# \#270 – David Wolpe — Judaism **Covers**:: **Source**:: [\#270 – David Wolpe — Judaism](https://share.snipd.com/episode/589b6c88-eb69-48a5-a8c8-cfa74711dd2c) **Creator**:: [[Lex Fridman Podcast]] # Highlights ##### ^300736388 Goto: https://share.snipd.com/snip/2618f788-37b2-4109-b519-f5919a605372 ###### ^300736388q What will society look like without religion? Summary: I think Nietzsche was largely right. You know, it wasn't a statement about god, it was a statement about god's presence in the world. A, and i think 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 are all here for a purpose, and that there's a god who wishes us to be better. Transcript: Speaker 2 What is the world like when we take religion out of it? Speaker 1 I mean, i think Nietzsche was largely right. You know, it wasn't a statement about god, it was a statement about god's presence in the world. A, and i think 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 are all here for a purpose, and that our lives are inherently meaningful, and that there's a god who wishes us to be better. A, 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 cut flower ethics. That is, we're still living off the morals that religion gave us, but now that they're separate from the oil that gave birth to them, i see them wilting. Speaker 2 Is that kind of optimism for the future of human civilization, you think, is in part grounded in a religious society. Speaker 1 I really do believe that. I mean, it was religion the greeks looked back at tha golden age of the past. It was the jews who said, know, the golden ages in the future, right? It's the messiah. And i think that that idea that weare moving toward something better, which i really believe hum humanity can do, and and absenth destroying ourselves will do. ^300736388 ##### ^300736697 Goto: https://share.snipd.com/snip/51d36f0e-0085-44a4-9d2b-9e2759df8597 ###### ^300736697q The Stranger Vs The Power Of The Tribe Summary: We're here to grow in soul and to grow each other in soul. Yes. I mean, 36 times the tora talks about the stranger. The point is, it's trying to educate people away from their natural inclination towards distrusting and disliking the other. That's really difficult to do. But if you have a tribal passion and not a universal ethic, then you're in trouble. Transcript: Speaker 1 We're here to grow in soul and to grow each other in soul. Speaker 2 Yes. So what do you think the world, if wou just think of this force of nihilism that's contending with the force of faith based optimism? Awhat do you make of the atrocities in the twentieth century? Do you think tat 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 Speaker 1 of the bib think it has to do with a religion that doesn't make ethical demands. That is, for stalen 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 tora 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 Speaker 3 the if Speaker 1 you have a tribal passion and not a universal ethic, then you're in trouble. ^300736697 ##### ^300741844 Goto: https://share.snipd.com/snip/63858371-0fe0-48e3-80d9-f25254588450 ###### ^300741844q What the Torah says about the Torah Summary: The tora is the five books of moses written in hebrew. Ami like most, i think, modern rabbis will tell you that it's a product of human beings. 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 a. It is a holy book. So it has its origin beyond us. But it has things in it that i think, and this is one of the thing that was a huge controversy at my congregation when i started the two same sex marriages. There are some who try to argue that the torrid does not forbid them. Whether it does or not, Transcript: Speaker 2 can we talk about the tora? Yes. What is it? And a, is it the literal word of goda? Easy expessions. Yes. Speaker 1 A, well, the tora is the five books of moses written in hebrew. Ami like most, i think, modern rabbis, non orthodox or non literalist, rabbis will tell you that it's a product of human beings. A, and i believe that they are inspired by god, but it's clear to me that it's a human product. And i think the people who study modern biblical criticism, it's really hard to study modern, modern criticism. It gives a wrong impression. I would take modern scholarship on the bible and not appreciate the fact that its en has levels of language. I mean, it's just like, if you read to day a somebody writing like shakespeare, you would say, this isn't i it's like english as developed. It's different. It's not the english we speak to day. 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 a. It is a holy book. And i the idea that it is, what what you say in hebrew is toramin ashama and natoramisinai. That is, the tor 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, a, one of the things that was a huge controversy at my congregation when i started the two same sex marriages. There are some who try to argue that the torrid 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 Speaker 2 you think that in the scripture, in the words, you can find the kind of spirit that supports the idea of geingmar? Well, that's yes. My my argument is that you criticize the tora by Speaker 1 the tora, that is, it gives you the understanding that you use to evaluate its own claims a and and i think that judaism, by the way, has always done that. Because it's clear that there are things in the tora that the rabbis changed, altered, grew, expanded, diminished. Ai think that's what it is to be part of a living tradition. ^300741844 ##### ^300764549 Goto: https://share.snipd.com/snip/a56a2042-0d4e-483d-8a0b-010887b9ea95 ###### ^300764549q Suffering Has To Be Random Summary: The holocast presents the exact ame theological question as somebody who gets shot on the streets of a city in los angeles, which is, why do you allow some people to do bad things to other people? 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 goin tov. Let everybody have free will, but not notes. Noses don't get free will. So that's one part piece of the puzzle. A, and what makes it unfathomable is when you're actually faced with suffering, these kinds of explanations are obscene. They just are. Transcript: Speaker 1 the holocast presents the exact ame 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 goin tov. Let everybody have free will, but not notes. Noses don't get free will. A, because campodians, they can kill each other, rowandons kill each other, but the noes don't get to do that. So that's one part piece of the puzzle. Speaker 3 A, Speaker 1 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 suffer, 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. A, and and here, my argument is that in some way suffering has to be random in the world because when people say, why to bad things happen to good people? Well, if only good things happen to good people, everybody would be good, butit would have no moral content. The only way you can be good and have moral content is say, i know that i can live a really good life and have really terrible things happen to me none the less. So it feels to me like it has to be a randomlee. ^300764549