The Life Journey of Dennis Prager (Part 1)

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Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com. On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom, well, this one is personal.

I gave two talks on my life, one personal and one development of my ideas.

This is a full two hours.

I hope you'll enjoy it.

That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager, and it starts right now.

Well, here we go again with another tape. I truly hope you're enjoying this tape subscription. I'm certainly enjoying making them available to you. Well, this one is personal, and I, as you'll hear in my talk, it's difficult for me to talk that way because I don't like to focus on me, but much more on what I believe in. But I just have a feeling that as I would find the personal and philosophical inner life of people I'm interested in interesting, so you might find mine. So on a, on a boat to, of all places, Antarctica, with 70 listeners to my radio show, I gave two talks on my life, one personal and one the development of my ideas.

This is a full two hours.

I hope you'll enjoy it and give me feedback always. Just send me email. Through my website, DennisPrager.com. Now, please forgive the fact that there is a low motor noise. It's a constant, like white noise, because after all, we're on a ship. Other than that, it's very clear, hopefully, and I'm working on the technical quality of the tapes to increase their quality in every instance. So sit back and enjoy the the type of tapes that I'm calling My Story.

Uh, I decided that I would begin today with something I've never ever done anywhere because I'm too self-conscious to do it, and that is, uh, tell you my story, how I got where I am in a whole host of different arenas of my life. And then, uh, you know, whatever time we have remaining, and I think one of these sessions might just be Q&A, just to throw out anything you want. Although I think that's the one I'll have with Fran, so maybe the other session will still be a reflective thing on life. Anyway, let me tell you a little about me. I am very self-conscious. I admit this, and I'm not normally self-conscious, because— but you know me really well. In fact, Fran thinks I say everything on the radio, that there is nothing I don't say. She's nodding her head now, but there are things, but that's not what I'll say now anyway. But this— Let me tell you my story. It is— and I really believe that your stories are just as interesting. I truly believe that everyone has a fascinating autobiography. I mean that sincerely. I'm not patronizing you. In fact, I bought my father a computer about 8 years ago with only one intention: Dad, please write your autobiography. You have an interesting life and you should tell it. It'll be good for you and good for your descendants. You know, our youngest child is 9, and I hope my father lives many, many more years, but he may not. Although he's in, thank God, perfect health. He's 83. But you never know. And so after 8 years of learning everything about the internet and computing, now he's starting to write his autobiography. You know what he says? He is so enamored of technologies. You know, I don't want to die. If there's any— there are many reasons, but one big one is I want to see what the next operating system is going to be like. So that gives you an idea, and I totally relate to that. I mean, the The idea of missing a technological breakthrough is very painful to some of us. To the women in this group, this sounds bizarre and extreme, I am sure, but I'm sure some of you can relate to that as well. Anyway, I was born in 1948 in Brooklyn, New York. And I decided I wanted to leave Brooklyn in 1949. But it didn't happen. That was a joke. I decided I wanted to leave later, but the truth is it was New New York City for me was a great place to grow up in, but not a great place to stay in, and I didn't. Why to grow up in? Because I used its facilities. If you use its culture, it is— there's no parallel. Some of you know, for example, and I'm going to get back to the musical part of my life a little later, I, uh, I conduct orchestras periodically in Southern California. You know how I learned to do that? Instead of doing homework. So I pride myself or prided, I don't know about today, but I prided myself in not doing a single homework in 4 years of high school. And mind you, my grades reflected it. It's not that I got away with it. I am probably the only person you will ever meet who was rejected from Queens College. Okay, that gives you an idea of what my grades were like. Or as I tell people, and it usually takes a little while for people to get my point, I graduated in the top 80% of my class. I always put— people are really, no kidding, that's not so bad. Then later it dawns on them, it's awful, it's pathetic, it's the bottom 20. Anyway, I, uh, I use the culture of New York City tremendously, and one of the things I did was every week, more or less, I'd go to the New York Philharmonic library and I would take out a score and learn how to conduct from score. My, uh, I got quite adept at it, actually. I would conduct at my father's stereo system in the house I grew up in. And you know, everybody thought I was just waving a baton, but I knew that the guys were listening to me. And it really was wonderful. It was also great aerobics. By the way, you know, conductors live forever. And I've never known a conductor outside of an accident who had died young. And I'm convinced doing this for hours a day is a magnificent exercise. And I felt it. It's great for the heart and so on. So if any of you want to just pick up a painless way to do aerobics, conduct your stereo system. So I would do that. I would rent these scores and I would follow them, and it became a real passion in my life. And one of my fantasies— and I was telling Fran, so you will know all of this is legit— uh, I've had, in, in the realm that I can speak to you about, I've had two fantasies, and they, and they, and they were conducting an orchestra and going to Antarctica. So I'm sharing number 2 with you, but I've— those have always been dreams that I am— that I never thought would be realized. And, and both thanks to my radio show, because the first one was one day somebody called me up, said, Dennis, you have any dreams or fantasies that have never been realized? I said, yeah, I'd love to conduct an orchestra. And the next day, the president of a local orchestra said, we'll try you out. And the conductor came and he said, well, you know, he knows how to read music. So they gave me a Mozart piece. It was the nervous I most nervous I was in my life since childhood conducting, because these are all pros and I'm just an amateur. But it worked out, and then it went to other things. The point there being— and I'll get back to music because it's been one of the couple of passions that have kept me going in my life— the point being that it was New York City that have made it possible in some ways for me to do that. I— let me go back chronologically. I was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, which is— you wouldn't know this, there's no reason you would, but within Judaism there are 3 basic denominations. This you probably do know: Orthodox, Conservative, Reform. The Orthodox, though, are also divided. You know, non-Jews think Jews are all united. It is so untrue as to cause oodles of laughter among Jews who ever hear that. Jews are profoundly disunited. This guy doesn't trust this guy's kosher. This guy doesn't trust this guy's this and this and this. It's crazy. Anyway, so within Orthodoxy, you have modern, centrist, and right-wing. I grew up in the modern. What did modern mean? Modern meant, for example, we kept kosher, we kept the Sabbath strictly, but outside the house we didn't wear a yarmulke. That would be— or we would eat in any restaurant, though we wouldn't eat non-kosher food. Does that make sense to you? So we wouldn't eat bacon shrimp or meat out, but we would eat fish out at any restaurant. Whereas the more Orthodox won't even eat at a regular restaurant fish. Why? You can ask me later. It's a big theological issue, not a personal one. So I grew up in that home, but in Brooklyn, New York, it was very possible, even in a modern Orthodox home, to lead a very insular life. I never met Reform Jews. I never met Conservative Jews. And in fact, I met more non-Jews than I met non-Orthodox Jews, to give you an idea of how closed life can be only in New York City, really. It is. And by the way, not just for Jews, for almost any group, they stick together. New York is not a worldly city. If you want to meet people from outside of your world, leave New York. And that is a very big part of me and a very big part of why I, I left New York. I wanted to meet everybody and not just have a life among people that I grew up with or that were very similar to me in some religious or ethnic way.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.

So I grew up in this world. My father— we had— I had a very interesting upbringing in this way. It was profoundly Jewish and profoundly American, and that was very healthy for me. And it comes through in my broadcasts. You know, it's not probably odd to you. My father volunteered to serve in the U.S. Navy in World War II and reached a rather high, uh, high position, in fact, in the Navy. And he did something on his ship which I always admired. He would, on Fridays, he would bake challah, which is the bread that Jews eat on the Sabbath. So he was the challah baker. That wasn't his official naval position, please understand. He had an actual position. But I've always— that's a good— that was a good model of living among everybody else but being true to your own religious practices. I like that, and I have tried to emulate that particular model in my life and in the life of my children. Anyway, I grew up with a very strong sense of America is great and wonderful and a very strong sense of being a Jew. So as I've said since September 11th, I am a member of the two most hated people in the world and very proud of it. But I mean that. That is a fascinating aspect of life. I think I said that on the radio. It's a very there are reasons for it that do give me pride. Be that as it may, so that's how I grew up. I can't say that my childhood was particularly happy. It's not meant as a reflection or denigration in any way. I just, I didn't like school. My parents were not happy that I didn't like school. I got thrown out of class so regularly that there was a chair in the elementary school office. It was called the Dennis Prager chair. And you know, like there's an honorific of the so-and-so chair at Princeton, this was the Dennis Prager chair at Yeshiva Rambam. And I got thrown out for many very valid reasons. Mostly though, I would just talk the whole time. I was practicing for my profession. But really, that's what I did in class. I would talk. I would I would write notes and send them to other kids. I'd play tricks on the girls. That was a lot of fun for me. For example, when I was a kid, we all came into class with briefcases. Did you have that when you were a kid, carry a briefcase? No? Wow, we did. We carried briefcases to school with all your, you know, supplies. So you keep your briefcase by your desk. So it was a source of awesome pleasure for me to arrange with a couple of the guys to switch the girls' briefcases who were sitting in the front because I thought of them as goody-two-shoes. And I have a hatred for goody-two-shoes. It's— there's no— I can't explain why, but the ones who sat up front, I always thought, oh, they just want to show the teacher they're terrific. So I would try to get them in trouble as much as possible. That plus talking. And I would frequently beat up bullies. That was a hobby of mine, beating up bullies. And there's a big residue of that in me today. I am for beating up bullies— international bullies, national bullies, local bullies, criminals. I hate bullies. And so I would— if they were picking on some kid, I'd— and I was always the biggest in the class, I just always was. So it's not like I'm, you know, Mr. Courageous, but I couldn't stand what they did. So they— my parents would get called very regularly, and they would be very upset that, you know, I wasn't a good kid at school. I was an angel at home, but I I was a devil at school in the ways that I just described. So it was not very happy. The nadir, I mean the really low point, came in 8th grade when I signed the report card. And I was actually proud of my abilities in scriptwriting. I remember thinking, yeah, this looks pretty genuine. And I would have gotten away with that but for the fact that when I was sick one day, my mother looked through my drawers and found all these report cards she hadn't seen. So you can have an idea of what it was like. I also went to sleepaway camp for 8 weeks a summer from the age of 5. That, and that frankly, that was too long. My grandfather would come on my birthday, which is in the middle of the summer, and I would scream and cry to go back with him. He was the, the, they were a very great source of love to me, my grandparents in particular, my mother's parents. Anyway, but I would go back home and then another year at school and awful stuff like that. Then finally, uh, oh yes, then in 6th grade I went every day— listen to this, you think your kids had it or have it hard— I went to a, uh, a school in the Lower East Side of Manhattan where the classes went from 9 AM to 6 PM Monday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Friday only till noon. Can you imagine that? 9 to 6, a 6th grader. And how did I get there? Took an hour to get there each way. I would take the subway from Brooklyn, and we lived near Brighton Beach, that's a far distance, to Manhattan, to East Broadway. My father decided it was not a good idea to stay there when on one, on one occasion, he rarely did this, but it happened on one occasion, he picked me up. His offices were in downtown Manhattan. He was a CPA. He picked me up and he saw one of the kids at the school being mugged. And he thought it was not a good idea for me to stay at that school. So then I went back to my Brooklyn school. Then I went to high school, and high school was much more pleasant for me. But I will be very open with you, uh, things at home got tougher, and I threatened to run away. But I was serious about running. It wasn't the typical kid threat, I'll run away. So they said to me, okay— actually, they didn't say to me, my older brother I have an older brother, almost 6 years older than me, who was always good in everything. I mean, he— my parents couldn't believe how two kids could be so different. My brother was valedictorian. My brother was editor of the newspaper, president of the school. I mean, you know, he was captain of the basketball team. And here I am, you know, having my parents called up every day not to say what a wonderful boy I was either. So my brother interceded. I knew he was my last last chance. And he, and he said, Mom and Dad, you have to listen to Dennis or he's going to run away. I even knew what I was going to do. I was going to go to Idlewild Airport— that was before it was John F. Kennedy— and I was going to, uh, work in the luggage area for one of the airlines and get myself on it. Or so were my dreams. Be that— I'm sure my wanderlust is in part shaped by my visits every Sunday to the airport just to photograph airplanes. That was a big passion. I loved, I dreamed about airplanes and getting in them. I collected timetables. Anyway, I'm different, in case you didn't notice. You don't know how different. You will see. I mean, it's incredible when you realize how many of us just have our own drummer. And it's truly true in my case. So he told my parents, you gotta leave him alone. You can't bug him anymore about grades. Or about school, period. And I said, that parents can't do that. We're abdicating our role if we do that. And he said, basically, you have no choice. You're going to lose your son if you don't leave him alone. So my father said he actually spoke to God. He said, God, what am I going to do? We've tried punishment, we've tried yelling, we've tried discipline, we've tried notes from school. Nothing's worked. And so the school psychologist— God bless that woman, and— or man, I don't even know if it's a man or a woman now, actually. Whoever it was, and my brother, prevailed upon my parents to leave me alone and let me raise myself, as odd as that sounds. And they agreed. And from the age of 14 on, they never asked if I got a report card. They never asked if I had homework. In fact, I lived at home the first 2 years of college. I went to Brooklyn college, and I'll never forget this. I announced, I said, Mom, I'm off this week. And totally straight-faced, she looked at me and said, I thought you were off last week. Which was a— showed you how much class I didn't go to. Uh, there was no way to know when I was off or when there was school. It was not knowable. So I was pleased with her answer. They really don't bother me. And I want you to understand though, this is very dramatic in my life because from 14 15 on, I have been a happy person. And before that, I was not. I needed to be left alone. And I know, you know, we're all made up of stuff, every one of us. Of course, I know that my, my loathing of controls by government over people, like from, like communism or fascism, the worst-case scenarios, or even in America where they put more— where we're putting more and more laws on people about what they can say, can't say, politically correct things— they actually nerve me. My I Am, I can only thrive in freedom. I'm very good at imposing laws on me, but I don't want it imposed by others. Now, obviously there are areas of life I would not be a great success in. I assume the armed forces would be an example of, you know, you don't say, you know, Colonel, I just don't agree with that order. You can't do that. But my parents did They did, in fact, to their great credit— it was not easy— said, okay, hands off, do whatever you like. So much so— this will really sound bizarre to some of you, I'm sure— so much so that they gave me money to eat supper out. What do you think of that for independence? I mean, that's amazing. So, and I know how much, and I could tell you what I had. They gave me $1.50 a day to eat dinner wherever I wanted, and I usually ate at the same place. Because what I would do is after school, I would take the subway into Manhattan and go to museums and go into concerts and go to plays. I mean, I loved that stuff, and I didn't do any homework. So I didn't come home. I would go straight from school in Brooklyn into Manhattan so often. And so they gave me $1.50, which today gets you coffee, right, essentially. But I could get a meal then at Dubrow's Cafeteria on Kings Highway. I got a delicious meal and dessert, and I And you know, it's ironic, and I'm really being open with you, eating out has never ceased being a very good psychological feeling for me, the freedom. And it has never changed. I still love to eat out. It is a credit to, really, to the home that Fran has made that I am also now happy to eat at home. I know that sounds bizarre, but all of you have stuff from your childhood, whatever it is that lingers on. Except, uh, you know, I'm very introspective, I think, uh, in at least in some ways, and that is one of them. And I realize it's psychological, but to me, to this day, going to a Denny's— I'm not talking about going to Château de Beaucétille and getting, you know, a $50, $100 meal. I'm talking about cheapo. Getting a tuna melt at Denny's still is, for me, fun. At 53, it is still exciting eating out, whatever I want. I'm not restricted to the menu at home. There's no chance I'll have liver. Just that alone, that alone gave me oodles of joy, because every week my mother would serve a food that should not be eaten by humans, in my opinion— liver. I mean, I like anything, but I liver. So what I would do is I would find out when liver was being served and always make sure to definitely not to be home that night, but at a friend's house or homeless, anything over liver.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

Is losing weight getting harder as you get older? It's not your fault. You're eating better, you're moving more, but your body isn't responding anymore. At PhD Weight Loss, they help people identify what's actually blocking fat loss and help increase your lifespan.

Program.

If you want to understand why your body isn't cooperating, call PhD Weight Loss now and book your consultation at 864-644-1900. Mention Dennis Prager and you get 2 weeks free in the program, and they'll pay for your food. That's a $1,500 value, absolutely free. Call 864-644-1900.

Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.

Now, who would tell me when we had liver— this is another thing that I want to tell you about that had a very deep impact on me. We had a housekeeper— what's called today a housekeeper— was a, was a Black woman, Ethel. Ethel was my confidante in life. I told Ethel everything, everything. Ethel loaned me money. Ethel was my surrogate mother. And I am convinced that this had an effect on and the ease and comfort that I have always felt of people of any race. That the profound role that an African-American woman played in my upbringing, you— I cannot overstate it. She was my— when I had a bad report card, I went to her. When I— and again, it's so embarrassing for me to think that I borrowed money from her for hockey magazines, but I did. That's Ethel, the latest issue of Hockey Illustrated. Rate it is out. And she'd give me 50 cents. I don't know if I ever paid her back, but I really, I adored her. And so that was, that's a good chunk of what it was like to grow up. Again, I get this, uh, the money to eat out, but we did always eat together Friday night and Saturday because of the Sabbath. Then I couldn't eat out. It would have been against religious law, spending money eating out and so on. So that was, that was fine. I had no problem, you know, rejoining my, my family Friday night and, uh, and Saturday. But then the week would resume again, and I did that. Now I look back and I realize I'm thoroughly abnormal. I don't mean it in a bad way, just not normal. For example, I, I never in my life liked parties. I didn't. I, I, I don't like them today. I didn't like them when I was a kid. I didn't understand. What do you do at a party? Uh, it was very loud. My, my mode of communication is to speak. So anytime there's loud music, I can't speak. I— it's like I've lost all of my interest and my powers. I was as interested in girls as any of the guys who went to parties, but party wasn't going to be my method of meeting anybody. I just knew it. What was my attempted. It was not a successful one, I might say, in high school. I, I, for example, I had these dreams in high school and college, oh, I'll meet a girl who loves music like I do at Carnegie Hall. It didn't happen. And I'll tell you about that stuff later. But anyway, I never liked parties. What did I do? I told you music. I told you I go to plays. And I had a hobby called shortwave radio listening, wherein I, I got I got for my bar mitzvah from my grandfather a great shortwave radio. I don't know if any of you ever seen the Zenith radio, Transoceanic it was called. Huge antenna comes out of the handle. You've seen that? Oh, it's a great one, right? It's a great radio. You turn the bands. For me to pick up Radio Moscow or the BBC or anything else, but especially Radio Moscow, and this is very relevant, Starting my second year in high school, I became transfixed by the enemy, the enemy being communism. And I, I listened, and I was absolutely intoxicated. Never persuaded. It was never an issue of flirting with it. I never did for a second. But I always have loved propaganda. It fascinates me how people try to sell what isn't true. And so I would listen to Radio Moscow in English, and then they said, hey, you know, if you write to us, we will send you a complete set of books. I even remember the woman's name, Nina Patapova. We will send you How to Learn Russian, 2 volumes. So I sent away to Radio Moscow. I will never forget. I don't have a lot of childhood memories. I was 14, 15. A thick packet filled with Soviet stamps arrives at my parents' house in Brooklyn. It was so exciting. I looked at it. Somebody licked these stamps in Moscow. It was so exotic to me, I can't tell you. It was so exciting. It was also unfortunately exciting to the government. See, this is something I didn't know. And, uh, I— so because my next batch of mail was from radio, then Peking, not Beijing, and I wasn't learning Chinese, but I got mail. And while you could get mail from Radio Moscow, we had no relations with Communist China, and people getting packets of things from China were a little suspect in the eyes of the post office. And they tore my mail open. And I wrote a letter to the then-senator from New York, Robert F. Kennedy, saying to him what happened and that I should be allowed to get unmolested mail from, uh, from Communist China. And he wrote back, and it's one of the many things that I regret throwing away. I mean, a letter from Robert F. Kennedy would be just a lovely thing to have. I didn't support him, but, you know, he was my senator and is a fascinating thing to have had. Anyway, I got all this mail, and I did start learning Russian. Talk about a weird kid not doing his homework, eating away from the house every night, going into the city city, Manhattan, to go to plays and concerts and pick up scores of symphonies and teaching himself Russian. And I'll never forget when my parents went to a parent-teacher's meeting, always the nadir of my existence. I hated when my parents went to talk to teachers because none of them were going to say, "Oh, you have such a wonderful student there. You should be so lucky." Never had. It was always a bad report. So it was not a not a happy night when they went. But in any event, one night they were there and they met my close friend, the guy whom I have since written two books with. My first two books were on Judaism, and we met in high school. Joseph Rabbi, now Rabbi Joseph Telushkin. So he met Joseph's— they— my parents met Joseph's parents at a parent-teacher's meeting. And my father, he has a very good dry sense of humor. My father said to the Telushkins, We should have sent Dennis to a Russian school, then he'd be studying Hebrew. It's a good line and very true, because under my desk I read two things during classes: the New York Times— I think the Herald Tribune had closed by then, that was my first paper of choice— and Russian. Well, the rabbis at the school were not very happy that I wasn't studying their holy subjects, but rather teaching myself Russian and reading the New York Times. In fact, one time, one teacher was rather bitter. I walked in and he said to me, and it was all in Hebrew, so I did learn Hebrew real well as it happens, because all these teachers had come from Israel and didn't speak English. And he said to me, "No New York Times?" I walked into the classroom. "No New York Times?" He goes, go back and bring it in, then you can come back in. That's how bitter he was against me. A nice guy, but, uh, it, um, you know, I remember with a portion of the Torah we were studying then, all of the 10 things that the chief priest wore in the Holy Temple, and I could not think of a more boring thing to study at the time than what are the 10 pieces of clothing a high priest wore 2,400 years ago. And so I read the New York Times under my desk and studied Russian Well, that ended high school, but I got the last laugh. I did get to speak at the graduation even though I graduated 88th— no, 92nd in a class of 110. I got to speak because I was president of the class. Now here's an interesting point. How did somebody— it's very rare. They, they were very grade conscious in my school, and they divided you A, B, C, D. A, very bright. B, pretty bright. C, a little stupid. D, very stupid. And I started in the D class and ended up graduating in the C class. I went from very stupid to moderately stupid. Telushkin, which is the living joke of our lives, went from moderately smart to moderately stupid, and we both ended up in the moderate. He's now the most prolific author in Judaism in America, the guy who went to the moderately stupid class, the C class, with me. And I spent much of my 4 years laughing. That's much— I most— I— it was a very happy, hilarious time. Grades didn't matter to me. And, uh, my parents would every so often, very, you know, hands-offish, but just intellectually raise the idea that as much as I might have been learning Russian or studying Mozart symphonies, that the world was not going to grade me on that. How am I going to get a job? And I didn't know the answer, but I didn't buy the argument that if you get good grades, that leads to success in life, but if you develop a thousand other areas, it doesn't lead. I just didn't believe that. It's not— remember, and I always tell parents this because they are often relieved that, oh, my kid doesn't do homework either. I say, well, wait a minute, what is your kid doing when he or she is not doing schoolwork? If they're just watching TV and partying, then there is reason to be concerned, but That's not what I was doing. I didn't watch any TV. I never liked television. And I, you know, I wasn't partying. So I ended up as president of the class. Now here's another part of me that you'll see resonates. I led a campaign in my grade of the 4 classes against cheating on tests. And I developed an ability, if I may say, of asking people to be a little better than they now were and not coming off as a goody-two-shoes or holier-than-thou. And that was it. I realized, because you could say, whoa, who's this turd here telling us not to cheat? What does he think, he's better than us? But I never walked around, I'm great, I don't cheat, you're a lousy— nothing like that. But I did have a campaign in a very understated way that kids should not do that. There were more important things in life than getting the ultimate few points on on a test, and they were really compromising their own character and dignity. And they elected me president despite— I was in the C class, and despite my anti-cheating campaign. And that did teach me a lot. Then to college, I went to Brooklyn College, not a prestigious place to attend. And this was 1966. I was at college '66 to '70, in the height of the Vietnam War and the demonstrations. Now talk about things that made an impact.

This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.

Is losing weight getting harder as you get older? It's not your fault. You're eating better, you're moving more, but your body isn't responding anymore. At PhD Weight Loss, they help people identify what's actually blocking fat loss and help increase your lifespan. If you want to understand why your body isn't cooperating, call PhD Weight Loss now and book your consultation at 877- Call 864-644-1900. Mention Dennis Prager and you get 2 weeks free in the program, and they'll pay for your food. That's a $1,500 value, absolutely free. Call 864-644-1900.

Now back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.

A guy named Mark Rudd, who was the head, I think, of Students for a Democratic Society— remember that? SDS. Guess, that left-wing group. He came— he was at Columbia where he had led all those demonstrations at Columbia, remember, or terrible ones. He came to Brooklyn, to Brooklyn College, to do the same thing. But this was very interesting, and as I say, I will never forget it. Students at Brooklyn College pelted him with tomatoes and eggs when he came and tried to organize Brooklyn College students against the government and against the war. We were a working-class US college, that was an elite college. You know, we lived home, we almost all of us had jobs aside. And I realized a lot of this stuff against the country from the left was coming from kids from Scarsdale, you know, from, from kids from much wealthier homes than us in Brooklyn College. And it was a very illuminating thing to see him getting no support at Brooklyn College versus uptown in Columbia where, you know, he was venerated. Anyway, that happened, and so I spent the first 2 years at Brooklyn College, and I decided now I'll do schoolwork. That I just had a feeling that it would be important for me to get decent grades at college, unlike high school. Well, this is the turning point of my life, truly is. In, uh, they gave an award each year at Brooklyn College a rather generous award for one student, one from the thousands. This is a huge college. From the thousands of sophomores, they will choose one for the junior year abroad scholarship. I applied, and you had to go, you had to have a 3.0 index, and I have a 3.01, I think. So I qualified on index, and then you went through interviews. And as soon as the interview started, I knew I had a good chance because that was always my strong point, you know, selling snow in winter. And so here I was, oh my God, I'm going to have these professors interview me. And I'll never forget when the final interview came about, there were like 3, 4, 5 candidates left from the thousands of sophomores. They said to me, Mr.— these were the heads of all the departments. That's to intimidate you, but I loved it. I loved the attention, I tell you. I remember I remember sitting in a swivel chair, going, "Yes, Professor. Yes, Professor." I was eating it up. And they said, "Well, you know, it says on your application that you speak Russian, French, and Hebrew. Is that true?" I said, "Well, yes, of course it's true. I'm not going to lie." So the head of the Russian department spoke to me in Russian. The head of the French department spoke to me in French. And the head of the Hebrew department spoke to me in Hebrew. And then they said, "Okay, tell us what they all said to you." And I said, you know, totally mad. Matter of fact, like it wasn't effortful. And believe me, it was. I mean, I was sweating inside, but I got it right. And I then said, oh well, Professor so-and-so said this. And I knew that I was going to get the award then, and I did. And so that was one of the happy days of my life. And we took a boat about a third the size of this on September 10th, 1969. I just turned 21 the month before. I was leaving between Brooklyn and home for a whole year. There are no words to describe the joy on that boat, because there would be no other way I would have gone. I just would have ended up, you know, being home and at Brooklyn College were it not for this award that I won. Went to the University of Leeds in England. I wouldn't have gone anywhere. I don't care. Whoever had a program that would give credit, that's where I went to. And talk about seasick, by the way, the first day. You know, the Atlantic is a rough ocean. That's why it's not called Pacific. And so the, uh, we had— it was very rough, and it was, as I say, much smaller than this. It's almost like a giant ferry of 1,000 students on it going for cheap to Europe. And everybody was nauseous, and everybody was doing what you do when you're nauseous. So that was a lousy first day. Beyond that, it was a lot of fun. And then romance began. I met a German girl on board, and she was my— became my girlfriend for much of that year in some ways, which brought my home great joy. Dennis is dating a German girl. It was bad enough I'm in with a non-Jewish girl, a German no less. You know, what could I I may have picked better. So anyway, I visited her in Germany about 5 times that year because you could take a boat from England to Germany for like $25. It was incredible what you could do as a student on student fares. And so I visited her and it was a very, to be honest, it was a very, if not difficult, it was emotional. This is only 23 years after the Holocaust, and I'm walking around Germany and I'm thinking about all these adults. Where were you? What were you doing? Were you with this? Were you— who did you torture? Who did you gas? Who did you round up? Who did you watch rounded up? But I worked out in my mind that, you know, there's a substantial part of Germany that cannot be faulted. They were too young at the time. And this became a very important theme in my life. Remember Many of you know what I've called the motto of my show: there are only two races, the decent and the indecent. Viktor Frankl, who went through the Holocaust, was asked, do you hate the Germans after being in a Nazi concentration camp? And he said, no, I don't hate any group. There are the only two— I don't hate any race, because if, you know, so to speak, the Germans are right, there are only two races, the decent and the indecent. That stayed with me. I read that in high school, and I still believe I truly believe, and I don't say this as a boast, I'm not capable of being racist. I'm capable of being a lot of bad things. Racist is not one of them because I truly only divide the world by that motto. I have no other interest, frankly, in a person that I meet. Their race, their ethnicity, their skin color is of no interest to me. You know, in fact, I just wrote an article. I'm getting a syndicated article starting in 2 months. I'll be syndicated. And my first piece may well be a piece I've already just written about my son's best friend being a young black boy and why that happens and my reflections on it. And if you want, I'll certainly share it with you later. Anyway, so I spent time in Germany, spent time in England, and then my life truly changed. And now I could be open about this, I guess. I could not be open about it for so many years for a lot of reasons. As many of you know, there was terrible persecution of Jews in the Soviet Union. And here I was, a religiously oriented Jew from America who spoke Russian and Hebrew. And when I visited Israel and Passover of 1969, right, remember I went in September '68, so I went from England to Israel for Passover in spring of '69. Not yet 21, uh, people who, uh, heard about me through friends of theirs. I wasn't famous at all, at all. I was nothing. I was just a student. But they heard, hey, here's this Jewish boy who speaks Russian, English, Hebrew. Let's send him to Russia to bring in religious items for Jews because they're all banned in the Soviet Union, and let him bring out information and names of Jews who want to get out, which is a very risky thing to have done under communism. But when when you're 20, you think you're immortal. So they— and to really make it all the more alluring, not only, of course, were they going to pay for me to go to Russia to do this for 4 weeks, no less, which is a lot, let me tell you, it was the longest 4 weeks of my life, but they would send me with a girl from England. And I thought, hey, I'm not going to say no to that. And I mean, my luck, as it turns out, she was very religious and believed that you should have no touching even prior to marriage. This is who I got sent with, and it was one of the many tests that God has brought to me in my life with his infinite sense of humor. Dennis, you can go with a girl, but that's the good news. The bad news is she doesn't believe in touching prior to marriage. So I didn't propose to her, and so I certainly had no choice— or no chance and no choice. But she was an excellent companion, and we got a lot of information in and out. And I cried Coming from Moscow back to New York on the 13th month away, October of that year, I cried the whole flight on Pan Am. And I'll never forget the flight attendant, then known as stewardess, came over to me and she said, can I help you? Did you just break up with a girlfriend? You know, and I said, no, it's okay, I can't explain. But the The explanation was I had just spent 4 years in a totalitarian— 4 years, that's what it felt like, 4 weeks in a totalitarian state. And because I had this blue passport, I could get out. And I met all these people who couldn't. And it was that I was crying for all the people I met. That here I am, I just board a plane and I leave back to free America. It also obviously had yet another reinforcing belief in me of the greatness of freedom, of an American freedom, and so on. Then my final year in college was uneventful except for the fact that I began lecturing, and that's why my life was turned around. I went all around the eastern half of the United States lecturing on the plight of Soviet Jews. That's how my lecture life began. Then I went to Columbia University for graduate school. Graduate school at the Russian Institute and Middle East Institutes, and I did not get a degree because I would have had to have written— I gave my oral thesis, my— you know to whom, by the way? I wonder if any of you remember this name: Zbigniew Brzezinski. He was National Security Advisor for Jimmy Carter. He was my master's thesis professor, and because I was in communist World Affairs, and I was specifically doing it on Polish communism. By the way, I had spent many trips in Eastern Europe visiting communist countries. I lived with families in Poland, in Bulgaria, uh, uh, in Hungary, and in— no, not Czechoslovakia, but close to. Anyway, it was quite— I was in Czechoslovakia the year after the Soviet invasion, and you could still see all of the massive gigantic artillery holes in the walls of Prague. It was a very, very depressing time to be in Prague, and it just made me hate communism even more. Well, be that as it may, I then finished the— I finished college. I went to Columbia for the graduate, for my graduate work, and I spent most of my time lecturing. And I'll never forget, about 3 years into lecturing for free, giving all the proceeds over to the Soviet Jewry movement, my friend Joseph said to me, Dennis, you got to start lecturing on other things and making a living. And so I called up a place that I had spoken to, and it was a Jewish place because that's all I was taking speeches on, Soviet Jewry then. And I said, hi, this is Dennis Prager. Do you remember me? I gave you the— I'm the young guy, the kid who gave you the speech. Remember the kid who went to Russia? Oh yeah, you were terrific. I said, well, I'd like to come back and give a speech on another topic. And the woman said, what else do you know? And it was, it was perfectly appropriate. I had no reputation other than as an expert on Soviet Union, Soviet Jews. I said, well, how would you like to know why— I remember the subject— why are most young Jews alienated from Judaism? Yeah, we would love to know that. Do you know why? I said, yeah, I think I do, because I'm a young Jew and I'm not alienated. So she said, how much do you charge? I was so nervous at that moment. Like, it was— there was never a time in my life I was more nervous. I can't ask for me well. I just— it's not— others have that ability, I don't. So I was about to say $35 when Talisa She goes, no, no, $75, $75. So I said, $75, expecting him to say, oh, I know it's too much, no problem, no problem. And she of course thought, $75? That's like free. So she said, oh, that's fine. And they even paid my taxi fare. That was the first time that people had paid me to come to a place to give my thoughts. And it hasn't stopped. It's a wonderful way to make a living. Look at where I am now, right? I mean, I'm the you know, the Drake Passage to Antarctica, giving a speech. And that's how it all began, my speaking, through this, through calling up the places that I— and I got a reputation. This was all Jewish life. I had not spread my wings beyond that, but deeply ate to. I never wanted to be in one world ever, ever. But I was very grateful, first to help Soviet Jews, and second to start making a living. And I wrote, instead of doing my master's thesis— remember, there were no word processors then, just erasable paper for Selectrics, remember that? That's what I would use. Instead, Telushkin and I wrote a book. And this is very interesting. Instead of writing a thesis— I, and I've always taken chances, and almost always they have blossomed. And I am a big believer— you are too, by virtue of your being here. I mean, I mean, I'll talk to you about that later. You know, I'm sure how so many of your acquaintances probably said, what exactly, when you said, yeah, oh, we're going to Antarctica. I mean, people think you flipped out of your minds. So you understand what it is to live fully, to take risks and so on. Not that it's a very risky thing, but you know what I'm saying. Anyway, uh, I, uh, I decided not to write my master's thesis, which no one in the world except Brzezinski would have read, and probably he wouldn't have read it, a teaching assistant would have. So instead, I left Columbia after 2 years, and I said to Telushkin, you know what, Joseph, wherever we go, Jews are asking the same questions, and they need answers to these questions. And so we wrote a book called 8 Questions People Ask About Judaism. The most common Like, do you have to believe in God to be a good Jew? How do you account for people who are religious but who are not ethical? I mean, very basic, real questions. And we decided to publish it ourselves. Another risky thing to do, but it was the best choice of my— one of the best professional choices of my life, because selling the books at speeches paid for me to do all my travels in my 20s. I would take the book and speech revenue and then go to another another part of the world. It was a great time. It was just a great time for me. I was, you know, if your 20s are good, man, they're good, because you're old enough to do anything and young enough to still be pretty irresponsible. You don't have to have a family. You don't have, you know, it's really awesome. I remember the first time I was brought to LA. I was 24 years old to give a lecture. And I remember it so vividly. I rented a car and I was driving down palm tree-lined Wilshire Boulevard. And saying to myself, Dennis, if you are not the luckiest man in the world, I wonder who is. While everybody is doing something else, I don't know what they're doing, here I am being paid to come to Southern California, which was another romantic vision in my life. Also, by this time I knew I was going to leave New York. I knew I'd leave New York the day I was in another city. And it's the truth. And it's— listen, New York's a great city. It's just that's not for everybody, and I'm one of the everybodies it's not for. My first speech out of town was Nashville, Tennessee, and do you know what occurred to me there? How much quality of life the people live. In New York, you grow up believing that people outside of New York are in varying degrees of hickdom, right? Basically hicks until you get to San Francisco when they're New Yorkers with a bridge. And that's really, that is how New Yorkers— well, you've seen the New Yorker cartoon. There's nothing in the middle between the Hudson River and the old Golden Gate Bridge. But I love what's between Manhattan and the Golden Gate Bridge. That's my America, and I got to love it. Speaking, I would see this, and I saw people having wonderful lives, cultured lives, happy lives, lives where you could walk outdoors and see trees. This just— and I said, I have to— I'm going to have to leave New York. I don't know where to, But the speaking enabled me to do that. Then I was brought out to LA by a Jewish institute, the Brandeis Institute. It's in Simi Valley. It's on 3,200 acres. And the head of it was 50 years older than me. He was a great man, Dr. Bardeen. And he was told, there's this wonderful 24-year-old lecturer you should bring out to your institute. Because he would bring out lecturers in this retreat center for weekends for his members. He said, "I don't believe anybody 24 has something wise to say to my people." And he flew to New York, I didn't even know it, to attend a speech I gave in the Bronx. He went to the audience to check me out. Could a 24-year-old really have something to say? Afterwards, he introduced himself and said, "You have something to say. I'd like you to be the youngest speaker who ever came to the Brandeis Institute to lecture." I mean, you can't imagine. I mean, I get the chills telling it to you. It's so exciting. I remember going to JFK Airport and seeing in the American terminal Los Angeles Flight 1, and I was levitating. It was so exciting. People are paying to bring me to Los Angeles. What a life! I couldn't believe this. And so I was brought out and I did a weekend, then they brought me out 5 more times. Then Dr. Bardine announced a year and a half later that he would like me to succeed him one day upon his death, he would like this young guy to be the successor, to be the second director of this institute. He died that week. It was very dramatic and very unhappy. I remember when I found out, I was in Mississippi giving a lecture, of all places, and I got a call, come on out, you're going to speak at the funeral. And I cried like a baby. I could not give the eulogy without just constantly crying. And I was crying for me as much as for him, to be honest. I wasn't ready for such a responsibility. I had— the only job I had ever held before this was a waiter at summer camp. I mean, I don't have normal jobs. I was still lecturing and writing. But I came out to LA, came out with a cot, a piano, an accordion, uh, and a few thousand books, and lived at the Institute. I lived in Simi Valley in the valley for 3 years at this 3,200-acre retreat. And I must say, when I was dating, it was very powerful. Would you like to see my place? 3,200 acres. Now that was better than partying, I got to tell you that, to make an impact. And that was 1976. I became director of the institute. I stayed there until 1983. In 1982, Roberta Weintraub, who was the head of the Board of Education in Los Angeles— you may recall her name— she was friends with George Green, who was the head of KABC Radio. And George said, you know, Roberta, do you know anybody— we need a new host on our program Religion on the Line— do you know anybody who knows how to speak, who knows religion, and isn't a clergyman? He said, yeah, I do. I use a young kid. I just heard him at the this retreat center in Simi Valley. He knows how to speak and he's not a rabbi or anything, and he knows religion. So they called me up here, try next Sunday night, come and try out. So I was deliriously excited, and this was 1982, August 1982, and, uh, I didn't even know how to push buttons. So the head— not the head, the program director, Wally Sherwin— some of you will remember that. I, I did do from those commercials, plumbing commercials, Wally Sherwin, was the program director. He sat next to me, and there was the priest, rabbi, and minister, and I would field the calls and host the show. I was so nervous, sweat was dripping on the microphone. I thought people would think it was an outdoor show and it was raining. I, I was so nervous. You know why I was nervous? I knew how much was riding on whether or not— I knew my— the rest of my life professionally emotionally was in many ways being shaped by this tryout. You know, the show went from 10 PM to midnight without commercials. At 11 PM, he slips me a note, "Tell them you'll be on next week." And I, you know, I can't tell you the— I didn't know what I'd do with my life. I didn't know. I knew I was going to leave this institute, and I wanted to branch out. I didn't want to just stay in Jewish life as committed as I am to it. And so this was unbelievable godsend. Then I did Religion on the Line, then I did a weekly night show. The Religion on the Line was so successful they then gave me an hour on Sunday night, so 9 to 10, just myself. That was successful, so they gave me 8 to 10. That was successful, they gave me 7 to 10. That was successful, they gave me 7 to midnight on Sunday and, and 9 to midnight on Saturday night. And as I often said, if you don't like me This is a very bad station weekend nights. Because that's all they have. Whatever you turn on, Dennis Prager was on on the weekend. And I love being on weekends. This is interesting. To me, I had the best of all worlds. No full-time job. Work I loved. Get some payment. Not a lot, but some to live on. And I have the whole week free. What could you ask for better? And they kept saying, we'd like to put you on weekdays. And I said no. I kept refusing. And finally, finally, as Fran can attest to this, they just— you have to go on, basically. You're an idiot if you don't. That's where radio is. You've got to grow. I said, okay. So then I went 9 to midnight on weeknights, except Friday night, my Sabbath. I did 9 to midnight, did very well. Then they put me on days. So then I broadcast— I don't know, I was at 1 9 to 4, then 12 to 3, then 9 to 12. After 19 years with KABC, uh, KABC did not want to allow me to, uh, to, um, what's the word, syndicate my show. And so I left. It was no hard feelings. They allowed me— it's never been done before, I doubt it'll be done again— they allowed me to stay on radio, know I was leaving the station. Usually people just disappear. And so I didn't announce I'm going to KRLA. Which at that time was KIEV anyway. But I did say, you know, I am going elsewhere. They didn't make it easy for me. I could not say where, which I understand. And they also made sure I did not broadcast the very next week in LA so people wouldn't find me immediately. So they— I mean, they did stuff which is understandable. They don't— they don't want to lose my listeners. But anyway, I moved over, and now look at where my life has come from from this insulated life in Brooklyn Jewish life to now being a national talk show host hired by evangelical Christians. Salem Radio are evangelical Christians and they are my employers and I get along with them terrifically and there's no reason that I wouldn't. I mean, we share so many values. And so that has been the life. In the meantime, I have written 2 books to other books, hundreds of articles, and life has been very blessed for me.

Tomorrow on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

Okay, now it's time for part 2 of my story, and this is the evolution of my thinking and philosophies of life.

Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit Dennis prager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.

Is losing weight getting harder as you get older? It's not your fault. You're eating better, you're moving more, but your body isn't responding anymore. At PhD Weight Loss, they help people identify what's actually blocking fat loss and help increase your lifespan. If you want to understand why your body isn't cooperating, call PhD Weight Loss now and book your consultation at Call 864-644-1900. Mention Dennis Prager and you get 2 weeks free in the program and they'll pay for your food. That's a $1,500 value absolutely free. Call 864-644-1900.