Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitch Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Mark Gerson. Mark is an investor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist and has a fantastic new book out called God Was Right. Hi, Marks, So nice to have you.
On, Carol, great to be here, Thank you.
So what was God right about?
Tell us? Well, God was right about everything? And how do we know that?
Well, we know that now for the first time in the twenty first century because the Torah, the Five Books of Moses from Genesis to Deuteronomy, was written several thousand years ago.
And what kind of book is the Torah. It's not a.
History book or a science book or a cookbook. It's a guide book. And it offers thousands of psychological insights guidance. That means the Bible should not be in the religion section of bookstore. It should be in this self help section of bookstores. So the Bible offers us practical guidance, interesting guidance. I'm just about every question we have today and what I seek to do When God was right?
Was I line up the Biblical claims on several different subject several dozen different subjects, ranging from diversity to anti fragility, to routine to future orientation. And then I say, here's what the Bible says, here's what modern social science says. And then what is fascinating is every single claim that the Bible has made, or the Bible made three thousand years ago, is now in the twenty first century validated
by modern social science. So the Bible is right about everything, which makes it the best book ever written in a book worthy of our study and devotion.
It's funny because I definitely see it a little bit as a history book, and I never thought of it as a self help book. For example, what are some lessons that people should pick up from it?
Oh? Yeah, very interesting.
The Bible, I mean, Moses says in Deuteronomy twenty nine exactly what it is. He said, this book is written for your benefit, and a book written for your benefit is a self help book. And the Bible addresses, in the most practical terms pretty much everything we do. Let's talk about the first thing we do in the morning, which is what closes should we put on? What should we Well, that's addressed in the Bible. So how is it addressed in the Bible. Well, when God sends Adam
out of the Garden of Eden. He sends him out with one thing, garments. Now this is interesting. It would be presumed that Adam would leave with garments, just like if you said I left my house this morning, or I said I left my office. Now I wouldn't say I left my office with garments. It could be presumed that I did so. So why is God emphasizing garments. Well, we don't have to go very far in the tower
to find out why, because relatively shory. Thereafter we have what is quite possibly the most important twenty minutes of Jewish history.
And this is because the great.
Aged blind patriarch Isaac is about to give the birthright, the imprometer of Jewish leadership to one of his twins. The problem, he's giving it to the twin that he loves the most, but who's completely unqualified to lead the Jewish people.
This is Esau.
So Rebecca, the real hero of the Bible, the real hero Genesis, has about twenty minutes to change all of history and to assure that our husband is tricked into not giving the birthright to Esau but instead giving it to Jacob, who, for his deficiencies up to that point, he's still a young man, is much more qualified than Esau to lead the Jewish people. The birthright goes to Esau, Carol, you and I are not here. If it goes to Jacob, we're here. Rebecca has twenty minutes to steer in the
right direction. What does she tell Jacob to do? She tells Jacob put on Esau's less clothes, put on his best clothes. Why is best clothes? Isaac is blind, so what does it matter what clothes he has on it all? And why is best club? Just put in any clothes? Because Rebecca has a profound psychological insight, which is they we feel like.
What we wear, and we perform like how we feel.
So in order for Jacob to convince his father that he's Esau, he first has to convince himself. He first has to feel like Esau himself. How can he do that? Rebecca knew the answer, put on his best clothes. And let's fast forward to the twenty first century, where there's abundant social science on clothing, and what do we learn well? We see in twenty twelve there's an experiment of Northwestern University where one cohort of students is given a white
coat and told it's a doctor's coat. Another cohort is given the same coat and told it's a painter's coat, and then they're given attention seeking tasks. Those who were told it was a doctor's coat do much better. Fast forward two years to twenty fourteen, there's an experiment at Yale which is a negotiation workshop with some real estate negotiation, and one cohort of male students is told come in suits and tie. The other is told come however you want.
Those who come in suits and tie end up with vastly more profits in the experiment than those who came as they are.
So what do we.
See time and again that we feel like how we dress and we act like how we feel. And there are deeply practical implications to this as well. When people wake up and they're they're sad or even feeling depressed, what will they normally do? They'll normally put on a pair of sweatpants and something like a baggy sweater. What does that do? It exacerbates the depression. So what we now call fashion psychologists tell people to do. It says, put on a floaty dress, put on fun jewelry, put
on bright colors. Why because fashion psychologists have rediscovered Rebecca's insight, which is that if you want to feel a certain way, dress that way, and then you will feel that way, and then you will.
Be that way.
So your wife is a rabbi, could you have missed your calling to be a rabbi as well?
I'm the rabbi's husband. I am so blessed to be married to a rabbi and to the particular rabbi to whom I am married. So now I love being the rabbi's husband. I'm a businessman and entrepreneur, and I love business, and I love studying Tora, and I love being married to a rabbi.
I'd recommend it to everybody.
Only so many rabbis to go around, but that's true.
So get one when you can, right.
So, you have so much going on and you do so many different things. How did you put a book in or what.
Made you do this? Well?
I started studying tora every day about twenty years ago, and I really started it in the study of the Hagadah, which is the guy that leads us through the passover Sator, which I think is the greatest book. Word for work is very short, ever written, and then what I realized.
It doesn't feel that short at the let me tell you, Oh yeah, that's.
Another discussion about about how one should use the Hagada at the sat.
That's a good point.
But I discovered what the Haggadah really was, which is it's the greatest hits of the Torah. And it's the greatest hits of the Torah because it's the point of the Passover Sator. The Passover is our authentic juition year, not Russia Shana, It's not even in the Bible.
In Torah.
Passover is what the Bible calls the head of months. So I'm ahead of months. We're supposed to use the Hagadah, the greatest hits of the Torah, to review how do we do in the previous year, who am I now? And who do I want to be in the coming year, and how do I become that person? So it was the greatest hits of the Torah. So I found myself
studying the Torah every day. And so the first thing I do in the morning is I run for six miles on the treadmill, and I still the tower on the treadmill, and then I have a harusa in Jerusalem, and we study after that.
And I love the Tora.
I study every day, and I've found it to be the most interesting, endlessly rich, and entirely practical book ever written, with lessons and guidance that is as relevant in twenty twenty five as it ever was in the past and will continue to be in the future. And then I realized that modern social scientists, without knowing it, have been asking and answering the same questions that the biblical author did.
So that's what God writes about.
We're going to take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Markowitch Show. What do you want people to take away from?
God was right?
What's your main kind of goal for them?
I want people to take away that the Torah is the greatest self help book ever written, that whenever someone is questioning something, struggling with something, challenged by something, season opportunity no matter how big or how small. And I actually have a chapter in the book called No Small Things about how in the Torah and modern self science,
we know there's nothing that small. But no matter what someone's thinking about, no matter what question someone is asking, whether it's what should I wear in the morning, to how much should I give to charity? To how should I orient my life in the remaining thirty forty fifty years? Whatever it is, the answer is asked, anticipated, and answered
in the Torah. And what God was right seeks to do is to extract the entirely practical meaning from hot hundreds, maybe thousands of passages that are really there to guide us through our daily lives.
What do you think people misunderstand about the Bible in our modern world? It seems like we don't spend that much time on it. Most people are not reading it or listening to it on the treadmill. What do we not get?
I think people get the genre wrong. And the first step in understanding any book is to get the genre right. So if you read a book of science fiction and conclude, oh, it's ridiculous. People can't take a spaceship to Venus, the answer is you got the GENRENG.
It's not a science book.
It's a science fiction book, and people get the GENRENG with the Tora.
All too often.
People think it's a history book, and they say, well, this couldn't have happened before that. It's not a history book. The Bible tells us it's not a history book. Vegetation is created before the sun early in Genesis, saying this is not a history book, it's not a science book. That's another example why it's not a science book. It's not a cookbook. It's a guide book. So we have to read the Torah as a guide book, and the
stories in the Torah, the laws in the Torah. Everything in the Torah exists, sure to telecoherent narrative, but that's not the main purpose. The main purpose of the Torah is to help each of us live happier, better and more meaningful lives today.
And that's true whenever today.
Is what do you worry about with regards to the Tora anything, what keeps you up?
Well, there is a.
Chapter in the book on fear and uh and so the what the Torah teaches us about fear. So the Bible tells us eighty five times more than tells us anything else.
Do not fear afraid, Yeah, yeah, eighty.
Five times, which is interesting because the Bible never tells us to do things we would do in the absence of guidance. So the Bible never says, for instance, you shall love your children, because we all do. We know no one needs to tell us to do it. So it tells us to do things that are unnatural, and uh, and and that and and so what is it so fear? It tells us do not fear eighty five times because we'll naturally fear. The Bible tells us do not fear.
So in the book. What I extract from this biblical instruction, which is really throughout all the books of the Bible, is only fear immediate thing. So if Allian's charging at you, that's a good time to be afraid. It's an It's a quite proper evolutionary response is to be afraid. Everything else demote to a concern. And when something is demoted from a fear to a concern, what does.
That enable us to do?
It enables us to think rationally about it and to decide intelligently. So I think, as Lionel Trilling put it, we all have a moral obligation to be intelligent and governing our fears is probably the first step in that process.
Is there a way to reorient society back towards God or towards religion in a way that doesn't involve, say, the government. Do you think that there is any any move that we can make as a people to get us back to where we're supposed to be.
What a great, great question.
Well, there was this kind of awesome thing that happened last year, there was an authentic religious revival in Kentucky and uh, and I think it's a beautiful moment. I think America needs a religious revival. Yeah, And I think that religious revival can come with a discovery or a rediscovery of the Torah. And h and about how entirely
practical the Tower is. So I think if people realize just how practical the Tower is, that it's not anachronistic work of history or ancient anything, but it's entirely earned, contemporary, and totally relevant, people will fall in love with the Torah and they'll seek its guidance. And when they seek its guidance, they'll want to understand its passages and ultimately follow its guidance.
And the towra is clear.
There's this fascinating passage where it talks about the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, leading us to ask, why isn't just say the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and skip the other two ovs? Because what the Tower is telling us, is there are different ways to approach God. Abraham had one way, Isaac had another, Jacob had another. And what do we learn from that?
That there are.
Different ways to approach God within a faith, and there are different ways in which faiths can approach God. So no matter what faith, someone has, approach God through that faith. And I think it would be great to have an American religious revival. I think America is right for it. America is totally suited for it.
And I'm all for it.
Make America Christian again, make.
America religious again.
Absolutely, and and and let let people discover the the beauty and the truth and the eternal and contemporary relevance of the Torah. And when people whether people come to the Torah through Judaism or Christianity, it's all good. Yeah.
Absolutely. I usually ask people what their plan B would have been in life, like when they are, you know, an economist or something. I say, you know, what else would you might have done? But you seem to have done Plans A, B and C. Is there a path you haven't taken that you would maybe regret not taking.
Well, that's such a good question.
Well, America is such a great country for so many reasons, and one of the reasons is the amount of opportunities that create. So I feel very blessed with the opportunities that America has given me, particularly the opportunity to meet and marry my wife, but other things as well, for instance, to study the Torah and write about it, to launch businesses and start to co found United Houtsalid Israel and
African Mission Healthcare. And I've just been so blessed with these opportunities and just so grateful for the opportunity to have written.
God was right to share.
The wisdom and the truly contemporary relevance of the Torah. And I just hope people understand that the Tora is it's the best ever self help book, and it asks and answers all the questions that anyone anyone has about anything.
What advice would you give your sixteen year old self?
Very good question. I'll give a very practical answer.
And there's actually a chapter in the book on education and another chapter on the limits of education, so it's really only the answer is only tangentially related to the book. But the advice I would give to my sixteen year old self would be there are only four things you get out of a college experience. Those four things are the professor who inspires you, the subject that captivates you, the friends you make, and.
The girl or boy you fall in love with.
Okay, those are the only four things you can get of a college experience, and those four things exist at hundreds and undreds of colleges and universities. So I just I think it's so sad when I see young people, and even sadder when I see their parents fixated on the supposed or alleged importance of their child going to one school, when in fact, those are the only four things that someone can get out of the college experience. Each four is amazing, and each four is offered at
hundreds and hundreds of places. So I would tell my sixteen year old self and sixteen year old now that it's really important to work hard. It's really important to have an ethical core and a moral center. And if you take that the ethic of hard work, and that moral core and that developing sense of mission, you can take it anywhere. And if you get rejected from this college and that college and ten others, it doesn't matter. It will not affect your life chances. So go to college.
Seek a professor that'll inspire you, a subject that castivates you, make ten to fifteen good friends, and fall in love with a terrific.
Boy or girl, and you'll have a great experience.
It's funny because I don't even count on two of those. I would really I just root for my kids to go to college, to make a lot of friends, and fall in love with somebody, hopefully get married shortly after college. That's sort of the goal for me with the whole college experience.
If they happen to.
Have an inspiring professor or to learn something along the way, that will be like complete bonus.
Well, I mean, if you look at the course catalogs of these colleges. Now, of course there's a lot of nonsense in these course callogs, but there's a lot of really good stuff too, and so students can learn and they're I mean, what a great opportunity to be given these years when all thats expected of you is to learn to make friends and to grow.
It's just an incredible opportunity exactly.
And I lovely you said, Carol about getting married young, because I have a chapter in the book on the Biblical formula for love and marriage and what they said from this, yeah, direction, the story of Isaac and Rebecca, how they just decided to marry each other, and the logic of how they decided to marry each other and how they came to have the happiest marriage in the Bible.
That logic leads to early marriage.
So what is it? Give us the hint?
Yeah?
Okay, So Eliezer, who's so Abraham sends his servant, Eliezer to go find a wife for Isaac, and he says to Eliezer, go to Haran.
Why Haran because Abraham.
Years before had made souls in Haran, so it was a place where whatever making souls means, it was a place where souls could be cultivated. So he says, go to Haran. Eliezer goes to Haran, and she's a young woman approaching, and he says she was very The text tells us she was very fair to look upon. And we know one other thing about her, which is she's exceedingly generous. She brings water for Eliezer and all of his camels, and estimated like dozens and dozens of trips
of water. So Eliezer knows three and only three things about this woman who is Rebecca. One is that she's from Haran. Two she's very fair to look upon, and three she's ridiculously generous. On the basis of those three and only three characteristics, he says she's the woman for my man, Isaac. And then Rebecca is given the opportunity herself, do you want to go with Eliezer and marry Isaac? And by the way, people who say the Bible is sexist, they don't understand the Bible.
They don't know what they're reading. This is one of many examples.
Several which I cover in the book of How the Bible is the great work of female empowerment. Rebecca is given the choice herself, do I marry the guy or do I not marry the guy. She only knows two things about the guy. One is that Isaac is rich, so he's a good provider, and two.
They loves God. Oh.
She says, yes, I will marry him. And then the text tells us in Genesis twenty four sixty seven, he married her. She became his wife, and he loved her. And the order of things in the Bible is always important. So what does the Bible tell us? First identify two or maybe three characteristics in the other person, and whether she likes warmer cold weather vacations, whether his friends are funny or not two of them. Identify two or three
genuinely important characteristics. Then just get married. Don't think too much about it. Just get married. Once it's two or three boxes have checked, then start doing spouse like things. So he married her, she became his wife. Must be two different things, because I listened separately. So he married her, Then she became his wife. What does it mean to become a wife or a husband? Probably iterant acts of giving right and then love follows. In modern culture, we
have it the other way around. We have this absolutely yeah, yeah, we have this ridiculous notion of falling in love. You don't fall in love. You might fall on your face or fall on the ground, but you cultivate love.
You don't fall into it.
You cultivate. It's quite the opposite. That's what the Bible tells us. Identify two or three characteristics, get married, start doing spouse like things, and then you will experience a love that will last forever.
I hope that teens listening can can take these lessons, but I think that might be a hard sell for some of them.
Well, it's it's you know, the so the Bible says it, but then modern social science totally validates it. Is that every alternative to that very simple and clear biblical formula has.
Proven to be a catastrophe.
Yeah, and I have the data in the book on how all of the alternatives have failed. In the data, living together bad idea. Serial dating one boyfriend girlfriend after the next into one's thirties or even later leads to unhappiness in all kinds of very specific ways.
And I have a whole chapter in the book on that.
We're going to take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Marcowitch show. Well, I love this conversation, and I think your book is just fantastic. You are just such an interesting person. Leave us here with your best tip for my listeners on how they can improve their lives.
What a great point.
I think the best tip on how you can improve your life it's right there in the Bible. It's identify a characteristic that you want to add to your personality or your character, So identify it right now. So let's say someone says, I wish I was more giving, I wish I was more generous, I wish I was kinder, whatever it is, identify one characteristic of growth and of change. Then the Bible tells us, again totally validated by modern social science, how to develop that characteristic. Just start doing
the thing. In other words, fake it till you make it. So if you say I wish I was more giving, you don't have to plunge the depths of your soul to figure out why you're not giving as much charity as you want. Give a little more tomorrow today, give a little more Wednesday than Tuesday, and keep going. And what the Bible tells us, and modern social science confirms, it takes about three months before that characteristic becomes a
part of you. So I would say, just identify that characteristic that you want to become part of you, that you want to grow into and grow with, and then just start doing the thing. And then whatever that thing is, whatever that characteristic is, it will become part of who you are. Yeah.
I love that. Do the thing. He is Mark Gerson, His book Is God was right up anywhere books are sold. Thank you so much, Mark.
Thank you Carol, so such a great conversation. Really appreciate it.