Maimonides

How did you derive your worldview? Was your worldview inherited and/or adopted or was it deliberately chosen through reflection and analysis? Or was it a combination of both adoption and volition? What were the strongest forces in shaping your worldview? Rabbi Mark Goldfarb grew up in a Jewish home and went to temple services, participating in the various activities, youth groups, and holidays that they celebrated. After going through a difficult time in his life, his beliefs solidified and…

refusing the reproductive and reductive fate placed upon all others. What makes queerness “queer”, at least in the way Edelman defines the term, is that it serves as a rejection of societal standards while also being defined by those same expectations. Maimonides said that God could not be described,…

INTRODUCTION This book initially began as a commentary on my Facebook page, entitled, “Do Animals Go to Heaven?” It was the product of a question asked of me by our church youth. Several within the adult congregation disagreed with me. However I presented scripture as well as sound teachings. When I asked what their scriptural denial to my stance was, the reply I received was, “It’s in there somewhere,” referring to the Bible. Their incorrectly held beliefs were based on personal “feelings” and…

The Cairo Genizah or “Sacred Trash” is the collection of 300,000 manuscript of Jewish literary collected from the storeroom of Ben Eza Synagogue in old Cairo, Egypt. Genizah in Hebrew means hide away or keeping aside, like Janaza (means burial) in Arabic is derived from Persian word ganj denotes a treasure. These manuscripts dated from 870 CE to 19th century, contain approximately 1000 years of information about the Jewish communities of Cairo (Schechter). Genizah contains the largest…

Topoi of revealed secrets occur in over twenty-five ANE sources, ranging from Sumer, Babylon, and Persia in the east to Egypt and Greece in the west. In the following subsection is three positive-revelation sources possibly holding a parent-child relationship with Second Temple writings. The second subsection contains two for negative revelation. The three most likely sources for parent-child relationships are (1) the Ascent of Enmeduranki, (2) the Assyrian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and…