Timeless Wisdom - A Debate with the Left: Dennis Prager and Michael Lerner

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. Dennis, and Dennis Prager precisely, and this next tape is different from all of the others I've sent you. This is a debate that I just had with Michael Lerner. Michael Lerner is a radical Jew and Jewish radical. I don't know which is the noun and which is the adjective. They're both accurate. Who spends a lot of his time writing op-ed pieces for mainstream newspapers against Israel. Having a person with the title rabbi write these articles is wonderful for our opinion pages. And we were invited to debate each other on a number of issues at a Reform temple in, in Orange County, Southern California. The reason that I agreed to the debate was because Michael Lerner does have a following with his magazine Tikkun, and because he was the guru for Hillary Clinton for some time. He was the rabbi whom she said was, in effect, his guru. And so I felt that it was important to debate him. Rabbi David Woznika is the moderator, whom you hear at the beginning. The sound is not as perfect as my other Tapes in the beginning is certainly bad. It gets much better after Rabbi Woznikowicz introduces— he is a wonderful rabbi with a national reputation— he served as moderator. And so here goes. There's a lot of passion, and you'll decide how you think the debate went, and you'll probably get your blood pressure rising. So here goes. Thanks. This is Dennis Prager.

There are 4 areas that I'd like to discuss with both of you this evening. We could obviously discuss a million issues, but I want to focus on 4: domestic policy, American policy issues that are happening here, foreign policy, Israel, and Judaism. So I'm going to start with issues related to American policy. We just had elections two nights ago, which apparently have significant implications for the rest of America. I wonder if you respond to this first. What's your take on what happened before last?

Wasn't good. I think what happened was a logical development of the failure of the Democratic Party to put forward any kind of significant vision and significant alternative ethical worldview to that of the Republicans. Okay, what I said is— is this okay? Okay, that what happened the other night, what happened two days ago, was the logical outgrowth of the failure of the Democratic Party to put forward an alternative worldview and an alternative ethical vision to that of the Republicans. And basically, the way I view politics is that energy is always flowing towards either hope or towards fear. And when energy is flowing towards fear and people are not able to counter that, then they go to a stance in the world of self-protection of fear of the other, needing strong walls around oneself, and basically around that, in that worldview, the Republicans look best in that context because they're really good at building those walls and at being tough and hard on the other. When people move towards hope, when people are in a more hopeful stance, when they can see the other as as equally valuable to oneself, then they are able to move towards a more liberal or progressive stance in the world. They're more open to taking care of others, they're less fearful about the world. Now what in fact has happened is that the Democratic Party has not put forward an alternative vision to that of the Republicans, but in fact has gone along with the basic view of the Republicans that this is a scary world, that this is, that the fundamental thing is to protect ourselves, that we have to put us as number one and see the other as other. In that kind of a world, there's not that much to excite people to go between these two parties. And so as a result, the vast majority of Americans voted by their feet. That is, they didn't show up at the polls. They didn't care very much between one or the other of the two parties in that circumstance. And I think that until there is a different worldview that is articulated by either the Democrats or by somebody, the politics of this country will move further and further and further to the right. Because basically, if what you hear from a Democrat, for example, is, oh, here's the economic program, $1.5 trillion, let's give it back to the rich and the comfortable in this country, said the Republicans. Democrats: "No, no, no, no, it should only be $1.1 trillion." Well, if that's the difference, it's not a difference that will speak to the heart and make anybody feel like, "Oh yeah, there's a significant difference here." So that's very different, for example, than a worldview that I'll talk about later that would say, "No, you know, if we have $1.5 trillion that we think we can give back to Americans because the government doesn't need it, let's use that to eliminate world hunger and homelessness. That would be a different, fundamentally different vision. That would be a fundamentally different way of understanding politics, to say that what we should be doing is not enriching those of us who have, but instead taking care of others who do not have. That's an alternative vision. Not everybody might jump on the alternative vision, but there's at least something that is an alternative. But as long as there's no alternative between the two, and the energy is flowing towards fear, the Republicans will win.

Mr. Prager?

Well, I— is it too loud?

Okay.

Very loud for me, I guess. First time having my headphones on on a radio show. All right. Actually, I do hope that the Democrats articulate how I learned this issue, because then I foresee a sweep by the Republicans in the next election. I'm not going to speak I'm not being cute. This attitude is, which is endemic, I believe, to the left. I didn't have time. I don't write in shorthand, so I didn't get it all down. But these are the words Rabbi Lurie used. When people see each other as equals, then they will become liberal.

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Progressive and leftist. This notion I, I call on the left. I assume that liberal progressive does not mean right, so I took the liberty of saying left. This is truly what many people like Rabbi Lerner believe, that if you see people as equals, if you have a heart, if you care about human suffering, then undoubtedly you will take left-of-center positions. This sells among '60s graduates. People who lived in the '60s and still believe in flower power, that you somehow undo evil in the world by speaking about hope and kindness and love. Auschwitz was liberated by weapons, not by flowers, not by pacifists. It was liberated by doing very hard things like killing people. One day everybody will awaken perhaps to to the realization that you do have to fight sometimes, that evil cannot be brought down with goodwill and good thoughts, that the best will is sometimes shooting. This notion I want to develop for just a moment. I will take just only as much time as the rabbi did, because I'd like it to flow in this manner. The rabbi accused the United States or accuse President Bush of seeing us as number one. This again is endemic to the left view of the right, that it is not possible that President Bush is animated by idealism. He must be animated— all those who believe that the United States perhaps should attack Iraq, even if the United Nations, that light unto the world that it is, would Syria on the Security Council and Sudan replacing the United States on the Human Rights Council. It is so painful to me that it is, it actually, it reaches the point of the absurd to think that the United Nations has anything moral to say to the United States of America. It is backwards. The United Nations, the United Nations is indeed, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn put it many years ago, a bunch of governments, most of whom are run by thugs. In effect, what the left says is, we should attack Iraq if the thugs say it's OK. But if we, the United States of America, a rather decent place after all— when we took over Germany, we didn't start killing people. We made a democracy. When we took over Japan, we didn't put us number one, we put Japanese number one. We put Europeans number one with the Marshall Plan. The United States tends to put others as number one. That has been the record of this fundamentally decent place called the US. The left does not even acknowledge that it might be idealism. That what animates people who are to the right of center, like our president, may be be just as much idealistic as them. I believe that Rabbi Lerner means well. He doesn't understand that the right might mean well. That's why we will win. Because in the final analysis, most Americans don't think that just because you're a Republican, you want to milk the poor. They don't believe that. You have to go to graduate school to believe that. You have to live in San Francisco to believe that.

About.

But if you leave Massachusetts or the Bay Area, most Americans don't buy that idea because this is a fundamentally decent country and we have a fundamentally decent president.

Let me just— I'm going to ask actually the two of you to respond to that issue. Rabbi Lerner, do you doubt the motivation of Republicans?

Not at all. I don't doubt that one bit.

Then let me just ask, if I may, and I would only throw—

I certainly don't doubt that there are many idealistic people on every side of all this.

Then why would you have said, when people see each other as equals, they will take your views? That means that we who don't share your views don't think others as equals.

No, it means you may have different ideals.

Right. In other words, an ideal that is not that of seeing people as equals. Okay, just want to establish that that is not true.

Do you believe that President Bush, for example, is driven by the same ideals and passion for goodness that you, but all the people on the left are?

Well, first of all, I don't— I mean, the characterization of the left is already— I think when it comes to Orange County and gets identified as the left, it's not the ideal place to start from. It's not— particularly since in my own experience, since I have been an advocate of a new bottom line of love and caring, I find as much cynicism about that on the left as I do on the right. So I certainly am not— most people that I know on the left don't think of me or of Tikkun magazine as on the left, precisely because we put God in the center and believe that that the world can be based on love and caring. And that's very different than putting Auschwitz in the center. It's really different. And actually, there is a worldview struggle here, and the way I understand that worldview struggle is whether you believe that the world can in fact be run by a power of love and caring and generosity and compassion— Well, wait, let me stop you.

Do you think that Republicans don't care about love and care and generosity?

I think, you see, that's what I'm trying to say to you, is that I don't think it's a matter of Republicans versus Democrats or left versus right. I think that I've met the same cynicism among some circles in the left that I meet in some circles in the right. So unfortunately, if you insist that I be the representative of a position I don't hold, you're going to be dissatisfied. I'm as critical of people on the left as on the right with with regard to this issue of whether you actually believe that the world, that the fundamental paradigm through which you see the world is the paradigm of a God in the universe that makes possible the transformation from cruelty to love, and that love, kindness, generosity, and goodness can in fact prevail, and that we are created in the image of that God and are meant to be partners with that God in making that happen in the world, or whether you see the world through the paradigm of Auschwitz. I don't deny Auschwitz, and I don't deny Hitler, and I don't deny cruelty, and I don't deny that there are evil people. But I do believe that looking at the world through that lens and saying that is the primary reality through which we shape how we are to respond to each other and to the world is a deep mistake, and it is a victory for Adolf Hitler, which I will not give Something that happened actually not too far from here on the Ted Leitner Show when Harry Belafonte was interviewed made national headlines.

Most of you have probably heard it, but for those of you who may not, I want to read to you what Harry Belafonte said when he spoke of Colin Powell and ask both of you to respond to it. He said, there's an old saying in the days of slavery. There were those slaves who lived in the plantation and those slaves that lived in the house. You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master exactly the way the master intended him to be served. Colin Powell committed to coming to the house of the master. When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture.

Dennis Prager's response to that? There is a deep, deep fear in— I will use the term, if Rabbi Werner doesn't wish to use the term, he obviously is not obligated to. There is a deep fear among— in fact, I won't use the term— among the progressive forces in our country who align themselves generally with the Democratic rather than the Republican Party. That blacks might actually decide one day that on many, many issues they actually have more conservative values than liberal ones. Because should that day come, it will mean the end of the Democratic Party's ability to win any national election. Democratic Party depends on 90% black vote and huge black turnout. It is therefore absolutely absolutely essential for all whites and blacks left of center to demean, to despise, to caricature any black who is on the right, or who even is not on the right personally, but may be centrist and align himself with the Republican Party. They are to be dismissed as Uncle Toms, or in the case of Harry Belafonte's dismissal of Colin Powell, I think consistently one one of the two most admired men in the United States, as nothing but a house slave. The word has to get out in the community, the word must get out that a Black cannot defect. And because it is the end of that political movement if Blacks defect, and so therefore it is critical to say publicly, you are beneath contempt if you are a Black and you align yourselves with the Republican Party. That is what is at stake there. Nothing more than sheer fear, talking about fears, of what would happen if blacks actually followed their values. Blacks actually on the list of values tend to be conservative. They are conservative on sexual orientation issues. They are conservative on voucher issues. They are conservative on God-centered issues. On most issues, black values are actually not Berkeley values. They tend to be more like Orange County values. What then keeps them away from the way in which conservatives tend to vote, which is Republican, and that is the constantly drummed-in belief that Democrats are their salvation. Without Democrats and affirmative action, blacks would be in a terrible state. Saying that they would be back to lynching. Black voters tell me this. They sincerely believe that without the Democratic Party protecting them, we are back to segregated schools, different fountains for blacks and whites, and even perhaps lynching. That belief will die within two generations. There is no doubt in my mind. It is already happening. Look at Tiger Woods, who doesn't even call himself black. It is happening. Look at the fact that you have already more and more Blacks who are running in the Republican Party. So now the Democrats will shift, but since your question was about Harry Belafonte, I will leave it at that.

Rabbi Martin, do you have a similar response?

No.

Do you have any thoughts to throw out?

I, I, no, this doesn't seem to my soul to answer this, to get into this one.

Well, let me ask you more generally.

Yes.

Do you think that racial relations in America have changed dramatically in the last 30 years?

Yes, I think there's been a great improvement. I think, as far as I know, he says their values are like Orange County. I'm hoping that there are more of them in Orange County today than there used to be. Are there? Are there? 20%? Okay, well, it'd be interesting to know that since I'm not sure that there— you cannot— in fact, I know for sure that although there's been a change, very dramatic change, in their— in the way that we understand and view African Americans in the society. He was proud to be part of the civil rights movement and to go to jail for that civil rights movement that fought for some of the rights that have enabled people to do that. It didn't happen because the Republican Party, which filibustered against this along with Southern Democrats and did everything they possibly could to block the rights of Blacks legislatively for years and years and years, done everything they could to undermine that. It didn't happen just because some, they granted it. It happened because a group of people got out into the streets and struggled for a change in that situation. However, the change was a legal change and not an economic change. And although it's certainly true that a significant percentage of blacks, in part through the struggle of affirmative action, have now been able to move up the economic ladder, it's also true that nevertheless there's disproportionate number of African Americans in poverty, and that they have been that way since the time that we had them as slaves in this country. And that has not been fundamentally rectified, the inequality in poverty in this country. The number of, for example, African American children who grow up in poverty before, before they've had a chance to, quote, make it or not make it, born into and live in poverty and under extreme extremely difficult circumstances. So yes, there's been an advance. The advances happened through struggle. And no, the problems of African Americans or other groups that have been systematically deprived of rights in this country has not been solved by virtue of the legal, the important legal advances that have been made.

Can I just generally press you then on Belafonte's comments? Because given what you said, said, in hearing his comments, it doesn't sound like he would acknowledge that. I mean, comparing the Secretary of State to a house slave is a difficult statement for anybody who believes that race relations have changed dramatically, as you obviously feel. So are you troubled that he would say something like that? And are you troubled that many people in the Black community seemingly didn't speak out against that?

I don't know. I would have liked to hear the program to know the context. I know I've heard myself be quoted in wild ways out of context. He spoke about it on a subsequent program and we approved it.

I think he's clear.

I certainly don't think that that was a very smart way to talk about another African American, and I don't think that African Americans should refuse to join the Republican Party or refused to work with the— for the President of the United States, if that is in fact their ideology. Now, the question of— the question that Belafonte was raising was how much is what the Bush government advocates in fact Powell's ideology, versus how much is it Powell thinking that he has to toe a certain line in order to stay in a position of power? I would imagine that that's a struggle that probably most of the people in this room have had at times in their life, trying to decide where is the line between what I need to do in order to keep my job versus how much do I really believe what I have to say in order to keep my job. It's not a unique struggle. And I have myself been quite perplexed at Powell because of the changes that that he has made in many of his statements in a very short time without really providing any grounding under those changes. And I could understand how Belafonte or others would look at that and say, look, one day you're calling for, for example, you're calling for a just settlement between Israel and Palestinians, and on the other day you're putting all the blame on the Palestinians and not Israel. What I'm saying is that if you see the switch and there's no explanation of why there's a switch in some important ideological perspective—

on the race issue, you feel what Donald Trump said was an unfortunate handling?

Yeah, I do think it's unfortunate because I don't think that it's inappropriate for African Americans to serve in a Republican Party or to join the Republican Party. Party if that's their actual ideology. I can understand why others would say, look, you're serving in a party that does not really support giving aid to our community, and our community needs something, and you're betraying your community. But if he comes back and says, hey, I agree with Dennis Prager, the Republicans are best for the blacks, that would be a reasonable response, and I don't— I think it would be very unfortunate to would then tell him that he had no right to do that or that he was a bad person for doing that.

I want to move on to the second area, and that's foreign policy. The United States is about to make a very critical decision, reasonably likely, going into Iraq. Both of you have written your positions on that, but I think it's important for each of you to take a moment and articulate why you hold the positions you do. So, Mr. Dennis Prager.

Well, first of all, I honor both positions on the Iraq issue. I believe that we should invade, but I believe that there are respectful, respectable arguments on the other side. I did not believe that there were respectable arguments for not having the invasion in the Gulf War of 1991, and that for which most Democrats voted I voted against. This is a Jewish audience largely. I will say that it was a perplexing and depressing moment for me as an American Jew that American Jews would not even question the party that the vast majority of them affiliate with not to invade Iraq after Iraq had exterminated Kuwait from the map. Jews of New York voted for Charles Schumer for senator after he had voted against something that was so critical to the survival of Israel and so critical to the survival of the rule of international law, if you will, of decency, was very sad to me. But I am in favor of it because I believe that this man is an Arab version of Hitler. I very rarely use that term, very rarely. I don't call people Nazis with ease. This man qualifies. The list of evils that he has already engaged in— he, unlike North Korea, for example— people say, well, why don't we invade North Korea? They're producing nuclear weapons. Well, they didn't use them. He has used whatever weapons he could against his own people, against the Shi'ite in the south, against the Kurds in the north. He made war on Iran, which cost hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides. The man is truly evil. The word is overused. He qualifies. The good that could happen in the Arab world, the good that could happen in the world if he were deposed Let's take the best-case scenario. Best-case scenario is we go in, the Iraqi people are thrilled we come in, which is very possible, very, very possible, as many Afghanis were thrilled that we overthrew the Taliban, and indeed not all were, some were pro-Taliban, and there were some people who loved Saddam, as there were Germans who loved Hitler, there were Russians who loved Stalin, and so on. But let us imagine the best case. A scenario which is not implausible, that we do remove him, that it is not at the cost of a very large number of civilians in Iraq or a very large number of American soldiers, that he is removed, that Iraqis sing the national anthem in the streets of Baghdad or wherever they are. I'm exaggerating, of course, by a bit, but you understand my point, that they actually regard us as liberators. The number of Iraqis who have suffered as a result of this man. You know, Iraq is actually one of the best educated and richest countries in the Arab world. It is one of the only secular countries in the Arab world. Women have a certain degree of equality, which means under Saddam that they are equally capable of being tortured by the Iraqi secret police. He has refined torture in ways that are novel, that I, who have studied evil a lot, have found to be new. The use of the use of children as modes of torture to get parents to confess is widespread and normal in Iraq. On the moral ground, to speak as the rabbi does in terms of the Torah, which is the basis for both of us, I grant, of the values that we seek. I pick one sentence from the Torah to ask myself, is this moral? Do not stand by the the blood of your neighbor. That if you have the ability to prevent bloodshed of the innocent or stop the bloodshed of the innocent and you do not, that in some ways you are culpable. God has granted the United States of America at this time in history more power than any other society. I thank God for that fact because I trust this country more than I do France, more than I do Russia, more than I do any of the other countries on the Security Council, and more than I do any of the Arab countries. If you think that it is bad that power has devolved onto the U.S., whom would you prefer had power? If you can name a country, I would be curious. Perhaps Honduras. But I cannot personally think of a country that would wield power more beneficently for humanity than the United States has since before I'm involved. Let me also add that there is a libel, and it's a stupid libel because it's so obviously shown as not correct. We are doing it for oil. It is so backwards. It is so bad. The oil companies are pushing the president to do it. The oil companies don't want Iraqi oil. The oil companies make more money when we don't get oil from the Middle East because then they drill here, prices are high enough for them to have drilling needs, and they make more money. Iraq is not what they are waiting for. Oh, if only Iraq provided oil. It's just not true. Now oil is a factor, was a factor in 1991. And I fully acknowledge it. That they control such a vast reserve, or would take over the vast reserves of the economic spigot of Western freedom, is not just, "Well, we're in it for oil." Would I like to see alternate sources of energy? I sure would. But we don't have them right now. But it is not because of oil. And let's be clear, if President Bush were primarily concerned concerned with oil, why would he be so pro-Israel? This point is never made, but it is so obvious. Israel has no oil, yet this Republican who owes nothing to Jews, nothing— I and 11 others voted for him in the last election— he owes nothing to Jewry. He is pro-Israel for moral and religious reasons, which we'll get to later. That is why, if he cared about oil for America, then why back the one country in the place that has sand? That's what they have. The Negev is sand and the rest of the country is technologically advanced. That's it. The best-case scenario, I do believe. The worst-case scenario? There are— we don't know what it could be. The Arab world will explode? I don't know if that's so terrible if the Arab world explodes. I don't know. I'm being honest with you. Is the Arab world right now a good place? As you and I sit here tonight, all through the Arab world coming from Cairo is part 3 of a 41-part series all this month of Ramadan on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Nazi-like Jew hatred is emanating from the Arab world as we sit here and we are debating what is the moral good of overthrowing Assad.

Well, yes, I definitely have a different world view. Theater here. Let's start with this.

There—

okay, I haven't said anything yet. 2 billion people. We live here in the United States, and in this particular part of the United States, one of the wealthiest parts of the of the United States. 2 billion people in this world will go to sleep tonight having— living on an income of less than $750. 1 billion people in this world will go to bed tonight on an income of less than $365 a year. There, according to those who study If you study world hunger, someplace between 10,000 and 15,000 children die every single day in the world by virtue of diseases that are related to malnutrition. The United States, with 5% of the world's population, consumes 25% of the world's wealth. Those people are sitting and clapping at themselves for how terrific their society is and what a great world we have for ourselves. From my worldview, from the way that I see it, this is a center of pigginess. It is a center of self-satisfied people who do not care about others, who are willing to close their eyes to the pain and cruelty that the world system which we are the center of benefits from. As a result of that, And as a result of the ethos of individualism and selfishness that has become endemic, that is endemic in the marketplace that we advocate, that is central to the values of looking out for number one, going for yourself, maximizing the bottom line of money and power, and seeing that as the values that we bring to the world, a very large number of people in this world deep doubts about the good intentions of the United States. They see the United States as, in fact, protecting its wealth for itself, protecting its selfishness and its pigginess, protecting a worldwide system that disadvantages them and advantages the people here. When I said before to take some part of that and distribute to other people, it was a source of ridicule. It was a source of ridicule that, "Oh gee, what a funny idea, that must be from Berkeley, that must be from flower children or leftover '60s people." But I want to tell you that that idea comes straight from the Bible. It comes from our prophets, the prophets of our tradition, who said to the self-satisfied Jews of their own time, You go into your synagogues, and you have great time there when you go into the temple and you do your sacrifices. But meanwhile, you turn your back on the homeless. You turn your back on the orphan and the widow. You turn your back on all these people. And I detest your religious observance. I don't want this kind of Judaism who asks you to desecrate my sanctuary. I'm quoting from Isaiah. No, I'm— no, you allowed him to go as far as he wanted in a worldview.

It's just a clarification issue.

Yes.

Is there any country on earth that gives away more aid than the United States?

As a percentage of their total income, absolutely, yes. Um, the European countries together give a higher percentage of their total gross national product to foreign countries Yes, to other countries. But in any event, that's because we spent all the money protecting them.

Okay, okay, wait a minute.

If you interrupted me and you didn't interrupt him, why are you doing that? Why are you doing that?

Genuinely, I'm sorry.

Okay, okay, don't do it again, okay? Because I— it's not right.

It's not right.

Okay. Because in talking this way, I am not talking on behalf of somebody else. I'm not saying, oh, and they're the good ones and we're the bad ones. If it turns out that the ethos of the marketplace has pervaded the consciousness of the world today, then I'm critiquing that. I'm not critiquing it on behalf of socialism or on behalf of some other great country. I'm critiquing it on behalf of the values that our prophets taught us. And those values are values that say, do not turn your back in this way. Do not ridicule. And no, it's not enough to say, hey, I gave a little bit more than the other guy. The question is, what about the hungry? What about the homeless? What are you doing for 2 billion people out of the 6 billion people?

Do you see your faith connected to them?

Okay? The United States pouring out into the atmosphere in our SUVs and in the other ways that we destroy the atmosphere, pouring out into the atmosphere things whose consequences will be the raising of the water level that will affect the people of Bangladesh. It doesn't affect us directly, so we say, okay, fine. As the president at one point said, we'll manage with the— yes, there is finally, after years and years in which Republicans denied that there was any damage being done to our ecology. Finally, they acknowledged, yes, there is some damage being done to the ecology, to the prevention of global warming, but we'll survive. That's true. That is a particular attitude. We can get through and screw everybody else. It doesn't matter. Let the poor suffer. We deserve it. That's not where I'm coming from. It's a different worldview. In that world, there have been people people who have organized alternatives and struggles against this country. And the tragedy from my standpoint is that the people who have struggled against this, that set of values, have been equally screwed up. And I have absolutely no, nothing to say in defense of Saddam Hussein, whom I feel is a disgusting character, whom I would love to see out of power. But that doesn't mean that the way I want to see that happen is to take the center of pigginess of the world and say, now because you have the most arms and the most power, you get to run the world. No, I don't want that to be the way. I want us to use that power in a way to turn to the rest of the peoples of the world and say, we are in it with you together. There is one world here, and we are going away from the notion that the people who should run the world are the most powerful in the world. That was never what Judaism was about. It wasn't about championing those who had the greatest strength and the greatest power and saying, "Sure, run the world for us." It was in fact a different worldview that said all human beings are created in the image of God. Not just the wealthy, not just the powerful, not just the well-off sitting around and clapping for themselves about how wonderful their society is while they benefit from screwing over of other people in the world. So there's a different way of looking at the world. In that way, I want to say yes, if we— we should deal with the problem cases in the world. But I want to see— understand that when this guy violates human rights in the way that he does, and it's disgusting, that the United States has been the major force opposing the creation of a world court that would allow all countries to to be tried equally. And when you hear what their arguments are, they are afraid that some of our human rights violations and some of the disgusting things that we do in the world will also be brought before such a world court. Well, such an authority, such a moral authority, is not appropriate. It's not the one that should run the world. Instead, we need to bring together all the peoples of the world to make collective and joint decisions and in doing that credit the fundamental insight that is needed for the 21st century, that there is one world here, that is no longer— that we have to go beyond the consciousness that says it's us against them. There is one world. We are all interdependent. We need each other and we affect each other. And in that consciousness, actions that promote that consciousness consciousness are ones that I want to support. And actions that promote the consciousness that say, either directly or indirectly, "We're so much better than everybody else, we're so much higher plane than everybody else, we're really the great guys and the other people are the screwed up people," that consciousness is actually simply a clever way of defending our own selfishness, maintaining our own power, maintaining our own wealth, and screwing the rest of the world. I don't want to go with that. I want to go with the a different vision of what is possible. And so, yes, I want to overthrow Saddam, I want Saddam out of there, but no, I don't want the United States to unilaterally take action or to force the world to take action under the United States' terms without a serious discussion of the peoples of the world and establishment of criteria that could be used, for example, in the same way against every other state in the world, including the United States, which by the way recently was involved in a war in Vietnam and killed 3 million people in Vietnam. Oh, we don't want to talk about that, that's the whole ancient history. Well, yes, there was, the United States also would be subject and should be subject to the same kind of world of law that we want to see established for Saddam Hussein. So I'm not defending Saddam Hussein, but I'm not for George Bush's war.

A couple of responses. It, uh, there's something fascinating to me of growing up in a society that has given so many people in the world so much opportunity here and abroad, of growing up in a society that is used by students in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

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Our symbol— not Buckingham Palace, not the United Nations building, not the Eiffel Tower— but our Statue of Liberty is what they marched with in Beijing. It is our consulates that people line up to come to, including from the countries that most most hate us. Arabs line up in vast numbers to come here. We teach them how to fly one-way planes. We, we, we— there is no country that accepts people from every country with the same open arms that our country does. Turks living in Germany for 3 generations are still considered Turks, not Germans. People in this country are considered Americans within 3 minutes of arriving here. Here, even if it's done illegally. I began by saying I find it incredible to live in such a society and call it the center of piggy banks in the world. It is, it is, it's so morally bankrupt, this idea. It may be sincerely held, but the number of sick ideas that are sincerely held is very large. Center of pigginess. It's really remarkable. This country, which is the virtually sole protector of a little Jewish state the size of New Jersey. Should we talk to the peoples of the world about Israel? Should we get their input on what we should do about this a suicide bombing? The peoples of the world? And where are we going to convene that meeting exactly? In which country? Do I think Americans have better values?

Of course I do.

It has nothing to do with power. It has to do with the fact that I do believe that this country has better values. I do not believe the UN has better values, and I'll give you one simple example. 1 million black human beings have been enslaved and murdered in Sudan. The United Nations has devoted no time to that issue. The black Secretary General of the United Nations has apparently as much concern about them as the rest of the United Nations does. Now, why is it exactly that if one Palestinian is wounded wounded, or one child is killed in a defensive battle by Israel after having their children deliberately blown up at a pizza place or at a Passover seder, there are convened meetings at the UN, but with 1 million black animists and Christians slaughtered by the Arab Islamic regime in Khartoum, the world is utterly and thoroughly silent and indeed rewards Sudan with a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council instead of that of the United States. And I am, according to Rabbi Lerner, supposed to respect these people and their values because that's the world community. I am supposed to respect their courts because the UN has already shown it is so morally clear on great evil, as in the Sudan. That therefore they have earned the right for me to disarm as an American and to give over the rights to prosecute over to a court over my own country. They have earned my contempt. They are not my model. We do have different visions of the world, absolutely. I think we'll have the kind and loving and good world with models like the Lone Ranger, not models like these UN. I believe in unilateral good. When Moses, who was the greatest Jew who ever lived, saw an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew slave, he did not convene a Security Council meeting.

He killed him.

He acted unilaterally. God acts unilaterally all the time. Doesn't convene world congresses to decide who to whom he will give the Ten Commandments. This notion of "the world will decide," as if the world has some intrinsic moral greatness, that we who have earned what we have, we who have earned it through hard work and good values, that we lack that, this is bizarre to me. And finally, if we gave a serious portion of our wealth to the world's hungry. No hunger would be conquered, we would just be rendered more hungry ourselves. That a person seriously believes that the solution to world hunger is the giving away of money from richer countries is staggering. It's staggering. Do you know why there is world hunger? Overwhelmingly because there are other thuggish regimes that are running those countries. There is enough food in this world to feed everybody here and their children and their grandchildren, but thugs run these impoverished countries. Get rid of thugs, people will eat. It doesn't mean you have to give your money away.

Well, it's— I mean, it's a difficult situation, okay, that I'm in, right? Here I am in the center of what is well known as sort of like a caricature in the world. And, you know, any place in the country people say Orange County. Yes, it's the caricature of a group of the part of the world that cares mostly in that— that thinks in those terms. So it's very hard.

Let him respond. He is answering the question in his way.

So it's very hard to try to say to people in this context, you know, it would make a difference if we shared what we have. That generosity is different than holding on to what you have. That we have more than we need and we could share it with others. That doesn't mean that the strategy for how to share it is simply give money to individual people. That's not what I said. I said let's work out, use the that money to eliminate world hunger, and there is a way to do that, and it is not by giving that money back disproportionately to the wealthiest people in the society. That's not how we're going to deal with world hunger. And it's a— so we're cheering on the strategy here of those who say, yes, what we should do with the money that we think the government doesn't need is put it back in our own pockets. And I'm saying I think no, what we should do is to develop programs worldwide to provide adequate housing, to work out programs to make sure that instead of having to pay people not to grow food, that we grow food for people who are hungry in the world, that we make sure that we develop systems in third world countries. And I mean, the way in which third world countries have been impoverished in part is through a world economic system which imposed through colonialism single-crop development in particular countries so that they could sell their crops to the world market. And as a result, they went from a lower level of existence, but a subsistence level in which everybody had enough, to a level in which some people became richer and Third World countries, and there's definitely an increase in the well-being of a small section of people in Third World countries. And meanwhile, many people became impoverished in Third World countries and were pushed off of their land and into the cities where they live in these huge slums outside of major cities. This isn't how it was before colonialism, it's how it is after colonialism. It's the post-colonial reality of the world that we impose, not just the United States, but of Britain and France and all the other Western colonial powers created a world economy and then set up conditions of world trade and a World Trade Organization that would benefit some of the people in third world countries, namely those who were at the top of the economic heap, and would screw many of the poor people in third world countries. So this is a longer conversation, this is information that we don't get in our media, media doesn't tell us this stuff, So it sounds like, where is he coming from? What's all this? Although the information is available, there are places where you can read it. It is— it's— there is such information out there in the world. The way— the reasons for world poverty are not because we worked harder. At least Ronald Reagan had the decency to say we stole it fair and square. At least he was not pretending that that the way we got what we got was through just through hard work. No, we genocided the Indians and we enslaved 100 million Black people, and that made a huge amount of difference for making this country one of the richest countries in the world, was that we could depend for 300 years on slavery. Yes, that makes a big difference, and that does in fact create an economic base when you don't have to pay people to work.

I promise. First of all, South America had much more slaves than we did, and they were mired in poverty. The reason the United States is wealthy is because of its values, like the Protestant work ethic. The poorest parts of this country were the parts that had slavery. The richest parts were the parts that didn't have slavery. This country was not dependent upon slavery for its economic viability. So just— I never heard the 100 million issue with the United States. It has been— it is so wildly exaggerated. It's be painful. So let's just get these things clear. Secondly, you're Orange County. You invited him and are paying him, who was opposite presumably to much of Orange County's values. You have not hissed or booed him once. A, I have never been invited to Berkeley, will never be invited to Berkeley, and if I did get there, they would hiss and boo.

Dennis, Dennis, you are hereby invited to Berkeley. Okay, you can come to my, come to my school. You're invited to come speak at my school.

We are going on the road, folks. So I'd like to shift this over since the time is pushing a little bit. I want to talk about two other issues with you. I do want to talk about Israel with you by introducing the question, and I'll ask you both if I can do so gently to make your answers brief, not that they aren't thoughtful, seriously, just to allow us to get through a couple of other important questions. Were you surprised at the rejection of Barak's offer 2 years ago?

Who are you asking? I'm sorry.

Either— rather, let me go first and then Dennis Prager.

At the time I was, because I didn't know what Barak's offer was. There was there was never a written version of Barack's offer, and still one of the issues in current dispute is what was Barack's offer. There was a difference between what President Clinton put on the table and what Barack would agree to. And there was never a time, and neither then nor subsequently, in which there's been a written statement from Barack of here is what the offer is and you can have it. So at the time when it was being represented in the media as just an irrational rejection, it seemed to me to be another moment in which Arafat, whom I consider to be at the same moral level as Ariel Sharon, as having had— having both of whom in my— both of whom in— okay, what was I saying about not being booed here? Will you take that back? Will you take that one back?

So far it's only a boo, it's not a hiss.

No hissing. Okay. That is to say, both of them, in my view, thugs who should be brought to trial for past crimes against humanity. But in any event, so Arafat's actions seem to me, and in retrospect still seems to me, to have been incredibly stupid and misguided. Nevertheless, subsequently, having heard from some of the Israeli negotiators in this process, particularly Yossi Beilin, but not only Yossi Beilin, I now know that what was being offered by Barak was not such a great deal as it was represented in the American media, and in fact was very, very questionable for the following reasons. Number 1.

I'll just—

yeah, do you want me to interrupt?

I just want you to be brief so that we can go through.

Okay, well, actually, I don't think I can, because here you're asking if you want to know what was offered and what the difference is between what was offered and what was reasonable. I can do that, but I can't do that in a second. I can tell you point by point what are the reasons why somebody who would be reasonable might say this is not a great offer. If I can't do that, I'll let somebody do it.

Wait, now I'm being booed? I don't understand. I'll tell you what, let me help out here because I am interested to— Rabbi Wosika has a point too because if you go into all the details of what the Barak offer was or wasn't, then obviously you're Tired of giving away all your rental profits to a property manager?

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We can't take all night just on that, so let me offer an overview and perhaps I'll learn a little bit more reacting. Whatever your exact view on the details of the Barak offer, there is an infinitely larger question, and that is, does Arafat, the Palestinian Authority, and the great majority of the Palestinian people acknowledge the fact that a Jewish state called Israel Israel can exist in peace and security. We have every reason in the world to believe they do not, that their aim has not wavered since 1948, and that is to destroy Israel. There are maps of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. They weren't maps then. While Israelis were singing songs about peace, Arab children were learning that there was no Holocaust, that Jesus was a Palestinian— famous quote of Arafat. That the Jews have in fact no basis for even believing that the Temple Mount, or there was ever a temple there. There is a curriculum of lies about Jews and about Israel that dominates Palestinian life and has since they have had television and radio and a press. The details of the Barak offer become so inconsequential in the larger question of, are they prepared to accept the Jewish state? They are not now, by their own Birzeit University polls. Their own polls say that they are not prepared to accept the Jewish state. They want all the refugees to be able to return, which means the end of a Jewish state of Israel, and so on. So if the offer were spectacular even on a learner's scale of peace and kindness and good, Israelis would have walked over with tulips over the border and kissed all Palestinians and recited Quranic verses and given all the Jerusalem that they wanted and all of the West Bank and emptied every single settlement, it still would have had people strapping bombs to themselves. Islamic Jihad, and all of the others acknowledge this. We don't want an Israel of any size. That this is not obviously the root of the problem, that the vast majority of Israelis would not do anything for real peace, is such a libel of Israel. And this man libels Israel like he libels America. They are the center of pittiness and they are the center of self-centeredness as well. The issue is simple. The Palestinians want Israel dead. Any offer will be greeted with children strapping bombs to their waists. And I was for the offer, I was for Oslo, I am for peace, I am for dismantling the great majority of settlements, anything for real peace so an Israeli child can go on a bus and not be blown up. However, there is no peace movement on the other side. They want war. They love death. It is a society that reveres death versus a society that reveres life. If you can't see it, you are a moral idiot.

Pre-1948 Palestine, that is the West Bank and Gaza, that 22% you're going to have back. We expect you, on the other hand, to change your charter, the PLO charter, and and we expect you to do what you can to enforce peace against us and to stop violence against us. In 1995, it was not a Palestinian but an Israeli right-wing religious fanatic that murdered Yitzhak Rabin. It was not the notion that that they are the evil ones and they've got their fanatics. Us? We just want to rush across the border and quote Quran to them, you see, because we so much want peace. Simply is living in a dream world. There is a significant section of people in Israel who believe that this land was given to us, all of it, by God, and that God ordained us to stay there forever, and made it clear that they would rebel against, in fact fight against the Israeli army if they had to, in order to maintain that land. Now those people, disproportionately represented by the settlers, though not all the settlers hold this view, but disproportionately represented in the settlers, had a viewpoint which called for out-and-out rebellion against Yitzhak Rabin and which led some people into armed struggle and the murder of the Prime Minister of Israel by religious fanatics of the Jewish, not the fundamentalist Muslim type. We have them on our side and they have them on their side. A year before— a year before in Hebron, an Israeli fanatic went went in and murdered 27 Palestinians at prayer in their mosque. Again, just another aspect of the fanaticism in the Jewish world that exists and that manifests in violence and hatred. Now, wait, so, okay, now, What then proceeded to happen was that the Islamic Jihad and Hamas, a group of people, by the way, that were— Hamas funded by Israel in the late 1980s in order to provide a counter-voice to the PLO. The Hamas forces are in fact committed to destroying Israel. They won't settle and it won't matter what terms are given. There is a group of people in that community who will never settle for anything, just as there are a group of people in our community who will never accept giving back the West Bank and Gaza, will never accept that and believe that it is a violation of God's will. We have them and they have them. Now that group engaged in acts of violence against the Israelis. And the Palestinians did not take the measures that in my view they should have taken to prevent those acts and to repress adequately the Hamas or put them in jail. So that is one part of what happened. Another part of what happened is that Israel never did withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza in accord with Oslo Accord, and that instead, when people entered the settlement— when they entered the negotiations in 2000, when the Palestinians were called to those negotiations, instead of what they had been led to believe in Oslo, namely that there would be a decrease, a gradual decrease in Jewish population in the West Bank leading to the creation of a Palestinian state, the number of settlers was 120,000 in 1993. When Arafat went to Camp David, the number of settlers, far from decreasing, had increased to 200,000. Okay, on the ground, the actual reality of people's lives was not that Israel was moving towards some kind of accommodation, but that Israel was consolidating its hold on the the West Bank. Now in comes— they go into a negotiation, a negotiation which they understood to be about the process of implementing Oslo, which was to give them the 22% back of pre-1948 Palestine. And in come offers to them about, well, you can have 85% of the land back, 87%, 90%, 92%, 95%. There were different figures thrown around at different places, but they're saying, wait a second, what are you talking about? We settled in '93 for— our deal was we would take 22% of pre-'48 Palestine, that would be where the Palestinian state would be, and now you're suddenly telling us what percentage of what you had promised us previously you were giving to us. So that's one level. Secondly, the part that you want to hold on to, you want— you're giving us back, but you want these corridors our land in which we have to go through these humiliating searches. Essentially, every time I'd have to go from Orange County to Los Angeles to stand in line for 3 hours and be searched. No, that's not a great deal if that's what you're offering. Number 3: We want to be able to go to our mosque unimpeded by Israeli troops that tell us that we are a security threat to going to our mosque. Well, that's how it had been up till 2000 and remains today. People in the West Bank cannot go to the mosque on the Temple Mount. So they said, we don't want just a capital in Jerusalem, we want to have territory contiguous with the Temple Mount so that we don't have to go through checkpoints in order to go to worship in the mosque. And number 4, you, Barack, are asking us to sign an an agreement saying this is the final settlement between us. But how can we, any Palestinians, sign an agreement that this is the final settlement when there are 3 million Palestinian refugees and there's nothing in this agreement that has anything to do with what's going to happen for our 3 million brothers and sisters? Are you telling us that we can't have anything for them? There is no plan here for reparations, there's no plan to deal with their suffering. What is this?

This?

What are you offering? If you're offering that, if you're telling us that we have to turn our back on the Palestinian refugees and have no solution to their problems, no Palestinian leader will ever be able to sign such an agreement. So that is the reason why the agreement did not look like such a terrific deal to Arafat or to Palestinians later. It didn't look like this was the most wonderful thing being offered. In my view, it was a terrible mistake for Arafat to reject it, to not go. But it was not the case that he then said, okay, I'm done with this, let's start an intifada. No, they started negotiations, and those negotiations continued, right? What happened was that the one week didn't work, but they were continuing to negotiate at Taba until a week before the election, and they were prepared to continue those negotiations And according to those who negotiated for Israel at Taba, they were very, very close to an agreement. And that's why they called upon the new Sharon government to continue negotiations at the exact same point where the negotiations had been left off the week before. But Sharon said absolutely not, no negotiations with the Palestinians, we're finished with negotiations.

I'm going to try to turn to an area that there may be some I'm very— both of you are obviously deeply committed Jews, and if there's one thing that I know that in any Jewish audience, there's one generic concern that we all have, and that's that the next generation find a sense of deep commitment to Judaism. What if you were speaking— there are obviously hundreds of parents in this room who want to ensure that their children grow up with a deeper sense of Jewish Jewish commitment, what would you suggest to them are the most important things that they can do to ensure the Jewishness of their children, Dennis?

Well, I have a feeling that we're going to agree on this, which is very disturbing to me. Because our worldviews and values are so different that it is just a little disconcerting. But nevertheless, here goes. Very briefly, Jews won't stay Jewish without God and Judaism. There are not going to be secular ethnic Jews to speak of in a generation. I'm 54. I've been talking to Jewish groups since I'm 21, so 33 years. This is what I said 33 years ago. It's true today. It will be truer 33 years from now. We are sadly a fairly godless people. I think Jews are angry at God from Auschwitz. I think Jews are angry at God from Crusades and Inquisitions. I think that Jews are overeducated, and the more educated you are, the less likely you are to believe in God, it's just a sociological fact. Whatever the reasons, and there are a lot of reasons, I just gave a talk just on that subject, why so many Jews don't believe in God or are very alienated from God. But without God in Judaism, there is no chance for survival. In fact, there's no reason for survival. I would not raise my children as Jews knowing that the world is not filled with Jew lovers. I would hardly raise my children as Jews just because of some ethnic solidarity. I would assimilate. This is a great country, and to be an American and not be a Jew is a very fulfilling way to live. I love this country. I believe it's blessed by God. And Jews do almost everything that they can to raise their children in a way that will not ensure that they take God and Judaism seriously. Take a simple example. If you hear that a parent says to his or her son or daughter at night, tucking him or her into bed, "I want you to know God loves you." You would undoubtedly believe that that was a Christian parent who said that. That language is actually painful for Jews. And if you went to graduate school, it's impossible. These are not words that can come from a Jew's mouth to their child. It's sad beyond words to me that a Jew can't say to one's child, 'God loves you.' And they won't say it because they don't like God talk, because we're so radically secularized, and they won't say it because they identify it as Christian. And for most Jews, their Jewish identity is not Jewish, but not Christian. 'What do you believe in?' 'I don't believe in Jesus.' 'Well, Hindus don't believe in Jesus either. How are you different from a Hindu?' Jews have no answer for what they believe, they only know what they don't believe. That's why Jews get so uptight at a Jew for Jesus. But there are almost no Jews for Jesus. There are millions of Jews for nothing. We are disappearing because of Jews for nothing, not because of Jews for Jesus. In fact, Jews for Jesus have more of a Jewish identity than the average Jewish professor at UC Irvine. And I mean that literally. There's no question. There's no question. God and Judaism are the only ways to keep the next generation, and the only reasons to keep a generation. That's why I'm Jewish. Because I believe in God, and I believe that God gave us the Torah. And I'm not even Orthodox. You don't have to be Orthodox to believe that God gave us the Torah. How do you like that? You know the old thing, you don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's Jewish Rhyme. You don't have to be Orthodox to love the Torah, to revere it, to believe that it's a divine document. I have been working a great deal of time on trying to offer Jews a non-Orthodox way of being religious. It's beyond the parameters of this talk, not because I have anything against Orthodoxy, not because of Orthodoxy, but because I know that most Jews just aren't going to be Orthodox. So they need a way, and I'll tell you my classic example, of keeping Shabbos in their car. It always gets a laugh. There are two types of Jews who find that statement funny: Orthodox and non-Orthodox. The Orthodox find it funny because to them spark plugs are the be-all and end-all of who is serious about Shabbos. The non-Orthodox find it silly because how can you keep Shabbos in the car? Because they've accepted the Orthodox definition of religiosity. Well, I drive to shul and I don't put on the radio. And I want to tell you, I have spent my life all through alternating between living Orthodox and non-Orthodox. I lived Orthodox till I was 18, then I didn't, then I tried again when I married, and I tried again when I remarried. So I have given Orthodoxy and not driving a real chance. And let me tell you that I find singing Jewish singing songs with my kids in my car going to shul. At least as Shabbosdik, as walking in blazing heat with them, or the ferocious cold that I walked in last weekend when I went to shul in Albany and wheeled my mother in a wheelchair, because she won't drive, up to shul where it was freezing in Albany, New York. I don't find that spiritually touching. But that's okay. I know that there are Jews who do. I am saying, though, that just not having TV or radio for 24 hours will change your life from Friday night to Saturday night. I know it, I lived it. Jews have to start taking Judaism seriously. Most Jews have substituted liberalism for Judaism as their value system. There is much beauty in liberalism. But it is not a religion. It's just a political and social way of looking at life. Judaism is a religion. And when Jews embrace that, we will have more Jews in the next generation.

Before I hear your thoughts, I just want to share something. My wife and I do say to our children, after we say the Shema, the first thing we tell them is that God loves you, and that Mommy and Daddy love you, and finally when my son was about 5 years old, he turned to me and said, "Daddy, you're a rabbi, right?" I said, "Yes." He said, "I know who Mommy is, I know who you are, who's God?" And I said, "Joshua, I have a very thoughtful answer for that.

Ask your mother." Yeah, I do agree with a lot of what you said, Dennis.

Sorry.

Thank you very much.

You keep on doing that, don't you?

So yes, I do believe that the only future for the Jewish people is a religious-based, a spiritual-based, a God-centered future.

But I somewhat disagree with who God is, or how to understand who God is.

You see, if God is the force that you read God's will in such a way that it just conveniently leads you to say God is blessing whatever you happen to be doing in the richest country in the world and the richest part of the richest country in the world.

That's one reading of who God is.

I believe that the problem is not just secularism, that in fact, in order to build, to sustain Judaism, to sustain it, that Judaism has to be about something that is different than what this society is about. What this society is about at its bottom line, and most of you know this intuitively, that the bottom line here, the whole definition of rationality and productivity and efficiency, is maximizing money and power. And that the bottom line for a Jewish religious consciousness has to be a fundamentally different bottom line. A bottom line of a world of love and caring, of a world of ethical, spiritual, and ecological sensitivity. Judge institutions by that criteria. Insist that an institution is efficient or productive not just by how much money it produces, but by how much caring it produces.

Not by how much power it produces, but by how much love it produces.

Not by simply whether it produces a very wealthy group of people, but does it produce a group of people people who care about others, who are ethically, spiritually, and ecologically sensitive? Are we producing a society that makes it possible for people to respond to each other and to the universe with awe and wonder and radical amazement? Now, in my view, that's what it is to believe in God. To believe in God is to believe that there is a force in the universe that takes these very pretty ideas of love and love and caring that have been dismissed here as either idealistic or Berkeley or flower power, whatever, that instead takes these ideals that are in the Torah, that says that the world can be based, for example, on "ve'ahavta lager," you should love the stranger. It doesn't say love the stranger if the stranger is behaving the way you want them to behave. It says thou shalt love the stranger, love the other. It says pursue justice. It says to love "Love your neighbor as yourself." It doesn't say, "Love your neighbor if your neighbor is acting the way you think your neighbor ought to act." There is a different worldview in this, and a different view of who God is. God is the force in the universe that makes possible the transformation from a world based on money and power to a world based on love and caring and justice. So to believe in God is not— it's not adequate to sustain Judaism to have a Judaism Judaism that is a cheerleader for the values of a society that is about money and power. To sustain Judaism, it has to be about something different than what the mainstream is about in this country. Because if it's the same thing, then people, your children, will say to you, "Look, if you believe in the same values as everybody else, why can't I do that in English? Why do I have to have it in Hanukkah and not in Christmas?" Why can't I do it the way everybody else does it? Why do I have to keep it as unique and special if, in fact, our bottom line is the same bottom line? And I'm saying to you, in fact, in Torah there is a different tradition, and in our prophets there's a different tradition, that says God is not the force that celebrates the powerful, but that God is the force that champions the powerless. That God is the force not that says that what matters is how much wealth and power you have, God is the force that said, "What matters is how much love you can create on this planet." If Judaism becomes the voice of those who continue to say that this world must be transformed into a world based on love, caring, justice, and peace, and that's what it's identified with, then yes, Judaism is sustainable. But if Judaism becomes yet another cheerleader for tribalism, for ethnic centrism, for caring about ourselves and not caring about the other, there is no future for Judaism, and I'm afraid there's no future for the world either.

So many other questions that I had, and issues to raise. Why America has been, as you both have written about, a very special place for the Jews, the whole issue of conservative Jews.

Let's just do that one. No, no, no, no, no.

I love that.

I'm happy to do it, but I'll tell you what, to be clear, the whole issue of God and whether God intervenes in history, who your moral heroes are, a million other things. In truth, it would be great to have yet another opportunity to do this together, but I have gone way over what the organizer of this event asked me to do, including my final question, which would have been, how can you two people who look to the same source of values come up with such genuinely different conclusions about how to view life. But I will say one thing. I think you'll probably— I'll take the liberty of suggesting that you'll both agree with something that John Cardinal Spellman once said: "Pray as if everything depended upon God, and then work as if everything depended upon you." I'll tell you one thing. We have been very, very fortunate. These are two articulate, and passionate presenters of their position that have made for a very special evening.

Please join me in welcoming—

Well, I certainly hope you enjoyed that, if enjoy is the proper term. Certainly there was a lot of passion, and it gives you an idea of at least what I feel in part that many of us are up against. Well, there's a lot I would like to say, but I have to leave the debate where it is. It's not fair for me to add on where the opponent is not present. Anyway, I certainly appreciate your subscribing to my tapes. I hope you'll consider getting gift subscriptions for friends with holidays coming up and birthdays and all of that stuff. Of course, as always, please feel free to email me through my website, DennisPrager.com. And write in "tape subscriber" in the line, and I respond to you as soon as I see it. So until next tape, stay well, and thanks again. Bye-bye. This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.