Joseph's Reunites With His Brothers - Genesis 43:1-43:34

Life Audio. On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom, I'd like to read to you, uh, interesting, uh, observations faxed to me by, uh, a friend, Alan Estrin, uh, who has finked out this evening and, uh, is watching the Academy Awards. So this is on tape for posterity that Alan Estrin, my dear friend preferred Whoopi Goldberg to the Bible. That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

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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. Just two, uh, two things about last week, uh, on Genesis 42. Uh, I'd like to read to you, uh, interesting, uh, observations, facts to me by, uh, a friend, Alan Estrin, uh, who has finked out this evening and, uh, is watching the Academy Awards. So this is on tape. For posterity that Alan Estrin, my dear friend, preferred Whoopi Goldberg to the Bible.

Poor guy.

This tape will be going on, you know.

I know, I—

it's, it's only because he's a dear friend that I could rip him like that. Don't feel bad. Anyway, I faxed him back a fax, uh, from God in heaven. That was the top Stationery. You are forgiven. This is what he writes. In Genesis 42:37, Reuben offers his sons as a guarantee that he will return Benjamin to Jacob safe and sound. Remember that? He's making the argument to his father Jacob, hey, I will, I will kill my sons if I don't, if I don't return Benjamin safely. The gist of Reuben's argument goes something like this: Dad, if I, your son, My brother Benjamin, if my brother Benjamin dies in your care, ah, you have my permission to kill my two sons, your grandchildren. To which Jacob might be expected to reply sarcastically, hey, great idea! My beloved Benjamin dies, then to assuage my grief I slice up two grandchildren. I've got more camels, I've got camels with more brains than you. It's an interesting, an interesting reaction. But then you, Dennis, offered another interpretation which also works. Could it be that Reuben is being sarcastic, embittered by his father's favoritism, first to Joseph and now to Benjamin? Could he be saying, here's a deal you should go for, Pop, two for one, two of my kids for one of yours if I don't bring Ben back alive? In other words, he makes the offer not to please his father but to express his anger at his father. The killer, of course, is that Jacob doesn't bother to acknowledge the offer, and by not doing so, fails to acknowledge Reuben's frustration. In short, Reuben is either very dense or very clever yet embittered. He believes the very dense, and I believe the, uh, the embittered. But it's interesting how you could read it. By the way, it really is remarkable when you think about it. That that would be even the, the, the offer he would make? You know, I, I'll bring back your son, and if I don't, I'll kill your two grandchildren. I mean, oh, you will kill my two grandchildren? What? I think it's I will.

You will kill my two children, your grandchild?

Yes, you will kill my two children, your grandchildren. Yes, that's right. I mean, I think it's— do you agree with me generally it's a bitter statement, or do you think it's a literal How do you— yes?

I think he wanted to show him his sincerity, and he certainly didn't want to kill his children.

Yeah, but sincerity— would you ever make such a deal? I mean, what—

I— He might pretend to father them.

Right, but not literally mean it. But not literally— okay, so this is— that's how sincere I am, you can kill my children. But not mean it literally. That's fair enough. That sounds like a good reading. I swear on the life of my children. Right.

And I'm going to bring them back.

Okay, good. I swear on the life of my children. I had one— good, I agree with that. Uh, yes.

I think that he really gets scared because he's saying— I think it's a loving thing— he's saying, Dad, if I don't bring back Benjamin, you lost two. And I'm gonna lose two also. It'll be like Isaac.

Oh, that's nice. No, no, no, I'm not sarcastic. I know it sounded— no, she says, just as you lost two, if I, if I don't bring back Benjamin, I am prepared to lose two. Yeah, but, but it really is an echoing though of what this woman said, that it's to show his sincerity, the seriousness of his offer. I have one more point to, uh, to make which I don't recall making last week. Verse 38 in chapter 42.

The, uh, let's see.

Right.

Oh, that's good.

As men, they didn't know how to express themselves that well. That's true. You could not imagine a woman saying that, could you? Yeah, I'll kill my two kids. You kill my two kids if I don't deliver on this. Yeah, it's a very good point. Yes, yes.

Art of negotiation, you would offer that knowing it would be rejected.

Uh-huh. In the art of negotiation, you would offer that knowing it would be rejected. Well, it was rejected, and, and they didn't get to go. It was, it was completely rejected. Uh, verse 38, the last sentence of that chapter. Um, I just made a point here. It says Benjamin alone is left. And I, and I, as I was reading it again preparing for tonight, I thought, what does that mean? Benjamin alone is left. This is Jacob speaking, right? And he says, Benj— but it's not true Benjamin alone is left. There are 11 other brothers left, or 10 other brothers, right? Yeah, but it just shows— all I want to say is it shows his favoritism again.

That's all.

It's just another example of, of his favoritism.

I think it goes even further than that.

It's almost like the others don't even really exist. That's right, it's like the others don't even really exist. Absolutely. I have another example in the next chapter, but it is a, it is a very sad fact of life here with this favoritism. All right, chapter 43. But the famine in the land was severe. This is now They're running out of provisions from the first trip to Egypt. And when they had eaten up the rations which they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, go again and procure some food for us.

Okay.

But Judah said to him, that is to Jacob, the man warned us. Who's the man? Joseph. Of course they don't know. Do not let me see your faces unless your brother is with you. And then he continues, if you will let our brother go with us— that is Judah speaking to Jacob— we will go down and procure food for you. But if you will not let him go, we will not go down, for the man said to us, do not let me see your faces unless your brother is with you. You all recall that. Now notice who is the spokesman now. Judah. Reuben is no longer the spokesman. Here is Sarna's theory as to why Reuben is no— or Reuben is no longer the spokesman. Sarna says it's because Reuben or Reuven, had been discredited owing to his sleeping with Bilhah, his father's concubine. If you recall that, chapter 35, verse 22, where he wanted to usurp some of his father's authority. But I, I write here, it seems to me that Reuven was still the spokesman after the journey to Egypt at the end of the previous chapter, right? So that's why it's one of the rare times I didn't quite follow Sarna. It seems to me that Reuben is no longer the spokesman because of the absolute rebuff he received when he offered his own sons if he couldn't go back to Egypt with Benjamin and bring young Benjamin back with him. At that point, I think Reuben simply gave up. It's clear, I have no clout with my father. And that's to me why I think Judah has become the, the spokesman for the brothers now. Verse, uh, verse, verse—

sorry.

Oh, I'm sorry, I mentioned Sarna and I always assume you know. There are 3 primary commentaries in English of the Torah. There's a Reform, a Conservative— Reform, a Universal— I can't really call it Conservative because it's not published by the Conservative movement— and there's an Orthodox. The Reform is Rabbi Gunther Plaut's commentary. Except for the Book of Leviticus, which Rabbi Bamberg did. The Orthodox is Dr. Hertz, Rabbi Hertz's famous commentary on the Pentateuch, the Five Books of Moses. And the other one, the newest, is the different scholars doing different books. Nachum Sarna, professor at Brandeis University, did the Genesis. Okay, so I'm— when I say Sarna, that's whom I'm speaking about.

Conservative.

He is conservative, yes. That's why I call it conservative, but it's not officially conservative. The— actually, the conservative movement is preparing another commentary, which is fine by me. The more the merrier, as far as I'm concerned. Okay, uh, verse 6. Now, and Israel said— this is Jacob responding— why did you serve me so ill as to tell the man that you had another brother? What's his argument here? Why did you open up your mouth for? If you hadn't mentioned that you had another brother, he'd have given you the rations that you needed and so on, and you never also would have never had to leave Shimon, Simeon, there, right? That's— he's, he's rather annoyed with his sons, which is, uh, unfortunately not atypical in Genesis. They replied, but the man kept asking about us and our family, saying, is your father still living? Have you another brother? And we answered him accordingly. How are we to know that he would say, bring your brother here? Very totally natural reaction. This dialogue could have happened yesterday, right? Not nearly 4,000 years ago. It is so logical and following patterns that you would, you would relate to if you had to answer your father this way. Then Judah said to his father Israel, send the boy in my care. And let us be on our way, that we may live and not die, you and we and our children. Now, do you remember when you last heard that we— you to live and not die? That was exactly the language that Jacob had used on why you should go to Egypt, sons, and get me rations, so that we will live and not die. What's the most effective way to win an argument? Use the language of your adversary. You get it? That's a very— it's just, it's something that you might have missed, but the, the actual same words. Look, you're the one who said let's live and not die. Fine. Now I'm telling you let's live and not die. If you keep Benjamin here, that'll be great. We'll just starve to death. That's what he's saying to his father, which is a pretty, uh, uh, rational argument. Uh, verse 9: I myself will be surety for him. You may hold me responsible. The Hebrew is constant usage of legal terms. I take full legal responsibility, moral responsibility. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, I shall stand guilty before you forever. Uh, and he does not make anything like the wild offer that Reuben made. It's a much more sober presentation by Judah than Reuben had made. Verse 10: For we could have been there and back twice if we hadn't dawdled. This is a little dig at his father. And notice, this is a dig again. Please recall, uh, verse— chapter 42, verse 1. Now when Jacob saw that there were food rations to be had in Egypt, he said to his sons, why do you keep looking at one another? Why do you keep dawdling? And he's using the same argument against his father. Who exactly is dawdling, Dad? This is an angry crowd. He's angry at them and they are angry at him. It's sad, but that's, that's what the thrust of his argument is. Had you not held back Benjamin, we'd have, we'd have had a brother with us and rations. Now we have a brother in captivity in Egypt and we're starving. That's pretty powerful stuff, uh, saying— being said to the father. Verse 11: Then their father Israel said to them, if it must be so, do this. Now, this is exactly the words, by the way, that Joseph used to them—

do this—

the same asuzot, uh, when he told them to get the brother. Uh, it's, it's just a— it's an interesting play on words. Uh, the same words Joseph uses to the brothers, the father now uses to the brothers. Do this. So if it has to be done, do this. Take— that was, by the way, in 42:18. And here is a very interesting mirror image. You remember one of the basic ideas I told you about in the whole book of Genesis? If you're into karma, folks, or at least karma in this life, This should be your favorite book. Everything comes around. Whatever goes around comes around. That should be the name of Genesis. There's very little about Genesis. The real story of the Book of Genesis is how you act comes around. You cheat, you get cheated. You lie, you're lied to. You sell to slavery, you get sold to slavery. You're a thief, you get stolen from. It's, it's, it's really remarkable. Now look at this one. Take some of— this is Jacob talking to his sons— take some of the choice products of the land in your baggage and carry them down as a gift for the man Joseph, right? Some balm and some honey, gum, ladanum, or ladanum, not a word I use ever, pistachio nuts and almonds. All right, now do you remember what the Ishmaelites traded for, uh, for Joseph? What they, the traders, were carrying? Take a look at 37:25, or I'll just tell you, you don't have to go back.

Gum, balm, and ladanum. Isn't that—

and I don't know what ladanum is, we already established last time, huh? It's a narcotic. No kidding. That— those were the days, I tell you. It's probably legal in those days, I guess. The good old days.

Yeah.

Uh, anyway, that— so look at what happens here. Joseph was sold to traders in these things, and now they, the brothers who sold him, ought to bring back these things to get their own brother back from the man they sold. Is that incredible? I mean, this is so obvious. It, you know, it wasn't to me. Sarna told it to me. I mean, you know, it's incredibly obvious once you realize it, let's put it that way. But it really is, it, it's a very powerful statement in a subtle way. It's subtly obvious, that should, I guess, or obviously subtle, uh, that this is what the story is about. Look at how things just come, come around again. Uh, number 12: Take with you double the money, carrying back with you the money that was replaced in the mouths of your bags. Perhaps it was a mistake. You remember that story where they had stuck in silver into the pouches and they couldn't understand how did this get into our pouches? Okay, so take it back. Maybe it was a mistake, which was an honest act on the part of Jacob. Uh, though probably he also suspected that the Egyptians knew that they went with this. And, uh, but who knows? I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Uh, 13, take your brother too and go back at once to the man. You can only imagine, I mean, if this were ever enacted in a play, the drama of Jacob relenting and say— it's almost It's almost like he couldn't even say the name Benjamin. It was too painful to him. But he— I think he says, take your brother too, to remind them you have an obligation to your brother. You get what I'm saying? Take your brother is more powerful than take Benjamin. This is your brother, boys, even though he comes from another mother. He He's your brother, and you have filial responsibility for your brother. So take your brother too and go back at once to the man. And may El Shaddai— God has many names, or a number of names, in Judaism and specifically in the Torah. El we have already encountered, which is, which is also an ancient Near Eastern name for God. For a god. Shaddai, as far as I have learned, comes from the root in Hebrew for breast, a woman's breast, shaddayim. It's really almost God of breasts. God has, has masculine and feminine qualities in Judaism, and this, uh, this is probably an invocation I'm, uh, of that aspect because, uh, of the next words. El Shaddai disposed the man to mercy toward you. Mercy is compassion. Mercy are identified more with the female. In fact, in Hebrew it is obviously so because the word for mercy in Hebrew is rachamim, which is the plural for rechem, which means womb. The Hebrew word for mercy is wombs, uh, which is a real giveaway. So may— if we were totally literal, it would, it would read, may the God of breasts show wombs to— have this man show wombs to you. Gives you an idea of— I mean, you can't get more feminine than that. And so it's just an interesting invocation. This is how Jacob urges that God watch over them and of course bring back his beloved Benjamin. So may El Shaddai dispose the man to mercy toward you, that he may release to you your other brother as well as Benjamin. Now who's the other brother? Simeon, right? Shimon. As well as Benjamin. So he's— poor father here He's now hoping that God will show mercy, that two sons will come back.

Poor guy.

As for me, if I am to be bereaved, I shall be bereaved. It's a, it's a difficult, uh, it's a difficult thing to truly translate, but that's as good as any. It's a term of total resignation. He's almost preparing himself for the worst, which is the best thing to do, I think, in many of these occasions, in order to retain your sanity. But that's what it is. I give up. Look, you got to do it. There is no, uh, there is no other, uh, chance. Notice, by the way, in 13, that he may release to you your other brother. Why didn't he say that he may release to you Simeon? I think, and I'm not definite, but I think again it is an, it's a, an implication of that the 11 brothers are almost interchangeable. The 10 brothers are almost interchangeable with one another, uh, and the ones that really matter by name are Benjamin and Joseph. I mean, look, it says that he may release to you your other brother as well as Benjamin. Why doesn't it say that he may release to you Simeon as well as Benjamin? I'm not certain, but, but the buildup is so constant of them not mattering that much, nearly as much as Benjamin, the two children from the woman he loved, Rachel, and, and as well as being the two youngest, that it strikes me as not coincidental that he would simply, you know, so I don't even remember, it's almost like, I don't know, one of your brothers is stuck there, but bring me back Benjamin, you know. Now he wants the other brother, though. I'm not going to overstate this. It's not like he doesn't care at all about Simeon. It's just that he's one of the brothers. This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. Rising interest rates, stock volatility, out-of-control inflation. People are concerned about what the future holds financially. This is Dennis Prager for AmFed Coin and Bullion. There's no better time than the present to move a portion of your IRA into precious metals. You should know there's a right and a wrong way to set up your precious metals IRA. Mistakes could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in IRS fines. Call AmFed Coin and Bullion, 800-221-7694, AmericanFederal.com. That's AmericanFederal.com. Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom. Okay, well, now let me read to you what Nachmanides, the medieval Jewish, great Jewish commentator, writes about on this. Why doesn't he— I was apparently— I was right to pick up the fact that he does not mention Simeon by name. Somebody did that 800 years before I did. It's one of the things, by the way, if you study, uh, Jewish scholarship, uh, it is a very humbling experience. Whenever you think you've come up with a new insight, generally someone about 1,000 years at least earlier than you did also did. You know, there's not much left when a religion is 4,000 years old. There isn't that much new to say.

What, what can I tell you?

It is a humbling experience. Let me get this here. Okay, this is what Nachmanides writes. Apparently the text in its plain sense reflects the fact that Simeon was not in his father's good graces. See, Now I offered the thought that it wouldn't matter which brother it was, he would have said your brother. He thinks it's specifically Simeon, Shimon, that Jacob is angry at.

And why?

On account of the incident at Shechem. Now, any of you remember that?

When—

yeah, after Dinah was raped, Shimon led the guys in a, in a mass slaughtering of the Shechem people, and he was not proud of his son's conduct. So this may imply, get your brother back. He doesn't want to name him. He's still angry at Shimon. Could be. He therefore did not say Simeon my son and Benjamin, just your brother and Benjamin, right? He made no mention of him by name during the whole time they had left him in Egypt. That is an interesting point. Had it not been for the complete dearth of food at home, he would not have let Benjamin go, but would have left him, Simeon, to his fate in Egypt.

Isn't that incredible?

That's an interesting thing to say. If they didn't— now that I think of it again, I read it earlier and I didn't realize the power of that point. Wow, the Ramban is saying here If it were not for the need for food, he would have let Simeon rot in Egypt. Well, that's pretty powerful. Please hold it till the end of the chapter. I— it's pretty powerful because there's certainly no implication that there would be any. As it is, they had to be talked into letting Benjamin go, and he knew the only way to get Simeon back is to show Benjamin to this man in Egypt. Wow, isn't that something? You got to be pretty alienated from your son to let him stay in captivity forever. And you think your family has tsuris. Verse, verse 15: So the men took that gift, and they took with them double the money as well as Benjamin. They made their way down to Egypt, where they presented themselves to Joseph. I always wondered, by the way, how was it they got to Joseph so quickly? The man is the most powerful man in Egypt. What are you— excuse me, I'd like to see, you know, knock on the door. No, I, I've always wondered that, that, you know, it just implies that they're— they had such easy access.

Uh, who knows?

I mean, obviously God's hand is implied as being in it, so maybe that just answers it. Uh, they presented themselves to Joseph. When Joseph saw Benjamin with them He said to his house steward, take the men into the house, slaughter and prepare an animal, for the men will dine with me at noon. By the way, for the more traditional who might argue that Jewish law was kept prior to the Torah, uh, this would seem to be a problem because it's clearly an Egyptian who is slaughtering the animal for the Hebrews to eat. And so by definition, it could not be slaughtered kosherly because only a Jew would be capable of doing that. Now, I don't have a problem with that, but I do have a problem with the notion that, that the laws were kept prior to the laws. Okay, just leave it at that and get mail feedback from some who will have listen to this and be curious to get the response. At any rate, slaughter and prepare an animal, for the men will dine with me at noon. The man did as Joseph said, and he brought the men into Joseph's house. But the men were frightened at being brought into Joseph's house. You could— you can imagine. It must be, they thought, because of the money replaced in our bags. Poor— these poor brothers. You, at this point, you have to— you have to feel sorry for these guys, right? I mean, it's just building up here, being shuttled back and forth between Canaan and Egypt. They have terrible relations at home.

They know their father doesn't love them.

They're scared for their lives, literally, in the house of the most powerful man in Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. But the men were frightened at being brought into Joseph's house. It must be, they thought, because of the money replaced in our bags the first time that we have been brought inside as a pretext to attack us and seize us as slaves with our pack animals. So they went up to Joseph's house steward and spoke to him at the entrance of the house. If you please, my lord, they said, we came down once before to procure food, but when we arrived at the night encampment and opened our bags, there was each one's money in the mouth of his bag. Our money is full, so we have brought it back with us. Obviously trying to show how honest they are and so on. And we have brought down with us other money to procure food. We do not know who put the money in our bags. And he replied, that is the steward, Joseph's steward, all is well with you, do not be afraid. Your God, the God of your father, must have put treasure in your bags for you. Now it's almost impossible to conclude anything but that Joseph had told the steward what to say, okay? An Egyptian is not likely to say the God of your father's put the money in your bags. He knew what— he knew the whole story, that Joseph had arranged it. I got your payment. And he brought out Simeon to them. Then the man brought the men into Joseph's house. He gave them water to bathe their feet, and he provided feed for their donkeys. And I already did a whole show on why it's donkey and not dunkey, so I am now perfectly satisfied that it is donkey. And not donkey? Because did anybody hear that show? You know how much mail I got on that? My question on the air was, why is it monkey but not donkey? I can't tell you the number of faxes I received at KABC explaining to me why it was not— why it was not donkey but donkey. And with good examples, and they fully convinced me. People made lists of words where only the consonant was changed and they're pronounced differently. There was cough, sloth, you know, uh, tough. And I realized they were right. So it's monkey and donkey. They laid out their gifts to await Joseph's arrival at noon, for they had heard that they were to dine there. When Joseph came home They presented to him the gifts, the gifts that they had brought with them into the house, bowing low before him to the ground, as remember the dream. He greeted them and he said, how is your aged father of whom you spoke? Is he still in good health? They replied, it is well with your servant our father, he is still in good health. And they bowed and made obeisance. Looking about, he saw his brother Benjamin, his mother's son. Again, the drama is just— it's, it's really, it's a magnificent work of drama. And asked, is this your youngest brother of whom you spoke to me? And he went on, may God be gracious to you, my boy. Listen now. With that, Joseph hurried out, for he was overcome with feeling toward his brother and was on the verge of tears. He went into a room and cried there.

Isn't that incredible?

I mean, think about this. Then he washed his face, reappeared, and now in control of himself gave the order: Serve the meal. They served him by himself and them by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves. And this is another time it mentions, for the Egyptians who ate with him— excuse me, for the Egyptians could not dine with the Hebrews since that would be abhorrent to the Egyptians. And on this I want an extended comment for you. This is very important. First, I'll just read to you what Sarna writes. Joseph eats alone. There are 3 groups eating. Group A is Joseph alone. Group B are the brothers. Group C are the Egyptians, right? Joseph eats alone, undoubtedly because of his exalted status. But the segregation of the Hebrews was due to the Egyptian feeling of racial and religious superiority that engendered contempt for foreigners who were regarded as unclean. Listen to this, another example of like-minded thinking. Herodotus, the great Greek historian, reports that because the cow was taboo to Egyptians but eaten by Greeks, no native of Egypt would kiss a Greek, use his kitchen utensils, or even eat the flesh of an ox that had been cut with the knife of a Greek. Isn't that amazing? Because the Greeks would eat cows. It is therefore likely that Egyptian particularism asserted itself here because the Hebrews were shepherds, an abhorrent profession, and because they ate sheep, an abomination to Egyptians. Now, the point that I want to make here is, uh, is really a critical one. The Egyptians wouldn't eat with non-Egyptians because, as he writes, a belief in their racial and religious superiority. You are all aware that, that Jews have believed that they are the chosen people of God, correct? It's one of the best-known facts about Judaism. Very many people, including Jews, believe that that belief has engendered a great deal of hostility toward Jews, anti-Semitism. In the book that I co-authored on antisemitism, Why the Jews, and in subsequent many lectures, I have made the point that this is not correct. Every national group, every racial group in the world has considered itself in some ways exalted. It is amazing that people are not aware of this. I can give you a number of examples. This is an example of Egyptians.

I mean, it—

at least the most particularist observant Jew would eat with a non-Jew. He would insist that it be their kosher food, but no concept of not eating with a non-Jew. But the Egyptians wouldn't even eat with a non-Egyptian. But there are all over the world, there are examples. In Asia, you have the examples of Japan and China. What is— what is on the Japanese flag? You know what the red is? It's the rising sun. It's the sun. It's the land of the rising sun. The Japanese belief being that Japan gets the sun before the rest of humanity. That's a pretty exalted and, uh, even racist belief. The Chinese word for China is Central Kingdom. It's in the center of the world. All outside are peripheral, almost revolving around the Central Kingdom, which is China. You have this everywhere. In Africa, you would have groups that held that they were superior because they were taller. There were groups that held they were superior because they were shorter.

It, it, it is all over the world.

My group is the best. I'm a fan of my group. Why then do people believe that the Jews were hated for the belief that they were the chosen people? The answer is— and, and it has been a source of hatred— but the answer is because unlike all other groups' beliefs about themselves, this one was believed by members of other groups. That's the difference. See, if you walked—

it should simply be held as a ludicrous myth, just like other groups have ludicrous myths about their greatness. So I'd throw that to you.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this. Rising interest rates, stock volatility, out-of-control inflation— people are concerned about what the future holds financially. This is Dennis Prager for AMFED Coin Coin and Bullion. There's no better time than the present to move a portion of your IRA into precious metals. You should know there's a right and a wrong way to set up your precious metals IRA. Mistakes could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in IRS fines. Call AmFed Coin and Bullion, 800-221-7694, AmericanFederal.com. That's AmericanFederal.com. Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

There is another point to be made here as well. The, uh, this was— I have believed for some time that the greatest commandment in the Torah is not love your neighbor as yourself, but it is love the stranger. This to me is the greatest. If I had to isolate the single most important commandment in the world. It is to love the stranger. It is not that difficult. It's difficult, but it is not that difficult to love members of your own group. That comes relatively naturally because you see yourself when you see a someone who looks and talks like you. The The greatest challenge in life is to see yourself in people who do not look or talk like you. That is not natural. I am not among those who believe that racism is only taught. I believe that racism is partially natural. I think a lot of disgusting things are partially natural. It's not It's hardly this alone. We are not naturally beautiful. We are naturally a mixture of beauty and ugly. Racism is ugly, but it is not utterly unnatural. It is not something that is just learned. Now, you might argue, "What are you talking about? Babies don't give a hoot." That's true about babies, but we're not babies. We grow up. And when you grow up, it is very natural if you are part of a group with a group identity to find your group more real than people in other groups. This thing, this is really stuff that has dawned on me only in the recent past. This diff— the difficulty of seeing others as, as being as real as you.

It's a—

I hope I'm being clear to you when I say as real, but I want to tell you something. It is almost too heavy a thought to perceive everybody else in this room right now as being as important, as having as many hopes, desires, joys, sadnesses as you do. It's, it's almost overwhelming. And if you actually walk around with that perception, it becomes almost impossible to wantonly hurt anybody because you realize how much is going on, how real they are. They're just like you, and, and you don't want to hurt you, so you can't possibly want to hurt them. The Nazis could never have done the Holocaust. Never. Without laying the groundwork of dehumanizing Jews first. All of the vocabulary of the Holocaust was non-human, including the, the word itself, which was— they never said, "We're going to murder the Jews." Never. Murder was reserved for fellow Germans. If someone in Berlin murdered somebody on another street in Berlin, that was murder. The Jews were to be exterminated just like you do termites, and the Jews were constantly compared to vermin. Therefore, just as you do not— your heart does not go out when you call the exterminator, your heart would not go out when you, when you call the exterminator out for the Jews, because the dehumanizing of this group was so, was so well done. And it is done— obviously whites did this to blacks. You can make them slaves because they're not as real as you. To have seen white people on a, on a line shackled in chains to one another and, and taken from their parents and separated and sold like cattle would have been impossible for a white in America. That's me up there, I can't do it. Oh, but it's blacks, they're not really as real as we are. They don't quite cry like we cry. And that's how it's done. The, uh, the greatest challenge, the greatest— it's very hard to isolate things in life like that— but the greatest challenge in life is to see the stranger as being as real as you. The Chinese did not regard— the Japanese did not regard the Chinese or Koreans as real. It's all over the world. Unless you argue that there was extraterrestrials came down and taught racism, you have to argue it's innate. How did the Japanese, totally unexposed to, uh, to European racial thought, have their view—

the views that they had of Chinese?

How could they ship Korean women, to be, uh, basically vaginal utilities for Japanese soldiers. And they did in the tens of thousands. They would never do that to a Japanese woman. Inconceivable. The Japanese are too real to the Japanese. And the more insulated your group is, the less you meet different people, the more developed this idea is. When I was in Japan, I will never forget, It was the first time that I have truly felt, and I didn't feel it all the time, but there were occasions where I had a slight idea of what it is like to be perceived truly as not fully human. I am very tall. I'm 6'4". Nobody in Japan is 6'4". Nothing in Japan, therefore, is built for people of this height. And I constantly bang my head on things in Japan, including, for example, the Japanese subway. And every time I walked into the Japanese subway and would hit my head, nearly everyone in the car started laughing. Now, if I would hit my head in a New York subway car, nobody would laugh. He's one of us, so how am I gonna laugh? But I wasn't real. It was almost like an extraterrestrial had come in and look at how funny he looks. He's so big he bangs his head on our subway top. Isn't that hilarious? That is the concept of my group is real, other groups are not real. It is also, incidentally, intergender. Men have to learn that women are real just like they are. By the way, women have to learn this about men. Girls who grow up without brothers, for example, or no, uh, early boyfriends in their lives do not see men as fully real. They don't know what they're like, another substance. Men are— it's better known that men have this problem because they objectify that which they are attracted to sexually, so they have a double whammy against them. One is it's the other gender, and I don't know what the hell is going on there. And the other is that they make them into a sex object naturally anyway, as gay men do with men. It's just the way the male works. So that combination of sex object and foreign object makes it doubly difficult for men to see a woman as absolutely as human as they are. Not a woman, but a person who happens to be a woman. Who happens to be female, and we as men who are people who happen to be male. This thing that the Egyptians would hold it as an abomination against their entire faith world, it— to eat with a non-Egyptian typifies this sort of thing. They didn't study modern racist theory.

These are— this is—

you're talking about 4 millennia ago. In a, in the ancient, ancient world, the idea that my group is the only real group dominated. That, by the way, just tangentially, I think I have mentioned it in, uh, in this class, but I'm not certain, so I won't spend time on it. That is the powerful argument that I heard from a rabbi once about why incest is so wrong. Not because of the, the health reason only, uh, because you can get by that with, with not having, uh, by using a prophylactic. The reason is because what marriage is supposed to do is to teach you to love a stranger. Your sister, your brother isn't a stranger. Nor is your aunt or uncle, and so on. The ideal is to marry a stranger and to learn to love one. This, incidentally, is a philosophical argument against homosexuality, that if you marry and love the, the same sex, you haven't learned to love the stranger, which is the opposite sex. Without getting into the issue of homosexuality, which obviously could dominate any session, Those— it's a very— that's why I say to you, I think it is the greatest law of the Torah, the ability to love the stranger. This society in which we live, the United States, is the first stranger-based society perhaps in history, where it— you know, when I, when I was listening today, when I was not on the radio, I was being— I was off for Dodger Talk. And so I come on an hour late, later in March, because of preseason Dodger Talk games, preseason games and Dodger Talk. And apparently, I'm not a big baseball fan, I follow a little, and I have no choice being on the Dodger station, but there is now a Korean who may be a starting pitcher for the Dodgers. Chung Ho Park. You know, and I was thinking, and by the way, they were talking in Dodger talk, the announcer Ross Porter was saying it would be a great thing. There are 450,000 Koreans in Los Angeles. That's a staggering number, ladies and gentlemen. There aren't 450,000 Koreans in most Korean cities. That's an incredible number. Well, listen, there are half a million Jews. There are more Jews in Los Angeles than in, in every Israeli city, I believe, than Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. I, you know, where do you— we are more Irish, you know, it's like there are more Poles in Chicago than anywhere but Warsaw. You know, it's, it's like, it's constant. We have this. It's the first stranger-based society. It may collapse. If people don't learn to do this. But that is the promise that was made possible in making the United States, that who you are was more important than what group you were a member of. The first society in history, in the history of the world, to make that claim. Who you are is more important than what group you're a member of. And so I, I needed this extended commentary because this is, is to me the animating impulse of the highest of the biblical ideal. Indeed, Christianity took this over. It didn't— often Christians didn't live by it. But when Jesus said that there is no Jew or Gentile, all are one in Christ, there is no Jew or Greek, and so on, there is no male or female, all are one in Christ, that is what he was saying. Unite on an idea and it doesn't matter. I think it was Paul who said that. Was it Paul or Jesus? It's Paul.

That's—

I thought it was Paul. That, that is, that is carrying on this notion. But of course, tragically, what Christians then tended to do was to really say, yes, all are one in Christ, but if you're not in Christ, then you're a stranger and we have nothing to do with you. See, that, that's, that which is only shows you the power of people to pervert the most beautiful ideal. It is an infinite ability to do so, as indeed Jews could do it. I mean, when it— when it— when a Jew also— oh, you know, come to Torah and everybody is wonderful. Outside of that, you know, then what did that rabbi, that nut, say at the funeral of Baruch Goldstein? Uh, what did— a thousand Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail or toenail. A million. Oh, a million. Yeah, that's right, a million. I mean, that's the mentality. They're so different, they're not really human. They don't—

they're not even—

not even human.

They're not even a toenail.

Okay, that's, that's why this has struck me as so critical. And that is the battle of the highest form of religion. It is also the battle for the soul of America. To be able to perceive the other as fully, as fully real. That's why I hate words like whites, the whites, the blacks, the Jews. As soon as I hear the, I get scared. Because what do you have to say about the Jews, the blacks? What do you have to say? The whites, you know, we in any one of those groups Every white realizes that every other white is an individual, so they never speak that way. Every black realizes that every other black is an individual. It's when the other group is mentioned that all of a sudden they blend into one. They don't have names anymore. It's no longer Richard and Janice and, and Harry and Barbara. It's the whites or the blacks or the Jews or, or whatever it is, or the goyim.

Right.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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

Okay, racism is pretty, pretty, uh, pretty deep. That the Torah would mention this twice is a very powerful thing. I'll be done with this chapter in a moment. Let me just finish. Uh, 30, uh, 33. As they were seated by his direction, from the oldest in the order of his seniority to the youngest in the order of his youth, the men looked at one another in astonishment. Do you understand why? Can you imagine all the brothers coming to a room and they're told to sit at certain spots, and it just happens to work out that it's by age. You know, my heart goes out to these guys by now. All the tricks being played on them by now, finding the extra stuff in their packs, you know, being called back, now being arranged in age order, this guy telling them, "God did this, God did it with the payment for you." It's becoming rather clear to the most obtuse that fate has a very much larger role than free choice at this time in the lives of Jacob's sons. But that, that really must have been, as it says here, they must have looked around somewhat astonished. The odds of doing that with, with 10 people are, I don't know, some mathematician would have to figure out how could you arrange 10 kids in order of age correctly the first time. I mean, it's one in, you know, thousands. Obviously, uh, if not millions. But I don't know, I, I should have done better at algebra, as I've been establishing on my show, the need for algebra in adult life. Uh, portions were served them from his table, but Benjamin's portion was several times that of anyone else, and they drank their fill with him. Actually, they drank virtually till being drunk. Is the way the Hebrew is. Uh, he got, uh, 5 times extra, uh, as by Joseph's order Benjamin got 5 times extra food. Uh, this was, this was to test the brothers again. It's constant tests. Uh, now that you see he's favored again, will you do to him what you did to me when I was favored? That's the reason for it, constantly testing. You had your hand up. Well, this has to do—

it doesn't have to do with what we're reading about, because what you were talking about, you were talking about challenge to see the stranger as a real person, as yourself, to see yourself in strangers. And then you put into that gender roles, and you talk about marriage, and then you put— you talk about racism and all kinds of things. Came together. My question to you is, what do you think that we can do as a community or a society to help everybody see people more just real? What can we do in our actions?

What can we do, reverting to my subject of seeing the stranger as real as we see ourselves, what can we do as a society to foster this? Well, I, I believe the way I first was taught to do it was by learning that everybody is created in God's image. And I think if you truly believe that, then you are as much in God's image as I am. It isn't my group created in God's image, it is the individual. I think that that belief can help. The other is— I hate to use the word, and the reason I hate to use this word is because it's used always and it's so awfully done— but education. I mean, the very notion of making— of bringing the idea up is of great help. The other is experience. A white man called me up on my radio show about 6 months ago, and I was very touched by this call because I felt I was having the impact that I would like to have, which is to help people be a little better. He said, Dennis, I am becoming— I'm feeling racist feelings welling up in me, and I want you to help me counteract them. I said, why? And he said, I was mugged by a black man last week. And I said, I have one question to ask you. You have any black friends? Said no. I said, that's the reason. If a white mugged you last week, would you be developing anti-white feelings? Of course not, because you have so many white friends. Whites are real to you, blacks aren't. And he, and he said, you're right, and hung up. It was so obvious that that was the issue. The moment you have friends, the moment you have broken that down and there are real members of other groups in your life, not blacks in your life, but Henry, okay, Jennifer, real people with real names and real tears are in your life of another group, it's impossible. What are you going to say then? I mean, did any of you become— any of you Jews become anti-Semitic because of the Jewish names in the Wall Street scandals? No, because you know honest Jews. That's why. So you say these are dishonest, these are honest, then the vishu. But if you never met a Jew and all you, all you know is that, say Jews are cheats. The answer is God's image education and behavioral experience. That's why I founded a center where we have two programs to make films on goodness. We're making the second one next month. And which we have not begun but is my dream as soon as we have the funds, it's called Dinners in Black and White, where black people and white people will have dinner at each other's homes If they do nothing else, that's fine by me. But there are too many people who have never walked into a home of people of a different group. And that's incredible. It's sad, it's beyond sad. You walk into a person's home and you see pictures of their family and you see a kid and you see, and you see that this is, that life is pretty similar for just about everybody. We all have the same hopes and pains and tears and laughter, then it's very difficult to be a racist. Yep.

Thanks, uh, tonight for coming here and listening to the program, which we're discussing what was wrong with our country. We mentioned the school system and no values.

The point was we should be teaching values in our school system.

Schools must take this upon themselves. But in light of your point about that we in our country are strangers, the thought came to me, when we have this tremendous conglomeration in our country, How do we decide what values we are going to teach in a public school? And if I may stretch this just one step further, I have a hesitancy to say this because I'm not that sure of my history. But as I understand it, the basic values that founded this country and progressed it were the Anglo-Saxon European culture. Which I think, in my mind, has been diluted and changed now. We don't have that because we don't have one driving predominant force. Dennis Nelson's book, How Do You Handle a Multitude of People?

Yeah, okay. I'm always hesitant because I so want to give you what you have signed up to get, which is the genesis. But so I'll be very brief. Your question saddens me because it shows how powerful the propaganda apparatus has worked that the values that made America are racially based and not universally based in reason and humanity. The idea that all men are created equal, the idea that it is who you are, not where you're from, that matters are not white ideas. They're great ideas. That they are whites who happened to have been the carriers of the idea is a nice and interesting coincidence. Whites also carried the Nazi idea. So, but so to call, uh, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and the notion of human equality and democracy that have been developed here white ideas or white European ideas is as preposterous as calling Nazism a white European idea. It's certainly true, it is racially correct, but it's, it's meaningless. The idea are what matter. I mean, the, you know As one white man— and I hate to even use, you know, identify people that way— but one white professor wrote, said, my ancestors were dancing naked in Europe, you know, generations ago, while people in other parts of the world were building magnificent cities. Well, what is this white, black, yellow stuff? It's ideas that matter. So You see, that notion that we— the idea is a racial one is going to destroy our country. The ideas that made this country possible, that are good, are good irrespective of where you're— what your racial basis is. They are not European ideas. They're great ideas.

Dennis Prager, my question is, how do you arrive at a consensus when you have a large number of different points of view?

Well, they didn't— when my grandparents came over from Russia, they did not ask them, what do you think of the, uh, of Madisonian, uh, uh, Federalist values? They taught them. And if my grandparents didn't like them, they had the option of sailing back. And that is the way it ought to be today. I, I don't, I don't understand that. If you come from Vietnam and you wish that Confucianism be taught in schools, stay in Vietnam. You have come to a society based on certain values. Those are the values that were taught to people who came from Ireland, and they're going to be taught to people who come from Cambodia. We have lost belief in the ideas that made the society the, the, the, the goal to which so much of humanity wanted to come to. And I don't know why. I don't understand it. They're not lining up at all the other embassies like they do at this one, and it's certainly not just for economic reasons. Switzerland is richer, but they want to come to America, and they want to come here precisely because they know it doesn't matter what they look like, they'll still pitch for the Dodgers. Yeah, I have a question back on Dennis Prager. I do mind. Forget it. You said before that you have a problem with the idea that the patriarchs or the people in Genesis kept some of the laws before the laws were given.

Yes.

It seems to me kind of logical if you see that, well, if you believe that maybe some of the laws were traditions that at Sinai were given more of a justification by God, it seems to be logical that they didn't just discover the laws of, let's say, keeping kosher in one day, that these were traditions that were kept for many, many generations. And then discovered as a group practice at Sinai. Oh, I have no problem with that if you come to it historically and not faith-based. I was talking about there were some people in the Orthodox community who really believe that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob kept kosher, so that even when, uh, when Abraham serves milk and meat together, they say, well, he served the milk first. Now I must, you know, I, I don't mean You know, I don't want to arouse laughter. I'm just saying that is what is offered. I don't think the great— I think the greatness of the Torah is actually diminished by such leaps of faith that are not rational and are against the text. There's no basis to make that claim with Abraham, but here it's even more obvious. Joseph says to an Egyptian, slaughter an animal and serve it to my brothers. Now, if they're kosher keepers, this is not possible. This is out and out against later religious law. You cannot have a non-Jew do the slaughtering of— by Jewish law, it has to be— you can't even have regular Jew do it. The Jew has to have certain, uh, meet many qualifications to be a shochet, to be a slaughterer. Maybe that law came later. I— okay, fine. All I'm saying is I don't understand why burden a religion with beliefs that it doesn't need. Afraid? Does it make the Torah and Jewish law any less great that the pre-Torah Jews did not keep Torah? I, I, you see, the reason you, since you raised it, it's a, it is somewhat of a, of a Pandora's box, so I'll have to open the box a little bit. The reason I am afraid that there are some Jews who want to believe that is because they fear that if Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, these extraordinarily great Jews, could be great Jews without Torah law, then that will all of a sudden awaken some Jews to think, hey, it's clear I can be a great Jew without Torah law. And that's the reason I am convinced that that belief arose. But I— but it is, uh, it's a— it's a— it doesn't make sense. Yes, I guess what I was more asking was, do you believe that the game— that all the laws were given at Sinai were just new laws, or that— no, there's no doubt that there were laws that were practiced before. Absolutely. I mean, how could, uh, how could the Ten Commandments say remember the Sabbath day if it was brand new? The very verb remember means that there's something to remember.

Okay, yeah, I'm going to ask you about, um, the 12 brothers who of course became the 12 tribes. Um, these 12 brothers had different mothers. Um, I didn't take your, your first class, so I'm not sure, except that were all of the mothers, uh, Hebrew?

No, and some were concubine. Some of— were all the mothers Hebrew was the question? For future generations, uh, and the, uh, the answer is no. There were concubines as well as, as, uh, as Jewish mothers, or as well as wives.

Did Jacob therefore delineate between the sons of—

no, the ones he delineated in favor of were the two sons of Rachel, his beloved Rachel. I do not see, unless Some know better. I do not see a separation among the sons of— I think it's Bilhah, Zilpah, and Leah. The one differentiation appears to be the two sons of Rachel.

Well, doesn't that then make a statement, um, I suppose this is a stretch, um, about intermarriage?

Does it make a statement about intermarriage? What statement might it make? I don't know, that you could intermarry and still raise Jews. That's what it would— I mean, that's— I assume that that's the implication you make. Well, here is a good example of where you can't— it's diff— you can't apply post-Torah, uh, thinking to pre-Torah thinking. Uh, I mean, here's a better example is that didn't, uh, according to Jewish law, you are a Jew based on your mother. Not your father. So how were half of these sons Jewish when the, when the mother wasn't a Jew and only the father was? Right. Well, that in fact is what the argument the Reform movement gave for reversing, uh, thousands of years of Jewish law and saying a Jewish father is sufficient to make you a Jew. You do not have to have a Jewish mother. Said, look, it was okay, you know, in Genesis, why not okay now? I'm not going to get into an argument on patrilineal I just don't think that you could— you, in the modern world, you can apply the same reasoning. Ah, well, if the children of the concubine of Jacob will stay Jewish, then it doesn't matter who I marry.

Jewish is not— I was just asking Hebrew because there wasn't—

okay, Hebrew, whatever. Okay, it's not— there's nothing to be learned in, in terms of intermarriage today. Judaism is a, is a home-based religion. To make a home-based religion where half the home isn't Jewish is extremely difficult. I'm not talking theology, I'm just talking pragmatics. Yeah, Dennis, apart from, uh, Jacob and his progeny, who were the Hebrews? That's it, Jacob and his progeny. I'm curious to know why Pharaoh, because it seems to me Joseph was the only person there and he assimilated pretty much into Egypt, and yet they had this antipathy toward Hebrews. They had antipathy later.

You mean—

oh no, no, no, no, this was not antipathy. Yes, I understand. He's asking, it says that dining with Hebrews would be abhorrent to Egyptians, dining with any non-Egyptian. That's what the text means. They didn't have a dining with Hebrew policy. It was dining with, dining with the goyim policy. We were just another member of the goyim. Well, look, you know, in the Torah, those are the Hebrews. You can argue, are the— you know, obviously you have other children. It's a very difficult question. I mean, who are the Hebrews and who— because you have Jacob and his children, but you also have the, the cousins of Jacob and so on through, through Abraham. So theoretically, there are others too, but it's the children of Israel that become the children of Israel, and that's what matters to us.

There were no other Hebrews, and there were supposedly no other people born at the time. How did Cain— because Cain took a wife. Where did the wife come from?

Yes, you're right. Well, you got to get my tape on that. Where did Cain get a wife? It's one of those great questions. Uh, clearly we don't, uh, the, the— when you start asking questions of the, of the biblical text that are like asking of a police detective, you know, blotter. Well, it doesn't quite make— you run into a lot of problems. As I explained in the early parts of Genesis, Torah means teacher. It does not mean history. There are innumerable such questions, and they're not— they're in the final analysis, they're not important. What's important is what does the story teach. Did George Washington really chop down a cherry tree? Does it matter? What matters is the text that we wanted kids to learn was that he couldn't tell a lie. That's the issue.

Yes? I wanted to support you about the value of experiencing the other. And someday I will let you know about that. It's an unfortunate experience.

Why don't you stand up? Okay, everybody who asks should stand. It will be helpful to everybody else.

I had a lot of wonderful experiences with black people and I wanted to live in an integrated the neighborhood and I knew them as friends and so on. So I agree with you because that changed. And I just wanted to mention two instances in history. One is Truman, Harry Truman, who had a partner in his haberdashery store and then his favorite was Israel.

That's correct. I'll repeat that.

Yeah. And last night I saw this documentary on Schindler. Did you have— did anyone see that? Yes. And people are wondering about Schindler and they work It was mentioned that he was a neighbor of a rabbi, right? And the rabbi had children. To me, that sort of—

yes, yes, she's made two excellent points. And just in support of the stranger theory, uh, both Jewish points. One is that, uh, Harry Truman was not— you should know the history is even more remarkable— he was not favorably predisposed to recognizing Israel. It was entirely that his best friend from his past was a Jew that influenced him. It was entirely personally based. Mm-hmm. His partner. That's right, his partner, but whom he loved. And, uh, the other example, uh, you— she gave was about Schindler, who apparently, according to a BBC documentary well before the Spielberg film, had established that he— what was— was quite friendly or next-door neighbor to a rabbi who had Jew— with Jewish children. Uh, I will tell you a quote that'll give you the chills. The great rabbi of Berlin was Rabbi Leo Baeck, a great hero because he got out and went back under Hitler to help save his community. A remarkable human being. I was told by one of the great, uh, Jews of, of this generation, who is not well known except if you're into the scholarly pursuits of Judaism, Jacob Petachovsky, tragically died a couple of years ago. And Piotrkowski actually told me, and it's incredible because right before he died I called him up for the first time in like 6 years to get the data, and he had heard him in about 1951, shortly after the Holocaust, say in a speech the following: If all German families had had a Jewish member, the Holocaust would have been impossible. You may disagree, but the man who said it has a lot of credibility behind him, being one of the leading rabbis of Berlin. It is very difficult to hurt people that are real to you. It is. But you know, the, uh, theoretically, the— you know how much rape has gone on now in Bosnia? These Bosnian men could have, I'm sure, raped, uh, fellow Serbian women and gotten away with it. In wartime, anything's possible. They didn't. The women who were not real were, uh, were Muslim women. Yeah. However, there have been Nazis who have had Jewish friends, think they're friends, or people they think who were Jews, and yet killed other Jews. Yes, he says, but there were Nazis who had had Jewish Jewish friends and who killed other Jews. You are absolutely right, there were. There was no ironclad guarantee against evil. Also, what those did— this is very interesting— uh, Himmler, who was in many ways the architect of the Holocaust, gave a speech in 1943 in Posen, Poland, a secret speech at the time, to the people running the death camps for the Jews, and who were about to, because that's when the death industry was really going to get underway. And it was a pep talk. It is one of the most bizarre documents of history, a pep talk to death camp operators, because a lot of them— he said this in the speech— Too many Nazis are telling me that they, that they have just one or two Jews they want to save. And he said, if we listen to all of these people, we won't kill all the Jews. So you have to conquer your good hearts and, and do what is right. It was an inversion of all moral ideas that you, that you relate to. Conquer your heart and do what is right. But that's what his speech was. So that the principle did still— the high-ranking Nazis in the extermination apparatus would be petitioning for a Jewish friend. It was too difficult to imagine this person I know being put in a gas chamber. Now, to extrapolate that, you know, since this Jew is real, probably all Jews are, That takes a more decent human being and much more Jewish friends. But it is not uncommon, you will hear, well, you are an exception. There have been Jews told that by antisemites, oh, you're not like the rest of them. There have been blacks who've been told, you're not like the rest of them, you're clean-cut. So that ability is still there, unfortunately, to dehumanize the rest of the group.

Anybody else?

I wanted to do 2 chapters today, but this— you can never predict.

Yes, sorry, yes.

Just real quick, in relation to the commentary, you mentioned that you had said that, uh, and enough for the drought, they may have let Simeon there to ride. Yes. Um, it occurred to me that if it hadn't been for the drought, Simeon would have never been there to begin with. That's true. So both are true. He says I had said that it appears that if it weren't for the drought, they would have left Simeon there. But he said, but if it weren't for the drought, Simeon never would have gotten there. You're right and I'm right. It's always nice to end that we're both right.

On tomorrow's Sunday Fireside Chat. Hi everybody, Dennis Prager on the Fireside Chat.

This is a special Fireside Chat.

I rarely have guests, and I will say that when I have had people have really reacted positively. My guest is Nikki Haley, former governor of the state of South Carolina, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Many people speak of her as a possible future candidate for president of the United States. Right now, I feel I have to call you governor.

But you don't.

You don't.

I mean, those were moments in time. It's Nikki.

So, Dennis, I have faith in you that you can call me Nikki.

You can do it.

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

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