Hooray for Neveim! I got brownie points in junior high for relizing that the story of King Ahab, Jezebel and the last prophets Elijah and Elisha was pretty much a good blueprint for the Star Wars movies. Think about it. Elijah is the last prophet... but just before he dies he trains Elisha. And when Elijah dies... there's no body! Meanwhile, we learn that Ahab and Jezebel "hunted down and killed all the prophets."

jake:

"I got brownie points in junior high for relizing that the story of King Ahab . . ."

i was actually publicly shamed in college for not remembering the story of Ahab and Naboth's vineyard. In a U.S. foreign policy class the professor started discussing charles sumner's "naboth's vineyard" speech (http://www.politicalreviewnet.com/polrev/reviews/DIPH/R_0145_2096_002_19310.asp). He paused and inquired if anyone knew who Ahab was. He went around the room looking at each student individually and waited for each student to shake his head no. I was last. When he got to me, the only obviously Jewish student in the class, he said, "Mr. Kinsberg, don't tell me that YOU don't know who King Ahab was." Sadly, I did not remember.

Jake:

Speechless.

Ari:

Bravo for having the guts and honesty to tell us this humiliating tale.

P.S. We'll never let you forget it.

Ari:

I'm gonna give you a pass on your mistake and chalk it up to the English names. I'm assuming you learned the text with the Hebrew names Achav and Ezevel, etc. Sometimes the English versions of the Hebrew names make sense... sometimes they don't. And sometimes, Hollywood writers really mash it up. I love how in "The 10 Commandments," Moses' mother Yocheved suddenly becomes "Joshabelle"... always makes me crack up.

I used to do a whole bit in my stand up act on the writer's room during the making of the 10 Commandments... I'm going to put it in print form in my comic strip soon.

Anyway, I say we give Ari a pass.

Robert:

Well, George Lucas couldn't steal everything from "The Hidden Fortress" and "Lord of the Rings." Good old Neveim is a go-to book for fantasy writers. By the way, the Navi-Sheker, (false prophet), is the prototype for those who use the dark side of the force.

.S. foreign policy class the professor started discussing charles sumner's "naboth's vineyard" speech (http://www.politicalreviewnet.com/polrev/reviews/DIPH/R_0145_2096_002_19310.asp).

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I looked it up. The link only discusses this in the first paragraph. It then goes on and on to say how terrible U.S. policy has been with ideas that are terriblky leftists. If it isn't imperalism, then it's - let's coin a new bad word...transnationalism! Or maybe the U.S. has an attitude of "supersovreignty.

It is favorable review of a book published by the University of Georgia Press in 1998.

The whole only make sense if you believe in leftist rhetoric. All taht anyone really needs tgo take away from it is: U.S. bad - other governments good no matter how bad (or incompetent or in some way unsuccessful) they may really be.

This speech had to do with President Grant''s proposal to annex the Dominican Republic in 1870. .

I am sure there are a lot of people now who wish that annexation had happened, particular people born there.then they'd be like Puerto Ricans.

Sammy Finkelman:

i just picked the first relevant google hit about the speech to link to. i was not intending to make any political statements by choosing this particular link.

Robert: Thank you for your kind words. We feel very honored to have had the chance to turn amazing Torah sheba`al peh into a book.

For the record, "Bible study in the spirit of modern and open Orthodox Judaism" is the motto of the series; our motto is "Jewish Books of Merit since 5766," which is more prosaic, but leaves room for fiction, poetry, pedagogy and a variety of other genres, and not necessarily from an Orthodox perspective.

Regarding the Ahab vs. Achav confusion: We would have gone with Ahab (and presumably will when we do a volume on Kings) just as we used "Samuel." But see, however, On the Mainline's recent, excellent post on the problematics of all transliterations of names.

Larry:

Thanks for clearing up my motto error. I've been meaning to fix it, but have been preoccupied with plagiarists and their enablers for the last two days. It's a dirty job but somebody's gotta do it. Anyway, please keep up the fine work.