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 [...]
By Israel Drazin The Oral Torah is made up of laws that were developed after the Hebrew Bible, the Torah, was completed. The changes were made by Pharisees and later by rabbis. These changes are called Oral Torah.[1] So many changes were made that Judaism today is not Torah Judaism [...]
By Israel Drazin There are many phrasings in this portion (16:18-21:9) that allows us to examine the biblical writing style: obscure and ambiguous texts, apparently unnecessary word, God’s view of non-Israelites, and which people should guide us. Obscurities and ambiguities I mentioned previously that all good literature contains obscurities and ambiguities [...]
Review by Israel Drazin Lilith’s Cave Jewish Tales of the Supernatural Selected and retold by Howard Schwartz Oxford University Press, 1988, 274 pages ISBN 978-0-506726-6 What is thought-provoking about this book, its fifty Jewish tales of demons and the supernatural, is that most of the demons are women. Yes, Satan appears, [...]
By Israel Drazin Dr. Naomi Harris Rosenblatt examines the biblical report of the lives and activities of seventeen biblical women in her well-researched, insight-filled, and frequently innovative reading of biblical tales in her 2005 book After the Apple. The women lived as second-class citizens under the authority and control of men: fathers, [...]
By Israel Drazin[1] Aside from the few astonishing legends about regal amazons who retained control over their spouses and men in general, world history has unfortunately continually assigned a submissive and subservient role to women in the home and in society. Since Judaism is not monolithic, Jewish literature contains both positive and negative [...]
By Israel Drazin Many people recognize that women have still not entirely succeeded in participating in society as they should. How were women portrayed in the Hebrew Bible? Professor Jennie R. Eberling answers this question in her very readable and informative 2010 book Women’s Lives in Biblical Times where she analyses biblical [...]
Review by Israel Drazin The two volume series Speaking Torah by Arthur Green collects generally mystical comments and commentaries from over forty Chassidic rabbis who lived during the first three generation of the Chasidic Movement, from 1740 to 1815. I described the history of the Chassidim during this early period [...]
By Israel Drazin In my essay “Divine revelation continues today,” I discussed the views of Rabbi Kook, Maimonides, Aristotle, Ba’al Shem Tov’s grandson, and others who stated that divine revelation continues today. I showed that these thinkers felt that modern people can and should seek God’s revelation in history [...]
By Israel Drazin Pinchas Polonsky describes the open-minded concept of Rabbi Abraham-Yitzhak Kook (1865-1935)[1]. His “teachings reflect a deep modernization of the Jewish faith and of its approach to an array of contemporary problems.” Polonsky calls Kook’s approach “Modern Orthodoxy.” But his ideas could, and indeed should, radically change the way [...]
By Israel Drazin The portion Re’eih, Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17, gives us an opportunity to speak about study vs. action, whether the Masorites who established the correct Torah text are always right, and if the Torah prefers that people be vegetarians. Metaphors, Maimonides, and action The Torah is not only a book about [...]
By Israel Drazin Thirteen divine attributes A central part of many Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur synagogue services is the recital of the thirteen divine attributes mentioned in Exodus 34:6 and 7, which Jews repeats often each day.[1] The Jewish Publication Society translates these verses describing God’s mercy: “The Lord, the Lord, [...]
By Israel Drazin Neither sin nor repentance is mentioned in the Torah. Sin “Sin,” a prime element in Christian theology, is chet in Hebrew, and chet means nothing more than “missing the mark.” The Bible speaks of three categories of wrongs that are not synonyms. There is chet, the [...]
By Israel Drazin I spoke in the past about the tendency of many to interpret the Bible imaginatively, leading others to believe that what they imagined is the truth. Let’s look at the Queen of Sheba story, which is a good example. Most Bible readers don’t know that the books [...]
By Israel Drazin We will look at an oft-used metaphor and some apparent contradictions between Deuteronomy and the prior biblical books. The Talmuds, Midrashim, and classical Jewish commentators note the apparent contradictions, discuss them, and show why, in their opinion, they are not contradictions. Ibn Ezra, for example, wrote that the seeming contradictions [...]
By Israel Drazin Judaism today is not Torah Judaism, but rabbinic Judaism. Virtually all Torah laws, if not all of them, were modified by the rabbis to meet the needs of the time when the alterations were made.[1] These changes are called Torah shebalpe, Oral Torah. While they are innovations, they [...]
By Israel Drazin Currently, announcements are made and prayers recited in synagogues on the Sabbath before a new month begins to inform congregants when the first sliver of the new moon will appear. This service commemorates the ancient practice, before a lunar calendar was established by Hillel II in the mid-fourth [...]
By Israel Drazin Merriam Webster, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion, states “religion” derives from Middle English, religioun, from Anglo-French religiun, and Latin religio: supernatural constraint, sanction; or the Latin religare, to bind, restrain, tie back, secure. The same root yields the word “ligament.” The first known use is as late as the 13th century.[1] This concept of [...]
By Israel Drazin On October 18, 2010, Jewish Ideas Daily published an article from The Weekly Standard of October 16, 2010, entitled Of Greeks and Jews, but advertised it as Was Maimonides Jewish? The article stated that “according to unpublished correspondence of the political philosopher Leo Strauss, no.” The article states that [...]
By Israel Drazin We will use the portion of Va’etchanan (3:23-7:11) to explore the nuances, deeper significances, and lessons missed in translations from Hebrew to English, and we will examine some verses that say something rabbis rejected. Unusual word This portion begins with the idiomatic va’etchanan, which is in the Hebrew [...]
By Israel Drazin Most people do not try to understand the definition of words, have wrong ideas of their intent, and are kept from knowing what they should know. “God” is a good example. People don’t try to know what the word means, and since they don’t know what it means, it conjures [...]
By Israel Drazin The number seven is connected to Jewish holidays and practices in well over a hundred instances. Seven has a spiritual implication in Judaism.[1] It reminds Jews of the basic Jewish concept of seven: the seven days of creation that is stressed in the beginning of the Bible and in [...]
By Israel Drazin (I changed the number of the Unusual Interpretations. The number 44 indicates that this is the 44th portion of the 54 biblical portions.) We will look at some things in this discussion on the portion Devarim that make us realize that what we think we know may not be [...]
By Israel Drazin I just published my twenty-second book Rational Religion, a book on philosophy. I wrote it under the pseudonym Daniel A. Diamond because I do not want people to think it is a Jewish book; it is designed for all people. The first chapter sets the tone and is the [...]
By Israel Drazin This biblical portion raises questions for which there are answers that will not satisfy all readers. Inconsistent names and numbers The biblical portion Maasei lists forty places that Israelites visited during their forty-year desert journey. As happens frequently, there are missing names and differences in spelling. The portion lists [...]
By Israel Drazin Where do we start? Numbers 30: 1 states: “And Moses told the Israelites all that the Lord commanded Moses.” Verse 2 continues: “And Moses spoke to the heads of the Israelite tribes, saying, ‘This is what the Lord commanded.” Although chapter 30 begins with verse 1, Jewish tradition divides the text [...]
By Israel Drazin Many people, secular and religious, of different cultures and worldviews, have attempted to calculate the age of the world. There is no agreement between them simply because it is an impossible task. Christians,[1] Muslims, and Jews have tried to do the calculation based on a literal reading of the [...]
By Israel Drazin I described the style of Rashi’s commentary in the past. It is brilliant, but it does not offer readers the plain meaning of the biblical text. Rashi (1040-1105) follows the worldview of the second century Rabbi Akiva: God composed the Torah, God is perfect, and must have written the [...]
I published a twenty-page scholarly article on the well-respected famed thirteenth century sage Nachmanides’ commentaries on the late fourth century Aramaic translation of the Torah called Targum Onkelos on the on-line scholarly publication www.oqimta.org.il. People read Targum Onkelos today, and search it for derash, halakhah, and homiletical teachings. My article shows for [...]
By Israel Drazin The biblical portion Pinchas (Numbers 25:10-30:1) offers an opportunity to discuss possible errors in the Torah. Bible critics The Talmud and Midrashim in the beginning of the first millennium explain apparent mistakes and inconsistencies in the Hebrew Bible that people might notice. Later, the Bible commentator Abraham ibn [...]
