Israel Drazin-Rabbi Dr.

The numbers three and seven occur well over a hundred times in Judaism, as do their combination the number ten. The fast day of Tisha b’Av, meaning the ninth day of the Hebrew month Av, seems to be an exception – but is it an exception? [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

The Koren Tanakh of the Land of Israel – Samuel, published by Koren Publishers Jerusalem in 2021, is one of the best Bible commentaries in English. I say this because of its massive, easy-to-read, scholarly material on many far-reaching subjects, contributions by 20 renowned scholars.  I see the value of this book after I used over a hundred such books while writing my own books on the Bible, such as my many volumes on the differences between the Hebrew Bible and its Aramaic translation called Onkelos, and after I have reviewed over 8,100 books, many dealing with the Bible. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

Since the average Jew and non-Jew in the seventeenth century believed in such things as the ever presence of God, a soul, the inerrancy of the Bible, faith rather than reason, the power of prayer, and the existence of helping angels, and since the Christians killed even their fellow religionists who rejected these notions, the Jewish officials excommunicated several Jews who held contrary views to protect the rest of the Jewish community from Christian outrage and death. One of these was Spinoza, who was excommunicated at age 24, in 1656. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

The Bible says nothing about life after death. It does not mention heaven or hell as an abode after death. The Torah’s entire focus is on behavior that results in the betterment of life, human and non-human, on earth. The only rewards offered to those who need the carrot of physical rewards and the threatening stick of punishments are consequences that occur during a person’s life on earth. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

Many people, including rabbis, are convinced that the biblical Ruth converted to Judaism. This is not true. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

During the holiday of Shavuot, the practice in many synagogues is to read the beautiful biblical book Ruth. Various reasons attempt to explain the practice including that Ruth is said to have converted to Judaism around the time of Shavuot and so did the Israelites when they accepted the Torah; Ruth was an ancestress of King David who died on Shavuot; the harvest in Israel is described in the book, and Shavuot is the time of the Harvest. This is unlikely. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]

The current observance of Shavuot has no relationship to its biblical ancestor and doesn’t even occur at the same time. Very few people know the truth about this day. Most Jews think Shavuot recalls the day the Torah was revealed to the Israelites during the days of Moses. This is not true. This significance was given to the holiday in the middle ages when the holiday had lost one of its original purposes; the sacrifice prescribed for the day was discontinued when the second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE. [Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin]