Podcast: Lex Fridman Podcast
Episode: David Wolpe: Judaism | Lex Fridman Podcast #270
Here’s a list of all the books mentioned in this episode, complete with an Amazon buy link and quotes from the episode.
The light that failed
Buy on Amazon"Like the poem 'If' by Rudyard Kipling says, 'If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with kings, nor lose the common touch; if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; if all men count with you, but none too much,' this is a really, really important thing to me that I try to live by: that all human beings count with me."
God Is Not Great
Buy on Amazon"So, for example, the idea that you would call a book 'Religion Poisons Everything'—I think he did that deliberately and provocatively so that he could defend a proposition that obviously is indefensible: that it poisons everything."
The Talmud of Babylonia
Buy on Amazon"Yeah, well, the Torah is the five books of Moses written in Hebrew. Most modern rabbis, non-orthodox or non-literalist rabbis, will tell you that it's a product of human beings, and I believe that they are inspired by God."
Why Faith Matters
Buy on Amazon"Yeah, you wrote in your book 'Why Faith Matters': 'Walt Whitman wrote that in order for there to be a great book, there must be great readers.' For a book to remain powerful throughout generations, it cannot have a single meaning; scripture, like great poetry, is not reducible to other words."
The Denial of Death
Buy on Amazon"First of all, I would say when I was in high school, I think my father actually encouraged me to read this book. I read Ernest Becker's 'Denial of Death,' which I found, and still find, to be one of the most profound works I’ve ever come across."
Letters from the Earth
Buy on Amazon"One is that every image of what it's like is foolish; like Mark Twain has in 'Letters from the Earth' says, 'We're going to lie on green fields and listen to harp music,' which you wouldn't want to do for five minutes while you're alive, but you think you'll be happy for the rest of eternity doing it after you die?"
Hitch-22
Buy on Amazon"His autobiography, 'Hitch 22,' is a great read and I just want to say what you discover there. I don't know if I'm giving too much away by telling the story—spoiler alert—what you discover there is that his mother ran away with a minister or a priest, and they died in what seemed like a suicide pact."
Herzog
Buy on Amazon"I also love Saul Bellow, especially 'Herzog.' But that's a very different kind of thinking—person's novel. I read a lot of mysteries, and a lot of other kinds of fiction and literature."
... Trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen
Buy on Amazon"In terms of the books that most influenced me, one of them is Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning." I also really love Heschel's "The Sabbath." I think it's a beautiful book."
The Sabbath
Buy on Amazon"I also really love Heschel's "The Sabbath." I think it's a beautiful book. It's a very short book, just as Frankl's book is."