Jacob Goes to Egypt - Weekend Torah Teaching

Life Audio. On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom, we start out in life, we are the absolute universe. Me, I, that I, the baby, I am, I am the universe. Even your mother, I mean, this is, you know, classical psychology. Your mother is part of you, and it's part— why, why is it a tough time to be a baby and grow up? All of a sudden, as you get older, you realize, uh-oh, mommy isn't part of me. And Judith Viorst wrote an excellent book on this, Necessary Losses. Life is a constant necessary losses stage. When you lose that comfort of I and mommy are one, and all of a sudden you wait a minute, there is another. Would you ever try to explain to a 2-year-old or 3-year-old that you have your own life? Right, you're laughing. It's absurd, you know, trying to reason, you know, you have to understand, uh, Mommy and Daddy have not made love in 2 and a half years, and, uh, we would really like to this evening, so shut up. Uh, you know, that doesn't work. Uh, they don't care. The trick in life is to in fact grow up and know, know that you are not the center That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

Precious metals dealers come and go. This is Nick Grovich, president of Ampfed Coin and Bullion. We've stood the test of time since 1983. With the flurry of coin and bullion dealers coming and going, how do you know who to trust and what to buy? At Ampfed Coin and Bullion, we value educated consumers. We want to alert you to good bullion buys in the market and help you steer clear of the tricks and bad deals. Call Ampfed Coin and Bullion for a free coin performance review. 800-221-7694 or americanfederal.com.

Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to dennisprager.com.

Wish to tell you that, um, some chapters of the Torah and certainly of Genesis are richer than others. I didn't write it. I'm not responsible for that. Uh, we are at parts now that are not as rich in staggeringly, you know, awe-inspiring, world-changing ideas as the first chapters, obviously, for which I spend a great deal of time. I think I spent hours just on the first chapter. But of course, as I say, the tapes are available. We are now at chapter 40, uh, 47 or 46. Yes, 46. Thank you. Good. Glad you remembered. Uh, just to bring you up to date, you newcomers, God creates the world and then the troubles begin. That is really what we're at. For those of you who come from a dysfunctional family, Genesis is your book. I mean that very sincerely. The book is entirely filled with the stories of dysfunctional families. And it should be comforting in that regard. One of the reasons I am a big fan of the Torah and the Hebrew Bible is because it's filled with imperfect people, and I have an easier time relating to imperfect people than to perfect ones. The point of all the dysfunctional families is an interesting one. Perhaps our sights have been set too high in our modern day about what we expect from family and how— and what we call normal. It is very hard to achieve a Norman Rockwell home. In fact, it is probably impossible, uh, and in the vast majority of cases haven't. When you compare your family to Joseph's family, which is what we're up to now, there's a good chance that your siblings treated you better than Joseph's treated him. Not many of you were in fact sold into slavery by your siblings and then lied about to your father that you were killed by a wild animal. And think about it for a moment. It's extraordinary. Jacob is the patriarch. He's also Israel by name. He has spoiled his youngest child Joseph and then the younger after that Benjamin. He does not know parenting skills, to put it mildly. He does not know that you don't overtly show absolute and total favoritism to a child, yet he did. Uh, this— it is hinted that he used Joseph as a substitute for his beloved Rachel, dressing him in very colorful clothing and, uh, his filling in some way the, the void left by his beloved wife's demise. These are very interesting and important aspects psychologically to the text. But the text is not primarily psychological. It wants to tell you how the monotheistic idea came into the world. Judaism is first and foremost ethical monotheism. Jews do not know this, for which reason one could fill cups with tears that the Jews are terribly unaware of Judaism. A woman, in fact— where was it? Yeah, I was having a I came in this morning from San Francisco and went to a Marie Callender's for lunch on my way to KABC, and this couple recognized me. The woman came over, and her child goes to an Orthodox day school, or went, is now going to college. And she said, you know, I listened to one of your tapes, 10 Reasons Why I Revere Judaism. And she said, "My daughter got more out of that than all her years in Orthodox day school." And my point is not to compliment my speech at all. My point is that what has happened to Jews, including Orthodox, so much more so Reform and Conservative and Secular, is that there is— we have lost the forest for the trees. Massive amounts of data are there. How to observe, how to pray, how to study. Incredible detail. But why be a Jew? What does the Jew have to say to humanity that is suffering and that is steeped in, in Rwandas and, uh, and Bosnias and the terrible, uh, problems in, in, in, uh, addictions and, and families breaking up? Beats me. That's really what the answer has been, which is no wonder why so many Jews think Judaism is irrelevant. Its first and foremost message is monotheism. There's one God and one ethic for the world. That's ethical monotheism. And how do you bring that into the world? How do you bring an idea that there is one invisible God for everybody? How do you bring that into the world? I mean, it would be hard for you to do today. If you announce in the United States that clitoridectomy is wrong, on what grounds do you announce it? 100 million girls and women in the world have had their clitorises torn off, and in many cases other parts of their genitalia, just torn off for cultural reasons. We think that that's, uh, that's mutilation. But on what grounds can you make that claim if you don't believe that there is a universal morality? Who are Americans or British or French or anybody else to tell people in, uh, in an African country or one of the Arab countries where this is practiced, uh, you're wrong? On what grounds? Isn't that cultural imperialism, moral imperialism? The only possible way is to say there's a universal morality. You know, you don't need clitoridectomy. But the Nuremberg Trials— on what grounds could we have the Nuremberg Trials? The Nazis who were on trial after World War II on the Holocaust had a very good argument: what we did was legal in our country. And they call it the victor's revenge. That is what they called the Nuremberg Trials. Oh well, when you win, you get to put the losers on trial. But let's be honest, their argument went, in our society this was okay. Nuremberg is based, and your gut reaction is based on the belief that you can't say in my society you can, you can, uh, gas people. Your gut reaction is there's one morality for everybody. That is the message of this book. That's the single great message of Judaism. And it's lost to Jews, it's lost to non-Jews. One God, one morality. Judaism doesn't care what religion you're in, it doesn't care what culture you're in, it only cares whether you affirm one God and one morality. That's its message. And so you start with Abraham in this book, and Abraham is picked by God to leave where he came from in Mesopotamia and start a new world, as it were, a new civilization, to take this idea into the world. It's very tough, very difficult to say to a world steeped in paganism, there's only one God for everybody, and he's invisible, and you're morally accountable to him. I mean, it would be hard to say now. Try that with the Chinese rulers in Tibet. Imagine going to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, Tibet with a placard, Chinese rulers will have to answer to God for what they've done here, you'd obviously be laughed off the streets. Indeed, I'll never forget— somebody ought to write a book about this man, the minister who walked around with a placard during the riots, Thou shalt not steal, and who was beaten to death. In fact, I would argue to you that that a Christian that he was, exemplified the, the roots of anti-Semitism historically. Not unwittingly, the Jews carried a placard in the world that was having riots all the time that said on it, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not murder. You get beaten up when you do that during riots. And that's, that's what, that's what this is about. And so the, the, the makeup, the creation of the Jewish people is the story we are now at with Joseph. God tells Abraham that your descendants will be very numerous, but they will also undergo many years of slavery. And now we are getting to the end of Genesis and into the book where the slavery will take place. Uh, why did the Jews end up in Egypt? That's the story we're at now. And the, the one of the key constants in the book of Genesis is the, the guiding hand of the divine through all of this. How does Joseph, this Hebrew, end up to be the most powerful man in Egypt. It's only by the, by the grace of God, but it takes a very circuitous route. His father, he gets these dreams, he makes— he announces them. The brothers get jealous, they throw him in a pit, they sell him to Philistines who sell him to Egyptians. He keeps being able to decipher dreams. His deciphering ability is brought to Pharaoh. Pharaoh Pharaoh is impressed, and he makes him the head of Egypt only under him to get them out of their famine for the 7 years. What they will gather their surplus for the 7 years of terrible famine that will follow. Well, we are now up to 46, wherein the brothers go back from Egypt and they tell Jacob, yes, Joseph is still alive. And you can imagine his reaction And now they are getting ready to go to Egypt. Jacob is getting ready to go to Egypt to, uh, to see his son whom he so loved and whom of course he had thought was dead all these years. So Israel set out with all that was his, and he came to Beersheba where he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. Uh, as Sarna points out, Jacob's journeys began in Beersheba and now they end there. There is a tremendous unity in Genesis, and this is one of those examples. He starts off in his journeys Beersheba, and, and this is his final journey, and that begins in Beersheba as well. It's a big trip from where he has to go in Hebron to Egypt. And he stops off in Beersheba. It says that he gives a sacrifice to the God of his father Isaac. Why doesn't it say his father Isaac and Jacob? Because this is where his father Isaac in chapter 26 had built an altar. So that's why Isaac alone is mentioned. However, there is another important thing to note here: the idea that God is everybody's God and not just my father's is still not taken, I think, total root in the psyche of the Jewish people at this point. To Jacob at this point, it is still the God of my father Isaac, not the God, uh, who has created heavens and earth. It's tough enough to believe in an invisible one God. To also believe that this invisible one God is everybody's God, uh, is, is You just can't imagine the extraordinary leap that it takes. So we're still with a somewhat provincial view of God in terms of the Jews.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

For nearly 3,000 years, Homer's The Odyssey has shaped Western imagination. It tells the story of Odysseus as he faces monsters, shipwrecks, false comforts, and impossible choices on his long journey home. As one of the foundational works of Western literature, Homer's epic is more than a mythology. It explores permanent questions about courage, duty, loyalty, family, leadership, temptation, and the search for home. In one of the epic's defining moments, Odysseus rejects the offer of immortality from the goddess Calypso, choosing instead the long and difficult journey home. His decision reveals one of the central themes of The Odyssey, that a life of duty, family, and home is greater than a life devoted to comfort or glory. Achilles chose glory. Odysseus chose home. That's why Hillsdale College has released its newest free online course, The Odyssey, taught by Professor Benedict Whelan. The course reveals why Homer's masterpiece remains one of the greatest works of Western literature. Find this free course at charlieforhillsdale.edu. Com. That's charlieforhillsdale.com. Read the classics, study the West. The Odyssey from Hillsdale College. Go to charlieforhillsdale.com.

Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

Okay, verse 2. God called to Israel. Israel is Jacob's other name. For those of you who are not here, Israel means struggle with God. He gets the name when he struggles with the angel or the messenger who was clearly a divine messenger. And as I have said frequently, and this is only for you newcomers, it is a very big mitzvah— or mitzvah is too specific a term— it is an important trait in Judaism to struggle with God. Even an Orthodox rabbi, Emanuel Rackman, whom my co-host author and I cite in our book on Judaism, uh, we cite his phrase, "God created doubt." After all, well, let me ask a simple question and then in good yeshiva fashion answer it. Couldn't God have created us with absolute certitude as to his existence, right? I mean, if there is a God, God could have simply created us. That just as we know anything else that we know, we would know there's a God. And so an Orthodox rabbi, Immanuel Rachman, and I specifically note an Orthodox rabbi to show you how non-heretical it is, though there are Orthodox Jews who do not like this statement, said God created doubt because if there were no doubt, we wouldn't have freedom of choice. Let me ask you, when are you freer to, uh, drive above the speed limit when there's a highway patrolman next to you in the next lane, or when you don't know if there is one around? The only thing that gives us moral freedom is non-certitude of God. To the extent that you are absolutely certain that God is there watching and, and punishing You have much less freedom, just as with— excuse me— just as with the highway patrolman next to you. Anyway, in Judaism, it is a good thing to struggle with God. And I, I say these words to the two extremes in Judaism: the atheist Jew and the absolute believer Jew. To both of you, you're too smug. That would be the Jewish message to the atheist. You're so certain there's no God? You're absolutely certain that children just come out of wombs after the sperm and egg have met 9 months earlier? There, it's just worked out that way? It just worked out that we went from Paramecia to Beethoven just because it worked out that way? And to the absolute believer, oh, you're absolutely certain? Really? Children born deformed has no effect on your faith. The, the, uh, the monstrous lack of justice in this world has no effect on your faith. So that both need to grapple with God. That's how you grow. Uh, tension is a great thing. I don't want to get off on the tangent too, too long, but obviously I use these things for that ability on occasion. Tension with God is a good thing. That's how humans grow, with tension, not aggravation. In my happiness talks, I make a big distinction between tension and aggravation. Aggravation stinks. Tension is great. You don't want sexual aggravation with your spouse, but you would certainly like sexual tension. Okay, this is a good example. Tension has a good— has its place. Tension with God is a good one. You have tension with those that you are closest with. You have tension with your children, with your parents, with your spouse. If there's none whatsoever, it's probably a pretty limp relationship. God doesn't want a limp relationship from us. There should be tension. I am angry at God over, over things that happen. I am, absolutely. I think I look at this world of suffering and go, hey, you God did a great job. I got problems, but I never, I never infer from all of this that there is no God. So that is the name of the Jewish people: struggle with God. And it is the name that Jacob is given, and that's who it is, who it is here. God called to Israel in the vision by night. Generally speaking, only Moses is talked to directly. All others, the The prophets and others get it through visions, the message from God. Only Moses had a direct communication with God. God called to Israel in a vision by night, 'Jacob, Jacob!' And he answered, 'Here.' And he said, that is God, 'I am God, the God of your father.' This is how God responds. Jacob doesn't know. It wouldn't help If God said, "Jacob, I am the God of all peoples," who was the source of monotheistic morality and who created the heavens and the earth, he would have said, "Who?" It would not have worked at that time. God knew what lingo to use. Remember, later when Moses asks God who he is, he gets a much more sophisticated answer: "I am who I am," which is a lot more sophisticated than "I'm the God of your father." Okay, not because God grew, contrary to some new theologians talk. I always find that a little tough to stomach, you know. Well, God matured by Exodus. Let's see, Jacob has fears, as you will see, because in verse 3 he continues, God Fear not, don't fear to go down to Egypt, for I'll make you there into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I myself will also bring you back. And Joseph's hand shall close your eyes, meaning Joseph will be present at your death. Uh, he writes, uh, very well, Sarna, and I quote— by the way, when I say Sarna, I mean Nachum Sarna, who has written the commentary for the Jewish Publication Society. On the Book of Genesis. Uh, there are many superb commentaries on the Torah. I strongly advise you're picking up the Jewish Publication Society, uh, volumes. The one on Numbers by Jacob Milgram is probably one of the greatest 20th century works of genius that I am aware of. Anyway, Sarna did Genesis and he did an excellent job. Is the patriarch distressed at having to leave the Promised Land. Here are the, here are the fears that he may have, Jacob. Uh, is he afraid of dying on alien soil? Here he was in the Promised Land and he's told to go to Egypt. Well, this is— these are fearful things that he's being told. Are his fears intensified by the memory that his father Isaac had been expressly forbidden by God to go to Egypt? So you could well understand that Jacob doesn't accept this command with, uh, with, uh, no ambiguity— with, excuse me, with no ambivalence.

Okay.

Incidentally, he also points out that fear not, Sarna writes. The same reassurance was given to Abraham, Abraham, and to Isaac, and it will be given to Moses as well. It is never preceded by a statement revealing their quiet. In other words, it never says, and Abraham had fear, Isaac had fear, Moses had fear, Jacob had fear. God knows the heart. God knows that you're fearful, and so says don't fear, even though it's never stated that the patriarch or the leader feared. That's— I think it's a good point of service. Number 5: So Jacob set out from Beersheba The sons of Israel put their father Jacob and their children and their wives in the wagons that Pharaoh had sent to transport him, and they took along their livestock and the wealth that they had amassed in the land of Canaan. The, uh, okay. And thus Jacob and all his offspring with him came to Egypt. He brought with him to Egypt his sons and grandsons, his daughters and granddaughters, all his offspring. Sarna again: The strong emphasis on the all-inclusive nature of the migration is meant to draw attention once again to the national significance of the event. This passage provides a smooth transition to the next section. The, the, uh, national significance of the event— this is how the Jewish people got into Egypt. And that's why it's saying everybody, the whole clan of Jacob went. These are the names of the Israelites, Jacob and his descendants, who came to Egypt. I always debate when we get these lists of names if I should bother reading them to you. Do you want them? All those who want them, raise your hand. All those who don't want them, raise your hand. Okay, you could check it yourselves. The only, the only thing I will tell you is there were names here that you all— I, I always get a charge out of them because, you know, why— how do some names get very popular and others not? For example, uh, one of the children of Yehuda, of Judah, was Ferret. Hey, that's It's not a name you normally encounter, right? But why do some become popular? You know, my son Ferretz. Actually, it's very close to Hungarian, Ferenc. Actually, now that I think of it, well, maybe it's the name there. Well, that's Frank though, isn't it?

Yeah.

Anyway, so you can check out the names and we can save time. Very good.

Yeah.

Why did Pharaoh invite them to Egypt? Because of Joseph. That's, that's why Joseph is his top aide. And Joseph says, I would like you to meet my father, and I, and I need— they need to eat. We need a place in Egypt. And they did. They set off a place called Goshen, which you'll— you will encounter again, which he— which Pharaoh is giving to Joseph, be— to them because of Joseph. Is that totally clear to you? I mean, Joseph has saved Pharaoh's kingdom, in effect, though we're going to come to a very difficult part about that in a moment. All right, so we have skipped the names. All right, it tells all of them, uh, all the— first, so go please to verse 26.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

Precious metals dealers come and go. This is Nick Grovich, president of Amped Coin and Bullion. We've stood the test of time since 1983. With the flurry of coin and bullion dealers coming and going, how do you know who to trust and what to buy? At AmFed Coin and Bullion, we value educated consumers. We want to alert you to good bullion buys in the market and help you steer clear of the tricks and bad deals. Call AmFed Coin and Bullion for a free coin performance review. 800-221-7694 or americanfederal.com.

Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.

By the way, there was one since where I didn't read to you. I had two, two notes here. Look at verse 17. Verse 17 does something that I have no clue. Even Sarna has no clue as to why it happened. These were the descendants of Zilpah whom Laban had given to his daughter Leah. Uh, whoops, excuse me, that's 18. Yeah, I knew it was. Okay, Asher's sons, listen to this. Im— all right, let's see. In yimna Yishva, Yishvi, Vri'ah, and Sarach, their sister. It's the only girl mentioned in the entire group, and there's no— nobody knows why. For all we know, Sarach had a tradition. In other words, to ancient Jews, these were not just names. There's a very good chance that they knew something about some of these names. And so it was included. But, but it really sticks out at you as you read it because it's only the sons that are mentioned. In case you didn't know, uh, it was a patriarchal time in which they lived. So there is no reason. Also, there's another interesting puzzle. Verse 23, it says— you don't know this, the English didn't translate it accurately— do any of you have Dan's sons? Some of you do. Good. In this translation it says Dan's son, and in the Hebrew it says Dan's sons, and then it names one son, right? And, uh, there are a number of conjectures as to why it would say Dan's son and then mention one, possibly because he had other sons and they died and just to honor their memory, or, uh, because they just wanted to keep the literary device of so-and-so's son, so-and-so's son, so-and-so's sons, and kept it even when there was one son. But just wanted to point that out to you. Yes, I have a weirder one here. Um, it says that sons of Judah, although they had died, as if they had— I mean, I think, yes, that was just to count who had been. You're absolutely right. I wonder if he says anything about that. Those were the, uh, well, hold on a minute, one second. Yes, because of the, uh, Leverett marriage, which some of you will recall. I don't want to repeat it now. Yep, they're not counted though in the final tally, to the best of my knowledge, but it is— it's just list who they were, but they were killed, or the list might have been compiled before that happened. But who knows? You're right. Okay, let's go on to verse 27 or 6— 26. All the persons belonging to Jacob who came to Egypt, his own issue aside from the wives of Jacob's sons, all these persons numbered 66. And Joseph's sons who were born to him in Egypt were 2 in number. Thus the total of Jacob's household came to Egypt was 70 persons. Persons. He had sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph to point the way before him to Goshen. Goshen is where they will live, where the Jews will settle. So when they came to the region of Goshen, Joseph ordered his chariot and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel. He presented himself to him, and embracing him around the neck, he wept on his neck a good while. What do you have? I'm sure others have other than a good while. What do you have? Long time. Yeah, it's a very— it's very powerful in the Hebrew. In the Hebrew, literally it means he wept on his— on his neck more, which— which is— but it's just— it's very powerful because it's not something I think in the Torah or in the Bible at any other time that description. You can only imagine Joseph's reaction at seeing his father. Remember, what did he always ask when the brothers came, even when he didn't admit he was their brother? Is your father still alive? Or is your— excuse me, not still— is he— is your father alive? Right. Then Israel said to Joseph, now I can die, having seen for myself that you are still alive. I think a lot of parents could relate to that. Then Joseph said to his brothers and to his father's household, I will go up and tell the news to Pharaoh and say to him, my brothers and my father's household who were in the land of Canaan have come to me. The men are shepherds, they have always been breeders of livestock, and they have brought with them their flocks and herds and all that is theirs. So when Pharaoh summons you and asks, what's your occupation? You will answer, your servants have been breeders of livestock from the start until now, both we and our fathers, so that you may stay in the region of Goshen, for all shepherds are abhorrent to Egyptians. It's an interesting thing on a number of accounts. First, Joseph is aware of the the contempt that the Egyptians had for shepherds. Yet he tells him to tell the truth. Part of it is he probably had a good policy of telling the truth, which usually works in life. I think there's another reason though. Since that profession is abhorrent to Egyptians, maybe you will have a valued profession.

You with me?

Almost like being the Egyptian shabbos goy. It's like when Orthodox Jews would use a non-Jew to do things on the Sabbath that they were prohibited to do. Like the Jews would serve as the Egyptians' doers of what was prohibited to them. That's exactly what we need, because no Egyptian would stoop so low to do that work. You get it? It's, it's, it's almost like we feel, by the way, towards a lot of the work— let's be honest— that many immigrants do America do that Americans won't take? Most Americans won't take such work. And so it's— that's perfect. How do you— you know, we'll do it, we'll take— we'll do that work. Okay, come on in here, because others here won't take that work. That's what I think is stated here in stating— and this was abhorrent— look, you tell Pharaoh what we do, they hate doing it, you'll get a good position. And that was Joseph's thinking, and it worked out, as you will see. Yeah, could it be that he wanted to keep the Jews apart? Yeah, it could be. It could be. But, but the Jews wanted it too. They wanted their own area. So it was a mutually desirable thing. By the way, it's interesting too that, you know, the Jews are embarking on work for which they would be disliked in Egypt, and it is also one of these recurrent themes in, in Jewish history. Who were the moneylenders in medieval Christendom? Jews, because you couldn't lend money if you were Christian. And it's often stated that medieval Christians were often anti-Semitic because Jews were moneylenders, but of course it's the cart before the horse. The Jews were moneylenders because they weren't allowed to do anything else. Those were reserved for Christians. So it's, uh, it's, it's like a, a lot of these are recurring patterns in Jewish history of coming to a place, doing work that is abhorred by the society in which they are, and then being abhorred for doing the work that is being abhorred. So it starts early, as it were. Chapter 47. Then Joseph came and reported to Pharaoh, saying My father and my brothers with their flocks and herds and all that is theirs have come from the land of Canaan and now are in the region of Goshen. And selecting a few of his brothers, he presented them to Pharaoh. Pharaoh said to his brothers, what's your occupation? And then you get exactly what was rehearsed. They answered Pharaoh, we your servants are shepherds. 'As were also our fathers. We have come,' they told Pharaoh, 'to sojourn in this land, for there is no pasture for your servants' flocks, the famine being severe in the land of Canaan. Pray then, let your servants stay in the region of Goshen.' Then Pharaoh said to Joseph— notice he does not respond to the brothers, he's Pharaoh after all— Okay, as regards your father and your brothers who have come to you, the land of Egypt is open before you. Settle your father and your brothers in the best part of the land. Let them stay in the region of Goshen. And if you know any capable men among them, put them in charge of my livestock. Exactly what Joseph had anticipated is taking place here. An important point that is made here by Sarna, the, uh, about the, the word used. What other word do you have? This says sojourn. What do you have in verse 4? We have come, they told Pharaoh. You all have sojourn? To stay. The Hebrew word is lagur. Lagur means to reside in modern Hebrew, but it comes from the Hebrew ger, which is stranger. So we have come to be stranger resident. I guess that's what sojourn might mean. And he points out in this regard that the use of the Hebrew lagur connects the migration to Egypt with with the divine prophecy to Abraham, "Know that your offspring will be strangers," gerim, even if you don't know Hebrew, you hear the relationship between ger and lagor, "in a land not theirs." The awareness of their status as strangers in Egypt left a deep imprint on the Israelite consciousness that found expression in repeated ethical injunctions. Exodus 22:20, you shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. Gareem. You shall not— this is Exodus 23:9— you shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt. Next, Leviticus 19:34, the stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens. You shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. And finally, Deuteronomy 10:19: You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I will just tell you a personal story in this regard. I debated in 1985 Meir Kahana on national radio. And I cited him that it was a Torah principle that Israel treat its Arab citizens perfectly decently because the Torah says you will love the stranger. And he said that I was totally misinterpreting the text, that the word ger did not mean stranger, it meant convert. And I said, how can that be? The sentence says, love the stranger because you were strangers in the land of Egypt. If it meant convert, it would mean love the convert because you were converts in the land of Egypt. But the Jews didn't convert to Egyptian religion. It's an, it's an absurd idea. It clearly means in all these texts, it doesn't mean convert, even though the modern Hebrew for convert is ger, which is where the confusion comes in, or the later Hebrew. This, by the way, is a problem of, of later Judaism. Meir Kahana was not distorting Talmudic texts on this. The notion that ger in the Torah meant convert is not alien to the Talmud, and it's a problem because it clearly means stranger. Indeed, I would argue, and I I have, so I won't develop this as much now. I did in one other session. I think the single greatest injunction in the Torah is to love the stranger.

I, I—

the older I get, the more I realize that is the single greatest human task, is to be able to see those who are different from us as equally human. And it is very rare one of the only places to embark on the belief has been America. Because in all other societies, blood was everything and remains everything. You know, for example, and I certainly don't mean to be critical of a particular civilization, because you can take anyone. I'm just using this because it's better known to me. Many people will cite, for example, of the very low homicide and crime rates in Japan, and it is a correct thing to cite, and it is a source of pride, correctly, for the Japanese. But the Japanese have a terrible record historically, and I mean this century, I don't mean 15th century, of treating any non-Japanese. The horrendous treatment of Chinese and Koreans, for example, are, are deeply enmeshed in the memory of East Asians. And it is true for every group. To be able to see the other as real is very tough. I have—

I—

that's true for gender. One of the most difficult things for boys to do is see girls as real. It is an immense challenge. It is immensely helpful if a boy has a very working, good working dialogical relationship with his mother, and even better, or perhaps as good, if he has sisters with whom he has real relations. By the way, it's true for girls. Girls who don't grow up with brothers or so on, boys are not real. And even if they do sometimes have brothers or sisters the opposite sex, the opposite sex still remains unreal. I mean, if that's true for your own group and it's only the other gender, how much more so is it true for those who are in other groups entirely, where it's just they're not real? That is why I have cited a very interesting thing. Thomas Keneally, who wrote Schindler's List, uh, he, uh, is certainly aware of the The Human Mind: The Mysteries and Mystifications of Racism. He has done a great service to the world in writing this book. He wrote an article in the Los Angeles Times, which is the proverbial tree that fell in a forest that nobody heard, because he wrote in the article something that people don't want to hear. He wrote that racism is very natural to the human being, which I have always felt. And I think that these, uh, billboards that you might have seen seen in, in our city of Los Angeles, how our humanist romanticism— racism, nobody is born a racist, I think those were the billboards. That's not true. We are born racist, not in the sense that a 2-year-old will go, oh, you're black, I don't like you, you're white, I don't like you, but in the sense that the only real is himself.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will We'll continue right after this.

Precious metals dealers come and go. This is Nick Grovich, president of Amped Coin and Bullion. We've stood the test of time since 1983. With the flurry of coin and bullion dealers coming and going, how do you know who to trust and what to buy? At Amped Coin and Bullion, we value educated consumers. We want to alert you to good bullion buys in the market and help you steer clear of the tricks and bad deals. Call Amped Coin and Bullion for a free coin performance review. 800-221-7694 or americanfederal.com.

Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

The human being— I tell you, when you have children at an older age, you really— it, it all becomes even clearer. The human being, the growth of the human, is the growth away from narcissism, from you as the center of the world. Mark, you wanna flip this over? Oh, it does it itself? You did a good job. Look at that, it just sits there and goes like this and it turns over. We start out in life, we are the absolute universe. Me, I, the baby, I am the universe. Even your mother, I mean, this is, you know, classical psychology. Your mother is part of you, and it's part— why, why is it a tough time to be a baby and grow up? All of a sudden, it's you— as you get older, you realize, uh-oh, Mommy isn't part of me. And, uh, Judith Viorst wrote an excellent book on this, Necessary Losses. Life is a constant necessary losses stage, when you lose that comfort of I and Mommy are one, and all of a sudden you— wait a minute, there is another. What is— would you ever try to explain to a 2-year-old or 3-year-old that you have your own life? Right, you're laughing. It's absurd, you know, trying to reason, you know, you have to understand, uh, Mommy and Daddy have not made love in 2 and a half years, and, uh, we would really I'd like to this evening, so shut up. Uh, you know, that doesn't work. Uh, they don't care. The trick in life is to in fact grow up and know, know that you are not the center. And what people have done is they have—

they have—

that what they do in order to stay as a child is you make your group the larger baby. That's what I really believe is done with intense nationalism or religious chauvinism. I see—

I—

you see, to be an autonomous individual, which I really believe— and here, Erich Fromm in You Shall Be as Gods wrote one of the seminal works I ever read, and I'm not always an Erich Fromm fan— but the— to grow up— God wants us to grow up. I believe that deeply. He wants us to argue with him. He wants us to be autonomous beings. But we don't want to grow up. Who wants to grow up? Being an autonomous human being, that's very hard. And so we will do whatever we can to be— stay a baby, stay a child. And I see it with— that's what nationalism, intense nationalism, intense religious bonding is very like. It's the the comfort of the womb all over again. Ah, I am with people who are identical to me, and we are one. That's what Hitler would— Hitler spoke that way. Said he, he would address the crowds as children. They were, they were like children, that the million Germans at a Nuremberg rally. And they loved it. We are all, we're all one. I have spoken about this on the radio. I am frightened by the term unity. The only unity I like is values-based unity. I don't like any other unities. They scare me. Because if they're not based on values, then it means that I'm excluded. Your unity is my exclusion. And I hold this for Jews, I hold this for any group. I don't only hold this for other groups. And this is this notion that Sarna emphasizes here of loving the stranger as essential. And again, how does the Torah teach it? Through empathy. It keeps repeating, "You know how it feels." You can't have morality without empathy. There was a story about Bosnian women being raped. I read it on the air when it, when it was in Newsweek, how a woman was about to be raped by a Serbian soldier, and then she identified herself to him, and he remembered knowing her from before the war, and he just stopped. He literally stopped in the middle of rape. Oh, it's you! You're not just a body, you're Anna. I don't know what her name was, I'm just— but a name. That is how, by the way, the Nazis could exterminate Jews. And I use their term.

They—

the Jew in the, in the death camp didn't have a name, had a number. A name already makes you real. He couldn't rape Anna. He could rape a Bosnian woman, but not Anna. In fact, uh, uh, Himmler, the architect with Eichmann of the Holocaust, in 1943 in Posen, Poland, gave a, a talk to the SS who were in charge of the death camps, and he yelled at them. He said, you know, You don't understand how important your work is. It's a speech you have to read. It's, it's beyond, literally beyond human credibility, the speech. How idealistic it is to kill all Jews, and you have to understand what great work you are doing. But in the middle of the speech, he said, you know, listen, every one of you, however, has one Jew you want to save. This is ridiculous. You're not being noble to the cause. When you know somebody, when you know their reality, it's very hard to treat them as something else. Guy called me, it's one of my— I gotta dig it up and transcribe it. A white guy called me on the phone about a year ago. Dennis, I'm becoming a racist. You remember the call? I'm becoming a racist, I want you to help me. Which is very touching that he would even say that. I said, what happened? He said, a black black man mugged me. And I had one question, because it was so simple. I have them— it's probably the only black who ever touched him, or he ever touched. You can't when there is empathy. So the Torah keeps saying, empathize. You were strangers. Maybe that's why we had had to be in Egypt before we could get the Torah. If I'm right, if I'm right that the central teaching of the Torah is love the stranger, and that empathy is necessary in order to live a moral life, then we had to be strangers first. We had to be in exile first. We had to know what it's like to be the other. Who's God going to give it to? The Egyptians? They didn't know what know what it's like to be a stranger. So with all the moral teaching in the world, it doesn't work nearly as well. Empathy is necessary. Contact. Leo Beck, the great, the great Reform Jewish rabbi of Germany, a hero who went back to Berlin to be with his people under Hitler and survived the war, said in a speech that Jacob Petachovsky, may he rest in peace, one of the great reform rabbis of the 20th century, told me personally he heard in 1956, 11 years after the Holocaust, he heard Beck, Rabbi Beck, say, "If every German had a Jewish relative, there could not have been a Holocaust." I don't know if that's correct. It strikes me as very possible. I'll tell you, I'll tell you, and this goes against a lot of, you know, it goes against a lot of what Jews would want to believe. The only Jews that the Nazis did in fact allow to live were Jews in Germany who intermarried, because their German spouses made a demonstration in front of Nazi headquarters in Berlin, and then they released those Jews. It's not an argument for intermarriage. It's an argument for Jews relating to non-Jews. The more you isolate yourself, the less you will be empathized with. Obviously, you're not real. The, the, the retreat of Orthodox Jews into ghettos, the retreat of black students at campuses into black ghettos, of Hispanics into Hispanic dorms, These are the worst indicators for a society because it means that they will empathize less with others and others will empathize less with them. This is what the Torah is saying, and we had to be in Egypt in order to learn this. Yes? Does it ever refer to the stranger in oneself, that we should know the stranger, be good to the stranger, the darkest shadow, for example, in order to learn a greater humanity? Does it ever refer to the stranger in oneself, the darker shadow in yourself? This is a nice late 20th century psychological reading. I don't think it means that. I agree with Senator— who's the one from Nebraska who ran for president? Kerry. Kerry. At the funeral of a Vietnam veteran author who had just committed suicide. I read it on the air. It was published in the New Republic. And he said, and I'm only paraphrasing, he said, "We have it all wrong." He said, "First you learn you love others, and that teaches you how to love yourself." And he is, he was, to me, my mind, totally on target. And the psychological community is off base when they say first you have to learn to love yourself before you can love others. I don't agree, because you spend your lifetime loving yourself and then not loving others, and the world becomes a very hateful place. But, uh, the Golden Rule— do unto others as you would have others do unto you— has nothing to do with self-love. It just means I don't want to be hurt. Anyway, as I often say, I don't even know what self-love is. I like me, but I don't know if I love me. You know, and I think I'm into self-like. Yeah. I wonder, I think the tolerance towards other religions and other cultures, etc., only can come when you recognize that you are not that perfect yourself, or your own race, your own religion. Only then can you empathize with others. Yeah, she's saying you can only empathize with others when you realize, or have tolerance for other religions and cultures, when you realize that yours is imperfect. I have distinctly ignored the issue of culture. There are cultures I have no tolerance of and have deep contempt for. I'm talking about empathy for individuals who are different. I empathize with the humanity of every other group, but I don't necessarily have respect for their values and their culture. They are two different things entirely. And this, by the way, is the flaw of what I— I don't want to get on this tangent, but I think the flaw of multiculturalism— not that we shouldn't celebrate many cultures, it's that at the heart of it is no culture is better than any other. I don't buy that for a moment. I think our treatment of women is far superior to Saudi Arabia's treatment of women. Okay? Yet that's their cultural norm. I won't invade. I don't deny at all the humanity of the Saudi human being. That's totally separate. A Saudi is as real as I am. But that doesn't mean I have to respect the culture that says a, uh, a woman will be arrested if she goes, if she leaves the house alone. It's the infantilization of women. Okay, so that's a lesson here that Sarna brings out, which I think is accurate to point out. We are at verse 5, correct? Yeah, 47:5. Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, As regards your father— oh, I did it all. I did that. Yes, excuse me. That's right, what he told him. Okay, verse, uh, then brought his father Jacob and presented him to Pharaoh. And Jacob greeted Pharaoh. Pharaoh asked Jacob, how many are the years of your life? And Jacob answered Pharaoh, The years of my sojourn. That's a very interesting one. Now that, uh, it didn't occur to me the first— hold on a second, I want to see the Hebrew. Yeah, that's very interesting that he uses this term instead of, you know, the number of years of my life. He says the number of years of my sojourns. It's like he's a permanent stranger, uh, Jacob. Talk about the stranger. That's very interesting. What an interesting answer he gives. The years of my sojourn on earth, in parentheses, are 130. Few and hard. Most of us today would not regard that as few. Hard, we would agree. He has had a hard life. Few years, we would— we have different, uh, compared to his two— to his father and grandfather, he has few. Few and hard have been the years of my life, nor do they come up to the lifespans of my fathers during their sojourns. By the way, the Jew has really been the eternal stranger. This too is a recurring theme. Jews, Jews are the one unassimilable yet, yet comfortable group in every culture they are. I mean, look at how well Joseph Joseph did in Egypt. Look at how well Jews did in Germany, Jews did in, uh, in, uh, in Arab countries, and yet remained the different. I would argue to you that part of the Jewish task is, is again unwittingly, and, and we, we don't desire it because it's terribly painful, is to teach love the stranger by being strangers in the world. Because look, let's be honest, if a society, a non-Jewish society, treats its Jews well, there's a good chance it will treat other minorities well. Now you might argue, ah, but look at the United States, it did not treat blacks well when Jews certainly had more rights. And that is true, but the fact of the matter is it is also the society that went the furthest in human history toward abolishing racism. Even Edie Falk, Edie Foell, the defender, the attorney for Damien Williams, of the Reginald Denny notoriety, said in the LA Reader, and I read this too on the radio, "There is no country in the world that offers people of all races the opportunities America does." That was Edie Foell. I was shocked, actually, to read it. I thought there was a misprint. Misprint because he refers frequently to the riots as rebellion, and if a society has that many opportunities, you would tend not to call it rebellion, but that's the reason I was surprised. At any rate, the fact is people of all groups with all the human limitations that exist in this country, the Jew is an excellent example an excellent barometer of how others will be treated. If antisemitism becomes okay in America, you can bet everything you own that anti-other groups will become okay. Likewise, with the acceptance of Jews as co-equals, the movement toward the abolishing of racism would also continue. So it would seem.

Yes?

I once worked for somebody who was an Armenian Christian who told me that for him the Jew was a barometer. When things get so bad that he can see the Jews suffering in America, he'll leave because then the Armenians will be next. Yes, he's— he is— he is validating my statement from his own experience of an Armenian Christian who said if it gets bad for the Jews, I'm leaving because then we're next, or at least another group is next, and then we're next. Exactly. We are the eternal stranger, and that's how Jacob identifies himself here. Then Jacob bade Pharaoh farewell and left Pharaoh's presence. 11. So Joseph settled his father and his brothers, giving them holdings in the choicest part of the land of Egypt, in the region of Ramses, which is coequal apparently to Goshen, as Pharaoh had commanded. Joseph sustained his father and his brothers and all his father's household with bread, down to the little ones. 13. Now there was no bread in all the land. How many of you have in all the world? How many of you have in all the land? Okay, I— this one says all the world. I, I think all the land is correct. What's so funny? I'm sorry? In the entire area? Yeah, see, the entire world makes the Torah look like it did not have a clue that there was a world outside of the Middle East, you know, and which may be true, but I want to show the significance of having that interpretation.— that translation. Now there was no bread in all the land, for the famine was very severe. Both the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine. Joseph gathered in all the money that was to be found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan as payment for the rations that were being procured. And Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's palace. That last point is to make it clear he kept none of it. Okay, this is a very, very important little addendum. The man who collected all the money of Egypt and Canaan gave it all to Pharaoh. Okay, that's why it's in there. And when the money gave out in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, give us bread lest we die before your very eyes, for the money is gone. And Joseph said, "Bring your livestock, and I will sell to you against your livestock if the money is gone." So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses, for the stocks of sheep and cattle and the asses. Thus he provided them with bread that year in exchange for all their livestock. And when that year was ended, They came to him the next year and said to him, we cannot hide from my lord that with all the money and animal stocks consigned to my lord, nothing is left at my lord's disposal save our persons and our farmland. Let us not perish before your eyes, both we and our land. Take us and our land in exchange for bread, and we with our land will be saved. Servants to Pharaoh. Provide the seed that we may live and not die, and that the land may not become a waste. So Joseph gained possession of all the farmland of Egypt for Pharaoh, every Egyptian having sold his field because the famine was too much for them. Thus the land passed over to Pharaoh. And he removed the population town by town from one end of Egypt's border to the other. Only the land of the priests he did not take over, for the priests had an allotment from Pharaoh, and they lived off the allotment which Pharaoh had made to them. Therefore they did not sell their land. Uh, let me finish this part because It's a very morally difficult part, and you might, when you read this, not be confused as to why anti-Jewish feelings may have erupted among some Egyptians given what Joseph has done here. It's a problematic section. Then Joseph said to the people, "Whereas I have this day acquired you and your land for Pharaoh," You and your land for Pharaoh. Here is seed for you to sow the land. And when harvest comes, you shall give one-fifth to Pharaoh, and four-fifths shall be yours as seed for the fields and as food for you and those in your households and as nourishment for your children. And they said, You have saved our lives. We are grateful to my lord, and we shall be serfs to Pharaoh. And Joseph made it into a land law in Egypt, which is still valid, that a fifth should be Pharaoh's. Only the land of the priests did not become Pharaoh's. Okay, it's a, it's a troubling section, uh, because the, uh, the staggering power given over to Pharaoh and the, the enslavement, as it were, of the Egyptian people is attributed to Joseph. Uh, maybe one of you, or more than one, have an answer as to why this story would be told this way. I don't have an answer, nor have I found one that satisfied me. But I can tell you what it— what is clear in a moment. What is clear is that the Torah is, is trying to explain how the phenomenon of an Egypt enslaved by one man came about. Because this idea is so repugnant to Judaism, to the Torah, where, you know, the idea of being a slave to a human is repugnant. You're supposed to be a servant of God, not of man. And, uh, therefore there was a certain contempt for the way Egyptians looked at Pharaoh. And here is a way of explaining its genesis, that they willingly sold themselves into slavery in order to get the seed. Of course, you might ask, what choice did they have? Which strikes me as a fair question. And so I don't have an answer to that, but I want you to understand that this policy policy is a difficult one, and all of them— let me see if I could quickly find, uh, here. Well, let me read to you at least one part here from Sarna. The state-controlled land is cultivated by the former landowners who pay a tax of 20% of the harvest in return for the privilege and for the seed allotment. Such an interest rate was not considered excessive in the ancient Near East. During the reign of Hammurabi, for instance, the state's share of the harvest from administered fields varied between two-thirds and one-half after the deduction of production expenses. Almost sounds like our tax code. An interest rate of 20%, yeah, you know, when you think about it, it's not a terribly onerous thing given our tax rates are higher than 20%. On money loans was quite common in Babylon while the rate for loans of produce was usually 33 1/3%. It's the jargon that is the difficult part. "Oh, we'll be happy to be Pharaoh's serfs." And I think this was the Torah's way of saying, "Look, a nation doesn't get enslaved against its own will." That is what I think is being said here, and it's an interesting question. Is there something in the Russian personality that leads to a czar and a Stalin? Is there something in, in German history or national characteristics that gives you a Kaiser and a Hitler? I don't know. I truly don't know. But it's, uh, but these are, these are tough questions. Yes. Well, it said that they were serfs, and they used the Hebrew word, it's called avdim. Yeah, which is slaves. So why is slave here translated to serfs? And then it says we were slaves. Yes, the reason is, is because the Jews weren't even serfs. The level of the Jews was lower than the level of an Egyptian. But it's the same word. It is this, but it's the same word for servant. English has 3 words, Hebrew has 1. It's a problem. There is no Hebrew word for servant as such except for eved. It says that Moses is eved Adonai. Does it mean Moses is the serf of God? I doubt it. Moses is the slave of God? I doubt it. Moses the servant of God? Probably. And the same word is used. Anybody else?

Okay.

27. Thus Israel settled in the country of Egypt, in the region of Goshen. Goshen. They acquired holdings in it and were fertile and increased greatly. Jacob lived 17 years in the land of Egypt, so that the span of Jacob's life came to 147 years. Now I got to tell you this, I wish— it's the only time I wish I had a blackboard. This is crack— this is the stuff that cracks me up, because I have no brain for this, but when I see I find it fascinating. Abraham lived till 175, Isaac to 180, Jacob to 147. Any of you see anything in common in those numbers? They're long. Excellent. Anybody else? Okay, fine. Don't look in Sarna, please. If anybody gets this, you will join the lunch. 175 is Abraham's age. 180 is Isaac. 147 is Jacob. I see you thinking. Okay, here, here is the way it works. I mean, it, it takes— it, you know, it took, uh, people a while to figure it out, I suspect. The, uh, here is the way it is. And he's right. I mean, this is not what we call a bubbe meise. This is not, you know, lunging for straws. This is true because numbers in all of Genesis have meanings, all of them. Uh, the, the real expert on that is Gunther Plaut. I mean, he has devoted a lot of scholarship to the numbers in Genesis. Abraham— the lifespans of the three patriarchs lend themselves to factorization, which immediately had my eyes glazing. According to the following pattern. You ready? Abraham is 175. That is 5 times 5 times 7. Isaac, 180. 6 times 6 times 5. Jacob, 147. 7 times 7 times 3. They are working in patterns. Abraham is 5 times 5 times something. Isaac, 6 times 6 times something. Jacob, 7 times 7 times something. And even the times— the something has a pattern. Abraham, 7. Isaac, 6— excuse me, 5. Jacob, 3. 7, 5, 3. There is an absolute pattern. And the reason for that, and I am convinced that the ancient Jews knew this. It was instinctive to them to think in these terms, was to show that there was a divine element in their lifespan, that it is all tied neatly together. God is behind. Remember, that's a theme running through Genesis. God is behind what happens. You know, if you follow the patterns of the next lower one, it's 8 by 8 by 1. Yes. Which is closer to the ages that we are presently living compared to where our— That's right. The next would be 8 times 8 times 1, but that would be very few years. Yeah, 65. Yes, that is closer. That's true. So I hope you do not live a factored life. And, uh, Sarna writes, in this series, the squared number increases by 1 each time while the coefficient the coefficient decreases by 2. Furthermore, this you should have picked up, folks. I'm really disappointed. In each case, the sum of the factors is 17. Guys, I, you know, give your teacher some nachas. Anyway, it is remarkable, and there's a lot of A lot of this all through Genesis that I have spared you, but I, I, uh, this, this runs, this obviously runs a pattern anyway. Why? Because it shows that there is meaning to the number. That's why. God, this is, it's like a secret code to say it, nothing is random, that, and among the patriarchs, I think they did Because I don't think this was written for late, you know, 20th century mathematicians. I think that there was a sense— of course, I mean, yes, I deeply believe. Look, if you don't believe God wrote every word of the Torah, and I suspect very few of you here believe that, clearly whoever wrote it wasn't just throwing out numbers. There had to be— or even if it's just traditions, there had to be a reason for the numbers, unless you say it's a coincidence. I don't think it is. And that's what Genesis is trying to say. There isn't coincidence. It's not a coincidence that, uh, Joseph is, is, uh, thrown in, sent into slavery. The divine hand is there. The divine hand is there in their numbers. Now, the, the point is, and I spoke about this, so I won't amplify now, just does God have his hand in all our lives like he did in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob's lives? And you can answer yes or no and be equally sustainable by Jewish thought. The tendency in Judaism, I think, from Maimonides, is to hold that God intervenes in certain lives more than in others, which makes a great deal of sense. Those who, those who have a divine role to play will have more interference with those who do not choose to have a divine role. And you can choose to have one. I mean, there is a belief you, you, the closer you get to God, the more God will get close to you. That's not an absurd idea. And so who knows? On the other hand, there are those who hold that everything is, you know, there, there are those who hold that God is involved in everything, and yet you still have free choice. To which the question is, how do you reconcile that? And that's when I take the next question. Yes, 120 comes from Moses. She asked, where does the number— you know, you should live till 120, uh, it— you should live till 120 is a statement of two things: may you live long and may you not outlive Moses. Okay, Moses lived to that. We should— that's, that's, that was set, but it's all tradition. You're not penalized if you live longer than Moses. I think you are, frankly, now that I mention it. You know, I think it's a pretty big penalty, as you know. I am not rooting for that.

Yes.

You make the point a number of times that the Torah is teaching the Jews to learn from their experiences, i.e., to learn what took— feels like to be a stranger, therefore treat the stranger nicely. That being the case, suggesting that there must be some inherent feelings within man or humans that they are relatively negative compared to the experience— that they're able to experience other feelings so that they can learn from those feelings. Which would then take it a step further if, with that being the case, how can many different cultures and many different ideas of culture develop around the world? Idea of one being You said that a society cannot be enslaved to one man if they do not want to be enslaved to one man. In other places, you are not enslaved to one man. Would Peter suggest that there are many different sets of inherent feelings that humans are born with? Oh no, I think that human nature is universal. I don't think that my nature is any different from that of a New Guinea Bushman whom I happened to have visited. Uh, uh, you know, like the mud men and so on. I, I don't think my nature is any different. It is my values and my culture that are different. Now, you have a good question: how do— why do cultures develop the way they do and so on? And I don't know if there is an, you know, there is— we'll ever really know the answer. The Jewish answer is there was— that, that is where divine revelation comes in. Revelation is a very— is the essential faith element in Judaism, that these Jewish ideas would not have developed were there not a divine revelation involved. It took divine revelation, for example, to abolish child sacrifice. That would be a Jewish position. People would still be sacrificing their children, and we would basically still have the culture that personified the, uh, the ancient Near East if it weren't for divine intervention. Okay, so he said, does each culture need to have a divine revelation in order to be able to learn and grow? Or— well, hold on a minute. Well, the person is part of a culture that could have the revelation, so we won't get it personal yet. The answer, uh, the Jewish answer would be no. They don't all have to have divine revelation so long as one group does its job and bring the divine revelation to the world. That was the Jews' task, is to bring the divine revelation of Sinai to the world. But the number, the percentage of Jews who feel that task is microscopic. And so indeed, the power of it though It was so powerful that other groups did variations on the Jewish theme and took the revelation. They're called Christians and Muslims. You know, Christianity and Islam are rooted in the divine revelation to the Jews.

That's—

if there was no divine revelation to, to, uh, to the Jews, then there is no Christianity and there is no Islam. So, you almost have the sense that the idea is so powerful and the Jewish speed was so slow that others just took it and ran with it. Maimonides, the greatest Jewish thinker who ever lived, 12th century North Africa, Spain and North Africa, said, At the end of his greatest work of Judaism, the Yad HaChazakah, it was Christians who took the Torah to the world. And he was no Christian fan, given the way Jews were treated in much of Christendom. But it's true. The Torah is known to— to the extent that the Torah is known to humanity, it is overwhelmingly the work of Christians. Yep.

Right there.

A missionary belief. Yeah, that is the missionary belief. That is the Jewish mission. Why would God choose the Jews if not— if God chose the Jews without a mission, God's a chauvinist. Well, we're supposed to, but not for Judaism, but for for divine revelation. Even the Lubavitcher Rebbe sent his Chabad Hasidim in the last 10-15 years out to teach the Seven Laws of Noah. There is a specific injunction in Judaism to teach basic moral law rooted in God to the world.

We should be actively recruiting converts—

converts to ethical monotheism, not Judaism. I guess that's what's is not— the purpose of Judaism is to have a people live a certain way and teach certain teachings so that the world will come to God, the one God and the one law. Judaism's purpose is not that Jews be Jewish. It's a circular argument. What is the purpose of Judaism? For Jews to be Jewish. Well, why? Why should Jews be Jewish? Because God said so. Why, why would God choose one of the tiniest groups in the world to give revelation to if it isn't to affect the world? I've never gotten a, a satisfactory rational answer because there is none. It's so self-evident. God revealed will— his will to the Jews, to the Hebrews specifically. Uh, because that was the group he wanted to give, to be the, the, uh, the, the channel, the conduit of his message, that I am God and I want you to love the stranger, I want you to love your neighbor as yourself, etc. Otherwise, God would have to do it, uh, individually, like you said. God would have to give the Torah to every single nation, and God tried it, by the way. Universal moral revelation from God is believed in Judaism. It's called the conscience. Otherwise, how do you hold a Rwandan who never heard of the Torah responsible, uh, for, uh, for macheteing an innocent child in Rwanda last month? On what grounds can you say that he did evil? The basic Jewish idea is there is divine revelation in everyone. It's called conscience. But conscience isn't enough. You need humans to teach God's desires. And so God picked a bunch of losers, and it is made clear we are considered a bunch of losers, who had no national developed identity, had no land, had nothing to take this idea into the world. I really urge you, I truly do, if this interests you, to read— I wrote a simple essay, "Why Are There Jews?" in my journal, which is on sale before and after, or before before each class. But I really, I beg you to read that essay, "Why Are There Jews?" And these are not questions Jews reflect on. There is more Jewish religious attention paid to whether you are permitted to use certain cosmetics on Passover than to why the— whether the Jews have a role on this planet. I would ask Christians the same thing, but Christians have a very clear answer. See, you ask any Christian, what is the purpose of Christianity? It's to spread the gospel. It's to spread the good news of Jesus and salvation. Whether you agree with it or not is irrelevant, but every Christian has an inherent sense of mission. Every Muslim does, and almost no Jews do. It's tragedy. How do you make the distinction though between God's wish for us to Jewish laws, important things, and also to obey the laws like kosher and things like that. Right. What is the distinction between this God stuff and all the ritual laws in Judaism like kosher and so on? Well, you got to read a couple of things I wrote for that one, but I, uh, I will just tell you. The Jewish task is to advocate God and the universal God in the world and to live a particularly holy life as embodiment of what can be best in humanity. And that is what Jewish law is supposed to do. Jewish law is supposed to elevate you, and indeed, when done correctly, I think it does. It is not always done correctly, to say the least. What has happened to me, and this is understandable but tragic, is that Judaism has become ethnicized. It became Even the religious laws became for many Jews ethnic folkways. There is a lot of truth to Fiddler on the Roof. Tradition, tradition. Why do you do it? Tradition. Why does this Jew wait 1 hour between meat and milk, this one 3 hours, this one 6 hours? Tradition. But that to me is a terrible answer because it means I get my practices and values from national ethnicity, not from religious conviction. Does that make sense to you? Um, yes. The other thought that occurs to me often is the idea of being cultured helps keep you a stranger. That's very correct. It is the single biggest, I think, tear in Judaism. With this I'll have to conclude. I wanted to do one other theme. I'll have to do it next week. The role of land in Judaism, because they're all going to Why is Israel so important in this thing? And I need to talk to you about that. That what you just raised, that you were told, and you were told correctly, you and you experience, she does, that part of kosher is to keep Jews separate. All right, I'll give you my answer as I, as I have it at this time in my life. When the world was steeped in pagan pagan belief and immoral law, not just immoral behavior, immoral law. It was absolutely necessary for Jews to remain as physically separate as possible. To preserve something so different from the outside world, it was critical to look different, eat different, everything different. And the differentness in itself was important. Not just that the laws— I think the laws are important, but the differentness was an essential part. I don't think that that is true today. I think that it is not good for Jews to emphasize physical differentness. And this is where I break with the tradition. I see, I always ask people to be honest and say where they differ and not to state this is what it really is. I acknowledge that that mode of thinking is not the traditional mode of thinking. It doesn't even sit well with what you said before, because you said that it's our role to be the stranger, and being the stranger is part of our makeup, and now you want to take away being different. No. The stranger— by asserting our identity, we are a stranger. By not assimilating— not assimilating and remaining physically separate in enclaves is not the same thing. I ask the Jew to do something tougher. It's easy to stay Jewish if you live in Kiryas Joel, you know, that community in New York State. It's easy to do it in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, or Crown Heights. The trick is to maintain your distinct values and not physically remove yourself from the world? How on God's earth are we to influence people if we don't live with them, if we can't even have lunch with them? That's my response. See, Jews at least should be honest. I'm honest that I am, I am having a somewhat of a break with the tradition on this, but I ask traditional Jews to be honest too. Either you're going to have to We have to drop the absolute physical separateness or the belief that we have any message to humanity. You cannot have a message to humanity and remain physically separate.

On tomorrow's Sunday Fireside Chat—

Very rarely I have a guest, so when I do, it's a rather special person, as you will find out in a moment. And, uh, Brandon Tatum is, uh, extremely well known. Which by the way in and of itself doesn't mean anything. I've always said the famous are rarely significant and the significant are rarely famous, but he is famous and significant. That's, that's the point. Thank you, I like that. I'm gonna start using that. Yeah, okay, just quote me.

I will.

No, no, no, it's quite all right. I give you credit for it, I promise. So this is a former police officer in Tucson, Arizona, correct? That's where you were in the Tucson police force. And you now produce your own video channel, your own video casts, podcasts. You're creating a channel. Otto is very excited, by the way, because he is not used to guests. It's usually just Otto and myself. But he took a liking to you very quickly. Yeah, I like him too. You do?

I'll tell him.

I'll tell him. When he wakes up, I'll tell him.

Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom. With Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles. We want to take just a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the podcast. Go to LifeAudio.com to find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network, including shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.

Precious metals dealers come and go. This is Nick Grovich, president of Ampfed Coin and Bullion. We've stood the test of time since 1983. With the flurry of coin and bullion dealers coming and going, how do you know who to trust and what to buy? At Ampfed Coin and Bullion, we value educated consumers. We want to alert you to good bullion buys in the market and help you steer clear of the tricks and bad deals. Call Ampfed Coin and Bullion for a free coin performance review. 800-221-7694 or americanfederal.com.