Rabbi Ken Spiro - World Perfect: The Jewish Impact on Civilization

hi ken spiro here broadcasting from the holy city the jewish quarter of jerusalem i just want to thank project inspire for allowing me to participate in in mineflex miniseries and i'm gonna be doing a series of presentations of mine that basically the theme we're gonna call it is god's plan for human history and the jewish people's role in the story we're going to be doing three classes today we're going to start out with a class which is based on the first book i wrote uh world perfect which has to focus on the which is focusing on the jewish impact on civilization the impact of monotheism and morality and for this we're going to be watching a powerpoint presentation which i will be narrating as we go so i'm going to go to a share screen here and hopefully find our powerpoint where is it okay we are ready to begin [Music] so to create this presentation i brainstormed with about 1500 people jews non-jews all different backgrounds and affiliations let's come up with a list of values we'd like to see in as perfect the world as humanly possible and i condensed it down into the following values number one value of life the right to be alive most basic of all values number two uh world peace the world where there's no more wars where everyone gets along harmoniously number three equal justice a world where everyone is treated equally before the same set of laws number four is education a world where everyone is functionally literate as a way of achieving their potential and contributing in a meaningful way to the world and last but not least huge category social responsibility people taking care of the world whether we're talking about crime poverty environmental issues animal rights health issues you name it so here we have our our five basic values when i'm teaching an audience live i say look around the room you know how many of you guys think we should have these values in the world and everyone raises their hand and i say always this might be the only time you ever see a room full of jews agreeing on anything and it's not just jews anyone who sees this list has an immediate recognition this is the way the world should be we don't have to think should there be value of life should people take responsibility for the world should there be equality it's almost as if we're born with these values kind of ingrained like programmed into our brains like when you buy a computer or a phone it comes with basic operating software so the first part of the presentation is we're going to get in a time capsule and go back to the ancient world to see what did they think of these values now obviously we can't look at every single civilization that's lived in the last 6 000 years that would take like months and i only got an hour to do this in so i chose to focus primarily but not exclusively on the great foundation cultures of western civilization when we think about the ancient world in the west the great cultures who do we think of we think of basically greece and rome and we know that greece gave us so much of our conception of philosophy and the aesthetic and art and architecture empirical science and rome with their concepts of government government engineering law modern armies and obviously many other civilizations contributed and even if we don't have time to look at all of them we don't have to because one of the things i discovered when i was researching my book on this topic called world perfect also um is that culture like just like it does today varies tremendously from place to place how people dressed what they ate but values are more or less the same everywhere we look in the ancient world there's no big differences so with that introduction in mind let's get in our time capsule travel back to the ancient world beginning with value of life and let's see what did we think what did they think of those values remember our goal is to see where do we get the values from what's the source okay so to begin at the beginning a couple of examples to illustrate how different is the idea of value of life in the ancient world so what's the most common form of population control practice by virtually every single civilization we know of in antiquity and the answer is infanticide killing of newborn babies is a universal practice in the ancient world not just to control population but also for sex selection if you're a boy or a guy in the ancient world you were lucky because in the ancient world boys were generally valued and girls were often considered disposable and it wasn't just done by the baby disposal squad immediately after birth in a place like ancient greece the unwanted child to be taken by the parents stuffed into a clay jar and thrown into the garbage or or drop down a well to drown or be left out in a rock in the woods to be eaten by a wild animal or die of exposure and this wasn't something that was considered to be cruel or unusual it's considered to be completely normal and acceptable here's a roman writing to his wife two thousand years ago he says know that i am still in alexandria and i ask and beg you to take good care of our baby's son and as soon as i receive payment i will send it up to you if you deliver of a child if it is a boy keep it if it is a girl discard it now today we're very desensitized to you know most things because of the internet there's very little standards but we're still horrified about god forbid hearing about the killing or injury of a child or a baby not so in the ancient world you could talk about dumping your baby down the sewer like you could talk about the weather that's how normal and acceptable it was so bye-bye baby another shocking example of a different attitude towards value of life is killing people for religious reasons human sacrifice which was pretty much universal in the ancient world although practiced to very varying degrees meaning some cultures did it rarely rarely the greeks and romans didn't do that much human sacrifice for religious reasons some cultures did it daily some cultures sacrificed prisoners or slaves you know in the emperor of china died thousands of years ago they would behead hundreds of prisoners at his funeral when genghis khan the great mongol conqueror of asia died in the 13th century he was buried with 40 virgins and 40 horses um but probably the uh here's a gruesome example this is an inca girl this is going back to central american civilization south america in this case excuse me um found in the andes mountains she's one of many young girls children who were offered she's not a prisoner or a slave by the way she was killed over 500 years ago incredibly well preserved because she was literally frozen at the top of a mountain but she was given by her parents drugged and strangled and buried at the top of a mountain as an offering to the mountain gods but the worst example i could think of of killing people for religious reasons are the aztecs if you've been to mexico city mexico city is huge it's like 20 million people the center of the original mexico city was a lake with an island in it the aztec capital the aztecs basically went to war primarily to capture people alive to schlep them back to their capital city to drag them up this 150 foot high pyramid and to rip out their hearts where they were still beating and they did this to up to 1 000 people a week because they believed if the blood stopped flowing the world would cease to exist it's human sacrifice on a scale that is absolutely mind-blowing but the worst example i could think of of the very different attitude towards value of life in the ancient world than we have today is killing people for entertainment bloodsport you know today we have bloodsport like mixed martial arts and boxing but there's limits to the violence you're not supposed to actually kill someone but in occasionally occasionally it happens accidentally but in the ancient world many cultures went all the way and actually killed people you know the aztecs we just saw they had a version of soccer or football if you're european where at the end of the game the entire winning team was sacrificed to the gods the winning team didn't pay to make it to the playoffs in aztec sports when you think about bloodsport in the ancient world who do we think about the romans in over 200 locations throughout their empire the romans built these massive circular arenas called amphitheaters certainly one of the largest and the most famous is this one the colosseum in rome this is by the way a mere skeleton of it was completed in the year 80 of the common era this is what it looks like today after it was pillaged of all of its marble and everything but look at the size of it again it was the world's first astrodome two thousand years ago the roof could go off and on it by the way the entire center of the stage could be mechanically lowered and filled with water in less than 15 minutes so boats could sail in it they could put in fake trees and rocks like a hollywood movie set they could raise up to 1 000 people at a time to the floor and elevators what was it used for by the way free was always free entrance free meat free wine can you imagine that like an american football game with free beer you want a really scary thought british football game with free beer but 50 000 men women and children would come the first act of the day was the romans brought thousands of exotic animals from around their empire lions and tigers and bears and watched them rip rip each other to shreds sometimes up to a thousand animals a morning animal rights people would have gone nuts but they would have been act number two which was feeding people to animals but then in the afternoon along with chariot races the biggest sporting event in the coliseum was gladiators prisoners are slaves who fought to the death in front of thousands of screaming fans and you can even see some of the uh scenes here from the movie gladiator which actually was pretty well done in terms of the story was a lot of fiction but the recreations of the coliseum were pretty amazing and they didn't just use um men they used women children blind people dwarves anything for the sake of entertainment the most sophisticated civilization in the ancient world was also the most brutal and we shouldn't think by the way that there's a connection between cultural law and order technology and morality there is none in human history sometimes the most culturally advanced law order technologically sophisticated civilizations are the most brutal doesn't mean you could walk around rome just killing people in the streets they love law and order but when you look at the ancient world guys we see for many different reasons the most basic of all of our values value of life is basically absent radically different moving on to number two which is world peace and today everyone wants peace when i was a little kid it was the vietnam war people used to wear these buttons and said war is not healthy for children and other living things it's pretty it's pretty clear that war isn't healthy for anyone it's pretty clear that war is the most destructive pastime that the human race participates in think about it how much money does the world spend on weapons armies defense budgets per year it's an incredible number by the way it's about 1 trillion 500 billion dollars of which the united states spends more than half of that the u.s spends more defense budget than the next 15 countries in the world combined one trillion 500 billion dollars imagine what you could do with all that money if there were wars wars to fight armies to arm weapons to buy how much food housing medicine clean water thousands of children die every day in africa diseases related to not having clean water what we just figured this out now that smart people in the ancient world did confucius and they had plato and socrates come on if we know that war is destructive and wasteful today they certainly knew it thousands of years ago but if we know it today and they knew it then how come six thousand years of human history is six thousand years of warfare why is there so much war in human history and people jokingly say what does war stand for we are right w-a-r but if you ask the anthropologists the historians they basically give you the following explanations for why there's war well number one reason you know you could have fighting over a water hole but once you get past survival and scarce resources greed is the number one reason taking what's not yours by force obviously land women gold silver cattle number two reason was the law of the jungle survival of the fittest the lion's on top of the food chain because he eats everyone and no one eats him he doesn't say to the gazelle in africa you had a rough day rest by the waterhole i'll go chase a zebra today he says if i catch you your lunch that's how animals behave that's how empires behaved you think rome ever respected any country's borders the only people the romans didn't conquer like the persians or people the romans couldn't conquer conquest was natural not to conquer was a sign of weakness and the third reason think about it where's the world's first heroic literature in the west it's right there on the board the screen the iliad go read that book again by homer it's you know the trojan horror story it's one giant battle scene with occasional breaks for long speeches because the hero by definition is the guy who's a warrior the guy who kills the most and the greatest opponents he gets the honor the glory and the power when he's alive and he becomes a legend after he's dead to be a warrior is the thing for guys to do throughout all human history i say guys specifically because of women around the world there is no question it would be a very different world a woman comedian once said you know what a woman gets depressed she eats or she shops when a man gets depressed he invades another country and it's glorified throughout all human history look what wallace caldwell of columbia university writes war therefore is the mind of the poet the chief business of from men of men from youth to age meaning it's the thing to do but he regards as the special flower of you the glorification of war the glamour and glory of battle are subjects of the finest words and pictures but to be fair the romans had a period of 200 years called pax romana what's pax and latin peace 200 years peace the romans never had two years of peace so what was what was the roman idea peace we conquer the world we have peace come on today we call that aggressive colonialist expansionist imperialist behavior back then that was called peace i firmly believed if i firmly believe you could beam yourself back to the roman senate 2000 years ago and say hey guys you know what peace is going to be in the 21st century that super power countries like america don't gobble up their neighbors by the way america the united states could take canada mexico and all of south america in a week if they wanted to militarily but that countries just don't do that because it's just not done they would have needed prozac that's how depressed they would have been because these guys lived for war and when you look at human history you see that peace is basically the break taken between wars so that civilizations and empires could rearm and fight again otherwise like like the value of life it's absent [Music] okay moving along how about equal justice now today we take this for granted and we should appreciate first and foremost we all come from liberal democracy so we give we take it as a given we should appreciate by the way that the true power of of a democracy is not so much whether you vote or not but where there's a system of laws like in america the constitution that no one is above everyone is subject to the exact same laws we take that for granted but if we beam ourselves back in time let's go back to the ancient world look at the guy on the right side of your screen here in the blue we'll call him joe average ancient guy where is joe average ancient guy on the socioeconomic ladder okay he's at the very bottom oh we call him a peasant or a surf that's a term we associate with feudal europe a thousand years ago but feudal systems exist everywhere at all time in human history a thousand years ago in europe the vast majority of the population are this guy what does he do for a living just like this guy's doing in the picture here he's farming does he own does he own the land he's farming usually not but even if he owns a little piece of land who's he paying most of what he harvests and taxes to this guy joe lord and you know with an outfit like this this man has zero plans to do any manual labor and what gives joe lord the right to lord over brother if what gives joe lord the right to lord over all these peasants is he elected by him no way the golden rule what's the golden rule he who has the gold makes the rules birth and wealth are the sole criteria for leadership in the ancient world and between that teeny tiny elite of the nobility and all those masses there is there equality before the law there's institutionalized inequality with the nobility being above the law and everyone else being at their mercy and having no rights so when you look at this world you see basically tremendous inequality and this is the reality and of course the ultimate elite are kings monarchs a pharaoh a caesar anyone like this in the ancient world um when you go back to if you look the guy on the right pharaoh there four and a half thousand years ago you have no idea how powerful this guy was he was literally considered a living god by the time he gets to the guy in the middle who is one of the great renaissance kings of europe henry viii in the 16th century he's no longer a living god but he rules by divine right what's divine right of kings god made me king and if you don't like it like else the queen of hearts says to alice in wonderland off with your head so tremendous inequality permeates all of human history but to be fair where is the world's first democracy where's the word even come from it's a greek word demos kratos the people govern ancient greece which city state athens and by the way athenian democracy was far more direct and efficient than the democratic systems of the western world today in uh today in a democracy you vote directly in america for anything no you it's representational democracy congressmen and women senators even the president electoral college but back in ancient greece and athens citizens voted directly on everything but citizens but who were citizens who could vote directly men with land a couple thousand adult men with land were the only people who had political rights and the right to vote it was an oligarchy a power elite everyone else women freedmen artisans slaves aliens were completely disenfranchised if you could beam yourself back to the oligarchy that ran athens two and a half thousand years ago and say hey guys you know what equal justice is going to be in the 21st century that everyone man woman rich poor black white everyone will be treated equally before the same set of laws they would have shaken their heads and said you're absolutely out of your mind out of your mind henry phelps brown of oxford explains he says the greeks distinguished strongly between different types of persons and thought it only proper to treat them differently this inequality of treatment they endorsed in the name of justice an endorsement that was aristotle included the justification for slavery only those men were citizens who had certain qualifications beyond them was taken for granted we're all women but also farmers labor's mechanics freedmen slaves and aliens so another value gone moving along education now we take this for granted because we assume in all liberal democratic countries in the modern world government has an obligation to educate the population free of charge to a certain minimum level in america 12th grade we take it for granted the government not only has an obligation with the government also would want to do so why what do you gain by educating your population you get a developed first world country one of the big dividing factors separating factors between the first and the third world is the average level of literacy and education of the population in general so come on the greeks they loved wisdom the romans look how organized their armies were these guys must have had a great public school system that's what we might think but if we go back to joe average ancient guy again look at him he's got the torn leggings what percentage of people do you think historians estimate on average or literate in the ancient world i'm talking about for a period of many many many centuries on average people throw out numbers five percent ten percent four percent the actual number is shockingly low the actual number is a tenth of one percent this is the average rate of literacy assumed by most historians until about 500 years ago the prostate reformation and the printing press which means on average for the vast majority of human history one in a thousand people could read why are the rates of literacy so incredibly low so if you ask the experts the historians they'll tell you number one reason think about it is and this is a good point if you come from a first world country and you have a house not a shack a shed a hut but a house indoor plumbing running water electricity a kitchen and a fridge that are full of food that you don't eat at all because you're worried about your weight you have any idea what a luxury it is in human history to worry about eating too much or weighing too much and you got a nine to five job with weekends vacation health plan retirement benefits you got your teeth in your mouth past the age of 30 and you live to see your grandchildren you have a standard of living not only exceeds the vast majority of people who've lived throughout thousands of years of human history you have a standard of living that exceeds billions of people in the world today no billion people on the planet don't even have a toilet you know think about it what was the daily goal of the average ancient peasant thousands of years ago the answer is survival and before modern science and technology and medicine you had horrendous rates of disease plagues wars famine even giving birth was a dangerous thing you know up until the 18th century in industrialized england half the children died by the age of two and if the name of the game is survive what do your kids have to do as soon as they're old enough to start doing it the answer is work child labor which is universal ubiquitous in the ancient world the third world today what do you mean send my kid to school we starve so number one reason is people just work too much in survival mode to be able to even think about educating themselves or their children number two reason think about it you know if you uh if you if you think about uh who in the 60s or occupy wall street or what's going on today now with black lives matter and others all the political events we've recently had who's at the forefront of pushing all this students i think that specific girl might be at the forefront i would want to mess with her but students why students because they're young and idealistic and educated and empowered and you put those two things together and you have a very difficult group of people to control and in the non-democratic ancient world people figured out pretty fast the best way to keep things stable was to keep people stupid william v harris of harvard explains the written culture of antiquities in the main restricted to a privileged minority it should be obvious that in greece and to an even greater extent than the roman empire the illiteracy of the masses contributed to the stability of political order the disturbances caused by the spread of literacy on the other hand have been numerous and varied the greeks and romans would have become very different people if possible that achieved mass literacy so what we see is whether because of just having to survive or deliberate government policy and usually it was a combination of both virtually no one in the ancient world could read so another value gone that's actually my graphic artist's graduation photograph there's this cameo appearance in our powerpoint presentation moving on to last but certainly not least is social responsibility and this one is pretty quick to do because there basically wasn't any in the ancient world you know today we take for granted that in any highly developed western liberal democracy it's going to be social welfare infrastructure if you're hungry if you're homeless government will help it's not a perfect system but it's government's obligation to help do you realize that almost all social welfare that exists in the western world today appeared in approximately the last 200 years before that you had virtually nothing 2 000 years ago in a place like rome if you were hungry and homeless and didn't have family to help tough die the government would do nothing for you and today we have this idea of international social responsibility if there's a humanitarian tragedy a famine a plague a tsunami an earthquake there's all kinds of organizations and countries that send relief workers we have doctors without borders international monetary fund united nations peacekeeping forces you think yet any of this in the ancient world can you imagine asking rome for a peacekeeping force that's a pretty scary thought what were leaders in the non-democratic ancient world interested in it was primarily one word it began letter p it was not the word peace the answer is power preserving it passing it on and ideally increasing it remember genghis khan we talked about and value of life one of the greatest conquerors in human history look at his vision of what is meaningful in this world the greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemies to chase them before you to rob them of their wealth to see those dear to them bathed in tears to clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters a true humanitarian visionary another value totally gone [Music] so what are we left with a very different vision of the ancient world that we may have gotten in our sixth or seventh grade world history overview and please don't get me wrong i'm not saying everyone in the ancient world was vicious cool heartless and selfish no the vast vast vast majority of people throughout human history have just are just minding their business and not hurting anyone and don't get me wrong i'm not saying good stuff good ideas and technology didn't come out of the ancient world it did we all make use of it today or build on it but what i am saying is this beautiful vision of values which everyone has bought into today is the ideal utopian vision is not a byproduct of even the greatest most sophisticated civilizations of antiquity that played such a huge huge role in shaping our modern world especially the western world so we're left with this big question where do we get these values from so it's a british story by the name of paul johnson and he wrote a book in 1987 called the history of the jews which i was recommending for a long time until i wrote a better one of course crash course in jewish history asked my mother she will absolutely agree with that one but in the epilogue of paul johnson's book he does a beautiful job of answering and this quote is so beautiful i have to share with you one way of summing up four thousand years of jewish history is to ask ourselves what would have happened to the human race if abraham had not been a man of great sagacity that means sage-like wise or clever or if he had stayed in ore and kept his higher notions to himself and no specific jewish people would have come into being certainly the world without the jewish people would have been a radically different place humanity might eventually have stumbled upon all the jewish insights but we cannot be sure all the great conceptual discoveries of the human intellect seem obvious and inescapable once they have been revealed but it requires a special cheese to formulate them for the first time the jews had this gift pay special attention to what he says now keep in mind the list that i got from uh the people when i was my audiences when i was creating this presentation to them meaning the jews we are the idea of equality before the law both divine and human the sanctity of life the dignity of human person of individual conscience and so a personal redemption of collective conscience and self-social responsibility a piece as an abstract ideal and love is the foundation of justice and many other items which constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind without the jews it might have been a much emptier place above all the jews taught us how to rationalize the unknown the result was monotheism and the three great religions which profess it it is almost beyond our capacity to imagine how the world would have fared if they had never emerged and i always say it's a good thing that anand wrote this because if some rabbi wrote it we wouldn't believe it but what paul johnson is saying is not unique to paul johnson in the course of researching my book i literally came across dozens of presidents prime ministers philosophers historians thinkers they all basically say the same thing that we the teeny tiny jewish people who shouldn't even be here we civilized the world we gave the world basically their moral ethical vision of values and don't get me wrong i'm not saying jews are all perfect no there's righteous gentiles and there's plenty of rotten jews running around in this world and i'm not saying jewish people invented all the beautiful ideas in the world either it's not true but there is no question that we the teeny tiny jewish people have had a monumentally transformative impact monumentally transformative impact on the collective conscience of humanity as to why that is so we'll get to in just a few minutes but what i want to do is run you back through our list of five basic values and show you how every single one of these judaism is truly revolutionary so to begin at the beginning value of life the clearest distinction between the jewish concept of value of life and everyone else's can best be seen by looking at number six of the ten commandments what's number six of the ten commandments don't murder which by the way is always mistress that is thou shalt not kill there's a difference we'll look at but judaism taught the world that human life has intrinsic value we taught the world you don't kill babies god doesn't need human blood god forbid you kill a human being for entertainment why by the way is it all murder and not low tah rogue don't kill because judaism are not pacifists there's situations you're allowed to take another human life and you're allowed to defend yourself even if it means killing another human being there's a death penalty in jewish law but because it is it but i think anyone who knows jewish law knows it's incredibly difficult to actually meet out the death penalty to to uh anyone this is most beautifully stated by a wonderful quote from the talmud which actually appears in the movie schindler's list you know oscar schindler the only member of the nazi party recognizes the righteous amongst the nations and yad vashem but remember at the end of the movie they make this uh ring that schindler jews he saved the lives of 1200 jews they're making this gold ring and this is what's inscribed on the inside of the ring he saves one life as if he saves an entire universe the infinite value of every human life truly revolutionary how about world peace i mean what's what's the word for peace in hebrew shalom it's a word that we jews obsess on the word shalom appears 204 times in the hebrew bible and it's it's so basic to our jewish worldview it's how you greet your fellow human being you say shalom hi how you doing but it's obsessed on by all the great jewish thinkers of how central is the concept of peace not just judaism but to the human race by the way the greatest proof of the jewish obsession with peace doesn't come from jewish sources what's the world body supposedly dedicated to bringing peace to the world when forcing one is not obsessively uh condemning israel sorry i had to add that in there but the united nations which in theory is a good organization practice it hasn't maybe worked out exactly so great but if you go to u.n general assembly headquarters in manhattan on the east river to dag hammershaw plaza you will see a wall outside the building on that wall it's called the isaiah wall because it's a quote from the great prophet isaiah the great the beautiful quote about beating swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks and nation not making war against nation anymore why is this quote of all quotes the motto of the u.n because the founders of the league of nations that then became united nations know that the people who first introduced the idea of peace as the ideal permanent state for the human race are the jewish people equal justice what's the word for justice in hebrew there's a bunch of different words this bot but the word i'm looking for is by the way what's the word for charity in hebrew the root of charity is the word justice and by the word said that the word said appears 120 times in the hebrew bible it's interesting set 1 20 shalom 240 exactly half maybe we need twice as much justice to get a little peace but out of the obsession with this word will come a concept that will totally transform the world's idea about what equal justice is truly about two quotes from leviticus 19 15. and by the way if you want to see where the grand slam home run hit list of the fundamental values of western liberal civilization come from it's leviticus chapter 19 but it says in leviticus 19 15 you shall do no unrighteousness and judgment you shall not respect the person or the poor nor honor the person of the mighty but in righteousness you shall judge your neighbor what does that mean in simple english it means no favoritism either way not towards the rich or the poor equality before the law today it's like duh the reason we don't appreciate this is we don't have the tremendous inequality that we had in the ancient world we don't have these all-powerful monarchs that we used to have who are living gods who can cut our heads off we're above the law today we think of a reigning monarch we think she's the oldest the longest reigning one of the oldest monarchs in history queen elizabeth ii i mean you compare her to one of these guys look this woman has no real political power she pays taxes she gets no knockouts from her kids this is not a real monarchy but you compare these guys these all powerful monarchs to a jewish king you see a huge difference by the way you know every jew is supposed to write a torah scroll today most people pay a scribe to do it for them or put a letter in a scroll but in proper jewish law everyone writes a torah scroll for themselves a jewish king has to write one torah scroll like all jews and a second scroll a mini one that he has to wear attached to his arm can you imagine walking around with a torah scroll attached like with a velcro stripped to your arm why do you have to do that it says exactly why in deuteronomy 17 varying and when the king sits on the throne of his kingdom he'll write a copy of the torah and he'll be with him it'll read from it why so he will learn to fear the lord his god to keep all the words of his torah and do its statutes the king has known as a king of king's god and no one is above the law and by the way this quote from deuteronomy not magna carta 12 15 king john of england runnymede this quote is the first example of limiting the power of a monarch and you also have to appreciate that the ideal biblical government was not a pure monarchy nor is it a theocracy where the religious leaders are running the country it was a mixed system division of powers checks and balances great point of trivia as we're coming up to the fourth of july very soon that the founding fathers of the united states who are strongly influenced by judaism and the bible in many ways based the us government on the biblical model they just replaced a king with a president but in biblical israel chief political leader was the king chief religious leader the high priest not the king that's a huge innovation chief religious leader is the king is not the high priest the chief religious leader is the high priest the cohen gadol you have king separate jobs but where did the judicial legislative power arrest in which body in a court of 71 judges which was called the sanhedrin and these guys were like the supreme court the congress and the senate all rolled up into one they adjudicated they legislated they had tremendous power anywhere else in the world to have that power what did you have to have the golden rule birth and wealth to be on the sanhedrin what did you have to have interesting a whole bunch of criteria number one is married with kids like why that because being a parent you know every human being is someone's child being a parent teaches you mercy right the fact that you let your kids live through big teenagers is a sign you definitely learn mercy like roseanne barr the comedian once said now that i have teenagers i realize why some mammals eat their young but what else did you have to have you have to have encyclopedic knowledge of everything not on your smartphone you know this is like a call smartphone it knows everything there it is it knows everything we don't know anything you have to have it in your brain and not only that yet have unquestioning integrity political integrity today is like an oxymoron what's an oxymoron like two words that don't go together like military intelligence jumbo shrimp like the brits would say oxymoron american culture and then i would shoot back oh yeah like british cooking okay that kind of stuff but it's a very unique system it's a meritocracy the best person for the job gets the job regardless of position in society let's move on keep going education this one we can basically skip because every jewish parent actually believes that there are 11 big commandments what's number 11. thou shalt go to college and the rabbis in intractate in the talmud higher education that's a joke say preferably ivy league with full scholarship up through phd that's called mitzvah or glorifying the commandments but it brings us to a very unique status that we jewish people have in history jews are history's only illiterate nation we're not the only nations liked wisdom the greeks like wisdom the chinese like wisdom but didn't actually teach their population anything jews are the only people to actually educate their population on mass the smallest the smallest poorest jewish communities had education free education systems far older and far more comprehensive than the greatest empires in the ancient world and this goes back to the radically different idea that judaism has always had about education everyone else is saying keep people ignorant to control them judaism is saying educate people to empower them look at what maimonides the great jewish scholar who was born in cordoba in spain 1135 and died in cairo in 1204 and he he he codified all of jewish law and philosophy and his amazing mishna torah fourteen volume work look at my money says appoint teaches for the children in every country province and city and any city does not have a school ex communicate the people of the city until they get teachers for the children if they don't destroy the city because the world exists only because of the breath of children's study destroyed the city no jewish community was ever destroyed because it didn't have a school because the jewish people literally had public education way before anyone else thought of it and if you're thinking yeah maimonides rabbi you can't believe what they say about jews look at what great medieval uh catholic scholar theologian peter abelard says about the jews around the same time as marmanitis he says a jew however poor if he had 10 sons would put them all to letters not for gain as the christians do but for understanding of god's law and not only his sons but his daughters interesting moving along to social responsibility and this is the other area where judaism is also unique because not only are jews history's only literate nation jews are the only people to have highly developed social welfare infrastructure the smallest poorest jewish communities had social welfare infrastructure far older and more comprehensive than anything that exists in the world today and it goes back to a very basic jewish point of world view which again it comes out of leviticus chapter 19 this one is 1916. don't stand by your neighbor's blood which doesn't mean if you see someone bleeding don't stand in it because you ruin your shoes it means if you see a human being in distress physical emotional economic you gotta help we jews didn't invent law any society laws the natural outgrowth of any society doesn't want anarchy but think of what all legal codes are basically about it's designed to control to keep order don't murder don't steal stop at the red light pay your taxes you're a good citizen jewish law has that prohibitive side to it but it also has a unique proactive component you have to actively do good think about it today in almost any country in the world anywhere if you see someone in trouble and you don't help what is your legal status nothing i'm a bystander i don't want to get involved it's not my problem judaism says uh-uh you make one of two choices you're part of the problem or you're part of the solution doing nothing makes you part of the problem and you have a legal obligation to be part of the solution proactively be involved which is most beautifully stated by probably the three most famous words from the hebrew bible in the book of leviticus 19 18 again 19 again love your neighbor as yourself like what does that mean i stand on a street corner with a smiley button on handing out flowers telling people to have a nice day maybe in la that's what it means but in jewish law it means you gotta give ten percent of your income to charity whether you like it or not you have to help the widows the orphans the downtrodden the oppressed it's not just jeans it's also non-jews it's not just human beings it's also animals you guys know the first animal rights law the first environmental law it all appears in jewish laws this whole sweeping vision of proactively taking care of the world which is part and parcel of jewish worldview and jewish communal life everywhere at all times and way before anyone else thought of it and you guys should appreciate that many of the great modern social thinkers the last century or so not jews will quote something from judaism of the bible as their source of inspiration for pushing the notion of proactive social welfare infrastructure on the world here's a great example this is an american great social thinker from america in the beginning of the 20th century lyman abbott he writes it would be impossible to mention any other people of even a much later age whose law and constitution embodied ideal so nobles that embodied in hebrew civil laws or any people whose history shows the existence of political institutions so essentially just free and humane we gentiles owe our life to israel it is israel who bring us the divine law has laid the foundation of liberty it is israel had the first free institutions the world ever saw when sometimes our own unchristian prejudice is flame out against the jewish people let us remember that all that we have and all that we are we owe under god to what judaism has given us now that's a nice quote so what are we left with this incredible fact that we the tiny teeny tiny jewish people had this incredibly transformative impact on humanity's conscience and values but we're left with a huge question like what is it about us so small that enable us to have an impact so big and to understand that we have to look at one more idea but it's the most important idea it's the central idea it's the idea from which all of this comes from and without it we have none of it so besides great obvious well-known jewish contributions to the world like guilt bagels junk bonds leveraged buyouts einstein marx freud 22 of all the nobel prizes since 1901 24 of the fields melons and mathematics 25 percent of the forms of the wealthiest people on the planet earth and all that other great trivia what is the greatest jewish contribution to civilization the answer one god one god and one absolute standard of morality call it ethical monotheism call whatever you like but there's no question in the realm of spirituality morality values ethics it is the most transformative ideas in human history it's an idea today looking back in hindsight we can see is transform the world but it's an idea which thousands of years ago no one could comprehend if we jump back to joe average ancient guy just one more minute there he is in the middle contemplating his world his spiritual moral world four thousand years ago four thousand years ago there's no secular everyone is religious but all religions are polytheistic what's polytheism multiple gods you believed in a world full of gods and you believe that different gods wanted different things from you by the way all cultures and societies from the most sophisticated to the most primitive all have codes of behavior whether they're written down or not but what are they based on what the majority wants what's most expedient what's easiest to do what's least expensive overpopulation is a problem before birth control the easiest people to get rid of babies because they're the least connected to the society you have a world which was essentially amoral and because it was his amor degenerates into being incredibly immoral which is why dostoyevsky the great russian writer said where there is no god everything is permissible and which is why you can have a world of tremendous sophistication and technological advancement like the roman empire 2000 years ago but a world that is incredibly callous and brutal because it all comes out of a reality where no one can say it in absolute sense this is right this is wrong this is good this is evil in an absolute sense and ain't a popularity contest into this world almost four thousand years ago comes one man abraham out of a place called or the or childish the orb of the childis where's ore today by the way it's iraq everyone knows where iraq is like ambrose pierce who wrote during the american civil war said war is god's way of teaching americans geography so we all know where iraq is out of iraq almost 4 000 years ago comes one man who's great for two reasons a in a world that's totally lost this relationship with this infinite being abraham is a radically transformative free thinking super genius who's able to think outside the box and come to the realization there's one infinite grade of the universe but imagine being the only person in the world to believe in an idea which is radically transformative totally not you know experiential in terms of what you could see and then no one else wants to listen to and most people will kill you if you're insane how many of us have the chutzpah the nerve to even whisper to our best friends that's the greatness of abraham he says i want truth regardless of consequences i choose to live and if necessary to die for the reality of god now abraham knows a lot better than we know you don't live for god you don't die for god god is infinite you don't do anything for god but without relationship with him we're doomed we're going to eat each other alive we're missing the whole purpose of creation that's what she is that's our mantra our jewish battle cry god is it the source of morality and spirituality and abraham will therefore because of this clarity and this commitment will dedicate dedicate himself to you a unique mission but look at the implications of this idea of being made in the image of god look at the moral implications in the very beginning of the bible it says we're created human beings but selam elokim in his image but god has no image he's infinite what does it mean to be created in god's image what do we have that's god like and the answer is we have a soul what's the word in hebrew a nishama a divine spark a piece of this infinite so to speak look at the implications of just that idea if every human being has this divine spark with him or her this peace so speak of the divine in them then what does it say about value of life every life is infinitely value which is why saving a life is like saving a universe how about equality if every human being has this soul this piece of the divine in them then there's a fundamental value amongst all of us like the prophet almost says in the bible has not one god made a soul are we not all as children and if you're made in god's image social responsibility you have an obligation to act like god one of the 613 commandments is be like god go in his ways what does that mean i sit in a cloud throwing lightning bolts at people no the rabbis say just as he is kind and merciful you made in his image have to be kind and merciful we do not appreciate how incredibly transformative these ideas have been because they're so ingrained in our collective consciousness not just his jews but the whole human race here's one guy who does however second president united states one of the founding fathers john adams amazing quote i will assist the hebrews of the more civilized men than any other nation foreign atheist and believed in blind eternal fate i should still believe that fate had ordained the jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations an atheist of another sect i should still believe the chance had ordered the jews to preserve and propagate for all mankind the doctrine of the supreme intelligent wise almighty sovereign of the universe which i believe to be the great essential principle of all morality and consequently of all civilization they are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this earth the romans in their own poverty bubble in comparison to the jews they have given religion to three quarters of the globe and influenced the affairs of mankind more and more happily than any other nation ancient or modern and if you were running for president today i would definitely be voting for this guy and again like i said he's one of many many people presidents prime ministers philosophers historians thinkers who all say that same thing which brings us to what the job of the jewish people is it's not about converting it's not about conquering jews don't have empires the only jewish empire in history has probably been hollywood and it definitely has not been a source of jewish values it's about leading by example individually and collectively which brings me to something that every jew has to be able to articulate and is such a misunderstood idea chosen people the way i explain it simply is abraham says to god god i choose you i choose to dedicate my life and the life of my descendants to one mission to teaching the world about the reality of you and the values that come from relationship with you and god says back to abraham so to speak you're choosing me abraham i choose you back you and your descendants us the jewish people what are we chosen for we're not chosen for privilege it may be a privilege to be jewish but we're not chosen for privilege we're chosen for responsibility what's the responsibility for church we're chosen for the world the jewish the word the jewish world loves to use overuse and often misuses which translates into fix the world like how's that for a cause a little bigger than save the whales but the real job of the jewish people is supposed hashem is to live and act in a way that is the goal torah and mitzvot are a means to an end the goal is to live and act in a way that inspires other people people are supposed to look at us and say look at those jews look at how they live look at their families their communities how they how they do their business but what's their secret so okay so we understand that's our role the last little part of the riddle is how did we get the world to buy into that i brought up the image too quickly for you should i should have waited for this now to show you how do we get the world to buy into that vision you know it's not because we were well loved popular and had a big empire you know you have to appreciate from the birth of from the birth of abraham for 2000 years we exist alone in the world is the only people believing in one god and everyone thinks we're crazy and is trying to kill us which is what hanukkah was about it was history's first religious ideological war when the greeks the pagan greeks were trying to destroy not jews but judaism and after being told we're crazy for 2000 years out of judaism will come to offshoot faiths christianity and islam which will ultimately convert billions of people who used to be polytheists into a worldly that is essentially jewish because every believing christian and muslim will tell you there is one god okay the christian one gets god parts forget it put on the side there's one god there's one source of morality that god created the whole world that god created gave the jewish people a torah mount sinai and he changed his mind and chose us instead that's a different problem at a different presentation but that is the greatest transformation in human history in terms of values and spirituality and how did these these values get out to the world even the places that may not be christian or muslim it's not through religious ideologies but political ideology what has been the fastest growing form of government in the last 200 plus years and the answer is modern liberal democracy and if you study the history of modern liberal democracy i do whole presentations on this you'll see that the founding files like in america are a great example were very very highly influenced by the notion of one god absolute morality in their world view it's right there in the declaration of independence of the united states 1776 we hold this choice to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain ineligible rights that amongst these are liberty and pursuit of happiness so ladies and gentlemen to put it all together and come to a close if we make a graph of religions of the world and by the way being jewish is also a nation not just a religion but no matter what you call us jews or how you want to label us we are so small we don't even appear on the graph there we are magnifying glass no there we are 0.2 percent of the world's population but if you make a graph of impact on the world we are right off the top of the chart smallest of nations biggest of impacts why do i make this presentation because so many jews especially younger jews think that judaism is meaningless and irrelevant nothing could be further from the truth we gotta have some jewish pride pride is a dangerous word it doesn't mean walking around thinking i'm superior to you and i'm better to you better than you but it does mean justifiable self-respect at the historically proven power of jewish ideas and the jewish people to transform the world because it is an undeniable fact that the entire human race is in a completely different place in terms of its values and its vision because of the jewish people and as much as the world has moved much closer to those vision than it was thousands of years ago we ain't quite there yet we got a little more proactive work to do here so i'd like to close with a little bit of food for thought in general about what each and every one of us is supposed to do as part of this unique nation to make this vision of values a reality for not just us but for the entire human race so just to close judaism teaches number one every human being like a snowflake is unique there's something only you can do that no one else can do our job in this world is never to compare ourselves to anyone else because there is no one else like us our job in this world is to bring out our own unique potential but how do you do that complicated equipment like a car or computer comes with an instruction manual we are much more human being is much more that brain and everything much more complicated and we also got from our manufacturer and heaven instruction manual it's called torah the literal translation of torah's instructions for living because you can't represent the jewish people until you know what the jewish people represents ignorance and not anti-semitism is really the greatest threat to us and when we become properly educated as jews will figure out that our job in this world is to be a light you know statistically jews found and volunteer for more causes and movements than any other people on the planet earth by far i always say jews for every ism but judaism and while i have nothing against a lot of those causes well think about what a cause is the cause is putting a band-aid on a symptom of a deeper problem if we truly want to make the world a better place we have to change humanity's values be a light and the job of being that light is not just for a couple of outreach organizations project inspires torah other rabbis it's the collective responsibility of all the jewish people we're all like cells in one giant body as that beautiful little israeli folk song goes each of us is one small light but together we shine bright each and every one of us has an obligation to be a proud you to be an educated you to stop focusing on what separates us but rather on what unites us this is the great achilles heel of the jewish people on reform you're orthodox conservative the people who hate us don't make such distinctions guys but to come together and focus the incredible energy and drive to finish the job that abraham started 3700 years ago and i know it sounds like the impossible dream guys but i'm telling you all of jewish history is impossible the person who summed this up the best was the first prime minister of israel david ben-gurion whose real name was david green from plunsk poland who is not a religious jew but boy did he know his tanach his bible and boy did he know his history and he has such a good quote a jew doesn't believe in miracles is not a realist and guys when we come together as one people proud united using that incredible energy drive vision that we have or finally give the world the vision they're waiting for i am not a prophet if i was i'd be working in the stock exchange but i can tell you one thing the world is not going to leave the jewish people alone or the jewish state until we finish that mission and when we finally do start moving in that direction individually and collectively we will be able to give the world the beautiful vision that they are truly waiting for which has become the universal utopian vision for the human race which is that beautiful uh statement from the prophet isaiah the mount of the lord's house shall be established on top of the mountain it shall be exalted above the hills and all the nations shall flow unto it and many people shall go and say come and let us go up to the mountain of the lord to the house of the god of jacob and he will teach us of his ways and we will walk in his paths front of zion shall go forth torah and the word of the lord from jerusalem and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears to pruning hooks nations shall not lift up sword against nation neither shall they learn war anymore ladies and gentlemen thank you for joining me and thanks for joining us at the uh the mind flex series i'm going to be back with two more classes if you want to find out more about this topic you're welcome to get my book online you go to my website you see there kenspiro.com i have tons of free content you can listen read and watch and i can also be contacted through my site uh enjoy the rest of your day and the rest of your learning and will hopefully be back soon with more exciting interesting and relevant information thank you bye