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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/34977/full/34977/operation-torah-retired-doctor-examines-the-bible-extracts-the-relevancy/ <br /><br /> <b>Operation Torah: Retired doctor examines the Bible, extracts the relevancy</b> <br /> Friday, May 16, 2008 | by <p>joe eskenazi </p> <br /><br /><p>Befitting Dr. Gerson Jacobs’ life work, when he started reading the Torah, he got right to the heart of it.<br /><br /> After retiring seven years ago from his cardiology practice, Jacobs began delving through his Bible more and more. A much-debated January New York Times op-ed piece by professor Stanley Fish titled “Will the Humanities Save Us?” inspired Jacobs to think similar thoughts about the Torah.<br /><br /> And, after much analysis, the 83-year-old Greenbrae resident is happy to say he’s found numerous uniquely Jewish and uniquely relevant aspects to the Torah — as he explains in lectures at Bay Area synagogues and Torah study classes.<br /><br /> “Everybody in my age group seems to be writing an article on something,” Jacobs says with a laugh. <br /><br /> Jews should be proud, Jacobs maintains, that ours is the first “God of liberation.”<br /><br /> “This is the only God in 10,000 years and [among] millions of gods to liberate slaves,” he says. <br /><br /> This, he believes, is a unifying principle that can cross religions: “There is still trafficking of human beings and indentured servitude. I am not impressed with isolation of Jews or the sectarian character of Judaism.”<br /><br /> In other words, this is our opportunity to be a light unto the world.<br /><br /> Another uniquely Jewish attribute Jacobs highlights is the tendency to argue with God (Moses, for example, argues when God proposed liquidating the Jews over the golden calf). This is a marked contrast to other religions — Islam, for example, literally means “submission.” Jacobs feels it also goes a long way toward explaining why the room turns so lively when you get more than two Jews in it. <br /><br /> Jacobs also points to instruction in Deuteronomy to “choose life.” Perhaps at the time the Torah was first written, this was a reaction to the culture of the afterlife in Phaeronic Egypt. Now, however, Jacobs feels it is a sturdy rejoinder to the culture of death one witnesses in radical Islam.<br /><br /> Finally, Jacobs smiles and refers to the Sabbath day of rest as, perhaps, the first successful general strike in history (perhaps a more relevant daily reference for French Jews, but relevant nonetheless).<br /><br /> “I feel that I’ve extracted the most powerful ideas from the first four books of Moses,” said Jacobs with a laugh. “And it isn’t circumcision and it isn’t kosher.” n</p> <p> </p>

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