Is our world real?

              I think we are not living in an entirely real world. I believe that the is something out there with a higher intelligence that controls us, almost like a video game. The fact that we could be some sort of simulation may be hard for most people to digest because we are so focus on ourselves and the we humans are the highest level. But if we look beyond that there is some logical proof that we may not be living in a real world. As our knowledge of the universe continues to expand, everything we learn happens to be connected by some type of math formula, like a code. Also, how do we know that everyone around us is really alive. As latin philosophical, René Descartes once said, "i think, therefor i am." I know that i am really alive because i can think, but how do i know that the people around me are also thinking. I don't know so for all I know, everyone can just be part of a simulation.

Book Of Job compared to Holocaust

After reading the story of Moshe Yosef Daum and Fela Nussbaum I realized it is very similar to The Book of Job. While God was torturing Job and making his life miserable, Job had two choices. He could abandon this faith in God and question why God was doing this to him, which was the easy way out, or he do something a little more difficult and stay faithful to God throughout everything. Job mad the hard decision of staying true to God no matter what he did and in the end was thankful to God for keeping him alive. But not everyone could have handled what Job did because during the holocaust there were all different kinds of people that had to go through this traumatizing event unlike Job who was specially chosen to endure the pain. Menachem's father took the same approach to the situation as Job. He felt "A God who limits himself to actions that we humans can understand couldn't possible be God."  His father believed that whatever God does is for a good reason even if we can't understand why. Menachem's mom however felt the complete opposite of his father. " She told me when she's called before God in final judgement, she will turn the tables. She will demand to know why he stood by silently during the Holocaust as her large family was being destroyed." She could not accept the fact that God did not help her during the Holocaust and that God let so many other innocent people die.

The book of job

The Book of Job relates to the other stories we've read in the Old Testament in many different ways. The main similarity is how God acts. God once again tests someone to see how faithful they really are. In the story of Abraham, God told Abraham to kill his son Isaac as a test to prove his respect to God. Similar to this in The Book of Job, God faces Job with series of horrible events, once again as a test to prove how much respect Job has for God. Throughout the stories in the Old Testament, especially in this book, we have seen an insecure side to God where he consistently needs to be reassured that people look up to him and will worship him no matter what. Also in both The Book of Job and the story of Abraham it mentions how Job and Abraham were both, "blameless and upright, one who feared God, and turned away from evil. There were also some differences between the Book of Job and the other Old Testament stories. I would consider the story of Job to be more harsh than the others. God made Eve carry her child in pain for nine months and he made Abraham almost kill his son, but those are temporary. For Job in the other hand God destroyed everything that Job cared about and that cannot ever be given back to him. Also in this book God made a bet with Satan unlike in the other books where God on his own decided to punish man.

Ups and Downs of High School

             High school so far has been a completely new and interesting experience for me.The best thing about high school so far has to be the freedom. The high school makes middle school seem like a jail. I would never be allowed to carry my backpacks and phone to all my classes and the best part is that I can leave the school for lunch or whenever I have a free period. With all these new freedoms it makes me feel more grown up and responsible unlike in the middle school where we were supervised every step of the way. But what I realize as we start getting deep into the year, the work load piles up. That's actually the worst thing about high school. In middle school my homework would only take about an hour, but now I'm up until one o,clock. Also, I usually wouldn't study super hard for my tests but after taking my first high school test I realized that I would have to study hard for the rest of my tests in order to do well. And the scariest part of all that puts the most pressure on me is that everything you do here in high school counts for collage.

          After looking at the book of Genesis 6-9, my feelings and interpretations on God have been altered. Before reading Genesis, I saw God as perfect, and everything God did was right. But I have realized that God can be unfair and sometimes even use it's powers in the wrong way. In my Hebrew school I learned the same stories about God but nobody ever thought of it's actions as bad so it never crossed my mind that God could be anything less than flawless. In Genesis 6, God said to Noah, "I have determined to make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence through them; behold, I will destroy them with the earth." When God wanted to flood the world because he thought the people were becoming evil, he never even thought twice about giving the people a second chance and he never told the people that if their fighting continued he would destroy the world, he just flooded everything without a warning to anyone with the exception of Noah. Also, I have learned multiple new things from this project. One lesson I learned is as well as you think you may know something, such as your religion the more you study it and the more in depth you get into it, new ideas and interpretations can be formed. I also learned a lot about God and what god is really like by looking at indirect characterization. In conclusion this project has opened up my mind about God and gods place in jewdism. 

          After reading Genesis 2 and 3 I have come to the conclusion that it was God's fault for Adam and Eve being kicked out of the garden of Eden. This is because if everything is created in Gods image including Adam and Eve then technically when Eve made the bad decision to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it was partially gods fault. God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air..." Also God was basically taunting them with the fruit of knowledge , putting it right in the middle of the garden within their reach. Genesis mentioned, "When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom." God basically set them up knowing they were going to eat this luscious fruit he put out before them. All in all if God had never placed the tree that Adam and Eve weren't supposed to eat from in their garden, the peace between them would have remained.

          The Finnish flood myth and the Epic of Gilgamesh were very different yet similar In many ways. In the first place, both stories for the most part followed a similar plot most flood myths follow. The story started off with a heroic character like Gilgamesh named Väinämöinen. While making a boat, his axe slipped and cut open his knee. Eventually the blood from the wound flooded the entire world. The story also mentioned how the blood covered even the highest mountain peaks. This is similar to The Epic Of Gilgamesh when it mentioned how as the water receded, Utnapishtam's boat landed on top of a mountain.  There were also some differences in these two stories. One obvious difference was how in the Finnish flood myth, the world was flooded by blood where in The Epic of Gilgamesh was by water.  Also no animals were involved in the Finnish story unlike in Gilgamesh. Another big difference was how in the Finnish Flood myth Väinämöinen wasn't warned ahead of time about the flood like in The Epic of Gilgamesh, God told Utnapishtam about the flood in advance and to make an arc. But overall, the theme in both stories is that the earth was flooded by God to destroy all life and only one good and wise man was spared in a boat.