Hey everyone! Check out this new site:

www.judaismtrivia.com

There are more than 4,000 questions, and the best part is that there are different levels.

I LOVE IT!!! :)

This is good for those who know their stuff.

Its also a great way to learn.

This is good for those who know their stuff.

Its also a great way to learn.

Read this link about the connection between Halacha and Kabbalah (Zohar) according to Rabbi Yehiel Epstein's "Aruch Ha'shulchan".
http://www.maqom.com/journal/paper22.pdf

Here is something interesting:

Dialectical ways of understanding God's nature

There are three opposing tendencies which categorize Jewish theological positions; these three tendencies can generate eight possible viewpoints (listed in the next section) and many in-between positions.

(1) Mystical vs. Rationalist

(2) Immanent vs. Transcendent

(3) Omnipotence vs. Limited theism

Jewish theologians have often explored these tendencies in a dialectical framework. This is to say, with systematic reasoning they have juxtaposed these opposing tendencies, and have developed philosophies to resolve these conflicts.



(1) Mystical vs. Rationalist

Rationalists believe that the ethical and religious-intellectual beliefs imparted by the Torah are attainable by human reason. Rationalism is "a method of inquiry that regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge and, in contrast to empiricism, tends to discountenance sensory experience. It holds that, because reality itself has an inherently rational structure, there are truths - especially in logic and mathematics but also in ethics and metaphysics - that the intellect can grasp directly." ["Rationalism" Britannica CD, Version 99 © 1994-1999. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.]

"In the period between Sa'adiah and Maimonides, most Jewish writers who speculated on the nature of the Torah continued in the rationalist tradition established by Sa'adiah. These included Bahya ibn Paquda, Joseph ibn Zaddik, Abraham ibn Ezra, and Abraham ibn Daud." [Torah, Encyclopaedia Judaica]

In sharp contrast, mystics believe that human reason will not allow one to discover ultimate religious truths. Rather, many religious truths can only be discovered through a mystical experience, a direct human communion with God. Kabbalists believe that this is achieved through annihilation of individuality, bittul ha-yesh. "Kabbalah may be considered mysticism in so far as it seeks an apprehension of God and creation whose intrinsic elements are beyond the grasp of the intellect, although this is seldom explicitly belittled or rejected by the Kabbalah. Essentially these elements were perceived through contemplation and illumination, which is often presented in the Kabbalah as the transmission of a primeval revelation concerning the nature of the Torah and other religious matters. In essence, the Kabbalah is far removed from the rational and intellectual approach to religion." ["Kabbalah", Encyclopaedia Judaica]



(2) Immanent vs. Transcendent

Biblical and rabbinic literature sometimes describe God as immanent, and other times as transcendent. This would seem to be a paradox: If God is fully transcendent, than God cannot be known in any way; If God is fully immanent, then God has no transcendence, and is not greater than His own creation. However, classical Jewish texts do not actually say that God is fully one or the other; rather, they imply that God has a di-polar nature. God has both transcendent and immanent characteristics, and one or the other is more apparent depending on the situation involved, or the question asked.

To those versed in modern physics, this is analogous to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The uncertainty principle was based on the finding that there is a fundamental limit on what data we can know about any particle (or aggregate piece of matter). The more precisely one determines a particle's velocity, the less accurately that one can determine its position (and vice-versa). However this is not simply a practical limit on observations; the idea here is that no object in the universe really has an absolutely defined velocity and position! While it seems as if these are two separate properties, the reality is that these two properties are both aspects of a greater phenomenon, inherently bound together. As hard as it is to imagine, simply observing one aspect of this duality affects the other aspect; this is an observable physical fact of how the universe operates. God, then, can be understood in a similar sense: immanence and transcendence are not incompatible properties, but are simply different aspects of God's full nature.

The term "transcendence" is often used to mean that God is above and beyond our universe, beyond both space and time. However, this definition is not philosophically or logically rigorous; saying that God is "above" or "beyond" the universe has no precise meaning, and may not have any meaning at all. Since transcendence and immanence are inherently exclusive properties, such speculations may involve paradox. Thus, some religious thinkers have attempted to define a more philosophically rigorous understanding of transcendence.

One alternative to this paradox is to affirm pantheism, the belief that God is identical with the universe, the sum total of everything in existence. There is no transcendent nature to God, no possibility of God being "personal". God is all, and all is God. However, this view has always been considered as outside of normative Jewish theology.

However, there is another view of transcendence which rescues us from the classical paradox. In this view, we can compare the relationship between God and the world to the relationship between a person and the individual molecules and cells of their body. A person is much more than the sum of their parts. One notes that the human mind - which possesses life, consciousness, intelligence and free will - transcends the mere matter of which it is made, which has no properties of mind at all. Similarly, God can be said to be to the universe as the mind is to the body's cells. In this view, God is in some way identical to the universe, yet at the same time transcends it; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, not just in magnitude, but in kind.

continued..

Some modern day philosophers refer to the transcendent aspect of God as God's primordial nature. God is above and beyond what we can comprehend; God is eternal, and envisages all possibilities. This aspect of God is unchanging, independent, and as philosophers like to say, of necessary existence. Similarly, philosophers state that we must deal with the immanent aspect of God: how God acts in, and reacts to, the world. This is sometimes referred to as God's consequent nature. God is said to be conscious, and is in process with the world. This is the aspect of God that is affected by events, the aspect of God that Heschel refers to as the divine pathos. [See "Jewish Theology and Process Thought", p.65]

Note that when religious Jews refer to God as being immanent they only mean that God's immanence is stressed in their theology; they are not necessarily denying that God has a transcendent characteristic (and vice-versa.)



(3) Omnipotence vs. Limited theism

When people ascribe omnipotence to God, or limits to God's power, we find that the term "omnipotent" means different things to different people. It has been used to connote at least five distinct positions - shown below - and so we must take great care to precisely define what we mean by the words "omnipotent" or "limited" before we use these words in describing theological positions.

(a) Omnipotent (strong view): God can not only supersede the laws of physics and probability, but God can also rewrite logic itself (for example, God could create a square circle, or could make one equal two.) Maimonides make a devastating critique of this position in his "Guide for the Perplexed", section 3, chapter xv, and very few Jews hold by this position today.

(b) Omnipotent (standard view):God can intervene in the world by superseding the laws of physics and probability (i.e. God can create miracles), but it is impossible - in fact, it is meaningless - to suggest that God can rewrite the laws of logic. Many Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews hold by this view.

(c) Qualified Omnipotence: It is impossible - in fact, it is meaningless - to suggest that God can rewrite the laws of logic. People in this category believe that God originally could intervene in the world by superseding the laws of physics (i.e. create miracles); in fact God did do so by creating the Universe. However, God then self-obligated Himself not to do so anymore, in order to give mankind free will. Miracles are rare, at best, and always hidden, to prevent man from being overwhelmed by absolute knowledge of God's existence, which could remove free will. This position is affirmed by many Kabbalistic texts. Many Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews hold by this view.

(d) Maimonides's neo-Aristotelian rationalism: Maimonides writes that to the wise man, one sees that what the Bible and Talmud refer to as "angels" are actually metaphors for the various laws of nature; they are the principles by which the physical universe operates. "Guide of the Perplexed" II:4 and II:6.

"For all forces are angels! How blind, how perniciously blind are the naive?! If you told someone who purports to be a sage of Israel that the Deity sends an angel who enters a woman's womb and there forms an embryo, he would think this a miracle and accept it as a mark of the majesty and power of the Deity - despite the fact that he believes an angle to be a body of fire one third the size of the entire world. All this, he thinks, is possible for God. But if you tell him that God placed in the sperm the power of forming and demarcating these organs, and that _this_ is the angel, or that all forms are produced by the Active Intellect - that here is the angel, the "vice-regent of the world" constantly mentioned by the sages - then he will recoil. For he [the naive person] does not understand that the true majesty and power are in the bringing into being of forces which are active in a thing although they cannot be perceived by the senses....Thus the Sages reveal to the aware that the imaginative faculty is also called an angel; and the mind is called a cherub. How beautiful this will appear to the sophisticated mind - and how disturbing to the primitive."

God never interrupts the set laws of nature:

"In the eighth chapter [above] we mentioned to you that they (the sages) did not believe in the periodic change of the Divine Will. Rather, they believed that at the beginning of the fashioning of the phenomena, God instituted into nature that through them there would be fashioned all that would be fashioned. Whether the phenomenon which would be fashioned would be frequent - namely, a natural phenomenon - or would be an infrequent change - namely, a sign - they are all equal." ["Perush ha-Mishnah" (Commentary on the Mishnah), Avot 5:VI]

Maimonides envisioned a connection between the realm of the physical and the intellectual. In this worldview all physical events are the results of "intellects", some of which are human, some of which are "angels" (as described above.) These intellects can interact in such a way as to seemingly violate the laws of nature, to produce miracle). Since God Himself crated the universe and the laws therein, this is how God works in the world. However, God does not actively intervene in a temporal sense. It has been noted that this view veers away from traditional theism, and moves towards deism. This is why some scholars have pointed out that the theology of Aristoteleans such as Maimonides may not be compatible with the classical Jewish theology of the Bible and Talmud. Such critiques are not new, and they were made both by Maimonides' supporters and enemies during the Maimonidean controversy.

Executive ask the Rabbi if he approves then I shall read it.

Executive ask the Rabbi if he approves then I shall read it.

Nevermind, I don't think your small mind would grasp the concepts contained within it anyway.

what does this have to do with judaismtrivia.com?

what does this have to do with judaismtrivia.com?

Judaism as a religion not an educational game of Jeopardy...

Judaism as a religion not an educational game of Jeopardy...

well u really learn a lot from these quizzes...and i dont see wats wrong with knowing the facts...its all part of who we r

well u really learn a lot from these quizzes...and i dont see wats wrong with knowing the facts...its all part of who we r

Enough FACTS!!!! Its about concepts and visualizing beyond the physical!!!! Its not a history lesson for G-d's sake!!

Enough FACTS!!!! Its about concepts and visualizing beyond the physical!!!! Its not a history lesson for G-d's sake!!

being knowledgable in Torah is never bad. there is a lesson to learn from every part of it

Enough FACTS!!!! Its about concepts and visualizing beyond the physical!!!! Its not a history lesson for G-d's sake!!
someone has been learning tooo much Kabalah!!!!

someone has been learning tooo much Kabalah!!!!

Someone needs a brain transplant and a cup of strong coffee... :innoc08:

Oh man this is getting heated, enough arguing people and lets learn together....