Rabbi Yaakov Salomon- Discovery Seminar- Foundations of Belief/ID Info

welcome everybody to the famous discovery seminar this is a seminar that was developed over 30 years ago and was seen by probably a quarter of a million jews or more and had a tremendous impact on a lot of people my name is jakob salman i'm going to be your host for discovery tonight and we're going to be actually doing it in six different parts to show you the vast dimension of what discovery really is and it's going to be an incredible ride i guarantee it you're going to have fun you're going to learn a lot and you might even be convinced about a lot of different things discovery is a journey in trying to understand the origin of the torah we know we have a torah it's five books of moses genesis exodus leviticus number is deuteronomy memorize it here on the just on the way over and question is where did it all come from where did the five books of moses come from is the torah a divine document actually given by god or was it do we get it some other way maybe somebody else wrote it maybe people wrote it maybe monkeys wrote it who knows what happened alien beings we know we have these books you know there are holy books we know that the torah according to our tradition was given 3300 years ago at mount sinai we understand that this is actually the word of god and he is the author of the torah but is there any evidence that shows that that is true the question here tonight the question that we're going to look at at discovery is who is the author of the torah who really wrote this book number two we're also going to ask the torah that we have today over 3 000 years old how do we know that that's the same torah that we received way back when it's a long time ago so discovery goes on this journey to try to find evidence to try to understand who the author is of the document it's a very important document everybody knows the old testament as it is known as the basis for many religions the old testament is it but where did it come from that's really the question and that's what we're going to answer for you over the next few parts understanding what the evidence is if there really is any and is it actually the same torah that we got way back when in order to do this we really have to understand two different topics two different understandings two different terms let's take a look at the screen and see what we're talking about the two terms that we're going to look at are faith and knowledge it's important to understand these two terms so we get an idea of how we're going to try to present this evidence what exactly is faith and what is knowledge and when i say the word faith so what do you think of well most people think of the term blind faith and blind faith you can almost believe in anything according to the dictionary what exactly is faith faith is a firm belief in something for which there is no proof we have faith i believe i believe that the uh the new york knicks will win the nba championship uh you know some people call that faith others call it psychosis faith i have blind faith i believe in whatever i want to believe in and then there's something else and that is called knowledge knowledge is an acquaintance with true facts or principles through study or investigation and that's an interesting question the question may be exactly and that is what is judaism based on is it faith or is it knowledge you know a lot of people look at judaism and they say like many religions it's faith you have to believe but the fact is many people don't realize this is that judaism is actually more based on knowledge than faith if you go to a synagogue go to school you'll see very often there's a sign like a sign right in front of the shore maybe where the casino is standing have knowledge have knowledge from who you stand in front of who you stand you should know who you stand have knowledge don't just believe and have blind faith but really understand it and have knowledge for it that's really the question now let's understand the next idea the next idea is the torah itself says know this day and return it to your heart both are important everybody says you know i'm a good jew in my heart well that's nice that's great you know i'm i apologize that screen may look like an old uh excedrin commercial but what we're really talking about here is that first the torah says first have knowledge know know this day and then return it to your heart you need to have knowledge knowledge is really the most important part of judaism but the question is really what is knowledge what exactly is knowledge and we need to understand what knowledge is so it's important to understand that when we make decisions in life decisions in life are based on two things really evidence and consequences the evidence is the knowledge that we have the consequences of what will happen based on this decision but even knowledge can sometimes be suspect knowledge is not 100 knowledge don't make that mistake people who make that mistake never make any decisions because you can't have 100 certainty about anything let's say you're sat on a jury many of you have sat on juries and remember what the judge tells you when he charges the jury after the case is over he says consider the evidence and you can convict even a very serious serious charge even in a murder case you base your decision not on whether the evidence is by a shadow of a doubt but we base the evidence on the fact that there may be a reasonable doubt we want evidence beyond a reasonable doubt in other words not a shadow of that not a 100 percent clear there's no such thing as 100 certainty in this world we don't make decisions based on that so you're going to look at the evidence of the torah and some of you may walk out and say you know what it wasn't a hundred percent that's true may not be a hundred percent but how much is there we believe there's a lot of evidence let me give you an example an example of how we make decisions let's say when you finish listening to discovery here you say you know i'm hungry i think maybe i'll have something to eat you go to the freezer and know there's a piece of frozen pizza you like pizza take some pizza you take some pizza out of the freezer and you're ready to go you put it in you want to warm it up you put it into the oven or the toaster oven not the microwave rubbery don't do the microwave you put it into the toaster oven you take it out of the toaster oven it's all sizzling and hard to put on the red pepper oregano whatever you like you're ready to go you're about to eat it and just then your wife walks in your husband walks in somebody who you trust walks in and says what are you doing what am i doing he says i'm having a piece of pizza what's wrong with that says oh i'm glad i caught you you don't know what happened while you were out you were listening to that discovery thing whatever it was what you were doing while you were out the exterminator came and he sprayed poison all over the house and all over the kitchen and some of that poison got on the pizza i don't know how it got back in the freezer but i i just saved your life saved my life my god poison you can't believe what you're hearing says oh my goodness i i i obviously you go oh you're taking pizza and you go over to the garbage and throw it out nobody in the world would eat the pizza if it was poisonous right and as you go into the garbage can guess what happens you're about to toss it into the garbage when suddenly somebody else comes along you're a sister or your daughter or somebody who you trust and says what are you doing says organic question what i'm doing everybody's questioning what i'm doing i'm throwing away the pizza i've got poison on the exterminator oh no she says i was here when the exterminator came and i saw that there was some pizza there and i thought it was poisonous i took care of that the poison pizza i threw that out already that's fine and i put back the rest that slice is good you can eat it enjoy it wow is the poison pizza is it not well the question is what should i do i believe that there is no sane person in the world who would eat that pizza now the evidence is equal one person immediate trust says is poisonous the other one says it's not and you believe them both the same way but nobody would eat that pizza why because even though the evidence is equal the consequences are not equal who cares i'll throw it out i'll eat something else i'll have some sushi i'll have a falafel i'll eat anything but i'm not going to take a chance even though the evidence may be maybe equal but the consequences are too great right you would never eat that pizza so you take a look at the evidence and the consequences but watch listen to this example the fellow goes to the doctor and he has a checkup right he'll check him and take some blood work and after the blood work the doctor walks in and says to him harry i have to tell you something and uh it's really important i've got some uh good news and some bad news which one do you want to hear first he says good news that's scary so tell me the bad news says well you have a rare strain of hepatitis it's called hepatitis j and they must tell you that hepatitis j is fatal people who are diagnosed with hepatitis j can die within 24 hours harry is shocked what are you talking about i feel fine that's that's the way it is well what what's the good news what's the good news oh the good news is that i have a shot here that i can give you and it takes care of the hepatitis c and you'll be fine says oh my gosh you almost killed me with the news you know thanks a lot oh my god well of course you know roll up your sleeve and i'll give you the shot so he rolls up his sleeve and he's about to take the shot and you can guess now what happens another doctor the associate comes in he knows harry because harry what are you doing he says doc i've got hepatitis j i'm in big trouble so so luckily i'm going to take the shot now so see it says wait a second i just looked at your blood work and i i beg to disagree you don't have hepatitis j you have something called hepatitis b he says what's that he says well it's perfectly innocuous it just passes through the system nothing really wrong with you and you're perfectly fine unless you take that shot because that shot will kill you what do you think of that scenario fella goes to the doctor feeling fine one doctor tells him he's gonna die if he doesn't take the shot the other doctor says he's going to die if he does take the shot well now we have a case where the evidence is equal both doctors are equally trustworthy and the consequences are also equal because no matter what he does he's in trouble he could make the wrong decision what do you do well you only got 24 hours so you go find a third opinion and a fourth opinion and if and let's say you're able to get 20 different opinions and after 20 different opinions it comes out that's the way it is 11 say take the shot and nine say don't take the shot difference of opinion different doctors of different opinions huh what are you going to do you were hoping it was going to be 18-2 if it's 18-2 the doctor's 18 doctors say take the shot i'll take the shot then i'll be fine and i won't worry about it too much 15-500 by 11-9 what would you do ladies and gentlemen the right thing to do is take the shot you may not feel very comfortable you may be scared you may be praying and dabbing and doing all kinds of things and who knows what you may be shaking in your boots while you take that shot but what else do you have you have evidence it's only 52 54 but that's the best you've got because the consequences are also equal when you look at torah and when you look at what is the evidence remember no matter what you decide it's one of the most important decisions of your life because if you believe that this book called the torah is really divinely authored that's a very important decision and you're going to live your life according to that and if you believe it is not divinely authored you will ignore it completely and that is equally important the consequences are equal and when the consequences are equal what do you do you look at the evidence and even if the evidence is not overwhelming you still have to listen to it because that's all you've got we believe the evidence can be overwhelming but some people will look at the evidence differently and they'll say i don't find it so overwhelming but you have to ask yourself is it 52 or 54 or 60 some people may think it's 90 95 great but even if it's less you still have to consider the evidence when you make a decision got it now how do you do that how do you examine the evidence how do you examine and know what the evidence is and how do you know whether to trust the evidence so let me give you a muscle here's the muscle here's the parable here's the example that we use and we'll always use way back when and it makes sense it makes so much sense what we did was we went to the mossad we went actually to the real most side and we asked them how do you verify documents how do you know whether to listen to a document or not so we go to the mossad and there he is and we ask him how do you do it how do you examine a document let's say we get a document let's say we get a a letter or a card from a uh a spy that the israeli government has placed in iran the israeli government has a spy in iran and he one day sends us a uh a a message that says very clearly that the iranians are building a nuclear reactor it's going to be online we have to take out this reactor bomb the reactor as we did in iraq many years ago but this is really scary stuff and he says i can shut down the radar on tuesday at 1200 hours i'm able to do it you come in with your drones or your fighter planes under the radar find out i'll be able to clear the way for you to be able to bomb that nuclear reactor in iran the question is should we believe it or not we're putting our our whole government in danger of putting our people in danger do we believe this or not we have a document in other words this message from the spy and we want to know should we believe his message or not so we say that there are different levels of evidence there's different levels of understanding whether we should believe this message and this comes directly from the mossad it's not top secret even though it said so what they do is they look at five different categories of evidence the first category they look at is something called id info identifying information identifying information basically is like going to the bank and opening up a uh bank account when you go to open up a bank account what do they ask you they ask you for your pin number they ask you for a password they ask you for your mother's maiden name or whatever it may be is there information in that message that identifies that he really is the author of that message did the spy really write it well we told him whenever you send a message put your mother's maiden name or your grandmother's maiden name in the message somewhere if it has that that's one level of evidence second level of evidence something we call outside verification he says that they're building the nuclear reactor over here and here etc and it's going to be on ready to go at certain such date but is there something that verifies his information outside of what he's saying like troop movements or satellite photos that show us that what he's saying is really true if he does that's another level of evidence number three codes he doesn't write spies don't write letters and we don't get a picture postcard with the beautiful you know downtown tehran with uh beautiful palm trees and etc and uh he says a dear israeli uh uh uh knesset i am your spy so-and-so uh the uranus at buildings and you come in on tuesday at 1100 hours and take out the thing sign your faithful spy now he writes some codes so are there codes a way of understanding how he wrote it that makes a big difference how about transmission how did we get the message how did we receive it did we just get one little letter in the mail or maybe we got many different ones we got different letters from different couriers all the same that told us yep that is actually verifiable because it came from so many different places and finally we have something called control control means does he have control over the situation he says he can shut down the radar he says he can do these things but has he done it before does he have a proven track record if he does we're obviously more likely to believe him five different categories of evidence id info outside verification codes transmission and control five different categories of evidence that mossad uses as their method of verification and we at discovery are going to do the same thing we're going to take this document this message from the spy who's god and we say does it have identifying information in there that tells us it's only things that he knows is there outside verification to prove that the torah is actually true are there codes within the torah what was the transmission process of the torah how did we receive it and is there control has hashem has god actually proven himself have a track record to tell us that he is who he says he is all these five different informations and different verification methods are important but let's say we only have some of them and we asked the mossad we went back into the 1980s now and we asked the mossad you want to verify a document you'd like to have all five different levels of communication and evidence are you able to get it let's say you're not able to get it let's say that you're unable to get those five different levels but you got half of it you have some identifying information it was not written in code but there's some outside reference what do you do then so the mossad this is a quote they said even if we have half of that information we are more sure that that message was written by our spy then anyone can be sure that your mother is really your mother amazing in other words you don't have to have 100 evidence you should have as much as you can but if you want to make a decision and the consequences are equal just like in the nuclear reactor the consequences are equal and just like with the torah believing the torah is true the consequences of what you decide it's serious how are you going to live your life in order to do that it's equal in order to understand what to do you need to have as much evidence as possible but be careful not going to be 100 you're going to look at it differently everybody the different kind of way of looking at the evidence and judging it you'll be the jury and then you'll make a decision and decide do we have enough evidence enough to say that this torah is really true we're trying to answer the information we're trying to answer the question of who is the author of this document we're going to start with identifying information we're going to start with taking a look at the whether there's really a password or a main name some kind of mark that god left in the torah to say you know what it's me i wrote this no human being could have written this all in the same idea of trying to ask this question and answer the question who is the author of this document that's our that's our task here today in this first level of evidence identifying information i'd like to conduct a little experiment and it's a fun experiment it's uh it's entertaining and it's it's a nice idea and it's and it makes so much sense and audiences are usually um i would say astonished at what they're about to hear and you may be as well in order to do this let's try to understand the alternative if god is not the author of the torah and we have the torah it's on the shelf it's on myself here behind me it's all over but the five books of moses the original we call the written law if god did not write it for some reason was who did must have been some people well let's conduct an experiment let's pretend right now that you the audience you are on the committee to write the torah because the alternative to god writing it as we say hope to be clear is that most of the people wrote it well how did they write it when did they write it we're telling you that the book the torah is 3332 years old back at sinai but according to the critics and the people who don't want to believe they'll tell you no it was never written by god there is no god people wrote this book very wise people they wrote this book when did they write it well we don't know exactly when they wrote it but i can tell you that it must be at least 2300 years old over 2000 years old at that time we had what we call the septuagint which is the greek translation of the torah and it was called at that time an ancient document so it's certainly older than 2 300 years old but bible critics so to speak will tell you yeah maybe it's 2 300 years old maybe it's a little older than that something like that and people wrote it well let's now examine the possibility that people could have written this torah let's take a look maybe it's possible if it's possible if people could have written this torah i guess you'll have to suggest that maybe it could have happened that way but if not if people could not have written it if it makes no sense that people could have written it then you have identifying information and that is pretty powerful so if we're the committee let's say we got together and that's 2 300 years ago and somewhere in the desert or somewhere wherever we were and some people decided says you know what let's write a guidebook tourist kind let's write this this beautiful beautiful book telling all about the history of the jews and we're going to put some laws in there we're going to tell the people to follow the laws now they're not going to follow the laws if we wrote down in the book that that schmore wrote it then we wrote down in the book that that ahri wrote it you know nobody's going to listen to us so we have to write the book and then pretend that god wrote it and then they'll listen to it so if we want people to follow the laws we know how to do it we give them the laws we'll pretend that this book was given by god and then maybe they'll listen let's try it so let's right now try to write the torah from scratch we're going to start from the beginning we're going to start with any laws think of a law that you would suggest should be in that book by writing the law book for the jewish people it's got a lot of things in there but primarily it's got a lot of laws and commandments to do so what are some of the commandments that you as part of the committee would put in there well i think somebody would suggest don't murder okay and they asked for a vote and the committee votes and probably got in there and how about honor your parents okay sounds like a good idea if you're they happen to be parents that certainly may be even a better idea and they say okay the vote goes in there now it's in the book so far everything's fine how about uh don't steal okay don't steal it's good put it in the tower and take a vote it's in no problem everything's fine but i would like to suggest another law that belongs in the torah let's put in a law that tells the jewish people that they should follow an agricultural system whereby they only work six out of the seven year cycle in other words we'll have a seven year cycle we'll work for six years and the seventh year will tell them rest don't work the fields ignore the field forget about it don't plant don't seed don't harvest nothing nothing at all and um see what happens this way to get the hair off now is this a good idea or a bad idea well some people suggested and that's why we put it in over here some people suggested that it's a great idea as a matter of fact i suggest it and put it in here myself when we're making up the slides i said that's a brilliant idea sure brilliant tell the people to rest every every one one every seven years now why is it a good idea well i used to live in brooklyn uh i live now in jackson new jersey beautiful jackson new jersey near lakewood and i used to live in brooklyn and of course i had a nice farm out there in brooklyn so i know something about farming and i found out that it's such a brilliant idea because when you let the land rest when you let the land rest it comes back and it performs better for you it's something that we call soil replenishment you let the soil replenish itself and when it does you have a better product so it's a great idea let's just leave it alone and everything will be fine now i'm going to ask the committee if they would consider putting this law in the torah since it's such a good idea so we're going to put it up to a vote of course when we come to the vote some people are going to say wait a second well we got a big problem so what's the problem he says we're not going to have any food to eat that year you tell us we can't touch the fields we're an agricultural society well we're going to starve to death how can you put a law telling people to ignore their fields and forget about the crops and then we have nothing to eat that could be a problem especially for the jewish people we have nothing to eat so what are we supposed to do oh my goodness he said we can't put that law in the book but i insist that i want that law in the book it's a good law the soil will replenish itself it's great so i said well listen let's find a solution what is a solution and think of it yourself what solution could you think of and you say you know what it's a good law we'd like to have it but we don't want to starve so what should we do so some people would suggest the following you know what there are ways to make sure that we don't starve how do we do it well one of the ways to do it is by something called storage you take the crops from the six years before and you put a little bit away each time and they put away the crops every year and by the time the seventh year comes around no problem we don't have to work the fields we have enough stored up it's perfectly fine great an excellent solution to the problem we can still put it in and somebody else says i've also got an idea and what's your idea divide up the land some of you may have thought of this just the divider we don't all have to follow the law the same here one year you'll stop the the land when your eye won't work my field will divide it up and then we'll be able to share that's such a beautiful idea that's a perfect idea perfect way for us to continue to have this law enjoy the law get the benefits of it without the detriment right okay that was perfect but let's say get ready for this let's say that i suggested hey this is my idea about the law i would like to put in the solution okay what's wrong with our solutions store up the crops divide up the land now i got a better idea i say let's promise the people get this let's promise the people that they don't have to worry about the seventh year because in their sixth year god will provide a triple crop now we need a triple cropping for the six year because we can't we can't we we can't plant anything we need regular for the seventh year because we haven't planted anything and from the eighth year because we don't have any crops for the eighth year so we made a triple crop she said tell them not to worry about the seventh year there will be such an abundance of crops in the sixth year that there won't be any problem everybody will be happy everybody will be fine will be no anxiety we'll completely be at rest because we know we have a triple crop in the sixth year well guess what folks you may be surprised to know that what is the solution that the committee chose to put in the book you know what they chose they chose my solution they didn't write in the torah that you should store up the crops or divide the land i mean that that that's that that that that's the most most obvious thing to do this is actually a law in the torah take a look it says in the torah for six years you may plant your fields prune your vineyards harvest your crops but the seventh year is a year as a sabbath and sabbath of the land it's god's sabbath during which you may not plant your fields open your veins in other words this made it this is in the torah and if you ask like we did what will we eat in the seventh year what's the solution storage divide the land wrong we have not planted nor have we harvested crops i will direct my blessing to you in the sixth year and the land will produce enough crops for three years ladies and gentlemen that's the solution that we put in the torah do we have any idea if this is going to happen how can you promise people that god you're writing it yourself you're going to promise well god's going to by the way the 6th year is the worst year of crops for the in the cycle every year it gets a little bit weaker so how can you promise people that it's going to have a triple crop in the sixth year we have two perfectly good solutions that you completely ignored ladies and gentlemen how long do you think that this religion is likely to last i would suggest about six years we basically had a six year religion after it doesn't happen in the sixth year people gonna say who needs this book throw it out it's ridiculous they read the solution they didn't believe it happened of course it's not going to happen that's not a way to win people over after six years i think this book is gone and the religion's gone maybe 13 years at last give it one more cycle you know the jews are long-suffering people so we like to last a little bit longer but after a very short time this is over folks how absurd could it be how absurd is it possible to suggest that we would put these solutions in the torah even writing this idea that we would give him a six year a triple crop in the sixth year actually makes no sense no sense whatsoever who could have written this except god doesn't make sense that human beings thinking human beings who have easy solutions would completely ignore them that's what we have but there's more there's more identifying information let's go to a food let's talk about food for a moment what makes a food kosher what makes a mammal kosher an animal kosher okay so it has to have two signs anybody know what those two signs are what are the two signs of every kosher mammal okay two signs that here's the uh kosher mammal that's uh elsie the cow over there right oh and here comes the oh you that no no that's not that sign not that sound that's the sign on the packaging we're talking about the sign on the animal itself or i think most people actually know by now it has to have split hooves and it has to chew its cut it has to have chewing its cut and have split hooves if you have any mammal with those two things you've got no problem on the basis of that formula how about a lion is leo the lion is he kosher absolutely not he has no kosher signs how about ed mr red the horse he has no kosher signs you've got to have the signs of chewing the cud and having split hooves now why this is so we don't really know but you take a look at all the mammals in the world and you'll see that the ones that have them are kosher and the ones that don't are not and it says so very specifically god spoke to moses and aaron tell them to speak to the israelites and convey the foreign to them of the animals in the world these are the ones you may eat mamas you made anyone that has true hooves that are cloven meaning split and then choose its cut very clear not a problem you know what if i was the author of this bible if i really wrote the bible i would say stop right there it's so clear how much more clear could it be it has to have any animal that has those two signs split hooves doesn't explain why for whatever reason fine but it has those it's clear just take it doesn't mean that any animal with one kosher sign is kosher i would say not it says you have to have two right it's very pretty i think it's pretty specific so let's take a look at a chart that will help us clarify and understand exactly what we're talking about and you'll see what we mean you'll see that there is when that when the torah continues take a look at these verses because it didn't stop afterwards it begins to get very very unclear of the cut chewing animals and the hoofed animals these are the only ones you may not eat the only ones the camel shall be unclean to you although it chews its curd not of a clothing hoof this shafan whatever that is we don't really know what that is there's a big controversy about what that might be but either way it's unclean to you because even though it chooses its god same thing does not have a cloven hoof nevitt same thing choose its curd does not have a cloven defend finally the pig shall be unclean to your world as a close enough since it does not chew its cut do not eat the flesh of any of these animals take a look at the at the chart and you'll see very clearly split hooves and shoes it's cut no problem that's a cow it's kosher choose its cud without split hooves there are only three the camel the arnevit the shafan those are the only three that have two cut and not split hooves now how about no split hooves and does not chew its gut on the bottom right you'll see it's obviously not kosher and how about the one category that we have left split ups and does not chew its cut only the pig ladies and gentlemen you're about to hear something that is astounding the torah tells us that you have to have two signs if you have no signs certainly not kosher and if you have one sign it's also not culture but for some reason the author of this bible now if you say that the committee says that they're the ones who wrote this this is shocking the committee wrote that there are only four only four mammals in the entire world that only have one kosher sign there's only one animal in the entire world that has split hopes and does not chew its cut that's the pig you you on the committee you you know that you know that for a fact you knew that 2300 years ago you knew that there's only one animal in the entire world that does not chew its cut even though it has split hooves and that's the pain how did you know that we know that today today zoologists biologists have identified and classified over 5 000 different species of mammals we think we got them all pretty much 5 000 species of mammal do you know how many animals there are actually in the world that do not chew their cud but they do have split hooks can you guess there's only one the pig that's it the author of that book was right we'll tell you it was 3 32 years ago they'll tell you it was 2300 i don't care when it was no matter when it was somebody knew and got it right there's only one animal by the way in the world that does not have split hubs and chooses cut against the camel the other ones are shuffling their nevid we assume that they're extinct we don't know where they are it doesn't matter the torah put a limit there's only four animals that have one kosher sign that's a very dangerous thing it brings up two questions number one is the author right the answer is yes there are no other animals with one kosher sign and number two question second question is why why would you write something like this why would you write something so risky why would you take such a chance if another animal comes along and so the torah is wrong one other animal that's all we need that has split hooves and doesn't chew its cut like the pig we say uh i guess the bible is wrong the author didn't know what he was talking about but that has not happened you see with divine authorship there are no risks who wrote the torah who's the author of the torah could it be a human being who writes these solutions to to the agricultural system ridiculous solutions takes a tremendous risk religion is going to last only six years writes down in the book that there are only four animals like this and happens to be right the pig is the only one like that what a chance but with divine authorship there is no risk it's not a risk because you have knowledge when god writes that he knows exactly what he's talking about and it could take thousands of years later but he's still proven to be right don't tell me that moses wrote the book himself don't tell me that roses wrote the torah what do you think moses did you think moses actually went around he he explored the entire world he looked for all the mammals in the world and decided to classify all the mammals and then when he finished classifying all the mammals i'm just looking at the chart again and finishing that but then it took all the mammals in the world and he said ah yes he said there's nothing else like that oh there he comes he's on a tour taking a look at all the mammals in the world obviously impossible and ridiculous even when they find another mammal in the world like in the new york times back i think 1987 they found some kind of a mammal it was a big deal because they found one a final mountain haven't found one since by the way but no one no one has ever found no one has ever found another mammal in the world with one kosher sign obviously divine authorship and finally let's go from the land to the sea let's go to the to the fish of the sea you know uh i'm a big fish fan i love to eat the fish but we're going to learn something about fish that you may not know and i think will be uh equally interesting and exciting let's take a look at the signs of kosher fish there are two signs for kosher mammals there are also two signs of kosher fish let's take a look at what they are two sides of clutch fist says it very specifically in the torah it says it clearly in the verse among that which is in the water you may eat anything that has fins and scales but those which have no fins and scales you may not eat since they are unclean to you now for those of you who have been in the quarantine for a long long time you may have forgotten this is a fish take a look fins and scales it's a kosher fish fins and scales with fins and scales you could eat it not a problem but let's say let me ask you in a similar vein let's say you're looking to find a kosher fish and you find one that has one kosher sign just like we have by mammals what about it if you find one with one kosher sign is it possible is it possible that maybe you could eat it well not so clear you see the torah says you have to have two kosher signs there's no question about that but let's say you found it with one kosher sign now clearly if they had no signs you can't eat it but let's take a look once again at the chart when we look at the chart you'll see as i will show you about how we're talking about and how we understand what it's supposed to look like if you have scales and fins no problem that's clearly kosher if you have no fins and no scales it's clearly not kosher fine let's say you had just fins without scales you'll find fish fins without scales cannot eat it not kosher but how about let's say you found scales without fins now strangely enough what happens over here is that there's a question mark because we don't really know how to deal with this question let's say you found scales without now it should say not kosher the chart should say not kosher just like it did before with fins without scales what is the problem why is that why is that such a problem the question is like this we have the oral law now the oral law for those of you who don't know the mishna of the talmud it was put down in written form about 2 000 years ago about 1900 years of 190 in the common era rabbi judah the prince probably put together the mishna and he says something remarkable in this mission and take a look every creature this is the mishna in nida every creature that has scales will also have fins but there are those which have fins but do not have scales stop and think about that for a moment every creature that has scales without fins but we'll also have fins in other words there is no such creature in the world that has scales without fins in other words if you look back on the chart and you really want to fill it in correctly what you'll do is you'll look at it and you'll say you know what that doesn't exist it simply does not exist you won't find a fish in the sea anywhere in the ocean no matter where it is you will not find one with scales without fins now we have two questions before we got the same two questions now rabbi yehuda hanasi year 190 the common era number one is he correct is he right that he won't find any and number two why would he write it if even if he is correct what a chance he's taking the news is that marine biologists today have classified fish they've classified over 40 000 major classifications of fish there are actually over a million minor classifications of fish the the the fish in the world is so vast in such abundance it's hard to believe it's hard even to conceptualize there are so many different types if you'd like to go to the aquarium i love to go to the aquarium i once went there with my kids and we saw all these fish now living in the same tank and they're every color every look every stranger they've got appendages sticking out one of them is is glowing in the dark you know the weird kind of stuff there's one fish that really was my favorite the whole fish is its mouth it is there's no body it's just mouth you know the whole thing you know i happen to know some people like that but no matter what you will never find a fish not in that tank or any other tank or any body of water not find a fish that has scales without fins you know what robert the prince had identifying information the oral law it was given down to them he didn't go with with she called up jack cousteau's great grandfather and they they they examined the entire ocean bed and looked at every water in the world no they didn't do that they knew exactly what they were doing he understood it because he was given it over it's called mesora he's given it over from israel by the previous rabbi etc and given down and it's identifying information number one he is correct and number two you know why he took that chance i mean it doesn't make sense leave it out just in case another fish comes along with with scales leave it out it wasn't a risk for him because he understood that it was coming down from sinai his divine authorship ladies and gentlemen we've seen today identifying information who was the author of this document well does it make sense that you the committee would have written things like this does it make sense if you would put in something like an agricultural solution that makes no sense does it make sense he would have written something in the torah about mammals about fish that couldn't be true and then end up being actually true it's called identifying information it's powerful but it's only one section of discovery it's one level of evidence stay tuned there's more to come more to come more evidence to come to help you decide who wrote the torah and make your own discovery thanks for coming thanks for listening