Q. I honestly would like to believe that the Bible is the untainted Word of God, but there are several passages that very clearly go against any sane standard of human decency. Two quick examples are Numbers 31, and the commandment that a Canaanite slave must be kept forever. I don’t understand how my God could demand such grotesque acts in the former tale, and condone eternal slavery in the latter bit. Since you are far more learned than I ...
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Question: The Passover Hagadah speaks of four cups of wine, four sons, the four questions, and so on. What is the number four so significant in the Passover Seder? I would also like to know about the specific origin of the famous Four Questions during Seder.
Answer: Good ...
Learn More ShareAs Napoleon marched triumphantly through Europe, the Jews of the ghetto felt joyous by his arrival. Was Napoleon really the Messiah? Many of our ancestors thought so; but again, that was before Napoleon got defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. And then there was Franklin Delano Roosevelt better known to my parent’s generation as “FDR.” Many Jews living back in the gloomy days of WWII believed that FDR might have been the Messiah, but that was before we learned that ...
Learn More ShareQ. For centuries scholars have long wondered why the belief in God is so ubiquitous in cultures all around the world. Recently, neurologists propose a possible explanation suggesting that the belief in God is deeply embedded in the human brain. Simply put, the brain is hardwired and programmed for religious experiences. A study involved forty participants, including Christians, Muslims, Jews, ...
In a gender conscious society, people often ask if there are any specific references in the Tanakh and within Jewish tradition where God is depicted in feminine terms. Without going into considerable detail, we will briefly one example:
In Isaiah 42:14, the prophet also depicts God’s biocentric passion for justice in feminine terms:
For a long time