Why Jerusalem Still Matters

In this introductory episode, Robert Nicholson explains the idea behind Hebraica: the existence of a vast but often invisible world of Jews, Christians, and others who still see reality through the moral imagination of Jerusalem.

What is the Hebraic tradition? Why does Jerusalem continue to exert such gravitational pull on the imagination? And what does the rebirth of Hebrew culture mean for Jews, Christians, and the modern world?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So, another podcast. I know it's not exactly an underserved market, is it? But what about a podcast for the Jerusalem people? And by Jerusalem people, I mean those millions of Jews, Christians, and culturally Hebraic people who see the world through the moral imagination of Jerusalem. That's the concept behind Hebraica. I've actually been sitting on this project for close to a decade, but only recently did it start to feel urgent to me. Urgent enough to finally put something out into the world. And in this first episode, I want to explain what the project is, who it's for, and why I think it matters. So the short version is this. I'm convinced that there are millions of people out there around the world who consciously or unconsciously see the world through what I would call a Hebraic lens. And by that I mean people shaped by the cosmology or the worldview of the Hebrew Bible, what we Christians call the Old Testament, and by the story of Israel, the big story. I don't mean the modern state of Israel, I mean historic Israel. Now, some of those people are Jews, but many of them, I would say the vast majority of them, are Christians. And some people probably wouldn't describe themselves as religious at all. But all of them still feel that Jerusalem means something, that the Bible means something, and that the story of Israel somehow, in some way, sits near the center of history. And I think, maybe I'm speaking for myself now, that a lot of those people feel culturally homeless right now. And that is who this project is for. Now, when I say Hebraic tradition, I'm not talking about Christianity, Judaism, or, God forbid, some strange hybrid of the two. I'm talking about the thing beneath those things. Talking about the master plot or the grand narrative that was first articulated in Jerusalem. That story about God and man and history that became the cultural source code for so much of the civilization that we see around the world today. The Hebraic tradition is a way of seeing reality. And it's my basic contention that this tradition, one of the great spiritual and intellectual repositories of mankind, is still surprisingly radically underexplored outside the Jewish world, and even to some extent within the Jewish world, even by people who are deeply, deeply shaped by it. When people hear me say the phrase Hebraic tradition, they almost always think I'm talking about the Old Testament. And of course, to some extent, I am. That is the foundation, the cornerstone of that tradition. But most people have never heard, at least outside the Jewish community, about the 3,000-year-old conversation about God, man, and history that started in the Old Testament, but then continued for a few thousand years until today. I remember walking into the Hebrew room as an undergraduate at uh Sunni Binghamton, and they have a very small Hebrew room in the university library there, tiny room, kind of hard to find. And walking in there, I was just stunned, shelf after shelf of Bibles and Talmuds and commentaries on the Bible and super commentaries, alongside poetry and philosophy, legal texts, legends, modern Hebrew literature, political thought, just thousands of texts, a whole civilizational archive I barely knew existed. And the strangest thing was that nobody was ever in there. Every now and then, students would wander in looking for an empty table. But in the years I was there, I don't think I ever once saw someone actually pull a book off the shelf. And that experience stayed with me because I realized there's this enormous, ongoing, extremely rich conversation happening about the deepest questions facing the human race that most people around me didn't even know existed. The Bible is just the beginning. For three thousand years, people have been translating, interpreting, commenting, and arguing about Israel and its God. And that conversation is still very much alive. But it's not just Hebraic texts, it's the people, a huge and very diverse group of people who orbit those texts that also interest me. A few years ago, I rented a room in the Bronx from a Latino handyman named Kenny, great guy. And the first time I met him, we were talking about our lives, and he heard a little bit about some of the work that I've done, and he got really excited and mentioned that he'd studied modern Hebrew at Queen's College. And I was surprised and asked him why. And he told me because his mother is a Pentecostal pastor who raised him with a love for the Jewish people and for Israel. And he's by then forgotten a lot of the Hebrew, although honestly, he remembered a lot more than uh you would have expected. But that connection, that deeper connection was still there. And Kenny is not that unusual. I've traveled enough to know that there are many, many people like him all over the world. I saw a news story just this past Easter that reported this massive surge in downloads of the U Version Bible app in all over the global south, but especially in sub-Saharan Africa. And in nine countries, nine African countries, it was the number one app, not Christian app, just number one most downloaded app. And I mean big countries, like Kenya, Uganda, uh, Democratic Republic of the Congo. And these are the people. And they're so diverse. It's a pastor in Ghana, it's a Bible professor in Seoul, an Ethiopian soldier in Israel, a good old boy trucker in the Florida panhandle, and a rabbinical student right here in New York City. These people all have different politics, different backgrounds, identities, different theologies, different reasons for arriving there, but all of them, in one way or another, are looking toward Jerusalem as an ultimate source of meaning and truth and identity. I like to call it the invisible commonwealth of Jerusalem, or just the Jerusalem people. One of the goals of this project is simply to make that commonwealth more self-aware, more visible to itself. But there's one more piece of Hebraica that I want to point out. And it's the fact that Hebraic culture isn't just about Hebraic texts, whether biblical or post-biblical, or even the people who orbit around them. It's also about living Hebraic culture, modern Hebrew culture, which is virtually unknown to Christians and Jews who don't know the language. One of the most interesting things happening in the modern world is the rebirth of Hebrew culture in real time. And behind me, there was a restaurant, and from the sound system of the restaurant, I heard a Hebrew remix of a popular uh Latino pop song, Despacito, just blasting from the restaurant. And I kind of looked back and I'm seeing this restaurant and all these tables that are out on the street, and I'm seeing all these people, and they're talking and laughing and flirting and arguing, all in Hebrew. And my taxi pulls up, and I get inside. My taxi driver's listening to one of these crazy uh Israeli political call-in shows that are all over Israeli radio. And uh, of course, all of it's in Hebrew, and I look at his name tag, and I realize he's not even Jewish, he's an Arab Israeli. And uh in the meantime, I got back to my room. Um I'm listening to uh a podcast in my ear, and on the podcast, and a very famous Israeli novelist named uh Edgar Carrot was going on and on about how identity politics is affecting Israeli society. And I remember thinking this Hebraic culture is not just huge and rich, it's alive, it's dynamic. I'll tell you, some of the deepest conversations happening in the world right now are happening in Hebrew. I remember another experience. I was at an event at the U.S. State Department and heard some people speaking Hebrew behind me and turned around to see, to my surprise, a Baha'i Sheikh and his assistant standing in the corner looking kind of shy. So I went over to them and struck up a conversation. And as I did, I kind of marveled at the fact that I'm living in a world where not only is Hebrew a living language, but in which three non-Jews would turn to Hebrew as the best way to communicate in the capital city of the world's most powerful country. I mean, that's just fascinating to me. I don't think I'm alone, which is why part of Hebraica is also shining a light on how the Hebrew Renaissance in our times is evolving and is impacting the Jewish and Christian heirs of the Hebraic tradition. And I'll tell you in advance, it's not nearly as straightforward as you might think. Part of why this project feels urgent is that I think people are hungry. I mean, you could see it everywhere. People are searching for answers to life's biggest questions. Many are turning to politics, maybe most people, and uh to media, to their, to their favorite pundit. Some people are turning to psychology and neuroscience. Some are turning to technology or psychedelics or obscure spiritualities. Some uh take a better attack and are turning to the classical world, to Latin and Greek, and uh the great thinkers of Europe's past. And uh in the meantime, the advent of artificial intelligence has made those big questions even more existential. What is what is man? What makes us as human beings unique? What does consciousness actually mean? What does creativity mean? What is a soul? What happens when man creates something in his own image? On one hand, these are very old questions, but there's a new urgency, and it's hard to describe, but I think we all feel it. And I think that the Hebraic tradition has some really deep things to say in response to those questions. But the questions are not just abstract, there are other questions, much more grounded questions, that I want to talk about here. How and why are people in Africa and other parts of the world rediscovering the Bible? How is the Hebrew Renaissance going to shape that trend? Why are Jews and the state of Israel so controversial right now? Why do Jews tend to feature so prominently in the public discourse going back many centuries? Why are some Christians today rethinking or even attacking the concept of Judeo-Christian tradition? And what effect is that having on the different branches of Christendom? What's happening to the American-Israeli relationship? How is that changing? And how is the Jewish world, the internal world of the Jewish people, evolving in light of all that? And Israel. How is Israel changing? What is Israel becoming in the midst of this global transitional moment? These are big questions, but those are the kinds of questions I want to talk about in this podcast. Now, a couple of caveats here at the front. This project is obviously spiritual in a way, but it's not sectarian. I'm a Christian, Christian who attends a Baptist church, and I'm definitely one of those people who actually believes that the God of Israel is real, and not only real, but active in history. Having said that, I am not a pastor, not a theologian, not a rabbi. I have no religious authority whatsoever. And I don't intend this project to be devotional or doctrinal. It's cultural, first of all. I am a practitioner. I'm someone who has been fortunate enough to spend a long time wandering around in this world who wants to think out loud about this moment and about this tradition in concert with other people who share it. And I'm going to do my best to avoid becoming another politics show. Obviously, it's difficult to discuss Israel in this day and age without veering into politics, and politics are important. But I'm much less interested in the the outrage cycle than in the the deeper cultural and spiritual forces that that drive the public debate. I think there's there are plenty of people already on the internet screaming about politics, and that's not what this is. So that's Hebraica. And ongoing conversation about religion, culture, and the modern world as seen from the vantage point of Jerusalem. The Hebraic tradition looks at history as a dialogue between God and man. Likewise, this podcast, I hope, is a dialogue between you and me. And so I'd love for listeners to send comments, questions. I'll definitely do my best to engage with them. You can send me an email at Robert at Robertwnichelson.com. And uh if you give me a day or two, I think uh I'll be able to respond. In the meantime, please subscribe. And uh if you happen to know any Kenny's, send them the link. Till next time.