The Beginning of Exodus | Weekend Torah Teaching

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On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom.

Shakespeare is a genius. In fact, I'm reading Hamlet now, believe it or not. Should have read it in high school, but I'm enjoying it more now, I suspect, than I would have then. I suspect I'll read Hamlet again and yet again, but having read other plays by Shakespeare, the repeated study does not reveal enormous new insights every time I do it. I am amazed at how many new insights I learn each time I study a chapter in the Torah. There is a depth to it that I have found nowhere else in life. Now, you can say brilliant people wrote it. You certainly have that prerogative. I don't believe, though, in such superhuman abilities as I find in the depth of the words of the Torah. So I believe that there is a divine-human interaction that makes it. Being that it is to me, therefore, a religious text, and being that in Judaism it is a religious obligation to study Torah and related texts, I wear a kippah when I teach Torah. So you— that's why I always make this introductory statement. You'll understand why I do it. With that, I will begin the Book of Exodus.

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.

My intellect tells me that I have to be open to, uh, to serious inquiry. The Torah itself, by the way, does not make the claim that God wrote it. If God wrote the Torah, you would assume that God would use the first person. For example, in the beginning I created the heavens and the earth, because God does use the first person frequently when he speaks. As to the question of why I say he and not she, or he/she, I've written an article on why God should be regarded as a father, not a mother. It's available along with many of my other writings and tapes outside. It's not a commercial, it's a fact. I want you to know about that. But I have thought the issue through. I do not regard God as a man, obviously. However, I have only 2 other choices: she or it. God is clearly not an it, and she makes God a woman. And if I have to use a metaphor, I prefer the male metaphor, but it's solely a metaphor. It is not a statement of non-equality, it is a statement— That's a statement of equality. Of many other things which perhaps when we get to other parts I'll get into, but having already written on it, I don't want to take your time with it. Uh, I, uh, I believe that if you— that the Torah for me is different than any other book. In other words, I do believe that the Torah is divine even though I intellectually do not assert that God wrote every word. Does that make sense to you? That a book can be divine and yet God not be the dictator of every word to a secretary? Uh, Shakespeare is a genius. In fact, I'm reading Hamlet now, believe it or not. Should have read it in high school, but I'm enjoying it more now, I suspect, than I would have then. I suspect I'll read Hamlet again and yet again, but having read other plays by Shakespeare, the repeated study does not reveal enormous new insights every time I do it.

Why?

I am amazed at how many new insights I learn each time I study a chapter in the Torah. There is a depth to it that I have found nowhere else in life. Now, you can say brilliant people wrote it. You certainly have that prerogative. I don't believe, though, in such superhuman abilities as I find in the depth of the words of the Torah. So I believe that there is a divine-human interaction that makes it. Being that it is to me, therefore, a religious text, and being that in Judaism it is a religious obligation to study Torah and related texts, I wear a kippah when I teach Torah. So you— that's why I always make this introductory statement. You'll understand why I do it. With that, I will begin the Book of Exodus. I think we have We have cleared our engineering problem, thank God. Thank the engineer. I don't know in which order. That's a great theological question that I would like to figure out one day. All right. I hope we finish chapter 1 today because chapter 1 itself is so rich. The Torah has varying richnesses, obviously. Some chapters go much faster than others. It doesn't matter what translation you use. I will do most of it in English. Sometimes I'll make reference to the Hebrew only because I know it in Hebrew better than in English. That's the way I first learned it, of course. But I— most of you, of course, don't know Hebrew, so I won't relate to it often except to make a point so that you'll understand better why I'm saying something. All right, the last we had was the family of Jacob of Israel going to Egypt. There was a famine, as you recall, and Joseph had made it quite remarkably successfully in Egypt, remarkable for his minority status as a Hebrew, remarkable because of The fact that he was rejected by his brothers, and the story there is is of course one of the most famous in the Torah. And these are the names: Vi'el Hashemot. These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each coming with his household: Reuven. I'll just do them in Hebrew: Reuven, Shimon, Levi, and Yehuda, Yisachar, Zvulun, and Benjamin, or Binyamin, Dan, Naphtali. God and Asher. And all of those coming out of the thigh, literally— let's see how they have it here— Jacob's issue were 70, Joseph being already in Egypt. Joseph died. So this is now how we— this is simply setting the stage for the most important event in Jewish history.

Mm-hmm.

All of Judaism revolves around the slavery and the liberation and the Yeah. Gaining of the, uh, of the Torah, or the Ten Commandments, at Sinai. This is the central Jewish experience. Christians here will relate, there is a central experience in each religion. The central experience, of course, the death and resurrection of Jesus for a Christian. The, the, the difference— there are many differences in the central Jewish and central Christian experiences, but one obvious difference is that the Jewish centrality happened to the whole people. Whereas the Christian centrality happened essentially to one, who was man-God in Christian theology. You will make of it what you wish. I am not a— usually a better or worse believer. They're simply different approaches. But the central events are different and help make them different religions, and God bless differences. I am not one who believes all religions are the same with little variations of rhetoric.

I agree with you.

They are— they have certain deep similarities, and that is a good thing, but they are not the same. If they were the same, we would all be interchangeable. I think it is a great thing that we have many religions, as it happens, and I think that God is happy with that fact. I think God wants us to worship one God, but not necessarily be members of one religion. Certainly that is the Jewish belief. The Jewish belief is that the world should come to one God, but not necessarily all convert to Judaism.

I think that's a very good point. Judaism.

It's a painful conversion in any event, and Judaism is not into pain. These are then the, the children of Israel coming into Egypt. And Joseph and all his brothers and that entire generation died. That's verse 6. Verse 7, and the, and the children of Israel were fertile and prolific. They multiplied and increased very greatly so that the land was filled with them. A few points on this, on this verse. The, the words for what the Jews did in Egypt in Hebrew are the same words as the creation words about multiplying and spreading along the land. The, uh, Sarna, whom I will make many references to, the great Professor Nahum Sarna, who has a 2-volume commentary, one Genesis, one Exodus, published by the Jewish Publication Society, uh, notes, uh, in this regard about the, the, uh, how for, uh, for Judaism, Israel is a new humanity. Just like the world was created anew by God in the beginning, the same verbs are used again for how the Jews multiplied, as if a new creation is taking place. And indeed, in Judaism, the Jewish view is that in effect the Jewish people and Judaism represent a new creation. To summarize again an article I have written that I commend to you, simply titled Why Are The Jewish belief is that God wants the world to be good. The basic desire of God is that God wants the world to treat each other well, and I'll prove it to you. It's a funny word to use, but I'd like to prove it to you. To the extent that you can accept that God is our parent, I ask every one of you who is a parent a question: what hurts you the most?

My children.

If your child is mean in any way to you, or your child is mean to a sibling. I think the vast majority of parents, and I speak as a parent, are much more interested, ultimately, that our children love each other than that they love us. They— it's expected they leave us. That's the way of the world, that our children will grow up. We hope they'll always love us, it's a great bonus in life, needless to say. And it certainly beats their hating us. But the deepest pain from when they are at home, or let's put it this way, the deepest joy, forget the pain part, is when you— if you see your kids hug each other, you feel you've done your job well. If your kid didn't hug you much but hugged another sibling a lot, you would have felt successful as a parent. Whereas if they hugged you a lot but didn't hug each other at all, You would not have— you would not feel nearly as successful.

Mm-hmm.

Imagine then God, who doesn't need any hugs like we need hugs. God doesn't need anything. Imagine then how God feels when his children mistreat each other, when not only don't they hug, but they torture and they murder and they rape. Imagine how God feels then. That's how I believe it is understandable It is not merely an odd, uh, or, or even folksy idea of Judaism that God's deepest concern is that people treat each other decently. We understand it through the metaphor of our own parenthood, that we want our children to treat each other decently. Now, if that's God's greatest demand, how did God go about doing it? Very briefly, God first tries through the through creating conscience. Simple conscience, that every human being, according to the biblical view, every human being has an elemental notion of right and wrong. That even, even primitives who murdered, in some part of them knew that it was wrong, but they simply justified it through whatever means. Oh, I do it for the nation, I do it for— because it feels good, I do it because my religion wants child sacrifice. Sacrifice, whatever. Clearly then, conscience fails. Then God tries something else. God reveals 7 basic moral laws to Noah after the flood. And why did the flood come? Because people were bad. Alright, then God tries again, and then we fail again. The world is filled with evil all over again. Then, according to Judaism, God tries a 3rd attempt to have the world be good. Incidentally, what you have— you will understand this— Christianity believes in a 4th attempt, and Islam believes in a 5th attempt. And if you will, in a different 5th attempt, Mormons would believe in a specific revelation through Joseph Smith. So that every religion emanating from Judaism believes that God has made another attempt through it to fix this miserable thing called humanity, which is really what it is about. He's got to fix it. Didn't work. If it worked, who would need the next revelation? That's what Islam holds. Islam holds the Jews corrupted it and the Christians corrupted it even more, and therefore Muhammad had to come to set the record straight. And you have that— essentially, that is what Christian belief of the new Israel is. The old Israel has gotten it wrong in not understanding what the new Israel, the new, the new covenant of the heart— we don't need a covenant of the flesh— is a basic Christian doctrine. The Jews can, you know, have this covenant of the flesh, but really now it's of the heart. Anyway, Judaism believes in this third attempt, the third attempt being The Jews. The Jews are God's 3rd attempt to make the world good. Why the Jews? Not because they're better than anybody else. In fact, the Torah goes out of its way to say the Jews aren't better than anybody else, and that the proof of Judaism's greatness is precisely that God chose a group that isn't particularly distinguished. That was a bunch of slaves wandering in the desert. If I can make them good, then you see the power of my recipe. That's the idea. If they can influence the world. Clearly the idea is good. Then it's not merely that they're, that they're powerful. So that is this new humanity idea, with, with now the Jews going to become Jewish for the first time. Until now, the Jews are Hebrews. They become, as we understand the Jews, though the term isn't used in the Torah— in other words, advocates or devotees of Judaism— at Sinai. That's when the Jewish religious experience begins. And so this is why Sarna speaks there of this new humanity, as it were, of the Jews in Egypt. The final words of verse 7 are, and the earth filled with them. And the Jews, the Hebrews, were kept in one area in Egypt called Goshen, but So this statement says the Jews did not stick to Goshen. The Jews were going all through Egypt. You get it? That is why, again, you will— the more you study with me, the more you realize the way to study Scripture— I think it's the way to read newspaper articles, for that matter. That's why I read so slowly. It's a curse and a blessing, because this is the way I was taught to learn. And that is, I always ask, why does it use those words and not others?

Why?

Why does it say, and the earth was filled with them? And the answer understood by commentators is to show that they went all over, they lived all through Egypt. They didn't stick only to Goshen where they were living.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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

Then comes one of the most It is one of the most well-known verses in the Torah. It is of tremendous profundity, and I want to explicate it for a moment. However, I just realized I want to make a point. I'll talk about— no, I'm going to make the point next. I'll do that a lot, forgive me. There are so many points I want to make, I don't know which verse to make it on. Verse 8. A new king arose on Egypt who did not know Joseph. This is, this is, this is a phenomenal, a phenomenal statement. What had Joseph done? Either true or not true, in other words, historically verifiable is not the issue, but in the story of the Torah, he saved Egypt. He saved its life. ויקם מלך חדש, but a new king arose who didn't know Joseph. This verse describes what I have come at mid-age, at 46 is middle of middle age. I have come to believe is the ugliest human trait: ingratitude. It is one of the most common, and and I think. Outside of, I mean, absolute pure cruelty, which is pretty rare actually, the most ubiquitous ugly trait is ingratitude. Here he is, he arises. The new king arose who did not know Joseph. In other words, I owe nothing to this group that saved my country. This incidentally is really paradigmatic Not only of most people's lives, I'm sure every one of you has had a scarring experience with ingratitude. What did— what does one wit put it? No good deed goes unpunished. Is that the way it's stated? You know, it's a very cynical statement, but there's a lot of truth to it. And, uh, I, uh, I will use one contemporary example which is painful for me to use. And it is not an anti-any-group statement, but I would— but using a Jewish parallel in the contemporary era, uh, when I hear black antisemitism, I think of this, of this verse. Now, this is— most blacks are not antisemitic, and, and that's not my point. My point is only to illustrate a given point here. Jews were— and anyone who knows me knows I am not a Jewish chauvinist. I am deeply critical of many Jewish policies, etc., etc. But I try to be fair, and I'm not going to bend over backwards to be unfair. The fact of the matter is that Jews played a phenomenally disproportionate role in the civil rights movement. From those who died in it to those who founded the NAACP, who were its leading advocates in It was Jewish lawyers primarily who argued civil rights legislation in the '50s before the U.S. Supreme Court. And that now, it has almost come to haunt the Jews. There is almost a resentment of that fact on the part of black nationalists. Not the general black community, but black nationalists. I only use that as an example to show you how history repeats itself. It's almost as if, and a new leader arose in the civil rights community who didn't know, and then fill in the name of various— Jack Greenberg, okay, to give one prominent lawyer for the NAACP. And it happens with any given group, but here is a contemporary example. There is another interesting etymological Point here. I think there is a slight Torah dig at the Pharaoh here, at the king of Egypt. It says, "And a new king arose on Egypt." I think there's an implication that the guy is a tyrant—not only a tyrant vis-à-vis the Jews, but a tyrant vis-à-vis his own people. Okay, because the Hebrew normally would have stated, "ויקם מלך חדש במצרים." A new king arose in Egypt, not on Egypt. You see what I mean? What is the— what do you have in your—

Over Egypt.

Over Egypt. There you go. That's a perfect example. Over Egypt. That's right. A new king arose over Egypt. Exactly. Which is what he was. He was a tyrant. In fact, he was regarded as a god. The Pharaoh was a god to Egyptians. And he said to his nation, or to his people, This is, uh, verse, uh—

9.

This is verse 9. Thank you. Uh, here, uh, look, this, uh, this nation, the children of Israel, is, uh, is very big. And, uh, let's see how he— and much too numerous for us. Okay, it literally— it's, it's too big and strong.

Bigger.

Bigger and stronger than us. Uh, now here is an interesting use of, of words. You very rarely get the notion am benei Yisrael, the nation of the children of Israel. It is extremely rare usage. There are 2 words for nation, and this is a subject very dear to my heart. Any of you who know me from my radio work will know In a moment. The, uh, there are 2 words in the Torah in Hebrew for nation: am and goy. Now, all of you probably heard goy, and you think it's the Yiddish or Jewish word for non-Jew. He's a goy, right? She's a goy. The truth of the matter is, that is of course popular Jewish expression. He's a goy is he's a non-Jew. Goy is not in any way a negative term. No. It only means nation. In fact, the Jews are commanded by God in Leviticus to be a goy kadosh, to be a holy goy. When Isaiah says nation shall not lift sword against nation, it's lo yisa goy el goy cherem. He uses the word goy, okay? So there's no pejorative intent. The word am is different from the word goy. And the difference is am is blood. There are 2 words for nation, and we— I wish we all had it in Hebrew, goy and am. Am means blood ties nation. Goy means nation but not based necessarily on blood ties.

Okay.

The Jewish dream is that in fact the world not be based on blood ties? It is indeed, I think, the only dream ultimately that will save humanity, given the horrors of blood historically. Blood is the greatest— blood beliefs are the greatest source of cruelty in history, because if you're not my blood, you're not valuable. That is the way in which people have generally lived. If you read about the way in which, for example, of course, the Germans perfected it with racism. If you're not Aryan, you're not human. You are a lesser human. You're an Untermensch, an underman. The Japanese believed it of other Asians. It's only coming out now, the atrocities directed by the Japanese government. Not every army has atrocities, but directed by the nation against Koreans and against Chinese, in particular, in the 20th century. The medical experiments performed on Chinese by the Japanese were identical in many ways, identical. It's frightening when you read about it. And this is all new to me, it just has come out, and I think it's new to most people. To what Mengele, the Nazi doctor, did in the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, or concentration camp. And that is because of the belief that the Chinese and other non-Japanese people are not real. They're not our blood. That is the way Pharaoh addresses the issue. Our blood nation is threatened by their blood nation. Do you understand now the difference? That's, that's why the word Am is used here and not Goy. It is not merely a simple political threat. The purity of us Egyptians is threatened by this other blood group, the children of Israel. All right, that's very important, especially in understanding Jew hatred historically. That's why he doesn't say we are threatened by the children of Israel. We are threatened by the Am of the children of Israel. Which brings me to the point, a very critical point here, of the roots of antisemitism, of Jew hatred. Antisemitism is a terrible word. It means anti, against the Semite, but it's never what it meant. It always meant, since the term was coined in the late 19th century by Wilhelm Marr, a German anti-Semite. It always meant anti-Jewish. Jew hatred is a better term than anti-Semitism. At any rate, I have come— I wrote, I co-authored a book on anti-Semitism called Why the Jews? And I have only realized in the last few months that I would actually revise the book. which is not typical. I generally don't write until I really felt I have formulated something. I would pay more attention to the blood issue in the— I would keep the book exactly as it is, The Roots of Anti-Semitism, The Root or The Reason for Anti-Semitism, but I would add this: the reason that Hitler so hated the Jews— there were many reasons that we discussed, but what distinguished him Was a belief in blood. Jews are ultimately the world's polluters of blood purity. If you're into the purity of blood, the Jews are your quintessential enemy, because wherever the Jews are, they assimilate in part and yet stay Jewish in part. So they're part of you, but they're not totally part of you because they're not your blood. Even if they fully give up their identity, as many German Jews did, it didn't matter to Hitler because they became— that was why they were regarded as even more dangerous. The Jew who looked Jewish, lived Jewish, and stayed isolated did not threaten Hitler as much as the assimilated Jew threatened Hitler. The assimilated Jew was the ultimate polluter of German purity. If you believe in the purity of a nation, the Jews are the ultimate, as I said, the quintessence of the opposition to you, because Jews are all over the place. It's the only nation, in effect, that is all over the place. Now, of course there are, you know, I mean, there are Ugandans in different places. The world has changed today. But historically, the only nation to keep its identity and still be all over were the Jews. Listen, weren't there other nations? Weren't there Agagites and Mesopotamians and Gilgamites and Akkadians? Where are they? What happened to them? They weren't exterminated. No. They they assimilated. They became whatever they were, but the Jews stayed a nation and still assimilated, still became parts of others. This is what bothers Pharaoh, and this is what bothered Hitler. Look at this group. They are all over the place. This Am Bnei Israel. It could have been Hitler speaking in verse nine. This Israelite. nation is all over the place and we have to do something about it. He doesn't like the fact that Jews are all over Egypt maintaining their identity and yet being a part of Egyptian life. He was interested in Am, in blood, nation, purity. You with me? And this has been historically a factor in antisemitism. It's not the only factor by any means. Christian antisemitism was not racist. Christian antisemitism was theological. You deny Christ, you are ultimately Christ killers. By denying Christ in every generation, you re-kill Christ, as some church antisemites held. And so However, if you become Christian and give up Judaism, you're fine with us. But you could never give up being Jewish to a racist, because you can't change your blood. You can change your theology. That is why, incidentally— and I'll always have a couple of incidental thoughts that I think are worth offering— incidentally, that is why Christianity could never have produced the Holocaust.

Why?

Whatever roots the Holocaust may have in, in, in 1,500 years of Christian antisemitism, Christianity would never have called for racist antisemitism, let alone for the extermination of the Jews. Because as bad as a Christian antisemite might have been, if as much as he hated you on Wednesday, if Thursday you affirmed Christ, You were a brother in Christ. Woe unto you if you practiced Judaism secretly, which is what the Inquisition was about. But if you truly, uh, if you truly converted, and truly even included by force, uh, you were fine. You could not convert to being Egyptian. In fact, to, to make this point more clear, It is very important that God said to the Jews to be a goy kadosh and not an am kadosh. Do you remember the difference between goy and am? Am is blood-based. If God had said to the Jews in Leviticus, you shall be a holy am, for holy nation, it would mean that in effect you are, you are to be holy, but you can only be holy within the blood blood ties of Jews. The very fact that goy is used means you are to be a holy nation, but anyone of any blood may join your nation. Indeed, Jews— the Jewish nation was unique in precisely that fact. It took converts. You couldn't convert to being Greek. You couldn't convert to being Egyptian. Can you imagine? I mean, the thought is ludicrous. A black showing up in Alexandria saying, I'd like to be Egyptian. You know, what are you talking about? You're not Egyptian. It's no more than, you know, I'd like to be a woman, if you're a man, or vice versa. Today that's doable, but then it wasn't doable. Only the Jewish nation in antiquity And only even to very recently allowed people to become members of it who were not blood members and who were full members. This, incidentally, is the parallel between the Jewish people and the American people, because America too couldn't care less about your blood. The day you become American, if your name is Bachinski or Gonzalez, Or O'Connor, or Schwartz, it doesn't matter. You're American, and the father of your nation is George Washington. That is why, so too, a convert to the Jewish people is called to the Torah as ben or bat, the son or daughter of Avraham, of Abraham. I was born a Jew, but one who was not born a Jew and who converts Has Abraham as his father as much as I do. There is no difference whatsoever, and the proof is Abraham converted. So it is literally like America is a nation of immigrants, the Jews are a nation of converts. Now, of course, Christianity is a religion of converts, Islam is a religion of converts, but there is a difference. Judaism is also a nation. That's the difference. It's the only nation of converts except for America, at least till the modern time, and Canada to a large extent, but it's different. And that's— it's a fascinating issue, which is one of it to me, the greatest issue in the world today.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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

How much emphasis do people place on blood? It all became clear to me only— I mean, it was always part of my thinking, but it all became clear to me with this horrible issue of baby Richard. How could justices take a 4-year-old from his family? The answer is simple. They believe in blood. It's not complex. It wasn't a legal decision, it was a blood-based decision. Blood reigns supreme. Those 5 prevailing justices in the Illinois Supreme Court represent most of humanity. Most of humanity believes that blood is everything. Blood is the ownership of children. Blood is whom I love. Blood is whom I have obligations to. Blood is whom I regard as fully human. And in its its worst forms, which is not uncommon, you get Nazism and Japanese fascism. And that's what we fought, in case anybody didn't know what the Allies were fighting in World War II. To think that if Japan and Germany had won, the fate of humanity would be, would be very different, because the 2 most powerful nations on earth would have believed solely in blood, not in goodness. That there were no morals, Moral values, there are only blood values. Moral values only pertain to those who share my blood. So back to here is the problem of Jewish assimilation. Jewish assimilation is in fact a problem for host peoples. It's the old issue of dual loyalty. Well, what are you? Are you an American or are you a Jew? This is an old question, and the fact of the matter is Jews are both. Now, there is no problem with that unless you want to make a problem with that. When did— why would they conflict? As I— whenever I'm asked it, which is very rare, but if it's ever posed, I would ask, are you first a Christian or an American? I pray that you are guided by Christian values first, that you would criticize your country if it were immoral. I just saw a picture in the latest issue of Time magazine of a Serbian Orthodox priest with Serbian leaders at a service. I would— unfortunately, the priest, I suspect, did not speak about Serbian atrocities in Bosnia. I suspect he merely blessed the leaders and sent them on their way. What that— ironically, what he was doing was being unfaithful to his religion. His religion does not hold that blood is more important than God, but it is very common to do so. Blood can overshadow everything. For all of us, our religious values, I believe, should come before national blood-based values. But Jewish assimilation is a problem because the Jews would be plentiful, do well, as they were in Egypt, and yet retain their distinct identity, which, by the way, even if they wanted to give up, they couldn't because the Egyptians wouldn't let them. So the Jews are in a double bind here. It's like, as we wrote in our book about 15 years ago, when Jews assimilate, they're called a fifth column, or, you know, whatever. And if they don't, then they're called insular, tribal. It's like the Jews haven't You know, if they assimilate, they're a threat, and if they don't assimilate, they're tribal and, uh, and, uh, you know, parochial and provincial. So what is a Jew supposed to do exactly? And it has been a dilemma throughout Jewish history. That is why Zionism was founded. Let the Jews normalize and live in their own country like every other nation. Get it? Israel is not a nation. Israel as a country. It was founded so that the Jewish nation could live there like the Hungarian nation lives in Hungary, like the Latvian nation lives in Latvia. Okay, let's normalize it, because clearly the world is not ready, Herzl said, the founder of Zionism, in effect. The world is not ready for having an other in its midst. Egypt was not ready to have and other in its midst. We have no inkling that the Jews were disloyal or on— or, you know, bothering them in any way. All right, so now that's verse 9. Verse 10, uh, let us deal shrewdly with them. Uh, the Hebrew is, uh, the Hebrew is let's oversmart Smart them. Let's outsmart them, actually. So that they may not increase, otherwise in the event of war they may join our enemies in fighting against us and rise from the ground. Rise from the ground is, according to the scholars of commentary, a phrase, which is what it is from Hebrew, literally rise from the ground. They don't know, it's an old idiom, and they are not fully certain what it represents. Okay, just for your interest. So, but it could simply mean, and they'll come up from the earth and they'll rise against us, which is very, very possible. Anyway, he says to his people, let's outsmart, let's outsmart this nation lest he increase, and so on. Hirsch makes the point that it is the leader who starts the malicious campaign against the Jews, not the people. That's a very interesting point. We have no words that the Egyptians themselves were unhappy. The anti— the extermination campaign and slavery campaign against the Jews is led by Pharaoh. Okay? However, and this will be more important, you can't achieve evil solely from the leaders. This will be a critically important part of chapter 1, as you'll see. Verse 11. Now look at this, all right? Listen carefully. They set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor, labor, and they built garrison cities for Pharaoh, Pithom and Ramses. But the more they were oppressed, the more they increased and spread out, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. Now it is the Egyptians themselves. Uh, the, uh, I want to show you a point, and then I'm going to come back to these, uh, these verses. I want to show you the word they 3 times, verses 11, 13, and 14. Uh, in 11, they set taskmasters over them to oppress them. In 13, uh, they made them perform ruthlessly. They made life better— bitter, excuse me— for them with harsh labor. And, uh, I guess, yeah, 1/3, that's right. Excuse me, the Egyptians There were 3, 4 cases. 11, they set taskmasters. 13, the Egyptians ruthlessly imposed. 14, they made them perform, and ruthlessly they made life bitter for them. 3 theys and the Egyptians. What is the point? Who starts off the campaign? Pharaoh, right? But who makes it work?

The people.

This is of enormous significance for how evil triumphs in this world. Uh, it is the preoccupation of my life, the problem of evil, uh, and, uh, I'll never come to full satisfaction in figuring out an answer, but at least I have more data, or at least more theories. And my latest theory, uh, is that that by and large, there are not many evil people. Evil— most mass evil, mass evil has been performed by normal people, not by evil people, uh, which is, by the way, more disconcerting than if it were done by evil people. Eichmann is more terrifying than Hitler. The existence of monsters, a Stalin, a Hitler, a Charles Manson, is part, is frighteningly part of the human condition. Okay. If, however, evil, this is an important point, if evil were restricted to evil people, there would not be a lot of evil in the world. Because There's just a small percentage of humanity that is truly evil. I want to hurt people today. I love hurting people. Okay? That is very rare. The great majority of mass evil, as opposed to, you know, individual monsters, is done by ordinary people. I was just talking on the radio this week, yesterday in fact, about the Eichmann's Children. Any of you happen to catch that? Just testing to see if you listen.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good. Fascinating thing. Eichmann had— Eichmann is the architect of the Holocaust. Eichmann made sure the shipments of Jews to the death camps took place. Eichmann had a wife, had kids. He had 4 kids, 4 boys. One of them is a profound anti-Nazi. His name is Ricardo, and he has a Spanish name because he was born in Argentina, where Eichmann had fled after the war. He feels disgraced by his father's name, etc., etc. He's truly a good person. And it was a fascinating article describing the children. And I had made the point, by the way, back to blood again. How important is blood when you have children who are so different? One of the most grotesquely evil people in history has a beautiful child. One of the most beautiful people in history, Andrei Sakharov, the great, great giant Nobel Peace Prize winner, Soviet dissident, one of his children was a member of the Communist Party and supported Brezhnev, who oppressed his father. Okay? So, so much for blood, so to speak. Okay? So if any of your kids turn out not so great, feel, you know, have some comfort. Look at Sakharov. At any rate, Eichmann was not a monster. Eichmann did monstrous things. Eichmann was an accountant. In fact, his son, who hates him, Is quoted as saying— no, it's not his son, it's the Israeli who captured him— is quoted in this article as saying, and I believe it fully, Eichmann had no hatred of Jews. He simply had a job to do. I believe that. I've studied the man, I've studied what he said, and it's true. Had it been Albanians, he'd have run the cars, to Auschwitz for Albanians just as methodically. He had a job. That is why Hannah Arendt, in her book on Eichmann, subtitled it The Banality of Evil. That concept that evil is done by banal people, mediocrities, simple normal people, is, is what is the revelation in her idea. That's what happens The monster can be said to be Pharaoh. Is the average Egyptian a monster? We have no reason to believe that. They simply, though, went along. They did it. That's how evil on mass, on a mass basis— on an individual basis, it's a monster, but on mass basis, it's done. Average Egyptian with a Pharaoh who said, I want you to all take care of all Israelites who have Uh, scurvy, would have done that too. If the Führer Hitler would have said, I want you to know, thank German history we have Jews in our midst so that we could enjoy a, a slightly different culture in our midst to make us Germans love theater even more and love literature even more, they would have— most would have gone along with that. That's right. Most Germans who voted for Hitler did not do so because of antisemitism, believe it or not. They did for economic reasons. He promised this, he promised, you know, all sorts of economic promises, many of which he delivered on, incidentally. And he wanted to undo the Versailles Treaty, which many Germans felt was an embarrassment for them and humiliating. He didn't campaign on an antisemitic platform. These were things that in studying the Nazi rise to power were really— they could shake you up. And yet look at how many collaborated or did nothing with regard to this incredible thing called the Holocaust. And here is why it goes out of its way, the, the biblical record, in, in 3 verses to say they, they, they, the Egyptians. By the way, there's another reason, Because chapters later you may wonder, why is— why are the Egyptians punished? Why does God punish the Egyptians and not only Pharaoh? It's setting the record for you to understand that God is just by doing this as well. I almost never ever jump ahead, but I need to show you that so you will understand what happens later. But this repeated use of the word they and the Collective guilt, collective guilt—not because we just lump everybody together, but because they collectively did bad things—is what is being stated here. And it is a it is a scary scenario. How many Americans would go along with with such a regime? How many anybody's? I'm asking it of a country I love. You know how many? You know with the with the with the local guy who runs your neighborhood. a drugstore. With a bad leader, what would he do? Those of you who are not Jewish, this is one of the fascinating differences in the, in the way in which a Jew thinks. I suspect that most Jews ask themselves a question that I often ask, and that is, how would this person act under a Holocaust-type condition? Right? How many Jews have thought about that in their lives? Okay, isn't that remarkable? I mean, you know, we never talked about this, and yet it's part of what you think about, you know, because in our guts we know that normal people took part in this. But there is an even more remarkable parallel to the Holocaust coming up with regard to evil in a moment. Verse 6. So hold on. We are the last was eleven. Now another thing in eleven: they set taskmasters over them to oppress them. The word in Hebrew for oppression is actually the same as to torture them. לענות. It's it means literally to make you suffer. Okay? Oppress is not as strong as the Hebrew. And it's a fascinating insight again that the Torah is making with one word. You should— you would think that the Torah would have said taskmasters were set over the Israelites in order to make them work, right? That's what a taskmaster is for. No, there was a sadistic element. Taskmasters were set over them in order to make them suffer. There— that part of what was done, which— it's eerie, the parallels to the Holocaust. It was not enough for the Germans to murder the Jews, they had to make them suffer. The great majority of the 6 million Jews died naked. It's a point I've never seen anybody make, and yet it's there on the record. Naked in the gas chambers and naked when machine-gunned at pits, which is the way the vast majority of Jews were murdered. It wasn't enough. You had to be humiliated. You had to suffer. It was important that in the trains they be squeezed together and no water given. There was— that is what is stated here. Evil has very often a sadistic element to it. That's what the taskmasters were there to do, to make them suffer in their work. And they built these cities for Pharaoh, Pithom and Rameses. Rameses is, of course, the name of a Pharaoh well known to many of you, I'm sure. But the more they were oppressed, the more they increased and spread out, so that the Egyptians came to fear the Israelites. The people of God. 13. Again, a point of almost cruelty— not almost, of cruelty. The Egyptians ruthlessly imposed upon the Israelites the various labors that they made them perform. Ruthlessly they made life bitter for them with harsh labor at mortar and bricks and with all sorts of tasks in the fields. 14. Now comes what is to me one of my— I get top 10 favorite stories in the Bible.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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

I think often in musical terms because I love music very, very deeply. In romantic music, there is almost a recipe: tension, tension, tension, release. Beethoven is the master of that. Is that correct, André? You now It's all been depressing now, right? And now all of a sudden there is, wait a minute, before you the reader get too down on humanity, before you generalize that all Egyptians are slime, that the world is composed only of miserable human beings, we'd like to tell you a story.

Verse 6.

Notice verse 15. The king of Egypt— very important that it says that. It's to make it clear the greatness of what is going to be described now, that what happens is, is a reaction to the king of Egypt. You can't get higher than that on earth. The king of Egypt. Spoke to. Now here is the translation is absolutely critical because the story loses immense power by the usual translation. How, how many of you do not have Hebrew midwives but have something or have something else? Does everybody have Hebrew midwives? Yes? Hmm? What do you have? What, what words do you— do you see verse 15 there?

Hebrew midwives.

Hebrew midwives. You're using Hertz. Uh, anybody using a, uh, a, uh, a different, uh— you're using JPS? JPS. Okay. Uh, even Sarna, who uses JPS, which says Hebrew midwives, acknowledges what I think is the only possible reading, except that Hebrew allows you grammatically to understand it either way. In Hebrew, the words miyaldot ha'evriyot can be either the Hebrew midwives— that is possible, grammatically correct— equally grammatically correct, the midwives of the Hebrews.

Mm-hmm.

That's very, very different. Okay? And I think it is profoundly clear. I think it's unassailable that these are Egyptian, or at least not Hebrews. They may be of another Semitic group because of their names, but they are not Hebrews. And I will explain why in a minute. So the real translation should be in verse 15, the king of Egypt spoke to the midwives of the Hebrews, one of whose name was Shiphrah and the others— the other Puah, saying, when you deliver the Hebrew women, look at the birth stool. If it is a boy, Kill him. If it is a girl, let her live. The midwives, fearing God, did not do as the king of Egypt had told them. They let the boys live. It's obvious to me that it's not— they're not Hebrew, the midwives. First of all, do you think And he is going to call the Hebrews to destroy their own children. It's, it's much less likely. It's possible, but it's much less likely. And the proof is the way in which it's described what they did, which is the quintessential universal, not specifically Jewish, formula for a righteous non-Jew. The person feared God. Those of you who took Genesis with Yes. And even those of you who did not take Genesis with me, since I don't believe that only those who took Genesis with me know Genesis, will recall that when Abraham is afraid about how his wife Sarah will be treated, the, the language he uses is, there is no fear of God in this place. Fear of God is the Torah or biblical formula for moral decency, which I will explain. I won't do it in full detail because I, I did it already in Genesis. Why did they not listen to the king of Egypt? Because they feared God. Now, there's another proof to it. There are 2 primary words for God in the Torah.

What are they?

Jehovah and Elohim. Okay? The, the first is God's proper name, so to speak, and is specific to the Jews. It's a personal name, as it were. Elohim is the God of the universe, as it were. Everybody's God. Okay? And, and that's the term for fear of God. The term is? Fear of losing one's microphone. It is fear of Elohim. That is what the girls, the women— I say them, girls, because I think of midwives as very young, but there's no reason to think that— that's what these women had. They feared God, and that is the moral Attribution to— of non-Jews. Judaism holds that if you fear God— that— let's put it this way: if you don't fear God, there will be moral chaos. Dostoevsky put it in Brothers Karamazov: where there is no God, all is permitted. That is his way of saying what exactly what the Torah is saying. Unless there is a sense that I owe God obedience more than I owe the king of Egypt, more than I owe the Führer of Germany, more than I owe the President of the United States, then they will not— good will never prevail. These midwives feared God. You see, that is one of the— among the reasons I am convinced that they're not Jews, because that's the terminology used for the universal goodness. But there's another one. When Moses later Saves the, uh, remember he— well, don't remember, maybe you never read it, but there is a story coming up that Moses goes out and sees a Hebrew slave being beaten, and he remembers that this is— and it says it is one of his brothers. If these midwives had saved the Jews because they were Jewish, it would have said, and these midwives could not do this to their To their am, or to their people, or to their brothers, or to their sisters. There is no— nothing of that. It is purely universal morality. We fear God, not Pharaoh, and that's what we will do. That is why only that idea can save the world from evil, in my opinion. The belief that God's law is higher than man's law. And that therefore I fear God to do wrong. Even if I get punished by humanity, it doesn't matter. I don't want to be, but ultimately it is God whom I answer to. That is why these midwives are powerful, powerful stories, but there are many more reasons. And I am hinting at other things to come by telling you 2 of the reasons. I don't know if you know this, I told you earlier in my preface about my feeling about the Torah being divine. One of the reasons that I believe it is divine and not merely human is if that it was only human, it would have been much more pro-Jewish than it is. The Hebrew Bible is profoundly critical of Jews and profoundly emphasizing of moral greatness among individual non-Jews. It is so unique among biblical— different Bibles to do that, that I have to believe that either the Jews were superhuman, which I don't believe for a minute since I have lived with them much of my life, or that there is a divine element here. There are 2 remarkable elements about this staggering moral heroism of these women. A, they're not Jewish. B, they're women. And you are going to see repeated non-Jews and women as moral heroes in the stories of the Exodus. It is actually a running Through theme: Jews as villains, non-Jews as heroes, and women as heroes. The opposite of typical chauvinism, of male chauvinism, and of national chauvinism. The absolute antithesis. And here is the first of those examples, of the, the midwives to the Hebrews. More proof to me that they are not, that they are not Hebrews themselves is coming up. We are at verse 18. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, why have you done this thing, letting the boys live? The midwives said to Pharaoh, because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women. They are vigorous before the midwife who comes to them. They've already given birth.

Okay.

Now, my other proof here is that they are not, they are not Hebrews, is they talk about Hebrews in the third person. If they were Hebrews, they would probably say, look, we're not like you. Our women— there's no, there's no sense of that. It's that you, Pharaoh, and we midwives are both talking about the Hebrews as a But now comes the— to me, one of the most remarkable points of all that can easily elude you in your first 206 readings of the sentence. Are, are any of you not surprised that Pharaoh didn't kill them?

No.

Doesn't this slightly crack you up? This is the king of Egypt. You disobey the king of Egypt's orders and guess what happens? He calls you in and he says, how come? That is the last thing in the world you expect. You expect— and Pharaoh sent 3 emissaries to slit their throats. Ah, well, but I think there is a bigger lesson. Yes, they mean they took care of Egyptians as well. Very— may very well be, although I suspect he could have found other midwives in Egypt.

Their blood.

Their blood, that is, that's possible, although that is very possible, and that you don't kill your own blood, that is very possible. That's correct. I suspect though that there is something else here which gives me again a Holocaust parallel, and the blood element is related to that. Your point is well taken. One of the most depressing facts of the Holocaust is that those Germans who did not, who refused to take part in it, were not killed. I say it's depressing, not that I wanted them killed. It's depressing because then it makes you wonder, why didn't more refuse? I mean, I know most people are not morally depraved enough moral giants. But the worst that could happen to you, if you were a soldier and you refused to work at Auschwitz, they sent you to fight the Russians, which is not exactly, uh, heaven. Believe me, I acknowledge that. True. But it is also not torture. It is also not, I will murder your family. It is also not, I will murder you. I mean, not all German soldiers died fighting the Russians. And that was it. And that was in the case of a soldier. In other words, if you refused to work in the Holocaust in Germany, you worked somewhere else, maybe less pay, but you didn't get killed. Your family wasn't killed. And there is a— it's an eerie parallel right here. They refused Pharaoh And Pharaoh and Führer— I'm not playing on words at all— but Pharaoh and the Führer have equal power. The obedience in Egypt is to Pharaoh. The obedience in Nazi Germany was to Hitler. And they said no. And all the great— that's why, remember, I emphasized that it had the word the King of Egypt. And what does the King of Egypt say to them or do to them? Why didn't you do what I said? You know, almost like a plaintive husband. Honey, I asked you to do something. You know, it's, it's, it's almost funny to think of the great father, great king of Egypt's reaction when his major order is simply subverted. It's almost as if he's curious and he buys the answer. That's what's even more remarkable. He buys the— oh, I see, they give birth before Okay, have a nice day. That's in effect what goes on here, and it's, it's really— it shakes you up a little bit. You certainly expect something more dreadful to happen to these women. Uh, this, by the way, one commentator notes, is the first act of moral civil disobedience recorded in history. And this is the only way in which good will ever take place, is if you all listen to God and not the orders of bad humans. It's the only way good will prevail. And since I view the Torah as ultimately a document preoccupied with the issue of good and evil, that, that is how important it is. Moral is the central— everything Everything in the Torah and in Judaism, and the great moral question, or one of the great moral questions, is, will you fear God or fear man? Uh, in our time, the term fear of God has gone out of, uh, out of use. But, uh, literally, in my parents' generation, it was very common to hear of a man, uh, or woman who was particularly decent described as a God-fearing person. If you were described today as God-fearing, you would be regarded probably as a right-wing kook. That's what people would think you were being described as. However, if you were described as fearing loss of tenure at Harvard, that would be understandable. If you were regarded as fearing loss of partnership in a law firm, that is understandable. But fear God? You're a kook.

That's right.

Well, we've changed, and, uh, I, I don't think that God wants us to walk around quaking in fear of him. That is not the, uh, the, the desire. But at the same time, we do fear. And really, the, the, the question in life is not whether we will have any fear, it's whom or what will we fear. And all Ultimately, the truly free human is the one who fears God and not man. And that is why the term used for decency in the Torah is fear of God. It's the universal term. We draw close in chapter 1 as we continue. And this, ironically, what I'm about to read you now, which is a temporary happy ending in a not terribly happy book, or at least one that certainly alternates happiness and unhappiness, is the most troubling part of the chapter for me. And you would think it should be the least troubling. 20. And God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and increased greatly. Hold on. And to 21, and because the midwives feared God, He established households for them.

Okay?

Why do I find it difficult? Because we do not generally see moral people rewarded in this life. in life. Most of the people who resisted Hitler did not have large families established for them by God. They were shot and put on meat hooks by Hitler's Gestapo. This is a part of the Torah that I simply, I have no answer to. I don't I don't know what to do with it. I don't, you know, I don't have answers for all these dilemmas. I— it's one of my dilemmas because it is not infrequent that you have this description of God showing favor to individuals for their goodness. Maybe one of you has a, uh, has a way out of this. Uh, I don't know what is to be learned except that God, at least in this arena, is, is described as very intimately involved, uh, and therefore does this rewarding. But my friends, the reward of good in this world is the good you have done. I do believe in an afterlife, which is a separate issue, and I've spoken on that in Genesis. But, uh, I think we can all affirm that God does not appear to bless in this life all those who do good. He certainly seems to bless some who do good. And the only way out I have on this is really via the greatest Jewish philosopher, Maimonides, the Rambam, who said that— who spoke of the issue Known in Hebrew as hashkachah prakrit, divine supervision of the individual. How much does God really get involved in an individual's life? And, uh, among his answers, and I find it satisfactory, is that God doesn't get involved in every individual's life. That God gets involved— God gets involved in the lives of individuals who get involved with him. A, and B, particularly if they are involved in something larger that God has plans for. Clearly the midwives met both criteria. And that simply may be the answer. Having told you of the dilemma that I have, it is a good answer to me. It is just not It is not the answer if your question is, well, why did God do it for the midwives but not for— and then fill in the name of somebody you know who was morally wonderful and died at 54 of cancer. Okay?

Uh-huh.

That's what I mean. I mean, right this moment I'm thinking of a remarkably, remarkably beautiful man who is dying of cancer. 62, which is not a kid, but it's certainly not old. And, uh, you know, and the irony being of lung cancer, and he never smoked a cigarette in his life. Uh, but these are not answerable. I mean, obviously I'm not going to get into that. Those are not answerable. The answer— Maimonides gives the answer that, that, that a friend of mine, a former priest, Always used to say, God is not a democrat, small d. He was not arguing God was a Republican. Uh, God is not a democrat, small d, and that is very important. And here is a Catholic saying, look, God didn't choose every nation, he chose one. Uh, God is not a democrat, that he will reward these midwives Uh, is because they are involved in something God has plans for humanity for. Are you with me? And so, I mean, that is not the official answer. It is an answer, and one that, uh, that I can live with. Let me read the last one, and I'll try to leave 5 minutes for, uh, for your questions. And as my general policy is that I begin each session with questions. So that I really do ask you, if you think about anything during the week, said or not said about chapter 1, please, please raise it at the beginning of next week. And verse 22 ends on a very low note after this lovely, lovely high, and that is, then Pharaoh charged all his people, and that is very important again, all his people, all.

All.

See? Do you see how much the people are blamed in this chapter? They, they, they, the Egyptians, all the people. You with me? It's very important because evil can't be done by a Pharaoh or a Hitler. They can do as much evil alone as Charles Manson did, the number of people they can get their hands on. It is, it is by the obedience of It's through the masses of people that evil, massive evil is accomplished. And so, since the midwives aren't going to do it, he's going to go straight to the people. And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, every boy that is born you shall throw into the Nile, but let every girl live. Now, by the way, there's an obvious question here that frankly, with all my reading, I never found a particularly good answer to. to. Why the boys? There is interestingly an answer that is given midrashically, which is Hebrew legend type writing, that Pharaoh was told by his sorcerers and magicians and astrologers that a savior of the Jews would be born, and he was male that was about to be born, so you must, you must throw the boys in. And that's the way, interestingly, the tradition dealt with the issue. I guess the other is that the women can't cause nearly as much trouble. They could perhaps be assimilated, and that would end the people. They can't fight. If his worry was that they'll fight against us, then you certainly get rid of the males. And you can't reproduce. can produce with only one sex anyway. I guess that those would be some of the answers. Any questions on anything that was raised? Yes, sir. Back with the rewards for the midwives. First, you're saying there's another possible translation that he's not referring to the midwives' houses and children, but rather the Israelites. That being the case, the way God dealt with them, Is that he made their clients have lots of children, which benefited them indirectly.

Hold on.

Very interesting. So you're saying verse 21 is, God built houses for the Jews, not for the midwives. Well, I will tell you, he has a grammatical basis for saying that. Except for the children who were born by the midwives.

I'm sorry?

He built houses for the children that the midwives saved.

Right.

Uh, so the reward for the midwives was that those they saved prospered. That's what you're saying? They prospered having more work. Spoken like a good late 20th century American capitalist. The no, that is. I'll tell you why grammatically you have you have a basis because it says and God made for them houses or households. The them is in the masculine. It should have been lahen and it's lahem. I've never seen anybody touch that. Uh, and yet you may very well be right. Although it's a, uh, it's fascinating. Well, you know what? If you're right, it really certainly solves my dilemma. Uh, and I, uh, I hope you're right. Uh, I'll tell you why it solves my dilemma. Remember what I said in passing, what the reward of good is? The good that you do. And that's exactly then what would have been their reward. And God did good for the midwives. He built households from those Israelites, from those that they saved. That's what Hertz says. Is that what Hertz says there? In his note on it. So what does he say? He says, the Israelites' houses. So Hertz does say the Israelites' houses. Israelites' houses. But he doesn't go further and talk about that. That's— how is that the reward for the women?

No, he doesn't.

He doesn't. Yeah, uh, very good. I think it is. I think you're right. That's why I love learning with a small group of 200 people. It's the, it's the only way to study. Yes, 200 heads are better than one. Yes. I always thought a different interpretation, that she midwives, To the word of God rather than the word of the Pharaoh, then maybe their absence of a guilty conscience was a type of a haven or a shelter for them, one of the houses that they could dwell in peace. Ah, well, that's a metaphor. He has a metaphor that the house they dwelt in was a happy one because they didn't have a guilty conscience. That's metaphoric. I'm— I, I, I guess I didn't explain to you in my preface, my first desire was to always read exactly what the text says. And then we can go, that's a homily you would have made an excellent clergyman. That is, you know, my friends, the real meaning here is you will live in a happy house if you don't have a guilty conscience.

So you should think about it.

It's never too late. Are you an accountant? I mean, what do you know?

Yes?

Knowing that إذا لست ميتوايف، there could have been a man being a midwife. إذا always there could be just women، or إذا there is one man، then it would still be لهم. Yeah, she is saying that if there were there if even if there was one male midwife، then it would use the masculine for them. The problem is they didn't allow male midwives ever at that time. It was considered profoundly indecent to have a woman exposed in that way before a man. So that's why that wouldn't be possible. Yes? In Nefertiti 11, you went over that before, therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with the whip, and they built the Pharaoh's works before his face. Yeah, the they there is the Jews. This is not Egyptian. Okay? When I said they loud then, I made a mistake. Yes, that's right. I misled you by reading the loud that they there with emphasis. The they there is Israelites. Now in verse the second they in verse what was that eleven? Yes. Anybody else? Yes, ma'am. Yes. Is Am ever referred to for the Jews? I have to look it up in a concordance, and I will look it up for next week. It's in modern Hebrew. It is. It's called Am Yisrael, not Goy Yisrael. But it's but it is. It's an interesting question. I would love to find that out. I'll look it up because it's easy to do. I'll just check a concordance. Every time Am is used. In fact, I'll take one of my trusty fountain pens and write that down. Okay, let me take 2 more because I like to start on time and end on time, but we didn't start on time, that's why we're ending a little late. But otherwise, this will be very punctual. Yes? Well, the thing that doesn't make sense is that when he talks about him filling the house with Jews, The very next sentence said about killing all the male children that are born.

Yeah.

It seems very inconsistent to say, oh, we're going to build you houses, but we're going to kill all your male children. That doesn't make any— it's not anywhere near as logical as building houses for the Israelites. Yes, I, I— well, he is saying, and I'm repeating it for the— for those who didn't hear here and for For the— for the— you in video land. Uh, the, um, you think it makes much more sense that he built these houses for the midwives, because in the very next sentence you have the destruction of the houses by the order of Pharaoh. Well, of course, uh, it may— clearly every male was not killed by— as a result of this order, and therefore It may very well have been that those they saved had houses built. So it is— no, it is possible. Listen, both are possible, and I think there may very well be a deliberate ambiguity here. You'll have a lot of that in the Torah, and I really get into deliberate ambiguity. It's one of my favorite things in life after nonfat milkshake yogurt. Right after that is deliberate ambiguity. Ambiguity. All right, I'll take you privately. You're the last one. Yes. Yeah, the question was if it is if it let me get your question correct. If it is preferable to have a nation not built on blood. Than— but built on, on, on—

Morals.

On shared values, shared beliefs, commitments. Why is Judaism opposed to intermarriage? It's opposed to intermarriage for the— for a really, I think, frankly, for a very pragmatic reason, and it's not a blood reason. If it were blood, you couldn't convert. So it has to be a different reason. And the reason is Judaism is family-based, and it is extremely difficult. Uh, look, the proof that it's not— the proof that it is not blood is that if a Jewish woman marries a non-Jewish man, the children are Jewish anyway. And yet Judaism still historically opposes that marriage. So it can't be blood because it has no effect on the children being Jewish. The reason For the opposition is the way Judaism is lived. Much more so than the other religion most of you know best, Christianity, which is much more individual-oriented. It's my relationship with Jesus that is the central focus of much of Christian life, especially Protestant. Judaism is overwhelmingly communal and family. Uh, try to observe the Sabbath alone and you You will know essentially loneliness, honest-to-goodness loneliness. Observe Shabbat with friends and family and you will know a taste of heaven. The very same ritual practiced alone is painful, practiced with group is immeasurably joyful.

Right.

And so it just— Judaism doesn't work The other way. That's the reason, but not blood. As I said, the child is still Jewish in the case of a woman intermarrying. Thank you. Bring a friend. See you next week.

On tomorrow's Sunday Fireside Chat.

Okey-doke, time for your question. Now, Megan tells me that I should— I usually see the question in advance. I acknowledge that. But she wants me to see this one without having seen it. So this is the first time in 209 episodes of the Fireside Chat that I have not seen. She wants me to react spontaneously. So I will either love or hate Meghan after watching this video. Here we go.

Hi, Dennis. Hi, Otto. I just wanted to tell a little story. A while back, I was watching the Fireside Chats. And I was watching the episode where you, Dennis, give the recommendation or say that there's not really any downside to using online dating apps. And I just moved to a new town, and so I decided to give it a try. And I downloaded this online dating app specifically for Mormons, and I started swiping and met a ton of people. And after a little bit, I ended up meeting this person. And we really hit it off. We became super good friends. We started dating and we really bonded over shared values and over religion and things like that. And we fell in love. And recently, a couple of days ago, I got engaged. So I just want to say thank you. Thank you for your wisdom. And thank you for, in essence, changing my life. I appreciate it.

I was expecting her to say, The opposite. I was expecting— you said there's no downside, and then I was expecting I met the guy and he turned out to be a criminal.

This really shocked me.

I expected a real challenge here.

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

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