“Everything is going wrong for Israel. They have no army, they have no wealth, they have no freedom, they have no power, and they have no prophets, no priests, and no kings. What do they have? They have a Book. Nobody else ever had a book like this Book. This Book told them there is a God. There is one God (nobody else taught this), and He made everything. Told them what that God is like, why He made the earth, why we are here. Great questions for human existence, the meaning of life, what a good life looks like. This Book kept them together when they lost everything.

Other nations had things they were really proud of that looked really impressive. Rome had armies, Greece had culture, Egypt had wealth, and Phoenicia had ships. Israel had a Book and they loved this Book. They became known as the people of the Book. They kept the Book; the Book kept them.

With the dwindling of kings and priests and prophets in Israel, there emerged a new kind of person, a new kind of office, a new kind of a job, somebody they would call a rabbi. Rabbi is somebody who knew the Book, loved the Book, could teach the Book, could instruct people in, What does the Book mean, and most importantly, how do we actually live it? These people were called rabbis, and they were revered, “my great one.”

Tell you how much rabbis would love this Book. Guy named Joshua Foer writes about this. Now you think about this. Not only would they memorize the entire (what we call) Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures, the entire Torah, but there was another book, Babylonian Talmud, a commentary so they could understand the Torah. Runs to over 5,000 pages.

– john ortberg in sermon “Learning” june 19, 2011