Ethical Monotheism

Judaism is the oldest of the three monotheistic Abrahamic religions. The father of Judaism is Abraham Judaism believes that God is active in the social and historical process. The amazing achievement of Judaism is that it has developed the concept of God from that of a primitive tribal deity to the God of all nations. Monotheism means belief in one God, mono means oneness. It also applied to other monotheism religion such as Christianity or Islam. The concept of the one and only God is called ethical monotheism. In this concept everything begins with God, and God has chosen Hebrew in about 1700 B.C.E. He is holy, sacred and separate from the world and people. By His word He creates, rules and judges the world and people, and speaks to Israel and all people. Hebrew believes that He will bring history to fulfillment in the messianic age.
The Bible is the record of their experience as God’s people; there are three traditional divisions : 1. The Torah or the law. 2, Nebiim, the prophets, who shaped the faith. 3, Ketubim or books of wisdom. Israel responds to the call of God and declares its faith as a people in group worship in the synagogue or temple or at home, the cult centers on their national history. The moral lawa comes from God; as such it is absolute, universal, revealed and human. The law that consists in the commandments of God as interpreted by the Rabbis and scholars to be studied and followed by all as blessing for them and for the world.
In my opinion ethical monotheism is a good way to describe Judaism. We can see from the history of the Judaism itself. Abraham who was considered as the father of monotheism religion, introduced mono concept of God, by slaughtering idols with axe and leave the axe on the biggest idol hand. When his father knew he ask him who did that, Abraham replied that the biggest idol was the most responsible since there is axe in its hand. His father said are you crazy, idols can do nothing. Then Abraham said : that’s the point. Why should we worshiped something that could do nothing to us. Although his father was an idol maker, he resist to worship the idol for that reason. Then finally he got into the conclusion that God is supranatural; means God above nature, God is personal, God is good and God is holy.
God is centre of monotheistic religion. this might be different compared with other religion or other believes of plural God. Hinduism and Budhism for example, both share many gods and goddesses, or to many other Chinese religion such as Confucianism or Taoism. This is not a really matter. Since this is natural, every culture has their own set of values that is wraped in religion term, to give certain name and typical certainty. The only question raises when they claimed as the chosen one. This claim is not supposed to be propagated. This notion rise jealousy and prejudice among people. The sense of being superior from other mostly become the source of violence, since they considered other inferior. Culture is something to be developed, and not taken for granted. People should choose some particular values to be aplied in daily life. Values that are in conjunction with the circumstances at the moment.
This ethical monotheism of Judaism has universal characteristic because its ethic embrace all human. It influences in politic, economic and social life, Its ethic has transcendence and profane characteristic. That is no wonder if Jewish have big organizations.