Jews have also borrowed from cultures they’ve come in contact with: Abraham didn’t smear his gefilte fish with chrain.
One culture we borrowed more from than perhaps any other was that of ancient Greece. The Talmud tells us that the only language the Torah could be translated into elegantly is Greek. They praised many of the Greek philosophers. Maimonides wrote that Aristotle was half a prophet. The Seder Hadorot, a kind of classic Jewish history book, claims that Aristotle was really Jewish!
So, why did they hate the Jews?
The Lubavitcher Rebbe points out that in Hebrew, the name for ancient Greece, Yavan, has another meaning: quicksand – Water mixes with sand, dirt and clay. You step in it and you can’t get out. The more you try to climb up, the further down you go.
Take a look at the letters that spell Yavan in Hebrew. It starts with a small point of a yud – representing wisdom. That stretches down to become a vav. And the vav stretches even further down, below the line, to become a long nun. It’s all a description of the process of intellect sinking into the material world and, with nothing to hold it in place, sinking further and further.
Materialism is the ultimate of Greece stuck in the mud. It’s the idea that all that exists is that which can be observed, described, and explained.
Torah is an understanding that behind the world lies a Divine Will, unhampered by the limitations of nature or human logic – because it is the source of all this.
