The Proudest Country In The World

A Torah Anytime original series. A few years ago, I was in Japan. And I'm not talking about just the tourist brochure [music] Japan. I'm talking about the real Japan, the back alley markets, the tight city streets, the chaos of daily life that the country has underneath its surface. And on the first day in Tokyo, after [music] about 2 hours of walking and weaving through crowds and passing food stalls, trying not to get crushed by the rushing commuters, [music] something hits me. I stop. I look around and I realize I haven't seen a single piece of garbage anywhere. Not even one. Not a wrapper, not a plastic [music] bottle, not a piece of gum, nothing. The p place is spotless. Absolutely remarkably spotless. [music] Now, Tokyo is not some gated senior citizen community. Tokyo is the largest city in the world with around 40 million people in it. How in the world do they keep it so clean? And then it hits me. This isn't an accident. This isn't some government program or some billion dollar cleanup job that the city overtook [music] over the course of many years. You know where the cleanliness of Japan comes from? It comes from good oldfashioned pride. Japan is a nation where people love their country so fiercely and so intensely that they simply refuse to bring it shame. They refuse to do anything that would disgrace it. Even the smallest granola bar rapper is not thrown on the ground because how could you possibly ruin [music] the beauty of a country you are so proud of? You see, in Japan, there's a reason the trains [music] run on time. There's a reason people bow to each other. There's a reason that the streets are clean enough to eat off of. It's not just about rules [music] and laws. It's about a mindset and a culture and a way of being. Because hundreds of years, Japan was one of the most isolated places on Earth. The emperors and the shoguns and the samurai and even the ninjas, they all enforced a society built around discipline and honor and loyalty, not just to a particular leader, but to the entire nation. Pride wasn't just encouraged. It was literally in their bloodstream. Every citizen was taught [music] that their actions reflected on the whole country. Every step, every bow, every behavior carried weight. This sense of responsibility, this awareness of being a representative of something greater than yourself [music] became second nature to the Japanese. People in Japan feel it in their bones. When a Japanese person walks down the street, they aren't just a person moving through space. They are the country of Japan walking. Every action, every gesture, every small decision matters. [music] And because this pride runs so deep, it shapes behaviors in ways most of the world can barely imagine. The trains run on time because being late isn't just inconvenient, it's dishonoring your country. People bow to each other [music] because respect isn't optional. It's embedded in their identity. Streets aren't immaculate. [music] Because littering isn't just messy. It's shameful and it's a disgrace to their society that [music] they are immensely proud of. There's only one other country in the world, to my knowledge, [music] that mirrors this level of relentless discipline and national pride, and that country is Germany. Germany, like Japan, spent centuries cultivating a fierce, burning [music] pride in itself. From the organization of its cities to the precision of [music] its industry, from the punctuality of its trains to the cleanliness of its streets, discipline and order are completely ingrained in the German culture. Both nations produce people who would give their lives without question, who would fly a kamicazi airplane into a ship without batting an eyelash or march into impossible odds with unwavering loyalty. That [music] same pride, when fused with ideology, led these nations to team up and [music] nearly take down the entire world. They show what happens when pride becomes mission [music] and identity and obsession. when it consumes the people completely. But here's the part that hit me hard. Today, those same two nations, [music] Germany and Japan, who once weaponized their pride and use it for darkness, are now two of the greatest, most disciplined, most advanced countries on Earth. Why? Because pride, when it's real, doesn't disappear. It just gets redirected. These are countries where people grow up breathing the message, I carry the honor of my nation on my shoulders. And when you internalize that, everything shifts. You don't litter. You don't cut corners. [music] You don't disrespect the system because your failure becomes your country's shame and your excellence becomes its glory. That's the power of pride. Pride shapes behavior. Pride shapes culture. And when a nation has in its bloodstream, it transforms everything for worse when corrupted and for greatness when channeled correctly. So as I'm walking through this spotless Japanese market, it hits me like a lightning bolt. If human pride for a country can shape behavior this dramatically, what should Jewish pride look like? We're not representing a flag. We're not carrying a mortal kingdom. We are carrying a shem's name. We are representing the master of the world. We are living ambassadors of a mission that began at our scenai. If a Japanese citizen won't drop a rapper on the floor because it misrepresents the country. If a German citizen feels the weight of centuries of identity with every action, then what does [music] it mean for us amra who walk around with Hashem's signature on our soul? What does it mean to speak as a Jew and to act as a Jew and to live as a Jew when every step we take carry the honor of the Raan? Jewish pride isn't ego. It's responsibility. It's dignity. [music] It's knowing you represent the king of kings wherever you go. And if nations of the world can build entire cultures around pride in something human, then imagine what we can build with pride in something divine. Walk like you're carrying his name. Walk like you're carrying his [music] light. And never forget people watch us because every Jew carries Hashem's crown. And even the world can't ignore royalty.