We find little to no emphasis in the Torah on Jews as being distinguished by their intelligence
In his most recent New York Times column, Bret Stephens takes up an oft-asked question: “How is it that a People who never amounted even to one-third of one percent of the world’s population contributed so seminally to so many of its most path-breaking ideas and innovations?”
He acknowledges that the “common answer is that Jews are, or tend to be, smart,” but then poses what he calls the more difficult question of “why that intelligence was so often matched by such bracing originality and high-minded purpose.”
Stephens wants to know why Jewish genius is unique in being “prone to question the premise and rethink the concept; to ask why (or why not?) as often as how; to see the absurd in the mundane and the sublime.” Why, in other words, do Jews have an advantage of not just “thinking better [but] thinking different”?
In one brief paragraph, he lists several answers, none of which are complete or very satisfying. He cites the Jewish religious tradition that “asks the believer not only to observe and obey but also to discuss and disagree.” But the advantage of Jewish smarts has persisted in the two centuries since a large percentage, and by now a large majority, of Jews tragically abandoned Judaism. Then, he says, there is “the never-quite-comfortable status of Jews in places where they are the minority — intimately familiar with the customs of the country while maintaining a critical distance from them.” But again, that wasn’t the case for Jews who became, as the saying goes, more German than the Germans.
Create a free account to keep reading.
