By Israel Drazin   A very knowledgeable reader of my writings wrote to me asking two questions. The first was: do I think religious people should study philosophy or science? The question was prompted by my use of the word philosophy frequently.   I understand that the great Greek and Jewish philosophers Aristotle [...]

                                                                                                                                                                By Israel Drazin   In my discussion on “Are intelligent people moral,” I wrote that Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) taught in his Guide of the Perplexed 1:2 that people should work to develop their thinking and understanding by studying the sciences and logic, and make life decisions based on what they learnt, on [...]

Abuse in the Jewish Community By Michael J. Salamon, PhD Urim Publications, 2011, 143 pages   The Catholic Church’s sex scandal involves some 3,000 priests. A 1998 study found that one in four Protestant clergy who don’t have the oath of celibacy had inappropriate sexual contacts with someone who was not their spouse. The Center [...]

The Shidduch Crisis By Michael J. Salamon, PhD Urim Publications, 2008, 143 pages Although there is nothing in the Bible, Talmud, and Jewish law codes that suggest that Jewish marriages should be arranged by a shadchan, a matchmaker, and in fact these documents encourage men and women to become thoroughly acquainted before marriages, many Orthodox [...]

Ask many Orthodox and Conservative Jews about the origin of Judaism’s oral law and they will tell you that God revealed both the written and oral Torah to the Israelites through Moses at Sinai. Actually, the Bible only states that the Ten Commandments were revealed at Sinai. The rest of the Torah, with incidences that [...]

Rabbis first appeared around the year 70 of the Common Era. No man before that time had this title. Those who think that Jesus was a rabbi are mistaken. The Torah gives the responsibility to teach the Israelites to the tribe of Levy. Later, the priests assumed this role. When the temple was destroyed, priests [...]

The Outsider By Albert Camus Everyman Library, 1982, 116 pages This 1942 classic is about a man, Meursault, who shoots an Arab eight times without premeditation because he, Meursault, is overcome by the heat of the Algerian sun. He is unable to explain what he did and is sentenced to death.   The book received [...]

    The book Job is composed of three parts: a prologue, an epilogue, and the main body of the tale. Many scholars are convinced that the prologue and epilogue are later additions to the original, the body of the tale; it is different in tone and portrays God in a radically distinctive manner. These [...]

I think that there are two kinds of consciences; one is intellectual and the other emotional. I think that the first fits in with the Jewish concept of cheit. Cheit means “missing the mark,” as when one shoots an arrow and misses the center of the target, but hits outside circle. The concept of cheit [...]