A Quote by Alan Dershowitz

I was a Jewish rabbinical student for 12 years, and studied the Bible all the time. — © Alan Dershowitz
I was a Jewish rabbinical student for 12 years, and studied the Bible all the time.
The Jewish conception of the Jews as the Chosen People who must eventually rule the world forms indeed the basis of Rabbinical Judaism... The Jewish religion now takes its stand on the Talmud rather than on the Bible.
In my office in Jerusalem, there's an ancient seal. It's a signet ring of a Jewish official from the time of the Bible. The seal was found right next to the Western Wall, and it dates back 2,700 years, to the time of King Hezekiah. Now, there's a name of the Jewish official inscribed on the ring in Hebrew. His name was Netanyahu.
I'm deeply curious about Jewish things. I've toyed around with the idea of going to rabbinical school.
My father left me with his love of Jewish studies and cultural life. To this very day, along with several physicians and scientist colleagues, I take regular periodical lessons taught by a Rabbinical scholar on how the Jewish law views moral and ethical problems related to modern medicine and science.
Since I was 18 years old, I have taught the Bible. For the last fifteen or twenty years, I have taught every Sunday when I was home or near my own house, so that would be 35 or 40 times per year. Half of those Sundays, the text comes from the Hebrew Bible. I have had a deep personal interest in the Holy Land and in the teachings of the Hebrew people. God has a special position for the Jewish people, the Hebrews, or whatever. I know the difference between ancient Israel and Judaea, and I know the history. I don't have any problem with the Jewish people.
The beginnings of my studies also came to me from my father, as well as from the Rabbinical Judge of our town. But they were preceded by three tutors under whom I studied, one after the other, from the time I was three and a half till I turned eight and a half.
I was always a good student. I wasn't the A-plus student, but I studied really hard, and I probably had a 3.2. I always wished that I had the capacity to get straight A's, but I didn't. I didn't beat myself up about it, but I really studied hard for my grades.
I've studied Kabbalah, as you know, for many years, so there are a lot of things I do that one would associate with practising Judaism. I hear the Torah every Saturday. I observe Shabbat. I say certain prayers. My son was bar mitzvahed. So this appears like I'm Jewish, but these rituals are connected to what I describe as the Tree of Life consciousness and have more to do with the idea of being an Israelite, not Jewish.
I think '12 Years a Slave' really helped me, as a person and as a student, to grow.
Lenin had taken part in Jewish student meetings in Switzerland thirty-five years before.
When I started my undergraduate course at Birmingham University, as a Jewish student it was a natural step to join the Union of Jewish Students (UJS).
I studied the Bible seriously until I was young teenager. It was always part of our home education: talking about the Bible, arguing about the Bible, interpreting it. So I don't connect prayer or scriptures with any particular religion so it's not a contradiction in my life.
When I made my student film, a feature, nobody wanted to talk to me and I was, like, in the desert for 12 years.
I went straight from high school to Bible college for two years. Then I started doing music right out of Bible college full time. I did independent stuff for three years.
First I went to a Jewish school, when I was very little. But when I was 12, they put me in a school with a lot of traditions, and they were educated people and they were talking about Greece and the Parthenon and I don't know what. All the kids, all the girls they had already seen that and knew that from their family, and I would say, "What are you talking about, what's that?" It's not my world. My grandparents were very well-educated people, but in the Jewish tradition. They knew everything about the Bible.
Well we looked at all the people in the Bible and we added 'em up all the way back to Adam and Eve, their ages: 12,000 years.
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