Elu v’elu divrei elohim hayim Talmud Eruvin 13b Elu v’elu (These and these) – The Talmud relates the following story: Rabbi Abba said that Shmuel said: For three years Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel disagreed. These said: The halakha is in accordance with our opinion, and these said: The halakha is in accordance with our opinion. Ultimately, a Divine Voice emerged and proclaimed: Both these and those…
Do your duty to the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, to [a]keep His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances, and His testimonies, according to what is written in the Law of Moses, so that you may succeed in all that you do and wherever you turn, 1 Kings 2:3 NASB What is written – Occasionally you read a…
As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not. Romans 4:17 NIV As it is written – Judaism today is intimately dependent on…
You shall also teach them to your sons, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. Deuteronomy 11:19 NASB Speaking – It is curious and significant that the Hebrew word for “male” (zākār) comes from the root zākar meaning…
let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by this name this man stands here before you in good health. Acts 4:10 NASB Name – “In the name of Jesus, stand up and walk.” And, of…
For I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 1 Corinthians 15:3 NASB According to the Scriptures – Paul has a problem, or at least we think he does if we read this verse from a Christian perspective. Why? Because, as Adam Clarke…
“One shall not sell a thing to a Gentile,” The Babylonian Talmud, Regulations Regarding Transfer on Shabbat Gentile – We have often noticed that paradigms determine interpretation. Investigation is governed by what we expect to find. It is never neutral. Even in hard science, the theory defines the category of discovery, and as the history…
There is no section of the (written) Torah which does not imply the doctrine of Resurrection, but we have not the capacity to expound it in this sense. Sifre Deuteronomy Section 306; 132a We have not the capacity – Abraham Cohen makes a telling remark in his discussion of the Talmud. “No aspect of the…
For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, 2 Corinthians 5:1-2 Earthly tent – Mas. Chagigah…
“If one goes to defile himself, openings are made for him; and he who goes to purify himself, help is afforded him.” Tractate Shabbat 104a Openings – Recently a man in China asked me to pray for him. He was having violent dreams and he was afraid that those dreams would cause him to act violently….
