Jacob's New Name - Genesis 35:1-35:29

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On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom.

You'd think if you had met God, God would not have to reintroduce himself to you. Think about it, right? If God spoke to me, said, Dennis, you remember me, don't you? No, I just don't. I've been so involved with my work, I just, I just don't remember. I— it seems silly, doesn't it? Think about it for a moment.

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.

Well, I, I have good news and I have bad news. The bad news is The, uh, there is nothing terribly rich in today's chapter. The good news is I can come up with anything. There's a lot of truth to what I just said, and it's a little disturbing. Okay, anybody have any thoughts on, uh, the rape of Dinah? How did she get out of the house? Jacob ran a very liberal home. Listen, if you had 10 kids, you're going to keep an eye on, on all of them? I mean, it's— or is that 11 at that time? The only daughter. That's right.

So weren't they watching her?

They— no, you know what, the truth is, it is an interesting point because she did a very— look, it's hard to keep them down on the farm. I mean, if she obviously had an independent personality That's, that was, that was what I said was the implication of that very first verse, that she went out to see the women of the land. On the other hand, on the other hand too, remember, you, in Semitic society, women are allowed to go to other women. That is not in itself a terribly audacious act. They don't have to stay in the tent or the home all day, every day. They— but normally they should be accompanied by a man if they leave the house and they're single. That's true. So, so that part— I mean, it would have been— what would have been incredible was, and Dina went out to see the men of the land. This would have been quite extraordinary.

Yes, you used the term last session of conniving Jews. You used the word conniving, and I remember that. And I was wondering, are Jews paying the price today because of Jacob's sons' frightens? Sins of Jacob's sons in being so conniving? Is that, is that the beginning of something, that that's how we're thought of by the Hebrews?

Yeah, it's a very interesting question. Do Jews pay the price for this conniving reputation that the Bible itself really applies to our patriarchs, or at least some of them, or at least Jacob? Uh, it's funny, the rabbis actually said yes. The rabbi said that in fact we did pay, the Jewish people did pay a price later for it. It is an interesting thing you should raise. And it's, it's, that is unfortunate. The fact of the matter is that, you know, this, you know, I am no apologist for anybody, uh, and, and I mean for nobody in the Bible and for no ethnic group, but everybody connived. You know, it was Non-coniving is a very rare thing in human affairs. What is not— it is not remarkable that Jacob ever connived or that his sons did. What is remarkable is that the holy book of that people should admit it and not defend it. That's what's remarkable. That Jews would act not so beautifully is not remarkable. Jews are human. The remarkable thing, and I've said this on a number of occasions, is that our holy book would in fact acknowledge this. And this is unique. As I said, the New Testament portrays only beautiful Christians, uh, the, uh, the, the, uh, Quran beautiful Muslims. But the Torah does not only portray beautiful Jews, it portrays beautiful non-Jews as frequently as it does beautiful Jews, and ugly Jews as frequently as ugly non-Jews. It's not a fan. It's not a Jew fan, the Torah. And we've paid a price, ironically, for that honesty. By the way, I want to welcome you to the class. Pleasure to have you. Yes? It is really possible that all those people were persuaded to become circumcised by this one person. And to me, this affinity is more remarkable than his persuasion and kindness. Right. But she says that the Shemite stupidity was actually more remarkable than the conniving of Reuven and his brothers. Not necessarily. Did you remember what he promised them? All this wealth for a couple of days of pain. Do you know what people will do for money? I mean, listen, what do we all do for money? And I don't even mean, I don't mean immoral things. They didn't do anything immoral. You know, it's like, Would you like to lick 1,000 envelopes? No. But if I gave you $10,000, the envelopes would taste like chocolate sundaes. I'm sorry?

You have to give me the $10,000 first.

Oh, okay. All right. Had you been a shechem male, you would not have offered your organ. Okay. What can I say? Yes?

In a way they did have a guarantee though, because like you pointed out last week, they had Dinah in the first place when they asked for her hand in marriage. They had her. They had physical possession of her. And like you pointed out last week too, nothing Jacob— there's nothing Jacob and his family could have done about it. And when Shechem promised, yeah, you can have all their goods, he might not have been lying.

He could have taken it if he wanted to. Yes.

And that's actually in defense of Levi and Simeon going and killing all the people in that village. If that was the only way they can get Dina back.

Yes, thank you for making that point. Where's the couple who made that point at the end of the last session? Yeah, you had me thinking for 2 weeks. This couple over here, the ones, uh, necking in the 8th row, uh, they are— they came over afterwards and noted a very good point, that Dina was still in their possession, and the implication is that this was the only way they could have saved her. If that is true, it does offer a defense for what is otherwise abominable conduct. I mean, if you— if someone kidnapped your daughter and would not let her go under, under peaceful conditions, you would not be wrong in making war upon her captors. That's, that's true if that's in— if that's indeed the case. It's a big if, but it's not an incomprehensible if. The text is quiet on that, and you were right in pointing that out. And you're saying that, yes.

Furthermore, if they didn't— you know, obviously you think, well, a lot of these people were innocent, had nothing to do with it, but if they would have killed Shechem and his father, the people who are guilty of it, or at least Shechem, the whole— they would have been killed anyway by the village, because it seems that when you—

Oh no, no, once they started the deal, that's why I said that I don't believe it's right to blame the two who did the killings, Levi and Shimon. It's not right to blame them. Everybody connived in this, because what were they going to do, circumcise them and then, and then just leave them in that condition? Except there is one other possibility: they would circumcise them, take Dina, and run away. But once these guys recuperated, they would be angrier than ever and would have killed the, would have killed the family, Jacob's family. So the plot from the beginning involved killing. The only question is, what you two raised and you raised, is was that the only way to save her? I hope all of you who were not here last week are, you know, you're coming in the middle of a soap opera, as it were. I hope it's somewhat clear. Very simply, Jacob's daughter Dina went out and was taken by a shem, and she was She was raped, and she was kept, but the rapist fell in love with her, and really did fall in love with her, and we had a whole thing on that about how can you fall in love with somebody you rape, and it was an interesting thing in and of itself. But that totally notwithstanding, the plot was, let's tell them that, oh yes, we will give you her for a daughter, for a wife. Just in order to do that, in order for us to intermarry, we the children of Jacob and you Shechemites, you've got to circumcise your men. While they were circumcised and in pain from the healing, they were killed, and Dinah was taken away. Okay, that's basically what happened, and that's what we're talking about. Let me just take a couple of more, and then I can proceed with today.

Yes. Sort of along the same lines, but the moment that they deceived their own people in order to circumcise them, that to me says that they were no goodniks. In other words, they didn't keep their end of the bargain anyway by promising the Jewish goods. And I mean, they did say that in order—

the children of Jacob didn't keep their bargain, you're saying? Oh, the Shechemites didn't?

Yes, because they said in order to get the men In order to get—

oh, they— oh, that's a—

yes, they lied about the deal they made with Jacob. So the moment they entered into deceit with their own people—

that's a good point, very good point.

They were not honorable people.

Well, not only that, they were smarter to outsmart them.

They would have ended up being screwed by the very people who initially—

it's a biblical word, actually. No, the, uh, it's a very, very— it's an interesting point. Remember, the Hashem goes back and makes this deal, says to his people all the things that they'll get if only they undergo circumcision. Now, he would have been in trouble, you, you see, if they, if they went through with the deal, then they would have come back and said, okay, well, where's all the stuff you promised us from the children of Jacob? And then the children of Jacob would say, why did you promise them? We never made that promise. So they were a corrupt crowd. Yes, in fact, it's very— tell you, it's— there's a certain interesting thing for me personally, because I had really, until last week and now, seen it in a more negative light. You're changing my mind. But it's interesting, if that's the case, that if my mind is being changed, I assume some of yours are also. And I— you recall I also, in the course of time, found that there was more to justify what Jacob had done. So, listen, conniving— back to your— where is— yes, back to conniving for a minute. This is a large moral issue generally. I wrote an article for my journal, which is outside, and which you can subscribe to, and should. I wrote an article a while ago, and the title was "No Act Is Always Wrong," because I had come to realize in the course of all my years on radio that a big part of the reason I would often have moral differences with callers was over this issue.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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.

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

For example, uh, capital punishment. Just, uh, I'm not gonna— the issue is here not to make the case for it, but, but I want to explain what I realized was happening. I'm for capital punishment for murder. So people would call up and the usual argument, hey, How can two wrongs make a right? How can you say killing is wrong and then kill? It's like telling your kid not to slap another kid and slapping your kid. And I would make all sorts of arguments and so on, and then I realized after a few years that what was happening was people were measuring the morality of an act by the act and not by its context. Killing is not always wrong. Not biblically, not morally, period. As you know, well, I can't assume it, but if you've heard me for more than 2 weeks at any given stretch, you've heard me correct people about the Ten Commandments. It does not say, "Thou shalt not kill." That's an incorrect translation. It's, "Thou shalt not murder." Killing is permitted, murder is not. Murder is immoral killing. In other words, there's moral killing and immoral killing. So too there is moral everything and immoral anything. There's moral lying and immoral lying. Immoral lying you all know, but what's moral lying? Example I always give: man is chasing a woman, wants to rape her, and says, uh, says to me, the bystander, "Sir, could you tell me where this woman ran to? I'd like to rape her." You would all acknowledge that I would I would be morally bound to lie. Oh, she went there when in fact she went there, right? Spies for the Allies against the Nazis lied every day. Was their lying wrong? Their lying was incredibly moral. Context determines the morality of an act, my friends. There are some times that good people have to connive. The world is not composed of angels. The world is composed of often very sordid types. And the more evidence you are correctly giving me about the sordidness of the Shechemites, the more the conniving of the children of Jacob makes sense. Conniving is amoral. All acts are amoral. The context determines it. And you may say that this is moral relativism, but it's not. Moral relativism is not the same as context determines morality. Moral relativism is that what's good for you is good for you, and what's good for me is good for me, but nobody else. That's not the case. In that context, the act is wrong for everybody. In that context, the act is right. For everybody. That's what moral absolutes mean. That's why I don't like the word absolute. I never use it. The word is universal morality. It's either relative morality or universal morality. But absolutes, the term used, doesn't mean that something is always wrong. Nothing is always wrong. Even, and I hate to say this because I am so opposed to it, and I would be for its universal banning, But in theory, even torture can be morally justified. If a terrorist were to place a bomb here and was caught, and it was going to go off in 10 minutes, and everyone in this room were to be maimed and murdered as a result of this terrorist bomb, would you feel it was wrong to torture him to find out where it was, to defuse it? No. Some people would. Some people think that it would be— well, killing won't help. When they're dead, they can't tell you where the bomb is. But my only point is context determines morality. That's all I want to say on the conniving as well. And that may be something that should be learned from this book. You have to judge the act depending on its context. It makes moral judgment more complex. It's very easy to just say killing is wrong, Well, thank you, so I don't have to grapple with the issue of do we bomb Iraq, I don't have to grapple with capital punishment, I don't have to grapple with when is it self-defense. It's easy to say killing is wrong, it's easy to say lying is wrong. The trick in a moral life is to find out when it is wrong.

Yes? were protecting Dina after the fact.

In other words, even though she was so wonderfully liberated and seemed like everybody was in accord for her to go out into wherever it was to these enemies and be raped, where were those brothers?

How come they did let you go? You didn't sneak out unbeknownst to anybody.

She might have. They were all out in the fields working, in fact, if you recall. That was the story. So They're not— I mean, you can't— what kind of— do you want to be guarded all the time by your brother?

It's—

I suspect—

I was just wondering, because you have a little list coming up, and they're the bad guys, but what about where were they then?

Oh yeah, there might have been an element of relinquishment of duty and so on, that's true, but I think overwhelmingly it was the issue of our woman was taken, and that was the primary. Just two more, and then I got to really, uh, continue. Yes? If I heard you correctly last week, I thought you said that Jacob, when he was dying, condemned his— Yes, that's correct. That's what bothers me about embracing— That is right. —concept that the conniving is okay, because Jacob, who had a better perspective on the situation than we do— Yes. —himself judged his— Very good point too. That, of course, is the whole problem. Jacob does call them warriors in a negative— in the negative sense of the word. Later you'll see in chapter 49. And if he judges them negatively, then he must have known more. My only argument, uh, not against it— my argument would be that what he knew was that there were other options. That's what I would suspect is the issue. The Shechemites are not angelic, that's clear. Okay, but there might have been other options available to get Dina other than mass murder or mass killing, and that is what I think Jacob is probably referring to. We don't know what they might have been, but, uh, I mean, for all we know, at the, uh, when they came and said, you know, my son is in love with your daughter, uh, we 'Let's intermarry.' Maybe Jacob— maybe they could have said, 'I'm sorry, that's not the way we work it. First you ask for our daughter, then you sleep with her. You don't sleep with her first. It's a strange ritual in our family, but that's the way we like it. Ask first, sleep later.' And, uh, and maybe that would have worked, you see. And we don't know that. And the truth is, by Jewish law, you must always seek peace before you make war. You cannot make war without first seeking peace. So that would be the argument to me that would substantiate the negative assessment of Jacob. Yes?

Were there many more Shechemites than Israelites? Yes. So if they wanted the land, why didn't they just take it?

The Shechemites? Shechemites.

Why did they wait for this bargain? Well, I see.

It would probably be better for the Shechemites to have a peaceful assimilation of the smaller group than to make war on it.

But the land was not such a major deal to them that they weren't after it?

Well, it wasn't so much Jacob's land. Jacob didn't own any land there. Jacob was a sojourner, but Jacob had material wealth, and Jacob had sons who could then become part of them and add to their power. I think they wanted the sons, and of course, Shem wanted Dina, what's her name, which is of course in effect what the Torah does to her. I gotta take it later, please forgive me, because I feel I'm cheating you if I take too much time on the questions. But I don't take at the end of the session, so please understand this is all before. But don't forget what you wanted to ask. We're up to chapter 35. 36 is not terribly interesting, so we're going to do 35 and 36. And I have one major theme today. The one advantage of the chapters that don't have inherently fascinating details is it enables me to talk about a larger issue, uh, that is hinted at in the text. And you'll see in a moment what I mean. Chapter 35, as it were, we now resumes— resume Jacob's journey into Canaan. God said to Jacob— because we took off a chapter for the rape of Dinah— God said to Jacob, arise, go up to Bethel and remain there, and build an altar to the God who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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.

Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom. Uh, okay, number one, Jacob has to move on after what his family did to the Shemites. He better move with great speed. Okay, you must understand, he did not need a divine call at that moment. But there is a divine call anyway. Interesting thing in this sentence is that God identifies himself to Jacob. Isn't that? You'd think if you had met God, God would not have to reintroduce himself to you. Think about it, right? If God spoke to me, said, Dennis Prager, you remember me, don't you? No, I just don't. I've been so involved with my work, I just, I just don't remember. I— it seems silly for Doesn't it? Think about it for a moment. You remember who I am. I am the one who appeared to you when you were fleeing from Esau. So what could that mean? What could that possibly mean, that God would re-identify himself? I mean, he's the creator of the heaven and earth, of the universe. All right, so one of these rare times I'm going to call one person. Yes, what do you think it means? New beginning. What does that mean, new beginning?

It's, um, after this, this mess that happened, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's a starting over.

Yeah, but, but again, it would imply that Jacob would forget. I'll try one other. Yes, sorry, I'm coming to save you again. Very good point. That, that's the hint that I'm coming to save you. I saved you then, I'll save you now. That's right. I think there is a great deal of truth to that. I think there is another thing, and I accept that totally. I do. I think it's a very fine point. I think that there is another point here though. You have to understand, because— and it's very difficult to— God is brand new at this time in history. You, you see, even if you're an atheist in this room, you know exactly what I mean, more or less, when I say God. Oh, the God of the Bible. Oh, that invisible God. Oh, the one the one who created the heavens and the earth, or people who believe that, the one who rewards good and punishes evil. Oh, that one. You know exactly what I mean if I say God. But not then. We are talking about people— and I beg you to try to put your mental state in this ancient Near Eastern world where gods were totems, amulets, Animals, rivers, rocks, trees. So you have to understand, I have to remind you who God is. You can easily forget. Even Moses later asks my favorite line in the Torah, when Moses says to God, "Who are you? What's your name?" You remember that? I mean, at the burning bush, it's extraordinary. What? Who will I say to the Jews sent me? They don't remember who you are. I don't, you know. And then God gives him a terrifically, you know, just an empirically based, clear, forthright answer. Tell them I AM WHO I AM sent you. Oh, no problem. That's my favorite line in the Torah. It is, it is actually funny. Tell him I AM sent you. Oh, you know, can you imagine if you— somebody came to your door? Who's there? I AM WHO I AM. Oh, you. It doesn't give you a great deal of data. It gives it— the truth is, when I, when I taught Exodus, I showed it, it gave a great deal of information about God in the deepest sense, but that's a separate issue. The point here is This God needs to keep saying to the first monotheists who God is, who he is. And pardon me for the he, I'm just uncomfortable, not because I'm male, I'm just uncomfortable because he/she gives it gender stuff and he is more neuter. And so please understand, I don't believe God has testicles. No, no, it's important that you understand that I I obviously don't. Uh, you have to hold your questions for later, otherwise I'll never, I'll never get through. Yeah, the, uh, well, I'll look at the Hebrew, uh, to make sure. And the Hebrew literally is, and make there an altar to the God who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother. That is the literal translation. Okay, if you have a different one, uh, I, I, you know, I can't imagine how different. The Hebrew is not complex in this case. But anyway, this is God. So I think both: I saved you then, I'll save you now. He's worried after what happened with Shem. And God is re-identifying who he is because— is it just a clarifying thing? Because I can't take questions during the middle.

Yes. Yeah, he read for me when he came, when he ran from Esau, he promised that he will build, he will go back to Beit Sheba.

That is correct.

And he apparently has a lot to do when he's on his way back, when he did not go right back to the one he promised, right?

He has to still fulfill his pledge.

God is kind of reminding him.

Uh, it's a good question. We don't know if God is reminding him or not, whether he would have remembered— remember his pledge to God. A lot of you didn't take it, but you still may have read the Bible even if you didn't take my class. Uh, I don't assume that this is the only time any Jew has ever seen the Torah. Uh, so, uh, but that is the famous statement where, where he makes this deal with God, as it were, and now he has to fulfill it, which is, which is here in Bethel. Okay, let me continue, please. Verse 2: So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, rid yourselves of the alien or foreign gods in your midst, purify yourselves and change your clothes. Come, let us go up to Bethel, and I will build an altar there. And I will continue in a moment. It's this that I want to deal with with in great detail. Major theme of, of today. This is the first time in the Torah that a contrast is made between the God of Israel and other gods. This is very important. It's about as important a theme as the Torah, as Judaism, as what we call the Judeo-Christian world has. This monotheistic God is distinct And so the first thing that Jacob does is get rid of the false or foreign gods in his midst that were obviously picked up from the Shechemites, or at least it's so we infer. Now, I want to talk to you about an issue right now that every one of you knows, but I wonder how many of you have ever asked the question. Why. You all know that Judaism, Christianity, the Bible consider monotheism infinitely superior to paganism. But I wonder how many of you, if I gave you an exam, could write why. Why is one God, the one God of the Bible, more important than the multiple gods of paganism? What's wrong with two? Or 7, or 100, or a million, as in some ways of understanding Hinduism. And I want to deal with right now what monotheism— not ethical monotheism, that I've made the case for, and, uh, in, in my whole life— I just want to deal with the ramifications of monotheism. Why is the Bible so intent upon destroying other gods. When I taught the first chapters of Genesis, I showed that the major theme was that one God created the universe and to constantly take swipes at pagan ideas. What's wrong with being a pagan? Incidentally, it's very relevant because we have modern pagan ideas today. There are many. And I will— you will see some of them hinted at when I go through this list. Okay, in no order of importance, let me give you number 1. Number 1 I got from a book long out of print, but if you can ever find it, it's truly one of the important books: The Divine Order: Western Culture and the The Middle Ages and the Renaissance by Henry Bamford Parkes, who was a professor at New York University. I'd like to read to you something that changed— one of the most seminal things I ever read that made me realize the profundity of Judaism and of monotheism. This is a non-Jew writing, a professor. Judaism repudiated the cyclic view of history held by all other ancient peoples and affirmed that it was a meaningful process leading to the gradual regeneration of humanity. This was the origin of the Western belief in progress, which has gradually been secularized. I'll explain all this. And become a kind of substitute religion, but retains elements of its prophetic origin. Natural law, ethical monotheism, and the coming of the heavenly kingdom have been the basic elements of the Western view of life. This is, this is what was the first revolution, or, uh, in, in what Judaism brought to the world. Let me explain what linear versus cyclic history is. Any of you who know karma, and many do, and that's why I told you there is a rejuvenation of many of the ideas that Judaism repudiated. This is not to say that people who believe in it are bad. Please understand I am talking about a distinctive Jewish belief, and I guess this needs a, a word or two. We are so today worried about making judgments as if every culture must be regarded by every other culture as equally desirable. If you believe in your religion, you must believe that there is something more desirable about your religion. When I meet a Christian who believes that Christianity is the way to God, I am not hurt, I am not insulted, I, I have no— I do not look down upon this person. It makes perfect sense. Why commit yourself to Jesus Christ if you don't believe that there is something inherently particularly true about it? I wouldn't be a Jew, a religious Jew, if I did not believe there was something particularly true about Judaism. It makes no sense. It's not like a car. Well, I like Buick and you like Olds, and you know, but they all get you there anyway. This is what the common parlance today is. Oh, all religions are just different roads to the same thing. It's a little true, but it's not fully true. And anyway, since you spend your whole life on the road, a different road is very important. The road does matter. You would rather be on a 6-line superhighway with a little traffic than on a gravel road behind a horse that kept, uh, polluting. Right? So even if it were only different roads, that would be in itself significant. But there is more than different roads. Those of you who know karma, what the— what do you— what is the basic knowledge that we have? Those who, who know anything about it, it is that you will in the next life suffer the consequences of what you earned or didn't learn in this life, so that you come back, you keep returning. You may make moral progress, but it is still a cycle. That's what's called cyclic. It's a cycle, and once you have reached your enlightenment, in Buddhist terms, you're gone. But the world itself does not progress. Your task is to reach enlightenment in— after all of these cycles and go on. In other cultures that are most of which are now gone, it's even more cyclical. It is merely every generation repeats that which happened in the previous one. You and I don't even know about that. You and I are so used to the term progress. Well, next generation will have a cure for cancer. That's the way we think. Next generation will have less poverty. Next generation, there will be fewer wars. Right? The reason you think that way is 100% as a result of Judaism, and of course of Christianity, which took the idea into the Western world. That's what Bamford Parkes is talking about here, that Judaism gave to the world— and look at his words, this is of an understating historian— Judaism repudiated the cyclic view of history held by all other ancient peoples. It was totally alone in history in saying that history should move forward, not repeat itself in each generation. In Native American life, it would repeat itself. In Mayan, in all of the cultures of the Western Hemisphere, Generally speaking, that is what happened. That is why there isn't much of a need to create a written language in, in many cultures. A written language is necessary because you have to learn from the past to develop something to give to the future. But you don't have to give anything to the future, as it were, if you're only repeating the present. And that is what Judaism came into, a world where you repeated the present and the next generation. The idea that history must move forward is Jewish. And as he says, this was the origin of the Western belief in progress, which has gradually been secularized and become, become a kind of substitute religion. Listen to what he gives as examples: both the liberalism of the 18th century Enlightenment and the Marxism of the 19th and 20th centuries looked forward to a kingdom of freedom still recognizably derived from the promises of Jeremiah, of the Hebrew Jewish prophet Jeremiah. The idea that history should move forward came from this book. The second thing he notes is that history has purpose and meaning. The idea that history has purpose, that this world has purpose, is Jewish. That doesn't mean only Jewish, because the daughters of Judaism adopted it, specifically Christianity and Islam. So it isn't uniquely Jewish. It was uniquely Jewish, and if it weren't for Judaism, it wouldn't have developed. My point is not to convince you how great Judaism is. It is to make it clear why Judaism opposed non-monothEism, why it opposed paganism. Okay? Because this is the first reference in the Torah to the rejection of other gods. That is why it is so important, and that's why I've taken this time out in, uh, in this chapter. The idea that history should move forward comes from monotheism. It's linear, not cyclical. Number 2: an invisible God. Monotheism gave us the ability to cultivate abstract thinking. When you believe in paganism, you don't have abstract thinking. There's a god of thunder, a god of lightning, a god of river, and there is a great deal of magic, which I will come to to you in a moment. What monotheism said is that the world is ruled by knowable, rational, non-capricious law. God rules the universe. God is a God of justice, a God of mercy, a God of truth. The world is ruled by this God. The gods of ancient man were totally different. Do you remember? I keep asking you that, but it's foolish because most of you weren't here. But if you saw the tape, perhaps you will remember I contrasted the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh with the Noah story. When you have— who's the hero there? Utnapishtim. Who's our hero? Noah. Why is Noah saved? Both of them have flood stories. Noah's saved because he's a good human being, right? The only righteous man in his generation. Why is Utnapishtim saved? Because he's handsome. The god— the god liked the way he looked. He just— the gods of the ancient world were created in the image of man. It's the antithesis of the Torah. The Torah holds that man is created in God's image. In paganism, the gods were created in man's image. They had the lusts that people did. They had the envies and jealousies that people did. They had the wars that people did. They had everything we had, just they were bigger. It was miserable human beings writ large. That is what was the case in the ancient world. That this is a total rejection of that. God is perfect. God transcends all of these human frailties, and God rules the world on the basis of justice, mercy, compassion, truth. Therefore, as I said, you can also develop— you can develop abstract thinking. Because this God is invisible. When you believe that everything is visible, all the gods are— the sun god, the frog god, the hawk god, the tree god— then the idea that there are forces that cannot be seen, which is the basis of modern science, is foreign to you. You have to believe that there are invisible forces in order to start developing abstract capabilities of thinking. It's not coincidental that the world that developed science as we know it is the Western world. It's not Judaism alone or Christianity alone. After all, the church rejected Galileo. Absolutely. You also needed Greek thinking. You needed them all. But the mixture of of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome is what gives us the Western world as we know it.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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

Number 3, monotheism and— excuse me one second, a logistic thing. Ian, can I trouble you for water? I'm sorry. Thank you very much. Number 3, Judaism and monotheism— Judaism with its monotheism loathes magic. In fact, later in the Torah, you are to put a— some of you who know Yiddish know the word makshifa. Uh, your father may have called his mother-in-law that on occasion. That may be where you know the word from. Makshifa in the Torah is a sorceress, or if in some ways a witch, but a magician. Judaism loathes magic, voodoo, It is the antithesis of Judaism. Why? In magic, irrational and capricious forces control the world, and so does man. If I do the following things to the following image of you, something will happen to you. That is totally unacceptable to Judaism. God alone controls controls the world. You can control your life, but you cannot use divination. Whatever uses anything else, ascribes power to anything but God, is idol worship in Judaism. Judaism is radical monotheism. God alone rules the world, which means, by the way, that therefore we have tremendous power. Because since irrational forces don't rule the world, we people are very powerfully empowered. We can do a great deal, and it's only up to our one choice is whether or not we wish to acknowledge that God is part of it. That's why I recall my brother, who was a physician, was honored. My brother is an Orthodox Jew and a physician, and he was honored by an Orthodox hospital in Israel for medical work he had done. And he showed me his speech. Thank you so much. He showed me his speech. He began as follows. He cited a Talmudic source which I never had been familiar with, which says, "Tov shevarof im l'gei hinom." The best of the doctors go to hell. It's a remarkable statement for the Talmud to make. You'd think the worst doctors go to hell. Not true. Why did the best of doctors go to hell? Because there is no person in the world more likely to see himself as a god than a great doctor. A bad doctor is unlikely to see himself himself as God. He may become a lawyer, but he, uh, he does not see himself as God. But that, that is the— that is a problem, because the moment a doctor begins to attribute his healing powers to himself and not as a vehicle of God, then he's an idol worshiper, except the idol is himself. The worst possible thing. In an otherwise miserable film, which I commented on on my radio show today, you can see this dialogue on "Doctor is God" in the movie "Malice." That is exactly what the doctor gives a very eloquent little soliloquy on why he is God, not least of which is because he went to Harvard Medical School. And there is some truth to that view. And by the way, it is a very possible thing. If you save people's lives, daily or even weekly, uh, it is a very understandable thing unless you have a very deep belief in God as the source of healing, that you can see yourself gradually in godlike terms. Magic is, as I said earlier, then number 3, it is rejected and it is a major part of pagan ideas to this day, as in voodoo rites in some third world countries. It is utterly unacceptable to Jewish monotheism. It implies that there are forces other than God that rule the world. Number 4: One God means that the world is unified. It is unified in many ways. One is morally. One God means one morality. Two gods is two moralities, and multiple Multiple gods are multiple moralities. That's pretty obvious. Which god will you listen to? Even in Zoroastrianism, which was a highly advanced religion and continues to be so, but it is obviously much smaller because you cannot convert to Zoroastrianism, uh, you had a god of good and a god of evil. That is why, by the way, Isaiah 45:7 makes a statement that is very difficult to, to even state, and that is that God is the source of both good and evil in the world. But this is unacceptable, incidentally, to one small but well-known movement in Judaism, Reconstructionism, that holds that God is only the source of good. And that is one of the reasons, with all respect, as many fine people who were in that movement but with all respect to them, uh, is why I consider the movement, uh, outside— theologically outside. I never read a Jew out of Jewish life, God forbid. But the idea is very non-normative. God is the source of everything, including evil in this world. That doesn't mean that if you murder someone, God has made you murder the person, but God has made murder possible. God has made everything possible, including torture and rape and murder and you name it. There is one God. The universe is unified by this God. Morally means there's one moral will. It also means scientifically, if you have a god of, of rain and a god of sun, then there is no possibility for science to develop. Because clearly what makes it rain is the god of rain. There's no one governing law in the universe like laws of climate or laws of physics. No, there's a god of rain, and if you propitiate the god of rain, you'll get rain. You don't have that in Judaism because the exact same god makes it rain and makes it not rain. So you can't have that. It's not possible. Droughts come from God and floods come from God. Therefore, science is possible because there is one governing body of law in the world. This is all made possible outside of paganism. Pagan societies didn't develop science. They didn't develop developed much of anything. They were capable, I acknowledge, of certain achievements, as we know from some of Stonehenge and so on. I appreciate that fact, but in the ways in which the West developed, clearly there's no pagan competition, as it were. Now, of course, you can use science to then make gas chambers, so obviously this is not a moral— this doesn't mean it's morally superior. It simply means that intellectually, that if you still believe that a god of this must be propitiated to cause this, you're not going to look for a unifying law of physics or anything else. Number 5, it means that the universe has meaning. That was Henry Bamford Parkes' point, that history moves towards meaning and the universe has it. This one God has one meaning We may not know exactly what that meaning is, and that's a separate issue in any event, but it means there is meaning to this world. It is not the chaos that it seems to be. Pagan life is chaotic as contrasted to this. Well, we don't even know what the gods will do in paganism. Maybe if we make love well enough— after all, as I wrote in my paper on homosexuality, you had, you had, uh, homosexual, or at least bisexual gods in Egypt. And, uh, and they found papyri which would describe about placing my phallus between— oh God, I forgot, I forget which one— your buttocks. And can you imagine that in Judaism? Placing, placing your penis between God's buttocks? It's, it's, it's, it's inconceivable. Literally inconceivable. That type of God is a chaotic world because they're capricious. Oh, if I make love to that god well enough, have sex with it enough, slaughter enough children for him, slaughter enough virgins, make enough wars, conquer enough slaves, give enough sacrifices, then I'll propitiate the gods. The world is chaotic. The monotheistic world is ordered. Number 6: One God means one humanity, a critically, critically important thing. If there's one God, we all come— we— that God is our, all of our father, or parent if you like. And that is a very basic doctrine, incidentally, in Judaism, that we have all one father. Only if we all have one father, are we all brothers and sisters. If we have multiple parents, then we're not all brothers and sisters. At best, we're cousins, and that's only on the assumption that the gods are related. So one humanity is very much dependent upon one parenthood of a god. Number 7: Monotheism gives you holiness. Paganism did not have the concept of the holy. That is why I am convinced that you have all of these chapters thus far with the miserable sexual behavior of the nations around Israel. I don't mean the nation, I don't mean the country Israel, I mean the land of Israel and Israel as the family of Jacob. Remember all the stories of Abraham having to lie, or thinking he had to lie, about his wife, saying she's his sister because otherwise they'll kill me because she's a beautiful woman and just sleep with her? Why did they get all these stories? As I explained then, and now with the rape of Dinah, look at the way pagan society lived. This is the way they behaved. The concept of the holy that humans just shouldn't behave that way, humans are above animals, is all from monotheism. To behave like an animal in paganism is terrific because half the animals were gods. Emulating animals was quite alright. And when I say that we are returning to paganism in some of our thought today, animals is a big part of it. The notion that we are distinct from animals is utterly a Jewish one, carried on again by Christianity and Islam. It is not a pagan one. That is why so many dances were done with animals, so much— so you would go in the guise of animals. Animals were so often revered. Indeed, in parts of Hinduism, tragically, the, the lowest caste was treated worse than cows. Cows you had to feed. Because cows had holiness. But the undercast, the underclass, the untouchables, no obligations towards them didn't exist. This is not to put down all of Hinduism. There is much beauty in Hinduism, and many beautiful people like Mahatma Gandhi come from it. It is merely to say, though, that the idea that we are to be utterly separate from animals is a Jewish monotheistic idea. And it is not well received in post-Christian America. One day, when I have the time, I will write a book on what post-Christian America means, because we are living in it and we are living with the consequences. And this is a Jew speaking, but it has been largely a Christian country, and I have no problem in noting that. And I am unhappy about the the fact that it is ceasing to be, because I know that it was the carrier of the values that I care about. Call it Christian or Judeo-Christian, it doesn't matter to me all that much. What matters to me is that these monotheistic values of holiness are carried on, and they're not being. Where there is increasingly a concern for animals— I mean, I'll give you one example. Among many people, truly among many sophisticated Americans today, there is a greater concern for the life of a baby seal than there is for the life of a human embryo, of a human fetus. I'm not talking at all about the issue of women and abortion, please put it out of your minds. That is not the issue I'm addressing. I'm addressing the simple, difficult issue of where there is more passion and concern attended to, dedicated to. And the answer is frequently an animal one. And the more radical you get in the animal rights movement, the more you have, in fact, the belief that we, as the head of, what is it, Earth Dennis Prager first said? Humans are a cancer on the Earth. Animals are better. Anybody who thinks that, by the way, I suggest to you to invest $10, or $14 I think with postage and handling, in the Time-Life video series on animal life. I forgot the name of it, I'll remember it for you next week. But if any of you ever start romanticizing how animals treat each other, I beg of you to get this series of videos. See, for example, what killer whales, which are so adorable and now films where this boy makes friend with killer whale, killer whale is nicer than half the humans you'll ever meet in your life. They don't show you killer whales in the wild. Who take baby seals and throw them around like a football before they actually kill it. They just toss it, this terrified little seal, around as a game among themselves, and then they kill it. You wouldn't get that out of Hollywood because Hollywood has many pagans in it. And, and I, and I say that descriptively even more than critically, where, where you have this romanticization of the of the animal world, just like they did in the pagan world. Now, I'm not telling you that animals are bad. I don't think animals are good or bad. The whales that throw around the, the seal are not bad any more than, than hammers that, that build, that build gas chambers in Nazi Europe were bad. It's, it's, that's, the hammer is neutral, an animal is neutral. German Shepherds can save your life, or they can eat, chew Jews in Auschwitz. So I don't have a romantic or negative view of animals, and have a few in our home. I like them, but I know their place, and they're not me. Judaism made this very clear, paganism didn't. There is a distinction between you and the animal. You can't behave like an animal. You have to behave like God. But to behave like God in paganism was to behave like an animal. That's the difference. Those are why this is so important. And this is the first time in the Torah that there is a mention of other gods to be removed. Okay, I can continue. Jacob said to his household and to all that were with him, rid yourselves of the alien gods in your midst, purify yourselves, and change your clothes. One minute, please. Just want to find— Okay, verse 3: Come, let us go up to Bethel, and I will build an altar there to the God who answered me when I was in distress. See, that's who he's identifying. If he said to his kids, and we'll build an altar there to the invisible, unknowable, divine author of the universe, his kids would have asked what grapes he had recently made into wine. You understand? Indeed, and indeed Jacob would not have been able to speak like that in my opinion. This is still the God that the Jews are meeting is a very personal one. Look at what God did for me. I must tell you, I consider that an early and somewhat primitive view of God. The God of look at what God what God did for me. This too is worth an excursus, as Sarna always uses the term. I will just be very brief. If your God is a God that you primarily relate to as what God did for you, to me, you don't believe in God as much as you do a celestial butler. And there is a very, very serious problem in believing in a celestial butler, and I will tell you exactly what it is. If things go wrong for you, you'll end up an atheist, not to mention very bitter. The more your definition of God is, look at what God does for me, the less prepared you are for tragedy, because what are you going to say then? He finked out on me? Does that mean that God plays no role in your life? I don't believe that either. I do believe God plays a role in our lives, or can. How specifically is a debate in Jewish history, which I won't get into now. But certainly this is not a, uh, the God that, that the God of who did these things for me is a very early view of God a very personal one that Judaism rises above eventually. Okay, one moment please. Okay. They gave to Jacob all the alien gods that they had and the rings that were in their ears. See the return to paganism? You see all the men with earrings and our time. And Jacob buried them under the terebinth, which is his— which was a holy tree in those days that was near Shechem. As they set out, a terror from God fell on the cities roundabout so that they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. In other words, God placed the fear in them from attacking for the— this small group of the sons of Jacob. Thus Jacob came to to Luz, that is Bethel, in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him. There he built an altar and named the site El Bethel. That's God, the house of God. He's, as it were, giving it a newer name. For it was there— the, the reason that he gives it a newer name is Bethel was holy to pagans too, so he wanted to rename it. It's like old Bethel and now the new Bethel. It's of El, the real God. You with me? Because Bethel means— Bethel means house of God. So literally, El Bethel is God, house of God. For it was there that God had revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother. Now verse 8, which is a real toughie. What's it doing there? Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died. And was buried under the oak below Bethel, so it was named Alon Bachut. Now, you normally— people don't crack up when they read the Torah, uh, and so you— I will explain. It, it doesn't, it doesn't make sense. Who cares when the wet nurse of Rachel died— excuse me, of Rebecca, uh, died? Think about it for a minute. We don't, we don't hear almost ever when the, when the women die. So of all the women to tell us this epochal event that she died is the wet nurse of, of, of Rebecca. And the truth is, a lot of them don't understand it either. A lot of the commentary, commentaries, they ask, why is this even mentioned? I'll give you 3 reasons that Sarna gives. Dennis Prager had no answer at all. I'll give you his. One, the presumption seems unavoidable that traditions about Deborah, which would make the context of the present notice intelligible, were widely known to reader and narrator alike in biblical times, but they weren't included in the Torah. That's important. Remember, this document is 3,000-plus years old. So you have to understand, they heard, they understood stuff that we clearly don't understand. Obviously there were references to things that made a whole, oh really, that's what happened to Rebecca, who da da da da da da da da da, whereas you don't have any da das about Rebecca. We don't know anything except that she was basically the, uh, the wet nurse here of, uh, on behalf of, uh, of, of Rebekah— I mean Deborah, excuse me— that we don't know anything about Deborah except that. So they had, they had these things about Deborah, uh, earlier. Reason number 2, he writes, there may be a deeper purpose as well. With the purging of idolatry and the arrival at Bethel, the contacts with Mesopotamia— where did we meet Deborah? We met her once We met her in Mesopotamia when Isaac went with the mess— when the messenger was sent in order to get Isaac a wife. Remember that? No, but that's what happened. And they were sent to Mesopotamia because they were not to get a wife from the Canaanite women. So they went to Mesopotamia, and that's where the only other time time, I think it's chapter 29, when we met, uh, when we met, uh, Devorah, Deborah. So she's from Mesopotamia. Now this is a way of saying with Deborah's death, contacts with pagan Mesopotamia are severed. Isn't that an interesting point that Sarna makes? See, from a sentence that none of us would have ever given a minute's thought to, would have talk to our friend during shul while it was read. Okay, uh, oh, those are the two, those are the two reasons. Okay, we go on. Uh, by the way, Alon Bachut means, um, Tree of Crying. Verse 9: God appeared again to Jacob on his arrival from Padanaram, and he blessed him. God said to him You whose name is Jacob, you shall be called Jacob no more, but Israel shall be your name. Thus he named him Israel. Now what's the most obvious question? No, no, that's not the most— that's the second most obvious question. Why did he repeat that? That's right. Why is this repeated? He already got renamed Israel. What does God not know of it? Now, this is a classic example of where a lot of the scholars who believe in the documentary hypothesis, which is nearly all of them— I, I, I need to, uh, to be intellectually honest and tell you that it is almost universally held among secular scholars that the Torah is composed of basically 4 original documents redacted or edited by a redactor or editor later. JEP&D, they're called: Jehovah, Elohim, Priestly, and Deuteronomic. And this to them is a classic example. Why repeat it? It must be from the other tradition which they kept in. Those of us who think that it's more complex than that, uh, and who are more religiously oriented will just answer, as indeed Sarna, who is a scholar and religious, though not Orthodox, Jew, uh, says that he— that there's another reason why it's repeated, and it makes perfect sense to me. Listen to what he writes: Jacob's name is changed to Israel for the second time. In chapter 32, it was not God personally but an angelic being who made the pronouncement. You see, That makes perfect sense. It's I, God, who want your name Israel, not just an angel or messenger. That makes perfect sense. You didn't need two documents here. It may have just simply been that. Moreover, there's another reason why it's repeated. According to Sarna, it was made on the other side of the Jordan, not in the land of Israel. See, therefore the new name Israel needs to be confirmed and validated by God himself in the Promised Land. The fact that God is said to appear again, quote unquote, and that remarkably no rationale for the new name is given here, shows a dependency on the earlier narrative. In other words, the very fact is it's not a second story. It depends on your knowing the first story to make this part intelligible. Now, if you don't know the first story, very quickly, Jacob has this dream that there are messengers or angels of God going up and down from the earth, up a— like a ladder, uh, which is really the old Mesopotamian shape of ziggurats, of the holy places, up from the sky and back down again. And he wrestles with an angel, or wrestles with a man It's not totally clear, and is wounded, but Israel was given his name. Israel means, which is the name of the Jewish people, Jew is a much later name from Judah, Israel means struggle or fight with God. Yis-ra-el. El is God, Yis-ra is to fight, and as I said when I I taught that chapter then. That does personify the Jewish people, a people that fights with God, which I like. The problem with the Jewish people today is that it ignores God, not fights with God. Big problem. Okay. And he— thus he named him Israel. Verse 11: And God said to him, I am El Shaddai, It's another name of God. Be fertile and increase a nation. Indeed, an assembly of nations shall descend from you. Kings shall issue from your loins. I have not yet received an answer on what it means an assembly of nations will descend from you. I thought only one nation. Now, does it mean that each one of the sons is going to be a separate nation? They became separate tribes but of one nation. What does it mean? Does anybody know? What does it mean when God blesses Jacob that an assembly of nations will come forth from you? Anybody have any? I don't have an answer. Probably to Muslims and Christians, but, uh, but they don't consider themselves nations. They consider themselves themselves religion, so even there it wouldn't be. Yes? Perhaps the lost tribes, and if they fell out, they had the Afghan from Pakistan and all those different places. Yeah, but that's ex post facto. This is not an anticipation of the tribes being lost. I'll tell you what is the one possibility that I have thought of. Might be a hint for the fact that all of the nations that will come from you can not only mean the obvious of, well, the, the Jewish nation, but all the nations that will affirm me as God will do so as a result of coming from you. That, that strikes me as a very real possibility because there is a deep universalist streak in the Torah and in Judaism. Remember when God blesses Abraham, the first monotheist, what he says? "V'varchubecha kol mishpakhot adamah." Through you all the families of the earth will be blessed. There is no notion in the Torah that only Jews get blessed because of the Jewish knowledge of God. The purpose of the Jewish knowledge of God is so that the world knows God. So the assembly of nations is assembly of monotheistic nations, not Jewish nations. That's how I would, I would read it. And I hope— and I don't like to read into text, but it strikes me, given that it already says, it says a nation and an assembly of nations. The, the nation is the Jewish nation, the Hebrew nation, B'nei Yisrael. But it's distinctively saying, "And an assembly of nations." Thanks to your knowing me and my blessing you, an assembly of nations that know me will come into this world. That's exactly what happened. All nations that are monotheistic are so because of this book. Okay, sound plausible to you? It sounded to me. I checked with a dear friend who's an Orthodox scholar, and since he didn't have an answer, I figured mine was good. Number 12, the land— verse 12: The land that I assigned to Abraham and Isaac I assign to you, and to your offspring to come will I assign the land. The one distinctive thing for Jews is the land of Israel. Everything else is universal, but the land is very particularist. 13. God parted from him at the spot where he had spoken to him. It reminds me of a phone call I got today on my radio show, uh, which a guy calls up and, uh, he's obviously a well-educated guy and telling me that he felt that He wanted to challenge me because I believe in God, and he thought that the notion of God as Creator was scientifically untenable and illogical. I said, "Okay, what's your alternate thesis?" And then he started giving some scientific stuff and then said, "And I'll tell you, it's also quite clear that the God whom people believed in in the Bible were extraterrestrials." who said they were God. So, you know, it's one of those moments that I have to tell my engineer to prepare the Twilight Zone theme for. I said, you know, I fully appreciate that you would feel that it's not logical that I believe in God. I, I, uh, it's okay, I can live with that. But that you then offer as your logical alternative 'Extraterrestrials' is a bit too difficult for me to take. It was really one of the funniest calls without anybody laughing that I had ever had. But this is— it just reminds me now when I, when I see that, you know, God speaking to— when it says here God parted from him at that spot, it made me think, oh, it's an extraterrestrial who just took off. Verse 14: And Jacob set up a pillar at the site where he had spoken to him, a pillar of stone, and he offered a libation on it and poured oil upon it. Jacob gave the site where God had spoken to him the name of Bethel. They set out from Bethel— one second. They set out from Bethel, but when they were still some distance short of Ephrath, Rachel was in childbirth, his beloved Rachel, and she had hard labor. When her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, "Have no fear, for it is another boy for you." As Sarna writes, Rachel is comforted in her death agony by the knowledge that God answered the prayer she had uttered after the birth of Joseph, "May the Lord add another son for me." And I— the obvious should not be belabored, but sons mattered more. It is one of the welcome, deeply welcome shifts of contemporary life that that is not the case in many families. But certainly in that world, and in too much of the modern world, it continues to be the case. But as she breathed her last, for she was dying, she named him Ben-Oni. But his father called him Binyamin. I'm giving you the Hebrew so you'll realize how close it is to what she named him. Him. She named him Ben-Oni, he named him Binyamin. I'll explain that. 4 explanations for Binyamin or Benjamin. Jacob either reinterprets Ben-Oni, which is the son of my sorrow. That's the name that Rachel gives as she's dying to the boy. The son Ben is son, Oni, my sorrow. Jacob either reinterprets Ben-Oni or replaces it by a more auspicious name. Two, the meaning could be the son of my right hand. Yamin in Hebrew means right, so Binyamin would be the son of my right, the right being a symbol of dexterity, power, protection. Third, another rendering is son of the south. That is, the one born to the south. Such a meaning suggested by Rashi finds analogy in the Mari texts, ancient world of the Mari, which refer to tribal confederations of Dummu, Mesyamina, sons of the south, southerners, and so on. A third possibility put forth by Roshbaum, the one I subscribe to, for whatever it's worth, and it shouldn't be worth too much in this instance, as I'm not an etymologist. It just makes the most sense to me is Yamin is Yamin, which means days. So that the, the, uh, his name is the son of my days. I'm an old man and he's the son of my days. That has struck me as the most logical I guess he just didn't want to have a child walking around with the name "Son of My Sorrow." I mean, I don't want you to think he was being un-nice to his dying wife, but you have to understand it's a burden to walk around with such a name. What is your name? Son of My Mother's Sorrow. Oh, good to meet you. Over— thus Rachel died, And she was buried on the road to Ephrath, which is now Bethlehem. Over her grave Jacob set up a pillar. It is the pillar at Rachel's grave to this day. Israel journeyed on and pitched his tent beyond Migdal-Edar. And here is one of the strangest verses verses in the Torah, verse 22: While Israel stayed in that land, Reuben went out and lay with Bilhah, his father's concubine, and Israel found out. It is strange for one thing because it's very, very important and you hear nothing about it. I mean, you get all all these verses with so-and-so begat so-and-so begat so-and-so, something incredibly important, the firstborn sleeps with his father's concubine, and that's all you get. And the Hebrew is very dramatic because the sentence does not end with a period. In Hebrew, in the Torah, the Torah is actually written with no punctuation. It's got no periods. It doesn't even have vowels. It's difficult to read, but it does have an ancient pronunciation system of vowels and cantillation, musical signs. And one of the signs is called sof pasuk, which means end of verse. You don't have that like that here. You have it ending at a comma in a way to tell you There's a lot more, but we're not telling you. That is exactly how the Hebrew is. It does not end with a period. It ends with an et nachta, for the handful of you who know Hebrew cantillation. It says, "Reuven went and slept with Bilhah, his father's concubine." Now, why is that important? Reuben's— all of this leads to the conclusion that Reuven, Reuben's bid to promote his mother's rights is at the same time a calculated challenge to his father's authority. He did not want Bilhah to take over for his mother, for his mother's, his mother Rachel's rights. That's the ostensible reason. It follows her death, right? So, uh, excuse me, his mother is Leah. I'm sorry, Rachel dies, Leah is living. He doesn't want Bilhah to usurp his mother Leah's rights. Get it? That's the ostensible reason. All that are left now are Leah and Bilhah. Not Leah and Rachel. So he doesn't want Bilhah the concubine to take his mother Leah's rights. Remember, he was very devoted to his mother Leah. If you recall when he brought mandrakes so that she could become fertile, it's a very touching story earlier in Genesis. By violating Bilhah, Reuven makes sure that he— she cannot supplant or even rival his mother's position of chief wife now that Rachel is dead. But it wasn't all on behalf of Mommy Leah. It was very much on behalf of himself. It was to— it was a calculated challenge to his father's authority. His move is more political than lustful, writes Sarna. The summary account in this verse hides an attempt to usurp leadership of the Israelite tribes. Its failure is reflected in Jacob's rebuke when he blesses his children at the end of his life, in which he removes Reuben from hegemony over the tribes. He understood, because it says, "Vayishmai Yisrael," Israel heard what happened. So this Reuben is quite a calculating guy. And we'll find more calculations later with regard to Joseph, which we'll get to next time. Just finish the, the chapter. Now the sons of Jacob were 12 in number. The sons of Leah: Reuven, Jacob's firstborn, Shimon, Levi, Yehuda, Issachar, and Zebulun. The sons of Rachel, Joseph and Benjamin. The sons of Bilhah, Rachel's maid, right, whom we just had slept with by Reuben, Dan and Naphtali. Naphtali. And the sons of Zilpah, Leah's maid, Gad and Asher. These are the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Padan-aram, which is not fully true. Benjamin wasn't. But a little literary license never hurt anybody. And Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, at Kiryat Arba, now Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac had sojourned. Isaac was 180 years old when he breathed his last and died. He was gathered to his kin. Remember that last time? This is an intimation of the afterlife in the Torah. He was gathered to his kin means he went back to his relatives who had died. And I gave a very long talk then, it's on tape so I won't belabor it now, that Judaism emphatically believes in an afterlife. But why the Torah is silent on it, I also spoke about, if you missed it, very in 10 seconds, because the moment you talk about the afterlife, people don't value this one. It was Judaism's genius to get Jews preoccupied with this life. And like all blessings, it came with a curse. A lot of Jews became only preoccupied with this life. Hence Jews became the fathers and mothers of all the isms to change society. Because more than any other religious group, Jews were this-world oriented. But if you're too this-world oriented, you become a revolutionary, because you realize that if you don't make the world better now, you will not live to see a better world, because when you die, that's it. That is why secular revolutionaries are so often often frightening, because they believe that if they don't have the revolution now, they will die before a better world comes about. Whereas if you believe in another world, then you realize you don't have to fix up this world perfectly. You try to make it a little better, which is the only way that works, and that you will have your just reward in the afterlife. The problem with believing in the afterlife, because that's a blessing that has a curse too, is that you can say, well, why bother with this world? I'll just go to the afterlife. Which is a factor in a number of groups that ignore this world, or worse, really worse, those who think that it's a mitzvah to kill yourself in the name of your God, like some of the radical Muslims, for whom it is a— the The greatest possible thing is to die for Allah. You never have anywhere in Judaism that the greatest thing you can do is to die for Hashem. Nowhere. If you have to, you have to, but it's not considered the greatest thing at all. The greatest thing is to live for God, not die for God. It's a very, very real problem. He was gathered to his kin in ripe old age, and he was buried by his sons. Esau and Jacob. Esau is a decent guy, just not the right guy to carry on monotheism. And it's very important to remember. Next time I have two things to say. One, the next meeting is not two weeks from now, but next Monday. Next Monday I will zoom through chapter 36 because it's almost all genealogy, and we start in the final part of the book of Genesis, all about Joseph and his brothers, the most immortal story in Western literature. Thank you. See you in a week.

On tomorrow's Sunday Fireside Chat: Evelyn, 14, Newark, Ohio.

Hi, Mr. Prager, and a smiley. "I have a simple question, but I'm very curious to know the answer. Just wondering who has influenced you throughout your life. Thank you so much for the fireside chat. It really helps me think through things. Say hi to Otto and Snoopy for me." Snoop, Otto. "Hello from Evelyn, 14 years old, Newark, Ohio." Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

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