a coming messiah was wholly irrational, and had no bearing on the reality of Jewish life…but so what? It’s religion! It’s allowed to be irrational!"
I just don't understand one thing. Why didn't he mention THE main difference between Christianity and Judaism.
Judaism is not a religion. It is an ethnoreligion and a nation. As well as about Zionism being only a political movement.
@@SamAronow I think the reason you think that Conservative Judaism is more similar to Reform is that you grew up in California, where Conservative tend to be more religiously liberal. However, if you go to the East Coast, you'll find many Conservative congregations that are much closer to Modern Orthodoxy than Reform (except they don't have a mechitza). There's really quite a range. The othe reason you might think that is that Conservative Judaism has trended more liberal over time, and Reform Judaism as well as Modern Orthodoxy has trended more traditional over time. But in the past, Conservative synagogues tended to be much more similar to Modern Orthodox than with Reform. And with all that being said, the actual position of the Conservative movement is indeed that halacha is binding, even if they think that halacha is an evolving process that can adapt with the times. Perhaps only a minority of Conservative Jews treat halacha as binding and actually follow Conservative halacha, but that is the official position of the movement.
In terms of the history, I think that Matt Baker was correct. Now there are two different "origin stories" of the Conservative movement. One is that the Conservative movement was inspired by Frankel's Positive Historical Movement and formed in response to excesses of Reform as exemplified by the Trefa Banquet. The other is that the Conservative Movement was pretty much the same as Modern Orthodoxy until the 1940s and 1950s when they broke with Modern Orthodoxy over their liberal use of takkanot (rabbinic decrees) that upended aspects of Jewish law. Both stories are correct. The former is more the story of the precursors to the Conservative movement, but the latter story actually is how Conservative Judaism became its own denomination. JTS was founded after the Trefa Banquet made it clear that American Jewry could not be united under a Reform banner. However, the founders had no concept that they were founding a new denomination. In the decades that followed, the terms "Conservative" and "Orthodox" were used interchangeably, and what was considered "Orthodox" was much more expansive than it is today. And after Schechter founded the United Synagogue, it was not clear that its rabbinical council, the RA, was any more or less liberal than that of the "Orthodox" RCA. There were RCA-affiliated synagogues with microphones on Shabbat and without mechitzas, and there were RA-affiliated synagogues without microphones and with mechitzas. However, in the 1940s, the RA rearranged its law committee into the CJLS, which started to regularly pass "takkanot," which the RCA rejected as incompatible with Orthodoxy. From that point on, it became clear that Conservative was going to be its own denomination.
@@SamAronow While I generally agree with your criticisms, I think we have to acknowledge that these are issues where there can be debate and require vast simplification even to talk about as an introduction. I was disappointed with the old video because I thought he was presenting as fact things that were simply wrong.
I remember as a kid, the idea that religious belief was the most important thing was so indoctrinated into me that any time I heard of a religion or a denomination I'd never heard of, my first reaction would be, "oh, what do they believe?" In high school, I made friends with a Sikh. One day I asked him what Sikhs believe, and I was dumbfounded when he said, "I dunno," with a shrug.
It was only after watching this video (well, the first version that was posted weeks ago) that I understood that Christianity is kind of strange in this respect.
Sikhs are awesome. They're the best people for feeding the needy. If you're ever in a tough spot and need food, find a Sikh.
@@ochem123n*zi
@@ochem123which Christianity?
asking them what they believe might be the wrong question. it might be better to ask questions like, what is the most important thing in life, or how did the world come to be, or who are your gods?
@@ochem123If you watched his previous video on Christian denominations, you'll find that various people who would call themselves Christians don't believe in the same thing. Which one of these is the "true" form of Christianity?
I just saw your wonderful video about the different Jewish movements. It is really a great synthesis. I very much appreciate the clarity and historical rigour you have to deal with these matters. Very difficult task, and congratulations for a great work. Of course Sam Aronow will bring his own views on the matter. Welcome to both of you for your openness and good will.
Thank you for the information. I've been battling depression my entire life, however its been even worse over the last few years.
I've ALWAYS wanted to serve God, but I've been told I'm not good enough, worthless. I had no guidance in life.
I cried throughout this video. You helped to answer some of my questions. I've had so many questions about God and religion and when I ask, people get mad at me instead of talking with me to explain things.
I struggle with trusting ANYONE because of how much I've been hurt, since birth. 😢
THANK YOU. I can't tell you enough how just listening to this is comforting.
Excited to rewatch it! thank you for being awesome!
Update: This is terrific!! and I still think the first section should be required viewing for all Christians.
Which first section do you mean?
@@neinzukorruption9321 The part that explains Judaism isn't just "Christianity without Jesus"
I agree completely with your whole comment. The speed limit analogy resonated with me.
Incidentally, I always get shocked reactions when I say that “Christianity without Jesus” is Islam. Islam and most modern Protestant Christian denominations are very similar, other than the question of Jesus’s divinity and some surface-level cultural differences. Of course, I say this as someone with a traditional Christian background and who is thus looking at both from the outside.
@CharlotteIssyvoo Hi, I studied Islam from different aspects. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on how you perceived The Islamic religion is Christianits with Jesus😊
@@lostfan5054 ok, and why shold it be mandatory for christians? I did like the video, very interesting. but why mandatory?
Thank you ☺️ for this! I am not Jewish but, I respect The Faith and, I respect and support The Jewish people.
I was waiting for Argentina be mentioned. It was like the 38th minute, i was losing my expectations and then you mentioned it. I'm happy. Greetings from Argentina
Same, greetings from Argentina
O Argentina - Land of fled German painters
10 Jews, 11 opinions
100 Christians 101 views 😊
Thanks, Matt. Very enlightening. I as a born and raised Roman Catholic am seeing similar patterns emerge in Catholicism: certain ultra-orthodox streams arising, progressive movements gaining momentum as well, 'traditional' liturgical observers with more progressive social or doctrinal views. I particularly note similar trends in Catholicism (especially in North America and Europe) evolving along the same patterns as "Hiloni, Masorti, Dati, Haredi" divides you described. Of course, other Catholics may not see it that way, but it's a pattern I personally have been noticing.
progressive interpretations need to go away
@@HarshitGarg-CRA I don't particularly care one way or the other, but unless you want Christianity to eventually die out or be made irrelevant, I think you should be happy that there are some people who try to follow god's teachings while also living a life compatible with tolerance and acceptance of others.
I am a Catholic, I have a BA in Catholic theological studies and I teach theology in a Catholic high school. You are not wrong. There are "Trads," mainline novus ordo, the sui juris churches, charismatics, neo-cat, progressives, the list goes on. Catholicism, not unlike Judaism can be seen as ethno-religious too.
Note on this video the Pharasies evolved into Rabbinic Judaism. They reject Jesus and should not choose the Old Testament for Christianity.
Jewish and Catholic religions are similar in that they both believe you have to keep the Ten Commands. But with the Catholics, it is 91/2, for they dismiss the command to make no similitudes, likenesses, or images. True Christians are no longer under the law, whether that of Moses or natural/patriarchal law.
Well done! This version fixes a lot of the issues I had with the previous one 🎉
Good to hear!
@@UsefulCharts were the images of R Karo and Isserliss the ones from Unpacked? They (with those backgrounds) look identical to the ones they used in their Jewish History Explained series.
I know the illustrations of the rabbis are probably public domain, but the backgrounds probably aren't (I think Unpacked created those).
Yes. They are from Unpacked. I've collabed with them in the past.
@@UsefulCharts I know ☺ I used to work there
Oh. Of course! You don't work with them anymore? What are you doing now?
I am not religious myself but I do find this stuff fascinating so thank you for the informative video
I have many friends I'll be sharing this with. Thanks for updating it so quickly with even better content!
I appreciate your insight and perspective. It's true that for Christians, belief is a fundamental aspect, but there's also a strong emphasis on translating those beliefs into actions. I understand and respect the distinction you've pointed out. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, and I value the opportunity to learn from different viewpoints. 🙏
Thank you for making this updated video. I noticed the changes made here and there, and I really liked the final output, and I am happy that you took the time to repost the video updated rather than just putting some comments on the original. Very well done!
Kol HaKavod. We can feel how much effort you put on this to be precise, historical and characterize each group properly!!
Brilliant! I've been an Ashkenazic Jew for 62 years and the explanations you provide have given me a clarity I've not had before. Thank you, Sir!
Thank you for reuploading!! I was looking for it the other day and I stumbled on Dr Abramson channel and have binged watched so many of his videos!
Very interesting, thanks! I often feel too awkward to ask my Jewish friends stuff like this because I fear they'll feel like I'm testing them or something, in addition to not knowing how "practicing" (to use another probably-inapplicable Christian term) they consider themselves.
As a sidenote, with regard to remark about the New Testament not having nice things to say about the Pharisees, something I learned growing up (Eastern Orthodox Christian who went to a Catholic school) was that the reason Jesus seemed harder on the Pharisees was because they were closer to "getting it," so to speak, in addition to simply being more popular with the Jewish people of the time. That they differed from the Sadducee elites in believing in angels and the resurrection of the dead and such, but were simply too wrapped up in making people follow the letter of the law. Obviously I'm no scholar and this is of course a Christian perspective, but it's always something I found interesting, nonetheless.
Hi! I’d say the more appropriate term to use instead of “practicing” is “observant.” For us Jews, the distinction (at least in practical terms) is about how strictly one observes the religious rules/laws (Halacha), which can vary within denominations and communities.
For example: I grew up Conservative, but fairly assimilated and largely non-observant (e.g., we didn’t keep kosher, consistently attend shul or observe Shabbat, etc.), though our identity as Jewish was a central element of our lives. I raised my kids in a more Renewal/Reconstructionist way, at least in terms of the communities we were part of, but far more focused on culture than religion (though ironically we celebrated far more holidays than my family of origin had and my kids had a more thorough Jewish education than I had!). Now, my adult kids and I all think of ourselves as primarily atheist, with an ongoing sense of Jewish cultural connection, but very little observance of holidays or other traditions. Frankly, I think of it as a spectrum, like a lot of other elements in life!
Just my 2 shekels worth, if you find the info useful!
I feel like any religious person would be happy to answer questions about their faith and traditions if asked in good faith and with an open mind.
@@AJX-2agreed! Orthodox Jew here, if someone asks me about my religion in good faith, even if they don't use the exact right words, I'd be happy to talk about it.
@@literaterose6731 I like your post, it mirrors my experience in how religion is essentially a mix of belief and customs in arbitrary/individual percentages of the two. Here are three people in my family who all claim to be eastern orthodox christian:
My grandmother used to say how she felt god in her heart and that god helped her in life, however she once also said that she doesn't believe that Jesus resurected as "no one has ever risen from the dead". It essentially means she was a theist of some sort but not really christian, however she followed the eastern orthodox christian traditions from her village for her entire life. Interestingly enough she was also the first person in the family to come to terms with me leaving the faith and stopping observing those traditions.
Then we have my dad who doesn't care about the theology, and actively refuses to talk/learn about it just saying "I don't know and I don't need to know" and that he just does what everyone else does. He never goes to church unless he absolutely has to and observes only the few most important holidays. He is highly fearful of death and my guess is that is what is fueling his religious behavior (being respectful to god so he doesn't end up in a bad place, basically Pascal's wager), while whether he actually believes in anything is questionable.
And last we have my brother who, in true pre-protestant fashion, only cares about what the church says. He has never touched the bible, doesn't know any of the gospels and stories, doesn't even know the name of god (the father, he knows Jesus's name of course) and I doubt that he could explain the trinity. He considers that the church and its traditions are basicaly applied theology so he can just follow those instructions and not have to think about it himself. Oh and in the end he correlates ethnicity with religion and says that because I am not religious he is a better/more of (our ethnicity) than I am.
Well, there you go. And thanks for the 2 shekels!
One time I was in a local Judaica store to get a mezuzah and klaf for a friend that just bought a house. A man walked in and asked if they had any books about the different movements in Judaism. The two employees immediately became irate, pretended not to know what he was talking about, insisted that there was only one Judaism, then kicked him out. I would give my pinky toe to see the look in my face because in addition to not being Jewish, I worked for the Union for Reform Judaism at the time😅 I asked my coworkers what the interaction was about and they explained that some Jews believe they’re the only ones, that Jews of other movements aren’t really Jewish and shouldn’t qualify for the Law of Return. I giggled because they could have been describing Baptists 😂
Baptist? How?
@@MrBrashRooster not my experience. None of my family were that way. None of my friends either. Some had Jewish best friends.
As far as the theology of who is saved, those ministers are right about what The Bible says. If you aren’t saved, you don’t go to heaven. That’s their belief system. Yours is different. But you may want to consider their beliefs more closely, just in case they are right. In any case, this is not the forum to go off on that diversion. Just remember, it’s not good to judge groups by the actions of few. As a Jew, you should understand this principle quite well.
That's an attitude some Haredim / Orthodox people have, yes. Though I find that level of rudeness about it fairly extraordinary. I'm not Jewish but have lived my life surrounded by Jewish folks (including within my extended family). I've met some grumpy Haredim having a bad day and never seen dogma turn into hostility.
On the other hand, I HAVE seen dogma turn into hostility in the mouths of quite a few very devout Christians and Muslims.
I can offer no explanation why other than to point to the history of those two religions.
@@RobespierreThePoof…so let me get this straight ..someone points out the rudeness /attitudes and ‘dogma turned hostility’ that these Jews were undeniably practicing ’ .. and your reaction is to first explain it away saying ‘ I know Jews .. & Jews don’t do that .. “however I see Christians and Muslims turn dogma into hostility regularly”. ??? Ok got it . Lmfao . Religion a nutshell folks
…THIS comment right here !!!! Thank you for sharing honestly and opening eyes. How true -yet how sad . These folks (both Jewish!! lol ) can’t even get some gifts in the same store - without hateful rhetoric and action . AND ….listen carefully ** a “holier than thou attitude.. “. Amazing!!
Devout religion in its finest moments . All across the world ! I have to wonder how even ‘other believers’ would have made out …if they explained at said store that day , who they were, and what they were doing at the store ... or even 🤔should it have been a different faith in a different store. Doesn’t appear to matter.
…Ahh The loving power and beauty and grace of ????--
Great video! I'm one of those who suggested some changes in the first video, and I have to say I respect you a lot for making the effort and creating a whole new video! Shabbat Shalom :)
Thank you!!!
Evangelical Christian here, enjoyed the video & learned a lot about your faith, you’re right I had some misunderstandings… thanks!
I love dr Abramson. Hearing you shout him out was awesome. Im Orthodox and dont agree with all your views, but i love all your videos. Shavua tov.
Hey Matt! I'm a big fan. Have you ever considered doing a video/series on languages? Maybe an Indo-European Family Tree?
Thank you for this informative overview. I had always wondered about the various divisions. The chart was especially helpful.
This video was really informative and interesting, thank you for it
The fact that this video is about Judaism and Christians are complaining about Matt’s simplification of Nicene Christianism faith and belief. Calm down guys. He meant to differentiate Christianity from Judaism. in the end all Christians believe in Christ and Jews do not, everything else he discussed in on the Christian denominations series. Great video Matt. Very informative.
It is inevitable that you have to simplify things in order to present information....
I would say it's not correct to say all Christians believe in Jesus and Jews do not. It would imho be more accurate to say Christianity teaches Jesus is Messiah, son of God with most Christian denominations believing that Jesus is God while no branches of Judaism hold that Jesus was/is the Messiah and definitely do not believe him to be any more divine than any other human being. Messianic Judaism is a denomination of Christianity with a large portion of their adherents being Jews. ☺️
@@leafzuk Actually, no. Very few adherents of Messianic Judaism are actually Jews. They tend to be Christians just pretending.
The issue I have is that, as stated in the video, Christians base their views based on the Apostle Paul; but Matt waves Paul aside because what Paul states doesn’t aline with modern jewish beliefs. To hold this belief of argument is to hold that Paul: a 1st Century Jew, highly educated as a Pharisee, from a family of highly educated Pharisees, who was close enough to the High Priest and Council to be entrusted with persecuting Christians… didn’t understand his own religion or culture, which is just an insane argument.
A better phrasing for Matt would have been, Christians base their understanding of Judaism on ancient Judaism not modern Judaism, and that Modern Judaism has changed greatly since the 2nd temple was destroyed. The current phrasing implies Christians are just idiots who never understood the OT.
@@tkdmike9345 There is zero evidence that Paul was at all educated in the Judaism of the Second Temple. His writings are replete with the type of ignorance that would disqualify him from the education of a typical 9 year old. He was a Roman.
This was brilliant and very educational.
Great video! It's really cool learning that you are a convert, as I personally plan to start my conversion to Judaism soon.
Thank you for making this. I've recently been doing some research into 2nd Temple Worship and seeing the progression afterwards was very informative. I happen to grow up in an area where there was a significant Orthodox population. Thank you again.
Very well done, the improvements were needed and you surpassed my humble expectations.
great video and very needed in my eyes two things that came to mind
1. I think you should have talked about the fact that if an Ashkenazi/Sephardic Jew finds himself living in a community dominated by the other the person was just expected to attend synagogue and adopt at least partly the minhagim of the other while also keeping his own minhag
2. kinda disappointed by the part about Hasidic Judaism mostly because well Chabad isn't actually the largest Hasidic group that title belongs to the Ger Hasidic dynasty I do feel like a video about Hasidism and Hasidic dynasties is right up your alley as it is very connected to Genealogy, Judaism & Theology
(note I am definitely biased due to my family's strong Hasidic past i am actually a direct descendent of the first Ger rebbe my family was also prominent in the Ostravetser Hasidism although i am actually Hiloni myself)
I also consider Breslov Chassidim to be important, since there is the fact that many of their teachings have been incorporated by some Litvaks and Modern Orthodox here in America, and in Israel, while most Chassidim are Chareidi, a group of Breslovers formed a Dati version of their Chassidism, though many Chareidi and American Breslovers denɨgɾate the Dati Breslovers with the term "Na-Nach" (though the Na-Nach strain of Breslovers does include many Chareidi Breslovers in Israel, and many Non-Na-Nach Breslovers are ʙlɨnded to the difference.)
1. Generally it was just living in the local culture of your community, there is reason one of the most common family names for mena Jews is ashkenazi while they themselves are mizrahi or Sephardic
2. Yep entering into rabbinic dynasty and yeshivas that comes from them are their own rabbit holes
My best friend is an Ashkenazi Jew, and as a Mormon Christian I’ve always wondered what words like Sephardic, Hasidic, Orthodox, and more actually mean. This video was very informational! Thanks!
Where are you from? I assume you're in a big city perhaps salt lake City. The reason why I ask is because there aren't many Jewish people outside of the city and I was curious that any cities that there might be Muslims. I find Islam and Mormonism overlap greatly. Especially in terms of the origins. As well as some sorbid practices and beliefs such as the belief of polygamy both in the heavens and on earth
@@nickmoser7785 My friend and I live in a weird overlap between 3 cities in Oregon, between Portland, Beaverton and Hillsboro. According to Pew Research Center’s 2014 study, 4% of my home state is LDS (Mormon), 2% Jewish and 1% Islamic. However, for Portland singularly my religion makes up still about 4%, though Jewish population is lower at only 0.1% and Islamic believers are at practically 0%.
I hear comparisons between my faith and Islam often, and while I do agree the coincidental similarities are there, they’re nothing more than general, surface level observations.
If you're Mormon you are not, NOT, Christian!
There is so much content in this one video that I am sure I need to watch it a dozen times before I can absorb it properly.
Thank You Matt, very grateful for this video, cleared up some things for me and I learned alot!
Always enlightening, Matt. Thanks.
You being a convert to Judaism is very cool. Thanks so much for sharing a bit about yourself. How amazing.
Fantastic! I learned so much and it gave me a deeper perspective into my Ashkenazi roots. My brother has been DNA tested as a descendant of Aaron-Moses’s brother, thus the men in my immediate family are Kohens. Would love to learn more about that lineage.
There is no DNA test that can confirm you as a descendant of Aaron. You can be confirmed as belonging to the same haplogroup that many modern day Kohanim belong to but that doesn't say anything definitive.
@@UsefulCharts good to know thanks.
Fabulous job, explaining the basic differences between Judaism and Christianity, cultural customs, denominations, etc.
Just discovered your channel and its quickly become one of my favorites. Currently trying to pick which posters I want to grab
I love your English, it's easy for me as a nonnative to comprehend❤
Can you summarize the biblical epics? It would be better if you compare them to the Quran version❤
Thank you for uploading this video! It's definitely very helpful. I would say that, as a Christian, I'm glad that you presented this. I truly enjoyed it's great detail. At the same time, I do think that some Christian belief (or the assertions of Paul) aren't quite worded accurately here.
The historic Christian belief about Jews is not really about a "salvation" focused goal. Rather, it is based more upon the understanding that Jews were chosen by God above all other peoples because of Abraham's faith in God. This was the crux of what Paul wrote regarding the Law. He wasn't saying that Jews attempt to be saved by following the Law of Moses. Rather, he was pointing out that strict adherence to the Law -- including each sacrifice -- is unable to be a final atonement for sin.
In fact, Paul pointed out that this isn't the focus of what it meant to be a Jew in the First Century either. Paul pointed out that the stipulations of the Law along with the traditions passed down by Rabbis was unable to accomplish this atonement -- something argued to be necessary to stand before God in eternity. So, Paul pointed out that the Jews -- the descendants from Abraham's grandson, Jacob -- were chosen by God because of Abraham's faith. He pointed out the passage in Genesis where it mentions that "Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness" (Genesis 15:6).
Paul pointed out that this covenant with Abraham predated Moses and the Law. More than four centuries after Abraham, the Law included very detailed requirements (most of which were Temple and service-oriented). It wasn't focused on salvation but atonement through customs and practices. Despite this, Paul argued that God's covenant with Abraham was everlasting. This is why many Christians -- particularly evangelicals and practicing protestants -- support Israel. We perceive that this covenant with Abraham -- including the land of promise -- is everlasting.
According to the New Testament, salvation is a state of having been eternally atoned for. Like Abraham, a person must "believe." This is what makes them "saved." As such, many of the New Testament statements about salvation also include the need to believe. Obviously, there is the Messianic focus to this belief. The New Testament teaches that Jesus was the Messiah. He was a son of David -- but also the very Son of God (i.e., God becoming flesh and walking upon the earth he created). So, the basis for Christianity is that the Son of God (i.e., God born in the flesh) would walk on this earth and eventually become the final atoning sacrifice for humanity.
Obviously, people would never be perfect. However, the Book of Hebrews (likely written by a Levite Christian named Joseph Barnabas a year or two before the destruction of the Temple) was written to other Jewish Christians. In it, the writer stated that Jesus was a great "high priest" -- not by Levitical genealogy but a high priest in the order of Melchizedek (the priest and king of Salem who Abraham offered a tithe to long before the Law). He then encourages the readers to remain steadfast, faithful and patient despite the growing persecution at that time. After all, the Book of Hebrews was likely written after the execution of Peter and Paul (both Jewish Christians) but also a year or so before the destruction of the Temple by future emperor Titus.
As I stated before, I truly appreciate your videos! They are so wonderfully enlightening!
Great explanation we support Israel and the true God chosen Jews. Praying more understand we still pray to the Father YHWH in Jesus name the only one worthy to atone for sin which we all are sinners without him 🙏
Good Job!
I wish you would have paid a little attention to the other regional Jewish groups with different Minhag/traditions, even if they have mostly been absorbed into Israel:
-ancient Juhuro Jews of the Caucasus mountains.
-old Chinese Jews.
-various Indian Jewish groups: the ancient Cochin in South India, the old Bene (note: not Beta) Israel in Maharajah/Mumbai, the Paradesi (once Sephardi refugees from Portugal) in Madras area.
-Bukharan Jews of Central Asia which are a subset of the Mizrahi.
But that is a wish list, you still did a good job.
Most currently living in Israel and basically were even in existence very small with largest being the Central Asia and caucuses ones that had at top tens of thousands over all the regions in questions
And most today just follow one of the groups in the videos and fall into the category in question
These are generally within the Mizrahi umbrella term
@@chimera9818 The Bene Israel were around 30,000 in India, and today there are around 90,000 of Bene Israel descent. They had more contact with other Jewish communities earlier than the Beta Israel (Ethiopian) Jews did, but they are also really ancient with roots going back around 2,500 years. They had separated from other Jewish communities prior to the writing of the Talmud, so their tradition included Biblical but not rabbinic practices.
Hello and shalom! This is wonderfully explained and presented. Indeed, it also matches mostly with a talk I had once planned to do myself, and I'm happy that my notes for that are obviously not entirely wrong, and rather confirmed by many other sources. As another outsider who was raised Christian and is strongly considering conversion, I find this presentation highly useful.
Amazingly informative! I was born Jewish, lived in Israel for a total of nine years. I went to high school and learned Jewish history as taught by Israeli high schools in the 70s. Some of this I had learned at that time, however it was easy to get confused about the branches and timelines. 😂 You laid this out clearly and concisely making it easy to understand.
I look at Judaism differently now and really don't think of myself as Jewish anymore. However I am still fascinated with this history.
By the way, that reform Jews eat shellfish and other non kosher foods, has nothing to to with the climate or environment. They eat this way for their own reasons and have done so for as long as i can remember. However, I appreciate your kind spin and perhaps now Tikkun Olam is now the reason for eating shrimp! 😂
If you are ethnically Jewish, then you will always be Jewish regardless of what you believe.
Good for you! Similar to you, I was born into a Hindu family but later just grew out of it. Following any religion without the basic empathy towards all humans is meaningless. And when we do have compassion, respect and empathy towards each other, we really don't need a religion come to think of it.
He made some erroneous statements in this video regarding Paul and the New Testament around the 4:30 mark.
@@statutesofthelordhe did not
Thank you, thank you, thank you. As a Christian, I just wanted to understand. (P.S. I love your visualizations.)
I’ve been subscribed to Henry for a while now. I have learned a ton from his channel. Amazing channel. I highly recommend it.
As someone who is looking into converting, this was very helpful, thank you!
Converting? Why?
I am a fairly well-educated Jew, but I learned more from this video than from years of Religious School. Todah Rabah!
Thank you for this! I'm Orthodox and have a very strong Jewish education, but I learned new things here. I appreciate how organized it is.
As a reform Jew, I found this video really fun and pretty complete as a first dip into the theme. If you ever plan on making something more in depth I would add a bit more about the major events that brought on the "ruptures" between the different denominations, there are some great and fun stories to be told there.
Other than that, I would really like to thank you for making this video. I'm from Brazil, and here we have some difficulty in explaining these differences, including to other jews, since many, if not most, live secular lives but end up attending sinagogues that are mostly some type of orthodox, which is the most common denomination we have, even if they themselves don't agree with the orthodoxy.
Finally, I would like to ask you if you plan on selling this chart on the website, I would really like to have it hanging on my wall.
Thanks, again :)
I could watch stuff like this all day, I love learning about different religions and the history and variety of beliefs within them. I really enjoyed this and am looking forward to your upcoming videos on other religions!
One correction regarding the use of electricity on Shabbat by Orthodox and Conservative Jews. The modern rationale used for limiting electricity is no longer due to analogies between electricity and fire (as they understand that they are scientifically disparate), but rather because of completing a circuit. Completing a creative task is one of the 39 Melakhot, or 39 basic tasks that were performed in the Temple that are now limited as “labour” on shabbat. Closing a circuit is considered completing the task, and potentially also as building, another prohibited action
Very interesting! Thank you for taking the time to research and present this to your fellow man. All the best
Thanks for this! I do want to point out that healthy Christianity does think about the here and now and living a holy life benefits the world. That said the emphasis on this really varies and I would say it is seen in the most pronounced fashion in Catholics, Methodists, and Eastern Orthodoxy. But you are totally right about what we are looking for in a church. My church is going through the process of finding a denomination that suits us and belief is one of the first things we are trying to verify. But as Methodists we are interested in practice too, which has been neglected by some liberal Methodist groups. Very cool to learn about this!
Big fan of your posts and this is great by the way. I would slightly disagree with the the act of faith not being as important to Jewish people as opposed to living by the laws. I live in a Hasidic area of London UK, and a couple of my Hasidic neighbours have both said to me that it's integral to them that Moses wrote the first five books of the pentatuch ( my word not theirs) and it's also offensive to question their books. Personally I would call that faith but there you go. Keep up the good work and I always follow your content.
… ahh so it’s offensive to question their books. 👍 gotcha. Now what if I DID question the books ?
Or questioned like the Koran , …or the Bible or something ? Or better yet .. what if THEY (the Hasidic neighbors ) questioned one those books ?? Lmfao
It also likely depends on how religious you are. I'm reform and I'm pretty sure some of my Hebrew School teachers said things like "yeah I don't really believe in some things but whatever." I was taught to question what God is, and if God even exists.
Nicely presented, carefully done! One nit: See if you can pronounce Hebrew words with the accent at the end. Like kabbaLAH, hiloNI, daTI, hareDI. Israelis tend to do that, and it sounds better to my ear too. Otherwise, toDAH rabBAH.
Very well explained. It's thoughtful and insightful.
Matt, yes Dr. Henry Abramson is great. This was a great video, too. I appreciate the statement of belief discussion. it helps me understand the difference between my Jewish faith and Christianity.
We have an amazing Synagogue in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. It was originally a Sephardic Jewish Congregation from 1794. Since 1833, we are one of five synagogues in the world with a sand floor. During this time of a great shipping economy, we experienced an internal reform movement bringing in an organ and choir, influenced by the Haskalah that you described. Then came 1871 hurricanes, an earthquake and disease and we lost a lot of members. At the end of the age of sail in late 19th Century, our economy declined greatly. Then, our governance became more Ashkenazi Jewish, with several Lithuanian families.
After two world wars and tourism, we became more affluent in thinking and financially. We formally changed to Union for Reformed Judaism in 1948. Come Visit! I give the tours.
I've visited! It's a stunning building, and I loved the history of one of the western hemisphere's oldest synagogues 😊.
I appreciate this video. My wife and I recently became interested in learning more about Judaism, and this video was both informative and educational. We are enjoying all of these on UA-cam.
This was a very informative video! While I love watch Sam Aronow's videos to learn about Jewish history, this video helped clear up some of the Jewish terms he uses (such as Mitnagdim and Mitzvot) that I'm not really exposed to as a Christian in a Christian community. Also, while I appreciated the first video as it was the first time someone straightened out my ashamedly Christian view of Judaism, I love this one because not only did you keep that, you went more into detail about Judaism such as with the Jewish sub-cultures as well as Judaism in countries besides the US.
I'm American and here we like to categorize people based on their religion. At least those of us who are Christian do. In college, I met some people from New Zealand who were shocked that Americans they met would ask them what religion they are. They felt that this was a very intrusive question and led to judgmental attitudes on the part of the Americans who asked them. Up to that point, I assumed this was a common question anyone around the world would ask.
There are regional differences here in the US as well. I was shocked when traveling in the South by how many people would ask things like "what church do you go to?" In the northeast, where I am from, that would be considered a shockingly intrusive, rude, and just plain *weird* question to ask a person. It would be pretty weird to ask someone outright about their religion too, come to think of it, unless you knew them fairly well.
@@elkins4406Could that what church do you attend be an opening question to a recruiting attempt?
@@bobfoster687 I suppose it could be. From the tone, though, I got the impression that it was more of a friendly "Oh, you're new to town?" sort of question. It seemed both genuinely friendly and very casual. From the reactions I would sometimes get when I'd tell them I'm Jewish, I think that a lot of people -- especially in rural areas -- were genuinely flustered by meeting someone who seemed relatively "normal" by their standards, but who wasn't some variety of Protestant.
I'm always happy to tell Christians that their faith is a lie. That ends it.
Hi Matt, thanks so much for incorporating my comment about mentioning the Messianic Jews. I still think they blur the line between Christianity and Judiasm so much that they belong to this family tree too (basically for the reasons I mentioned in the prior version of this video), but giving them an honorable mention and directing viewers to your other video where you talk about them in more detail was a good alternative imo.
Messianics are not Jews. They’re Christians who keep Jewish traditions & lie about being Jews. It’s like saying a Christian can also believe in Mohammed & accept the Quran but not be a Muslim while training a Christian.
I would hardly say it was an "honorable mention." They are liars and deceivers.
With all due respect I'm not aware of any jew who considers them to be apart of the greater jewsh community.
This is the first of your videos that I've seen. Well done. Very clear explanations.
Got an idea for you. A timeline of religions. And sort of connect the dots between them and how they evolved/progressed thru time. If you could go as far back as possible to whatever has been discovered thus far from history up to modern times. I think it'd make for an interesting video.
Btw the videos are great. Appreciated.
UsefulCharts, ReligionforBreakfast and now Dr Henry Abramson,so cool. It's like the multiverse of monotheistic discourse. Now we need some Esoterica, Sam Aronow, Let's Talk Religion , Al Muqadimmah
Hell Yeah Esoterica! 🤘And Josh is a Jew himself
This is such a good video. Thank you very much. Loved it! I knew a lot because of my own research but i learned quite a lot!
I would be very interested in a breakdown of the Hasidic dynasties. Both their differences and their interrelationships.
If u ever visit Brooklyn NY, check out Borough Park...u will see ppl first hand.
Thank you so much for explaining this so thoughtfully. I'm Reconstructionist but have gone to Conservative and Reform temples. Most Christians are totally bewildered by all of this, so just going to start sending them this video. Appreciate your work immensely
Am a Muslim and I love this content very good lesson.
Shalom ❤
Overall, i think this is nicely done.
I have a quibble with the way you describe the orthodox approach to halacha as unchanging. There is actually quite a lot of halachic innovation happening in the orthodox world with respect to technology and cultural influences (e.g. the Zomet Institute, or ORA re: agunot). I think it would be more accurate to describe the orthodox approach to halacha as being bound by and respecting halachic precedent.
I completely understand why you have an issue with the description of our approach to halacha as being unchanging, with us rather being bound to halachic precedent, but I understand why he labeled it as unchanging per se- particularly as compared to Conservative and Reform Jews, the halacha tends to remain much the same. We're simply expanding and recalculating.
For anyone interested in Kabbalah, ancient Israelite/Jewish Afterlife (there is a lot such as Sheole, paradise, full body recantation, and more,) Essenses (the children of life in some of their texts), Occult/Mystical Judaism, I would like to Point inthe direction of Esoterica, Dr Justin Sledge, is amazing teacher and has some the best humor.
I suggest his series on the apocryphal books or Enoch, which is very eye opening.
I hope Matt doesn't mind
Our guide in Israel put it this way: "In Orthodox, the bride is a virgin. In Conservative, the bride is pregnant. In Reform, the Rabbi is pregnant!"
That is not cool
@@MariusRomanumwhy not? If the Rabbi is a woman, they can be pregnant.
@@MariusRomanumcope😂
@@robertfaucher3750 women shouldn't be members of the clergy, all Abrahamic religions say that. Just cuz you don't like it doesn't make it true
@@MariusRomanum sorry I thought you may be being transphobic or like "it is not possible for a man to be pregnant?!"
One the clearest, historical, non-partisan presentations I have seen explaining Judaism. I am a British atheist descendant of Austrian Jews.
As a Christian I find these all so fascinating I love studying different religions and believe that there is much Christianity can learn from Jewish teachings and views of Scripture. Thank you so much and look forward to more videos.
This is sooo informative, omg. Thank you so much for producing this!
Random FACT: Maimondes was one of the Physicians for Saladin
So the video in Islam will come out on 25 August instead, right?
Yeah, sorry for the delay.
@@UsefulCharts No problem
@@UsefulChartsThat sounds interesting, can't wait to watch.
Please keep this series going!
I really enjoyed this video, take care.