Research World Religion: Abraham and Judaism

Abraham and Judaism
Name
Institutional affiliation
Abraham and Judaism
Abraham is important to the Jewish people because he is widely regarded to as the father of the Jewish nation. Moreover, he is perceived as a servant of God who did as he was instructed to do by God. The history of the Jewish people can trace its roots to the Bronze Age time in the Middle East. God promised Abraham at that time was known as Abram that he would make him a father of a big nation if only he did what God instructed him to do. The Jewish people regard Abraham as the first patriarch of the Jewish nation. He was the first person to preach about the existence of a single God at a time when many people believed in multiple gods. Abraham’s father was named Terah, and he made his living selling various idol gods to people in the community (Lowin, 2011). Jewish consider Abraham as not only the father of the Jewish nation but also the receiver of the covenant in which the practicing Jewish follow. During a time when people worship various idol gods, Abraham is said to have sought a truer God and accepted his calling. He was commanded to leave his hometown and travel the land to carry out the work of God. He accepted to leave and took his wife Sarah with him on the new mission. Because he was pure at heart, God gave him the covenant or scriptures to guide his people.
For his devotion to God, he received the promise from God that he would be made the father of a great nation whose people would be called God’s people. It is from that moment that he was named Abraham from Abram which means the father of a multitude. Moreover, every infant male child was to be circumcised as a symbol of honoring the covenant. The Jewish tradition Midrash (which translates to the interpretation of the way people understand the biblical verses) there are a couple of times when Abraham gets angry and smashes his father’s idols since he has come to the realization that there can be only one God in the world (Seters & Malamat, 2012). The Jewish people do not care whether the stories about Abraham are true but they acknowledge the fact that he was the first person to worship a single God and hence monotheism was born. This is a good example of an event in the Jewish history that can be linked to Abraham. Circumcision is also another major event since he was the first person to get circumcised as a way of honoring the covenant with God. He additionally prom...