YouSaid · the spoken record

Rabbi David Wolpe

lines on the record: 92
first: 2017-02-15
most recent: 2017-02-15
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

“Even if not holy, because 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 Hasidic story. To some extent, I feel like our story, not entirely, but a little bit is like the story that Rabi Chayim 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.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But having said that, the In some ways There are, look, in Jewish theology, there are two ways of serving God. There's Ura and Ahaba. There's fear and love. Fear in some 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's not infinite, real love endures, right? Love in the words of Shirashurim, the song of songs, is strong as death. So if the American Jewish community”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, are we a community? I have good news and bad news. The good news is Jews have never been united. Only people who think, oh my God, why don't we have the cohesion we used to are people who don't know Jewish history? We used to be excommunicating each other all the time, the chasidim and the Mignogdim, and 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 way, I don't think this is unique to Jews, but it certainly is true among Jews. You can 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.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I defer here to an answer that I heard given by my sociologist brother 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 the essence of Protestantism, right? So when you're looking for, so who around here is trained in law? Ah, 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.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That lifestyle that would maintain them as conservative Jews. And unless and until not only conservative Judaism, by the way, but liberal religion in general, unless, but the problem is worse in Judaism because it makes greater demands than other religions. I mean, Christianity doesn't make such lifestyle demands on Christians as Judaism 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, until that's created, conservative Judaism is going to fade. That's the short answer.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Conservative Judaism, the dilemma that conservative Judaism had was that it tried to hold on to a serious Jewish observance without 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 lived that out. But as the motivational piece of it weakened, so did”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So sure. But 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 a Jewish value has to, a Jewish ethic has to address that as well. It can't be capitalism that ignores the fact that it creates an underclass that suffers. So it has to be a capitalist socialism. 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 who has two people in front of him, and 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. He goes, you're right too.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 a Jewish thinker today, and men, certainly many in Israel would argue this too, that you would have to be a capitalist of some stripe. I think it's very hard to make the case that Certainly, communism or even socialism is the Jewish, although I could find a few Jewish socialists who would argue with me.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 tell you, and I think I first heard this many years ago mentioned by George Gilder, 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. Only way you can succeed is if you actually understand what it is that other people want and or need.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I'll say why that is, and then one thing about capitalism that I think is profoundly Jewish that most people don't realize, seriously. I think the reason is because they came from Eastern Europe, and that tradition, like the FDR tradition in America, 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...”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Individuals at the moment. I think that that's not the purpose of the forum. Although, if Tyler asks me, I will. But I think that you can in good conscience be a Jew on the right or on the left. And the only thing that I would say You ought to be uneasy in your conscience about if you believe that the other side has no good Jewish values on its side because you're wrong.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So here's what I would say about that. And I think actually my answer to both would be the same, which is It is impossible to say. 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 Herman Cohen said very beautifully, in the idea of the stranger Judaism was born. Think about that today, right? That's what Hermann Cohen said. So I think you can make a very powerful Jewish case on both sides. I don't want to address”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Frightening. So I say, you know, the Buddhists and Hindus, that's where we got. These days, 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 Throughout Christian Europe, there are many, many, many millions, the overwhelming number of people are of goodwill. Leaders of Europe are overtly and for the most part covertly also opponents of anti-Semitism in some very significant ways. But it's scary. It is scary.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 rabbit 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 world, 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 or a paternal fight that there was in Christianity and Judaism. But now it's taken over lock, stock, and barrow and the virulence on both sides in Islam and in Europe is truly frightening. It is truly”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, what I would say, the quick answer to the very end of it is not all anti-Israel sentiment is anti-Semitism, but anti-Israel sentiment is now the respectable guise for anti-Semitism. Very few people, only the most fringy fringers will come up, will 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 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. I have a lot of thoughts about why anti-Semitism, my father, who was a wonderful rabbi,”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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. 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 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.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's like when I got cancer a couple times. I had a brain surgeries and I've had chemotherapy. And every time someone would say to me, why do you think God did this? And they were well meant. And my answer was I don't think that God said Wope could use some chemo. 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 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 that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. Everybody would be good all the time.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, I'm going to try to make this really as quick as possible, 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. Now, why the world is unfair, I have a theory about. But before I get to 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...”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I think probably more was gained. In terms of whether he changed the course of Jewish history, I think you almost can't say no because Maimonides is probably the single most important figure in Judaism, certainly post-Talmud, he is the single most important figure. And he did bring in, and what he changed, which some people like and some don't is he made people who are Jewish rationalist comfortable and people who are not Jewish rationalists forced to argue that it was okay not to be rationalistic, that to think of God as 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 Khasidim needed to reinvigorate the Jewish tradition in a sense. You know, on balance, glad we had him.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In answer to the first one, what did we lose with Maimonides' aggregation of Jewish law with the Mishnah Torah? So what Maimonides wanted to do was take all of this messy, giant Talmudic and other tradition 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 Maimonides. 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. And also, anytime 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.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. We're not. I would look, I think that Jewish faith rises or falls, Jewish faith, whether the Jewish people does is as yet an unasked question. But Jewish faith rises or falls 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. As long as God is, we're good.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, he was very, I mean, as we know, he was very fond of things unsaid. Leo Strauss. That was his bread and butter. And yeah, there's a debate in Jewish philosophy between Maimonides and Yehuda Halevi about whether prophecy is something that is divinely gifted or something that you can achieve. And while Halevi is on the gifted side, Halevi I want to say is represents the non-rationalist strain of Jewish philosophy, as Maimonides represents the rationalist strain. And so that's why that book Nurtures the Hasidic tradition from afar. And that idea that it comes from a poet makes a lot of sense.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's an important book for Judaism because the way it's structured is all these different religions come to the king of the Khazars who historically converted to Judaism, at least that's the best history we have. And it makes a case for Judaism against other religions. And Judaism 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 and where there was a lot of interaction with other religions. And Jewish philosophy was sort of borne out of, unlike the Christian tradition, philosophy wasn't native to Judaism. It was born out of an encounter with other cultures and a need to explain ourselves. And it was written by one of the great poets of medieval times, who also was a distinguished philosopher.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's a lot of the fact that it was written in medieval times when devils were proliferated. And if you, is it part of Judaism? Well, it's part of Jewish folk culture in the same way that if you read the stories of Isaac Bashheva Singer, you'll get a lot of angels and devils and so on. 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 in a world lit only by fire that there was... There were magical creatures all around them.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's true. That's true, but it goes back to the Hasidic question you asked before, which is this sense of intimacy with God is very hard to feel without any sort of to express rather without any recourse to some kind of sexual metaphor.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the sex part, in all seriousness, is, I think, 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 zivog, which means coupling or, you know,”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know whether this is the obvious or not. But I mean, less visited among my favorite sites is the graveyard in Svat, which contains the graves of most of the most famous Kabbalists of the time, including Luria, including the man who wrote Lehado Di Ishlomo Alchabets. And they're all there, and you can stand on the hills of Svat and see the sun set and it's a magical experience.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 Appalachia. Like, well, we're both Americans. You shouldn't be poor the same way that someone in Jerusalem might feel that about someone in Netanyahu, you know, so.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but I don't think I see you said an unnoticed. There have been demonstrations in the streets about incoming. That's somewhat unnoticed in this maybe unnoticed in this country. Yeah, no income inequality is a huge issue in Israel, especially because in Israel, unlike in the United States,”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The religious right is not really a political entity, they negate the political legitimacy of the country even as they support right-wing policies. And so you're raising a generation that I think doesn't feel”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How do you think the United States would react? Do you think they would say, well, look, we should negotiate? I mean, 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 neither side 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 Israel of importance? I would say probably what strikes me when I visit Israel is that there is An increasing Dissatisfaction and disaffection with all political life and activity that is dangerous for the country because the left wing is virtually Declaw”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that the case would appear, like most such cases, like Kashmir, like Nagorno-Karabakh, 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 bridle at automatically are people who don't see that there's another side here. 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 Hamas in Gaza. What would happen if Khomeini had taken over Texas?”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I think if it's fairly presented, it would, well, first of all, the other part of the case I want to say, there are settlements in their settlements. And the word settlements is way too broad, way too broad, because there are settlements that everybody knows, I mean, with a nod and a wink, 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 Yennevelt, at the middle of another world, where there are six guys and a goat, and that's also called a settlement.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Never been to Israel. You're some guy in Western Australia. 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?”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's the first part of the case that I would urge. And then, and by the way, this works in extending circles around the world that Israel is not an island, and the opinion of the world also matters in this. 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. Those are the end game doesn't work for me. I don't think that eventually the Palestinians will be absorbed into Israel and will feel okay about it if their standard of living is high enough. And of course, if they're enfranchised, then it's very hard to imagine a Jewish state. But there are other parts of the case that I absolutely subscribe to. And let's say you took a cosmopolitan perspective. So imagine...”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You agree with that case? I would agree with parts of that case, but which part's not? What I would say is that the problem with the case is it doesn't take into account two parts of the calculus 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.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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,”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now I 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”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 for the most part, I guess, 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. And I know this is very controversial.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 a legacy 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 a full range 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”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They might perceive higher danger. I'm not even sure that's correct. There's a somewhat lower standard of living. And if they ask 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?”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because a population that he's trained essentially to submit is a population that will create authoritarians. And so I think that the recalcitrants, I mean, when you think about Israel, the founders of Israel, none of them came from democracies. They came from Russia. 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 all argued with each other. Seriously, they all did. That's like my friend Joseph Epstein has a great line. He said, Jews don't listen. They wait. And I think that, and And that idea, the disputious culture of the Talmud and so on, it's good for democracy. And I think the culture of submission can be corrosive to it.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I'm just saying, 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 anti-democratic, it is the concept that's very deep, that is in the very name of the religion of submission.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If I were wise, I would say that 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 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 the greatest.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I feel that here's what I would say. No, he's portraying the Hebrew David. The idea of having such a magnificent David statue is a Christian idea. So if I could say it that way.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Much more. As is Moses, as is everyone, the story. Right, exactly. So I like the idea of flawed heroes. I like the notion that there isn't this whitewashing, and I feel that the Quran does that, but obviously I'm not a Muslim.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is part of a much larger question. There are a lot of differences between the Quran and the Hebrew Bible. David is one thing. The Quran is, and this, you should excuse me, for the home team, I like Judaism much better. The Quran is very unwilling to allow any sinfulness in its heroes.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, here's my theory. My theory is that it'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. So you needed civil law as well as criminal law. And the other thing I think 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 some belief system that can do that is worth paying attention to on its own terms, not just from the outside.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 religion of the transcendence of God. It's a religion of law and commentary. 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.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Way overrated, and I wish it hadn't, I mean, I think that 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 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, Pronouncing on whether it was a good idea or not, I can't speak 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 I hope to God that I'm wrong, but I think overrated.”
2017-02-15 · Conversations with Tyler · Rabbi David Wolpe on Leadership, Religion, and Identity (Live at Sixth & I) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source