Rabbi Jonathan Rietti: Hey Dad, How Do I Know God Spoke to Us At Mount Sinai?

a special thank you to hazak for inviting me to share on the all-important subject of hey dad how do i know god spoke to us at sinai in a certain sense it's a very pivotal question because the entire judaism hangs on the premise that god spoke to an entire nation so this presentation is actually not mine i'm the one who's giving it but the presentation the contents actually comes from the arachim seminar arachim as you might be more familiar through the book of rabbi yosef wallace um incredible that's the name of the book because it is incredible so he's the ceo of iraqi americans the largest cure organization in the world outside of khabad and they're responsible for probably around about half a million israeli secular jews becoming religious over the last 40 decades 40 years so this presentation is one of quite a few in the arakum seminar it's usually known as encounter at sinai and our title is hey dad how do i know god really spoke to us at sinai the information here is very powerful it's based on a very simple logic let's begin if you're going to start a religion not you personally you can make a lot of money by the way but let's say you know someone who wants to start a religion actually they're really only two options option one god spoke to me last night in front of nobody and said i am his new prophet to give his instructions to mankind option number two god spoke to me in front of witnesses now if you're going to start a religion which of those two is obviously the superior claim okay number two why why is witnesses a superior claim oh because you can check it out so you're not relying on me you can go and check with the witnesses it's interesting that in any court of law jewish or not throughout history the only evidence that counts to substantiate anything as factual is firsthand eyewitnesses so why would any religion select the inferior claim that god spoke to me in front of nobody so let's look at these two possibilities because the logic is pretty much fail-safe that means there's no wiggle room this logic is a hundred percent iron-clad and that is the following you cannot make a claim of this magnitude that the almighty spoke to an entire nation of three million plus witnesses you cannot make this claim unless it happened because the moment you say god spoke to me in front of witnesses fine produce the witnesses so let me share with you the the extension of how this logic really works it's very simple we are the only religion now that happens to be actually true and all the others are man-made we're going to look at that in just a few moments not a single religion in 3 34 years 17 days and one second sorry uh 12 13 40 15 hours and 15 minutes ago when god spoke to the jewish people at sinai not one religion in the last 3 34 years has made the superior claim that god spoke to me in front of witnesses christianity not a single claim of actual eyewitnesses seeing jesus coming out of the grave muhammad coming down from a mountain no witnesses why don't they at least lie just say that there were thousands of what historians called judeo-christians the original christians weren't christian they were jews but they believed that this particular rabbi was their messiah and that's where the word christ comes from it's a greek word which means messiah so christianity actually means messianism so why wouldn't they just lie and say there were thousands of thousands and thousands of us at the gravesite of of jesus and and in the middle of the recital of psalms uh suddenly there's an earthquake and the ground begins to tremble and the tombstone splits open opens up and uh and jesus comes out and says rebecca gentlemen i'm back now you go home and you tell your family and friends that what you just witnessed what are they gonna say you're crazy to which you'll say well i'm not the only one there were thousands of us okay so produce your witnesses listen carefully such a simple logic the minute you say god spoke to me or i have a revelation in front of witnesses you are opening yourself up to be caught in a lie because you need all the witnesses to line up with the same story the book of exodus chapter 12 tells us that six hundred thousand men came out of egypt you add on all their wives they had at least one each well in those days they were allowed more than one i personally can't afford more than one but that's beside the point so you've got about 1.2 million adults at sinai add on all the children at least two children per family so that's 1.2 million children 1.2 million adults do the math i was never that good at math i failed so many times i can't even count so uh you got 1.2 million children 1.2 million adults that's 2.4 million and on all the adults male and female above the age of you have a conservative number of about three million witnesses so now let's look at the other side of this logic and i'm going to offer you really two very simple metaphors metaphor number one some of you may recall actually having been at the metlife stadium um this past year january when there was about 90 000 religious jews celebrating what's known as the siam hashas the completion of another cycle of the talmud which takes every seven years approximately um and i'm going to ask you if you were there and if you were i'm going to ask you to pretend that in the middle of this incredible celebration a giant hand with a giant voice comes down and points at you and says you yes you are my chosen prophet to give my instructions to mankind so you go home and you tell your family and friends you know what i always knew i was special but i had no idea god spoke to me in front of the whole stadium at the cia masha's the completion of the talmud and question what are your family and friends going to say to you you're crazy to which you will then answer well actually there were 89 999 witnesses beside me who saw this event with their own eyes to which you will then say oh that's interesting i've got a lot of friends who were there and they're not talking about this revelation um cbs nbc abc all the national networks hamadir yated all reported on this huge event and somehow they all missed out on this significant detail you see you cannot make a claim of this magnitude unless it happened because the moment you say the witnesses everyone said great produce your witnesses and that's where you're going to get caught so is that interesting that in 3 34 years 17 days and okay so a few more minutes ago since then almost every religion we know on record has surfaced how many of them made the superior claim that god spoke to their leader in front of witnesses zero hmm interesting now let's look at another metaphor which really distinguishes the difference between judaism and all the other religions inverted commas because there are no other religions we are the only ones who god actually spoke to christianity believes that and they rely on the event of mount sinai the revelation national revelation divine revelation and so does islam they actually rely on it if you ask any sincere christian who had a monopoly on the truth one second before jesus was born and they'll say well the jews of course and any practicing muslim would have to admit the same so i'm going to share with you now very simple metaphor there's a king he dies he leaves behind twins princes without instructions as to who should be the next king so guess what they're doing of course they're fighting well that's until one of them comes up with a brilliant idea he calls together all the members of his father's royal court i'm going to pretend to be that prince and you be in the audience all the members of my father's royal court um gentlemen ladies i have very very solemn information to share with you my father the king came to me last night in my dream and said i am the next king so let me ask you can you prove to me that i did not experience my father the king come to me in my dream you can't prove me wrong i can't exactly say excuse me dear prince um that's not true because i was in the same dream as you and that's not how it happened so i've obviously selected a claim that's very hard for you to refute so what's your answer and the answer is so simple you have to say something like this well you're in america so you really have to empathize what a healing experience we're so happy for you they saw your father um in your dream that's wonderful um help us to understand something dear prince if your father the king wants us to accept you as the next king whose dream should he be coming in how come he only turns up in your dream and no one else is oh because it never happened that's the difference between judaism and all the other religions there are no other religions they're all man-made some are made in china some are made in india but essentially they're all man-made this is the essential logic of national divine revelation at sinai in the book of exodus chapter 20 which is if you want to call it the foundation of not our belief but our knowledge conviction certainty as the word emunah unfortunately we usually translate it as faith but seriously speaking if you look at the the hebrew grammar of the word it comes from the three-letter root ah main amen means i agree this is true so actually when we are depending on our emunah based on this event which our sages tell us is the mitzvah of amunna the command to actually know god exists is from the words in the decalogue the ten commandments where god introduces himself and says hashem i am your constant power of all powers from israel who took you out of egypt we based our thing and from the house of slaves so the essence of our religion is an event that was witnessed by millions of people and in that sense we are all living testimony of a people who have an unbroken transmission from sinai till today 3334 years later so at this point i'm going to share with you another dimension to this and it's very simple it's navua naval usually translates as prophecy there are different elements to prophecy one of the major ones is the prophet gives information about the future the prophet is not inventing this and if he does that's pretty that's pretty dangerous really risky a jewish prophet to be a true prophet is giving information that god has transmitted to him on several levels it's really two but there's lots of subcategories the two levels are really the following number one prophecy to be true and real has to demonstrate knowledge of the future number two control of the future subcategory of control of the future is that prophecy also demonstrates control of nature the destiny of nations empires civilizations prophecy to be true has to be irrational it has to make no sense that's not be logical for it to be jewish prophecy example well you can take any example um for example noah he is told by god if mankind do not repent from their wicked ways i'm going to bring a flood that's global and will destroy the entire world well that really makes no sense well precisely you see there's no correlation between behavior of people and a 40 day 40 night flood well that's exactly the point that the moment rain comes down 40 days 40 nights and destroys the whole world then it's evident that you're forced to conclude there's a power that controls nature this is a completely like i don't know parenthetical point but uh the gilgamesh stone in the british museum third floor if you take a flight tonight on bridge airways you might actually get there tomorrow wear a mask social distance is still in place um so uh if you go to the third floor there and you'll ask for the gilgamesh stone it's also known as tablet number 11 or the flood tablet it's one of many thousands that was found in nineveh which is mentioned in the book of genesis chapter 10 and the syrian community or syrian empire rather the library was actually dug up when ancient nineveh was discovered and excavated and this is my and this is one of many thousands of fragments but it's one of the most famous stones in the world because it's called the flood tablet for the simple reason that it has an account of the flood the way the terror describes it you should not be surprised by that because there are over 250 separate cultures that actually mention in their early history a global flood and that should not come as a surprise to you because if you do the math noah who came out of the the taver the the um taver in english does not translate as box sorry as as ship it's actually a box and it's rectangle according to the dimensions and book of genesis chapter six you'll see the dimensions there it was a rectangle when it when noah came out of the out of the flood he lived till the year 2006 from creation so just to give you the context um adam was was um created 5781 years bc um before covet um so uh noah he died in the year 2006 and since then he actually witnessed because he was alive at what's called migdal barvel big that in chapter 11 the story of the tower of babel where people um their language got split into 70 different languages um and then from then on they were babbling on that's why it's babylon so noah who was alive at that time 1996 that's the time of the fl of the the migdal barvel and noah's dies at 2006 so his children grandchild great-grandchildren all knew him he was still alive so when now this one people split into 70 nations each of them in writing their account of their history actually have the flood account and what's interesting that even though they are many variations every single one of the 250 plus cultures that mention the flood have four elements there was some sort of vessel boat box a family that survived eight members there were animals somewhere in the story and the fourth element which is most mind-boggling is all agreed that the reason the flood was brought about was because of the wickedness of the generation and that makes no sense that's precisely the point because jewish prophecy to be real has to not make sense um moses warns pharaoh that the water is going to turn to blood that makes no sense yes that's prophecy because when it does turn to blood you're forced to conclude oh water has no power of its own it's being powered by some other power earth turns to lice that makes no sense well exactly that's exactly the point there's going to be darkness for the egyptians complete daylight for the jews that's that makes no sense exactly so you start going through all the ten plagues you start realizing each one of them demonstrates a different element within creation that's being powered outside of itself wild animals well wild doesn't wild mean out of control well not exactly because these wild animals only attack the egyptians not a single jew is scratched so you start putting this all together and you get the picture that when god stood at sinai so to speak and we were standing at mount sinai and here god introduced himself as an hashem now i'm going to avoid the christian based translations i hope you're not offended and and translated according to uh the hebrew biblical hebrew i i am your constant power of all powers elokim means powerful powers if you want to check it out you'll see in the code of jewish law chapter five of the book of arachim of shulkhanak the code of jewish law tells us that the meaning of the word elokim is powers and why are we calling god plural that's the name he gives himself right at the beginning of the torah chapter one verse one and that's because he is the one power behind all powers so god introduces himself at sinai hashem i am your constant power of all powers do you know how you know that i exist because you witnessed my power control every element in creation water earth wind blowing the arab the grasshoppers from the east to the west and back again oh so the wind was being blown by some other power that was blowing the the arab the the locust oh kaiser darkness was being controlled because it was daylight for the jews dark for the egyptians uh wild animals um water animals aquatic animals safadeha every single element in creation you have these blocks of ice covered in fire fire and ice coexisting well that's part of the miracle coming down from the skies destroying everything and everyone in its path i should translate myself past i'm 30 years in america and i get paid to speak with this accent so please excuse me uh so when you start adding it all up people were able to come to the simple conclusion oh i get it there's a power that's powering all these elements in creation until finally one second before midnight every firstborn in egypt is alive one second later all dead and god tells us at mount sinai you know how you know that i am the power of all powers and i'm the only one because you witnessed all the different elements in creation being powered by a different power i have that power annuity i am your power of all powers and the way you know that is asha you experienced that power controlling everything in creation when i took you out of egypt that is the essential premise of judaism there's a second dimension which i i said i'm going to mention and that's prophecy and within prophecy we've got hundreds of prophets prophecies um there are about 21 major prophecies and i'm going to bring to your attention one particular one and that you'll find in uh it's called parashat baytranan chapter 4 of the book of deuteronomy verse 32 where moses who's on the dictator of god actually says to the jewish people and he writes this in the book of deuteronomy and um kisha al-na what does sha'al mean means ask no doesn't mean ask it means ask na means please oh so listen just to the introduction moses writes i'm begging you to please ask the following question he's not saying take this on faith he's not saying um just listen to me and be a robot and just nod your head like a dog at the back of the car no he's saying i want you to ask this question for yourself i don't care where you are in history into the future a thousand years two thousand three thousand three thousand three hundred three thousand three hundred and thirty four years seventeen days and passing that i want you to ask this question please ask about the days that came before you how much before you limit from the day man was created on earth that's the sixth day of creation that's when we actually begin measuring time we don't measure time from the first day we measure time from the sixth day if you say how long you've lived in your house you're not going to include the couple of years that it took to build it you you count it from when you moved in we count time from the sixth day of creation because that's when mankind was created through adam and then cover adam and eve please ask about the days that came before you how much before you from the sixth day of creation beginning of time ask this question in time and space from one end of the universe to the other end of the universe i'm begging you ask this question what's the question was there ever anything as great as this did you hear anyone else tell you anything as great as this what's this did a nation heard the voice of the power of all powers speaking from the midst of the fire casual like you heard and you survived the occasion moses is saying something extraordinary he's putting in writing for all future generations to check off christian islam muslims zoroastrianism baha'i uh hindus buddhist it makes no difference who you are ask this question because the bible deuteronomy 3 34 years ago is telling you you're going to catch me out if i'm telling a lie but i have full confidence because i'm not writing this myself says moses god told me to write this will there ever be an event as great as this or will you even hear anyone else tell you a great event as great as this and that is a whole nation listening to the um the whole nation listening to the voice of elokim the powerful powers like you heard oh so now you have two pieces of logic number one you can't make this claim unless it happened because the moment you say god spoke to us in front of witnesses great produce your witnesses oh that's really hard and you've got to make sure they're all going to stay the same lie very hard and we got three million witnesses at sinai that's a conservative number number two logic is we have a navour naval is very dangerous it's risky the obvious risk in reverse if it doesn't come true you're in hot water not just you though navi the actual prophet himself forget it he's a navy check he's a false prophet and if he's saying in the name of a divine document goodbye to the document if you're saying in the name of a divine dictate that dictated the document everything's at risk and moses 334 years no one's asking him to write this i beg you he says ask was there ever another event as great as this so these are the two pieces of very powerful logic that is the premise of aramuna i'm not going to translate it as faith that's a christian-based translation we do need faith and we can't live without it but the starting point is an event that we witnessed the question that we're now going to look at and it's a it's a kind of obvious question um well that's all very well for the witnesses who were there but you and i like 3334 years later uh were not there um so how do you make this huge leap from an event that took place thousands of years ago and now impose on me that i also have to accept it as fact so to address this we're going to change the subject um not to avoid or deny i'm going to change the subject to a completely different subject but i'm going to ask you as we switch to another topic watch in your mind's eye a parallel between the event that took place 3000 years ago and one that's relatively much more recent so a quick show of hands i will not count you i just want to ask you please to raise your hand in answer to the following question how many of you really believe the holocaust happened so i'm glad to see that all of you put your hands up but here's a slightly different question how do you know how many of you know it really happened and if you're putting your hand up please what's your evidence that the holocaust really happened you're talking about an event that took place barely 70 plus years ago how do you know it happened and you're going to answer well your grandmother was was a holocaust survivor maybe you had grandparents who actually died in the holocaust and your grandparents had a tattoo of the number on their arm some of you might say well you've gone on uh project uh trips and visited auschwitz and broken world and dhaka um because a number of the camps are are still there some of you might say well there's mass graves others will say well look besides tens of thousands of of um survivors happens to be there are many thousands of gis of amongst the allies who liberated the camps and they they actually took movies of cinema whatever you want to call it of of um that liberation even the nazis you may argue um which is true also documented their horrendous crimes in william shearer's book on the rise and fall of the third reich it's about 2000 pages took me just under two years to read hmm not a very fast reader and this is pre-harry potter so i really wasn't into reading that much but um it's interesting that he makes the claim that the pentagon retrieved paperwork that the nazis had failed to destroy because they tried to get rid of a lot of the evidence but there are seven tons of paperwork in the pentagon relating to the crimes against the jews during the holocaust so the perpetrators of the crime not even denying it so you've got you add up all this evidence you've got witnesses eyewitnesses survivors you've got the actual members of the american army and the russian army british army who were the allies in liberating the camps you have documentation and you have movies you also have um a lot of artifacts which uh are actually on display in in a number of these either holocaust museums around the world or actually in the the camps that have been uh uh sustained uh since that time in the last few decades but here's the question and it's a really important question to ask that's all very nice because right now there are still a few witnesses who were there alive but let's pretend we're 20 years into the future and your grandchildren not will they believe this is the question how will they know how will they know the holocaust really happened and if you show them well look at these photos look at these clips that the nazis took what are you what's your grandson going to say i'll give me a break i can i can reproduce that on photoshop now i'm not sure if they'll have photoshop in 20 years from now but um am i exaggerating that your five-year-old who can barely read um and certainly not an instruction manual of a complicated software program is able to figure it out by himself and actually manipulate on photoshop a picture that is not real and it used to be in my generation at least there was an expression which today is a complete utter laugh and that expression was the camera never lies very funny well actually that was a very serious comment because there was no hoverman there was no thought that you could mess with the photography of a camera that actually shot this picture so your children are going to take the picture seriously and if you show them the camps they'll say well that's just a veritable movie set and actually please forgive me i don't mean to be controversial in saying this but auschwitz for example the barbed wire there is not the original barbed wire most of the wood has been replaced and it's renovated in such a way to look like it's old the bricks are still there but much of it is constantly being updated and in doing so they're also making it look like it's 60 70 years old so uh the guide that i went with when when i went on one of those trips actually said it's a veritable movie set because it's not it's a reconstruction for the most part so your kids are not gonna accept that as evidence well you can't produce the witnesses they're all dead so why should your grandchild not just believe but no the holocaust really happened so this is a very similar question i'm asking you in your mind to watch the parallel here is an event mount sinai three thousand years ago here's the event the holocaust barely 70 plus years ago so um watch the parallel as we build the case for understanding how we know the holocaust really happened the question is actually stronger because if there's anyone going to surface who's going to make the claim that the holocaust did not happen or that it was an exaggeration not that many jews actually were killed um would you expect to hear that from the intellectuals and academics of society professors or more likely from like lower classes that's an english expression by the way um who've got a grind to a next to grind with the jews so interestingly um forgive me for even quoting um austin j app no that's not an app that's his last name uh former associate professor of english at la salle college philadelphia is the author of numerous neo-nazi pamphlets one for example entitled did six million really die the truth at last arthur butz professor of engineering at northwestern university and author of the hoax of the 20th century he denies the death camps ever existed and he denies the extermination of millions of jews he claims the holocaust is a fabrication made by jews seeking to enlist support for israel by appealing to popular guilt feelings robert farrison holds a phd from the sorbonne in paris he was dismissed from his position as professor of french at the lyon university for revisionist views and convicted by a french court for defaming the victims of the holocaust he claims the nazis he claims the nazi gas chambers never existed and the facts about the holocaust and the number of victims have been grossly exaggerated so i'm quoting from professors 35 years ago this is way in the generation of the survivors themselves right in their faces they're making this denial these these are academics intellectuals where's their logic what's their psychology for coming up with this nonsense and the answer please forgive me is really taken right out of the words of their mentor who wrote in mineconf in a bavarian joe in 1924 hitler in maximum wrote the following the magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of credibility and in view of the primitive simplicity of the minds of the masses they more easily fall victim to a big lie than a small one the receptivity of the masses is very limited and their intelligence is small but their power of forgetting is enormous in consequence of these facts all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want them to understand by your slogan this was the predicate of the nazi propaganda machine if you tell a lie enough times and it goes on for years and years and years eventually you got yay shine some say it did happen some say it didn't happen i have a brother-in-law in england who made very strong attempts to stop the british government from a law that they passed anyway and that is you you're not allowed to teach holocaust studies in high school uh for the simple reason that it's offensive to those who believe that it never happened and especially to the muslim community which has a tremendous influence now in europe and and england um who are part of uh this denial so it's only a matter of time before a lie which is perpetuated and repeated in books in university history reference books it's only a matter of time before your children grandchildren great grandchildren are going to say how do i know some say it did happen some say didn't no survivors so what's the evidence you hear i'm just helping you see that the question is really serious it's a very serious question so now i'm going to suggest how we can build a model to ensure the memory of the holocaust so let's take all the survivors who are still alive duh and make a club we'll call it the holocaust survivors club you know we're going to bring all the survivors to jerusalem and there we'll have a special ceremony we'll ask them over probably a matter of days weeks months maybe but while they're in jerusalem we're going to ask them to please commit to writing each one of them their personal account of their experiences in the war years the holocaust cattle trucks the ghettos pokemon dakota treblinka auschwitz and we'll collate all of their written testimony into one large document let's call it the scroll and once we've put this all together we're going to have a closing date by which no one is allowed to come and say oh i've got a new testimony uh to add to the school no no no there's an it's a closing date we don't want anyone coming later on saying he's got a new testimony about an event that's already been recorded so um all clubs have rules so let's have some rules for the holocaust survivors club one rule might be every single child born to holocaust survivor grandchild great-grandchild must wear on the outermost garment a star of david and when people say what's this yellow star on your jacket your overcoat and i'll say oh this reminds me that i'm a member of the holocaust survivors club um my great grandmother perished in the camps my grandmother was um born during the war um and um this reminds me that i'm a member of the holocaust survivors club oh okay and let's have another rule maybe for the boys let's say after they're born i'll say them up for argument's sake let's say on the eighth day after they're born we're going to tattoo on their left arm the same number that their grandfather perished with in the gas chambers or their grandmother survived after the war and will whichever member of the family we will replicate that exact same number and will be tattooed onto the arm of every child grandchild born into the holocaust survivors club watch the parallel let's have another rule you know what um let's let's take this document called the scroll and divide it into weekly portions and you know what we'll do um every let's say i know saturday morning for example um wherever there are holocaust survivors children grandchildren grandchildren we will come together every saturday morning and we'll read that weekly portion of the scroll of the holocaust and we'll make festive meals like starting friday night and saturday afternoon we'll have festive meals whereby we'll talk about that weekly portion and we'll have an exchange discussion with the parents grandparents if they're still alive with the children and the children will be asked questions about that weekly text and sometimes it might even happen that grandpa who was a survivor is at one of those uh saturday meals and says well actually those words even though they are accurate but let me tell you what's between the lines and he starts giving you tons of information that's not even in the scroll and you say but grandpa um that's not what's written said no no no do you think we could write it all it's impossible these are headlines what's written are headlines but there's a whole aural transmission of information that is filled in all the details oh interesting you know what let's let's select from this document the scroll one paragraph that fits the criteria of summarizing the purpose of the holocaust survivors club which of course is to perpetuate the memory of the holocaust so you know what we'll do we'll we'll take out one paragraph and it might read something like this we'll read it every morning every evening uh before we go to sleep when we wake up in the morning it might read something like this hero israel listen and never forget the holocaust happened to us and you shall remember the holocaust with all your heart with all your soul and with all your might and these rules which you're committing should be on your mind and talk of them when you go to sleep at night and you talk to your children in your home when you wake up in the morning when you go on a journey talk about these rules and write them in black boxes and pin these boxes or strap them to your arm and your head when you recite these paragraphs every morning of your life and write them on the doorposts of your home so you remember the holocaust all the days of your life you know we'll do it we'll we'll take this this paragraph and we'll we'll duplicate many parchments just make it special um with special ink peps and we'll roll up that parchment and we'll pin it on the doorpost of every home of a holocaust survivor child of holocaust survivor grandchildren holocaust survivors wherever they live paris melbourne sydney new york london uh manchester uh philadelphia muncie wherever doesn't make a difference where and and we'll wear these black boxes with the paragraphs folded up rolled into into these little black boxes on our arm and on our head watch the parallel you know what every club has anniversaries so um what anniversaries could we have for the holocaust survivors club well let's have an anniversary from for when we first came together as a club oh okay so to commemorate that special time that we became a club in jerusalem do you know what we'll do we're going to select that part of the scroll that um describes that event and we're going to stay up all night reading that part of the story where we came together as holocaust survivors in order to perpetuate the memory of the holocaust and that will be our first anniversary second anniversary let's celebrate um the liberation from the camps um now this one's gonna be a bit more serious it's like a seven day event and to commemorate it on the first night of this celebration grandpa the patriarch of the family will sit at the head of the table and he'll take potato peel and dip it in puddle water they hold it up for everyone in the family children grandchildren cousins etc to see and he'll say this is the bread of affliction that our forefathers ate when they were slaves to the third reich and were not for the allies who liberated us from the camps we would either still be there or we would have been totally destroyed by the nazis and we'll eat this food for seven days to remember those difficult times and how grateful we are to the allies who liberated us and took us out of you know what i think we should have a third anniversary um but it's going to commemorate a period of holocaust history that is not so well talked about and that is the years 1945 through 1948 tens of thousands of jews wandering through eastern europe without the necessary paperwork to substantiate entering within the quota that britain allowed or australia or even america and they were wondering stateless trying to find the right papers get in within the quota until 1948 and the united nations voted that the state of israel should be established and we had a homeland to go to so to remember those very painful years of being homeless stateless and looking from place to place to see if we could restart our lives we're going to spend seven days camping in our backyard in the temporary dwelling like tents to remember those years of wandering through eastern europe watch the parallel i'm going to take one more rule there are actually 613 rules in the holocaust survivors club but i'm just going to i'm not even going to talk about the details oh the small print whoa um i'm just going to mention one more rule and it's this is the most sensitive probably rule that you're going to hear and that is what do you do with new members so a new member comes and says um i would like to become a member of the holocaust survivors club so you say fine um which member of your family was a uh survivor none i said oh so you don't need to you don't need to join us because this is not a club that has a stronger position because of its numbers this is not a club of numbers this is a club of reality we are here testifying to an event that we know took place because my grandfather i heard the stories from his mouth and i have the same tattoo on my arm as my grandfather and my father has the same tattoo and we wear this so so we're going to reject that offer that he wants to join our club or she wants to join a club but you know what if they keep coming back we'll set up a panel and screen their sincerity and commitment and if they really really want to we'll let them in but quite frankly we're not looking to beef up the numbers because it's really not a numbers game our position is not strengthened by numbers our position is already strong for the fact that it's factual it's simply reality this is an event and we are witnesses that our parents were there or we are witnesses our parents parents were there so we are witnesses our parents were witnesses that their parents were witnesses watch the parallel actually in all frankness there really was a holocaust survivors club that was established in um a period of in june i'm going to read to you from ernest michelle who was the chairman of of that event [Applause] it was called the world gathering of jewish holocaust survivors ernest michelle the chairman of the world gathering made the following speech i quote verbatim my name is ernest michelle auschwitz number 104995 like many of you i had a dream that one day if we live we could come and stand together this is a reunion of a special group of people we want to stand together once more before time runs out united in freedom as we were in slavery we want to see in each other's eyes and in the eyes of our children the proof of our survival and the joy that comes from being alive and free but there's more than that we survivors want to tell those that try to rewrite history and deny the holocaust ever happened our eyes have seen our ears have heard our nostrils were filled with the accurate fumes from the gas chambers drifting over our camp day after day week after week year after year these hands have carried more corpses than i care to remember so don't tell us it never happened we were there this gathering could not have taken place 10 or 20 years ago it took time for wounds to heal enough for us to meet this is why this event took almost 40 years to come into being and that is why we shall never meet as one group again it has become fashionable to invoke the memory of the holocaust so much has been written so much has been dramatized it was we who lived it we who survived it we of whom they write we of whom they speak so today it is our turn today we speak despite the memories of the past we have built new lives for ourselves many of us have second families so many of the first were exterminated we have children we have grandchildren we have sanctified the names of those we lost we have contributed to jewish tomorrows people ask why are you doing this why do you want to meet why recall a past such of as you've heard our response straight and simple we survived for a purpose already something constructive has emerged from this gathering was represented here almost 1 000 members of the second generation and i am pleased to announce they have formed in jerusalem a second generation international network whose major purpose will be to carry on the memory of the holocaust he concludes this was the evening of the future the transmission of the legacy and at the closing ceremony at the western wall 10 000 people sat in perfect silence while a short legacy was read by a survivor in six languages hebrew yiddish english french ladino and russian and a child or grandchild of a survivor received the legacy ladies and gentlemen listen carefully to the logic mount sinai 3 300 years ago holocaust barely over 70 years ago how would you know the holocaust really happened well if we would have a system of transmission of rules structure anniversaries so you can understand how generations into the future would still be holding on to the memory of the holocaust let me share with you ben gurion was he known to be a deep lover of traditional judaism not at all he was the proud founder of the state of israel and the educational system minus god and when ben gurion is invited to the anglo-american investigation committee of the united nations in 1948 prior to the vote whether or not the leaders of the world should vote for the jewish people having their own homeland they invited him to give the most compelling argument for why they should vote in favor of the jews going back to their land let me share with you verbatim the quote from ben-gurion's speech what did he come up with about 300 years ago a ship set sail for the new world and its name was the mayflower its passion its passengers were englishmen who had become disgusted with their government and their society they set out in search for some deserted shore to establish a new life for themselves they landed in america and they were the first founders of that land and that people this was an important event in the history of both england and america and for this reason to this day every american child knows of the mayflower the pilgrims plymouth rock and november 25th thanksgiving day i am however very interested in knowing if any englishman or american for that matter is aware of the hour and the day the mayflower set sail does any child know or even adult how many pilgrims were there on this historical voyage what were their names what were the names of their families what did they wear what did they eat where did they get water to drink uh what how did they navigate the route and what happened on their trek behold it was more than 3 300 years ago that the jews set out from egypt every jewish child all over the world in america soviet russia yemen germany knows exactly how his ancestors left at dawn on the 15th of nisan what did they wear ben gurion quotes exodus chapter 12 verse 11. their loins were girded their sandals were on their feet their staffs were in their hands they ate matzah and arrived at the red sea after a seven day journey these children also know the route their ancestors traveled and what events transpired during their 40-year trek in the wilderness they are they ate man and quail they drank water from the well of miriam they arrived at the borders of the promised land on the banks of the jordan river facing jericho and they know the names of their ancestors and can quote them to you from the five books of moses concludes ben gurion till this day jews the world over eat the same matzah for seven days starting on the 15th of the sun every year and they relate the story of the exodus and the tribulations that the jews have suffered from the day they left their land and wandered into exile and they end by declaring two phrases that children parents and grandparents have been saying for thousands of years now we are slaves next year we will be free men now we are in exile next year we will be in jerusalem in the land of israel this is the nature of the jews end of quote ben gurion not a lover of traditional judaism could not come up with a more compelling claim for why the jews deserve to have their own homeland other than unbroken transmission from the original event the exodus till today same passover same to fill in same matzah same shabbat rituals same kashuat same lulav same azuza same sits it same ritual baths mikvah ben-gurion himself admits that this is the nature this is our dna we have been loyal for thousands of years to the same rituals commemorating an event you cannot fake unless it happened because it took about 3 million witnesses standing at sinai and listening to god say i am your constant power of all powers and you know how you know you witness my powers take you out of egypt so i'm going to conclude now that i don't think ben gurion fully appreciated the power of his own argument i'll explain you see if you sitting on the lap of your grandfather and the year is 2488 from creation it's 40 years since you came out of egypt and your grandchild you were born in the desert and you're sitting on your grandpa's lap and it's the first passover in the land of israel we just crossed over the jordan we're about to conquer jericho and your grandfather and your father has the first time mitzvah command in the torah chapter 16 book of exodus which tells us 13 the god of you shall tell your child by your mahu on that day referring to passover but was there because of this the paschal lamb the corbin pesach the matzah and the marrow the bitter herbs are karish the great almighty god took us out of egypt so you're getting the midst of what's called haggadah market to tell the story of the exodus so you're listening to your grandfather and he's telling you i was a bricklayer like my father before me i'll never forget the first time my father failed to fill the quota of bricks the egyptian slave masters took his younger son kaim two years old and cemented him alive in the walls of the storehouses we were building i'll never forget three days later his only daughter princess went missing and we knew exactly where to go because hundreds of jewish children were kidnapped off the streets in goshen every day and my father was permitted entry into the innermost chamber of pharaoh where he and other jews were allowed to see their children's throat slit open to provide the daily blood baths for pharaoh do you know how i know i was there i was there when suddenly this big commotion i say hey what's going on why isn't everyone working say oh didn't you hear someone by the name of moshe ben amram uh has just arrived from midyan and claims to the be the moshian cholithrol the savior of the jewish people and he says that god has spoken to him and and made him the prophet who's going to take us out and this is the final salvation that we've been praying for for a long time and sure enough um there's kanan the elders who know that he has to have a password there's two words parkour devkit and indeed he provided those two words and they checked with the only person still alive who heard that that was the password from her uncle yosef at sadiq and her grandfather yaakov avinu jacob the patriarch and that was sarah basasha sarak the daughter of asha and she confirmed yeah this is the right password i was there when the water turned to blood i was there when the earth turned to light i was there when the wild animals attacked the egyptians i was there when the the animals were moaning and groaning from the from the devil from the plague i was there when the borrowed these huge rocks about twice the size of your head made of ice on the inside fire on the outside came down with their kind of own gps system god's positioning system and knocked off a whole limb of an of the misery of an egyptian i was there when the arab the locust came i was there when it was dark for the egyptians light for the jews i was there at the death of the firstborn i was there during the exodus i was there the splitting of the sea and i was there when god spoke to us at sinai i was there at the golden calf do you know how i know because i was there i was at the construction of the tabernacle the mishkan i was there when kara had a whole rebellion and got sucked into the ground and i was there when the moroccan the spies came back from checking out the land of israel and said lash and horror they denigrated the gift god gave us of the land of israel i was 19 years old as a slave in egypt and today i'm four i'm 59 40 years later i survived the wilderness and now i get the mitzvah the commandment instruction to teach my children and grandchildren about the story of the exodus now let me ask you you were sitting on your grandfather's lap but when your grandfather dies and you become a mother a grandmother a father a grandfather what story will you be telling your children every single night first night of passover every year oh you'll be sharing the eye witness account you heard from the mouth of the survivor the people who are actually there you see and when you pass on your children will be saying the same story until our sages formulated the haggadah and put it in writing and we've been doing that for two thousand years in the ganesha of cairo which today is actually in cambridge uh you'll see the oldest hot guard in the world is 1100 years old it's called the the cairo haggadah i actually own a replica of the baton rough which is 800 years old my father allah bought it for me and it's actually uh published by the british museum you see you and i we've been keeping the same rituals same mitzvah same filling of the anniversaries of coming out of egypt standing at sinai shivus so i don't know if ben gurion fully appreciated the extent to which we jews have been persecuted persecuted and exiled and we are all over the world keeping the same torah same misfits for 3334 years and here is where i end if you take the definition of a generation really it's around about well if you took a turret definitely it's really 70 or 80 years that's what king david says but take a really conservative number of 50 years so you have a 50 year old is very likely he's married and may even have children and many 50 odds even have grandchildren so i'm taking 50 as a one generation even though it's very likely you're going to have an overlap of father 50 years old with children and maybe even grandchildren so it's actually an overlap of three generations but i'm just going to pretend for argument's sake we're dealing with one generation so 50 years is one generation question simple meth how many fifties in a hundred two good how many fifties in a thousand years twenty how many fifties in two thousand years forty how many fifties in three thousand years sixty how many fifties in 300 years six do you realize you only need 66 generations from the original event of sinai so that means if you lined up 66 people each one of them are 50 years old you're 50 years you're 50 years you're 50 years you're 50 you're only 66 people to transmit an event that you can't fake unless it happened because you've got three million witnesses that's the power of our masura of our transmission and here's why i truly conclude let's put sinai over here in a court of law and the holocaust on this side of the same court of law and you be the jury listen to the evidence we're going to cross-examine two people over here a man and a woman she covers her hair she dresses um modestly she keeps family purity lights candles on shabbat and you say what's the origin of these rituals that you practice and the way you live and dress oh this is how my mother lived this is how my mother lit candles this is how my mother kept the sabbath um this is um what what my grandmother did and i'm a witness to my parents living this way i'm my parents are witnesses to their parents living this way and on the other side of the court you have this young man and young woman he's got this yellow star on his outermost garment and and the um attorneys are cross-examining what's this yellow star on you out of my most garment so this is a reminder that i'm a member of the holocaust survivors club because my great great great great grandmother perished in the camps oh what's this number here on your arm tattooed oh this is to remind me of the same number that my mother had on her arm which is the same number tattooed on her mother etc all the way back to her great grandmother who perished in the gas chambers and you go through all these rituals why do you read this paragraph why do you study this scroll and i'm going to ask you do you think that this young man and woman wearing the yellow star and with a tattoo are the product of a lie an event the magnitude of a holocaust you think that's a fabrication and they somehow bought into a an incredible lie and it's not only them it's it's holocaust survivors all around the world and on this side of the court you've got jews who are keeping the same torah same with the same lulav same sukkah same matzah same as the same sit-sit same sharper same kashmiras kosher laws and they are witnesses to their parents living this way their parents their parents their parents going all the way back to the original vent which you cannot fake ladies and gentlemen you've heard the evidence for how we know what we know you are the jury you've heard the evidence and the verdict is your choice thank you you