Elliott M. answered • 07/16/19
The best Teacher you've ever had. Seriously.
That depends highly on when you are asking about. Jewish practice has changed significantly over time, mostly in response to external events. The beginning of what we know as the Jewish faith was one of sacrifice and worship at the Temple in Jerusalem. There was no such thing as "prayer" as we know it today, and all sacrifices were done by the high priests. Average people came and offered their sacrifices and the priests carried out the ceremonies.
After the destruction of the first Temple, most of the Jewish population was carried out to Babylon in "exile," although this has different versions of what that meant depending on the scholar you ascribe to. This is where the first Jewish Law comes into play in what became known as the Babylonian Talmud. There are also many stories that made it to the Writings and Prophets that come from this period.
After the return to Jerusalem, the second Temple was built, and scrifices resumed, although now with the beginnings of a written law. When the Romans destroyed the Second Temple, the Jews once again had to reform their religious practice. This is when Judaism became a prayer-based religion. Without a central location to perform sacrifice, the nature of the religion changed fundamentally from one of physical offering to one of guidance-seeking, favor-asking, and thanks-giving. This is when the prayers that are used today came into form, and the first consolidation of the prayers occurred.
Over the next millennium, these prayers were modified, added unto, etc. Some were excluded from practice. Over time, prayer books were created, but each community had certain practices that made them unique from the rest of the Jewish world. At this time, most of the world's Jews were in Western Europe. It was the Jewish Golden Age, especially under Muslim rule in Spain.
After the Spanish Reconquista, the Jews were exiled from Spain and made their way slowly eastwards across Europe. Some made their way back to the Middle-East, while some stayed in Spain and North Africa. There were now three distinct communities, Ashkenazi Jews who went East into Central Europe and Russia, Sephardic Jews who stayed in Spain and N. Africa, and Mizrahi Jews who went back to Ottoman Palestine. Each of these communities developed their own unique style or worship and that is reflected still today in different communities and religious groups. What most Westerners think of as Modern Judaism was really developed by the Ashkenazi Jews of Central/Eastern Europe, mostly in the Shtetls of Russia (see Fiddler on the Roof).
The Ashkenazi Jews split farther down the line as the world entered the Modern Age. Reform Judaism was founded as an alternate, less strict way of practicing the faith. Hebrew became less important to practice, and services became increasingly done in the local language. There was now a division between Reform, which attempted to modernize religious practice, put less stress on Kosher laws, etc, and Orthodox which stuck to the old ways and treated the Torah/Talmud as absolute law that must be followed. The Conservative Movement was founded later on as a middle ground between the two, and it is the most widely practiced version of Judaism in the Western World. Other smaller denominations have also been founded, but the big three today are Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox.
Hope that helps!
