Do Jews believe in God?
Judaism in Five Minutes - Sarah Imhoff
Elias Sacks [+]
University of Colorado, Boulder
Elias Sacks is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies and Faculty Director for Public Scholarship in the Office of Faculty Affairs at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He studies Jewish thought, philosophy of religion, Jewish-Christian relations, religious ethics, and religion and politics. He is the author of Moses Mendelssohn’s Living Script: Philosophy, Practice, History, Judaism (Indiana University Press, 2017), as well as articles on a wide range of medieval and modern thinkers.
Description
How we answer “Do Jews believe in God?” depends on how we understand the question. We might ask about what Jews actually do—about whether individuals who identify as Jewish affirm the existence of something they call “God.” We might ask about what Jews should do—about whether Jewish sources present belief in God as something that Jews should affirm, or as an idea that is unnecessary, absurd, or even offensive. And we might explore the meaning of “God” itself—the diverse and sometimes surprising ways in which Jews often invoke this term to express core ideas and values.