- Halacha
- General Questions
Question
what is culture from point of Judaism?
Answer
Rav Kook, one of the foremost authorities and rabbinic thinkers of the past century, writes a lot about the importance of culture. In short, the role of the nation of Israel as seen in the Bible, is to be a "light to the nations" and advance morality and monotheism for all mankind. In the modern world, the easiest way to influence the globalized world happily and willingly, is through culture. Accordingly, God created the Jews as a “an intelligent and wise nation” (Dvarim 4, 6), whose creativity and culture is objectively measured in the disproportionately large amount of Jewish Nobel, Grammy, Pulitzer, Tony and Academy award recipients, despite comprising less than 0.2% of mankind.
The average person doesn't visit museums or watch educational television, but does listen to music, watch movies, wear fashions, etc. As the Jews continue to return to the Land of Israel, we are once again, as in the times of David and Solomon but even more so, becoming a significant cultural influence upon the world, where instead of having Jewish movie producers and artists producing culture from Hollywood based on the priorities and ideals there, we will rather return to our roots, and our culture which will influence the world idealistically, based upon morality, monotheism and the universal ideals of the 13 attributes of God.