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David Ben Gurion (1886-1973) was Israel's first prime minister and defense minister (1948). Born in Russian Poland, he immigrated to Ottoman (Turkish) Palestine in 1906. Throughout his public career he nourished personal interest in the Hebrew Bible and hosted studies for Israel's leaders in his home in kibbutz Sedeh Boker.
• Large segments of orthodox Judaism relate negatively to the Bible and see it as an almost heretical book. In any case, the Talmud, the Responsa and the Midrashim are closer to their hearts. (page 44) • The Bible, and the Midrash on the Bible, are two different things; not necessarily opposite or contradictory in all cases, but different. . . . The Midrash is beautiful in its own way, and the Bible is great and exalted in its own way; and in my humble opinion there is nothing like it. The Bible was great before the Midrash existed and is not dependent on the Midrash. It is not to be understood through the aid of the Midrash, but through its own inner content. (p. 51) • Only now that we have again become a free nation on its own soil, and can again breathe in the air which surrounded the Bible at its creation, has the time come, it appears to me, to deal with the essence and truth of the Bible. (p. 53) • The divine presence of our Creator did not completely abandon us during the 2,000 years of exile, but the luster of the Bible did fade during the exile, as did the luster of the Jewish people. Only with the renewal of the homeland and Hebrew sovereignty were we enabled to examine the Bible once again completely and truthfully. (p. 54) |
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