Welcome. You found the portal. I'm your host, Eric Weinstein, and I'm here today with my guest,

David Walpy, who is the rabbi of Sinai Temple here in Los Angeles. David is often

thought to be one of the most influential rabbis currently in the United States. It's been

named so by Newsweek and finds himself in various lists of important rabbis. Welcome to the portal,

David. Thank you. Happy to be here. So you and I improbably met in Belgrade in Serbia.

Yes, exactly. And we shared a bus ride and that bus ride has been on my mind in a way that

probably hasn't been playing through your mind. But I wondered if we might begin this podcast

by deciding that we would avoid certain well-worn tropes. I don't want to get into does God

exist or doesn't he? Right. And the question that I want to begin with is for our listeners who have

been searching for some kind of spiritual outlet but are also frustrated with being very

analytic intellectual, in fact, oriented, what is that God versus no God conversation

crowding out that needs to be more present in the public dialogue? That is a wonderful question.

And I think that what the public dialogue really needs very desperately is how do you create

community and interdependence that people take seriously and his life long

in the absence of some particular kind of transcendent belief? And I think that that is the

most valuable thing that religion gives its adherence. And it's even more valuable in some ways

than personal meaning because you and I both know that religion used to think it had a monopoly

on the possibility of personal meaning. But a lot of people live their lives without

a religious sense and would not say that their lives are meaningless. But they do need community

and community especially in such an atomized age and especially in modern America is very hard

to create and to find. And this transcendent share transcendent idea gives you community but in

that absence I don't know how you construct it but that doesn't mean there isn't a way. We need

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