0:06 Who are you and where are you going? What do you want? What do you want?
2:27 Sorry about that technical difficulty. I don't know what was wrong with my uh other camera. It works all the time and then suddenly it didn't work anymore. So, we're going to We had I had to do a quick change up here. So, well, welcome to Jiggers's Place. Uh, this is supposed to be a place where we can relax, but um I guess not quite. So, anyway, um I'm your host, Kevin Bemel, and I'm here every other Thursday at 5:00 PM Pacific time where we have a drink and a smoosh. Uh today's show the topic is God and religion or
3:04 you might even call it God versus religion. But in any event, we're going to talk about uh the the more sort of spiritual side of life. And in honor of that, my co-drink, my co-cktail creator and I came up with a vodka cocktail called the Covenant Cup. So, it's a vodka based cocktail as I mentioned and I'm going to be using my u you know my my bar vodka. This happens to be good old Smirnoff. So, um many people um have
3:40 adopted the belief that super premium vodkas are somehow better. thing about vodka is it's basically just a a tasteless, colorless, unscented spirit. And so, um, as long as it's reasonably wellmade, it's indisting it's indistinguishable. I do have other vodkas, but um, I like Smirnoff because, um, it was the vodka that James Bond drank when he had his vodka martinis. And then I've got some lemon juice here.
4:15 This is actually fresh squeeze from a mayor lemon or a meerle lemon. I don't know exactly how it's pronounced, so it's a little on the sweeter side. Got some simple syrup, a little pomegranate uh juice, and some kosher salt. Now, this happens to be kosher salt flail from Kamar in France, but uh you know, put a little twist on it. So, we're going to start out with 2 oz of vodka. I've got already got my ice in my shaker. For those of you who watched last week, I think you might remember I
4:50 forgot to put the ice in shaker. So, I had to I had to rush and do that and go off camera for a minute. Um, but today I remembered it. Have a little more time to prepare fortunately. So, we've got our 2 oz of vodka and then we 3 oz 3/4 of an ounce, sorry, of lemon juice. Okay. And half ounce of simple syrup.
5:34 There we go. It's about right. Put that in there. If you're not familiar with simple syrup, simple syrup is is just sugar mixed in hot water on a 1:1 ratio. So, and then just a/4 of an ounce of pomegranate juice. This is actually pomegranate concentrate. So, I'm going to use a little bit less than a quarter of an ounce. It's probably a little bit more intense than the syrup would be. does have a nice pomegranate flavor
6:10 though, that's for sure. Okay. And then just a pinch, small pinch of kosher salt. Put that in there. And oh, the rest of the pomegranate juice in there. I measured it, but I didn't put it in. And now, if you're on my email list and you get the cocktail recipe, so it says to shake it for 12 seconds. Um, I didn't notice that when I toasted
6:45 it, but I usually shake it for a little bit more than that. Um, I I say this almost every time I use the shaker. It's about not just mixing the flavors together, but also um letting some of the ice melt because the water brings out the flavor. Okay, so there we go. And I'm using a rocks glass or also known as an oldfashioned glass with ice in it. And if I get the cap off this. There it goes. Going to pour this over it. It's probably going to have a
7:20 pink color. Yep, it sure does. Wow, that looks great. Okay, let's give it a taste here. Ah, that's nice. Okay, I will see you over on the sofa.
8:02 Okay, here we are. It's a th day as the three stooges might say. This is good. Just a nice simple cocktail after a few shows with much more complicated ones. Got my spherical pillow. So, uh, just want to give uh a quick thank you to my friend Emily at 11T. So, she's the one that uh helped me put together
8:37 my uh my togs, as we say. So, if you're looking for some really nice, comfortable, incredibly well-made, timeless clothes, uh, check out 11T in Beverly Hills and see Emily. She's the greatest. And, uh, so, so, thanks, Emily. All right. So, today's topic, God and religion. Now, um, if you've watched the show before, you know that I'm Jewish. And so whenever I talk about these issues, I'm really approaching them from a Jewish perspective. So
9:13 uh I think many people don't make a distinction between God and religion, but there is a very profound distinction. So when when we talk of God, first of all, there's a tendency to anthropomorphize uh God. But indeed, God has no form.
9:48 Uh God is not a he, nor is God a she. Uh God is God. Um, in Judaism there are, um, quite a number of names for God. There is probably what's considered the most sacred name as represented by what's known as the tettogrammatan or tetra grammatam I should say. It's a fourletter representation of God's name. Um um yud uh
10:25 yudhe vave and in ordinary speech we don't pronounce that name. We we we speak it as hashem which literally means the name athem name or shame name. Uh in prayer the name is spoken as Adonoi or Adonai depending on which um pronunciation uh practice one is following. Um but there's other names. So so there is um um Elo Elo Elohu
11:02 um there is the Shahina. So, um, excuse me. Um, some of the name now, um, Hebrew, like a lot of languages, distinguishes between the male and the female sex. So, it's a gendered language. Some of the names for God are in the male gender, others are in the female gender. it it and it tends to have to do with what aspect of God um is
11:37 is being evoked by the particular name. So the shahina um which had which is a a a name for God in the feminine is really referring to the spiritual nature of God and in in in generally considered that because women have the among other things because women have the ability to create life or not to create but to justestate life within them that they are more uh
12:12 closely connected to the source of life, God. And so when we talk about that spiritual nature of God, we talk about it in the feminine. When we talk about um Elohu um which is more of the uh justice side of God kind of um that's in the male um that male gender and and that's because um
12:49 that's more of I don't want to say that women are not interested in justice but the way men interact with each other tends to be more justiceoriented. Okay. So, uh another name for God is hamakim which literally means the place. Now, it's it's an interesting way of referring to the to the idea or the fact that God is omnipresent meaning God is everywhere. So again, because of how he
13:24 how God has been depicted in artwork throughout the millennia, we tend to have this picture of of God up in heaven. He's he's a man. He's got this long beard. He may be sitting on a throne. Those are just pictorial representations, but they have they're they're not a reflection of the reality of who God is. Uh God is God is in heaven but of course he's everywhere else. He's down here on earth. He u I mean in some ways if you're if you know the movie Star Wars we talk about the
14:00 force. And if if you remember how Obi-Wan Kenobi talked about the force it it binds us together. It's it's everywhere. Right? That is as accurate a description of the omnipresence of God as as probably anything that you know you would hear anywhere, especially in popular culture. It's it's a hot day here in LA, so a cool drink is particularly good. Um, God has
14:35 no beginning, no end. Um he's not only um um omnipresent um he's omnipotent. There is nothing greater than God. There is nothing that preceded God. There is nothing that will succeed God. Uh in in a way God is essentially everything that has does and will exist. I I it I I mean it's hard to understand the infinitess of God because
15:12 as human beings we lead finite lives. We can only perceive the world through our senses. We can only exist in the world during the time that we're alive and we can only you know experience time in the present. We can think about time in the past. We can think about time in the future but we don't experience it. Uh whereas time really has no meaning in the
15:47 context of God because God just exists. He's he's outside of time. And even when I call him he of course that's just a convention of doing so. So, you know, God expresses the entirety of anything that exists both in the the known world and even in the unknown world. So, that's why, you know, when people say, well, um, does God exist on
16:24 the moon? Well, I mean, no, but that's because God exists everything. God is everything that exists. So to say, you know, does God exist on earth? No. God is everything that we see, everything we experience. Right? So this is why it's necessary to distinguish between God and religion. Um it would it's it's as if like you for for someone who's an atheist they would say well uh um when
17:02 they say well I don't believe in God. Okay fine but you believe in the existence of of the planet of earth. You probably believe in the existence of the solar system the galaxy. You probably believe that you know there are per potentially an infinite number of galaxies because space has no limits. Okay. So for someone who believes in those things they essentially believe in God. Now they may not believe in some of
17:39 the aspects of God that someone like me who has who follows a religious tradition believes. So, for example, I believe that and and that that God God runs the world is is kind of the phrase that you'll often hear from Jews who who follow a traditional religious who follow traditional religious practice. So, in other words, whatever happens, it happens because God wants it to happen. Now, we're I and I've had this discussion with a close friend of
18:15 mine who's an atheist, and there's a conundrum because if if everything that happens is is by God's will, if you will, then how do human beings have free will, right? So, it seems like a conundrum, but in fact, it's not. So the difference between human beings and all other creatures is we have free will whereas a dog does not have free will. A dog is is
18:50 ruled by its nature. Okay? So a dog's nature is to do all kinds of things that dogs do. Um, I mean, we can train them to do certain things, but they're trained to do that. They're not doing it of their own free will. Whereas we as human beings, look, the nature of human beings is is almost always cruel. So, I I I've had this debate with my sister who's a child development specialist and a therapist,
19:26 and she says, "All children are born good." That's not the Jewish belief. People are born neutral. We we have we can we have a an inclination to do good. We have an inclination to do bad. And the one of the meanings of existence is for a human being to overcome the inclination to do bad and to do good. Right? So, um, when we talk about free will,
20:01 God gives us the free will to make those decisions. It's just God knows what decisions we're going to make before we make them. So, you say, "Well, wait, why would God let us make a decision to do bad?" That's that's because God wants us to be able to exercise our free will and to hopefully come to learn why it's bad and wrong to do bad things to learn and to grow and
20:38 to become a better person. Right? Now the difference between a human being and a dog is let's say we have a dog and the dog is not you know thoroughly housetrained and so we go to bed one night and we wake up the next morning and the dog has pooped in the living room right so the way to train a dog is you make the dog you know smell the poop basically and and you say bad bad and and the dog comes to learn that this is bad to go to
21:13 the bathroom in the living room. Okay, that's the training of the dog. And the training really consists of the consequences of doing something bad are such that the dog doesn't want to experience those consequences and so the dog stops pooping in the living room. That's not how it works for us, for human beings. So for human beings we can do we when we do something bad we may experience some kind of punishment.
21:48 So for example you know the police if if it's something that's illegal the police might arrest us and we go on trial. We're found guilty and we're and we're put in jail or whatever. Um we may experience some punishment but we may not. And for most of the things that God doesn't want us to do, they're not illegal. And of and this is this is why you know why do bad things happen to good people or why do the evil seem to prosper? It's
22:23 all part of this system that God has created whereby he wants us to learn from our mistakes rather than be essentially dogs who every time we do every time we make a mistake we're punished and so we stop doing bad things because you know we we we don't want to suffer the inevitable punishment. That's not free will. Free will is deciding to do good things whether we're going to be rewarded for them or not. Whether we're and and to
22:59 not do bad things whether we're going to be punished for them or not. That's the nature of free will. And that's true for every human being whether they adhere to a religious tradition or not. And this is where the distinction comes. So religious traditions are ways of relating to and connecting
23:34 with creating a relationship with God. So, one of the things I appro appreciate most about being Jewish is Judaism believes that everyone can have an equally close relationship with God. No one is excluded from that ability. Right? The distinction between someone who's Jewish and someone who's not is really just the way in which one can build that relationship. And that's the core principle of
24:10 religion. Religion is giving us a framework in which to create that relationship. Now this may sound a little bit strange but if we think about when we were children and how we created a relationship with our parents. Okay, I think I may have told this example before or told this story before as an example. So when I was a boy, you know, in my sort of late boyhood, early teenagehood, so to speak, so I'd
24:46 get up in the morning, you know, I'd go and brush my teeth and I'll get ready for school, put my clothes on, whatever, right? And I'd go to have my breakfast and I'd be sitting at the table having my cereal because I always ate cereal for breakfast. Still love it. And my mom would come come into the um the uh the it wasn't a breakfast room but where the table was and she'd say go make your bed cuz I didn't make my bed. And she'd say I'd say, "Mom, I'm just going to get in my I'm just going to get in bed tonight. It's it's it's it it's a waste of time to make my bed." Oops.
25:25 Sorry about that. That was a silver alert, I guess. Um some It'll go off in a moment. There you go. Um and and and she'd say, "Go make your bed." Right. And after a while, I figured out if I wanted to have a relationship with my mother, I had to make my bed. Okay? Now, there lots of other things like that. If I wanted to have a relationship with my mother, there was a framework that she wanted in order to have a relationship with with me. And in order for me to have a relationship with her and and when I say a relationship, I
26:02 mean an a an ability to develop closeness, love, mutual respect, etc. It's no it's no different with God. And in fact, God is our I put this in air quotes, heavenly parent. Right? The process is the same. Religion is the definition of what those things are. It's it's like God saying, "Go make your bed." I don't I'm not sure that God cares whether we make our beds or not. Now, in my case, because part of the way to have a relationship with God is to
26:37 kood, which is honor your father and mother. So, if my mother wants me to make my bed, I need to make my bed. So then in that respect by extension to have a good relationship with God I have to make my bed because that's one way to honor my mother. Okay. So in Judaism when we talk about the and and let me make a a further distinction here. So um unlike um Christianity
27:14 which as I understand it is is really a pure religion a pure religion. Judaism and for that matter Islam are both nationhoods as well as religious traditions. Okay. So when one when somebody says I'm a Jew or I'm a Muslim, they're expressing something beyond beyond an uh um an acknowledgment of the
27:49 way in which they create a relationship with God. Okay? They're saying I am part of in essence a corporate body. Now we we think of that word as applying to businesses but a a cor a corporation is really a group of people. That's really in its essence what a corporation is. Okay. So when we talk about um am Israel the Jewish people or Ben Israel the children of Israel it's an expression of nationhood of peoplehood.
28:26 Okay. And part of being well I shouldn't say part of being that people because there are there are people who are part of the Jewish people who who don't do any of the things that God asks us to do to have a relationship with him. But in general to be a part of the Jewish people is to be a part of this system of how we have a relationship with God. And that system, and I've talked about this before, is through what are called
29:02 the mitzvah or the mitzvot. We use the word commandment as a translation for mitzvah or mitzvote. But a better translation is the things that that a Jewish person must do or refrain from doing in order to have a relationship with God. that is the essence of the religious aspect of Judaism. Okay? So it's a whole set of rules and and in fact there are 613 mitzvah. Okay?
29:42 And we can only do about a third of them today because without a a temple existing in Jerusalem and some other things, we can't do a whole bunch of them. especially for those of us who don't live in Israel. But even so, you know, 200 plus rules, if you will, or or well, rules are a bad translation to had to have 200 plus ways of creating a relationship with God. It it may seem overwhelming. On the other hand, think about it. 200 plus ways of connecting with God. we
30:19 we can probably find at least a few that that resonate with us, right? And that's that's kind of the genius of of Judaism, if you will. Okay. Got to have some more cocktail here. So, embedded or not not embedded, that's that's a bad word. The extension of the mitzvah is something called hala. Halaka is usually translated as Jewish law.
30:55 It's it's meant in a different way. The word law as it relates to haka is meant in a different way than when than we think of law here in the United States. So when we think of law, we think like okay there's a speed limit. If we exceed the speed limit and uh a a police officer catches us, he's going to give us a ticket, we have to pay a fine. If we're too far over the speed limit, now we're not guilty of speeding. We're guilty of reckless driving. We might even be put in jail, right? That's we think of sort
31:32 of crime and punishment. We think of law in terms of crime and punishment. It's not really the same thing in Judaism. So there are certain things where if we're caught, the punishment is quite severe. So if we murder someone, and when I use the term murder, I mean kill somebody with premeditation. Okay, the penalty is death. Okay, and there's no escaping that penalty if we're found guilty. But in other things,
32:07 the penalty may be uh having to bring what's called a corbon, a sacrifice. And the reason a sacrifice was an animal. So it might be a lamb or a kid goat or a goat or a sheep or maybe a a cow or a bull. Now the interesting thing is you say, "Well, that's terrible. An animal has to lose its life because I did something wrong. Think about it. If you if you truly value the life of
32:44 animals, then you're going to be very careful about not doing something wrong within a system that says that if you do something wrong, you have to kill an animal in order to gain forgiveness, right? And you know, setting aside for a moment the cost of that animal because it had to be a a high quality animal, right? You I mean, if you really, you know, to get down that we're going back to the story of Cain and Abel, which I'm not going to get into this afternoon, but when you think about it, something
33:19 is going to lose its life because we did something wrong. That is a punishment. Now we're not losing our life fortunately but we are paying but but there is a heavy price to pay for us making a mistake. In other cases, if we do something wrong, we have to go to a mikvah, which is it's basically it could it could be a natural one where you have a river or a a free flea free flowing stream of water, immerse
33:55 ourselves in in in the water and and that in essence spiritually cleanses us of of having made that mistake. Okay, that's a pretty benign punishment I put in quotes. Okay. Uh but uh it's still we have to take the time to do it and you know etc etc etc. Right? So the system of hala is a a further defining of what of how
34:31 one actually performs the mitzvah. And that is at the root of what we think of as religious observance. Okay. So some of the best known uh mitzv mitzvah are uh the dietary laws what we call keeping kosher. So for example not eating meat and dairy together. Um, another one is the humane killing of an animal that's going to be eaten.
35:06 Um, another one is, you know, not eating not not eating animals that have um maybe uh you know they they uh they died of some kind of natural cause, right? So, um, all of these rules, if you will, all of the rules of hala are to help us understand how do we fulfill the mitzvah and build this relationship with God.
35:42 And so, I'm just want to kind of see, I made some notes here. I'm gonna look at them real quickly. Okay. Right. Okay. Okay. Good. So, uh, right. So, one of the things that I that I often hear, well, not often, not often anymore, I guess, but one of the things I sometimes hear is people tell me, "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual." Okay, that's fine. There are spiritual
36:18 aspects of religion, okay? Uh the the feeling side of religion, but there's also the doing side of religion. And and here's where I think it's important again to make a distinction. Human beings, we're poor arbitrators of the propriety of our conduct. uh a as you know the one of my favorite lines from uh a movie is um uh the big
36:56 chill where he says you know we can't go a day without a rationalization. That's very true. It's it's human nature to rationalize and that's there in lies the problem. If we do something wrong, it's very tempting to rationalize that mistake and and sort of ah it wasn't really a mistake. I was just tired or I was angry or whatever. Okay. But at at its root, those aren't
37:33 those aren't um justifications for treating another human being badly. They may be explanations as to why we did it, but they don't exculpate us from the need to apologize and make amends. Right? And so this is why the sort of practical uh more sort of legalistic side of Judaism is so important because it's not relying on
38:09 our feelings solely as the decider if you will of whether we've behaved properly or not. It's it's giving guidelines against which we can reflect our conduct and then it's giving us a path to correcting our errors. So I'll give you an example. Uh let's say I hurt somebody's feelings. Maybe I don't realize it at the time and as I'm and then you know thinking
38:44 about it later I realize wow I hurt that person's feelings. So, Judaism requires me to apologize to that person, to make a sincere apology. Judaism also requires that person having received a a sincere apology to forgive me. Now, let's say I make a sincere apology. Let's say I know it's sincere. Okay? And God knows all, right? So God sees it's it's sincere and the person says I don't
39:20 forgive you. I'm required to apologize again. Not necessarily right at that moment. Okay. Let it go. Few days later. I apologize. I was wrong for what I did and I I'm I'm I'm truly sorry. I will do my best never to do it again. These are the aspects of an of an actual apology, accept responsibility, acknowledge it was wrong,
39:55 and and and redouble our efforts not to commit the same uh misbehavior again. Okay, that that's an actual apology. Person may say, "No, I don't forgive you." Okay, Judaism requires that it be done a third time. Okay. I I I I I I want you to know I I truly am sorry. What I did was wrong. I make no excuses for myself. It was wrong.
40:30 I'm I'm I'm asking you for your forgiveness so we can repair our relationship. Okay. If after three times the person still won't forgive you, okay, done. Now it's that person's problem. Now that person is responsible to God for whatever breach in relationship, whatever sin, that's a tough word. I'm not going to talk about that right now. But for whatever the results are as as
41:06 for whatever the results are from my having behaved badly, they now attest to that other to the person because I went to them three times and sincerely apologized. They still wouldn't accept my apology. So I can move forward with a clean conscience and with the knowledge that whatever I did is not an impediment to my relationship with God. You say, "Well, that's that's pretty bizarre. That's very ritualistic." Yeah, I'd
41:43 agree with you. Okay. That's the nature of religion. It it it gives us a path for our behavior. How many times should someone have to apologize for making a mistake? Okay. By the way, this highlights why the death penalty is required when someone murders someone. There's no way to apologize to someone who's no longer alive. Okay? Just kind of putting that out there. Okay? So religion isn't just
42:20 about feelings. It's about behavior. Okay? It's about interactions. Okay? So what's another distinction between God and religion? So God is by definition perfect and human beings by definition are not. So religion is the bridge between God who is perfect
42:57 and we h we human beings who are not. It's just what I was describing a moment ago. It gives us the pass. The path, sorry, not the pass, the path to reconnect with God, the perfect in spite of our imperfection. Someone who who would hold the belief that I can have a relationship with God no matter what I do.
43:32 Really? Wow. You can kill somebody and still have a relationship with God. An a close relation there. Wow. Narcissism on a huge scale, right? There's no religion that I've ever heard of that believes that that says no matter what a human being does, he can there's nothing he can do that that causes a disruption in his relationship with God
44:08 because it's not true. What God gives us in religion is a path to reconnect with him, to reestablish, draw ever more, ever closer to God despite our imperfection. Okay. So, how do we sum this up? Well,
44:44 God is the ultimate reality. In Judaism, one of the most important parts of liturgy is a prayer called the Shama. It it it's very short. Shama Israel, Hashem Elocu, Hashem Ehad. It's translated Shama here, Israel. Israel meaning the the Jewish people. Hash hashem. Um I'm sorry.
45:20 Hashem elocanu. Uh God is uh roughly speaking like God is um justice. Hashem God is one. Okay. Ehad means one. when we and that that one to which we're referring takes us back to the very beginning of today's show. God is everything that has, does, and will exist. This prayer, the shama is a recognition
46:00 of the absolute uniqueness of God, the omnipotence of God, the omnipresence of God, the transcendence of God, all of that which makes God God. Judaism is both a peoplehood and a way that that people the way the people and each member of that people builds a relationship with God.
46:36 Here's the thing. We can believe in God, but if we don't act the way that God wants us to act, the belief in God doesn't mean a whole lot. It's like saying, "I love my mom and I torture her all the time." I mean, really, is that is that really a relationship with mom? Probably not. Probably not. Even if she
47:15 laav deal, you know, is a massochist. So we can believe in God but I think we need to find that system within which we will relate to God and that is religion. So I thank you very much for joining me here at Jigger's Place. Hope I gave you good food for thought and I'll look forward to seeing you in
47:51 two weeks, right, for the next episode of Jiggers's Place. And in the meantime, I wish you a wonderful rest of the day, rest of the week, a restorative weekend. Hopefully, you'll spend time with your loved ones. And that just leaves me to sign off to my dear Marie who is a, as we say it in Judaism, a God-fearing woman. May God bless her. And Marie darling, you are my bell. Courage at all times, my friends.