Why Be Jewish in a Modern World? (Part 1)

On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom, I realized in high school at yeshiva that I, I wasn't getting the answer to the, uh, the biggest single question I had, and I thought the biggest single question every Jew had, but they didn't acknowledge it, and that is why be Jewish.

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.

The thing I want to talk to you though is, is about why we're here. I have, since I was in high school, I am very grateful for my very, very rich background in Jewish sources and Hebrew. It's enabled me to do all the things that I do in Jewish life. But I realized in high school, at yeshiva, that I wasn't getting the answer to the biggest single question I had. And I thought the biggest single question every Jew had, but they didn't acknowledge it. And that is, why be Jewish? Everything in Jewish life, if you think about, was how to be Jewish. Whether secular or Orthodox. I was raised Orthodox, and my whole world was Orthodox in Brooklyn, New York. I was stunned when I found that there were non-Jews living in Brooklyn. It was— I couldn't— and not only was I stunned, but I have often mentioned this, I was absolutely preoccupied with non-Jews. I just had to know them. So I remember how long I would speak to the mailman. Really, I would— I think he tried to figure out when I wasn't home. To make sure to deliver the mail, because I would delay his beat, because I would just want to talk to him. I had this— my hobby in high school was shortwave radio, which would mean nothing to a kid today, but it was— we didn't have internet, so the only way you could hear foreign broadcasts was by having a shortwave radio. That was my hobby. And again, wow, more non-Jews. And then it was just my preoccupation to figure out, you know, what the world was like. And it's never stopped, actually, and ended up with a lot of travel. The only thing I boast, I will have to inflict upon you, I've been to 100 countries. It is the only thing that I ever brag about, because that's a lot of work, let me tell you, especially if you have a full-time job doing something else. But I have always been preoccupied with the world, and I, And I realized at a very young age, we're very small, we Jews. We're point, what, I don't know, 0.01%, 0.03%, 3 one-hundredths of 1% of the world. You know, it's just, we're tiny. We're numerically insignificant. So why be a member of this people? Especially as an American, where you have such a magnificent a country in which you live, a society that has minimal antisemitism, that welcomes everybody of every background. There were so many wonderful— my favorite word, Gentile. Nobody laughs at the word Gentile. I just want you to think, though, for a moment what that means. It means you are a member of the 99.99% of the world, but you're the one defined as the Gentile. It has always cracked me up. There's the 0.001 and the 99.99, and they got a name. Just, it's very funny. So I just want to know, why not be a member of this people? So, why identify distinctively? So I never got an answer to why be Jewish. What I got in Orthodox life was how to be Jewish. How to keep kosher, how to keep Shabbos, how to build a sukkah. How to, how to, how to. And then I realized secular Jewish life was the same thing. How to raise funds for the Federation. How to help Israel. How to save Soviet Jewry. How to save Ethiopian Jewry. All of this noble. How to build a sukkah is noble. We'll be building a sukkah. I'll try to encourage you to at least have a meal in one in the upcoming holiday. And that's good. So was how to raise funds for the Federation. It's magnificent. Jews— Mormons have— the first group to overtake Jews in reputation as charitable amongst themselves are Mormons. The first time. It's always been Jews were the model of people taking care of themselves. It's a beautiful model. And all minorities and all individuals should adopt it. In any event, I didn't get an answer to why. So I want to present to you the why. Jews and Jewish chosenness and Jewish mission today. Because you see how much drenched the liturgy is with it. So here's my theory on why there are Jews. And it's a serious theory. God wants humanity to be good. Right? That's, that's our basic premise. That I keep showing you from the text. So God starts with Adam, but it's clear that Adam, Eve, their children, their children, their children, uh, really aren't good. Uh, you know, we all— not we all, most people, or many people, have issues with their children at some time in their lives, but few of us, thank God, have children, one of whom kills the other. So just think for a moment that the children of the first couple, one of them murders the other. If this is not an auspicious beginning for the human race, is that fair? Now remember, God says when he creates Adam, "Oh, very good." And God saw it was very good. On the creation of all the other days, God saw it was good, but at the end of creating ye humans, God said, "Very good." He was wrong. No, he was. And the point is, he acknowledges he was wrong. Now you will say, "How could God be wrong?" Well, one way is that God gives us the freedom to disobey him, and the freedom to do what we will. Therefore, he may not be able to predict what we will do. Because we have that choice. Some agree, some disagree. It's not a very important issue whether you agree or disagree. But in any event, the Bible says God regretted that he created man on Earth. It says it. Now, regret presumes that he had different plans. He thought we'd be good, and we weren't. Why did God think we would be good? Because he planted in us a conscience. How do we know that there is a conscience? Because God expected Cain to know that what he did was wrong. Otherwise, God should have said, Cain, I fully understand that you killed Abel. It, uh, it's not your fault. I never gave you the Ten Commandments, right? Shouldn't that have been— couldn't, uh, and by the way, to a certain extent, but only a certain extent, Cain in his cute answer, where is your brother, says Hashomer HaFianochi, am I my brother's keeper? Which is a wise guy answer. Cain could have said, yeah, I killed him, what's wrong with that? Right? If he didn't have a conscience, Cain would not have said, am I my brother's keeper? Which was a wise guy answer. You think I know where my brother is? No. No. He, if he didn't have a conscience, he knew what he did was wrong. So God built conscience into the original human being. Every human on Earth has a conscience. However, we learn rapidly— God, if you will, learns rapidly— conscience is not enough for humanity to be good. Gets so bad, God destroys everybody except Noah and his family. And why does God choose Noah? Again, back to goodness. It says, 'Cause he was the good— he was a good man. He was the best man on earth. Not the handsomest. In the Babylonian epic— by the way, every civilization has a flood story, which leads you to believe there probably was a flood. If everybody from the Aborigines in Australia to the Middle East to the Aztecs and Incas have flood stories, there might have well have been a flood. The difference between the Torah's flood story and every other single one— in every one, the gods or the god saves somebody, otherwise there wouldn't be a human race. Only, only in the Torah, in the Bible only, does the god save the individual because he's good. In the Babylonian, it's because he's handsome. But in the Torah, it's because he's good. This is what God wants. So clearly, God concludes that conscience is not enough. It was enough for Noah. It might be enough for a handful of people, but not for most.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

Andy Crisman, a for him, has spent 40+ years in Christian music, and chances are he knows your favorite artist personally. Now he's bringing you their stories.

I'm Andy Crisman.

In his new podcast, One Degree of Andy, he sits down with the voices behind the songs for real, honest, and faith-filled conversations you won't hear anywhere else.

That's a great question.

If you love Christian music, this is your backstage pass to One Degree of Andy podcast. Listen now to One Degree of Andy wherever you get your podcasts.

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

So then God makes attempt number 2 for humanity to live up to the very good that he declares it to be when he, when he creates man. And he gives Noah a basic set of rules. Do not murder. By the way, one of the basic rules is that you put murderers to death. This is controversial today, and I think it's controversial because we have left biblical values. The idea that all murderers can live is not a biblical value. You can say, "I respect people against the death penalty," but they can't argue that they have a biblical basis for that view. In any event, "Do not murder," "Do not steal," set up courts of justice, have basic sexual morality, like no incest, and so on. So that God gives Noah what we, what Jews called Sheva Mitzvot B'nei Noah, the Seven Laws of the Children of Noah. That doesn't work either. Even seven basic rules don't work to make humanity act good. And so then God decides on a third attempt. To produce goodness in the world, and that is to take one group of people and give them a host of laws, a Ten Commandments and other laws, to be a model to other people and thereby bring people to God's— to God and God's desire for goodness. That's the reason there are Jews. The third attempt, because God believes, and I think it makes sense, humans need human models to be good. They need human teachers. Even the divine teacher alone isn't enough, that we need human teachers as well as God the teacher. So he picks He picks a group, and this is critical, he picks losers. This is very important to understand, that there is no hint, I mean hint, of superiority in the chosenness belief in Judaism. If there were, I would not be able to accept it, on logical and moral grounds. On the contrary, God goes out of his way to say you are not impressive. You are, and we are, certainly not a racial group. There is no racial purity, so there's no possibility of racial superiority on two grounds. Number one, the chosen people included in the Exodus from Egypt an erev rav, a huge multitude of other ethnic groups. So even from the beginning, there was no pure Jewish racial or ethnic component. Secondly, you can convert to being a chosen people. How chosen, how racial could chosenness be, or ethnic, if anybody on earth, any color, any background, any ethnicity, said, "You know what, I'd like to be chosen. I want to join the Jewish people." And to show you, to show how Non-an-issue it is. The, the, the Bible holds that the Messiah will come from a Jew who was born not Jewish. Ruth. Can you get more powerful a statement of how Judaism could not care less about racial purity? So while Jews are upset or feel squeamish about chosenness, There is no racial, ethnic, or superiority component about it. And just in case it wasn't clear to you, that one of the biggest reasons I believe in the divinity of the Torah is that it is the biblical text of all history, of all religions, that shows its own group in a bad light. By and large, in the Torah, the Jews are jerks, and most of the heroes are not Jewish. Now, that is the opposite of chauvinism. That is the opposite of purity. It's the opposite of racism. I mean, I want you to think about it. I want you to think about, uh, for example, take Moses. First of all, Moses is raised a non-Jew. He's born a Jew, but he's raised a non-Jew. So he must have gotten good values from somewhere. I mean, it wasn't purely osmosis. But more important, Moses kills an Egyptian who is beating a Jew to death. Remember that? Or is beating a Jew, I don't know if it's to death. He kills him, buries him. Who snitches on Moses? Jews. Who saves Moses originally? When he was a baby? Not only a non-Jew, but the daughter of that age's Hitler. I— how— how— it's unbelievable. I don't believe people would make this story up. Because people are too— first of all, nobody makes up an inglorious history of its own people. People write histories, their origins are great. In the ancient world, their origins were divine, they were magnificent, they were angelic, etc. Ours were losers. God is so sick of the Jews complaining— shocking, a trait we never associate with Jews— God is so sick of the Jews complaining, he wants to destroy them. And he says to Moses, "I'll start a new people from you." And Moses says, "No way." I forget it. Moses, Moses in effect argues, not in effect, argues against God and in effect that changes God's mind. So there's no nothing about chosenness, nothing that is about Jews being better. It's that Jews must be better because they were given a way to be better and then to spread the idea of God's God-based goodness to the world. Just want to make the point. I mean, look at all the non-Jews who— and just in the Torah alone— Noah is not a Jew. He is called a tzaddik, the highest appellation in the Torah. Only one other person is called a tzaddik in the Torah, and that's Joseph. The daughter of Pharaoh I just described. Jethro, uh, is, uh, is another hero. And the guy is a pagan priest, and he's a hero because God cares about goodness. The God of Judaism, the God of the Torah, the God of our Bible cares about goodness. And of course in the book of Joshua, which is the book right after the Torah, who is the hero or heroine? Not only a non-Jew, but a prostitute. So look at the heroes. Great Rahab, or Rahav, who saves the Jews, who makes it possible for them to conquer Canaan. So we got a prostitute and a pagan priest. And the daughter of Pharaoh. Just think about it. Meaning, goodness is what matters. The Torah is not recommending that profession, but it shows that it understands you can be in that profession and still be heroic. Just as, by the way, and obviously nobody countenances what he did, but Oskar Schindler of Schindler's List, one of the very few Nazis who actually saved Jews, I mean, he was a heroic man, was a serial adulterer. And it's hardly a defense of adultery, but we correctly regard him as a moral giant for what he did. So it's just important for us in the largest pictures to keep moral perspective, which is what the Torah cares that we do.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

Andy Crisman of For Him has spent 40+ years in Christian music, and chances are he knows your favorite favorite artist personally. Now he's bringing you their stories.

I'm Andy Crisman.

In his new podcast, One Degree of Andy, he sits down with the voices behind the songs for real, honest, and faith-filled conversations you won't hear anywhere else.

That's a great question.

If you love Christian music, this is your backstage pass. The One Degree of Andy podcast. Listen now to One Degree of Andy wherever you get your podcasts.

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

So there is not a hint of anything racial or ethnic. We are the chosen people because we are to be, in Isaiah 49:6, or la goyim, a light to the nations. That's what we are supposed to be. Most Jews don't know this. Most Jews don't know this or care about this. And many of the Jews who do care about it or think about it have so secularized it and politicized it that they have actually turned it on its head, but that is a subject for another time. Perhaps we'll talk about it during our elongated question and answer period. Our task is very simple. We are to bring the world to God. It's not simple to do, but that is our task. We are to be, we are, as I have said earlier, we are the messenger who forgot his message. Before I tell you what the message and how to do it is, let me tell you what the consequences of chosenness have been, the good and the bad. I can prove, in effect, that God chose us. We were losers who became winners. Jews historically, in every society in which they have lived, had lower levels of intoxication, more education, less violence, gave more charity, and had more professional success. In every society in which Jews have lived, they have stood out for these traits. It has nothing to do with built-in characteristics. And that's what— that's the reason God chose losers. If this group can be elevated, and in our liturgy it says I will show it to you. "Atavachatanu mikol ha'amim." You chose us from all the nations. "Vekerevchanu lavoratecha." And so when you brought us to serve you. "Veromamtanu mikol halishonot." And elevated us above all the languages. Meaning elevated us. That we were able to be more successful. You know, just on the education issue, do you know that the average woman throughout Jewish history was literate. Jewish women had higher literacy rates in the Middle Ages than non-Jewish men. It was assumed your daughter read. It was assumed. It wasn't even considered a big achievement. It was just assumed that she would read. And all of this, all of this came from the Torah. All of it is a result of Jews living Jewish lives. In our book, which I was reviewing for this, which I heartily recommend, Joseph Telushkin's and my book, "Why the Jews?" And we show, there's one great example in there. They found from the 19th century, I don't remember, I should have isolated it, but it was something to the effect, the Woodchoppers Talmud Society. Jews who made— who chopped down trees, who chopped wood, had their own study group. It was inconceivable that just because I chopped down trees and I chopped wood that I'm not going to be an intellectual. This was just— the life of the mind was that important in Jewish life. It was irrelevant what you did for a living. It was just assumed you were a, you were studious. So these are very, there's no question then that chosenness, that being given this Torah, had a spectacularly elevating effect on Jews. It also caused a massive amount of hatred. Chosenness was, is, has always been a source of hatred to Jews. To antisemites. And what is one of the fascinating things to note about this? Every one of you listening thinks, "Yeah, well, that makes sense." But why? Why does it make sense? If somebody walked over to you at work, in the supermarket, or wherever, said, uh, you just got into a conversation and the person said, "You know, uh, just want you to know God chose me." You would, uh, you would say, "Well, I want you to know I have a very fine therapist that, uh, you might want to consult with." Why didn't the world react to one of the tiniest groups on Earth thinking God chose it, with man. Are they weird or what? After all, most every society in history thought it was chosen. Absolutely. I've often— I point this out all the time. China, in Chinese, means Middle Kingdom, center of the Earth. Chinese believe that they are the center of the Earth, and those around them have been inferior. Japan, the sun is on the flag because it is the Land of the Rising Sun. They believe they get the sun first. I have an expert on Korea on who spoke about the belief in North Korea of racial inherent superiority of Koreans over all other people. Why does that not bother anybody? Why is there no worldwide anti-Japanese sentiment? Or anti-Chinese sentiment, or anti-Korean sentiment. Because nobody cares. You want to believe you're chosen, have a great day. I enjoy kimchi. That would be the reaction. You all know what kimchi is? I ate it once at the Seoul airport 32 years ago and still have the taste in my mouth. It, uh, never leaves. You die with it, actually.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

Andy Crisman, a for him, has spent 40+ years in Christian music, and chances are he knows your favorite artist personally. Now he's bringing you their stories.

I'm Andy Crisman.

In his new podcast, One Degree of Andy, he sits down with the voices behind the songs for real, honest, and faith-filled conversations you won't hear anywhere else?

That's a great question.

If you love Christian music, this is your backstage pass to One Degree of Andy podcast. Listen now to One Degree of Andy wherever you get your podcasts.

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

So why did— why don't these people elicit this, this hatred? Because nobody believes it. They did believe it with us. That's the issue. They looked at our lives, they looked at Jews' lives, they looked at the Jews' Bible and said, maybe it's true, even when they denied it as vociferously as possible. I mean, who didn't when you think about it? When you think about who has adopted it, it was adopted, of course, by Christianity. The church said, we are the new Israel. Of course, God chose Israel, but we are the new Israel. It's been adopted certainly with Pope John XXIII, where the Jews are indeed still the chosen people. The founders of the United States were the most magnificent in this regard. Regard, they said the United States is not the new Israel, it's the second Israel. Of course the Jews are chosen. It was a given to all the founders of America. But now— not but— and now, because we are rooted in the God of Israel, and they were— I wish Jews were as rooted in Judaism as the Christian founders of America were, who put a verse from the Torah on the Liberty Bell. Where you had to study Hebrew at Harvard till 1800 in order to get a BA. You couldn't get a BA at Harvard till 1800 if you didn't know Hebrew. So this country was founded to be the second Israel, and a bright light, a light on a shining hill, right? On a hill. That's what we were founded, we Americans were founded to be. So in effect, if you're an American Jew and you take both America and Jew seriously, You are a member of two chosen peoples. It's true. I have to keep my ego down every day. I'm telling you, I walk, I look in the mirror, wow, double man, double. But without the ego part, I truly believe that. I do believe that this is a chosen people, America, and I believe it is the second, and I believe that the Jews are the first. And that is exactly what was believed. What did Islam do? Just as the church said we're the new Israel, what Islam did was to say that Abraham— of course Abraham was chosen, but he was a Muslim. See? So Islam acknowledged Abraham's chosenness, but deferred it on to Islam. So who didn't believe? Anyone who had contact with, let alone our daughter religions, believed that the Jews were chosen. The other, the other point to be made here is why we Jews have elicited this amount of hatred. Let me read to you two non-Jews. Jews. Very powerful. One is a Catholic from years ago, Edward Flannery of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. It was Judaism that brought the concept of a God-given universal moral law into the world. Willingly or not, the Jew carries the burden of God and history, and for this has never been forgiven. That is exactly That to me is a one-sentence explanation or two-sentence explanation for antisemitism. We carry the burden of God in history, and for this we have never been forgiven. It's true for— I don't care what the Jew believes. The Jewish people collectively, whether they assimilate, whether they're atheist, whether they're anti-God, whether they're left, whether they're right, the Jewish people collectively carries this burden through history and have never been forgiven. In more sentences, the greatest explanation was written again by a non-Jew, Ernest Vanden Haag, one of the brightest minds of the second half of the 20th century. Fundamental to antisemitism— Ernest Vanden Haag, not Jewish again— fundamental to antisemitism, though seldom explicit and conscious, is hostility to the Jewish belief in one God. A belief to which antisemites very reluctantly converted, and which they never ceased to resist. I'm listening to a history of the Catholic Church on the— what is it— The Learning Company, and the— when I'm not listening to talk radio, I want to make that clear. I saw— I'm listening to this course, and it was very hard for the church to get any of the highest values that it stood for to all of these pagans in Europe, especially the Germans. It was very, very hard to Christianize the Germans in Europe because they truly believed— they believed like you believe in goodness, in justice, in peace. They believed in war. They truly did. They believed in it. It was a virtue to win at war. It's very hard to undo people's values. And obviously, it didn't do a great job with the Germans. That's the sad lesson. Incidentally, I have pointed out that Heinrich Heine, the greatest German poet who was also a Jew, a secular Jew, predicted 99 years before Hitler that if the cross ever fails, if Christianity ever fails in Germany, Watch out, the greatest eruption of evil the world has ever seen will take place. The only thing that stops the Germans from the greatest evil on earth is the cross. Secular Jew who wrote that, 100 years before Hitler. That's why Jews who root for secularism, for the decline of Judeo-Christian religions, are not wise. Antisemitism is one form this resistance takes. Those who originated this burdensome religion easily became the target of the resentment. One cannot dare— he's a brilliant man, van den Haag— one cannot dare be hostile to one's all-powerful God, but one can be hostile to those who generated him. David, to whom he revealed himself and who caused others to accept him. The Jewish God is invisible and unpenetrable and unrepresentable, even unmentionable, a power beyond imagination, a law beyond scrutiny. He is universal, holding power over everybody and demanding obedience and worship from all. Nonetheless, he entered history and listened to, argued with, and chose the Jews and the Jews alone. No wonder they are the target of all those who resent his domination.

Tomorrow on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

Jews who have no Judaism in their lives, maybe even totally secular, but they want their kids to marry— they insist their kids marry a Jew, and then they wonder why their kids think they're racist. Because it is racist. That's why it is. It's a racist belief. Unless it's— if it's a religious belief, it's not racist. I understand religious Jews want their kids to marry Jews for religious reasons. Totally understood. But most Jews aren't religious and they still want that. Why?

Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.

Andy Crisman of For Him has spent 40-plus years in Christian music, and chances are he knows your favorite artist personally. Now he's bringing you their stories.

I'm Andy Crisman.

In his new podcast, One Degree of Andy, he sits down with the voices behind the songs for real, honest, and faith-filled conversations you won't hear anywhere else. That's That's a great question. If you love Christian music, this is your backstage pass to One Degree of Andy podcast. Listen now to One Degree of Andy wherever you get your podcasts.