Q: I am Muslim and I converted from Christianity. I am trying to find out about everyone's belief because I don't understand why Christians worship Jesus if he is a Jew and I don't know understand what Jews believe in!!! HELP!!!
A: I have very little to add to GivPerf, but some of it is: The question itself is erroneous. Jews don't "believe" in anything, at least not in the sense of "I believe Jesus came to atone for my sins," etc. Judaism doesn't believe in fancy guesswork, only firm knowledge based on real fact. We don't "believe" to be saved, we must do what we know G-d told us to, namely, to learn his laws and do them, since that's the most pleasurable life possible. We must have faith in G-d, but that's not the same. Imagine you break down on the highway in a bad neighborhood at 4 AM and all you have is your cell phone. You call up your friend who, after waking up, agrees to help you out. Do you believe that your friend exists? No, you know he exists. You have faith that he's going to help you out of your problem, but that has nothing to do with whether he exists or not! It's the same here- we know G-d exists, and we have faith that what he does is good, etc. but even that's based on knowledge, not blind faith. Like in the story above, you wouldn't pick a name out of the phonebook, you'd call your close friend whom you know you can rely on. So too, we have prior experience that G-d knows what's good for us, so we follow him. And the main point- Judaism isn't a religion that's fascinated with the end times like Christianity and Islam are. Both of them are basically trying to accomplish and end-goal of bringing their Messiah back. Judaism isn't like that. In fact, it's hardly a religion, it's more like a life-style. It's not something you do on Saturday mornings before driving the kids to baseball practice- it's something you live and breathe every moment of your life. Whether in business or waking up, there are things you can- and cannot- do. Yes, we hope that one day the Messiah will come, and yes we pray for him, but that's not an end unto itself. When he comes we'll continue serving G-d, it'll just be much, much easier for us. But to define Judaism as the religion that "doesn't believe in Jesus or Mohammad" is inadequate.