Bitcoin Rabbi Publishes New Book To Encourage Children To Understand And Get Familiar With Bitcoin

A Bitcoin enthusiast, Michael Caras, in a recent interview, drew a few parallels between Bitcoin and the Jewish religion.

Caras, who has himself dubbed as the ‘Bitcoin Rabbi’ said this while explaining his thoughts about the crypto. The Bitcoin Rabbi has also released a children’s book called ‘Bitcoin Money’ explaining the concept of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency to children in ways they can easily understand.

About Michael Caras

Caras is really a full orthodox Rabbi who obtained his ordination from the Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim which is a religious school located in the Israeli village of Kfar Chabad and aimed at teaching the Torah to young English speaking Jewish men.

However, instead of preaching on a podium like most of his peers, he decided to become a teacher, teaching Jewish subjects and handling a lot of relevant community-based programmes and rendering services too.

Bitcoin And The Rabbi

Explaining his introduction to the cryptocurrency, Caras mentioned being told about it by his brother who added that it could be a good investment because of the increase in price.

Caras then decided to learn about Bitcoin, saying that he was largely taught by doing a lot of online learning but also picking up most of the information he now has from quite a few Andreas Antonopoulos videos.

Does Bitcoin Agree With The Jewish Religion And All Its Beliefs And Customs?

The Bitcoin Rabbi further explained that money is not strange in Judaism and it is actually regarded as very vital. He also stated that believers are allowed to desire money, defend financial interests and also to not take any actions that may cause others to lose theirs.

He also said:

“In Jewish history and tradition, money was always gold and silver. There are even several rituals that we do to this day specifically with silver coins and gold.”

This was probably said to express those other items that aren’t fiat money are used in the religion and Bitcoin isn’t any different. He, however, said he’s aware of a few questions bordering on Jewish law about some parts of the Bitcoin process including trading and mining and respected leaders will tackle these better in the future when adoption is more extensive.

Jews Should be Full Nodes

When asked about an earlier opinion where he said “Judaism insists that all members become full nodes”, he explains that Jewish people are not expected to simply accept everything their Rabbis say but to try to “verify” everything they hear by doing their own research and eventually become more knowledgeable. This process, he likens to how a full node is run.

Caras said this verification is “similar to running a full node, which archives the entire history of the blockchain and verifies every transaction and block.

Bitcoin Money: A book that Simplifies Bitcoin

Speaking on the idea for this book, Caras had this to say:

I have young children and I talk to them a lot about Bitcoin. I try to explain both the technical and economic ideas in simple terms. I also have a presentation called “Bitcoin & Judaism” in which I explore the history of money. I took those ideas and condensed them down and simplified them into a book which is not only for children, but explains the simple economic idea of Bitcoin as hard money to both children and adults.

Caras is extremely passionate about Bitcoin and hopes that all his endeavors, along with his book, would help create more awareness and also demystify the cryptocurrency market in general.