As I described in detail in my book Mysteries of Judaism, the ancient religious Jewish group Pharisees, who existed from about 320 BCE until 70 CE, and the rabbis who followed them changed all of the Jewish practices and holidays mentioned in the Torah in some ways, without any exception. As a result, Jews are [...]

Many Jewish practices are not as old as people think and many had no religious significance when first introduced. We do not even know how or when most Jewish practices began and why they began. We can only guess. And in many instances our guesses reveal that it wasn’t rabbis who started the practice, it [...]

The Israelites’ first Passover, celebrated in Egypt just prior to the exodus and described in Exodus 12:1-11, was radically different from the Torah mandated holiday observed after the exodus. Exodus 12, which describes the Egyptian ceremony, raises many questions. (1) Why does the Torah command that “this month,” the month of the exodus, should be [...]

A Jordan B. Gorfinkel and Erez Zadok’s 2019 graphic Haggadah will delight parents and children.[1] There are humorous comics explaining the Haggadah and Seder ceremonies in about half of the book’s 170 pages with the chad gadya, the Haggadah’s goat, explaining the Seder practices to his hungry impatient daughter. At one point, when the vegetable [...]

Unlike Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which I discuss in my book "Mysteries of Judaism," the holiday of Passover did not continue to exist in a radically modified fashion with a new name after the temple was destroyed in 70 CE. It disappeared entirely and Chag Hamatzot’s name was changed to Passover. The biblical Passover [...]

There are two things I have been saying, and then a third item came along and surprised me. I mentioned often that there is no concept of “sin” in the Hebrew Bible as a distorting stain upon the soul that requires a kind of supernatural atonement process, as the concept is understood today. I suggested [...]

Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel’s book “Gentle Judaic Wisdom” is a brilliant work, very wise, easy to read, and deceptively simple. The book is filled with quotes that have significant information. It is a rich cornucopia of wisdom quoted from sources such as the Torah, Mishna, Tosephta, Talmud, ancient rabbis, philosophers, and many more sources, even [...]

Although I am Jewish, I watched the Christian 2018 film “An Interview with God.” The famed Jewish philosopher Maimonides stressed in the introduction to his Guide of the Perplexed that “the truth is the truth no matter what its source.” He used this rationale to support his philosophical teachings which are based in many parts [...]

Pinchas Polonsky explains two novel open-minded concepts of Rabbi Abraham-Yitzhak Kook (1865-1935) in this book “Religious Zionism of Rav Kook,” concepts that could, and indeed should, radically change the way Judaism and other religions are practiced. Rabbi Abraham-Yitzhak ha-Cohen Kook was appointed by the British, who were then in control of Palestine, as the countries [...]

Hungarian-born scholar Eliezer Berkovits (1908-1992) was a highly respected Orthodox rabbi. He was educated in Berlin, Germany, where he received his PhD. He authored 19 books in several languages. He held fast to traditional beliefs such as that the Israelites met God at Sinai where God gave them both the Written and the Oral Torahs. [...]

The holiday of Purim is observed today with a fast day called the “Fast of Esther” that precedes it on 13 Adar. Some Jews observe the fast day from morning until sundown. It does not begin the night before as Yom Kippur and Tisha B’Av, and is, in essence a half day fast. [1] Esther [...]

My daughter let me share in writing this children's story                        Just What the Doctor Ordered                                       Moti’s Purim Story                                               By                              Leba Lieder and Israel Drazin     Page 1 The Purim holiday was around the corner and kids and mice everywhere were preparing their costumes and getting ready to give Purim gifts. Moti, a [...]

A couple of days ago, I posted an essay about changes made in the Purim holiday from my book “Unusual Bible Interpretations: Ruth, Esther, and Judith,” in which among a lot of other things, I showed that Judith, in the apocrypha, the book Jewish ancestors decided not to include in the Bible, was more observant [...]

I am reposting this essay since Purim is coming shortly. My book “Ruth, Esther, and Judith,” tells, among much else, what the biblical book Esther really states, not what people want it to state.   It is remarkable how a reading of the biblical text itself without any preconceived notions reveals many things that is [...]

Professor Samuel J. Levine compares many Jewish laws with American laws that address the same issues in two 2018 volumes of “Jewish Law and American Law.” His analysis of the two systems and his detailed focus on many laws in each system enhances our insight into both laws. His books are very comprehensive. He writes [...]

The Bible says nothing about life after death. It does not mention heaven or garden of Eden as a future abode of reward and Hell as a place of punishment after death. Maimonides states in his work Chelek that heaven is not an area where the good dead congregate and there is no Hell.  Scripture’s [...]

Unfortunately, most people of all religions only know what they were taught about their religion and the Bible that they learnt in grade school. Most of it is childish and wrong. It is a shame that people do not improve their knowledge about religion as they grow older. The following are examples that I placed [...]

If people would take the time to look at the bulletin of an Orthodox Synagogue, they would find something very curious. The women are instructed to light candles several minutes before the men are scheduled to leave the home to attend the Mincha service, and Mincha takes place about fifteen minutes before the onset of [...]

w Ancient rabbis used the same techniques to analyze the Torah as the Greeks used to analyze the Iliad and the Odyssey and as scholars use today to analyze literature, as in the following example. Henry James’s (1843-1916) published “The Turn of the Screw” in 1898. The 131-page horror novella is a book filled with [...]

Yosef Haim Brenner (1881-1921) was a Russian-born author of Hebrew stories and one of the outstanding pioneers of modern Hebrew literature, a man who inspired other Israeli writers. He portrayed the grim realities of life with emotive punctuation and ellipses that moves his readers, as we will see below. His life and death In 1902, [...]

Henry James (1843-1916) published “The Figure in the Carpet” in 1896. He is best known for his novel “The Portrait of a Lady,” first published in 1880. He frequently filled his tales with ambiguity and even obscurity, as he does in this 48-page short story. He never gave us an interpretation of this story. He [...]

Maimonides taught in his introduction to his Guide of the Perplexed, the truth is the truth no matter what its source. Therefore, Maimonides said he had no scruple about generally accepting the philosophy of the Greek Aristotle (384-322 BCE), one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Western thought. The rabbis also accepted [...]

TSome Broadway plays and even gangster films, besides being entertaining, can teach us important lessons. The Petrified Forest is an excellent example of this possibility. My encounter with this film When I was a youngster, some sixty years ago, I took a course at Johns Hopkins University on plays, and one of the plays the [...]

  There are three diverse Babylonian tales of a worldwide flood. One is the history of Atrahasis. A study of the similarities and differences between Atrahasis and the Genesis flood story will help us see the differences between the biblical and Babylonian approaches to life and will give us new insights into how theGenesisversion taught lessons [...]

The Greek philosopher Plato describes the remarkable story of the deathof his teacher the famed philosopher Socrates. Socrates explained to his students why he was unafraid of dying. His view will give many people comfort.[1]                                    The death of Socrates The philosopher Plato, born in 427 BCE narrates the trial and death of his seventy-year-old teacher [...]

Individuals who dislike reading novels and feel they could get much more information and insights by reading non-fiction will lose much when they ignore autobiographical novels, especially one such as S. Yizhar’s 1991 “Preliminaries,” which is by a master writer, whom the newspaper Haaretz called “The great master of Hebrew lyrical prose,” a story about [...]

  Professor John Gray’s 2018 book [1] is filled with interesting information that can give us an insight into religion, human concerns, and proper behavior.[2] Atheism and the focus of this book At the outset of his book, Professor Gray defines atheism, “an atheist is anyone with no use for the idea of a divine [...]

There is much that people can learn from books written with humorous satire. The four books of Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, finished in 1725 and first published the following year, is a good example.[1] Book 4: Life in Houyhnhnms (The word horses use to describe themselves) After being home only five months, the wanderlust [...]

T The Bible states (41:37-45, 50–52; 46:20) that Joseph married Aseneth (also spelt Asenath) who was Egyptian, the daughter of Potiphera, the Egyptian priest of On, and had two children by her. The Bible doesn’t say that Joseph courted her or that she wanted to marry him; but the biblical language seems to imply that [...]

Avigdor Shinan and Yair Zakovitch, professors at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, give thirty fascinating examples, from many more that could be cited, showing how the Bible debunked, suppressed, or changed ancient myths, traditions, and legends in From gods to God.[1] Their proofs are compelling and easy to read. While it is possible that some [...]