By Israel Drazin There is a curious practice among many Jews of picking up a rock or pebble lying by graves of relatives or friends that they visit and placing it on the grave stone or close by it as they leave. Many explanations have been offered, but most people are [...]
By Israel Drazin Adjusting Sights By Haim Sabato Translated by Hillel Halkin Toby Press, 2003, 155 pages ISBN 1-59264-127 This book won the prestigious Sapir Prize for Literature in 2000 and the Sadeh Prize for Literature in 2002. The prizes were well-deserved; the book is splendid, engrossing, informative, and has a lyrical [...]
By Israel Drazin Kaddish: Women’s Voices By M. Smart and B. Ashkenas Urim Publications, 2013, 271 pages ISBN 978-965-524-150-1 Smart and Ashkenas collected some fifty essays by articulate women of the various Jewish denominations in which they tell poignant emotional tales about relatives who died and their experiences in saying the mourner’s [...]
By Israel Drazin The Bird’s Head Haggada By K. Mosele and L. Birkinshaw The Israel Museum and Koren Publishers, 2012, 66 pages ISBN 978-965-301-1045 This very clever, instructive, and colorful pop-up edition of the Passover Haggada is adapted from one of the oldest illustrated Haggadot in the world, published in Germany around [...]
By Israel Drazin The following is a brief version of an excerpt from “Beyond the Bible Text” by Rabbi Dr. Stanley Wagner and me that will be published in September 2013. We usually put three articles for each biblical portion, generally discussing thought-provoking subjects that people will not find elsewhere. This week’s essay [...]
By Israel Drazin The following is the second part of my two-part description of mystical notions with an explanation of the prayer Lecha Dodi. In the first part, I described the mystical belief developed in Safed, Israel, in the sixteenth century, that envisioned God as comprising ten parts that were somehow detached [...]
By Israel Drazin I described in prior essays that Jews, as some other religions, such as Islam, use a lunar calendar and base the dates of their holidays on this calendar.[1] I mentioned some unusual occurrences that transpired because of the use of the lunar calendar. The following is [...]
By Israel Drazin In my essay “The Mysterious Origin of the Monthly ‘Sanctification of the Moon,’” I showed that the practice is based on an ancient fear that the moon that had disappeared and is now seen as only a sliver, might disappear entirely. To forestall this disaster, those who recite this [...]
By Israel Drazin The Real Reason for the Additional Day of Holidays Part Three This essay is taken from my book Maimonides and the Biblical Prophets. Because of its length, I am dividing it into three parts. Since I discussed what I think is the true reason why an extra day was added to [...]
By Israel Drazin The Real Reason for the Additional Day of Holidays Part two This essay is taken from my book Maimonides and the Biblical Prophets. Because of its length, I am dividing it into three parts. To understand the origin of the added day to biblical holidays, we must first understand the [...]
By Israel Drazin The Real Reason for the Additional Day of Holidays Part one This essay is taken from my book Maimonides and the Biblical Prophets. Because of its length, I am dividing it into three parts. Few people know why Jewish tradition added a day to the biblically assigned number for Passover, Shavuot, [...]
By Israel Drazin Most sermons teach proper behavior, but when examined carefully, there are elements in them that frequently seem irrational and untrue. Their messages may be good but, among other problems, the verses used to support the messages may not say what the clerics say they say to [...]
The following is a brief version of an excerpt from “Beyond the Bible Text” by Rabbi Dr. Stanley Wagner and me that will be published in September 2013. We usually put three articles for each biblical portion, generally discussing thought-provoking subjects that people will not find elsewhere. This week’s essay is from HA’AZINU. While I [...]
By Israel Drazin I mentioned Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz in my two-part article on the basic notion of mystics, the sephirot, and the Friday night hymn Lecha Dodi. I will now give some information about this mystic. Alkabetz (c. 1500-1580) wrote several books but is best known as the author of the very popular [...]
Mystics and prayers Part one By Israel Drazin The following two-part description of mystical notions and an explanation of the prayer Lecha Dodi is adapted from my book Maimonides: The Exceptional Mind. The Sefirot The Zohar is one of the most important books of Jewish mysticism. Mystics claim that it was composed during the [...]
By Israel Drazin Obviously, most people will answer “yes”; but is this a proper answer? If a church or synagogue or mosque is holy, when does the holiness enter the building: when the last stone is placed? Does earth change in one instance from dirt to holy ground? Can a man or woman [...]
Domestic Manners of the Americans By Frances Trollope This is another of a multitude of books that people can obtain for free from amazon and other sources because the book’s copyright has expired and the book is in public domain. People should take advantage and enjoy these classics. This one is a [...]
By Israel Drazin The following is a brief version of an excerpt from “Beyond the Bible Text” by Rabbi Dr. Stanley Wagner and me that will be published in September 2013. We usually put three articles for each biblical portion, generally discussing thought-provoking subjects that people will not find elsewhere. This week Jews [...]
By Israel Drazin The following second of my two-part introduction to Judaism’s greatest sage, a man whose works on philosophy, medicine, and law were read by people of all faiths, is adapted from my book Maimonides: The Exceptional Mind. Who was Maimonides? In the approximately fourteen hundred years in which Jews lived under Muslim [...]
The Widow Barnaby By Frances M. Trollope Volumes one, two, and three It is possible today to get classical books for free from sources such as amazon and many, such as The Widow Barnaby by Frances M. Trollope, are fun to read. I encourage readers of good literature to take advantage of these sources. [...]
By Israel Drazin Part one The following two-part introduction to Judaism’s greatest sage, a man whose works on philosophy, medicine, and law were read by people of all faiths, is adapted from my book Maimonides: The Exceptional Mind. Sages extolled Maimonides Some people are identified as geniuses because they are able to raise daring, [...]
By Israel Drazin In “A Message to the New Chief Rabbis,” in the Jerusalem Post of August 16, 2013, the prominent Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, chief rabbi of Efrat, reports the halakhic (Jewish legal) ruling of the highly respected Rav Moshe Feinstein. Rav Feinstein addressed the question: do wives and husbands need a get, [...]
The Koren Ethiopian Haggada Journey to Freedom Edited by Rabbi Menachem Waldman Koren Publishers, 2011, 229pages ISBN 978-965-301-292-9 This is an interesting book that introduces readers to the history of Ethiopian Jews,[1] the brutal treatment they endured for centuries, their culture, and the remarkable fact that they maintained the Jewish religion as mandated by [...]
The Mystery of the Kaddish By Leon H. Charney and Saul Mayzlish Barricade Books, 2006, 236 pages ISBN 1-56980-300-5 Leon H. Charney and Saul Mayzlish explore the origin of the Jewish mourner’s kaddish in their The Mystery of the Kaddish[1]and reveal that the current practice where individuals say the prayer for their deceased [...]
By Israel Drazin The following is a brief version of an excerpt from “Beyond the Bible Text” by Rabbi Dr. Stanley Wagner and me that will be published in September 2013. We usually put three articles for each biblical portion, generally discussing thought-provoking subjects that people will not find elsewhere. (Chapters 26:1–29:8) [...]
By Israel Drazin The popular concept today is that there is a “soul,” a person’s personality that is separate from the body, survives the body’s death, and lives on for eternity. While accepted as axiomatic by Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, is not in the Hebrew Bible. The idea was taken from ancient pagan [...]
By Israel Drazin Virtually all societies and religions, if not all, are paternalistic, belittle women, discriminate against them, and require them to dress and act in ways that preclude them from possibly enticing men. Judaism is no exception. While Judaism is not monolithic and Jews differ widely, many Jews do not treat [...]
By Israel Drazin (A version of this discussion appeared in my book Maimonides: The Exceptional Mind. Many readers may dislike this approach to understanding Jewish practices. However, quite a few scholars read the article and liked it. Some of their comments are included.) Many pagan rites have been given new meaning and elevated over [...]
By Israel Drazin The following is a brief version of an excerpt from “Beyond the Bible Text” by Rabbi Dr. Stanley Wagner and me that will be published in September 2013. We put three articles for each biblical portion, generally discussing subjects that people will not find elsewhere. (Chapters 21:10–25:19) A Law that shows [...]
Why does the Bible require Israelites to treat Canaanites brutally? By Israel Drazin The Torah appears to lack respect for Canaanites and seems to order that they be mistreated. In Deuteronomy 7:2, for example, the Torah states: “You must smite them, utterly destroy them; make no covenant with them, and [...]
