I want to do a short thread on a very important topic. In order to discredit us, you will often have people tweet you that "Jewish is a religion, it is not a race/nation/people".

Is that true? Are we a people or a religion. Let's look at Tanakh, Talmud, and Midrash to find out.

Let's begin with the book of Ruth. Ruth is likely the most famous convert in history. If you aren't familiar with the story, it goes like this. Ruth was a Moabite married to a Jew. He died & Ruth's mother in law told her - go back to your people, find a nice Jewish boy to marry.

But Ruth loved her mother in law Naomi and refused to leave her. As the Tanakh states דָּ֥בְקָה בָּֽהּ, she held her tight and refused to leave her. And now Ruth says one of the most famous lines in the Jewish bible:

"your people shall be my people, and you G-d my G-d"

And with that phrase Ruth because the closest thing Jews have to a patron saint of conversion.

Why is this story important? Because in Judaism details matter. Look at what she said and the order. The first thing she said was "your people will be my people"

The second thing she said was "your G-d will be my G-d". So first she joined the Jewish people and second she accepted monotheism (Moabites believed in many deities). She could have just believed in G-d without joining the religion. In the book of Jonah, when the sailors...

...discover the reason for the storm it says they start praying to G-d. It does not say they Joined the Jewish people. So it is important to be. Jew she first had to join Jews as a people and then as a religion. Without the two being a Jew is incomplete. Let't look at a Midrash.

There is a famous Midrash that says before giving the Torah to the Jews, G-d went to every other nation and offered it to them. Only after the other nations turned it down did Jews get it.

How does it relate. Jew were a people, a nation before they were a religion.

Sure the first Jews were Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but at the time of our exodus how much of the religion was left? We were a people in Egypt and then G-d gave us the Torah and it made us a people with a codified religion.

We were first nation like any other nation.