Jødedommens
høye helligdager er akkurat over. De innledes med rosh hashana (nyttår)
og avsluttes med yom kippur (forsoningsdagen) ti dager senere.

I den anledning publiserte The Guardian en kommentarartikkel
av rabbi Jonathan Ro2_kommentar der en av de viktigste forskjellene mellom
jødedom og kristendom – handling versus tro – belyses på en
lettfattelig måte.

For Judaism, it is the practical consequences of belief in God
that are important, not the belief itself. If God exists, then the
world has a purpose, life has meaning, all people are equal and every
individual matters. The prayers, too, are not so much for God’s benefit
but for ours. By praising God for caring for the living, supporting the
fallen and healing the sick, we are effectively saying these are
godly/goodly attributes and mapping out our own tasks.

Over the centuries, this has led to an emphasis on action rather
than faith, to the extent that the latter has become assumed to the
point of neglect. It gives rise to the saying – somewhat
tongue-in-cheek but containing a sizable grain of truth – that «to be a
good Jew, you don’t have to believe in God, just do what He says».

For some Jews, this is a parody of a faith that is brim full of
God’s glory; for others, it is a welcome description of a religion
whose strength is that the heretic is not the person who believes the
wrong thing, but who does the wrong thing.