Transcript
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Hi, this is David Olowski with our
special question and answer series. I've
gotten a lot of feedback from this.
People apparently appreciate this short
form method of giving short answers to
very long and complicated questions,
which is one of the things that I used
to teach rabbis when I taught in a
rabbitical uh course. And of course,
there's more to say on all of these
subjects, but I want to at least give an
answer that's operational for people.
Anonymous asks, "How do we reconcile the
Kuzari principle that surely an entire
nation could not simultaneously make up
a lie regarding their joint national
experience with the false narrative of
Palestinian peoplehood? Isn't that a
case of an entire nation making up a
lie?" So, for those you not familiar
with the Kuzari, the Kuzari's argument
is the following. No other nation claims
that God spoke to their entire nation.
Christianity,
Jesus is uh talking to God. According to
some versions, he is God. According to
other versions, he's the son of God.
Whatever it is, but everybody didn't
hear God talk. You heard Jesus. And if
that if that was impressive, fine.
Muhammad said, "Allah came to me and
told me the following." And this is what
he said. And uh if you believe Muhammad,
fine. If not, you know, hey, there
there's nothing else to go on. Joseph
Smith claimed that an angel led him to
uh a mountain in upstate New York where
he dug up these golden plates uh that um
contained the Book of the Mormons. And
uh it was uh and then they were taken
away and nobody ever saw them. Uh so if
you believe Joseph Smith, fine. If not,
there's nothing else to go with it. But
the Jewish people say we had mass
revelation and everybody heard God
speak. You got to admit that's a very
good argument.
and says the Khuzari, it's such a good
argument that isn't it surprising that
no other religion chose to copy it. Why
doesn't everybody say you heard God
speak?
Because you'll ask the question, I don't
remember God speaking. Goes, "Yeah, you
remember God spoke to everybody?" He
goes, "No, he spoke to your father."
Dad, did he did God ever speak to you?
Nope. Oh, he spoke to your grandfather.
Grandpa, did God ever speak to you? No.
He spoke to your great great
greatgrandfather.
How come nobody remembers it? How how
could it be that the entire nation
doesn't know anything about this and you
suddenly show up and say it? So, you
can't make up a story like that. That
doesn't mean you can't make up a lie. Of
course, you can make up a lie. As
Abraham Lincoln said, you can fool some
of the people all of the time and all of
the people some of the time, but you
can't fool all the people all the time.
So, can I fool some people?
Of course, a person can make it up.
Here, Muhammad said Allah spoke to him.
We don't believe that's true. Joseph
Smith said, "An angel led me to these
golden plates." We don't believe it, but
people choose to believe him. So if a
nation wants to make up a lie,
if uh you know uh the pharaoh says that
he's a god and uh you know and he came
from the sun or whatever he wants to
say, anybody can make up a lie. People
can make up a lie. No one say that
Kuzari is not saying you can't make up a
lie. It says to make up a lie that God
spoke to an entire nation is never going
to work. That doesn't mean that people
can't get together and make up something
else.
And so the fact that we find people who
lie or as we call it today fake news in
no way says that what the Kuzari is
talking about can't happen.
This has been David Deowski with our
short question and answer.
