The Fourteenth Principle - Yair Shapira - Bog

What is God?
This book interprets the (Jewish) Bible not just as a religious or national book directed to Jews, but more as a personal moral guide, directed to each individual reader. This way, the Bible is viewed no longer as a metaphysical book, but more as a novel, with intimate relations with the reader. The final paragraph at the very end of the Bible says: "every man among your people, may his God be with him to rise and go back to his homeland." Here, "his God" can be seen as the private God that resides in man's heart and mind.
Between the lines, the bible speaks directly to you, the reader. God is for you, and from you. The interesting stories in the bible are no history. They only inspire you to find out more about yourself and your personality. The love-hate relationship between God and the Hebrews is nothing but a metaphor and an example of the love-hate relationship between every individual and himself/herself (or his/her conscience). God is personal, not national. Reading about the Hebrews, and how they discovered their God, can only inspire you to find your own God too. He may tell you something else: what your mind tells you. This could disagree with the Bible: it will be your authentic voice.
The book requires no background in Judaism or religion or theology or any other field: the required background is provided here in full, including excerpts from the literature (in a free interpretation from Hebrew). The book is aimed at just any reader (Jewish or not, religious, or not) who is ready to consider a new (non-traditional) way to read the bible and benefit from it spiritually (or psychologically). After all, this is what the bible is all about: self-awareness, introspection, and emotional progress. Yair Shapira wrote a few books in mathematical physics, including
- Classical and Quantum Mechanics with Lie Algebras
- Set Theory and its Applications in Physics and Computing.
He also wrote a few poems and short stories on tzura.co.il. Here, on the other hand, he writes about the Jewish bible, and interprets it in a secular way.