Today was the first real day of classes. I cannot believe that I am actually in Israel; it really hasn't sunk in.
In my Jewish History class we are doing historicity. (I know it doesn't sound like a real word) Well anyway, historicity is basically using external sources to prove or disprove the תנ"ך. We read the story of Noah and my teacher Aaron about us about the documentary hypothesis. I find it to be an interesting idea, but I do not agree. I may not necessarily believe that god wrote the whole Torah, but I feel weird challenging what I have been taught my whole life. I don't think there were a bunch of different writers of the Torah and that all of the writings were put together and making the Torah by Ezra. I believe that in the story there are two different tones and in other places of the torah there are, but there are reasonable explanations for that. Like in the story of Noah,I believe there is a lot of repetitiveness because G-d wanted to emphasize those certain parts. It is weird to be conservative and go to a very reform school, but I kind of like hearing the other side of the argument. All in all, I think this class will be an interesting challenge.
