 Okay, good evening. Welcome to the first in this four-part series here at the Village Shool. Tonight's program is called YB Jewish and I have to confess that I've been struggling with this title and wrapping my head around it for quite a while. It's actually a question that became very popular in the Jewish world about 20 or so years ago with all of the hand-wringing and concern surrounding the question of Jewish continuity. Will the Jewish people continue to exist? Are we going to disappear? And it became very clear at that time that a question that really needed serious attention was this question of YB Jewish. But the phrasing of the question to me is a little bit unclear. If you come to my house someday so you'll see that I'm not unusual, I have a refrigerator that's filled with stuff that's hanging on by magnets. And actually I'm seeing now that the modern refrigerators are not magnetic for some strange reason. The new ones you can't stick a magnet on. But I have an old refrigerator. It's got tons of magnets and one of the things that I put up years ago was a strange little cartoon that shows two ducks that have waddled over to someone's house and someone comes to the front door and sees these two ducks there and one of the ducks asks the gentleman can I interest you in being a duck? And it's obviously an absurd question because this person's on a duck and when we ask the question here for tonight YB Jewish who are we really addressing this to? Meaning is this a program that's intended for the entire world? And maybe we're approaching everyone in the world and saying maybe think about why you should be Jewish, right? Can I interest you in being a Jew? So that's actually not going to be the premise that we're taking here tonight. We're really speaking more in-house although what I have to share might be of interest to people who are not Jewish. Why should a Jewish person be a Jew? And what does that even mean for a Jewish person to be a Jew? Well the answer is that a Jewish person should be a Jew because that's exactly who they are. The title of its night's program really should be why should a Jew embrace their Jewishness and live a Jewish life? That's really what we're looking at. In a similar fashion, why should a vegetarian eat vegetables? Well the answer is because that's who they are. If you're a vegetarian, presumably you eat vegetables. That's what vegetarians do. That's what they need. That's what's good for them. So when we speak about why should a Jew be Jewish, the ultimate answer is going to be that we should be who we are because being Jewish is ultimately what is natural for us. It's what's good for us. Why be a Jew? So Oscar Wilde did not say this. I checked the reference. It's by someone named Gilbert Pereira who said be yourself because everyone else has already taken. So why should a Jew be a Jew? That's basically the only option on the table for them. Why be Jewish? I think William Shakespeare's Polonius said it best in Hamlet to thine own self be true. That for a person to embrace who they are is really the ultimate way of manifesting themselves. Sammy Davis Jr. later sang I've got to be me. So I think that ultimately when Jewish people think about this question why should I bother even being Jewish? The answer at the most basic level is because that's exactly who we are. The truth is that we're not in control of our circumstances in life. We're not in control of where we are born. We're not in control of when we are born. We're not in control of who our parents are. And the truth is if we are born to Jewish parents, if we have a Jewish mother, we are a Jew. It's just essentially who we are at our very core and we might as well embrace it because it's not an accident. It's really our destiny. As I mentioned, I'm not going to be speaking tonight about why people who are not Jewish convert to Judaism. There's no real reason for someone who's not Jewish to convert to Judaism. They are perfectly fine just as they are. If they have a desire and they sincerely seek to join the Jewish people, they are always welcome to and they are valued members of our society. But there's no great spiritual need for someone who is not Jewish to become a Jew. You don't have to be a Jew in order to have a relationship with God. One thing that I've consistently heard though from converts to Judaism is that they are saddened by how born Jews are often not fully appreciative of what they have and that they see that so many Jews that are born Jews seem to take Judaism for granted. It's like this incredible book that's sitting on someone's shelf for many years and it's never taken down in red. And for so many Jewish people it's exactly what their Jewishness is. They have this incredible thing, this amazing thing and it's there on the shelf for them and yet it's almost never taken down off the shelf and experienced. The convert has often had to struggle and sacrifice in order to become a Jew. And so they're puzzled. The convert is often puzzled by Jews who don't really seem to be fully engaged with their Judaism. When I went to Moscow and St. Petersburg in Kiev back in 1990 I met with Jews who took great risks in order to both learn about and practice their Judaism. This was before the complete fall of the Iron Curtain. And these are people that still met in secret and yet there was something about being Jewish that was so attractive to them and so compelling to them that they took great personal risks to pursue it. Many Jewish people who did this over the years lost their jobs or were imprisoned or worse. There was something so profound and compelling about Judaism that these people were not able to ignore it. And so they as well are puzzled. Why is it that in the free West so many of their fellow Jews were doing exactly that ignoring Judaism? I am personally inspired when I meet people who've converted to Judaism. I was personally inspired and uplifted by these incredible people in the former Soviet Union who took great personal risks to experience Judaism. On the other hand when people don't have clarity about why living Jewishly is a blessing if they're not clear about it when they're bored by Judaism if they find Judaism irrelevant or if they find Judaism an inconvenience or a burden we're looking at a primary risk factor for dropping out for assimilating or even conversion to other faiths. What happens when there's someone who has no idea why they're married? They have no idea what difference being married makes to their life. They don't understand they don't experience the joy the love the passion of their marriage so we know that any strain or challenge is not going to be much glue to hold that relationship together. In my work at Jews for Judaism I'm constantly seeing people whose families are largely living off the interest that previous generations invested into their Judaism. These were people in previous generations where Judaism ran deep in their veins. They may have been very simple people but they lived like Tevia in Fiddler on the Roof. They spoke to God regularly and their greatest wish was to be able to have the time to study God's Torah and for generations these were our ancestors. These are people who didn't only value Judaism they sacrificed greatly for it and there was no question about whether they were going to survive but their children and their grandchildren and their great grandchildren who have been mainly living off the interest that was previously invested not so clear. I was very fortunate and blessed to have lived with a grandmother she spent part of the year living with my family and for her her entire life was devoted to praying to studying spiritual writings to chasing my father to write another check to give to charity and who shed tears when she lit Shabbat candles. From my grandmother being Jewish was real Judaism was real and it was the most important significant deepest part of who she was but when families try to coast on the fumes in their gas tank and never bother to try to fill that gas tank they'll probably come to a stand still we all know that in our culture specifically in Jewish culture there's been a premium placed on education and knowledge this is something that's been just about the most valued commodity in Jewish life the Torah the Bible stresses the importance of educating our children and to be educated ourselves in order to be able to educate our children knowledge is power and probably one of the most critical elements to being able to have clarity on our question tonight of why be Jewish it's virtually impossible to have clarity on this question of why be Jewish unless we are well educated sadly our educational systems today in the Jewish community tend to focus primarily on skills and basic knowledge without really exploring and highlighting what is actually compelling about Judaism our schools for some reason I haven't figured it out yet often neglect making this case our students are generally not exposed to any kind of approach attempt to convey to them what is beautiful about Judaism what is special about Judaism what is compelling about Judaism it would be like someone in high school or university studying art and they take classes in art history and they could rattle off the names of all the artists and where they lived and when they lived and they may actually learn some basic techniques of art and know the differences between different kinds of painting but never took an art appreciation class and the assumption of our educational system seems to be that the kids will just pick it up they'll learn some Bible stories they'll learn about the Jewish holidays they'll learn how to read Hebrew they'll learn Jewish history they'll learn about the land of Israel in the Holocaust they'll learn the skills of how to do Jewish and somehow it's going to come through by osmosis why Judaism is the most precious beautiful thing in the world it's interesting that when adults seek to seriously explore Judaism later in life if they never really studied earlier this is exactly what they usually focus on when adults begin studying Judaism later in life what they want to focus on it seems to me are the whys of Judaism for example not just the laws of Shabbat or the laws of keeping kosher but the whys what do these laws mean what is their significance what can they teach us how can we benefit from them how can they improve our lives these are the kind of questions that I think adults want to have clarity on before they begin investing a lot of time in learning the mechanics and yet I seem to sense that our schools don't tackle these questions sufficiently one of the issues that is not often explored in Jewish education sufficiently I believe all the way up to high school level and very few Jewish people have a high school level Jewish education but I think that one of the issues not often explored seriously in our educational system is whether or not Judaism is even true as adults we certainly want to know this but for our children we seem to just either ignore that question not feel it's important feel that discussing something like truth may be too sensitive to discuss but I believe that when we fail to address this issue we are failing to establish what is probably the most important foundational element of a commitment to Judaism is Judaism true is it real is it rooted in reality or is it just mythology are they nice cute stories it's very significant that our spiritual competitors Christianity and Islam accept the historical reality of the revelation of the Torah to the three million Jews who came to Mount Sinai after leaving Egypt by God this is something that Christianity and Islam from their inception have basically accepted as a historical truth that the Jews who came out of Egypt stood at Mount Sinai and God revealed the Torah to them we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this is significant that these people could very well do much better in their competition with us if they could undercut this truth but they do not deny it at all this historical fact is an incredibly important foundation of Judaism every other religion in the world begins with a single individual claiming to have had a revelation from God Judaism is unique in that its foundation is a public revelation to an entire people to an entire nation the difference between a national revelation and a private revelation is that you cannot contrive you cannot forge a national revelation any person has the ability to simply make the claim God spoke to me and everyone else take it or leave it but you cannot invent a national revelation because if you try doing it you're going to fall on your face imagine if 3,300 years ago Moses just wrote down by himself God spoke to all of you at Mount Sinai there was lightning and thunder and you heard the voice of God speaking at Mount Sinai what would happen if Moses tried to pass this off 3,300 years ago everyone would say you got to be kidding me what were you smoking we didn't experience that and if someone tried pointing this off hundreds of years later let's say it wasn't Moses let's say it was someone living a thousand years later who said the Jewish people stood at Mount Sinai and they heard God speak they all heard God speak at amongst the thunder and lightning and smoking mountain well if that actually had happened you would assume that people would have told their children about it meaning that if this was an experience in our national memory that kind of experience is unparalleled I mean if you see a flying saucer you're probably going to make sure to tell your children and grandchildren every person you know in Facebook so here here are three million people allegedly have heard God speaking on Mount Sinai and they're not going to say a word about it they're not going to tell their children hey guess what happened to me this is pretty cool and so a thousand years later if someone writes down in a document that yes your people you come from a people who stood at Mount Sinai and you all heard God speaking people would say really how come I never heard that from my parents and my grandparents if it really happened you can't fabricate a national revelation because this is such an incredibly important foundation the Torah tells us God reminds us that we should never ever forget it Torah says in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 4 you might inquire about times long past going back to the time that God created man on earth exploring one end of the heavens to the other see if anything as great as this has ever happened or if the like has ever been heard has any nation ever heard God speaking out of a fire as you have and still survived has God ever done miracles bringing one nation out of another nation with such tremendous miracle signs wonders a mighty hand an outstretched arm an awesome phenomena as God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes you have been shown in order that you shall know that the Lord he is the God there is none beside him and then that chapter chapter 4 in Deuteronomy goes on to recount this revelation at Mount Sinai and the Torah there tells us only take heed and watch yourself very carefully so that you do not forget the things that your eyes saw do not let this memory leave your hearts all the days of your lives teach your children and your children's children about the day you stood before God your Lord at Mount Sinai the Torah itself this document going back over 3000 years contains mind-blowing prophecies which have come true the Torah writes that we the Jewish people will be the smallest nation in the world and it's quite amazing that we've always been the smallest little nation the Torah tells us we're going to be universally despised and hated no one's going to like you guys you'll be very unpopular and the Torah tells us that we will ultimately be exiled from our land twice spread out all over the world and then Torah says you will survive your dispersion and you will ultimately return to the land now who in the world could have made such a prediction 3000 years ago most nations that are around back then don't exist anymore you don't see the ancient cultures of the Bible in the world other than in a museum today and yet the Bible predicts that the Jewish people will be an eternal nation now it would be one thing to predict you'll be an eternal nation if we were like the Chinese to have a billion people or if you like to Swiss living by ourselves protected by the Alps but the Torah tells us we won't have any of the elements that would seem to allow for longevity we're going to be tiny we're going to be despised and hated we're going to be scattered all over the world not even having a homeland to live in that's not a recipe for a long life and yet the Torah says you will survive and you'll return to the land what a surprise that was for the world back in 1948 much of the world had written us off after the Holocaust many people assumed that was it we're basically a write-off and yet we come back to our land as the Bible predicted and if anyone just with a little bit of studying looks at what happened in that land since 1948 what was built there what was reestablished there what is transposed there what's transpired in the holy land the land of Israel it's mind-blowing our story is mind-blowing and the Torah predicts it it's definitely worth studying all of the evidence that substantiates this foundation of Judaism this could be a course that goes on for many many weeks just this question what is the evidence that God revealed the Torah at Mount Sinai I just spoke about a few issues tonight it's worth studying all of the evidence and it's said that many of our schools our students are not exposed to this so we should be Jewish because Judaism is true and it's real a second issue I grew up as a child of the 1960s I grew up as someone that was very idealistic what did that mean it meant I wanted to change the world it meant that I wanted to make the world a better place it meant that I was looking at a world that was broken and tattered and shattered and I wanted to see a world of love and of peace and that was my dream as a young idealistic teenager I had no clue in my life that this was something that Judaism had any interest in whatsoever and like many young Jewish people I assumed that religion was the enemy of world peace to me religions divided people and separated people and were the cause of strife and conflict and war so my teenage years were spent as someone who was antagonistic and hostile to Judaism it was a great shock to me and it was a pleasant surprise to find out that all of the ideals that I had to make this world a better place were at the heart of Judaism I was shocked by this Judaism begins so we're going to be reading at this Shabbat in the synagogue this Shabbat we begin the story of Abraham and the very first words that God says to Abraham are to go to leave his homeland to go to the land that God's going to show him and God says I will make you into a great nation I will what does that mean to be a great nation so God explains I will bless you and make you great and you will become a blessing and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you that somehow Abraham's nation is not supposed to simply be a separate people to be a different people and to live their life and have no concern for the rest of the world God tells Abraham at square one at the very beginning you're going to be the progenitor of a people who will basically be here to be a blessing to the rest of the world because the Bible is not just a Jewish story the Bible begins with the creation of the world but the Bible describes how the world became a very broken place and we still see now thousands of years later how the world still is a broken place and God chooses Abraham for an extremely noble mission Abraham is given the mission to begin a people who will transform the world who will perfect the world what incredible privilege this is to be given this assignment that we were tasked as a people with being God's agents to improve the world to change the world to make this world a heaven on earth and it's the mission that anyone can join it's not only open to Jews any Gentiles who's inspired by the mission of Judaism is able to join but this was the origins this was the Genesis story of the Jewish people we were launched as a nation given a very holy and noble assignment God is saying that you will be my agents to improve the world to change the world right before we received the Torah Mount Sinai God says to us that you will be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation who are the priests in Judaism within the 12 tribes of the Jewish people the priests are the teachers and God says you Jewish people will be the priests my teachers to the rest of the world and what are we supposed to teach the rest of the world about godliness about righteousness about justice about holiness the prophets say that we are to be a light unto the nations what an incredible privilege for us to have to play this role in the history of the world what a noble mission it is and if we want to think about why should I as a Jew be Jewish it's because I was given this incredibly noble task I could have been given many tasks in my life to have this as my purpose of my existence we know that for young people especially having a sense of mission in life is critical we know that people often are very drawn to the idea of service of serving others of not being in the world just for yourself I saw an interview recently with Mark Zuckerberg and his wife and they're part of a small group that's giving away 99% of their wealth I mean these are people that have billions and billions of dollars I don't think they're going to starve if they give away 99% of their wealth but it's an incredible thing because in much of our world people want to hang on to every penny they have and these are people that feel that they have a responsibility if I was given this great wealth I have a sense of responsibility to use that wealth to benefit mankind and so that's in a sense how Jewish people feel that we were given this task we were given a responsibility and we have sacrificed incredibly over our long history in order to be able to fulfill this mission we've taken it in the neck we've lost millions of people we're not here just for ourselves the Bible and Judaism is not basically saying that history is this sick contest where the longest lasting religion at the end of history wins that's not what it's about we were put into this world as a nation in order to change the world and to make the world a better place why was Abraham chosen? think about it for a minute Abraham was not the first good person in the Bible the Torah describes Noah before Abraham as someone who was perfectly righteous the Torah never even says that about Abraham that he was perfectly righteous so why is it that Noah is skipped over and the task of changing the world is given to Abraham why is that? and why do we even need to know about Noah? the Bible is not a history book there's a lot of things that happen in history that we're not told in the Bible and I believe that this story of Noah is critical to understanding what was special about Abraham because both Noah and Abraham were given the same challenge by God Abraham and Noah were each told by God I am going to destroy the world Noah is told it's going to be a flood that's going to wipe everything out Abraham is told by God I'm going to destroy Sodom and Amorah and Atma and Sivoyim which were the major population centers in the world back then and Abraham and Noah reacted very differently Noah was told by God build an ark and get on it with your family and save yourselves and Noah says yes sir God tells me to jump and I say how high? you want me to build an ark and save my family? no problem sir Abraham is told the same thing by God Abraham I'm going to destroy these cities and Abraham freaks out he says what are you talking about? he says shall the judge of the whole world not do justice? and he engages God in a very very massive argument and he says for God it is not proper to kill the righteous with the wicked he says to God do it God of justice and will the God of justice kill the good people with the bad people? it's crazy he says to God and then he says to God look God what if there are 50 righteous people within those cities? now what should Abraham's next line be? what if there are 50 righteous people within those cities? the next line of Abraham's argumentation should have been it seems like this is where he was heading if there are 50 such righteous people and it's not good to God for you the just God the righteous God to kill the righteous with the wicked so take these 50 righteous people away and then do away with all the wicked people that sounds like where he's heading but no Abraham says to God if there are 50 righteous people within the city you've got to save everybody okay there aren't 50 okay God what about 45 40 30 20 get them down to 10 so what is Abraham's thesis? what is Abraham's thinking? you'll notice that he didn't just say 50 righteous people living in the city the Hebrew is very precise it's within the city meaning Abraham's not satisfied with 50 righteous people living in some monastery shut off from everyone else he needs to know that these are 50 righteous people that are interacting with everyone else and Abraham's thesis is that if there are such righteous people they have the ability to influence the others and God you may not kill the wicked people if there are righteous people living in their midst because these righteous people have the ability to influence and to change the others what about Noah? why didn't Noah argue with God? because Noah basically gave up on something very critical we believe the bible tells us that every human being is created in the image of God which means every human being has free will we all have free will and we are always able to choose between righteousness and wickedness Abraham never gave up on that belief Noah had a hard time believing it Noah saw a world that was so wicked and steeped in evil he couldn't imagine these people could ever change he gave up on the world and he says look you want to save me and my family? fine Abraham believed at the deepest level of his being people can change people have the ability to change if they are given a noble righteous example that's exactly why I believe that Abraham was chosen for this mission of changing the world because if the people in Sodom and Amor could change anyone in the world could change and if Abraham is saying that God you must save those cities if there are 10 righteous people God says you are going to be that nation you are going to be that nation that will be an example, a light to the rest of the world and you will ultimately have the capacity and you will change the world it's one of the prophecies of the Bible by the way God says I will never destroy the world again with a flood but God prophesies in the Bible that one day the nations of the world will acknowledge the truth of what Israel is teaching why be Jewish? because we were tasked with the most incredible noble mission possible what a privilege we were given why be Jewish? because God has a plan for each and every one of us God's desire God's agenda is that each human being be able to achieve the ultimate pleasure that's possible for a human being to achieve that's what Artora teaches us that God created the world in order to do good and to give God did not create in order to get anything from us and just like any parent desires the welfare of their children like any parent who desires that their children experience the ultimate blessing and goodness that's possible in life this is what God wants for each and every one of us God's ultimate desire is that every human being achieve the highest level of satisfaction, joy, fulfillment and blessing that a human being is able to achieve what is that highest degree of pleasure possible for a human being to achieve? so the Torah says that the greatest pleasure a human being is able to achieve is to be able to have a connection to the greatest good in existence what is the greatest good in existence? what is the ultimate good in existence? is it dark chocolate? there are a lot of pleasures in this world there are a lot of beauty in this world if you go to some beautiful places on this planet you can see exquisite beauty and people play thousands of dollars to be able to travel to places where you're not only seeing concrete jungles we're living very disadvantaged lives in urban settings because all you see are straight lines and concrete and buildings that human beings have made but if you ever get out into the world and see the beauty that God created it is breathtaking we live in a world of exquisite beauty and a world where there are incredible pleasures but ultimately there is a source to all this pleasure and there's a source to all this beauty if you like reading a particular author and you get pleasure from this person's novels what if you had a chance to meet the person right what if you had a chance to spend three months non-stop with your favorite author so Judaism says that all of the pleasures and beauty in this world point beyond themselves to their source to their author they paint to the artist that's behind the entire universe and the greatest pleasure the greatest fulfillment that human being is capable of having is to be connected to the source of everything and that source is God God gave us as human beings a path to be able to connect to him God gave the world at large path called the Noahide path that if they follow the universal rules of ethics and morality they can have an intimate relationship with God for the Jewish people God gave the elaborate system called the Torah to connect with him so why should a Jew be Jewish because this is the path that God gave us to be able to have the ultimate pleasure and fulfillment in life on a personal level this goes beyond our national responsibility to the rest of the world this is for each one of us as an individual how can I achieve the ultimate joy and pleasure and blessing for my life as an individual it's by following the path that God outlined for me in order to connect with him why should a Jew embrace their Jewishness because that's the only path that they can take in order to have this kind of relationship with God it's the only path that they can take in order to have closeness with God in order to know God in order to be someone who has a relationship with God why be Jewish because each one of us is a work in progress each human being is here to grow each human being is here to make something out of themselves that's the nature of being alive that when you're alive you're supposed to be growing and maturing person that gets married can be very much in love with their spouse but hopefully over the years that relationship deepens and they learn to experience and appreciate their spouse on deeper and higher levels as their relationship matures this nothing is cute and adorable as seeing an 80 year old couple walking down the street hand in hand and they're in heaven they're in heaven because they've been through thick and thin together and hopefully they've come to know each other on a much much deeper level than when they first stood under the canopy the marriage canopy 60 years earlier so each one of us is a work in progress each one of us is supposed to make ourselves into something there's a lot to accomplish in life the rabbis tell us that when we're born we're born with our hands and fists because when we come into this world we want to just take and take and take and take that's the nature of being a baby a baby is by nature selfish that's what a baby is saying all the time gimme gimme gimme gimme there are people who never get past that in life there are people who are 75 year old babies hopefully the tom will tells us when a person dies their hands are open at the end of our lives we don't take anything with us but hopefully we've learned to be givers we've learned to be like god god doesn't take anything from us god is always giving and so there are so many things for us to learn how do we go through life and become givers how do we become people who are more patient how do we become people who are more sensitive to others how do we become people who have more humility to have more wisdom there's so many areas of our lives that can be improved there's so many ways in which we can grow this is what our sages refer to as our personal curriculum each one of us has those issues that they need to deal with for some of us anger is not an issue it's not a challenge for most of us we can work on something like that for some people they don't have an arrogant bone in their body for many others they can stand to work on their humility all of us can become more sensitive all of us can work on becoming less self-centered and this is a lifetime of work and what the Torah does is to provide us with a technology teachings techniques to help us grow that's why we're in this world our sages teach us that you were put in this world in order to perfect your character traits that's why you were put here you were put into this life in order to perfect your character traits and if you don't do it why in the world were you even created it's impossible to do it by ourselves you know there's a weight loss program here in Toronto for men the Harvey Brooker program and said if you could do it alone you would have done it already the Torah says you need help to grow and to change and to develop and the Torah is a technology to help us each grow and develop and change and to perfect ourselves it's hard to perfect the world unless you're something to show why should I be a Jew because Judaism gives me the tools to grow as a human being to the best of my potential I want to conclude with a story about Louis Brandeis Louis Brandeis I should call him he was a student at Harvard Law School and he had a very difficult time at Harvard it was not the curriculum and the studies that made it hard for him because for three years his fellow students sat next to him every day during lunch hour and they would say things like Brandeis you're really brilliant you could end up on a supreme court one day if only you weren't a Jew why don't you convert and then all your problems would be solved of course Brandeis listened and never responded to these people by the end of his three years at Harvard everyone recognized his incredible brilliance and he was invited to join the honor society on the evening of his induction into the honor society he got up to speak and the room was silent all eyes were on Brandeis and he turned to the room and he said I'm very sorry that I was born a Jew and with that the entire room erupted in applause we finally convinced him this is what everyone thought we finally convinced him finally he's come to see our point but Brandeis was waiting for everyone to quiet down and when silence was re-established he continued he said I am sorry that I was born a Jew only because I wish I had the privilege of choosing Judaism on my own even people who were born as Jews can have that moment where they recognize there is something that's really precious about being a Jew and they make a choice I want to live my life as a Jew I want to live my life as a serious Jew as a committed Jew as a proud Jew it's not just an accident of my birth it's not something that I will ever take for granted and that's what Brandeis was saying I believe he wasn't saying he wished he was born a Gentile that could have converted to Judaism he's saying I was born a Jew I was really I didn't have a choice but this is how much I value it and I love it and I cherish it that I wish ultimately I could have been someone who chose it and I believe that when we become clear about why it is so compelling to be a Jew who's living Jewishly and who embraces their path and who embraces their destiny and who embraces the gift that God gave to them and to us we have the ability to make that choice we have the ability each and every day to wake up and to say thank God I'm alive thank God I'm a Jew thank God I have the ability to live this incredible life and I want to really give all of us in the room myself included a blessing that our Jewishness should never be something that we take for granted it should never be something that we do on automatic pilot or out of a habit or out of guilt or out of any other negative reason but we should always recognize that we have something that is so valuable and beautiful and delicious that we should be able to say every moment of our life how wonderful and beautiful is our fate how delicious and delightful is our portion and to be thankful for what we have as Jewish people