Journey Through the World’s Most Influential Text – the Bible

Aish.com is excited to be launching a daily podcast called “Journey from Sinai”, with Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik. The podcast is a 365-day journey through the world’s most influential text – the Bible.

Rabbi Dr Meir Soloveichik is one of America’s most influential religious leaders. He straddles the worlds of academia, journalism, and clergy, and is the senior rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel in Manhattan, the oldest Jewish community in the United States, founded in 1654.

Rabbi Soloveichik is a descendent of one of the great rabbinic dynasties in Jewish history. He graduated summa cum laude from Yeshiva University and received his doctorate in religion from Princeton University.

Elliot Mathias: What was the impetus of creating the podcast, Journey from Sinai? What do you hope listeners will gain from it?

Rabbi Soloveichik: The first goal of the podcast is to illustrate how profoundly the story told in the Hebrew Bible changed the world. In his book The Gifts of the Jews, the non-Jewish writer Thomas Cahill suggests that the most radical words ever written appear in a simple sentence in Genesis immediately after a Mesopotamian man named Abram is told to journey to a new land and discover his destiny. We are then informed: “And Abraham went.”

In the ancient, pagan world, Cahill explains, it was assumed that all life was cyclical, and true change or progress impossible. The journey of the man ultimately named “Abraham” therefore changed our entire notion of existence, so that in Cahill’s view, “we can hardly get up in the morning and cross the street without being Jewish. Most of our best words: new, adventure, surprise, future, freedom, progress, faith and hope: all these words are the gifts of the Jews.”

A study of the Bible allows us to see why this is so.

Understanding the story told in the Bible is to gain a better understanding of ourselves.

The second goal of the series is to illustrate that for Jews to understand the story told in the Bible is to gain a better understanding of ourselves. There is a wonderful book titled Strangers and Neighbors by Maria Johnson, a Catholic professor at the University of Scranton, about the story of her friendship with the Orthodox Jews that live on her block. She tells us that she was asked to teach a course at the university about the Hebrew Bible, and originally approached it as an ancient tale, a work of literature. Then she heard her neighbors calling their children by the same names that appear in the book: Yosef, Tziporah.

“The story,” she reflected, “very obviously, was alive and well. You don’t run into the descendants of Oliver Twist or find yourself living down the road from people who trace their ancestry back to Anna Karenina or Huck Finn.” There is no self-identified family of Aristotle, or Cicero, or Julius Caesar who live in Scranton, Sydney, London, Rome, Shanghai, Athens, or Jerusalem, and raise descendants of these early figures, teaching to revere beliefs for which their ancestors lived. But the children of Abraham endure, survive, thrive, and transmit his beliefs today.

To study our origins, then, is to understand the wonder of our existence.

Johnson’s point is paralleled in the words of the writer Walker Percy, who reflected:

Where are the Hittites? Why does no one find it remarkable that in most world cities today there are Jews but not one single Hittite, even though the Hittites had a great flourishing civilization while the Jews nearby were a weak and obscure people? When one meets a Jew in New York or New Orleans or Paris or Melbourne, it is remarkable that no one considers the event remarkable. What are they doing here? But it is even more remarkable to wonder, if there are Jews here, why are there not Hittites here? Where are the Hittites? Show me one Hittite in New York City.

Finally, I seek to emphasize throughout the series the incredible impact that the Bible had on America, its founding, and some of its greatest leaders. Franklin’s suggestion for the seal of the United States was an image of Moses and Pharaoh at the sea; Washington wrote to American Jewry of “the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivering the Hebrews from their Egyptian Oppressors planted them in the promised land—whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation;” and John Adams often reflected on the Jewish impact on the world.

Elliot Mathias: The episodes described in the podcast happened thousands of years ago. How are they relevant to our lives today?

Rabbi Soloveichik: In “Journey from Sinai”, the relevance of the Bible is made manifest in its impact on history, but also in its understanding of human nature, and what it teaches us about our lives: the meaning of wisdom, of hope, and of faith.

One of the central questions addressed in the podcast is what dangers a society faces when it no longer has the Bible at the center of its culture. This too is a question we explore on the podcast.

Elliot Mathias: Antisemitism is on the rise today. Hate crimes against Jews in the US dwarf the numbers against any other minority. Do you see similarities and/or differences between the antisemitism we experience today compared to antisemitism in past eras?

Rabbi Soloveitchik: To study the Bible is to discover that there have always been those who sought to destroy the Jewish people. The difference lies in the fact that today, there are many non-Jews who are inspired by the Bible to genuinely love the Jewish people. A friend of mine, a young Christian leader by the name of Robert Nicholson, reflected that “To fight antisemitism, we need to understand its spiritual sources. This isn’t just any old hatred or racism. It is a grand anti-myth that turns Jewish chosenness on its head and assigns to the people of Israel responsibility for all the world’s ills.”

The best response to antisemitism is philo-Semitism, love of the Jewish people.

That is why, Robert argued, the best response to antisemitism “isn’t anti-antisemitism. It is philo-Semitism, love of the Jewish people.” Religious Christians, Rob argued, should take the public lead in this cause. To have friends like this is a blessing, and it is a blessing that we should not take for granted today.

Elliot Mathias: Who is a great Jewish leader, past or present, you admire and why?

Rabbi Soloveichik: One of the most wonderful aspects of a daily podcast is that we can better understand how different biblical leaders were from another, and what made each of them truly great.

In one episode, we discuss a little-known essay by Churchill about the greatness of Moses; in another, a story about Lincoln allows us to better understand the uniqueness of Esther; and in a third, we learn how Ben-Gurion, at the end of his life, came to deeply admire Jeremiah. We also learn about heroes of Jewish history that have since been largely forgotten and deserve to be remembered again. For example, very few know of Yehosheva, a woman who saved the last living heir of the House of David and allowed it to endure.

Every conceivable type of weaponry was arraigned against our pilots...yet not a single one touched us. Only by the grace of God could we have succeeded in that mission.

One modern Jewish leader that will come up numerous times is Menachem Begin, a hero of mine. He founded his dedication to the Jewish people, and to the State of Israel on his profound connection to the faith of the Jews of past generations. He embodied how bold leadership and humble faith could go hand in hand.

The Osirak operation, removing the threat of the Iraqi nuclear reactor, was so audacious that it shocked the world. Yet rather than seek glory in its success, Begin, as Yehuda Avner recounts, saw in it a source of faith: “Do I believe in the God of Israel? The answer is a categorical yes. How else to account for our success in accomplishing the virtually impossible? Every conceivable type of enemy weaponry was arraigned against our pilots...yet not a single one touched us. Only by the grace of God could we have succeeded in that mission.”

In the past few hundred years, few leaders combined faith, statesmanship, and humility in the way that he did, and he reminds us that only if we revere our past can we truly fashion our future.

Sign up for the “Journey from Sinai” podcast with Rabbi Soloveichik at Journey From Sinai.