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Faith in Judaism Demands Grappling With Sacred Words
A Torah scroll. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
The Reformation firebrand Martin Luther was not a gentle soul. He was brilliant, courageous, and historically transformative, but he was also volatile, cruel, and spectacularly foul-mouthed. When Luther disliked someone, he didn’t merely disagree with them – he eviscerated them.
His pamphlets dripped with bile, his language was obscene, and when it came to Jews, his writings were vicious, laying the groundwork for some of the darkest chapters of later European history. None of this, to be clear, negates the fact that Luther correctly identified real corruption and hypocrisy within the Catholic Church of his day.
Luther’s stock response to his critics within the Church was deceptively simple: prove me wrong from the text of the Bible. If it wasn’t written explicitly in Scripture, he dismissed it as human invention, manmade directives masquerading as divine command.
He had no time for tradition, accumulated wisdom, or interpretation; everything was suspect unless it could be nailed down to “chapter and verse,” as he liked to put it. Luther’s position appeared principled and even pious, but it placed enormous – and ultimately destructive – weight on the written word alone.
Of course, as is often the case with sweeping theological positions, consistency proved difficult. At one point, Luther came up against a short New Testament text that stubbornly refused to cooperate with his theology. The Epistle of James insists that faith without works is dead, a line that clashed directly with Luther’s doctrine of salvation by faith alone.
In a telling moment, Luther remarked, “We should throw the Epistle of James out of this school, for it doesn’t amount to much.” Instead of wrestling with the verse or considering how generations of Christians had understood it, he dismissed the book altogether. And that was that. If it didn’t fit, it didn’t count.
The episode is almost comic, but it exposes the fatal fault line in Luther’s entire approach. A theology that insists on absolute fidelity to the text grants enormous power to the reader. When interpretation is denied, selection takes its place.
From a Jewish perspective, there is something eerily familiar about this obsession with textual literalism. The Second Temple–era Sadducees rejected ancient traditions and rabbinic interpretation in favor of the bare biblical text.
Centuries later, the Karaites would do the same, insisting that anything not spelled out explicitly in the Torah was illegitimate. Their position was internally consistent – and completely unworkable. A faith that forbids interpretation does not preserve religious observance; it paralyzes it.
The Torah reveals its intention regarding the centrality of interpretation at the very moment of revelation in Parshat Yitro. When God speaks at Sinai, He does not present the Jewish people with a comprehensive legal code, nor does He offer an exhaustively detailed constitution. Instead, He presents ten short statements – majestic and memorable, but remarkably sparse.
Do not murder. Do not steal. Do not commit adultery. Honor your parents. These are not radical moral breakthroughs. Any functioning society would struggle to survive without them.
Even the commandments that sound more overtly theological – belief in God, rejection of idolatry, observing Shabbat – are delivered with little definition or elaboration. What does it mean to believe? What counts as idolatry? What does remembering Shabbat actually require? The text does not say.
That silence is no oversight. If the Torah had intended to function as a closed book, the Ten Commandments as they are presented would be inexplicably inadequate. They contain no legal thresholds, no procedural detail, and no guidance for variation or complexity.
“Do not steal” tells us nothing about business partnerships, contracts, fraud, or intellectual property. “Do not murder” offers no framework for intent, self-defense, negligence, or the rules of war. “Remember the Sabbath day” may be stirring rhetoric, but as law, it is unusable. What, precisely, are we supposed to remember? And what are the practical applications?
The answer, of course, is that the Torah itself never expected these questions to be answered by the text alone. The Ten Commandments were never meant to stand by themselves. They are headline principles – foundational truths that demand explanation, expansion, and application.
And the Torah provides that expansion not in footnotes or appendices, but through an interpretive process that unfolds across generations. The law was not frozen at the moment of revelation; it was activated by it.
This is where Judaism parts ways decisively with Luther’s instinctive literalism. At Sinai, God makes clear that the written word is sacred – but it is not sufficient. Meaning is not trapped inside the text; it emerges only through engagement with it. So how does the Torah move from lofty principle to lived law?
The answer Judaism gives is Torah Shebaal Peh, the Oral Law. This is not a later workaround or a rabbinic ploy to fill in gaps, but an interpretive framework indicated by the way the text itself was given. The written Torah is the text God gave us at Sinai; the Oral Law is the method He gave us to understand it.
That method is neither whimsical nor arbitrary. It is disciplined, structured, and demanding. The Talmudic sage Rabbi Yishmael articulated thirteen interpretive principles – rules for extracting meaning from text through literary association, contextual reading, and logical deduction.
Verses illuminate one another. Words echo elsewhere. Broad principles generate specific applications. Law emerges not because it is spelled out, but because it is derived.
And then there is another category altogether: traditions that do not emerge from textual analysis at all. The Torah commands us to bind tefillin – but never tells us their shape, their color, or even how many compartments they should contain. These, too, are traditions transmitted through the Oral Law.
The Torah prohibits “work” on the seventh day but offers no definition of what work means – until the Oral Law teaches that the categories of creative labor are learned from the acts required to build the Tabernacle.
This is why the demand to “prove everything from the text” is not piety but misunderstanding. The Torah does not operate like a legal statute book, and it never pretended to be one.
Seen this way, the Ten Commandments are not deficient because they lack detail. They are magnificent precisely because they force us beyond the page. They announce that God speaks – and then expect human beings to listen, interpret, and take responsibility for what those words will mean in the real world.
Martin Luther believed that unless an idea could be anchored explicitly in the biblical text, it was suspect and therefore expendable. In theory, that sounds like reverence. In practice, it collapses the moment the text refuses to cooperate. Judaism chose a different path.
The Ten Commandments stand at the center of our faith not because they tell us everything we need to know, but because they tell us so little. They are moral declarations without detail, principles without procedure – and for that very reason, they demand interpretation rather than submission.
Faith, in Judaism, is not proven by quoting sacred words, but by grappling honestly with what those words require of us.
Ultimately, this is what the revelation at Sinai teaches us about Judaism. God gives us a text — but also a task. He entrusts human beings with the responsibility to interpret, apply, and live His word in a world that is endlessly complex and morally demanding.
The Torah is certainly sacred, but it is not self-sufficient. It comes alive only when it is studied, debated, transmitted, and lived.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
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Iran Says Talks With US in Oman Were ‘Good Start,’ Will Continue
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is welcomed by an Omani official upon his arrival in Muscat, Oman, in this handout image obtained on Feb. 6, 2026. Photo: Iranian Foreign Ministry/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iran’s top diplomat said on Friday that nuclear talks with the US mediated by Oman were off to a “good start” and set to continue, in remarks that could help allay concern that failure to reach a deal might nudge the Middle East closer to war.
But Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said after the talks in the Omani capital Muscat that “any dialogue requires refraining from threats and pressure. [Tehran] only discusses its nuclear issue … We do not discuss any other issue with the US.”
While both sides have indicated readiness to revive diplomacy over Tehran’s long-running nuclear dispute with the West, Washington wanted to expand the talks to cover Iran‘s ballistic missiles, support for armed terrorist groups around the region, and “treatment of their own people,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday.
Iranian officials have repeatedly ruled out putting Iran‘s missiles – one of the largest such arsenals in the Middle East – up for discussion, and have said Tehran wants recognition of its right to enrich uranium.
For Washington, carrying out enrichment – a possible pathway to nuclear bombs – inside Iran is a red line. Tehran has long denied any intent to weaponize nuclear fuel production.
“It was a good start to the negotiations. And there is an understanding on continuing the talks. Coordination on how to proceed will be decided in the capitals,” Araqchi told Iranian state TV. “If this process continues, I think we will reach a good framework for an understanding.”
TALKS WERE ‘VERY SERIOUS,’ SAYS OMAN
Mediator Badr al-Busaidi, Oman’s foreign minister, said the talks had been “very serious,” with results to be considered carefully in Tehran and Washington. The goal was to reconvene in due course.
The Islamic Republic’s clerical leadership remains deeply worried that Trump may still carry out his threats to strike Iran after a US naval buildup in seas in the region.
“The lack of trust is a huge challenge during the talks, and it should be overcome,” Araqchi said.
Last June the US struck Iranian nuclear targets, joining in the final stages of a 12-day Israeli bombing campaign. Tehran has since said it has halted uranium enrichment activity.
The naval buildup, which Trump has called a massive “armada,” has followed a bloody government crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran last month, heightening tensions between Washington and Tehran.
Trump warned the Iranian regime not to use violence to crush the nationwide anti-government protests. According to several reports, however, Iran’s security forces killed tens of thousands of demonstrators during what appears to be one of the bloodiest crackdowns in modern history.
Trump has warned that “bad things” will probably happen if a deal cannot be reached, ratcheting up pressure on the Islamic Republic in a standoff that has led to mutual threats of air strikes.
World powers and regional states fear a breakdown in the negotiations would ignite another conflict between the US and Iran that could spill over to the rest of the oil-rich region.
Iran has vowed a harsh response to any strike and has cautioned neighboring Gulf Arab countries that host US bases that they could be in the firing line if they were involved in an attack.
Negotiators in Oman will have to navigate Iran‘s red line on discussing its missile program to reach a deal and avert future military action. Tehran has flatly ruled out talks on its “defense capabilities, including missiles and their range.”
In a show of defiance, Iranian state TV said hours before the talks that “one of the country’s most advanced long-range ballistic missiles, the Khorramshahr-4,” had been deployed at one of the Revolutionary Guards’ vast underground “missile cities.”
However, Tehran is willing to show “flexibility” on uranium enrichment, including by handing over 400 kg of highly enriched uranium – refined closer to bomb-grade – and accepting zero enrichment under a consortium arrangement as a solution, Iranian officials told Reuters last week.
Iran also demands the lifting of US sanctions, reimposed since 2018 when Trump, during his first term in the White House, ditched Iran‘s 2015 nuclear deal with six world powers.
The United States, its European allies, and Israel accuse Tehran of using its nuclear energy program as a veil for efforts to develop the capability to produce atomic bombs. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
Israel has likened the danger of Iran‘s missiles to its nuclear program. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in January that Iran‘s “attempt to build atomic weapons” and “20,000 ballistic missiles” were like “two lumps of cancer.”
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‘You Will All Burn!’ Haverford Bans Pro-Hamas Hecklers From Campus Over Event Disruption
Masked woman disrupting Middle East talk held at Haverford College on Feb. 1, 2026. Photo: Screenshot.
Haverford College in Pennsylvania has identified and banned from campus at least two members of a pro-Hamas group that disrupted an event featuring Middle East scholar Haviv Rettig Gur on Sunday.
As seen in footage shared on the X social media platform, one of the individuals, who concealed her face with a keffiyeh scarf in the style popularized by the Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorist leader Yasser Arafat, screamed “When Gaza has burned, you will all burn too.”
“Shame! Shame! Shame!” she continued while being escorted out. The individuals continued to scream unintelligible statements outside the lecture hall while banging on its door, prompting Rettig to comment on the incivility of political speech in contemporary higher education.
“It amazes me that this happens most intensely at institutions in America,” he said.
On Wednesday, a public relations official for Haverford College shared with The Algemeiner a statement the college issued to signal that it is not hesitating to respond to actions it described as “clear violations of Haverford’s Policy on Expressive Freedom and Responsibility.” The statement noted that there was also violence during the disruption, noting “at least one physical altercation between attendees.”
“We have gathered sufficient evidence to identify both the individual who used a bullhorn and the audience member who initiated physical contact with them,” the statement said. “We can confirm that neither of the parities is a student, nor are they members of the Haverford College community. As we conclude our investigation, the persons in question will be considered persona non grata, which bans them from our campus indefinitely. If they are found to be on Haverford’s campus, their presence will be considered trespassing, and the college will contact local police.”
On Monday, Haverford president Wendy Raymond condemned the group’s conduct, saying, “Shouting down a speaker whom one does not agree with is never acceptable and stands outside of our shared community values.”
Raymond added, “We strive to be a campus where all experiences and opinions matter … the fact that this event proceeded with nearly three hours of thoughtful and constructive discussion illustrates how valuable these types of learning opportunities are to our educational mission.”
The 2025-2026 academic year has seen a number of similar disturbances on colleges campuses, with anti-Zionist activists continuing to disrupt events and stage demonstrations even after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza.
In October, masked pro-Hamas activists breached an event held at Pomona College in California to commemorate the victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in which Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists raped, murdered, and abducted women, children, and men during their rampage across southern Israel.
Footage of the act circulated on social media showed the group attempting to raid the room while screaming expletives and pro-Hamas dogma. They ultimately failed due to the prompt response of the Claremont Colleges Jewish chaplain and other attendees who formed a barrier in front of the door to repel them, a defense they mounted on their own as campus security personnel did nothing to stop the disturbance, according to video of the incident and witnesses who spoke to The Claremont Independent.
Following the incident, an anonymous group claimed credit for storming the event in a disturbing open letter.
“Satan dared not look us in the eyes,” the note said, which the group released on social media, while attacking event guests and Oct. 7 survivor Yoni Viloga. “Immediately, zionists [sic] swarmed us, put their hands on us, shoved us, while Viloga retreated like he did on October 7th, 2023.”
Appearing to threaten murder, the group added, “We let that coward know he and his fascists settler ideology are not welcome here nor anywhere. zionism is a death cult that must be dealt with accordingly [sic].”
In January, a sophomore and right-wing social media influencer at the University of Miami verbally attacked a Jewish student group, leading the school to defend free speech while saying that “lines can be crossed” in response.
“Christianity, which says love everyone, meanwhile your Bible says eating someone who is a non-Jew is like eating with an animal. That’s what the Talmud says,” Kaylee Mahony yelled at members of Students Supporting Israel (SSI) who had a table at a campus fair. “That’s what these people follow.”
She continued, “They think that if you are not a Jew you are an animal. That’s the Talmud. That’s the Talmud.”
Mahony could also be heard in video of the incident responding to one of the SSI members, saying, “Because you’re disgusting. It’s disgusting.”
Later, Mahony, whose statements were first reported by The Miami Hurricane student newspaper, took to social media, where she has more than 125,000 followers on TikTok, and posted, “Of course the most evil (((country))) in the world is filled with (((people))) who hate Jesus [sic].”
The “((()))” is used by neo-Nazis as a substitute for calling out Jews by name, which, given the context in which they discuss the Jewish people, could draw the intervention of a content moderator.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Free Speech Advocacy Group Walks Back Condemnation of Israeli Comedian’s Shows Being Abruptly Canceled
The Israeli national flag flutters as apartments are seen in the background in the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim in the West Bank, Aug. 16, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
An organization dedicated to protecting free speech has withdrawn a statement in which it condemned the last-minute cancellations of two performances by Israeli comedian Guy Hochman, after he faced backlash over his support for Israel.
Two venues, in New York and California, canceled Hochman’s scheduled performances last month.
Hochman’s show in New York City was canceled by its venue due to safety concerns after anti-Israel protesters picketed outside of the establishment.
The Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills, California, then called off Hochman’s gig after receiving pressure from anti-Israel activists, including threats of violence. The theater said it made the decision also after Hochman declined the venue’s demands to publicly condemn his home country of Israel for the alleged “genocide, rape, starvation, and torture of Palestinian civilians.”
PEN America initially condemned the cancellations of Hochman’s shows in a statement shared on its website on Jan. 29. At the time, Jonathan Friedman, the managing director of US free expression programs at PEN America, said, “It is a profound violation of free expression to demand artists, writers, or comedians agree to ideological litmus tests as a condition to appear on a stage.”
“People have every right to protest his events, but those who wish to hear from Hochman also have a right to do so,” Friedman added. The statement accused Hochman of “dehumanizing social media posts about Palestinians” but also noted that “shutting down cultural events is not the solution.”
On Tuesday, however, PEN America removed the message from its website and replaced it with another statement explaining the move: “On further consideration, PEN America has decided to withdraw this statement. We remain committed to open and respectful dialogue about the divisions that arise in the course of defending free expression.” A spokesperson for PEN America did not immediately respond to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment to further explain the organization’s change of heart.
In 2024, a campaign was launched to boycott PEN America after the group was accused of being apologetic to the alleged “genocide” of Palestinians and “apartheid” in Israel, as well as of “normalizing Zionism.”
Members of PEN America include novelists, journalists, nonfiction writers, editors, poets, essayists, playwrights, publishers, translators, agents, and other writing professionals, according to its website. The organization has a page on its website dedicated to information about “Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” which begins by claiming that the “Israeli government has cracked down on free expression of writers and public intellectuals in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas.” The webpage is highly critical of the Jewish state and its military actions in the Gaza Strip during the Israel-Hamas war, which started in response to the deadly rampage orchestrated by the US-designated terror organization across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The same webpage highlights a list of “individual cases” of Palestinian activists and writers that Israel has allegedly detained, arrested, or convicted, but there are no specific details shared about their offenses. The list includes Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour, who was convicted of incitement to terrorism for a poem she wrote and comments she made on social media during a wave of Palestinian attacks against Jews.
The list also includes Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi, but the provided description about Tamimi does not mention that she was convicted on four counts of assaulting an IDF officer and soldier, incitement, and interference with IDF forces in March 2018.
A third writer on the list is Mosab Abu Toha, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and essayist who tried to justify Hamas’s abduction of Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023.