Principles of Faith

נמצאו 10 תוצאות חיפוש

1. On the Resurrection of the Dead - Part 1

   Rabbi Yaakov Medan

   Vague allusions to the resurrection of the dead exist in the Torah. More substantial ones are found in Yeshayahu and Yehezkel. Daniel is the first to mention the resurrection explicitly. The Torah’s war against murder and human sacrifice may be the reason the Torah hid the concept of resurrection in the fear that it might minimize the severity of these sins. However, sacrificing one’s life to sanctify God’s Name that Daniel and his companions introduce in advance of the religious wars waged against the Jews by the Greek empire necessitated the stressing of this concept. The resurrection and other principles of faith that were not existent in an immediate reality needed to be transferred in Oral Law and not in the Torah.

2. On the Resurrection of the Dead - Part 2

   Rabbi Yaakov Medan

   The importance of the faith in the resurrection of the dead is stressed by the Sages and the Rambam. God’s original plan was for man to live eternally. The serpent/Satan interfered with this plan by encouraging sin in the world, thus introducing death at first and subsequently the significant truncation of the length of man’s life. Failing to believe in the resurrection of the dead is equated with believing that the serpent/Satan was victorious over God. Is the resurrection of the dead a reward for the righteous or an awakening for a great day of judgement for all – righteous and wicked?

3. Composition of the Torah according to Tanakh and Jewish Tradition

   Part 3

   Rabbi Amnon Bazak

   There are two main approaches to understanding the way in which Moshe wrote the Torah. According to one approach, exemplified by certain midrashim and the Ramban, God dictated the Torah to Moshe, word for word, and Moshe served merely as a scribe, having no influence on a single word in the Torah. The other approach appears in the works of medieval Ashkenazi commentators such as Rashbam, R. Yosef Bechor Shor and R. Yehuda he-Chassid, as well collections of midrashim such as Lekach Tov and Sekhel Tov. It can be summarized in a general way as follows: God conveyed the contents of the Torah, and authorized Moshe to formulate at least some of the text in his own style, or to arrange the materials as he saw fit.

4. Verses Added to the Torah at a Later Date: The Phenomenon and its Ramifications

   Part 1

   Rabbi Amnon Bazak

   Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra (and similarly other medieval commentators) maintained that throughout the Torah there are verses which, like the final verses of Devarim, were written after Moshe's death, either by Yehoshua or by one of the other prophets. Rabbi Yosef ben Eliezer explains that this in no way contradicts our faith, since the entire text was written through prophecy, and it therefore makes no difference whether a certain verse was written by Moshe or by a different prophet.

   It would seem, therefore, that according to the Ibn Ezra, the Torah was not given as a fixed text with no possibility of future additions. Even after the Torah was completed by Moshe, it was still open to some limited degree, and in instances where it was of great importance to add certain comments into the text, as clarification or to add depth of meaning, the prophets were not prevented from introducing them.

5. Verses Added to the Torah at a Later Date: The Phenomenon and its Ramifications

   Part 2

   Rabbi Amnon Bazak

   There are three instances where Rabbi Yehuda he-Chasid attributes verses of the Torah to the Men of the Great Assembly. While some claim that these writings are a forgery and the publications of these writings aroused great controversy, there is much evidence to the contrary and these writings represents a school of thought amongst his students.

   It should be pointed out that Rabbi Yehuda he-Chasid’s approach is far more extreme than the approach of Ibn Ezra. The most startling aspect of these latter sources is that while Ibn Ezra wrote his view in very cautious and concealed language, the pietists in Germany expressed the same ideas quite openly and explicitly, and even in places where suggesting such interpretations was not the only way of addressing a textual problem. We may therefore state that the assertion that there are later verses in the Torah, based on an objective look at the simple, literal text, has support in the view of some medieval commentators, who did not regard this view as representing any contradiction or denial of faith in the Divine origin of the Torah.

6. Verses Added to the Torah at a Later Date: The Phenomenon and its Ramifications

   Part 3

   Rabbi Amnon Bazak

   Among the medieval commentators there are two different approaches concerning the verses that appear to have been added at a later time. The more widely accepted approach attributes them to Moshe, who wrote them in a spirit of prophetic foresight. The other approach, advocated by Ibn Ezra and some of the sages of Germany, maintained that the Torah contains verses that were added by prophets at a later stage.

7. Verses Added to the Torah at a Later Date: The Phenomenon and its Ramifications

   Part 4

   Rabbi Amnon Bazak

   Certain places mentioned in the Torah are called by names that are only given to them many years after the death of Moshe. Spinoza claimed that such examples indicated that the Torah as a whole was written at a much later date than is traditionally assumed. Medieval commentators make several suggestions to solve this question.

   In modern times Yehuda Elitzur suggested a different approach. In many places the Torah alludes to the fact that the division of the land existed and was known in general form from ancient times, going back to the blessings of Yaakov. Therefore, the familiarity of the writer of the Torah with the division of the land, which would only occur later on, cannot serve as proof of later authorship of the Torah, since the division of the land is frequently presented as ancient knowledge.

8. Authorship of the Books of the Prophets and Writings

   Part 2

   Rabbi Amnon Bazak

   A fundamental difference of opinion exists between the secular, critical view of Tanakh, and the religious view. If a person believes that the Tanakh possesses sanctity and that the prophet receives his messages from God through prophecy and Divine inspiration, then he will obviously regard as illegitimate the view that a prophet is simply an eloquent and insightful member of the general population with no real ability to discern the future. Such a position represents a denial of the whole concept of prophecy, regardless of one's position on the question of whether Sefer Yishayahu is a single work or two separate ones brought together. It was this, then, that caused the great controversy concerning the existence of a second prophet prophesying the prophecies from chapter 40 of Yishyahu and onwards.

9. Author of the last verses of the Torah

   Rabbi Amnon Bazak

10. Authorship of Sefer Yishayahu

    Rabbi Amnon Bazak