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 [...]

By Israel Drazin   I don’t think that people need to believe that a soul exists.   The currently-used Hebrew word for soul is nefesh. Nefesh is in the Torah, but it does not mean soul in Scripture. It means “a person” or “life force.” Thus when Leviticus 2:1 speaks of a nefesh bringing an [...]