18 yr old Israeli girl made sex slave For P.A. officials

[Tzvi Ben Roshel1]

Also their are different levels of heaven. Jews are usually judged more and stricter, but have a greater chance being in a higher level in the next world.  Everything is about what you do, the more you do the greater you get. Its even said that if one friend sees his friend in the next world and that friend did 1 mitzva more than his friend he will be in a much much higher level.

Can I ask where this idea of multiple levels of heaven appears in the tanakh?

The Tanakh doesnt talk much about the next world, you need the Talmud and Kabbalah to explain everything. But it comes from the principle of you get what you earn. The more you work in this world the greater you will recieve in the next.

[Tzvi Ben Roshel1]

The Kabbalah of the Zohar is controversial and isn't accepted by all Orthodox people

name me groups that dont accept it. very little minority (a few people from Yemen (a part- majority from their accept it also).

[dawntreader]

Ah...

You need the Talmud...which is basically the rabbis discussing and "expanding" upon what was definitely from Moshe...and you need the Kabbalah, that mysticism which some claim started in the 10th century BCE, though there is no evidence to back up the claim...that mysticism that comes from books like those that comprise the Zohar, the Bahir and Heichalot. That mysticism that was esoteric knowledge "hidden" by the masters because they feared the regular Jew unsupervised and un-"guided" might go off and practice things that are forbidden and wrong.

(Why they would HAVE knowledge in the first place that might lead the masses astray unless strictly meted out by those with "greater" understanding is not truly explained. Seems to me Judaism is based on MASS revelation...I.E. HaShem at Sina where G-d plainly spells out His covenant with the Children of Israel.  Not the writings of a man named Shimon bar Yochai who was "inspired" whilst hiding in a cave with his son.)

No, in point of fact I can think of only one other person who received "revelation" while hiding in a cave and that was Mohammed.

Bleh...

Hokey religions ain't no match for a blaster at your side kid.

What we need is something that definitely came from HaShem...the Tanach. The Kabbalah? It's a work that came out in Medieval Spain. To one man who published it. How that can be considered canon on the same level as the Tanach is beyond me.

[Tzvi Ben Roshel1]

to the drek in the Kabbalah that are pretty man-made. The idea that we are "re-incarnated" is pure drek and is not from the Torah She'Bichsav. If the Torah She'Baal Peh doesn't agree with the written Torah...then one or the other is not correct. I choose to believe what I've read in the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings...but re-incarnation? That's Judaism?

Firs of all dont be another "drek" insulting the Rabbis. You have no knowledge of the Torah, and out of your stupidity insult our Sages. Second of all where in the Tanack did you read that their is any contradiction?

[Tzvi Ben Roshel1]

you told me that you will listin to the lectures I have posted, please go ahead and then come here and argue.

for starters here you go:

http://www.kolyakov.org/rav_mizrachi_divine_information_en.html

- Proof that the Written and Oral Torah is Divine.

[judeanoncapta]

as far as yeminites- I dont think they still have more than 1 wife, but when they came to Israel the ones who were allready married were allowed to remain soo, but later generations stoped.
  

Not true. They haven't stopped.

I know two Yemenites that have multiple wives.

[judeanoncapta]

Seems to me Judaism is based on MASS revelation...I.E. HaShem at Sina where G-d plainly spells out His covenant with the Children of Israel.  Not the writings of a man named Shimon bar Yochai who was "inspired" whilst hiding in a cave with his son.

True, the Ten Commandments were said in front of everyone with G-d's own voice.
But the rest of the Torah went through Moses. No one else heard it. Just him.

If you refuse to believe prophecy that was not mass revelation. You have to throw out the rest of the Written Torah as well.

Do you beleive Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel?

None of their propecies were mass revelation.

Do you beleive them?

No, in point of fact I can think of only one other person who received "revelation" while hiding in a cave and that was Mohammed.

That is really insulting.

To compare Rabbi Shimon to that filthy Arab dog is a travesty.

Take it back.

[Tzvi Ben Roshel1]

as far as yeminites- I dont think they still have more than 1 wife, but when they came to Israel the ones who were allready married were allowed to remain soo, but later generations stoped.
  

Not true. They haven't stopped.

I know two Yemenites that have multiple wives.

Good for them. I know its halahically recognized but is it recognized by the state? (for financial purposes.)

[cjd]

Seems to me Judaism is based on MASS revelation...I.E. HaShem at Sina where G-d plainly spells out His covenant with the Children of Israel.  Not the writings of a man named Shimon bar Yochai who was "inspired" whilst hiding in a cave with his son.

True, the Ten Commandments were said in front of everyone with G-d's own voice.
But the rest of the Torah went through Moses. No one else heard it. Just him.

If you refuse to believe prophecy that was not mass revelation. You have to throw out the rest of the Written Torah as well.

Do you beleive Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel?

None of their propecies were mass revelation.

Do you beleive them?

No, in point of fact I can think of only one other person who received "revelation" while hiding in a cave and that was Mohammed.

That is really insulting.

To compare Rabbi Shimon to that filthy Arab dog is a travesty.

Take it back.

The only thing Mohammed heard in the cave was the bleating of the goats he was hanging out with.

[dawntreader]

I want any bashing of the Talmud to stop immediately.

G-d help us. Shame on any Jew who says such horrible things about the Oral Torah. It is only done out of ignorance.

I don't believe it is bashing the Torah She'Baal Peh to say that I do not see it as important as the Torah She'Bichsav Jeff. Also, I made clear that the things I said were purely my opinion.  I believe that the Talmud has value. I do not believe it came completely from HaShem.

I have a number of reasons for this, and if you go back and read through this thread, you will see what I am talking about.

Also, to Tzvi...

I went and listened to the lecture by Rav Mizrachi at:

http://www.kolyakov.org/rav_mizrachi_divine_information_en.html

I thought it was excellent. There were a few things that I still have problems with however.

1. I already believe in G-d...so the beginning of the program was irrelevant to me. (I agreed with and knew many of the things Rav Mizrachi was discussing.)

However, the problem I still have is this:

Rav Mizrachi mentioned that "How could Jews from Poland, Syria, Spain etc. all come to Israel and all have the same traditions and all have the same Torah She'Baal Peh as well as Torah She'Bichsav if it was not without error etc."

Now, this is simple. The ancestors of those Jews were all exiled from Israel...even the ones that went to Babylon and eventually went elsewhere had the Talmud already. So it is no wonder that the descendants had the same traditions even though they came from different nations.

But as to whether the Torah She'Baal Peh came directly from Moshe, and thus from HaShem?

Why then is the subject matter of the Babylonian Talmud different in significant ways from that of the Yerushalmi Talmud? Wouldn't the two be the same? (Obviously they were compiled at different times, but why does the Babylonian Talmud omit certain of the laws from the Orders Zeraim? Are they not all from Moshe? )

Also...

To judeanoncapta,

I have to say your point about the Prophets not exactly being Mass Revelation is a good one. And yes, I do believe what they had to say came from HaShem. So, I will have to rethink the notion that someone else, during the Middle Ages could not also have been a prophet of sorts.

(and yes, I take back the statement about Rabbi Shimon being like Mohammed in any way.)

[Shlomo]

Please do not speak such terrible things about the Talmud. Do you not know that our enemies have used these very words as an excuse to destroy the Jewish people? The only Judaism in existence today is Rabbinical Judaism. The Torah commands us to listen to the sages (Rabbis) of each generation. Perhaps this audio will help explain. Tzvi Ben Roshel's link is also excellent.

The Oral Law (Talmud) – Part 1
More than 3,300 years ago, God transmitted to Moses both the Written and Oral Law. What is the Oral Law and why was it transmitted that way? Some claim that although the Written Law is the word of God, the Oral Law was a mischievous invention of the Rabbis. Is this claim really true or is the Oral Law divinely inspired?

http://outreachjudaism.org/mp3/Oral%20Law%201.mp3

The Oral Law (Talmud) - Part 2
What is the evidence for the Oral Law? What does the Bible really say? Rabbi Singer answers these questions and explores some of Judaism's most remarkable teachings in this closing segment on the Oral Law.

http://outreachjudaism.org/mp3/Oral%20Law%202.mp3

[Tzvi Ben Roshel1]

"why does the Babylonian Talmud omit certain of the laws from the Orders Zeraim?"

That deals with the agriculture of the land in Israel. The Babylonian Talmud was in the exile and all the laws of land in Israel has allready been written down in Jerusalem Talmud.

[judeanoncapta]

Please do not speak such terrible things about the Talmud. Do you not know that our enemies have used these very words as an excuse to destroy the Jewish people? The only Judaism in existence today is Rabbinical Judaism. The Torah commands us to listen to the sages (Rabbis) of each generation. Perhaps this audio will help explain. Tzvi Ben Roshel's link is also excellent.

The Oral Law (Talmud) – Part 1
More than 3,300 years ago, G-d transmitted to Moses both the Written and Oral Law. What is the Oral Law and why was it transmitted that way? Some claim that although the Written Law is the word of G-d, the Oral Law was a mischievous invention of the Rabbis. Is this claim really true or is the Oral Law divinely inspired?

http://outreachjudaism.org/mp3/Oral%20Law%201.mp3

The Oral Law (Talmud) - Part 2
What is the evidence for the Oral Law? What does the Bible really say? Rabbi Singer answers these questions and explores some of Judaism's most remarkable teachings in this closing segment on the Oral Law.

http://outreachjudaism.org/mp3/Oral%20Law%202.mp3

That's true.

Thanks, jeffguy.

These are the two best shiurim about the existence and proof of the Oral Torah that I have ever heard.

Please, dawtreader. Listen to these and I would love to hear your thoughts.

[jdl4ever]

Tzvi all the Rationalists didn't believe in the absolutism of the Zohar including such prominant people as Rashi's grandson and other prominent Sages of his era who were followers of the Rambam.  Rabbi Leone di Modena of the 17th century and Rabbi Yaakov Emden of the 18th century wrote that parts of the Kabalah was heretical, and the Yeminites reject the Zohar.  Someone told me that they talked to R' Kahane Zs'l about the Zohar and he said that he was unsure whether it really came from R' Shimon Bar Yochai so R' Kahane was a rationalist and not a Kabbalist just as Chaim claims.  I don't believe that the Zohar has the authority people give it, it is one among many opinions written by prominent Rabbis (but this Rabbi outright lied and said he copied it from R' Shimon bar Yochai when he wrote it himself) and is not absolute, and I as a rationalist don't agree with some of the Kabalah of the Zohar; some parts in my view are actually heretical; but I do admit that there are good things to be learned too from it.  You are right though in that in this day and age, most orthodox accept the Zohar as being written by R' Shimon Bar Yochai and accept it as a Talmudic authority unfortunitely.

[dawntreader]

Please, dawtreader. Listen to these and I would love to hear your thoughts.

Jeffguy and Judeanoncapta I will listen to the links provided and then let you know what I think.

Jeff, I am not intending to use any kind of arguments used by those who hate Jews. There are just things I have thought of for myself, which seriously give me pause.

Also, you are mistaken. Rabbinical Judaism is not the only Judaism in existence today. There are also Karaite Jews who live in Israel and in the USA. (I am not one of them. I was born and raised Conservative.)

[Tzvi Ben Roshel1]

the karaites are probably not even Jews (they go by the father of who is a Jew) + they are too few and completly irrelevent.

[judeanoncapta]

Karaites are the most hilarious liars on planet earth.

They claim that our interpretations depart from the text, then the try to sell you on their abib calendar which departs from the text more than anything I have ever seen in the Talmud.

[dawntreader]

So, I have listened to the first lecture by Toviah Singer.

I think I actually do have a greater respect for the Torah She'Baal Peh now than I did before. I still don't see everything in the Talmud as inspired by HaShem. Perhaps some....

Also...I found Singer's constant jabs at Christians and Messianic Jews tiresome. I would much rather have just listened to his evidence and teaching on the subject of the Torah She'Baal Peh.

I am not concerned with Christians or Messianic Jews. I am concerned with whether the Torah She'Baal Peh is actually from HaShem, and what proof there is of it.

Anyways....

Otherwise I enjoyed listening to the lecture and as I said, I do have a greater respect for it now than I had before.

As for the Karaites, Maimonides holds (Hilchot Mamrim 3:3) that most of the Karaites and others who claim to deny the "teaching of the mouth" are not to be held accountable for their errors in the law because they are led into error by their parents and are thus referred to as a tinok she'nishba, or a captive baby.

[Shlomo]

Let me add a little more (or maybe a lot more) because I think this is interesting and I'd like to settle this debate.

You can't celebrate any Jewish holidays if you don't have the Talmud. When are they? How do you observe them? How does the calendar actually work?

You can't eat kosher if you don't have the Talmud. How do you obtain kosher meat? Deuteronomy 12 states "you shall kill of your herd and of your flock which G-d has given you, as I have commanded you," but where is the earlier commandment? It's not there.

When the Torah says on the seventh day you shouldn't work, what does that mean? Does it mean you can't do whatever your occupation is? Or does it mean more? Can you dress yourself? Peel an orange? What is work? I mean, it's a serious penalty to break Sabbath. Certainly, G-d is fair and just.

A baby must be circumcised on the eighth day according to Genesis 17:12. What if the eighth day falls out on the sabbath? Which commandment is more important?

The Passover sacrifice must be brought by every Jew on the day before Passover.  What happens if that day falls on the Sabbath? I mean SURELY, slaughtering and offering a sacrifice is work. Which takes precedence? The sabbath or the paschal sacrifice?

Torah refers to a man and wife mostly using the term "took" as in when a man takes a woman as a wife. But how is this accomplished? Does the man simply say "I'm taking you as my wife" and that's it? What exactly needs to be done?

Or how does one convert to Judaism? What are the rules? Or just how does one fulfill the biblical commandments of circumcision in Genesis 17:10-14? How much and where do you cut in circumcision? This isn't in the Torah.

I mean, how do you even READ the Torah without the Talmud? There are no vowels or spaces between the words in the original Hebrew text. How do you know how to read the text of the Bible? In the Kuzari (I highly recommend reading this AMAZING book) Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi states simply that it is impossible to read and understand the words of the bible without a tradition regarding the vowelization and punctuation of the words.

When the Torah in Leviticus 3:17 "It is a law for all time throughout the ages, in all your settlements: you must not eat any fat or any blood", what exactly is fat?  Are there different types of animal fat? I mean, is it possible to remove any trace of fat on a peice of meat?

In Exodus 16:29, it says "Let no man leave his place on the seventh day" to what place is this referring?  Does it mean his home, his property, his neighborhood, his city, or his country? Isaiah 66:23 says "It shall be that at every New Moon and on every sabbath all mankind will come to bow down before Me - said the L-rd" which implies that people will leave their homes on the sabbath and go to worship Hashem.  Evidently, Isaiah did not understand this verse in Exodus or was there something more to it?

How about the fringes in Numbers 15:38-39? Will just any fringes do? And how about booths in Leviticus 23:42? What is a booth? There is not enough detail in the biblical directive to know how to fulfill these commandments properly.

I mean... if someone throws away the Talmud, then they have to create a new religion. Is this what G-d wanted? Or is it more likely that in Hashem's magnificent and infinite wisdom, He would tell Moses what the details were to pass down to all generations and eventually this became the Talmud?

I'm not even getting into the different Jews that were separated in remote areas for more than a thousand years and when they were found, their details match almost exactly. Or how the details of the Talmud make so much sense that it is hard to imagine that it's logic is wrong... or how the Talmud knew thing in science that we have only found in the last 100 years.

The more a person studies the Talmud... the more amazing and mind blowing it becomes!

[newman]

Good points, Jeffguy.

The reason christians have such diametrically opposed sects and confusion about their scriptures is that they have NO TALMUD to explain how it all works. It seems to me that without Talmud, Judaism wouldn't have survived diaspora. If it did, it would have fragmented into 1,000 different sects all having no resemblence at all to Torah Judaism.