@@booksquid856 For sure. I'm just saying that because I originally have an Orthodox Jewish background. I kept thinking "this is misrepresenting Judaism" and had to remind myself it's representing a particular interpretation of Judaism.
@@booksquid856i think the problem is within orthodox Judaism ,which currently has a complete monopoly of Judaism in Israel, David's views would be considered not religious at all. He understates the massive devide between orthodox Judaism and the conservative or reformed movement. In fact, orthodox Jews have more in comon with not practicing Jews in Israel that with David.
Alex, you must be commended for your ability to get the very best out of your guests. I would highlight your humility, your ability to have an agenda but not let it dominate, and to subjugate it when necessary for the conversation, and the ability to apologise when you feel you may have pushed too far. Also the fact you show a genuine interest in what your guests have to say. It may seem simple - you genuinely respect and wish to learn from whomever you're talking to despite whatever differences of opinion you might have - though the fact that this is so rare belies that it's not in fact as simple as it seems. There are many subtle layers to the conversational skills you are employing, that allow you evoke fruitful discourse out of such a range of interlocutors. Bravo
You are such an amazingly witty class act. Thank you Alex, but seriously "wow"-ed by your composure and cleverly measured transitions. It's such a rare and underrated skill you have with words and sincere curiosity. I'm truly so impressed by this conversation.
If you don’t take the Bible at face value, you have to come up with a criteria to determine what is accurate and what was inaccurate to god’s will. You claiming “well god wouldn’t have done that” needs to be backed up. And you can’t do that by just pointing out the good parts.
Exactly. Which is why Judasm has enormous and expanding libraries of historic debate, ethical questions, legal precedent and adaptation to accomplish that goal. The Bible isn't the same thing in Christianity. There it merely serves as a closed canon of belief. But in Judasm, the Torah is the central corpus of an ongoing and ever developing inquiry and life as a migratory nation.
@@booksquid856With parts of it inspired or passed down by a god, and centuries worth of discussions and interpretations just being whatever the people think at the time. I mean, valid approach I guess
In fact there are plenty of books (historic, opinion, critique, propaganda) that tell stories of Independence and every amendment. What stories accompany the Patriot Act?
@CoreyJohnsonMusician By "face value" are you meaning literally? As in "if you're not a biblical literalist" then they need to provide an explicit set of rules in which you and all other humans can agree upon which set out the precise interpretation they arrive to their understanding of the nature of reality? I guess my question is, are you a nihilist?
@@thedude9941 it's literally impossible to do so because the "Bible" disagrees with "itself" (pardon the scare quotes, but this is one of those times where its important to realise that "The Bible" with the closed canon we're used to only really came to be well into the common era, and that it's a collection of texts that contain different perspectives from different times)
That could just be a symptom of evolving perspective. Each perspective has the flaw of confusing the next highest perspective with one lower than itself. Especially with a topic such as God, there is a great depth of potential understanding that requires repeated experiences and realizations. If everyone agreed, it would seemingly go against the nature of perspective, human development, and spiral dynamics.
Orthodox Jewish Rabbi here - halfway through, some points for now: 1. It is impossible to speak about Judaism without admitting a premise of a spiritual reality. It would seem obvious, then, that underlying the ethnic, sociological, national, familial aspects, there would be a spiritual/metaphysical one. This is where "Jewishness" is, from the standpoint of the Torah. To be Jewish is a spiritual reality, operating at a soul level. 2. The conversation regarding "chosenness" needs tremendous clarification. Although the interviewee is correct, that the Torah understands "chosenness" as a responsibility/mission, it must be made clear what that mission is. And, if we follow the biblical story, it becomes very clear that it is a polemic against polytheism/paganism. God selected one tribe to serve as a priesthood people, the "firstborn" in the human family to spread a universal religion that at once provides a framework for unity among all people, while respecting the diversity and "specialness" of each nation/religious tradition. It isn't a matter of "whether non-Jews can join if they want" - they needn't! That's the whole idea. We are all humans, all created in the image of the Divine. We are all OK as we are. The Jewish nation is ideally (and granted we have fallen/been forced to have fallen very short of this ideal) intended to minister this truth to the world, a truth embodied in the soaring prophecies of Isaih, Amos, and so many others. Our particularism is to ensure we don't lose this very deep, very nuanced, very precise perspective of monotheism that at once sees the unity within all, while appreciating the contributions of the duality/diversity we encounter in our world/history - thus revealing the Presence of the Creator within His creation, which was always the intention of creation in the first place. 3. How is it possible that the interviewee leaves out the centrality of the Oral Torah to the interpretation of the Bible, and the tradition of "Pardes" (Pshat Rezem Drush Sod - simple meaning, allegory, exegesis, and mysticism) that enable us to approach the entire Torah as literal, while at the same time approaching the entire Torah is myth etc. etc. ? 4. Alex, I suggest you study Hebrew before you trust the very tenuous assumptions of embattled bible critics who suggest that there is a radically different form of Hebrew used in different books of the Torah. It simply isn't true. To liken it to regular English switching to Shakespearean... is egregiously misleading for those who don't know Hebrew.
On your 4th point, there are parts of the tanakh that arent even hebrew but aramaic. If we know that much is true, how hard is it to accept that the different eras of authorship carried a variance in the language?
On your second point, it seems like Jews are doing a pretty fucking bad job of that unless you take credit for Christianity and Islam lol. People converting to Judaism can be converted on one hand. The Khazars some Ethiopians and...? That's it.
I’m a secular Jew and I watch Alex’ content a lot. Thank you Alex for making such incredible content, I have learned so much from your channel and want to show how grateful I am.
I’m curious, can you explain for me what being a secular Jew means to you? I am 16 minutes into this interview, but it is one of dozens I have listened to on the subject. I have also listened to and read many atheists who are religion scholars and speak/write about the origins of religions and their texts. I find it all very arbitrary. Judaism seems very tied to a specific belief system. Beyond that, there appears to be a code or rule that, once you’re in the club, you’re in for life, whether you like it or not… which I honestly don’t think is healthy in ANY religion. It is especially scary in Islam, but that is a whole other topic. So, I’m curious… if someone does not believe in God or the Jewish scriptures and rules, what is the point or reason or pride in identifying as a Jew? I’m not suggesting you should or shouldn’t, I genuinely curious what the reason for that is? I am not religious, nor am I atheist or agnostic. I’d say I do believe in God, in spite of finding nearly every religion I have studied or learned about to be HIGHLY problematic. I believe the universe is like a cake. Even if I don’t know who made the cake, or why they made it, I still think it makes more sense that someone made the cake. I don’t think all the ingredients necessary to make a cake suddenly or slowly appeared out of nowhere and formed themselves into a cake… just because I can’t find any evidence that someone made the cake. In the absence of evidence of a baker, the cake itself is better evidence that someone made the cake than someone didn’t. Anyway, if you read all that, lol… I’d appreciate your thoughts. Thank you 🙏
@@vipnetworkera Muslim is one who adheres to Islam. A Christian is one who adheres to the Christian religion. Judaism is a religion. But Jews are a nation. Not someone who adheres to Judaism. What makes Judaism different than the other religions is that while most religions are open to anyone. Judaism is unique to the Jewish nation. We believe only "citizens" of the Jewish nation are required to adhere to this religion. Jews are an ancient nation. Back 2000 years ago it resembled a normal nation with its own land, culture language. The reason why most ancient nations don't exist anymore is that they assimilated into conquering nations. The Jewish nation did not assimilate like the rest of the nations being that we had our unique religion keeping us together and separate. This actually leads up to Zionism, in which Jews see ourselves as a nation without a land being persecuted by other nations. Zionism, at least secular Zionism sought to make Jews like any other nation with a land culture and language. Which is why the early Zionists hated Judaism and waged somewhat of a culture war in the early days of the state. Because they felt the religion was a threat to the image they wished to create of it being an ordinary nation. They also felt that the cause of antisemitism was because we were a nation amongst the nations. As opposed to being just a different race. A nation in another nation will clash more than a race within a nation. Hence the need for a state. But the short answer to Alex question to the rabbi is that Jews are a nation. Judaism is a religion. The rabbi didn't answer that question well enough.
@@Yemi-gl3qx Jewish identity depends so heavily on her ancient constitutional narratives, the Torah. These expansive narratives force us to take a deeper look at how we interpret any modern campaign. The values of rigorous study, ethical debate, and oneness in Judasm are a challenge to anyone who is asleep in their thinking. Many people don't want to think. And many tyrants especially don't want people to think. So even though the religious community itself can become tyrannical, it was meant to be part of a context of internal contest, something which the secular Jewish world needs to somehow master and join. There is no possible way to erase persecution of the Jews based on assimilation nor retreat into a singular physical location, because again these unique values startle people and hold them accountable to something outside their present day assumptions. I have found that even going to the home of a group of Christians that they were deeply threatened and offended by my very existence as a modern day human that I did not exist as the two dimensional figure of their gospel narrative. Reality alone threatens people. There seems no way around that unfortunately. When you think about it, there are certain parts of the body that do difficult tasks we take for granted and we may even blame them for our problems...like the liver, for example. We use the term "liver failure" when in reality some poor choices and habits are often the source of failure. So maybe we go about trying to sanitize germs instead of boost our immune system and change habits of thinking. It's the same way we unfortunately tend to look at things in relationships with other people and nations too. People are so quick to jump on the bandwagon of blaming a boogeyman they think exists somewhere outside themselves.
@@Yemi-gl3qx Judasm centers around study, ethical debate, and oneness as a people based on ancient constitutional narratives. Regardless of assimilation and location, people are threatened by such things that even slightly challenge their assumptions. Going to the home of some Christians recently, I was shocked at how threatened and offended they were by my very existence as a modern human--as someone who did NOT fit the shallow mold of their gospel characters. So I had to ask...why? Maybe people would rather think superficially and assume that they have all the answers. Judasm is almost entirely about asking more questions and doing so in the context of many that have come before us.
In that case, do you think that it would be fair to say that secular/atheistic jews be less tribal than their more religiously inclined counterparts? I find this topic to be complex, I just want to understand. For some reason, this topic has always been somewhat difficult to navigate.
@oscarpaez123 really insightful question. I'm NOT an expert (minored in philosophy and then switched to go the science route) but I would say that tribal identity and religious identity are intertwined but not the same. That's why secular jews are seen as "equally jewish." They are still in the tribe, even if they don't worship the same god.
@hermitcard4494 this conversation took place back in college, so like 15 years ago, so I'm hesitant to put words in yhe Rabbi's mouth, but I interested him to be using "tribe" in the categorical sense, although I doubt he'd have any cause to question the more litteral 12 tribes.
@@avshalomatI mean yes the beginnings of Ashkenazic diaspora first came up into Europe from the Levant through Rome as a combination of slavery and migration.
Alex seems to be starting a new new atheist movement, and this time it employs the discipline required to actually understand religion rather than to merely "destroy" it. So-called "Hitchslaps" are actually easy to deliver, and even Hitchens admitted that he would sacrifice his argument in order to get a laugh. It is easy to look at any given religious claim and say "prove it". What's difficult is to look at religion as say "what is that? Why do you believe that? Where does that come from?" and to be respectful of someone who thinks about the meaning of life in a profoundly different way. Yes, there was always something off putting about the way that Hitchens approached religion. His default was attack mode. It was like he was stuck in religion and couldn't get out and so he lashed out, and his popularity was due to the fact that others like him felt the same way. I know I did. I was stuck in the Mormon Church when I first saw him. He was all dressed up, speaking on a podium, just like the Mormon leaders. However, he was lambasting Jesus. That juxtaposition of looking the same as Mormon leaders, and yet calling out religious bullshit was refreshing to say the least. He helped me get out of the Mormon church, and so I see him as a force for good over all. However, now that I'm much more mature, I have absolutely no tolerance for the type of atheist that he was (or Dawkins or Harris), nor for the type of atheist I was when I discovered him. Anger towards those who don't think like you will never change their minds. The paradox of persuasion is that if you want to persuade someone of your point of view, the best way is to cultivate understanding, and even love, of their point of view. Hitchens, Dawkins and Harris had no interest in cultivating such wisdom. Alex clearly does.
I absolutely concur. As a muslim, Alex is really the only atheist in this field that I have the utmost respect. His demeanor displayed an effort to arrive in the place of truth, rather than to make things into a competition. I considered myself religious and still be open minded for criticism towards my religion because simply as we all know anything is a subject to criticism, however the vast majority of atheists and theists alike who oppose Islam merely trying to intellectualise their hate rather than presenting a fair critique that meant to build progress. Alex in the other hand, despite being so young, he managed to grow a sense of understanding that these men you mentioned failed to cultivate even after delving into these subjects for decades as their full-time job. I also appreciate how he never speaks in a condescending manner towards the opposition (except Dinesh).
Well said. I am a Christian revert, but I always listen to what Alex has to say because it is well thought out. Just out of curiosity, did you ever look into the Biblical understanding of Jesus since leaving Mormonism? I ask because Joseph Smith changed crucial parts of Jesus' traditionally understood identity. e.g John 1 v 1 describes Jesus as the Logos (or Word of God), but Joseph took this out when rewriting the Bible.
Good points, indeed. Obviously Hitchens/Dawkins/Harris suffer from psychopathic #narcissism (right brain impotence). Accordingly, their overall chronic exercising of "negative emotional affect" is appealing only to people whose locus of identity is localized in the left hemisphere of their brain (as described in the works of Dr. Iain McGilchrist).
God to him is relatively unknowable and incoherent. So, why is belief warranted? We end up going back to what metric is used to determine what is authentic and what's not. *sigh*
@@jasonbrown8155 We as humans have experienced lengthy stories of history that inform what matters to us, whether we pay attention to it or not. Religion makes it more conscious to us but doesn't make it less messy. So it is freeing to know that on the one hand we could never describe a god that was technically indescribable, but we can still investigate more deeply the path our ancestors took and what our own experience shows us in order to find meaning and responsibility.
The Rabbi says he is not a literalist. Fine. But then, he believes some parts of the bible are "sometimes" inspired (29:45), but not all. How will he discern, what is inspired and what is not? Were the ~613 laws inspired? Or merely what people understood that God might want from them, and then uninspired written down, with mistakes included? Their God, who focuses on obedience to the law etc. a lot, lets it happen, that scriptures were recorded uninspired and maybe misleading the people? So does the Jewish God has the will and the power to display himself in clear words? Or how are the believers required and able to follow the "sometimes" inspired laws?? When they can't be sure, which ones were inspired??... I think this is a bit chaotic....
@@tymo747No, you misunderstand Wolpe and his form of Judaism- the rabbi doesn’t claim to have any hidden knowledge, just knowledge you can acquire. Like Brian in “Life of Brian”, he’d say THINK FOR YOURSELF.
Let's respond to the questions: "How will [Wolpe] discern, what is inspired and what is not?" -- He will use the fundamental ethical pillars of a modernist understanding of Judaism (as informed by the Jewish Philosophers like Martin Buber, Jewish Historians like Benny Morris, Jewish Ethicists like Moses Mendelsohn) and evaluate which parts of the Bible align with those perspectives. The value of a belief is in its effects and those that have negative effects are not desirable. "Were the ~613 laws inspired? Or merely what people understood that God might want from them, and then uninspired written down, with mistakes included?" -- The 613 Laws is literally a set of injunctions created by the Rabbis roughly 1000 years ago. Quite a number of the things that the Rabbis designated as the 613 Laws are not things where God commanded someone to do something but reflections themselves of the Bible. If such reflection can be done to even derive the Jewish Law that is currently followed, wht can't Jews today engage in the same process. "Their God, who focuses on obedience to the law etc. a lot, lets it happen, that scriptures were recorded uninspired and maybe misleading the people?" -- Wolpe would argue that God revealed himself and allowed those humans who wrote the Bible to document their understanding of it. There is a meaningful delta between an actual sunset and a written description of it and what it means. More Orthodox Jews would contextualize the passage rather than negate its meaningful divine origin. "So does the Jewish God has the will and the power to display himself in clear words?" -- Power, yes. Desire, no. Judaism holds that a clear presence of the divine would compel belief (in much the same way that the clear presence of gravity compels belief) and to preserve libertarian free will, God cannot display himself clearly. "Or how are the believers required and able to follow the "sometimes" inspired laws?? When they can't be sure, which ones were inspired??" -- The analysis I mentioned above is a complicated one, which is why Jews have always stressed study and education. Following the law requires the fortitude to determine what the law is when it is, in your words "chaotic".
@oremfrien Thank you very much for taking the time and the effort to answer my questions. While I understand the thoughts in your responses, I still wonder for example, that, even if Wolpe is now decerning based on modern ethical pillars of a modalist understanding of Judaism and Jewish philosophy.... when he says God did not give the command for the taking of Canaan, including the problematic manner, but the people understood it to be God's command... isn't that problematic (I mean, this can happen in the future, and harm society a lot). Yet apparently God admitted the Canaanite issue. He did not intervene, so that the supposedly wrong command was not carried out. God has the power, but not the will...? Would that mean God is not all-benevolent? I am sorry, I am not so articulate and English is not my native language. I am just so perplexed, that Wolpe seems to say, the Scriptures are not really reliable - yet, their beliefsystem is built on the Scriptures, right? So how can one know, if God commands something or not. It seems a bit careless of this God, not to clearly show his people what he wants/doesn't want. And my conclusion would be... if you have the "maybe sometimes" inspired Scriptures, but one has no real chance to know if sth was truly inspired by God ---> AND you decide on ethical pillars now, is there really a need for the Scriptures.... and this God, if he doesn't even intervene to save his creation? If he doesn't intervene into bad things, and we don't know what he says and commands ---> what is the difference whether he even exists or not, if he is not manifesting in our world in any detectable and at least reliable way? But thanks again for your reply!
@@SeekingTruth2023 Let's respond in kind. -- "I still wonder for example, that, even if Wolpe is now decerning based on modern ethical pillars of a modalist understanding of Judaism and Jewish philosophy.... when he says God did not give the command for the taking of Canaan, including the problematic manner, but the people understood it to be God's command... isn't that problematic (I mean, this can happen in the future, and harm society a lot)." Absolutely. I believe that Wolpe would argue that there are very troubling sections of the Bible. The story of Jephthah was one that kept me up as a child. There are several reasons that these stories are important, though: (1) It prevents the people from having a sanitized view of their past and the arrogance the comes with it, (2) it creates points of conversation and interpretation, and (3) it demonstrates the fallibility of the human-divine relationship, making it something that the religious person always has to tend to. -- "Yet apparently God [permitted the Israelites to massacre the Canaanites]. He did not intervene, so that the supposedly wrong command was not carried out." Correct within the narrative. (Archaeologists like Israel Finklestein argue that this never actually happened because the Israelites never conquered Canaan since they never left Canaan, but that's outside of the narrative.) The answer would be that in order for God to stop the massacres, someone would have to be denied free will and, ultimately, God guarantees that over preventing suffering. -- "God has the power, but not the will...? Would that mean God is not all-benevolent?" Omnibenevolence, like omnipotence, is an incoherent concept and most advanced theologians will say "omnibenevolence to the extent logically consistent". For example, it is loving to affirm someone's actions and it is also loving to confront someone for actions that may be harmful, but both acts cannot be performed simultaneously. A person/entity must choose which forms of benevolence to support. To the extent that God is omnibenevolent, he would prioritize free will over protection. This is what I mean by saying that God has the power (e.g. he could stop it) but lacks the will (e.g. he chooses to preserve people's ability to choose rather than their survival). Note that the Jewish God is very different from the Christian God which robs people of choice by creating eternal salvation and eternal damnation -- neither of which exist in Judaism. Note that the Jewish God is very different from the Islamic God who robs people of choice by using predestination -- which Judaism also rejects. -- "I am sorry, I am not so articulate and English is not my native language." I wouldn't worry about your language skills. You are much more articulate than most native speakers I have engaged with in my life. -- "I am just so perplexed, that Wolpe seems to say, the Scriptures are not really reliable - yet, their beliefsystem is built on the Scriptures, right? So how can one know, if God commands something or not." Quite simply, religious leaders like Wolpe would argue that if you are using a divine morality text as a set of Google-Maps instructions, you're doing it wrong. In Jewish tradition, there is a strong opposition to asceticism (going off into the hills by yourself as a hermit to study the Scriptures and/or meditate for years) because Judaism argues that the meaning of a text requires a community to interpret and discuss it together. It's not about how the text is literally posed but how the community interprets it. Many common elements of Judaism have roots in these community discussions (such as not mixing dairy with white meat and the acceptance of Non-Jewish national laws as being binding unless they compel (a) belief in other gods, (b) acts of murder, or (c) acts of sexual immorality). Of course, the implication is that you don't have a clear "yes-no" answer on most topics that will be firm and unyielding, but since when were the answers to moral questions supposed to be "yes-no" answers? -- "It seems a bit careless of this God, not to clearly show his people what he wants/doesn't want." Rabbis like Wolpe would describe the Bible as a human reaction to divine revelation. Imagine trying to describe a sunset to a blind person. You might say things like "the cascading lines all converge at a central orb" or "the sky becomes filled with the glory of a glowing ball". He could interpret these sentences to apply to Sputnik just as easily as a sunset. I would ask how you would explain the ineffable in words? Perhaps God could, but if He did, how would that not make people incapable of believing in his Divinity? -- "[With the lack of clarity from the Bible] is there really a need for the Scriptures." Yes. They start the conversation; they just don't finish it. -- "and this God, if he doesn't even intervene to save his creation? If he doesn't intervene into bad things, and we don't know what he says and commands ---> what is the difference whether he even exists or not, if he is not manifesting in our world in any detectable and at least reliable way?" All of this is ultimately why Judaism doesn't focus its attention on belief as paramount. As Wolpe pointed out, Judaism values communal affiliation more than belief and the general non-presence of God in the world makes it harder to believe.
@@oremfrien any book that has a moral quandary can start a conversation, you don't have to be bound to just a specific set of books. I can be a fan of Lord of the Rings and join that community to interpret those texts and also be a fan of the Harry Potter and join a separate community to interpret these texts. I agree with @SeekingTruth2023 that there should be no need for Jews to be bound to just these texts, if what they are looking for is the interpretation of these moral quandaries to decide on what is the best way to live your life in accordance to god. If they are not a reliable source of objective truths or laws coming from god, then why give these texts so much importance over any other book? As Sam Harris and others put it, if you or your community get to decide which parts of the bible are something to follow and which parts are not, it is not the book that gives you morality, it is your brain.
@massdebationwhat Alex has that Hitchens didn't, regardless of hindsight, is an ability to comprehend, dissect, and directly address arguments. Coming out of my religious deconversion, I found many of Hitchen's debates and I was left entirely uninterested in listening to him further. I don't really bother with people that consistently demonstrate they're more concerned about making quips than making actual arguments.
One of the things i admire about judaism is how versatile it is. I often change my stance on wether or not god exists, although I am usually more atheistic, but in no point in time am i ever not jewish, and i think that is a beautiful thing
Raised Reform Jewish, lived as ultra-orthodox for 12 years, now deconstructed secular humanist Jew. I have mad respect for Rabbi Wolpe. In my opinion, he did an excellent job of representing himself and Judaism generally. Obviously, many will disagree, but how many other people have had the benefit of both learning in yeshiva and also studying the documentary hypothesis? I’m glad this conversation happened. I’m proud of the tradition in Judaism of critique and skepticism, even if it was strictly proscribed for many centuries.
The documentary hypothesis is a garbage theory that never held any water. See Patterns on Parchment book and many others. Speak to any frum gadol for the authentic mesorah. Wolpe is a nice guy but he's conservative, his knowledge for Torah is nothing compared real Torah gedolim who would never go on a podcast like this, just sayin'. Sorry Alex buddy but if you want answers Wolpe ain't gonna give you them cause he doesn't really know Gemara, Kabbalah, Mesorah, Halacha, etc.
As an agnostic, it's funny, but I gotta say this is the first interview I've watched from Alex with a theist where at points I thought the guest was more on top of it as a speaker than Alex.
I agree. I think it's because Alex is taking a look at Judaism through a definitively Christian frame - hence his confusion in the beginning especially.
I’m a convert to Judaism, and I agree. I’ve often thought that one has to experience Judaism to get it; it’s really tough to explain it to someone who is viewing through an American Christian lens.
Alex, I think u should find an orthodox rabbi to balance out the types of answers you received from Rabbi Wolpe. His personal opinions are not properly representative of the types of answers you would get from an Orthodox Jew (especially chassidic)
I'm an atheist Jew, and I've been following Alex since 2017. Alex was one of the main people who helped me become an atheist (and vegan). I've watched a lot of Alex's discussions with religious people, but they usually come from a Christian perspective, which is a foreign perspective to someone from a Jewish background like myself. That's why I'm really happy that Alex also confronts other religious arguments than he's used to, and I hope we'll see more videos like this in the future!
Same here! While I am an atheist Jew and have been becoming gradually more anti-theist as the years go by, my sister has been going down an orthodox path. Conversations like these help me bridge the gap and try to understand her perspective better (or at least hold more understanding conversations with her)
@@amberkatz1680Why are you becoming anti theist ??? In fact Judaism is what made Jews such a great and prosperous nation and kept their identity together even in well over 2k years of the diaspora all throughout the world, maybe instead of hating the cultural heritage be proud of it, just my 2 cents you can be agnostic or atheist but still be proud of your cultural heritage and accomplishments of your people in history
@27:46 "what they understood God to want of them is not at all what we always understand God to want of us." Well, yeah, of course. One would certainly hope that God doesn't actually want the Jews of today to destroy entire groups of people. The question is whether what they understood God to want of them was ACTUALLY what God wanted of them. @29:48 He's so snarky with that "I don't know how many times.. I've said several times... Nooo," but that literally is the first time he actually admitted that. Before, he just kept reiterating that it was a book written by ancient people blah blah blah, but hadn't yet clarified that he doesn't believe that those commands were actually from God.
From the outset the Rabbi Wolpe described the unbreachable chasm between human thinking and the concept of an unlimited divine being. That by default makes it clear we cannot ascribe god's desire to such statements...unless we understand it to mean an element that exists in the generic will of god for humans to simply decide for themselves what god desires so as to have complete moral freedom. Whether religious or atheist, we make decisions with a mind that both allows us to project into the future and interpret the past. These stories referenced were not even written during the context they claim to describe. Similarly, we tell stories about ourselves on an individual level that reinterpret our past. We judge and act as if our fleeting sentiments align with an eternal higher moral cause or consistent identity...despite all the growth and changes in our lives. So when we ask what "god" wants, Judasm teaches us to investigate our own motives and thoughts. We can be projecting some very limiting and destructive thoughts all to protect a wound we never addressed or a fear we have not acknowledged. Making the unconscious conscious is part of solving that problem. That's why the word for prayer in Hebrew actually means to judge or inspect oneself.
As someone whos born Jewish but not religiously Jewish. How i see what hes trying to say being Jewish is a "tribe" or a "clan" not nessisary a family in the traditional sense
I’m also a devoutly Secular Jew and I’m glad that Alex had made this video. As my adopted grandfather used to say, “we’ve been trying to figure out what Judaism is since that schmuck Moishela schlepped down the mountain.”
The World Health Organization only recommends circumcision in regions where there is a high risk of contracting HIV, based on studies done in Africa. This policy is controversial and saying the WHO recommends it misses a lot of context and is disingenuous.
Personally, I don't think the WHO is that reputable in general. I did however find some research years ago that indicated that the circumcision tradition came from Africa. It seems this is another example of how humans, just like other creatures, really do adapt to our regional differences. We have to do this on more than one level of survival though since so much of our interaction does involve symbolism and storytelling.
@@jozefglemp8011 No. And yet people do things constantly to scar their bodies and others without considering the "morality" of it. For some tribes it is simply a necessity of identity and survival. In which case, morality will definitely be defined according to a different context than it is for dominant demographic suburban Americans. For others scarring is a fashion. I have seen some people get deeply offended by some facets of Latin culture that pierce a baby's ears.
@@jozefglemp8011 I value consent, but I also realize that I value that in a particular context and within limitations. If my child doesn't consent to a safety belt, I will have to override. Similarly, if I was living in a hostile neighborhood and without the trappings of my modern existence, I would have very different priorities. If I were currently living under active persecution as a nomadic nation, I probably would have a different perspective also. There is also the fact that some cultures really do consider it an essential beauty treatment to mutilate the body. I don't agree. It troubles me. But I am certain that much of my cultural attitudes trouble others. Not saying I have answers here. Just saying it is complicated. Rabbi's appeal to the WHO wouldn't be my go to response though since I don't think the organization has much credibility. I also don't think we can or should make decisions for the whole globe. I think we both agree there.
At 33:13 Wolpe says contextually that the average human could never begin to understand god, because of the age difference. This really hit me in a way I never thought about as someone that doesn't believe in any god. Couldn't god practically be a thought experiment of how an infinitely old and experienced being would act in the world? I'm 31 years old now and with every year I become a more peace seeking person. In my youth I thought about it in my small personal circle. Having friends, good relations with family. As I get older these thoughts become more general, more global. I can easily imagine, that with infinite age, this kind of thinking would become eventually universal, "4th-dimensional" and beyond. This is a natural human process if you live in relative peace times. You watch the world and wonder how things could be as good for everyone, as they are for you. God as a being with infinite power always lives in realtive peace. Nothing can harm god directly after all. So, couldn't god (specifically "the good god") be the thought experiment of how an infinitely old, peaceful being would want to teach everyone to behave? Since "god" would be a human concept in this thought experiment, it makes sense that in some cases "religious leaders" might have called for objectively immoral acts, no doubt sincerely believing that their actions are justified for the greater good of their society under "god". Anyway great and insightful interview as always. I've never really informed myself about the "Jews" and how they identify themselves, so apart from this thought-nugget, I took a lot of valuable information from this! Thanks Alex!
I think that makes sense; God is aligned with Truth and with Good, and those are things which greater experience of the world convey. It makes sense that absolute experience of the world conveys absolute truth and defines absolute good, by definition of absoluteness entailing testing every ethical dynamic that ever comes to pass. And it especially makes sense for a community based in a hierarchy where the elders lead.
You might want to learn about Jungian archetypes, particularly the hero, to develop this thought. Jordan Peterson does a lot on this idea of ‘God’ being an amalgamation of everything we might admire in laudable individuals who have come before us.
Considering God's infinite existence, God should be perceived by all as the epitome of moral evolution, yet the Old Testament showcases, Yahweh, a jealous, oppressive despot who seems to enjoy manipulatively lording over the hebrews. Even with their meager lexicon of about 6000 words, the hebrew could certainly write about an illuminary God of love, peace and mercy, and diplomacy amoung all nations, but that's a different kind of God and religion not found in the OT
@@windywindmill98 No. Christ literally told the pharisees that your God is the devil, ergo NOT GOD. The Hindu didn't and don't need Christ to tell them what's good or bad, that's been worked out 1000s of years PRIOR to Christ or the old testament. Only people who have no true knowledge of historical mankind have tunnel vision when it comes to Christianity.
Let's say the God literally promised the land to the Jews. So what? That's not a valid legal argument (which is why no Israeli government has ever used this in a defense of their country's legitimacy). It's also not particularly relevant since Jews have an ancestral civilization there that is relatively well-documented.
Did god really appoint Americans to be a free nation on the eastern sea board, a light on a hill? Did god really call us to manifest destiny? Does the answer to that question in any way erase the validity of our nation and its right to function on current soil? The individuals who brought forth a modern nation of Jordan and a modern nation of Irael are not the same people of some very ancient and fabled past. Britain had a colonial territory that contained mixed groups of people all generically labeled Palstinians. Then two mordern nations were incorporated by means absolutely legimitate in any sense we could say such things. And it wasn't based on a religious story despite lengthy historic connections to a land which like most places is filled with religious sentiment. The stories of the promised land were actually written far after the time period they supposedly allude to and the archeology shows the nation grew very much organically in the region in ancient times rather than by a miraculous deliveranc and conquest. There may have been internal conflicts the stories were based on. Regardless, these are separate times and separate issues.
Archaeology shows the nation of ancient times grew up organically in the region. So the fabled stories of conquest and miraculous deliverance were more likely based on internal conflicts. The modern nations of iRael and Jordan were incorporated according to modern laws. Edit: Regarding Exodus narratives it is worth noting that Egypt was repeatedly an expansive power. So repeatedly "Canaan" WAS Egypt. Just another bit of fun trivia when considering the idea of internal regional conflict.
"Judaism isn't a religion, it's a religious family" "Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship to God" "Buddhism isn't a religion, it's a philosophy" I see a pattern, I mean of course, there is no unifying definition of religion, but still Edit to clarify: I did not fully intend for my comment to be a criticism (maybe a bit, that I confess), but it is more an interesting observation that some people in these formations do reject the term "religion" (like every group, some do, some don't, as no group is a monolith). Now I did personally encouter people which made such statements, so these are things people had said
In our case, we are an ethnoreligious nation. This rabbi is just trying to be more mindfuld of proselytes that have no Jewish ancestry to not seem like he is saying they are less Jewish.
I'm not sure you understand the words you have used to describe these "identity traits".... Not only do I think you haven't understood what he's said, but you quite literally used a word such as "philosophy", whilst obviously not understanding the context, for the usage of the term "philosophy"
When talking about "What is a Jew?" and the ensuing discussion about coverting or deconverting to Judaism, it seems that toward the beginning of the interviewAlex struggles to see Judaism as its own thing. Too many people raised in the pervasive environment of Christianity think of Judaism as "exactly like Christianity but without Jesus." I've only been slowly deconstructing this fallacy in my own thought the past several months.
I would go further and say that Judaism is not only Christianity-minus-Jesus but that many of the hallmarks and beliefs of Christianity are direct refutations of Judaism. Judaism venerates and promotes the ceremonial law as a way to merit salvation and minimizes the question of proper belief whereas Christianity venerates the Sacrifice Upon the Cross as a way to merit salvation and minimizes the question of proper actions. Judaism holds to a tribal organization whereas Christianity sees itself as universal. Judaism is about life in this world and the afterworld is an unimportant thought whereas Christianity is about the afterworld and this life is just a test to gain entry. There are numerous other examples but this should be sufficient to show that these are two very different belief/community systems. Judaism was never waiting for a Jesus. If anything, David Ben Gurion looks much more like a Jewish Messiah than Jesus does.
@@oremfrien The idea that Christians are saved by simply accepting Jesus as the savior is merely one form of Christianity. Calvinists, for example, believed “God chose a limited number of people for salvation at the beginning of time, and nothing a person can do can change their eternal fate.” Catholics, on the other hand, believe you need both faith and good works to go to heaven. Judaism’s take on this is a bit more convoluted. The Bible says all righteous nations and individuals have a place in “the world to come.” Maimonides argued one needed to adhere to the Noahide Laws to be considered righteous. One of those laws is monotheism, which obviously means you have to believe in G-d. But the meaning of “righteous” is STILL an ongoing debate. Some Rabbis argue it means simply seeking and acting according to a system of justice. Yad Vashem anointed gentiles as righteous who resisted the Nazis or saved Jews - which doesn’t fit either definition! Perhaps the most confusing apart about Judaism’s moral philosophy is the demand that people must act righteously without the expectation of any reward, but merely because it’s the right thing to do. This is what Wolpe was alluding to in the undeserved suffering part of the conversation. Interestingly enough, this notion forms the core of Adlerian psychology. Adler, of course, was Jewish. Anyone who has read “The Courage to be Disliked” will recognize this precept.
"Holy scriptures" reflect the human need to grope in the dark for the meaning of life/suffering. This life is a brutal struggle. Who hasn't asked, "Why this?" Whatever "consciousness" is, the urge to know it is universal.
Wow, that's interesting. And tonight, it kind of hit different. And to add to your parabble, I would say that 'Holy Scriptures' also reflect the human need for hierarchy and a big boss descending from the mountain on-high to lay out the law - and the rest is history.
I have always been taught that "Judaism" is the asking of questions while desperately seeking to find the answers, and this desperate seeking is the nature of our journey to find what we call GOD and OURSELVES.
59:45 "As the creator of the West, I think Christianity..." The time of human history where religion held absolute power, is today called The Dark Ages in everyday language. It was a time of death, war, disease and famine. Christianity isn't alone to blame for this, as we saw that in areas where Christianity didn't hold sway, but Christianity did nothing to change that. Things like the revival of classical antiquity, the Enlightenment and the industrial revolution did much more to shape western civilization, than Christianity. Only once we started moving away from religious thinking, did the world dramatically improve. Christianity is 2000 years old, but people only like to give it credit for the last few hundred years - the very time where it started losing influence. Christianity did indeed build things like universities, but they did so in the myopic context of describing God's work, AS God's work. Thankfully universities developed alongside the rest of humanity and, much to the objections of religion, said universities discovered, that God wasn't actually needed to explain the world we live in. Every time a new thing was discovered and explained, the answer was always Not-God. Today you even see universities being accused of brainwashing children, often by the very same people who will happily (and hypocritically) hold up universities as an example, when faced with the question; "What has Christianity tangibly done for Humanity?".
Alex, you are talking about religious topics for 1000-th time, yet this one felt completely different. Rabbi's examples of unnecessary suffering and about friendships made this entire video feel completely different even though you were talking about similar things that you usually do with your guests(the ones with whom you talk about the religion stuff). It was fascinating. Rabbi seems completely sincere and calm and isn't trying to justify the unjustifiable. He made some great points and some points that I haven't even considered. Ever. It felt like a 5 minute conversation, that's how fast the time passed listening to this. Also it was nice seeing you in 2 or 3 instances to actually be surprised, positively, and it seemed as if you've learned something new and got an actually new thought in the topic of religion. Thank you. Greetings from Serbia.
@@tymo747 Sure, partly it's because it's not a Christian nor an atheist, but I've listened to rabbis before, however I never had this kind of new thought even though, generally speaking, I'm familiar with views of Judaism on these matters. For example Shapiro is Jewish and presented different view of the Tanakh, however, I did not hear anything new there, whereas here, I have. On multiple occasions.
It's easy to get excommunicated from Catholicism. Many people who think they're Catholic have been automatically excommunicated. I just requested it to be formally documented. My baptismal certificate was updated to illustrate "renounced Catholic Faith by formal act." Nice little seal on it and everything.
How's the documentation work when two different priests disagree as to whether a given person should have been "automatically" excommunicated? Can a person get the outcome they want so long as they're able to find 1 priest that agrees with them, or is there some reliable institutional process to ensure so-called "eventual consistency"?
The excomunicated are still considered Catholics by the Catholic Church they're just officially excluded from participation in the sacraments and services of the Catholic Church.
@@codegeek98 It's an ideology, not a government (unless you live in the vatican or something). They have no authority to 'keep you in' the faith if you're not interacting with them on the regular whether or not there's a process to "officially" recognize your departure
I liked what Rabbi Wolfe said near the end about the corrupting influence of friendship. I think a great many of the problems in the world can be traced to the fact that loyalty is more valued than integrity. BFF is a positive epithet whereas Goody-two-shoes is an insult. The problem arises when those without integrity take advantage of your loyalty/friendship. There is a saying in America that I have always had an issue with; a friend will help you move, a good friend will help you move a body. I prefer friends that don't need that kind of help.
One thing to note many if not most Israelis would not consider Rabbi David Wolpe as a religious jew. The difference between conservative Judaism and orthodox Judaism is quite wide unlike what the Rabbi wants to claim. Today orthodox Judaism has a complete monopoly over Judaism in Israel. Marrieges and conversions are not recognised by the state unless they are done by orthodox Judaism. Orthodox Jews for the most part believe the old testament is a direct word of God and do not have such pluralistic outlook of the world.
The idea that "many if not most Israelis would not consider Rabbi David Wolpe as a religious jew" and "The difference between conservative Judaism and orthodox Judaism is quite wide unlike what the Rabbi wants to claim" are both inaccurate. Conservative Judaism never really existed in Israel. The divisions of Judaism that Rabbi Wolpe discusses (Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox) make sense in an American context -- and Pre-WWII in a German context -- but really nowhere else. In most places, like Israel, there are Secular Jews, who are less religious than Reform Jews, and Orthodox Jews. As a result, there is a wide gulf but that's not between Conservative and Orthodox but between Secular and Orthodox. The rest is accurate.
@@oremfrien I believe you are very uninformed. In Israel there conservative as well as reformed comunities. They are seen for the most part as non religious Jews, secular Jews in Israel as a whole tend to more identify with the orthodox stream of Judaism than the reformed or the conservative. In America, many secular Jews identity with the reformed or conservative movement for the sole reason that it grants them a sense of cultural community without forcing them to alienate their non Jewish soroundings. In Israel, Jews do not seek a Jewish community their sole interaction with Judaism is through the prism of orthodox Judaism that impacts their day to day life. Culturally, reformed Judaism is seen in a very bad light within Israel especially as the country tends to lean right on political issues that conservative as well as the reformed movement have sought to empower. You tell most Israeli's that a female rabbi exist they will tell that is not "real Judaism". Secular Jews in Israel for the most part tend to be pretty traditional they celebrate the high holidays in orthodox communities, they celebrate their barmitzva within an orthodox environment and so on..
@@dylansevitt You can count the number of Conservative and Reform synagogues in Israel on one hand. To say that in a country of 6 MM Jews that a few synagogues will shape local opinion is bizarre. Orthodox Judaism has a functional monopoly on religion and, accordingly, Secular Jews see that as the antipode.
What do Israelis have to do with this more than other members of the Jewish community? What about Italians or French people or …? Israel is not the Vatican.
@@petermsiegel573 Israel is not the Vatican. It is way more for the Jews. if the majority of Catholics lived in the Vatican, if the majority of Catholic teaching were studied and published today in the Vatican, if modern Catholic thought promoted moving to the Vatican, if the Vatican was tied to catholic culture and history for over 2000 years, if almost all Catholics had direct family and friends or lived in the Vatican then the Vatican would approach what Israel is to the Jews.
As an Orthadox Jew I'd LOVE to see a fully Orthadox Rabbi come onto the show. Probably a Litvish Ashkinaz Rabbi and not Sephardi or Chasidish (although a Chasidish Rebbe would also be very interesting, but it is a whole different matter than a Litvish Rabbi) Edit: I said not Sephardic bc they also have a very different view on Judaism than an average Ashkinazi Rabbi. Sephardim are more spiritual (and a little mystical) and feel no need to justify their faith. They might say "its what my father believed" or might reject the question outright. I do think it would also be interesting to have a Sephardic Rabbi on, but I think the others would be more conducive to a philosophical convo
@user-dz8vs5cj7r I think that's true, but there are many complicated and lofty concepts in Chasidut. It would either become a class on Chasidut, or they would be talking past each other. Or maybe the Chasidic Rebbe can try to answer questions with a watered down Chasidut. Either way, Alex wouldn't be able to fully access the Chasidic Rebbe
@@rain6 As someone whose had much more contact with Sephardim, I would argue that you wanted a religious Sephardi Jew to discuss anything with Alex, it should be someone (as is the Sephardi tradition) who is a lay scholar (e.g. a religious person in the business world as opposed to a Rabbi). I agree that most Sephardi Rabbis would not be in the position to provide a rational-style discourse that Alex would respond to. However, I also doubt that most Mitneged Rabbis of today (as opposed to maybe 300 years ago) can engage in that way either.
@oremfrien The most famous disputation from the Sephardim (and all of Judaism) was between the Ramban and a Christian. I've never heard of sending a non-Rabbi to a debate/ interview. I'm not sure what Mitneged means, but if it is Chasidic, then I think the Rebbeim would be great. Chasidut can be explained as esoteric philosophy/ theology. If it means Ashkinaz, then I think the overall secularization of the Ashkinazim would benefit them in their more philosophical view of things. I do not wish to put down Sephardim. Actually, I think their simple faith is the greatest. Also ofc they also have great Mikubalim, and no one can put one of them down
I have always found that the easiest way to explain Jewishness is to compare it to the Ancient Greeks. Imagine you’re an ancient Athenian; you’re Greek. That means that there’s some sense in which Zeus is one of ‘your gods’. If you suddenly say ‘I don’t believe in Zeus’, you’re still Greek. It all worked in a similar way in the ancient mediterranean: you could be Roman without believing in Jupiter, but he was still one of ‘your gods’, etc. And it works the same for Jews: Jews are a people, and they have a god who is ‘theirs’. Only a bit different with regards to conversion, but if you imagine a Persian person who wanted to ‘become Greek’, that would definitely have involved worshipping Zeus. Becoming a Jew is like becoming Greek: both the people and the god. But the god is viewed as an important part of the people, just like other things could be (e.g. you can become English today, but not if you don’t learn any English)
Anyone who doesn't raise an issue with Christianity's idea of "god's chosen people" isn't paying attention 🫡 I'm still completely baffled that anyone doesn't recognize that the bible is completely made up by people. You can criticize the bible using its own principles because it has no principles! If a book has deep blatant errors, why would you assume that anything in the book is accurate in any way?
A very different take than most Christian apologists (The Rabbi is not a Christian apologist). Just to say that the bible was written by humans from their own understanding and desire would surely engender a lot of scorn from current-day apologists. Alex must ask these questions in all earnestness (he does) because the Rabbi is emphasizing his understanding is not the same as a Christian understanding of the old testament, and I might assume Alex was well prepared for this interlocutor. The Rabbi has debated many well-known atheists and christian apologists, and likely was well prepared with his remarks for Alex as well. The Rabbi puts forth an axiom I've used many times - although not in the context of suffering - 'one's character is determined by how one acts when not in the company of others'. Suffering in the context the Rabbi places it includes the idea that suffering is also part of the human experience, no matter who experiences it, sees it, or knows of it. Had there been an authority who was willing to make these same kinds of arguments when I was a youngster, I may well have developed a different perspective on God and religion. One of your better interviews, Alex!
This is all about making your sect look good from the outside and then doing all kinds of hideous stuff while whose who you consider lesser humans defend you.
I always like listening to guys and gals like Rabbi Wolpe. These guys and gals are so refreshing to listen to! If I grew up going to his sermons or someone like him, I probably would still be going. Not that I'm Jewish, but I've always had a soft spot for the religion. As long as it isn't strict like the Hasidic or Orthodox oppressive kind.
It's a religion, a culture, and an ethnicity. It's a religion because it's a religion. It's a culture, because the people who follow this religion have created a culture, and even if you leave the religion (like myself) you can still be a part of the culture (like myself). It's an ethnicity, because if you're born into this religion, then you're permanently part of it, according to religious law.
I think that this statement describes the ethnic side of Judaism. For example, in my case I can say “I am secular Ukrainian. Being an atheist is really not an issue”. I can guess that for a religious family a person leaving religion will be a big issue in both cases.
One can be genetically Jewish, culturally Jewish, religiously Jewish, or any combination. For example, I am 100% Jewish by blood, I mildly identify with some aspects of modern Jewish culture, but I am completely non-religious. I believe that a majority of Jews fit this description. It seems that only relatively small, isolated factions of Orthodox Jews take the religion and rituals very seriously.
Thanks Alex for talking with Rabbi Wolpe. I tire of discussions with dogmatic religious people. I don't learn anything. This discussion was different. Agree or disagree, it helped me clarify my own thoughts.
Starting at 1:05:04 Alex refers to a conversation between Hitchens and a person whose name he (Alex) can't recall about circumcision. It was Rabbi Harold Kushner.
I'm a big fan of Alex, I have seen every video he has put out in the last 6 months or so. I think this was definitely one of my favorites. I found this Rabbi very intelligent, articulate and sincere. His reasoning for evil in the world was quite compelling.
If I had no other options and had to pick from the three major religious traditions to adopt as my own, I would definitely pick Judaism, for it seems to me to be the most reasonable and compelling of the three. Loved so much of what Rabbi Wolpe had to say here! Great discussion
Catholicism has a similar exegesis on the OT. We don't take it in a literalistic way as Alex does. Alex has a fundamentalist understanding of the OT, particularly on Herem warfare and slavery. Most seasoned Catholic theologians and scholars use the historical-critical methods and other modern scientific methods to understand Holy Scripture and tradition.The Rabbi was amazing.
I can be a "Christian" and not believe that people that don't believe, go to hell. In fact I would call myself a Christian for more than label reasons and like Carl Jung said, I don't believe, I know. But anyway I don't believe in hell. But I do believe in the figure of Christ and a God somewhat as the Judeo-Christian traditions describe. I also believe that whatever God is, justice exists and the injustices we see, get resolution, but I dont believe that involves an eternal hell. I am free to believe what I want, or any mix or construction of believes I make for myself. To me that's most importance lesson of Christ, God is within, and we do not need any priests or authorities dictating our spiritual believes.
The space trip / mourning thing is actually that we feel the loss of someone's potential. It feels good to imagine someone you love being happy in another galaxy. It feels sad to know they can never have that.
Always incredibly impressed with Rabbi Wolpe’s thoughtful responses and nuanced understanding of Judaism and the Jewish Bible. Loved seeing how differently he approached some of Alex’s challenges that really tripped up previous guests. Christian apologists should be taking notes from the Rabbi! Another great interview Alex
55:30 is brilliant. As an atheist, i never really thought about this line of argument. Basically, the christian will have to commit to antissemitism in order to deny the lack of support from the local Jewish community for Jesus' claims.
I appreciate your content! As a former Evangelical Pastor turned Agnostic 6 years ago your content has helped me in my deconstruction and reconstruction process! Keep it up!
It sounds to me like a clan, akin to some Native American cultures. I’m Tlingit and this sounds exactly like how our clan structure works, down to the matriarchal lineage. Even the religious, and ethnicity thing fits. Of course because it has to do with lineage there’s a big overlap with ethnicity, BUT not all Tlingit people have a clan because they were born to a mother without one. There is a sort of pseudo religious tradition among the Tlingit but it has no necessary overlap with clans or ethnicity.
Yeah that’s basically exactly what it is, we usually use the word tribe but nobody seems to understand it well except people who are actually other tribes (or I guess clans)
That was top quality conversation. I wish Alex asked one more question though: if old testament is source of ultimate Jewish morality, and nonliteralist jew excludes part of it, doesn't part of the morality that the exclusions are based on come from outside of the Bible, and it makes that outside morality superior then?
The Jewish constitutional library extends far beyond the Torah. Just as our American legal experience extends far beyond the founding documents we hold sacred. Regardless of whether one is an atheist or not in America or the Jewish people, our national identity still revolves around texts which often do contain religious sentiments. That doesn't invalidate their significance. The arguments within them have been expounded upon and adapted for ages in Judasm.
@@jozefglemp8011 Do you read the US constitution as your sole source of moral inspiration? I hope not. The Jewish world is overflowing with books and inquiry beyond the pages of whatever KJV you have been introduced to. And there is far more to America than any single set of founding documents. So it'a a bit of an odd question that you are asking, but I guess I can imagine where you are coming from since Christians clearly thinks of the Bible as a closed canon of religion instead.
Alex, you are ever becoming a better and better interviewer. Please keep it up. So many religious interviews turn adversarial -- it's refreshing to hear this civil, informative discussion. I am a godfather to a lovely young woman who is patrilineally Jewish, and whose Jewish grandparents would invite me annually to celebrate Seder with them. Obviously, they weren't orthodox because I'm a goy, but since I'm the son of a Free Methodist minister, know the Passover story, can recite the plagues by heart, and can also sing the traditional Jewish Passover songs in Hebrew when they are written out for me phonetically (although I've memorised them by now), I was always welcome. I also sang in Hebrew at her parents' wedding and the reformed rabbi offered me a job as a cantor in his synagogue if I would convert. I would say I know a BIT about Judaism. 🤣 Nevertheless, I found this video both enlightening and entertaining. The both of you taught me something new. Thank you.
Volpe is wrong when he says that people who wrote genocidal passages believed God wanted this; it's more logical to assume that people who wrote and those who kept the words, were motivated by practicalities.
To a lot of people, I think the two are one in the same. If something is practically necessary, there is a lot of lee-way in interpreting that as God’s will.
I don't know how familiar you are with Judaism, Wolpe is quite liberal. And this isn't a "bad" thing per se (I am quite libera), but I find that many liberal rabbis have a difficult time distinguishing between what are merely Englightenment sentiments and actual Judaic sentiments (e.g., what is found in the Torah and Mishnah). It's sort of like if you wanted to do a show about the latest findings in physics and mathematics, and instead of interviewing Roger Penrose you interviewed Bill Nye (that is an extreme way of putting it - David Wolpe is certainly a better choice for Judaism than Bill Nye is for science, but same idea).
I know your post is purposely simplified, but I would say that the the first 'break' is from Temple Judaism to Rabbinical Judaism and then the second 'break' is well, Spinoza. In other words, it's three distinct phases of Judaism, rather than two.
People who say they don't read their scriptures literally often cherry-pick the parts they interpret literally, based on their likes and dislikes, while dismissing the rest. Because if you didn't read anything literally in your special book that you claim you don't read literally, your special book would just be another book you happen to really like. For example, when I read "The Lord of the Rings," I don't take anything in it literally. That's why I don’t associate my own real life story with the made up one in the book and go around claiming that my Hobbit ancestor, the great Frodo Baggins, was chosen to be the bearer of the One Ring, making us Hobbitses after him, the chosen people.
I interpret the events literally so your mind tricks don’t work on me, now if you excuse me I’m going back to work on debunking the theory of evolution
It's unsettling to hear someone intelligent say something obviously absurd as "I don't see circumcision as genital mutilation". The ability of religion to cause such a blind spot to reason is a testament to why we must move past it as a society.
@@forplaylistsetc It’s fundamentally an argument from the reactionary mental illness side of humanity. All religious are delusional but not all are reactionary.
Okay, but think of this another way. People can have very different perspectives for reasons having nothing to do with religion. Many cultures consider what we call "mutilation" to be an essential beauty treatment. And here in America, we don't call cosmetic surgeries now done on any and every part of the body to be "mutilation" either. Or tats. Or branding. See how we use different language for that? On the other hand, I've also witnessed some people offended by the practice of infant ear piercing that is prominent in many Latin communities. We could technically call that ear mutilation. But we don't. Considering all the unhealthy practices in American culture, we may have to start grappling with that first before judging the naturalization process of an ancient living nation.
Hey Alex. This has nothing to do with the video but I just really want to recommend to you to delve into buddhism. I think it's something you'll be very much interested in since the buddhist's teachings are heavily centered around the suffering in life. Thanks for reading!
yep, lost me there too. the divergence from his statement and it being understood is quite revealing as to what is actually going on in the depths of clearly very contrasted psyches.
We may not use the words "special," but we act in accordance with special interests that serve ourselves as a nation and individual. Putting a label on it somewhere doesn't make that the only place where such a universal experience occurs.
@@AquarianAgeApostle In general as humans and a part of any society we function as if our needs and interests are special. Whether anyone likes it or not, evolution brought us to this point. And yet like seemingly every instinct we (as humans) have, we can harness these instincts towards unique goals. In America we harnessed this instinct to work on the problem of equality before the law, for example. Not every nation focuses on the same goal or needs. Everyone instinctively understands their influence and needs as special.
@@booksquid856 i agree that there are tribal qualities that may instill a level of ethno-national pride, myself as a born and raised Scot have strong sentimental appreciation for what other Scots have conrributed to the modern world: whether Fleming and his pharmaceutical innovation in penicillin, or James Watt with engineering, Logie Baird and the TV, indeed A. G. Bell and the phone, Hume and enlightenment thinking of Adam Smith whose contribution to free market capitalism holding a treasured place in economics. Not bad for a nation of a mere 5 million people even you as a non Scot would agree is a marvellous and significant input in the evolution of western civilization. Dare I say giving even the Jew or the Greek a run for their money. that said however, such pride would border on nationalistic narcissism if I were to operate daily with the erroneous worldview that it made myself or Scots as a whole being special to the point of perpetuating a myth of somehow embodying a status tantamount to being a divinely appointed chosen group of people; while every other group, absent of this haughty, grandiose perspective have no such intrinsic worth, and indeed an identity that is not "American", or "Jew," or any other categorisation invented or otherwise. Everyone else is just "other" or "non Scot". That, for me -and arguably for any other rationally minded person with an innate Inquisitive proclivity to challenge such imposed collective societal mythos- as nothing short of utterly weird.
You need to do a series on this topic. There is a lot more to it than David is covering. There should be a debate panel on it. A full length series. Live Q&A
He did mention clearly that he does not view this as the same thing. Female mutilation involves removing the entire cl*t, thus removing all pleasure. The same is not the case for circumcision, at least not Jewish circumcision which is a small ceremonial snip. Still a huge pain though. And there have been debates about updating this to an alternative. Some facets of American Jewry officially abandoned it for a while. It is worth noting that circumcision is a tradition that originates in Africa and that many tribes to this day use various forms of bodily scarring to mark membership. Long ago, and still in places today, people did not have passports and IDs and biometrics and thumbprint scans.
I feel like this is the first time I've ever seen Alex not fully track (at least at a conversational level) the point a guest was making, and thus ask questions thoroughly miss the point. What a wonderful guest to have on, and one that seemed to truly push Alex to see the Abrahamic faith in a fundamentally different way than 99% of the western Christianity dominated discourse
@@jozefglemp8011 Alex was really quite slow to grant the idea of seeing the bible as humans sincerely grappling with god. There were two or three minutes where Alex seemed to struggle to forgo the idea that the fundamentalist Christian reading is in one way the most natural interpretation
@@perplexedon9834 I believe he understood the idea. Alex does this often, asking questions that might seem to be repetitive or circular so that he can have the guest clearly articulate their beliefs and views. I think it's more for the viewers sake than for Alex.
@@acrostiic5623 that is why included "at least at a conversational level". I do think Alex was at least playing the role of a viewer that wasn't tracking what the guest was saying in a way that I haven't really seen before
It’s annoying me now. Why doesn’t someone ask, when told the Bible has been edited over long periods of time and some is outdated, why are they not still editing and improving it? If it was edited why not still? Morality has shifted so much that the update is long overdue. Get inspired and correct the errors.
It has been adapted!-- in countless and growing libraries of legal debate, inquiry, precedent, overruling and adaptation! This is the problem with the world still thinking the OT is the equivalent of Torah. Christians have a closed canon of belief for sharing a religion. While the Jewish nation has a living constitution. It's just like in America that we have volumes of development in our government, but we hold sacred various texts for stating key principles or even key battles--and even some fables--as the foundation to our ongoing and evolving identity. Speaking of edit....as to why the older documents are not edited, there is more reason than the one we have as Americans for not touching the declaration of independence. The Torah is also unique in its original language for being a piece of literary technology very similar to a modern computer programming software like JavaScript. Font size, number, key words, spacing, repetition of words, musical intonation(the only "punctuation") are all used to access different interlinear cross-referencing for the purpose of different types of discussions regarding Jewish constitutional life. That has to be kept precise to work properly. Just like making sure a program doesn't have bugs. So the accuracy of text is nearly worshipped for the basic practicality of that being necessary to use the tool and not just read a bunch of surface narratives. Another reason the OT and Torah are completely different.
@@booksquid856 when was the last time the Bible was updated substantially to remove its awful or irrelevant sections as replace them with something more suitable?
@@Theactivepsychos Read my edited response. Think you will understand better. As I said before Americans live under a living constitution. So does the Jewish nation. We as Americans do not live under the Mayflowe compact or articles of Confederation o even the same ammendments of our early history . Erasing history is a complete disservice to everyone so I don't see how you could want to edit that out. Especially when there are libraries of reinterpretation in both American and Jewish constitutional law.
@@Theactivepsychos I have no need to, since it is a consistent reality. That's like telling Americans they should finally watch presidential debates, light fireworks, and vote. It's like telling us we have opposing parties or groups who think of each other as unAmerican. It's like announcing the IRS has a tax season or the Pilgrims didn't dress that way. We fight each other as Americans and each have different dress and beliefs, but we experience everyday what it means to function as a nation. It's reality. Only someone outside that reality may not understand it. So it is folks outside the Jewish nation who refuse to look beyond their assumptions that are the challenge.
Alex, I urge you to bring on a real Jewish scholar from the Orthodox tradition. Listening to R' Wolpe as someone who grew up Orthodox is like hearing a layman try and defend Judaism, no offense but this is the truth. R' Wolpe is not taught in the authentic traditions of Judaism but rather in a version of Judaism made up within the last 200 years, his understanding of scripture and Jewish philosophy reveals this. Just wanted to give you a heads up so you do not take him as a spokesperson for most of Judaism.
Agree. My thoughts exactly. He was basically saying whatever made sense to him. And what he personally believes. Not what Judaism believes. He's basically a religious intellectual who happens to be jewish
Well...Orthodoxy we have today was also made up in the last two hundred years, basically as a backlash to modern developments. So the timeframe for the development of his views doesn't necessarily delegitimize them. I think he is fully aware of various other perspectives. He gave very well thought out responses that I truly appreciate.
Regarding unjust suffering being a mechanism by which true goodness can exist, I’m not religious, but the following passage from the Book of Mormon resonated with me: “15 Yea, he that truly humbleth himself, and repenteth of his sins, and endureth to the end, the same shall be blessed-yea, much more blessed than they who are compelled to be humble because of their exceeding poverty. 16 Therefore, blessed are they who humble themselves without being compelled to be humble…”
Justlistened to this podcast and it was one of the most interesting, funny and educational conversations I have had the pleasure to enjoy. Allyour podcasts are interesting, funny and educational but your guest was amazing. Thank you Alex, you provide a balanced view of society and the world.
The ‘assumption’ part is really great, Alex, I hope you’ve now wrapped your head around it. The ‘Book of Job’, the ‘moral impulsive in heroic actions’, ‘the boat-sinking analogy of death’, well, all of the following parts are also fascinating, a wonderful guest and conversation! Your penultimate question is really tough but the guest handled quite well. Hitchens certainly won’t win debating him, but is it necessary to comment on another person for this long?
Western concept? Jews had a very clear sense of being a separate ethnic group according to the Tanakh and were proud of that. The basis of judaism is racial, but , given thats not a politically correct stance these days , jews avoid saying that openly. Just try to convert to judaism if you are not an ethnic jew and that will become clear
Inheritance, citizenship, nationalism, differing state and tribal jurisdictions are part of our own national existence in America as well, yet I don't hear anyone decrying it as ethnocentric. Most of us recognize that people of all races and cultures have joined America. What most do not seem to know is that people of all races and cultures join the Jewish nation as well- not only in the stories of the Tanach itself but throughout history and still now today. Yes, ANYONE can naturalize to become a Jew. And people all over the world of different backgrounds do right at this moment. Thus you find Jews of every color, dress, food pallette, and custom. Edit: Just a reminder though as Rabbi mentions the naturalization process involves more than an ancient symbolic snip. It involves lots of dedicated study! The "religious" texts of Judasm are her constitutional narratives. And citizens of the Jewish world have a much more intimate and rigorous connection to their study, debate, adaptation, and ongoing interpretation.
@@booksquid856 but then it seems you have a very flexible non literal interpretation of the Tanach. Cause the Tanach literally says jews shall not marry gentiles. And, i also understand one is not considered a jew if not born from a jewish mother
Conversion is discouraged because it is a huge commitment, irrevocable, and not necessary. But conversion is of course possible, look no further than Ruth (great-grandmother of King David) who was not born Jewish but rather as a Moabite.
Well...that was never stated or even suggested in this video. As Americans today we don't all believe in "Providence" but we do hold our founding documents as valid...and this despite the errors in our own national history, errors which yes some people thought were divine purposes. People can always imagine things with sincerity and still be wrong. That doesn't erase the overall validity and purpose of our constitutional narratives. Neither does it do that for the Jewish constitutional narratives, the Torah...Rabbi Wolpe's point.
@@calenhoover1124 Historic fiction and myth are found in every nation's story, yes. Creative tales are frequently used in Judasm for relaying and debating constitutional principles.
Can I ask what it is you’re proud of? I always find it odd when people are proud of their position within a group they had no say in joining. A bit like nationalists and football fans (where they inherit their team from their fathers).
@@Theactivepsychosa lot of people are proud of their cultures in ways that don’t equal national/exclusionism. Especially for historically oppressed groups, I think loving your traditions, holidays, music, food, and other cultural elements is perfectly healthy and acceptable. I agree with you that going so far as to excuse bigoted or harmful beliefs and practices is wrong
@@TheactivepsychosI had no say in being gay and trans, however I’m proud of my community and I’m proud to be those things. I hope that makes sense! I’d love to hear what you have to say.
But what are you all proud of? I always find it a bit naive. A bit like “respect your elders”. As a kid I always found this abhorrent cos that group included lots of wrong uns. Same with the priests. I was always told they were the pillar of our community and you could trust them and then the decades of child rape came out. So I’m just wondering how and what it is you actually feel towards these groups that may well include the worst people in the world? I’m not knocking it by the way, I’m just trying to understand your points of view.
That Rabbi has no historical background - and it shows. Judaism is nothing unique among so called Bronze Age or City-Religions of antiquity - its concept called "Ethno-religious" branch of religions. It was standard in antiquity.
I think that actually was partly the point he was making when saying the definition of Judasm predates our modern sensibilities of nation and religion as distinct categories. Also the Jewish world has spent 90 percent of its existence as a nomadic people (even before the most recent Temple's destruction), so it has some fascinating and unique traits that contribute to her longevity and continuity despite despite very spread out communities. For one thing, her "religious" texts are actually her constitutional narratives and have been subjected to ages of legal scrutiny, debate, and adaptation.
I think it would be very well worth your time interviewing an Orthodox rabbi. There are many to speak with at Aish for example. The reformation of Judaism transformed it in ways that matched it to the European environment around it, but in so doing made it less interesting and different from a philosophical context. Highly recommend
It would be an interesting conversation, but I expect it would likely be more heated. I think we would hear a more literal and strict interpretation of Judaism.
If Alex interviewed an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, this conversation would look very different.
Very fair comment.
It would look different with any Jew he interviewed. Differing opinions are highly valued in Judasm.
@@booksquid856 For sure. I'm just saying that because I originally have an Orthodox Jewish background. I kept thinking "this is misrepresenting Judaism" and had to remind myself it's representing a particular interpretation of Judaism.
@@Discoursivist My jewish friends will use the saying "Two jews, three opinions"
@@booksquid856i think the problem is within orthodox Judaism ,which currently has a complete monopoly of Judaism in Israel, David's views would be considered not religious at all. He understates the massive devide between orthodox Judaism and the conservative or reformed movement.
In fact, orthodox Jews have more in comon with not practicing Jews in Israel that with David.
Alex, you must be commended for your ability to get the very best out of your guests. I would highlight your humility, your ability to have an agenda but not let it dominate, and to subjugate it when necessary for the conversation, and the ability to apologise when you feel you may have pushed too far. Also the fact you show a genuine interest in what your guests have to say.
It may seem simple - you genuinely respect and wish to learn from whomever you're talking to despite whatever differences of opinion you might have - though the fact that this is so rare belies that it's not in fact as simple as it seems.
There are many subtle layers to the conversational skills you are employing, that allow you evoke fruitful discourse out of such a range of interlocutors.
Bravo
You are such an amazingly witty class act. Thank you Alex, but seriously "wow"-ed by your composure and cleverly measured transitions. It's such a rare and underrated skill you have with words and sincere curiosity. I'm truly so impressed by this conversation.
If you don’t take the Bible at face value, you have to come up with a criteria to determine what is accurate and what was inaccurate to god’s will. You claiming “well god wouldn’t have done that” needs to be backed up. And you can’t do that by just pointing out the good parts.
Exactly. Which is why Judasm has enormous and expanding libraries of historic debate, ethical questions, legal precedent and adaptation to accomplish that goal. The Bible isn't the same thing in Christianity. There it merely serves as a closed canon of belief. But in Judasm, the Torah is the central corpus of an ongoing and ever developing inquiry and life as a migratory nation.
@@booksquid856With parts of it inspired or passed down by a god, and centuries worth of discussions and interpretations just being whatever the people think at the time.
I mean, valid approach I guess
Imagine the US Constitution and its Amendments after a thousand years... in story form rather than legalese.
In fact there are plenty of books (historic, opinion, critique, propaganda) that tell stories of Independence and every amendment. What stories accompany the Patriot Act?
@CoreyJohnsonMusician By "face value" are you meaning literally? As in "if you're not a biblical literalist" then they need to provide an explicit set of rules in which you and all other humans can agree upon which set out the precise interpretation they arrive to their understanding of the nature of reality?
I guess my question is, are you a nihilist?
This is one of my favourite conversations I've ever seen, Alex. Thanks so much
With all this cherry picking of "God's word", I'm convinced everyone's just creating their own religions at this point.
That's all anyone has ever done. I don't know of anyone who is practicing the Bible word for word, and I mean literally nobody.
@@thedude9941 it's literally impossible to do so because the "Bible" disagrees with "itself" (pardon the scare quotes, but this is one of those times where its important to realise that "The Bible" with the closed canon we're used to only really came to be well into the common era, and that it's a collection of texts that contain different perspectives from different times)
That could just be a symptom of evolving perspective. Each perspective has the flaw of confusing the next highest perspective with one lower than itself. Especially with a topic such as God, there is a great depth of potential understanding that requires repeated experiences and realizations. If everyone agreed, it would seemingly go against the nature of perspective, human development, and spiral dynamics.
They are
Your relationship with G-d is your own, but He expects much of us in His Love for us.
Orthodox Jewish Rabbi here - halfway through, some points for now:
1. It is impossible to speak about Judaism without admitting a premise of a spiritual reality. It would seem obvious, then, that underlying the ethnic, sociological, national, familial aspects, there would be a spiritual/metaphysical one. This is where "Jewishness" is, from the standpoint of the Torah. To be Jewish is a spiritual reality, operating at a soul level.
2. The conversation regarding "chosenness" needs tremendous clarification. Although the interviewee is correct, that the Torah understands "chosenness" as a responsibility/mission, it must be made clear what that mission is. And, if we follow the biblical story, it becomes very clear that it is a polemic against polytheism/paganism. God selected one tribe to serve as a priesthood people, the "firstborn" in the human family to spread a universal religion that at once provides a framework for unity among all people, while respecting the diversity and "specialness" of each nation/religious tradition. It isn't a matter of "whether non-Jews can join if they want" - they needn't! That's the whole idea. We are all humans, all created in the image of the Divine. We are all OK as we are. The Jewish nation is ideally (and granted we have fallen/been forced to have fallen very short of this ideal) intended to minister this truth to the world, a truth embodied in the soaring prophecies of Isaih, Amos, and so many others. Our particularism is to ensure we don't lose this very deep, very nuanced, very precise perspective of monotheism that at once sees the unity within all, while appreciating the contributions of the duality/diversity we encounter in our world/history - thus revealing the Presence of the Creator within His creation, which was always the intention of creation in the first place.
3. How is it possible that the interviewee leaves out the centrality of the Oral Torah to the interpretation of the Bible, and the tradition of "Pardes" (Pshat Rezem Drush Sod - simple meaning, allegory, exegesis, and mysticism) that enable us to approach the entire Torah as literal, while at the same time approaching the entire Torah is myth etc. etc. ?
4. Alex, I suggest you study Hebrew before you trust the very tenuous assumptions of embattled bible critics who suggest that there is a radically different form of Hebrew used in different books of the Torah. It simply isn't true. To liken it to regular English switching to Shakespearean... is egregiously misleading for those who don't know Hebrew.
Beautiful reply. Thank you.
On your 4th point, there are parts of the tanakh that arent even hebrew but aramaic. If we know that much is true, how hard is it to accept that the different eras of authorship carried a variance in the language?
On your second point, it seems like Jews are doing a pretty fucking bad job of that unless you take credit for Christianity and Islam lol. People converting to Judaism can be converted on one hand. The Khazars some Ethiopians and...? That's it.
I don't need to study Hebrew to know that Holy Land is Palestinian Land.
Very well said.
I’m a secular Jew and I watch Alex’ content a lot. Thank you Alex for making such incredible content, I have learned so much from your channel and want to show how grateful I am.
more David Wolpe please
much better than Christian apologists
I’m curious, can you explain for me what being a secular Jew means to you?
I am 16 minutes into this interview, but it is one of dozens I have listened to on the subject.
I have also listened to and read many atheists who are religion scholars and speak/write about the origins of religions and their texts.
I find it all very arbitrary. Judaism seems very tied to a specific belief system. Beyond that, there appears to be a code or rule that, once you’re in the club, you’re in for life, whether you like it or not… which I honestly don’t think is healthy in ANY religion. It is especially scary in Islam, but that is a whole other topic.
So, I’m curious… if someone does not believe in God or the Jewish scriptures and rules, what is the point or reason or pride in identifying as a Jew?
I’m not suggesting you should or shouldn’t, I genuinely curious what the reason for that is?
I am not religious, nor am I atheist or agnostic. I’d say I do believe in God, in spite of finding nearly every religion I have studied or learned about to be HIGHLY problematic.
I believe the universe is like a cake. Even if I don’t know who made the cake, or why they made it, I still think it makes more sense that someone made the cake.
I don’t think all the ingredients necessary to make a cake suddenly or slowly appeared out of nowhere and formed themselves into a cake… just because I can’t find any evidence that someone made the cake.
In the absence of evidence of a baker, the cake itself is better evidence that someone made the cake than someone didn’t.
Anyway, if you read all that, lol… I’d appreciate your thoughts.
Thank you 🙏
@@vipnetworkera Muslim is one who adheres to Islam. A Christian is one who adheres to the Christian religion. Judaism is a religion. But Jews are a nation. Not someone who adheres to Judaism. What makes Judaism different than the other religions is that while most religions are open to anyone. Judaism is unique to the Jewish nation. We believe only "citizens" of the Jewish nation are required to adhere to this religion. Jews are an ancient nation. Back 2000 years ago it resembled a normal nation with its own land, culture language. The reason why most ancient nations don't exist anymore is that they assimilated into conquering nations. The Jewish nation did not assimilate like the rest of the nations being that we had our unique religion keeping us together and separate. This actually leads up to Zionism, in which Jews see ourselves as a nation without a land being persecuted by other nations. Zionism, at least secular Zionism sought to make Jews like any other nation with a land culture and language. Which is why the early Zionists hated Judaism and waged somewhat of a culture war in the early days of the state. Because they felt the religion was a threat to the image they wished to create of it being an ordinary nation. They also felt that the cause of antisemitism was because we were a nation amongst the nations. As opposed to being just a different race. A nation in another nation will clash more than a race within a nation. Hence the need for a state. But the short answer to Alex question to the rabbi is that Jews are a nation. Judaism is a religion. The rabbi didn't answer that question well enough.
@@Yemi-gl3qx Jewish identity depends so heavily on her ancient constitutional narratives, the Torah. These expansive narratives force us to take a deeper look at how we interpret any modern campaign. The values of rigorous study, ethical debate, and oneness in Judasm are a challenge to anyone who is asleep in their thinking. Many people don't want to think. And many tyrants especially don't want people to think. So even though the religious community itself can become tyrannical, it was meant to be part of a context of internal contest, something which the secular Jewish world needs to somehow master and join. There is no possible way to erase persecution of the Jews based on assimilation nor retreat into a singular physical location, because again these unique values startle people and hold them accountable to something outside their present day assumptions. I have found that even going to the home of a group of Christians that they were deeply threatened and offended by my very existence as a modern day human that I did not exist as the two dimensional figure of their gospel narrative. Reality alone threatens people. There seems no way around that unfortunately. When you think about it, there are certain parts of the body that do difficult tasks we take for granted and we may even blame them for our problems...like the liver, for example. We use the term "liver failure" when in reality some poor choices and habits are often the source of failure. So maybe we go about trying to sanitize germs instead of boost our immune system and change habits of thinking. It's the same way we unfortunately tend to look at things in relationships with other people and nations too. People are so quick to jump on the bandwagon of blaming a boogeyman they think exists somewhere outside themselves.
@@Yemi-gl3qx Judasm centers around study, ethical debate, and oneness as a people based on ancient constitutional narratives. Regardless of assimilation and location, people are threatened by such things that even slightly challenge their assumptions. Going to the home of some Christians recently, I was shocked at how threatened and offended they were by my very existence as a modern human--as someone who did NOT fit the shallow mold of their gospel characters. So I had to ask...why? Maybe people would rather think superficially and assume that they have all the answers. Judasm is almost entirely about asking more questions and doing so in the context of many that have come before us.
I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition
@@maithaiyou Actually, they used to notify you ahead of time, ergo EVERYONE expected the Spanish Inquisition.
Of course you didnt...
This read like an elden ring message in my head. I’ve been playing for the last week lmao
We're on a mission from God!
A rabbi once told me to think of Judaism not as a religion, or ethnicity, but as a collection of tribes.
Twelve? How quaint...
My paternal grandmother was Jewish and I think of them as a cult!
In that case, do you think that it would be fair to say that secular/atheistic jews be less tribal than their more religiously inclined counterparts?
I find this topic to be complex, I just want to understand. For some reason, this topic has always been somewhat difficult to navigate.
@oscarpaez123 really insightful question. I'm NOT an expert (minored in philosophy and then switched to go the science route) but I would say that tribal identity and religious identity are intertwined but not the same. That's why secular jews are seen as "equally jewish." They are still in the tribe, even if they don't worship the same god.
Which tribes? Does it include the tribes from other countries, races, cultures and religion?
@hermitcard4494 this conversation took place back in college, so like 15 years ago, so I'm hesitant to put words in yhe Rabbi's mouth, but I interested him to be using "tribe" in the categorical sense, although I doubt he'd have any cause to question the more litteral 12 tribes.
It’s uncanny how much the Rabbi looks and sounds like Martin Scorsese.
I posted a similar comment before I saw yours.
That's because European Jewry originated in Italy. That's why Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino look alike, also.
@@RoyalistKev well no it Just medeterian people look similar in general.
I thought the same lol
@@avshalomatI mean yes the beginnings of Ashkenazic diaspora first came up into Europe from the Levant through Rome as a combination of slavery and migration.
"Eyes and tuna fish and hotel rooms" is a crazy way to summarize the world as we know it. I love it
He was possessed by Douglas Adams for this one
Alex seems to be starting a new new atheist movement, and this time it employs the discipline required to actually understand religion rather than to merely "destroy" it. So-called "Hitchslaps" are actually easy to deliver, and even Hitchens admitted that he would sacrifice his argument in order to get a laugh.
It is easy to look at any given religious claim and say "prove it". What's difficult is to look at religion as say "what is that? Why do you believe that? Where does that come from?" and to be respectful of someone who thinks about the meaning of life in a profoundly different way.
Yes, there was always something off putting about the way that Hitchens approached religion. His default was attack mode. It was like he was stuck in religion and couldn't get out and so he lashed out, and his popularity was due to the fact that others like him felt the same way. I know I did. I was stuck in the Mormon Church when I first saw him. He was all dressed up, speaking on a podium, just like the Mormon leaders. However, he was lambasting Jesus. That juxtaposition of looking the same as Mormon leaders, and yet calling out religious bullshit was refreshing to say the least. He helped me get out of the Mormon church, and so I see him as a force for good over all. However, now that I'm much more mature, I have absolutely no tolerance for the type of atheist that he was (or Dawkins or Harris), nor for the type of atheist I was when I discovered him. Anger towards those who don't think like you will never change their minds.
The paradox of persuasion is that if you want to persuade someone of your point of view, the best way is to cultivate understanding, and even love, of their point of view. Hitchens, Dawkins and Harris had no interest in cultivating such wisdom. Alex clearly does.
I absolutely concur.
As a muslim, Alex is really the only atheist in this field that I have the utmost respect. His demeanor displayed an effort to arrive in the place of truth, rather than to make things into a competition. I considered myself religious and still be open minded for criticism towards my religion because simply as we all know anything is a subject to criticism, however the vast majority of atheists and theists alike who oppose Islam merely trying to intellectualise their hate rather than presenting a fair critique that meant to build progress.
Alex in the other hand, despite being so young, he managed to grow a sense of understanding that these men you mentioned failed to cultivate even after delving into these subjects for decades as their full-time job.
I also appreciate how he never speaks in a condescending manner towards the opposition (except Dinesh).
@@mrgrumpycat9049even to dinesh he was very respectful to the end
Well said. I am a Christian revert, but I always listen to what Alex has to say because it is well thought out.
Just out of curiosity, did you ever look into the Biblical understanding of Jesus since leaving Mormonism? I ask because Joseph Smith changed crucial parts of Jesus' traditionally understood identity. e.g John 1 v 1 describes Jesus as the Logos (or Word of God), but Joseph took this out when rewriting the Bible.
Good points, indeed. Obviously Hitchens/Dawkins/Harris suffer from psychopathic #narcissism (right brain impotence). Accordingly, their overall chronic exercising of "negative emotional affect" is appealing only to people whose locus of identity is localized in the left hemisphere of their brain (as described in the works of Dr. Iain McGilchrist).
Beautiful put. Thanks for taking the time to write this comment.
If every religious person were Rabbi Wolpe, religion would be far better. Glad you're speaking with him.
No it wouldn't
This is by far the best theist i have heard speak on YT
If every religious person were rabbi Wolpe. He'd either be the last religious person or we'd have a weird and inexplicable clone problem.
God to him is relatively unknowable and incoherent. So, why is belief warranted? We end up going back to what metric is used to determine what is authentic and what's not. *sigh*
@@jasonbrown8155 We as humans have experienced lengthy stories of history that inform what matters to us, whether we pay attention to it or not. Religion makes it more conscious to us but doesn't make it less messy. So it is freeing to know that on the one hand we could never describe a god that was technically indescribable, but we can still investigate more deeply the path our ancestors took and what our own experience shows us in order to find meaning and responsibility.
The Rabbi says he is not a literalist. Fine.
But then, he believes some parts of the bible are "sometimes" inspired (29:45), but not all. How will he discern, what is inspired and what is not? Were the ~613 laws inspired? Or merely what people understood that God might want from them, and then uninspired written down, with mistakes included?
Their God, who focuses on obedience to the law etc. a lot, lets it happen, that scriptures were recorded uninspired and maybe misleading the people? So does the Jewish God has the will and the power to display himself in clear words? Or how are the believers required and able to follow the "sometimes" inspired laws?? When they can't be sure, which ones were inspired??...
I think this is a bit chaotic....
@@tymo747No, you misunderstand Wolpe and his form of Judaism- the rabbi doesn’t claim to have any hidden knowledge, just knowledge you can acquire. Like Brian in “Life of Brian”, he’d say THINK FOR YOURSELF.
Let's respond to the questions:
"How will [Wolpe] discern, what is inspired and what is not?" -- He will use the fundamental ethical pillars of a modernist understanding of Judaism (as informed by the Jewish Philosophers like Martin Buber, Jewish Historians like Benny Morris, Jewish Ethicists like Moses Mendelsohn) and evaluate which parts of the Bible align with those perspectives. The value of a belief is in its effects and those that have negative effects are not desirable.
"Were the ~613 laws inspired? Or merely what people understood that God might want from them, and then uninspired written down, with mistakes included?" -- The 613 Laws is literally a set of injunctions created by the Rabbis roughly 1000 years ago. Quite a number of the things that the Rabbis designated as the 613 Laws are not things where God commanded someone to do something but reflections themselves of the Bible. If such reflection can be done to even derive the Jewish Law that is currently followed, wht can't Jews today engage in the same process.
"Their God, who focuses on obedience to the law etc. a lot, lets it happen, that scriptures were recorded uninspired and maybe misleading the people?" -- Wolpe would argue that God revealed himself and allowed those humans who wrote the Bible to document their understanding of it. There is a meaningful delta between an actual sunset and a written description of it and what it means. More Orthodox Jews would contextualize the passage rather than negate its meaningful divine origin.
"So does the Jewish God has the will and the power to display himself in clear words?" -- Power, yes. Desire, no. Judaism holds that a clear presence of the divine would compel belief (in much the same way that the clear presence of gravity compels belief) and to preserve libertarian free will, God cannot display himself clearly.
"Or how are the believers required and able to follow the "sometimes" inspired laws?? When they can't be sure, which ones were inspired??" -- The analysis I mentioned above is a complicated one, which is why Jews have always stressed study and education. Following the law requires the fortitude to determine what the law is when it is, in your words "chaotic".
@oremfrien Thank you very much for taking the time and the effort to answer my questions.
While I understand the thoughts in your responses, I still wonder for example, that, even if Wolpe is now decerning based on modern ethical pillars of a modalist understanding of Judaism and Jewish philosophy.... when he says God did not give the command for the taking of Canaan, including the problematic manner, but the people understood it to be God's command... isn't that problematic (I mean, this can happen in the future, and harm society a lot).
Yet apparently God admitted the Canaanite issue.
He did not intervene, so that the supposedly wrong command was not carried out.
God has the power, but not the will...? Would that mean God is not all-benevolent?
I am sorry, I am not so articulate and English is not my native language.
I am just so perplexed, that Wolpe seems to say, the Scriptures are not really reliable - yet, their beliefsystem is built on the Scriptures, right? So how can one know, if God commands something or not. It seems a bit careless of this God, not to clearly show his people what he wants/doesn't want.
And my conclusion would be... if you have the "maybe sometimes" inspired Scriptures, but one has no real chance to know if sth was truly inspired by God ---> AND you decide on ethical pillars now, is there really a need for the Scriptures.... and this God, if he doesn't even intervene to save his creation? If he doesn't intervene into bad things, and we don't know what he says and commands ---> what is the difference whether he even exists or not, if he is not manifesting in our world in any detectable and at least reliable way?
But thanks again for your reply!
@@SeekingTruth2023 Let's respond in kind.
-- "I still wonder for example, that, even if Wolpe is now decerning based on modern ethical pillars of a modalist understanding of Judaism and Jewish philosophy.... when he says God did not give the command for the taking of Canaan, including the problematic manner, but the people understood it to be God's command... isn't that problematic (I mean, this can happen in the future, and harm society a lot)."
Absolutely. I believe that Wolpe would argue that there are very troubling sections of the Bible. The story of Jephthah was one that kept me up as a child. There are several reasons that these stories are important, though: (1) It prevents the people from having a sanitized view of their past and the arrogance the comes with it, (2) it creates points of conversation and interpretation, and (3) it demonstrates the fallibility of the human-divine relationship, making it something that the religious person always has to tend to.
-- "Yet apparently God [permitted the Israelites to massacre the Canaanites]. He did not intervene, so that the supposedly wrong command was not carried out."
Correct within the narrative. (Archaeologists like Israel Finklestein argue that this never actually happened because the Israelites never conquered Canaan since they never left Canaan, but that's outside of the narrative.) The answer would be that in order for God to stop the massacres, someone would have to be denied free will and, ultimately, God guarantees that over preventing suffering.
-- "God has the power, but not the will...? Would that mean God is not all-benevolent?"
Omnibenevolence, like omnipotence, is an incoherent concept and most advanced theologians will say "omnibenevolence to the extent logically consistent". For example, it is loving to affirm someone's actions and it is also loving to confront someone for actions that may be harmful, but both acts cannot be performed simultaneously. A person/entity must choose which forms of benevolence to support. To the extent that God is omnibenevolent, he would prioritize free will over protection. This is what I mean by saying that God has the power (e.g. he could stop it) but lacks the will (e.g. he chooses to preserve people's ability to choose rather than their survival).
Note that the Jewish God is very different from the Christian God which robs people of choice by creating eternal salvation and eternal damnation -- neither of which exist in Judaism. Note that the Jewish God is very different from the Islamic God who robs people of choice by using predestination -- which Judaism also rejects.
-- "I am sorry, I am not so articulate and English is not my native language."
I wouldn't worry about your language skills. You are much more articulate than most native speakers I have engaged with in my life.
-- "I am just so perplexed, that Wolpe seems to say, the Scriptures are not really reliable - yet, their beliefsystem is built on the Scriptures, right? So how can one know, if God commands something or not."
Quite simply, religious leaders like Wolpe would argue that if you are using a divine morality text as a set of Google-Maps instructions, you're doing it wrong. In Jewish tradition, there is a strong opposition to asceticism (going off into the hills by yourself as a hermit to study the Scriptures and/or meditate for years) because Judaism argues that the meaning of a text requires a community to interpret and discuss it together. It's not about how the text is literally posed but how the community interprets it. Many common elements of Judaism have roots in these community discussions (such as not mixing dairy with white meat and the acceptance of Non-Jewish national laws as being binding unless they compel (a) belief in other gods, (b) acts of murder, or (c) acts of sexual immorality).
Of course, the implication is that you don't have a clear "yes-no" answer on most topics that will be firm and unyielding, but since when were the answers to moral questions supposed to be "yes-no" answers?
-- "It seems a bit careless of this God, not to clearly show his people what he wants/doesn't want."
Rabbis like Wolpe would describe the Bible as a human reaction to divine revelation. Imagine trying to describe a sunset to a blind person. You might say things like "the cascading lines all converge at a central orb" or "the sky becomes filled with the glory of a glowing ball". He could interpret these sentences to apply to Sputnik just as easily as a sunset. I would ask how you would explain the ineffable in words? Perhaps God could, but if He did, how would that not make people incapable of believing in his Divinity?
-- "[With the lack of clarity from the Bible] is there really a need for the Scriptures."
Yes. They start the conversation; they just don't finish it.
-- "and this God, if he doesn't even intervene to save his creation? If he doesn't intervene into bad things, and we don't know what he says and commands ---> what is the difference whether he even exists or not, if he is not manifesting in our world in any detectable and at least reliable way?"
All of this is ultimately why Judaism doesn't focus its attention on belief as paramount. As Wolpe pointed out, Judaism values communal affiliation more than belief and the general non-presence of God in the world makes it harder to believe.
@@oremfrien any book that has a moral quandary can start a conversation, you don't have to be bound to just a specific set of books. I can be a fan of Lord of the Rings and join that community to interpret those texts and also be a fan of the Harry Potter and join a separate community to interpret these texts. I agree with @SeekingTruth2023 that there should be no need for Jews to be bound to just these texts, if what they are looking for is the interpretation of these moral quandaries to decide on what is the best way to live your life in accordance to god. If they are not a reliable source of objective truths or laws coming from god, then why give these texts so much importance over any other book? As Sam Harris and others put it, if you or your community get to decide which parts of the bible are something to follow and which parts are not, it is not the book that gives you morality, it is your brain.
It feels like Alex is talking to everyone who debated Hitchens but doing it more precisely lol😅
A picnic in place of a BBQ.
Haha true!
Yes. It’s truly a shame Hitchens left so much meat on the bone against Dinesh compared to Alex
@massdebationwhat Alex has that Hitchens didn't, regardless of hindsight, is an ability to comprehend, dissect, and directly address arguments. Coming out of my religious deconversion, I found many of Hitchen's debates and I was left entirely uninterested in listening to him further. I don't really bother with people that consistently demonstrate they're more concerned about making quips than making actual arguments.
I thought the same thing when he spoke with Dinesh. This hammers it home. It's obvious that is what he is doing
One of the things i admire about judaism is how versatile it is. I often change my stance on wether or not god exists, although I am usually more atheistic, but in no point in time am i ever not jewish, and i think that is a beautiful thing
Raised Reform Jewish, lived as ultra-orthodox for 12 years, now deconstructed secular humanist Jew. I have mad respect for Rabbi Wolpe. In my opinion, he did an excellent job of representing himself and Judaism generally. Obviously, many will disagree, but how many other people have had the benefit of both learning in yeshiva and also studying the documentary hypothesis? I’m glad this conversation happened. I’m proud of the tradition in Judaism of critique and skepticism, even if it was strictly proscribed for many centuries.
As a secular Jew I very much appreciate your comment, which is spot on. TY
That’s an interesting journey. Raised orthodox to BT parents. Drifting towards atheism now, but likely will raise my kids orthodox.
@@ydubin I don’t think I could raise my children in that educational system, either in the U.S. or Israel.
@@Exjewatlarge probably easier as I was raised in it. Also, my kids are already in school. But ye, we’ll see how it goes:)
The documentary hypothesis is a garbage theory that never held any water. See Patterns on Parchment book and many others. Speak to any frum gadol for the authentic mesorah. Wolpe is a nice guy but he's conservative, his knowledge for Torah is nothing compared real Torah gedolim who would never go on a podcast like this, just sayin'. Sorry Alex buddy but if you want answers Wolpe ain't gonna give you them cause he doesn't really know Gemara, Kabbalah, Mesorah, Halacha, etc.
I am an Orthodox Jew and I wish more Jews were like Rabbi Wolpe in character. He has been a wonderful voice
As an agnostic, it's funny, but I gotta say this is the first interview I've watched from Alex with a theist where at points I thought the guest was more on top of it as a speaker than Alex.
I agree. I think it's because Alex is taking a look at Judaism through a definitively Christian frame - hence his confusion in the beginning especially.
I’m a convert to Judaism, and I agree. I’ve often thought that one has to experience Judaism to get it; it’s really tough to explain it to someone who is viewing through an American Christian lens.
@@erinsnook8537I could never conquer the circumcision problem. Maybe I could accept it if only consenting adults were circumcised, but never children.
How the quality of the show increases, is incredible. I’m very optimistic about where it’s going to be in the next few years.
Alex, I think u should find an orthodox rabbi to balance out the types of answers you received from Rabbi Wolpe. His personal opinions are not properly representative of the types of answers you would get from an Orthodox Jew (especially chassidic)
I'm an atheist Jew, and I've been following Alex since 2017. Alex was one of the main people who helped me become an atheist (and vegan).
I've watched a lot of Alex's discussions with religious people, but they usually come from a Christian perspective, which is a foreign perspective to someone from a Jewish background like myself. That's why I'm really happy that Alex also confronts other religious arguments than he's used to, and I hope we'll see more videos like this in the future!
Same here!
While I am an atheist Jew and have been becoming gradually more anti-theist as the years go by, my sister has been going down an orthodox path. Conversations like these help me bridge the gap and try to understand her perspective better (or at least hold more understanding conversations with her)
@@amberkatz1680Why are you becoming anti theist ??? In fact Judaism is what made Jews such a great and prosperous nation and kept their identity together even in well over 2k years of the diaspora all throughout the world, maybe instead of hating the cultural heritage be proud of it, just my 2 cents you can be agnostic or atheist but still be proud of your cultural heritage and accomplishments of your people in history
Fellow atheist Jew and Vegan here! Nice to meet you!
Yup, my late wife was Jewish and I'm Roman Catholic by birth. Our son is Jewish. Though he and I are atheists. Lol.
Smh
lol
@27:46 "what they understood God to want of them is not at all what we always understand God to want of us."
Well, yeah, of course. One would certainly hope that God doesn't actually want the Jews of today to destroy entire groups of people. The question is whether what they understood God to want of them was ACTUALLY what God wanted of them.
@29:48 He's so snarky with that "I don't know how many times.. I've said several times... Nooo," but that literally is the first time he actually admitted that. Before, he just kept reiterating that it was a book written by ancient people blah blah blah, but hadn't yet clarified that he doesn't believe that those commands were actually from God.
From the outset the Rabbi Wolpe described the unbreachable chasm between human thinking and the concept of an unlimited divine being. That by default makes it clear we cannot ascribe god's desire to such statements...unless we understand it to mean an element that exists in the generic will of god for humans to simply decide for themselves what god desires so as to have complete moral freedom. Whether religious or atheist, we make decisions with a mind that both allows us to project into the future and interpret the past. These stories referenced were not even written during the context they claim to describe. Similarly, we tell stories about ourselves on an individual level that reinterpret our past. We judge and act as if our fleeting sentiments align with an eternal higher moral cause or consistent identity...despite all the growth and changes in our lives. So when we ask what "god" wants, Judasm teaches us to investigate our own motives and thoughts. We can be projecting some very limiting and destructive thoughts all to protect a wound we never addressed or a fear we have not acknowledged. Making the unconscious conscious is part of solving that problem. That's why the word for prayer in Hebrew actually means to judge or inspect oneself.
An amazing way to start my morning :) thank you for all you do, Alex.
As someone whos born Jewish but not religiously Jewish. How i see what hes trying to say being Jewish is a "tribe" or a "clan" not nessisary a family in the traditional sense
@@kidsyx Tribe and clan is the same as family, all are related
I’m also a devoutly Secular Jew and I’m glad that Alex had made this video. As my adopted grandfather used to say, “we’ve been trying to figure out what Judaism is since that schmuck Moishela schlepped down the mountain.”
A tribe or clam is shared genetic familial relationships. To a lot of Jooos nowadays being Jewish is yes about the blood, not the religion.
I'd say it's a cult more than anything else.
Oh yeah, the idea of a tribe existed before what he called "the invention of the West"
The World Health Organization only recommends circumcision in regions where there is a high risk of contracting HIV, based on studies done in Africa. This policy is controversial and saying the WHO recommends it misses a lot of context and is disingenuous.
Personally, I don't think the WHO is that reputable in general. I did however find some research years ago that indicated that the circumcision tradition came from Africa. It seems this is another example of how humans, just like other creatures, really do adapt to our regional differences. We have to do this on more than one level of survival though since so much of our interaction does involve symbolism and storytelling.
I guess WHO also recommends signing for the organ list in case you died, but that doesn't make forcing children to. sign it moral, does it?
@@jozefglemp8011 No. And yet people do things constantly to scar their bodies and others without considering the "morality" of it. For some tribes it is simply a necessity of identity and survival. In which case, morality will definitely be defined according to a different context than it is for dominant demographic suburban Americans. For others scarring is a fashion. I have seen some people get deeply offended by some facets of Latin culture that pierce a baby's ears.
@@booksquid856 It's all about consent.
@@jozefglemp8011 I value consent, but I also realize that I value that in a particular context and within limitations. If my child doesn't consent to a safety belt, I will have to override. Similarly, if I was living in a hostile neighborhood and without the trappings of my modern existence, I would have very different priorities. If I were currently living under active persecution as a nomadic nation, I probably would have a different perspective also. There is also the fact that some cultures really do consider it an essential beauty treatment to mutilate the body. I don't agree. It troubles me. But I am certain that much of my cultural attitudes trouble others. Not saying I have answers here. Just saying it is complicated. Rabbi's appeal to the WHO wouldn't be my go to response though since I don't think the organization has much credibility. I also don't think we can or should make decisions for the whole globe. I think we both agree there.
At 33:13 Wolpe says contextually that the average human could never begin to understand god, because of the age difference. This really hit me in a way I never thought about as someone that doesn't believe in any god.
Couldn't god practically be a thought experiment of how an infinitely old and experienced being would act in the world?
I'm 31 years old now and with every year I become a more peace seeking person. In my youth I thought about it in my small personal circle. Having friends, good relations with family. As I get older these thoughts become more general, more global. I can easily imagine, that with infinite age, this kind of thinking would become eventually universal, "4th-dimensional" and beyond.
This is a natural human process if you live in relative peace times. You watch the world and wonder how things could be as good for everyone, as they are for you.
God as a being with infinite power always lives in realtive peace. Nothing can harm god directly after all.
So, couldn't god (specifically "the good god") be the thought experiment of how an infinitely old, peaceful being would want to teach everyone to behave?
Since "god" would be a human concept in this thought experiment, it makes sense that in some cases "religious leaders" might have called for objectively immoral acts, no doubt sincerely believing that their actions are justified for the greater good of their society under "god".
Anyway great and insightful interview as always. I've never really informed myself about the "Jews" and how they identify themselves, so apart from this thought-nugget, I took a lot of valuable information from this! Thanks Alex!
I think that makes sense; God is aligned with Truth and with Good, and those are things which greater experience of the world convey. It makes sense that absolute experience of the world conveys absolute truth and defines absolute good, by definition of absoluteness entailing testing every ethical dynamic that ever comes to pass. And it especially makes sense for a community based in a hierarchy where the elders lead.
You might want to learn about Jungian archetypes, particularly the hero, to develop this thought. Jordan Peterson does a lot on this idea of ‘God’ being an amalgamation of everything we might admire in laudable individuals who have come before us.
Considering God's infinite existence, God should be perceived by all as the epitome of moral evolution, yet the Old Testament showcases, Yahweh, a jealous, oppressive despot who seems to enjoy manipulatively lording over the hebrews. Even with their meager lexicon of about 6000 words, the hebrew could certainly write about an illuminary God of love, peace and mercy, and diplomacy amoung all nations, but that's a different kind of God and religion not found in the OT
@@virtuosa69 Could it not be said - from a Christian perspective - that this simply shows man needed Christ to help him find (understand) God?
@@windywindmill98 No. Christ literally told the pharisees that your God is the devil, ergo NOT GOD.
The Hindu didn't and don't need Christ to tell them what's good or bad, that's been worked out 1000s of years PRIOR to Christ or the old testament. Only people who have no true knowledge of historical mankind have tunnel vision when it comes to Christianity.
So what about the promised land? Did god in fact promise this land? Or was this also a misunderstanding?
Let's say the God literally promised the land to the Jews. So what?
That's not a valid legal argument (which is why no Israeli government has ever used this in a defense of their country's legitimacy). It's also not particularly relevant since Jews have an ancestral civilization there that is relatively well-documented.
the people who wrote the book honestly believed that this was what god said. yeah, it doesn't do it for me, either.
@@gabiailincai exactly.
Did god really appoint Americans to be a free nation on the eastern sea board, a light on a hill? Did god really call us to manifest destiny? Does the answer to that question in any way erase the validity of our nation and its right to function on current soil? The individuals who brought forth a modern nation of Jordan and a modern nation of Irael are not the same people of some very ancient and fabled past. Britain had a colonial territory that contained mixed groups of people all generically labeled Palstinians. Then two mordern nations were incorporated by means absolutely legimitate in any sense we could say such things. And it wasn't based on a religious story despite lengthy historic connections to a land which like most places is filled with religious sentiment. The stories of the promised land were actually written far after the time period they supposedly allude to and the archeology shows the nation grew very much organically in the region in ancient times rather than by a miraculous deliveranc and conquest. There may have been internal conflicts the stories were based on. Regardless, these are separate times and separate issues.
Archaeology shows the nation of ancient times grew up organically in the region. So the fabled stories of conquest and miraculous deliverance were more likely based on internal conflicts. The modern nations of iRael and Jordan were incorporated according to modern laws.
Edit: Regarding Exodus narratives it is worth noting that Egypt was repeatedly an expansive power. So repeatedly "Canaan" WAS Egypt. Just another bit of fun trivia when considering the idea of internal regional conflict.
"Judaism isn't a religion, it's a religious family"
"Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship to God"
"Buddhism isn't a religion, it's a philosophy"
I see a pattern, I mean of course, there is no unifying definition of religion, but still
Edit to clarify: I did not fully intend for my comment to be a criticism (maybe a bit, that I confess), but it is more an interesting observation that some people in these formations do reject the term "religion" (like every group, some do, some don't, as no group is a monolith). Now I did personally encouter people which made such statements, so these are things people had said
You forgot Islam..... Islam isn't a religion ,it's the truth😅
In our case, we are an ethnoreligious nation. This rabbi is just trying to be more mindfuld of proselytes that have no Jewish ancestry to not seem like he is saying they are less Jewish.
Also in Hinduism where they say "It isn't a religion, it is a way of life". As an Indian Atheist I am tired of hearing this haha.
I'm not sure you understand the words you have used to describe these "identity traits"....
Not only do I think you haven't understood what he's said, but you quite literally used a word such as "philosophy", whilst obviously not understanding the context, for the usage of the term "philosophy"
@@ultrasignificantfootnote3378Unfortunately not.
When talking about "What is a Jew?" and the ensuing discussion about coverting or deconverting to Judaism, it seems that toward the beginning of the interviewAlex struggles to see Judaism as its own thing. Too many people raised in the pervasive environment of Christianity think of Judaism as "exactly like Christianity but without Jesus." I've only been slowly deconstructing this fallacy in my own thought the past several months.
I would go further and say that Judaism is not only Christianity-minus-Jesus but that many of the hallmarks and beliefs of Christianity are direct refutations of Judaism. Judaism venerates and promotes the ceremonial law as a way to merit salvation and minimizes the question of proper belief whereas Christianity venerates the Sacrifice Upon the Cross as a way to merit salvation and minimizes the question of proper actions. Judaism holds to a tribal organization whereas Christianity sees itself as universal. Judaism is about life in this world and the afterworld is an unimportant thought whereas Christianity is about the afterworld and this life is just a test to gain entry.
There are numerous other examples but this should be sufficient to show that these are two very different belief/community systems. Judaism was never waiting for a Jesus. If anything, David Ben Gurion looks much more like a Jewish Messiah than Jesus does.
@@oremfrien The idea that Christians are saved by simply accepting Jesus as the savior is merely one form of Christianity. Calvinists, for example, believed “God chose a limited number of people for salvation at the beginning of time, and nothing a person can do can change their eternal fate.” Catholics, on the other hand, believe you need both faith and good works to go to heaven.
Judaism’s take on this is a bit more convoluted. The Bible says all righteous nations and individuals have a place in “the world to come.” Maimonides argued one needed to adhere to the Noahide Laws to be considered righteous. One of those laws is monotheism, which obviously means you have to believe in G-d. But the meaning of “righteous” is STILL an ongoing debate. Some Rabbis argue it means simply seeking and acting according to a system of justice. Yad Vashem anointed gentiles as righteous who resisted the Nazis or saved Jews - which doesn’t fit either definition!
Perhaps the most confusing apart about Judaism’s moral philosophy is the demand that people must act righteously without the expectation of any reward, but merely because it’s the right thing to do. This is what Wolpe was alluding to in the undeserved suffering part of the conversation. Interestingly enough, this notion forms the core of Adlerian psychology. Adler, of course, was Jewish. Anyone who has read “The Courage to be Disliked” will recognize this precept.
"Holy scriptures" reflect the human need to grope in the dark for the meaning of life/suffering. This life is a brutal struggle. Who hasn't asked, "Why this?" Whatever "consciousness" is, the urge to know it is universal.
Wow, that's interesting. And tonight, it kind of hit different. And to add to your parabble, I would say that 'Holy Scriptures' also reflect the human need for hierarchy and a big boss descending from the mountain on-high to lay out the law - and the rest is history.
I have always been taught that "Judaism" is the asking of questions while desperately seeking to find the answers, and this desperate seeking is the nature of our journey to find what we call GOD and OURSELVES.
@@joeewell4846 So you've got the 'seeking' part down-pat, but is there ever supposed to be a point of 'finding'? (honest question).
@@rigelb9025 From personal experience, especially through the study of the Talmud and Daf Yom, each apparent answer just leads to more questions.
@@joeewell4846 I thought so.
Fascinating conversation, as always!
59:45 "As the creator of the West, I think Christianity..."
The time of human history where religion held absolute power, is today called The Dark Ages in everyday language.
It was a time of death, war, disease and famine. Christianity isn't alone to blame for this, as we saw that in areas where
Christianity didn't hold sway, but Christianity did nothing to change that.
Things like the revival of classical antiquity, the Enlightenment and the industrial revolution did much more to shape western
civilization, than Christianity.
Only once we started moving away from religious thinking, did the world dramatically improve.
Christianity is 2000 years old, but people only like to give it credit for the last few hundred years - the very time where it
started losing influence.
Christianity did indeed build things like universities, but they did so in the myopic context of describing God's work, AS God's
work. Thankfully universities developed alongside the rest of humanity and, much to the objections of religion, said universities
discovered, that God wasn't actually needed to explain the world we live in.
Every time a new thing was discovered and explained, the answer was always Not-God.
Today you even see universities being accused of brainwashing children, often by the very same people who will happily (and
hypocritically) hold up universities as an example, when faced with the question; "What has Christianity tangibly done for
Humanity?".
Alex, you are talking about religious topics for 1000-th time, yet this one felt completely different.
Rabbi's examples of unnecessary suffering and about friendships made this entire video feel completely different even though you were talking about similar things that you usually do with your guests(the ones with whom you talk about the religion stuff).
It was fascinating. Rabbi seems completely sincere and calm and isn't trying to justify the unjustifiable. He made some great points and some points that I haven't even considered. Ever.
It felt like a 5 minute conversation, that's how fast the time passed listening to this.
Also it was nice seeing you in 2 or 3 instances to actually be surprised, positively, and it seemed as if you've learned something new and got an actually new thought in the topic of religion.
Thank you. Greetings from Serbia.
@@tymo747 Sure, partly it's because it's not a Christian nor an atheist, but I've listened to rabbis before, however I never had this kind of new thought even though, generally speaking, I'm familiar with views of Judaism on these matters.
For example Shapiro is Jewish and presented different view of the Tanakh, however, I did not hear anything new there, whereas here, I have. On multiple occasions.
It's easy to get excommunicated from Catholicism. Many people who think they're Catholic have been automatically excommunicated. I just requested it to be formally documented. My baptismal certificate was updated to illustrate "renounced Catholic Faith by formal act." Nice little seal on it and everything.
How's the documentation work when two different priests disagree as to whether a given person should have been "automatically" excommunicated? Can a person get the outcome they want so long as they're able to find 1 priest that agrees with them, or is there some reliable institutional process to ensure so-called "eventual consistency"?
The excomunicated are still considered Catholics by the Catholic Church they're just officially excluded from participation in the sacraments and services of the Catholic Church.
@@codegeek98 It's an ideology, not a government (unless you live in the vatican or something). They have no authority to 'keep you in' the faith if you're not interacting with them on the regular whether or not there's a process to "officially" recognize your departure
People's Jewishness can be taken away as well. Israeli Rabbabut (Supreme Jewish authority in Israel) is stripping people's Jewishness left and right.
Fantastic interview. Clear explanations to very clear and pertinent questions
I liked what Rabbi Wolfe said near the end about the corrupting influence of friendship. I think a great many of the problems in the world can be traced to the fact that loyalty is more valued than integrity. BFF is a positive epithet whereas Goody-two-shoes is an insult. The problem arises when those without integrity take advantage of your loyalty/friendship.
There is a saying in America that I have always had an issue with; a friend will help you move, a good friend will help you move a body. I prefer friends that don't need that kind of help.
I agree. Very well put.
very insightful
One thing to note many if not most Israelis would not consider Rabbi David Wolpe as a religious jew. The difference between conservative Judaism and orthodox Judaism is quite wide unlike what the Rabbi wants to claim. Today orthodox Judaism has a complete monopoly over Judaism in Israel. Marrieges and conversions are not recognised by the state unless they are done by orthodox Judaism. Orthodox Jews for the most part believe the old testament is a direct word of God and do not have such pluralistic outlook of the world.
The idea that "many if not most Israelis would not consider Rabbi David Wolpe as a religious jew" and "The difference between conservative Judaism and orthodox Judaism is quite wide unlike what the Rabbi wants to claim" are both inaccurate. Conservative Judaism never really existed in Israel. The divisions of Judaism that Rabbi Wolpe discusses (Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox) make sense in an American context -- and Pre-WWII in a German context -- but really nowhere else. In most places, like Israel, there are Secular Jews, who are less religious than Reform Jews, and Orthodox Jews. As a result, there is a wide gulf but that's not between Conservative and Orthodox but between Secular and Orthodox.
The rest is accurate.
@@oremfrien I believe you are very uninformed. In Israel there conservative as well as reformed comunities. They are seen for the most part as non religious Jews, secular Jews in Israel as a whole tend to more identify with the orthodox stream of Judaism than the reformed or the conservative. In America, many secular Jews identity with the reformed or conservative movement for the sole reason that it grants them a sense of cultural community without forcing them to alienate their non Jewish soroundings. In Israel, Jews do not seek a Jewish community their sole interaction with Judaism is through the prism of orthodox Judaism that impacts their day to day life. Culturally, reformed Judaism is seen in a very bad light within Israel especially as the country tends to lean right on political issues that conservative as well as the reformed movement have sought to empower.
You tell most Israeli's that a female rabbi exist they will tell that is not "real Judaism".
Secular Jews in Israel for the most part tend to be pretty traditional they celebrate the high holidays in orthodox communities, they celebrate their barmitzva within an orthodox environment and so on..
@@dylansevitt You can count the number of Conservative and Reform synagogues in Israel on one hand. To say that in a country of 6 MM Jews that a few synagogues will shape local opinion is bizarre. Orthodox Judaism has a functional monopoly on religion and, accordingly, Secular Jews see that as the antipode.
What do Israelis have to do with this more than other members of the Jewish community? What about Italians or French people or …? Israel is not the Vatican.
@@petermsiegel573 Israel is not the Vatican. It is way more for the Jews.
if the majority of Catholics lived in the Vatican, if the majority of Catholic teaching were studied and published today in the Vatican, if modern Catholic thought promoted moving to the Vatican, if the Vatican was tied to catholic culture and history for over 2000 years, if almost all Catholics had direct family and friends or lived in the Vatican then the Vatican would approach what Israel is to the Jews.
As an Orthadox Jew I'd LOVE to see a fully Orthadox Rabbi come onto the show. Probably a Litvish Ashkinaz Rabbi and not Sephardi or Chasidish (although a Chasidish Rebbe would also be very interesting, but it is a whole different matter than a Litvish Rabbi)
Edit: I said not Sephardic bc they also have a very different view on Judaism than an average Ashkinazi Rabbi. Sephardim are more spiritual (and a little mystical) and feel no need to justify their faith. They might say "its what my father believed" or might reject the question outright. I do think it would also be interesting to have a Sephardic Rabbi on, but I think the others would be more conducive to a philosophical convo
I think a chabad rabbi (such as manis freidman) may be the most likely to come on such a show.
@user-dz8vs5cj7r I think that's true, but there are many complicated and lofty concepts in Chasidut. It would either become a class on Chasidut, or they would be talking past each other. Or maybe the Chasidic Rebbe can try to answer questions with a watered down Chasidut. Either way, Alex wouldn't be able to fully access the Chasidic Rebbe
@@rain6 As someone whose had much more contact with Sephardim, I would argue that you wanted a religious Sephardi Jew to discuss anything with Alex, it should be someone (as is the Sephardi tradition) who is a lay scholar (e.g. a religious person in the business world as opposed to a Rabbi). I agree that most Sephardi Rabbis would not be in the position to provide a rational-style discourse that Alex would respond to.
However, I also doubt that most Mitneged Rabbis of today (as opposed to maybe 300 years ago) can engage in that way either.
@oremfrien The most famous disputation from the Sephardim (and all of Judaism) was between the Ramban and a Christian. I've never heard of sending a non-Rabbi to a debate/ interview.
I'm not sure what Mitneged means, but if it is Chasidic, then I think the Rebbeim would be great. Chasidut can be explained as esoteric philosophy/ theology. If it means Ashkinaz, then I think the overall secularization of the Ashkinazim would benefit them in their more philosophical view of things.
I do not wish to put down Sephardim. Actually, I think their simple faith is the greatest. Also ofc they also have great Mikubalim, and no one can put one of them down
@@oremfrien There are many modern orthodox rabbis who would do a great job.
Alex, you’re popular enough to get comment bots, congrats.
What a strange thing for a comment bot to write.
@@openmind5973what’s even stranger is how I made millions getting into crypto! Send me your banking information and I’ll help you make millions too!
@@openmind5973 They're evolving self-consciousness.
@@rigelb9025 😂
@@rigelb9025 It's part of they're program to try to throw us off their trail.
What an amazing discussion. I love Alex's work and I have a whole new respect and admiration for Rabbi Wolpe.
I have always found that the easiest way to explain Jewishness is to compare it to the Ancient Greeks. Imagine you’re an ancient Athenian; you’re Greek. That means that there’s some sense in which Zeus is one of ‘your gods’. If you suddenly say ‘I don’t believe in Zeus’, you’re still Greek.
It all worked in a similar way in the ancient mediterranean: you could be Roman without believing in Jupiter, but he was still one of ‘your gods’, etc. And it works the same for Jews: Jews are a people, and they have a god who is ‘theirs’.
Only a bit different with regards to conversion, but if you imagine a Persian person who wanted to ‘become Greek’, that would definitely have involved worshipping Zeus. Becoming a Jew is like becoming Greek: both the people and the god. But the god is viewed as an important part of the people, just like other things could be (e.g. you can become English today, but not if you don’t learn any English)
Anyone who doesn't raise an issue with Christianity's idea of "god's chosen people" isn't paying attention 🫡
I'm still completely baffled that anyone doesn't recognize that the bible is completely made up by people. You can criticize the bible using its own principles because it has no principles!
If a book has deep blatant errors, why would you assume that anything in the book is accurate in any way?
Thanks for the conversation. I enjoyed it
A very different take than most Christian apologists (The Rabbi is not a Christian apologist). Just to say that the bible was written by humans from their own understanding and desire would surely engender a lot of scorn from current-day apologists. Alex must ask these questions in all earnestness (he does) because the Rabbi is emphasizing his understanding is not the same as a Christian understanding of the old testament, and I might assume Alex was well prepared for this interlocutor. The Rabbi has debated many well-known atheists and christian apologists, and likely was well prepared with his remarks for Alex as well.
The Rabbi puts forth an axiom I've used many times - although not in the context of suffering - 'one's character is determined by how one acts when not in the company of others'.
Suffering in the context the Rabbi places it includes the idea that suffering is also part of the human experience, no matter who experiences it, sees it, or knows of it.
Had there been an authority who was willing to make these same kinds of arguments when I was a youngster, I may well have developed a different perspective on God and religion.
One of your better interviews, Alex!
This is all about making your sect look good from the outside and then doing all kinds of hideous stuff while whose who you consider lesser humans defend you.
I always like listening to guys and gals like Rabbi Wolpe. These guys and gals are so refreshing to listen to! If I grew up going to his sermons or someone like him, I probably would still be going. Not that I'm Jewish, but I've always had a soft spot for the religion. As long as it isn't strict like the Hasidic or Orthodox oppressive kind.
I am a Christian and really enjoyed listening to this. This rabbi is incredibly smart and eloquent.
It's a religion, a culture, and an ethnicity.
It's a religion because it's a religion.
It's a culture, because the people who follow this religion have created a culture, and even if you leave the religion (like myself) you can still be a part of the culture (like myself).
It's an ethnicity, because if you're born into this religion, then you're permanently part of it, according to religious law.
@@marcusshakur3481 But that doesn't have a culture or ethnicity. Or maybe it does. Please educate me.
@@marcusshakur3481 So if you converted to Islam, you’re still a Catholic?
I was raised as a secular Jew. Being an atheist is really not an issue.
Judaism and Buddism are much more open and non-fanatic compared to other religions in my opinion.
What if I tried converting to secular Judaism
@@rayneweber5904reform Judaism??
@@furiousinsects6386
Judaism is fanatic, lol. Buddhism is primitive and irrational.
I think that this statement describes the ethnic side of Judaism.
For example, in my case I can say “I am secular Ukrainian. Being an atheist is really not an issue”.
I can guess that for a religious family a person leaving religion will be a big issue in both cases.
One can be genetically Jewish, culturally Jewish, religiously Jewish, or any combination. For example, I am 100% Jewish by blood, I mildly identify with some aspects of modern Jewish culture, but I am completely non-religious. I believe that a majority of Jews fit this description. It seems that only relatively small, isolated factions of Orthodox Jews take the religion and rituals very seriously.
That section on friendship was truly enlightening; I had never thought about it from that perspective.
Thanks Alex for talking with Rabbi Wolpe. I tire of discussions with dogmatic religious people. I don't learn anything. This discussion was different. Agree or disagree, it helped me clarify my own thoughts.
Starting at 1:05:04 Alex refers to a conversation between Hitchens and a person whose name he (Alex) can't recall about circumcision. It was Rabbi Harold Kushner.
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I'm a big fan of Alex, I have seen every video he has put out in the last 6 months or so. I think this was definitely one of my favorites. I found this Rabbi very intelligent, articulate and sincere. His reasoning for evil in the world was quite compelling.
If I had no other options and had to pick from the three major religious traditions to adopt as my own, I would definitely pick Judaism, for it seems to me to be the most reasonable and compelling of the three. Loved so much of what Rabbi Wolpe had to say here! Great discussion
Catholicism has a similar exegesis on the OT. We don't take it in a literalistic way as Alex does. Alex has a fundamentalist understanding of the OT, particularly on Herem warfare and slavery. Most seasoned Catholic theologians and scholars use the historical-critical methods and other modern scientific methods to understand Holy Scripture and tradition.The Rabbi was amazing.
Wonderful to hear him speaking about Hitchens so fondly.
I noticed several religious theists saying they liked Christopher Hitchens. Namely a Muslim UA-camr.
It's worth watching Hitchens' lecture on antisemitism. On this occasion he is showing genuine passion.
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I can be a "Christian" and not believe that people that don't believe, go to hell.
In fact I would call myself a Christian for more than label reasons and like Carl Jung said, I don't believe, I know. But anyway I don't believe in hell. But I do believe in the figure of Christ and a God somewhat as the Judeo-Christian traditions describe. I also believe that whatever God is, justice exists and the injustices we see, get resolution, but I dont believe that involves an eternal hell.
I am free to believe what I want, or any mix or construction of believes I make for myself. To me that's most importance lesson of Christ, God is within, and we do not need any priests or authorities dictating our spiritual believes.
Wolpe is quite short with Alex
The space trip / mourning thing is actually that we feel the loss of someone's potential. It feels good to imagine someone you love being happy in another galaxy. It feels sad to know they can never have that.
Always incredibly impressed with Rabbi Wolpe’s thoughtful responses and nuanced understanding of Judaism and the Jewish Bible. Loved seeing how differently he approached some of Alex’s challenges that really tripped up previous guests. Christian apologists should be taking notes from the Rabbi! Another great interview Alex
55:30 is brilliant. As an atheist, i never really thought about this line of argument. Basically, the christian will have to commit to antissemitism in order to deny the lack of support from the local Jewish community for Jesus' claims.
I appreciate your content! As a former Evangelical Pastor turned Agnostic 6 years ago your content has helped me in my deconstruction and reconstruction process! Keep it up!
i needed to learn about Judaism. this will be helpful. thank you!
Catholicism has a similar exegesis on the OT. We don't take it in a literalistic way as Alex does. The Rabbi was amazing.
It sounds to me like a clan, akin to some Native American cultures. I’m Tlingit and this sounds exactly like how our clan structure works, down to the matriarchal lineage. Even the religious, and ethnicity thing fits. Of course because it has to do with lineage there’s a big overlap with ethnicity, BUT not all Tlingit people have a clan because they were born to a mother without one. There is a sort of pseudo religious tradition among the Tlingit but it has no necessary overlap with clans or ethnicity.
Yeah that’s basically exactly what it is, we usually use the word tribe but nobody seems to understand it well except people who are actually other tribes (or I guess clans)
That was top quality conversation.
I wish Alex asked one more question though: if old testament is source of ultimate Jewish morality, and nonliteralist jew excludes part of it, doesn't part of the morality that the exclusions are based on come from outside of the Bible, and it makes that outside morality superior then?
The Jewish constitutional library extends far beyond the Torah. Just as our American legal experience extends far beyond the founding documents we hold sacred. Regardless of whether one is an atheist or not in America or the Jewish people, our national identity still revolves around texts which often do contain religious sentiments. That doesn't invalidate their significance. The arguments within them have been expounded upon and adapted for ages in Judasm.
@@booksquid856 So in other words, there are better sources of morality than the Torah?
@@jozefglemp8011 Do you read the US constitution as your sole source of moral inspiration? I hope not. The Jewish world is overflowing with books and inquiry beyond the pages of whatever KJV you have been introduced to. And there is far more to America than any single set of founding documents. So it'a a bit of an odd question that you are asking, but I guess I can imagine where you are coming from since Christians clearly thinks of the Bible as a closed canon of religion instead.
Alex, you are ever becoming a better and better interviewer. Please keep it up. So many religious interviews turn adversarial -- it's refreshing to hear this civil, informative discussion.
I am a godfather to a lovely young woman who is patrilineally Jewish, and whose Jewish grandparents would invite me annually to celebrate Seder with them. Obviously, they weren't orthodox because I'm a goy, but since I'm the son of a Free Methodist minister, know the Passover story, can recite the plagues by heart, and can also sing the traditional Jewish Passover songs in Hebrew when they are written out for me phonetically (although I've memorised them by now), I was always welcome.
I also sang in Hebrew at her parents' wedding and the reformed rabbi offered me a job as a cantor in his synagogue if I would convert.
I would say I know a BIT about Judaism. 🤣 Nevertheless, I found this video both enlightening and entertaining. The both of you taught me something new. Thank you.
Excellent interview/talk! Kudos to you Alex also for being respectful.
Volpe is wrong when he says that people who wrote genocidal passages believed God wanted this; it's more logical to assume that people who wrote and those who kept the words, were motivated by practicalities.
To a lot of people, I think the two are one in the same. If something is practically necessary, there is a lot of lee-way in interpreting that as God’s will.
@@boaz2578 Like American politicians did with "manifest destiny."
@@booksquid856 Yes
I don't know how familiar you are with Judaism, Wolpe is quite liberal. And this isn't a "bad" thing per se (I am quite libera), but I find that many liberal rabbis have a difficult time distinguishing between what are merely Englightenment sentiments and actual Judaic sentiments (e.g., what is found in the Torah and Mishnah). It's sort of like if you wanted to do a show about the latest findings in physics and mathematics, and instead of interviewing Roger Penrose you interviewed Bill Nye (that is an extreme way of putting it - David Wolpe is certainly a better choice for Judaism than Bill Nye is for science, but same idea).
I know your post is purposely simplified, but I would say that the the first 'break' is from Temple Judaism to Rabbinical Judaism and then the second 'break' is well, Spinoza. In other words, it's three distinct phases of Judaism, rather than two.
People who say they don't read their scriptures literally often cherry-pick the parts they interpret literally, based on their likes and dislikes, while dismissing the rest. Because if you didn't read anything literally in your special book that you claim you don't read literally, your special book would just be another book you happen to really like. For example, when I read "The Lord of the Rings," I don't take anything in it literally. That's why I don’t associate my own real life story with the made up one in the book and go around claiming that my Hobbit ancestor, the great Frodo Baggins, was chosen to be the bearer of the One Ring, making us Hobbitses after him, the chosen people.
RAmen!
I interpret the events literally so your mind tricks don’t work on me, now if you excuse me I’m going back to work on debunking the theory of evolution
Yes, but so what?
In other words, it’s like the real life version of “Hotel California”-“you can check in, but you can never check out.”
It's unsettling to hear someone intelligent say something obviously absurd as "I don't see circumcision as genital mutilation".
The ability of religion to cause such a blind spot to reason is a testament to why we must move past it as a society.
If circumcision is allowed by are trans people not allowed to choose their bodies?
@@forplaylistsetc It’s fundamentally an argument from the reactionary mental illness side of humanity. All religious are delusional but not all are reactionary.
Okay, but think of this another way. People can have very different perspectives for reasons having nothing to do with religion. Many cultures consider what we call "mutilation" to be an essential beauty treatment. And here in America, we don't call cosmetic surgeries now done on any and every part of the body to be "mutilation" either. Or tats. Or branding. See how we use different language for that? On the other hand, I've also witnessed some people offended by the practice of infant ear piercing that is prominent in many Latin communities. We could technically call that ear mutilation. But we don't. Considering all the unhealthy practices in American culture, we may have to start grappling with that first before judging the naturalization process of an ancient living nation.
He probably just sees it as removing the hood of your penis. 😅
people don´t call trans surgeries mutilation either. or at least some. don´t.
Hey Alex. This has nothing to do with the video but I just really want to recommend to you to delve into buddhism. I think it's something you'll be very much interested in since the buddhist's teachings are heavily centered around the suffering in life. Thanks for reading!
I m a spiritual Hindu btw n I feel much better being spiritual then religious
18:04 ... "I don't know of a people that doesn't think of itself as special" ... don't know what that means tbh
yep, lost me there too. the divergence from his statement and it being understood is quite revealing as to what is actually going on in the depths of clearly very contrasted psyches.
We may not use the words "special," but we act in accordance with special interests that serve ourselves as a nation and individual. Putting a label on it somewhere doesn't make that the only place where such a universal experience occurs.
@@booksquid856 for clarity, You'd have to unpack those pronouns there, are you speaking as who or for who?
@@AquarianAgeApostle In general as humans and a part of any society we function as if our needs and interests are special. Whether anyone likes it or not, evolution brought us to this point. And yet like seemingly every instinct we (as humans) have, we can harness these instincts towards unique goals. In America we harnessed this instinct to work on the problem of equality before the law, for example. Not every nation focuses on the same goal or needs. Everyone instinctively understands their influence and needs as special.
@@booksquid856 i agree that there are tribal qualities that may instill a level of ethno-national pride, myself as a born and raised Scot have strong sentimental appreciation for what other Scots have conrributed to the modern world: whether Fleming and his pharmaceutical innovation in penicillin, or James Watt with engineering, Logie Baird and the TV, indeed A. G. Bell and the phone, Hume and enlightenment thinking of Adam Smith whose contribution to free market capitalism holding a treasured place in economics. Not bad for a nation of a mere 5 million people even you as a non Scot would agree is a marvellous and significant input in the evolution of western civilization. Dare I say giving even the Jew or the Greek a run for their money. that said however, such pride would border on nationalistic narcissism if I were to operate daily with the erroneous worldview that it made myself or Scots as a whole being special to the point of perpetuating a myth of somehow embodying a status tantamount to being a divinely appointed chosen group of people; while every other group, absent of this haughty, grandiose perspective have no such intrinsic worth, and indeed an identity that is not "American", or "Jew," or any other categorisation invented or otherwise. Everyone else is just "other" or "non Scot".
That, for me -and arguably for any other rationally minded person with an innate Inquisitive proclivity to challenge such imposed collective societal mythos- as nothing short of utterly weird.
Uploaded 22 seconds ago. Never clicked so fast haha
same here, saw 2 seconds ago and instaclicked
Very enjoyable discussion, and interesting topic.
You need to do a series on this topic. There is a lot more to it than David is covering. There should be a debate panel on it. A full length series. Live Q&A
at 45:55, is he using the word “prudential”? what does he mean by that?
Rabbi Wolpe says circumcision of infants and children is OK. Does the Rabbi have the same view of female genital mutilation? If not, why not?
He did mention clearly that he does not view this as the same thing. Female mutilation involves removing the entire cl*t, thus removing all pleasure. The same is not the case for circumcision, at least not Jewish circumcision which is a small ceremonial snip. Still a huge pain though. And there have been debates about updating this to an alternative. Some facets of American Jewry officially abandoned it for a while. It is worth noting that circumcision is a tradition that originates in Africa and that many tribes to this day use various forms of bodily scarring to mark membership. Long ago, and still in places today, people did not have passports and IDs and biometrics and thumbprint scans.
I feel like this is the first time I've ever seen Alex not fully track (at least at a conversational level) the point a guest was making, and thus ask questions thoroughly miss the point. What a wonderful guest to have on, and one that seemed to truly push Alex to see the Abrahamic faith in a fundamentally different way than 99% of the western Christianity dominated discourse
What did Alex not track exactly?
@@jozefglemp8011 Alex was really quite slow to grant the idea of seeing the bible as humans sincerely grappling with god. There were two or three minutes where Alex seemed to struggle to forgo the idea that the fundamentalist Christian reading is in one way the most natural interpretation
@@perplexedon9834 I believe he understood the idea. Alex does this often, asking questions that might seem to be repetitive or circular so that he can have the guest clearly articulate their beliefs and views. I think it's more for the viewers sake than for Alex.
@@acrostiic5623 that is why included "at least at a conversational level". I do think Alex was at least playing the role of a viewer that wasn't tracking what the guest was saying in a way that I haven't really seen before
Thanks Alex!
I'm not Jewish, but this made me consider joining the family haha!
Great interview. What a great fellow, this David.
It’s annoying me now. Why doesn’t someone ask, when told the Bible has been edited over long periods of time and some is outdated, why are they not still editing and improving it? If it was edited why not still? Morality has shifted so much that the update is long overdue. Get inspired and correct the errors.
It has been adapted!-- in countless and growing libraries of legal debate, inquiry, precedent, overruling and adaptation! This is the problem with the world still thinking the OT is the equivalent of Torah. Christians have a closed canon of belief for sharing a religion. While the Jewish nation has a living constitution. It's just like in America that we have volumes of development in our government, but we hold sacred various texts for stating key principles or even key battles--and even some fables--as the foundation to our ongoing and evolving identity.
Speaking of edit....as to why the older documents are not edited, there is more reason than the one we have as Americans for not touching the declaration of independence. The Torah is also unique in its original language for being a piece of literary technology very similar to a modern computer programming software like JavaScript. Font size, number, key words, spacing, repetition of words, musical intonation(the only "punctuation") are all used to access different interlinear cross-referencing for the purpose of different types of discussions regarding Jewish constitutional life. That has to be kept precise to work properly. Just like making sure a program doesn't have bugs. So the accuracy of text is nearly worshipped for the basic practicality of that being necessary to use the tool and not just read a bunch of surface narratives. Another reason the OT and Torah are completely different.
@@booksquid856 when was the last time the Bible was updated substantially to remove its awful or irrelevant sections as replace them with something more suitable?
@@Theactivepsychos Read my edited response. Think you will understand better. As I said before Americans live under a living constitution. So does the Jewish nation. We as Americans do not live under the Mayflowe compact or articles of Confederation o even the same ammendments of our early history . Erasing history is a complete disservice to everyone so I don't see how you could want to edit that out. Especially when there are libraries of reinterpretation in both American and Jewish constitutional law.
@@booksquid856 tell that to the devoted then.
@@Theactivepsychos I have no need to, since it is a consistent reality.
That's like telling Americans they should finally watch presidential debates, light fireworks, and vote. It's like telling us we have opposing parties or groups who think of each other as unAmerican. It's like announcing the IRS has a tax season or the Pilgrims didn't dress that way. We fight each other as Americans and each have different dress and beliefs, but we experience everyday what it means to function as a nation. It's reality. Only someone outside that reality may not understand it.
So it is folks outside the Jewish nation who refuse to look beyond their assumptions that are the challenge.
Alex, I urge you to bring on a real Jewish scholar from the Orthodox tradition. Listening to R' Wolpe as someone who grew up Orthodox is like hearing a layman try and defend Judaism, no offense but this is the truth. R' Wolpe is not taught in the authentic traditions of Judaism but rather in a version of Judaism made up within the last 200 years, his understanding of scripture and Jewish philosophy reveals this. Just wanted to give you a heads up so you do not take him as a spokesperson for most of Judaism.
Agree. My thoughts exactly. He was basically saying whatever made sense to him. And what he personally believes. Not what Judaism believes. He's basically a religious intellectual who happens to be jewish
Well...Orthodoxy we have today was also made up in the last two hundred years, basically as a backlash to modern developments. So the timeframe for the development of his views doesn't necessarily delegitimize them. I think he is fully aware of various other perspectives. He gave very well thought out responses that I truly appreciate.
He should have a conversation with Rabbi Oury Amos Cherki
@@booksquid856 not the religious aspects of orthodoxy. Parts of the cultural aspects perhaps
@@Yosaif-Israel Agreed.
Feels like Alex is one by one confronting Hitchen's old rogues gallery 🤣
Alex would love Halacha debates with these questions about conversion
Regarding unjust suffering being a mechanism by which true goodness can exist, I’m not religious, but the following passage from the Book of Mormon resonated with me:
“15 Yea, he that truly humbleth himself, and repenteth of his sins, and endureth to the end, the same shall be blessed-yea, much more blessed than they who are compelled to be humble because of their exceeding poverty.
16 Therefore, blessed are they who humble themselves without being compelled to be humble…”
Justlistened to this podcast and it was one of the most interesting, funny and educational conversations I have had the pleasure to enjoy.
Allyour podcasts are interesting, funny and educational but your guest was amazing. Thank you Alex, you provide a balanced view of society and the world.
The ‘assumption’ part is really great, Alex, I hope you’ve now wrapped your head around it. The ‘Book of Job’, the ‘moral impulsive in heroic actions’, ‘the boat-sinking analogy of death’, well, all of the following parts are also fascinating, a wonderful guest and conversation! Your penultimate question is really tough but the guest handled quite well. Hitchens certainly won’t win debating him, but is it necessary to comment on another person for this long?
Western concept? Jews had a very clear sense of being a separate ethnic group according to the Tanakh and were proud of that. The basis of judaism is racial, but , given thats not a politically correct stance these days , jews avoid saying that openly. Just try to convert to judaism if you are not an ethnic jew and that will become clear
Inheritance, citizenship, nationalism, differing state and tribal jurisdictions are part of our own national existence in America as well, yet I don't hear anyone decrying it as ethnocentric. Most of us recognize that people of all races and cultures have joined America. What most do not seem to know is that people of all races and cultures join the Jewish nation as well- not only in the stories of the Tanach itself but throughout history and still now today. Yes, ANYONE can naturalize to become a Jew. And people all over the world of different backgrounds do right at this moment. Thus you find Jews of every color, dress, food pallette, and custom.
Edit: Just a reminder though as Rabbi mentions the naturalization process involves more than an ancient symbolic snip. It involves lots of dedicated study! The "religious" texts of Judasm are her constitutional narratives. And citizens of the Jewish world have a much more intimate and rigorous connection to their study, debate, adaptation, and ongoing interpretation.
@@booksquid856 but then it seems you have a very flexible non literal interpretation of the Tanach. Cause the Tanach literally says jews shall not marry gentiles. And, i also understand one is not considered a jew if not born from a jewish mother
Conversion is discouraged because it is a huge commitment, irrevocable, and not necessary. But conversion is of course possible, look no further than Ruth (great-grandmother of King David) who was not born Jewish but rather as a Moabite.
'Oh those terrible things werent the literal words of god, how silly - our god only really did the good things in the bible'
Well...that was never stated or even suggested in this video. As Americans today we don't all believe in "Providence" but we do hold our founding documents as valid...and this despite the errors in our own national history, errors which yes some people thought were divine purposes. People can always imagine things with sincerity and still be wrong. That doesn't erase the overall validity and purpose of our constitutional narratives. Neither does it do that for the Jewish constitutional narratives, the Torah...Rabbi Wolpe's point.
@@booksquid856you could say this about any historical fiction or mythology.
@@calenhoover1124 Historic fiction and myth are found in every nation's story, yes. Creative tales are frequently used in Judasm for relaying and debating constitutional principles.
This was much more interesting than I expected it to be. Well done!
Alex, what philosophical position do you postulate as to the nature of reality? This is still unclear to me. Thanks.
As an atheist i've always appriciated David, ever since his debate with C.Hitchens he's always come across as very sensible and intelligent.
It is interesting to be an atheist Jew but I’m proud to be one
Can I ask what it is you’re proud of? I always find it odd when people are proud of their position within a group they had no say in joining. A bit like nationalists and football fans (where they inherit their team from their fathers).
@@Theactivepsychosa lot of people are proud of their cultures in ways that don’t equal national/exclusionism. Especially for historically oppressed groups, I think loving your traditions, holidays, music, food, and other cultural elements is perfectly healthy and acceptable. I agree with you that going so far as to excuse bigoted or harmful beliefs and practices is wrong
@@Theactivepsychosyou can take pride in your country or race despite not choosing it
@@TheactivepsychosI had no say in being gay and trans, however I’m proud of my community and I’m proud to be those things. I hope that makes sense! I’d love to hear what you have to say.
But what are you all proud of? I always find it a bit naive. A bit like “respect your elders”. As a kid I always found this abhorrent cos that group included lots of wrong uns. Same with the priests. I was always told they were the pillar of our community and you could trust them and then the decades of child rape came out. So I’m just wondering how and what it is you actually feel towards these groups that may well include the worst people in the world?
I’m not knocking it by the way, I’m just trying to understand your points of view.
That Rabbi has no historical background - and it shows. Judaism is nothing unique among so called Bronze Age or City-Religions of antiquity - its concept called "Ethno-religious" branch of religions. It was standard in antiquity.
I think that actually was partly the point he was making when saying the definition of Judasm predates our modern sensibilities of nation and religion as distinct categories. Also the Jewish world has spent 90 percent of its existence as a nomadic people (even before the most recent Temple's destruction), so it has some fascinating and unique traits that contribute to her longevity and continuity despite despite very spread out communities. For one thing, her "religious" texts are actually her constitutional narratives and have been subjected to ages of legal scrutiny, debate, and adaptation.
That's the point he was making.
I think it would be very well worth your time interviewing an Orthodox rabbi. There are many to speak with at Aish for example. The reformation of Judaism transformed it in ways that matched it to the European environment around it, but in so doing made it less interesting and different from a philosophical context. Highly recommend
It would be an interesting conversation, but I expect it would likely be more heated. I think we would hear a more literal and strict interpretation of Judaism.
As a Christian I'm glad Alex is interacting with someone of another religious tradition, hopefully we can see more in the future.