 Thank you all for coming. This is my chance to ask you the questions I want to learn about so your latest book it's called David the divided heart and the book of Samuel is Probably the greatest political biography of all time one of the most significant books on politics So I'd like to start with some questions there and in in how you view that book Why is it that David if indeed you believe this was a better king than Saul? So first of all, thank you for inviting me to To this grilling and the dialogue I Do believe that David was a better king than Saul the first look the first test of a king in the ancient world is What David did that is remarkable and that is he died in his bed That's rare among ancient and medieval kings as you know And so survival in and of itself is a test of merit even not speaking about in divine eyes, but just in human eyes also in some way Saul seemed to have lost to the confidence of the people and while no Contemporary analogies are intended in anything that I say You cannot underestimate the value of charisma in a political leader and David had Tremendous charisma. So when the women of Israel went out into the streets and said Saul has killed thousands But David has killed tens of thousands. That was already a signal that Saul was going to fail and fall So I think that on those two Just survival and charisma alone you would have to say that David was a more successful leader So if someone makes the argument that David was a better king because he never committed idolatry Would you accept that description? A better king because he never committed it. Well, no because it's not clear that Saul committed idolatry It's clear pretty clear that David didn't I would say and also Yes, all this told to kill the king and to get rid of all the Amalekites And he doesn't do that and that is mentioned again that that was his failing and isn't Isn't that what appears to be a small thing a big thing or no? Well, it's yes the sin there I mean, that's actually a very problematic sin where he's told you didn't kill enough people And you didn't slaughter the king when you were supposed to but the idea is that The way the Talmud puts it is that somebody who is kind to the cruel will end up being cruel to the kind and The idea that your enemies have to be dispatched or at least effectively subdued Was something that Saul didn't have the stomach for and I would say in the ancient world. Maybe That would make you an unsuccessful king So if the commands of God are not necessarily visible to the rest of us Yeah, what for you is the implied political? Epistemology of the book. How do we know when we have a good king leader? President if that's an important feature and we as outsiders don't know who has received what message or command How do we know in general or how do we know in a book of the Bible? Because those could be too different or okay, so I would say that It's true in the one of one of the problems with the Bible is that you can always say how do you how did the person know that? God was speaking to them Since I can't As Queen Elizabeth said cut windows into people's souls. I have no idea if God spoke to David That's something you have to either take on faith or not What I do know is that David was successful in unifying the kingdom subduing rebellion leaving a legacy of a lasting legacy where people believed that he would lead to ultimately to the Messiah and also Installing his son in the kingship and his son succeeded in building the temple which became for a long time the center point of Jewish religion and He established Jerusalem as the capital which if he had only done that would have been an extraordinary achievement So if you want to attribute that to the fact that David listened to God and that the Psalms are in fact an expression of David's soul I don't have a problem with that but But if you want to be Pragmatist about it and just look at results So I would say that's how you judge the success of a leader then and now If you think of it being an implicit question in the book of Genesis First how is there a political order at all and also why is it that brothers do not kill each other? And those in Genesis to my reading are not at all resolved and then you have the book of Samuel and the David story by the end of that What's the extra thing we've learned? What's the resolution to those questions to the questions of how is it? The how is it the order is possible at a deep metaphysical level. How is it that brothers don't kill each other? Is there any resolution? Well, first of all brothers not killing each other is always a provisional statement I say this with two of my brothers in the audience And and I think that it's fair to say that we have not killed each other yet But The the beauty in some ways let me first give you my sermonic answer The beauty of the book of Genesis is all through Genesis brothers are fighting even though They don't kill each other in the end and then the very last set of brothers The reason that they fight is because generally in one way the younger is preferred over the older and there are questions of birthright And so on and then the very towards the very last scene. There are two brothers Ephraim and Menasha Menasha is the older Ephraim is the younger Jacob blesses as the grandfather. He blesses the younger with the better blessing and Menasha doesn't protest. He's actually kind of the silent hero of the book So I would say that there is a degree of acceptance that is taught An unequal distribution of goods if I can transgress into your into your field for a moment and that's the way the world is and you have to accept that there will be different degrees of talent and gifts and so on and so forth and and The acceptance of that that is the acceptance of God's gifts at unequal levels is the way interpersonally brothers succeed in not killing each other and in terms of the establishment of a political order and I think they're the idea at least in Samuel what starts to happen is that there is an Understood division between the political order and the religious order that is Samuels the high priest and the leader And he gets very upset when they want to have a king because he says why am I not good enough? The reason is because you need a political order that is different. You need separation effectively of synagogue and state to some to some degree Let's say you have a leader who has had several wives has served the interests of a foreign power Is very good at blame shifting? Should that leader be as self-confident as David seems to be in the book of Samuel? apparently I Think according to the standards of the time having several wives was normative and they weren't sequential. They were simultaneous So as my friend Joseph to Lushkin says polygamy does exist in the Bible. It's just never successful So David does have many wives and very strained and interesting and complex relationships with women David has The most complicated and most described relationships with women of any character in the Hebrew Bible Those qualities that can be negative in David are to some extent positive one of the things that that draws David out of the charge of simple narcissism is That he really listens. He pays attention. He pays attention to women over and over again He listens to what they say and changes himself because of it And that's not a characteristic of men in the ancient world or the modern one that You can rely on so here's I would say Next to his hubris. There's a self-effacement and and next to his charisma. There's also a receptivity and Yeah, in the in the complex of his personality You can understand why people might look at him sort of To draw a very different political figure the way that at some point I think it was Seward said about Lincoln, which is he's the best among us Let me press you on two of the things you say in the book. There are two things you said that surprised me So let me try to become unsurprised. I think it's on page 33 You said of all the characters in the book of Samuel Yes, the one you could best imagine as also being a king is Jonathan because Jonathan had a capacity for self-sacrifice Right and that surprised me because again, I'm very much a novice on this territory But I think of him as a little too nice a guy and not strong enough in the right way To actually be a king in that time. I think you're probably right I could imagine as a king first of all. He was the son of the king So he was the natural heir and as we know that often happens that the natural heir may not be the fitting king But right and also Yeah, I thought that Jonathan was the kind of person that people would be drawn to But I I would certainly I mean, I think that that's probably a worthy caveat He probably would have gotten killed in the kingship in a way that David was too Too strong a personality and too Crafty an operator to allow himself to be killed Now in page 18, there's a claim you make and I don't want to misquote you here But I understand you to be saying something like That chronicles is like a boring retelling of the story of David's it's that's a almost a direct quote I said chronicles is Samuel made boring, but again coming to this as an outsider I read chronicles I think of chronicles as the very long-run perspective Saying that all of these events of the moment which are so dramatic so emotional so engrossing They seem to be what's so relevant just like we're all entranced by Twitter or the Daily News But ultimately what matters is the long run of history Does the kingdom survive and it's actually the contrast between the extreme impersonality of chronicles and the deeply personal story of the book of Samuel that are these multiple dual or competing Layers or levels of wisdom and that that's better than either book taken alone. Am I off base there? I think that's a beautiful explanation. I would say two things about it one is One is that if you're writing the story of David and you're writing the story of David as opposed to say a Political analysis of David's kingship then you want the story as it's most dramatic full of Blood and fury and sex and and and betrayal and so on and that's in Samuel The second is that chronicles it's not just that chronicles is when I said it was made boring what I meant was Not that it's a dry textbook as opposed to a Bodice ripper of a romance novel But that it takes the very Humanness of David and tries to sanctify him in a way that I think is untrue to David's character So, you know the it's the first time for example that the character of the Satan Appears as an inciter he incites David to do something bad So that way you don't have to to blame David that he did it and in that sense I think the chronicles is a sort of it's a sanitizing of the real history of David even though it may be a More interesting political. I don't know more interesting a different political lens Now let me try asking you about some well-known Jewish thinkers and tell me what you think are their Significance either for Judaism or maybe for you personally Okay, and here's a man who sadly passed away not long ago, but Jacob Noisner So the Noisner was a very interesting character in a lot of ways I think the The brief biography and some of you may not know Jacob Noisner was the most productive and prolific scholar of The 20th century notice. I did not say Jewish scholar. I said scholar he wrote he's credited with almost a thousand books Maybe more have you read them all I've read every every now. I've read them at least once I've read several of them But I mean some of them were produced by his students and some of them are translations and so on but even when you strip away All the accretions he still was a phenomenally productive scholar and in many ways changed the field of Talmud studies Even though traditional Talmudists didn't like to think that In part because they didn't like to think that and in part because he was a notoriously difficult character And I will leave it at that But but what Noisner did was something very simple which he learned from his beginning in Renaissance studies Which is when it says Rabbi so-and-so told Rabbi so-and-so this He started to question the attributions How do we know that Rabbi so-and-so said that and he started to apply Scientific study of texts in the 20th century to the Talmud in a way that had not been done before and he had a very brilliant Schematic mind so anybody who studies Talmud today Whether they say it or not they're indebted to Noisner and certainly my teachers were and they made sure that that we were as well Primo Levy the Italian writer so Primo Levy is a Primo Levy is a problematic figure in a in some sad way because you know The although it's not a universal consensus most people believe he committed suicide and and Ellie Wiesel said that he he died at Auschwitz 70 years later The thing about Levy that is so Remarkable is that he's one of those rare almost like check off. He's a scientific mind That is a brilliant literary writer. So when you read him on Auschwitz, you're reading very careful detailed pros that he's heartbreaking But there's no he doesn't he doesn't appeal to your heart instead. He just tells you Chris in a crystalline way what happened and and I'll give you one one analogy that I've never actually Written about or seen written about and and and I thought of it years ago And I hope that I'm remembering it right There's one place I think in survival in Auschwitz where Primo Levy talks about a bricklayer That the Nazis asked him to build a wall and he couldn't persuade himself to build it badly He just couldn't because that's what I mean That was his pride and it reminded me that there's this great that I haven't read for years And I don't I'm sure I could find it But there's a de Montpeçon story about a guy who's a circus performer and he what he does is he fires arrows Into his wife's into an apple on his wife's head and that's their circus act And he starts to hate his wife and he wants to kill her But he can't bring himself To do it wrong He can't do it and weirdly when I read the Levy thing and I thought of the de Montpeçon thing And I thought that in some ways that sense of I must be accurate all the time. That's what Levy is It's like I can't get this wrong And when you read that on Auschwitz and you know that the person that you're reading Won't Exaggerate or distort it makes it that much more painful No, I'm sure you know rabbi Jonathan sacks in his new book essay on ethics He wrote the following and I quote the entire burden of the Torah from the beginning of Exodus to the end of Deuteronomy It's about what it is to create a free society as opposed to the slavery the Israelites experienced in Egypt Agree or disagree disagree why because if you take out the entire burden of the Torah I might agree but but I think there's a lot of other things that you could just as easily say The Torah is about So I think that it's too sweeping a statement. It's defensible to say a large You know swath of the Torah is about this, but not the entire burden Abraham Joshua Heschel What's these importance? I Think that I was There were two thinkers who were most important to me in different ways Although it's hard to say partly because of where I where I grew up And I think one was Heschel the other boober Heschel the reason that Heschel is so important is less for the content of his thought although sometimes that's powerful then the frequently breathtaking prose in which he put it and it was the first time that I read somebody who Could move me with the poetry of his language Even though as we I expressed to you earlier sometimes he's over flowery sometimes he could have used a good editor But there are some passages where like in his little book the Sabbath which Everybody who's interested in Judaism or in God or theology should read where you think it's it's like Just so extraordinarily beautiful that it's an illustration of what it talks about That is it is something that touches your soul as it talks about the necessity for your soul to be touched So again, I'm an outsider in this dialogue But say I were thinking of converting to Judaism and I were asking you about Hasidic philosophy. Yes now in terms of Some social connections, I probably would fit better into your congregation than into a Hasidic congregation But if I asked you on theological grounds alone, is there a reason why I should be hesitant About Hasidic philosophy from the point of view of theology. What do you think is the greatest weakness there or your biggest difference with it? Given how much you like Heschel Well, first of all, I would say Heschel had a Hasidic background, but he became a modern scholar so there are things in Hasidic philosophy that he would not subscribe to and and among other things the I Mean if you really is just among us, right? So Look there is going back to to Yehuda Hallavi and going through the Tanya and and and woven through Hasidism is the question of whether Jews have different souls from non-Jews in some essential way that I don't think you'd be particularly comfortable with Nor am I it's what it's what one of my one a great American rabbi who passed away not so long ago Harold Chilwes used to call metaphysical racism, but if it's correct Right, I'll exceed to it. I'm a reasonable man. If it's correct If it's correct, I would expect you that you would as a reasonable man, but but I certainly don't believe it so the the second thing I would say that might give you pause about Hasidism is theology which is and this is a deep Kabbalistic belief This is where if I can if I can go on a mini rant about tikkun olam and I say this deliberately at 6th and I Tikkun olam has nothing to do with saving the whales It doesn't Tikkun olam is actually not a synonym for social action even though Everybody uses it that way Tikkun olam to go I please by all means let the record reflect that there was scattered applause so Tikkun olam is a Kabbalistic term that is a term from Jewish mysticism in which you do meets vote in the world To fix breaks in creation and in God Okay, and that means that you're doing tikkun olam when you wrapped fill in in the morning just as much as when you give Siddhaka when you give charity when you keep kosher just as much as When you you know, I don't know when you're kind to animals Every meets vah is tikkun olam now the idea that there are breaks in God that human beings can affect is a beautiful idea But as if you're a rationalist, it's a hard idea to to absorb but if I defend Hasidic philosophy and I say there's something wondrous about the world Yes, a kind of eminence which may be other traditions have neglected and it was a resurgence in Judaism It was part of the Enlightenment. It happened at a time Where a Judaic philosophy and life was having a lot of problems It was highly modern if I think about a lot of 19th century or even early 20th century Jewish writings That's arguably the most dynamic tradition again at that turning point In terms of capturing the beauty of existence in a way that reflects how we moderns would call a subjective perspective on that Isn't that the most profound branch of Judaism or no, okay? Well, you you asked me to critique it You didn't ask me what was good about it now you're asking what was good about it So what I would say I don't want to call it the most profound branch of Judaism I don't think that you could say for example that the Vilna Gaon who Represented the up the meat nog team those who opposed has it is certainly was not less profound than the Baal Shem Tov What I would say is that a Hasidism, which is a tradition that I deeply love and my my in some ways my greatest religious hero Was a very offbeat strange Hasidic Rebbe called the Kotzka Rebbe Hasidism what it did was at least from the Baal Shem Tov is it sought Yes, to restore the sense of God's immanence in the world the sense of joy in connecting to God and to other people the it expanded the expressions of religious ecstasy in dance and song and and also very powerfully and importantly in Religious stories Hasidic stories especially the stories of Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav are the most famous example But not the only example by far Hasidic stories are An immeasurable Contribution to the world treasury of of spirit so all those things absolutely are true If we end up elevating immanence over Transcendence do we in some ways neglect Torah study and the special role of Israel too much So this is this is a constant back-and-forth and argument Heschel was criticized for when he wrote about the Sabbath for calling it a cathedral in time for not being Not being Terrestrial enough in some ways and so he wrote a book about Israel called Echo of Eternity. Yeah, I mean There are those who see God is unutterably far and those who see God is unbearably near and the Talmud and Jewish tradition And not only Jewish tradition Christianity bridges that gap obviously with the personhood of God Judaism does not Judaism believes that both exist simultaneously the the rabbi say that God is as close as your mouth to your ear in other words God hears what you say as easily as you do and yet There is no representation of God in this sanctuary God is not invisible Because that suggests that God has a body, but you can't see it's like if you put a hat on God You would see the hat go down the street, but but God is God is Intangible like love like justice that is God doesn't have a physical being and that makes God transcendent and and in some ways Incredibly distant and I think that that's important because what I always say to especially to high schoolers when I talk about God I I begin the conversation about God with this We're gonna discuss what God is or what God isn't and so on but I said in the Jewish tradition think about it Let's say they're 15 or as adults when you were two years old Could you imagine what an adult is? Not only could you not imagine it, but you couldn't even imagine what it is that you couldn't imagine Right, you don't know what your gaps are when you're two or three Now God in the Jewish tradition the distance between God and human beings is infinitely greater than the distance between a two-year-old and a 20-year-old So as soon as we say God's imminence or God transcendence realize that we're caught in this net of metaphors about something we can't comprehend Is it permissible to play chess on the Sabbath or if I offer upon sacrifice am I a gambler? Yes, and no And and one day I hope to find out How would you alter or improve rabbinical training I have I've given this a lot of thought let me just mention one area When I speak to rabbinical students I tell them all the time that the single most valuable commodity you have as a rabbi You can answer that yourself, and then I'll tell you what I think your voice Most people are going to come in contact with you when you speak to them not all of them But most there'll be more people who come to your services Then the number of people at whose bedside you will sit as they die and yet most rabbis most people Don't know how to speak that and that training which is given we have homiletics classes, but The ability to communicate what words to use what examples to use how to train your voice so that people can understand you How often have you been in front of speakers who you have to tell them ten times put the microphone closer, please? I can't hear you right that ability is woefully under represented I think in the rabbinic community and it is It's very much to our detriment I've thought about social media quite a bit and written on them and I have two questions relating social media to Judaism If you think about the tradition of the Torah the Torah is so much itself commentary on the Torah Yes, and there's Mishnah and Talmud and everything commentary upon commentary upon commentary But there's something about social media that seems to act to strip away context And people who write for mainstream media will tell you this well I wrote an article that ended up on facebook in a very different setting than how I intended it to be read And you can say all you want all the hyperlinks are there, but people don't click through And what do you think is the intellectual future? Of a belief system based on commentary on commentary on commentary Now we inject it into a world with this technology That so strips away context and just gives you some bold statement of something I think that Judaism has the same problem That any thick civilization has in a world in which As you say context is stripped away and not only is context stripped away, but but attention to any one thing is Is scantor and less than it used to be So for example, a lot of Jewish commentary is based on you're recognizing the reference that I make Who recognizes references anymore because people don't spend years studying books? And so what I would the the optimistic take on that Is that the availability With ease of the vast libraries of Jewish learning at your fingertips will create a more Conversant community um, and in some ways I think that has happened the Negative is that Jewish culture will get thinner and thinner and Judaism as you said depends on a very deep and thick culture If I look at the history of the arts and other areas I see a tendency for a kind of centralization of the past So I think today actually many more people read Shakespeare than they did 30 years ago But older plays and fiction are in general less read more people read Jane Austin But the second tier authors from that time are less read maybe from the 1960s. It will be the Beatles But you know the birds will fall away whatever Do you see that happening with Jewish philosophy and with the Hebrew Bible? There's a kind of centralization of what people know and are falling away of what Well, I think what you're describing is something that is that is a normal historical process I mean the commentary that we have is a small fraction of the commentaries that were written There were always people diving into obscurity right and people who wrote And and their books like like Hume said his book was still born from the press There were always such people and so other and you never know what's going to survive So I have no idea who from the 20th century for example will survive There's a um There's a a sense in which I think You know history when they say history is the final judge But the final judge is never the final judgment is never written because authors are being revived They're being rediscovered and the same thing is true with certain commentaries and books and ideas So as long as they are available and accessible and in this The internet is An invaluable addition to the continuity of learning somebody will be able in 500 years to rediscover a book That we may think is gone forever and suddenly it will it will live again I worry sometimes that electronic media won't have the durability of good old paper There are book centuries old you can still read I have two questions from readers This is a blog reader of mine quote Why do so many american jews leave judaism when say canadian jews don't So I I think um, I'm not I'm not sure about the statistics of that and I've spoken up in canada a few times And it's not as though they don't they're not plagued with many of the same problems although um, maybe they're a little bit in this sense uh behind The assimilation rate of american jews But I think that the reason that american jews leave judaism is is some of it is very clear You know, it's first of all, it's what erwin crystal used to say He used to say the complaint that the jews made about the non-jews used to be that they kill wanted to kill us And now it's that they want to marry us When you say to a child I want you to go to the best schools live in the best neighborhoods Work in the best firms, but don't fall in love That's too nuanced a message So the degree to which neighborhoods were coherent and Unvarying and constant was the degree to which there was a great deal of in-marriage and communal raising of children and Continuity of heritage and that's still true in some jewish communities and more true in canada because there's less mobility But in an age of mobility where people don't have extended families and where Intermarriage rates are what you would expect from a tiny minority in a big majority Where Where there's a lot of cultural sharing It's not surprising that a counter cultural tradition Which demands as you said knowledge and is reliant to a great extent on another language which americans Won't do unless I guess it's chinese these days um So I mean the the the inability of americans, for example, american jews to learn hebrew Is a sort of intellectual scandal in one way because Judaism really does have a sacred language In another way, I suppose it's expected because that's what americans are like and and so I'm not It's not a shock even though it's a great sadness and I don't think that it is The jewish tendency is to say well, judaism has not been presented this way Or we haven't given it that twist or the leaders haven't done this But I think that that's a function of standing against a tide and I don't know What would reverse that tide, but it's uh It's a difficult thing second reader question. Do I have to believe in god? Do you? Tyler the reader Well, you have to give me what's the end of that sentence Do I have to believe in god in order to not do I have to believe in god? Well, no, obviously not Since I've since I've had a whole as you know a whole series of debates with atheists obviously there are people who don't And I didn't myself for for a long time If you're asking do I have to believe in god to be a jew? I think that's what was implied the answer clearly is no you don't have to believe in god to be a jew That's not definitional It's not definitional All of these conversations Simple now, but okay, no one better than I won't go on from there All of these conversations there's a segment in the middle called overrated or underrated Yes, I know and I mentioned something to you feel free to pass the goal is not that you have to offend anyone But the first on the list overrated or underrated los angeles as a city In one way overrated and in another underrated Please explain. Oh, okay It's overrated in it's um in in it's The degree to which people think of it as a dream factory as a as an ideal place in the world as a as a You know as a as a cloud As a cloud city But it's under it's underrated in two ways first of all in its tremendous natural beauty Which if you haven't been there really it's tremendously beautiful Mountains in the middle of the city coming from philadelphia. I didn't know what they were doing there And And it is much more Interesting deep ramified Filled with all sorts of intellectual cultural Activity than people on the east would think and to dismiss a city of I mean Look one one out of every 10 people in america lives in california to dismiss them all as fruits nuts and flakes Is uh is silly the israeli television show surgine Underrated more tell us why more people should why is this special because it tells you about the life of a very important Segment of israeli population, which are surgine means knitted knitted kipot. That is modern orthodox Which is a very important sort of straddling population in modern israel and most american jews don't know about it And it will and it will teach you One thing i like so much about the show is how it maintains erotic tension It's a great problem from the 20th century onwards if you have a romantic dilemma It's not the 19th century. Well, why don't they just get divorced or why don't they just sleep together or why don't they just whatever And surgine you have a setting where that tension is maintained That's why in a beautiful essay although slightly problematic many years ago trilling said that lolita was was the the modern novel of love The reason is he said all love require all real love stories require an obstacle And usually it was You know adultery or something like that. He says but when all Barriers have been leveled and the only obstacle less left is an adult may not touch a child It was part of nabocco's genius to make that Into a love story which is to some extent what lolita is even though at the same time Of course you feel revolted by the reality of what it's about But that's a very extreme way of going back to what you said, which is that religious stories can still do that Because there are rules in a ruleless society love stories have no erotic tension no barrier nothing to vault over The iran nuclear deal overrated or underrated way overrated and i wish it hadn't I i mean i i think that it i think that it will prove a mistake I think a bad mistake having said that i also want to say what i said when when i spoke against it I want to say one other thing though, which is When the iran nuclear deal came out All of a sudden people who had never been Who knew nothing about nuclear? Physics and i include myself except that they watched the simpsons We're pronouncing on whether it was a good idea or not I i don't i can't speak in that in those words, but i think that any deal first of all Knowing something about iranian culture because so much of my congregation is iranian And any deal where the american side didn't leave the table even once Is to me by definition a bad deal by definition so So i i hope i i hope to god that i'm wrong, but i i think overrated Speaking of islam, what is it that's especially beautiful in islam? Well, first of all, i think that in a lot of ways islam shares more with judaism than christianity does First of all, it's a it's a it's a religion of the transcendence of god, right? It's a religion of law and commentary And and and i and i have a theory for why that is and christianity isn't why judaism and islam are if you Want to hear the theory let's hear the here's my theory my theory is that's because christianity grew up in the roman empire So the laws were taken care of But moses and muhammad had to create a people in the desert, right? So you needed civil law as well as criminal law and the other thing i think that is that is beautiful about islam although today In some ways very scary about islam is the enormous power that it has for large populations who One day know very little about it and yet the next day feel tremendous devotion to it Something that can some belief system that can do that is You know that that's worth paying attention to on its own terms not just from the outside If you think of the portrayal of david the david story in the karan and you compare it to that in the hebrew bible Do you think that reflects something that later becomes troubling or do you just think it's a You know i think well this is part of a much larger question There are a lot of differences between the karan and the hebrew bible david is one thing the karan The karan Is and this in this you should excuse me for the home team. I like judy isn't much better The karan is very unwilling to allow any sinfulness in its heroes. He's much more heroic david He's much more much more as is moses as is everyone in uh, i mean the story the story right exactly So so i like the idea flawed heroes I like the notion that that that there isn't This white washing and i feel that the karan does that but but obviously i'm not a muslim When you look at michael angelo's david statue in florans, yes Do you feel that's quote-unquote your david or is that a christian david being portrayed? Huh And if so, what's the difference i Feel that the here's what i would say He's no he's portraying the hebrew david But the idea of having such a magnificent david statue is a christian idea So if i could say it that way very good answer On islam if we look at islamic countries in the world today, we've all noticed in different ways This is a generalization, but it seems to me a true generalization their ability to be stable democracies Seems problematic at least right now And i'm not just talking about the middle east if you look at places like bangladesh malaysia other parts They're somewhat democratic, but they don't seem to mature Into quote-unquote normal democracies the way say south korea and taiwan have and of course much of the middle east They're not close to being democracies And why at the deepest level you could explain as a matter of intellect theology metaphysics Has the doctrine of the religion ended up correlated with this result? If i were wise i would say that i'm not i'm neither an expert in islam nor in politics and therefore i would beg off this question But i'm not going to Because i think that there he is incumbent it is an intellectual necessity of the time since i think there is no question That jihadist islam is right now as great a threat i don't want to say Healthy extreme i'm talking about but i'm just saying so so there is a necessity I'm saying to put some intellectual pressure on the question of why it isn't creating societies of healthier political climates I would say if i had to pick one thing that is at the heart of islam that is That is anti-democratic It is the concept that's very deep that is in the very name of the religion of submission Because a population that he's trained essentially to submit is a population that will create authoritarians And so i think that the That the recalcitrance i mean when you think about israel The founders of israel none of them came from democracies they came from russia They came i mean they came from eastern europe they came from the levant They didn't know from democracy and yet why did they create a democracy because they were all argued with each other Seriously they all did that's like my friend joseph eppstein has a great line. He said jews don't listen they wait And i think that and And that idea that the disputatious culture of the talmud and so on it's good for democracy And i think the the culture of submission can be corrosive to it Some questions about israel if i may sure let's say you're talking to someone who is jewish And who is pro israel in a broad sense and would consider themselves a zionist But they don't have a deep theological belief in the content of the torah or the hebrew bible They may not even believe in god And they're posing the question well should i live in israel or should i live say in the united states canada Other places and they're feeling some despair israel's a Wonderful country i've been several times myself Uh, they might perceive higher danger. I'm not even sure that's correct Uh, there's a somewhat lower standard of living and if they asked you without invoking theology, which won't persuade them What's the best case for choosing israel rather than leaving or not going at all? What would you say? I think probably the best non theological case for choosing israel is That you would be part of an astonishing experiment That is the revival of a people in its land after thousands of years In an attempt to create something that is important and lasting And and a legacy that that involves tradition But is not enslaved to it and if you want to see where your people since this is a jew who's asking where your people is Determining its own destiny in a world that too often determined its destiny for it The only place where that is happening in in a full range of Of areas is in israel say it's an american jew and he or she says to you Well, maybe that's begging the question is israel my people or america my people And i would say that's too binary a question as an american jew I don't feel like i have to say this one is and that one isn't What isn't what is binary? For the most part i guess is is where you live you have to live either here or there so it depends what Adventure you choose to be a part of but that's the adventure of israel Now a question on the settlements which are a hot issue now. Thanks a lot. I know this is very controversial Now i'm myself a natural born contrarian So if i hear a lot of people criticizing something my natural instinct is to try to defend it So i'm going to try to lay out. I'm an economist. I've studied game theory What might be a case from an israeli nationalist perspective? For the settlements and i don't want you to agree or disagree I just want you to tell me if i have understood the case correctly or not. Okay, okay So if i'm an israeli nationalist, I would think a few things I would think there's a danger of a future Technology coming along maybe rocket technology that would have the potential say to shut down tel Aviv airport If iran or some other hostile country got nuclear weapons, there could be a possible nuclear umbrella Used to protect terrorist forays into israel And that there's some future game coming Where one needs a kind of chit or pushback or bargaining power or leverage And furthermore on top of that One always wants to keep an option over the notion that yes, there would be a greater israel But a lot of the current palestinians would become what are now called israeli arabs at a higher standard of living And possibly higher level of political liberties and maybe that wouldn't be all of what are now the territories But that maintaining an option on that relative to what else might possibly happen, which could be terrible. Who knows That is itself valuable And that to have a kind of action on each of those two margins Actually requires that settlements continue now again. I'm not asking you to agree or disagree, but have I Understood the case naftali Bennett would be proud of you. Yes You have understood the case. Okay now Just from an israeli nationalist perspective Would you agree with that case? I would agree with parts of that case, but which parts not um What I what I would say is that that the problem with the case is it doesn't take into account two parts of the calculus that are important That are important pieces of this One is that is an element of security to To allow your neighbors to feel a certain way About their neighbors, right and therefore if you build in total disregard of the people in the neighborhood That's not going to encourage goodwill um That's the first part of the case that I would uh That I would urge and then the and and by the way this this works in in in extending circles around the world that israel is not an island And the opinion of the world also matters in this and the second part of the case is that the idea that ultimately The population around you will be reconciled To this in one way or another the end game doesn't work for me um, I don't think that that eventually The palestinians will be absorbed into israel and will feel okay about it if their standard of living is high enough or and of course if they're in franchise then Then it's very hard to imagine a jewish state, right? So but there are other parts of the case that I absolutely subscribe to So and let's say you took a cosmopolitan perspective. So imagine you're not jewish never been to israel You're some guy in western australia, right and israelis palestinians are just names on a map to you And you're waiting everyone's interests and desires equally How then does the case look to you for the settlements? I mean, I think if it's fairly presented it would well first of all The other part of the case I I want to say that there are settlements in there are settlements And the word settlements is way too broad way too broad because there are settlements that everybody knows I mean with a knot in a wing they're always going to be israel They were always going to be israel in any negotiation. They're going to be israel and they are still called settlements But they're not settlements And then there are outposts in the middle of you know, yenenvelt to the middle of another world Where there are six guys in a goat and and that's also called a settlement Um The I think that the case would appear like most like most such cases like cashmere like necorno caraba as mixed As both sides have very powerful arguments and the only people I suspect Along with you the only people whose arguments I almost I bridle at automatically are people who don't see that there's another side here because If what I would say look, I used to this is the analogy I used to give it's now a little bit out of date But I used to say what would happen. I mean think of chamas in gaza. What would happen if Chomeini had taken over texas How do you think the united states would react you think they would say well look to we should negotiate? I mean, this is a this is a serious Existential issue on the other hand You're not dealing with an alien body that has come and taken over your land And so I think that they would feel like this was a mixed and complicated Issue and and neither side can be can be painted with too black a brush I am agnostic on the question if you're wondering what is the under-observed under noted trend in contemporary isreal of importance Hmm I would say probably What strikes me when I visit israel is that there is a An increasing dissatisfaction and disaffection with all political life and activity That is dangerous for the country because The the left wing is virtually Declod The religious right is not really a political entity They they negate the political legitimacy of the country even as they support right wing policies And and so you're you're raising a generation that I think doesn't feel Um and where does that disengagement come from? An endless struggle over the same issues that never seems to change and never seems to go away and seems and seems to get worse How much do you think income inequality is a driving issue in isreal today? That's yeah, but I don't think I see you said you said an unnoticed There have been demonstrations in the streets about income. That's somewhat unnoticed in this right. Okay. Maybe unnoticed in this country Yeah, no income inequality is a huge issue in israel, especially because in israel unlike in the united states Americans should forgive me for this. There's a sense of national solidarity in a different way As there is in small countries Like small countries feel like someone in my country who's like me shouldn't be poor I don't think americans feel that somebody in new york doesn't quite feel that way about apalachia Like well, we're both americans. You shouldn't be poor the same way that someone in jerusalem might feel that about someone in natanya You know so Now let's say you're talking to someone who's going to israel They've been before quite possibly they're jewish that they're familiar with the major sites And you're giving them advice about something else they might do or see that they haven't thought of What is it that you would recommend other than the obvious? I don't know whether this is the obvious or not. Um, but but I mean Less visited and and among my favorite sites is the graveyard in swat Which contains the graves of most of the most famous cabalists Of the time including luria including the man who wrote lachado di slo mo alcabets And they're all there and you can And you can stand on the hills of swat and see the sun set and it's It's a magical experience Now that you mentioned the cabalists why is there so much sex in the zohar and so much talk of devils? And is that really part of the jewish tradition or is that going beyond and it's? non-religious speculation say well the sex part um In all seriousness is the is I think the The only metaphors for not the most powerful metaphors for human intimacy are sexual metaphors And so when you're talking about intimacy with god, it's very hard to avoid Like zivug, which means coupling or you know, um, or at least some other parts of judeism It's quite kept at a distance. That's true. That's true. But but it's it goes back to the chastity question you asked before which is This sense of intimacy with god is very hard to feel without any sort and to express rather Without any without recourse to some kind of sexual metaphor So and the role for devils in the zohar is that simply a mistake? I think it's a lot of I think it's a lot of The fact that it was written in medieval times when devils were you know proliferated and if you is it part of judeism Well, it's part of jewish folk culture in the same way that if you read the stories of isek by chevus singer You'll get a lot of angels and devils and so on But uh, but is it part of the biblical tradition? No It's a little bit more part of the talmudic tradition But it grew and grew as people believed, you know in in a world lit only by fire that there was There were magical creatures all around them Speaking of that era the book the kuzari which you've written about you mentioned of the author before halevi Uh, it's from the 12th century. Why is that an important book for judeism? It's an important book for judeism because it it the Way it's structured is all these different religions come to the king of the kuzars who historically Um converted to judeism at least that's the best history we have And it makes a case for judeism against other religions and judeism generally did not engage in polemics against other religions and this really was the foundation stone of it And it happened because of the golden age of spain where there was a lot of interaction with other religions And jewish philosophy was sort of born out of unlike the christian tradition It philosophy wasn't native to judeism It was born out of an encounter with other cultures and a need to explain ourselves And and it was written by one of the great poets of medieval times who also was uh Was a distinguished philosopher So and it's written in the form of a dialogue as you know a conversation and leo strauss wrote on this He was himself jewish though i think probably not a believer And he suggested that as with the works of playedo and hume The fact that it was done as a conversation and dialogue meant not that it was deliberate on truths But many things were deliberately unsaid and there was a hovering ambiguity to the final content about the relative status Of religion philosophy and whether prophecy is something truly spiritual or can be naturalized to some degree Do you agree with that reading? Yeah, well he was very i mean as we know he was very fond of things unsaid Leo strauss that was that was his bread and butter and um Yeah, I there is there's a debate in there's a debate in jewish philosophy between my monities and yuhuta halavi about whether prophecy is something that is divinely gifted or something that you can achieve And and while halavi is on the gifted side he's halavi i want to say is Is Represents the non-rationalist strain of jewish philosophy as my monities represents the the rationalist strain and so for the and that's why that book nurtures the chassidic tradition from afar and that that idea that That it comes from a poet makes a lot of sense My last question before we turn over to audience questions And some people have said they're not going to leave until you tell us the correct answer to this one Book two of my monities Is creation eternal? Yes or no? We'll see Or not right now we're not I would look I think that um jewish faith Rises or falls jewish faith Whether the jewish people does is as yet an unasked question But jewish faith rises or falls are not on whether creation is eternal, but whether god is And so I don't think that that's a question for jewish dogma whether creation is eternal or not Um as long as god is we're good Yes, yana So I actually have a question about my monities and your kind of view of the evolution of jewish thought The evolution of like the history of jewish thought as it relates to my monities. I mean Two things one. Do you think there was something lost? Something important that was lost in my monities codification of the law That we kind of don't have access to anymore today because of that development and then how much of Kind of the work of my monities Changed the course of jewish thought in a way that maybe wouldn't have happened any way with kind of the advent of modernity So I would say in answer to the first one How much what did we lose with my monities aggregation of jewish law with the mission of torah? So what my monities wanted to do was take all of this messy giant talmudic and other tradition and and make it simple And one of the things that he did that he later said he regretted but didn't have the chance to fix was he didn't Add footnotes So we don't know I mean scholars have spent generations trying to reconstruct the sources of my monities That's a lot that was lost because among other things he might have been basing it on readings and manuscripts that we don't have That's what and also any time You have a fixed law You rigidify the practices of communities because then people say well it's not in the book so you can't do it So yes a lot was lost But I I mean I think probably more was gained In terms of whether he changed the course of of philosophical of jewish history I think you almost can't say no because my monities is probably the single most important figure in judeism certainly post talmud he is the single most important figure and He did bring in but and and what he changed which some people like and some don't Is he made People who are jewish rationalists comfortable and people who are not jewish rationalists Forced to argue that it was okay Not to be Rationalistic that to think of god is omniscient omnipotent and benevolent like you do in a philosophy class Is not the only way to think about god and that's why the chassidim Needed to Reinvigorate the jewish tradition in a sense so You know on balance glad we had him Next question Okay, so this is a general question when I went on birthright. We talked a lot about The idea that everything happens for a reason in the jewish religion And so I wanted to know your beliefs and your mindset on When you experience things in life that are really bad and like for instance a lot of nice People and good people passing away or just anything bad that happens in life I guess your belief on that and if you still believe everything happens for a reason Okay, I i'm going to try to make this it's really as quick as possible But but give me some allowance for the fact that i'm making it very quick First of all, I don't believe at all that everything happens for a reason not at all I think there's a lot of randomness in the world I think the attempt to say everything happens for a reason can lead you to some moral obscenities Like oh this kid in the sudan who was born with amoebic dysentery and lived for three years and suffered and died It happened for a reason. Yeah, the reason is because the world is unfair. That's the reason The now why the world is unfair. I have a theory about But before I get that let me just say the question of life is not Why did this happen to you? But what will you do with it given that it happened to you? That's the question that does god give you the power to make something Out of what has happened to you even though That doesn't it's like when I got cancer A couple times I had a brain. I've had two brain surgeries and I've had chemotherapy and every time someone would say to me Why why do you think god did this? And and and they were well meant And my answer was I don't think that god said won't be could use some chemo I I think rather That the question of my life would be given that this happened. What do you do with it? How do you react to it? How do you feel about it? And and I would just say very quickly that my working theory Is and it's not original with me Is that when people say why do bad things happen to good people imagine for a minute? The good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people Everybody would be good all the time Because who would be bad if you know every time you steal you're going to get a disease Everyone would be good all the time The only way it is possible to be good in this world is if you can be good without knowing the consequences It has to be random or there's no goodness So you know you can be the best person in the world and you can still die young But at least if you know that then your goodness was real goodness You were doing it because you believe good is important or you love other people or you Or being good makes you feel good at something intrinsic and not because you're being good because you know god's going to reward you So that's what I would say in a nutshell Next question Wow What an answer um a different subject Your thoughts on the rise in anti-semitism in large parts of western europe and college campuses And the intense feelings so many people in the world have about israel Many observers think that the anti-israel expressions is just a cloak for anti-semitism So what I would say the quick answer to the to the to the very end of it is not all anti-israel sentiment is anti-semitism But anti-israel sentiment Is now the respectable guys for anti-semitism very few people only the most Fringy fringers will come up and say we'll stand up and say i'm an anti-semite But you can say i'm anti-israel And be an anti-semite and that's a respectable And and there are i think there are lots of tests that you can apply to the way people criticize israel and the way they criticize other places That will let you know what's behind it um I have a lot of thoughts about why anti-semitism, you know, my father who was a wonderful rabbi He talked about anti-semitism often And I remember thinking when I became a rabbi. I'm so glad that's done You know so glad my my rabid it won't have to be about that and boy was I Wrong It's like the return of the repressed I think post holocaust it had to go underground in a deep way for a while But now it has erupted again and there is some viral strain in Well, first it was in european dna and now i'm afraid it's very much in the world and not in world dna I mean there was already in islam again There were seeds of it But it wasn't the kind of fraternal fight that there was increased or a paternal fight that there was in christianity And judiism but now it's taken over lock stock and barrel And and the virulence on both sides in islam and in europe is truly frightening. It is truly frightening So I say, um, you know The buddhist and hindus that's where we got these days. Um I don't know. It's a very look the one thing that I would say that is important to keep in mind is It's not 1942 In throughout christian europe There are many many many millions the overwhelming number of people are of goodwill The leaders of europe are overtly and for the most part, you know, very Uh covertly also opponents of anti-semitism in some very significant ways But it's scary. It is scary Next question Thank you. I was going to ask whether uh, it's natural for jews Maybe especially american jews to be conservatives or liberals, but let's get more up to date and pointed Um, is there something jewish about being alarmed or not about what's perceived to be the trump agenda So here's what I would say about that and and I think actually my answer to both would be the same which is It is impossible to say let's let's I know a lot of liberal jews who will say That judaism and democratic politics are virtually identical and if they don't say it they feel it To which I always say Look if the most learned and most observant jews That is the orthodox community tends to be republican Then it's a little short sighted to say obviously jewish values and democratic values are identical You can't say that On the other hand You also can't say that the values of the prophets of amos and jeremiah for the poor and the widowed and You know herman cohen said very beautifully in the idea of the stranger judaism was born Think about that today, right? That's what herman cohen said So I think you can make a very powerful jewish case on both sides Um, I don't want to address individuals at the moment. I think that that's Not the purpose of the forum. Although if tyler asked me I will I will But I think that I think that you can you can in good conscience be a jew on the right or on the left and the only thing that I that I would say You ought to be uneasy in your conscience about is if you believe that the other side has no good jewish values on its side because you're wrong If I could just try a follow-up question Given how many literally billions of people have been elevated from poverty by what is mostly in my account capitalism Yes, not only capitalism Milton Friedman saw this But still the weight of jewish intellectual opinion in the united states has mostly Been on the left. I think that's a well established regularity. What's the intellectual or sociological reason for that underlying? Well, I'll say why that is and and then one thing about capitalism that I think is profoundly jewish that most people don't realize Seriously, um, I think the reason is because they came from east from eastern europe and that tradition like the fdr tradition in america is is very I mean The only way that you could see out of the morass of the Civilizations they were in was the only thing that gave them hope other than zionism was a kind of bundes marxist socialist You know, there wasn't really a living capitalist alternative and it looked To to the very first glance it looked like the humanistic face of economics as opposed to I mean, what is capitalism competition? Well, that doesn't look like a humanistic face But the one thing that I will will tell you and I think I first heard this Um many years ago from mentioned by george guilder. I want to give him credit for this insight He said a real capitalist has to have empathy Because if you're building a business or a product and you don't know what other people want you'll fail The only way you can succeed is if you actually understand what it is that other people want and or need And both that combined with what you said, which is that it is the great engine of wealth that lifts people out of poverty I think that that A jewish thinker today and many certainly many in israel would argue this too That uh, you would have to be a capitalist of some stripe I think it's very hard to make the case that Uh Certainly communism or even socialism is the jewish although I could find you a few jewish socialists who would argue with me We'll take the three last questions. Yes, please. Yeah, rebb. I thank you so much for sharing your evening with us When uh, this uh synagogue here was also the second home for odis israel when odis israel left here in uh, 1959 I believe conservative judiism was the top Um stream of judiism in the united states in the decade or 15 years later We're conservative judiism lost over 600 000 members Could you tell us a little bit in your your own words so to speak why you think that happened and what steps are being taken to recover That sort of that attraction that conservative judiism once had for american jewelry. Thank you so sure But let me let me also add one more thing that I was thinking about about the capitalism thing Which is that capitalism also has the almost inevitable byproduct of creating tremendous inequalities And and a jewish value has to a jewish ethic has to address that as well It can't be a capitalism that ignores the fact that it creates an underclass that suffers So it has to be a capital has to be a uh, you know a capitalist socialism. Um, anyway, so Not that I split differences as a pulpit rabbi, but you're right too. So That's I don't know if you know that that's an old joke about the rabbi You're as two people in front of them and then they each make their case He goes you're right and then the second one makes the case you're right and then his wife says dear They can't both be right. It goes you're right too so conservative judiism the the dilemma that conservative judiism had was that it Tried to hold on to a serious jewish observance Without consist with with modern scholarship that didn't consistently say god told you you have to do this And modern jewish observance is a very hard thing to hold on to And so people who had grown up with the traditional observance Leaved that out But as the as the, um, motivational Uh piece of it weakened so did that lifestyle that would maintain them as conservative jews and unless and until Not only conservative judiism by the way, but liberal religion in general unless and but the problem is worse in judiism because it makes greater demands than other religions I mean christianity doesn't make such lifestyle demands on christians as judiism does on jews Unless and until there is a compelling Non fundamentalist rationale for why I should eat a certain way And why I shouldn't go out on saturday in other words the ritual behaviors that maintain the cohesion of the tradition Until that is created and many philosophers have tried to and many rabbis have tried till that's created conservative judiism Is going to face a Huge uphill battle That's the short answer Even if creation is eternal this session is not the two last questions and answers will sum to seven minutes. Yes, please Uh, the united states supreme court is currently comprised only of Catholics and jews. Do you think that these groups naturally produce better jurors? If so, why and if not, why is that the composition of the court? I defer here to an answer that I heard Given by my sociologist brother Uh at a at a session we did together in south africa last summer Which is probably a sentence you've never heard uttered before right? I defer to my sociologist brother in a session We did together in south africa Because catholicism has a natural law tradition Judaism has a strong legal tradition and Protestantism is antinomian It's anti-law. That's that's the essence of Protestantism, right? So when you when you're looking for so who around here is trained in law Oh, the catholics and the jews now that doesn't mean that there won't be individual Protestants But if you're looking for a deep tradition Well, we got one Yes, do you think it's uh realistic to talk about an american jewish community Have we become too fractured to be considered a single community? And if it is realistic or possible, then what is the biggest challenge facing the community? Okay, is it are we a community? I have good news and bad news. The good news is jews have never been united Never Only people who think oh my god. Why don't we have the cohesion we used to our people who don't know jewish history I we used to be ex-communicating each other all the time the chassidim and the mignagdemon There was always always always fights among jews And there are all sorts of jokes and things but it's true. It's true. And by the I don't think this is unique to jews But it but it certainly is true among jews the You can't speak about an american jewish community that will mobilize around certain moments of crisis And if god forbid there were a terrible moment of crisis I think most of the american jewish community would mobilize around it if there was a huge wave of anti-semitism in america for example But having said that the the in some ways There there are look there in jewish theology There are two ways of serving god There's iran ahabah. There's fear and love and Fear in some in many ways is more immediately effective Right, I mean when you're driving over the speed limit Is it love for your fellow drivers or the presence of a police car that will get you to slow down faster? Right fear is in some ways more immediate and effective than love But love is more enduring Because fear passes Right, but love real love Even if creation is not infinite real love endures right love in the words of shirash yurim the song of songs is strong as death So if the american jewish community Even if not holy because i'm not i'm not a believer in universal love because then love is diluted It has no meaning right because people that you love you'll sacrifice for and you can't sacrifice for everyone If the american jewish community feels this familial sense and this sense of love and this sense of closeness Then we won't disappear And to some extent i'll close with a chasitic story to some extent i feel like our story Not entirely but a little bit is like the story that that rabbi haim halberstam used to tell of the man who was lost in the forest And he wandered and wandered and wandered and he was completely lost He had no idea where to go and he sat down in despair and as he sat down another man comes along And he says oh, i'm so glad to see you because i'm completely lost And the second man says i have bad news for you i'm lost too He says but one thing i do know Is the way we have gone is not the way Now let's hold hands and find the way together Thank you