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Torah: The Oldest Running Book Club
Today is the first night of Chanukah so I feel like I should knock out one of the blogs I have been meaning to write.
Jews love arguing and a few weeks ago I was doing just that with one of my friends who wouldn’t label himself a jew but based on his personality he is most definitely a jew. Let’s just say Larry David and this guy share some funny quirks. Anyway, we were talking about the next book we will be reading for our book club and judaism of course came up because it is such a fun topic. Oh god… Anyway, he used an interesting analogy to reading the torah these thousands of years which was Harry Potter. Yeah, the book with the wizards and shit. He referenced Harry Potter saying reading and analyzing the torah isn’t that different from what jews have been doing for thousands of years. That is where I was like “you are absolutely right! Judaism is like a book club.” In fact, every religion is really a book club if you think about it.
Look at these ladies and I believe gentleman on the bottom based on the hairy arm. They are sitting at a park table bench thing reading a book and taking notes. They are probably conversing about the book in regards to why the character did this and why did the other character do that. They are arguing perhaps about the moral of the story. They are seeing themselves in the book and other people in their lives in the book. Not that different from reading the torah and discussing it. Not that different from bible study. Not that different from Quran study.
I have studied the torah. I have studied the Christian bible. I have studied the Quran. With all due respect it is just as amazing as a book club. You are reading a narrative and discussing it with others to figure out their perspective. In the case of religious texts they are very similar to books like Harry Potter where you have good guys and bad guys. The good guys win most of the time but sometimes they lose. You learn what makes good guys good and bad guys bad and hopefully become a good person from this. The point of this blog is not to bring religion down or trivialize religious texts. I have learned AMAZING truths from reading religious texts. However, I have also read similiar truths from non-religious texts. I encourage everybody to be part of a book club because there is something special about reading a text and discussing it. It could be the bible, torah, Quran or a good ole New York Times best seller. It could even be Mein Kampf or one of Salman Rushdie’s books or even The Art of the Deal lol. Read, discuss and enjoy every minute of it NERDS!
