Weekly Torah portion Essays

Transition to a Jewish Adult "Are you ready?" questioned my mother before I stepped onto the bimah, or the dais, to chant my first torah portion. I have been to many Jewish bat mitzvahs, however, having my own bat mitzvah was a completely different experience. All of this preparation, and the whole day came and left by the blink of an eye. The process leading up to the day was more important than the actual event. This coming of age taught me many things, including responsibility, determination

God delivered Israel from Egypt to fulfil His covenant promises to the patriarchs (Reist 1969:227; Kaiser 1990:293). The Book of Exodus showed us how the Abrahamic covenant was fulfilled and how Israel moved from the position of slaves to become a nation under God’s theocratic rule. Thus, the Book of Exodus was a documentation of the formation of Israel as a nation under theocratic rule. Amongst the promises to Abraham was the assurance that his descendants would be fruitful and multiply (Gen 12:2;

Dissimilar ideals make all the difference A resolution of a story might be different from others. Some might have a full resolution, while some might have an incomplete resolution. Book One of The Iliad had a different resolution than the Hebrew Selections, they took different approaches in resolving their conflicts. These approaches made the difference between a complete one and an incomplete one. The way these resolutions were approached were heavily influenced by the author’s ideals and beliefs

My purpose in this essay is to explain and analyze the Divine Command Theory. Divine Command Theory states that morality is ultimately based on the commands of God. I disagree with this theory because how do we know what concepts of God are true and what other concepts are false? There are so many religions making their own claims and interpretations that they believe are true. Therefore, how do we know then what God approves or disapproves of? Divine command theory is the idea that certain actions

The first ethnographic example presented is the case of the Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn. He cites Ayala Fader and her book, Mitzvah girls: Bringing up the next generation of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn. Here, he explains how Hasidic Monism is “ a monism that does not fail to recognize values other than its paramount one, nor to assign them levels of their own, but that appears wholly to subordinate all these other values and their levels under a single paramount one” (Robbins, 2013:106). The meaning of

Genesis is a paradoxical and problematic text that explain how the world was created. The book of genesis was written by Moses who was as well the author of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and a big part of book of Deuteronomio that are the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. In the chapters One through three of the book of Genesis, the story of world creation and humanity formation is reported. Chapter one of genesis, start telling the story of the creation of heaven and earth, just by God’s voice

According to James Barr, the concept of literal is the useful one in the understanding of the bible. In his article, he mentions reading the Bible through two ways of readings: the literal and the allegorical. Later allegorical interpretation was mostly used. Sometimes, many people think that reading the bible literally is wrong, and for some people reading literally is meaningful. In some cases, the Bible can read literally and in some cases if we read literally its meaning is changed. James Bar

In the case of Chidester 's & Linenthal 's essay versus Sherrill 's essay, there are quite a few similarities and one important difference. In Chidester and Linenthal, they mostly discuss the politics of sacred space, and how politics play into the geography, the ownership, and the title of “sacred”. Chidester and Linenthal speak more directly to the reality of sacred space and how a site can logically take the steps in order to become one. They speak about substantial versus situational, and focus

Judaism and Hinduism have many things in common. Both ancient religions believe in a higher power and both began as being specific to a certain region before later expanding in the late 19th century, with Judaism originating in Egypt and Hinduism taking its roots in India. With that being said, there are also several differences between the two religions. Hindus believe that we are reborn from a previous life until we achieve “oneness”, which is the unity of all beings with the Divine. Jews, on the

Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind opens with views of a tapestry to provide backstory for the viewer to understand the course of events leading up to the film, such as the prophecy that is fulfilled at the end of the film. The tapestry is a creative way for the film to inform the viewer of the story of how the world became polluted and changed to appear as it does when the characters of the film are introduced. The tapestry emphasizes the fact that the pollution has happened a large

By definition, Judaism is a monotheistic religion that was originated by Abraham and his descendants. However, that is not always the case. Perceptions on Judaism have varied from a religion, a culture, or even a racial group. Despite “being Jewish” is commonly demonstrated as a belief, there are still numerous opposing points of view. Judaism used to have a long history of isolation due to their distinctive set of practices. While Christianity was drastically dominating Europe in the Middle Ages

Moses Maimonides (RamBam) has extensively upheld the Jewish tradition by his contributions of the Commentary of the Mishnah, The Mishnah Torah and The Guide for the perplexed. RamBam was a sephardic Jew who was an educated philosopher in the 12th century that was looked up to by many individuals. He came from a line of judges and he was an expertise in astronomy, medicine and philosophy. He derived from an Islamic context where the diaspora situated Jewish adherents in many places, leaving a ‘missing

Michael Tomlin New Testament Dr. Young Prompt 1: The portrayal of the disciples in Matthew and Mark The books of Matthew and Mark are two Gospels of the New Testament that shows a lot of similarities in the ways they portrayed the ways of Jesus. The book of Matthew has been considered in many cases the most important Gospel in the New Testament. As we all know Matthew is the most Jewish of all the other four gospels and mainly focuses on the deeds of Jesus. Matthew was an educated man with a Jewish

The Documentary Hypothesis states that the first five books of the bible were each separate, parallel, and complete narratives that were put together by a set of redactors at a later time period. There were multiple arguments in which the Documentary Hypothesis seemed to be the most credible theory to how the first five books of the bible came into being. The most persuasive argument though would be the variations of the many different bible stories in the Pentateuch. Not only the different uses

The Sabbath is a ritual in the Jewish faith celebrated as a day of rest once every week. The other six days of the week are considered workdays and revolve around the Sabbath. But the Sabbath is only a small part of the Jewish faith. Many other aspects of Judaism impact the lifestyle of people like Samuel and his parents, Berl and Berlcha who practice the faith. Based on the reading The Son From America and the research I did on Judaism, I can conclude that Samuel’s Americanized way of life conflict

The Treasures of the Copper Scroll The Dead Sea Scrolls are known to be biblical manuscripts. Due to this fact, it might make people believe that they are just scriptures that inspired messages put in the Bible. However, there is one scroll that stands out from all the rest, the Copper Scroll. This scroll is much more different from the others because of its variation of “style, language, genre, content, and medium” (Holloway). This is the scroll that is definitely not a biblical manuscript and

Introduction: Pesach often acknowledged as Passover is one of the Jewish religion’s highly significant festival. It carries on between seven or eight days in the Hebrew month of Nissan from the 15th day until the 22nd. The holy festival is a celebration of the emancipation of Israeli slaves from Egypt approximately 210 years ago. The holiday is a sacred festival celebrated by all members of the faith involved within Jewish communities worldwide and is a celebration of the time of spring, of birth

Joshua: Uncle James, why did the limbs on the big tree move, side to side? Uncle James: I am not sure, but when I see the leaves and limbs on a tree moving from one side to the other, it’s a reminder to me that our creator has his way in the wind. So, I take it as a reminder that he is over nature. Joshua, stay in love with truth! No matter who hates it or is against you. You, my son, let truth be your closest companion. Your mother named you Joshua Immanuel for a reason; you are the son I hoped

Throughout the Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible, many bizarre and horrifying stories take place. In the book of Judges and chapter eleven, a story is told of a man named Jepthah who sacrificed his only child, a daughter, to the Lord. At first glance, this story may seem purely atrocious, but one must view it from multiple standpoints to understand the meaning behind it. After understanding the events that occur in the narrative, one must view those events through historical context, how the story

Glancing at the title of this book, one can assume that this book might be a typical biblical research that may have concepts against the biblical faith. However, Being a Jewish study professor and a Harvard graduate, the author of “Who Wrote The Bible”, Richard Elliot Friedman, tries to support and make the reader understand the history and the literature behind the Bible. The main point of this book is focusing on the” Documentary Hypothesis theory”. This is a theory that denies that Moses was