in the last year I'm going to lectures 3-4 times a week about judaism and the philosophy behind it Kabbala.
you are welcome to ask about it's views on various issues,
and from time to time I'll bring some thing I run into (with simplifications - due to the translation problem).

and now - couples stuff:
the view that we married our "other half" is based in judaism on this:
"40 days before the baby is born, a voice come out in the heavens and declare: the daughter of this man will be married to this man"

a man asked rabi Hilel to teach him the entire Bible in short,
rabi hilel answered: "Love your friend as yourself".
after he had died people started saying that was impossible, so they asked rabi Akive.
he told them this was the only kind of real love, so they asked how can they learn to love. he answered "Love your friend as yourself - start with your wife": if you claim you do this, but you can't manage to do it with your wife - you probably don't do it at all.

Judaism see marriage and the coupling that goes with it as a Holy thing, and make many sunctions to prevent it from being disgraded.
one example: a priest with no wife can't service as high priest (since he is not holy enough).
another example - a man can divorce easily(since divorce is better then marriage without love). how easily:
rabi Hilele said: if she served him burned food.
rabi Akiva said: if he said "other girls are more beutifull".
explanation: if she just burned the food, it's OK, and the husband must eat it, and for his love for her,
can't make any complaints. but if she think: "he must like the food - I'll give him the burned part",
then they will stop loving each other soon, and it's better to consider divorce,
then being married without love (if you give your love junk, your love will become junk).

if you say "other girls are more beutifull, eventually you'll start to regreting your marriage,
and think of other girls. also - you don't compare yourself constantly to other man, and so
if you love your wife, you wouldn't done this to her.

this way, you notice very early on when your marriage are gaining problems, and start working on the
problem when they can be fixed: when you are still horrified when thinking of divorce,
and will do anyhing to save your marriage.

Have you thought about getting a white stick and Labrador. Just a thought.

Bloody hell ai21, i thought you had died and gone to heaven, er or the other place. Good to see you so it is, i know the feelings mutual, you dont have to tell me.

is this Kabbala religion Swedish by any chance?

Waterloo, Is that mentioned?

Yes i think Kabala was that blond singer was'nt she, and the brunette was Anni-Frid Lyngstad, i fancied the Blonde, er after she had the running repairs to her mush of course and what a gluteus maximus eh, mama mia, I swear i fell in love with that arse, can you fall in love with an arse? i hear you ask, well my wife did, i would answer.

Can it get any worse i hear you ask.....too bloody well right it can.


Fernando is my favourite, er.....i think.


And quickly forgetting my idiotic rantings, i have to say thanks for sharing that with us ai21, i found it very interesting in deed, i will look forward to anything else you post here.

Could i just ask about the two Rabi's that you mention Rabi Hileler and Rabi Akiva, are they present day Rabi's or are they from Biblical time's?

no, not quite.
since you love conspirecy theories, I thought you would know a little about the secret part of jewdaism AKA kabbala.


neither. rabbi Hilel lived little prior to JC, and JC seemed to be influenced by him for great extent.
there was theological arguement between his view, and another great rabai Shamai (debate which lasted a few centuries).
Shamai argued that using the strictest interpetation of God's words was the most important,
and Hilel, that God's intent, including compassion, grace, and helping people to do good deeds was more important. in most cases Shamai was theoretically right - but we do as Hilel instructed.

rabbi akiva lived a century after JC, was one of 10 great jewish leaders who were killed by pagan romans, in an extreemly horrific way (they seemed to think that crucifiction wasn't intimidating enough). his insistance - on finding meaning in every letter of the bible, made him the founder of how we read the bible.
one of his students "Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi" wrote the Talmud: the major theological jewish book.
and the other "Rabbi Shimo'n Bar Yohai" - the most influencial Kabbala book - HaZohar.

ai21,

Does the Zohar contain any teachings that mainstream Judaism (i.e., Orthodox, Conservative) considers inconsistent with or unsupported by the Torah?

Is Hasidic Judaism Kabbalistic?

Nah, they didn't eat each other.

the jewish view is that there are 4 layers to the bible.
the first is simple reading - what you understand from reading
the second is the interpertation of the bible - in the Talmud , and also contain more details.
the third is the clues - looking for creative use of the language(misspeling, use of male/female forms, use of rare words, use of small/large fonts, a word out of context, elaborations, repeatitions and so on),
and from it, understanding
and the forth is the kaballa - the reasons for it all.

this view is mainstream jewdaism, and is not accepted only by Reformism (which serve as an excuse for ignoring most religious obligations).

for a long time only a few studied it, which had bad effects - reasons were forgotten and bad habits were introduced.

this changed due to the Hasidic movement, which started teaching some Kaballa as regular religious studies, and incoporating more of it's insights in the life of their followers.

Is it similar to the Muslim religious schools Madrassas?

[if I understand correctly, Madrassa is simply a school.
I also don't see what your question refer to.

The jewish religious schools called Yeshiva, and people can learn Judaism in such school, or in a "Beit kneset" (where jews pray), or in the university or wherever.

You beat me to it ya bugger.






No. its more like Vindalu.

since you love conspirecy theories, I thought you would know a little about the secret part of jewdaism AKA kabbala.

I have to admit i have never heard of kabbala, can you give us a bit of run down on it, if you have the time of course, i dont want to interrupt your studies, and ile wish you good luck with those studies ai21.

first, I'll give you an example to Talmud (in a form of a joke - which I probably ruined)
tell me what you think of it:

a Kozak and a Jew travel together in Russia, and the road is long.
the Kozak ask the jew why they are so smart, so the jew say: "thats because we study Talmud".
the Kozak asked to learn too, and the jew kept saying "it's not for you", "I'm afraid you'll want to convert", "you might get mad and kill me" and so on, but the Kozak insured him he is already mad, so the jew had little to lose,

and he started:"two man go down a chimny, one come out clean, and the other dirty, who will wash up?"
the kozak say: "the dirty one - he is dirty, and will wash up"
the jew say: "the dirty will look at the clean one's face and won't wash, and the clean will look at the dirty's one face, and will wash up"
now the kozak said - "I think I got it, give me another one"

so the jew srtarted again:"two man go down a chimny, one come out clean, and the other dirty, who will wash up?"
the kozak say: "the clean will look at the dirty and wash, and the dirty will look at the clean and not wash".
but the jew didn't agree: "the clean will look at the dirty, think he might be dirt, watch his hands and cloths, see he is clean and not wash up. the dirty will see it, do the same, and realize he is dirty and wash up".
the Kozak was a bit confused, and demanded for a third example.

and, a bit afraid the jew started:"two man go down a chimny, one come out clean, and the other dirty, who will wash up?"
the kozak said: "I'm not sure, but I think that they will check themselves, and whoever needs washing up will do it".
and again the jew wasn't pleased and said: "no one - it is not possible for the first to come out clean and the second to come out dirty coming out from the same chimny"
the Kozak was angry, but realizing Talmud was really not for him, went his own way.

Sounds like TT is the Kozak.

Wasn't he the bald TV detective from the 70's?

Hey ai21, you got me interested in the Kaballa, ive just been reading a book callerd hidden codes of the Bible, its very interesting indeed, have you read the book "The Bible code" by Drosnin and Rips?

I'd be wary of paying much heed to that book. I've seen something about that "code" it's too complicated to type out, but basically you can find "codes" in many, many books. The skeptics set up a computer program to search for them...and found them.

I didn't read it, bit I heard about it.

He took an idea from kabbala, misused it, and then a silly debate about it started.

let's take the best example - the first T in the bible:
the first T in the bible, is the last letter of the first word - bereshiT.
if you count 49 letters, you get the word TORA.
this is nice, the chances for that are 1 in ten thousands, but not impressive, it might have been a coincident.
and I understood these are the kind if things he talks about.

but this is not sufficient for kabbala. kabbala look for clues and rules,
and so, if you examine all the 5 first books in the bible (which are named TORA), you find that all of them had this code encripted in them - the first 2 in order, the last 2 in reverse, and the middle in short 7 gap skipping.

this is far less likly then ANY coincident, and therefore intresting...

Bloody hell ai21, its more than interesting surely, now this may sound stupid, and it probably is but what language does this apply to? The code works out when the Torah is written in Hebrew? or when the Tora is written in some other language? Or in any language?

What language was the Tora originally written in? Was a copy of the Tora found in the Nag Hammadi find?

Sorry to hit you with a barrage of questions, but you got my top box running in overdrive with this subject.

Naturally - the Tora and "old testiment" were written in hebrew (some of the later jewish books were written in Aramaic, which is the closest language to hebrew).

Translation take most of the meaning out of a book (since trunslation must use a limiting interpertation), and naturally, all the codes that can be found in the original script.

So whatever "code system" that can find codes in translations, is untrustable.



I have no Idea what "Nag Hammadi find" was, but we have good othentication system to the Tora. one from 1100 years ago (Keter Aram Zove - Aleppo Codex), and in the Talmud, we can read of the persevation systems they used to preserve the original form (from which we know that the first half of the bible was preserved fully, and the second had some changes).

but the oldest copy is from more then 1900 years (dead sea scrolls), changes were found in later books, but not in the Tora itself.

Ive just been reading up on the Kabalah, and firstly i came across this explanation of it in Wilki




Is that as you understand the meaning of the Kabalah? - If it is, then we are saying that God is responsible for Rape, Murder and of course many other evils.

Your point regarding the loss of original meaning through translation, is something i have thought about many times, do you personally think that we as British people can accept our English translation of the Bible as the correct word of God?

Do you know if there is a good translation of the Torah in to English? even if only half decent, just give a bit of a half decent understanding, even a half decent understanding is (PERHAPS?) better than none.

The RAMBAM (maimonides) is one of the major rabbies. in many cases he was the first to relate to sensitive issues and make a clear decision. he is consider tha mainstream, and a stray from his approach must be for a good reason.

he was the first to talk about kabbala. in the quote given, he claimed that any idea that contradict this idea, is not jewdaism and as a result, can't be Kabbala.

regarding to tranlation - if you trunslate in words, you will always be oversimplifying things, and when dealing with the bible, even native hebrew speakers reading in hebrew find it hard (due to the richness of use in the language). so if you want to capture the full meaning, you should read it alongside with an explanitory text that clerify the most tricky parts. RASHI is the one we use, and it has a good english trunslation. you can find it here

the good and evil part is a wide idea, that should be studied with care - since it is the basis to everything else.
the basic idea is - no, God is not an impotant with Satan running all the show (as Christianity seem to see things),
but rather, that there are two options given - either doing good (complex idea) and getting a reward (complex idea), or rejecting it, and suffering needlessly. since doing good is very complex, the claim of "rightous man suffering", come from seeing very patial view of reality.

One of the more important theological debates.

Thats Giraffes off to be eatin' into extinction then

no need to worry.

first of all - the notion that giraffe is probably kosher is old - and even in the bible it is mentioned as kosher animal.
the main reason it is not eaten is because there is no lagacy of eating it (yes, this can be solved easily).

the second reason for lack of worry, is the other demands of Kosher food
one of which is that the meat must not be hunted.
therefore, if lots of jews will decide to eat giraffe steak, special giraffe farms will be opened for this, and a release program would help preventing reduction in their numbers (similar to the aligators in the everglades).

A giraffe farm. That's a bit of a tall order!................................................................I'll get my coat.

It'd make a great Kebab.

Thanks for the link ai21, ime taking my time, but i am reading it, that link is right at the top of my favourites list.

Lets hope he becomes nice to you, ai21.

Be fair Fire, ai21 has given me as much stick as i have given him, in fact i think he may have the edge on me, but ime sure, that like my self, ai21 does not take it personally, its just politics, and what fool would take politics seriously.

that's the thing - it's not politics,
but it's not personal either - it's a bit worse.

I don't care that TT is "not nice" to me personally,
he hates jews, and as such - hates me, my values, and almost everyone I know, and for no real reason.
the hate is so strong, he support everyone who hate jews, for that reason alone.

and yes, I hope talking to him will help him stop hating the jews.
after all - ignorance can be cured...

that's the thing - it's not politics,
but it's not personal either - it's a bit worse.

I don't care that TT is "not nice" to me personally,
he hates jews, and as such - hates me, my values, and almost everyone I know, and for no real reason.
the hate is so strong, he support everyone who hate jews, for that reason alone.

and yes, I hope talking to him will help him stop hating the jews.
after all - ignorance can be cured...

You are right ai21 ignorance can be cured, and so can bigotry, so there is hope for us both.

You show me where i have ever said i hate Jews, you cant, your just telling lies, Where i have criticized Israel it has been justified criticism, no more no less, just as i have criticized my own country Britain and also America.

Those who fear criticism, show they deserve it, the reason i criticize Israel the most is because the press here in Britain rarely do, even when Israel are patently in the wrong, like hen they shot an innocent unarmed boy of 11 that was cowering in fear behind a rock. Like smashing children's arrns with rocks as seen on British news, and of course the shooting of the shooting of Noble Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan, as seen on youtube

Are you going to tell us that the Noble Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan, is an anti Semitic terrorist who was trying to Bomb you, give me a break please.


That is legitimate criticism of acts of evil, almost surpassing the evil of the Nazi's, and it has been seen by millions of people on TV,. so you cant lie your way out of it either, this is why people are against Israel, not Anti-Semitism, but of course emotional Blackmail is a stupid way of of responsibility for your evil acts.


And i do care what you think about me, but i wont let you blackmail me in to silence, because i believe i am right.

"And i do care what you think about me, but i wont let you blackmail me in to silence, because i believe i am right."

And so does he.

How come Hitler is seen as more evil than the Serbian Dictators, who killed/raped and destroyed Croats, Albanians and Muslims.

you try to hide behind this "criticism" claim, but this won't stick
you balimed jews for things done long before Israel was established.

if you want to make this a debate - open a thread about it outside the religious section...

You are correct in that we should not discuss the matter here in the religion thread, but you actually started it with an attack on me, as above, i was just talking to Fire not you.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Can you explain it a little bit more please?