It is basic psychology that people cannot understand a subject unless they understand its opposite. In fact, this was the first lesson I learnt at Johns Hopkins in my first psychology class. Peter Kamara’s “Ancient Roman Mythology” contains a description of a Roman creation myth. It is interesting to read the striking similarities between the [...]
The recently published book “Presidential Misconduct,” edited by James M. Banner, Jr, is eye-opening. It gives us a new perspective of today’s events. It is the only comprehensive study of American presidents’ misconduct. It contains essays on all of the presidents from George Washington through Barak Obama by leading presidential historians. The historians reveal that [...]
I received this nice review of my book from Washbookreview.com. Nachmanides: An Unusual Thinker by Israel Drazin, Gefen Publishing House, US $24.95, Pp 240, June 2018 With at least fifty scholarly works to his credit, Nachmanides — also known as Rabbi Moshe ben Nachmanides — was one of the great Jewish Bible and Talmud commentators [...]
Mark R. Levin’s very informative book “Unfreedom of the Press” may surprise many readers when they discover that the book is filled with eye-opening fascinating information that is written in clear easy-to-read English. Levin covers many interesting subjects relating to the press, newspapers, TV, radio, attacks on the president, and all kinds of communications that [...]
Repentance as we know it today is not a biblical concept despite the thinking of many[1] that the prophet Hosea talked about it. Hosea 14:2 states “Shuva Yisrael ad Hashem Elokekha,” “Return Israel to the Lord your God.” Actually, Hosea says in chapter 14 what he said several times in earlier chapters: stop worshiping idols [...]
The general consensus is that the Hebrew Bible does not mention life after death or even hint that it exists. Yet books such as “The Everyday Bible Commentary Daniel” by John C. Whitcomb argue that the book of Daniel does speak of life after death. Dr. Whitcomb’s book is a Christian theological commentary, that is [...]
Relying on prayer and divine help in daily life and when problems arise and not following the wise advice of Maimonides to use one’s intelligence, study the laws of nature, and act according to these laws, laws created by God, can, and usually does result in tragedy to one’s self, family, friends, and acquaintances. Examples [...]
One of the fundamental principles of Orthodox Judaism is the belief that there is a Written and an Oral Torah, both of which were revealed by God to Moses. Quite a few Orthodox rabbis declare that if a Jew does not accept this teaching, the Jew is not Orthodox and is a rebel, an apicores – [...]
The Lord God is described in the Bible as Y-h-v-h, which is called “the Tetragrammaton,” meaning a four-letter word. Many think the Tetragrammaton is God’s name, but this is not true. It is a description of how God functions in the universe, an abbreviated version of Exodus 3:14. When God first appeared to Moses and [...]
Jews are no different than people of other religions. There is no subject that every Jew accepts. Even rabbis differ in what they think is right. Many Jews reject the notion of the existence of demons and even angels. They feel, like Maimonides, that there is no mention of demons in the Hebrew Bible and [...]
The “Yeshiva world,” is comprised for the most part of schools where far-right rabbis teach Jewish students their view of Judaism, a religion that rejects secular studies as harmful and heretical. Many far-right rabbis respect Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, his code of Jewish laws, but not his philosophical Guide of the Perplexed because it is based [...]
The Fast of 17 Tammuz occurs this year on July 20 which is a Saturday, so the fast is postponed to Sunday July 21, as will be explained below. The Jewish calendar contains a mourning period during the summer months. It begins and ends with fast days, whose precise dates are not based on verifiable [...]
“Maimonides: Between Philosophy and Halakhah: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s lectures on the Guide of the Perplexed” is interesting because it shows the basic ideas of Rabbi Soloveitchik’s thinking. But readers should not suppose that they will gain an insight into the teachings of Maimonides or even some of his teachings by reading the book. It [...]
It is generally unknown that according to tradition the messiah who will bring peace to the world is not only a descendant of King David, but also from the wicked King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, the later being a rabid worshiper of the idol Baal and murderer of many prophets of the Lord. A brief [...]
The story of Peter Abelard (1079-1142) and Heloise (1095-1163) is considered a great medieval love story. We have still today Abelard’s autobiography and letters between the parties, so we know much but not all of the love story. James Burge’s “Heloise and Abelard” is an interesting easy to read scholarly study. Peter Abelard was a [...]
A Catholic friend of mine sent me this joke. The Pope met with his Cardinals to discuss a proposal from Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Israel. "Your Holiness", said one of his Cardinals, “Mr. Netanyahu wants to challenge you to a game of golf to show the friendship and ecumenical spirit shared by the Jewish [...]
Many mystics insist that the Zohar was composed by Rabbi Simeon bar Yochai around the year 130 CE. However, scholars recognize that Moses d’ Leon, a Spaniard living in Granada, wrote it around 1286, that parts of the book were added by others after his death, and that the work is a pious forgery. Zohar [...]
There are many instances where both Jews and non-Jews tell stories with some variations on the same plot. In many of these instances, the Jewish version attempts to use its version to teach Jews proper behavior. The following is an example. Rip Van Winkle Washington Irving (1783-1859) published “Rip Van Winkle” in 1820 and the [...]
Most people are convinced that there are comparatively few Jews in the world, only about 13.3 million in 2001, about 1.4 percent of the world population, 4.9 million lived in Israel and 8.3 million outside the Holy Land. Logic would dictate that the actual figure is many times that number and percentage. It is even [...]
During the holiday of Shavuot, the practice in many synagogues is to read the beautiful biblical book Ruth. Various reasons attempt to explain the practice including that Ruth is said to have converted to Judaism around the time of Shavuot and so did the Israelites when they accepted the Torah; Ruth was an ancestress of [...]
Whether one agrees with Michael Shapiro’s listing in his 1995 387-page book “The Jewish 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Jews of all Time” or not, the books should make us think not only whether we would agree with his selections, whether we would delete some names and substitute others, but also who we [...]
Everything written about Abraham as a young man is midrashic. They are imaginative events, not based on anything in the Torah. A close reading of the Torah reveals a totally different young Abraham than the fictional midrashic accounts. What does the Bible say about Abraham’s early life? The story of Abraham’s early life in the [...]
Many religious people of all faiths accept the Five Books of Moses, the Torah, as a divine document. They see that the Torah has many stories and are convinced that they understand the stories which teach them lessons. The truth is different. While the Torah relates many events, it rarely explains them. Virtually all the [...]
There are remarkable similarities between the biblical story of the flood and the more ancient version of Gilgamesh. The Babylonian epic Gilgamesh was written on twelve tablets around 2000 BCE and has survived in several versions. It was discovered in 1839 among the ruins of a buried library in the excavated ancient city Nineveh. Amazingly, [...]
Greek and Jewish myths, reports and tales appear at first blush to be remarkably similar, but there are stark differences in how each culture views God, the world, the presence of evil, the worth of people, their duty and their future. Psychologists have recognized that one can understand a subject better by comprehending its opposite [...]
The following is from my book “Mysteries of Judaism.” The semi-holiday Lag B’omer is based on an unsubstantiated and unlikely tradition[1]. Lag B’omer means the thirty-third day since bringing the barley harvest (omer) to the tabernacle and later temples to thank God for the barley harvest. An omer is a certain weight of the grain such as [...]
I wrote about Maimonides’ medical teachings in my book Maimonides: Reason above All and gave many examples there. Maimonides was not only a great philosopher and writer on Jewish laws, he also practiced as a doctor and he wrote extensively about healthy living. Maimonides wrote his Commentary on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, one of his [...]
Rabbi Dr. Marc D. Angel’s “A New World: An American Sephardic Memoir” reads like an engrossing novel. It describes the transition of the Angel family from an immigrant Sephardic community into an Americanized group over several generations. In the process, it "reminisces" about the immigrant generation, but also deals with the struggles of trying to [...]
The book of Genesis tells readers that Adam and Eve’s first two children were Cain and Able. Then in Genesis 5:3, it states that when Adam was 130-years-old he had his third son Seth. The Bible and Talmud commentator Rashi (1040-1105) relied on the Midrash Genesis Rabbah and states that Adam refrained from having sex [...]
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 [...]