Comments for The College Rabbi

Comment on Parshat Toldot 2012-Meltdown in Israel by carnosine eye drops

carnosine eye drops — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 12:06:56 +0000

Understanding Bible prophecy about the Middle East can bring us hope and comfort even as we watch the crisis over the Promised Land escalate, and its underlying geo-political and religious tentacles spread around the whole world. The Bible is full of information that can help us see the current Middle East conflict in the light of God’s plan for end-time world events. It explains many details unknown to the world’s politicians and policymakers. As we will see, it reveals what the ancient rivalry between Abraham’s sons, Isaac and Ishmael, and his grandsons Jacob and Esau means for the Middle East conflict today.

Comment on A shocking prayer by Abduljebar

Abduljebar — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 23:39:47 +0000

A complicating facotr these days is that Jews clearly make up only a modest minority of the Messianic movement and of the vast majority of Messianic congregregations. As time passes, positions of responsibility and influence are occupied more and more by non-Jews who, unlike you, have for the most part invested precious little time in learning about us. In one respect, I can’t blame them no one really made it clear from the beginning what their responsibilities as sojourners (for want of a better term) really are. Jews were too busy welcoming them with open arms to stop and think about the ultimate consequences.One of the consequences is that many Jews are starting to feel like the other in what we thought was a Jewish movement. IMO, limitations on Gentile involvement some of which are legitimate, in my view arise in large part from a sense of that a majority of our movement no longer feels that it is essential or even important for us to remain demographically Jewish. This isn’t just a feeling on my part: it comes from numerous conversations with Gentiles and Jews in our movement. I routinely ask, Do you think we need a majority of Jews in the movement to legitimately call ourselves Jewish’? Apart from obnoxious Jews like myself (and a smaller number of Gentiles), the answer is almost universally no. The discomfort increases when the percentage is lowered: 40%? 25%? 10% Ten percent a tithe. That sounds right! How about less 5%? It turns out that it’s very difficult for these otherwise reasonable folks to assign any bottom limit to the percentage of Jews necessary to call our movement, or a congregation, Jewish.Is this not entirely different from the situation that the Torah has in mind, where a Jewish nation with Jewish leadership, teaching vocation, and judicial system is able to incorporate a very modest number of non-Jews?

Comment on Parshat Hayei Sarah 2012-Elections and Long Term Repercussions by Zachary

Zachary — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 08:21:37 +0000

i wonder what the Americans would do if a irameipl power forced the UN to declare that America should give up a part of its land for a bunch of unwanted immigrants.Where in the UN charter does it give the UN the power to divide up someones territory and hand it over to a religion.The Jews of today are feeling exactly the same as the non jews of Palestine did yesterday. The palestinians were scared of unlimited jewish immigration and what it would do to their Arab lands just as the Jews of Israel are scare of the return of the Palestinian refugee and what it would do to its Jewish land.The only difference is the the Palestinians have more than a spiritial claim, they actually have a physical one.

Comment on Losing Zuckerberg? by thecollegerabbi

thecollegerabbi — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 17:00:32 +0000

I was just looking this over and I totally missed the last time that you said you were a Reform rabbi. Are you really? And if so why couldn’t you tell someone not to attend a party Friday night?

Comment on Book Review-Jews for Nothing by thecollegerabbi

thecollegerabbi — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 13:48:57 +0000

I’m convinced this is spam but I’ll address it anyway. If it isn’t I apologize to the author.
The author of this post is addressing a fundamental issue in relative proofs of religion. Every religion makes claims to its authenticity in two ways: offering an explanation of the world and some kind of historical reason for accepting the messenger, usually something that can be described as a miracle. The logic system has to be assessed individually by every person while the miracle claim has to stand up to the standard by which we accept things as being historical. The most accepted standard is Hume’s criteria: for something to be accepted as historical (I believe he refers specifically to miracles) the historical event has to be something by which faking it would be a less plausible explanation. For example, it would be less plausible to say that someone dug two holes one night in the middle of NY’s financial district and faked a whole bunch of photos and videos than to say the Twin Towers were taken down by planes. We say the events during the Exodus and the Revelation at Mt. Sinai fit Hume’s test, so no actually we are different from other religions.

Comment on Book Review-Jews for Nothing by silver price

silver price — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 15:38:58 +0000

Aug 28 2012: Peter, if I can try to put it more succinctly (and fail I guess)… If Buddhist scriptures said a miraculous event happened, and that there were 10,000 eye witnesses, and even listed their names, was recorded at the time, and this was an instrumental event in the development of the religion, perhaps even resulting in their persecution, I suspect you would be sceptical. Especially if it were not mentioned in any other historical records or there was no way to verify it. I vaguely recall at some point god’s voice is supposed to have been been heard by the whole nation. That’s a lot of ear witnesses. And yet we have no way of verifying it happened. I suggest if you really unpack your arguments about the resurrection miracle they are not so different to other biblical miracles or the miracles in other religions. I also remember arguing the same points you do and wanting to believe the resurrection was slam dunk incontestable evidence. But when I looked at it with an open mind I saw it could have happened, but it is far from conclusive, unless you make all sorts of assumptions that you wouldn’t with some other belief system. For starters you don’t know what is made up and what people honestly believed occurred and there is no way to reasonably verify it. Rationally it almost beggars belief that the creator of the universe relies on the Koran and Bible to get an important message across that may result in eternal damnation. If you make an extraordinary claim you need extraordinary evidence, and a holy book saying it happened and was witnesses by lots of people doesn’t come close. There are living people who believe they have been abducted by aliens. I guess many are sincere. However, we don’t just take their word for it. You can believe something extraordinary happened if you want, but you are perhaps being deceived if you believe it is incontestable and verified beyond reasonable doubt. Same with the miracles of any belief system I have come across.

Comment on Missionaries in the Knesset? by thecollegerabbi

thecollegerabbi — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 21:01:32 +0000

I invite anyone who gets a chance to check out this site and let me know what they think.

Comment on Conversations With a Missionary Part 1-Isaiah 7-9 by thecollegerabbi

thecollegerabbi — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 21:00:30 +0000

Absolutely. What’s question and I’m happy to answer.

Comment on Conversations With a Missionary Part 1-Isaiah 7-9 by Elesheva Stepton/Howard

Elesheva Stepton/Howard — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 18:53:45 +0000

Shabbot Shalom! and Roi tov!

Grace and peace unto you Rabbi! Thank you for your response in advance.

Questions about Jesus or Yeshhua are a blessing. Dialogue is key amen!

Comment on Missionaries in the Knesset? by search engine marketing

search engine marketing — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 15:37:03 +0000

weloveisrael.org – Primarily due to international media coverage, many Israelis believe that the world is against them. While there are people who hate Israel, there are many Christians who love Israel because of their faith in the New Testament & Tanach as followers of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. This is the only site we have in English.