Inquire within

smashed all the idols, leaving the biggest one untouched. When his father came back and asked what happened, Abraham said that the largest idol destroyed the others. His father didn't believe him, saying idols couldn't do such a thing, leading Abraham to question why people worshiped them at all. This story is about questioning the norms and seeking a deeper understanding. It shows how the Jewish people are often driven by challenging the status quo and looking for unity beyond the accepted norms of their time.

Seth: It's a great example of questioning blind faith and societal norms. And it ties back to why people are intrigued or irritated by Jewish behavior—it's this relentless push towards questioning, understanding, and unity. But without unity, it's like we don't have the fuel that propels us in history.

Lio: Yeah, exactly. And it's not just about questioning for questioning's sake. It's about finding a way to unite people, to find common ground. It was true then with Abraham, and it continues to be true now. When we lose sight of that, it's like we're inviting those reminders, that thing we call antisemitism.

Seth: It sounds so paradoxical, but maybe that's the point. Perhaps it's in the complexity and tension of these ideas that we find the reality of what it is to be Jewish. It's not simple, and it's not easy, but it's crucial.

Lio: Right, so I think what we need to focus on as we continue exploring these topics is how to harness that original drive for unity in a way that responds to the challenges of modern times. Because this isn't just a history lesson; it's about finding our place in the world today.

Seth: Exactly. The story isn't over. We have a role to play, and it's about better understanding that role and how we can fulfill it responsibly. Maybe that's what people are responding to, consciously or not, when they engage with Jewish communities or ideas. There's something there that resonates deep down.

Lio: So, let's keep digging. Let's keep asking those questions. Because if we're going to make any headway with antisemitism or understanding our identity, it starts with those conversations. Alright, let's jump back into our discussion of Spain and where the narrative takes us next.

Lio: He broke them. He just went around and smashed all the idols except for one, the big one. And his father came back like, "Wait, what's happened here?" He's like, "Whoa, the big idol went around and smashed all the others." And his father was like, "What are you talking about? This is stone and wood." And Abraham said, "Well, if it's just stone and wood and it can't do anything, why do you keep praying to it?" So that was a moment of awakening for Abraham. There's probably a higher force, an actual force, not a piece of rock. I think what we're trying to do here is look at what's happened and draw some conclusions from that. I know we're going to get yelled at. It's okay. I made a video the other day and someone was yelling at me, saying, "Why are you peddling lies, talking about the monkeys?" And I was like, "Dude, forget about it. I'm trying to make a point. It's about a principle." So, the point we're trying to make is that after that moment where Abraham realized there had to be a higher force, like gravity, a force that can work subtly through everything, he united everyone around the idea of love. Love covers all transgressions. Somehow, above the growing ego, love will be the force that unites everything and reveals a higher level of existence, a higher layer of reality. And then Moses did it again, uniting and inviting the people of Israel to unite above the growing ego symbolized by Egypt, around this Mount Sinai moment. And since then, I think it was always the Jews who carried that banner of unity. That's the "light unto the nations" thing. But little by little, for some reason, that mission eroded. I think we forget. Why do we forget?

Seth: According to the plan, why did we forget?

Lio: Why did we forget, Seth? You and I.

Seth: Well, okay, there's a very good reason why we forgot. It's so we could mix more with people. By forgetting and kind of falling from that state and mixing more with the culture, that quality of unity that we acquired gets to mingle with each new culture. You know, mingled with the Babylonians, intermarriages, and all sorts of different things.

Lio: So, mingling, but in order to spread that, not to mingle to become the thing we're mingling with.

Seth: Well, people are moving without really having much free will about it. They're compelled to mingle. They see some kind of pleasure in life through that. They think, "If I become more Hellenistic, I can have a good life." Right. "If I become like a New Yorker, if I become a better New Yorker, I could have a better life as a New Yorker," right? That's what I came for from Israel. I left that little swamp and moved to a bigger swamp. I was looking for—working in advertising—I was going to come in, get bigger budgets, bigger parties, more drugs, more music. It's a totally egoistic motivation, but that's the driver, right? That's what drives this whole thing.

Lio: It's like the mouse in the maze. You saw bigger pleasure, so you just followed it.

Seth: Exactly. Yeah, if you saw the bigger pleasure in unity, you would have—I'm not saying you were in unity in Israel—but I'm saying if a person, if Israel, the Israel of what we're talking about, felt the bigger pleasure in unity... but no. For some reason they are compelled by this force of nature to mingle and connect with each culture. But the kind of correction on it, the whole thing, is to flip it. There's got to be another 80s movie about this, where the nerdy guy gets the hot girl. Somehow, there's a flip.

Lio: But that's the question. Can you do it? Can you start working on the inside and not get corrupted by the same forces you're trying to change? It's like the classic guy who wants to become president, saying, "I'll make this world a better place."

Seth: By the time you reach the White House...

Lio: You become an idiot. Completely.

Seth: You have to stay in unity. There's a whole other level that has to happen on. It's impossible to get into that ego and not become completely corrupted by it.

Lio: Impossible. Well, that's a question. Can it be that one group of people was tasked by nature to actually do that? Spain is a good example because that's the rise of ethics. Spain was a golden era for Jewish work in all sciences—astronomy, medicine, ethics—translating texts from Arabic.

Lio: Let's read.

Lio: If you ask any Jew on the street, they'll say...

Seth: Yeah.

Lio: "But we are the conscience of the world, right? We are the heart of the world, trying to do good." But maybe it's not enough. What does Michael Grant, author and professor at Cambridge University, observe? The inability of Jews to mingle even in antiquity. Despite their own nature to try to mingle. Something about this was not letting them do it.

Seth: What page are you on?

Lio: Eight. You know, with the time zone difference, it's probably like 8 for you.

Seth: The Jews proved not only unassimilable, but inassimilable, he writes. That's a nice one. The demonstration that this was so proved one of the most significant turning points in Greek history. They exerted gigantic influence throughout subsequent ages by their religion, which not only survived intact, but subsequently gave birth to Christianity. So, Leo Tolstoy.

Lio: Yeah, Leo Tolstoy.

Seth: This is from Leo Tolstoy, the Jewish World Periodical published it back in 1908. Whether or not he actually wrote it reflects the wonders of the nation, the resilience of the Jews.

Lio: Of the Jews. Yeah, no, it's basically a poetic quote ascribed to him, to Tolstoy. It's hard to prove. Again, we don't care. It's not about who said what, it's about the fact that it's out there. What does it say? What is the Jew?

Seth: What is the Jew? What kind of unique creature is this whom all the rulers of nations have disgraced, crushed, expelled, destroyed, persecuted, burned, drowned, and who, despite their anger and fury, continues to live and flourish? The Jew is the symbol of eternity. He is the one who has for so long guarded the prophetic message and transmitted it to all mankind. A people such as this can never disappear.

Lio: Can never disappear. It's almost like against our better judgment. Naturally, I would want to follow my egoistic instincts and do what everyone else does. I yearn to be like everyone. You talk to Israelis, and they're like, "We're just like everyone. Why can't we be just like everyone?" Work hard, play hard, go on vacation to Thailand a couple of times a year, own a couple of cars. Just rot in front of the TV. What's wrong with that? Such a great lifestyle choice. Why can't I do it? Yet, for some reason, again, you can argue it, but the facts don't lie. It's just very difficult to become like everyone. Not only is it difficult, the people around won't let you do it. I think that's what this book is showing. And here's our friend, what's he saying? Your favorite?

Seth: Yeah, he's probably...

Lio: At the top there.

Seth: Yeah, he's a senior member of the Duma, the Russian parliament, and probably one of the most perceptive individuals regarding the role of the Jews in the world and how they performed it in antiquity.

Lio: Yeah, right. He wrote a book early.

Seth: He says

Lio: What we don't like about them. Yeah.

Seth: In his book, "What We Don't Like About Them," he wrote, "I don't feel goodness in Jewry. Cut me to pieces. Do what you want. I don't feel it. I would be happy to feel it. I would be happy to bow before the apostles of the Jews again as we bowed before them in antiquity. But where are these individuals who stopped being humane since the Spirit of Holiness ceased shining the aura over their heads?"

Lio: Yeah.

Seth: Where are they?

Lio: Yeah, making you yearn for that. I mean, you know what? It sounds like a good job. Sounds like a better job than what we're doing right now. Maybe this whole...

Seth: It's the whole wax on, wax off thing. But Mr. Miyagi, I don't know why, but it's...

Lio: You don't know why you're compelled to do it. But back to it, everything will be fine. So back to those crypto Jews, I think that's what freaks everyone out. Today, the antisemitism targets the Jews they can see, right? The Hasidic ones, the Orthodox ones. But shave their beards and change their clothes, and suddenly you can't tell who's a Jew and who's not. Who's got his hand on your money? Who's going to intermarry with your daughter? It's kind of a scary prospect, right? And...

Seth: What are you saying?

Lio: I'm saying that in a very subtle way, the more Jews try to be like everyone else, the worse the situation becomes. So back to the book because you know, people came for a bit of a history lesson from two non-historians, so let's give them something. Up until that time, around the 14th century, you would rarely see Jews... let’s read it actually. Before, there was a famous massacre of 1391. There were a lot of famous massacres throughout history with the Jews. Again, people only remember the big ones with a good budget to them, but...

Seth: Four pages in my book.

Lio: Yeah, yeah, there's a lot, but it's important to picture this: Jews live in Spain for generations, and you feel good, right? Your kids go to school alongside the other kids, you have great jobs, doctors and lawyers and merchants, and you're making good money, and you're respected, and you live in peace with the community. The Spanish even came up with a name for it, right? It's not just living together and not standing each other. No, we have this magical interdependence: Jews, Muslims, Christians. It seems like the highest ideal, right? Everything is seemingly going well until Jews start to lose interest in their ideal, in their faith. And again, the faith is not "Oh, I believe in God," it's that ideology, right? That's what we're reading about. They start to lose that, and that's when the reaction starts. It peaks with the massacre of 1391. What does it say there?

Seth: So until then, it was basically unthinkable. Jane Gerber writes, "When Jews faced the fury of the mobs in the Rhineland during the First and Second Crusades, they unhesitatingly chose martyrdom." Right. To die, yeah. Their martyrdom was considered the norm, not to convert, given the context of long-standing Jewish traditions. Then the collective conversion of nearly 100,000 Jews in 1391 is evidence of an enormous erosion of, she says, faith, an enormous erosion of what they value, of who they felt they were.

Lio: And not only that, so you have these guys. We talked about the nerds trying to be like the cool guys, and he's putting on the jacket, trying to smoke, but not only that. Not only that, he starts to pick on the nerds. You'd think he'd be a cool guy, right?

Seth: Maybe to prove their loyalty. Exactly. Yeah, or because they genuinely loathed being Jews. Many of these converts, as they were called...

Lio: They have this chip on their shoulder, right? They carry it. I mean...

Seth: They became...

Lio: Clergy. Let 's read it there.

Seth: Possibly in order to prove their loyalty to their new faith, or because they genuinely loathed their former one, many conversos not only became prominent clergymen, they also developed virulent antisemitism. Some conversos even became very active in leading the campaign against the Jews, which culminated in the expulsion, and they were among its most avid supporters. The most commonly known story, of course, is that of Thomas Torquemada, the Inquisitor General, who is said to be himself from a converso family. Cue the dramatic music. It is said that Torquemada was the nephew of a celebrated theologian and Cardinal Juan de Torquemada, who himself was a descendant of a converso.

Lio: I mean, this sounds remarkably like the story of Bernie Sand... Again, I don't want to be called out like a beagle.

Seth: Listen, when you have these Jews trying to have selfies with all these people who are antisemites, it makes you think, well, maybe what is he trying to do? What is he trying to prove? And again, I don't care for him, it's not about that. Whatever any person does, we're almost like not looking at the individual here because we're trying to look at the pattern of the entire network. But to me, the parallels are just scary. If this story follows through, then the next... and you could see that you would not become king, right? The Jews never become king, but they always become second to the king, maybe head of the inquisition, right? So if this story goes all the way through, it ends with expulsion. Do you have your suitcases ready, Seth?

Seth: I don't even know what to say.

Lio: In the book, there's story after story of conversos. These are people who were prominent Jews, prominent rabbis, who decide to convert. And then they don't just convert and fade into obscurity. No, they become bishops, theological writers, they join convents, they rise to the highest ranks. They're the ones who become leaders, theological leaders of the community, people who were Jewish, who had this belief, who had this ideal. I think it's worth reading a little bit about the rapid ascent of these converts. You would think that they're becoming Christians, and everybody should love them, right?

Seth: This forced and voluntary conversion liberated tens of thousands of former Jews from legal, cultural, and religious constraints that kept them a class apart when they were Jews. These Jewish converts entered Catholicism and Christian society vigorously, quickly penetrating the middle and upper classes and occupying the most prominent positions in the administration and church hierarchy. What happened? The Catholic Spaniards grew antagonistic towards the Jews. They detested those who converted. The tragic result of this paradox, concludes Roth, was the hostility of the masses to the new Christian elite.

Lio: The conversos led to the notorious purity of blood statutes which preceded the

Seth: famous Nazi race laws, and then in 1478, the establishment of the Spanish

Lio: Inquisition. Just to remind everyone, this is also a time when Jews were forced to wear a badge. There are so many similarities, and you would say

Seth: the Inquisition was paradoxically initiated and promoted by the conversos.

Lio: Veteran conversos.

Seth: I don't know if we want to. Right, no, but

Lio: just basically the conclusion of this, and they write about it, is that all those things, the purity of blood laws, the Spanish Inquisition, did not actually target Jews themselves, but rather those they called the crypto-Jews or Marranos. The

Seth: conversos

Lio: those who were trying to assimilate, those who, even in the expulsion—and we'll see, I guess, we'll get to it in our next episode—even there, they say that one of the biggest motivations for expelling the Jews was fear that they were entering their ranks as converts, then turning around and trying to pull Christians out of their faith, pulling people away from their values.

Seth: Yeah, people always think there's a Jewish conspiracy, but they don't really understand. The Jews don't even understand what's happening. Exactly. There is definitely something else happening, but people sense it.

Lio: Yeah, people sense it. That's the thing. In one of the talks I had with a person who is pretty categorically labeled as an anti-Semite, E. Michael Jones, you can see it on our YouTube channel. He talks about his main complaint. Forget about the stuff I didn't understand that he was talking about, but the stuff that I did understand was that his main complaint was that Jews were basically undermining the values that he saw and many Christians saw as essential to the church, like family values, moral values. It's funny, with one hand, Jews are promoting morals and

Lio: ethics. Right.

Lio: We were the ones championing human rights and yet, on the other hand, signing budgets for movies that go exactly against these morals and ethics, with producers who go against these ideals. So people are unwittingly living out the worst kind of ideals while simultaneously saying, "We are the people who will lead the world with the best possible ideals." That's the craziness, I think, that we're trying to overcome. It's not about blood purity this or that. I really think there is something being shown to us, and we refuse to see it.

Seth: I mean, okay, so here I always have an issue with that, refuse to see.

Lio: But we have to wrap up though. But you have an issue. You want to bring up the issue?

Seth: Just say it like this: You put a seed in the ground, the seed first rots, then it breaks open, then a sprout comes out, then it breaks through the dirt and reaches to the sun. So, all of these processes along the way, it's not to blame someone. Nobody even knows what's happening yet. I mean, yes, something happened in the past with Sinai and all that, but it's time to wake up, it's time to break through the soil now.

Lio: Well, you have to be human, Seth. We're not a plant. We're not a vegetable. Someone has to prune that tree. Someone has to make sure that it grows, that only the good parts are the ones we are eating. You can't just be like, "Yeah, I'm just gonna eat a little bit of this, a little bit of that." With one hand I'm gonna sign the human rights declaration, and with the other hand, I don't want to say some terrible things here, but yeah, I think that schism is something we have to look into. And next week. Difficult episode, man.

Seth: This is a difficult episode. You really have to face some things.

Lio: Yeah. So, next week, the expulsion. We're being expelled. So, pack up your suitcases. We're gonna really zoom in on that story, that moment in time where, surprise, surprise, 600,000 Jews were forced out of Spain, just like the 600,000 who left Egypt. Interesting. So, we'll do that. Also, for the bonus points, there were six orders signed against you, or something. Six. Interesting. Anyway, without getting too mystified about it, it's gonna be interesting. I'm excited because it makes me feel like we're touching a nerve. Feel something. Do you feel something, Seth?

Seth: I do, and it's uncomfortable.

Lio: And with that, we're gonna see you next week.