YouSaid · the spoken record

David Wolpe

lines on the record: 141
first: 2022-03-16
most recent: 2022-03-16
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“You would understand this better than I. I don't understand how it could be a convenient quirk materialistically. I don't understand how to explain it.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But what I was trying to say is. If we're entirely biological creatures, if we didn't choose our genetics and we didn't choose our environment, then there is no space for free choice. I don't understand where it comes in. And I kept asking them that question, but didn't get an answer because I don't think there is an answer. I think if you're a thoroughgoing materialist, free will is impossible. There could be randomness, but randomness is not free will. It's randomness. Think you need a spiritual Non material belief in order to get free will. And that's why I believe in free will”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is where we had the debate earlier that I mentioned with Hitchens, where I think actually neither he nor the moderator understood what I was saying, which is I'm sure my inability to express it.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, you can live a life by Torah. I don't think you can live a life by biology. Can live a life that is informed by the values of the tradition of Judaism, and those values, by the way, what science does is it contributes factuality to the conversation and also changes the reality around us. So when you study Talmud on your iPhone, you're still, I mean, it changes the atmosphere in which you do it But the wisdom and the life guidance and the connection to transcendence is something that science doesn't give.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I don't read it as fact. I don't read it as a history book. I said, look, I was talking again to a congregation that had many Iranians. I said, you experienced the truth of the exodus in your own life. There was a regime that wanted to destroy you, and you miraculously escaped before it did. And so a myth is something that may not have happened, but is always happening. And that's what I would say about the Exodus story. It's not about whether, in fact, there was a killing of the firstborn. It's about does God deliver? Did God deliver the Jews in ancient times? Does God deliver people in modern times? And that's what the issue is. And to me, it's much the issue of faith is much deeper than the issue of fact. I wouldn't look to the Torah for my science either.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Who actually, if there were two million people, would stretch all the way from Israel to Egypt alone were liberated from Egypt. And my point in that sermon was not actually to convince people that it didn't happen. My point in that sermon was to convince people that the historicity of the Exodus is not the basis of the faith of the Jewish people.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What really happened? Exodus is the liberation of the Jews from Egypt, and it is the central story of the Jewish tradition. And as I've said numerous times in various places, I believe that it's based on a historical kernel. I think Richard Elliott Friedman may have gotten this right in his book, Exodus. It may have been the Levites who left Israel. But historically, but the Bible's not a book of history. I don't believe that there were ten plagues and a split sea and 600,000 men, which makes about 2 million people.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Judaism and Christianity are different. Christianity has an ideal life. Judaism doesn't have an ideal life. Judaism has an ideal book. So the holidays of Christianity are events in the life of God, God's birth, God's death and resurrection. In Judaism, the holidays are all events in the life of the people, like the liberation from slavery, or in the people's relationship to God, like Yom Kippur, which is a day of atonement. But there are no holidays in Judaism that are events in the life of God because in Judaism, God doesn't have a biography. God is eternal, and God never came to earth.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are different theories. I won't speak for Muhammad. You should ask. I don't want to get, I don't want to get that wrong. I don't want to get another religious tradition wrong. In Judaism, the words are written by Moses at God's dictation basically. That's the traditional view. There are other views that I'm happy to go into if you want to, but basically that's the traditional view.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It differs because in Christianity, the words are not all the words of Jesus. They're the words of Jesus' disciples. None of the books of the New Testament were written by people who met Jesus in person. So they're different. And therefore, and also we don't even know sometimes the original language of some of the things in the New Testament. In the Bible, and I understand in the Quran, but I'll speak for the Hebrew Bible, the idea is that that's Lashon Haudesh, that's sacred language, and Hebrew is the language according to the tradition that God actually spoke to Moses, and therefore the exact words are infinitely interpretable and meaningful.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Hebrew Bible part, the Abrahamic part, they all tell the story. Of the same characters, but tell them obviously Christians accept the Hebrew Bible as sacred scripture, the Muslims retell many of the stories in the Bible. What is common to all of them is that all of them Monotheistic faiths. Now, in Christianity, that's more complicated because of the Trinity, but as Christianity has developed over time, it clearly presents itself and thinks of itself and is a monotheistic faith as well.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Christians will say that I don't understand that, but that's because Christians, like Jews, interpret their texts different ways at different times. Anyway. The Quran, which I know less well. I have read it, but I know it less well than I know the New Testament and certainly less well, obviously, than I know the Hebrew Bible, is in some ways, parts of it are, I don't say this word, I say this word because I can't find a better descriptive word, but Muslims will not accept this, is a takeoff on the Torah in some things. That is, it's the same stories as the Torah, but they're different. Now, Jews will say, and I being a Jew will say this, that that's because Muhammad heard those stories from Jews and also heard Midrashim, which are rabbinic interpretations of those stories, and he wrote those down. Muslims will say, no, the Jews got it wrong, and Muhammad came along to correct the record and tell the real story.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which the Jews don't recognize as a sacred book. They recognize it as the book of another religion. And I sometimes say to Christians, in order for them to really grasp this, Jesus has as much religious significance to Judaism as Muhammad has to Christians. That is Jesus, although Jewish became the founder of another religion. And for Judaism, that's not only inasmuch as Christians and Jews have had a lot of interactions, but religiously, Jesus has no significance, said many beautiful things, said some things I don't like so much. Leave your father and mother and follow me. I don't like that as a religious model. Now, Christian”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's the Hebrew Bible Is actually what's called a step canon. That is, they're the five books of the Torah. Then there are books of history and the prophets. So books like Samuel Kings, Judges, and then the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Ezekiel, and so on. And then there are what are called the writings. The writings are books like Psalms, Proverbs, Job, the Megilot, which are Esther, Daniel, all of those books, Ecclesiastes. So in Hebrew, it's called the Tanakh, Torah Nevim Ketuvim, the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings. And that is the Hebrew Bible. Sometimes that's also called the Torah, just to be confusing, but really the Torah generally refers to the five books. Then there is the New Testament.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I said, what? He said, you changed my mind. And I thought, wow. And I said to him, you know, that's so, it's like to take so much courage to come up to somebody and say that in front of them. And I was so grateful. And the other thing that it tells me is, look, I've been the rabbi of that congregation for 25 years and I taught 10 years before that. I've been a rabbi for a long time. I still have a lot to learn.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Almost always the case, exactly so. So it's. Mean it settled down a lot. The most really the single Best reaction. There are people, and you can again, you can go on social media, you can see all the criticisms and so on and so forth. But the single best reaction I got was from a man who came up to me right after the sermon and said, I have four words for you. And I thought, oh no. Nothing good comes in force. I got to confess”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I spoke about what you talked about, which is that I mentioned before that Moses broke those tablets coming down the mountain. And the Torah doesn't say what happened to the tablets, but the rabbis do. They say that they were carried together in the ark with the second set that was intact. And that we all have brokenness. Communities and individuals, we have brokenness, and especially now. And we have to learn how to give each other space to be mistaken and broken and hurt and all of that.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I didn't do so much of that at the game. So Nonetheless, so, but the second part of it was I said that we have to be able to express our anger and disappointment better than this. You just have to, in part because it doesn't get you the result that you want. I mean, when you scream at someone, that's not going to get them to realize what they did. And the most painful moment of it was this letter that I got from a Christian pastor who said, you know, I always admired the Jews so much. I can't believe they could be so cruel and especially to a rabbi. And I thought, that's not how I want my congregation to be perceived in the world. And by the way, some of them were from my congregation, some were many were not from my congregation”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think, by the way, I didn't speak about this, but I also think that there are some people who just don't like the idea of a rabbi being at the Super Bowl. It's like you're supposed to be doing rabbi stuff. So I understand that too. But then”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, what I did was I didn't answer on social media because I knew that I wouldn't be able to formulate it the way I wanted and I was going to wait and I was going to be able to give a longer, I mean, the sermon is 15 minutes, not that long, but I wanted to be able to give a longer answer as opposed to a tweet. And so I was really, I mean, I tried to make two points during the sermon and also I published the text of it, which I never do because I never speak from a text. I always speak from either notes or not even from notes. But this time I thought it was really important that I have a text out there too so that people could actually look over it. And I just wanted to make two points, one of which was that I really feel terrible. And I did, that all these people were hurt and that there is this, you know, contradiction between the way I acted and the way they want me to act. And I also.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yeah, on my Instagram. You can still see I left the remarks up because I really thought it was important. If I started, I only deleted the really vile comments because I thought that shouldn't stay up. But I left them up because I thought people should see. And I should remind myself what I did, and I didn't want to just delete the picture as though it didn't happen because it did happen. And I did do it. And I felt terrible about that. And I felt terrible that I had not about, I mean, the comments believe me weren't pleasant. I didn't like it. Nobody likes it. But I felt worse that I had hurt all these people that I'm close to. And I defended all these people who were really upset that their kids were wearing masks. And now their kid says, why doesn't the rabbi have to wear a mask?”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, many, many people thought, oh, great, wonderful. Glad you're having a good time, so on and so forth. I don't want to diminish at all the many people who said that. A lot of people were livid. They were livid. And they weren't instructive about it was they didn't say nobody wrote me a private note and said, you know, I think that this was a bad idea. You should have thought about this. No. You're a hypocrite. You're a clown. You're an idiot. How could you do this? This is a disgrace. They say that public.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So here's the story the LA County mandates masking children in school and all of kids in our school are masked in many of the parents are extremely upset about that. I will just leave that at that. I went to the Super Bowl. Were 70,000 people, Frank Luntz, whom we know, a wonderful guy, gave me a ticket. So I was at the Super Bowl. I maybe saw two masks among the 70,000 people. I didn't even think about it, which was foolish on my part. No question. I took a picture of myself unmasked at the Super Bowl. And people were.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A momentum, and also you don't want to betray your own tribe because then people will get upset at you. I really think that a lot of the antagonism is not so much that you don't want to give ground to the people who oppose you. It's that you don't want to break with the people who are behind you. And that's really hard.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No question about it. This sermon I gave this Saturday was about how Moses came down the mountain. He saw the golden calf and he broke the tablets. He'd sat with it for a little while, he probably wouldn't have broken the tablets. But the instant reaction is always anger. And in our age, unfortunately, the instant reaction gets put on social media forever and ever and ever. And by the way, once you've actually said that, it becomes harder to back down. If you keep quiet for a day or two, then... Then you can back down because you haven't put yourself out there. But once you said this is terrible what you did, it's harder to write and say, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wasn't canceled the way, like, I didn't lose my job, didn't lose my home, but I hurt people that I cared about. And that was the hard. Like, I went into this, you know, to be someone who brings people together. And then I would sit there and do even now like. As you're well aware, with stuff that's going on now, I sit there and people are really upset at me, who I either am or used to be close to.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I feel good about it. Afterwards, the other thing that I again said to my daughter afterwards, after it all died down and after all the bad things were said, I told her the Churchill once said that it's exhilarating to be shot at without result. If you go into a battle and you make it through and you're still okay, that's good.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I went to the feeling. I said, which means respect or honor for God's creations and caring for other human beings and understanding. Wasn't scholarly because I knew that the objections were not scholarly objections. And I had many beautiful and also painful stories as a result, some of which can be told and some of which really can't. But what I tried to impress also on people was how painful it is. Cannot be able to tell the world, even your own parents, who you are. And your sexuality is not a trivial part of who you are. I mean, it's core to people. So it's one of the reasons why it evokes such reactions. But I would say to them, the same reason that you're reacting so strongly tells you how strongly, you know. Anyway, it was a very powerful experience. For that, I have, you know.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I will tell you one thing I did wrong with that and one thing I did right. Thing I did right was I waited until In the communities where people objected to it, I had enough people whose kids had come out. So that I had parents of kids who'd come out to refer later on other parents to so that they wouldn't feel like they were the only ones. Because once I announced it as I thought would happen, a bunch of kids came out and said, you know, now that the rabbi said this, mom, dad, I want you to know I'm gay. And when the parents came to me, I could say, well, listen, you're not alone. This person also you can go to. That I did right. What I did wrong was I don't think the classes were enough and I don't think enough people were prepared. And I think part of the explosion was shock. And I should have prepared even more.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Said, look, honey, when you go to school tomorrow or whatever it was, I said people might be saying bad things about your dad. And I just want you to be prepared for that. She said, why? And I said, because I'm going to start marrying, I'm going to start doing same-sex marriages. And she looked at me quizly and said, what took you so long? And I thought really her face was like, I said to her, I'm going to start marrying blonde-haired people to brown-haired people. It's like she really did not understand Why there was an issue. And I thought that's exactly why, because I know that this is, it's generational. People are raised with it. They have a deep in there, but it's not really... Right. It's just not right.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that was very persuasive to me. So, but I knew that it was going to be explosive in my community. When, by the way, it finally happened, it was literally on the front page of the New York and the LA Times. It was that explosive. So it was not a small controversy. So, what I did was I started to teach classes. Not that many people came about homosexuality and Jewish tradition and so on. It's funny, much, much less about lesbianism, much, I'm talking about in terms of the sources and so on. It's almost always about homosexuality. And then I got ready to send out a letter I said to my daughter Who at the time was maybe 10 or 11, now in her mid 20s?”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have a few. I have a few Russian Jews, not as many as I should, but we'll work on that. But what happened was, like, increasingly, I became uncomfortable with people who would come to me and say, this is the only kind of person I can love. It's not the same question as an intermarriage, as a Jew marrying a non-Jew, because you could find a Jew to love. You may not have found, but you could. And that's a whole separate question. But I would have men in my office primarily, a couple of women. They would say, like, this is the only kind of person that I can enter into an intimate relationship with. How can it be that my religion has no room for me?”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I'm part of a congregation that is really politically split and even split not only politically, but split. In terms of origin, we have a lot of Jews from the Middle East, from Iran, a lot of Persian Jews, a lot of Jews from Israel, some from Mexico, from other places, and many that grew up in LA.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right. I use the analogy sometimes of diet books. If any diet worked, there would be one book. There'd be one book and you'd be done.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly so. It's a continual conversation of sages, scholars, readers, strugglers, seekers, mystics, visionaries, all of them making a contribution. I mean, I write a weekly Torah column for the Jerusalem Post. Now, what is there left to say? But every week, what I do is I start opening books and seeing what people say, and it starts to percolate. And you realize that you're entering this. Conversation that's been going on for thousands of years with remarkable minds. It's constantly fertile in new insights. So, yes, that's what it is to be part of a tradition.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's yes, that's my argument is that you criticize the Torah by the Torah. That is, it gives you the understanding that you use Evaluate its own claims. And I think that Judaism, by the way, has always done that because it's clear that there are things in the Torah that the rabbis changed, altered, grew, expanded, diminished. I think that's what it is to be part of a living tradition.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“See that this was written over hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. It is a holy book, and I like the idea that it is what you say in Hebrew ishamayim and not Torami Sinai. That is, the Torah is from heaven, but it's not from Sinai. So it has its origin beyond us. It has things in it that I think, and this is one of the things that was a huge controversy at my congregation when I started to do same-sex marriages. There are some people who try to argue that the Torah does not forbid them, whether it does or not, it seems to me we understand things that were not understood in the ancient world about gender and sexuality.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the Torah is the five books of Moses written in Hebrew. I, like most, I think modern rabbis, non-Orthodox or non-literalist rabbis, will tell you that it's a product of human beings. And I believe that they are inspired by God, but it's clear to me that it's a human product. And I think that people who study modern biblical criticism, it's really hard to study modern criticism gives a wrong impression. I would say modern scholarship on the Bible and not appreciate the fact that it even has levels of language. I mean, it's just like if you read today somebody writing like Shakespeare, you would say this isn't, it's like English has developed. It's different. It's not the English we speak today. And if you study the Bible and you know Hebrew well enough, you even.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think that that's true also when you think about the relationships you have, things have grown out of the relationships that you've invested in, that you've farmed, basically, that can't exist in fly-by-night relationships.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's no question, and even if it doesn't keep you forever, you still have a connection that exists. So I can give you one, you said, what is it about commitment? I'll give you one, I think, beautiful answer. Someone once asked Rabbi Sullivic, who was a great thinker and leader in the Orthodox community in the 20th century, they said, you know, I go from religion to religion. I just take what I think is beautiful in it. And his answer was that you're treating religion like a nomad. He said, nomads go from place to place and they eat what they want and they move on. He says, farmers stay in one place. The difference is farmers make things grow.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just like people move jobs and they move sports teams and they change careers, they change partners. And there is a diminishment of the commitment to commitment that I actually think has serious societal consequences and that I am worried about.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Worry about it. I do think that it is possible that we're going rather than a dissolution, we're going through a transition, that is different kinds of families and different configurations of families. That is, I see some of that. But I also do see, it's less a dissolution of marriage than it is of the idea of commitment. And I'll give you like a simple example. When I was growing up, A player on a sports team was always on that team. And you rooted for the team because you knew the players for 20 years. Now there are very good reasons, starting with Kurt Flood, why people got free agency and they can move around and it's better for the players. I understand all that. And I am not. I'm not saying, oh, they should continue”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, exactly. And also when couples come to me and they say we don't need to be married because it really won't change how we think about ourselves and our relationship, I say to them, that's true. It might not, but it will change how everyone else looks at you. Because it changes how everyone else looks at you, it changes you. Because it's one thing to say this is my partner, it's another thing to say this is my husband. You say this is my husband, that means we've made a real commitment to this.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is first of all to teach you how to care for someone unlike you, which could be anyone you marry. And I think it's to create a home and a family.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But when I'm actually doing the wedding, I always love it. Always, always, always. And the reason is that I don't think, I mean, yes, people go to you for answers in calmer conversations. Like if you ask me now, like, what's my theory of why God allows evil? I could give you a conversation about it. But they really go for presence and comfort, not really for answers. When someone suffering, an answer doesn't Doesn't make them unsuffer. It's just they want to know they're not alone”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, every privilege comes with a cost of one kind or another. The reason you get to be in that role is exactly because you get the privilege of being there at crucial moments in people's lives. I mean, the fact that I get to marry people and get to give eulogies for people and come to the hospital, that's inexpressible. I have this joke with people that I know that like when I'm sitting on the couch and it's Saturday night, I don't want to get up and go to a wedding. I really don't. I want to sit there and watch Netflix like everybody else.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, one of the things I learned is exactly what you said the personalities that you think are unique to your own community. In fact, they exist in all sorts of communities and religious communities in particular draw, I think, some interesting personalities. And also that the, especially as clergy, some of the pressures that you feel are shared And it's weird again. It has to do with that tribal association. There's almost like there's an understanding among clergy because they have similar. And it's a strange role in the following way. It's one that you never escape. That is, you're not my lawyer at the supermarket, but you are my rabbi at the supermarket. I mean, it doesn't matter why you're there. That's not an escapable role. And every religious leader is aware of that.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Muhammad and Moses created a religion in the desert where there was no law. So you have to create a religion of law. Otherwise, you have anarchy. And that's why in a lot of ways, like there was never a separation of church and state in Islam or Judaism. That was a gift that Christianity gave the world. And it could do it because of render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. But when Moses came along, there was no Caesar. When Muhammad came along, there was no Caesar. So historically the traditions shaped differently, but all three of them have this core, I think, the single most important statement and insight in all of human history, which is that every human being is in the image of God. And if you really believe that, that's a transformative belief.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The religious family part is different, and the greatest difference, which I talked about in the Eric Weinstein podcast, is that Islam and Judaism are more similar in a lot of ways than Judaism and Christianity. And the reason that that is so is Christianity in its core is not a religion of law. Reason it's not a religion of law is because it grew up in the Roman Empire, so law was taken care of. I mean, Jesus didn't have to create civil law because you had Roman law”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, the only place where the betters came in, honestly, if I'm going to historically, if I'm going to be honest, was not with the idea that you, but it was when Jews were small, persecuted, the way that you take this sort of psychic revenge is by saying, no, we're better than our persecutors even But the idea is, yeah, different people have different missions, which is, I mean, like there was a Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, who used to say he didn't know very much about Islam. He used to say, Judaism is the sun, and Christianity was the rays of the sun. Like Judaism introduced the idea of God and Christianity brought it to the world.”
2022-03-16 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #270 – David Wolpe: Judaism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source