First principles

The following principles underlie my views, this blog, its commentary and insights:

1. The Chumash (also called the Torah in Hebrew and, in English, the Five Books of Moses or the Pentateuch) and the other books of the Hebrew Bible (the Tanach) are exactly what they purport themselves to be and not ‘later’ compilations or pious frauds.

2. The Chumash is a single entity, scribed by Moses and given to the children of Israel at God’s dictation during the 40 years in the Sinai peninsula.

 3. God’s written text to Moses was accompanied by Oral explanations of details, called the Oral Law. Many commandments are so terse in the written text as to be impossible to apply in real life.  E.g., separate cooking and eating of dairy from meat is only given through the verse: ” Do not cook a kid in the milk of its mother.”  And how to manufacture the required door post mezuzot,  tephillin, and tzitzit – required in the 3 paragraphs of the daily Shema prayer -are never explained at all. 

4. I follow, in general,  Maimonides, Rabbi Mose ben Maimon of whom it has long be said “From Moses (of the Exodus)  to this Moses there has not arise so great another Moses (“Me Moshe ud  Moshe lo cum keMoshe.”)   Maimonides combined his vast  knowledge of al Torah and ensuing Rabbinic teachings and the Talmud with expertise in Greek and Arabic philosophy and rationalism, and, as a doctor, an appreciation of scientific progress to the point where he warned against the hazards of following Talmudic medical remedies.

His 13 Principles of Faith encompass the core ideas of Judaism that distinguish it from both Islam and Christianity.

5. The Bible is written “bilshon benai Adum”, i.e.,  in the language of mankind.  This principal, expounded by Maimonides,  has three (3) applications to be discussed later on.

6. To correctly understand the Chumash and later Bible texts, one must realize that our forefathers did not live in a vacuum, but in societies and environments with cultures, legal systems and traditions that affected them, and what we read and see in the Bible.

7. Biblical Criticism, also called Historical Criticism, has tenets that seem logical but start from premises that any religious person cannot accept.  (They will be discussed later on.)

8. The Argument from Silence – that is, to argue that a biblical reference must be wrong -- because we have no independent text or archaeological corroborative evidence --  is a fundamental mistake that every historian is warned against in History 101.  Yet it is rampant among the ‘scholars’ -- Bible critics, archaeologists and revisionist historians -- of the Bible and Holy Land.

9. Wording or events given in the Chumash that seem 'odd', contradictory or go against Israel is a Holy Land unique in the world and subject to Bible commandments that no human would ever consider instituting. These commandments defy normal logic and human practices, and reaffirm the divine nature of the Chumash.