By Israel Drazin Ancient Jews[1] believed that many gods exist but felt that they should only worship y-h-v-h[2] and maintained this notion for hundreds of years, and this fact is found in hundreds of verses in the Hebrew Bible. This is not monotheism, but monolatry. Monotheism is the belief that only [...]
By Israel Drazin Bible readers need to realize that the division of the Bible into chapters and verses is frequently illogical, leading some readers to think that the person or persons who divided the text into chapters and verses was drunk. Take, for example, the very onset of the Bible. Chapter [...]
By Israel Drazin The great scholar Arnold Ehrlich (1848-1919) authored Mikra Ki-pheshuto, “The Bible Literally,” in three Hebrew volumes. His ideas are frequently unconventional, but generally very intelligent and thought provoking. The following are some of his ideas on the Noah flood story and the introductory biblical statements about the patriarch Abraham [...]
By Israel Drazin Many rabbis teach mystical notions that are untrue. The rabbis are unable to differentiate facts from sometimes startling events in parables and sermons that were invented to teach proper behavior, and they repeat imaginative stories they heard from other rabbis and claim that the events in the parables actually [...]
By Israel Drazin Do religious confessions for sins magically erase bad behavior – steal and say words, commit adultery and admit it, and “puff” nothing was stolen and no marriage contract was violated! If not, why confess? Eradicating sins is a significant part of most religions. But people don’t know [...]
By Israel Drazin Most individuals accept what people in authority tell them to think and do without analyzing whether it makes any sense. I think that this is wrong and destructive. It stifles growth. The primary example is the demand to “have faith!” This is the paradigm of passivity. Sit back and [...]
By Israel Drazin The Bible in Numbers 6:22-27 describes God telling Moses to instruct the priests to bless the Israelites with a three-fold blessing. Leviticus 9:22 states that Aaron the priest “lifted his hand toward the people” and blessed them after offering a sacrifice. Jews and Christians understand that this biblical command [...]
By Israel Drazin In my first essay on Shavuot, I pointed out that the Hebrew name “Shavuot” means “weeks,” and that the command to observe it as a holiday is in Exodus 34:22; Deuteronomy 16:9, 10, and 16; and Leviticus 23:15 and 16, where the Bible tells the Israelites to [...]
By Israel Drazin People think that biblical narratives are clear and easily understandable, and that the explanations of the stories offered in clerical sermons or written in ancient documents such as the Talmud, Midrashim (imaginative elaborations of the Bible), and medieval commentaries are true. Actually neither idea is true. Good literature contains ambiguities and [...]
From Defender to Critic The Search for a New Jewish Self By Dr. David Hartman Jewish Life Publishing, 2012, 303 pages Rabbi Dr. David Hartman disagrees with the views of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903-1993), the former Dean of Yeshiva University and spiritual leader of the Rabbinical Council of America, the organization of Orthodox rabbis. [...]
By Israel Drazin Science has proven beyond doubt that when people think they are having a religious, spiritual, or mystic encounter, or a feeling of sensing God, they are really not doing so, they only think they are. Ralph D. Mecklenburger, in his 2012 book, Our Religious Brains, describes the scientific findings of how the [...]
By Israel Drazin No Jewish holiday is practiced today as the Bible mandates. Shavuot, called Pentecost in English, is a good example. The current observance of the holiday has no relationship to its biblical ancestor and doesn’t even occur at the same time.[1] Very few people know the truth about [...]
By Israel Drazin The Book of Esther is one of the twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible. Curiously, God is not mentioned in this volume of Scripture and there is no indication that God was involved in any way in helping Esther and Mordecai save the Jews of Persia from [...]
When the State of Israel was reestablished in 1948, 1878 years after it had been decimated by the Romans in the year 70 CE, the new government had to decide what to call the nation and what its flag should be. The Romans destroyed Israel and slaughtered many of its people because they [...]
Koren Mesorat HaRav Siddur With commentary based on teachings of Rabbi Soloveitchik OU Press and Koren Publishers, 2011, 1304 pages This book is a splendid addition both for people seeking an extensive commentary to their siddur (prayer book) and those who want to know more about the thinking of the famous and esteemed Rabbi Joseph [...]
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 [...]
Ask many Orthodox and Conservative Jews about the origin of Judaism's oral law and they will tell you that God revealed both the written and oral Torah to the Israelites through Moses at Sinai. Actually, the Bible only states that the Ten Commandments were revealed at Sinai. The rest of the Torah, with incidences that [...]
Rabbis first appeared around the year 70 of the Common Era. No man before that time had this title. Those who think that Jesus was a rabbi are mistaken. The Torah gives the responsibility to teach the Israelites to the tribe of Levy. Later, the priests assumed this role. When the temple was destroyed, priests [...]
The Outsider By Albert Camus Everyman Library, 1982, 116 pages This 1942 classic is about a man, Meursault, who shoots an Arab eight times without premeditation because he, Meursault, is overcome by the heat of the Algerian sun. He is unable to explain what he did and is sentenced to death. The book received [...]
The book Job is composed of three parts: a prologue, an epilogue, and the main body of the tale. Many scholars are convinced that the prologue and epilogue are later additions to the original, the body of the tale; it is different in tone and portrays God in a radically distinctive manner. These [...]
I think that there are two kinds of consciences; one is intellectual and the other emotional. I think that the first fits in with the Jewish concept of cheit. Cheit is usually translated by people as "sin," but this is wrong. Cheit means “missing the mark,” as when one shoots an arrow and misses [...]
By Israel Drazin Rabbis who offer legal decisions frequently say that customs that have been practiced for some time have the same power as laws, but actually some do and some don’t. Traditions are a twin sister to customs. Generally customs refer to behaviors and traditions to ideas, but people use the terms interchangeably. [...]
By Israel Drazin A reader of this website sent me three questions. Here are the questions and my responses. (1) I note your pure blue eyes and wonder: how do some Jews have such? Do these features prove that Jews were breeding with non- Jews way back in history? I THINK THAT [...]
By Israel Drazin Maimonides wrote his Mishneh Torah, his code of Jewish law. About a century after his death in 1204, Jacob ben Asher (1270–c. 1340) composed a code of Jewish law that he called the Tur. Roughly two centuries later, Joseph Karo (1488–1575), compiled his law books, which he named the Shulchan Arukh. More [...]
By Israel Drazin It is certainly true that most Jews today, including most rabbis, see a distinction between ritual and social laws. The first focuses on God and the second on people. In the Ten Commandments, for example, the laws forbidding idols and those requiring rest on the Sabbath are seen by most Jews [...]
By Israel Drazin I think that the greatest difficulty that people have in understanding rabbinic literature is that it is hard for them to see what prompted the rabbi to say what he said. I’ll focus on one point. Very soon after the Five Books of Moses was canonized, probably during the time [...]
By Israel Drazin Why do people feel that they should listen to their clergy? There is nothing in the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, or Koran that says that its adherents must obey rabbis, priests, and imams. In fact, Judaism didn’t have rabbis until around the year 70 of the Common Era, after the second [...]
By Israel Drazin There is no religion today where its adherents do exactly what is in their Bible. Let's look at Judaism as an example. Ask many Orthodox and Conservative Jews about the origin of the oral law and they will tell you that God revealed both the written and oral Torah to the [...]
By Israel Drazin The humorist Ambrose Bierce wrote in his The Devil’s Dictionary that faith is: “Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.” Unlike most people, I agree with Bierce. I am convinced that religion should be based on reason, not faith. People should [...]
