Home

1. What is some of the up-to-date research regarding the authorship of the Torah?

Since the Torah in Jewish tradition is also known as the Five Books of Moses, many if not most traditional Jews believe that Moses was its sole author, the words themselves having come directly from God's mouth to his ears. By the time of the Talmud, some rabbis were already beginning to question whether Moses really wrote certain biblical passages. For instance, it was hard for them to believe that he wrote the passage in the Book of Deuteronomy that describes his own death.

In the 18th century, a Frenchman by the name of Jean Astruc noted that various Torah passages employed different names for God. He also discovered that when the passages containing each name were separated, two parallel accounts of the same story emerged. His discovery became known as the "Documentary Hypothesis," and earned him a place in history as the father of the scientific study of the Bible. Today many Bible scholars posit that the Five Books of Moses were the products of schools of people who contributed to its writing. Moses, of course, was one of the contributors.

2. Is Judaism more than just a religion?

Judaism has often been called the mother religion to Christianity and Islam. In America, Judaism has for the longest time been considered one of the three major religious groups, along with Protestantism and Catholicism. However, it would be a myth to say that Judaism is synonymous with the religion of the Jews.

There is no Hebrew word for "religion" in the Bible. The Hebrew word "emunah" means "faith," not "religion." When a Jewish man places the ring on his Jewish bride-to-be's finger, he utters the Hebrew words "kedat Moshe ve-Yisrael," meaning "in accordance with the law of Moses and Israel."

Religion is a part of Judaism, but not its totality. In 1934, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, founder of the Reconstructionist movement, published his first book "Judaism as a Civilization." The book created an explosion in Jewish life and thought, and became the "Bible" of Reconstructionism. In the book Kaplan presents his theory as a kind of Copernican revolution in Jewish thought. Just as Copernicus revolutionized astronomy by arguing that the sun rather than the earth was the center of the universe, so Kaplan suggested that the Jewish people -- and not God -- should be seen as the center of Jewish life, and everything must be done to preserve the Jewish people even if it means discarding old ideas and values while creating new ones. He also argued that Judaism includes the whole civilization of the Jewish people -- its history, culture, ethics, language, dance, music, and identification with the land and the people of Israel. These are all vital areas embraced by the term Judaism.

The definition of the Jewish people as a religious civilization has been accepted today even by Jews who are not part of the Reconstructionist movement.

3. Is there such a thing as Jewish exorcism?

The notion of a foreign spirit or demon entering and possessing the body of a person is known to Christianity for sure, and was popularized by the movie "The Exorcist". What is surprising is that such a notion is found in Jewish texts of the early talmudic period. The Talmud relates that to help Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai have anti-Jewish decrees annulled, a demon entered the body of the emperor's daughter. Upon Rabbi Simon's command, the demon left. Thus was Rabbi Simon ingratiated to the emperor, who then rescinded the edict. Josephus, the 1st-century Jewish historian, reports that in his time a Jew named Eleazar drove a demon out of a possessed man in the presence of the Roman emperor Vespasian, by mans of putting a certain root to his nostrils and reciting ancient incantations ascribed to Solomon. By the 16th century, and even earlier, Jewish exorcism rituals were well known.

Rabbi Ron Isaacs is the spiritual leader of Temple Sholom, a Conservative congregation in Bridgewater. He has recently published biographies of Abraham Joshua Heschel and Judah Touro (Torah Aura Productions). His newest book, "Have a Good Laugh: Jewish Jokes for the Soul," will be forthcoming this fall. Contact him at www.rabbiron.com or "Ask the Rabbi," c/o Rabbi Ron Isaacs, Temple Sholom, P.O. Box 6007, Bridgewater, N.J. 08807.