Jose Saramago’s (1922-2010) last book Cain is a delightful, frequently funny, heretical, mocking, feverishly anti-God, retelling of the early books of the Hebrew Bible. He is the 1998 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. According to Saramago’s book, no snake spoke to Eve in Eden and persuaded her to eat the forbidden apple; snakes [...]
James L. Kugel's thesis in his new book “The Great Shift” is that the Bible describes God in different and evolving ways, depending on when the biblical book or section was composed, and this points to a developing idea about what God is and how God functions, as well as what humans thought about [...]
The Wisdom of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks Change is necessary Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks published “Lessons in Leadership” in 2015. Professor Ronald Heifetz who wrote the Forward points out that the rabbi is stressing that people of all religions and cultures should not sit passively and rely on the decisions of authorities [...]
Ancients, including Jews, believed their god functions only in their territory Many scholars contend that in the ancient Near East people believed that there were many gods, the power and presence of a god was localized in the territory inhabited by the worshiper, and did not know that all lands belong to [...]
Does God Control and Manipulate Us? Since the beginning of time, since people believed that God exists, men and women of every religion asked whether God is involved in their lives and, if so, how? The Hebrew Bible does not answer this question. So individuals developed their own views. Those with a [...]
On the Relationship of Mitzvot between Man and his Neighbor and Man and his Maker By Daniel Sperber Urim Publications, 2014, 221 pages ISBN 978-965-524-145-7 The winner of Israel’s prestigious Israel Prize, Professor Daniel Sperber, a rabbi and Dean of the Faculty of Jewish Studies at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, published an extremely significant [...]
Why did Moses send spies if God was helping the Israelites? Shelach (Chapters 13:1–15:41) The plain reading of the Torah text reveals a discrepancy. There are two different accounts concerning the dispatching of spies to reconnoiter Canaan in advance of the impending military offensive to conquer the land during [...]
Chapter 7 Gideon and the 300 This chapter is a work of art. The author presents a story containing several themes: the number three, the consequences of fear, and the question, is God involved in what we do? A careful reading of the Bible reveals that despite it apparently [...]
Does God know us? The views of some Jewish philosophers Many Jews are convinced that Jews are judged by their behavior not by their beliefs. They can believe what they want as long as they harm no one.[1] Thus it is not surprising that there were famous Jewish [...]
VAYIKRA (Chapter 1:1–5:26) Can we bewitch God with sacrifices and prayers?[1] The biblical book Leviticus describes elaborate ceremonies of sacrifices. Although the rabbis maintained that the sacrifices were accompanied by prayers, most people do not realize that prayer is not explicitly mentioned in the Pentateuch, the five books [...]
TERUMAH (Chapters 25:1–27:19) The ancient Sanctuary was not built for God[1] This section of the Torah commands the building of a Sanctuary, a tent in which sacrifices were offered to God. Commentators dispute whether the command was issued before or after the episode of the golden calf which is [...]
Review by Israel Drazin Believing and its Tensions By Rabbi Dr. Neil Gillman Jewish Lights Publishing, 2013, 113 pages After teaching religion at The Jewish Theological Seminary for some fifty years, and serving as chair of its Department of Jewish Philosophy, Dr. Gillman retired and summarized his views on [...]
By Israel Drazin Two views As startlingly as it may appear to many people today, the fact is that many intelligent religious people did not believe that God created the world out of nothing.[1] In fact, they are convinced that the Bible itself states that God formed the world out of preexisting [...]
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 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 [...]
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 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 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 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 [...]
Moses Maimonides’ Treatise on Resurrection An Inquiry into its Authenticity By Lea Naomi Goldfeld Ktav Publishing House, 1986, 167 pages Maimonides made it very clear in his work called Chelek that he felt that the intellect goes to the world to come as soon as a person dies and remains there for eternity. He states [...]
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 [...]
Kohelet A Modern Commentary on Ecclesiastes By Leonard S. Kravitz and Kerry M. Olitzky UAHC Press, 2003, 132 pages Kohelet, its Hebrew name, Ecclesiastes in English, is one of the twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible. Both names mean “assembly” or “assembler.” The book’s author states that he was the son of King [...]
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 [...]
By Israel Drazin As I wrote in my discussion about the origin of evil, I am convinced that God created the world out of nothing or formed it out of preexisting and eternal matter, set the laws of nature in it, and then stopped being involved in the earth and its people. God is [...]
By Israel Drazin Contrary to the belief and hopes of most people, but consistent with the thinking of people such as Maimonides and Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903-1994), I don’t think there is a personal God. I am convinced that God is transcendent: God created the world out of nothing or formed it out of preexisting [...]
By Israel Drazin I dislike and reject the notion of “faith,” which is the acceptance that an idea is true even though the idea is clearly shown to be false by science, the use of our five senses, or reasoning. I accept as true only facts that are rational. I am not an atheist [...]
By Israel Drazin Many rabbis have, in effect, abandoned Bible study to fundamentalist Christians. Very few of their books that ostensibly address the Torah actually do so. Instead, usually without disclosing the fact, the rabbis who composed these volumes and the rabbis who deliver synagogue sermons focus on the midrashic versions of the biblical [...]
Some Thoughts about God By Israel Drazin The popular view that God is ever present and meticulously involved, such as making detailed decisions about and controlling every raindrop and every falling leaf, and counting and recording the good and bad deeds that humans perform, is so well known that it doesn’t bear repeating. So [...]
What are we Expected to Know about God? By Israel Drazin I am more inclined to accept the Maimonidean position. The term “tradition” is used frequently in discussions about Jewish values and practices. Maimonides warns us to be skeptical of traditions, no matter what their source and no matter how many people insist [...]
