Posts by Carl Kinbar
This Is My God: Midrash and Multiple Interpretations
Rabbinic writings are typically divided into two categories, halakhah and aggadah. In some ways, they are worlds apart from each other. Halakhah is the articulation and elucidation of the 613 mitzvot that constitute the Torah. It was developed foundationally in the Mishnah, Tosefta, and the Talmuds. The Babylonian Talmud continues to be the primary halakhic…
Read More“I Will Dwell Among Them”: The Shekhinah and the People of God in Midrash
Midrash is a genre of Tanakh commentary produced by our sages in the Land of Israel in the centuries following the Hurban, the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.1 It consists of comments on a broad range of halakhic, theological, narrative, homiletic, ethical, and other issues in the Tanakh. Halakhic Midrash forms its…
Read MoreThe Sages of Galilee and the Formation of Community
It was 135 CE in the Land of Israel. The Temple had been destroyed, the revolt against Rome had failed, and now fear of Roman vengeance drove most Jews out of Judea. They made their way northward, their sages among them, and settled in Galilee and nearby, a region that Jews shared with Samaritans, pagans,…
Read MoreMatthew Scully, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy
A Summary Matthew Scully’s Dominion is a 400 page appeal to our reason and conscience in behalf of the millions of animals who suffer unnecessarily at human hands. Scully describes what few of us will ever see – the pain and misery of animals in factory farms, slaughterhouses, and laboratories; in oceans where whales are…
Read MoreIsrael, Torah, and the Knowledge of God: Engaging the Jewish Conversation
In his paper “Finding our Way Through nicaea,”2 Mark Kinzer sharpens his previous thoughts about the connection between community and the interpretation of scripture.3 Because Messianic Jews are involved in two communities, that connection affects us in unique ways. Kinzer writes, I am proposing a theological and hermeneutical approach in which we as Messianic Jews…
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