Tribute to Debbie Friedman

In January 2011, the world lost a beautiful spiritual songstress. Follow this link for more about Debbie Friedman.

Truth

  There is a famous saying, “The Truth will set you free.”  This comes to mind as I ponder the miraculous transformation the world would have if everyone understood the story of the Exodus is true.  It seems, however, there are a vast majority of people who don’t want to acknowledge the Torah is from G-d, and the story of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt is actually true.  Think about this for a moment.  Yes, our Torah is a part of the Christian Bible and the Koran; however, the majority of the world doesn’t want to acknowledge the account as truly historical, as well as spiritual.
            Rather ironic isn’t it, that the story of the Exodus is in the holiest book of most of the world’s religions, yet at the same time most don’t want any proof it is true.  The transformation I am speaking about, which could happen, is that we could actually achieve world peace.  We could live in a world of honesty, integrity, kindness, fairness, justice...yet apparently there are so many who prefer to hate and to war.  And why is that?  Why do people think we all should share the same religion?  Even the Torah doesn’t teach us the notion G-d wants us to all worship the  way.  We are taught G-d doesn’t want us eating or using blood, killing, sacrificing humans, having sex in the name of G-d, or other things along these lines which we are told are abominable; and morally and ethically, don’t we all agree on this point?  The biblical annihilations of peoples were those civilizations which did those things which clearly indicate they had no respect for life, or even for each other.
                    I wanted to write about the Exodus both because Passover is almost upon us, and since I watched a program on cable called “Exodus Decoded”.  Whether or not you are interested in archaeology, I happen to be interested in all sciences, and this program sets out to scientifically prove the existence of the Exodus, which I find fascinating.  When I was in my master’s program and began to study ancient history, a friend and fellow student asked me how this would affect me.  I told him that while I find science fascinating, and from a purely intellectual viewpoint feel any discoveries either proving or disproving the Biblical stories are quite interesting, it wouldn’t matter in terms of my faith.  I said I know the Torah was given to us by Adonai, and that it is far more than a historical record.  Nothing I could learn would shake my faith in Adonai, or my strong Jewish identification, and my love for G-d and my Jewish beliefs.
          So, I watched this program with Simcha Jacobovici as host and producer, and James Cameron as Executive Producer.  In the beginning, Simcha tells us he would bring together evidence from a vast variety of disciplines, ones which don’t usually compare their notes.  Unlike what the naysayers want you to believe, there is quite a lot of archeological evidence of the story of the Exodus.  In fact, science even explains the plagues to a point. To read the rest of this article, click on the "Truth" link.