 We're not speaking tonight about why someone who is not Jewish should convert to Judaism. That's not the program for tonight. Tonight's topic is for people who were born Jews. And the question is, why should a Jew embrace their Jewishness and live a Jewish life? Why should a Jew live as a Jew? The truth is that being born a Jew is not an accident. It's our destiny. So we should live as Jews simply because that's who we are. It's a matter of being true to ourselves. Why should a vegetarian eat vegetables? It sounds absurd, but a vegetarian should eat vegetables because that's who they are. So a Jew should be Jewish because it's who they are. At our very core, it's who we are. So we might as well embrace it. Sadly, for many Jewish people, Judaism is an amazing book that just sits on the bookshelf that is rarely taken down and enjoyed. This is tragic. If we are not clear about why living Jewishly is a blessing, if we are bored by Judaism, if we find Judaism to be irrelevant, or an inconvenience, or a burden, then you have a primary risk factor for dropping out, for assimilating, or for even converting to another faith. What happens, for example, if someone doesn't really know why they are married, if they have no idea what difference being married makes to their life, or if they don't experience the joy or love in their marriage? So we know that with any strain or challenge, there isn't much glue to hold that relationship together. Today, many Jewish families are living off of the interest that previous generations invested into their Judaism. Those previous generations, Judaism ran very deep in their veins. They valued Judaism and sacrificed for it. These were our ancestors, and there was no question about whether they would survive as Jews. For them, Judaism was real and the most important part of their lives. But when we find our gas tanks almost at zero, and we begin coasting on the fumes of the gas that used to be there, without ever bothering to refill the gas tank, we know that our car will ultimately come to a standstill. For Jews, knowledge and education are very highly valued. Torah stresses the importance of educating our children and being educated ourselves in order to be able to educate our children. We know that knowledge is power and knowledge can help give us clarity about tonight's question about why be Jewish. We need to understand what is beautiful about Judaism, what is special about Judaism, and what is compelling about Judaism. We need to understand how Judaism can enhance our lives. Otherwise, we could very easily see Judaism as a burden, more than as a benefit. One of the most important issues to understand is whether Judaism is true. Is Judaism based upon reality? This might be the most important foundational issue in terms of making Judaism the center of our lives. It's very significant when you think about it that our spiritual competitors, we don't often think about it that way, but there are two major world religions, Christianity and Islam, that accept, meaning they believe and they accept the basic claim of Judaism that 3,300 years ago, after the exodus from Egypt, about 3 million Jews stood at Mount Sinai and they heard God publicly reveal the Torah to them. This is not just a Jewish belief that God gave the Torah to an entire nation, but that this is a belief that almost the entire world accepts, both Christianity and Islam believe that yes, over 3,000 years ago, God gave the Torah to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai. Both of those religions might be much better off if they didn't accept such a belief. It doesn't help their cause to have to accept the very foundation of Judaism, and they do. And the reason they do is because the truth claims of Judaism are that powerful. Every single religion in the world other than Judaism begins with a claim that an individual has that God spoke to them. That is the history of every other religion in the world. An individual makes the claim that they are the prophet of God, that God spoke to them. Only Judaism begins with a claim to a national revelation. And the reason that we are the only people who have made that claim is because that claim cannot be fabricated. You could fabricate the claim that God spoke to you, and everyone else either takes it or leaves it. But if you try to fabricate a public revelation, it will ultimately get exposed. For example, let's think about this. If God did not publicly give the Torah to the entire Jewish people that had not happened, and Moses invented the entire story, and Moses writes in the Torah that you all heard God speaking at Mount Sinai. When people would finally read that in the Torah, they would say, wait a minute, why am I only hearing about this for the first time now that I'm reading it in a book? If it really happened, if an entire people stood at a mountain and heard God speak, that's the kind of experience you would tell your children. You would say, do you know what? I want you to hear what happened to me. In the same way, for example, let's imagine all of us tonight after we left. We saw a UFO land in the parking lot right in front of our cars, and we saw three little space creatures come out. Now, we might wonder if we're sane. We might wonder if we ate something funny for dinner tonight. We might have a lot of questions, but we'll finally realize that we all saw this. I assure you that not only will you tell your children one day when they're old enough to understand, you'll probably put it on your Facebook page tonight before you go to sleep. There are certain events that are so amazing that you will tell your children about them. So if Moses is going to make up this story that God spoke to the entire Jewish nation at Mount Sinai, and it didn't happen, so when they read the book, they're going to say, how come I never heard this from my parents? Why didn't I ever hear about this? So you cannot invent, you cannot fabricate the story of a public revelation. Moses could have said that God spoke to me on Mount Sinai and fine. You either believe it or you don't believe it. You can't disprove it, but that's not what our Torah says. Our Torah says not simply that God spoke to Moses, but that all the people at Mount Sinai, about three million Jews, heard God speak to Moses. Now because this foundation is so critical, God tells us in the Torah two things. God tells us, number one, never forget this event. Remember it and think about it. And number two, God tells us no other people in the world will ever make such a claim. This is written in our Torah that no one else will ever claim that God spoke to an entire nation. It's an amazing prediction that was written over 3,000 years ago. Only God could know something like that. And that's true. No other religion ever claimed that God spoke to an entire nation. Secondly, we should think about all of the mind-blowing prophecies that the Torah made over 3,000 years ago that have come true. Number one, the Torah predicts that the people of Israel, we will be the smallest nation in the world. And that's true. We've never been a very big people. Now we're about 15 million, almost nothing compared to almost any other nation. The Torah predicts that over our entire history we will be rejected and hated. Now isn't that amazing that for 3,000 years everybody hates the Jews? Why? It's been called the world's longest hatred. And yet the Torah predicts it. The Torah writes this over 3,000 years ago and study Jewish history and you'll see I'm not making it up. Throughout 3,300 years of Jewish history, ongoing hatred and persecutions and murder and pogroms and inquisitions and holocausts, expulsions. We're going to be the smallest nation in the world. We're going to be despised and rejected. Number three, we're told that we will be exiled from our land twice. There'll be two times when we are thrown out of our homeland. And the Torah tells us that we will be scattered throughout the entire world. But more incredibly, the Torah predicts that we will survive the exile and we will return to our land. Who could have made such predictions over 3,000 years ago? Who could have made such predictions? You know that most ancient peoples from 3,000 years ago, the only place you can find them today are in the museum. The ancient Assyrians, the ancient Egyptians, the Babylonians. The ancient world doesn't exist anymore. Yet the Torah predicts we will be an eternal nation. Now maybe being an eternal nation would not be so difficult if we were like the Chinese and had over a billion people. Then maybe it's not so hard to be an eternal people that lasts for thousands of years. Yet the Torah says we're not going to be like the Chinese, we're going to be the smallest nation in the world. Or maybe surviving for over 3,000 years would not be so difficult if we were like the Swiss, living protected from the rest of the world by the Alps. No one could bother the Swiss, they're protected by these immense mountains. And maybe that's how the Jews could survive for 3,000 plus years. And yet the Torah says no, you will not be living in your homeland, you'll be scattered all over the world. That's not a recipe for survival. Or maybe it wouldn't be so difficult to survive if everybody loved us. Who's going to want to destroy a people that they love? Yet the Torah says the opposite, everyone will hate us. We don't have any of the qualities that a nation needs for longevity. The Torah also says something amazing. The Torah teaches that in our absence from the land, from our homeland, the land of Israel, in our absence the land would not be productive. People would not be successful trying to produce agriculture in the land of the Jewish people. And that was the case. You could read what Mark Twain wrote when he visited Israel in the 1800s. Mark Twain writes that when he went to Israel, it was a vast wasteland, nothing there at all. But look how the land has blossomed since the Jewish people returned to their land around 1948. Just as the Torah predicted, the land of Israel will become not just a productive place, but one of the most productive places in the world. Now these few ideas that I've just shared are the tip of the iceberg in terms of what might indicate that the Torah is true and Judaism is true. And it is certainly something that would be worthwhile to study all of the evidence. We can't do that tonight. But it would be worthwhile to study all of the evidence for the divine origin of the Torah. So this is the second reason for being Jewish. Why be Jewish? Number one, it's who we are. Number two, it's because Judaism is true. Another reason to embrace Judaism is that as Jews, we have a noble and glorious mission to play in this world. We know that God chose Abraham to start a nation who would improve the world and transform the world into a utopia. Why was Abraham chosen? So let's look at what the Torah says. Abraham was not the first righteous person in history. Even before Abraham, Noah was described in the Torah as a perfectly righteous person. But if you look at the lives of Abraham and Noah, they have something in common and yet they're very different. What they have in common is that both Abraham and Noah were told by God that the world is going to be destroyed. Noah is told there's going to be a flood that will destroy the entire world. And Abraham was told by God that the major population centers of the world, Sodom and Amorah and Atma and Sevoim, etc., God is going to wipe them out. They're both told the same thing. How does Noah react? Noah says, look, you're God. You must know what you're doing. If you want to destroy the whole world and I should build a big boat and save my family, okay? Who am I to argue? God tells Abraham the same thing. I'm going to destroy all of those people. And what is Abraham's reaction? He protests. He says, how could you do such a thing? He challenges God. And he says, how can the God of justice not act justly? I mean, if you want to talk about chutzpah, to say to God, you're misbehaving. You're supposed to be someone who's just and righteous. And Abraham says to God, will you destroy the righteous with the wicked? Abraham says to God, how could you kill everyone? Are you going to kill the righteous people and the wicked people? It's a good question. It's a very good question. And so Abraham says to God, what if there are 50 righteous people within those cities? Now, what you think Abraham might say next is if there are 50 righteous people, okay? Let's take them out and then God, go ahead and kill all the wicked people. I can't argue with you then. That seems to be where Abraham is going. Because he just said, will you kill the righteous with the wicked? And yet after he says, what if there are 50 righteous people? Abraham says, you have to save everyone. And if there aren't 50, he says to God, what about 45? Okay, 40. What about 30, 20, 10? If there are 10 righteous people within the cities, you have to save everyone. What is Abraham's argument? What does Abraham really say? If you watch carefully, Abraham doesn't just say if there are 50 righteous people in the city, meaning they could be 50 righteous people or 10 righteous people in a monastery, and they're all voisted away by themselves where they have no interaction with anyone else, he doesn't say that. He says 50 righteous people within the city, meaning that these are righteous people living amongst everyone else. And Abraham says, if that's the case, you have to save everyone. Why? Because Abraham is saying that if there are such righteous people, they have the ability, the potential to be a positive influence and help the others change. Abraham's entire philosophy is based upon the idea that people can change. Noah gave up on that. Noah saw a world that was so wicked that Noah said to himself, these people can never change. They can't do it. They'll never change. That was Noah's philosophy because Noah became out of touch. Noah became out of touch with the important idea that every human being is created in the image of God. And if that's the case, we can change. Noah lost touch with that because he saw such a wicked, evil world. Abraham never forgot about this. Abraham never forgot that every human being is created in the image of God. And therefore we each have the potential to change. And Abraham believed that if you can show people a positive role model, they have the potential to change. And so because Abraham believed that people could change, God said to him, you are going to start a nation who are going to be a light to the rest of the world. That's what God says in the Bible. You are the Jewish people who will be a light to the nations. And so why should we be a Jew? Because the Torah, God assures us that one day the entire world will come to our light. Why be Jewish? Because if we are idealistic, if we are cause-oriented, meaning if we want to commit our lives to doing something important for the world, this is not just about saving the jellyfish. This is about making the world a much better place for everyone. We are putting this world into a utopia, a paradise. We should be Jews because it's who we are, because it's true, and because we have the opportunity to be part of God's plan to perfect this world. Let's continue. Judaism teaches that as our ultimate parent, God wants each of us to achieve the ultimate pleasure and fulfillment that is possible in life. If you wonder, if you ever ask yourself, what does God want from me? In the same way our parents want that we should have the ultimate joy and happiness and fulfillment and pleasure that a human being is capable of having, God wants no less. That's what God wants for us. And what is the greatest pleasure that we are capable of having in life? What is the greatest pleasure that a human being can have in life? The answer is to be connected to the ultimate good in existence. What is the ultimate good in existence? You know, we live in a world where there is tremendous beauty. You look into a baby's eyes. You see a beautiful sunset. You go to the Grand Canyon or the Alps or you see the beautiful stars in the sky. This world is a world of incredible beauty and incredible pleasure. There are so many pleasurable, delicious, amazing things in this world. And the truth is they all come from somewhere. There's a source to all of these pleasures. And that source is God. So if we want to understand what is the ultimate good in this world that we have the capability of attaching ourselves to, it's none other than God. And we are able to attach ourselves to God, to get close to God, to have a personal relationship with God by following the instructions that God gave us in His Torah. So why be Jewish? Because it's the path to the ultimate joy and blessing that we are capable of achieving in life. Now the truth is that each human being is a work in progress. Each one of us is a work in progress. And we are here in this life to grow and to mature. If you think about this, imagine a little tiny infant that was just born. And think about this little infant between the ages of 0 and 10. And think about whether this child in those 10 years does it go through any change and development and maturation? So the truth is between the ages of 0 and 10, the child goes through incredible dramatic changes physically, intellectually, emotionally. It's unbelievable between 0 and 10. It's earth-shattering how much change takes place. And then think about what happens to a child between the ages of 10 and 20. Unbelievable. At 10 they're a little kid. At 20 they could be married already. If you look at a child from 10 and look at those 10 years, there is incredible growth. Again, physically, emotionally, intellectually, spiritually in those 10 years. Because we are here in this life to grow and to develop. But one of the things that's depressing is if you think about people between the ages of 20 and 30, and then 30 and 40, and 40 and 50, and 50 and 60, and 60 and 70, and ask yourself, do people really grow during those decades? I mean, they make it a little bit heavier, maybe a little bit less hair, maybe a little bit more gray. But do they really go through incredible changes in terms of their personality, their intellect, their spirituality, the quality of who they are as human beings? I think from my experience that if you knew someone who was a cheap person in their 20s, they'll probably be a cheap person in their 30s. And if you know someone in their 30s that had a problem with anger and with their patients, they probably will be not much different in their 50s. We are here. We are here to learn over our lifetimes how to become more generous, how to become more sensitive, how to have more patients, how to be less self-centered. That's why we're here. And our sages tell us that this is a lifetime of work and the Torah provides us with the wisdom and technology to be able to grow. So why be Jewish? Because Jewish wisdom teaches us how to grow as human beings. I want to conclude with a story about Judge Louis Brandeis, who was a famous American Supreme Court justice. He was a student at Harvard University and he had a very difficult time at Harvard. Not because the studies were difficult, but because his fellow students tortured him, not physically, but for three years in the cafeteria at lunchtime, his fellow students would sit next to him and they would say, Brandeis, you're a very brilliant person. And you could actually probably make it to the Supreme Court one day. If only you weren't a Jew, why don't you convert and all your problems would be solved? And this went on for three years and he never responded to them and never said a word. After three years, he was inducted into the Honor Society at Harvard and he got up to speak to accept the induction and when he got up to speak, all eyes were on him and they were very attentive to hear what he would say. And he began his speech by saying, I'm very sorry that I was born a Jew. And everybody applauded. They said to themselves, we finally got to him. We were finally able to convince him to convert. And he waited for them to stop clapping and he waited for them to quiet down. And he said, yes, I am sorry that I was born a Jew. Only because I wish I had the privilege of choosing Judaism on my own. And the truth is that even if we are born Jewish, we can have that moment anytime that we recognize there is something precious about being a Jew. There is something compelling about Judaism and we make a conscious choice to live our lives as committed, proud Jews. Our Jewishness is something we should never take for granted and we should always be thankful for what we have as Jews.