Reading the Torah & the Talmud

Hmm...

I am reading (in Hebrew) an Israelite Samaritan commentary on the[ir] weekly Torah readings and enjoying it immensely. The IS understanding of the Torah is so different from ours. I noted previously hat they do not vilify Esau/Ishaab the way our rabbis do. Neither (as I've learned) do they vilify Laban.There is a tendency, I think, in o'dox Judaism, to put the great men & women of the Torah on a pedestal and treat them as wholly pure, almost other-worldly saints whom it does not behoove us mere mortals to criticize. They are thus made into cardboard, monochrome characters who are more caricature than real character. Any tendency to see them otherwise is derided as *gova einayim* or viewing the great men and women of the Tanakh as being ordinary human beings, a kind of Biblical lese-majeste. It's a nice way to stifle debate and any questioning of the rabbis' pronouncements. While the ISs hold the great men & women of the Torah to be extraordinary human beings, they do hold them to be human beings, replete with human drives, passions and failings. Such an approach does NOT rob them of heir holiness, rather it adds to it. The rabbinc approach, rather, robs them of their humanity and leaves us not with real people we can learn from but monochrome, made-from-cardboard (and thoroughly unbelievable) saints. I must say that I find the IS approach refreshing, very.

I saw this article on the Tablet website & posted the following reply on Tablet's Facebook page:

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I have a whopping problem with this from the penultimate paragraph:

"...we have also seen, in Tractate Berachot, that God Himself prays and wears tefillin. Now, in Gittin 6b, we see that God also engages in Torah study..."

It is concepts such as these that have helped turn me off Rabbinic Judaism altogether. Whether literally or as metaphors, I can no longer accept statements such as these from Berachot and Gittin which depict God as engaging in all-too-human activities. Isn't this warmed-over paganism with a monotheistic veneer? God wears tefillin (as it were); Zeus wears a laurel wreath. And the difference is? If one takes such statements literally, then one crosses the line into actual paganism. To Whom does He pray? To Himself? If you believe that God has arms to put His tefillin on (is He right-handed or left-handed?) and that He has curly black hair (as per Anim Zemirot), then why can't He father children? By declaring that God does these things (wear tefillin, learn Torah, etc.), the Rabbis are casting Him in our image.

"...But God cherished both Evyatar’s and Yonatan’s insights, saying, 'These and these are the words of the living God'—the famous formula applied to the disagreements of Hillel and Shammai..."

I'm not trying to be smart-alecky and I really mean no disrespect. By putting words in God's mouth to the effect that 'These and these are the words of the living God' the rabbis are engaged in sheerest chutzpah. 'These and these' are the words of two flesh-and-blood rabbis who ought not to presume that their utterances, however sincere, are those of God Himself.

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Until next time...