Thanking Hashem for his kindness, 613.org offers this audio class: 

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Belief in God || d [mp3 download]

by Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald

of the National Jewish Outreach Project

An Audio Essay on Belief in God. ( thousands have heard this class )

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All these sound links are in "Real Audio" sound format. You will need free real audio software to listen. Number in parenthesis is number of minutes in class. Click this for Real Audio Player Download instructions If you want to do a straight download without real audio streaming click the "d" next to the class. Straight download is only for people behind firewalls or people with high speed connections. You can also use it if our real audio server is busy. 

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Belief In God by Rabbi Buchwald

Stories told in this class

Important Points

Exodus Chapter 20. The text known as the Decalogue or Ten Commandments ... the Jews never called it the Ten Commandments ...(they call it the )"Ten Statements" 

01:11 How do you say the word "commandment" in Hebrew? ... Mitzva ... They are ten statements and are not neccessarily mitzvot. 

02:03 According to some opinions, there are fourteen or fifteen commandments (within the Ten Statements). According to other opinions, all 613 commandments are alluded to in the Ten Statements. 

02:42 The first Statement is ... "I am the Lord, thy God who brought thee out of Egypt, out of bondage. 

03:02 What's the commandment?

04:23 (the commandment might be) I'm the Lord thy God, Believe in Me.

05:27 (What's the problem if I say that? ...) It doesn't say "Believe in Me" 

05:40 According to most Commentators, this is not a statement of commandment ... it's merely a fact. 

06:30 According to the Talmud ... God can do anything,.. but He can't make you believe in Him...Why not?

07:01 Because without free will, it's not belief

09:14 Generally we refer to God in terms of belief (and not in terms of knowledge) Belief implies doubt. Doubt implies a struggle.

10:13 Stories about Rabbi Hillel

11:44 Proselyte wants to be converted on condition that he rejects Oral Code

14:07 Hillel was saying (in the story) that doubts are fine as long as they are a process of learning.

15:00 We emphasize constantly belief in God, because we want the belief process to be a constant process of growth. 

16:02 They once asked the Kotzker Rebbe ... "Who's higher on the ladder, the man on top or the man on bottom?" ... It depends on which direction they're going! 

17:37 That these words ... (of the first Statement of the Ten "Commandments") are so rich, every single letter ... has so much in it and needs to be analyzed ... because the wealth of information ... is just unending 

18:03 That's why it's so important to study the text, ... (or) if you can to study the text in the original, because in Hebrew it means even more than the basic translation. 

19:03 We're only doing one verse tonight, and we could spend a year just doing this verse

20:07 How is ... God introducing Himself? How is God introducing Himself in this verse? ... (as the One) who took you out of the land of Egypt

21:30 There isn't a single era when the Jews weren't on the verge of being wiped out

22:37 Not a single (other) people can claim to be the original people they were 3,300 years ago 

24:05 You can say that it's an accident (that the Jews have survived) ... but how come there weren't the same accidents with the Romans who were more powerful?

24:52 If you were a Scientist ... if you put Sodium in the test tube and chloride in the test tube and put it to a bunsen burner, and every time I combined the two elements we got salt and if you would say ... that it's an accident, I would say "You're some Scientist" I don't think that a person who is intelectually honest can say it's an accident. 

26:02 (Message number one) If you want to know G-d, one of the most fascinating ways is to read a Jewish History book 

27:37 We take it for granted ... that the Bible's words are extraordinarily precise 

28:11 What's redundant here? ... I already know what Egypt was ... why do you tell me (in the First Statement) "the house of bondage"?

29:22 Message number two is "Listen to the insights of the text" . 

30:06 The land of Egypt, for all practical purposes was the cradle of civilization 

31:58 The exact same civilization that built pyramids ... took Jewish children and plastered them into the wall in order to kill them 

32:46 It's a message that I believe rings clear for the twentieth century ... The same century that experienced the Holocaust ... Don't ever confuse culture with civilization 

33:19 The same German citizens who cried when they heard Wagner ... were totally indifferent when Jewish children were led to the gallows, before the firing squad, into the gas chambers, and suffocated to death . 

34:28 Our whole society is based on confusion of boundaries between culture and civilization 

36:10 ( A Personal Story ) (used to hang out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art until he learned truth about the Spartans) 

38:27 Story (of the Golden Gate Bridge) 

39:19 We've allowed ourselves to become immune to the sanctity of human lives. 

40:14 Judaism says "You may never, ever allow yourself to become indifferent to the sanctity of human lives." (If you hang in with me for ... four sessions after this, I believe that I will hopefully be able to convince you that the basis of everything in all of Jewish life ... is the sanctity of human life )

41:07 It seems to be a little off the beaten path that we're trying to indicate. Listen to the message

42:04 When you add this to the sanctity of animal life that you are not permitted to plow with ... a mule and an ox hitched together, because the ox is much stronger than the mule ... Add to that the concept of Shabbat ... that every human being needs a twenty-five hour period of sanctity to gain his wits together every week.

43:12 Every seven years a Sabbatical ... after that the concept of charity ... Where is it first found in human history? I'll give you three guesses: Torah, Torah, Torah

44:26 Caring for the poor, for the sick, for the infirm, for the widow, for the orphan. In Calvinism you're not permitted

45:26 If they knock on your door, you have to respond

46:30 Then again I think that you would be hard put to come to the conclusion that it (the Bible) is of human origin, because I think that it takes more faith to believe that humans edited or authored these concepts than it does to say that there was a single Divine energy that was the origin of these concepts 

47:27 If you understand the principles and values of the Torah as you study them ... and understand them there is I believe absolutely nothing that you can point to in the Torah that is against the basic instincts of an ethical and moral person.... 

48:29 I maintain that after you discuss the traditional interpretations of those verses, you will see that not only are they not primative, but they are revolutionary. That the concept of Hebrew servitude is rehabilitation of a criminal, Canaanite servitude is civilizing a person but you can't civilize him against his will, that animal sacrifices can be psychologically very important to maintain law and order in our civilization that you're establishing a specific pecking order ... you slaughter the animal but then it's eaten in ninety percent of the instances. 

49:43 ( Rabbi Buchwald hears baby ) "It's okay. I love those sounds. We need a lot of little Jews"]

50:12 One of the most famous verses in the Bible is ... the Shema portion "Hear O Israel, the L-rd our G-d, the L-rd is One", and the next verse continues ... "You shall love the L-rd your G-d with all your heart with all your soul and with all your might" ...(the first verse is) the acceptance of the dominion of G-d upon us.

51:14 If it's a statement of belief, what do you think the first word of the next verse should be? ... "You should believe" ... What's it talking about love? ... Love opens up dimensions in a person's heart and allows the person to see certain things that the average person cannot see.

52:04 (example) If I go to the opera, and I listen Pavarotti ... If I'm an opera lover, I'd be doing somersaults. 

53:25 (Story) You know, I grew up in the Bronx ... I'm very proud of the Bronx ... sometimes you still heard kids singing when they'd jump rope ... "My boyfriend's name is Jello, He comes from Monticello, With a pimple on his nose and five black toes, and that's the way my story goes." 

55:17 You think to yourself "Who composed this crazy song? Who would go out with this guy named Jello?" He has a pimple on his nose and five black toes and she's raving about him. Because if you love the guy, his name can be Jello ... and Jello can be the most glorious name on the face of the earth. 

56:57 You want to believe in G-d, love Him. They once asked the Kotzker Rebbe ... Where can you find G-d? And he said ... "Open up your heart and let Him (G-d) in."

57:39 There is to my mind, one of the most brilliant pieces of literature ever composed, a poem by the poetess Edna St. Vincent Millay. It's called Rennaisance ... "All I could see from where I stood were three long mountains and a wood "and she precedes to tell how her whole world was circumscribed ... the world was so small ... the sky was caving in on her ... misery and oppression ... she felt the pain of every human being ... she says "G-d, I just wish you would just take me out of this world" ... she was so pleased ... she heard on top of her grave the pitter-patter of the rain ... "I wish I were alive again to see the drops of rain on a blade of grass ... Give me new life" ... 

01:02:04 She said no one could ever , ever appreciate the beauty of a drenched and dripping orchard unless the person had been dead and lived again. She said "G-d no matter how quick you pass, my eye will see you." .. Yes, there's suffering, but how can we survive without seeing the sun shine through? She concludes the poem by saying "The sky is only as high as the heart is high ... he who's heart is slack the world will cave in on him by and by."

01:03:34 What I tried to present to you is only a taste of Torah ... of Jewish understanding

01:04:14 (Story) One Russian Count once asked his advisor (for) one proof of G-d's existance that has not been disproven "Two words - the Jews, your majesty, the Jews"

01:05:32 The concept of love of G-d that if we walk out of this room and look around ... and to look at the beauty of human beings ... look at the beauty of the natural world ... the finger of the Divine in this absolutely incredible revolutionary land that we today are experiencing

01:06:43 I think questions are signs of growth ... the Talmud is one long volume of question after question 

Stories

10:13 Stories about Rabbi Hillel

36:10 ( A Personal Story ) (used to hang out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art until he learned truth about the Spartans) 

38:27 Story (of the Golden Gate Bridge) 

53:25 (Story) You know, I grew up in the Bronx ... I'm very proud of the Bronx ... sometimes you still heard kids singing when they'd jump rope ... "My boyfriend's name is Jello, He comes from Monticello, With a pimple on his nose and five black toes, and that's the way my story goes." 

01:04:14 One Russian Count once asked his advisor (for) one proof of G-d's existance that has not been disproven "Two words - the Jews, your majesty, the Jews"

Important Points

06:30 According to the Talmud ... God can do anything,.. but He can't make you believe in Him...Why not?

40:14 Judaism says "You may never, ever allow yourself to become indifferent to the sanctity of human lives." (If you hang in with me for ... four sessions after this, I believe that I will hopefully be able to convince you that the basis of everything in all of Jewish life ... is the sanctity of human life )

Congradulations - You have enjoyed a new form of literature - the Audio Essay invented just last year!!!!

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Audio Links created by Devora a student at Yeshiva of Los Angeles High School for Girls. 

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