old testament is wild wild times though, assuming the stories are somewhat accurate politically, it was a war-like people doing conquest with faith in divine mandate, however, as harsh as circumcision seems they purged the land from human sacrifice and sodomy (and a few other practices) and brought a new dogma into being. for that time and place i consider it a moral improvement. today it seems barbaric. its not that far from greco roman values of a warrior society... and the talmud... oy vey... "learning the talmud" means learning like 13 different scholarly boring takes on every one piece of text... some take it seriously but of you ask me, the job of a rabbi is to teach, be a moral guide and be a shepard in his community. of course in practice it fails many times... it is what it is... which is very imperfect, but not ... interesting, nor like it's often described. most jews dont really care at all about the talmud
Israel