Whois & Analysis for myjewishlearning.com

The Torah ("instruction, teaching") is the central reference of Judaism.

It has a range of meanings.

It can most specifically mean the first five books (Pentateuch) of the twenty-four books of the Tanakh, and it usually includes the rabbinic commentaries (').

The term "Torah" means instruction and offers a way of life for those who follow it; it can mean the continued narrative from Book of Genesis to the end of the Tanakh, and it can even mean the totality of Jewish teaching, culture and practice.

Common to all these meanings, Torah consists of the origin of Jewish peoplehood: their call into being by God, their trials and tribulations, and their covenant with their God, which involves following a way of life embodied in a set of moral and religious obligations and civil laws (').

Judaism (from, derived from Greek, originally from Hebrew, Yehudah, "Judah"; in Hebrew, Yahadut, the distinctive characteristics of the Judean ethnos) encompasses the religion, philosophy, culture and way of life of the Jewish people.

Judaism is an ancient Abrahamic monotheistic religion, with the Torah as its foundational text (part of the larger text known as the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible), and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash and the Talmud.

Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the covenantal relationship that God established with the Children of Israel.

With between 14.5 and 17.4 million adherents worldwide, Judaism is the tenth-largest religion in the world.

Jewish holidays, also known as Jewish festivals or Yamim Tovim ("Good Days", or singular Yom Tov, in transliterated Hebrew), are holidays observed in Judaism and by Jews throughout the Hebrew calendar and include religious, cultural and national elements, derived from three sources: Biblical mitzvot ("commandments"); rabbinic mandates; Jewish history and the history of the State of Israel.

A ritual "is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and performed according to set sequence." Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community.

Rituals are characterized but not defined by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance.