Jacob's Wrestles With... Weekend Torah Teaching

On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom.

If you speak to secular people, they'll always challenge religious people. Hey, how can you be religious? Look at all this evil. How can you believe in God? There are kids with cancer. And they're right, those are the legitimate questions which religious people should struggle with. But what if you turn it around and say, okay, I have to struggle with kids with cancer, but you have to struggle with kids with no cancer. You have to struggle with the fact that there are kids, period.

That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

One nation under God. Here's Franklin Graham.

I'm inviting you to join with us and to pray for America. Pray that we as individuals and as a nation turn to the God of our fathers, the God of the Bible.

As we approach America's 250th, join Franklin in praying for our nation every day. A new prayer is posted daily at onenationundergod.com. Invite your friends and family to pray too. onenationundergod.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.

We are up to Genesis 32. Amazing, isn't it? Huh? Whizzing right along. That's correct. Well, listen, there are 50 chapters in Genesis, and what's been our rate? About a chapter and a half a time, about. So there are, after today hopefully, there are, uh, there's 32, there were 16 chapters left. At a chapter and a half, that is 12 sessions. So we will finish Genesis, God willing, this year and within the coming semesters. That's dramatic. Now, I will be— I tell you this, anybody who will have gone through the entire Torah with me, I will present a personal— I tell you what, I will take you to lunch, okay? I will take— though anybody who lasts through the end of Deuteronomy, of course, I may end up bringing your great-grandchildren, uh, to lunch. You may end up coming in a walker. But hey, I may end up coming with a walker, you know. But yes, Jerusalem, Cairo, where Shechem, Bethel, all right, wherever it will be. But that's, that's a promise. Okay, uh, chapter 32. Come on. All right. Yeah, pretty good. Hello. All right, everybody's getting up early again. Here we go. Chapter 32. Early in the morning, Laban kissed his sons and daughters and bade them goodbye. Then Lavan, or Laban, left on his journey homeward. We're done with Laban here, uh, with— in this tremendous amount of problems that Jacob has had, and God spares him and all the sheep. And you recall all of that from last time. Uh, by the way, who are the sons of Laban whom he kissed? We thought he only had daughters, right? Leah and Rachel. So it means sons-in-law. His son-in-law is Jacob. So it's not sons-in-law, it's— it all— it refers to grandchildren as well. That's who it refers to. Just want to keep you on your toes when you look at the stuff. Verse 2:32, Jacob went on his way and angels of God encountered him. When he saw them, Jacob said, this is God's camp. Camp in Hebrew is machaneh, and he named it Machanaim, which is like plural of machaneh. Uh, very interesting. We're going to talk a little today about angels of God. And what that means and who they are, because it's a real issue. Who are Malachim? In Hebrew, the word is malach. Any of you, uh, Jews who have sung a very famous song, Shalom Aleichem, on Shabbat night— Shalom Aleichem— then it's Malach HaSharet. Shalom Aleichem, peace unto you, Malach HaSharet. The, the angels of, of service. Malach Elion, the angels of above. It's a very famous melody that almost all of you who are Jewish, I, I suspect, have heard at least once, where you welcome in the Sabbath angels. The trouble is that angel is an English word with very specific connotations. In Hebrew, The word malach means something else. It means more so messenger. It'll become very relevant later when we, we come to one of the most famous portions in the Torah of Jacob's wrestling, uh, the, uh, and whom does he wrestle with. We'll work on that, but I just want you to be aware of the term here that this can be translated as messengers of God just as much as it can angels, at least even more so. Verse 4: Jacob sent messengers ahead to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, in the country, the country of Edom. Where is this? Those of you who are looking, when you'll get the map, please look for Seir. It'll be down south. Today it would be Jordan, southern or southwestern Jordan. That's where he's living. And this is also an ancient enemy of Israel, Edom. So this meant a great deal to ancient Jews, later than the Bible, but to ancient Jews what it meant, Edom. There's also a play on words here. Seir is the name of the place. In Hebrew, sear means hair. So we're back to good old Esau again. Remember, you can almost have forgotten him with all the travails of 20 years with Laban that Jacob had. And here we have The, uh, Edom also means red. So we have all the characteristics of, of Esau mentioned in where he lived. That's the, the, the help of knowing the Hebrew. There play a lot of plays on words. So we're back with Esau. Esau's had 20 years to nurse his grudge against his brother, and his brother Jacob is well aware of the fact that Esau does not have a picture of him hanging in his home, probably. And instructed them. This is, uh, this is a go. By the way, here's a good example of what I said. The Hebrew for messengers— you all have this as messengers, right? Now, now here is the problem of Hebrew and, and translation. There's little you can do about it, but, but I'm here to tell you about it. Notice that the verse 2 It says that Jacob went on his way and angels of God encountered him, right? The word for angels is the exact same word as the word for messengers in verse 4. So you can either have, uh, and Jacob went on his way and messengers of God encountered him, or you can have Jacob sent angels ahead to his brother. Now obviously Jacob doesn't have angels working for him. At least not in this sense. But you must understand therefore that messenger of God is the better term than angel. Okay, by the way, there's another good example of that. I may have mentioned this to you, and that is prophet. Prophet is a bad term for the Hebrew navi. You know, the prophets. Prophet to any of you implies someone who tells the future. That's not what a prophet's task was. A prophet's task was to be a spokesman for God. Navi means spokesman. And if we had better translations, it would be better. We would be more— we would have a more accurate understanding of what's going on. If we spoke of Jeremiah and, and Ezekiel and Hosea as, as spokesman, you'd have a much better idea of of what they are than prophets. And likewise messengers. God has messengers. Angels is too, is too Disneyland-ish in a certain sense. So please know that the same word in Hebrew for messenger and angel, and here is just two sentences away, it's, it's Jacob sending messengers to Esau, to Esau his brother, in the land of Seir and Dumah. He instructed them as follows: This is what you will say to my lord Esau: Thus says your servant Jacob. Is this not cracking you up? I mean, you cannot get more obsequious language if you tried. Please don't forget, these are the words you better use when you meet my brother. To my lord Esau and your servant Jacob. Now Um, I meant to tell you something more. I'm going to come back. Well, let me tell you about Lord and servant, used clearly to ingratiate himself with Esau. He is very worried about what Esav is going to do to him. And, uh, the Ramban, Nachmanides, medieval Jewish commentator, says he treats Esau as if Esau were the oldest brother. And apparently, from what the records that we have, in the old world, in the ancient world, that is how younger siblings did defer to older siblings. They would— this was the language of the time. So what is he doing now? He is stating publicly, for Esau's benefit, hey, I acknowledge that you're the eldest. Now that he got the bracha from, from Isaac, big deal. What does it cost him to re-acknowledge his firstborn status. You get it? But that is why these words are important. Two reasons again. One, to— in order to ingratiate himself with Esau. Two, to reestablish that I acknowledge that you're the firstborn, because this is the language that the younger sibling uses for the older sibling. Okay, that's why this is very important. I just, uh, I want to tell you something. I have, I have, thanks to technology a CD-ROM, a compact disc with the entire Tanakh, the entire Hebrew Bible on it. So all I do is type in a word in Hebrew and it shows me every place in the Tanakh that it appears. I mean, it's just absolutely incredible, instantaneously. So I looked up malach and malachim, angel or messenger, in singular and plural, found the following. Which I think is interesting. First of all, this is the first time when Jacob sends malachim. It's the first time in the Torah that malachim are sent by man. Until now, all malachim were sent by God. Number two, no time ever— oh, better, better— every time in the Torah that malach is used in the singular, God sent it. Man only sends messengers. God sends sometimes a messenger. I don't know if it's significant. I can't believe it's, it's, it's purely coincidental that there was never a singular messenger sent by man. It's always messengers. Maybe that's when it becomes an angel, when it's in the singular. Who knows? Anyway, this is what you are to tell Esau when you meet him. Thus says your servant Jacob, I stayed with Laban and remained until now. Why is he saying that? What is the importance of that message? Can anybody figure out what is he trying to say to Esav here? Well, obviously he's coming home, but that's right, this was his way of saying, hey, if I could have, I'd have met you much sooner. But I was stuck with Laban all these 20 years. Ha ha ha ha. Like he was dying to see Esau the entire time, just couldn't give him a call. Right? I mean, it's really— you have to please understand the humor involved here. Not that he means, of course, to be funny, but it is humorous. He's using a baloney line with this whole thing. Hey, you know, if I only could have, Esau, geez, if I'd have been in touch, but I was stuck with Laban the whole time. So notice how rich this one sentence is with the entire plan of Jacob. One, I will treat you like the eldest all over again. Two, I will be your humble servant, you are my lord. Three, please know I've been dying to be in touch with you, but I've been detained for 20 years. Okay, do you see the richness of the sentence? So now he says, and now, and there's a tactic in the next verse, and I've acquired cattle and asses and sheep and male and female slaves, or servants if you will. And I send this message to my lord in the hope of gaining your favor. Now, why does he tell him how rich he is? Well, this is also part of his tactic. Hey, listen, I recognize who you are. You're my lord, you're my elder brother. I've been detained and I'm very rich. Oh, he's very rich. Then that means he thinks Esau will think, oh, I can get something from him. It is clear, and you will see how clear it becomes, that Yaakov thinks that Esav has one overwhelming desire in life: material welfare. And generally speaking, he was probably right. That doesn't make Esav bad. We have no basis on which to claim that Esav is an evil man. Nothing in the biblical text suggests that. Is that clear? He's a simple man. He's a hunting man, which the Bible is not enthralled with. Uh, he's a wild man. He doesn't care about birthrights. He cares about eating well and hunting well and, uh, and material welfare. But he is not a bad man. He's just not the person you want as your patriarch. Okay? That's very important to understand what's going on.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

One Nation Under God. Here's Franklin Graham.

I'm inviting you to join with us and to pray for America. Pray that we as individuals and as a nation turn to the God of our fathers, the God of the Bible.

As we approach America's 250th, Join Franklin in praying for our nation every day. A new prayer is posted daily at onenationundergod.com. Invite your friends and family to pray too. onenationundergod.com.

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

So he tells him how red Richie is. Sarna points out, though, that he doesn't mention a certain animal that he does have. He mentions cattle, asses, sheep, and then servants. What animal does he have that he doesn't mention? And this is too, uh, very intentional. Camels. He doesn't mention that he owns camels. And Sarna says the reason is because that's the most valuable livestock. He just doesn't want to give it up. It's very simple as that. I mean, all of this is so human, right? If you knew you were going to give up stuff, maybe your very most valuable thing you might not mention. Oh, I'm really loaded, I have a Cadillac and I have a Pontiac, but you don't mention your Rolls, okay? I mean, if you're that wealthy, just to put it in common parlance, comparing a camel and a Rolls. Uh, verse, uh, verse 7: The messengers returned to Jacob saying, we came to your brother Esau This is already somewhat bad language for Jacob's ears. He's still your brother. See, either you— please remember, we're back to the original problem that you had with your brother. So the language, it's, don't give me firstborn and stuff. This is your brother Esau, and he's more or less just like you left him 20 years ago. Uh, we came to your brother Esav, and he himself is coming to meet you. Now, how is that possible? Clearly he has had his own spies out to find out what's happened with my brother. He never felt that things had been reconciled, so he found out and he's coming to meet you. To which, of course, we're sure that Jacob was delighted, especially with the following data: And he's not alone, 400 men are with him. Isn't that wonderful? You could only imagine Jacob's reaction. Gee, that's, that's great news. 400 men in the Bible is a regiment. This is not a, well, we counted and we noticed one more than 399, and he's coming with a regiment. This is not good for Jacob. Jacob, Jacob has a ceaselessly troubled life. He's— it started in the womb, right? There are some people like that, isn't it true? There are some people who've just seen that, that problems find them. They have an innate tropism for problems. Jacob is one of them. It started in the womb. He started fighting with his twin brother, and it has never stopped. He finally gets out of Laban's clutches. Then what is the first news? Esau's showing up with a regiment. Uh, you got to start feeling for the guy. I mean, he had— he hasn't done terrible things either, when you think about it, that he has deserved all these problems. All right, so he himself is coming to meet you. There are 400 men with him. To which the reaction in verse 8 is rather understandable. Jacob was greatly frightened, and in his anxiety Yeah, one second, let's just see. Yes, yes, yes, yes. If I have any notes, they use them. Okay. And in his anxiety, he divided the people with him and the flocks and herds and camels into two camps, thinking if Asaph comes to the one camp and attacks it, the other camp may yet escape. I mean, that is how bad he envisioned the meeting. It also shows how plagued he was with guilt this whole time, because he— I think it's both guilt and a sense of, my brother is very angry, and 20 years has not assuaged that anger. That's obviously the way he is feeling here, that he would divide up his camp and say, look, one of you may get obliterated, but at least I'll have the other half that can run away while he's obliterating the first half. It's, it's a sad, it's a sad time, obviously. Then Jacob said, verse 10, this is a prayer. Notice that it's a somewhat different prayer than the one he gave originally when he made that deal, as it were, with God. Remember that? This time he says, O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord, who said to me, return to your native land and I will deal bountifully with you. I'm laughing because once again, while it is not as obvious a deal as the first time he had a prayer to God, it is a very unsubtle reminder to God, "Hey, listen, there is a deal working here. You made a promise. You notice that? O Lord, who promised the following," and then he gets very specific, said that, "I will deal very— I will— you will return to your native land and I will deal benevolently with you." Hey, listen! I'm on my way to my native land, and I would like you to deal bountifully with me. You made the promise. So he says, uh, I am unworthy of all the kindness that you have so steadfastly shown your servant. With my staff alone, I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. You get the point? I just came, all I had was a miserable staff, Right, like, uh, rod. And now I'm gonna have two camps worth of people and, and possessions. Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esav, else I fear he may come and strike me down, mothers and children alike. I mean, he's quaking. He thinks his brother's an animal. Yet you have said, I will deal bountifully with you and make your offspring as the sands of the sea. 'Which are too numerous to count.' Twice he reminds God of what God promised. So this is, uh, it's a man of faith but who still feels that God might need a little prompting. What can we say? It's all too human, I would, I would, I would argue, which is of course the appeal of the whole book. Verse 14: 'After spending the night there, he selected from what was at hand these presents for his brother Esav. 200 she-goats and 20 he-goats, 200 ewes and 20 rams. Oh well, he ended up giving some type of camel, maybe a sarna. Either he couldn't avoid it or whatever, but he does end up giving camels. 30 milch, it says here. You have another term What's a milch camel? Anybody know? It's an old brand. It's like certain camels come in brands, I guess. It's the— oh really? So why isn't it just milk camel? All right, 30 milch or milk camels with their colts, 40 cows and 10 bulls, 20 she-asses and 10 he-asses. Notice it says he gives what— from what was at hand. This was a rich man. These were just what was around him. The total, thanks to Sarna, he gave him 550 beasts. That's a nice present, but of course if it works, it's a bargain, right? If you were— thought you'd be killed, 550 animals is a good deal. These he put in the charge of his servants, drove drove. Why did he put him in drove by drove? So that it would be a very slow process whereby Esau could see all the riches that he was getting. Even this is a tactic. And, uh, and he told his servants— this is part of the tactic— go on ahead and keep a distance between droves. I mean, after all, what is the most dramatic way to get a present? Slowly but steadily. Right? Not all at once, here it all is, it's not as exciting. But if you show, oh, here are the ewes, and here are the rams, and here are the camels, and each one just, oh my God, another thing from my darling brother Jacob, you can get overwhelmed. He instructed the one in front as follows: When my brother Esau meets you and asks you, whose man are you? Where are you going? And whose animals are these ahead of you? You'll answer, your servant Jacob's. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau, and Jacob himself is right behind us. Let me read to you on 17— oh, I did already on this. Okay, on that. Good. Uh, again, Jacob's assumption is just as at the incident with the porridge. That Esau will be mollified by any, by immediate gratification and material gratification. That is the way he reads his brother, and he's right. My brother wants immediate stuff in life. He will give up his anger for animals. He will give up his birthright for porridge. That is the way in which Jacob reads his brother, and we have no reason to think he's wrong because indeed it works in both cases. 19— oh wait, I just want to tell you one. 19: You shall answer again. You see here the word he uses, your servant Jacob. You see that constantly use of this language of you are ahead, you are above me, I defer to you, you are great. He gave similar instructions to the second one and the third and all the others who followed the droves, namely, thus and so shall you say to Esau when you reach him, and you shall add— what is the word? And your servant. You see, servant again. Servant Jacob himself is right behind us, for he reasoned, if I propitiate him with presents in advance, and then face him, perhaps he will show me favor. Okay, which was obvious, but the reasoning is spelled out in the Torah. Verse 22: And so the gift went on ahead while he remained in camp that night. That same night he arose, and taking his two wives, his two maidservants, and his 11 children— so you all know who all these people are by now, right? Right. He crossed the ford of the Yaboq. Now, uh, Yaboq is a river which those of you, as you're passing around that atlas, you should all be able to see that river, which apparently, uh, has— I read a description of it in another work, uh, it is like a mini Grand Canyon. It's got very steep mountains on each side, almost coming up perpendicular from the water, and is very difficult to cross. You have to understand what is involved here. In the ancient world, crossing a river was a monumental task and was— is also filled with meaning. Now, that's when they speak about crossing the Rubicon, right? If you've crossed the Rubicon, it's a metaphor for you've really— your life has changed. You've really— you've really gone to something very different in life. Crossing a river is critical, as it will be the most— among the most critical moments for Jacob here in a moment. But that is the importance of this river Yaboq. Also, the name itself is related to the word conflict, ma'avak in Hebrew, which is exactly what he will have with this messenger of God coming up.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

One Nation Under God. Here's Franklin Graham.

I'm inviting you to join with us and to pray for America. Pray that we as individuals and as a nation turn to the God of our fathers, the God of the Bible.

As we approach America's 250th, join Franklin in praying for our nation every day. A new prayer is posted daily at onenationundergod.com. Invite your friends and family to pray too. OneNationUnderGod.com.

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

So that same night he arose, and taking his two wives, two maidservants, and 11 children, he crossed the ford of the Yaboq. Now, who in the world would cross a difficult river at night? Why did he do it? The answer is probably because it was critical to him to get as fast as possible to Esau after he got the gifts, while Esau was still in a good mood. That is how important it was, and it shows the contempt— I hate to say it in some ways— that, that Jacob had. Not for at least that aspect of his brother, that he's basically a very wild, feeling-oriented human being who you can't— you gotta hit when the feeling is right, which is what he has worked with Esau the whole time. Once again, if he has these gifts and there was a fairly a long lag time between the gifts and seeing me, he's going to hate my guts again and he'll forget the gifts. He is moving very quickly here. He cannot wait to cross the river and get to Esav. He's coming south and Esav is coming north, if you saw that, uh, the atlas map. After taking them across the stream, he sent across across all his possessions. Jacob was left alone. We don't know why Jacob was left alone, okay? This, it doesn't follow fully from what we just said. If he went with his family, why was he alone? Didn't he send them all across the stream and his possessions, and he was left alone? But it says that he crossed the ford after taking them across the stream. He sent across all his possessions. Well, unless he sent everybody and he stayed behind. I guess that's the implication. I don't know why he would do it though. That's what I'm saying. I don't, I don't see why it would happen. Doesn't matter though. What matters is that he was alone. Just wanted to say that it's not a necessary logical follow-up. If he's crossed with everybody, why doesn't he continue with everybody? Be that as it may, he stayed alone. Maybe it was to contemplate. Maybe it was to, to prepare himself psychologically. Probably, who knows. Whatever the reason, he did stay alone. And now comes one of the most fascinating episodes in the Bible, not just in Genesis. And a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn. Notice what it says. It says a man wrestled with him, okay, until the break of dawn. When he saw that he had not prevailed against him— that's who— when who saw? The man. When the man saw that he had not prevailed— I'm going to keep telling you who the he is because it never says it and gets very confusing— when he, the man, this unnamed unknown man, saw that he had not prevailed against him, Jacob, He wrenched Jacob's hip at the socket so that the socket of his hip was strained as he wrestled with him. He was forever somewhat crippled as a result of this fight. He will have a permanent physical handicap reminder, a limp if you will, as a result of this struggle at the river. Then he said— who said? Good. The fact that you all shouted out the man and Jacob is why it's important that I tell you who it is, because the text is not— it should— you know, I— if I'd have written this, I'd have made it clearer. Yes, it is the man. Then he said— that is the man— let me go, for dawn is breaking. But he, Jacob, answered, I will not let you go unless you bless me. I'll read the story and then we'll have a lot of commentary on it. Are you with me thus far? I won't let you go, Jacob says to the man, unless you bless me. Said the other, that is the man, what is your name? Jacob replied. He replied, Jacob. Jacob. Said he, the man, "Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human and have prevailed." Jacob asked, "Pray tell me your name." But he said, "You must not ask my name." And he took leave of him there. Okay, we'll continue afterwards, but there is— I would like to read to you some commentaries, and then I will give you my own. First, I will read to you from Sarna about the story. Listen carefully, it's a very, very interesting commentary. The literary artistry shows every sign of the influence of two dominant motifs common to a broad range of cultures. The river is the scene of the struggle, recalls the many tales of river spirits that fight with humans who seek to cross their abodes. A very common feature in ancient civilization is river demons who are there to be fought and conquered in order for you to successfully cross the river. Okay? So this idea of fighting some invisible spirit or demon at a river would have resonated to ancient readers totally. Insofar as rivers frequently proved to be unexpectedly treacherous, they were believed to possess some malevolent power dangerous to human life. Travelers would take good care to propitiate the river spirit, spirit through sacrifice, libation, or other ritual before attempting to ford. Is that totally clear? They would have religious ceremonies which they would engage in, rituals in order to propitiate the, the, the, uh, river spirits to be successful in crossing. Equally widespread is the motif of the demonic, that is devilish being whose power is restricted to the duration of the night and who was unable to abide the breaking of the dawn. Because remember in the story how important it is? It's the— the sun is up, let me go. Seems to be a non-sequitur. What does one have to do with the other? But that too was an idea common in those— in those times of spirits of the night only. And they would be defeated by the dawn. Okay, an obvious corollary is the opportunity accorded a brave soul to derive profit from the situation by holding on to the demon long enough to bend it to his will. Now here is the key though: these motifs are obviously incompatible with Israelite monotheism. Remember the theme that I kept telling you about in early Genesis, that this is an affirmation of monotheism, of the one God, and, and hostility, profound hostility to paganism and to, and to polytheism? Again, you have a story that pagans would relate to and given one way. The Torah changes it, just as it changed in the beginning, God created the world. Remember, nobody created God. No sex was involved in creating the world, even though that was exactly the way all pagan stories did it. What you do is you have in Genesis an inversion of polytheism. You have your stories, we are going to monotheize them. So with, with Noah, remember where I told you about Utnapishtim, about the pagan stories? Everybody had stories of a flood. But they were all saved because they were handsome, because the gods loved them for no reason except that they were drawn to them. But Noah's chosen because he's moral. Totally different. Once again, you have it here. The motifs are obviously incompatible with Israelite monotheism. They have consequently been transformed in our biblical narrative. Nothing in the text connects the mysterious assailant with a river spirit. Get it? There are no river spirits. There are no demons. God controls the world. It is the basic, basic, basic Jewish view. There are no competing forces on earth. That is why witchcraft is not acceptable in Judaism. Or magic, because they imply other powers than God to manipulate life. You have free choice, and therefore you are in God's image. You're the only other free choice creature in the universe. That's why the human is so distinct. But there are no other powers. There is divine power and there is human power. Absolutely, there is human power, but there are no other powers in the world. Not river demons in this particular instance. So the reader of ancient Israel would have been shocked by this story. You're not, but that reader would have been. Where's the river demon? It's just a— it's just a man, or a messenger of God. We'll talk about that later. The stranger does not interfere with the passage of personnel, livestock, and baggage, right? They all went across effortlessly. Then came the person. It is only after these have already crossed the river that he becomes active. It is Jacob alone who is the object of his aggression. Jacob clearly knows nothing of any river spirit, for the attack is wholly unexpected, and no propitiatory ceremony takes place, right? Jacob didn't make any special libation or ritual against river demons. The contrast with the folktale genre is further accentuated through the absence of any description of the adversary. All it said was man, and then it didn't even say man again. Remember, that's why the text is so a little difficult. It just kept saying, and he said, and he said, and he said, and he said, and he said. We We know nothing about this thing. Just once it said man, ish. I just want to make sure it's the word used. Uh, okay, one minute, one minute. Yes, uh, 25. Okay, that we— so nothing is told about it. The usual pattern requires the spirit to assume the form of animals. Serpents and monsters in a constant shift from one guise to another in the course of the struggle. You have none of that even hinted at here, correct? Again, in a complete reversal of roles, it is the mysterious being who injures Jacob. Traditionally, the spirit is the one who is punished and wounded by the human defender. It's entirely inverted. Do you see that? From what pagan stories would be. It is one of the key motifs of Genesis, is the destruction of the Torah. Forget of Genesis, of all 5 books. And that will be, if you last with me, the one of the constant repeated, if not the most constantly repeated theme: destroy polytheism, knock out alternate ideas of other powers in the world. The fact that the assailant blesses Jacob proves that it cannot be a demon. If it were a demon, who's going to ask a blessing from a demon? That's another inversion of it all.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

One Nation Under God. Here's Franklin Graham.

I'm inviting you to join with us and to pray for America. Pray that we as individuals and as a nation turn to the God of our fathers, the God of the Bible.

As we approach America's 250th, join Franklin in praying for our nation every day. A new prayer is posted daily at OneNationUnderGod.com. Invite your friends and family to pray too. OneNationUnderGod.com.

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

For the notion of eliciting and receiving a blessing from a demon is unexampled and inconceivable in a biblical context. In short, the occurrence of this incident by a river and the sudden attack by a mysterious assailant indicate that popular folk tales provided the literary model for this biblical narrative, but a careful and radical purging of all elements offensive to the monotheism of Israel has taken place. Pagan bottles monotheism wine. Okay, very, very important. Continuing now. Now we raise the question of the identity of the assailant. Who but Esav, Esau, would have had such an obstructionist interest? But the wrestler is definitely not Esau himself, hence he must stand for Esau in some manner. He is, as it were, Esau's alter ego. The vocabulary employed in the narrative to identify the strange personage, a man and afterwards Elohim, a divine being, is that used elsewhere of angels. Indeed, the prophet Hosea explicitly describes him as such, as an angel, in Hosea 12:4. I checked it, it's true. The most plausible solution therefore is to see in this mysterious being the celestial patron of Esau. This indeed is the interpretation given in a midrash, which is a rabbinic, uh, fable as it were, throughout the ancient In the ancient world, the idea was current that each city-state, each people, had its divine protector. In monotheistic Israel, such a notion wasn't tolerable. It therefore became transmuted into a belief in the existence of subordinate spirits who were part of the celestial host. Finally, in summation, the mysterious creature who assails Jacob as he is about to cross the future border of Israel— that's another reason for this important river is none other than the celestial patron of Esau, Edom, who was the inveterate enemy of the people Israel. Again, ancient Israelite reading this would have seen a metaphorical battle of, of the, of Israel and Edom. The entire episode foreshadows the impending confrontation with Esau, whom Jacob can now meet with confidence. If he wrestled with this being, now he could certainly wrestle with Esau. It is also emblematic of subsequent historical relations between the people of Israel and the Dome. Now let me read to you what Plaut says, just one paragraph. Since ancient days, crossing a river has been Well, let's hold on. Let me just make sure. Yeah. Ancient— since ancient days, crossing a river has been symbolic of overcoming hazard and going forward to new experience, which is what I was talking about. In this sense, Jacob passing over the Yabok to meet Esau crosses the watershed of his life. Everything that has happened to him since he obtained both birthright and parental blessing by doubtful means has been tainted with his own guilt and his brother's enmity. Jacob can fully face his own past only as he seeks reconciliation with Esau, and this he can do only as he becomes a different man. When Jacob becomes Israel, he can achieve reconciliation with his brother. Now, Prager, at Sarna in plow. Hold on one sec. Okay, now I'll tell you a little story. What does it mean? It means strive or struggle with God, right? Let's, let's look again at why he got that name. Verse 29. No, 29. And he said, that is the man, your name shall no longer be Jacob but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human and have prevailed. Okay, first, just the— I can't— the p'shat, the the literal explanation. He has struggled with human beings, right? Esau and Laban. He has really struggled and he has prevailed. But he has now also struggled with God, or at least with divine beings, and therefore you get the name Struggle with God. My little story is a very simple one. It's about a phone call I got from a Muslim woman many years ago on one of my talk shows. She said, "Dennis, you say we can ask you anything." I said, "Of course." She said, "I'd like to ask you, I'm a Muslim woman, I'd like to know why you're not a Muslim." And I thanked her for asking me, because I took it as a compliment that she even cared. That she would like me to be one was, I felt, complimentary. At any rate, I said to her, uh, it's obviously worthy of huge responses and dialogues, and I cannot deny that having been born Jewish is a big part of the reason. But having said that, I can give you a philosophical reason. The names of each of our religions in their Your native language gives you the answer. Islam means something in Arabic, and Israel means something in Hebrew. Islam means surrender to God. Israel means struggle with God. I rather struggle with God than surrender to God. And she said, thank you, that's a good answer, because she was true to her Islam, because you are to surrender to God. Not in Judaism. You are to obey God but not surrender. There's a big difference. Struggle and obey. A lot of Jews take the struggle very seriously and end up disobeying. A lot of Jews don't even struggle. As Elie Wiesel put it once, I think very well, said, a Jew can love God, a Jew can fight with God, but a Jew cannot ignore God. And a lot of Jews ignore God, which is to me the greatest contemporary Jewish problem. But putting that aside for a moment, struggling with God and struggling with man is what life is about. And this is why, aside from the obvious Jewish reason I just gave you, why I think this is so important. When I have lectured a great deal on happiness and writing a book on it, which will come out sometime at my great-grandchild's bar mitzvah, but the, uh, I make the point in it that tension is a good thing. Those of you who took the course with me will undoubtedly recall this. Because I made such a big deal about it. Animals have no tension, or desire no tension, certainly. You look at a cow grazing and you have seen the epitome of non-tension, right? Then they look up at you with that untense look, and you know that you have seen the face of relaxation. And as I put it when I teach the course, a lot of people actually want to emulate cows. There is a desire to, to live as tension-free as possible. Hence, for example, people will do things that are the antithesis of breeding any tension, as for example watch television a great deal, watching sports a great deal. I have no problem with some TV, with some sports, with some no tension, not at all. There's a place place for that in life, and that, that I'm not extreme on this. I'm only saying that a life that seeks no tension is not a human life. You have not fully developed your humanity if you seek no tension. This goes true, by the way, for both secular and religious people. Secular people who never challenge their secularism, and religious people who never challenge their religiosity are to me in the same human boat— lazy, ungrowing as human beings. Now, and the interesting thing is neither one sees it very often as a problem in their own life. If you speak to secular people, they'll always challenge religious people. Hey, how can you be religious? Look at all this evil. How can you believe in God? There were kids with cancer. And they're right, those are legitimate questions which religious people should struggle with. But what if you turn it around and say, okay, I have to struggle with kids with cancer, but you have to struggle with kids with no cancer. You have to struggle with the fact that there are kids, period. Do you struggle with that, you and your secularism, you and your non-religiosity? Do you ever struggle with it, your— the absence of, of God and religion in your life? Yes, I fully acknowledge I, as a religious person, have many things to account for and struggle with. But do you not realize in your secular life, the absence of God and religion, that you have also struggles you have to deal with? And this is revelatory, absolutely revelatory. They have never thought of it in that way. Likewise, there are many religious people who say, you see, look, the secular, they close their minds to the obvious fact that there is a God and there is a Creator in the world. But you can ask many religious people, "Oh, really? Well, did you ever challenge your religiosity? You were born in the exact same religion you're in. You haven't grown one inch since you're a child religiously. You are doing exactly what your parents did religiously. Why are you intellectually and humanly one whit more advanced than the secularist who never challenged his or her secularism?" And they never thought of it that way. How many religious people challenge their religiosity? They come to some peace with some beliefs at a certain point, and then they just sail on till death, just as secularists sail on till death with their non-challenge. And neither is the dream— and not the Jewish dream at any rate— at any rate of what the human should be. And that is why, by the way, it is so beautiful. Jacob has to struggle with man and struggle with God, and so do you. If you don't struggle with man or with God, then you don't grow. That doesn't mean go around fighting and bullying. It means struggling. It's a struggle to make a better world. It is. If everybody in the world likes you, you've done something wrong. It's the truth. By the way, if everybody in the world hates you, you've also done something wrong. Both are true. Now the point is not to make enemies. The point is to struggle. Do you struggle with human beings? And you struggle with God. And that is what it is to be human. That's why the story has such resonance. After all, it has to. What is the big deal? There has to be a big deal because this is the name of the people of the Bible. So it's got to have— it's got From the biblical perspective, it has to have a staggering amount of importance. And frankly, what could be more important than the nature of humanity? It's not just the nature of the Jew, it's the Jewish understanding of what it is to be a human. This struggle, this is how you grow, through tension, not aggravation, incidentally. One of the things that I make a distinction in my book is between tension and aggravation. Aggravation is gratuitous tension, unnecessary, because nudniks are in your life. Okay, that's a very different thing. Or you get too easily aggravated over things that you shouldn't. That's bad. That just kills you. But tension is good. My best example of how good tension is, is we use it, for example, in one sphere life as totally positive. Sexual tension. It's, it's a good thing. If you don't have any sexual tension with, with, with, with your partner, it's not a good thing. It's precisely what you do want to have. But it's not the only area where tension is a good thing. You want tension in a lot of— you want intellectual tension. If you're not challenging yourself— it happened on the radio last night, Guy called up, he wanted recommendations because he's conservative. He said, Dennis, give me good magazines to read so I can bolster my conservatism. And I gave him half and half. I gave him half conservative, half liberal, and one centrist. Because if all he reads is conservative journals that he agrees with, how's he going to grow? Even as a conservative, he won't grow, let alone as a human. He'll just deteriorate, he'll become a parrot of the conservative articles that he's read, as liberals do of liberal articles that they read, and don't read the, the opposition. Now, it makes life tougher, but it makes it infinitely richer to have this tension, to struggle with people, to struggle with God. And that's what it is about. That is why if you have questions about God in Judaism, that That is why you will now understand the concept in Judaism that how you behave is more important than how you believe. Now, the behavior includes ritual religious behavior, though. It is more important in Judaism that you observe the Shabbat, the Sabbath, than that you affirm God's existence. That is true for Reform, Orthodox, and Conservative Judaism. For conservative, for Orthodox, for Hasidic. There is no exception in Jewish historical thinking, and that's not often you can say that. Because you may have doubts on a Wednesday, but Friday night when the sun sets, it's time for you to make the Sabbath, even if you have doubts or you're angry at God that week. Now you understand where this all comes from. That is why you You are free as a Jew to have a great deal of tension, to have a great deal of even anger at God. How can you let a Holocaust happen? That's why when Jews yell they can't believe in God after the Holocaust, they're doing the— they're reacting to me in an un-Jewish way and in an illogical way. The logical and Jewish way is not say there's no God because there's a Holocaust. The logical and Jewish way is say I'm angry at God because there there was a Holocaust. The Holocaust doesn't disprove God's existence any more than, than an unfortunate, a tragic gang bang shooting in LA tonight will. For that person murdered, it's no different if they're one of 6 million or one of one. That's the end of their whole— all their hopes and their— and everything else of their life. The issue is feeling about God, anger with God. That's, that's permitted. Indeed, there is a certain desirability. If your reaction to God is identical no matter what happens to you, you're not human. If you never struggle with God, it doesn't make sense. You struggle with your wife, with your husband, with your kids, with your parents, but not with God? Is God less intimate to you? How could you be intimate with anybody and not struggle? It doesn't make sense. Then there's nothing going on. That's the beauty of this story. That's the— that's what I have always gotten out of it. This is the— this is when he goes from Jacob, which is the grabber. That's what— remember what it meant? It was just grabbed on the heel of his brother. And now he becomes a struggler. The highest term that the Torah can give a human being is struggler. That's what I want to be He said, when you're dead, when I'm dead. He struggled. He worked hard in this life. He grappled with it and sometimes prevailed. Sometimes we don't, but that's not the purpose in life, is to prevail, because none of you, none of us, no one will ever fully prevail. That's why there's a great rabbinic statement: it is not up to you to finish the task But you're also not free to desist from trying. None of you will make the world perfect. None of us will. But that doesn't mean you can sit back and not try to make it better. But no one dies with all of his dreams, and that'll come out very— dreams fulfilled. The only one, remember, who said he died satisfied was Abraham. I told you, it's the one time in the Torah that it happened. And it's quite amazing that it happened in the one time. So, fellow strugglers, that, that is the ideal. The, the highest appellation of the Torah is one who struggles with God. One, not one who ignores God, and not one who sits back with, with comfort, comforting and comfortable belief. As a Protestant once said, it's the task of religion, the task of religion is not to comfort the afflicted nearly as much as it is to afflict the comfortable. It's very important because a lot of people look to religion as a source of comfort, look to God as a source of comfort. That's okay, there is nothing wrong with that. If that's all you are looking for in God and religion, then they become merely, uh, little valleys. And not— they are not real. The task is to challenge you, and you challenge with standards. One of the things that troubles me today is the argument that compassion must always win out against standards. I'll give you a very difficult issue where it's an example, and with this I will move on. And whether you agree with me or not is not the point, nor am I here to convince you that I'm right. I'm here to convince you that this is a good example of the tension between comfort and religious standards. Homosexuality. Comfort says live and let live, wha— if whatever people do, so long as it's non-coercive, there is no judgment to be made. And that is a far more comforting thing. You live with far more tension if you argue that there is a better way to lead a life, that heterosexual monogamous marriage is the best. It makes people tense. It makes adulterers tense. It makes single people who are single out of volition tense. It is— it's not, it's not fully compassionate, because the purpose of religion is not only to be compassionate, it is to provide a guideline, a thing to aspire to. If you can't, you can't. I'm not gonna sit here and dump on people who can't. If you can't be heterosexual, I have no argument with you. I only have an argument with you if you ask me to say that Judaism, my religion, says it doesn't matter if you're hetero or homo. That's where my argument comes in. It is not personal. It is over whether or not standards which cause tension should be removed just because they cause tension. But that's the purpose of religion. It is to cause tension. Not anger, not hostility, not evil, but tension. It means you're alive, and struggling with it is a big part of the issue. That's what happened at Jabok, in my opinion. It's longer than Plaut's and Sarna's commentary, but, uh, it's, it's my— I'll come, come to in a moment. Let me just finish chapter 32. Jacob asked, tell me your name. And he said, you must not ask my name. And he took leave of him there. Now, why? What happens here? When else? Even though I very rarely make references to other places in the Torah, because I, I want to read the Torah as if we're coming the first time, but there is another place worthy of mentioning here where again there is this question to a divine being, "What's your name?" Anybody know? Moses at the burning bush asks God, "What's your name?" And it's exactly what Jacob is asking this presumably divine being here at Jabok, at the River Jabok, "What's your name?" Did he wrestle with God? Did he wrestle with man? Did he wrestle with an angel? It's silent on this, but it was so obviously divine even to Jacob because he asked for a blessing. That's how we know that, uh, that that was the case with Jacob. And, and, and no name— one sec, please— when no name is given, he says, you can't know my name because the divinity— God is not knowable. There's a great medieval Hebrew saying, 'Lui yadati, if I knew him, I'd be him.' If I knew God, I'd be God. You can't— man can't know God. You could wrestle with God, you can know God's will in certain areas, but you cannot know God. So I cannot tell you. I'll take it in one second and just finish chapter 32. And he took leave of them there, Jacob named the place Peniel. Panim— Peniel literally means face of God. That's what he named it, face of God, meaning I have seen a divine being face to face, yet my life has been preserved. It is a basic Torah principle: you can't see God and live. God himself says that later on in the Torah. The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping on his hip. He now has a limp, as indeed Moses had a, uh, had a speech impediment. That is why the children of Israel to this day do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the socket of the hip, since Jacob's hip socket was wrenched at the thigh muscle. Did you know that? The sciatic nerve has to be removed from meat for it to be kosher. They do that in Israel, so you can have— I guess it would mean kosher sirloin— but here you can't because they don't bother doing it. It's just that's part of the— that part of the animal they just give to the non-kosher butcher, a butchery, I guess, and, uh, and it's not used because too painstaking. But in Israel, it actually is done, and you can eat that part of the animal and have it kosher. But this, this too is a very important Jewish symbol of making the physical— making the metaphysical physical is a very big part of Judaism. A Jew is not told, remember that you were slave in Egypt every year. A Jew is told the following: eat matzah so that you will remember exactly what they ate. Eat bitter herbs so you'll have a little pain, physical pain, to give you an idea of what it was like to be a slave. Eat charoset because it— this, this certain mixture of nuts and so on and roots to give you an idea of what mortar looked like. And on and on. Every year I want you to, to live in a, in an impermanent booth on the holiday of booths, Sukkot, so that you know what it is to live in with impermanence. Judaism doesn't trust you. It doesn't believe that you can empathize non-physically. If you want to know what it is like to live Impermanently, live impermanently. If you want to know what it is like not to be able to have the time to bake bread, don't bake bread. Judaism is filled with that, and in this regard it is very, very different from Christianity. Christianity is a religion of the heart much more than Judaism, which is a religion of the law. That doesn't mean there's no law in there's no heart in Christianity, and it doesn't mean there's no heart in Judaism. But it does mean that one tends to stress one more than the other stresses it. After all, if they stressed everything equally, they'd be the same religion. This is not an inferior-superior statement, it's a statement of difference. Judaism holds, if you want to feel it, you must do it. You cannot just feel it. Same with the Sabbath. These are the things you do in order to emulate God's ceasing of creativity on the Sabbath. These are the things you do. These are the things you don't do. Whereas to most Christians today, the Sabbath is felt internally, to a, an observant Jew, the idea that you could go to a ball game, drive to a ball game on the Sabbath and still keep it in your heart is, is totally foreign, as foreign as it is to a Christian, the idea that you shouldn't go to a ballgame on the Sabbath because you are violating God's will. Yet those are two very separate ways. When I asked Christian clergy for 10 years on, on Religion on the Line on my radio station, I would ask them, you know, if I came to your home on a Sunday after church, how would I know it's a Sunday and not a Monday? And I said, you wouldn't, because it's internal, my feeling of the Lord's Day, which is literally what Sunday is for a Christian, more than specifically the Sabbath. But if you came to an observant Jew's home on the Sabbath, you would know in 10 seconds it was the Sabbath. Everything about it would be different, everything about the behavior. So too, you don't remember when Jacob became Israel, you eat it. You see, every time you can't have that part of an animal, you remember the battle that made Jacob into Israel. That's a very big difference, and that is what is going on in this particular verse. Okay, there were a couple of questions here. Yes, um, I, I was really struck by the the part that you passed over, you pointed out the anomaly of Jacob standing there alone on the bank, and then you passed over it. It seems to me that the implication here is very strong that he was waiting, and the text goes very quickly into the struggle. He's standing there alone, and all of a sudden he's struggling with, uh, the messenger. So he stood there intentionally, you're saying, as if he knew he had to? You're right. It's very possible. Or simply that— or not as an or as if it's a different explanation, but in addition, that he knew that this was a major moment and he needed to be alone for whatever reason, even if he didn't know exactly what was going to happen. Which is why he sent everybody ahead. Yes?

I just want to point out that in your reading, after he asks for the messenger, whoever's name, and the name is not given, He said that, and he took leave. I just want to say that in my reading it says, and he blessed him there.

Okay, which, uh, which, uh, verse is that? Yes. Okay, no, it's 30. Okay, uh, I'll look at the Hebrew. Yes, it's a very good point. See, I debated whether I should do every sentence in Hebrew, but it took too long. I used to do it, but you are absolutely Absolutely right, she is. She says it, her reading says, and he blessed him, not he took leave. Yes, and that is exactly what it says in the Hebrew. That's correct. It's a very interesting— I don't know why this, this translation, uh, omits that fact. It's a very, uh, it's a very relevant point. In 30, in verse 30, the messenger Remember, he says, bless me. Okay, my translation says at the end of verse 30, and he took leave of him there. But the Hebrew is, uh, and he blessed him there. Yes, let me just think. Yes, I mean, it's what it says. I would have to know why it, uh, why they gave this translation. Yes, thank you for making that point. Yes, please. Is there any explanation on verse 23? Why? What? Well, wasn't born yet the 12th. Ah, you're right. Let's hold on. Dina, that's right, because Dina is the 12th.

Hold on.

Yes, however, they're wrong, whoever said sons, because it's not banav, it's yiladav, which is children. Well, that shows how much girls counted for. I mean, that's another example. I gave it last time. Uh, that is, that is extraordinary point on the— I'm gonna have to really call up some of my friends. That's a sad little, little point. Let's see, hold on. That's who was only— Joseph was not yet born? Oh, then hold on. If Joseph and Benjamin are not born— that's what I said, only Joseph was not born. Oh, Joseph was born, excuse me. Benjamin is not born, therefore that would make it 13, therefore this would be 12, and it says 11. Man's right. I'm sorry, I do, but he doesn't say anything about it. Oh, excuse me, he does. That's right, I don't know how I missed it. Only the principal actors in the evolution of the nation are specified because Jacob is about to become Israel, the personification of the tribal confederation. That is why Dinah and the rest of his household are not mentioned. Okay, but in other words, they didn't count. I mean, you know, it's just how many children do you have, and then you gave the number of sons. Very funny though, if a man had 6 daughters, how many children you have? None. It's a little disconcerting.

Yes, I just was thinking a lot about this business of tension and struggling with the mind, and it just seems, um, you're the only one that thinks— I mean, so many people just They don't want to think, they just react and they go back and forth like a pendulum. And it seems impossible. I mean, you, I think maybe you're a product, and it's too late, that's his yeshiva, which is a way of encouraging this kind of, you know, mental exercise. Yeah, yeah.

She's saying that by and large people don't want to struggle and people don't want think, and it is true, it's almost, it's almost a cliché, and I don't want to sound condescending, which, which is how I guess it could come off, but, but, but you're right. Most people, I mean, I said that in passing, although how do you account for 6 hours average home television watching? Whatever you can say in the induction of thought and struggle is not one of television's primary criteria, and the people watching 6 Hours are not watching, you know, Meet the Press reruns, alright? Obviously, they're watching, you know, sitcoms and movies and so on. Now, and as I said, it has a place, entertainment, but yes, look, I'll give you another example. I'll never forget, I've been to 70 countries, and most of them alone. I've had a lot of traveling and a lot of looking at people. It is what I would do, especially if you're alone, what else are you going to do? And I remember in major, major large parts of the world, one of the things I noticed was the amount of time people spend killing time. Just sitting, just staring out, playing cards, sitting with water pipes and schmoozing, which is nice, all of it. Again, I'm not a nut on this, but these are things that I do. I mean, you know, I sit and stare, I sit and I play cards every so often, not often, but I— so I have my stereo magazines, I have my nonsense, and it's a place for it. But the amount of time that is done in— and that's why we have— why do we have a phrase killing time? People didn't do it so much. However, I can tell you this, because she made a very important point you may— you might not have heard. If you don't struggle with life and don't constantly think things through, you will be far less in control of life. You will just react at that moment, having not prepared yourself in terms of thought. I, I have said this That's one of the big themes that I have talked about on my show, is the need for people to develop what the Germans call Weltanschauung, which in English is a worldview. You need to develop a worldview prior to tragedy, because if you don't have a philosophy of life prior to tragedy, you won't know how to deal with it. People very often, for example, are bereft By not having worked through religious questions, when a tragedy hits their life, they are ill-prepared. They go, "How come religion doesn't help me now? How come God is irrelevant now?" If God and religion are irrelevant before a tragedy, then it's too late, unless you really get shaken up and make very major efforts to take them seriously, but not for comfort, but for reasons of philosophical, uh, training in philosophical thought. I, uh, my argument is that you will have a much easier life if you constantly think and constantly struggle than if you don't. That's the irony. Because again, if I may use a biblical source, the Psalmist who said, those who sow in tears will reap in joy. And there is great truth to that. If you don't put in your dues earlier, you will put in your dues later. It's like rearing children. My view is, take a massive amount of time to rear your child as best as possible, so as, if for no other reason, to avoid the awfulness of when it's too late and you can't do anything with your kids. The amount of time you can really influence your children is basically very limited. So it is such a time-worthy of massive parental attention. And it's very difficult to give all that attention. You give up a lot of social life, you give up certain professional perks, but I think that you pay, you get repaid. Not in every case, there are people who sow in tears and reap in tears, I acknowledge that. But it's worth the struggle because the benefits are there in life for it. Yeah? How do you balance that thinking with, uh, who's a happy man? He is content with his life. Yeah, the— he asked the question, how do I balance that with the, with the Talmudic statement, who was the happy man? He was content with his lot. There they're talking actually about wealth. It doesn't really say who was the happy man, it says who was the wealthy man. And the answer is which is literally correct. The wealthy person is the one who is content with his lot. Because if you have millions of dollars and you are anxious about money, you are de facto poor. You are in the same state as the impoverished person. Not the same state economically, but the same state emotionally. That's why I often say the very poor and the very rich have one thing in common: they're both obsessed with money. So from an emotional standpoint, they are more or less in the same boat. They're not in the same boat obviously materially, but they're in the same boat in terms of what their circumstances have created in them. That's why you have to, you have to make a very clear thing: I'm content if I can do the following. I had a very early criterion in my life. I was content if if I could buy all the records and books I wanted. That struck me as a millionaire's life. And I really had criteria. There were times, very few, thank God, where I couldn't even buy records, and it was very painful. So I knew the pain quotient. But once I got to that point, the rest is like gravy. Okay? But you'll all make your own point, obviously. For others, it's different things. And as you get older, it goes beyond records and books. Your mortgage, I mean, you know, there's just a whole host of things. But yes, that's what the Talmud is speaking about. Yep.

So there could be today that they want baby girls, or they use them—

That's right.

—as prostitutes in China, or they kill baby girls? Yes.

She's making the point that to visit moment— forget the Bible— to this moment, uh, there are countries that don't want baby girls, that do not value them. It's absolutely correct. I've written about it and I've talked about it, and it is, it is one of the greatest ongoing evils on this planet. And I'm very annoyed at women's organizations for focusing on issues that I think are 10 dimensions less important than, than two massive evils against The female clitoridectomy, which has taken place on about 75 to 100 million living girls and women, and the massive infanticide of girls in some third world countries, particularly India and China. Yeah, that's right. Mm-hmm.

Sarah and Rebecca, who is so influential and so respected in the service of God, and here with you, he must be, and it comes from him.

I'm really confused. You're confused about the status of woman in the Torah because on the one hand you have the power of Rebecca and Sarah, and on the other hand you see how, like, Adina isn't even counted, uh, or right, and so on. They're not contradictory. The woman in, in real life is depicted as capable as a male, but it was a very patriarchal society where what mattered in such a society was the sons. But that didn't mean that the female, from, from the Torah perspective, from, from perhaps even ancient, the patriarch's perspective at that time, that didn't mean that the view of the woman was that she was any less capable. Now, it might sound like a living contradiction. If women are fully as capable as men, indeed in many cases more capable, then how could you not count them? But that's not a contradictory— it's contradictory from our perspective, because we believe that all people are created equal and should be regarded in every way, politically and socially. But this is brand new. Brand new. I mean, in this century, women couldn't vote. This country, which was more or less the height of enlightenment on this planet. I mean, so, you know, we need perspective. It is not contradictory. What is remarkable to me is not that women weren't— girls weren't counted like boys. I mean, that you have, that's all of the world until it outgrew it. What is amazing is that women are depicted as capable as they are. See, I think we You have to, in a sense, you have to invert the normal way of thinking. People say, "How could Thomas Jefferson keep slaves?" As one historian I recently read put it, and I think was a much more revealing question, the question is now not how could Thomas Jefferson keep slaves, everybody kept slaves. The question was, how could a man who kept slaves argue that all men are created equal? You get it? That's the point. It's not how could they think that girls were less equal. It's how does this book, written at that time, depict women as so equal in their capacity as men were. That's what's remarkable. So that's— and that is why, ultimately, the traditions influenced by Judaism and Christianity are the traditions that elevated women. There is the status of woman in Judeo-Christian Western society with all its problems and all its flaws and all its sexism and all, all the other bad things. The fact is, compared to earth, not compared to an ideal in one's mind, was elevated the woman's status beyond all other groups. That's just a fact. And this book started it. It's a very, very, very long process. Give you an example. You all know how much rape takes place in war. My God, look at Bosnia, right? Happening tragically and awfully as I talk to you. And yet in this book, in Deuteronomy, there is a law that when Jews are in a war and they capture a woman, a soldier captures a woman and he's attracted to her, this is what he does. He has to take her home, let her let her mourn her family for 30 days, and then he can take her as a wife. I mean, that is incredible. Incredible. Women are part of war's booty. You get gold, you get jewelry, you get girls. That's part of what war was about. And here's a book that says, wait a minute. Brilliantly, it didn't say don't rape women. If it would have said don't rape women in war, it would have mattered very little. What it says is, "Oh, you want the woman? No problem! Just let her mourn her parents for 30 days, then you can have her." Now, who the hell is going to rape her after 30 days? She's sitting in your house crying over her mother, and then, "Oh, okay, 30 days are up, let's go to bed." I mean, that was the genius of it. It said, "Oh, Jewish soldier, you want the girl? No problem! After 30 days of mourning her parents." You see, this is what elevated the status. It took a long time. There's a law in the Torah about you can't just say, as in much of the ancient world, you want— a man wanted a divorce, bye, so long, get out of my tent. Now, get thee out of here is a form of divorce in much of the ancient world. Instead, he had to write what's called a bill of divorcement, which immediately meant that he can't do— he had to go to court, which meant that he couldn't do it in prestigiously. It meant that society had a role in whether or not you could, you could, uh, dissolve your marriage. These were massive things in this book that elevated the status of women. So, okay, you know, it, it lived, but it lived in a certain time. On tomorrow's Sunday Fireside Chat, I'd like you to ask your child, if your child is 5 or 50, I want you to ask this question. Ready? But you got to get the wording. You have to memorize the wording. What do you think I, your father, or I, your mother, most want you to be? Not what do you most want to be. What do you think I, your parent, most want you to be? Happy? Successful? Smart? Or good.

Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. This has been 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.

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