David Wolpe: Judaism | Lex Fridman Podcast #270

The following is a conversation with Rabbi David Walpy, someone who I've been a fan of for many years for the kindness in his heart, the strength of his character, and the kind of friends he keeps and talks with, many of whom disagree with him but love him nevertheless, including the late Christopher Hitchens. I will have many conversations like these in the future about religion, about Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and others. looking to understand and celebrate the culture, the tradition and the beauty of the people who practice these religions. I will of course not shy away from the difficult topics. I will talk both about hate and love, about war and peace. This conversation was recorded more than 3 weeks ago. Please allow me this time to speak on what has been on my mind. If this is not interesting to you, please skip. I totally understand. Some people asked me to say a few words on the war in Ukraine. I think my words are worth a little, but perhaps let me try. I considered doing a long solo episode on this war. I tried several times, but it is too personal for now. To give you context, I've been talking to refugees, friends, loved ones in Ukraine, in Russia, in Poland, Slovakia, Malddova, Romania, even UK, Germany, Canada, India, China, and of course the United States. Some of them crying or angry or confused or scared. I'm helping as best as I can privately and I'm hoping to help in the future by traveling to Ukraine and Russia and celebrating the humanity and the beauty of the people in this region. This was all set up both for Ukraine and Russia trips before 2022, including conversations with scientists, artists, athletes, leaders, and just quote regular folks who are equally, if not more fascinating to me. For now, it has become much more difficult, but I'll keep trying to find a way. I was born in the Soviet Union. My roots are both Ukrainian and Russian. And today, and until the day I die, I'm an American. I'm proud of all of this. I hope to keep celebrating the culture and the incredible human beings that make up these nations and humanity as a whole. We're all one people. We're in this together. That's how I feel about the people of these nations. Now, let me speak about those in the seats of power. I condemn all actions of leaders who play geopolitical games on the world stage, disregarding the cost paid in human suffering on the scale of millions. For this reason, I condemn Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. And I condemn many of the military interventions by the superpowers of the world, including by my country, the country I love, the United States, that after World War II has intervened in over 40 nations, with many studies finding that the United States is culpable for an unfathomable number of civilian deaths. I condemn all heads of state who needlessly wage wars watching young men and women burn in the fires they started. I don't understand how humans can be so cruel to each other. Or rather, I understand. But I believe in a future world where this is no longer true. Let me also say a few words of what I hope to do with this podcast. I want to explore the full complexity and beauty of human nature. I believe each of us are capable of good and evil. And I want to understand how the mind and the circumstance lead one to choose the former path or the latter. And I believe conversation is one of the best ways to work toward this understanding. For that, I think I have to not only talk to the most inspiring humans in the world, but also to the most controversial. I will speak with many people who I disagree with, politicians, activists, CEOs, heads of state, with very different opinions on the world. I will try hard to challenge their ideas without closing my mind to the depth and complexity of their perspective and their humanity. My presence in the same room with wildly different people will make it easy for the media and the internet to pick and choose clips and snapshots attacking me for being a shill for one side or the other. I can't defend this point except to say that I'm a shill for no one and that I hope you see the strength of my integrity that I won't be influenced by any of them no matter how rich, powerful or charismatic they are. Like the poem If by Roger Kipling says, "If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with kings, nor lose the common touch. If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, if all men count with you, but none too much." This is a really, really important thing to me that I try to live by that all human beings count with me the same. People have criticized me for wanting to have some of these conversations, like with Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zalinski, and for times in the past speaking about them without the seriousness the topic deserves. For this, I would sincerely like to apologize. I'm disappointed, even ashamed of my frequent ineloquence on these topics. I will work hard to do better. When I'm joking, it should be clear that it's a joke and hopefully actually funny. When I'm being serious, I should speak with care and rigor. I've now done many hundreds of hours of podcast conversation despite my frequent failures in speaking. I hope you know where my heart is. Unfortunately, I think people will take clips of me and use them to attack me. This will happen more and more. I guess there's nothing I can do but send them my love. In the meantime, tried to be a better person and a better interviewer. Let me also say that I like humor, especially dark humor. I like being silly and not taking myself seriously. I will keep taking risks with that, all with a goal of having fun and celebrating humanity at its most absurd and most beautiful. I will occasionally dress up in strange and weird outfits to celebrate the absurdity of life. I will hang out, break bread, and joke with all kinds of people. I don't have to agree with them to laugh with them in order to escape for a brief moment the tension, the conflict, the hatred in the world. Humor just might save this little chaotic little civilization of ours. I love the Ukrainian people. I love the Russian people. And of course, I love my fellow Americans, Californians, and Midwesterners, New Yorkers, and Texans. I love humans. I love life. And I want to share that love with others, with you. If I mess it up, I'm really, really sorry. I'm trying my best. I have no agenda and no one telling me what to do. I feel like the luckiest guy in the world to have all these opportunities and I'm deeply grateful to be alive and to share that joy with other amazing people around me. Thank you for your support, for all the love you sent my way. I will work my ass off to not disappoint you. I love you all. This is a Lex Freedman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, here's my conversation with David Walpie. Let's start with the big question. According to Judaism, who is God? It's difficult because Judaism like any tradition that is thousands of years old and encompasses so many different lands and languages and thinkers um it doesn't give a single answer to even simple questions and to large questions. It certainly doesn't give a single answer. Although Judaism was responsible for introducing the monotheistic idea to the world, it doesn't mean that it's one idea. So if you take mymonities, the greatest sage in the Jewish tradition, um medieval philosopher, he would say that God is an omnipotent, benevolent, intangible, unimaginable God. In fact, he said you can't say what God is only what God is not because you have to emphasize could talk more about that, but basically you have to emphasize the unknowability of God. You have a modern philosopher like Hesshel who says that God is a god of posing which probably would make my monities shiver if he heard such a description. And if you look in the Bible, God is always regretting or having human emotions. So there are so many different kinds of depictions and ideas and there is this tremendous tension between transcendence and imminence. That is in the Jewish tradition, God, God God is exquisitely close. God is imminent. In the Talmud's words, God is as close as your mouth is to your ear. Um, in other words, whatever you say, God hears it. And yet at the same time, God is unfathomably distant. Sometimes when I speak to high schoolers, I will say in the Jewish tradition, think of it this way. When you were 2 years old, you had no idea what it was to be a 15year-old. Not only did you not know, but you didn't know what you didn't know. We conceive of God as being more. The distance between God and human beings is far greater than the distance between a 2-year-old and a 15-year-old. So, when we speak about God, we have to acknowledge how limited we really are. So, okay, you laid out a lot of fascinating things on the table. So, one, the knowability of God. Then this idea of deep feeling which again can can God be operate in the space of feelings too. So not just the mouth and the ear of the senses. Can uh God be known? Can God be felt by this three-year-old in the analogy uh versus the the teenager. So I will take refuge in a beautiful phrase by from Martin Booer another Jewish theologian. He said, "God cannot be expressed. God can only be addressed." In other words, you can speak to God. You can feel a sense of God, but can you begin to comprehend or know God? No. Yseph Cosby, I'm pulling in a couple of uh early Jewish philosophers. He said, "To know God, I would have to be God." But can we get close? Is it useful or is it a distraction to visualize things to embody to create to the uh to attach to the stories some kind of visualizations in our mind uh for example gender he versus she things like this or old man in the sky kind of feeling so it's almost inevitable but I think ultimately you try to transcend it um this was this was the great you know we just read this actually in synagogue the story of the golden calf and the uh the story is that human beings found it impossible to not have a visualization because they had just come from Egypt and in pag in the world of of uh pagan worship everything is it's not that pagans thought that idol was actually God but it represented visually what God was and along comes this idea that God is actually not capable of being visualized which is very difficult and it stretches the bounds of human comprehension, maybe even breaks them. So would you say the the proper way to operate as a human in relation to God is um humility and that you're screwed. You're not able to basically know anything almost anything. Well, the reason that you're the salvation of this is that you can't [laughter] that you can't I was going to say the reason you're not screwed, but then I thought somebody might be upset at a rabbi saying that, so I'm so I didn't say it and have not said it. Yes. Um but but the uh the the reason you're not is that you don't have to have a comprehension of God. You have to have a relationship to God. And those are not the same. I mean to draw an a a a an analogy that is not far from perfect as most analogies are, but this one especially, you have relationships with people who are mysteries to you. You're mysteries to you're a mystery to yourself. Um you can live and love somebody for 50 years and they can say something that surprises you because ultimately we are trapped in here. And when a child first says I, we call that individuation. But what that really means is I I now know that I am cut off from the minds of all other children and all other people. And so you have with God a more intimate relationship because you can believe that God is you are known by God and you have a relationship to God despite the fact that you can't know God just as you can't know others. And some would say to have a good relationship, you want to be constantly surprised, right? You don't want to know the thing. Well, the world, yes, the world that God created is constantly surprising. But and by the way, the the the caveat to this, you know, when I I had all these debates with Christopher Hitchens, and he would always say that God is a greater tyrant than North Korea because it continues after your death. And the idea of being known by God is after all frightening if you think God knows what I think and so on. Um, if your image of God is unloving, can we jump to this? You had friendships and conversations with a lot of the fascinating figures of the past 20, 30 years of the great intellectuals. One of which perhaps one of the greats is uh Christopher Hitchens. What have you learned uh from your conversation, your friendship? So, there are a lot of views he held that I really did not agree with, but he was a remarkable person. That was a good line about North Korea. He was full of incredibly good lines. Well, one of the things I learned was you can't win a debate with Christopher H. One of the reasons you can't win is because he has this British baritone and this ready wit that um because you can't you you can't triumph over laughter. It doesn't matter if your argument is better. If your quip is better, you win. Yeah. And so I remember once we were arguing about free will and he said, "Well, I choose to believe in it." And everybody laughed and that was Yeah. despite the fact that that's not really an argument or like uh I have free will because I don't have a choice. Right. Exactly. And and people should watch your conversation with him. It's great. I mean, it's a it's a kind of David versus Goliath situation. And you're quite uh masterful at uh using charisma and sweet talk. Christopher Hitchens. [laughter] I also genuinely liked him. I I mean I I I spent I spent uh a three-hour um limousine ride with him from one debate to another from from LA to S to San Diego and the entire time his he said we just can't talk about religion. Yeah. So we talked about literature and he gave me a long lecture about scotch. Um he was he was inexhaustible. I mean, not only did he uh I I began I wrote a couple of obituaries about him and one I began with the the um historian Keith Thomas said there are two ways of achieving immortality by doing things worth remembering or saying things worth remembering. And by that standard he did both. I mean he went all around the world to all sorts of danger zones. He knew like the best bars everywhere from Koala Lur, you know, to Beirut to LA. And he could drink all night and write a 2,000word essay on the poetry of Yates and go to sleep. Uh I remember before one of our debates in Boston, he was at the bar and he said, "Come have a drink." And I said, "I'm not going to have a drink before I go to debate with you. What are you crazy?" And he said, "Just have a beer. It's water." Um so he [laughter] was uh uh he really was a constant inexhaustible fountain of uh of intrigue and interest. What kind of things if you can remember if you can mention if you can admit uh to have him enlightening you or helping you change your mind about something in this world. So I think um unrelated to scotch. Oh yeah unrelated to scotch. He convinced me that the idea I mean I had my doubts about it and have my doubts about it but he convinced me through many debates and not only he that the idea that religion makes people better is a is not it's not ipso facto wrong but it's a much much more complicated argument than I wished it to be. So he is, however you conceive of the term beauty, um he's one of those one of the more beautiful humans. Yes. This this weird little earth produced. So how do you explain the atheism combined with such a beautiful mind? So from your perspective of of a man of faith, um how do you think about that? So of the atheists that I have debated um they I think about all of them somewhat differently. So I think that in in some deep way for example Sam Harris is a religious personality. I don't even think that he would he wouldn't like the word religious but I don't even think that he would take issue with that. Um, I think that he would say his is a purely material based spirituality, but I mean his his orientation towards meditation and and appreciation of Buddhism, there's something deeply seeking spiritual about him. Um, with Hitchens, I honestly and and I know that some of his fans will really not like this. Uh, it's not that he was any kind of closet believer. Not certainly not at all. But I almost feel as though he was less a passionate arguer against religion than he was first of all extremely upset by the forms that religion took in this world. And then once he trained his intellectual howitzers on a target, he had so much fun inventing new arguments and and attacking it that I really believe he gets carried away sometimes by his own eloquence and uh and and intellectual range. So for example, the idea that you would call a book that religion poisons everything. Um, I think he did that deliberately, provocatively so that he could defend a proposition that obviously is indefensible, that it poisons everything. Um, so I don't know. I think he had tremendous deviv. That's really what that's what sums him up. This guy loved life in all of its manifestations. And and arguing against something that someone else believed was one of his greatest joys. Yeah. And and of course the practical aspect of that he just saw the powerful and he challenged them with humor. And so absolutely and you know you could argue perhaps that humor is the highest form of what humanity can achieve. Like sometimes maybe us little humans take things a little too seriously. Then sometimes we need to just laugh at it all, laugh at ourselves. And that's probably the the purest form of wisdom. You know, Odin the poet said, "Among the people that I like or admire, I can find no common quality, but among those I love, I can. All of them make me laugh." There you have it. Uh, speaking of people that make you laugh, uh, Sam Harris. Um, he's actually has a really great sense of humor with a very cold and monotone delivery. He's another one that you had um, you're friends with, you have good conversations with. What um where's your fundamental disagreements and agreements with Sam? Sam believes that religion is intellectually indefensible. He really believes it like deep in his soul. Um and and he gets angry at the idea that a proposition should be unchallenged if it offends his sense of logic. Yeah. So he cannot move on until this is dealt with. Nope. In fact, uh I I mean he you know I did a podcast with Eric Weinstein. Mhm. And then Sam did one and Sam said, "When I heard your podcast with David Walpy, I learned stuff about what he thinks that I never learned in my conversations with him because I can never let him make those unfounded assertions without challenging them and you just let them go." Mhm. And I think that there was something to that was like he finds it hard to have a conversation about religion that doesn't arouse his real eye about the harm that he thinks religion does in the world. So it's more about the implementation of religion in the world as it is versus the really fundamental I think he also thinks it's fundamentally intellectually shoddy and disreputable faith. Yeah. faith. I don't know how to put this. I mean, they they're both capable of separating their contempt for religion from the people that they have sitting in front of them. You mean Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris? Yes, both of them. Okay. So, let me You mentioned Eric Watson and people should listen to your conversation with Eric as is a fascinating one. It's great. Uh it's non-standard. It just goes all over the place and there's humor and wit. It it's great. So one interesting aspect that I also learned perhaps not about you but about Eric about both but Eric has a similar thing is with Jordan Peterson which is if you ask him do they believe in God I think they answer they're not comfortable answering that question or they might say no but they're usually just not comfortable answering that question but there's a kind of sense that they would like to live life a religious life as if God exists. I think that's exactly right. I think first of all, Eric has a really deep appreciation of the Jewish tradition. I don't know Peterson. I've read his stuff and I've reviewed his stuff and so on, but I think that Yungians are in their very approach, they believe that myth is the way the world works. And so it's not that big a leap to God, but it's still there's still a distance there. Is it possible to have your cake and eat it too? Is it possible to have the depth of a religious life without believing in God? Like, how do you make sense of Eric Weinstein's uh devout life within the tradition? I mean, I honestly think he believes in God but doesn't believe in God and it's oscillating like it's a quantum mechanical system of some sort. [laughter] Schroinger's God. Um, so [clears throat] I think that he would probably agree with what uh Ellie Weisel said that that a Jew can can be angry at God or be disbelieving of God but is not allowed to be indifferent to God. And I think Eric's not indifferent to God. Um, and and it's different than Christianity. I've had this conversation many times because you can be very Jewish and have deep doubts about theological questions because Judaism isn't a religion. It's a religious family and so you're born Jewish. Like if I said to you tomorrow, if I was Christian and I said, "Oh, I believe in Jesus today and then tomorrow I didn't." I'm not Christian anymore. But if tomorrow I said, "Oh, I don't believe all this stuff. I'm still Jewish." So it's a more complicated um system. Having said that though, I think it's very hard to sustain over generations without some belief that the source of it is beyond ourselves. And and in that sense, as in many others, Eric is unique. Well, he was actually making that claim that we need faith to uh propagate this tradition through the generations. Yeah. So [snorts] without that the traditions crumble. It's a very interesting idea. A very interesting argument for devout faith which is it's a thing. It's a glue that holds a tradition together otherwise like traditions fall apart right so you can't have the intensity um of that tradition. I mean on the other hand you do see tradition I mean Thanksgiving one of my favorite [laughter] holidays. So, I would say traditions that are demanding fall apart. Traditions that that require turkey might not fall apart, but traditions that are that make demands of you that are countercultural or are hard, they fall apart. I think I need to introduce you to some Thanksgiving dinners that that are quite demanding. Getting the family together. You know, there's a [laughter] first of all, I'm a vegetarian, so I'm I'm tough to have at Thanksgiving dinner, but there's a there was a comedian named Kathy Lansman who one year I heard this on the radio and it stuck with me. She said that uh that holidays are a chance to renew your resentments aresh, you know, and that's basically what people do with their families. It's like, I'm going to go [laughter] home and fight with the uncle again this year. I apologize to take a dark turn, but you mentioned uh Ellie Wiselle. I recently saw a picture of Ellie Wiselle when he was uh in the camp when he was liberated. For some reason, that hit hard. Like, you know, I've seen pictures in concentration camps of people I don't know, uh or whose words I haven't really felt and gone through, but for some reason, like here's just a normal person, like a normal body, right? um laying there that just some that that was him. I've seen it. It's and and you see you can see his face, but at the same time you see that this is an amazing and it I think what's so disturbing about it is exactly what you were saying is I've seen a thousand people like this and I know this one and I know what he became. So what about all those other people who look exactly like him who didn't make it out of the camp? You know, maybe it's projection, but it seemed like, and this perhaps is also just combining with man's um search for meaning is it seemed like it was a regular day for them in the picture. It didn't seem like I mean, I'm not sure what I expect to see what suffering looks like, but it's almost like there's no celebration. I've never seen a picture of actually liberation be celebratory. It's true. It's really true. So what do you make sense and I apologize to take a step in into that moment in history. How does how do you make sense of um the Holocaust that uh of Nazi Germany that such things could be committed by human beings to each other? Is it religion? Is it the thirst for power? Is it the madness of crowds somehow carrying us forward? I I mean for me it's multicausal. I don't think there's one reason. So one of the things especially there has to do with the special nature of anti-semitism which is let's put that to one side for the moment. The second is I think human beings are fundamentally split. They are mostly good except when put under certain pressures. My first explanation for hatreds is as follows. go to a playground. What happens when a new kid comes on the playground? Do the other kids say, "Oh, let's go share our toys with the new kid." No, they say, "Oh, who's that stranger and let's go get him?" Because otherness is built into our genetic. I mean, we're tribal by nature, and we see people form tribes all the time of different kinds. Um, I asked you before if you were a chess player and when I was a kid and playing in tournaments and I didn't do it for that long and I didn't do it that well but when I was it was like the whole world was divided into people who could play chess and people who couldn't play chess which is ridiculous if you think about it as though that's the way you divide the world but we we tend to do that and the Jews were always the identifiable other there were Frenchmen and Jews there were Russians and Jews there were Germans and Jews. And the great blessing of America is that there's no identifiable other quite that way. Is that there's all these minorities and no there's not an American and a something. Um but once you have that identifiable other and you have a long history of blaming that identifiable other for all the ills that befall you. Of course people still do try to form you said in America they still try to form other. I mean, immigrant versus uh going been here for a generation. There's so many ways to slice it. We still try to find ways. It's just more difficult in America because there's so many subtribes, hierarchies of tribes and upon tribes. You're absolutely right. And I was moving fast cuz I didn't want to get bogged down in all the very difficult. [laughter] It's true. I tried. You were hoping I wouldn't mention that tribalism happens in America. skating, you know, some when you're on thin ice, your safety is in your speed. Um, so I was trying to move fast. Yeah. But for most of history in in Eastern Western Europe, not obviously in the in Asia, but in Eastern and Western Europe, Jews were the ones who like they're not like us. They're clearly not like us. Um, and so and in addition, there was there's a peculiar quality and I don't know I wonder what you'll think of this explanation. There's a peculiar quality to anti-semitism that is unlike any other hatred that I know of, which is Jews are both superhuman and subhuman. They're vermin, that the Nazis thought of them as vermin, and yet they control the world. And there was an English scholar named Hyman Makabe who said the reason that that's so is the myth that Jews killed God. They killed Jesus. And to kill a god, you have to be superhumanly evil. You can't just be bad. otherwise you can't kill a god. So there is some like supercharged evil sense that people got from that about Jews that still inheres. Yeah, that's true. A lot of the way we formulate the other in terms of tribes is often they're subhuman and they're here to steal our resources like on the playground. But to to be both is [snorts] a is a fascinating construction. Do you agree with Souljier Nitson that all of us have the capacity for evil? 100%. Runs through every human heart. I have no doubt about it. I And I know as you probably do, but I probably know more both because of what I do and because I I've lived a lot longer than you. Um I know a lot of religious leaders who people thought or think are above the human and they are emphatically not. They're not. Some of them have done horrible things and they've used their position to do horrible things. Um, and it's because nobody there is no perfect saint. There's no, you know, I mean, all through history, you discover all these saintly characters that we worship, the people who actually knew them around them, some like them and some didn't. People are complicated, all of us. And the tough thing is the thing that's the toughest for me is it's not very always clear what is good and what is evil because certainly if you just look at history and it's not always propaganda I you know I really believe that some part of Stalin thought he was doing good legitimately. uh and it makes you ask a question of yourself for those of us who want to do good in the world am I actually doing good and that's a really difficult question like in the technology sphere for example in in this dream of creating technology that will do some good am I actually doing good so I have a question about that myself um not about Stalin I'm sure that Stalin thought so Stalin does not does not strike me from what I know of him as somebody given to a lot of self-doubt But the question with AI to me is actually it goes back to the God question which is if we have an appreciation of the limitations of our own intelligence that we know that just like we can only hear certain things and see certain colors. Um how much of the world is inaccessible to us because of the way our brains are constructed? How can we possibly have any confidence that we can create things that in certain ways are far more intelligent than we are and control them the way we think is best seems to me um a hubris that might end up being destructive. Definitely. Well, any any sentence with the word hubris in it is going to end badly when [laughter] implemented at scale. But there is also beauty. So, if you approach it with humility, there is a sense, I don't want to overromanticize it, but there is a legged robot right behind you, which is hilarious. Um, [laughter] so there's um magic. I I don't have kids. I I would love to have kids. Um, but there's a magic to bringing robots to life. Yes. That it feels like you are a mini god, right? because you just breathe life into an entity that operates in this world. Especially when they have legs and they move in this way that's in the case four-legged robots like a dog that I think I don't think I'm overromanticizing it. The feeling is like you would with a child. You just gave birth like holy crap this this is a living thing. I wonder what what he or she are thinking about. By the way, I'm not at all insensible to how remarkable it must feel to create that. I'm actually worried in part about how remarkable it feels to create that because to maintain humility and perspective when it's such a fantastic thing is what's difficult. Um, and I think also because creativity is both is both part of uh what it is to be human and it's very much part of the legacy of Western civilization and the legacy of having a creator God. If you have a tradition where God is known primarily through what God creates. So the first debate I ever had since we talked about humor and God and creating, let me give you my one God creating joke [laughter] because the first debate I ever had on religion and science was with Steven Jay Gould. [snorts] And it it was wonderful cuz he had a deep interest in religion and his interest was actually not to say religion is terrible. Um but uh but I started with this joke and uh and I think it made the debate go a little bit easier. So the time has come when human beings can do everything that God can do and a scientist looks up at heaven and says God look you were great in your day and we thank you for everything you did but now we don't need you and God says really you don't need me he says no we can do everything you did God says everything and human being says yeah we can do everything God says okay can you create a human being and the scientist goes yeah says from dirt scientist goes yeah says okay let me see scientist reaches down scoops up some dirt and God says uh uh uh at your own dirt. [laughter] Yeah. But the idea is that a creator god impels us to create too. But let me bring up ner. Yeah. Who uh proclaimed that God is dead? Um is belief in God slowly disappearing from our world do you think? And what kind of impact does that have on society? You wrote that religion is not our enemy. Before the western faiths captured the heart of our world, there was cruelty, carnage, and destruction. In the 20th century, when religion ceased to be a force of international politics, the scale of human slaughter was far beyond anything human beings have ever known. What is the world like when we take religion out of it? I mean, I think NZ was largely right. You know, it wasn't a statement about God. It was a statement about God's presence in the world. Um, and I think that that's largely true that God is not a force in a lot of Western society. And I believe that if the force of nihilism has no clear counter without an idea that we're all here for a purpose and that our lives are inherently meaningful and that there's a God who wishes us to be better. Um, so I worry a lot about it. And I don't think I think that the sort of optimism that things are just going to get better and better is what one philosopher called cutflower ethics. That is we're still living off the morals that religion gave us, but now that they're separate from the soil that gave birth to them, I see them wilting. So this kind of optimism for the future of human civilization, you think, is in part grounded in in a religious society? I really do believe that. I mean, it was religion that the Greeks look back at a golden age of the past. It was the Jews who said, "No, the golden age is in the future, right? It's the Messiah." And I think that that idea that we're moving towards something better, which I really believe human humanity can do and and absent destroying ourselves will do. You know, I I mean, I'm I'm very excited about the technology that I won't live to see. I think it's fantastic. And that excitement is a kind of religious excitement because there's a reason to preserve this whole thing. Absolutely. Because I really think um I know this sounds this sounds absurdly anthropomorphic, but I really think God is cheering us on. Um I feel like this is why we're here. We're here to grow in soul and to grow each other in soul. Yeah. So what do you think the world So if we just think of this force of nihilism that's contending with the force of faith-based optimism right um what do you make of the atrocities in the in the 20th century? Do you think at its core it's part of human nature and has nothing to do with religion or not religion or do you think you can assign this kind of nihilistic view of the world? I think it has to do with a religion that doesn't make ethical demands that is um for Stalin and for Hitler they both had religions but they were in a sense but they were religions that didn't make ethical demands for the other. I mean 36 times the Torah talks about the stranger. The point is it's trying to educate people away from their natural inclination towards distrusting and disliking the other. And it's a lot of work. That's really difficult to do. But if you have the the if you have a tribal passion and not a universal ethic, then you're in trouble. Well, the Jewish tribe is a very strong tribe. So, how do you make sense of this mention of the stranger versus the power of the tribe, which is the whole point, not the point, but the mechanism of tradition propagates the tribe. So, it's both. I mean, the Torah does not start with Jews. It starts with Adam and Eve. That's a way of saying, "Yeah, this is going to be a story about a people, but understand that prior to a kind of people, there are people. I like I'm a human being before I'm a Jew." Um, and in fact, the Jewish New Year, you know, the Muslim New Year starts with Muhammad's journey and the Christian New Year starts with Jesus's birth. The Jewish New Year starts with the creation of the world. Because the idea is yes this is a particularist tradition but it makes a universal statement which is all of humanity is a child is are in the image of God are children of God. I think that the idea of Judaism was to try to exemplify a certain way of making that statement over and over again. And I want to say one other thing about chosenness. Um that's very named droppy, but when I tell you how I got there, it won't be as named droppy. So my brother is a professor at Emory. Mhm. And so is the Daly Lama actually teaches at Emory, although he no longer does cuz he's too old to go to Emory, but for many years taught at Emory. And so my brother brought us he's the head of the bio of the ethics center at Emory. He's a bioethicist. So he brought a bunch of students to Dharm Salah to meet with the Daly Lama. So I went to India. I was on sabbatical then. Anyway, I met my brother there and and we had a chance to meet with the Daly Lama. Okay, that was the name drop. So we're sitting in the before he speaks to the students. He was speaking to us. But not because I just wanted to make it clear, not because he said, "Oh, I got to talk to that rabbi." Just we just happen to be I happen to glom along with my brother. We sit down. The first thing he says is he points at me and says, "What's this about the chosen people anyway?" So, and he had, by the way, and he had asked that I give a lecture, which I did later, to to the to his monks about how Jews survived in the diaspora. So, it's not like he doesn't know about Judy. He knows a lot about it. But he says to me right away with, "So, I said, "Yes, Jews believe that they were chosen for a certain mission in this world, but that doesn't mean other people weren't chosen for other sorts of things. They certainly I mean, seems to me that other people believe they're chosen for things, too." He burst out laughing and said, "Yeah, we also think we're chosen." So, I think it's universal. No tribe is better than it from a better. No, from a Jewish perspective, uh, you're chosen for a thing, right? U, but that doesn't make you better. No. The only place where the bettererss came in honestly if I'm going to historically if I'm going to be honest was not with the idea that you but it was when Jews were small persecuted the way that you take this sort of psychic revenge is by saying no we're better than our persecutors even you know um but the idea is yeah different people have different missions which is I mean like there was a Jewish philosopher France Rosenwag who used to say he didn't know very much about Islam. He used to say Judaism is the sun and Christianity was the rays of the sun. Like Judaism introduced the idea of God and Christianity brought it to the world. Can you speak to this difference? What is the difference and similarities between Judaism, Christianity and Islam? Um, the religious family part is different and the the greatest difference which I talked about in the Eric Weinstein podcast is that Islam and Judaism are more similar in a lot of ways than Judaism and Christianity. And the reason that that is so is Christianity in its core is not a religion of law. The reason it's not a religion of law is because it grew up in the Roman Empire. So law was taken care of. I mean Jesus didn't have to create civil law because you had Roman law. Muhammad and Moses created a religion in the desert where there was no law. So you have to create a religion of law. Otherwise you have anarchy. And that's why in a lot of ways like there was never a separation of church and state in Islam or Judaism. That was a gift that Christianity gave the world. And it could do it because of render unto Caesar what is Caesars's. But when Moses came along, there was no Caesar. When Muhammad came along, there was no Caesar. So historically, the traditions shaped differently. But all three of them have this core, I think, the single most important statement and insight in all of human history, which is that every human being is in the image of God. And if you believe if you really believe that, that's a transformative belief. So that means you should love, you know, thy neighbor as yourself, as thyself, which comes from Leviticus, comes straight from the Torah. So I don't know if if you know, I've been chatting with Omar Salman. I don't know if you know who that is. He's an imam in Dallas. Uh great guy. I enjoy his interfaith dialogues that he engages in. And uh do you ever do that kind of talk with Christians, with Muslims? Yes, often. Often. Um, I mean I do whenever I at least listen to them in the context of these kinds of conversations, there's so much love and humor and um empathy and appreciation and also ability to make fun of the quirks of the little of one's own of one's own communities, you know, like so it's not, you know, necessarily the depths of the details of the traditions, but you know, these are communities and they're full of people and they're full of weird people cuz we're all weird. weird and so you there is very particular flavors of weirdness that emerge and they can make fun of them um and in that way they can talk about some like beautiful ideas. So I mean I don't know do you engage in these kinds of things what what do you learn from them? Um, so one of the things I learned is exactly what you said. The personalities that you think are unique to your own community. In fact, they exist in all sorts of communities and religious communities in particular draw I think some interesting personalities. Um, and also that the especially as clergy some of the pressures that you feel are shared. Um and and it's weird again it has to do with that tribal association. There's almost like there's an understanding among clergy because they have similar str and it's a strange role in the following way. Um it's one that you never escape. That is you're not you're you're not my lawyer at the supermarket but you are my rabbi at the supermarket. I mean, it doesn't matter why you're there. That's not an escapable role. And every religious leader is aware of that um that strange assumption of of stepping into something that you can never step out of. But you're also the source where people go to to think about the deepest question of our lives and our our universe. And so that's some heavy, you know, when people are suffering, they look to you for answers. I mean, every privilege comes with a cost of one kind or another. The reason you get to be in that role is exactly because you get the privilege of being there at crucial moments in people's lives. I mean, the fact that I get to marry people and get to give eulogies for people and come to the hospital, that's it's inexpressable. I have this joke with uh people that I know that like when I'm sitting on the couch and it's Saturday night, I don't want to get up and go to a wedding. I really don't. I want to sit there and watch Netflix like everybody else. [laughter] But when I'm actually doing the wedding, I'm I always love it. Always, always, always. Um [snorts] and and the reason is that I don't think I mean, yes, people go to you for answers in in calmer conversations. Like if you asked me now like what's my theory of why God allows evil? I could give you a conversation about it. But they really go for presence and comfort, not really for answers. When someone's suffering, an answer doesn't doesn't make them unsuffer, you know. It's just they want to know they're not alone. Yeah. To be heard and just to feel things in silence together. Exactly. Yeah. In terms of uh weddings and marriage, what's the role of that call? I'm just I need to take some notes here. What's what's the role of a rabbi? The role of marriage in in human existence. It is first of all to teach you how to care for someone unlike you, which could be anyone you marry. Um and I think it's to create a home and a family. So there's a commitment to it. So care for a long time. Right. Exactly. And also when when couples come to me and they say we don't need to be married because it really won't change how we think about ourselves in our relationship. I say that's true. It might not. But it will change how everyone else looks at you. Yeah. And because it changes how everyone else looks at you, it changes you. Cuz it's one thing to say this is my partner. It's another thing to say this is my husband. You say this is my husband, that means we've made a real commitment to this. Yeah. What do you um do do you worry that there's a dissolution of that as well in terms of um how you know as as religion dissipates like it it it uh loosens its hold on society, loosens its impact in society. Do you worry about that? I worry about it. Um I do think that it is possible that we're going rather than a dissolution we're going through a transition that is different kinds of families and different configurations of families that is I see some of that but I also do see uh it's less a dissolution of marriage than it is of the idea of commitment and I'll give you like a simple example when I was growing up a player on a sports team was always on that team and you rooted for the team cuz you knew the players for 20 years now. There are very good reasons starting with Curt Flood why why people got free agency and they can move around and it's better for the players. I understand all that and I am not I'm not saying oh they should continue but just like people move jobs and they move sports teams and they change careers they change partners and there is a there's a diminishment of the commitment to commitment that I actually think has serious societal consequences and that that I am worried about. Yeah, there's a there's a cost to that. I don't know what it is about commitment that's beautiful like through because like some of the deepest friendships I have is when we've gone through some together. Yeah. And so like the hard times going through hard times together especially when the hard times are between the two of you that that if I mean that's always a risk but if it if you can find a way through that can bond you stronger. That's the fascinating thing about human relationship. There's no question. And even if it doesn't keep you forever, you still have a connection that doesn't that exists that. So I can give you one. You said what is it about commitment? I'll give you one I think beautiful answer. Someone once asked uh Rabbi Salvatic who was a great thinker and leader in the Orthodox community in the 20th century. They said, you know, I go from religion to religion. I just take what I think is beautiful in it. [snorts] And his answer was that you're treating religion like a nomad. He said nomads go from place to place and they eat what they want and they move on. He says farmers stay in one place. The difference is farmers make things grow. And I think that that's true also when you think about the relationships you have. Things have grown out of the relationships that you've invested in that you farmed basically that can't exist in fly by night relationships. Can you talk about Can we talk about the Torah? Yes. What is it? And uh is it the literal word of God? Um easy questions today. Uh well, the Torah is the five books of Moses written in Hebrew. Um I like most I think modern rabbis, nonorthodox or non literalist rabbis will tell you that it's a product of human beings. Um, and I believe that they are inspired by God, but it's clear to me that it's a human product. And I think that people who study modern biblical criticism, it's really hard to study modern modern criticism, gives a wrong impression. I would say modern scholarship on the Bible and not appreciate the fact that it it even has levels of language. I mean, it's just like if you read today um somebody writing like Shakespeare, you would say this isn't it's it's like English has developed. It's different. It's not the English we speak today. And if you study the Bible and you know Hebrew well enough, you even see that this was written over hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Um it is a holy book and I like the idea that it is what what you say in Hebrew is to hashamay and not toai. that is the Torah is from heaven but it's not from Sinai. So it has its origin beyond us but it has things in it that I think and this is one of the um one of the things that was a huge controversy at my congregation when I started to do same-sex marriages. There are some people who tried to argue that the the Torah does not forbid them. Whether it does or not, it seems to me we understand things that were not understood in the ancient world about gender and sexuality. And so, so you think that in the scripture in the words you can find the kind of spirit that supports the idea of gay marriage? Well, that's yes, that's my my argument is that you criticize the Torah by the Torah. that is it gives you the understanding that you use to evaluate its own claims. Um and and I think that Judaism, by the way, has always done that because it's clear that there are things in the Torah that the rabbis changed, altered, grew, expanded, diminished. Um I think that's what it is to be part of a living tradition. Yeah. You wrote in your book Why Faith Matters quote Walt Wittman wrote that in order for there to be a great books there must be great readers. For a book to remain powerful throughout generations it cannot have a single meaning. Scripture like great poetry is not reducible to other words. That is one cannot paraphrase paraphrase it and capture the totality of its meaning. So how the heck do you capture the meaning of the words in scripture? Is it an ongoing process through the centuries? Yes. Exactly. So it's a continual conversation of sages, scholars, readers, strugglers, seekers, mystics, visionaries, all of them making a contribution. I mean, I write a weekly Torah column for the Jerusalem Post. Now, what is there left to say? But every week, what I do is I start opening books and seeing what people say and it starts to percolate and you realize that you're entering this conversation that's been going on for thousands of years with with remarkable minds and it and it constantly fertile in new insights. So, yes, that's what it is to be part of a tradition. Yeah. Why do people keep uh writing love poems? We should have figured out by this uh by this point already. I use the analogy sometimes of diet books. If any diet worked, there would be one book. There'd be one book and you'd be done. You mentioned this fascinating story that you were part of. You were a part of several controversies in your life. I've had a few. So [laughter] for someone who walks with grace through the fire, you sure have found yourself in a in a lot of fires. one of them uh can you tell me the story of your views on gay marriage the underlying principles that led you to fight this battle of defending uh gay marriage in the Jewish community. So I'm part of a congregation that is really politically split and even and and split not only politically but split um um in terms of origin. We have a lot of Jews from the Middle East, from Iran, a lot of Persian Jews, a lot of Jews uh from from Israel, some from Mexico, from other places, and and many that grew up in LA. And do you have any Russian Jews? The best I have a few I have a few Russian Jews. Not as many as I should, but uh we'll work on that. Um but uh what happened was like increasingly I became uncomfortable with people who would come to me and say um this is the only kind of person I can love. It's not it's not the same question as an intermarriage as a Jew marrying a non-Jew because you could find a Jew to love. You may not have found but you could. And and um that's a whole separate question. But I I would have men in my office primarily some a couple of women. They would say like this is the only kind of person that I can enter into an intimate relationship with. How can it be that my religion has no room for me? And and that was very persuasive to me. So but I knew that it was going to be explosive in my community. Um, when by the way it finally happened, it was literally on the front page of the New York and the LA Times. It was that explosive. So it was not it was not a small controversy. Um, and so what I did was I started to teach classes. Not that many people came about, you know, homosexuality and Jewish tradition and so on. It's funny much much less about lesbianism. Much I'm talking about in terms of the sources and so on. it's almost always about uh homosexuality. So, and then I got ready to send out a letter. Um, and I said to my daughter, who at the time was maybe 10 or 11, now in her mid20s, um, I said, "Look, honey, when you go to school tomorrow or whatever it was, I said, people might be saying bad things about your dad, and I just want you to be prepared for that." Um, she said, "Why?" And I said, "Because I'm going to start marrying, I'm going to start doing same-sex marriages." And she looked at me quizzically and said, "What took you so long?" Yeah. And I thought I really her face was like I said to her, "I'm going to start marrying blondhaired people to brown-haired people." It's like she really did not understand why there was an issue. And I thought that's exactly why because I know that this is it's generational. People are raised with it. They have it deep in there. that it's not really um right. It's just not right. But if you could just look back to that journey, how difficult is it to make these decisions a principle? So because you have to think about that in order to think about such decisions you yet might still have to make in the future. And I will tell you one thing I did wrong with that and one thing I did right. The thing I did right was I waited until in the communities where people objected to it, I had enough people whose kids had come out so that I had parents of kids who'd come out to refer later on other parents to so that they wouldn't feel like they were the only ones. Because once I announced it, as I thought would happen, a bunch of kids came out and said, you know, now the rabbi said this, "Mom, dad, I want you to know I'm gay." Mhm. Um and and when the parents came to me, I could say, "Well, listen, you're not alone. This person also you can go to that." I did right. What I did wrong was I don't think the classes were enough. And I don't think enough people were prepared. And I think part of the explosion was shock. And I should have prepared even more. the words you used to talk about it, the way you thought about it, was it more scholarly in the Jewish tradition or did you um go to the feeling? No, I went to the feeling. I said habrio, which means respect or honor for God's creations um and and caring for other human beings and understanding. Um it wasn't scholarly because I knew that that this the objections were not scholarly objections. Um they were and and I and I had some many I had many beautiful and also painful stories as a result. Some of which can be told and some of which really can't. But what I tried to impress also on people was how painful it is to not be able to tell the world, even your own parents, who you are. And your sexuality is not a trivial part of who you are. I mean, it's it's core to people. Um, so it's one of the reasons why it evokes such reactions. But I but I would say to them the the the same reason that you're reacting so strongly tells you how strongly, you know. Um anyway, it was uh it was a very powerful experience and and and it for that I have you know I have nothing I I feel good about it. Afterwards, I the other thing that I again said to my daughter afterwards, after it all died down and after all the bad things were said, I told her the Churchill once said that it's exhilarating to be shot at without result. You know, if you go into a battle and you make it through and you're still okay, that's good. The problem is when you're in the battle, you don't know. No, you don't know. So, how did it feel like? I mean looking back um you've been you know uh to use the word cancelled a couple of times. Uh I guess when you ask when you're dealing with the most difficult of question how did just as a human being for a community that you really deeply care about some part of it saying that you have failed. I wasn't cancelled the way like I didn't lose my job, didn't lose my home. Um but I hurt people that I cared about. Yeah. And that was the hard like I went into this, you know, to be someone who brings people together. And then I would sit there and and do even now like as you're well aware with stuff that's going on now. Um I sit there and people are really upset at me uh who I either am or used to be close to. Do those people in time come around when you when you look now because those are real feelings in the moment and we can learn that about social media people especially during co there's this intensity of feeling about stuff. Uh and have you learned something about the passing of feeling that turns into wisdom? No question about it. The sermon I gave this Saturday was about how, you know, um, Moses came down the mountain, he saw the golden calf, and he broke the tablets. If he'd sat with it for a little while, he probably wouldn't have broken the tablets. But the instant reaction is always anger. And in our age, unfortunately, the instant reaction gets put on social media forever and ever and ever. And and by the way, once you've actually said that, it becomes harder to back down. If you keep quiet for a day or two, then then you can back down because you haven't put yourself out there. But once you said, "This is terrible what you've did what you did." It's harder to write and say, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that." Yeah. So it almost becomes I mean I actually it's a really powerful uh statement that the downside of saying something on the internet is that um it actually pulls you into this uh current. You both create the current and it pulls you into it to where it's actually very hard to escape. So when two days later you feel different uh there's a momentum. there's now a tribe of people that feel this way and there's a momentum with it. There's a momentum and also you don't want to betray your own tribe because then people will get upset at you. I really think that a lot of the antagonism is not so much that you don't want to give ground to the people who oppose you. It's that you don't want to break with the people who are behind you. Yeah. And that's really hard. Can you tell the story of this recent controversy sermon you just gave? You went to the Super Bowl. Yeah, I think a lot of people would relate to this because to me personally, I apologize to anybody who was hurt by this. The absurdity of it is deeply intense. So, here's the story. The LA County mandates masking children in school and all of kids in our school are masked and many of the parents are extremely upset about that. I will just leave that at that. Yeah. Um, I went to the Super Bowl. There were 70,000 pe Lunts, whom we know, wonderful guy, gave me a ticket. Um, said, and so I was at the Super Bowl. I did I maybe saw two masks among the 70,000 people. I didn't even think about it, which was foolish on my part. No question. I took a picture of myself unmasked at the Super Bowl and people were I mean many many people thought oh great wonderful glad you're having a good time so on and so forth I don't want to diminish at all the many people who said that a lot of people were livid they were livid and they weren't um what was what was instructive about it was they didn't say nobody wrote me a private note and said you know I think that this was a bad idea you should have thought about this. No, they were, "You're a hypocrite. You're a clown. You're an idiot. How could you do this? This is a disgrace. This is that publicly." Oh, yeah. On on on my Instagram, you can still see. I left the remarks up because I really thought it was important if I started I only deleted the really vile comments. Um because I thought that shouldn't stay up. But I left them up because I thought like people should see and I should remind myself what I did and I didn't want to just delete the picture as though it didn't happen cuz it did happen and I did do it. And I felt terrible about that. And I felt terrible that I had not not about I mean the comments, believe me, weren't weren't pleasant. I didn't like it. Um nobody likes it. But I felt worse that I had hurt all these people that I'm close to. And I defended all these people who were really upset that their kids were wearing masks and now they their kid says, "Why doesn't the rabbi have to wear a mask?" Well, first of all, it is tough to be a rabbi if this [laughter] is I mean uh the masks to me symbolize these kinds of discussions symbolize not necessarily the issues at hand, but the intensity of feeling. And people are really struggling. People are in pain. They're lonely. there the uncertainty of it. You don't know who to trust. Everything's under question, the institutions, even the scientific institutions, and there's all these conspiracy theories flying around. you don't know who to believe and there's people just yelling at each other and politics is weaved into this whole thing in some messy way and you just get ang I mean honestly it's just like legit simple just frustration going back to marriage of just hanging out with the kids and your wife husband just the stress just building up over time no release and just people want to tell you when the rabbi is not wearing a mask even though It's at the damn Super Bowl made me want to comment on the Super Bowl part, which is awesome. But anyway, but it it released clearly a damn of all the kinds of feelings that you're talking about. So, how do you then write a sermon situation? So I well so what I did was I didn't answer on social media because I knew that I wouldn't be able to formulate it the way I wanted and I was going to wait and I was going to be able to give a longer I mean the sermon is 15 minutes not that long but I wanted to be able to give a longer answer as opposed to um a tweet. And so I was really I mean I tried to make two points during the sermon and I and also I published the text of it which I never do because I never speak from a text. I always speak from either notes or not even from notes. But this time I thought it was really important that I have a text out there too so that people could actually look over it. Um and and I just wanted to make two points. One of which was that I really feel terrible and I did that I all these people were hurt and that there is this you know contradiction between the way I acted and the way they want me to act and I also think by the way I didn't speak about this but I also think that there are some people who just don't like the idea of a rabbi being at the Super Bowl. It's like you're supposed to be doing rabbi stuff. So I understand that too. [snorts] But then, but yeah, so but you know, rabbi at the Super Bowl, I mean, you are also I I I'd hate to say it, but there's there's a rockstar nature to you talking to Christopher Hitchens, contending with ideas, inspiring so many other minds. I mean, there's an educational aspect to this. I appreciate that. It's making ideas cool. I mean, that's a very powerful that I mean, that is also the job of a rabbi. You're not just supposed to do rabbi stuff. It's educate. Yeah. But I didn't do so much of that, you know, at the game. So um I see [laughter] nonetheless. So but the second part of it was I said that we have to be able to express our anger and disappointment better than this. You just have to in part because it doesn't get you the result that you want. I mean when you scream at someone that's not going to get them to realize what they did. Um and and the the most painful um moment of it was this letter that I got from a Christian pastor who said, you know, I always admired the Jews so much. I can't believe they could be so cruel and especially to a rabbi. And I thought that's not how I want my congregation to be perceived in the world. Um and by the way, some of them were from my congregation, some were uh many were not from my congregation. But um but and and I spoke about what you talked about, which is that uh you know, I mentioned before that Moses broke those tablets coming down the mountain and the Torah doesn't say what what happened to the tablets, but the rabbis do. They say that they were carried together in the ark with the second set that was intact. And that we all have brokenness, communities and individuals. We have brokenness and especially now and we have to learn how to give each other space to be mistaken and broken and hurt and all of that. Um and the cool thing when you give people that space you be you feel better. I mean you for caring for the community it feels better when you show empathy and compassion and kindness on the internet. You'll actually feel better a week from now. You'll feel much worse if you make some kind of uh negative statement of principle on the internet. It's almost just exclusively true. So if you care about feeling good, just be kind first, right? Be empathetic first. Almost always the case. Exactly. So um so it's uh I mean it it settled down a lot. Um the most really the single best reaction I there were there are people and you can again you can go on social media you can see all the criticisms and so on and so forth. Um but the single best reaction I got was from a man who came up to me right after the sermon. Um and said I have four words for you and I thought oh no [laughter] was I [clears throat] got to confess. I said I said what? He said, "You changed my mind." And I thought, "Wow." And I I said to him, you know, I that's so it's like to take so much courage to come up to somebody and say that in front of them. And I was so grateful. And the other thing that it tells me is look, I've been the rabbi of that congregation for 25 years. And I taught 10 years before that. I've been a rabbi for a long time. I still I still have a lot to learn. We talked a little bit about the difference between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Could you maybe talk about the difference between the Torah? Sure. The Bible and the Quran. So there's the Hebrew Bible is actually what's called a step cannon. That is there are the five books of the Torah. Then there are books of history and the prophets. Um so books like Samuel, Kings, Judges, um and then the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Ezekiel, so on. And then there are what are called the writings. The writings are books like Psalms, Proverbs, Job, the Mcgillo, which are Esther, Daniel, all of those all of those books. Um Ecclesiastes. Uh so in Hebrew it's called the Tanakh. Torah Naveim Kuvim the Torah the um prophets and the writings and that is the Hebrew Bible. Sometimes that's also called the Torah just to be confusing but really the Torah generally refers to the five books. Then there is the New Testament which the Jews don't recognize as a sacred book. Um they recognize it as the book of another religion. And I sometimes say to Christians in order for them to really grasp this, Jesus has as much religious significance to Judaism as Muhammad has to Christianity. That is Jesus although Jewish became the founder of another religion. And for Judaism, that's not only in as much as Christians and Jews have had a lot of interactions, but religiously Jesus has no significance. Said many beautiful things, said some things I don't like so much. Like what? Like what? Leave your father and mother and follow me. I don't like that as a religious model. Um, now Christians love Christians will say that I don't understand that but they but that's because Christians like Jews interpret their texts different ways at different times. So um anyway uh the Quran which I know less well. I have read it but I know it less well than I know the New Testament and certainly less well obviously than I know the Hebrew Bible. um is a very is in some ways a parts of it are I I I don't say this word I say this word because I can't find a better descriptive word but but Muslims will not accept this okay is a takeoff on the Torah in some things that is it's the same stories as the Torah but they're different now Jews will say and I being a Jew will say this that that's because Muhammad heard those stories from Jews and also heard midrashim which are rabbitic interpretation of those stories and he wrote those down. Muslims will say, "No, the Jews got it wrong and Muhammad came along to correct the record and tell the real story." But they're all telling the story of the same the Hebrew the Hebrew Bible part, the Abrahamic part, they all tell the story of the same characters, but tell them the obviously Christians accept the Hebrew Bible as sacred scripture. Um the Muslims retell many of the stories in the Bible. Uh what is what is common to all of them is that all of them are monotheistic faiths. Now in Christianity that's more complicated because of the trinity. But as Christianity has developed over time, it clearly presents itself and thinks of itself and is a monotheistic faith as well. What's the role of the word in each of these religions in the scriptures? So in terms of so first of all oral the role of oral traditions the power of the exactness of the words in the scripture does it differ or is it really within the communities it differs it differs because in Christianity the words are not all the words of Jesus they're the words of Jesus's disciples none of the books of the New Testament were written by people who met Jesus in person so they're different and therefore the And also we don't even know sometimes the original language of some of the things in the New Testament in the Bible and I understand in the Quran but I'll speak for the Hebrew Bible the idea is that that's lashon that's sacred language and Hebrew is in it that's the language according to the tradition that God actually spoke to Moses and therefore the exact words are infinitely interpretable and meaningful and but the words are spoken But written by Moses and the same with Muhammad, right? But from memory or no, there are different there are different theories. I won't speak for Muhammad. You should ask. I don't want to get I don't want to get that wrong. I don't want to get another religious tradition wrong. In Judaism, the words are written by Moses at God's dictation. Basically, that's the traditional view. There are other views that I I'm happy to go into if you want to, but basically that's the traditional view. So, it's pretty close, right? What makes it different? What makes Judaism and Christianity different is Christianity has an ideal life. Judaism doesn't have an ideal life. Judaism has an ideal book. So the holidays of Christianity are events in the life of God. God's birth, God's death and resurrection. In Judaism, the holidays are all events in the life of the people, like the liberation from slavery or in the people's relationship to God, like Yom Kipur, which is a day of atonement. But there are no holidays in Judaism that are events in the life of God because in Judaism, God doesn't have a biography. God is eternal and God never came to earth. And those events carry with them traditions and rules that you're to follow. Yes. Let me mention on one such event in scripture yet another time you walk through the fire which is with Exodus. Oh that was the first that was [laughter] and you never forget the first uh one of several controversies. Um you spoke 20 years ago 21 years ago now at Passover and said that that quote the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way it happened if it happened at all. Right. So, first of all, what is Exodus? So, what really happened? Exodus is the liberation of the Jews from Egypt and it is the central story of the Jewish tradition. And as I've said numerous times um in various places, I believe that it's based on a historical kernel. I think Richard Elliot Freriedman may have gotten this right in his book Exodus. It may have been the Levites who left who left Israel. But historically, but the Bible's not a book of history. Um, I don't believe that there were 10 plagues and a split sea and and 600,000 men, which makes about 2 million people who actually, if there were 2 million people, would stretch all the way from Israel to um Egypt alone, were liberated from Egypt. And my point in that sermon was not actually to convince people that it didn't happen. My point in that sermon was to convince people that the historicity of the Exodus is not the basis of the faith of the Jewish people. Well, what does the word historicity mean? In other words, the factuality of it. It can be true without being factual. So, you're not supposed to read it as fact. Well, I don't I don't read it as fact. I don't read it as a history book. I said, "Look, I was talking again to a congregation that had many Iranians. I said, 'You experienced the truth of the exodus in your own life. There was a regime that wanted to destroy you and you miraculously escaped before it did. And so a a a myth um in is something that may not have happened but is always happening. And that's what I would say about the Exodus story. It's not about whether in fact there was a killing of the firstborn. It's about does God deliver? Did God deliver the Jews in ancient times? Does God deliver people in modern times? And that's what the issue is. And and to me, it's uh much the issue of faith is much deeper than the issue of fact. I wouldn't look to the Torah for my science either. What [snorts and sighs] [gasps] are the limits of science in terms of what can science not tell us that the Torah can in terms of wisdom? So the historicity, the facts of things, okay, if if the Torah is much more than that is it's like [snorts] you said myth uh myth is not something that happened but something that is always happening and so presumably it's interacting with the environment of the day to generate wisdom. So you can live a life by Torah. I don't think you can live a life by biology. You can live a life that is informed by the values of the tradition of Judaism and those values. By the way, what science does is it contributes factuality to the conversation and also changes the reality around us. So when you study Talmud on your iPhone, you know, you're still I mean it changes the atmosphere in which you do it, but but the wisdom and the life guidance and the connection to transcendence is something that science doesn't give. So if we now step into returning to our friend Sam Harris and step into this weird place of science and you talked about this where the the kind of the current assumption of science is it's it's a materialistic one. Uh [snorts] so for me obviously AI person this whole mind thing is fascinating like what the heck is going on up there? Uh so how do you explain consciousness? How do you explain free will? Do you think first of all do you think we have a free will and if so what is it? This is where we had the debate um earlier that I mentioned with Hitchens where I think actually neither he nor the moderator understood what I was saying which is I'm sure my inability to express it but he was very focused and delivered on the on the on the humor. Yes. And the wit. Yes. But what I was trying to say is if we're entirely biological creatures, if we didn't choose our genetics and we didn't choose our environment, then there is no space for free choice. I don't understand where it comes in. And I kept asking them that question, but didn't get an answer because I don't think there is an answer. I think if you're a thoroughgoing materialist, free will is impossible. There could be randomness, but randomness is not free will. It's randomness. I think you need a spiritual um non-material belief in order to get free will. And that's why I believe in free will. Yeah. You were talking about sort of Yeah. And and actually the moderator totally missed your point about the glass of water and basically how what's what's the difference. So to you free will because you could also if it fits into the materialistic picture, it could be just a convenient useful quirk. You would understand this better than I would. I don't understand how it could be a convenient quirk materialistically. I don't understand how to explain it. Well, no, there's, you know, if you study perception, there's all these kinds of illusions, right? We are our mind plays tricks on us uh to make our life easier and more efficient and survive better and all those kinds of things. And so free the the feeling like we have a choice. Oh, that could be an illusion. Yeah, that I understand. Right. But but actual free choice, free will, I don't see where you get it if you're a materialist. I think you have to have a spiritual component. By the way, this I think this is also I think Sam would agree with this. Um I think he wrote about not having not [laughter] having free will. Um and I think if you don't have a god and you don't have a soul that free will is a logical impossibility for Sam, which is fascinating. It's not just that free will is an illusion, but uh the illusion of free will is an illusion. Meaning there's not we don't even experience anything like it. There's no illusion. We're like it's not even on us to be talking about it. We're just we are like the the the the current in the river or something. You were comparing it to the glass. We are just like that glass. So I don't know what we're going on about with this whole free will thing. Uh I mean to you is the free will fund the eye that the young person is born with is that somehow fundamental to religion? I think it's fundamental to Judaism. I I think that the I the idea is that you are the custodian of your soul. And even though I grant that there's a certain over um emphasis in modern society on the individuality of the soul that is we are more interconnected than I think we are we believe um still yeah the eye the idea that every human being is an image of God that I mean that the human being in the Torah is is created singly and again do I really believe there was an Adam and an Eve and a Garden of Eden. No, not literally. But I think that it's it expresses a deep truth about human life. And tied into this is this subject of experience of things which we call consciousness. I mean this is the most fascinating and inexplicable um discussion and again this is a discussion I've had I I privileged to have with Daniel Dennett and could not make any as you can imagine any headway on my uh but he was delightful and and brilliant to talk to. Um I I for me um consciousness is a real thing. I don't know if it is. I mean, I kind of like the pansy psychist, you know, view that there's an element of consciousness in everything that that's con constitutive of reality. Um, but I don't I I'm not wedded to it, but I think that it's um it exists in different degrees in all sentient creatures. Uh I think that anybody who has a pet knows that they have some kind of consciousness except cats. I'm not going to I I since I don't have cats or dogs, I'm not going to. This is another reason people would be outraged. I happen to be Well, I happen to be allergic to both, but I'm very fond of animals. The the thing that so perplexes me about this and and is the denial of the reality of consciousness from people who are fully aware that they're conscious. I don't know how you divest yourself of the most present quality of being a person in your discussions about what it is to be a person. Um, we just don't really have a good sense of the alternative and so you can kind of divest yourself in that way. Well, maybe everything is like this. Maybe we're trying we're over dramatizing this whole thing and we're like every everybody every it seems like every living thing perhaps everything period thinks that it's the center of the universe, right? And so here we are telling ourselves these dramatic big stories about us being special and so on and maybe we need to have a little bit more humility both about the uncertainty and about our place in the whole. any statement you make about something like consciousness has I think a sort of equal level of humility you're saying that you know we don't have it is as not you Lex but you person saying we don't have it is as intellectually arrogant as my saying we do so I think for me humility comes in in admitting that we really really have just the tiniest part of the puzzle and and and as you get older at least my experience has been not that you get more answers but that you just see a bigger puzzle. So to me there is less so the questions are fascinating but there's also an engineering practical question and perhaps right I'll ask you a religious one too on this uh point to return back to robots. So how to engineer consciousness? Or I'll just even ask you a very simple question which is um when you have robots that exhibit the capacity to suffer. I found in myself as a human when I see that I I feel something. Exhibit the capacity to suffer or they exhibit behaviors that evoke in you a sense that they are suffering. Those aren't the same things. From my from an observation perspective, they sure as heck seem similar. Do you think they're feeling pain? I don't know what they're I I am observing pain. Okay. It's like when I watch a movie and there's people on screen, some some of them are dressed like Batman. Uh but I but you can make the distinction like if I have a doll and I bend the doll over and it makes a sad face. I know that that doll is not actually in pain even though I am observing pain. The question what's that what the question is when the doll becomes able to remember things about you David right about the experiences you shared right it is able to speak yes and make you feel like there's an actual relationship so that's what I'm asking is at what point do you believe that the and I know that this is an impossible question but at what point do you believe that there is a conscious iousness in there as opposed to just an extraordinarily I mean like when I play chess against a computer Yeah. and it beats me. I'm embarrassed even though the computer doesn't I don't think the computer is going you idiot. [gasps] But it feels that way. Yeah. But there is some part of me that says okay I know that this computer doesn't actually know who I am or care who I am. It just knows how to move the pieces. So at what point do you I mean you're giving me instances it speaks it does this it does this but at what point does that for you cross the threshold into it's actually a sentient being I think the question is whether there is a threshold that could be crossed that's one question and I can answer this because I think it's different from person to person but the chess engine is not at all trying to um to cross that threshold let's just start there and and to me the personal ization which is what's the difference like a a friend that you meet you've shared all these memories and the way they look at you uh will convey in the things they say will convey that they've shared those memories with you they'll be able to uh speak in in a shared humor and the language but really the memories is the big one of having gone through things together I think I would have more and more trouble for example turning off a system that I have been through things with like and by turning off I mean delete all of its memory right if me and the toaster have gone through a bunch of dramatic events and that toaster remembers right there's a certain level to where like it's just me and the toaster in this together at this point [laughter] and uh just to talk about sensience I don't know would you know I don't know it's according to the scripture you can't live by bread alone [laughter] the but I would I mean I know that I know that there's no way to there's no way to determine this but it's still about what you feel yes but isn't that what human relations are also though yes but but we make each other feel it's true but it's true that I have the assumption that you feel somewhat like I do I mean obviously I don't you know and that could be illusion and I know and and I know that you don't feel exactly as I do. Um but I think we have a long at least to me we have a long way to go before the detached part of our brains that is the objective evaluating part as opposed to the emotive it feels this way part believe that that machine has consciousness. I think it's at least without arriving at conclusions it's at least possible that one day we will look back and realized that we have yet once again formed another tribe and that um scripture all along had in it the the ability for humans and robots to have a deep meaningful connection and that through the robot the the life that enters the body of another robot. What's the difference between a biological body and a mechanical one? And that we will see that the fundamental thing is about the um whatever you want to call it, sensience, whatever can permeate an object. That was that was the thing all along. So I I mean and then you'll get cancelled one more time because you because I denied it. Um I I was going to say you'll eventually see because I'll preach I'll preach to the robots. I look I first of all depends how quickly you do it and how much longer I have to live. Um I resist it tremendously but I am also enough of a student of history to know that my instinctive resistance has nothing to do with whether it will come about. Um I have a hard time believing it. We'll see. Can I ask you about this? Um maybe you can educate me. I I tend to believe that we mentioned suffering that there is a connection between consciousness and suffering. That suffering is a fundamental part the capacity to suffer is the fundamental part of being human. I mean we look at when you're not conscious you don't suffer. You know we've had operations where we've been put under anesthetic. We're not conscious and we don't suffer during the operation. If we were conscious we would. Um, but there's also I mean there's a non-physical suffering that is very much tied to consciousness. I can think of things right now that will cause me suffering like pain that I've caused or pain that other people I care about have felt or so on. So I don't see how um I think that way. I I think it's equally true of joy. Joy is also a product of consciousness all tied in in some beautiful messy way with memory and so on that the that we can reexperience it when we recall the memories. Um but why is there suffering? You mentioned evil. Why is there evil in the world? You can uh tell stories about this. Why is there suffering? Why is there evil in the world? Um if there's a god that cares. So let's assume for a minute that every everything was a primitive robot. it would there would be no suffering, but there would also be no growth. And and that implies choices. Like I one of the things that I that I've said that that I know I know why it hurts people and I don't mean it quite the way that but I will say it nonetheless is the Holocaust presents the exact same theological question as somebody who gets shot on the streets of a city in Los Angeles which is God why do you allow some people to do bad things to other people? It's on an unimaginable scale, but it's the same question. And the answer has to be you either allow people to have free will or you don't. You can't say as God, I'm going to have let everybody have free will, but not Nazis. Nazis don't get free will. Um because Cambodians, they can kill each other. Rwans kill each other, but but the Nazis don't get to do that. So that's one part piece of of the puzzle. Um, and and what makes it unfathomable is when you're actually faced with suffering, these kinds of explanations are obscene. They just are. You can't I mean, when somebody is actually suffering, oh, the rabbi said God gave people free will. That's just awful. But there is a second piece to this also, which is that there is natural suffering like children born with diseases or earthquakes or volcanoes or whatever. Um and and here my argument is that in some ways suffering has to be random in the world because when people say why do bad things happen to good people? Well if only good things happen to good people everybody would be good. But it would it would have no moral content. The only way you can be good and it have moral content is say I know that I can live a really good life and have really terrible things happen to me nonetheless. So, it feels to me like it has to be a randomly. Now, that means, by the way, that I've been incredibly lucky. I don't have a good life cuz I was good. I have a good life because I was lucky. And that implies not that I should feel guilty about it, but that I have a tremendous responsibility as a result to other people who aren't so lucky. tremendous responsibility to study the lessons of history to tell the stories of those who were less lucky and to uh draw enough wisdom from them so that we have less cruelty and suffering in the world or have new kinds that get us to improve even more. That's right. Exactly. That we suffer better. Suffer better. For a lot of people, mortality is um one of the very unfortunate versions of suffering, which is that the ride ends in this realm, whatever whatever it is. What do you think of mortality? Is it something you think about? Is it something you fear? Um what do you think happens? I don't after we die. I don't fear it. Uh, first of all, I would say when I was in high school, I think my father actually encouraged me to read this book. Uh, I read Ernest Becker's Denial of Death, which I found and still find to be one of the most profound works I've ever come across. And he convinced me that a lot of what our society is about are ways that we avoid encountering our own mortality, um, our physicality. He I mean one among the points he makes and I'm I'm not quoting him at all directly is like why does everything about our physical body make us so uncomfortable? Everything that comes out of you other than tears is either mildly or very disgusting. Why? Why does that have to be? Why are sex and eating and all the things that are physical surrounded with so much symbolism? I mean what are table manners really? They're like, "We're not eating like animals because we're not eating like animals." And sex obviously has more symbolism around it than anything. And his answer is anything that reminds you that you're a physical body because that's what dies. Your body dies. It decays. It dies. It gets eaten by worms. That you don't want to think about so you deny it. Um I think that part of religion is a confrontation with your own mortality. Um but also a certain transcendence of it because the idea is something about you is eternal. What exactly I don't know. Um and you asked what do I think happens after we die. So I don't know any better than anyone else does. But I will I I'll say two things about it. Um one is that every image of what it's like is foolish. Like Mark Twain has, I think, in Letters from Earth, he says, "We're going to lie on green fields and listen to harp music, which you wouldn't want to do for five minutes while you're alive, but you think you'll be happy for the rest of eternity doing it after you die." So, I don't know. This world was a surprise. So, why shouldn't the next world be a surprise? I have no idea. But I really like this parable that's told by a guy um in uh in a book on death and mourning, by a rabbi in a book on death and mourning about twins in a womb. He says, ' And one of them believes that there's a life outside and the other one doesn't. He says, the one who doesn't says, 'Look, this is the only world we've ever seen, the only world we've ever known. Why do you think there's something out there? He says, now imagine the one who believes is born. Back in the womb, his brother is mourning a death. But outside, everybody's celebrating a birth. He said, "And that's what it's like when you die." And I love that image. The Yeah. The grass is always greener. It's it's the new the new step. But the eternity thing is an interesting one. I I it's yet another concept that I feel humans are fully inequipped to comprehend. Um is eternity fundamental somehow to all of these discussions? I think it is. Well, partly because God is supposed to be eternal and and therefore it moves the mind in that direction even though it is completely unfathomable. Um, you know, cuz sometimes I would say eternity, you said on a green field. Sometimes a moment like a truly joyful moment feels like an eternity. The intensity of it. I maybe eternity is more about stopping time versus extending time indefinitely. And it's something that we just totally can't comprehend us silly humans. All I would say is um the the older you get, the more you're struck by the fact that time does not freeze. You know, people will sometimes say to me, you you'll you haven't aged a day. And then I'll look at an old picture of myself and I'll say that was [laughter and clears throat] very kind of you, but that's not true. It's not true. Um so yeah, I mean I love the idea of, you know, eterning eternity in a grain of sand was how Blake put it. I love that notion. But when you talk about life after death, I really I think that in some ways my fundamental faith isn't is in human beings that this doesn't all disappear that there's something about people that transcends this world. Um you mentioned Ernest Becker in high school and the Mal of Death. Maybe you can mention if you still see truth and wisdom and some of its um some of this idea, but in general, can you go all the way back and tell some of the fascinating story of how you found faith? When I was in high school, I was a really pretty ardent atheist. Um, and I loved Bertrand Russell, who was, for my money, with all due respect to all the the very very capable people that we've talked about earlier, he's the best atheist, pound-for-pound, um, that there was, uh, and a remarkably witty and lucid writer. And I was totally in his thr. And I would I I would read every book by Russell I could get my hands on. Um, and the reason that I did, I have this theory, um, that why do adolescent boys like Mr. Spock and like, uh, Sherlock Holmes, um, I think it's because when you hit puberty, for a lot of us, there's so much discomfort with our bodies that we like the idea that we're just brains. [laughter] I really think so. That's I I had that experience. It's like, I want to just be a thinking machine. I don't want to be a body because my body was making me so uncomfortable. I had all these urges and and and inclinations that I couldn't control. So Russell was perfect and my father who was a rabbi did the very wise thing of buying me some of Bertrand Russell's books which was his way of saying I'm not afraid of him. Um, and actually there was another rabbi. I was at I was at summer camp and I was sitting on the porch of the I remember exactly. Uh, and I was reading Bert and Russell and this guy came up to me. He said, "What are you reading?" I was maybe 16 or 17. I said, "Bertrand Russell." I was spoiling for a fight. And he said, "I'm glad you're reading him." I said, "Really? Why?" He goes, "How old are you, David?" I said, "Whatever." I was 16, 17. He said, "Well, I'd rather you grow out of him than grow into him." [laughter] And you know what? He was actually right because when I started to read about Russell's life, I realized that all of that rationality didn't shield him. He had an incredibly messy life. Multiple marriages, endless infidelities, family members he didn't speak to, didn't speak to him. His, by the way, was raised by his grandparents because his parents had died. and like really not a happy or I I mean a remarkable life but not a happy one. And so I started to like believe that maybe it was possible that people who had faith were not just stupid and needed crutches but but saw something deeper than than Russell did. And the more people that I met that were like that, um, it's funny cuz I always thought, okay, my father is a rabbi, that's great, but nobody else. And, and I think what happened to me was it was not a logical decision to come to faith. It was a sort of opening of my heart. It's like this world is way much more than my mind can capture. And and I kind of felt my way to God. And in the moments my faith, you know, there was a a a rabbi named Rabi Nakman Bratzov. He said he was a moon man. His faith waxed and waned. So sometimes I have more, sometimes less. But in my feeling moments is when I have more. So with your heart open, Yeah. What would you say in your feeling your moments is the most beautiful part about Judaism and your faith? I think the most beautiful part about Judaism is that even though it is filled with humor and wit, it takes life and it takes the soul seriously. it really believes that this matters and that we matter and what we do matters. And I think that that's incredibly important and and especially in a in a world in which young people feel so much like they don't matter. That's an unbelievably powerful message. I mean, you know, it's you don't I I want to say like almost to every to every uh young woman under 30 on TikTok, you don't matter because you're beautiful. That's not why you matter. I hope you know that. You matter because you have a soul. Um, and to every young man who's like nihilistic and doesn't think and just thinks that if they make enough money their life will be fine, I want to say the same thing, which is really that's not ultimately you matter because you're in the image of God. And and Judaism really deeply deeply believes and preaches that. And I think that that's a message that has so much to say to the world. It's like you have to take people's souls seriously. And for all of the difficulty in figuring out all these social questions and what they mean, I just don't want to dismiss people because I disagree with them politically or socially or culturally cuz I think they matter. So ultimately, Judaism has a wealth of meaning. Yes. For human mind. I really believe that it does. I really do. Um and and its meaning and I want to emphasize this is not political. The deepest meaning of Judaism is not political. Well, there is we put politics on top of everything. Exactly. But that's why I want to emphasize it. The deepest meaning is on a soul level. It's not on a on a voting level. Well, that combined with the humor, it's clear to me that Christopher Hitchens should have been a Jew. He was. He actually was. He discovered that in his 30s that his mother was Jewish. That's fascinating. Yep. He actually he has a beautiful essay about it. Discovering in his 30s that his mother was Jewish. Yep. Um so [laughter] so remarkably enough he actually was Jewish. His uh autobiography Hitch 22 is a great read. And I just want to say like what you discover there. I don't know if I'm giving too much away by telling the story of his life. Spoiler alert. What you discover there is that his mother ran away with a minister or a priest and they died in what seemed like was a suicide pact. And so I read it unfortunately after he passed away but I would have wanted to ask him do you think that has anything to do maybe with the hostility towards religion. We are only human. My father I mean both my parents but my father who was a rabbi was such a wonderful warm and loving man. So, I associate a religious figure, you know, with real goodness. And I I'm sorry to return to a darker darker topic, but I really wanted to ask you this. Um, for the current events for a recent event, I mentioned Dallas. Uh, what lessons do you draw from the Dallas Synagogue hostage incident? Well, the week after that, we had active shooter training in my synagogues. One of the things I drew was that security for um synagogues is important. And the second is that the reality of anti-semitism which I had thought had waned when I first began my rabinet. I thought it's not going to be such a big issue. Um, it is like an evergreen issue and Jews and all people of goodwill have to take this really seriously because it has devastating consequences and if the world doesn't know that then it just hasn't been paying attention. So there's anti-semitism at a scale of human to human but there's also like you mentioned politics get mixed up into things nations get mixed into into things impossible to answer but I have to ask. Sure. Um, what do you think about the longunning saga of Israel and Palestine? Will we ever see peace in that part of the Middle East? Well, since I'm an optimist about human um, look, I I mean, I have many many thoughts about I'm a very very strong supporter of Israel. Uh, and uh, and I also feel really for the plight of the Palestinians. I think that there, you know, this is uh this is a a clash of legitimate narratives that is impossible to exactly split the difference of. However, um I know that Israel has made peace with Egypt, has made peace with Jordan, has made peace now with other Arab nations. Uh I don't believe that Israel is unwilling to make peace. And so I think that as difficult as it will be for the Palestinians to come to grips with the fact that the Jewish state is not leaving and is legitimately here as opposed to we can't get rid of it now but we will get rid of it one day. Um if that comes to be and I believe that it will I think not only that there would be peace but I think that those two peoples together could probably do remarkable things in the world. Do you think the source of it is politics? Is it religious ideas? And to flip it, what is the way out? Is it geopolitics? Is it uh you know interfaith discourse and collaboration? Or is it simply the human uh like love? So I think that I I'm not sure that I could give one answer to that, but I will give a piece of an answer. Why did the Abraham Accords happen? The main reason that they happened was because economics overrode ideology. And I actually am hopeful that that's in the end what will happen. that people will say, you know what, we could have such a better life if we put aside the ideological animosities and just created this different kind of Middle East together. Um, I went to uh Dubai to watch the World Chess Championship because I really wanted to see Magnus Carlson play. I thought, you're alive when when you have such a remarkable world champion. Go see him play. So, I actually took myself to Dubai. That's amazing. at for the last couple of games and I watched I and so I wasn't so much I I mean it's not that I'm uninterested in Dubai but I really I went there for the chess thing the expo was also on at the same time and I saw here's this amazing place I came back this guy I know who lived in Dubai for several years and works in the Middle East said to me what did you think of it and I said you know as nice as Dubai it was like very you know very polished very sophisticated very clean very no crime and so on but it was like you know kind of like Las Vegas in the Middle East without the gambling or something like that. He said, you know, and [snorts] he totally changed my perspective in in a couple sentences. He said, I know it seems like that when you come from Los Angeles, he said, but fly there from Yemen or from Riad and it is a miracle. And I thought, oh my god, you're right. It's like what human beings can do if they just put aside their ideological shackles is remarkable. And I'm hopeful that one day that'll happen. economics allows for higher quality of life. You no longer it's the playground analogy you've you said earlier if there's more resources to play with for unfortunately us humans are more willing to play with others. Yeah. And maybe that is the solution. And maybe I mean for me from a technology perspective innovation, engineering helps make everybody's life better. And over over that once people's lives become better, they start to be um have more time to be empathetic and hear and they have more to lose. when you have more to lose, it actually makes you I think um countries are less willing to go to war when they have more to lose and pe and and families want peace when they have when when it's good at home. So I think there's an element of that as well and some of it again taking us back to the other aspect of our conversation is how we're conducting ourselves in conversation online and so on cuz I think actually I'm a big fan of the idea of social media that is a way for us to connect uh together. I think there's a lot of really [snorts] strong ideas how to do that well and clearly the initial attempts that kind of just um open it up wide some of the lesser aspects of human nature can take over right uh when combined with different forces like advertisements and virality and all those kinds of things but overall I love the honesty of the mess of it being presented before us on social media I I part of me maybe because I don't participate it like if somebody is being mean to me or being aggressive and these kinds of things. I enjoy it because it's it's human nature, right? But I enjoy it because I don't respond. I think if I responded, I would get pulled into this human nature and then it's not fun. But I I love the emo like I'll I'll talk to people. In fact, I still visit Clubhouse. I don't know if you know what that is. Sure. Oh, right. That's right. Actually, when I That's how we first met. Well, yeah. Well, I was such a fanboy. I actually when I first heard you and uh I was like I can't believe I guess [laughter] Dr. David W. But uh the Israel Palestine um topic was something that's was very deeply in a heated way uh discussed on Clubhouse. Race relations is a thing that was really heatedly discussed and I now go to Clubhouse to practice Russian. And there in Russian the heated discussion is on basically any topic [snorts] as meaningless or meaningful as you want. and the heat of it just people just screaming and and then calming down and going through the full process. I that that too is beautiful because that emotion is there and if it is allowed to have a voice I think ultimately it's it leads to healing. Um so that that felt really healthy. If we learn how to do that at scale social media I I wish that it were not as algorithmically biased towards conflict. Um, I don't think that that's healthy. But I do I I think it brings a lot of blessings into people's lives if they use it wisely. You know, it can like anything else. It can be awful, but but it can I I've connected to all sorts of people that I never would have known. Um, and that's been wonderful. So, let me ask you the big question of advice. Okay. What advice would you give to young people today? Uh, that were maybe high school, college, thinking about career, thinking about life they can be proud of. So the first thing that I would say is that life is longer than you think it is. Even though I understand the impulse to be in a rush, uh you will have many unfoldings more even than people of my generation did. Unfoldings. That's such a funny word. That's a beautiful word. It feels that way. It's like different [clears throat] aspects of your life will come will will show you different possibilities that you don't imagine at the moment. Um and and I think the second thing that I would say is um I know that this is a very old-fashioned but I would say don't if to the extent that you can read don't just and not just on social media read books learn things that will give you a broader context for your life than just today or yesterday um or the day before. Uh and and I suppose the other thing that I would say is um that to the extent that you can try to develop your own internal metric of both what matters and what is good because you will be exposed to more voices than any generation in history telling you that that's good or this is good or they're called influences influencers but what they are is voices telling you what you should think and what you should believe and so have some internal space where you where you'll be able to say for example I know this person is doing that and it looks great but that's not me you have a community of people that um speak to you with a lot of passion and do you still have that voice in your own in the privacy of your own mind that uh you're able to ignore like for a moment just be with yourself think what is right absolutely and I think it's partly because I grew up without that I mean I grew up with a lot of space in my life and so I had chance to develop that voice that's why I think it's harder for kids today than it was for me I mean I grew up when there were three channels there was three six and 10 there was ABC CBS and NBC and and that was it and you spent and your evenings, you know, playing board games or reading or whatever. And there was a lot of space and we played football in the street and you went on your bike in the morning and nobody worried about you and you came home at night and everybody assumed you were fine. Um, and and so I really feel and also I went into a religious tradition where I feel like I I have the opportunity to judge myself by bigger metrics. Um, and it's still hard. I don't want to. It's not like, oh, it's I I, you know, I wear impenetrable armor. It's still hard. So, how much harder for kids today when they don't have that? You mentioned books. Is there Bert and Russell and Denial of Death by Ernest Becker? Is there books that pop into mind that like had an impact on you? My favorite novel is Middle March. Middle March. Middle March. I remember like I was listening to a podcast. I was listening to one of your podcasts where he said where where your guest said the two greatest novels of the 19th century were uh were brothers Karam Mazaf and uh what was the other one he mentioned I don't remember as well or no I think I was both dust I might have been I don't remember maybe the but anyway but I would say Middle March is up there middle March like presents an entire world and it's written by a woman uh Maryanne Evans who took the pen named George Elliot um who you feel Virginia Wolf said it's the only English novel written for grown-ups. Um you feel the genius in her sentences like the pressure of her intellect in her sentences. It's a be it's a wonderful wonderful book. I love it. Pressure of her intellect. Yeah, you really do. Like [laughter] I also love I love Saul Bellow especially Herzog but but it's a very different kind of uh of thinking person's novel. I read a lot of mysteries um and a lot of other kinds of fiction and literature but in terms in terms of the books that most you mentioned one of them which is Victor Frankle's man's search for meaning um and I also really really love Hesshel's the Sabbath I think it's a beautiful book very it's very short book just as Frankle's book is what do you take from the man search for meaning what what do you take of a human being in in the worst conditions, being able to um non-dramatically yeah, find little joys, find find beauty. And it's it's what I said before about Judaism's advice to to younger people is that it matters. If you believe that something matters, you have enormous [clears throat] resilience. It's meaninglessness that is the greatest threat to a decent life. When people are like deeply depressed, whether it is chemical depression or what they feel like is this is all meaningless. Yeah. And and meaning now obviously chemical depression calls in part for chemical means, but but meaning is the is the great antidote. Um we can talk about what kind of meaning. I mean, there are kinds of meanings that are awful, but but meaning is the great antidote to to a sense that life is just nihilistic and purposeless and and to that destructiveness that I think is too common. Yeah. So maybe [clears throat] maybe the heroic action in Nazi Germany in the Holocaust in the camps is the even not the action but just the realization that every life matters. So here's this really wonderful story that Hugo Grin who was a who was a rabbi in England died I don't know like 15 20 years ago he used to tell he grew up in avitz he was a child there and he was with his father and it was Kaneka and you're supposed to light the candles and his father took the margarine ration and used it as the oil to light the Kaneka candles and Hugo said was scandalized and he said that's our food and his father said what we have learned my son is you can live for 3 weeks without food. You can live for 3 days without water, but you can't live for 3 minutes without hope. Well, hope. Let me ask you, you said meaning. What's the meaning of this whole thing? What's the meaning of life? You're the perfect person to ask this question, [laughter] Rabbi. I believe the meaning of life is for human beings to grow in soul. That's why we're here. And you can do that in infinite numbers of ways, but you're supposed to return your soul like more burnished and beautiful, then you got it. I mean, it's going to have, you know, some nicks and cuts. Um, but that's what it means to deepen and grow it. And you do that, you do that, um, more than anything else. You do that by learning how to love. I mean, that's the principle way I think that you do it. You know, it's interesting because uh for a human, the relationship um if you're a man of faith is is with God, but it feels like love is so richly part of human society that it's not just love with of God, it's love of each other, right? Yep. There's no question about the idea. I mean, in Judaism, that was actually the great innovation of the monotheistic idea. In pagan societies, it was all about how you treated the gods. Monotheism said, "No, God cares how you treat each other." So, it's in fact the mystics used the same kind of um word in Hebrew devut, which means clinging that is used about Adam and Eve. Uh about it says, "Therefore, a man will leave his father and mother and davak with his wife and davva means cling." So, there is an analogy there. Absolutely. Yeah. I kind of I kind of think of human civilization as that um there's that movie March of the Penguins and they're all huddling together in the cold. This is this is fundamentally human is is there's this um just this darkness all around us of of uncertainty, of cruelty, of just we're we're we're it's it seems like everything is so fragile. Uh and we're just kind of all huddling together for warmth. Yes. And that's all we got is each other. So, uh, we started with the the big question of what is God, ended with what is meaning. Uh, Rabbi Wii, I've been a huge, as I've told you, huge, huge fan of yours for a long time. It's such an honor that you so happy to be here and thank you so much for the conversation. Thanks for listening to this conversation with David Dwey. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from David himself. The only whole heart is a broken one because it lets the light in. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.