Nachmanides was a famed Bible and Talmud commentator. His real name was Moses ben Nahman Gerondi. He is known in Hebrew as Ramban and in European languages as Nahmanides, also spelt Nachmanides (1194-1270). He was a mystic and had mystical ideas. What are some of his views? Among much else, Nahmanides believed that Jews [...]
My answer is no. Ever since I was a child, I heard about faith and understood that it makes no sense. One day when I was still young my father Rabbi Dr. Nathan Drazin took me to hear a lecture by the famous Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Heschel said the faith is not a Jewish [...]
The tashlich ceremony preserves a superstitious belief held by Jews of ancient times concerning water and the divine beings that dwell in and around it. The [...]
On Sunday, I posted remarks about the horrible practice of mistreating chickens. The following is a shortened version of what I wrote about kapparot generally in my book “Maimonides: The Exceptional Mind.” Many Jews recognized that the kapparot ceremony was based on superstition, that waiving a chicken over one’s head a magical number of [...]
I received the following from The Shamayim V’aretz Institute about the cruelty practiced against animals during the kapparos (also spelt kapparot) ceremony that many Orthodox Jews observe. I agree with what is stated and I think it is important for everyone to know about the cruelty. Therefore, I am printing it here. And I will [...]
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 Bible and have come up [...]
Lost Horizon By James Hilton The philosopher Maimonides (1138-1204) considered the biblical story of the Garden of Eden as a parable, not an actual event, in his Guide of the Perplexed 1:2. He states that the Torah is speaking about morality. I think his interpretation is correct. I will not summarize it here, but [...]
There are various views about mistaken rabbinical decisions. Maimonides answers "no." Here is what I wrote in my book “Maimonides: The Exceptional Mind.” Rabbi Solomon Yitzchaqi (1040–1105), better known as Rashi, the acronym of his name, makes a rather remarkable and, in the mind of many, counterintuitive statement in his commentary to Deuteronomy 17:11. [...]
The Israeli Chief Rabbinate insists that conversions must be done their way, implying that the Torah tells us how it must be done. They blackballed dozens of rabbis by name who they charge did not convert people using their method. There are good reasons to think that the concept of conversion did not exist [...]
Fasts Observed for Events That Did Not Occur on the Day of the Fast The Jewish calendar contains a mourning period during the summer months. It begins and ends with fast days, whose precise dates [...]
In “Inconsistency in the Torah,” Rabbi Dr. Joshua A. Berman, addresses questions that have bothered scholars and clergy for centuries—the many seeming contradictions that are found in the Torah, in both its narrative and legal portions. He offers a solution that they ignored, a solution that makes sense. He suggests that many of the [...]
The Bible does not discuss ethics Ethics is a subject that people speak about often and most people think that the Torah must discuss [...]
Finally, after many years of demeaning mistreatment by ultra-orthodox haredi men who ignore some of their teachers who tell them it is ok to sit next to a woman, people who were also created by God, people who deserve the same respect given to men, the Israeli court has ruled that El Al acted [...]
I just read "Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law" by Rabbis E. Tucker and M. Rosenberg. It is an excellent thoughtful book. Whether a reader agrees with the two rabbis who authored the book or not, he or she will find a wealth of information in the book that will prompt thought. Whether the [...]
The Mysterious Origin of the Monthly “Sanctification of the Moon” When a person examines the history of a religious practice, or any practice for that matter, he or she must be careful not to insist [...]
New revelations about the Torah and preventive medicine Dr. Michael Lebowitz’s “God’s Preventive Medicine” is a fascinating, eye-opening, and thought-provoking book that reveals never-before-known information about several biblical [...]
Some Words of Wisdom One of our readers sent me three wise thoughts that are worth pondering. I will add a fourth. Tikkun Olam - The repair of the world: If you see what needs to be repaired and how to repair it, then you have found a piece of the world that [...]
The basic idea of “The Grammar of God” by Aviya Kushner, an interesting and informative book, is that readers of the Hebrew Bible who do not know Hebrew and read only the English translation will generally not know what the Bible is saying. What the Bible states is misrepresented or obscured in the translation, [...]
Rashbam (1085) was the grandson of the famed Bible and Talmud commentators Rashi (1040-1105) and brother to the famed Rabbeinu Tam (1100-1171). Rashbam’s commentary to the Torah is very rational, so much so that the far right modern volume ArtScroll deletes some of his comments. The following is a chapter from my latest book, “Mysteries [...]
When sacrifices were discontinued, the rabbis developed a new idea about Shavuot. They said the holiday commemorates the giving of the Torah. Soon, many Jews began to believe that the Torah contains 613 commandments. What is the origin of this view and is it correct? The following is chapter 23 from my book "Mysteries of [...]
WHAT YOU MAY NOT HAVE LEARNED IN PAROCHIAL OR HEBREW SCHOOL By Dr. Jack Cohen To many, the phrase ‘Rational Religion’ may seem like an oxymoron. After you’ve read Daniel A. Diamond’s ‘Rational Religion’, I believe you will feel differently. In Part 1, Diamond introduces the concept of the ‘noble lie’, [...]
