Judaism

A general overview of Judaism as a whole--material comes from http://www.religioustolerance.org/jud_desc.htm

Judaism is the first of the Abrahamic religions, which hold Abraham as a Patriarch who made a divine covenant with God. God promised that Abraham's descendants would become a great people if they followed certain laws He set for them. Jewish scripture details the servitude of the Israelites in Egypt, their deliverance by the prophet Moses, and the eventual claiming and settlement of the Promised Land of Israel. The next centuries saw the construction of a great temple at Jerusalem, followed by the breakup of the Jewish state and the scattering of its people around the world.

God's commands and other teachings are laid out in the Tanakh ( corresponding to the Christian Old Testament), which contains the Torah and other books. A later work, the Talmud, holds the works of various rabbis and is also studied extensively by Jewish scholars.

The central beliefs of Judaism were laid out by a medieval-era rabbi named Moshe ben Maimon. His 13 Principles of Faith include belief in the words of the Prophets, the uniqueness of God, and the importance of the Torah, as well as the eventual coming of the Messiah and resurrection of the dead. Many branches of Judaism add or subtract from this list depending on their attitude towards the religion.

Practice of Judaism involves adherence to Jewish law in everyday life, observance of the Sabbath as a day of resting, attendance at a Synagogue, and celebration of the various Jewish holidays.

Messiah

In Christianity, Jesus is the Messiah, who is supposed to deliver the world from sin. Jewish scholars use the term "Moshiach" instead of "Messiah," to differentiate from the Christian idea of a divine savior. The Torah does not actually mention the idea of a Moshiach directly--his coming was predicted later by prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah. These prophecies say that the Moshiach is destined to bring all the Jews back to Israel, where they will restore the land to its former glory and rule the world from Jerusalem. The Moshiach will be a great political and military leader who will observe all the laws of Judaism and usher in a utopian age for the world. Everyone everywhere will worship the Jewish God, and there will be no war, famine, disease, sin, or anything else bad.

Judaism puts few restrictions on who the Moshiach might be; basically, anyone who succeeds in doing what the Moshiach is prophesized to do is deemed to be the Moshiach. Some scholars debate the specific date or conditions under which he will appear, while others think it is foolish to try to predict this because a wrong guess would result in disillusioned Jews. Many people throughout history have claimed to be the Moshiach, such as Shimeon ben Kosiba, Shabbatai Tzvi, and the slightly-more-famous Jesus, but they were rejected on the basis of failure to produce an everlasting golden age for the world.

http://www.jewfaq.org/moshiach.htm contains this information and more.

Torah

The Torah is marked as the “most important document in Judaism.” The Torah, known as the Five Books of Moses, teaches and guides the Jewish people. The five books of the Torah are the first five books of the Old Testament, or Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These would be found in scroll cases where the books were kept. Originating from Hebrew the five words mean:
Genesis (בראשית, Bereshit: "In the beginning...")
Exodus (שמות, Shemot: "Names")
Leviticus (ויקרא, Vayyiqra: "And he called...")
Numbers (במדבר, Bamidbar: "In the desert...")
Deuteronomy (דברים, Devarim: "Words", or "Discourses")
Not only do these books contain the system of laws and commandments, but also a way for various people to learn the historical background behind the Torah and the beginning of Judaism.

The Torah is written on parchment scrolls and they have always been handwritten. The book is then kept in a cabinet in a synagogue. To read from the Torah, people would use a “Yad,” meaning hand in Hebrew, to follow along with the text. This is because of a wide range of reasons depending on the person. Some thought that the book was too holy to be touched, or that the oil from your finger could damage the parchment paper. The scrolls are often covered in fabric and ornamented with silver crown on the handle and a mounted breastplate on the front.

For more information: http://www.jewfaq.org/torah.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah
Image: http://www.hamafitz.com/Images/SeferTorah.jpg

Monotheism

The word monotheism refers to the worship of a single, all-powerful God. This is characteristic of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and is distinct from polytheism, the worship of multiple Gods. Most early religions were polytheistic, like those of ancient Egypt and Greece. The first recorded monotheistic religion was instituted by the pharaoh Akhenaton of Egypt, who led a revolution to replace the multitude of Egyptian deities with a single sun god. Most religions aren't purely monotheistic--Judaism, though monotheistic in nature, did not explicitly deny the existence of other gods; it just rejected the idea of worshiping them. Christianity splits God into three parts (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), but these are all deemed to be part of one over-arching entity.

This information comes from http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1B1-372493.html .