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And you shall remember this and act upon it. For it is your wisdom and understanding as seen by other peoples, since, when they hear all of these laws they will say, 'This great nation is truly a wise and understanding people.' (Devorim 4:6)
This is a famous posuk in the Torah portion of Voeschanan that is read this Shabbos in shuls around the world.
However in our times, in our day, this verse does not work. It does not describe the situation in which we find ourselves.
When the masses of people hear the content of our Torah, it does not make them think that we are wise and understanding. Society is increasingly abandoning religion and in the christian societies of the West this means that they are abandoning our Written Torah which had been accepted by them as the basis for their lives. Increasing portions of society have abandoned and are abandoning large portions of what has always been considered the moral pillars of the life recommended by the Written Torah. Most prominent perhaps is the irrelevancy to most of society of all aspects of the traditional sexual morality from basic gender identity, which is a rational prerequisite for any system of morality that governs sexuality, to marriage to particular sexual combinations.
However far from the least important part of morality that has been abandoned and ignored are the basic values that are supposed to govern the life of society such as honesty in speech and commerce, as derived from a basic moral code and not just from a calculation of profit and loss. The proliferation of victimless crimes at the highest levels of modern commerce. such as dishonest stock options, fraud on the part of the largest banking organizations, scientific fraud and unbridled greed on the part of many large organizations which produce important social benefits but set their prices at the highest level that they can get away with, with no thought of what is reasonable for all of the parties involved.
Moreover, the reaction of the elites to the content of our Torah is even worse since it is they who are leading the assault against it. They are the ones who create the cultural atmosphere that is hostile to these traditional pillars and they are at the forefront of the inventive reasoning used to justify the abandonment of these moral pillars and they are the loudest in condemning anyone who even "dares" to believe in them or act on the basic morality of the Written Torah.
So it is clear that those who hear about the laws of the Bible no longer respond in any positive way, and they will not say that the adherents of the Torah are a wise and understanding people.
Actually, this is not the end of it. The spirit and values that are championed nowadays do not even consider wisdom and understanding as particularly attractive goals for life. People are not evaluated for their wisdom and understanding, and achieving these is not a goal of modern education. Convincing people that Torah laws are wise, or that the people who study Torah are wise, will not move them.
What should we take away from all this?
The most important lesson is that now, more than ever, we must not take anything of the beliefs and principles of society as acceptable. We must develop our understanding of life and what is good and bad completely independently of the beliefs of society. Of course when speaking with outsiders we must take into account where they are coming from, but in evaluating things for ourselves we must banish any messages that come from the outside.
We should thoroughly recognize how corrupt and decadent the Western world is today, and be thankful for the opportunity we have to live the sort of life that G-d intended for man.
