The Truth of the Torah - Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller

[Music] so tell how we go to learn about is the Torah itself why we held was given why we think it's true and how it operates okay because this is our life okay so there are different ways of looking at the truth of Torah I'm going to give you a few different angles one is history so how many of you think that what's something that everybody would see that rich in look Richard the lion-hearted actually once lived how many faiths there was somebody called Richard the lion-hearted of England she does okay so something woke her how many do you think that World War one actually occurred okay okay now you're saying you know do you know anybody who actually suffered through World War one probably not so the first thing I want you to open your minds towards is when people say only believe what I see it's never true okay so I'm going to contrast two things World War one they will say you know happened do you know the story of Johnny Appleseed okay so it's an American myth where there was somebody called Johnny Appleseed who had a big sack with apple seeds you travel throughout America throwing the seeds and that's why there's so many apple trees in America okay daddy do you think this is true what okay maybe when you're younger this you're but now you don't so I'm going to talk to you about why some things are viewed as historical facts and other things are not okay so for somebody to be so there's something to be viewed as a historical fact like World War one the first things there has to be some documentary towards it like there are pictures of battles that were fought novels were written by people who suffered through the war all sorts of history things newspapers now there's a lot written about Johnny Appleseed - and there is a Walt Disney cartoon and okay so what makes documentation reliable is usually two things it's written by serious people and written the time that had happened not later okay so besides World War two give me an example of anything else that you didn't see yourself but but you believed because of documentation the Holocaust although today you know there's still Holocaust survivors so you could have a more direct more direct experience there how about the Roman Empire none of us will ever meet anybody you don't think so okay okay so so the the Torah was documented immediately it's the only religious it's the only religion in which more than one person is the source of the documents I want to explain this all other religions have basically the same story there's somebody who's the enlightened person could be Jesus could be Buddha could be more comedy there's the enlightened person the enlightened person gathers around him a small group of disciples who were very loyal after the death of the enlightened person the disciples transmit his message and then it's written down okay could you see whether this is true of Christianity of Islam of Buddhism yeah okay all religions have the same story of this regard okay here's the story of Judaism vast numbers of people left Egypt we're not talking about ten we're not talking birth thirty-five we're talking about vast numbers okay when they came to Israel they were all keeping Torah we have lots of archaeological documentation for this vast numbers of people seem to have subscribed to the belief that God spoke to them so Abraham Lincoln used to say this he used to say you could fool all of the people some of the time and you could fool some of the people all of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time does that make sense to you so if you have a large number of people do you think you could convince them on a consistent basis that they eat mine every day but it doesn't fall on Shabbos can you convince thousands and thousands of people that this happens for it like decades okay so could you tell people that the c.split and they walked through it if they didn't know so this is the only religion that has a historical basis meaning that it was documented at the same time that the events took place by serious people so I tend to be skeptical I spent an entire afternoon in the Rockefeller Museum which was near the Damascus Gate where they have a large encyclopedia of philosophies and religion and I wanted to check it out maybe there's another there really isn't they all have the same story of the enlightened individual his group of disciples and the creation of tradition much later so this means it's a historic fact so when did people stop seeing Torah is historically true not really because when you look at other religions such as Christianity they didn't say the Torah is not true they would they just say here's the Torah and then the no improved version ok got that's because Israel didn't turn out to be such a good bargain after all we'll start a new Israel under the leadership I love ok yeah but they didn't have Moshe Sinai that wasn't under doubt it wasn't under doubt in Islam okay when people it's only in the last 250 years than anybody serious question the historicity of Torah when did this happen and under what circumstances so I want to talk to you about the Enlightenment and I in order to talk about the Enlightenment I have to go back and talk about the medieval era the medieval era which was when when was that what are we talking about earlier that's the Renaissance yeah 15 from 1300 to 1500 the Dark Ages look at the medieval era why would they call the Dark Ages what was dark about yeah right that's exactly they will call the Dark Ages because all forms of light of enlightenment were forbidden enlightenment is like this pretend this room was really dark everything the room would still be here but you wouldn't see it and light means we the ability to see reality they discouraged serious and critical observation of reality why so what's so bad about that what were they afraid of we were afraid of change that they were afraid of losing the authority of the church so in the medieval era literacy was discouraged scientific experimentation - was discouraged all forms of learning were discouraged the only people who had real learning behind them in that era were the monks in the monasteries that's where the tradition of literacy was retained I want to tell you how strong this was they didn't even want the Bible translated from Latin into other languages so even their own literature they viewed with as kids it's better the common people should not understand that it says in the Bible this is what they thought the reason for this is the Christianity is a religion of faith and the way they thought then is that faith and enlightenment are two opposites so they wanted to discourage this they're not coincidentally people because people are human and because in all societies there are people were not so good you have the rise of this that since the whole civilization revolved around the church the church became wealthy and powerful do you know who the Borgia Pope were there were Pope's who were called the Borgia Pope so from that family primarily who living lives extraordinary luxury in the Vatican they had many women they had whatever they wanted in life you understand this so these are people who were telling ordinary monks make vows of poverty obedience and celibacy who were living lives very different pain Martin Luther what did he do yeah yeah there's a wait a minute we don't believe in this nonsense so that's sort of the Reformation which is in the fifteen hundreds more or less science simultaneously you have the Renaissance the Renaissance means the rebirth okay painting literature art okay not just painting statuary all sorts of things okay this is all a consequence of having lost faith in the church this is clear so now in the mind of Christian Europe the church equals what darkness and secular thought equals light okay so this is Renaissance thinking the result of Renaissance thinking was that Givens that the church had promoted like the authority of the church itself for questions so the French Revolution okay what are we talking about when are we talking about I'm gonna give you a timeline no no 14 okay yeah late 1400s okay the French Revolution not to be confused with the American Revolution which is when closer to what you're talking about they promoted liberty fraternity equality and part of their headset was despoiling the church so the church the churches were literally despoiled the vast holdings of the Catholic Church were taken away from them given to the people okay okay now the core of the Enlightenment was France this didn't affect Jews want to know why they were next to no Jews in France because they killed them all or expelled them so this wasn't a Jewish problem that was still during the time the church had more power the Enlightenment went from France to England not a problem for Jews there either why not yeah it went from there it's a Spain and Italy not a problem for the Jews there either why not Inquisition was a little bit later when was the Inquisition I want you to have a timeline 1492 the same year Columbus sailed the ocean blue worthy imposition edicts so it took a longer time until the Enlightenment reached Central and Eastern Europe so this is why we're talking now about the seventeen hundreds late 1700s not even early seventeen hundreds so where were Jews living at the time European Jews the Enlightenment did not touch by the way it didn't touch the Arab world nor did the excesses of the church they have a whole different history okay so here we are in Germany the Jews were observant believed in the Torah we're not scholarly okay but they were believers the Enlightenment reaches them so when the enlightened reached the like me reached Germany one of the laws they met is the Jews no longer have to live in ghettos they no longer have to be excluded from the trade guilds is this good news or bad news you say good news you say bad news why is it good news yeah they have much more freedom and they can have much more prosperity much more exposure and the funny thing happened psychologically what happened psychologically is what they call Patty Hearst syndrome do you know what that is you know a parody Hearst was so there's an important American magnate Rudolf Randolph Hearst the daughter called patty this is in the 60s there was a radical movement in America then called the SDS the students for a Democratic Society extreme extreme extreme left they kidnapped her okay they were holding her for ransom they wanted to use to continue their activities will be her you're like Patty Hearst you had a coming-out party your clothes come from Paris okay you're you're captured by radicals what do you think will happen to you you may die you may be tortured or raped okay they treated her nicely they treated her okay three meals a day no rape no okay she fell in love with them so an iconic picture of that from that era was Patty Hearst with the other members of the SDS robbing a bank she's wearing battle fatigues and carrying a machine gun okay clear this is real so there's a psychological phenomena that if you expect to be treated badly and you're treated less badly you fall in love with your captors because they're so nice okay like being in the bed okay this is like American students were captive but were there was a Iranian students captured people in the American Embassy who had a similar response okay so the Jews loved everything German the Germans are like so they give us like we could join we can have any life we want we can go to university we could be in trade guilds we could do anything isn't Germany wonderful aren't Germans wonderful you understand this though the fact that the Jews were not completely liberated they still had some restrictions upon them but it was so much better than before but they were in love with everything German okay so this is very similar to what happened to Eastern European Jews when they came to America in the 1920s and 1930s everybody wanted to be American because was so much better than life in Russia appalled and whatever so everything American was worshipped okay next thing so we're still in middle Europe I was saying Germany but I mean all of middle Europe okay one of the restrictions that the Jews still had is that they were excluded from governmental offices and many universities unless they converted to Christianity but because it was an Enlightenment Society nobody cared if they believed in Christianity or not they just had a nominally be Christian so what do you think the result of that was massive Kafei conversions you herded Mendelssohn the composer okay well if you if you would have he was one of those okay so they can another Mendelssohn entered the scene this man's name is Moshe Mendelssohn any of you know who he was okay he was the founder of Reform Judaism he meant well his intentions were good he was thinking so many people are converting because they want entrance to German society and living as an observant Jew you're closed out from German society so we have to recreate Judaism in a way that it doesn't close you out from in society so he himself was personally observe and he kept Shabbos ate kosher okay here's something that really says it all about reformed Judaism the big synagogue in Berlin had an arch and the arch said in German be a person in the world and a Jew in your home which implies that you can't be doing and also what person okay so that's how Reform Judaism came about the first generation of Reform Judaism was what I've described the second generation was strongly anti Torah strongly to the point this is not how a reform is now reform improved since then to the point men we're not permitted to wear keepers in the synagogue part of synagogue doctrine was to not have kosher catering not keep Shabbos they had services on Sunday not Shabbos the clergymen were dressed in the garb of Protestant clergymen okay that's how it was because they wanted everything German so they they were very strongly participant in a movement called biblical criticism do you know what that is criticizing the Torah questioning its truth so until then nobody really did because the historicity was so clear so so Bible criticism which has a strong anti-semitic flow to it also but we look at things like grammar and this and then said oh they must had more than one author or the style is much later on the basis of very little the agenda which they didn't hide I have to give him credit for that what's the discredit Torah so one of their mottos was keep the wheat and reject the chaff do you know what the chess is the outside of the wheat like the brand so they're saying keep the Mitzvahs that makes sense to you and reject them it's who's the don't now in order to do that you have to say the mitzvahs are an from God otherwise this doesn't work philosophically so this is where not believing the truth of Torah began this makes sense to you so now I want to take us all the way back to the dark ages the dark ages remember nobody's literate people living lives of Grady very primitive very violent lives feudalism was in full bloom people could work from dawn to dusk and they had to give a high percentage of their crops to their feudal masters okay how what would the Jews doing during the dark ages so the dark ages didn't touch them they were get a wised they live their own lives what Mitzvah is considered amongst all the mitzvahs in the Torah the one from which all of the other myths would flow learning some of you have seen this in the prayer book it says with all matera can make it cool of the midst of learning Torah is parallel to all the other mitzvahs learn ask inquire know now all of the topics that are discussed in the top and the Talmud rule the food food which will the food business will include pressure like the whole world is discussed in the Talmud have worldly knowledge as well but no its moral core so in the time when the non-jews could barely read they were Jews like Rashi do you realize like what how discordant this is so because of that the contrast between the Dark Ages and the Renaissance was less great for Jews but they still fell in love with the non-jewish world because of the Liberty that the Enlightenment brought them this makes sense okay so going back to how do you know taurah is true so it's true historically here's another way to look at hora now if I were to tell you it's going to rain tomorrow at 11 o'clock do you know today whether I'm telling the truth or not no but tomorrow if it rains at 11 would you know I'm telling the truth now here's what you might say well look rains a lot of times like why shouldn't it rain at 11:00 it's a coincidence suppose I was able to predict not only it'll rain tomorrow at 11 but the next day this that's another natural event the grass on the lawn will grow this much in the center and nowhere else everyplace else will not grow in the center it will grow this much one day and then I give you another few examples on the lawn disorder would you believe me then if everything I predict came true but only after it came true right okay so the Torah is full of prophecies the people who receive the Torah didn't believe in it on the basis of the prophecies because they hadn't yet come true but we're - we're living in the - later time in history to be dismissive of the prophecies so I'm going to give you an example of one of them okay moshe tells the jews God will take you into Israel you're going to prosper when you prosper eventually you'll become so proud so woody so self-absorbed that you'll deny God you'll forget him you'll say my hand and the power of my arm brought me this valour and then you're going to be expelled from the land okay have there been other nations that have been expelled from their country and retain their identity not really but wait that's not the end you'll be expelled and from the place in which you're forced to be you'll return to God and you'll come back to the land so that means that only was the Exile predicted but the return was predicted okay did that ever happen to any other group of people no after they returned still predicting you'll prosper you'll set up your own Kingdom you'll become like the nations who surround you you'll assimilate to them and then they'll rise against you with unprecedented violence and then you'll be sent out again but for longer and the pattern of the more you assimilate the more violence will happen to you will repeat again and again and again mosha lives how long ago how many thousands are we talk close to 4,000 years ago could you could have predicted that he would have said much is an awfully good guesser boy look at that he predicted two exiles at a pattern within exile that has no parallel with other people so I want to talk to you about the way other prejudices were compared to anti-semitism so let's look like let's use as an example the prejudice that America has against Blacks okay we'll agree that there's prejudice there okay so here's the rule of thumb when the different people are a small minority then they're not feared and they're not hated too deeply but when they become powerful they're feared and people begin to hate them is that true this is true the hatred towards blacks when they were enslaved was much less than after the enslavement okay now next thing the more the smaller group becomes similar to the majority the more they assimilate the better they're liked so the classic example of EDS of course President Obama culturally he's more white than I am could you see where this is sir he speaks the language went to the right schools knows how to dress much better than me okay has has the charm the goals of the white society in which he lives so because of that as soon as people assimilate to the degree to which they assimilate that the majority culture accepts them so on assimilated blacks what's his name again Steve what's his name who makes these waffle violent like movies do you know who I mean whatever there is somebody whose name escapes me right now who makes black movies about gangs drugs like that all-pro gangs and he could never be President because he's he promotes a culture that's very far from the majority culture it makes sense to you okay so this is true not only with blacks in America this would be true with let's see where else is their prejudice that you know about Irish people in England when they learn how to speak the Queen's English and have professional jobs there okay but if they talk like Irishman eat potatoes and drink a lot at night they're not okay you could see this okay the Jews are the exception the more we assimilate the more hey did we become till the point that the hatred invariably explodes so this isn't only in Nazi Germany when we were extremely well assimilated did you know this to the point that even observant she was invariably used German names nobody went around with their Jewish names they wore the clothes they had the language okay and the hatred was proportionate this doesn't happen to anyone else this is what happened in Spain the Jews in Spain were Spaniards there were Spaniards who believed in Judaism but they were Spaniards okay the hatred that rose against them was up until their point unprecedented okay clear so the reason I'm telling you this is that historicity of Torah has prophecies that predict this so it's not common sense it's not something much it could have figured out this is prophetic when you read some of the more horrible parses at the end of Commission of Ahram you'll see that all the things that took place in the Holocaust are they're predicted in the Torah so I once actually saw this we were living in a different neighborhood and there was a small synagogue very near our house so we had a guest from where Sameach the synagogue had maybe like you know it was like actually a house was converted to a synagogue in the main room there were maybe like 20 men and on the porch there were maybe four or five women it was very small so my husband took this guess we had a boyfriend were Samia who was in this synagogue one of the people were there this took place around 30 years ago it was a Holocaust survivor who would say Kaddish for all of his children we died so this boy with all of like the tact and sensitivity of a 20 year old from California went over to the guy and asked him in his like bad Hebrew how do you retain faith in God when you say Kaddish for innocent children so the guy who wasn't a rabbi and this is why the story tried like touched me so much a very ordinary person a housepainter he went right over to the bookshelf he opened up a commish Devorah to the prophesies he said how could I not believe in God and Torah it was it's all there he began reading it to him it was I was left like with his joy hanging down to his knees so this is these are the prophecies okay clear there's another reason to relate to the tourists true besides its history besides the prophesies and that that it works which to me this speaks the loudest okay so what I say that I me that it works it does what it says it will do what does the tourists say it will do what's its claim what will it do for you bring you closer so there are four different ways there are four different kinds of myths votes and they have four different effects and I want you to think this through some of the myths what improve your character give me an example of a mitzvah that improves your character what kindness though other people also try to be kind honoring your parents which also other people try to do this I'll give you one how about not speaking Russian Hara other cultures don't have this this is unique to Judaism in fact Russia has something negative and true if something is true no matter how negative and useless the information isn't how much harm it did it's considered fair play in the secular world is that true or not okay how does flesh and hard make your character better forget about your victim just think about you which comes so naturally anyway yeah it does and I want to see what it does yes that's right it changes your whole approach to life you've all seen bitter old people like the kinds of say you say to them and how are you today it is my pain you know that kind of person you've seen people like that no one starts like that there are no five-year-olds like that it takes like 50 60 years of negativity to really progress to that point so not speaking loshon Hara produces a positive person that's that one category another category are mitzvot that were you close to God by observing how much he cares about you so this will include Shabbos and the holidays pick a holiday any holiday what Yom Kippur what's the point of young people but you could be forgiven so nothing to us you closer to God than the realization that forgiveness is possible otherwise you get stuck in your negative self descriptions this is clear and all of the holidays have this effect they redefine you through bringing God into your picture quesa tells you no matter how desperate your situation is everything could reverse itself you could be a slave in one day and be free Tuesday service tells you that there is enlightenment in the world so Shabbos tells you you're a creation of God you have significance and so does everybody else so the second category of mitzvot the change your relationship to everything through bringing God to you third category there mitzvot that keep you from wasting your life on nonsense on false beliefs like what don't worship idols don't go for black magic don't do superstitious practices how many millions of people wasted their lives on that does anybody know nobody can know but they're like my grandson was just in Thailand so I didn't know this the way they practice Buddhism in Thailand is that they don't worship the Buddha or meditate all they do is feed it and take care of it that's the way their religious practice goes like they polish the big buddha images they put food or flowers in front of it they wash it but it's so far for it's so it's so far from anything real it's so different than other forms of Buddhism even other forms of Buddhism were meditative and whatever so the reason I'm telling you this is like good people waste their lives on this so I'm not sure you were aware of this after he told me if they finally got it tragically in Thailand it's a very non moral Society it's normal especially for people who live in small villages to bring up their daughters to be prostitutes that their goal in life from when they're young it's like you'll make a lot of money men are going to pay a lot for you you're beautiful so now I got it I never knew where this was coming from it's coming from there not feeling that there's any higher force or accountability okay so that's it's tragic and it's not like the Torah doesn't let you go there okay last kind of Mitzvahed Mitzvah to give you the means of elevating physical experience so that you're not living two lives you're a physical life in your spiritual life which is in my opinion the biggest problem of Christianity the person who you are in church has not even from their perspective have to have much to do with who you are on Tuesday okay there are no Mitzvahed so admits what the concern eating drinking business your personal life when you're married everything is touched and everything is elevated so Torah is the only system that really does these four things so it would do you good to think this through okay do you have any questions on the truth of Torah going once twice okay that's it for today [Music] [Applause]