In this episode of Mythology Thursday, Rabbi Taylor talks about reincarnation, UFO demons, and why women can be rabbis. Rabbi Taylor is the author of A Jewish Guide to the Mysterious: An Illustrated History of the Mysterious, a book that explores the mysteries of the Jewish past, present, and future.
00:01:51.800So let's start with reincarnation, I guess.
00:01:54.840So one of the big misnomers, I think, about Judaism is we're called the people of the book.
00:02:01.780And it's interesting because really the Hebrew Bible, the way it was meant to be given over generationally was orally.
00:02:12.640Like the Hebrew Bible is basically like the notes or the cliff notes, I guess, that a professor would hand out an outline of the lecture.
00:02:21.560And then the college professor gives the lecture.
00:02:25.060And that's if you didn't attend the lecture and you didn't hear the whole class, you may have a basic understanding of what went on in the class, but you don't really get the full capacity of it.
00:02:34.800So the main body of Jewish thought actually was carried on orally using the Hebrew Bible, obviously, as the index or as the cliff notes.
00:02:47.160But the discussion β so what I'm trying to bring out is this idea that some of the concepts in Judaism are not very clearly written in the Hebrew Bible.
00:02:58.740Even the concept of an afterlife is not really clearly written in the Hebrew Bible.
00:03:04.020Reward and punishment in the Hebrew Bible is essentially if you do what you're supposed to do, you're going to get the rain when you're supposed to get it.
00:03:10.120And if you don't do what you're supposed to do, you're not going to get the rain when you're supposed to get it.
00:03:13.080There's not a whole lot of spirituality and mysticism.
00:03:16.140It's the Hebrew Bible talks directly, clearly and practically to people from all ages and all times, something that a farmer 3,000 years ago could clearly relate to.
00:03:27.560And something where us in our modern day, we can relate to it in a different sort of way, in a different sort of level and still gain and understand and be motivated to do the right thing.
00:03:39.380So as far as reincarnation is concerned, this is something that the Jewish mystics in particular have β has been a core of Jewish mystical theology for quite some time.
00:03:53.700There are commentaries in the Torah text that discuss various instances where you would see reincarnation.
00:04:03.680So for example, after Cain and Abel have their squabble and Cain kills Abel, the words that the Hebrew Bible uses in the original Hebrew is that when Seth is born, it says that he stood in Abel's place.
00:04:22.420And some of the Jewish mystics interpret that to mean that he was actually sort of a reincarnation, fulfilling the mission that Abel β so there are places where we see this in Jewish tradition.
00:04:35.240I think a lot of people like to focus on sort of the mysterious stuff because living practically and living morally is a lot harder.
00:04:44.940And so like I'd rather talk about angels and demons and aliens and all this other stuff because it's just fun to talk about and it's kind of just theoretical.
00:04:54.540And so that's sort of why people I think focus on that.
00:04:58.580You know, I was reading in the Nicomachean Ethics last night, you know, good old Uncle Aristotle says that, you know, it's fine to read about virtue, but virtue is practical.
00:05:12.360You know, moral virtue is a practical thing.
00:05:16.420If you just sit there and kind of muse about it and read about it and banter back and forth, that's not going to get you where you need to go.
00:05:22.840You just need to actually do the day-in, day-out work of growing in virtue, which is a little less sexy, but, you know, ultimately more conducive to your flourishing.
00:05:42.600So β but on that point, you do write about it in your book.
00:05:46.320And my main interest in it is not purely speculative right now.
00:05:51.620It's because this alien stuff is taking over the PSYOP media β sorry, is taking over the, you know, important hearings at the U.S. Congress.
00:06:01.200And so I think it's all a bunch of nonsense.
00:06:04.420And I think that either people are hallucinating or they're seeing weapons, you know, as has happened, you know, secret weapons programs.
00:06:11.200Or I do believe in spiritual realities.
00:06:13.880I believe in angels and demons and spiritual combat.
00:06:15.800So maybe they're experiencing some of that as the occult grows in our culture, as a traditional religious practice disappears.
00:06:24.500And β but also I think it's just kind of like a PSYOP and a distraction.
00:06:37.900And it wouldn't impact our life in the way that some people think that it would.
00:06:42.420So some people think, oh my gosh, if there's intelligent life out there, that's the end of religion.
00:06:47.060Because the worldview that we had until now is completely changed.
00:06:54.140One of the interesting things that's discussed regarding humanity in the Jewish context is β and this is openly in the Hebrew Bible β that everything conceptually is centered around the human being.
00:07:07.680The human being is seen as the sort of pinnacle of creation.
00:07:11.020And we're created in the image of God.
00:07:14.660In fact, interestingly enough, in the Hebrew Bible text, especially β you really get the full gist of it in the original Hebrew, that the difference between the way in which everything in the universe is created compared to the human being is subtle but vast.
00:07:32.560Everything else in creation, the Bible describes it as being spoken into existence.
00:07:39.040God said, let there be plants and animals.
00:07:41.160When it comes to a human being, a human being is formed from the dust of the earth and God blows the breath of life.
00:07:48.600And so the Jewish β the oral tradition and the mystical texts actually say that there's a big difference between speaking something into existence and deep breath.
00:08:03.820When you speak, the air expenditure that comes out is very superficial.
00:08:08.640You can talk for hours and many of us know people that can just talk for hours.
00:08:15.220And then β but deep breath, if you're taking deep breath, it's β you know, you'll pass out after five minutes.
00:08:21.480And so the idea is that God has a very β a deeper relationship with the human being than does with everything else in creation.
00:08:28.700And so the being created in the image of God, our commentaries offer various ideas as to what that actually means.
00:08:37.080But the central idea as to being created in the image of God means that you β that we β you and I, we have free will, that we can make moral decisions.
00:08:46.200And this is something that is unique to a human being in the same way that God can make β makes decisions to, for example, create the universe and completely undeterred by anything else.
00:08:57.540A human being, despite any challenges, nature or nurture, can make a free will decision to act just like God.
00:09:05.700In other words, to not be influenced by any sort of external factors.
00:09:10.540So being created in the image of God means β from a Jewish vantage point β means to be a being with free will, to be able to make moral decisions.
00:09:19.580And that's something that's unique to human beings.
00:09:21.780Even the angels in our tradition don't have free will.
00:09:26.200And aliens, if they were out there, they don't have free will.
00:09:29.600So in the same way that I can conceptually believe in the idea of angels and demons and that sort of thing, if aliens were out there, if they were a physical being from another planet and they landed in Times Square tomorrow and it was like universally clear that there is life out there, you know what I would still do that morning?
00:09:50.680I would still pray because, OK, I mean it would be cool.
00:09:53.760It would be interesting to see and to reconsider things and kind of get a new look at the universe.
00:09:58.900But it's not going to affect my daily β because, again, one thing I know about the aliens, the angels, and the demons is that they don't have free will.
00:10:07.740The human being is created in the image of God.
00:10:11.000Now does β is this complicated by the account of the fall of the demons?
00:10:18.000You know, the Christian account is that there's a war in heaven, Satan rebels, and a third of the angels go with him, and there's a big war, and it doesn't turn out very well for Satan.
00:10:28.900And then this is depicted in later artistic traditions, you think β which I actually coincidentally just referenced in the show today.
00:10:35.660You know, you think of John Milton, Satan, who says, well, I'd rather reign in hell than serve in heaven.
00:10:42.880It can make a hell of heaven and heaven a hell.
00:10:45.080Does the rebellion of the angels imply free will, or does that not factor into the Jewish conception of demons?
00:10:54.040So it's interesting because one thing I think that may be a distinction in Judaism is that Satan, or as we call it in Hebrew, Satan, means adversary.
00:11:08.560It's a Hebrew word that means the adversary.
00:11:11.440We find it in the book of Numbers, chapter 22, for example, where that word is used as meaning just an adversary.
00:11:18.440And there is β in our tradition, there is no sort of rebellion in heaven, that there was an angel that had free will that said, God, I hate you, and I'm going to go make a big fight.
00:11:30.240There's no real concept of like a duality, that there's the forces of good, the forces of evil, and they're kind of duking it out.
00:11:37.360And then the good guys are going to win in the end, but what the idea of the Satan or the Satan is, is more sort of the idea that it's an adversary.
00:11:49.280It's something to sort of bring you up.
00:11:51.280In fact, one of the ways the Jewish mystics sort of describe it is imagine you have a king who wants to test the loyalty and the love that his son, the prince, has for him.
00:12:01.960And so what he tells him is you need to live a moral life.
00:12:05.960You need to make sure that you're not involved in various forms of immorality, and you need to be on the straight and narrow.
00:12:14.040And then after he has a conversation with his son, the prince, he goes and hires a harlot to try to seduce the prince.
00:12:23.000In other words, the harlot's job is to entice the prince as much as possible.
00:12:28.740Her job is to really try to get him to fall.
00:12:33.920But the harlot knows that the whole thing is a game.
00:12:38.040In other words, the whole reason that she's trying to entice him is just to bring out the love.
00:12:42.620If she doesn't try to entice him, then there's no love and loyalty brought out.
00:12:46.800But is the harlot not culpable for her, even being used instrumentally to bring out this love and to be this trial?
00:13:59.280He's called the shliach, an emissary of God for the purposes of challenging the human brain, bringing out that love, bringing out that loyalty.
00:14:09.360And that's the only way that free will can be expressed.
00:14:11.800God wanted to create an environment, a world that seemingly is devoid of godliness, and that people should be able to look beyond the veil that the world entices us, see the godly core, and make this world into a place that openly reveals godliness.
00:14:29.220The only way that you can do that is with free will and temptation.
00:14:31.960And so the Satan is an adversary, but the focusβand also, it's important to note, I think, as well, that in Jewish tradition, the Satan isn't seen so much as the way it is in cartoons, with like the little angel on the right side and the devil on the other side.
00:14:50.900That the focus of the challenge is on what we call the yetzir hara, the evil inclination within all of us.
00:14:58.060If you see something that you desire on the outside, it's not so much the thing that you're desiring that's causing you.
00:15:05.580It's something on the inside of you that is pulling you in that direction.
00:15:09.720So this is something that isβthe focus is on the internal struggle between doing right and wrong, as opposed to some external force always kind of prodding us in the wrong direction.
00:15:20.980We'll have to have you back, and I'm very pleased that even though you didn't give me the precise answer I was hoping for on aliens, you gave me at least most of the answer I was hoping for, which is, who cares?