3) The "Trinity" is as Jewish as a kosher pickle. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all in the Torah and all in the Sh'ma.
Let's consider one "Christian" truth that strikes most Jewish people as particularly non-Jewish: the theological concept commonly referred to as the "Trinity" -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The central prayer of Judaism is the Sh'ma: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One." (Deuteronomy 6:4). When we recite this simple prayer, we connect with and affirm the very essence of what it is to be a Jew. So the question naturally arises: How can a Jew possibly recite the Sh'ma with complete conviction and simultaneously accept the doctrine of a three-person Godhead?
My answer to this question has two parts. First, the Hebrew word echad used in the Sh'ma refers to a "unity" rather than a singular "one." The same word echad is used earlier in Torah where God says that when a man and woman marry they become "one flesh." (Genesis 2:24). Well, after over twenty-four years of marriage, my wife and I have become very close. But we are still two physically separate people. Spiritually, however, we form an inseparable unit -- an echad -- before Almighty God.
The Trinity is the same way. For a follower of Jesus, there is only one God. This God is the same God that the Jewish people have always worshipped. The teachings of Jesus simply clarify how that one true God manifests Himself to us.
For the second part of my answer, let's consider the Holy Spirit -- or, as He is also referred to, the Holy "Ghost" (from the German word for spirit, which is geist).
Before I studied Torah, I always thought of the Holy Ghost as a uniquely Christian invention. Who would want to have anything to do with any kind of ghost anyway?
Then I started to read Torah. And do you know what I found at the very beginning of the very first of the Five Books of Moses? I found these words: "The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" (Genesis 1:2). It doesn't say "God" or "Adonai" moved on the waters. It says His Spirit was there. Now, I don't know about you, but I figure the Spirit of the Living God is probably holy. Right? So there is the Holy Spirit, making His appearance at the very beginning of the Jewish scriptures!
Is the Holy Spirit distinct from God? Part of God? Some unfathomable combination of the two? It's an interesting issue that I'd love to talk to you about some time. But the main thing is that this issue is not just something that Christian theologians have to worry about. If you're a Jew, you will meet the Holy Spirit by the time you get to the second line of Torah! And you will have to decide for yourself what to do about His existence.
