May 30, 2025 • 22 mins
In this episode, Mark Gerson discusses his book 'God Was Right,' where he explores the relevance of the Torah in modern life. He argues that the Bible is not just a historical or religious text but a practical guide for self-improvement and personal growth. Gerson highlights various lessons from the Torah, emphasizing its insights on fear, relationships, and the importance of a religious revival in contemporary society. He encourages readers to view the Torah as a self-help book that addresses everyday challenges and offers timeless wisdom. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Wednesday & Friday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitch Show on iHeartRadio.
My guest today is Mark Gerson. Mark is an investor, entrepreneur,
and philanthropist and has a fantastic new book out called
God Was Right. Hi, Marks, So nice to have you.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
On, Carol, great to be here, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
So what was God right about?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Tell us? Well, God was right about everything? And how
do we know that?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Well, we know that now for the first time in
the twenty first century because the Torah, the Five Books
of Moses from Genesis to Deuteronomy, was written several thousand
years ago.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
And what kind of book is the Torah. It's not a.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
History book or a science book or a cookbook. It's
a guide book. And it offers thousands of psychological insights guidance.
That means the Bible should not be in the religion
section of bookstore. It should be in this self help
section of bookstores. So the Bible offers us practical guidance,
interesting guidance. I'm just about every question we have today
and what I seek to do When God was right?
(00:56):
Was I line up the Biblical claims on several different
subject several dozen different subjects, ranging from diversity to anti fragility,
to routine to future orientation. And then I say, here's
what the Bible says, here's what modern social science says.
And then what is fascinating is every single claim that
the Bible has made, or the Bible made three thousand
(01:17):
years ago, is now in the twenty first century validated
by modern social science. So the Bible is right about everything,
which makes it the best book ever written in a
book worthy of our study and devotion.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
It's funny because I definitely see it a little bit
as a history book, and I never thought of it
as a self help book. For example, what are some
lessons that people should pick up from it?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Oh? Yeah, very interesting.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
The Bible, I mean, Moses says in Deuteronomy twenty nine
exactly what it is. He said, this book is written
for your benefit, and a book written for your benefit
is a self help book. And the Bible addresses, in
the most practical terms pretty much everything we do. Let's
talk about the first thing we do in the morning,
which is what closes should we put on? What should
we Well, that's addressed in the Bible. So how is
(02:03):
it addressed in the Bible. Well, when God sends Adam
out of the Garden of Eden. He sends him out
with one thing, garments. Now this is interesting. It would
be presumed that Adam would leave with garments, just like
if you said I left my house this morning, or
I said I left my office. Now I wouldn't say
I left my office with garments. It could be presumed
that I did so. So why is God emphasizing garments. Well,
(02:24):
we don't have to go very far in the tower
to find out why, because relatively shory. Thereafter we have
what is quite possibly the most important twenty minutes of
Jewish history.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
And this is because the great.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Aged blind patriarch Isaac is about to give the birthright,
the imprometer of Jewish leadership to one of his twins.
The problem, he's giving it to the twin that he
loves the most, but who's completely unqualified to lead the
Jewish people.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
This is Esau.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
So Rebecca, the real hero of the Bible, the real
hero Genesis, has about twenty minutes to change all of
history and to assure that our husband is tricked into
not giving the birthright to Esau but instead giving it
to Jacob, who, for his deficiencies up to that point,
he's still a young man, is much more qualified than
Esau to lead the Jewish people. The birthright goes to Esau, Carol,
(03:14):
you and I are not here. If it goes to Jacob,
we're here. Rebecca has twenty minutes to steer in the
right direction. What does she tell Jacob to do? She
tells Jacob put on Esau's less clothes, put on his
best clothes. Why is best clothes? Isaac is blind, so
what does it matter what clothes he has on it all?
And why is best club? Just put in any clothes?
(03:34):
Because Rebecca has a profound psychological insight, which is they
we feel like.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
What we wear, and we perform like how we feel.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
So in order for Jacob to convince his father that
he's Esau, he first has to convince himself. He first
has to feel like Esau himself. How can he do that?
Rebecca knew the answer, put on his best clothes. And
let's fast forward to the twenty first century, where there's
abundant social science on clothing, and what do we learn well?
(04:03):
We see in twenty twelve there's an experiment of Northwestern
University where one cohort of students is given a white
coat and told it's a doctor's coat. Another cohort is
given the same coat and told it's a painter's coat,
and then they're given attention seeking tasks. Those who were
told it was a doctor's coat do much better. Fast
forward two years to twenty fourteen, there's an experiment at
Yale which is a negotiation workshop with some real estate negotiation,
(04:28):
and one cohort of male students is told come in
suits and tie. The other is told come however you want.
Those who come in suits and tie end up with
vastly more profits in the experiment than those who came
as they are.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
So what do we.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
See time and again that we feel like how we
dress and we act like how we feel. And there
are deeply practical implications to this as well. When people
wake up and they're they're sad or even feeling depressed,
what will they normally do? They'll normally put on a
pair of sweatpants and something like a baggy sweater. What
does that do? It exacerbates the depression. So what we
(05:01):
now call fashion psychologists tell people to do. It says,
put on a floaty dress, put on fun jewelry, put
on bright colors. Why because fashion psychologists have rediscovered Rebecca's insight,
which is that if you want to feel a certain way,
dress that way, and then you will feel that way,
and then you will.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Be that way.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
So your wife is a rabbi, could you have missed
your calling to be a rabbi as well?
Speaker 3 (05:26):
I'm the rabbi's husband. I am so blessed to be
married to a rabbi and to the particular rabbi to
whom I am married. So now I love being the
rabbi's husband. I'm a businessman and entrepreneur, and I love business,
and I love studying Tora, and I love being married
to a rabbi.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
I'd recommend it to everybody.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Only so many rabbis to go around, but that's true.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
So get one when you can, right.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
So, you have so much going on and you do
so many different things. How did you put a book
in or what.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Made you do this? Well?
Speaker 3 (05:55):
I started studying tora every day about twenty years ago,
and I really started it in the study of the Hagadah,
which is the guy that leads us through the passover Sator,
which I think is the greatest book. Word for work
is very short, ever written, and then what I realized.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
It doesn't feel that short at the let me tell you,
Oh yeah, that's.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Another discussion about about how one should use the Hagada
at the sat.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
That's a good point.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
But I discovered what the Haggadah really was, which is
it's the greatest hits of the Torah. And it's the
greatest hits of the Torah because it's the point of
the Passover Sator. The Passover is our authentic juition year,
not Russia Shana, It's not even in the Bible.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
In Torah.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Passover is what the Bible calls the head of months.
So I'm ahead of months. We're supposed to use the Hagadah,
the greatest hits of the Torah, to review how do
we do in the previous year, who am I now?
And who do I want to be in the coming year,
and how do I become that person? So it was
the greatest hits of the Torah. So I found myself
studying the Torah every day. And so the first thing
(06:54):
I do in the morning is I run for six
miles on the treadmill, and I still the tower on
the treadmill, and then I have a harusa in Jerusalem,
and we study after that.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
And I love the Tora.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
I study every day, and I've found it to be
the most interesting, endlessly rich, and entirely practical book ever written,
with lessons and guidance that is as relevant in twenty
twenty five as it ever was in the past and
will continue to be in the future. And then I
realized that modern social scientists, without knowing it, have been
(07:29):
asking and answering the same questions that the biblical author did.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
So that's what God writes about.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Markowitch Show. What do you want
people to take away from?
Speaker 2 (07:42):
God was right?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
What's your main kind of goal for them?
Speaker 3 (07:48):
I want people to take away that the Torah is
the greatest self help book ever written, that whenever someone
is questioning something, struggling with something, challenged by something, season
opportunity no matter how big or how small. And I
actually have a chapter in the book called No Small
Things about how in the Torah and modern self science,
we know there's nothing that small. But no matter what
(08:09):
someone's thinking about, no matter what question someone is asking,
whether it's what should I wear in the morning, to
how much should I give to charity? To how should
I orient my life in the remaining thirty forty fifty years?
Whatever it is, the answer is asked, anticipated, and answered
in the Torah. And what God was right seeks to
do is to extract the entirely practical meaning from hot hundreds,
(08:34):
maybe thousands of passages that are really there to guide
us through our daily lives.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
What do you think people misunderstand about the Bible in
our modern world? It seems like we don't spend that
much time on it. Most people are not reading it
or listening to it on the treadmill. What do we
not get?
Speaker 3 (08:53):
I think people get the genre wrong. And the first
step in understanding any book is to get the genre right.
So if you read a book of science fiction and conclude, oh,
it's ridiculous. People can't take a spaceship to Venus, the
answer is you got the GENRENG.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
It's not a science book.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
It's a science fiction book, and people get the GENRENG
with the Tora.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
All too often.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
People think it's a history book, and they say, well,
this couldn't have happened before that. It's not a history book.
The Bible tells us it's not a history book. Vegetation
is created before the sun early in Genesis, saying this
is not a history book, it's not a science book.
That's another example why it's not a science book. It's
not a cookbook. It's a guide book. So we have
to read the Torah as a guide book, and the
(09:33):
stories in the Torah, the laws in the Torah. Everything
in the Torah exists, sure to telecoherent narrative, but that's
not the main purpose. The main purpose of the Torah
is to help each of us live happier, better and
more meaningful lives today.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
And that's true whenever today.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Is what do you worry about with regards to the
Tora anything, what keeps you up?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Well, there is a.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Chapter in the book on fear and uh and so
the what the Torah teaches us about fear. So the
Bible tells us eighty five times more than tells us
anything else.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Do not fear afraid, Yeah, yeah, eighty.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Five times, which is interesting because the Bible never tells
us to do things we would do in the absence
of guidance. So the Bible never says, for instance, you
shall love your children, because we all do. We know
no one needs to tell us to do it. So
it tells us to do things that are unnatural, and uh,
and and that and and so what is it so fear?
It tells us do not fear eighty five times because
we'll naturally fear. The Bible tells us do not fear.
(10:35):
So in the book. What I extract from this biblical instruction,
which is really throughout all the books of the Bible,
is only fear immediate thing. So if Allian's charging at you,
that's a good time to be afraid. It's an It's
a quite proper evolutionary response is to be afraid. Everything
else demote to a concern. And when something is demoted
(10:57):
from a fear to a concern, what does.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
That enable us to do?
Speaker 3 (10:59):
It enables us to think rationally about it and to
decide intelligently. So I think, as Lionel Trilling put it,
we all have a moral obligation to be intelligent and
governing our fears is probably the first step in that process.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Is there a way to reorient society back towards God
or towards religion in a way that doesn't involve, say,
the government. Do you think that there is any any
move that we can make as a people to get
us back to where we're supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
What a great, great question.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Well, there was this kind of awesome thing that happened
last year, there was an authentic religious revival in Kentucky
and uh, and I think it's a beautiful moment. I
think America needs a religious revival. Yeah, And I think
that religious revival can come with a discovery or a
rediscovery of the Torah. And h and about how entirely
(11:49):
practical the Tower is. So I think if people realize
just how practical the Tower is, that it's not anachronistic
work of history or ancient anything, but it's entirely earned, contemporary,
and totally relevant, people will fall in love with the
Torah and they'll seek its guidance. And when they seek
its guidance, they'll want to understand its passages and ultimately
(12:12):
follow its guidance.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
And the towra is clear.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
There's this fascinating passage where it talks about the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,
leading us to ask, why isn't just say the God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and skip the other two ovs?
Because what the Tower is telling us, is there are
different ways to approach God. Abraham had one way, Isaac
had another, Jacob had another. And what do we learn
from that?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
That there are.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Different ways to approach God within a faith, and there
are different ways in which faiths can approach God. So
no matter what faith, someone has, approach God through that faith.
And I think it would be great to have an
American religious revival. I think America is right for it.
America is totally suited for it.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
And I'm all for it.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Make America Christian again, make.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
America religious again.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Absolutely, and and and let let people discover the the
beauty and the truth and the eternal and contemporary relevance
of the Torah. And when people whether people come to
the Torah through Judaism or Christianity, it's all good. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Absolutely. I usually ask people what their plan B would
have been in life, like when they are, you know,
an economist or something. I say, you know, what else
would you might have done? But you seem to have
done Plans A, B and C. Is there a path
you haven't taken that you would maybe regret not taking.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Well, that's such a good question.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Well, America is such a great country for so many reasons,
and one of the reasons is the amount of opportunities
that create. So I feel very blessed with the opportunities
that America has given me, particularly the opportunity to meet
and marry my wife, but other things as well, for instance,
to study the Torah and write about it, to launch
businesses and start to co found United Houtsalid Israel and
(13:55):
African Mission Healthcare. And I've just been so blessed with
these opportunities and just so grateful for the opportunity to
have written.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
God was right to share.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
The wisdom and the truly contemporary relevance of the Torah.
And I just hope people understand that the Tora is
it's the best ever self help book, and it asks
and answers all the questions that anyone anyone has about anything.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
What advice would you give your sixteen year old self?
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Very good question. I'll give a very practical answer.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
And there's actually a chapter in the book on education
and another chapter on the limits of education, so it's
really only the answer is only tangentially related to the book.
But the advice I would give to my sixteen year
old self would be there are only four things you
get out of a college experience. Those four things are
(14:45):
the professor who inspires you, the subject that captivates you,
the friends you make, and.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
The girl or boy you fall in love with.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Okay, those are the only four things you can get
of a college experience, and those four things exist at
hundreds and undreds of colleges and universities. So I just
I think it's so sad when I see young people,
and even sadder when I see their parents fixated on
the supposed or alleged importance of their child going to
(15:13):
one school, when in fact, those are the only four
things that someone can get out of the college experience.
Each four is amazing, and each four is offered at
hundreds and hundreds of places. So I would tell my
sixteen year old self and sixteen year old now that
it's really important to work hard. It's really important to
(15:34):
have an ethical core and a moral center. And if
you take that the ethic of hard work, and that
moral core and that developing sense of mission, you can
take it anywhere. And if you get rejected from this
college and that college and ten others, it doesn't matter.
It will not affect your life chances. So go to college.
(15:54):
Seek a professor that'll inspire you, a subject that castivates you,
make ten to fifteen good friends, and fall in love
with a terrific.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Boy or girl, and you'll have a great experience.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
It's funny because I don't even count on two of those.
I would really I just root for my kids to
go to college, to make a lot of friends, and
fall in love with somebody, hopefully get married shortly after college.
That's sort of the goal for me with the whole
college experience.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
If they happen to.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Have an inspiring professor or to learn something along the way,
that will be like complete bonus.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Well, I mean, if you look at the course catalogs
of these colleges. Now, of course there's a lot of
nonsense in these course callogs, but there's a lot of
really good stuff too, and so students can learn and
they're I mean, what a great opportunity to be given
these years when all thats expected of you is to
learn to make friends and to grow.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
It's just an incredible opportunity exactly.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
And I lovely you said, Carol about getting married young,
because I have a chapter in the book on the
Biblical formula for love and marriage and what they said
from this, yeah, direction, the story of Isaac and Rebecca,
how they just decided to marry each other, and the
logic of how they decided to marry each other and
how they came to have the happiest marriage in the Bible.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
That logic leads to early marriage.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
So what is it? Give us the hint?
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Okay, So Eliezer, who's so Abraham sends his servant, Eliezer
to go find a wife for Isaac, and he says
to Eliezer, go to Haran.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Why Haran because Abraham.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Years before had made souls in Haran, so it was
a place where whatever making souls means, it was a
place where souls could be cultivated. So he says, go
to Haran. Eliezer goes to Haran, and she's a young
woman approaching, and he says she was very The text
tells us she was very fair to look upon. And
we know one other thing about her, which is she's
exceedingly generous. She brings water for Eliezer and all of
(17:47):
his camels, and estimated like dozens and dozens of trips
of water. So Eliezer knows three and only three things
about this woman who is Rebecca. One is that she's
from Haran. Two she's very fair to look upon, and
three she's ridiculously generous. On the basis of those three
and only three characteristics, he says she's the woman for
(18:08):
my man, Isaac. And then Rebecca is given the opportunity herself,
do you want to go with Eliezer and marry Isaac?
And by the way, people who say the Bible is sexist,
they don't understand the Bible.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
They don't know what they're reading. This is one of
many examples.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Several which I cover in the book of How the
Bible is the great work of female empowerment. Rebecca is
given the choice herself, do I marry the guy or
do I not marry the guy. She only knows two
things about the guy. One is that Isaac is rich,
so he's a good provider, and two.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
They loves God. Oh.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
She says, yes, I will marry him. And then the
text tells us in Genesis twenty four sixty seven, he
married her. She became his wife, and he loved her.
And the order of things in the Bible is always important.
So what does the Bible tell us? First identify two
or maybe three characteristics in the other person, and whether
she likes warmer cold weather vacations, whether his friends are
(18:58):
funny or not two of them. Identify two or three
genuinely important characteristics. Then just get married. Don't think too
much about it. Just get married. Once it's two or
three boxes have checked, then start doing spouse like things.
So he married her, she became his wife. Must be
two different things, because I listened separately. So he married her,
Then she became his wife. What does it mean to
become a wife or a husband? Probably iterant acts of
(19:20):
giving right and then love follows. In modern culture, we
have it the other way around. We have this absolutely yeah, yeah,
we have this ridiculous notion of falling in love. You
don't fall in love. You might fall on your face
or fall on the ground, but you cultivate love.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
You don't fall into it.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
You cultivate. It's quite the opposite. That's what the Bible
tells us. Identify two or three characteristics, get married, start
doing spouse like things, and then you will experience a
love that will last forever.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
I hope that teens listening can can take these lessons,
but I think that might be a hard sell for
some of them.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Well, it's it's you know, the so the Bible says it,
but then modern social science totally validates it. Is that
every alternative to that very simple and clear biblical formula has.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Proven to be a catastrophe.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Yeah, and I have the data in the book on
how all of the alternatives have failed. In the data,
living together bad idea. Serial dating one boyfriend girlfriend after
the next into one's thirties or even later leads to
unhappiness in all kinds of very specific ways.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
And I have a whole chapter in the book on that.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Marcowitch show. Well, I love this conversation,
and I think your book is just fantastic. You are
just such an interesting person. Leave us here with your
best tip for my listeners on how they can improve
their lives.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
What a great point.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
I think the best tip on how you can improve
your life it's right there in the Bible. It's identify
a characteristic that you want to add to your personality
or your character, So identify it right now. So let's
say someone says, I wish I was more giving, I
wish I was more generous, I wish I was kinder,
whatever it is, identify one characteristic of growth and of change.
(21:12):
Then the Bible tells us, again totally validated by modern
social science, how to develop that characteristic. Just start doing
the thing. In other words, fake it till you make it.
So if you say I wish I was more giving,
you don't have to plunge the depths of your soul
to figure out why you're not giving as much charity
as you want. Give a little more tomorrow today, give
a little more Wednesday than Tuesday, and keep going. And
(21:33):
what the Bible tells us, and modern social science confirms,
it takes about three months before that characteristic becomes a
part of you. So I would say, just identify that
characteristic that you want to become part of you, that
you want to grow into and grow with, and then
just start doing the thing. And then whatever that thing is,
whatever that characteristic is, it will become part of who
(21:54):
you are. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I love that. Do the thing. He is Mark Gerson,
His book Is God was right up anywhere books are sold.
Thank you so much, Mark.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Thank you Carol, so such a great conversation. Really appreciate it.
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitch Show on iHeartRadio.
My guest today is Mark Gerson. Mark is an investor, entrepreneur,
and philanthropist and has a fantastic new book out called
God Was Right. Hi, Marks, So nice to have you.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
On, Carol, great to be here, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
So what was God right about?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Tell us? Well, God was right about everything? And how
do we know that?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Well, we know that now for the first time in
the twenty first century because the Torah, the Five Books
of Moses from Genesis to Deuteronomy, was written several thousand
years ago.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
And what kind of book is the Torah. It's not a.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
History book or a science book or a cookbook. It's
a guide book. And it offers thousands of psychological insights guidance.
That means the Bible should not be in the religion
section of bookstore. It should be in this self help
section of bookstores. So the Bible offers us practical guidance,
interesting guidance. I'm just about every question we have today
and what I seek to do When God was right?
(00:56):
Was I line up the Biblical claims on several different
subject several dozen different subjects, ranging from diversity to anti fragility,
to routine to future orientation. And then I say, here's
what the Bible says, here's what modern social science says.
And then what is fascinating is every single claim that
the Bible has made, or the Bible made three thousand
(01:17):
years ago, is now in the twenty first century validated
by modern social science. So the Bible is right about everything,
which makes it the best book ever written in a
book worthy of our study and devotion.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
It's funny because I definitely see it a little bit
as a history book, and I never thought of it
as a self help book. For example, what are some
lessons that people should pick up from it?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Oh? Yeah, very interesting.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
The Bible, I mean, Moses says in Deuteronomy twenty nine
exactly what it is. He said, this book is written
for your benefit, and a book written for your benefit
is a self help book. And the Bible addresses, in
the most practical terms pretty much everything we do. Let's
talk about the first thing we do in the morning,
which is what closes should we put on? What should
we Well, that's addressed in the Bible. So how is
(02:03):
it addressed in the Bible. Well, when God sends Adam
out of the Garden of Eden. He sends him out
with one thing, garments. Now this is interesting. It would
be presumed that Adam would leave with garments, just like
if you said I left my house this morning, or
I said I left my office. Now I wouldn't say
I left my office with garments. It could be presumed
that I did so. So why is God emphasizing garments. Well,
(02:24):
we don't have to go very far in the tower
to find out why, because relatively shory. Thereafter we have
what is quite possibly the most important twenty minutes of
Jewish history.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
And this is because the great.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Aged blind patriarch Isaac is about to give the birthright,
the imprometer of Jewish leadership to one of his twins.
The problem, he's giving it to the twin that he
loves the most, but who's completely unqualified to lead the
Jewish people.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
This is Esau.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
So Rebecca, the real hero of the Bible, the real
hero Genesis, has about twenty minutes to change all of
history and to assure that our husband is tricked into
not giving the birthright to Esau but instead giving it
to Jacob, who, for his deficiencies up to that point,
he's still a young man, is much more qualified than
Esau to lead the Jewish people. The birthright goes to Esau, Carol,
(03:14):
you and I are not here. If it goes to Jacob,
we're here. Rebecca has twenty minutes to steer in the
right direction. What does she tell Jacob to do? She
tells Jacob put on Esau's less clothes, put on his
best clothes. Why is best clothes? Isaac is blind, so
what does it matter what clothes he has on it all?
And why is best club? Just put in any clothes?
(03:34):
Because Rebecca has a profound psychological insight, which is they
we feel like.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
What we wear, and we perform like how we feel.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
So in order for Jacob to convince his father that
he's Esau, he first has to convince himself. He first
has to feel like Esau himself. How can he do that?
Rebecca knew the answer, put on his best clothes. And
let's fast forward to the twenty first century, where there's
abundant social science on clothing, and what do we learn well?
(04:03):
We see in twenty twelve there's an experiment of Northwestern
University where one cohort of students is given a white
coat and told it's a doctor's coat. Another cohort is
given the same coat and told it's a painter's coat,
and then they're given attention seeking tasks. Those who were
told it was a doctor's coat do much better. Fast
forward two years to twenty fourteen, there's an experiment at
Yale which is a negotiation workshop with some real estate negotiation,
(04:28):
and one cohort of male students is told come in
suits and tie. The other is told come however you want.
Those who come in suits and tie end up with
vastly more profits in the experiment than those who came
as they are.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
So what do we.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
See time and again that we feel like how we
dress and we act like how we feel. And there
are deeply practical implications to this as well. When people
wake up and they're they're sad or even feeling depressed,
what will they normally do? They'll normally put on a
pair of sweatpants and something like a baggy sweater. What
does that do? It exacerbates the depression. So what we
(05:01):
now call fashion psychologists tell people to do. It says,
put on a floaty dress, put on fun jewelry, put
on bright colors. Why because fashion psychologists have rediscovered Rebecca's insight,
which is that if you want to feel a certain way,
dress that way, and then you will feel that way,
and then you will.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Be that way.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
So your wife is a rabbi, could you have missed
your calling to be a rabbi as well?
Speaker 3 (05:26):
I'm the rabbi's husband. I am so blessed to be
married to a rabbi and to the particular rabbi to
whom I am married. So now I love being the
rabbi's husband. I'm a businessman and entrepreneur, and I love business,
and I love studying Tora, and I love being married
to a rabbi.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
I'd recommend it to everybody.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Only so many rabbis to go around, but that's true.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
So get one when you can, right.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
So, you have so much going on and you do
so many different things. How did you put a book
in or what.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Made you do this? Well?
Speaker 3 (05:55):
I started studying tora every day about twenty years ago,
and I really started it in the study of the Hagadah,
which is the guy that leads us through the passover Sator,
which I think is the greatest book. Word for work
is very short, ever written, and then what I realized.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
It doesn't feel that short at the let me tell you,
Oh yeah, that's.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Another discussion about about how one should use the Hagada
at the sat.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
That's a good point.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
But I discovered what the Haggadah really was, which is
it's the greatest hits of the Torah. And it's the
greatest hits of the Torah because it's the point of
the Passover Sator. The Passover is our authentic juition year,
not Russia Shana, It's not even in the Bible.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
In Torah.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Passover is what the Bible calls the head of months.
So I'm ahead of months. We're supposed to use the Hagadah,
the greatest hits of the Torah, to review how do
we do in the previous year, who am I now?
And who do I want to be in the coming year,
and how do I become that person? So it was
the greatest hits of the Torah. So I found myself
studying the Torah every day. And so the first thing
(06:54):
I do in the morning is I run for six
miles on the treadmill, and I still the tower on
the treadmill, and then I have a harusa in Jerusalem,
and we study after that.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
And I love the Tora.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
I study every day, and I've found it to be
the most interesting, endlessly rich, and entirely practical book ever written,
with lessons and guidance that is as relevant in twenty
twenty five as it ever was in the past and
will continue to be in the future. And then I
realized that modern social scientists, without knowing it, have been
(07:29):
asking and answering the same questions that the biblical author did.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
So that's what God writes about.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Markowitch Show. What do you want
people to take away from?
Speaker 2 (07:42):
God was right?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
What's your main kind of goal for them?
Speaker 3 (07:48):
I want people to take away that the Torah is
the greatest self help book ever written, that whenever someone
is questioning something, struggling with something, challenged by something, season
opportunity no matter how big or how small. And I
actually have a chapter in the book called No Small
Things about how in the Torah and modern self science,
we know there's nothing that small. But no matter what
(08:09):
someone's thinking about, no matter what question someone is asking,
whether it's what should I wear in the morning, to
how much should I give to charity? To how should
I orient my life in the remaining thirty forty fifty years?
Whatever it is, the answer is asked, anticipated, and answered
in the Torah. And what God was right seeks to
do is to extract the entirely practical meaning from hot hundreds,
(08:34):
maybe thousands of passages that are really there to guide
us through our daily lives.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
What do you think people misunderstand about the Bible in
our modern world? It seems like we don't spend that
much time on it. Most people are not reading it
or listening to it on the treadmill. What do we
not get?
Speaker 3 (08:53):
I think people get the genre wrong. And the first
step in understanding any book is to get the genre right.
So if you read a book of science fiction and conclude, oh,
it's ridiculous. People can't take a spaceship to Venus, the
answer is you got the GENRENG.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
It's not a science book.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
It's a science fiction book, and people get the GENRENG
with the Tora.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
All too often.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
People think it's a history book, and they say, well,
this couldn't have happened before that. It's not a history book.
The Bible tells us it's not a history book. Vegetation
is created before the sun early in Genesis, saying this
is not a history book, it's not a science book.
That's another example why it's not a science book. It's
not a cookbook. It's a guide book. So we have
to read the Torah as a guide book, and the
(09:33):
stories in the Torah, the laws in the Torah. Everything
in the Torah exists, sure to telecoherent narrative, but that's
not the main purpose. The main purpose of the Torah
is to help each of us live happier, better and
more meaningful lives today.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
And that's true whenever today.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Is what do you worry about with regards to the
Tora anything, what keeps you up?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Well, there is a.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Chapter in the book on fear and uh and so
the what the Torah teaches us about fear. So the
Bible tells us eighty five times more than tells us
anything else.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Do not fear afraid, Yeah, yeah, eighty.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Five times, which is interesting because the Bible never tells
us to do things we would do in the absence
of guidance. So the Bible never says, for instance, you
shall love your children, because we all do. We know
no one needs to tell us to do it. So
it tells us to do things that are unnatural, and uh,
and and that and and so what is it so fear?
It tells us do not fear eighty five times because
we'll naturally fear. The Bible tells us do not fear.
(10:35):
So in the book. What I extract from this biblical instruction,
which is really throughout all the books of the Bible,
is only fear immediate thing. So if Allian's charging at you,
that's a good time to be afraid. It's an It's
a quite proper evolutionary response is to be afraid. Everything
else demote to a concern. And when something is demoted
(10:57):
from a fear to a concern, what does.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
That enable us to do?
Speaker 3 (10:59):
It enables us to think rationally about it and to
decide intelligently. So I think, as Lionel Trilling put it,
we all have a moral obligation to be intelligent and
governing our fears is probably the first step in that process.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Is there a way to reorient society back towards God
or towards religion in a way that doesn't involve, say,
the government. Do you think that there is any any
move that we can make as a people to get
us back to where we're supposed to be.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
What a great, great question.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Well, there was this kind of awesome thing that happened
last year, there was an authentic religious revival in Kentucky
and uh, and I think it's a beautiful moment. I
think America needs a religious revival. Yeah, And I think
that religious revival can come with a discovery or a
rediscovery of the Torah. And h and about how entirely
(11:49):
practical the Tower is. So I think if people realize
just how practical the Tower is, that it's not anachronistic
work of history or ancient anything, but it's entirely earned, contemporary,
and totally relevant, people will fall in love with the
Torah and they'll seek its guidance. And when they seek
its guidance, they'll want to understand its passages and ultimately
(12:12):
follow its guidance.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
And the towra is clear.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
There's this fascinating passage where it talks about the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,
leading us to ask, why isn't just say the God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and skip the other two ovs?
Because what the Tower is telling us, is there are
different ways to approach God. Abraham had one way, Isaac
had another, Jacob had another. And what do we learn
from that?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
That there are.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Different ways to approach God within a faith, and there
are different ways in which faiths can approach God. So
no matter what faith, someone has, approach God through that faith.
And I think it would be great to have an
American religious revival. I think America is right for it.
America is totally suited for it.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
And I'm all for it.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Make America Christian again, make.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
America religious again.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Absolutely, and and and let let people discover the the
beauty and the truth and the eternal and contemporary relevance
of the Torah. And when people whether people come to
the Torah through Judaism or Christianity, it's all good. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Absolutely. I usually ask people what their plan B would
have been in life, like when they are, you know,
an economist or something. I say, you know, what else
would you might have done? But you seem to have
done Plans A, B and C. Is there a path
you haven't taken that you would maybe regret not taking.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Well, that's such a good question.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Well, America is such a great country for so many reasons,
and one of the reasons is the amount of opportunities
that create. So I feel very blessed with the opportunities
that America has given me, particularly the opportunity to meet
and marry my wife, but other things as well, for instance,
to study the Torah and write about it, to launch
businesses and start to co found United Houtsalid Israel and
(13:55):
African Mission Healthcare. And I've just been so blessed with
these opportunities and just so grateful for the opportunity to
have written.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
God was right to share.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
The wisdom and the truly contemporary relevance of the Torah.
And I just hope people understand that the Tora is
it's the best ever self help book, and it asks
and answers all the questions that anyone anyone has about anything.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
What advice would you give your sixteen year old self?
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Very good question. I'll give a very practical answer.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
And there's actually a chapter in the book on education
and another chapter on the limits of education, so it's
really only the answer is only tangentially related to the book.
But the advice I would give to my sixteen year
old self would be there are only four things you
get out of a college experience. Those four things are
(14:45):
the professor who inspires you, the subject that captivates you,
the friends you make, and.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
The girl or boy you fall in love with.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Okay, those are the only four things you can get
of a college experience, and those four things exist at
hundreds and undreds of colleges and universities. So I just
I think it's so sad when I see young people,
and even sadder when I see their parents fixated on
the supposed or alleged importance of their child going to
(15:13):
one school, when in fact, those are the only four
things that someone can get out of the college experience.
Each four is amazing, and each four is offered at
hundreds and hundreds of places. So I would tell my
sixteen year old self and sixteen year old now that
it's really important to work hard. It's really important to
(15:34):
have an ethical core and a moral center. And if
you take that the ethic of hard work, and that
moral core and that developing sense of mission, you can
take it anywhere. And if you get rejected from this
college and that college and ten others, it doesn't matter.
It will not affect your life chances. So go to college.
(15:54):
Seek a professor that'll inspire you, a subject that castivates you,
make ten to fifteen good friends, and fall in love
with a terrific.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Boy or girl, and you'll have a great experience.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
It's funny because I don't even count on two of those.
I would really I just root for my kids to
go to college, to make a lot of friends, and
fall in love with somebody, hopefully get married shortly after college.
That's sort of the goal for me with the whole
college experience.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
If they happen to.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Have an inspiring professor or to learn something along the way,
that will be like complete bonus.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Well, I mean, if you look at the course catalogs
of these colleges. Now, of course there's a lot of
nonsense in these course callogs, but there's a lot of
really good stuff too, and so students can learn and
they're I mean, what a great opportunity to be given
these years when all thats expected of you is to
learn to make friends and to grow.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
It's just an incredible opportunity exactly.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
And I lovely you said, Carol about getting married young,
because I have a chapter in the book on the
Biblical formula for love and marriage and what they said
from this, yeah, direction, the story of Isaac and Rebecca,
how they just decided to marry each other, and the
logic of how they decided to marry each other and
how they came to have the happiest marriage in the Bible.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
That logic leads to early marriage.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
So what is it? Give us the hint?
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Okay, So Eliezer, who's so Abraham sends his servant, Eliezer
to go find a wife for Isaac, and he says
to Eliezer, go to Haran.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Why Haran because Abraham.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Years before had made souls in Haran, so it was
a place where whatever making souls means, it was a
place where souls could be cultivated. So he says, go
to Haran. Eliezer goes to Haran, and she's a young
woman approaching, and he says she was very The text
tells us she was very fair to look upon. And
we know one other thing about her, which is she's
exceedingly generous. She brings water for Eliezer and all of
(17:47):
his camels, and estimated like dozens and dozens of trips
of water. So Eliezer knows three and only three things
about this woman who is Rebecca. One is that she's
from Haran. Two she's very fair to look upon, and
three she's ridiculously generous. On the basis of those three
and only three characteristics, he says she's the woman for
(18:08):
my man, Isaac. And then Rebecca is given the opportunity herself,
do you want to go with Eliezer and marry Isaac?
And by the way, people who say the Bible is sexist,
they don't understand the Bible.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
They don't know what they're reading. This is one of
many examples.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Several which I cover in the book of How the
Bible is the great work of female empowerment. Rebecca is
given the choice herself, do I marry the guy or
do I not marry the guy. She only knows two
things about the guy. One is that Isaac is rich,
so he's a good provider, and two.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
They loves God. Oh.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
She says, yes, I will marry him. And then the
text tells us in Genesis twenty four sixty seven, he
married her. She became his wife, and he loved her.
And the order of things in the Bible is always important.
So what does the Bible tell us? First identify two
or maybe three characteristics in the other person, and whether
she likes warmer cold weather vacations, whether his friends are
(18:58):
funny or not two of them. Identify two or three
genuinely important characteristics. Then just get married. Don't think too
much about it. Just get married. Once it's two or
three boxes have checked, then start doing spouse like things.
So he married her, she became his wife. Must be
two different things, because I listened separately. So he married her,
Then she became his wife. What does it mean to
become a wife or a husband? Probably iterant acts of
(19:20):
giving right and then love follows. In modern culture, we
have it the other way around. We have this absolutely yeah, yeah,
we have this ridiculous notion of falling in love. You
don't fall in love. You might fall on your face
or fall on the ground, but you cultivate love.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
You don't fall into it.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
You cultivate. It's quite the opposite. That's what the Bible
tells us. Identify two or three characteristics, get married, start
doing spouse like things, and then you will experience a
love that will last forever.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
I hope that teens listening can can take these lessons,
but I think that might be a hard sell for
some of them.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Well, it's it's you know, the so the Bible says it,
but then modern social science totally validates it. Is that
every alternative to that very simple and clear biblical formula has.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Proven to be a catastrophe.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
Yeah, and I have the data in the book on
how all of the alternatives have failed. In the data,
living together bad idea. Serial dating one boyfriend girlfriend after
the next into one's thirties or even later leads to
unhappiness in all kinds of very specific ways.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
And I have a whole chapter in the book on that.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Marcowitch show. Well, I love this conversation,
and I think your book is just fantastic. You are
just such an interesting person. Leave us here with your
best tip for my listeners on how they can improve
their lives.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
What a great point.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
I think the best tip on how you can improve
your life it's right there in the Bible. It's identify
a characteristic that you want to add to your personality
or your character, So identify it right now. So let's
say someone says, I wish I was more giving, I
wish I was more generous, I wish I was kinder,
whatever it is, identify one characteristic of growth and of change.
(21:12):
Then the Bible tells us, again totally validated by modern
social science, how to develop that characteristic. Just start doing
the thing. In other words, fake it till you make it.
So if you say I wish I was more giving,
you don't have to plunge the depths of your soul
to figure out why you're not giving as much charity
as you want. Give a little more tomorrow today, give
a little more Wednesday than Tuesday, and keep going. And
(21:33):
what the Bible tells us, and modern social science confirms,
it takes about three months before that characteristic becomes a
part of you. So I would say, just identify that
characteristic that you want to become part of you, that
you want to grow into and grow with, and then
just start doing the thing. And then whatever that thing is,
whatever that characteristic is, it will become part of who
(21:54):
you are. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I love that. Do the thing. He is Mark Gerson,
His book Is God was right up anywhere books are sold.
Thank you so much, Mark.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Thank you Carol, so such a great conversation. Really appreciate it.
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