Answers from an Orthodox Jew

[Maximilian75]

Because its everyones buisness. This is a public forum.

Again, if you want to refute point by point, write a PM.​

For public threads, keep it civil and allow other posters to get a word in edgewis.

 

[Moses613]

I watched some of the video and find some of his assertions to be disingenuous at best.

God gave us the Land of Israel as an eternal inheritance and we have the right to live in it. This man doesn’t believe in Torah, in any case.

OTOH, I don’t mind finding a 2-state solution if that will actually bring peace. If.

Next topic. I’m not interested in debating the Palestine issue.

 

[Gab123]

God gave us the Land of Israel as an eternal inheritance and we have the right to live in it. This man doesn’t believe in Torah, in any case. . . I’m not interested in debating the Palestine issue.

Fair enough. It’s just that I see many Orthodox Jews who disagree with the secular Zionists who do not believe in the Torah, and are behind the State of Israel. According to the Rabbis, the Zionists use the Jewish religion as an excuse to carve out state while plundering and destroying the lives of others in the region. That is the point that is made by Miko Peled and the Orthodox Rabbis protesting the State of Israel. I was just wondering your view on the matter.

 

[Moses613]

Fair enough. It’s just that I see many Orthodox Jews who disagree with the secular Zionists who do not believe in the Torah, and are behind the State of Israel. According to the Rabbis, the Zionists use the Jewish religion as an excuse to carve out state while plundering and destroying the lives of others in the region. That is the point that is made by Miko Peled and the Orthodox Rabbis protesting the State of Israel. It has nothing to do with religion. I was just wondering your view on the matter.

I look at it from the point of view of realpolitik. The last “carving out” that was done was in 1967. No territory has been conquered in 50 years. Whether or not Israel could have, would have, should have done differently or acted exactly as it did in 1967 is not personally relevant to my life today. The secular army certainly did not ask advice or instruction from the rabbis. So I assume they did things I would not have approved of. However, the reality is today the Jewish people are living on the land by God’s grace.

Israel surrendered the entire Sinai Peninsula for peace with Egypt, contrary to the view that it is only interested in expansion. It also unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Land for peace deals have been offered to the Palestinians, which were refused. I will not go back to 1948 and 1967 and re-litigate what was fair and what was not. We must deal with things the way they are today. No one is handing Israel proper back to the Arabs. Nor would I want that.

 

[Moses613]

Can you tell us about Lilith?

I’m not too familiar with this but I’ll cut and paste from a resource I remember from many years ago that discussed it:

There is no reference in the Tanach (Jewish Scriptures), Talmud, or other major Jewish works to a woman named Lillith. There is reference to a female night demon by this name in the Talmud, and possibly in Isaiah 34:14. (Depending on the translation which you consult this will be rendered either as Lillith or as “night creature” or “great owl”. Some commentaries say that this is referring to a night bird, others say it refers to the demon Lilith “mother of the demons”.)

The closest I have found to even a hint of the so-called “Lillith myth” in the Talmud, is in Erubin 18b which states that Adam separated from his wife for a period of 130 years (as part of his atonement for the sin of eating from the Tree of Knowledge of good and Evil). During this period he had an accidental “spilling of seed” -a wet dream- which “fathered” the demons. One of the kinds of demons fathered was the lilin - probably best translated as night demons. Lilin is the male plural of Lilith (which is feminine singular). Lilith is not mentioned in this account but there may be a connection. Elsewhere (Talmud Shabbos 151b) we see that Lilith grabs a hold of someone who sleeps alone. This may be alluding to an idea found in some Kaballistic sources that Lilith has some connection with the inducement of wet dreams and that this is how she ‘mothered’ the demons through Adam. That is mostly conjecture on my part. In any event, Lilith was clearly not a competitor with Eve according to any of this.

There are further references to Lilith as having been created prior to Eve (and even Adam) in Kaballistic works but, like all the material in such books, it requires extensive knowledge to even make head or tail of it, and I don’t have that kind of knowledge. Such references are not particularly numerous either. The primary source for the “Lillith myth” is an extremely controversial book titled Alpha-Beisa d’Ben Sirah (The Alphabet of Ben Sira). This book was never accepted as reliable by Jewish tradition and cannot be considered a reliable source. Lillith was never a major character in Jewish tradition and has only recently been adopted by certain radical feminists as a sort of icon (why they would choose a succubus for this is totally beyond me).

 

[Moses613]

Are there actually 2 creation accounts in Judaism?

There is a theory propounded by Bible critics that if you look in the first section of Genesis, you will find that rather than a telling and then “recap” of the Creation story, there are actually two separate accounts. Since I don’t believe in the critical/documentary hypothesis, I don’t believe there are two accounts that represent two different traditions. Rather, they are two aspects of the same story that come to teach us different things.

Can you tell us about the guf (if that’s how it’s spelled)?

Guf simply means body in Hebrew. You may have seen this cited as a kabbalistic concept. I’m not very familiar with that area. The Torah uses anthropomorphic concepts to refer to the Divine, as does Kabbalah, while at the same time affirming total non-corporealism. God does not manifest in a body, period.

 

[Gab123]

We must deal with things the way they are today.

I agree, and that is the point Miko Peled and many other peace activists in Israel are trying to get out to the public, especially American Jews who do not know what is going on in Israel. All the injustices, how water is turned of in certain areas, how life is made miserable for Palestinians in order for them to leave and so new Jewish settlements can continue to expand, which is still happening today. Here is a good documentary about what it is like living in Israel if you are a Palestinian, made by an Israeli Anna Baltzer, worth watching on the matter for everyone to know the situation in Israel:

 

[Moses613]

And I can go to youtube and find a documentary about what it’s like to live in Sderot under rocket fire. Enough. I’m disengaging (no pun intended).

 

[Tulitas]

Thanks for the interesting points!

 

[Gab123]

I can go to youtube and find a documentary about what it’s like to live in Sderot under rocket fire. Enough. I’m disengaging (no pun intended).

Yes, it all depends on the Truth of the matter. Documentaries and people like Miko Peled certainly help reveal a picture of what most people are unaware of, and to realize the desperate conditions many in the region have been reduced to. Hence the thousands of Orthodox Jews protesting the secular Zionist state of Israel. I was just wondering what your view on the matter was, or if you even knew about it. Enough said.

 

[Fauken]

Thank you for your time to answer questions!

I’m curious, what’s your favorite tradition in Judaism and why?

 

[kainosktisis]

Thank you for your kind replies.

My family is originally from Central America, & I have a lot of the indigenous blood from there, but a HUGE mix of other things - in fact, from almost every other part of the globe. I think we have about 3% Arab descent from the Levant & less than 1% of Ashkenazi descent! That blew me away because I’ve heard we could have Jewish descent, but I always assumed that if we did in fact have any, it was Sephardic - boy, was I wrong on that one!

From my youth, I’ve always loved the Jewish people, & now I have more reason to! Raised Christian with a love for the Jewish People.

But…I am very interested more & more about all of my heritage - no matter where it comes from - & that’s pretty much all over the boards.

Thank you again, Moshe, & shalom.

 

[meltzerboy2]

My feelings about Zionism are mixed: there is both good and bad. However, I can understand how Orthodox Jews (American and European) as well as Israeli Jews (both Orthodox and non-Orthodox, including secular Jews) can have certain concerns and doubts about Zionism but, at the same time, be in favor of the existence of the State of Israel. That is, one may oppose the politics of Zionism while being committed to the presence of a Jewish state in the region. It is not necessarily a contradiction. And even if it were contradictory, Jews are quite good at holding contradictory views in many areas, political and non-political.

 

[Gab123]

There is a theory propounded by Bible critics that if you look in the first section of Genesis, you will find that rather than a telling and then “recap” of the Creation story, there are actually two separate accounts. Since I don’t believe in the critical/documentary hypothesis, I don’t believe there are two accounts that represent two different traditions. Rather, they are two aspects of the same story that come to teach us different things.

How do Rabbis interpret Genesis 1: 26?

When we read Gen. 1-25 about the Creation, God creates by simply stating “Let There Be Light.” etc. But in Gen. 1:26 when He specifically makes Man, the Creator uses the plural to describe Himself. Here it is in context:

"Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”-Gen. 1:26

How do Rabbis interpret the “we” and the “our” in that passage “Let us make mankind in our image”?

Catholicism interprets the “we” as a reference to the Oneness of the Holy Trinity (The Eternal Thought, The Eternal Word, and the Holy Spirit, all inseparable as One God). What is the traditional Orthodox Jewish understanding of the “we” and “our” in that passage?
Thanks.

 

[Roseeurekacross]

Not having visited the site since before Passover, I see many questions and comments directed toward me in the now-closed thread Ask me anything (almost) about Judaism

Therefore, I am just making known that I plan to address these questions in brief in this space, either later tonight or tomorrow. Thank you all for your interest.

Moses before this thread is closed again , thankyou for your time and patience

 

[meltzerboy2]

I cannot offer the Orthodox viewpoint of this passage, if there is a single one, and will leave that to Moses613. However, I have read Jewish interpretations ranging from the magisterial “we” to the humility shown by G-d in informing His angels of the Creation of mankind in a humble gesture as if requesting their approval. After all, humanity is a competitor of the angels, particularly since Judaism believes that only humans have free will, as well as the fact that G-d called His creation of human beings “very good,” whereas all that He had created up to that point, including His angels, was merely labeled “good.”

These are a couple of the Jewish interpretations of the verses. But let’s not debate the Trinity, of all things, on a Catholic Forum, nor in a thread devoted to the perspective of Orthodox Judaism.

 

[Raphaelle]

@Moses613 I have enjoyed reading your reflections.

In your opinion, who are the most important Jewish thinkers living today and why?

 

[undead_rat]

God gave us the Land of Israel as an eternal inheritance and we have the right to live in it.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but it is my understanding that YHWH promised Abraham that the land in question would be given to his descendants. Wouldn’t the descendants of Abraham also include the tribes of Ishmael ?

 

[Autumn-Smoke]

Hi Moses613,

Thank you for this thread and to @Meltzerboy2 also!

Maybe this is too broad of a question, but I’m curious to know how Orthodox Judaism views Hasidic Judaism and how the Kabbalah is viewed. Would they consider the Kabbalah to be valid, or even inspired, or just plain wrong.

Thank you

 

[Kathleen18]

I suggest you read Genesis 16-17, and 21.