Judaism is the religion of the Jews, an ethnic, cultural, and religious group that has its origins in the ancient Near East, has lived in communities as members of collective polities and as individuals throughout the world, and now numbers about thirteen million people, chiefly concentrated in the State of Israel, North America, and Europe. However, not all Jews practice Judaism as a religion; nor does every form of Judaism constitute a religious expression. Judaism as a religion has since its emergence held to a belief in one God; believed that the Jewish people are bound to God by a sacred covenant; and read, interpreted, and followed what it sees as the terms of that covenant in God's revelation in the form of the Torah. But Jews' conceptions of God have ranged from extreme anthropomorphism to forms of pantheism; the idea that the covenant obliges Jews...