Orthodox Judaism and Intellectual Independence -

Intellectual independence got me here, so why shouldn't it be something that I keep? First of all, I am no Abraham figure, I did not derive the existence of G-d or that the Torah exists through my sheer ability and toil in the nature of all that exists, as did Abraham. Rather, I live in a post-revelation period in which G-d has already revealed the Torah and therefore I am allowed to simply latch on to it. Nevertheless, in what I retrospectively call a secular Jewish upbringing, I had to go through a long series of philosophizing and thinking about the things around me in order to understand that G-d indeed existed (although I always had in inkling feeling that He did) and that His existence necessitated the adherence to His commandments. I cannot say, however, that in that oh-so-Abrahamic way I reached these conclusions on my own; no way! I went to a Conservative Jewish school until I was in 6th grade and learned much about Judaism and G-d there. After that "break away" from it (my parents put my sister and I in a public school for a variety of reasons), my interest in G-d and spirituality remained, although my formal understanding of organized religion deteriorated to the point where by high school I had absolutely no idea that two such things could have any possible relationship. I continued to dabble in books on Jewish spirituality, and I found one packet giving a simple summary of Kabbalah, and included the story of the four great Rabbi's who each studied it, with Rabbi Akiva being the only one to safely emerge. My point is that I, in this post-revelation age, had many signs pointing me to the right way. These things can definitely be considered revelations, but the kinds that G-d allows to people like me in this day and age.

Years later (2001) when I became an Orthodox Jew, which I saw as nothing more or less than an acceptance of the natural order by which G-d had created the world, the intellectual independence and desire to search and understand did not peter away. However, the dynamics between free and unrestricted thinking juxtaposed within a doctrinal religious framework was an entirely new experience for me. I am quite convinced that every ba'al t'shuva and convert to Judaism experience this internal tension. Further, I am also convinced that the quality of their experience as a Jew will be largely based on how well they can find the underlying unity and harmony between intellectual freedom and religious doctrine. I can accurately say that this, among many other things, has highlighted my wading into the world of Torah.

One major way that I found how to internalize and make sense of this was to understand that doctrines were products of intellectual thought. They are not dogmatic; if one rejects a doctrine simply because it is a doctrine, he has not bothered to understand the internal and external logic of such a thing. From the outside what seems to be a contradiction in terms, was to understand the process that created Judaism. Abraham himself had to toil and find the proper Divine philosophy, and to extract his mind from the functioning ways of the world around him, yet not annihilating his place within it. Once he arrived at the perfect reasoning (as perfect as a man can), G-d decided that it was the right time to reveal Himself to him. Through Abraham's reasoning and through G-d's revelation to Abraham, the Covenant between G-d and us was forged.

Our tradition calls G-d "the G-d of Abraham," and so in order to cleave myself onto Judaism, I first had to try to grasp and understand "the G-d of Abraham." Once I was able to flush, to the degree that was safe and possible, i.e., without harming my sanity and emotional well-being, the ideas of the world around me, I was able to slowly begin trading them for the ideas of Judaism, i.e., the ideas of "the G-d of Abraham." It is important to say that I did not go through a complete overhaul of the content in my head; the instruments of perception inside must remain - it is the ideas that must change. Further, many ideas have within them pieces of truth, and therefore the idea as a whole itself cannot be thrown out, but rather, the pieces that are false. This is why the ba'al t'shuva process needs to be slow, at least from a perspective of understanding what one is doing. On the other hand, it cannot be too slow where a person becomes immobile and stagnant - part of the wonder of growth is the slight discomfort felt by standing in a new place.

In this way was I able to reconcile for myself the so-called paradox of free thought and religious doctrine; what we now call "doctrines" in Judaism were at the beginning of the Covenant products of Abraham's intellectual sojourns. Later, G-d wrote them in stone, as it were, with the Giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai, a direct line and relationship between Abraham and Moses and these items became our commandments. Therefore, accepting the religious doctrines of Judaism is an acceptance of the intellectual sojourns of Abraham that led to G-d making the Covenant. Suffice it to say that nobody has the ability to internalize an intellectual item without trying to understand it. Understanding, therefore, is the key to Judaism, but on the other hand, one should not neglect a thing until he understands it; we can feel safe with G-d that adhering to a commandment will only lead us to good places.

Shomer Negiah

Shomer means "one who gaurds" and negiah means "touch." In modern Jewish usage, the phrase "shomer negiah" is used as an adjective, i.e., "I am shomer negiah," I gaurd my touch. Shomer negiah is a Rabbinic ordinance derived from the Be'oraita mitzvah (Written Torah commandment) not to engage in sexual activity before marriage. A Rabbinic ordinance has the clout of a Written Torah commandment, for it was derived from the Oral Law, the Torah she'be'al peh (the Torah passed down by speaking). In non-Jewish philosophies, shomer negiah can be accurately understood as a religious doctrine.

Shmira negiah, or shomer negiah, was, I believe, the third Jewish doctrine that I accepted; the first two were Shabbat and kashrut, although I only kept those to degrees at first. Being shomer negiah was a tough battle for me; although I was never "wild with the ladies" before I became observant, I was not as modest with them as I would have liked. My interest in women was flying high and I was at a peak time in my life, not to mention living with roommates, to be involved in the ventures of women. The external battle was simply not to have physical contact with women, but the internal battle was to change the way I perceived them, for to refrain from physical contact without an internal transformation of thought would be close to impossible and foolish. Earlier in my observance I deemed it silly when my friend Darron, also an observant Jew, told me that speaking to women too much should be avoided. At this juncture in time I figured the best way to approach shmira negiah was to start by cutting out the amount of time I spoke with women. What this meant was a serious curbing of the amount of flirting I did, which was not ridiculously high, but nevertheless, it existed. Slowly, the external effort to speak with women less created an internal response; every single attractive woman did not exist for a man's satisfaction. Gradually, I began to see women as human beings independent of their being attached to a sexual status, and therefore, notions of attractiveness became less of a factor in judging a woman. This process occurred over a long time, probably six months to a year, until I felt that I had reached a certain level of natural comfort with the concept of shmirah negiah. Being shomer negiah also means not seeking out romantic situations with women, for they lead to physical contact, and so on.

Touching a woman goes beyond just in romantic situations; many Jews also do not shake hands, for example, with the opposite sex - the concept is applied consistently. There are Jews, however, who shake a person's of the opposite sex hand in order to avoid embarassing them, although I prefer not to. Standing outside of their physical reach is usually a good non-chalant way to accomplish this. After this process, probably about one year, I decided that I was ready to date. I began to see a newly-observant woman whom I had already known for one year, and we dated for seven months, as shomer negiah Jews. We began to speak about getting engaged (seven months is relatively long for Jewish couples), but things did not go as planned and we eventually broke up. I plan this year, G-d willing, on beginning to look again.

To conclude, Judaism and intellectual independence have a seat right next to each other as long a person a) is endowed with free will and b) is able to utilize it. What better expression of a person's free will other than to use it better himself? Fleeting joy can only bring moments of joy, but the investment in joy, likened to a plant in a garden, brings a more permanent edifice of joy in this world, and of course, you knew I was going to say this, in the next. There are many concepts in Judaism for one to accomplish; they are never-ending.

To conclude, in a rational age, is it really rational to say that intellectual independence is an anathema to organized thought?

So, most of my readers know that I have a deep respect for Noahides, who are Gentiles who have chosen to live according to the Seven Laws of Noah, as is commanded them in the Oral Law, or Talmud. This means that they cannot practice any religion that they currently do.

Here is an article written by a Noahide Gentleman. I was sent the link to the article through another Noahide, who found out about through another Noahide named "Adam."

Here's the link:

http://1stcovenant.org/pages/WithOrWithoutJesus.htm

Enjoy and peace...

The Atheist in Me -

Many years ago, before I was even aware that there was such thing as a commandment-oriented way for Jews to live, my spiritual and emotional life were going through a violent turmoil. It was during this phase of my life in which I dabbled in several different philosophies of how one should live - only two made my list of actual potentials; Christianity and atheism. When I now realize just how different Christianity and atheism are, I basically can't understand how I considered either this one or that one - how could I have been satisfied with two different paradigms so different from each other? It would have made more sense if I had found favor in either one system or another which bore similarities discernible to the eye, but what discernible similarities could those two have had for me to actually group them together? Never in my spiritual path did I even consider Islam, Buddhism, or a similar path; Christianity and atheism spoke the most loudly and most clearly to me.

There was a certain philosophical acuteness that I found in both of them, and I will attempt to briefly summarize just what was the nature of that acuteness was.

The Christian Period

The first thing I must mention about my, what was a relatively short-lived but nagging, interest in Christianity stemmed from a deep lack of knowledge of Judaism. It was clear to me most of my life that I was a spiritual person, i.e., a person interested in "the other side," and on top of this I really enjoyed intellectual stimulation. Judaism didn't offer me any spiritual or intellectual stimulation; by that point in time in my life I was almost totally alienated from it and from other Jews. To me, Judaism was either something to ignore, or if I had to, which with to disagree. Suffice it to say that I knew nothing more about Christianity than I did about Judaism; my spark of interest in Christianity did not stem from a knowledge about Judaism that I felt somehow completed it, but rather from it being able to fill the void of my Judaism. Christianity was the best candidate for that at that point in my life for one basic reason: the way it was presented to me. I was eighteen years old at that point in my life and I was taking a general education class at the community college which I attended; the class was "Old Testament" and a pastor taught it. I was fascinated by the topic - I knew it then and I know it now - it was a fascination with my Jewishness, which my parents had helped maintain alive in me (and my sister) by keeping whatever traditions alive they could. Not to mention, the frequent trips to Israel to visit our family also worked in keeping us connected. I understand now that, judging by my glancing over at Christianity, visits to Israel could only go so far in keeping me close to Judaism; that I was far from it is the proof in the pudding.

I would have hour-long talks with the pastor/teacher after class, who of course, taught the class from a Christian perspective, i.e., that everything led up to Jesus, and would steer our personal talks in a way that would get me to budge towards Christianity. I responded with rebuttals to everything, buy my disgraceful knowledge about Judaism, even the basics, allowed him to back me into intellectual corners and dilemma's to which I had no answer. After a semester I was secretly pondering if perhaps Jesus was really the Messiah. It filled me with a great fear, not the fear of going to Hell, which I didn't understand, but the fear that I and my entire people, my family, and the State I so loved were wrong all along. I remember imagining my family in Israel and their response to the news of my choice, and that I would feel obligated not to tell them about Judaism (I was very idealistic), but about Christianity. The obligation and the knowledge that I would be an outcast filled me with fear, but the fear invoked excitement and pushed me onwards. After a short while my musings about Christianity died, not because I was able to prove them wrong, but because my fear had so shaken and overwhelmed me (again, I was emotionally distraught at this point in my life) that it is almost as if I shut down in order not to let in what I was not able to ward off. The only thing that I considered to be positive about Christianity was that it would make me different, i.e., from my family, but that in and of itself says nothing about Christianity itself. Obviously, it was not enough of a driving factor to make me interested, and besides, I was years away from being able to genuinely understand spirituality, theology, and religion. Thank G-d I "short-circuited" and never went down the paths of Christianity.

The Atheistic Period

Since Christianity couldn't be right, because I wouldn't allow it to be, and because I knew next to nothing about Judaism except for things I read here and there, atheism was an alluring and brilliant concept. Perhaps I would somehow try to suffuse my intellectual curiosity and lust for spirituality with atheism. Indeed, the notion that you know a massive secret, that G-d doesn't exist, makes you a philosophical war-lord and hero, that your view trumps the view of everybody and simultaneously slaughters them and lays them to waste. This aspect of atheism was especially alluring to me. Not only that, I had seen myself, in some strange way, being a representative of G-d, believing in Him and having a strong belief in ethics and morality; atheism was adept at supplanting my urge of helping bring a new knowledge to the world, that there was no G-d. I saw the Jews as people who carried the world into the future and into peace by producing intellectual and philosophical genius; I saw atheism as the most powerful and magnificent philosophy. Not only that, the grand irony of it all would be that, the people to whom G-d revealed Himself first, which I interpreted as being simply an awe-inspiring philosophy, now realized the error of this way and once again took it upon themselves to take humanity to the next level, which was that there was no G-d. The allure of it was "very Jewish," I was motivated in this direction for a reason closely related to my identification as a Jew, and it was even stronger and more solid than my short interest in Christianity, although most likely it helped compound my fear. I actually remember thinking that I rather believe in no G-d than in Jesus; I said to myself, "If G-d is actually going to allow Christianity to be true, if G-d actually made Jesus His son, this goes against everything I feel deep down in the deepest form of myself to be right, and I rather reject G-d than accept this model." So I rejected G-d because Christianity, being G-dless to me, might as well have been atheism.

The death of my grandmother on my mom's side, whom I loved dearly and to which I responded with shouting, punching, and, for the first and last time in my life, literally cursing G-d's Name (and punching my dad), made atheism a high priority for me. Then a few days later the news of one of my best friends to whom I looked up (a girl on whom I also had a crush) being killed in a car accident when I was in Israel compounded it. I hated G-d and was totally closed to Him and to even thinking about Him; I spent the next year or two in a spiritual gaze with no relationship with myself or with G-d. However, deep down inside the deepest part of me knew that I believed in G-d, which makes sense considering that I said that I hated Him, for how can you hate Someone that does not exist? As time went on and my bitter anger and resentment towards G-d did not decrease but simply reached disgraceful peaks of neutrality, I was able to relatively easy enough contend with myself and others that G-d simply did not exist. "Hell" would be a good word to describe that period of time in my life, and there is no G-d in Sheol.

The Jewish Period

It took years for the thick barrier that I erected to begin cracking to the point where water could again flow through. It all culminated when I was twenty one years old and went on a Birthright trip to Israel. My anger and bitterness were, for the few years before this, slowly being replaced with joy, inspiration, and a rediscovered, if not dramatically altered, understanding of G-d. Not only that; I also knew by that point, now for actual theological and philosophical reasons, that Christianity was false, although I still reserved much anger for it. I had begun to understand the urgings of Islam and realized that it too was false, while the Eastern religions never spoke loudly to me anyway. On my trip to Israel that year, equipped with an existent faith in G-d and His existence, He allowed an interesting experience at the Kotel, the Western Wall. I had come to realize that a vow I made when I was in my senior year of high school, that I would not become religious until I felt G-d because so many people called themselves religious but were jerks, was answered with an overpowering spiritual experience. Upon returning to Tucson it took me about five months to digest this experience and to let it seep into my conscious, but when it did, I realized that the only proper course of action for me was to become an observant Jew, i.e., Orthodox, i.e., living in accordance with the commandments of the Torah.

From the time before I approached atheism, I understand in retrospect that certain things I was doing, certain minor "obsessions" I had, which annoyed my family, were in fact "primordial" attempts to embrace my (and our) religion. I was makpid (stringent) with my family on Chanukah to turn off all the lights in the house (although I now know that this is not allowed) and to open the presents in a ritual manner, and showed an external desire to light candles on Shabbat, say Kiddush, and eat the meal together. On Passover I insisted stubbornly that we say the entire Passover Hagadah, which annoyed my family, and even though I too gained little spiritual benefit from it and even resented it a little, wanting to get to the meal already, I felt that it was the right thing to do to read the whole thing. On Yom Kippur, in which my family stayed in our house and fasted, we would try to sleep all day, and I believed that through the relative discomfort we had, that we were achieving the goal of Passover; this is only partially true. We would attend an Orthodox synagogue twice a year, Chabad of Young Israel in Tucson, Rabbi Yosi Shemtov, and although I didn't know how to pray, I felt happy enough holding a siddur (prayer book) in my had, flipping its thin pages, and being surrounded by the service. Rabbi Shemtov also taught me my Bar-Mitzvah portion, of which the reading was held there, with all of my Gentile friends, and some Jews. I was trying to find a way to let something inside of me find external expression, and it just so turned out that that thing was Orthodox Judaism, although I didn't feel like I could accurately call myself an Orthodox Jew until years into observance.

Modern Times

Five years after coming back from Israel on Birthright, I am learning in a yeshiva in Jerusalem, my sister is Orthodox and married to one of my good friends, my newly-wed cousin is married and in living in New York with her husband, my other cousin (her brother) believes in G-d whereas before he was an atheist, and our Tucson family in general has accepted our observance and embraced it in their own ways. My aunt and uncle kashered their house and my dad davins Shacharit (prays morning services) with Orthodox friends and eats lunch with them on Shabbat, which I also did with him when I was in Tucson. Thank G-d, He has surely granted our family with blessing and brings us nearer to our tradition of truth.

I now understand both the appeal of Christianity and of atheism, and having learned about Islam and Eastern religions, I have somewhat of an understanding what makes a Jew go in either of those directions.

What Monotheism Means to Me -

If Abraham received revelation and was so successfully able to reason G-d’s existence and the non-existence of the deities being worshipped, why did a conceptual development of Divinity occur in Abraham’s mind; why didn’t he intrinsically know that G-d existed?This is a question I’ve always bothered myself with. We know from the Torah that there were people prior to Abraham who held polytheistic beliefs and that with Abraham came monotheism. The Torah tradition also alludes to a certain type of development of understanding in Abraham’s mind as to the nature of monotheism, that it was something he reasoned must be true through perceiving the implicit falsehoods of polytheism. For example, a midrash says that Abraham believed that the moon must have been the prime Divinity since it lit up the night. When the morning came and the sun rose, he reasoned that the sun was the prime Divinity since it replaced the moon. Then when the moon returned at night he reasoned that there must be a force beyond the two in control of both of them. Another midrash explains the same scenario about the moon and the sun, except that he saw the sun’s reflection in the water and reasoned that the water was the prime Divinity, and he went so on and so with every element of nature until he reached far back enough to reason that G-d existed and created everything.

Herein lies the question. We know for a fact, historically speaking, that there was polytheism before monotheism, meaning that during and before Abraham’s time (and after, of course) he witnessed such polytheism. Another way to ask the question is, why do I believe that monotheism is true if it was presented to the world through the development of a conceptual process? If monotheism is just another idea, albeit a “better idea” that any of the polytheisms, how am I so convinced that it is indeed true? How am I convinced that the One G-d Whom I know exists and in Whom I believe is not just another idea on the scale of polytheism to monotheism? How do I know that He is not an idea on the gradual spectrum of humanity’s ideas, indicating an “evolution” of thought from polytheism to monotheism? Finally, and perhaps this encompasses all of these questions, how can I be sure that He is real if He was “discovered” through an ideological process, not to mention, the ideological process of one man?

Let us try to get into Abraham’s head using what we know about him through the tradition of the Torah. According to the midrashim I referenced, Abraham went through a conceptual process of sorts until he understood that G-d existed, at which point G-d removed the barrier of doubt and actually spoke to Abraham, revealing Himself to him. The way I understand it, once Abraham successfully removed all of the other options of true forms of divinity, he was left with only one glaring option, and at the moment that he succeeded in that, the Object of his thought, G-d, revealed Himself to him from His Place.

However, this doesn’t really do much to explain the developmental process.

Let us look at G-d’s existence as a mere concept. Let us assume that it was a concept that Abraham reached after measuring and evaluating, as it were, all of the other forms of religious worship and beliefs of his day. What is so powerful and truth-revealing about the concept that the One G-d exists that would logically do away with all of the other forms of belief and worship? Why does this particular recognition inherently reject the existence of other “theologies” contemporary to Abraham, showing them all to be glaring lies? What is so air-tight about the reasoning of monotheism that tore holes in the reasoning of polytheism, rendering it useless? The answer is that the monotheism that Abraham suggested did not allow the various and disparate ranges of spirituality, existing independent of each other, to hold logical value (“logic” having a different meaning some 3,000 years ago than it does today) in light of the unified whole that monotheism implied.

Each form of polytheism covered some element of physical nature or of the nature of humanity, and therefore expressed some inherent elements of truth. However, each form, which we can call “religions,” covered a different element of truth without regards to what another religion had to say and therefore many of them said contradictory things to the other. Yet, none of the believers in each of these religions stopped to wonder why so many different religions existed, giving pause, not necessarily to wonder about the nature of their own belief, but about the nature of the relationship between their belief and that of someone else. Remember, each belief stated its own absolute truth; how could several religions be absolutely true? On the other hand, beyond contradiction, there were several religions that overlapped in areas of “philosophy,” i.e., they had areas of agreement; how could it be that there were areas of truth common to a set of religions when the rest of the belief systems were in disagreement? We also cannot overlook the reality that the nations worshipped vastly different gods and goddesses from each other; did it not dawn on them that it was impossible for several different deities to have all created the world, and in manners entirely different from each other? The holes of polytheism became apparent from the reality that they were different, yet each assumed universality.

Further, what about the areas of “theology” that a group of religions left out, each being scattered and grouped along a spectrum of beliefs? What truths rested in the gaps existing between the scopes of several religions, in the areas that they left untouched? The monotheism of Abraham succeeded in understanding the inherent relationship between all of these disparate views, focusing in on them, seeing them as a whole, unifying them (often against their wishes) and therefore “correcting” some of their misguided beliefs, revealing the true message beyond a particular belief or ritual. This also required some "adjusting" (such as, but not limited to, the ending of human sacrifice and its replacement with animal sacrifice, which continued in Judaism up until the year 70 of the Common Era when the Temple was destroyed. Animal sacrifices were a mainstream part of Judaism quite possibly longer than normal religious developments would have dictated; they ended only because the edifice in which they took place was destroyed and all records in the Torah show that they would have continued). There was nothing that the polytheisms could do in light of the revelations of Abraham other than accede to their own false nature and logic other than a) be at war with monotheism. In that time, this “accession” and merging into the whole of monotheism can be given our contemporary word, “conversion,” and it is recorded in Genesis that Abraham and Sarah converted several people. (Abram took his wife Sarai and Lot, his brother's son, and all their wealth that they had amassed, and the souls they made in Haran; and they left to go to the land of Canaan, and they came to the land of Canaan." (Genesis 12:5) Abram and Sarai were childless at this point, and so "the souls they made" were not their (literal) children, but rather converts, as the Talmudic commentator Rashi explains.

The question still remains; does a conceptual social transformation indicate the absolute truth of the concept? This is a great question seeing that it refuses to go away. The answer lies somewhere in our realm and G-d’s Realm. The absolute universalism and transcendence inherent to the concept, clarifying all aspects of life and the nature of humanity, leaves no room for it to be a concept and not a reality. In other words, the fact that it is a concept is an indication of the finite, limited, and human fallibility that grasps it, but the fact that it is infinite, universal, and transcendent in scope, clarifying all of life and leaving no room for an alternative cogent perspective, indicates immediately that it is real and true, in the literal and tangible sense. So to answer the question, given the nature of this concept, like which there is none other in the broad grasp of human cognition, the very existence of the concept is testimony to its being real, literal, physical, tangible, and of course, true.

Also, let us look at the word “recognition,” the very make-up of the word explains its meaning; “re” and “cognition.” “Re” means “again” and “cognition” means “understanding” or “perception” – to recognize something means to once again gain an understanding of something. That humanity, through Abraham, recognized that G-d existed, means that humanity held a knowledge of G-d prior to the time of Abraham. The Torah itself records this in its first book, Genesis, when it records that the people living before Abraham’s time, namely Adam, Eve, their children and other contemporaries, and Noah and his family, testifies that monotheism existed before Abraham’s time. In the period between Noah and Abraham, it seems that humanity had forgotten about and lost the knowledge of the One G-d, it recognized it when Abraham, after this period of “drought,” reasoned that G-d indeed existed. What vestige of the monotheistic tradition pre-existing Abraham was available to him is difficult to glean from the text of the Torah, but we know that he is responsible for re-introducing it to the world.

To conclude, considering the vast nature of the “jump” from the reasoning of polytheism to monotheism, it is absolutely impossible that another jump could be made from the monotheism of Abraham to something more unified and holistic; no such jump of equal magnitude can ever be accomplished again. I am speaking of course about Christianity and Islam, and every other religion claiming a supersessionist spot in the G-d narrative. Neither Jesus nor Muhammad were able to teach something new to the world, not because they had personal deficiencies, but because there was nothing new under the sun to bring forth. The apparent aggression of both Christianity and Islam, in their empire forms, is due to this inability to spread their religions on the basis of a new and unique theology, totally re-doing the previous; only political power and military prowess facilititated their spread. Yet, both of their narratives record that the religions spread because people had become absolutely convinced. At least the Muslim historical record accedes that Muhammad unified political power; Christianity likes to ignore that an ingenuinely converted pagan (Constantine) was the emperor of Rome, and it was he who caused Christianity to spread to where it did. The message of Jesus might have belonged to Jesus, but Constantine, who did not even believe in Jesus or Christianity, was responsible for spreading it; this shows that Christianity was a political force as much as it was a religion.

That no new religion, theology, or philosophy was able to actually supplant Judaism, this is to say that everything that had to be revealed to humanity was revealed through Abraham’s reasoning and the subsequent revelation by G-d, and there is no other revelation that could possibly achieve what Abraham’s revelation achieved. Further, the Promise of Torah and Israel were given to the descendants of Isaac - the Covenant G-d made with Abraham was the same Covenant that G-d made with Moses. We are left with a glaring and unchanging, and perhaps discomforting truth, that Abraham’s revelation is singularly the most important revelation that humanity has received and that all human knowledge and existence is hinged upon it. The discomforting, but ultimately comforting thing, is that nothing else matters and that nothing else (or different) is true. We should not fear this if indeed G-d is our King, for He will never act unjustly.

A Threat from Within: A Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism (continued) -

I am reading a book by the aforementioned name and I guess that this post is a bit of a “book report” on this book. However, rather than writing a full-fledged report, I’m going to quote from the book and then include my commentary not only on that particular quote but on the author’s utilization of the quote.

Often times throughout the book the author, Yakov M. Rabkin, quotes Orthodox Jews who, before and during Israel’s existence, were and are fundamentally critical of Israel’s approach to religion and Torah. That is all and well, but Rabkin is not an Orthodox Jew and likely does not even agree with Orthodox paradigms. If that is true, which is relatively easy to see through the way he thinks, why does he use the Orthodox argument when pushed to honesty, he probably has fundamental issues with religiosity anyway? Is it intellectually honest to utilize the arguments of a group of people with whom you do not agree? It would be clear or at least possible to consider that he tries to fuse his dislike of Zionism with religious dislike of Zionism. In other words, it’s as if he uses the Orthodox anti-Zionist argument to support his own secular anti-Zionist argument, but the nature of the two is entirely different. This “alliance” that he is trying to create is curious – would Orthodox Jews whom oppose secularism just as much (he says) they oppose Zionism agree with Rabkin’s usage of their own ideas and ideologies? It is likely that they would not.

A few of Rabkin’s quotes:

“The Jewish tradition traces the origins of the Jews to the shared experience of the epiphany of the exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. As a group, the Jews are defined by their commitment to the Torah. Even though the Torah abounds in episodes of transgression and disregard for divine law by the children of Israel, the normative bond with the Torah remains the determining factor. It is precisely this bond, which obligates them to follow the commandments of the Torah, that makes Jews the “chosen people,” a status that implies no intrinsic superiority.” (32)

This is certainly an eloquent, truthful, and empathetic description of the essentials of Judaism. However, it makes you wonder if Rabkin is secretly fond of traditional Torah observance and religiosity, given his optimistic and friendly description. Does Rabkin even believe in the literality of the “shared experience” of revelation and the “giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai?” Does he really care about “this bond, which obligates them to follow the commandments of the Torah?” He even offers a warm explanation usually offered by Orthodox Jews themselves, “the ‘chosen people,’ a status that implies no intrinsic superiority.” Again, I have no absolute clue as to Rabkin’s religious background, but would he actually provide such a sympathetic depiction of Orthodox Judaism if it means “gaining access” to its particular criticisms of Zionism? Are the secular arguments against Zionism not good enough?

In a section titled “The Birth of the Secular Jew,” Rabkin writes:

“Unlike the Reform movement in Central and Western Europe, which modified Judaism but did not abolish it, the Jewish radical movements of Eastern Europe sought to eliminate every notion of religious responsibility. By the latter decades of the nineteenth century, they had come to see themselves as the first generation to have cast off the yoke of the Torah, a conviction reflected in the Israeli national anthem, Ha-tikva: ‘our hope is not in vain, two thousand years of longing, to be a free people on our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem.” The expression ‘to be a free people on our land’ contains an element that never fails to elicit a fierce response from the rabbinical authorities, who take it to mean ‘free from the yoke of the Torah,’ not only ‘free from oppression.’” (32)

For a moment I thought that Rabkin was actually defending Torah Judaism in Israel and criticizing Zionism’s application of Jewish thought to nationalism. Again, he gives ample voice to the Orthodox criticism of Zionism, but does he really believe it? Does that even matter? If intellectual honesty and avoiding committing fallacies is a value, then it clearly does.

He even goes on to quote from the most respected and revered Torah scholars (Gedolei Ha-dor; giants of the generation) to make his point. Suffice it to say that his presentation of their ideas might not be entirely honest to the initial intent or context, which would be a complicated thing to identify. Nevertheless, he quotes:

“Even Hafetz Haim, a recognized authority in the laws of proper speech, attacks the concept in the most categorical terms:

‘I fail to understand the expression ‘free Jews’ used today. What does it mean? True, they may be free, but they are not Jews. The two contradict one another, for the Jew is not free, and he who is free is not a Jew…. They [the free Jews] are like the dead extremities of our nation, which cause the entire body to rot. Even though they call themselves Jews, they inveigh against the Torah, an opinion based on the false concept according to which one can be a Jew without the Torah and its commandments. But this opinion uproots the Torah in its entirety. (Wasserman 1986,7)” (32)

I was not aware that Rabkin was a fan of the Chafetz Chaim or that proper speech and avoidance of “lashon harah,” improper or evil speech, was so important for him in his avodah (service of G-d).

“The concept of the secular Jew, the very antithesis of the traditional Jewish concept, became the cornerstone of Zionism.” (34) Again, wow, it seems like Rabkin actually cares about the traditional Jewish concept.

A few times he does something interesting, seemingly overlaying his own criticisms of Zionism, secular in nature, and presenting them under the headline of a particular criticism uttered by a respected rabbi. In this he misrepresents the ideas and beliefs of the rabbi’s whom he quotes. For example:

“In full awareness of Zionism’s anti-Judaic content, the influential Viennese rabbi and historian Moritz Gudemann (1835-1918) rejected, as early as the first Zionist congress in 1897, any attempt to separate the Jewish nation from its monotheistic faith (Wistrich, 151). In his view, the Torah must be free of territorial, political or national consideraton. Ever since the Babylonian captivity, the Jews had, he believed, become a ‘community of believers’; Jewish nationalism would, in spiritual terms, be a step backward with regard to the sublime vision of the messianic realm that the Jews had developed in the Diaspora. To return to a pagan concept that would confer exclusivity upon Jewish nationality would be a self-destructive form of collective assimilation for the Jews. For him, the nationalist approach stood as a contradiction in adjecto: one cannot be both Jewish and an atheist, that is to say, Jew and non-Jew, at the same time. Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan (1838-1933), best known for his book, Hafetz Haim (He Who Desires Life), identified the same contradiction a few years later; it was to remain a vital component of the Judaic critique of Zionism.” (30)

The stance on how exactly the Land of Israel is to be settled in proper terms of acquisition according to the Torah is, as any Torah student can tell you, a machloket, a dispute, and the solution is not black and white. There are serious hashkafic (philosophical) divides with the Orthodox world on just what the Torah requires of the Jews in this particular field of Jewish Law, or Halachah. Rabkin’s presentation of the Torah’s view on settlement of the Land of Israel comes from an uninformed perspective, which screams “agenda.” Jewish nationalism (in the way the Torah defines it) is the core of Messianic redemption! The “sublime vision of the messianic realm that the Jews had developed in the Diaspora” was not developed in the Diaspora, it even predates entrance into the Land of Israel. “Exclusivity upon Jewish nationality” is not a “pagan concept,” but the core of Judaic thinking and it is antithetical to a “self-destructive form of collective assimilation for the Jews.” It is glaringly indicative that Rabkin is thinking about Judaism, ironically, from a secular, liberal, post-Zionist hashkafa (philosophy, or lens) and attempting to use the Torah and Torah giants as support beams for his argument.

“For Rabbi Shalom Dov Baer Schneerson (1860-1920), the fifth Lubavitch Rebbe, whose influence in Russia extended well beyond the Hasidic community, to seek freedom from the yoke of exile is as pernicious as to seek freedom from the yoke of Torah. In order to escape their fate as Jews, the Zionists must abandon the Torah and the faith of Israel:

‘In order to infuse our brethren with the idea of being a ‘nation’ and an independent polity… the Zionists must give nationalism precedence over the Torah because it is known that those who cling to the Torah and the commandments are not likely to change and accept another identity, especially such as is implied in leaving exile by force and redeeming themselves by their own power…. Hence, in order to implement their idea, the Zionists must distort the essence [of Jewishness] in order to get [the Jews] to assume a different identity. (Ravitzky 1996, 16)’”

The problem; if Rabkin had not simplistically and retroactively assumed that Torah giants shared his contemporary post-Israel biases against Zionism, products of guilt waves in Israel due to liberal peer-pressure, he would find that there certainly are Torah-based permissions (and even obligations) to enter and settle the Land of Israel. Not only is this dishonest, it does an injustice to the giants of the generation whom he quotes, sorry to say, without getting a more complete picture of their view and the view of the Torah.

In the next few days I will add a few of Rabkin’s quotes about the Mizrachi, or North African Jews, who came from Muslim countries. Stay tuned and have a Shabbat Shalom.

Reason to be Frum (Orthodox, observant, etc...) for Me -

I have often thought about why the Holocaust happened. After having thought about this several times and in several different ways, from an Orthodox perspective and from an un-orthodox perspective when I was not Orthodox, I have not come to a good, conclusive answer to perfectly satisfy me on why G-d would allow such a thing to occur. I have come to a realization though, that the inability to have an answer to such a thing should not be a source of distress or a stab to faith in the least. There are many things in the world and existence that I do not understand, and many of those things are good things, so why should I fret when I don't understand the nature and dynamics of how bad things happen? Do I fret when I don't understand the most intricate mechanics of how being in love, for example, or connection with G-d functions? The fact is that they do function and that a driving force behind them makes them function; it is the same logic that drives me to believe that I do not need to understand the mechanics of a negative thing any more than I need to understand those of a positive thing.

Consider; I might have the tendency to strive to understand evil or negative things simply because they unseat me and bother me. However, looking at a positive thing, that that thing brings me satisfaction, logically, does not excuse me from trying to understand it from the inside out. Having said that, there is no inherent difference between a good and an evil occurrence; if I am to try to understand either of them it should be because I am curious, but if I decide not to strive to understand either of them, it's because I accept the way G-d makes things work. Ultimately, however, I should either strive to understand both of them or neither of them, because anything else would be a bit hypocritical.

In the end it comes down to this. I do not possess the knowledge or insight of G-d to understand why the Holocaust happened. All I am left able to do is to thank G-d that I was not there, for I do not know if I could have passed such a test, and rather than feel like I missed out on a special test (which seems sadistic), I am much happier knowing that G-d has chosen a different lot for me in this world and has blessed me by having made me born in this time rather than that one. Having said that, having seen survivors, especially survivors who are believing and observant Jews, I am in awe of their ability to pass such a test, and rather than wanting to confer merit on myself by saying that I would be able to pass such a test too, I realize something else. If they did so much to keep their Judaism through such evil occurrences, I, who face much less evil than they do (thank G-d), am up against much less adversity than they are and am able to be Jewish much more easily than they are. Since this is the case, I will keep Judaism. What do I face compared to them? Assimilation? Potential strife with other Jews (and possibly family) because I reject a secular life-style? All of these "challenges" pale in comparison to things that my elders faced in the Holocaust, and I will stray from my Judaism because my challenges confound me? The survivors did so much to ensure their own survival and ultimately the survival of Judaism that I owe it to them, not to mention to G-d, to pick up the mantle where they took off. G-d knows it's much easier for me to do that today here then it was for them there. Yes, it is logical to say, when a thing is so glaringly obvious, that one should do something simply because he can. I can keep Judaism and so I will. This is one motivation that kept me going strong in observance after I already had become so.

A Jew and a Christian Discuss -

The Jew is me, Yaniv, and the Christian is Danny, a friend of mine from Tucson. Grab the popcorn, sit back, and enjoy - a modern-day debate between a Jew and a Christian for your enjoyment!

Danny said:

http://www.wayofthemasternews.com/raysmonthlycolumn.htm

I thought you would since I have seen you talk about this subject.

Love,

Danny

Yaniv said:

I tried to keep it short, hehe.

I too used to hold Christianity's involvement in the Holocaust against Christianity, but over the years I've learned a bit about the true essence of Christianity. I don't really bother to be angry at Christianity for its involvement anymore, now it's just its theology that keeps me away from it. What I mean is, it would be irrational for me to say that just because Christianity was so intimately related to the Holocaust and helped it occur that I should resent it forever. The truth is that Christians can repent for their involvement, this is true, any many have, but the true problem with Christianity is not its history but its theology, which is pagan. As long as that lasts there is a problem. I won't hold Christianity's involvement in the Holocaust against any Christian because they can't be held accountable.

This is the connection. Paganism/polytheism have always sought to destroy monotheism, this is probably the root cause of all (or a huge majority) of the world's problems - the tension created by the fundamental conflicts resulting from the clash of monotheism and polytheism and their respective values. The opposite is also true - monotheism seeks to destroy polytheism, but how is another topic. Theologically speaking, Christianity is not monotheism and so it too has in it buried the nagging desire to push against Judaism. The unique thing about Christianity is that it is polytheism in monotheism's outfit, and it speaks in its name. I realize that we won't agree on this, and that's fine, but how exactly was Hitler able to use Christianity to rile up the masses, many (or most? I don't know) of which were Christian, to unite against the Jews in such a fashion? Clearly, Danny, there was some overlaying hostility in Christianity towards the Jews, and Hitler just found a way to tap into that and release it. Yes, my friend, the Christians were not very happy with the Jews and Hitler manipulated their "grievances" against them, although I agree that there were many more elements to the Holocaust than just religion.

Since Hitler found a way to tap into that anger, we have to ask why it existed in the first place. As a rule of thumb, polytheistic and monotheistic religions cannot essentially get along, look at the history of the Jews and their neighbors; the Midianites, Moabites, Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptains, Persians, Philistines, Canaanites (Amorites, Amalekites, Jebusites, Girgashites), Greeks, Romans, etc... At one time or another all of these people tried to destroy the Jews, or Israelites or Hebrews, depending on when, even when those groups recognized that "the G-d of the Hebrews" existed. Christianity was a deviation from Judaism. It eventually appealed to Gentile societies, whom were all polytheistic, and succeeded in spreading by infusing Jewish legal terms (sacrifices) with easy-to-understand pagan theologies (Divine duality, multiplicity). In other words, the religion of Christianity (regardless of its Jewish roots) became a Gentile religion, and those Gentiles, most of whom were Roman subjects and elitists, were not very far away from resenting Jews already. When Constantine rose to power and Judaism turned into a minority religion in the Roman Empire, some accounts of history explain that a huge number of Jews were killed. Considering that technology wasn't as good then, it is said that the number was basically proportionate to the number of Jews killed in Germany in the 20th century. I can try to find the source if you want. This kind of thing kept happening on and off for the next 2,000 years in Christian countries (both Catholic and Protestant) all over Europe and that trend made the Holocaust very possible. I can forgive a Christian because they are not accountable for it, and I am actually more than happy to because I don't want to live with that anger festering away at my soul. However, I am turned away from Christianity because of its paganism; if there is a connection between paganism and resenting Jews, this is definitely demonstrable throughout contemporary and Biblical (OT) history.

How your individual identity fits into Christianity is impossible for me to know.

Peace, your pal, Yaniv...

Also said by Yaniv:

Theologically speaking, Christianity is not monotheism and so it too has in it buried the nagging desire to push against Judaism. The unique thing about Christianity is that it is polytheism in monotheism's outfit, and it speaks in its name. Forget Hitler, he's dead; what should really alarm you is that your religion has internal elements of polytheism and you should ponder if that makes G-d very happy with you. This is much more sinister than any human being could ever hope to be, especially since it seems like monotheism.

All said as a pal, Yaniv...

Danny said:

Well, my thing is that I don't think people are smart enough to make up G-d being three separate entities but fully God as one being. It sounds a little like it is beyond human understanding. Also when I read the Old Testament from the first chapter and especially the profits, I get this very same understanding from them. Daniel even goes so far as to predict the exact day God will show up on earth, which happened with Christ. Also, Christ taught and magnified the Law of G-d even to the heart level, G-d sees our inward parts. Meaning G-d will judge us for our thought life as well as our actions and is mad at sin. Christ is perfect, holly and righteous. Your G-d doesn't hold everyone accountable for every, word, thought and deed.

Danny said:

Why would a demon teach humans to be good, kind and loving, focused only on G-d and not our selves? Why would a demon, teach us to be righteous and give G-d glory in all situations? No other religious book does that. All others teach work righteousness and against the Ten Commandments.

Oh and the other thing was that the Old Testament says that only G-d can tell the future and it be fulfilled. Well, Christ told the future with it coming true, a demon can not do that. He also shared wisdom which is against society and man's understanding even today. G-d in the old testament says that his wisdom is not like man's.

What I am saying is I am not concerned about what term Christ seems like, polytheism or what not. I am only concerned if my life matches up with all of scripture, weather I like what it says or not. Most of what is in the New Testament is challenging and life changing beyond the core of me. It is 90% mental and only 10% physical, it comes down to, it only matters if it is true or not.

Sorry, tried to make it short,

Danny

Yaniv said:

I'll respond to the things in order.

People are smart enough to make up anything; Communism, Socialism, Darwinism, Atheism, that religion that Tom Cruise practices, because the human mind is incredibly dynamic. That the human mind can conceptualize (to limited degrees) the wonder of G-d is dangerously close to being able to "inventing" the existence of G-d Himself. You should hear the arguments for that, which ultimately cannot stand but at least they sound sophisticated. I once heard a saying, "I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't believed it with my own mind." The point is that you can see anything you want in the "Old Testament" whether it's actually there or not.

It would be basically pointless for us to talk about what the prophets actually meant if we hold that subjectivity is the prime factor in our decision making, which is what I'm reading from you. Most of what you're saying to me in the first paragraph doesn't seem very thought out, such as "Daniel even goes so far as to predict the exact day G-d will show up on earth, which happened with Christ." If you and I are having an intellectual discussion, you won't change the way I think about things by simply telling me something that you believe or that your Bible says. I don't believe that "G-d showed up on earth" with Christ, and I certainly don't believe that Jesus was the Messiah. You have never tried to live your life by the Law, or by a type of religious law, so your understanding of the Law of the Torah is insufficient to comment on the way it affects man. One of the most fundamental Torah lessons is to internalize the Law and to become a "pnimi," a person who is trying to condition himself with it.

As a Christian you need to believe that the Law of the Torah cannot penetrate into the heart of man and fill him with joy and devotion and compassion, because if it did, what would be the point of Christianity? If that is what you really believe then you are sadly mistaken. In other words, you need to believe that your religion provides something that Judaism doesn't, but that's not true. "My G-d" certainly does hold everybody accountable for their every sin, thought, or deed, both good and bad and everywhere in between, because He is the perfect Judge. If you have not gotten this message from reading "my Bible" then you haven't been paying attention or you've been hearing the wrong thing.

Deception needs to be deceiving if it's going to work. The people who make Coca-Cola make sure that it tastes really, really good, but it's pretty bad for you. If they made it taste as bad as it was for you, then you wouldn't even dream of drinking it. The Satan is a deceiver and it has been endowed its powers by G-d Himself and so the illusions with which it tempts humanity are incredibly effective, even on people that are equipped to deal with them. It doesn't have the powers of G-d but there is a source in the Torah (Talmud) saying that demons have the ability to create small illusory worlds. I don't know exactly what that means, but if you have ever seen a person completely lost in a certain way of life, it is as if they are indeed lost in a small world. So yes, that is the power of a demon, and it will lace a bad thing with good things so that you do not see the bad in it.

All of the religious books present their message as a positive one; why would they do otherwise? Would make it make sense to have a religion that allowed the follower to know that it was to deliberately harm people? That would not be very deceiving.

In the Tanakh we see all kinds of idol worshippers and star worshippers telling the future, and they did not do it through prophecy. The reality of the world is that they were able to tap into elements of truth through these things, but not absolute truth. There's a source in the Torah that says that when Potiphar's wife went to seduce Joseph that something else was actually going on. She had told Joseph that the stars inferred that they were to be together, and Joseph checked the stars (astrology) and found that she was right, and just as they were about to commit the deed his father Jacob appeared to him in a window (also in the stars) and told him that it was not the right way, so he stopped. Jacob himself used a form of divination when he made Lavan's sheep give birth to only speckled sheep, which he kept for himself. The way he did that was by having them look at striped pieces of wood when they were mating and then they gave birth to speckled sheep (does that make any sense to you? It was divination). The Egyptians also used loads of black magic and were actually able to simulate the things that Moses was doing through the Hand of G-d, such as turning the staff into a snake and making the water turn into blood, which is written in the text of the Torah. Bilaam, the prophet of Midian, was able to achieve a level of prophecy as well through very questionable means, which the Torah explains was through having relations with his donkey, which the text specifically mentions was a "she-donkey." The Torah has a commandment not to communicate with the dead and not to partake in the rituals of the pagan nations. But why not? If their gods aren't real then why does it matter? The answer is that their gods aren't real but that their rituals worked because G-d made the world with those things accessible. However, He also intended for those things to be off limits to humanity and so He commanded us not to do them. Only the wisest and most discerning people who are thoroughly steeped in Torah study and living should touch on those things because only they will use them for the right purposes and the right way.

The core religious experience provided by every single religion in the whole world is that it provides the follower with the ability to reach something outside of himself. However, being taken outside of our core is not how we measure the truth of a religion because every single religion in the world is designed to take a person out of himself. So does music, sex, drugs, and even violence, which explains why people speak about those things in spiritual terms (and why, to a degree, religion utilizes these things for spirituality). Again, I can't make judgments on your personal spiritual experiences, but all I can say is that everybody is capable of spirituality and that in and of itself is not self-validating.

I also tried to make it short. Peace, Yaniv...

Danny said:

Well, my thing is that I don't think people are smart enough to make up G-d being three separate entities but fully God as one being. It sounds a little like it is beyond human understanding. Also when I read the Old Testament from the first chapter and especially the profits, I get this very same understanding from them. Daniel even goes so far as to predict the exact day God will show up on earth, which happened with Christ. Also, Christ taught and magnified the Law of G-d even to the heart level, G-d sees our inward parts. Meaning G-d will judge us for our thought life as well as our actions and is mad at sin. Christ is perfect, holly and righteous. Your G-d doesn't hold everyone accountable for every, word, thought and deed.

Dan A. orginally said:

"My personal belief, not an argument, is that people are still not intelligent enough to understand that concept of G-d that Jesus describes and what I feel the profits also described. That would be consistent with it being written that God choose the foolish things to confound the wise. God resist the proud and has chosen foolish things to confuse the wise. Pr 3:34, Isa 29:14"

Yaniv responded:

"I read Proverbs 3:34, and mine reads "If {one is drawn] to the scoffers, he will scoff, but [if one is drawn] to the humble, he will find favor." Maybe our translations are a bit different, but I'm trying to connect this verse with our topic and I can't really see how they connect with each other. However, Proverbs 3:1 seems to connect pretty well to the conversation. "My child, do not forget the Torah, and let your heart guard My commandments, for they add to you length of days and years of life and peace. Kindness and truth will not forsake you. Bind them upon your neck; inscribe them on the tablet of your heart, and you will find favor and goodly wisdom in the eyes of G-d and man." I scanned through the next couple of Proverbs and all I found was a constant reference to the wisdom of the Torah and the call to keep it. Proverbs 7:1-2 is especially telling, "My child, heed my words and store up my commandments with yourself. Heed my commandments and live, and [heed] my Torah as the apple of your eyes." G-d speaking to the Jews as "My child" is exactly what I was talking about when the "Father Son" analogy is filled between G-d and the Jewish People, and to a degree the Gentiles as well.

As for as Isaiah 29:14, I agree fully. Isaiah was very big on castigating the Jews based on their insincere sacrificial offerings , their idolatry, and just plain out acts of immorality and treachery. He also rails the surrounding nations and tells them that they're going down too, and tells them when they're doing the right thing. Back to the Jews, check out Isaiah 11, to the Jews, whom he refers to as "people of Gomorrah," "Why do I need your numerous sacrifices? says Hashem." Good place to stop, but the next verse says, "I am sated with elevation-offerings of rams and the fat of fatlings; the blood of bulls, sheep, and goats I do not desire. When you come to appear before Me,who sought this from your hand, to trample My courtyards. Bring your worthless meal-offering to Me no longer, it is incense of abomination to Me." Notice, G-d tells Isaiah "I am sated with elevation offerings of rams and the fat of fatlings," -- G-d was satisfied with the genuine offerings, which took away sin, but deplored the bulls, sheep, and goats, because it had apparently become a trend to bring countless sacrifices that were not genuine, and G-d was interested in genuine service to Him. Also, it seems that G-d was more satisfied with the minimum sacrifices done genuinely than with the larger sacrifices, when brought in the proper spirit, sanctified G-d's Name. The problem is that people were bringing them improperly, to bribe G-d, as it were, and this enraged G-d. Skip back real quick to Exodus 29:38, where G-d commands Aaron to bring the continual offering. "This is what you shall offer upon the Altar: two sheep within their first year every day, continually. You shall offer the one sheep in the morning, and the second sheep shall you offer in the afternoon; and a tenth-ephah of fine flour mixed with a quarter-hin of beaten oil, and a libation of wine for each sheep." Turns out that the Jews had forgotten how to do it the proper way, and G-d sent Isaiah to warn and remind them.

Here's the part I really wanted to emphasize, in Isaiah 29:14, when G-d says, "Bring your worthless meal-offering to Me no longer, it is incense of abomination to Me," contrast this with Exodus 29:41, in which G-d describes the proper sacrificial meal-offering, "You sh all offer the second sheep in the afternoon, like the meal-offering of the morning and its libation you shall offer for it, for a satisfying aroma, a fire-offering to Hashem; as a continual burnt-offering for your generations, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, before Hashem; where I shall set My meeting with you to speak to you there." To break it down even more, the contrast is between "it is incense of abomination to Me," and "for a satisfying aroma..."

If you read on in Isaiah 29:14, those verses G-d also deplores the New Moon and "appointed times," i.e., other holidays, because the Jews were getting carried away with proper ritual and slacking in proper ethics and morality towards their fellow man; see Isaiah 16, "Wash yourselves, purify yourselves, remove the evil of your deeds from before My eyes; cease doing evil. Learn to do good,s eek justice, vindicate the victim, render justice to the orphan, take up the grievance of the widow." Ultimately, Isaiah 29:14 speaks against the corruption of the Law (Isaiah 29:13 - ---their fear of Me is like rote learning of human commands ---), but even, and especially he understood that there was a proper version of the Law, to which he alludes throughout the entire Book. Your own misreading of the verse has to do with your reading that the "human commands" to which he refers are the commandments that G-d gave, but a different reading into the text suggests something entirely more consistent with Torah and Judaism. That settles it, there is a Jewish way and a Christian way to view these things, but the Jewish way, in which we still keep the commandments, is a far cry more consistent with Isaiah's charges than is Christianity. There is no way to apply Isaiah's charges to Christianity, but there is definitely a way to apply it to Judaism, at least in theory when the Temple is not standing.

Dan A. orginally said:

"When you look at Mithraism, Attis, Krishna, and Horus stories, it's like comparing apples to oranges. Sure there are similarities but they are not the same story. Just read the stories themselves not the comparisons. You will not be able to put them together like I have seen authors do.

All accounts of gods share a common denominator when you look at the actual stories of their legacies. They were always conquerors that slew down their enemies in heroic super human fashions. And many times they did not die. In stories that god's did die, it was in a glorious destructive super human fashion. They usually were fighting, showing further that they were gods and not men. The stories would not show any kind of weakness to their god, they showed them served by men, and they could not be hurt by men."

Yaniv responded:

"It seems to me that in the End of Days, the Christian version, that Jesus and Satan "have it out" in a war for humanity, as is explained in Revelations (of which I am no expert what-so-ever). What you get is a serious war of duality between good and evil, which Judaism believes in as well, but the difference is that Revelations explains it as a literal battle of sorts where all kinds of physical emanations of both good and evil (Jesus and Satan) expresses themselves (the red moon, the wife in white, the four horsemen, etc...) and then something about the very ominous and physical "mark of the beast," another physical thing. At best, without sounding insulting, it's a bit reminiscent of a comic book where the good guys and bad guys meet in one final showdown for turf, and of course the good guys win. I give it to you, it's a bit more sophisticated than the all-out pagan "versions" from earlier times, but I think that the Christians, who at least felt themselves to be monotheists, rejected much of the imagery of pagan antiquity from their works. Nevertheless, they didn't do the job quite as good as they should have for monotheists. What I mean is, it was a valiant effort and I even respect them a little bit (from my comfortable seat in 2007), but to me it shows that Revelations was a human work based on a humanly-established religion with a human Trinity, which is not very far in its roots from that same pagan antiquity.

Dan A. originally said:

"You can see then why Jesus was different. He was the Prince of Peace not war, he came to serve others and not to be served to, he was humble enough to wash others feet, and was willing to surrounded himself with those scorned by society. He also was willing to die in a shameful, dishonored fashion for the glory of His Father. There was really no way to make Christ up because people did not see any of his qualities, before him, as God like features."

Yaniv responded:

"I object only to the last part. Surely his anger, judgment, knowledge of the Law and authority of the Law, not to mention his kindness, compassion, and ability to tell the future and perform miracles, and of course his immortality, were elements of his being due to being G-d. All in all, from a narrative perspective, even from a Jewish narrative perspective, Jesus is the kinder, gentler, sweeter emanation of G-d. However, it's pagan and not Jewish because while there are a few canonical Jewish narratives about a physical G-d (the Song at the Sea calls G-d a "Man of War" and other texts talk about G-d in physical terms), there is no place anywhere in (canonical) Jewish thought where G-d has a literal physical body and is found walking around and talking with people. The fact that the Jews did not include any of the Christian works (the original first few of which had Jewish authors) in the Tanakh, other than the politics of religion, is the same reason that the Book of Baruch (I don't know what it's called), and others, are not included in the Tanakh's canon - they were deemed, and were in fact, heretical texts. Yours just has the pleasure of becoming a religion unto its own.

Yaniv originally said:

It would be basically pointless for us to talk about what the prophets actually meant if we hold that subjectivity is the prime factor in our decision making, which is what I'm reading from you. Most of what you're saying to me in the first paragraph doesn't seem very thought out, such as "Daniel even goes so far as to predict the exact day G-d will show up on earth, which happened with Christ." If you and I are having an intellectual discussion, you won't change the way I think about things by simply telling me something that you believe or that your Bible says. I don't believe that "G-d showed up on earth" with Christ, and I certainly don't believe that Jesus was the Messiah.

Dan A. originally said:

Again, it doesn't matter what I believe it only matters if the Bible says it or not, meaning that it is true or not. Since you say it is all subjective then that means you can't tell me that it doesn't say that, so I could be right. Every time I back something up with Scripture though you tell me that it doesn't really say what I read so, what is the point? I have shown you in the book of Daniel before where he predicts to the day when G-d will show up. You basically told me it is not saying that, it is a big coincidence that it mathematically works out right? Daniel 9:25-26

Yaniv responded:

I didn't say that the Torah is subjective, I said that your readings of the Torah were subjective and therefore we would go back and forth talking about what we think they mean, and that would get us nowhere. Alright, but you point was made. I'm going to save this one for a bit later because it's late at night and I don't want to do any math right now.

Yaniv originally said:

You have never tried to live your life by the Law, or by a type of religious law, so your understanding of the Law of the Torah is insufficient to comment on the way it affects man. One of the most fundamental Torah lessons is to internalize the Law and to become a "pnimi," a person who is trying to condition himself with it.

As a Christian you need to believe that the Law of the Torah cannot penetrate into the heart of man and fill him with joy and devotion and compassion, because if it did, what would be the point of Christianity? If that is what you really believe then you are sadly mistaken. In other words, you need to believe that your religion provides something that Judaism doesn't, but that's not true. "My G-d" certainly does hold everybody accountable for their every sin, thought, or deed, both good and bad and everywhere in between, because He is the perfect Judge. If you have not gotten this message from reading "my Bible" then you haven't been paying attention or you've been hearing the wrong thing.

Dan A originally said:

That is what Christ was all about helping people do, internalize the Law, Ten Commandments specifically. I know what the Bible says but you say something different. You say as long as people follow I guess the Law of Noah, you are fine. Well, it says that no one has followed the law. Well, then we are all in big trouble. You say yes we have followed the law but that is not what the Bible says. You also say if we have broken the law then with prayer we would be forgiven. That is not what the Bible says. It says that a sacrifice needs to be made to cover sin, not the forgiveness of it. You say there is no need for a sacrifice because the Temple is gone. A sacrifice was required before the Temple and so a sacrifice is required when there is no Temple. Also G-d says that he only hears the prayers of the priests that offer scarifies, to atone for sin. So, prayer from individuals is no good, where are your priests that offer the sin offerings?

Yaniv responded:

But Danny, the Law is 613 commandments, not ten, although the Ten Commandments make up an essential bulk of the spirit of the Torah. Where does "it" say that no one has followed the law (of Noah, I guess)? I would agree that the Gentiles are in trouble for not following the Law of Noah, as in much trouble as the Jews are for not following the Law of Moses. You also don't believe in the existence of an Oral Law, which I have shown you exists, so of course you are not seeing the Law of Noah listed in the Torah. Actually, the Torah does say that prayer can lead to forgiveness. It's in Hosea and recited in the prayer service in the morning, saying, "May You forgive all iniquity and accept good [intentions], and let our lips substitute for bulls." (Hosea 14:3) Hosea was a book written over a period of 300 years, according to what I read, and was written b y many people. Hosea himself was a contemporary of Isaiah according to the Sages (the Oral tradition). Correction, there IS a need for sacrifice even though the Temple is gone, because G-d has not abolished that system permanently - it's an eternal system, that's the biggest key about all of this. Initially, before the Temple was built and Jews were bringing sacrifices in the Tent of Meeting, a sacrifice was brought simultaneously with repentance. Numbers 15:25 explains this, "The Kohen shall atone for the entire assembly of the Children of Israel and it shall be forgiven them," so you're right, but we are living in a post-Temple time where even if we wanted to bring sacrifices we couldn't. Therefore, G-d accepts atonement from us in a different way until that time has been returned to us because He wouldn't let us go without a way to atone.

Dan A. originally said:

The Law is justice so that doesn't mean you can just apologize or do some good things to make up for breaking the law. If you are in court and a judge is going to sentence you then nothing you can do can make up for it. You can not do a bunch of good things because the Judge would not be upholding justice if he lets you bribe him with good works or apologies. Therefore God will give everyone justice that has broken his laws. Not everyone receives justice on this earth so his justice must be after we die. Psalm 55:15

Yaniv responded:

I haven't looked at the verse yet, but I agree. Okay, now I'm looking at the verse. It says, "together we would take sweet counsel; in the House of G-d we would walk in company." The later verses have to do with death and going down to the grave. I've dabbled in the Psalms and much of the time David is not always referring to the Law, per se, sometimes he's referring to generally good and evil behavior, such as that of his enemies, who we know were from the House of Israel, i.e., often people that wanted to take him down. However, you're still not exactly right because G-d takes into account the intent of man during their judgment and considers it before sealing them. True, you cannot apologize during your judgment, but you have a whole life ahead of you to do that and to do repentance and you don't need to wait until then.

Yaniv originally said:

Deception needs to be deceiving if it's going to work. The people who make Coca-Cola make sure that it tastes really, really good, but it's pretty bad for you. If they made it taste as bad as it was for you, then you wouldn't even dream of drinking it. The Satan is a deceiver and it has been endowed its powers by G-d Himself and so the illusions with which it tempts humanity are incredibly effective, even on people that are equipped to deal with them. It doesn't have the powers of G-d but there is a source in the Torah (Talmud) saying that demons have the ability to create small illusory worlds. I don't know exactly what that means, but if you have ever seen a person completely lost in a certain way of life, it is as if they are indeed lost in a small world. So yes, that is the power of a demon, and it will lace a bad thing with good things so that you do not see the bad in it.

Dan A. originally said:

Well then you would confuse every good work of G-d as Satan’s. That is why the Bible tells you what is of God and what is of Satan. That is why you study the word to know the difference. That is why a Profit had to profess the future %100 or he was killed. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. (Mark 3:25)

Yaniv responded:

Just because Satan creates illusions, which is his job, it doesn't mean that a person is hopeless for the truth. Every good work being confused as G-d's when it is really Satan's applies to you too. G-d has told us the truth with the Torah so a person who follows the Torah need not fear. "Hashem said to the Satan, 'Hashem shall denounce you, O Satan, and Hashem, Who selects Jerusalem, shall denounce you again. This is indeed a firebrand rescue from flames." (Zechariah 3:2)

Yaniv originally said:

All of the religious books present their message as a positive one; why would they do otherwise? Would make it make sense to have a religion that allowed the follower to know that it was to deliberately harm people? That would not be very deceiving.

Dan A. originally said:

Yes, but other religion's doctrine always calls evil good and good evil. Isaiah 5:20 They also describe God in a different way than what has been reviled in scripture. Job 37-42 It describes how high G-d is mighty and high and how low and horrid we are. His perfection is majestic and we are low and detestable. We are to be servants to the most High not the other way around.

Yaniv responded:

Isaiah is referring to corruption within the Jewish People, because Isaiah 5:19 says, "Those who say, 'Let Him hurry, let Him hasten His actions, so that we may see it; let the plan of the Holy One of Israel approach and take place, so that we may know it.'" I think you can still apply what Isaiah said there to actual idolatry in general, for sure, but it's not the jist of the text. This is one reason I am Jewish. Your reading of those verses of Job are expressive of the misery contained in Christianity theology; where in the world do you get from those verses that we are "low and detestable?!" Rather, G-D IS HIGH! Even the best of us, as high as we are (and there are some amazing holy people in this world) are lower than G-d, because HE IS THE HIGHEST! Unfortunately, this is how you read the message of Job because Christianity encourages a miserable and lowly view of the human being, which is the ANATHEMA to the way G-d desires us to view ourselves. I can't help but to be depressed by your view via Job. Job is uplifting explaining to us that G-d is so great that His most basic inventions are entirely mysterious and confounding to us. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is not a reason to be lowly and depressed but a reason to rejoice; G-d's perfection is majestic, but we are also His creatures and so we are low, but majestic too, and not in the least detestable! And HORRID!? What a word to use on the apple of G-d's eyes! It says in the Torah about the commandments, "You shall live by them and not die by them," we should also live by the glory of G-d and not die by it. Servants to a King Who loves us, now Who believes that we are horrid mongrels, even if we sometimes, maybe often, act like it.

Dan A. originally said:

So, scripture is my standard to know what is true and what is false. First I look at the Torah and Profits, and then I look to see if it says that there is more for us to know. It says he will reveal more info to us. Only 400 years passed since the New Testament. Malachi says in chapter 3 that G-d will come. Jeremiah 31:31 So, then I look to the New Testament to see if that matches up to what is predicted because that too claims to be the word of G-d. If it matches up, then I see if there are going to be anything more for me to know in the future after that. The New Testament says, NO! I do not have to look any further now for more info that God will be sharing.

Yaniv responded:

Jeremiah 31:31 does not fall on deaf ears. Read on, "Thus said Hashem, Who gives the sun as a light by day and the laws of the moon and the stars by night; Who agitates the sea s that its waves roar; Hashem, Master of Legions, is His Name: If these laws could be removed from before Me - the word of Hashem - so could the seed of Israel cease from being a people before Me forever. Thus said Hashem: If the heavens above could be measured or the foundations of the earth plumbed below, so too would I reject the entire seed of Israel because of everything they did - the word of Hashem." (Jeremiah 31:34-36) Just as the laws of nature are established and unchanging, so does G-d keep the Law alive and unchanging all the time, forever. The LAW my friend, the LAW. Which Law? Perhaps is it the Law that I keep? Our people-hood is based on the existence of the Law; they are basically synonymous - "the word of Hashem."

Yaniv originally said:

The core religious experience provided by every single religion in the whole world is that it provides the follower with the ability to reach something outside of himself. However, being taken outside of our core is not how we measure the truth of a religion because every single religion in the world is designed to take a person out of himself. So does music, sex, drugs, and even violence, which explains why people speak about those things in spiritual terms (and why, to a degree, religion utilizes these things for spirituality). Again, I can't make judgments on your personal spiritual experiences, but all I can say is that everybody is capable of spirituality and that in and of itself is not self-validating.

Dan A. originally said:

That is great but I was not talking about a feeling. The Bible says our feelings are wicked and deceitful, so I would not go on feelings. I am talking about the challenge of being perfect as G-d is perfect. It is completely challenging, there is a peace because I am no longer an enemy of G-d but am now one of his children reconciled to him. It is not a trance like state, it is where your mind is engaged and focused on God’s word. You also have a consistent experience of dieing to ones self and letting God lead you away from your nature of wanting to do to what is against God. You continue to give up your will for his. John 3:3

Yaniv responded:

Yes, I can agree with the part about dying to one's self and letting G-d lead you away from your nature of wanting to do what is against G-d. It seems that the way most religions understand return to G-d is very, very similar, the "born again" sentiment, which I definitely had. However, if there IS a difference between Judaism and Christianity with respect to this, I would say that it is that Judaism, via the Torah, doesn't view humanity as a miserable wretch of a being due to the fall of Adam and Eve and original sin, because G-d "is a jealous G-d, Who visits the sin of fathers upon children to the third and fourth generations, for My enemies; but Who shows kindness for thousands [of generations] to those who love Me and observe My commandments." (Exodus 20:5-6)." We are not trying to get G-d to forgive us for the sin of Adam and Eve, because we are not liable for their sin. Rather, we are liable for our OWN sins and it is to THOSE sins which G-d holds us accountable. That's why you need Jesus and I don't, because G-d holds me accountable for my sins and helps me stop doing them and forgives me for them when I am genuinely interested in being forgiven. "Hashem, Hashem, G-d, Compassionate and Gracious, Slow to Anger, and Abundant in Kindness and Truth; Preserver of Kindness for thousands of generations, Forgiver of Iniquity, Willfull Sin, and Error, and Who Cleanses..." (Exodus 34:6). "Hashem is close to all who call upon Him - to all who call upon Him sincerely." (from Psalm 145, all of which is very good and is a daily prayer in the service).

To Yaniv (from the response to previous e-mail):

All your wisdom is the wisdom of the world. You don't back up any thing you say against scripture so I don't know how you expect me to take you seriously. The Lord's word should be the standard for all that you hold true, not doctrines taught by men. I know you do not believe the Messiah is Yahuâshuah Hamashiach the anointed one. (Romans 1:18) It doesn't come down to what you believe it comes down to if it is true or not. Christ said that he was the way the truth and the light, no one comes to the father except by him. That means he was either correct, a liar, stupid or crazy. (John 14:6) I have found that he is true now as he has always been. I know for sure that he is still alive, he is well right now. I also know that death could not hold him because he was the very essence on earth of the Most High. Who but God can give life and have dominion over death?

Your depiction of the Jewish people is not the depiction set in the Bible either. First there is Deuteronomy 9:6-29, Jeremiah 7-8, Ezekiel 16. G-d's word shows how rotten the Jewish people are and how his anger burns against them. God no longer hears your prayers or accepts your sacrifices. It shows how detestable Jewish people are for doing wrong against God. Yet all I hear from Jewish people is how great they are. How happy God is with their righteous deeds and pure culture that is following G-d's laws. I hear something different from Christians. I hear how detestable we are, how we are perverse enemies of God. How even though we are horrid in the sight of God he choose to save us anyway. That matches up with scripture, before and after Christ. Acts 7, Romans 3

Yaniv responded:

Quoting Dan, "Your depiction of the Jewish people is not the depiction set in the Bible either."

Neither is yours.

Danny, don't complain how horrid, detestable, and preverse Christianity says you are; I have nothing to do with what Christianity says! And who said that He chose to save you anyway? And it doens't match up with Scripture because G-d isn't levelling anywhere near the majority of criticisms towards you, but towards the Jewish People.

Dan A. said:

The message of the Bible is the same in Old Testament as it is in the New Testament. What I see the Jewish people do is change it to meet their own purposes. In fact that is why I do not say it is the same G-d at all that you worship. You worship a God that serves you and not a God that is to be served.

Yaniv responded:

Right, which is why we live the way we live. Surely it is a self-serving life! An Orthodox Jew's life is a life of dedication to G-d every step of the way that puts G-d's Will before his own. You can't get off easy telling me that the Jewish people changed the Law, or the Spirit of the Law, or whatever, in order to meet our purposes anymore than you can say that the Christians actually changed the text and the original meaning. Who was here first, the Jews or the Christians? So who changed the original? This particular argument that you made sounds a bit like the Muslim one.

"You worship a G-d that serves you and not a G-d that is to be served." All you know about Jewish living and the Jewish people is through Christian propaganda. The other part you "know" due to an internal fear that perhaps we are living the right way and so that way of life has to be devalited in order to make room for Christianity. It's okay, Danny, it's not your fault, it's a 2,000 year-old tradition and it's how Christianity began. The way a religion begins is the way it stays forever. This is true for Islam and for Christianity, which will always want to push up against Judaism. It's also true for Judaism, which began with revelation. You mistake continued revelation to be corruption, and there is room to see some truth in that, at least theoretically, but Christianity is definitely not continued revelation, and neither is Islam.

It is Christianity's god that serves them to its death, not Judaism's. It is Christianity's god that gives a knowing wink over at his followers saying, "Don't worry, I gotcha covered." It is Judaism's G-d that demands life and not death, and does not die Himself, as the liturgy says, "He has no body and no image of a body." It is Judaism's G-d that demands us to toil for our redemption and forgiveness and Who helps us accomplish these things, whether we know it or not or believe in Him or not. It is Christians who stand over their god as did Pharaoh over the Nile, expecting it to serve him.

Dan A. said:

The G-d of the Bible speaks about how he is Holly and perfect. His perfection was laid before us before the law and humans sinned against him. Then he gave his law written by his own finger. The Ten Commandments outlines his perfection, Moses says do not add anything to this because it is enough but scholars did and that is why the Talmud exists as disobedience to G-d. (Deuteronomy 4:2) G-d warns that if you lie, steal, blaspheme, covet, worship a god that you make up that suits you, disobey your parents, have anger or murder, have lustful thoughts or commit adultery, you will be judged and punished by God. (Psalm 1:6) That is why with great trembling we should cry out to him to save us from his wrath and unquenchable fire. He also says Isaiah 8:14 that G-d has put a stumbling block before the Jewish people and that is why your wisdom is darkened and you do not except the truth. Only G-d himself can save us from himself and his punishment. That is why Jesus came because only he can save us from himself, so that he receives all the glory and not us. We can do nothing to evade G-d because he knows everything and is everywhere. There is no way to hide from him and his justice. He will judge even our thoughts. Jewish people consistently say they follow the law and that they have not broken it but the bible says Psalm 14:1-3. It does not exclude Jews from this truth. I say this to Christians too! If a so called Christian says that they are good or that they have anything to offer God though their deeds then let them be dammed because no one is good and it is only though G-d's mercy and grace do we have any hope. God gets all the glory not though anything that we do to glorify ourselves.

Yaniv responded:

"He shall be a sanctuary, but also a striking stone and a stumbling rock, for the two houses of Israel; a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem." Isaiah 8:14. Christian readings of Jewish texts give the most backward, despondent, and dispicable readings, and not to mention hateful. It's okay, we'll continue to ignore this type of thing.

Dan A. originally said:

If Christ is false then all Christians are in trouble because we would have worshiped a false G-d that is not the almighty one. G-d's anger would burn against us and we will be destroyed. If the Jew is right the same thing will happen to them because like Isaiah 53 describes no one has taken the punishment that we deserve. There is only one God and why would he not save us from his wrath? Why would he not warn us and set his standard before us, not just to the Jews? Maybe G-d is not justice because he forgives without payment for sin but that is not the G-d of the Bible. There is only one G-d and why would the Devil command us to read and know G-d's word as Jesus does? Why would he command us to be wise and research all things? Jesus alone has brought G-d's truth and light to every nation, to follow his commands. That is what G-d wanted from the Jews but it did not happen because of disobedience.

Yaniv responded:

Yes, we are a stiff-necked people, that much is true! Of course, to hear all this from a Christian, who is just as stiff-necked in his idolatry as a Jew is in his faithlessness, well, makes some sort of sense. Hear what Isaiah has to say to you, "Come close, O nations, to hear, and regimes be attentive; let the earth and its fullness hear, the world and all its offspring. For Hashem has a fury against all the nations and a wrath against all their legions; He has destroyed them, He has delivered them to the slaughter. Their slain will be thrown aside and their corpses will bring up stench; the mountains will melt from their blood. All the host of the heavens will dissolve and the heavens will be rolled up like a scroll; all their host will shrivel as a leaf of grapevine shrivels and like a shriveled leaf of a fig tree. For my sword has been sated in the heavens; behold, it shall descend upon Edom and for judgment upon the people of My destruction. The sword of Hashem is full of blood, greased with fat, with the blood of fatted sheep and he-goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for Hashem is making a sacrifice at Bozrah and a great slaughter in the land of Edom. The wild oxen will go down [to the slaughter] with them, and bulls and fatted bulls; their land will be sated with blood and their soil enriched with fat. For it is a day of vengeance for Hashem; a day of retribution for the grievance of Zion."

Edom is Rome, and what survives of Rome today? G-d had a message for your own stiff-necked people!

Dan A. originally said:

The Septuagint Helps Us Understand the Hebrew Texts

Much is often made of the word for "virgin" in Isaiah 7:14

("The Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son."). Some have contended that the Hebrew word translated "virgin" -almah - simply means "young women." This indeed is one of the possible meanings of the Hebrew. However, in the Septuagint the word clearly indicates the Jewish scholarly opinion before the time of Jesus. The Greek word is parthenos (also used in Matthew 1:23), which very specifically means "virgin."

Seventy esteemed scholars understood what the ancient Hebrew meant, and they translated this meaning into Greek. Naturally they would have no incentive to invent prophecy about Jesus more than 200 years before he was born. Hence when key words are in question, the Septuagint often clarifies the precise meanings of the ancient Hebrew far better than the critics of today.

Yaniv responded:

Interesting, I'll have to check into that. All I can say before I do that is I am sure that these esteemed scholars, if they were religious, had no qualms about what the text actually meant from a theological perspective. I feel that Jewish translators, even religious, have been skittish, in the event that "almah" means "virgin," about actually writing that definition because they don't want to create an impression from a Jewish translation that Christianity is true. It's much easier just to have the text say something else if we already know what the truth is. Still, I speak Hebrew and have always learned that the word for (female) virgin is "betulah," and for a male, "batul." It shares a root with the word "betul," which means "nullified" or "devalidated," which probably is a reference to a person's marital status (because virginity was ideally lost on the night of marriage).

Dan A. said:

You can use what ever you want on your Blog, I just plead with you do not do a chop job!

Lots of Love,

Danny

Yaniv responded:

Don't worry, I won't. Peace, Yaniv...