It has been over a year since Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas Terrorists. His 21st birthday is coming up in August. Israel has not yet been able to secure his release. We have not forgotten him!

Milk and Meat

I recently visited an orthodox Jewish friend at his house and shared a meal. My friend is Persian, and needless to say, his wife cooked a meal fit for a king. We feasted for what seemed to be hours, while passing a wonderful Sabbath afternoon. While satiated, and intoxicated with the wonderful sleepiness of a gluttonous Saturday afternoon, my mind drifted to philosophy and religion.

I noticed that my friend and his wife had 2 refrigerators in the kitchen. They had two sets of plates, one for dairy and one for meat. They had separate utensils placed in separate cabinets. I joked with my friend and told him that his expenses are doubled with this life style of his. He laughed and said that he actually has three sets of dishes, the third set for Passover.

The following day, I decided to study the Jewish laws concerning the eating of dairy and meat, which are briefly as follows:

Dairy food (such as Milk or butter) cannot be eaten with meat products.
Meat products are those that are derived from animal flesh, so for example cow, lamb, and chicken are considered “meat”. Interestingly, fish is not considered to be meat.
There are some foods that are considered neither meat (“fleishik” in Yiddish) nor dairy (“milchik”), but rather are neutral (“pareve”) and may be eaten with meat or milk. For example, eggs are considered pareve and can be eaten both with dairy as well as meat products.
There are also some food products, such as fish meat that are “pareve”, but cannot be eaten with meat, though they can be eaten with dairy.
Time must elapse between the consumption of meat and dairy products. Most rabbis state that at least six hours must pass following the eating of meat before it is permissible to eat dairy. On the other hand, if dairy products are consumed first, one needs only to rinse his mouth in order to begin to eat meat.
Utensils such as pots and pans take the character of the meal that is being prepared in them. Thus, if you are cooking meat in a pot, the pot becomes “meat”. If you drink milk in a cup, the cup itself becomes “dairy”. Thus, you cannot mix the “meat” pots and pans with “dairy” pots and pans.
The smallest quantity of meat or dairy products in a dish renders the entire meal “meat” or “dairy”. Therefore, one can not eat meat in a “milk” pot and vice versa - hence the need for separate “meat” and “dairy” dishes, pots, pans, and refrigerators.


As is my habit, I asked my Rabbi to point me to the root of these religious laws. Proudly, he told me that the Torah orders all Jews to practice the above rules. He cited the following passages:

Exodus 23:19 “The choicest first fruit of your land shall you bring to the House of Hashem, your God; you shall not cook a kid in the milk of its mother”

Exodus 34:26 The first of your land's early produce you shall bring to the Temple of Hashem, your God. Do not cook a kid in its mother's milk."

Deuteronomy 14:21 “You shall not eat any carcass; to the stranger who is in your cities shall you give it that he may eat it, or sell it to a gentile, for you are a holy people to Hashem, your God; you shall not cook a kid in its mother's milk”

Unless I am seriously mistaken, the passages seem to say that a “kid” (meaning a young cow) should not be cooked in its own mother’s milk. The passages repeat three times so that there is no room for vagaries – We should not cook a cow in its mother’s milk. It could have said, “you shall not cook a kid (meat) with milk”, which would have prohibited eating meat with milk, but it didn’t.

Ok, then. I read these passages and remember that according to most Orthodox Rabbis, the Torah must be respected and its content - word for word - must be followed.

To the religious Jew who reads the Torah and decides not to eat cow meat cooked in the milk of its mother, I say “well done”. More power to such a Jew!

But what about meat that has been cooked in the milk of a cow not related to the “kid”? What about the meat of, say, lamb cooked in cow’s milk? Why have the Rabbis prohibited us from eating these?

These days, when we eat a cheeseburger, it is a very safe bet that the milk used to produce the cheese is not related to the cow whose meat became hamburger! Why then is a cheeseburger denied us?

What about chicken cooked with milk? Chickens do no even produce milk! We couldn’t cook a chicken in its mother’s milk even if we wanted to! Why then can we not eat chicken with milk?

What is this business with fish not being considered ‘meat’? Who decided that and why? I do not see the passages in the Torah that relate to this particular rule. Where did this rule come from?

And how does it come about that a utensil becomes “meat” or “dairy”? Does the meat’s spirit invade the dish?

Ridiculous!

To the reader who reads this and says that I am taking too literal a meaning from the words of the Torah, I say you are correct. To those who say that one must read the Torah as an illustrative or spiritual text, I say that they are also correct. Many a Rabbi has chastised me, saying that I apply a very strict meaning to the letter of the Torah’s text. These Rabbis say that we should pay attention to the meaning or spiritual message of the Torah rather than the strict application of its words. To those Rabbis I say they are also correct.

These are the same Rabbis who take the words of the Torah and twist them until all sense has been wiped from them, who complain that I take the words of the Torah too literally! These are the same Rabbis who take the edict “you shall rest on Shabbat” to such extremes as to dissociate themselves from society on Saturdays, who tell me that I am being too literal in reading the Torah. But ok, I am being too literal.

I agree that the Torah should not be taken literally when it states that we should not cook a kid in its mother’s milk. Instead, we should take a more spiritual meaning from this passage. What then is the Torah teaching us? What are we to learn from the passage?

Personally, I believe that the Torah is teaching that we should not require a close family member such as a mother to participate in the harm of its loved one. The Torah, I think, is saying that we should not require a mother to provide of its produce in the destruction of its children. In human terms, it is saying for example that we should not require a mother to put her child to death. A similar and modern version of this halakha is that a wife or mother cannot be compelled to testify against her husband or child in a court of law. I think the Torah is hinting at a similar concept.

What the Torah is not hinting at is the nonsense that we have come to endure from our Rabbis. From a beautiful concept that the Torah has expounded – the compassion toward a mother so that she is not compelled to participate in its child’s death – the Rabbis have derived that pots and pans are considered “dairy” if dairy products are eaten in them! From a thoughtful passage in the Torah that seems to display compassion towards the suffering of mothers for their children, the Rabbis have derived that meat can be eaten following drinking milk as long as the mouth is wiped!

Come on!

The Torah has nothing against eating milk and meat together. It states so clearly in the Genesis in describing the experience of Abraham, our patriarch. In genesis, the Torah tells us that three men were passing through and Abraham saw them from his tent. He hurried over to them and
Genesis 18: 3 He said, "My Lord, if I find favor in Your eyes, please pass not away from Your servant.": 4. "Let some water be brought and wash your feet, and recline beneath the tree: 5. I will fetch a morsel of bread that you may sustain yourselves, then go on – in as much as you have passed your servant's way." … 7. Then Abraham ran to the cattle, took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the youth who hurried to prepare it: 8. He took cream and milk and the calf which he had prepared, and placed these before them; he stood over them beneath the tree and they ate.

Clearly Abraham prepared milk and meat together, and clearly the men (whom the Rabbis say were angels) ate this meal. Furthermore, most Rabbis comment in this passage that God himself was in the tent with Abraham. Yet God did not raise any objections about Abraham’s preparing and the angels’ eating such a meal.

If by “you shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk”, God meant to say that milk and meat don’t go together, then God would not have written the above passage in Genesis. If on the other hand, God is teaching a lesson in compassion by prohibiting the consumption of the flesh of a child and mother together, then the passage in genesis would not be contradictory.

In short, I think, the Rabbis have it all wrong in ordering us not to eat dairy and meat together. Furthermore, by such rigid interpretation of the bible, I think the Rabbis are hijacking a religion that is beautiful and transforming it into a religion full of superstition, gratuitous rules and nonsensical customs. They should stop it. And we should stop listening to every word they utter as if they are conduits for God’s word.

The Story of Cain and Able

Genesis Chapter 4

10Then He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground! 11Therefore you are cursed more than the ground, which opened wide its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall become a vagrant and a wanderer on earth.”

Let me slow down for a moment and give due to each of these sentences:

He said “What have you done?”
I am assuming that questions like ‘what have you done?’ are rhetorical; God obviously knows what has happened and need not ask the question. God is asking the question perhaps to test Cain’s honesty. But He does not wait for the response, so we have to assume that God talks this way for effect. In effect, He is saying “look what you have done!” This is more an expression of rage rather than a query.

The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground!

Here again, I am assuming that it is not implied that blood actually has a voice and that blood is crying. This phrase, in fact, has been interpreted in various ways. Orthadox rabbis state that by ‘blood’, what is in fact meant is the ‘soul’. They state that it was the soul of Abel that is protesting. Further evidence for this interpretation comes from the Torah’s assertion that the soul is contained in its blood. The Torah cautions against eating blood in several places and mentions that the reason for this is that the soul resides in blood (see for example, Leviticus 17:10 “Any man of the House of Israel or of the Proselyte who dwells among them who will consume any blood…I will cut it off from the midst of its people.11For the soul of the flesh is in the blood…”)

Now we have apparently come to a monumental finding: the soul of man is to be found in his blood. Well, then, at long last, based on this passage, we can begin to guide the multitude of scientists and truth seekers who have looked for a sign of the soul in the proper direction. We can tell them that the long sought soul resides in the blood of a man. Surely if we were to replace the blood of a person with someone else’s, then the soul of the blood donor would invade the recipient, no? Here, once and for all, the religious among us can wait for the results of such an experiment with baited breath for at last the existence of a soul would be well established. Alas, though, this is not the case. In fact, blood is routinely donated. Victims of trauma, for example, who have lost large quantities of blood are typically given blood. No ‘soul’ exchanges have been noted to date! Either the soul does not reside in blood, or it finds a place to hide when the body loses blood!

What then, does “the blood cries out from the ground” mean? Once again, the burden of explanation falls on the believing orthodox who take the words of the Torah to be wholly true and without fault.

11Therefore you are cursed more than the ground, which opened wide its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall become a vagrant and a wanderer on earth.”

Previously, I argued that Cain aught not have been punished, as he apparently did not have the knowledge of the Ten Commandments, and thus did not know that murder was a sin. But, alright, for one reason or another, Hashem has decided that Cain should nevertheless be punished for what he has done. Hashem is sore with Cain for having killed his brother and he chooses to curse. He tells Cain that the earth will no longer bear fruit for him, so there is no point to his becoming a farmer. He, Cain, is sentenced to wander the earth.

But are we not told that the punishment for taking life is forfeiting one’s life? We will later come to Genesis 9:6, saying “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed”. How is it that genesis 9:6 seems to clearly demand the shedding of the murderer’s blood and yet God has chosen to make a vagrant out of a murder in this case?

If we are to learn morality from the Torah, which of these lessons are we to take? Who decides which lesson is the correct one?

13Then he said to Hashem, “Is my iniquity too great to be borne? 14Behold, you have banished me this day from the face of the earth – can I be hidden from your presence? I must become a vagrant and wanderer on earth; whoever meets me will kill me!”

Recall that Adam and Eve had borne two children, Cain and Able. We have come to learn that the former has killed the latter. Thus, there are now 3 people left on ‘the face of the earth’. What then does ‘whoever meets me will kill me’ mean? Is Cain afraid that his parents will come upon him and murder him? Or is he thinking way ahead of the possibility that his parents will bare more children who will then grow up and come to kill him? Do you, dear reader, see that the author of this section of the Torah has apparently slipped and forgotten that there are no other people on earth at the time of Cain? I am sure that the Torah apologists will simply assert that Cain was fearful of his future prospects. I will leave it to the reader to decide the veracity of such assertions.

15Hashem said to him, “Therefore, whoever slays Cain, before seven generations have passed he will be punished.”

Here is another peculiar moral code. If Cain’s blood is shed, then God will punish the killer within 140 year (seven generations)! It is weird justice indeed to meet punishment on a murderer no later than 140 years! I guess even back in those days the appeals processes must have been exhausting!

And Hashem placed a mark upon Cain, so that none that meet him might kill him.

I am not certain what that mark was, but it must have been some version of ‘DO NOT KILL THIS PIECE OF SHIT”!

16Cain left the presence of Hashem and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

So we have just heard that God’s punishment for Cain having murdered his brother was to banish him from farming, and making him a ‘vagrant and a wanderer’. Thus Cain comes to Nod and promptly ‘settles’ there! So much for the punishment of God!
It is interesting how God meets Justice. He tells Eve ‘on the day that you eat of it’, meaning the forbidden fruit, ‘you shall surely die’. Yet she surely does not die on that day. Then he tells Cain that if someone were to murder him, God would exact revenge within 140 years! Finally, he tells Cain that he is to be a wanderer so he immediately leaves the presence of God and settles somewhere else. My hat’s off to the reader who has managed to retain even a remnant of credulity!

Messhiah is in the Mail

A long time ago, I sold a customer a service, and he promised to pay me. A few weeks went by and I still had not been paid. I called this customer and asked whether he had sent me a check. He told me that he had forgotten about it and he would immediately write me a check and send it.

Another month went by and I still had not received my money, so I called him again. He assured me that he had sent the check, and that the envelope is probably still in the post office being delivered. So I waited another month, and called him again. He expressed surprise that I had not received the check. I told him that if he did not mind, to cancel the sent check and to send me another one. He huffed and puffed as if I was asking him to do a great favor and finally said that he would.

Another month went by and I had yet to receive the check. So I called the customer once again, and asked him where my check was. He told me he had sent it to me and again suggested that the check might be in the mail. I told him that I had waited several months and it was unlikely that he had sent the check to me. He became angry and indignantly said “are you calling me a liar?” I told him that I was not calling him a liar but that I had been waiting for the money for over six months and had not received it. He replied that the inadequacies of the mail system in the United States are not his problem. I suggested then that I come in person to get the check. He said that would be fine, but he had to go on a trip and would not be back for another 3 months.

Like a fool, I waited another 3 months and called him again. He said that he would send the check to me by mail. When I said that we had tried that already and the check never arrived, he became angry with me, saying ‘if you do not trust me, I do not want to do business with you. Do not call again!’

It is now many years since that incident. In a wedding recently, I saw the gentleman who swindled me out of the money. I did not want to cross paths with him since I had long forgotten about the account and did not wish to start unpleasant conversations. Instead he came to me and said that if I had only treated him a little bit better he would have paid me my money! He blamed me for the whole affair, saying that he is a righteous man but that business is business.

Now, I realize this blog is not the forum to air bad business deals, and this is not the purpose for this. But it strikes me that our dealings as Jews with our rabbis are somewhat similar. When the Holy temple, the Beth Hamighdash, was destroyed approximately 2000 years ago, we were told that our savior, our Messiah, would shortly arrive to rescue us. Rabbi Akiva, arguably one of the greatest sages of all time, promised that the Messiah is just around the corner. In fact, he mistakenly identified Bar Kokhba, a Jewish military leader, as the Messiah, with disastrous consequences.

Following the disastrous invasion of the Romans into Judea, and following the slaughter of over 1 million Jews, we were told once again, that the Messiah is coming soon. It seems that Hashem took us out of Egypt and into more peril. Yet, we were promised Messiah. Any minute we should expect his coming.

We were then subjugated by the Romans, only to be persecuted by the Muslims. The Spaniards then rescued us only to torment us with the Spanish Inquisition. We then suffered at the hand of the Russians in Pogroms, and at the hand of western Europeans in the form of Purges. Time and time again, we suffered and our blood was shed. Again and again we were told that Messiah is around the corner. Then we experienced the Holocaust, and over half of our population was killed in firing squads and in gas chambers.

We are still waiting for this Messiah. When we say to our rabbis that it has been 2000 years since we were promised this Savior - where is he? – they reply that we have to ‘deserve’ his coming. The rabbis tell us that we are too wicked for the Messiah to come. They tell us that we don’t keep Shabbat else he would come. It is our fault that he is not coming.

And in the wait for the Messiah, I realize that his coming is no different than the check I have been waiting for. The Messiah is the proverbial check in the mail, perpetually being sent by the one who owes you money, and yet it never seems to arrive. The Rabbi is your debtor, always promising that the check is going to arrive any minute; if we can only squeeze a little more Halacha and a slight Tzadakah that Messiah will sooner arrive.Dear Moshe, my check never came and Messiah is never coming. The astute businessman would know to put that account receivable in the ‘bad debt’ column and move on!

TurtleDoves Revised

In my previous blog, I talked about sacrifices of doves required of women who menstruate. In the comment section, I was accused of misrepresenting (or misinterpreting) the passage. Apparently, the reading of the relevant parts of the Torah are supposed to be that only women with unusual ‘discharges’ above and beyond their menstrual discharge were required to bring sacrifices of doves. Rather than responding in the comment section, I thought it would be good to answer in a blog:

Lest I be accused of misrepresenting the Torah, here, I have provided all the verses of the Torah verbatim:
15:19 When a woman has a discharge, it can consist of any blood that emerges from her body. For seven days she is then ritually unclean because of her menstruation, and anyone touching her shall be unclean until evening.
15:20 As long as she is in her menstrual state, anything upon which she lies shall be unclean, and anyone sitting on it is likewise unclean.
15:21 Whoever touches her bed must immerse his clothing and his body in a mikvah, and then remain unclean until evening.
15:22 [Similarly], anyone who sits on any article upon which she has sat must immerse his clothing and his body in a mikvah and [then] remain unclean until evening.
15:23 Thus, if he is on the bed or any other article upon which she sat, whether he touches it [or not], he is unclean until evening.
15:24 If a man has intercourse with her, her menstrual impurity is transferred to him, and he shall be unclean for seven days. Any bed upon which he lies shall be unclean.
15:25 If a woman has a discharge of blood for a number of days when it is not time for her menstrual period, or if she has such a discharge right after her period, then as long as she has this discharge she is unclean, just as she is when she has her period.
15:26 As long as she has the discharge, any bed upon which she lies shall have the same status as it has while she is menstruating. Similarly, any article upon which she sits shall be unclean, just as it is unclean when she is menstruating.
15:27 Anyone touching them must immerse his clothing and his body in a mikvah, and [then] remain unclean until evening.
15:28 When she is rid of her discharge, she must count seven days for herself, and only then can she undergo purification.
15:29 On the eighth day, she shall take for herself two turtle doves or two young common doves, and bring them to the priest, to the Communion Tent entrance.
15:30 The priest shall prepare one as a sin offering and one as a burnt offering, and the priest shall thus make atonement for her before God, from her unclean discharge.
15:31 You must warn the Israelites about their impurity, so that their impurity not cause them to die if they defile the tabernacle that I have placed among them.
15:32 This then is the law concerning the man who is unclean because of a discharge or seminal emission,
15:33 as well as the woman who has her monthly period, the man or woman who has a discharge, and the man who lies with a ritually unclean woman.

OK, so what have I missed? Is it really true that 15:28 refers only to women who have a ‘discharge’ beyond their menstruation? Well, OK, but I submit that this is a reach and a tortured explanation.

But let’s go with that for a moment. What exactly is ‘discharge’ beyond menstruation? If a woman has a period lasting, say, 10 days – is that considered a ‘discharge’ beyond menstruation? What about 5 days? When is a discharge considered 'unusual'?

But OK, let’s even grant that ‘discharges’ of women are well defined and are distinct from menstruation. Let’s say that what we are talking about is unusual discharges. This ‘unusual’ discharge, in medical language, is called dysmenorrhea. According to medical authorities (will provide references if needed), the incidence of primary dysmenorrhea is greater than 50% in healthy women. This incidence, with some notable exceptions, is relatively stable amongst diverse population.

So, let’s say that the critiques of the previous blog are right, and the Torah passage refers to dysmenorrhea. The number would thus be revised as follows:

Let’s assume that 50% of women will have at least 1 episode of dysmenorrhea per year.
Since there were 500,000 adult women in the Sinai desert, then there would have been
500,000 X 50% = 250,000 episodes of ‘discharges’ among women per year. We will ignore men’s discharges for this purpose.

For the duration of the 40 years, then, there would have been 250,000 X 40 = 10 million ‘discharges’. Since there are 2 doves required per discharge, we have to find 20 million doves. This is just for women! I have not even considered the men, as I do not know how to calculate the incidence of discharges amongst males!

So there you have it. Perhaps not 480 million doves, but, depending on how you interpret the Torah, there may be as little as 20 million doves needed.

Did the Sinai desert have 20 million doves for the purposes of sacrifice? How did the Jews, who wandered the desert, often engaging in brutal wars, occasionally enduring plagues as a consequence of the wrath of God, manage to come up with 20 million doves?

Is it possible, that perhaps there were not 3 million people in the desert?Is it possible that the Jews, even if they were that numerous, did not in fact engage in this practice of mass animal sacrifice?

Sinai Revelation and Some Numbers

I was just thinking about the claims that some 3 million people were at the Sinai desert when the Jews were taken out of Egypt. Orthodox Jews claim that there were 600,000 able bodied adult males who were at the base of Mount Sinai when the Ten Commandments were given. The Orthodox Rabbis then extrapolate that since there were 600,000 adult males, there had to have been 3 million Jews in the desert.

So, if the above is correct, then there had to have been 600,000 adult females as well. It is interesting, then, to read the following passage in the Torah:

Leviticus 15:

19 " 'When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening…

29 On the eighth day she must take two doves or two young pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 30 The priest is to sacrifice one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement for her before the LORD for the uncleanness of her discharge.”

As I understand these passages, the Torah requires that a woman, following her menstruation, bring 2 doves to the Cohen for sacrifice. Ok, clear enough!

There were 600,000 adult women in the Sinai desert. Obviously, most women - save the diseased and postmenopausal - menstruated monthly. Let us for the sake of argument say that there were 500,000 healthy women. Thus, each one of them would have to provide for 2 doves every month. Let us consider the numbers:

2 doves required per woman per month = 24 doves per woman per year.

24 doves per woman per year X 500,000 women = 12 million doves!

Since the Jews wandered in the desert for 40 years, then, just to comply with this one requirement, there are some 12 X 40 = 480 million doves needed.

Forget about all the other sacrifices that the Torah mandates. Forget, for example, about the sin offerings, guilt offerings, burnt offerings, etc. Forget that the Torah requires that an animal be brought to sacrifice every time a child is born. Forget that on Passover every Jewish family was to bring a lamb for ritual slaughter. Forget all that!

Remember simply the requirement that upon women’s menstruation, 2 doves were to be sacrificed. Some 480 million doves would be necessary for that!

Where did all these doves come from? The Jews were wandering in the desert, living in tents, having to subsist on manna from heaven. 480 million doves?

Does this statistic alone not make you wonder that perhaps the story of the exodus did not happen the way the Orthodox Rabbis say it happened?

Kuzari Schoomzari

Saturday May 12, 2007

Many Orthodox Jews point to the so-called "Kuzari Principle" is bolstering their beliefs in the Torah. The Kuzari principle is based on the medieval works of the Jewish philosopher Rabbi Yehuda Halevi. It purports to ‘prove' that events of the Jewish exodus from Egypt are plausible and reasonable. The proofs offered are actually simple and are outlined as follows:

The Kuzari Principle: Let us say that one or more significant events occur over a short period of time. These events can be the parting of a sea, or the descent of God to the top of a mountain and the giving of a holy document. These events, because of their enormity, would have left a lot of easily identifiable evidence. Thus, to logically illustrate the principle of Kuzari, as one internet site framed it, paraphrasing from Dr. Dovid Gottlieb's book: Let E be a possible event which, had it really occurred, would have left behind enormous, easily available evidence of its occurrence. If the evidence does not exist, people will not believe that E occurred.

Now let E be the Sinai revelation; since it is claimed that 3 million Jews saw the revelation, and since the 3 million Jews raised no objection once this claim was made, then necessarily the fact of revelation did occur. If Moses falsely claimed that he parted the sea, if he claimed that 3 million people crossed the Sea of Reeds, well, then the 3 million people would have said to Moses "no, you did no such thing. We don't remember crossing a parted sea - you are a liar!" But since the Jewish people of the time did no such thing and believe the revelation and the desert story, then the story is plausible, even probable.

I do hope that I have done some justice to the Kuzari Principle. If I have not, I do apologize. Please correct me if I am not understanding this principle.

But here is my issue with the principle: All of the events that the Jews have witnessed are chronicled in the 5 books of the Torah. The parting of the sea, the revelation at Sinai, Manna from heaven, miracles, etc., are all in the 5 books. These 5 books were all written by Moses according to orthodox Jews. The 5 books describe events from creation up to the death of Moses. Thus, at the earliest, the 5 books of the Torah had to have been completed at the time of the death of Moses.

At the earliest, Torah's claims would have been presented to the Jewish people - the so-called 3 million witnesses - shortly after the death of Moses. At that time, the Jews would have already crossed the Jordon River, being led by Joshua, preparing for the battles for the land of Israel. Joshua, or a priest would have shown the newly finished 5 books to the Jewish people.

Now, note that according to the Torah tradition, all of the people who originally left Egypt, some 3 million people, died in the desert. No one, except for Joshua and Caleb who crossed the parted sea actually made it to the Jordon River. They died of plagues, battles, God's wrath, purges etc. Not even Aaron or Moses made it to the land of Israel.

Those who made it to the Jordon River were the second generation of the exodus. Again, if I am wrong about this, please tell me.

Now, when the Torah is presented to the second generation, and the various miracles etc. are mentioned, the people would have no way of verifying the veracity of the claims since THEY WERE NOT THERE! As you know, the Torah was given 49 days after the exodus. All the people who witnessed the revelation at Sinai would have been dead by the time the Torah was completed 40 years later! Of course Caleb and Joshua are exceptions to this.

Note, then, that the Kuzari Principle is no longer valid in the case of Jewish exodus. The only witnesses to Torah's claims were Joshua and Caleb. There are only 2 witnesses to a purported event. I will not go into the obvious interest of these two to support the claims of the bible. I will only mention that there were not 3 million witnesses, nor 10,000. Rather, there are only 2 witnesses to the multitude of miraculous events that Jews say occurred.To summarize, at the time when the Torah made its supernatural claims, there were only 2 witnesses available to verify such claims. These claims, then, are no different from claims of other religions. The veracity of the Torah is no more witnessed than that of Mohammad's Quran or Smith's Mormon Bible.