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really? i use my brain. you see, that's the problem - your style of "pointing to the scriptures" is actually pretty much that of the much admired (although not by you, ironically) martin luther. this is pretty much the prima facie case for having an oral tradition in the first place, as well as...

ah, the "dual loyalty" trope. i love that one too. are you suggesting that jonathan pollard's activities were being directed by aipac? i think that one is new. and, of course no other ally of america ever spies on it, or vice-versa. good night - and good luck. b'shalom bananabrain

yes, the british promised everything to everyone. whilst the jews accepted this as realpolitik, the arabs have chosen [selective] outrage as their strategy. and what a successful strategy it is. and only the results in israel/palestine, apparently, are worthy of endless threads rehashing the...

this is the source of all our disagreements, i would suggest. as i have told you any number of times, the Torah ITSELF sets up the tradition as high as the "scriptures" - look in deuteronomy 30. your approach is not only ahistorical but frankly heretical - you are, effectively, a karaite, as i...

with all due respect, there is no other case in the world where the children and grandchildren of refugees are still considered refugees, so that is not an argument that holds water in any fair and reasonable discussion, unless you also apply the same logic to the east prussians, the tibetans...

when joshua was running things, we didn't have military superiority and our opponents were the idolatrous "seven nations", who we were not permitted to make peace with. it was a "milhemet mitzvah". that is not the case today, so you cannot make the same arguments. during the struggle for...

firstly, i hardly think that such objections could not equally well be aimed at numerous christian equivalents. secondly, that's precisely the argument used against nahmanides by the inquisition at the disputations - and he made mincemeat of it. midrash serves numerous purposes, some rational...

i do, but the distinction is lost on many people, so perhaps it would make more sense if you referred to it as "hermetic qabbalah", or using the phrase i prefer, the "western mystery tradition", which is sufficiently broad to embrace everything from dee to crowley to chaos magic, i'd have...

really? isn't this from dee/kelley/enochian/crowleyan background? in kabbalah, the ego is referred to as the yesh, as in the phrase bittul ha-yesh, or nullification of the ego, which is a component in a number of kabbalistic rituals and techniques of various traditional schools, particularly the...

they haven't. as i said, israel has numerous non-jewish citizens, so clearly that hasn't happened. according to wikipedia (not the best source, but the most accessible), only 75% of israelis are jews and 20% of the rest are arabs (1.6m). and none of which, to the extent that they occurred i...

good to hear the meek are getting something, because they've had a hell of a time. don't pick your nose! well, i'm no expert, but they certainly sound very similar in structure and style to, say, the books of proverbs and psalms and numerous passages in the prophets. i'd say it was a "high...

because it is massively evident that you don't know how the "scriptures" are used - your yardstick appears to be "does this interpretation make sense to me?", not "how is this contextualised through the tradition?" virtually nothing you say makes sense within normative rabbinic judaism...

if israel is supposed to be an "ethnic cleanser", it is singularly crap at it, as the million non-jewish citizens of israel will tell you. see my response to amergin on the other thread. b'shalom bananabrain

oh, yes, why not bring that up, i'm just a craven ghetto jew, aren't i, not like you proud clear-eyed halutzim. i bet you drain swamps during the day and dance the hora all night as well. sheesh. listen, sunshine, just because i don't agree with your frankly fascistic view of the matzav doesn't...

amergin. a zionist is someone who thinks that jews have a right to national self-determination as jews. no more, no less. if you believe that palestinians and lebanese and syrians and egyptians have that right, then so do we. any number of excesses are also attributed to zionism, most of...

yeah, i get that. the thing is, i do feel that kabbalah is at bottom a mystical way of understanding how the cosmos is constituted, so it must have application universally. however, that does not necessarily mean that it can be universally understood. i mean, le'havdil, particle physics also...

fair enough - it would also be dishonest of me to maintain that everyone thinks the way i do, or that judaism is entirely free of misogyny in popular practice and thought. i am, whatever else i may be, progressive in intent despite my many hidebound affiliations. there is of course no shortage...

you used the phrase "judaic demiurge", which i consider to be an oxymoron. i understand how you get to it, but i don't agree. hence my interjection. kabbalah is a jewish system. therefore, in kabbalistic terms, judaism is correct. if you want to label something as kabbalah, i am presumably...

i get the idea, but i don't get how these are authoritative jewish sources. the book of enoch is not canonical; i will need more detail than "the qaballah" - there is no single book. neo-platonism and gnosticism are not jewish sources either. it seems to me like a bit of a mishmash of ideas...

and where is your authoritative jewish source for this? it seems to me that you're conflating these gnostic ideas about the "demiurge" with kabbalistic concepts when there is no reason to do so. the fact that judaism recognises the limitations of our ideas of G!D does not mean that we are...