Tels of Judaism

     Today we went to Jerusalem and explored the old city. We saw the tels of Jewish civilizations and how advanced their housing and war defense systems were, even without our modern day technology. For us to find the oldest civilizations, we have to destroy the layers at the top of the tel. In certain scenarios, major conflicts are raised, for example with the 2nd Temple (Bayt Hamigdash). It's questioned whether it's logical to destroy the 2nd temple to find the remains of the 1st Temple. Is it worth it to destroy for something to find something even cooler that may or may not be there? I think this relates to what it means to be jewish and to how religious you are.

     Some people may believe that being reformed is just better than nothing, but for me it's not a settle, it's a choice. In order to follow a commandment in our modern wall, sometimes we first have to break another that no longer makes sense to practice. Although some commandments are higher than others, that doesn't mean that some have less moral importance. I think it's important to recognize that they were there at some point for a specific purpose and that they all have a lesson to learn if not a rational rule to follow. From my eyes, orthodox believe that it's not worth the risk to destroy the first layer in order to get to the second layer that may or may not exist. It seems as though reformed Jews take that risk however, they're not always right and that can sometimes leave them further behind than where they started.