Timeless Wisdom - High Holiday Services - What Does Judaism Believe?

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. I get so caught up that it's hard to start to speak, actually. Uh, the, uh, Combination of powerful music and powerful words. And faith is pretty powerful. Do you all have the ivory-colored sheets? Have they been given out yet? Yes? No? Okay. So where are they? So if we could have some folks just hand them out. I've never done a handout before, and it's a gamble because you may end up reading the handout, not listening to me. But I'm willing to take it. So where are they again? They're coming. Oh, they're coming. Okay, fine. So let me tell you, let me give you the preface to what I'm about to do here. Any of you who have heard me on the radio, and I assume it's most of you, know that I have devoted a lot of my life to explaining American values. Because if you ask the average American, "What are American values?" you might get a wonderful speech, but they still won't be able to enunciate what's distinctive about American values, or even know that there is such a thing as specific American values. Ask a Jew, "What does Judaism stand for? What are the basic Jewish beliefs?" And again, I think the same problem would arise, if not even greater, because Jews would so differ. I'll just give you one example. As I walked in tonight, One of you told me that they had attended a bar mitzvah recently at a synagogue that is known as Reconstructionist. There is Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Hasidic, Ultra-Orthodox, Modern Orthodox, Reconstructionist. You know, of course you know the old joke, right? This is so famous I feel funny saying it, but there may be 5 people here who don't know it. A Jew was stranded on an island after a shipwreck. 5 years later, finally, rescuers arrive and they see that he has built 2 synagogues. And they ask the guy, "Why 2?" He said, "This one I attend and this one I would never set foot in." I guess more than 5 of you either didn't hear it or enjoy hearing it again. No, no, the non-Jews have heard it too. Are you kidding? The Tawny family could probably tell every one of these jokes in their sleep. But it's a great line. Humor isn't funny if it doesn't represent something in reality. And obviously that represents something in reality. I think every synagogue in America is a breakoff of a breakoff of a breakoff of a breakoff of another breakoff. There was one synagogue at one point, and then they just kept breaking off because they didn't agree with each other on some point. So obviously, This is another example. So this woman tells me she went to bar mitzvah at a Reconstructionist synagogue, and the rabbi got up and announced, as if this was important to announce, but it's basic to Reconstructionist Judaism, we are not the chosen people. We reject that completely. All people are chosen. All people are equal. So fine, look. As I have often said, if I believed that there was no divine basis for Judaism and chosenness, after Auschwitz, I would have opted out. It is exactly chosenness that keeps me Jewish. It is not gefilte fish, it is not lox, it is not Woody Allen. I stay Jewish because I believe God chose us. I don't see another compelling reason, frankly, because There are wonderful faiths in addition to our own. If that's dropped, what's left? Culture? What is Jewish culture? I don't even understand the term. What is Jewish culture if not ultimately religious culture? I mean, Jews don't speak Yiddish anymore except for the ultra-Orthodox, and they're ultra-Orthodox, so they obviously put emphasis on the religious aspect. So what I've done, and this is really the culmination of a life work, I only did this once before, and I was asked by an Australian Jewish magazine if I had to restate the principles of the Jewish faith, Maimonides, and I don't claim to be a new Maimonides, so we'll put that aside immediately, but I was asked if I were asked to do what Maimonides, the greatest Jewish philosopher, Dennis Prager did in the 12th century, and that is to codify Jewish beliefs, what would I do? So I worked very hard then, this is about 5 years ago, and now I've worked doubly hard because my thinking has evolved in some ways, and I don't have 13 as he does, I have 17. But I do believe that this really does set down the core principles of Judaism. And as tempting as it'll be to read ahead, stay with me on each. I obviously can't devote as much time as I would like to each. I— any one of these could take its own couple of hours at least. And, and they're not, except for the number 1, they're not necessarily in order of importance. But there is one aspect to the order The first 10 are universal, and the last 7 are specific to Jews. In other words, these are universal principles of Judaism, the first 10, and then specific to Jews are the last 7. Let's begin with number 1. There is one God. He is the creator of the world and the God of all humanity. I wrote an essay once on what I thought was the most important verse in the Bible, and I said it was Genesis 1:1: In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth— heavens and the earth. Because if you don't accept that, there's no reason to read anything further. If you don't accept that God is the Creator, is the origin, the originator, then why read the rest? The rest You see, if God— if you don't accept Genesis 1:1, then the Torah and the Bible are to Jews what Homer is to the Greeks. Wonderful ancient lore and essentially irrelevant except for some kernels of wisdom that you may extract from it. There is one God. Now why is one God important? That we'll come to when we come to number 4. Let's go to number 2. What is God? I get this question all the time whenever I talk about God on the radio. Okay, so Dennis, why don't you define this God? And I say, okay. They never expect me to say okay. I say, that's fine. And here they are. Here are the traits of this God. 1, incorporeal. 2, eternal. 3, beyond nature. 4, holy. 5, personal. 6, good. By the way, these are all normative Judaism. I didn't make up anything here. This is all straight from the Jewish sources, overwhelmingly from the Torah itself. Incorporeal means has no corpus, has no body, has no material being. If God were physical, he would be limited. The physical world is limited. If God were physical, then the physical is all there is. It is critical that God not be physical, because that means that there is a reality that is beyond the material. That, by the way, should be a source of tremendous hope for all of us. Because if this is the only reality, which is, you know, since Marx, the basis of what Western society has believed, that only the material is true. That's why, you know, they called it in the Soviet Union, uh, nauchny materialism, scientific materialism. Nauchny atheism, scientific atheism. That it's the only reality is matter. I can't think of a more depressing thing because if that's all it is, then that's all we are. If we're only matter, if we have no soul, we have no non-physical, non-material part, then it's all— it's over, right? When we die, it's over. So God has to be non-material, because he has to transcend the material world and give us the hope and the certitude that the non-material is real, and that since we're in God's image, part of us is also non-material. We call it the soul. 2, eternal. Oh boy, I'm old enough now to remember when I would debate atheists and I would say, God is eternal, and they would say, well, we believe you believe God is eternal, we believe the universe is eternal. And then came the Big Bang, and it blew the lid off a lot of atheists' heads. They were very disturbed. Read the book. Robert Jastrow, whom I knew personally, was one of the kindest, finest people I have ever known. He was the head of the Goddard Space Center at NASA. He was a major astronomer. He wrote a book. He was an agnostic. Total agnostic. Not an atheist, an agnostic, which is the most honest way to be. I think, more honest than atheism. The certitude there is no God is a bit odd. But in any event, he was an agnostic. But he wrote a book called God and the Astronomers. You can read it. It's very, very wonderful and very brief. And the thesis was very simple and amazing. He said, I can't believe it, he said, astronomers did not react like scientists when the Big Bang was shown to be true. And then he realized, he said, "Oh my God, I thought scientists didn't care about what science proved." A scientist doesn't have a vested interest. They just have a vested interest in truth. But no, he said, "To my shock, I found most of my colleagues were disturbed by the Big Bang because it meant the universe had a beginning." But if it has a beginning, uh-oh, it might have something that began it. Because nothing doesn't come— something doesn't come from nothing. Although I did have an astronomer on my show for 1 hour, one of the most Twilight Zone-ish hours of my 31-year career on radio. A man who wrote— what was the name of the book? It was about nothing. You have to yell. A universe from nothing. A universe from nothing. That was what he was, a major astronomer at, I think, Arizona State or the University of Arizona, and national reputation. And his argument was that we do have a universe from nothing. But of course, nobody who didn't go to graduate school in other words, who still thinks clearly, will actually buy that idea. Wait a minute, something came from nothing? So what did we— you know what we spoke about? We debated with each other for about 20 minutes? What does nothing mean? He was redefining nothing. And I remember pinching myself, you know, thank God it was radio because you couldn't see my face. Facial reactions, but that was what it was about. And I just finally said, look, we'll just have to leave it. I think nothing means no thing. And so I had to move on because I didn't want to go around in circles. So God is eternal and the universe is not eternal. Number 3, beyond nature. Commented on that earlier. God is above nature. Among the many reasons is that if God were part of nature, then obviously God is limited. Nature is finite. Again, not eternal, finite. But there's another reason: nature isn't good, as in a moral sense. Nature's not moral, right? Survival of the fittest is hardly morality. Animals don't build hospitals. Now, I don't blame animals for not building hospitals. Hospitals, they eat the weak. We, in our best moments, we protect the weak, right? With a hospital. The weak in nature are eaten. I remember my first safari. I've been on a few safaris. My first one was actually quite emotionally difficult because I saw how red in tooth and claw nature is. And I got good at identifying which zebra was going to be the first to be eaten. Because the zebra that was the lamest was going to be eaten by a lion. The vibrant zebras got away. A lame human being is brought to a doctor. A lame zebra is eaten. So I don't know why anybody would worship nature, but God is above nature. God is holy. Holy needs its own lecture. And I will come back to holiness later, but God is known in Judaism as HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the Holy One, Blessed Be He. God is the quintessence of holiness. Leviticus 19: You shall be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy. Personal. Let me explain that. That's key. If God isn't personal, you might as well be an atheist. If God doesn't know me, what difference does it matter if God exists? Right? The only reason it's of any significance— and this is not narcissistic, it's just real— if God doesn't know me and doesn't know you and doesn't know any of us, who cares if he exists? It's irrelevant. So personal means, yes, God knows you, God knows me. Now, does that mean— this is where people get into trouble, I think, or religious people get into trouble when they debates with non-religious people because then they'll say, "Oh really? You believe that God takes care of everybody, or you believe that God intervenes in every moment, and God controls everything about a person's life?" That's not what personal God means. Now, there are religious people who believe that. That's fine. I rationally can't. You know, certainly, you know, the obvious example, the Jews are It's always raised. Do I believe that God will that every one of the 6 million Jews be tortured to death, and nearly all were tortured to death? No, no, I don't believe that. But do I believe that God knew everyone who was, and was with them if they wished to be with him when they were killed? Yes, I do. That's why so many Jews in the gas chambers did in fact walk into the gas chamber saying the Shema. So yes, God knows me, but does that mean that God will protect me at every moment? How could it mean that? It's obvious that good people aren't protected. But does that mean that God never intervenes? No, I would never say that. So how do you know? You don't know. You believe, and that's fine. You can have your faith that God does intervene. I think most people who believe in God do believe that God has played a role at some point in their life. And good— if God isn't good and just, and they're to me the same— if God isn't good and just, then again, again, count me out. I mean, there's nothing— the only thing more frightening than no God is a bad God, right? Okay, so that's— those are the characteristics of God, the 6 of them. Number 3, who is this God? I answered what is this God. Now, who is this God? This is the God who was revealed in the Torah, known as the God of Israel. Very simple. That's the God we're talking about. The reason that this is important Is that otherwise, again, you know, a lifetime of debating with atheists has taught me to know what they will ask in advance, and one of them is, "Oh really? Well, look, everybody has his own God. Which God are you talking about?" Okay, hello, I have an answer. The God introduced to humanity through the Hebrew Scriptures. That's the God I'm talking about. And, you know, you ask any Christian that I know, ask him— that doesn't mean every Christian, but every Christian that I know— ask, "Do you believe in the God of Israel?" He'll say, "Of course." Number 4: This is the consequence, the critical moral consequence of there being one God. Because there is one God, There is one morality. This is the importance of monotheism. Objective morality exists because God exists. If there is no God, there is no good and evil— notice I capitalized Good and Evil— only societal or individual opinions about what is good or evil. This confuses so many people, and I could spend a lot of time on it. Let me be as clear as I can after all these years of experience. Explaining this. Atheists can be good, religious people can be bad. That's a given, and it's also irrelevant to the point. The point is simply this: only if there is a God do good and evil objectively exist, do they have reality, as opposed to I like carrots, you like pears. I like hospitals, you like poison gas. Okay? If there were no God, all of morality is personal taste. And incidentally, I debated one of the leading moral philosophers of our time, Jonathan Glover, at Oxford many years ago, and he said— I spoke first, and he then said, "Mr. Prager is right." If there is no God, there is no objective morality. And I remember saying what an honor it is to debate an intellectually honest man. Because it is— he, his problem was that he didn't believe in God, and therefore, or even if you do, how do you know what God wants? And that's fine, that's fine, I respect that. But I don't respect those who say there is no God, but there really is an objective good and objective evil. So really, what is objective good? Objective good is that which enhances human life. Why is that an objective good? That's your opinion. What if my good is that which enhances my pleasure? And if you're in the way and I kill you and get away with it, hey, that's good. I'm listening to a history of the Catholic Church through the Learning Company, and my favorite moment— the author was not a Catholic, a barrel of laughs. I just want to say this. So he wasn't cracking a joke, but I found this darkly humorous. How hard it was for the Catholic Church. The hardest group in Europe to convert to Christianity were the Germanic tribes. Isn't that something? Just that alone is a fascinating foretaste and foreshadowing of what happened in the 20th century. The hardest group. Because they, the Christians would come to them and say, God said do not murder, that murder is wrong, and these Germanic tribes would say, "What are you, out of your mind? Murder is right!" And then what do you say then? It ends. That pretty much ends the debate, right? I say wrong, you say right, end of issue. They actually believed it was right. You see, people are so naive who live in our civilization where they take for granted the results of 2,000 years. 3,000 years of Judaism and Christianity, they don't realize that these arguments that they give are the result of 2,000-3,000 years of these religions. That it is— they give the argument, "Well, hey, just don't do what you don't want done to yourself. That's all. That's basic morality." But the Germanic tribesmen would have said, "Why not?" I don't want to get killed, that's the reason I kill first. What's your answer? There's only one answer: there is a transcendent God who said it's wrong. As I will show tomorrow, all morality is faith. All. Including for the atheist. Any atheist who says murder is wrong has made a leap of faith just as I have to God. It's pure faith. There is no objective basis to calling murder wrong. Number 5: God's primary demand is that people act decently toward one another. This is very important. A lot of religious people, in my opinion, get this wrong. God's primary demand is that we treat each other well. A, therefore God cares more about how we act toward each other than how we act toward him, even just as we humans care more about how our children treat each other than how they treat us. We— any of you who have kids, I have to say, as a father, when my two sons are with each other and enjoy each other, I'm in heaven. Of course I love if they love me, Every parent wants to be loved by their kid, but the, the biggest is that they get along and enjoy each other. Anyway, we're going to die in the natural order of things. We die, but our kids go on. And that's exactly— if, if our— if God is our Father in heaven and we are his children, he cares how his children treat each other. You can't mistreat God, but you can mistreat your fellow human being, and that bothers God a great deal. Be therefore Behavior matters far more than intentions, and even more than faith. Faith matters, and I'll show you why later, but certainly more than intentions. Intentions don't amount to a hill of beans. Everybody thinks he's good. Everybody. Everybody. Remember this guy who happily took his life? Ariel Castro, who tortured and raped these girls that he took off the street. I mean, as I pointed out on the radio, these are 3 young women that he kidnapped. If he only kidnapped them and never touched them, the evil that he did is beyond belief. To take them from their families forever, almost forever, and have the families not know, the torture to the parents and the siblings. But then to think what he did to them in the course of that time. Time, which obviously I won't describe here. But this guy, you know what he said in court? "I'm no monster." The people with the highest self-esteem are violent criminals. I've often commented on this. Read Roy Baumeister, one of the leading criminologists in America, spent his life with violent criminals. Intentions don't matter. Behavior does. So we should act decently. Why do you think Isaiah says, "Hey, thus saith the Lord, who needs your sacrifices? I need you to act decently." That's— I'm quoting now from God himself, that I care, I God, care more about how you treat each other than how you treat me. I don't need your sacrifices, I need your goodness. Problem is, what is goodness becomes the big problem. That's a big variation on a theme in life. Number 6, there is an afterlife. Jews drive me nuts on this one. By the way, I know, because I write a column for the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, that 98.4% of whose readers are not politically on my side. And that's a low guess. But it's so interesting, I so know my fellow Jews. There are two things that if I write about, I get more angry mail. This is fascinating. This will fascinate you. And I knew it when I wrote it. I could write where I differ with certain political issues, and there will be a lot of, you know, there will be a lot of opposition in the mail. But hate? If I write that there's an afterlife, and if I write people are not basically good. This drives Jews nuts. I don't know, I understand the second, I don't understand the first. Why would you want to root for the idea that there's an afterlife? There is no afterlife. Who in his right mind is cheering for there to be no afterlife? But they have bought— it's not science, scientism, the worship of science, not the use of science— and think there's no— that Judaism doesn't believe in an afterlife. But it does. Read the Encyclopedia Judaica, written by secular Jewish scholars. First line under afterlife: Judaism has We've always had a belief, affirmed a belief in an afterlife. But, and this is why Jews get tripped up, God does want us to be preoccupied with this life. That's why the Torah is so quiet about the afterlife, because Egypt was so preoccupied with the afterlife, but treated people so horribly in this life. So that's a balancing act, to know that there is an afterlife, and yet be preoccupied with this life. If there is a just God, there is an afterlife, and if there is an afterlife, there is a God. I don't understand anyone who says there's a God and no afterlife. If you say there's no God and no afterlife, you're logically consistent. But if you believe in God but no afterlife, then God is a monster. He built a world where just massive evil takes place, massive cruelty cruelty, and he does nothing about it in terms of ultimate justice in an afterlife. Which brings us to 7: God rewards the good and punishes the bad, sometimes in this world, always in the afterlife. If good people and bad people have the same fate, there is either no God, or God is unjust. Make sense? That's why, by the way, you know, Jews again, because the you know, they had too much graduate school. They laugh at people who believe in heaven and hell, even though it's one of the 13 principles of Maimonides 1,000 years ago. Of course Judaism believes in a heaven and a hell. Maybe not eternal hell. What happens in hell, you know, I believe that one of the things that happens is you have to drive behind slow drivers in the left lane for a very long period of time. We all have our visions of hell. That happens to be mine. But I never, I don't know what happens. Anyway, you get screwed up as soon as you start saying what happens. I asked my high school rabbi, I went to yeshiva, Orthodox Jewish school. Sophomore year in high school, I remember the rabbi, I won't say his name. And I said, "Rabbi, I'm just curious, what happens if you go to heaven?" And he said, "Oh, if you go to heaven, you study Torah for eternity." And I got the chills. I got the shakes. Because not— it wasn't that— that was bad enough, but I imagined studying with him for eternity. It still takes my breath away. The thought that that was the vision. Now maybe it happens, but I have to believe the circumstances were different than at the Yeshiva Flatbush sophomore year with this particular rabbi. So you get into a lot of trouble if you describe heaven or hell. It is sufficient for me to know it exists. It's God's business. My business is this world. His business is the next. Hashemayim shamayim lashem va'aretz latamigmei adam. The heavens belong to God and the earth belongs to man. Psalms. Next. 8. Human beings are not born basically good. We are born with tendencies to both evil and good. Therefore, evil comes primarily from within the human being, not from external forces such as economics. In other words, poverty causes crime? No. Bad people cause crime. Criminals pose problems. Therefore, the most important task of society must be, and of Judaism is, to develop the good in people. If you understand we're not basically good, and I didn't say we're basically evil, read the words carefully, but we're not basically good. And if you understand that, society should spend most of its efforts with regard to young people making them good. Not making them have self-esteem, Not making them great students, making them good people. We have largely abandoned the effort because we believe people are basically good. All kids need is love and self-esteem. In which case, you will raise a well-loved barbarian. Number 9: All people are created in the image of God. There are 4 consequences. A: Therefore, racism is theologically impossible as well as morally reprehensible. If everybody is created in God's image, how could one race be better than another race? It's an idiocy. It's a theological idiocy. B: Therefore, the most important distinction among human beings is their behavior, not their race, religion, nationality, class, or sex. In the words of Viktor Frankl, a survivor of Auschwitz, there are only two races: the decent and the indecent. It's one of the guiding lines of my life. Ever since I read that in high school, that's the only division I ever drew. That's why I have no problem in saying, and I know if I said this at a university, I would be dismissed as ridiculous. I don't have a racist bone in my body, precisely because that is exactly what I believe. There are only two races: the decent and the indecent. Color means nothing to me, nationality means nothing to me, ethnicity means nothing to me. End of issue. C) Therefore human life is sacred and animal life is not, though we are not permitted to inflict gratuitous suffering on animals. Torah has a number of laws on the treatment of animals, and it is one of the 7 laws that Judaism demands that non-Jews observe, is not to hurt animals gratuitously. But you save the person The stranger before the dog you love, because human life is sacred and animal life is not. D) Therefore murderers must not be allowed to live. Allowing all murderers to live lowers the value of human life. Taking the life of murderers is the only law stated in each of the Torah's 5 books. A lot of people disagree. They think that taking murderers' lives cheapens life. Whereas the Torah believes that taking murderers' lives enhances the value of life. If you're allowed to keep your life after murdering somebody or murdering millions, I don't know why that enhances the value of life. Punishment is the only way that we can describe how bad a crime is. And so I'll never forget, Israel put one person to— executed one person. Israel put Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Holocaust, responsible directly for millions of Jews dying horrific deaths. They put him to death, and I found that to be extraordinarily morally inconsistent, and I never use the word, but in this case hypocritical. If you're against capital punishment, then you should be against capital punishment. You can't say I'm against capital punishment unless you kill a million. Well, then you die. But if you only kill 6, or 1, then you can live. What kind of thinking is that? Isn't every life infinitely precious? So Israel announces that at a certain number of lives you really do deserve to die, but before that, we keep you alive. I don't buy it. Number 10. The last of the universal ones. God created the world and nature for man. There's a very famous Hebrew phrase, "Bishpili nivraha olam." Every person is supposed to say, "For me the whole world was created." It's a beautiful phrase. And you walk around grateful for everything that you have. But that's the reason the world exists. You know, I know it drives some nuts, but nature has no purpose If human beings aren't there to appreciate it. I'm sorry, that's the reason for it. And by the way, it turns out that the more we know about the universe, the more we realize how finely tuned it is to make life on this planet. So it seems that even scientifically, everything out there somehow has a role in our creation. Now the specifically Jewish things that constitute Judaism. Number 11: The Jews are the chosen people, chosen to bring mankind to the preceding beliefs. The task of the Jew is to bring the world to the first 10 beliefs, the first 10 statements. That's the task of the Jew. Otherwise, why did God choose anybody? If the Jews don't have a mission, I mean, this is where some of my Orthodox friends and I, just, well, they tend not to be my friends. My Orthodox friends tend to agree with me, but if you ask a lot of Orthodox, and I'm a big fan in many ways of the Orthodox, but if you ask them, what is the purpose of being a Jew, they'll say to keep the mitzvot. So, but that, of course, that's a tautology. What's the purpose of keeping the mitzvot? Well, because God told us to. Okay, what's the purpose? And so sometimes, on rare occasions, they'll say, so we should be a light to the nations. But I say, but if you're not talking to the nations, how are you a light? If you hide in Jewish ghettos, how are you a light? That was That's my biggest single issue with the Orthodoxy that I encountered growing up, was the insularity of it. But they at least take these things very seriously and do believe that the Torah is divine, so they're my allies. But anyway, that's the chosen people. It never meant, this has never meant that the Jews are better than anyone else. Indeed, the Torah and the entire Hebrew Bible goes out of its way to depict the Jews as awarded and no better than anyone else. You know who the heroes of the Torah are? Overwhelmingly non-Jews. This, by the way, is one of the great arguments to me that the Torah is divine. No people has made up a negative history of itself. None. Anti-Semites get a lot of their anti-Semitism from the Jewish scriptures. Look at the Jews sinning and God being disgusted with them. This does not appear generally in other other religions. It's an amazing fact. Why would Jews make up such a negative history of themselves if it weren't God who ultimately is the author, who inspired the text that was written? I mean, think about it. Who saves Moses? Not only a non-Jew, but a woman. And not only a non-Jew and a woman, but Pharaoh's daughter. Who's gonna make that up? What Jew? Is going to make up that the hero of the Exodus is Pharaoh's daughter? To me, it's a phenomenal argument for the divine authorship of that story. A Jew is going to make up that? It's like a Jew writing, making up a story of the Holocaust, Hitler's son is the hero. But that doesn't happen. So that's chosenness. Of course, of course chosen. It doesn't mean better, never meant better. In fact, it's easier for a non-Jew to get into heaven than a Jew according to Judaism. Non-Jew has to obey 7 laws, a Jew has to obey hundreds. It's not a great deal. Number 12, the Torah is from God. Talk about this tomorrow. This belief does not necessarily mean that God dictated dictated each word of the Torah, nor does it mean that only a literal reading of the Torah is valid. That God is the source of the Torah doesn't mean necessarily that the days of creation are 24 hours. Literal— there are times when God speaks in human terms, and where it could be a parable. We don't know. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But God and literal are not the same thing. It means that the Torah ultimately comes from God, not men. Number 13, Judaism has a trinity of its own: God, Torah, Israel. I didn't make that up. It's in the Talmud thousands of years ago, at least 1,600, 1,800 years ago. In fact, it's a very famous song, God, Torah, Israel are one. It's very, very, very similar to the Christian Trinity. I mean, it's not identical, obviously, but it's very similar. It's sort of 3-in-1 sort of thing. And the reason that I compare it to the Christian Trinity is, as I write here, the removal of any one of them is no longer Judaism. It would be as if the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit were removed from Christianity. Imagine a Christian saying, well, I'm a believing Christian, but I don't believe in the Son. Okay, that's lovely, but you're not a Christian. That's fine. That's all right. But we got to be intellectually honest. You can't drop any of these. That doesn't mean you're read out of the Jewish people. You could believe in Zeus and still be a Jew because we're also a people. But you're not believing in Judaism. Number 14: Jewish faith rests— Jewish faith rests on two pillars: the creation and the exodus. Judaism cannot survive denial of either as a divine event. They are to Judaism what the crucifixion and resurrection are to Christianity. That's the case. That's why you will always see in Jewish prayers two things: zecher omar seberei shiit, ah, in remembrance of the acts of Genesis, of creation, Creation, and zecher liyitzchak Mitzrayim, and remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt. Those are your two beliefs that are fundamental to Judaism. And I would have to say, if it was all made up, I'm not sure why I would stay in it again. I don't say every miracle has to be literally kept, even though I don't have a problem with Balaam's donkey speaking. I happen to love that story. I'm not too sophisticated for that. For this stuff. Even though I went to graduate school, but I had cognitive dissonance throughout graduate school. Number 15: The Jew is commanded to lead a holy as well as an ethical life. Ah, my dear friends. Alright, here is what holy means. Holy is this. You ready? This will help you tremendously. This is my working definition my whole life for holy. At the pinnacle of holiness is God. At the opposite end of holiness is the animal. And the human being has a choice all day, every day. Do I act like God or like an animal? By the way, acting like an animal doesn't mean you're evil. Unholy does not mean evil. It's not evil to curse, but it's unholy. Since our secular society has dropped the concept of the holy, you now have public cursing. Then they say, "Who's it hurting?" Right? "I'm not hitting anybody, I'm not stabbing anybody," because they have no concept of the holy. But the holy— when the holy dies, the ethical will follow. That's— I promise you. Number 16: Judaism is a religion of separations and distinctions. I wrote 5, and I forgot to add one. I'll do it at the end. God and man, good and evil, man and woman, holy and profane, life and death, and the one I forgot to put in, human and animal. And our society, like a good secular society that it is, is working to obliterate every one of those distinctions. Man is God, we're all We're all God, we're all godlike. Good and evil are matters of opinion. Man and woman, that's the biggest assault today. You just choose your own gender, or no gender at all. Holy and profane doesn't even matter any longer. Life and death, well, that there is still a distinction. Human and animal, none. Human and animal, we're all animals. It's a very— New York Times publishes every article it can to show that we're We're just animals. And finally, 17: Judaism cannot ennoble anyone, therefore any Jew is welcome to embrace Judaism and become a member of the Jewish people, though no ethical monotheist has to. Judaism welcomes converts. A lot of Jews don't— certainly when I grew up, didn't know this, because Judaism had become too ethnic. Judaism has always welcomed converts. In fact, even in the New Testament, Paul speaks about the Jews crossing continents and crossing seas to make one convert. One-tenth of the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus is estimated to have been Jewish. And a lot more were converted, in fact. But you don't have to be Jewish, in Judaism's view, in order to be saved. If you're good, and you keep the 7 laws that I will speak about in a moment, Well, I should tell what they are now. This is what Judaism demands of non-Jews. That affirmation of one God, not blasphemy, in other words, you can't go around denying God, not to steal, not to murder, to set up courts, not to cause animal suffering gratuitously, specifically eating the limb of a living animal, and incest. Basic moral laws. You do that, Judaism says you get the same rewards as a pious Jew. These are the beliefs of the religion. The number of Jews who actually affirm this is not very high, and it's a tragedy. And I will explain tomorrow why some parts, why the faith part is so important. We have dropped the faith If Christianity at times emphasized faith too much, Judaism or Jews at times emphasized faith too little. That's what I— I'll just tell you a personal story, and with this I conclude. I am on occasion, I am regularly invited by Chabad to give lectures, and sometimes even by Orthodox by other Orthodox congregations. To the Orthodox Jews' great credit, I was invited to the organization Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations annual convention a few years ago. You know what they invited me to speak on? To their great credit, why I'm not an Orthodox Jew. That's gutsy. Believe me, the Reform convention would never have me speak why I'm not a liberal. But the Orthodox, they would never, they They would never. There's more openness in Orthodoxy. And they invited me to speak on that, and so that's to their credit. But they don't understand why they like me. And I explain to them why they like me. I do. I tell them it's very interesting. I say to my Chabad and I really get along very well. They know that I'm not observant of so many of the laws that they hold essential to observance. And so, you know, I drive on Shabbat. Now, I don't drive to grocery stores, and I don't drive to movies, and I don't drive to restaurants, but I do drive, you know, to make Shabbat with others. And so anyway, I say to them, do you know why you like me? They go, well, you're a great guy. No, no, no, forget that. That's not what I'm talking about. The reason that you can have me speak not only to non-religious Jews who come to Chabad, but to Chabad rabbis, and why there's an Orthodox synagogue in LA that's having me for a for over Shabbat in a few months. To their credit too. And I tell them why. I say, I'll tell you why. Because I share your emunah. I share your faith. And ultimately, you won't admit it, but you do think that's more important than whether or not I drive on Shabbos. And they can't go, yeah, you're right, because that pretty much undermines a lot of their message. But that is the truth. I believe the Torah is from God, and that they know. See, the Orthodox think halacha keeps them alive. I don't. I think it's emunah that keeps them alive. And I'll prove it to you. Most conservative rabbis are Orthodox in practice, but conservative Judaism is not thriving or surviving like Orthodoxy is, because the Orthodox believe the Torah is from God. The conservative believe that the Torah is from man. It's a very big difference. I'll speak— I'll address that tomorrow. I hope you'll I hope you'll take this sheet home and talk it over with people at a dinner. It's worth doing. This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.