Speaker 1: Life Audio on today's episode of Timeless Wisdom.
Speaker 2: You'd think if you had met God, God would not
Speaker 2: have to reintroduce himself to you. Think about it, right,
Speaker 2: If God spoke to me, said, Denist, you remember me,
Speaker 2: don't you? No? I just don't. I've been so involved
Speaker 2: with my work, I just don't remember. It seems silly,
Speaker 2: doesn't it. Think about it for a moment.
Speaker 1: That's coming off on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Here thousands of hours
Speaker 1: of Dennis's lectures, courses in classic radio programs, and to
Speaker 1: purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to Dennisprager dot com.
Speaker 2: Kyle, I have good news and I have bad news.
Speaker 2: The bad news is the uh, there is nothing terribly
Speaker 2: rich in today's chapter. The good news is I can
Speaker 2: come up with anything. There's a lot of truth to
Speaker 2: what I just said, and it's a little disturbing. Okay,
Speaker 2: anybody have any thoughts on the rape of Dina? How
Speaker 2: did she get out of the house? Jacob Brown a
Speaker 2: very liberal home. Listen, if you had ten kids, you're
Speaker 2: going to keep an eye on all of them. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's or is that eleven at that time, the only daughter.
Speaker 2: That's right? No, you know what the truth is. It
Speaker 2: is an interesting point because she did a very look,
Speaker 2: it's hard to keep him down on the farm. I mean,
Speaker 2: if she obviously had an independent personality. That was that
Speaker 2: was what I said, was the implication of that very
Speaker 2: first verse, that she went out to see the women
Speaker 2: of the land. On the other hand, on the other hand, too,
Speaker 2: remember in Semitic society, women are allowed to go to
Speaker 2: other women. That is not in itself a terribly audacious act.
Speaker 2: They don't have to stay in the tent or the
Speaker 2: home all day every day. They but normally they should
Speaker 2: be accompanied by a man if they leave the house
Speaker 2: and they're single. That's true. So that part, I mean
Speaker 2: it would have been what would have been incredible was
Speaker 2: and Dina went out to see the men of the land.
Speaker 2: This would have been quite extraordinary.
Speaker 3: Yes, Seshion of conniving Jews us the conniving, And I
Speaker 3: remembered that I was sweavering. Are Jews paying the price
Speaker 3: today because of Jacob's sons?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: The sins of Jacob's sons being so denied, Is that
Speaker 3: the beginning of something that that's happen thought of.
Speaker 2: A Yeah, it's a very interesting questions. The jew pays,
Speaker 2: Do Jews pay the price for this conniving reputation that
Speaker 2: the Bible itself really applies to our patron rearchs, or
Speaker 2: at least some of them, or at least Jacob. It's funny.
Speaker 2: The rabbis actually said yes. The rabbi said that, in fact,
Speaker 2: we did pay. The Jewish people did pay a price
Speaker 2: later for it. It is an interesting thing you should raise,
Speaker 2: and its that is unfortunate. The fact of the matter
Speaker 2: is that you know, you know, I am no apologist
Speaker 2: for anybody, and I mean for nobody in the Bible
Speaker 2: and for no ethnic group. But everybody connived, you know,
Speaker 2: it was non conniving is a very rare thing in
Speaker 2: human affairs. What is not it is not remarkable that
Speaker 2: Jacob ever connived, or that his sons did. What is
Speaker 2: remarkable is that the Holy Book of that people should
Speaker 2: admit it and not defend it. That's what's remarkable. That
Speaker 2: Jews would act not so beautifully is not remarkable. Jews
Speaker 2: are human. The remarkable thing, and I've said this on
Speaker 2: a number of occasions, is that our Holy Book would
Speaker 2: in fact acknowledge this and this is unique. As I said,
Speaker 2: the New Testament portrays only beautiful Christians, the the the
Speaker 2: Quran beautiful Muslims. But the Torah does not only portray
Speaker 2: beautiful Jews. It portrays beautiful non Jews as frequently as
Speaker 2: it does beautiful Jews, and ugly Jews as frequently as
Speaker 2: ugly non Jews. It's not a fan, it's not a
Speaker 2: Jew fan the Torah. And we've paid a price, ironically
Speaker 2: for that honesty. I want to welcome you to the
Speaker 2: class pleasure to pleasure to have you, Yes, is even
Speaker 2: more right. She says that the semi stupidity was actually
Speaker 2: more remarkable than the conniving of Gruven and his brothers,
Speaker 2: not necessarily. Did you remember what he promised them all
Speaker 2: this wealth for a couple of days of pain? Do
Speaker 2: you know what people will do for money? I mean, listen,
Speaker 2: what do we all do for money? And I don't
Speaker 2: even mean I don't mean immoral things. They didn't do
Speaker 2: anything immoral. You know. It's like would would you would
Speaker 2: you like to lick a thousand envelopes? No? But if
Speaker 2: I gave you ten thousand dollars, the envelopes would taste
Speaker 2: like chocolate, Sundays. I'm sorry. Oh okay, all right, had
Speaker 2: you been a Chacham male, you would not have offered
Speaker 2: your organ. Okay, what can I say? Yes, Because, like
Speaker 2: you pointed out a la suite, they had to be
Speaker 2: in the first place.
Speaker 4: Or when they when they asked for her hand in.
Speaker 2: Marriage, they had her. They had physical possession of her.
Speaker 2: And like the point out last week too, nothing Jacob,
Speaker 2: and there's nothing Jacob and the Stanley could have done
Speaker 2: about it. And when Scheckham promised, yet you can have
Speaker 2: all their goods, you might not have been like you
Speaker 2: could have taken it if you wanted to. Yes, And
Speaker 2: that's actually the defensive love and not Simeon going and
Speaker 2: killing all the people in that village. That was the
Speaker 2: only way they did get into that. Yes, thank you
Speaker 2: for making that point. Where's the couple who made that
Speaker 2: point at the end of the last session. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: had me thinking for two weeks. This couple over here,
Speaker 2: the ones necking in the eighth row, they are They
Speaker 2: came over afterwards and noted a very good point that
Speaker 2: Dina was still in their possession and the implication is
Speaker 2: that this was the only way they could have saved
Speaker 2: her if that is true. It does offer a defense
Speaker 2: for what is otherwise abominable conduct. I mean, if someone
Speaker 2: kidnapped your doors her and would not let her go
Speaker 2: under under peaceful conditions, you would not be wrong in
Speaker 2: making war upon her captors. That's that's true. If that's
Speaker 2: if that's indeed the case, it's a big if, but
Speaker 2: it's not. It's not an incomprehensible if the text is
Speaker 2: quiet on that and you were right in pointing that out,
Speaker 2: and you're and you're saying that it gets you obviously
Speaker 2: think well of people in it had not to do
Speaker 2: with it. But if they would have killed Chef and
Speaker 2: his father, the people who are guilty of it, or
Speaker 2: Chef the whole day would have killed anyway by the village.
Speaker 2: Because it seems that when you believe, oh no, no,
Speaker 2: what's once they started the deal. That's why I said that.
Speaker 2: I don't believe it's right to blame the two who
Speaker 2: did the killings, Levy and Shimohn. It's not right to
Speaker 2: blame them. Everybody connived in this, because what were they
Speaker 2: going to do? Circumcise them and then and then just
Speaker 2: leave them in that condition, except there is one other
Speaker 2: possible They would circumcise them, take Dina and run away.
Speaker 2: But once these guys recuperated, they would be angrier than
Speaker 2: ever and would have killed the would have killed the family,
Speaker 2: Jacob's family. So the plot from the beginning involved killing.
Speaker 2: The only question is you're what you two wrote raised
Speaker 2: and you raised is was that the only way to
Speaker 2: save her? I hope all of you who were not
Speaker 2: here last week are are you know you're coming in
Speaker 2: the middle of a of a soap opera as it were.
Speaker 2: I hope it's somewhat clear. Very simply, Jacob's daughter, Dina
Speaker 2: was went out and was taken by a schrem and
Speaker 2: uh and she was she was raped, and she was
Speaker 2: kept and but he, the rapist, fell in love with
Speaker 2: her and really did fall in love with her. And
Speaker 2: we had a whole thing on that about how can
Speaker 2: you fall in love with somebody you rape? And and
Speaker 2: it was an interesting thing in and of itself. But
Speaker 2: but that totally notwithstanding, The plot was use let's tell
Speaker 2: them that, oh, yes, we will give you her for
Speaker 2: a daughter, for a wife, just in order to do that,
Speaker 2: in order for us to intermarry we the children of
Speaker 2: Jacob and you schemites, You've got to circumcise your men.
Speaker 2: While they were circumcised and in pain from the healing
Speaker 2: that they were, they were killed and Dina was taken away. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's that's basically what happened, and that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 2: Let me just take a couple of more and then
Speaker 2: I can proceed with today. Yes, sort of all the
Speaker 2: same lines. But the moment that the that they deceived
Speaker 2: their own people in order to circumcize them, that to
Speaker 2: me says that they were no, they were no good mix.
Speaker 2: They didn't keep their end of the bargain anyway by
Speaker 2: promising the Jewish goods.
Speaker 3: And I mean they didn't.
Speaker 2: The children of Jacob didn't keep their bargain. You're saying
Speaker 2: all thees didn't because they said in order to get
Speaker 2: the men, in order to get all they all. That's
Speaker 2: a yes they made with Jacob. So the moment they
Speaker 2: entered into de sit with their own people, that's a
Speaker 2: good point, very good point. Well, not only that smart
Speaker 2: them screwed by the very people who initially it's a
Speaker 2: biblical word. Actually no, the uh, it's a very very
Speaker 2: it's an interesting point. Remember that Schem goes back and
Speaker 2: makes this deal says to his people, all the things
Speaker 2: that they'll get if only they undergo circumcision. Now, he
Speaker 2: would have been in trouble. You see if they if
Speaker 2: they went through with the deal, then they would have
Speaker 2: come back and said, okay, well, where's all the stuff
Speaker 2: you promised uff from the children of Jacob. And then
Speaker 2: the children of Jacob would say, why did you promise them?
Speaker 2: We never made that promise. So they were a corrupt crowd. Yes,
Speaker 2: in fact, it's tell you it's there's a certain interesting
Speaker 2: thing for me personally, because I had really until last
Speaker 2: week and now seen it in a more negative light.
Speaker 2: You're changing my mind. But it's interesting if that's the case,
Speaker 2: that if my mind is being changed, I assume some
Speaker 2: of yours are also. And I recall too that with
Speaker 2: the conniving on the birthright, I also, in the course
Speaker 2: of time, found that there was more to justify what
Speaker 2: Jacob had done. So listen, conniving back to your whereas
Speaker 2: it is back to conniving for a minute. This is
Speaker 2: a large moral issue generally. I wrote an article for
Speaker 2: my journal, which is outside and which you can subscribe
Speaker 2: to and should. I wrote an article a while ago
Speaker 2: and the title was no act is always wrong, because
Speaker 2: I had come to realize in the course of all
Speaker 2: my years on radio that a big part of the
Speaker 2: reason I would often have moral differences with callers was
Speaker 2: over this issue.
Speaker 1: This episode of timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.
Speaker 2: For example, capital punishment just I'm not going to the
Speaker 2: issue was here, not to make the case for it,
Speaker 2: but I want to explain what I realized was happening.
Speaker 2: I'm for capital punishment for murder. So people would call up,
Speaker 2: and the usual argument, a, how can two wrongs make
Speaker 2: a right? How can you say killing is wrong and
Speaker 2: then kill It's like telling your kid not to slap
Speaker 2: another kid and slapping your kid. And I would make
Speaker 2: all sorts of arguments and so on, and then I
Speaker 2: realized after a few years that what was happening was
Speaker 2: people were measuring the morality of an act by the
Speaker 2: act and not by its context. Killing is not always wrong,
Speaker 2: not biblically, not morally period as you know. Well, I
Speaker 2: can't assume it. But if you've heard me for more
Speaker 2: than two weeks at any given stretch, you've heard me
Speaker 2: correct people about the Ten Commandments, It does not say
Speaker 2: thou shalt not kill. That's an incorrect translation. It's thou
Speaker 2: shalt not murder. Killing is permitted, murder is not murder,
Speaker 2: is immoral killing. In other words, there's moral killing and
Speaker 2: immoral killing. So too, there is moral everything and immoral anything.
Speaker 2: There's moral lying and immoral lying, immoral ying. You will know.
Speaker 2: But what's MORA lying? Example I always give man is
Speaker 2: chasing a woman wants to rape her and says says
Speaker 2: to me the bystander, sir, could you tell me where
Speaker 2: this woman ran to I'd like to rape her. You
Speaker 2: would all acknowledge that I would be morally bound to lie.
Speaker 2: Oh she went there? When in fact she went there right.
Speaker 2: Spies for the Allies against the Nazis lied every day?
Speaker 2: Was there lying wrong? Their lying was incredibly moral. Context
Speaker 2: determines the morality of an act. My friends, there were
Speaker 2: sometimes that good people have to connive. The world is
Speaker 2: not composed of angels. The world is composed of often
Speaker 2: very sordid types. And the more evidence you are correctly
Speaker 2: giving me about the sordidness of the Schemites, the more
Speaker 2: the conniving of the of the of the children of
Speaker 2: Jacob makes sense. Conniving is not is a moral. All
Speaker 2: acts are a moral. The context determines it. And you
Speaker 2: may say that this is moral relativism, but it's not.
Speaker 2: Moral relativism is not the same as context determines morality.
Speaker 2: Moral relativism is that what's good for you is good
Speaker 2: for you, and what's good for me is good for me,
Speaker 2: but nobody else. That's not the case. In that context.
Speaker 2: The act is wrong for everybody. In that context, the
Speaker 2: act is right for everybody. That's what moral absolutes mean.
Speaker 2: That's why I don't like the word absolute. I never
Speaker 2: use it. The word is a universal morality. It's either
Speaker 2: relative morality or universal morality. But absolutes, the term used,
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that something is always wrong. Nothing is always
Speaker 2: wrong even and I hate to say this because I
Speaker 2: am so opposed to it, and I would be for
Speaker 2: its universal banning. But in theory, even torture can be
Speaker 2: morally justified. If a terrorist were to place a bomb
Speaker 2: here and was caught, and it was going to go
Speaker 2: off in ten minutes, and everyone in this room were
Speaker 2: to be maimed and murdered as a result of this
Speaker 2: terror or is bomb, would you feel it was wrong
Speaker 2: to torture him to find out where it was, to
Speaker 2: diffuse it. No mm, some people would so. Well, some
Speaker 2: people think that it would be all right. Well, killing
Speaker 2: won't help when they're dead, they can't tell you where
Speaker 2: the bomb is. But my only point is context determines morality.
Speaker 2: It's all I want to say on the conniving as well,
Speaker 2: and that may be something that should be learned from
Speaker 2: this book. You have to judge the act depending on
Speaker 2: its context. It makes moral judgment more complex. It's very
Speaker 2: easy to just say killing is wrong, thank you. So
Speaker 2: I don't have to grapple with the issue of do
Speaker 2: we bomb Iraq. I don't have to grapple with capital punishment.
Speaker 2: I don't have to grapple with when it's self defense.
Speaker 2: It's easy to say killing is wrong. It's easy to
Speaker 2: say lying is wrong. The trick in a moral life
Speaker 2: is to find out when it is wrong. Yes, then
Speaker 2: what were the brothers who were taking.
Speaker 3: Dina after back?
Speaker 2: You know? Was even though she was so, what was
Speaker 2: the liberation?
Speaker 3: And the sea was in court? Would go out to
Speaker 3: where there was to be the enemies, and he raised
Speaker 3: where was bruthers?
Speaker 2: How come they did this? They see how under the
Speaker 2: steam right, you might have they they they were all
Speaker 2: out in the fields working. In fact, if you recall,
Speaker 2: that was the story. So they're not. I mean, you can't.
Speaker 2: What kind of do you wanna be guarded all the
Speaker 2: time by your brother? It's I suspect that was coming out.
Speaker 3: And again that guys, But what about where were they read?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there might have been an element of relinquishment
Speaker 2: of duty and so on. That's true, but I think
Speaker 2: overwhelmingly it was it was the issue of our woman
Speaker 2: was taken and that was the primary. Just two more
Speaker 2: and then I got to really, uh continue, Yes, if
Speaker 2: I heard you correctly last week, I thought you said
Speaker 2: that Jacob when he was dying condemned. Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 2: That's what bothers me about embraces. That is right, except
Speaker 2: that the conniving Kay, because Jacob, who had a better
Speaker 2: perspective on the situation than we do, yes, himself judge
Speaker 2: this very good point too, That, of course, is the
Speaker 2: whole problem. Jacob does call them warriors in the negative
Speaker 2: sense of the word later you'll see in chapter forty nine,
Speaker 2: and if he judges them negatively, then he must have
Speaker 2: known more. My only argument not against it. My argument
Speaker 2: would be that what he knew was that there were
Speaker 2: other options. That's what I would suspect is the issue.
Speaker 2: The Schechemites are not angelic, that's clear, okay, But there
Speaker 2: might have been other options available to get Dina other
Speaker 2: than mass murder or mass killing. And that is what
Speaker 2: I think Jacob is probably referring to. We don't know
Speaker 2: what they might have been. But I mean, for all
Speaker 2: we know at the UH when they came and said,
Speaker 2: you know, my son is in love with your daughter,
Speaker 2: we let's intermarry. Maybe Jacob, maybe they could have said,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, that's not the way we work it. First
Speaker 2: you ask for our daughter, then you sleep with her.
Speaker 2: You don't sleep with her first. It's a strange ritual
Speaker 2: in our family, but that's the way we like it.
Speaker 2: Ask first, sleep later. And and maybe that would have worked,
Speaker 2: you see, And we don't know that. And the truth is,
Speaker 2: by Jewish law, you must always seek peace before you
Speaker 2: make war. You cannot make war without first seeking peace.
Speaker 2: So that would be the argument to me, that would
Speaker 2: that would substantiate the negative assessment of Jacob.
Speaker 4: Yeshemites than Israelizing.
Speaker 3: Yes, So if they wanted the land, why didn't they
Speaker 3: just take it.
Speaker 2: Why did they wait for this bargain? Well, I see
Speaker 2: it would probably be better for the Shremites to have
Speaker 2: a peaceful assimilation of the smaller group than to make
Speaker 2: war on it.
Speaker 3: But the land was not such a major deals with
Speaker 3: them that they weren't after it.
Speaker 2: Well, it wasn't so much Jacob's land. Jacob didn't own
Speaker 2: any land there. Jacob was a sojourner. But Jacob had
Speaker 2: material wealth, and Jacob had sons who could then become
Speaker 2: part of them and add to their power. I think
Speaker 2: they wanted the sons, and of course Schrem wanted wanted
Speaker 2: Dina what's her name, which is, of course, in effect
Speaker 2: what the Torah does to her. I gotta take it later.
Speaker 2: Please forgive me, because I feel I'm cheating you if
Speaker 2: I take too many, too much time on the questions,
Speaker 2: but I don't take at the end of the session.
Speaker 2: So please understand this is all before, but don't forget
Speaker 2: what you wanted to ask. We're up to chapter thirty five.
Speaker 2: Thirty six is not terribly interesting, so we're going to
Speaker 2: do thirty five and thirty six, and I have one
Speaker 2: major theme today. The one advantage of the chapters that
Speaker 2: don't have inherently fascinating details. Is it enables me to
Speaker 2: talk about a larger issue that is hinted at in
Speaker 2: the text, And you'll see in a moment what I mean.
Speaker 2: Chapter thirty five as it were, we now resumes resume
Speaker 2: Jacob's journey into Canaan. God said to Jacob, because we
Speaker 2: took off for chapter for the rape of Dina. God
Speaker 2: said to Jacob, arise, go up to Bethel and remain
Speaker 2: there and build an altar to the God who appeared
Speaker 2: to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.
Speaker 1: This episode of timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
Speaker 2: Okay, number one, Jacob has to move on after what
Speaker 2: his family did to the Chemites. Better move with great speed. Okay,
Speaker 2: you must understand he did not need a divine call
Speaker 2: at that moment, but there is a divine call anyway.
Speaker 2: Interesting thing in this sentence is that God identifies himself
Speaker 2: to Jacob. Isn't that you think if you had met God,
Speaker 2: God would not have to reintroduce himself to you. Think
Speaker 2: about it? Right? If God spoke to me, so denist
Speaker 2: you remember me? Don't you. No, I just don't. I've
Speaker 2: been so involved with my work, I just don't remember.
Speaker 2: It seems silly, doesn't it. Think about it for a moment,
Speaker 2: you remember who I am. I am the one who
Speaker 2: appeared to you when you were fleeing from Esau. So
Speaker 2: what could that mean? What could that possibly mean? That
Speaker 2: God would reidentify himself. I mean he is the creator
Speaker 2: of the heaven and earth of the universe. All right,
Speaker 2: So one of these rare times, I'm gonna call one person. Yes,
Speaker 2: what do you think it means? New beginning? What does
Speaker 2: that mean? New beginning? This mess that happened it? Yeah,
Speaker 2: but again it would imply that Jacob would forget I'll
Speaker 2: try one other. Yes, sorry, I'm coming to save you again.
Speaker 2: Very good point. That's the hint that I'm coming to
Speaker 2: save you. I save you event I'll save you. Now,
Speaker 2: that's right. I think there is a great deal of
Speaker 2: truth to that. I think there is another thing, and
Speaker 2: I accept that totally. I do. I think it's a
Speaker 2: very fine point. I think that there is another point here, though.
Speaker 2: You have to understand because and it's very difficult to
Speaker 2: God is brand new at this time in history. You see,
Speaker 2: even if you're an atheist in this room. You know
Speaker 2: exactly what I mean more or less when I say God, Oh,
Speaker 2: the God of the Bible, Oh that invisible God, Oh,
Speaker 2: the one who created the heavens and the earth. Are
Speaker 2: people who believe that the one who rewards good and
Speaker 2: punishes evil, Oh that one. You know exactly what I'm
Speaker 2: mean if I say God, but not then we are
Speaker 2: talking about people. And I beg you to try to
Speaker 2: put your mental state in this ancient Near Eastern world
Speaker 2: where gods were totems, amulets, animals, rivers, rocks, trees. So
Speaker 2: you have to understand. I have to remind you who
Speaker 2: God is. You can easily forget, even even Moses later
Speaker 2: asks my favorite, my favorite line in the Torah, when
Speaker 2: Moses says to God, who are you? What's your name?
Speaker 2: You remember that? I mean at the burning bush? It's
Speaker 2: it's extraordinary. Who will I say to the Jews sent me?
Speaker 2: They don't remember who you are? You know? And then
Speaker 2: God gives him a terrifically you know, just an empirically based,
Speaker 2: clear fourth right answer. Tell him I am who I am?
Speaker 2: Sent you? Oh, no problem. That's my favorite line in
Speaker 2: the Torah. It is it is actually funny. Tell him
Speaker 2: I am sent you. Oh you know. Can you imagine
Speaker 2: if you somebody came to your door, who's there? I am?
Speaker 2: Who I am? Oh you. It doesn't give you a
Speaker 2: great deal of data. It gives it. The truth is,
Speaker 2: when I taught Exodus, I showed it. It gave a
Speaker 2: great deal of information about God in the deepest sense.
Speaker 2: But that's a separate issue. The point here is this
Speaker 2: God needs to keep saying to the first Monotheists who
Speaker 2: God is, who he is, And pardon me for the
Speaker 2: he I'm just uncomfortable, not because I'm male. I'm just
Speaker 2: uncomfortable because he she gives it gender stuff and he
Speaker 2: is more neuter. And so please understand, I don't believe
Speaker 2: God has has testicles. No, No, it's important that you
Speaker 2: understand that. I I obviously don't. You have to hold
Speaker 2: your questions for later, otherwise I'll never I'll ever get through. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the well, I'll look at the Hebrew to make sure.
Speaker 2: And the Hebrew literally is and make there an altar
Speaker 2: to the God who appeared to you when you fled
Speaker 2: from the face of esaw your brother. That is the
Speaker 2: literal translation. Okay, if you have a different one. You know,
Speaker 2: I can't imagine how different. The Hebrew's not complex in
Speaker 2: this case. But anyway, this is God. So I think
Speaker 2: both I saved you, then I'll save you now he's
Speaker 2: worried after what happened with Schrem and God is reidentifying
Speaker 2: who he is because is it just a clarifying thing?
Speaker 2: Because I can't take questions during the middle of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know you write or say when you write.
Speaker 2: Himself. He grins that he will go to Hid. That
Speaker 2: is correct law to do when you go right back
Speaker 2: the wrong right. He has to still fulfill his pledge.
Speaker 2: It's a good quote. We don't know if God is
Speaker 2: reminding him or not, whether he would have remembered remember
Speaker 2: his pledge to go A lot of you didn't take it,
Speaker 2: but you still may have read the Bible even if
Speaker 2: you didn't take my class. I don't assume that this
Speaker 2: is the only time any Jew has ever seen the Torah.
Speaker 2: Uh so uh. But that is the famous statement where
Speaker 2: where he makes this deal with God as it were,
Speaker 2: and now he has to fulfill it, which is which
Speaker 2: is here in Baithelle. Okay, let me continue. Please verse two.
Speaker 2: So Jacob said to his household and to all who
Speaker 2: were with him. Rid yourselves of the alien or foreign
Speaker 2: gods in your midst, Purify yourselves and change your clothes. Come,
Speaker 2: let us go up to Bethel and I will build
Speaker 2: an altar there, and I will continue in a moment.
Speaker 2: It's this that I want to deal with in great detail,
Speaker 2: major theme of today. This is the first time in
Speaker 2: the Torah that a contrast is made between the God
Speaker 2: of Israel and other gods. This is very important. It's
Speaker 2: about as important a theme as the Torah, as Judaism,
Speaker 2: as what we call the Judeo Christian world has. This
Speaker 2: monotheistic God is distinct, and so the first thing that
Speaker 2: Jacob does is get rid of the false or foreign
Speaker 2: gods in his midst that were obviously picked up from
Speaker 2: the Schemites, or at least that's so we infer. Now,
Speaker 2: I want to talk to you about an issue right
Speaker 2: now that every one of you knows. But I wonder
Speaker 2: how many of you have ever asked the question why
Speaker 2: you all know that Judaism, Christianity, the Bible consider monotheism
Speaker 2: infinitely superior to paganism. But I wonder how many of you,
Speaker 2: if I gave you an exam, could write Why Why
Speaker 2: is one god, the one God of the Bible, more
Speaker 2: important than the multiple gods of paganism? What's wrong with
Speaker 2: two or seven, or one hundred or a million as
Speaker 2: in some ways of understanding Hinduism? And I want to
Speaker 2: deal with right now what monotheism? Not ethical monotheism that
Speaker 2: I've made the case for in my whole life. I
Speaker 2: just want to deal with the ramifications of monotheism. Why
Speaker 2: is the Bible so intent upon destroying other gods? Taught
Speaker 2: the first chapters of Genesis, I showed that the major
Speaker 2: theme was that one God created the universe. And to
Speaker 2: constantly take swipes at pagan ideas? What's wrong with being
Speaker 2: a pagan? Incidentally, it's very relevant because we have modern
Speaker 2: pagan ideas today. There are many, and you will see
Speaker 2: some of them hinted at when I go through this list. Okay,
Speaker 2: in no order of importance, let me give you number one.
Speaker 2: Number one I got from a book long out of print,
Speaker 2: but if you can ever find it, it's truly one
Speaker 2: of the important books. The Divine Order, Western culture in
Speaker 2: the Middle Ages and the Renaissance by Henry Bamford Parks,
Speaker 2: who was a professor at the New York University. I'd
Speaker 2: like to read to you something that changed one of
Speaker 2: the most seminal things I ever read, that made me
Speaker 2: realize the profundity of Judaism and of monotheism. This is
Speaker 2: a non Jew writing a professor. Judaism repudiated the cyclic
Speaker 2: view of history held by all other ancient peoples and
Speaker 2: affirmed that it was a meaningful process leading to the
Speaker 2: gradual regeneration of humanity. This was the origin of the
Speaker 2: Western belief in progress, which has gradually been secularized. I'll
Speaker 2: explain all this and become a kind of substitute religion,
Speaker 2: but retains elements of its prophetic origin. Natural law, ethical monotheism,
Speaker 2: and the coming of the heavenly kingdom have been the
Speaker 2: basic elements of the Western view of life. This is
Speaker 2: this is what was the first revolution, or in what
Speaker 2: Judaism brought to the world. Let me explain what linear
Speaker 2: versus cyclic history is. Any of you who know karma,
Speaker 2: and many do, and that's why I told you there
Speaker 2: is a rejuvenation of many of the ideas that Judaism repudiated.
Speaker 2: This is not to say that people who believe in
Speaker 2: it are bad. Please understand, I am talking about a
Speaker 2: distinctive Jewish belief, and I guess this needs a word
Speaker 2: or two. We are so today worried about making judgments
Speaker 2: as if every culture must be regarded by every other
Speaker 2: culture as equally desirable. If you believe in your religion,
Speaker 2: you must believe that there is something more desirable about
Speaker 2: your life religion. When I meet a Christian who believes
Speaker 2: that Christianity is the way to God, I am not hurt,
Speaker 2: I am not insulted. I have no I do not
Speaker 2: look down upon this person. It makes perfect sense. Why
Speaker 2: commit yourself to Jesus Christ if you don't believe that
Speaker 2: there is something inherently particularly true about it. I wouldn't
Speaker 2: be a Jew, a religious Jew, if I did not
Speaker 2: believe there was something particularly true about Judaism. It makes
Speaker 2: no sense. It's not like a car well, I like Buick,
Speaker 2: and you like olds, and you know, but they all
Speaker 2: get you there anyway. This is what the common parlance
Speaker 2: today is. Oh, all religions are just different roads to
Speaker 2: the same thing. It's a little true, but it's not
Speaker 2: fully true. And anyway, since you spend your whole life
Speaker 2: on the road, a different road is very important. The
Speaker 2: road does matter you would rather be on a six
Speaker 2: line super highway with a little traffic than on a
Speaker 2: gravel road behind a horse that kept polluting. Right, So,
Speaker 2: even if it were only different roads, that would be
Speaker 2: in itself significant. But there is more than different roads.
Speaker 2: Those of you who know karma, what is the basic
Speaker 2: knowledge that we have, those who know anything about it?
Speaker 2: It is that you will, in the next life suffer
Speaker 2: the consequences of what you heerd or didn't learn in
Speaker 2: this life, so that you come back. You keep returning.
Speaker 2: You may make moral progress, but it is still a cycle.
Speaker 2: That's what's called cyclic. It's a cycle. And once you
Speaker 2: have reached your enlightenment in Buddhist terms, you're gone, but
Speaker 2: the world itself does not progress. Your task is to
Speaker 2: reach enlightenment after all of these cycles and go on
Speaker 2: in other cultures that are most of which are now gone.
Speaker 2: It's even more cyclical. It is merely every generation repeats
Speaker 2: that which happened in the previous one. You and I
Speaker 2: don't even know about that. You and I are so
Speaker 2: used to the term progress. Well, next generation will have
Speaker 2: a cure for cancer, that's the way we think. Next
Speaker 2: generation will have less poverty. Next generation there will be
Speaker 2: fewer wars. Right. The reason you think that way is
Speaker 2: one hundred percent as a result of Judaism and of
Speaker 2: course a Christianity which took the idea into the Western world.
Speaker 2: That's what Bamford Parks is talking about here, that Judaism
Speaker 2: gave to the world. And a look at his words,
Speaker 2: this is of an understating historian. Judaism repudiated the cyclic
Speaker 2: view of history held by all other ancient peoples. It
Speaker 2: was totally alone in history in saying that history should
Speaker 2: move forward, not repeat itself in each generation. In Native
Speaker 2: American life, it would repeat itself in Mayan. In all
Speaker 2: of the cultures of the Western hemisphere, generally speaking, that
Speaker 2: is what happened. That is why there isn't much of
Speaker 2: a need to create a written language in many cultures.
Speaker 2: A written language is necessary because you have to learn
Speaker 2: from the past to develop something to give to the future.
Speaker 2: But you don't have to give anything to the future,
Speaker 2: as it were, if you're only repeating the present. And
Speaker 2: that is what Judaism came into. A world where you
Speaker 2: repeated the present and the next generation. The idea that
Speaker 2: history must move forward is Jewish and as he says,
Speaker 2: This was the origin of the Western belief in progress,
Speaker 2: which has gradually been secularized and become a kind of
Speaker 2: substitute religion. Listen to what he gives his examples. Both
Speaker 2: the liberalism of the eighteenth century Enlightenment and the Marxism
Speaker 2: of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries looked forward to a
Speaker 2: kingdom of freedom, still recognizably derived from the promises of Jeremiah,
Speaker 2: of the Hebrew Jewish prophet Jeremiah. The idea that history
Speaker 2: should move forward came from this book. The second thing
Speaker 2: he notes is that history has purpose and meaning. The
Speaker 2: idea that history has purpose, that this world has purpose,
Speaker 2: is Jewish. That doesn't mean only Jewish, because the daughters
Speaker 2: of Judaism adopted it specifically Christianity and Islam, so it
Speaker 2: isn't uniquely Jewish. It was uniquely Jewish, and if it
Speaker 2: weren't for Judaism, it wouldn't have developed. My point is
Speaker 2: not to convince you how great Judaism is. It is
Speaker 2: to make it clear why Judaism opposed non monotheism, why
Speaker 2: it opposed paganism. Okay, because this is the first reference
Speaker 2: in the Torah to the rejection of other gods, That
Speaker 2: is why it is so important, and that's why I've
Speaker 2: taken this time out in this chapter. The idea that
Speaker 2: history should move forward comes from monotheism. It's linear, not cyclical.
Speaker 2: Number two an invisible god. Monotheism gave us the ability
Speaker 2: to cultivate abstract thinking. When you believe in paganism, you
Speaker 2: don't have that distract thinking. There's a god of thunder,
Speaker 2: a god of lightning, a god of river, and there
Speaker 2: is a great deal of magic, which I will come
Speaker 2: to in a moment. What monotheism said is that the
Speaker 2: world is ruled by knowable, rational, non capricious law. God
Speaker 2: rules the universe. God is a god of justice, a
Speaker 2: god of mercy, a god of truth. The world is
Speaker 2: ruled by this God. The gods of ancient man were
Speaker 2: totally different. Do you remember? I keep asking you that,
Speaker 2: But it's foolish because most of you weren't here. But
Speaker 2: if you saw the tape, perhaps you will remember. I
Speaker 2: contrasted the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgemish with the Noah story.
Speaker 2: When who's the hero there? Utnah pitched him, who's our
Speaker 2: hero Noah? Why is Noah? Saying both of them have
Speaker 2: flood stories? Noah's saved because he's a good human being, right,
Speaker 2: the only righteous man in his generation. Why is it
Speaker 2: Nah pitched him saved because he's handsome. The God liked
Speaker 2: the way he looked. He just the gods of the
Speaker 2: ancient world were created in the image of man. It's
Speaker 2: the antithesis of the Torah. The Torah holds that man
Speaker 2: is created in God's image. In paganism, the gods were
Speaker 2: created in man's image. They had the lusts that people did.
Speaker 2: They had the envies and jealousies that people did. They
Speaker 2: had the wars that people did. They had everything we had,
Speaker 2: just they were bigger. It was miserable human beings writ large.
Speaker 2: That is what was the case in the ancient world.
Speaker 2: That this is a total rejection of that God is perfect.
Speaker 2: God transcends all of these human frailties, and God rules
Speaker 2: the world on the basis of justice, mercy, compassion truth. Therefore,
Speaker 2: as I said, you can also develop you can develop
Speaker 2: abstract thinking because this God is invisible. When you believe
Speaker 2: that everything is visible, all the gods are the Sun God,
Speaker 2: the frog God, the hawk God, the tree God. Then
Speaker 2: the idea that there are forces that cannot be seen
Speaker 2: which is the basis of modern science, is foreign to you.
Speaker 2: You have to believe that there are invisible forces in
Speaker 2: order to start developing abstract capabilities of thinking. It's not
Speaker 2: coincidental that the world that developed science as we know
Speaker 2: it is the Western world. It's not Judaism alone or
Speaker 2: Christianity alone. After all, the Church rejected Galileo. Absolutely, you
Speaker 2: also needed Greek thinking, you needed them all. But the
Speaker 2: mixture of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome is what gives us
Speaker 2: the Western world as we know as we know it.
Speaker 1: This episode of timeless wisdom will continue right after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.
Speaker 2: Number three Monotheism and excuse me one second logistic thing
Speaker 2: Ian connect trouble you for water? I'm sorry, thank you
Speaker 2: very much. Number three Judaism and Judaism with its monotheism,
Speaker 2: loathes magic. In fact, later in the Torah you are
Speaker 2: to put a Some of you who know Yiddish know
Speaker 2: the word machshefa. Your father may have called his mother
Speaker 2: in law of that on occasion. That may be where
Speaker 2: you know the word from machshefa in the Torah is
Speaker 2: a sorceress, or if in some ways a witch, but
Speaker 2: a magician. Judaism loathes magic voodoo. It is the antithesis
Speaker 2: of Judaism. Why in magic, irrational and capricious forces control
Speaker 2: the world, and so does man. If I do the
Speaker 2: following things to the following image of you, something will
Speaker 2: happen to you. That is totally unacceptable to Judaism. God
Speaker 2: alone controls the world. You can control your life, but
Speaker 2: you cannot use divination. Whatever uses anything else ascribes power
Speaker 2: to anything but God his idol worship. In Judaism, Judaism
Speaker 2: is radical monotheism. God alone rules the world, which means,
Speaker 2: by the way, that therefore we have tremendous power. Because
Speaker 2: since irrational forces don't rule the world, we people are
Speaker 2: very powerfully empowered. We can do a great deal, and
Speaker 2: it's only up to our One choice is whether or
Speaker 2: not we wish to acknowledge that God is part of it.
Speaker 2: That's why I recall my brother, who was a physician,
Speaker 2: was honored. My brother is an Orthodox Jew and a physician,
Speaker 2: and he was honored by an Orthodox hospital in Israel
Speaker 2: for medical work he had done. And he showed me
Speaker 2: his speech. Thank you so much. He showed me his speech.
Speaker 2: He began as follows. He cited a Talmudic source which
Speaker 2: I never had been familiar with, which says Tove schevardof
Speaker 2: eim Legaehnom, the best of the doctors go to Hell.
Speaker 2: It's a remarkable statement for the Tumult to make. He'd
Speaker 2: think the worst doctors go to help. Not true. Why
Speaker 2: did the best of doctors go to hell? Because there
Speaker 2: is no person in the world more likely to see
Speaker 2: himself as a God than a great doctor. A bad
Speaker 2: doctor is unlikely to see himself as God. He may
Speaker 2: become a lawyer, but he does not see himself as God.
Speaker 2: But that is a problem, because the moment a doctor
Speaker 2: begins to attribute his healing powers to himself and not
Speaker 2: as a vehicle of God, then he's an idol worshiper,
Speaker 2: except the idolis himself, the worst possible thing. In an
Speaker 2: otherwise miserable film, which I commented on on my radio
Speaker 2: show today, you can see this dialogue on doctor as
Speaker 2: God in the movie Malice. That is exactly what the
Speaker 2: doctor gives a very eloquent little soliloquy on why he
Speaker 2: is God, not least of which is because he went
Speaker 2: to Harvard Medical School. And there is some truth to
Speaker 2: that view, and by the way, it is a very
Speaker 2: possible thing if you save people's lives daily or even weekly.
Speaker 2: It is a very understandable thing unless you have a
Speaker 2: very deep belief in God as the source of healing,
Speaker 2: that you can see yourself gradually in God like terms.
Speaker 2: Magic is as I said earlier than number three, it
Speaker 2: is rejected, and it is a major part of pagan
Speaker 2: ideas to this day, as in voodoo rites in some
Speaker 2: Third World countries. It is utterly unacceptable to Jewish monotheism.
Speaker 2: It implies that there are forces other than God that
Speaker 2: rule the world. Number four one God means that the
Speaker 2: world is unified. It is unified in many ways. One
Speaker 2: is morally. One God means one morality. Two gods is
Speaker 2: two moralities, and multiple gods are multiple moralities. That's pretty obvious.
Speaker 2: Which God will you listen to? Even in Zoroastrianism, which
Speaker 2: was a highly advanced religion and continues to be so,
Speaker 2: but it is obviously much smaller because you cannot convert
Speaker 2: to Zeroastrianism. You had a God of good and a
Speaker 2: God of evil. That is why. By the way, Isaiah
Speaker 2: forty five point seven makes a statement that is very
Speaker 2: difficult to even state, and that is that God is
Speaker 2: the source of both good and evil in the world.
Speaker 2: This is unacceptable, incidentally, to one small but well known
Speaker 2: movement in Judaism, reconstructionism, that holds that God is only
Speaker 2: the source of good, and that is one of the reasons.
Speaker 2: With all respect, so many find people who are in
Speaker 2: that movement, but with all respect to them, it is
Speaker 2: why I consider the movement outside theologically outside. I never
Speaker 2: read a jew out of Jewish life, God forbid, but
Speaker 2: the idea is very non normative. God is the source
Speaker 2: of everything, including evil in this world. That doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that if you murder someone, God has made you murder
Speaker 2: the person. But God has made murder possible. God has
Speaker 2: made everything possible, including torture and rape and murder, and
Speaker 2: you name it. There is one God. The universe is
Speaker 2: unified by this God. Morally means there's one moral will.
Speaker 2: It also means scientifically, if you have a god of
Speaker 2: rain and a God of sun, then there is no
Speaker 2: possibility for science to develop because clearly what makes it
Speaker 2: rain is the God of rain. There's no one governing
Speaker 2: law in the universe like laws of climate or laws
Speaker 2: of physics. No, there's a god of rain, and if
Speaker 2: you propitiate the god of rain, you'll get rain. You
Speaker 2: don't have that in Judaism because the exact same God
Speaker 2: makes it rain and makes it not rain, so you
Speaker 2: can't have that. It's not possible. Droughts come from God
Speaker 2: and floods come from God. Therefore, science is possible because
Speaker 2: there is one governing body of law in the world.
Speaker 2: This is all made possible outside of paganism. Pagan societies
Speaker 2: didn't develop science, They didn't develop much of anything. They
Speaker 2: were capable. I acknowledge of certain achievements, as we know
Speaker 2: from some of the Stonehenge and so on. I appreciate
Speaker 2: that fact, but in the ways in which the West developed,
Speaker 2: clearly there's no pagan competition as it were. Now, of course,
Speaker 2: you can use science to then make gas chambers. So
Speaker 2: obviously this is not a moral This doesn't mean it's
Speaker 2: morally superior. It simply means that intellectually, if you still
Speaker 2: believe that a god of this must be propitiated to
Speaker 2: cause this, you're not going to look for a unifying
Speaker 2: law of physics or anything else. Number five. It means
Speaker 2: that the universe has meaning. That's was Henry Bamford Park's
Speaker 2: point that history moves towards meaning, and the universe has it.
Speaker 2: This one god has one meaning. We may not know
Speaker 2: exactly what that meaning is. That's a separate issue in
Speaker 2: any event, but it means there is meaning to this world.
Speaker 2: It is not the chaos that it seems to be.
Speaker 2: Pagan life is chaotic as contrasted to this. Well, we
Speaker 2: don't even know what the gods will do in Paganism.
Speaker 2: Maybe if we make love well enough. After all, as
Speaker 2: I wrote in my paper on homosexuality, you had you
Speaker 2: had homosexual or at least bisexual gods in Egypt and uh,
Speaker 2: and they found papyri which would describe about placing my
Speaker 2: pallus between Oh God, I forgot, forget which one your buttocks?
Speaker 2: And can you imagine that in Judaism placing placing your
Speaker 2: penis between God's buttocks. And it's it's it's it's inconceivable,
Speaker 2: literally inconceivable. That type of god is a chaotic world
Speaker 2: because they're capricious. Oh, if I make love to that
Speaker 2: God well enough, have sex with it enough, slaughter enough
Speaker 2: children for him, slaughter enough virgins, make enough wars, conquer
Speaker 2: enough slaves, give enough sacrifices, then I'll propitiate the gods.
Speaker 2: The world is chaotic. The monotheistic world is ordered. Number six,
Speaker 2: one God means one humanity, a critically critically important thing.
Speaker 2: If there's one God, we all come. That God is
Speaker 2: our all of our father or parent if you like.
Speaker 2: And that is a very basic doctrine incidentally in Judaism,
Speaker 2: that we have all one father. Only if we all
Speaker 2: have one father, are we all brothers and sisters? If
Speaker 2: we have multiple parents, then we're not all brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2: At best, we're cousins. And that's only on the assumption
Speaker 2: that the gods are related. So one humanity is very
Speaker 2: much dependent upon one parenthood of a god. Number seven.
Speaker 2: Monotheism gives you holiness. Paganism did not have the concept
Speaker 2: of the holy. That is why I am convinced that
Speaker 2: you have all of these chapters thus far. With the
Speaker 2: miserable sexual behavior of the nations around Israel. I don't
Speaker 2: mean the nation, I don't mean the country Israel. I
Speaker 2: mean the land of Israel and Israel as the family
Speaker 2: of Jacob. Remember all the stories of Abraham having to
Speaker 2: lie or thinking had to lie about his wife saying
Speaker 2: she's a sister because otherwise they'll kill me because she's
Speaker 2: a beautiful woman, and just sleep with her. Why did
Speaker 2: they get all these stories? As I explain then and
Speaker 2: now with the rape of Dina, look at the way
Speaker 2: pagan society lived. This is the way they behaved. The
Speaker 2: concept of the holy that humans just shouldn't behave that
Speaker 2: way humans are above animals is all from monotheism. To
Speaker 2: behave like an animal in paganism is terrific, because half
Speaker 2: the animals were gods. Emulating animals was quite all right.
Speaker 2: And when I say that we are returning to paganism
Speaker 2: in some of our thought today, animals is a big
Speaker 2: part of it. The notion that we are distinct from
Speaker 2: animals is utterly a Jewish one carried on again by
Speaker 2: Christianity and Islam. It is not a Pagan one. That
Speaker 2: is why so many dances were done with animals, so
Speaker 2: much so you would go in the guys of animals.
Speaker 2: Animals were so often revered. Indeed, in parts of Hinduism,
Speaker 2: tragically the lowest caste was treated worse than cows. Cows
Speaker 2: you had to feed because cows had holiness, But the
Speaker 2: cast the underclass, the untouchables, no obligations towards them didn't exist.
Speaker 2: This is not to put down all of Hinduism. There
Speaker 2: is much beauty in Hinduism, and many beautiful people like
Speaker 2: Mahatma Gandhi come from it. It is merely to say, though,
Speaker 2: that the the idea that we are to be utterly
Speaker 2: separate from animals is a Jewish monotheistic idea, and it
Speaker 2: is not well received in post Christian America. One day,
Speaker 2: when I have the time, I will write a book
Speaker 2: on what post Christian America means, because we are living
Speaker 2: in it, and we are living with the consequences. And
Speaker 2: this is a jew speaking but it has been largely
Speaker 2: a Christian country, and I have no problem in noting that,
Speaker 2: and I am unhappy about the fact that it is
Speaker 2: ceasing to be because I know that it was the
Speaker 2: carrier of the values that I care about. Call it
Speaker 2: Christian or Judeo Christian, it doesn't matter to me all
Speaker 2: that much. What matters to me is that these monotheistic
Speaker 2: values of holiness are carried on and they're not being
Speaker 2: where there is increasingly a concern for animals. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'll give you one example among many people, truly, among
Speaker 2: many sophisticated Americans today, there is a greater concern for
Speaker 2: the life of a baby seal than there is for
Speaker 2: the life of a human embryo of a human fetus.
Speaker 2: I'm not talking at all about the issue of women
Speaker 2: in abortion. Please put it out of your minds. That
Speaker 2: is not the issue I'm addressing. I'm addressing the simple,
Speaker 2: difficult issue of where there is more passion and concern
Speaker 2: attended to dedicated to, And the answer is frequently an
Speaker 2: animal one. And the more radical you get in the
Speaker 2: animal rights movement, the more you have, in fact, the
Speaker 2: belief that we, as the head of what as an
Speaker 2: Earth first said humans are a cancer on the earth.
Speaker 2: Animals are better. Anybody thinks that, By the way, I
Speaker 2: suggest to you to invest ten dollars or fourteen dollars
Speaker 2: I think with postage and handling in the time life
Speaker 2: video series on animal life. I forgot the name of it.
Speaker 2: I'll remember for you next week. But if any of
Speaker 2: you ever start romanticizing how animals treat each other, I
Speaker 2: beg of you to get this series of videos. See
Speaker 2: for example, what the killer Whales, which are so adorable,
Speaker 2: and now films where this boy makes friend with killer whale.
Speaker 2: Killer whale is nicer than half the humans you'll ever
Speaker 2: meet in your life. They don't show you killer whales
Speaker 2: in the wild who take baby seals and throw them
Speaker 2: around like a football before they actually kill it. They
Speaker 2: just toss it, this terrified little seal around as a
Speaker 2: game among themselves, and then they kill it. Wouldn't get
Speaker 2: that out of Hollywood because Hollywood has many pagans in it,
Speaker 2: and and I and I say that descriptively even more
Speaker 2: than critically, where where you have this romanticization of the
Speaker 2: of the animal world, just like they did in the
Speaker 2: pagan world. Now, I'm not telling you that animals are bad.
Speaker 2: I don't think animals are good or bad. The whales
Speaker 2: that throw around the seal are not bad anymore than
Speaker 2: hammers that that build that build gas chambers in Nazi
Speaker 2: Europe were bad. It's it's that's the hammer is neutral.
Speaker 2: An animal is neutral. German shepherds can save your life
Speaker 2: where they can eat the chew Jews in Auschwitz. So
Speaker 2: I don't have I don't have a romantic or negative
Speaker 2: view of animals, and have a few in our home.
Speaker 2: I like them, but I know their place and they're
Speaker 2: not me Judaism made this very clear. Paganism didn't. There
Speaker 2: is a distinction between you and the animal. You can't
Speaker 2: behave like an animal. You have to behave like God.
Speaker 2: But to behave like God, and Paganism was to behave
Speaker 2: like an animal.
Speaker 4: That's the difference. Those are why this is so important.
Speaker 2: And this is the first time in the Torah that
Speaker 2: there is a mention of other gods to be removed. Okay,
Speaker 2: I can continue as Jacob said to his household and
Speaker 2: to all that were with him, rid yourselves of the
Speaker 2: alien gods in your midst purify yourselves, and change your
Speaker 2: clothes one minute. Please just want to find okay verse three, Come,
Speaker 2: let us go up to beth El, and I will
Speaker 2: build an altar there to the God who answered me
Speaker 2: when I was in distress. See that's who he's identifying.
Speaker 2: If he said to his kids and will build an
Speaker 2: altar there to the invisible and knowable divine author of
Speaker 2: the universe, his kids would have asked what grapes he
Speaker 2: had recently made into wine, you understand. Indeed, and indeed
Speaker 2: Jacob would not have been able to speak like that.
Speaker 2: In my opinion, this is still the god that the
Speaker 2: Jews are meeting is a very personal one. Look at
Speaker 2: what God did for me, I must tell you. I
Speaker 2: consider that an early and somewhat primitive view of God,
Speaker 2: the God of look at what God did for me?
Speaker 2: This too is worth an excursus, as Sarna always uses
Speaker 2: the term. I will just be very brief. If your
Speaker 2: God is a god that you primarily relate to as
Speaker 2: what God did for you, to me, you don't believe
Speaker 2: in God as much as you do a celestial butler.
Speaker 2: And there is a very very serious problem in believing
Speaker 2: in a celestial butler. And I will tell you exactly
Speaker 2: what it is. If things go wrong for you, you'll end
Speaker 2: up an atheist, not to mention very bitter. The more
Speaker 2: your definition of God is look at what God does
Speaker 2: for me, the less prepared you are for tragedy, because
Speaker 2: what are you going to say? Then he thinked out
Speaker 2: on me? Does that mean that God plays no role
Speaker 2: in your life? I don't believe that either. I do
Speaker 2: believe God plays a role in our lives or can
Speaker 2: how specifically is a debate in Jewish history which I
Speaker 2: won't get into now, But certainly this is not the
Speaker 2: God that the God of who did these things for
Speaker 2: me is a very early view of God, a very
Speaker 2: personal one that judaism arises above. Eventually, okay, one moment, please, okay.
Speaker 2: They gave to Jacob all the alien gods that they
Speaker 2: had and the rings that were in their ears see
Speaker 2: their return to paganism. You see all the men with
Speaker 2: ear rings in our time, and Jacob buried them under
Speaker 2: the terebinth, which is which was a holy tree in
Speaker 2: those days, that was near Shechem. As they set out,
Speaker 2: a terror from God fell on the cities round about,
Speaker 2: so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob.
Speaker 2: In other words, God placed the fear in them from
Speaker 2: attacking for this small group of the sons of Jacob.
Speaker 2: Thus Jacob came to lose, that is beth L in
Speaker 2: the land of Canan, he and all the people who
Speaker 2: were with him. There, he built an altar and named
Speaker 2: the site l beth L, that's God, the house of God.
Speaker 2: He's as it were, giving it a newer name, for
Speaker 2: it was there. The reason that he gives it a
Speaker 2: newer name is beth L was holy the Pagans too,
Speaker 2: so he wanted to rename it. It's like old Bethel,
Speaker 2: And now the new Bethel. It's of L, the real God.
Speaker 2: You with me, because beth L means beth L means
Speaker 2: house of God, So literally l Bethel is God house
Speaker 2: of God. For it was there that God had revealed
Speaker 2: himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother
Speaker 2: verse eight, which is a real toughie. What's it doing there? Deborah,
Speaker 2: Rebecca's nurse, died and was buried under the oak below Bethel,
Speaker 2: so it was named alone Bahut. Now you normally people
Speaker 2: don't crack up when they read the Torah, and I
Speaker 2: will explain it doesn't. It doesn't make sense. Who cares
Speaker 2: when the wet nurse of Rachel died? Excuse me, of
Speaker 2: Rebecca died. Think about it for a minute. We don't.
Speaker 2: We don't hear almost ever when when the women die.
Speaker 2: So of all the women to tell us this epochal
Speaker 2: event that she died is the wet nurse of of Rebecca.
Speaker 2: And the truth is a lot of them don't understand
Speaker 2: it either. A lot of the commentary commentaries they ask
Speaker 2: why is this even mentioned. I'll give you three reasons
Speaker 2: that Sarna gives because I had no answer at all.
Speaker 2: I'll give you his one. The presumption seems unavoidable that
Speaker 2: traditions about Deborah, which would make the context of the
Speaker 2: present notice intelligible, were widely known to reader and narrator
Speaker 2: alike in Biblical times, but they weren't included in the
Speaker 2: That's important. Remember this document is three thousand plus years old,
Speaker 2: so you have to understand they understood stuff that we
Speaker 2: clearly don't understand. Obviously, there were references to things that
Speaker 2: made a whole Oh really, that's what happened to Rebecca,
Speaker 2: who dun da Whereas you don't have any daddas about Rebecca.
Speaker 2: We don't know anything except that she was basically the
Speaker 2: wet nurse here on behalf of Rebecca, I mean Deborah.
Speaker 2: Excuse me, We don't know anything about Deborah except that
Speaker 2: so they had these things about Deborah earlier. Reason number two,
Speaker 2: He writes, there may be a deeper purpose as well,
Speaker 2: with the purging of Idolatry and the arrival at beth El,
Speaker 2: the contacts with Mesopotamia. Where did we meet Deborah? We
Speaker 2: met her once. We met her in Mesopotamia when Isaac
Speaker 2: went with the mess when the messenger was sent in
Speaker 2: order to get Isaac a wife. Remember that, No, but
Speaker 2: that's what happened. And they were sent to Mesopotamia because
Speaker 2: they were not to get a wife from the Canaanite women.
Speaker 2: So they went to Mesopotamia. And that's where The only
Speaker 2: other time is chapter twenty nine, when we met when
Speaker 2: we met Devora Deborah, so she's from Mesopotamia. Now, this
Speaker 2: is a way of saying, with Deborah's death, contacts with
Speaker 2: pagan Mesopotamia are severed. Not an interesting point that Sarna
Speaker 2: makes see from a sentence that none of us would
Speaker 2: have ever given a minute's thought to would have talked
Speaker 2: to our friend during Shule while it was read. Okay, oh,
Speaker 2: those are the two Those are the two reasons. Okay,
Speaker 2: we go on by the way alone. Bahut means tree
Speaker 2: of crying. Verse nine. God appeared again to Jacob on
Speaker 2: his arrival from Padana. RAHMANI blessed him. God said to him,
Speaker 2: you whose name is Jacob, you shall be called Jacob
Speaker 2: no more, but Israel shall be your name. Thus he
Speaker 2: named him Israel. Now, what's the most obvious question. No, no,
Speaker 2: that's not the most odd second most obvious question, that's right.
Speaker 2: Why is this repeated? He already got renamed Israel? What
Speaker 2: does God not know of it now. This is a
Speaker 2: classic example of where a lot of the scholars who
Speaker 2: believe in the documentary hypothesis, which is nearly all of them,
Speaker 2: I need to be intellectually honest and tell you that
Speaker 2: it is almost universally held among secular scholars that the
Speaker 2: Torah is composed of basically four original documents redacted or
Speaker 2: edited by a redactor or editor later jep and d
Speaker 2: there called Jehovah Elohim, priestly and deuteronomic. And this to
Speaker 2: them is a classic example why repeat it? It must
Speaker 2: be from the other tradition which they kept in. Those
Speaker 2: of us who think that it's more complex than that,
Speaker 2: and who are more religiously oriented, will just answer as indeed, Sarna,
Speaker 2: who is a scholar and religious though not orthodox Jew,
Speaker 2: says that there is another reason why it's repeated, and
Speaker 2: it makes perfect sense to me. Listen to what he writes.
Speaker 2: Jacob's name has changed to Israel for the second time
Speaker 2: in chapter thirty two. It was not God personally, but
Speaker 2: an angelic being you made the pronouncement. You see, that
Speaker 2: makes perfect sense. It's I God who wants your name Israel,
Speaker 2: not just an angel or messenger that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2: You didn't need two documents here. It may have just
Speaker 2: simply been that. Moreover, there's another reason why it's repeated.
Speaker 2: According to Sarna, it was made on the other side
Speaker 2: of the Jordan, not in the land of Israel. See therefore,
Speaker 2: the new name Israel needs to be confirmed and validated
Speaker 2: by God himself in the promised land. The fact that
Speaker 2: God is said to appear again quote unquote, and that
Speaker 2: remarkably no rationale for the new name is given here
Speaker 2: shows a dependency on the earlier narrative. In other words,
Speaker 2: the very fact is it's not a second story. It
Speaker 2: depends on your knowing the first story to make this
Speaker 2: part intelligible. Now if you don't know the first story,
Speaker 2: very quickly, Jacob has this dream that there are messengers
Speaker 2: or angels of God going up and down from the earth,
Speaker 2: up like a ladder, which is really the old Mesopotamian
Speaker 2: shape of ziggurats of the holy places, up from the
Speaker 2: sky and back down again, and he wrestles with an
Speaker 2: angel or wrestles with a man it's not totally clear,
Speaker 2: and is wounded. But Israel was given his name. Israel
Speaker 2: means which is the name of the Jewish people Jews
Speaker 2: a much later name from Judah. Israel means struggle or
Speaker 2: fight with God. Yes, rah al Al is God yras
Speaker 2: to fight. And as I said when I taught that chapter,
Speaker 2: then that does personify the Jewish people a people that
Speaker 2: fights with God, which I like, the problem with the
Speaker 2: Jewish people today is that it ignores God, not fights
Speaker 2: with God. Big problem. Okay. And thus he named them
Speaker 2: Israel verse eleven. And God said to him, I am
Speaker 2: el Shadai, it's another name of God. Be fertile and
Speaker 2: increase a nation. Indeed, an assembly of nations shall descend
Speaker 2: from you, kings, shall issue from your loins. I have
Speaker 2: not yet received an answer on what it means an
Speaker 2: assembly of nations will descend from you. I thought only
Speaker 2: one nation. Now does it mean that each one of
Speaker 2: the sons is going to be a separate nation. They
Speaker 2: became separate tribes, but of one nation? What does it mean?
Speaker 2: Does anybody know? What does it mean when God blesses
Speaker 2: Jacob that an assembly of nations will come forth from you?
Speaker 2: Anybody have an I don't have an answer, probably to
Speaker 2: Muslims and Christians, but there they don't consider themselves nations.
Speaker 2: They consider themselves religion. So even there it wouldn't be yes,
Speaker 2: half the lost tribes and they you know, if they
Speaker 2: fell being from gasting all different. Yeah, but that's ex
Speaker 2: post facto that this is not an anticipation of the
Speaker 2: of the tribes being lost. I'll tell you what is
Speaker 2: the one possibility that I that I have thought of.
Speaker 2: It might be a hint for the fact that all
Speaker 2: of the nations that will come from you, can not
Speaker 2: only mean the obvious of well, the Jewish nation, but
Speaker 2: all the nations that will affirm me as God will
Speaker 2: do so as a result of coming from you. That
Speaker 2: that strikes me as a very real possibility, because there
Speaker 2: is a deep universalist streak in the Torah and in Judaism.
Speaker 2: Remember when God blesses Abraham, the first monotheist, what he
Speaker 2: says vi vard hubercha call me dam through you, all
Speaker 2: the families of the earth will be blessed. There is
Speaker 2: no notion in the Torah that only Jews get blessed
Speaker 2: because because of the Jewish knowledge of God. The purpose
Speaker 2: of the Jewish knowledge of God so that the world
Speaker 2: knows God. So the assembly of nations is assembly of
Speaker 2: monotheistic nations, not Jewish nations. That's how I would I
Speaker 2: would read it, and I don't like to read into text,
Speaker 2: but it strikes me given that it already says. It
Speaker 2: says a nation and an assembly of nations. The nation
Speaker 2: is the Jewish nation, the Hebrew nation bene Israel. But
Speaker 2: it's distinctly saying, and an assembly of nations. Thanks to
Speaker 2: your knowing me and my blessing you, an assembly of
Speaker 2: nations that know me will come into this world. That's
Speaker 2: exactly what happened. All nations that are monotheistic are so
Speaker 2: because of this book. Okay, sound plausible to you, It
Speaker 2: sounded to me. I checked with a dear friend who's
Speaker 2: an Orthodox scholar, and since he didn't have an answer,
Speaker 2: I think in mind was good. Number twelve The Land
Speaker 2: Verse twelve. The land that I signed to Abraham and Isaac,
Speaker 2: I assigned to you and to your offspring to come.
Speaker 2: Will I assign the land? The one distinctive thing for
Speaker 2: Jews is the land of Israel. Everything else is universal,
Speaker 2: but the land is very Particularist thirteen, God parted from
Speaker 2: him at the spot where he had spoken to him.
Speaker 2: That reminds me of a phone call I got today
Speaker 2: on my radio show which a guy calls up and
Speaker 2: he is obviously a well educated guy, and telling me
Speaker 2: that he felt that he wanted to challenge me because
Speaker 2: I believe in God and he thought that the notion
Speaker 2: of God as creator was scientifically untenable and illogical. He said, okay,
Speaker 2: what's your alternate thesis? And then he started giving some
Speaker 2: scientific stuff and then said, and I'll tell you, it's
Speaker 2: also quite clear that the God whom people believed in
Speaker 2: in the Bible were extra terrestrials who said they were God.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's one of those moments that I
Speaker 2: have to tell my engineer to prepare, to prepare the
Speaker 2: Twilight Zone theme for I said, you know, I fully
Speaker 2: appreciate that you would feel that it's not logical that
Speaker 2: I believe in God. It's okay, I can live with that,
Speaker 2: but that you then offer as your logical alternative extra
Speaker 2: terrestrial is a bit too difficult for me to take.
Speaker 2: It was really one of the funniest calls without anybody laughing,
Speaker 2: that I had ever had. But just reminds me now
Speaker 2: when I see that, you know, God speaking to what
Speaker 2: it says here God parted from him at that spot.
Speaker 2: It made me think, oh, it's an extra terrestrial who
Speaker 2: just took off verse fourteen. And Jacob set up a
Speaker 2: pillar at the site where he had spoken to him,
Speaker 2: a pillar of stone, and he offered a libation on
Speaker 2: it and poured oil upon it. Jacob gave the sight
Speaker 2: where God had spoken to him the name of beth L.
Speaker 2: They set out from beth L. One second they set
Speaker 2: out from Bethel. But when they were still some distance
Speaker 2: short of e Frat, Rachel was in childbirth, his beloved Rachel,
Speaker 2: and she had hard labor. When her labor was at
Speaker 2: its hardest, the midwife said to her, have no fear,
Speaker 2: for it is another boy for you. As Sarna writes,
Speaker 2: Rachel is comforted in her death agony by the knowledge
Speaker 2: that God answered the prayer she had uttered after the
Speaker 2: birth of Joseph. May the Lord add another son for me?
Speaker 2: And the obvious should not be belabored, but sons mattered more.
Speaker 2: It is one of the welcome, deeply welcome shifts of
Speaker 2: contemporary life that that is not the case in many families,
Speaker 2: but certainly in that world, and in too much of
Speaker 2: the modern world it continues to be the case. But
Speaker 2: as she breathed her last for she was dying. She
Speaker 2: named him Ben One. His father called him ben Yamin.
Speaker 2: I'm giving you the Hebrew so you'll realize how close
Speaker 2: it is to what she named him. She named him
Speaker 2: Ben one, he named him Ben Yamin. I'll explain that.
Speaker 2: Four explanations for Ben Yamin or Benjamin. Jacob either reinterprets
Speaker 2: Ben one, which is the son of my sorrow. That's
Speaker 2: the name that Rachel gives as she's dying to the boy.
Speaker 2: The son Ben is son one my sorrow. Jacob either
Speaker 2: reinterprets Ben one or replaces it by a more auspicious name. Two,
Speaker 2: the meaning could be the son of my right hand
Speaker 2: Yemen in Hebrew means right, so Ben Yamin would be
Speaker 2: the son of my right, the right being a symbol
Speaker 2: of dexterity, power protection. Third, another rendering is son of
Speaker 2: the South, that is, the unborn to the South. Such
Speaker 2: a meaning, suggested by Rashi, finds analogy in the Mari
Speaker 2: texts ancient world of the Mari, which refer to tribal
Speaker 2: confederations of Dumu, mess Yamina, sons of the South, Southerners,
Speaker 2: and so on. A third possibility put forth by Raschbaum,
Speaker 2: the one I subscribe to for whatever it's worth, and
Speaker 2: it shouldn't be worth too much in this instance. I'm
Speaker 2: not an entomologist. It just makes the most sense to me.
Speaker 2: Is Yamin is Yamim, which means days, so that his
Speaker 2: name is the sun of my days. I'm an old
Speaker 2: man and he's the son of my days. That has
Speaker 2: struck me as the most logical. I guess he just
Speaker 2: didn't want to have a child walking around with the
Speaker 2: name son of my sorrow. I mean, I don't want
Speaker 2: you to think he was being a nice to his
Speaker 2: dying wife, but you have to understand it's a burden
Speaker 2: to walk around with such a name. What is your name,
Speaker 2: son of my mother sorrow? Oh, good to meet you
Speaker 2: over us. Rachel died. She was buried on the road
Speaker 2: to Efrat, which is now Bethlehem. Over her grave, Jacob
Speaker 2: set up a pillar. It is the pillar at Rachel's
Speaker 2: grave to this day. Israel journeyed on and pitched his
Speaker 2: tent beyond mighdhal Adir, And here is one of the
Speaker 2: strangest verses in the Torah verse twenty two. While Israel
Speaker 2: stayed in that land, Reuben went out and lay with Bilha,
Speaker 2: his father's concubine and Israel found out. It is strange
Speaker 2: for one thing, because it's very very important and you
Speaker 2: hear nothing about it. I mean, you get all these
Speaker 2: verses with so and so begat so and so beget
Speaker 2: so and so something incredibly important. The firstborn sleeps with
Speaker 2: his father's concubine, and that's all you get. And the
Speaker 2: Hebrew is very dramatic because the sentence does not end
Speaker 2: with a period in Hebrew. In the Torah. The Torah
Speaker 2: is actually written with no punctuation. It's got no periods.
Speaker 2: It doesn't even have vowels. It's difficult to read, but
Speaker 2: it does have an ancient pronunciation system of vowels and
Speaker 2: cantillation musical signs, and one of the signs is called
Speaker 2: sof passuk, which means and diverse. You don't have that
Speaker 2: like that here. You have it ending at a comma
Speaker 2: in a way to tell you there's a lot more,
Speaker 2: but we're not telling you. That is exactly how the
Speaker 2: Hebrew is. It does not end with the period. It
Speaker 2: ends with an etnata. For the handful of you who
Speaker 2: know Hebrew cantilation, it says Ruvene went and slept with
Speaker 2: Bilha his father's concubine. Now why is that important Rubn's
Speaker 2: All of this leads to the conclusion that Ruveine Ruven's
Speaker 2: bid to promote his mother's rights is at the same
Speaker 2: time a calculated challenge to his father's authority. He did
Speaker 2: not want Bilha to take over for his mother. For
Speaker 2: his his mother Rachel's writes, that's the ostensible reason. It
Speaker 2: follows her death right. So excuse me. His mother is Leah.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Rachel dies. Leah is living. He doesn't want
Speaker 2: Bilha to usurp his mother Leah's rights. Get it, that's
Speaker 2: the ostensible reason. All that are left now are Leah
Speaker 2: and Bilha, not Ley and Rachel. So he doesn't want
Speaker 2: bill haa to concubine to take his mother Lea's rights. Remember,
Speaker 2: he was very devoted to his mother Lea. If you
Speaker 2: recall when he brought man Drake so that she could
Speaker 2: become fertile. It's a very touching story earlier in Genesis.
Speaker 2: By violating Bilha, Ruvein makes sure that she cannot supplant
Speaker 2: or even rival his mother's position of chief wife now
Speaker 2: that Rachel is dead. But it wasn't all on behalf
Speaker 2: of mommy Leah. It was very much on behalf of himself.
Speaker 2: It was a calculated challenge to his father's authority. His
Speaker 2: move is more political than lustful, right Sarna. The summary
Speaker 2: account in this verse hides an attempt to usurp the
Speaker 2: leadership of the Israelite tribes. Its failure is reflected in
Speaker 2: Jacob's rebuke when he blesses his children at the end
Speaker 2: of his life, in which he removes Ruvein from hegemony.
Speaker 2: Hegemony over the tribes. He understood because it says by
Speaker 2: Ishma Yusra al Israel heard what happened. So this rubens
Speaker 2: quite a calculating guy. And we'll find more calculations later
Speaker 2: with regard to Joseph, which we'll get to next time.
Speaker 2: Just finish the chapter now. The sons of Jacob, we're
Speaker 2: twelve in number, the sons of Lea Ruvein, Jacob's firstborn
Speaker 2: shim On levy Huda, y Sahar, and Zvulun, the sons
Speaker 2: of Rachel, Joseph, and Benjamin, the sons of Bilh Rachel's maid,
Speaker 2: right whom we just had slept with by Ruvain Doun
Speaker 2: enough Tali, enough Tali, and the sons of Zilpah, Leah's
Speaker 2: maid got in as share. These are the sons of
Speaker 2: Jacob who were born to him in Padana Ram, which
Speaker 2: is not fully true. Benjamin wasn't, but little literary license
Speaker 2: never hurt anybody, and Jacob came to his father Isaac
Speaker 2: at Mamre at Kiriyat ab Arba, now Hevron, where Abraham
Speaker 2: and Isaac had sojourned. Isaac was one hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: years old when he breathed his last and died. He
Speaker 2: was gathered to his kin. Remember that last time. This
Speaker 2: is an intimation of the afterlife in the Torah. He
Speaker 2: was gathered to his kin means he went back to
Speaker 2: his relatives who had died. And I gave a very
Speaker 2: long talk. Then it's on tape, so I won't belabor
Speaker 2: it now that Judaism emphatically believes in an afterlife, but
Speaker 2: why the Torah was silent on it. I also spoke
Speaker 2: about if you missed it in ten seconds, because the
Speaker 2: moment you talk about the afterlife, people don't value this one.
Speaker 2: It was Judaism's genius to get Jews preoccupied with this life.
Speaker 2: And like all blessings, it came with a curse. A
Speaker 2: lot of Jews became only preoccupied with this life. Hence
Speaker 2: Jews became the fathers and mothers of all the isms
Speaker 2: to change society because more than any other religious group,
Speaker 2: Jews were this world oriented. But if you're to this
Speaker 2: world oriented, you become a revolutionary because you realize that
Speaker 2: if you don't make the world better now, you will
Speaker 2: not live to see a better world, because when you die,
Speaker 2: that's it. That is why secular revolutionaries are so often frightening,
Speaker 2: because they believe that if they don't have the revolution now,
Speaker 2: they will die before a better world comes about. Whereas
Speaker 2: if you believe in another world, then you realize you
Speaker 2: don't have to fix up this world perfectly. You try
Speaker 2: to make it a little better, which is the only
Speaker 2: way that works, and that you will have your just
Speaker 2: reward in the afterlife. The problem with believing in the afterlife,
Speaker 2: because that's a blessing that has occurs too, is that
Speaker 2: you can say, well, why bother with this world, I'll
Speaker 2: just go to the afterlife, which is a factor in
Speaker 2: a number of groups that ignore this world or worse,
Speaker 2: really worse, those who think that it's emitstv to kill
Speaker 2: yourself in the name of your God, like some of
Speaker 2: the radical Muslims, for whom it is a the greatest
Speaker 2: possible thing is to die for Allah. And you never
Speaker 2: have anywhere in Judaism that the greatest thing you can
Speaker 2: do is to die for hushan nowhere if you have to.
Speaker 2: But it's not considered the greatest thing at all. The
Speaker 2: greatest thing is to live for God, not die for God.
Speaker 2: It's a very very real problem. He was gathered to
Speaker 2: his kin in ripe old age, and he was buried
Speaker 2: by his sons, Esau and Jacob. Esau is a decent guy,
Speaker 2: just not the right guy to carry on Monotheism. And
Speaker 2: it's very important to remember next time. I have two
Speaker 2: things to say. One the next meeting is not two
Speaker 2: weeks from now, but next Monday. Next Monday, I will
Speaker 2: zoom through chapter thirty six because it's almost all genealogy,
Speaker 2: and we start in the final part of the Book
Speaker 2: of Genesis, all about Joseph and his brothers, the most
Speaker 2: immortal story in Western literature. Thank you, See you in
Speaker 2: a week.
Speaker 1: On Tomorrow's Sunday fireside chat Evelyn fourteen, Newark, Ohio.
Speaker 5: Himuster Prager and a Smiley. I have a simple question,
Speaker 5: but I'm very curious to know the answer. Just wondering
Speaker 5: who has influenced you throughout your life. Thank you so
Speaker 5: much for the fireside chatter. Really helps me think through things.
Speaker 5: Say hi to Ottaw and Snoopy for me, Snoop Otto.
Speaker 5: Hello from Evelyn, fourteen years old, Newark, Ohio.
Speaker 1: Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with
Speaker 1: Dennis Prigger.
Speaker 2: This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
Speaker 1: Visit Dennisprager dot com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures,
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