Book: Permission To Receive

I finished a book by Lawrence Kelemen, 'Permission to Receive' yesterday. On the plane back from Israel I read 'Permission to Believe', his first book. He is a Rabbi teaching in Jerusalem and connected somehow to the Aish crowd, and therefore to the JRC, and so that's how I got the books. 'Believe' contains rational aguments for the existance of G-d, and 'Receive' for divine origin of the Torah.

I didn't think that 'Believe' was written particularly well. The teological and oncological arguments were made much more confusing than they need to be. The other arguments didn't seem too clear either. 'Receive' is written better. As he states, it's not a proof by anymeans, it's only a rational argument so that if you feel that you can't believe because religion is irrational, you now have 'permission'. The crux of the first one is interesting: Christianity and Islam both affirm the divine origin of the Torah, and the Torah states two dozen times that those laws are the eternal law, never to be replaced.

The Rabbi's in Israel constantly stated how Judaism was the rational religion, how the big questions can't be proved, but can be rationalized to beyond reasonable doubt. My problem with the whole thing is, if it is so clear that the Torah is G-d's word, and that Israel is Jewish land, etc... than why do millions of people, pouring over the same facts and history come to different conclusions? At least those few who do study, must be seeing the same documents.