Jewish Studies

I’ve been listening to a guy on a documentary, and I swear he says the word “Judaism” wrong.  I’ve heard all kinds of pronunciations, so I’ll spell them phonetically below. For that matter, I think people can’t say “coupon” correct half the time. Maybe this is a Utah thing, but I hate how some people [...]

The traditional Jewish celebration of the Passover, which started Monday night, can illustrate the rich symbolism found in the Old Testament and show how the symbolism of the Passover points directly to Jesus Christ.  Please note that the original Passover observance is described in Exodus, chapters twelve and thirteen.  The modern Seder evolved from this [...]

Quite some time ago I read Kevin Barney’s excellent article he wrote for Dialogue:  “How to Worship Our Mother in Heaven Without Getting Excommunicated.”  One of his references was a book by archaeologist, William Dever, called “Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel” which I just finished reading.  The gist of the [...]

A couple of months ago, while gathering up all of the data required to “render unto the IRS” and trying to feel better about all of the work involved in doing so, I ran across an interesting piece of Biblical literary criticism. It became even more interesting to me when I started thinking about the [...]

I was listening to the radio yesterday and the topic of Israel was being discussed.  President Obama made a speech the other day to the United Nations defending Israel and warning against the official recognition of a Palestinian State prior to the negotiation of a real peace between the two peoples. President Obama eloquently stated [...]

When I was first dating my wife, my future father-in-law said a very strange thing to me. As we were talking one evening, he asked me, “When are you going back?” “Back where?” “To Israel?” “I’ve never been” “Oh, I thought all Jewish people went to Israel?” “Well, I haven’t….yet.” So 29 years later, I [...]

I am over in Barcelona this week and had to be reminded that Hanukah started on Wednesday night (1 Dec).  I was talking to an Israeli colleague and asking him if Hanukah was a big deal in Israel. Not really, he said, it is a family holiday and we light the candles but it is [...]