1. Origins of Judaism
Abraham and Moses

2. Abraham
Abraham, the founder of Judaism, became a nomad later in life. Abraham, stopped believing in all the different gods. Instead, he started to think there was one God in charge of everything. He felt he had to go in search of one true God. He set out from the city of Ur in Mesopotamia and travelled to the land of Canaan.
This meant leaving behind a comfortable home, and a settled way of life in the city he grew up in.

3. Early life
Abraham’s descendants left Canaan and migrated to Egypt to escape the famine. The king wanted to reduce the numbers of the king ordered that their first born sons were to be killed at birth. The Jews did everything they could to save their children. One family placed their son in a basket and hid him among the reeds in the River Nile. The baby was saved. He was adopted and allowed to live in the palace.

4. Early life
Moses grew up and had a good life in the palace, but One day he lost his temper and hit a guard who was beating a Jew to death. The guard died and Moses fled for his life into the desert.

5. Moses’ Vision – God calls Moses
Moses was travelling alone in the desert. He stopped to take some time to think and to pray. As he prayed a dried bush went on fire nearby. It was the Moses had a vision. God spoke to him in his heart.
“I am sending you to the King of Egypt so that you can lead my people out of his country”
On the mountain of Sinai he prayed the problems of the Jewish people would soon be over.

6. Moses went to Pharaoh, the King of Egypt, and demanded, and demanded that God’s people be set free. The Pharaoh refused, but was forced to change his mind when a number of disasters, or plagues, occurred in the land.
What kind of plagues occurred in the land?

7. Plagues
Pestilence – disease on animals/ cattle Water turned to blood.

8. The Exodus
When the Jews left Egypt, they travelled for a while without any problems until one morning they heard that Pharaoh had sent an army after them. They were trapped. In front was wet, marshy ground of the Red Sea, behind were the soldiers in armour in horse-drawn chariots. Moses prayed to God, and led the people through the red Sea. The kings army could not follow as their horses and chariots got stuck in the mud. The Jews escaped, they were free at last. This is the Exodus, the great event of Jewish History.

9. The Torah
Jews spent the next three months wandering in the desert. Then they arrived at Mount Sinai. It was there Moses received another vision from God. God renewed the Covenant with Moses. To help the Jews with their part of the Covenant, God gave Moses the Torah containing the Ten Commandments.

10. The Torah