Timeless Wisdom - High Holiday Services - Yom Kippur Q&A

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. It's now time for Q&A, right? Yes. So this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to have a seat right here, and I'm just going to talk to you about anything. Raise any question you want except political. That doesn't mean that moral and social are off, but, you know, directly political, not. And then, believe it or not, folks, we are just 4 hours away from M&M peanuts, which is the traditional way that we do it. So I'm going to take a seat here with a mic. Somebody dropped it, you mean? Oh, I see. Should I make that announcement? There was one parking coupon left on the floor, dropped at the end. Just— it's at the front now. Isn't it? You bet. Thank you. Thank you. Let me just move this stuff here. In 2 hours. Yep, at 5. If you're leaving, we resume at 5. Yes, I'm going to make it available. Thank you. Yes, I have to. I'm sorry. Okay, we're starting now. So if you want to stay, I invite you. It's a great way to spend this time that means sleeping or driving somewhere. All right, ladies and gentlemen, I'll repeat your question so that everybody hears, but why don't I encourage you in the meantime perhaps to move in closer. You don't have to, but if you would, it'll just help me hear your questions. And so just, we'll take one more minute to let those who are leaving go out. All right, everybody, have a seat here. So, uh, why don't you say it publicly so everybody will know. You have a theory as to why I made the Hebrew mistake? Okay, what is it? Look at everybody, I'll hear you. Shh. Shahid is one which is a masculine name. And because he is so proper about— close your ears. No, I understand. Yes. He is so proper about correct grammar. Yes. That's right. So, not Shahid, Shahidin is plural. Yes. I made a logical— she's saying I am very, very strict about grammar, so what I did was a logical mistake. Right. I was like, yes, I made plural. This is an Israeli who is saying, "I was not that left-wing." Oh, you're French and you're telling me that's something more impressive. This is unexpected. Only at a Yom Kippur service is that possible. You know what? If somebody would, I think it would be better since I could use that one minute. This is not— oh, it is. I thought we'd have two mics and you could have this one walking around. Alright, so just yell out your question. I'll repeat them anyway. So I'll start a little in the back. And they'll come forward. May I have your best guess what you're saying? Stand if you can too. Yeah. Just one quick statement. In your services, I didn't hear what you do in the future of the National Tower. So do you consider— Oh, that's a great idea. You know what? We didn't have it, and we will institute it. The suggestion was— you're right. It's a total oversight. We will. And we should say it anyway later. You're absolutely right. And that is that when the tower is out, It is before it's put away, the custom is to say, "I'm surprised it's not in there." Or if it's in there, that we overlooked it. It's not in there? Okay, that's why I overlooked it. There's a prayer for the sick, and I believe in saying it, and I believe that it should be said, and it will be done next year and even today. Thank you. Any suggestions in this regard? I'll either say yes or no or think about it. Now you have a question, go ahead. I was raised in a congregation, and the rabbi answered more than probably 30 times, not very nice, and straight off the bat. Right. Then as I matured into a conservative congregation, and then they're all wrapped up. Is that a seed of asking us questions? It's a very good question. Why did the Reform adopt the thinner, narrower tallit like the Chazan is wearing? But I can only, I think I can only come up with one answer: to announce they're not Orthodox. I have no other poss— there's no possible inherently Jewish or rational reason. Conservative too, right? Conservative wear the narrower too? Yeah, I think conservative like you will do both. But I can't think of another reason. That's probably why they would do it. But I can tell you folks, my first experience in Reform Synagogue. This was a great moment. I was about 23 years old. I had never set foot in a Reform synagogue in my life. I had been into churches before I had been into a Reform synagogue as a tourist. And I was a speaker from the age of 21. I spoke about Soviet Jewry. That's how I began my public life. So my whole adult life I'm doing public things. And I began very early, as I said, and I was invited to this Reform congregation. And I walk in and I meet the Reform rabbi, and my first reaction I will never forget is, "This man is a Viking." This guy was tall, great build, red beard, The opposite of my short, somewhat slovenly looking Rebbes from Eastern Europe. This was not my image of a rabbi. As I've said, he looked more like a Viking. So that was my first jolt. So we were in the rabbi's study before services Friday night, and the rabbi pulls out a cigar and lights it up. I'm a cigar smoker. I was a cigar smoker from 19. But of course we never ever lit a fire on Shabbat, let alone smoke. To this day I don't smoke on Shabbat, as it happens. And I was so taken aback, he looked at me and he realized I was taken aback. And he said, Dennis, I see your reaction, but I just want you to know, I save my best cigar for Shabbat. They talk about things that influence you. I remember my reaction, because I'm very, very— I've been blessed, I'm very open to other ideas. I don't have a problem with being challenged. And though I never saw this and thought it was wrong and didn't do it, when he said that, I thought, "Heck, if he's serious, I respect that. If he really does save his very best cigars for Shabbat, I respect that. So that was my first experience at a Reform synagogue. By the way, just for those of you who are under 30 here, this must be unbelievable to you. The rabbi lighting up a cigar indoors. Now, I want you to know, I have been suffering from that secondhand smoke this It stunted my growth, as you can tell. Had a terrible impact on my mood. I will continue, but I have little respect for the dangers of secondhand smoke. Yes, Mary, who has done such a great job with the Torah, please rise. Loud, as loud as you can, scream. I know you do. So face toward the middle. I'm trying to understand the divine. You're saying that the Torah was written by a divine being and not man. How can you explain the logic of it, of how God wrote it in advance and not before and wrote it after the fact? I'm glad you asked, because this is really the ongoing issue that I've been raising repeatedly over the course of the holidays. If you don't believe that the Torah— let's put it, I'll put it in the other way. If you believe the Torah is entirely man-made, there is no reason to obey it. Let's be honest. Why would I give a hoot what people 2,000, 3,000 years ago wrote? Right? And to use modern parlance, they're probably all men, and talk about dead white European males, dead white Middle Eastern males. Or dead, swarthy Middle Eastern males? No, no, I know you're asking me how I come. I'm coming to it if I don't make it to you. Just, I don't have a problem with you countering my answers. It's not an issue. I want to first start at the beginning. Why, even if you don't believe in God, you have to be honest to acknowledge if the Torah is just man-made, Why isn't it all binding? And you can't say, well, we have such respect for it because that is our great book. That our great book doesn't mean anything. The English, the Greeks have a great book in Homer. But no Greek sits down, or I assume very few, and say, gee, what does the Iliad say? That's how we'll figure out how to live our life. It just doesn't happen. The gap between God's Word and great literature is an unbridgeable gap. Okay? The greatest human literature is still human. And that's what those who wish to change it say. The most obvious today, and the most sensitive possible issue I could raise, is same-sex marriage. Whatever your position, I'm not going to Unless you raise it, that's fine. But my point is, whatever your position, you've got to be intellectually honest. You have to say— and to his credit, Rabbi Wolpe did say this. Rabbi Wolpe came out, David Wolpe, Temple Sinai, very prominent rabbi. I've been friends with him for decades. And he's a good man. And he came out for same-sex marriage just a few months ago. But in his speech, which incidentally I not only listened to but I read because my dear— where's Tamar Burke? Are you here? Tamar Burke, who's one of our interns, took the task of transcribing the entire thing so I had it in print so I could never mistake anything he said. And he said that Torah is wrong. He had the intellectual honesty to say, and in fact went to his credit, he went, I would say overboard, but he went to the point of saying, and he mentioned by name, colleagues of his in the conservative movement who he said try to get around this. They say they're for same-sex marriage, but the Torah wasn't wrong, The Torah only was talking about X or Y, for example, only talking about temple or cult prostitution. He said, he said, that's not honest. The Torah was written by people who didn't know what we know. It was written by men, not by God, and it was wrong on this issue. That's an honest approach. That's intellectually honest. But it comes because he believes man wrote it. I believe the Torah is divine, so I have a very big struggle. Where there is a difficult issue, I have to try to work it through. By the way, for those who are crying kids, I record everything and I'll happily give you a report. No, I mean it. That's one of the reasons I do record. Forgive me. And I play for the kid this as revenge. You cried then, I will make you hear it 5 times. It's like my rebbe, he would punish us. You talked in class, you will write all the Rashi in this Parsha. And I thought, that's a real beautiful, beautiful way to make us love Rashi. You don't know who Rashi is? Rashi is the greatest commentary on the Torah, and it's a lot of love. And it was a silly punishment, because we didn't exactly love Rashi. Anyway, if you believe, as I do, that it's a divine book, and I'll explain, it's a long answer, because it's a very important subject, and I hope I'll get to exactly what you're asking. I'll give you an example of what the difference is if you think man wrote it or God wrote it. The example I always use is this one. If you have a rebellious son, you take him to the court, and they find him guilty, they stone him. Everybody points to this as one example of where the Torah is primitive, right? You're going to stone to death a rebellious child? You know, we would depopulate our population if we did that. So, I, if you believe men wrote it, then all you say is, "Look, we understand this is the way people thought 3,000 years ago. We don't. I reject that part of the Torah." It's easy. But for me who believes the Torah is divine, it's not so easy. Was God an idiot? Did God want children killed? Didn't God teach in Genesis that you're not allowed to sacrifice children? And now all of a sudden you were allowed to sacrifice children, but just for a different reason? Well, it turns out, if you think about it, what the Torah did was did something unbelievably brilliant and moral. Thousands of years ago, when every single civilization believed the parent had the right to kill their child, Judaism took the right to kill the child out of the parent's hands. You want to kill your child? Sorry, you can't take it to the court. But then the court never found the child worthy of killing, and the Jews never killed the child. So what, what the Torah did was brilliant. It took people where they are, not where they will be 3,000 years later, where they are, and prevented what is wrong while maintaining parental authority, and the parents still thinking meaning that they had the authority that they had beforehand. What parent, in any event, is going to then take the child to court and the court says, "You know what? You're right. We found him guilty. We're going to be stoning him on Wednesday." Right? At least one of the two parents is going to say, you know, "Give us our child back." So it was an unbelievable move forward in moral history It's a mystery that the Torah took the ability to kill a child out of parents' hands. And you could go through— how about this one? On this law alone, I believe the Torah is divine. The most common thing in war, the most common, aside from killing, is rape. Because men think that the women are part of the booty. I won, I get the treasure, I get the land, and there are no laws inhibiting me, I get the female too. Just look at the Red Army in Germany after World War II. The numbers of German women raped is so high that we, you know, you can almost say a generation of German women were raped. And by the way, of all ages. What did Judaism do about this? It actually did not Actually, not Judaism, the Torah, 3,000 years ago, addresses this subject in Deuteronomy, in the, I don't know the, since we learned it in Jewish school by Parsha, not by chapter, I can remember the Parsha. He takes a, if you go out in war against your enemy, these are the laws you follow. So what are the laws about women that you conquer? So here it is, I'm paraphrasing. So you are at war, you win the war, and you find a female very attractive. You take her home, where she— you cannot touch her. You take her home, she mourns her family for 30 days, you feed and clothe her for 30 days, and after that, if you're still attracted, you can marry her. Oh, you shave her head, I forgot that. You make her less attractive, that's right. I forgot that, yeah. Pretty good, huh? Are there difficult parts of the Torah? Yeah, there are difficult parts of the Torah. So I worked very hard in trying to figure out what the Torah really meant. And the reason is, unlike any conservative rabbi that I know of, and unlike Unlike all Reform rabbis, and unlike all Reconstructionist rabbis, and unlike all secular Jews, I believe God is behind the Torah. What that exactly means is your question, and I'm coming to that. All of this is the case for why it's so important. I said to Alan Dershowitz, the famous Harvard professor of law, we debated Jewish subjects at the 92nd Street Y in New York twice. So in one of the debates, I looked at the audience and said, Sue, are you there? Okay, so there's a living witness. She's biased, but she's actually not biased. She's a lawyer and actually puts critical thinking above her mother, whom she then criticizes because she used critical thinking. You know, research is great, but God created man and critic. Anyway, that's not really true in my life, but I thought I'd offer it. So anyway, at one point I looked at the audience and I said, "Ladies and gentlemen, the big difference between Alan Dershowitz and me is this: when Alan disagrees with the Torah, he says the Torah is wrong, I am right. When I disagree with the Torah, I say the Torah is right, I am wrong. And then Alan Dershowitz looked at the audience and said, for the first time tonight, Dennis is right. He agreed. When he looks and thinks the Torah is wrong, the Torah is wrong. When I look and I think the Torah is wrong, I think I'm wrong. And it all comes from who you think are the authors. If you think people wrote it, what the hell did they know 3 years ago, 3,000 years ago, that you're not better at today? So how did God write it? Okay, this is, uh, my belief is I have very simple, not simplistic, belief on this subject. A, I don't know any of the mechanics. I don't believe God recited the 5 books to Moses and he wrote them. I don't believe that. I don't say it didn't happen, I just don't believe it. I don't know how it happened. However it happened, even if it happened over the course of 700 150 years. It was divinely inspired, and therefore I regard it as from God. Does that answer your question? Thank you. Good. Okay, all the way out there. Let's stand up. The man and the lady behind you. All right, so, um, So, I'm repeating that, okay, so Einstein, when asked how he came up with the theory of relativity and other of his great insights into physics and the universe, said, "You know what? The truth is it just came out." Which, by the way, Schubert said about melody. Schubert, who was perhaps the greatest melodist of all the classical composers, said they just came out. So when I consider that divinely inspired? I don't. I think that ultimately God is behind everything, but I don't believe— I wouldn't use that term there because God to me inspires— well, I take it back. I think that Bach was divinely inspired. But Bach wrote religious music. Schubert didn't. So it's a tough call what this God inspire about? And the truth is, I don't have a problem with saying Einstein got it because he was divinely— I would say gifted more than inspired, because he wasn't consciously— he wasn't conscious of God. So I don't think you could be divinely inspired without thinking that God inspired you. Bach did think God inspired him, and I think He didn't think God inspired him, so that's good. But Einstein didn't think God inspired him. Yes, he said God doesn't play chance with the universe, but I don't know if that means that he thought that when he came up with E=mc² that God put it in his brain. Bach thought that God made his compositions possible. So I'm agnostic on it. Go ahead, what's part 2? I didn't even think you were. Yeah, what am I saying? Someone that, like, they were hitmen in prison, people who killed for money or murdered for money, who said that— do I have this correctly? That Aside from the argument, we're all going to die anyway, which is a little stupid of an argument because he didn't want to die. So his victims didn't want to die either. But he said that he had voices from God saying it was okay. Is that what you're saying? All right, well anyway, you know what matters is, why do I say to those who say, well, God told me, God talked to me, he said like the Son of Sam. Okay, that's the reason. That the Torah warns us against believing that anybody later will come to modify the Torah. And they say, God told me, God told me, and you don't listen to those people. Here's the Ten Commandments, have a great day. Okay? You want me to summarize Judaism while sitting on one chair? This is a play on the old standing on one leg. While sitting on four legs? It is just just that. Here's the Ten Commandments, have a nice day. Ten Commandments say do not murder, hit men, murder, and division. So if you think you're hearing voices of God, you're in fact deluded. That's the answer. We already know what God wants, and you have, you're subverting it with those voices. Anyway, I'm not for sure about these voices issues. If they're hearing voices from God to kill, it's an interesting thing though that they try to elude detection. You know, they're very rational when it comes avoiding the police, but they're very irrational about their voices. Is it possible that there are people with such voices? There are. And, uh, I would, uh, these people obviously did not grow up with the Ten Commandments as a divine fact of their life. Saddam Hussein didn't grow up religious. And because some voice in him would have said, maybe that voice is nonsense. Even if I hear that voice, how could it be? Because it said do not murder in the Ten Commandments, and that's exactly what I'm doing. The lady behind you. Wait, do I agree with what? That people use— yes, why not? It changes us. Wonderful question, because I spoke on Rosh Hashanah that Behavior matters infinitely more than feelings, right? How you're treated by your fellow man interests you infinitely more than how they feel, as it should. That's the way— who cares? When you care about how loved ones feel, and beyond those handful of people, you care about how everybody acts, including loved ones. That's why it says honor your parents, not love your parents. Well, your emotions are your business, but God's business is that you honor your parents, without getting into the problem of evil parents and so on. So, should we change— ooh— should we change the language? You were saying people say "I feel" when they're talking like moral issues, like "I feel it's right" or "I feel it's wrong." So are you asking, well, I think it's a good thing if people didn't use that language? Is it part of— yes, language is a big part of the problem, absolutely. I'll give you another example. Yes, "I feel it's wrong" is a good example. You know, if someone says, "I feel it's wrong," that's lovely, but now you ask them, "Right, but is it wrong?" It's like when the frum Jews answer me, "How do you feel?" and they say, "Baruch Hashem." I go, "Yeah, but how are you?" And they get a kick out of it. Nobody gets in front of them. Because Baruch Hashem doesn't answer, "How are you?" It's a beautiful thing that you're blessing. It means "Praise the Lord." It's an almost exact translation. So, "How are you?" "Praise the Lord." I agree, but how are you? So, all right, so you feel it's wrong. Now the next question: Is it wrong? Then they may have to say, "I just don't know." You know, but these are my feelings. And then, you know, you're not going to want to argue with that. I don't agree with everybody who says I feel it's wrong. I have to know when to make a battle. But I'll give you another example of our vocabulary that has done a disservice to morality, and that is calling all evil sick. You know, the guy who— this Ariel Castro who did this— did the things that he did for 10 years to these 3 girls, women, first girls, then women. And, you know, oh, this guy's sick. No, this guy's evil. You know, what am I— what's sick? How do you know he's sick? Sick is a very, very, very subjective term in the moral sphere. You know, schizophrenic is qualified sick, but he's not a schizophrenic. He's just evil. He didn't, you know, A lot of men would like sex slaves, okay? Most men don't do it because it's wrong, okay? Simple as that. He did it. So you're right, vocabulary is very, very important. Let's go over here for a moment. Anybody here? You're going once, going twice. Lady over there, yep. I have a real fast question. Um, fast questions may have slow answers. Whether you're a Cohen, an Israelite, or a Levi, does that come from your mother or your father? What do I believe or what is tradition? I agree with the tradition. I go with the tradition, but I have no— I don't fight it when it's— when people don't observe it. It's God. If since something— there are times There are times, not often, but there are times where tradition is to me very— you've got to have a good reason to undo it. And sometimes there are good reasons. The tradition of considering, for example, chicken as meat, I think is a bad tradition. Because we know why it was made, it was a foolish reason when it was made, it's foolish today. It undoes the power of the difference between milk and meat, which is life and death. And the reason that milk is life to a chicken— excuse me, to a cow— is that it produces milk. But chickens don't produce milk, so they should be in the same category as fish, parah. And they were, by the way. Originally, Jews did eat chicken with milk. And then the rabbis decided that Jews were going to feed mix milk— excuse me, meat with chicken and end up eating chicken or end up eating meat with milk. And, you know, so they could have done that with fish theoretically. Although they only saw whole fish and, you know, you look at a fish and nobody thinks, "Well, that looks like a cat." At least in bread it didn't match cat. Although, so I— that's a tradition I don't think should be kept. Because it actually hurts Judaism. But where we have the priests and the Levites, the Cohenim and Levim, have gone through the father for thousands of years, I'd like to keep it. Because I don't know what's hurt. You could say, well, some lines of the, are therefore ended. It happened in my family. My father's, my mother's father was a Cohen. He had 4 daughters and was very impressed that he had 4 daughters and unfortunately let the daughters know that. Talking about family life again. Now I happen to love him. He treated me gloriously and I loved him tremendously, but with each ensuing daughter, the treatment got worse as he got more and more— for, you know, the usual sexist reasons, which by the way I never understood. I never cared if I had a boy or a girl. But, uh, The other was that he wanted to have a kohen, and none of the girls were. Now, if those girls could have been considered a kohen, I'd be a kohen, which I don't want to be, so I'm actually pleased. I let others do that work. It's fine with me. I don't want to be called to be Torah whenever there's nobody left, you know, and so on. And I wouldn't want that responsibility. In any event, that's my view on tradition as opposed to post the law, to post the total law, is, is it hurting anybody? I think chicken and milk is, the ban on chicken is, and I don't think keeping it through the dad is. By the way, I have another reason for that. I'm just totally open, as usual. My worry in religion is not that women won't be involved, it's that men won't be involved. So I have a vested interest in getting men some sort of unique role in Judaism. And I think, I think it would be—

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Also, catastrophe to the Catholic Church to ordain women priests. And by the way, I'm not totally Just to show you that there are things— it doesn't matter about a Catholic, but for whatever it's worth, I think priests should be allowed to marry. I think the price paid for celibacy is too great because it disqualifies great men, and as we have seen, too much, too many men who shouldn't be priests became priests. So there were changes that I I could see it, and I don't think they would hurt, but I think that once— look, I'll say something that is really, um, it's very— I've never said this publicly, and I know it's controversial, and I'm not certain I'm right, okay, let me preface that. But I would ask Jews to ask this question. Now a generation after after conservative and reform women have been ordained as rabbis, has Judaism benefited significantly from that change? Because that's the only question that I ask. I don't ask what's right for the individual. On these matters, I ask what's right for the religion or the community. And that's a very different question than is currently asked. Currently, it is only the individual, theoretically, is the only thing that matters. And if it hurts the community— if one boy thinks that he is a girl, and according to California law now, he can go to the girls' room in 5th grade, in 3rd grade, girls' bathroom. A boy, 15, feels that he's a girl— I'm talking about those who change sexes, just feels that way— then join the girls' team. Is that fair to the girls' team? No. Is it fair to the boy? Yes. There's a conflict, and whichever— you have to choose one or the other. Do you choose the community, or do you choose the individual as your only question? Are there women who are brilliant scholars in Judaism and who can give as great a sermon as a man? Of course that's true. You have to be out of your mind to deny that. So if you ask what benefits— how many women have been ordained? 500? Let's just say 500. There are 6 million American Jews. 500 women have benefited. How many Jews of the 6 million have benefited? That's the question to be asked. By the way, the answer may be a huge number of Jews, in which case that's the end of the question for me. Well, when a boy in the congregation sits and I want him to have a male model of religiosity, and all he sees in his whole life are— he only has female teachers, he has a female rabbi or a female minister, a female principal— when does he have male models to emulate? Boys without male models tend to rebel. Rabbi. It's over. It's just over. They will be wild. They will— boys need— girls need female models, but boys need male models more. And it is interesting that no conservative or Reform synagogue of any size has chosen a female rabbi as its main rabbi. There's only There's one exception I know of, Rabbi Geller here at Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills. I don't know of any other major temple that has taken as its chief rabbi a female. It's very, very, very rare. Even the women seem to prefer that. So of course, if you went to graduate school or even just undergraduate, your immediate instinct is that's sexist and that's not Torah thought. See, thought has been canceled out in our university because of the one-word label that dismisses any intellectual possibility to the other side of thought. It is sexist, of course it's sexist. What I'm saying is sexist. The question is not whether it's sexist, it's whether it's okay and good. See, nobody asks that. You see, once you say it's sexist, it ends dialogue. It's like evil. Remember way to defend evil. The question is, is it good for the Jews and Judaism? That's all. And I don't know how it has benefited. It has benefited 500 women, but has it benefited Judaism and the Jewish people? If it has, then I'm fine with it. That's the question to be asked, I think, on any of these matters. What is the upshot of the change? Change in and of itself isn't good. Some change is right. Look, I'm for changing. If I weren't for changing, I wouldn't be here today. I wouldn't be using the microphone. I wouldn't have driven here. You know, I wouldn't have men and women here sitting together. I wouldn't have truncated the services as much. I mean, you can't accuse me of not being in favor of change. If I didn't change, He was drinking with milk. Alright? That's pretty changing for a guy who's an observant Jew. By the way, I would love for a Jewish Sanhedrin, a Jewish court, to have changed back to the same view of Rabbi Yosef HaGlili, the great rabbi in Talmud, who didn't check it enough. Because Orthodox Jews tell me, "Well, only a Sanhedrin can change these laws." I think it's established a Sanhedrin. But since it's not going to be established, why would I live under something I know to be wrong? I know it's wrong. It's not a matter of it's my opinion. It is wrong. The reason— they gave a reason. The reason doesn't apply. Why is it not? And when I ask this to my Orthodox friends, they have an answer. That's why, Dennis, you shouldn't look for reasons. That's their answer. Get it? Okay. Uh, back there. You're asking this for a friend who couldn't be here today. Gotcha. Say it loud as you can, all the way in the back. What a great question. I don't know if you all heard, but here in a nutshell, and it was a very funny moment, painfully funny moment. She has a friend who's 30. She'll see the women here will be asking for his name afterwards. And he's in the music business. He's quite successful, so he has a nice income. Women are readily available, as my friends in the music business and pretty much anyone knows, they line up. Most popular, I think in terms of groupies, the most popular is guys in bands. I think that that music, anything to do with music is known. Actors is second, athletes third, and speakers on ethical monothems are fourth. Turned my wife on, that's all I care. I got married through that, so don't knock it. Uh, all right, she was dragged to this speech, okay, but that's a little detail. So he wants— so in addition, so that's one thing. Then next, he knows that the divorce rate is so high lie, especially in Hollywood, in his profession. And he knows that men get taken to the cleaners financially after divorce, which is true. And so why should, uh, you know— oh, oh, excuse me, and I didn't help anything. This is why everybody laughed, including me, when I said that the secret to a good marriage is love. So why should he get married even though there's a voice in him that says that he ought to? Is that voice my voice? Because from what you said, I was an influence from his teens, so it might be my voice. I tell men to get married all the time. And I've lived by what I preach. Okay, that was just a self-deprecating joke. Okay. The, uh, this speaks to me anxiously. I have come to realize, and I said this in my Rosh Hashanah date talk, everything is a value. What we thought came naturally, remember I quoted love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage? It's not true. I believed it. Everybody believed it until this generation. You fell in love with a woman or a man, you married them. Love and marriage go together like divorce and character. And once you marry, you have children. That was the norm. There were always exceptions in life for a whole host of reasons, but that was the norm in life. Love, marriage, children. That's the way it was, and it was assumed to be a norm. That wasn't a matter of volitional values. And I've come to realize everything is a value. Even children. Because with birth control, children is now a volitional act. It's not the product of the most powerful urge, the sexual urge. It's now a volitional act. Sex was out, has been completely removed from children for the first time in the history of the human race. So everything is now a value. Well, look, let me be personal. I married first when I was 32. I remember at 30— I'm very open, as you know, so here goes another example of it. And the reason— well, I want to just tell you, the reason I'm open is that, first of all, other people open when you're open. And secondly, if people can learn from it, I'm prepared to bear that part of my life. It's worth it for the better goal that I'm seeking to achieve. We all like to have our own privacy. When I was 30 years old, I too had led a life not dissimilar to the life of your friend. I was a public personality, I was traveling all over the country, and I had the fame And I had, I wasn't Michael Jackson fame, but I had enough, plenty, I had enough. And I led that life, to be honest with you. And at 30, I'll never forget, or late 20s, I remember it as if God spoke to me. This voice in me said, said, Dennis, you may not be living an unethical life, because I was very ethical in the way I acted in high school. That I really was adamant about. But you're not leading a holy life. And if you're a serious Jew, you have to lead a holy life and get married. I mean, those words formulated in my brain. And then I got married. And I The irony of it all is I got married exactly for that reason. Turns out to be a wonderful woman, but we weren't for each other. We produced a spectacular child, my older son, and that's another story, but I got married because my brain and values told me to. I should have waited, perhaps, but who knows. But my answer is is do you have— do you believe it's a value? I would say, I'd say to any 30-year-old like him, so let me ask you this question: 20 years from now you're 50. Will you be happier at 50 having screwed around for another 20 years, or building a life with a woman and hopefully building a family? Which do you think will make you happier at 50? That's why I would post to him a sign I think the values issue. For me, values is enough. But if you don't have the values, I would ask any man or woman of 30, the 30-year-old woman who is not doing the screwing around probably, but is very career-oriented. I don't have time for this now. You know, I'm really, I'm in a great, great career path. Yeah, career path. And so, you know, and I would say the same thing. 20 years from now, and 20 is not a long time. You know, you're 30, that's only 2/3 of what you've lived. 20 years is not long. Everybody in this room who's over 40 knows how little 20 is, right? 20 years from now, you're 50, okay? 50 ain't old, but it's not a kid. And what do you want you want to have had in your life? Build a family or more women? That's it. And if the guy says more women, well, you know you're with an immature man. The guy could make $50 million a year. I'm not saying he would say that. I'm sorry? I'm not making any money. No, no, no, I don't mean you. Oh God, you thought I was talking about you. I thought you were with him all day. One, not your, one is talking to an immature man. If the man would say, even if he says, "I don't know," you know he's not mature. Doesn't mean he doesn't do a good job, you know, in the music industry, or as a lawyer, or as a doctor, or as a builder, or whatever the guy does. He may be great You can be immature and a great doctor. Mature is mature, and professional is professional. I may not be— might even be mature as professional. But the thought to me is a nightmare that at 50 I would not be married, and I would still be looking at the cutest chick in the audience. Oh man, it's like scary. It's like a nightmare. That's what my life amounted to? So that's what I say to men. And for some men, they go, yeah, that's exactly what I want my life to amount to. Okay, they're helpless. There's nothing I can say except women who associate with them with any hope of changing them are probably foolish. So between values and maturity, men will make their choice. But we don't cultivate values and we don't cultivate maturity. So it's a big problem. That's why I want boys to have male models. Guys call up my show and say, "You're a father figure to me." I go, "That's wonderful." That's what every man should aspire to be, is a father figure to a younger man. That's our job as men. Not to remain boys. Yes, sir. Yep. Okay, so this is about the luck part of last night where I said the secret to a good marriage— not a long marriage, the secret to a long marriage is work, and for those people I salute. But a good, happy marriage is mostly luck. I stand by that. I'm not happy to say this to you. I don't convey things because I want them to be true. I'm conveying them because I think they are true based on my life, based on the lives I know intimately, and based on 31 years of talking to the most diverse possible group of human beings, radio listeners. I mean, I have listeners, you know, from heavy metal bands with sleeves to priests and rabbis. I mean, it runs the entire gamut. I know this from my audiences in person, from emails, and so on. Guy, once I was on— this is my great story on that, and then I'll get back to the walk. I don't like that. I always come back. But this was a fascinating moment for me. It was like 20 years ago, I'm waiting in Hollywood for friends to pick me up to go to the Hollywood Bowl. I'm standing at a corner, and this guy next to me is about 20 years old, wearing what they call a life meter, right? You know, the undershirt. And he's totally tattooed sleeves, he's got— he had things hanging from his face where there were no orifices. I mean, the orifices had been taken up and non-orifices had been taken up. And he keeps looking at me and staring at me and I'm getting a little uncomfortable, you know, thinking am I going to be mugged? I was like, you know, something's going to muddle me. Finally, my friends were laying on the floor and I'm standing there, my brain comes The guy looks at me and he goes, "Are you Dennis Prager?" I give him my word, and then I give him my word. I thought, this is what I thought, I thought, because you know how fast your mind works in emergencies, it's amazing how fast, and I thought, I'll just say that I'm frequently confused with Dennis Prager. "You mean Jerry Johnson?" I think that Jerry Johnson, I bet, would be, but I really thought I would say that. Or that, you know, he's my cousin, I look like him, but I figured I can't lie well. So I go, yeah, I'm Dennis Prager. And the guy goes, I love you, man. So it gives you an idea of the diversity of the audience, and it gives you an idea of that you can't judge a book by its cover. Judgment by its cover. I don't— I can't stand tattoos, but I have learned over the time that character and tattoo are not the same thing. Okay, I'm not sure Ariel Castro had tattoos. All right, you might have, I don't know. Anyway, back to your question on the love. Wouldn't an atheist say the same thing? An atheist might. Well, if something is true, both believers and atheists will say it. Either truth is truth. It's got to be truth independent of your ideology. I don't know why an atheist would be more likely to conclude that meeting the right person and having a happy marriage is luck though, because unless the only alternative is God sends you your spouse, which in some cases may be true. I've never known God intervenes. I have no idea. Okay, I can't judge. Maybe in retrospect you can know what God had God intervenes, but it's very hard to know at the moment. Anyway, clearly God didn't intervene in a lot of marriages because a lot of them are bad. So, there's— when I say luck, it doesn't preclude you from searching for the right person. Luck doesn't mean you sit home and they walk into your life. I know a woman for whom that happened. Is she here? Where is she? But normally that doesn't happen, okay? You should search. People should join, you know, eHarmony or whatever the group is and look for somebody. I absolutely believe in that. I don't believe if you sit home, God will send your partner, the right person, knocking on your door. That's not the way to approach this subject. You should do everything you can to find the right person. But finding the right person still entails luck. You can search and search and search and never find. It's not exactly like a lottery, because a lot more people have good marriages than win lotteries, but it's— you can't win a lottery if you don't buy the ticket. Not everybody who buys a ticket wins. It wins the lottery. But you can't have that luck if you don't look. So the person who wants to marry and believes they should marry, somehow or other more of them get married. And the cultures that instill that in young people, they all get married. All the Mormon kids get married, all the The Hasidic Jewish kids get married, or even the Modern Orthodox kids. They get married. How come they do? And I'm sure that the batting average of good marriage to bad marriage is very similar there, or even better. That's why I don't agree with this notion, you know, especially for a woman to say, you know, I want to go on my career track a little, hey, I'll look for a man maybe when I'm 30, I just spoke to a woman about that. She said, "I don't even want a boyfriend. It's going to distract me from my career path." Okay, she thinks it will be as easy at 35 to find a man, and she's foolish. It's easy at 20, at 23, at 18 for that matter. Okay, is it fair? See, is it fair? No, it's not fair. In this regard, it's tougher for women. It's true. It's not fair. So the question is in life, when something, when a fact isn't fair, do you deny that it's a fact? That's what's done in graduate school. They deny all unfair facts. But in life, it doesn't help people to deny facts. Find a man while your stock is highest, and that makes the most sense. That doesn't mean that— I know a woman, she's the mother of a person who might— I don't know if it's good to ask. When did your mom find a wonderful man? No, you tell her. Your mom, your mom found a wonderful man at what age? Are we allowed to say? Huh? 69. I know their mom. Their mom, I know their mom and their husband, who is the father of this wonderful woman here. They had a marriage made, to the best of my knowledge, in heaven. And he was taken away by disease. And she mourned, and properly mourned, and will always miss him. He was a giant, and I know this couple for 30 years. And then didn't realize that God was right, he shouldn't be alone, and she's attractive and she is vibrant and she found an attractive, vibrant, wonderful man. 69 years old. So I'm not saying it's ever too late, even for a woman. It's certainly not too late for a man if he has, at least if he has some money. Yes? Is it finding it, meaning it as random coincidence? When I say luck, do I mean random coincidence? I mean that— what, wait, let's be honest. If it's not luck, what is it? My parents met, my father was 19, my mother was 18. Then they were married 4 years later, they were together 73 years of total bliss. Total. They were each other's whole lives. The children were, you know, we boarded in their house. And so, do you think, what do you think it was, if not love? Skill? They didn't work, and let me tell you something, they didn't work hard at their marriage. And by the way, those who do, I salute them. God bless you for working hard. Arguing in marriage. They didn't. It was easy for them to be married. It was sexually effortless. I don't remember them arguing, let alone fighting. All he would do, my father, and he was very— he is still with us— he's a very idiosyncratic man, as I said. I don't think there are many women who could have lived with him. She adored him. She just adored him. Adored him. And she was unbelievably strong in her own right. She's the one my grandmother called the doorman. So, you know, Hitler wasn't weak. So, uh, these were two strong people. But she adored him, and he wanted to be adored. By the way, every man wants to be adored, so that's not just a fact. And, uh, and they got— it was an effortless marriage. So what do you think? I'm going to them to slot, what would you guess? Random? Totally random. They're very fortunate that they met. What else can I say? Okay, if it's bashert, the problem with bashert is always the problem morally for me with God heard my prayer. So what all the people who never met at bashert, what do you say then? God didn't care that they meet at bashert? God wasn't as interested in them? Oh, they weren't in the right place. God had a Prager, but she unfortunately lives in Tibet. I mean, what? Seriously, what? This is the rational, non-mystical Dennis Prager talking to you. You can say Prager after the fact in the sense that, you know, this woman or this man is truly my gift from God. I have no I have no problem with that. But that God sends a tiny percentage of people the right person doesn't make sense to me. So therefore you have to make efforts, you have to— everybody has to. Society needs to make efforts to make marriage important. People need to marry. They have to look from a very early age and make— that's where the effort comes in. Look for the one. That I'm lucky to find. That's— so that's— I will now moderate my comment. Work hard to have good luck, which is what a lot of people say anyway about a lot of things, that luck is worked at. That's kind of what I was getting at when I asked the question. All right. Some people are characterized as being lucky, other people are characterized as— well, some people Look at Job. Job was— well, it's true though. I mean, that's another very sad fact of life. I know Job's. I know people who seem to have just— life has just been awful to them through no fault of their own. That's why I'm such a believer in the afterlife, that I think that there will be a time when this will be, you know, undone. But it's not undone in this world. Yes, sir. I just wanted to comment on your statement about you never hear universities talking about a muleteer. We do, but it's always, he's the biggest USC football fan there ever was. Oh, that's funny. He loves UCLA basketball. He's been to every game. But not about what they got. Not where they attended. But in fact— Who they rooted for. I learned more about about life from a UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden, than any of the 40 professors. Right, right. Well said. The point I wanted to say is, of all the things that you've changed in people's lives here, and I could go through the list and we talk about in their marriages and everything you've said, the one thing I think, no matter how much they believe that people don't change, is I would guess 90% of the people here are still paying to send their kids their kids to the best university and the best grammar school, and no matter what you say, we believe it intellectually, we still do it. And the question is, why? Wow. Well, his first comment was that at the eulogy, they don't say where he attended, but they will say this guy was the biggest USC fan. You'd see him at the 50-yard line. That's my friend Joe Lopes, the biggest university Nebraska fan who, wouldn't you know it, today are playing UCLA. He's the only one who won. You're allowed to say, "He cheated." Listen, no wonder you get so upset. Not only— oh my poor friend, oh God. Not only is he missing a game for which he has 50-yard-long white seats because of Tim Kipper. That's bad enough. But to be in LA when UCLA beat them, where he has no sympathy, it's just a bunch of UCLA fans. That was a very, very heroic act of yours to come here for Tim Kipper. So you're right about that. They'll say what a fan he was, but they won't say where he went. I'll come and But the other one is critical. And what was the other one again? Why do we do it? Oh yeah. Well, why do people— he said, Dennis, you influence people, but none of us are going to listen to you on spending all this money for the best grammar school, the best college, etc. It's probably true. Very few of you will. I'll keep saying it because it's the The force is so powerful in the other direction that I know that I am the boy in the dyke. I know that. All I can tell you is I did not care what college, when it came to my older son— my older son just graduated high school— when it came to college, I didn't care where he went. And I didn't care where he went, I didn't care about— I cared only about my kids' character. I tried to live by what you're saying, by what I'm saying to you. And it turned out, I mean, my younger son's still a work in process, but for my older son who's 30, there's a 10-year difference. For my older son, he's turned out to be a magnificent man, and he's probably making more money than a lot of the kids who went to Harvard. He, as it turns out, he went to George Washington Washington, Indiana University. Okay, nothing prestigious. And I didn't care. If he went to Northridge, I'd be happy. I want to know his character. Character will get you very far in life. Okay, aside from the intrinsic power of character, the intrinsic worth before God, it gets you very far. Very few people are successful cheats in the whole life. Okay, they're successful for a period of time, and then the world comes crashing. Character character in the long run works out. And, uh, and seeing it of itself is an end in itself. That's why I want it. You don't learn character at expensive, uh, expensive high schools. You don't. You learn to be a great student. You learn high self-esteem. But you don't learn character. And high self-esteem without character is a very bad combo. That's not saying all all your kids who go to expensive schools don't have good character. They do, because it's you. Parents can still instill good character, and the school has nothing to do with it. All I want you to do is be honest. People need to honestly assess. Would you— I wrote an article once. Would you be more upset if your child smoked or cheated? I'm not talking marijuana. I'm talking plain old cigarettes. Forget cigar and pipe, which we love you all, you're welcome. But the, uh, it's only half a penny, but only half. But the, uh, but cigarettes, which I know are dangerous and all these other things. Would all I— you choose, but which— by the way, that got a lot of hate mail too. Would you, uh, why would you— why would bother bother you more? Forget anything else. Inside of you, what would bother you more? Your kid cheating on tests or smoking cigarettes? That's a very good way of assessing your value system. And even if you say, well, both are equally wrong, that's a statement. I don't believe both are equally wrong at all. I think this is never— they're not even close. One is a disgusting The other is wrong morally. There's a big difference between disgusting habits and moral wrongs. And that's, I mean, just here's a simple way of figuring it out. Would you rather that your pilot smoked or cheated on how he flew? All of a sudden when it affects us, cheating seems to be, Seems to be worse, doesn't it? Yes, sir, please stand. All right, so my question is, does Judaism tolerate Jews who might not necessarily like communal prayer, like, but they like to study on their own, read books, maybe pray on their own? Does he use the word tolerate? How does Judaism regard Jews who don't don't join communal prayer, but do it on their own, study on their own, pray on their own. Judaism is a communal religion. There's no way around it. It is better to read a book in shul than pray on your own. That's Prager speaking, that's not listed that way in the Talmud. I just want to make that clear, giving you my view. My view though is not my view about me, it's my view about how Judaism wants you to be together with other Jews. All the prayers are in the plural, every single one. Heal us. Help us. We praise you. That's the nature of this religion. It has advantages and disadvantages. Christianity is much more, much more, um, practice and love and live Christianity alone than Judaism alone. Shabbat alone is not only not—

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Wonderful. It's awful. Everything in Judaism is created to create family and community, and it has great things. Because overwhelmingly it works. It does create family and community. But for the Jew who doesn't have the family to do it with or the community to do it with— look, my wife and I were at the Chabad of Cambodia a few years ago. This guy's going stir-crazy. Because, you know, there isn't a Hasidic community in Cambodia. Mount Penh. In case you were curious. There isn't even a non-Hasidic community. Now Shabbat is fine because all the Jewish visitors to Cambodia show up Friday night. Why don't we count that night? 12 countries? Something like that. Like, you know, there were like 18 of us from 12 different countries. You know, Jews from all over the world coming to the Shabbat Rabbi. He lives for that. But what does he do from Sunday to Friday. It's a very, very lonely experience. But a Christian in a non-Christian country who set up shop would not suffer nearly as much. So there are advantages and disadvantages. This is what people need to understand about religion. And really, it's a book I'd love to write. You can't write a lot of books at the same time. Well, it's a real problem in my life, but in any event, it should be my worst problem, obviously. But I would love to write a book on Jewish-Christian differences, and because I know both religions so well, and both communities, that's as important. Because if you study them in books, you don't know them. You have to meet real Christians and real Jews. That's when you really know religion. And I really know Christians and I really know Jews, and this is and I'll give you a very interesting little difference that you have to know both religions to know. Jews always speak about raising their children to love Judaism. I have never met a Christian who said, "I raised my children to love Christianity." It's to love Christ, or love God. We raise our kids to love Judaism, they raise their kids to love God. God/Christ. There's no better or worse. I'm just telling you it's a difference. And there are many. This is just an example. So this communal thing is a blessing and a curse. Shabbat alone, or anything alone. I mean, Yom Kippur alone? I hadn't done Yom Kippur alone one year in my life, even didn't. My first money, I only took one money. No, I took two. All right, confused everyone. Is that okay, Susan? Susan could score on this and her reading says 003. You can't laugh about your own life, you're not going to live long. Good. I have— we have no intention to become James And I was on my honeymoon in New Guinea, and, you know, Kippur fell on New Guinea. There was no Jewish community to join. We were in the jungle. But I blew shofar, I will say that. I blew shofar in the jungles of New Guinea. You have no idea how many animals started running toward me. That's why I stopped after 'Wapitiya.' Yes, sir, please. Wow, wow, you've been here. It's not good for someone to stand alone, so everybody should be joined by someone else. And on some level, you know, I want to applaud for it, but it's a compassionate system. No, this is not compassion standards, this is common sense question. It's great, I'm glad to have heard. Now I know the other argument. Remember I told you on standing, when people say the Mourner's Kaddish, and it's now the practice in synagogues, I don't know if it's the Orthodoxy, Conservative, and Reform, that a lot of people stand for the mourner's kaddish. And when I said kaddish for my mother 4 years ago, I thought, why are you all standing? I'm in mourning, you're not. And that's when I realized it's not a good idea. At least I thought it's not a good idea. But I now heard the argument they give. It's for your standing in respect respect and solidarity with those who were mourning. So here's a great example. There's no right or wrong here, but since I run this particular service, I have that authority to suggest— I don't care if you stand, I just suggest that you sit, because I don't know who's mourning if everybody's standing. So what's the point then? If everybody's standing, nobody's mourning. So to me it's not a matter of standards or Judaism, it's common sense. Alright, it's the mourners, cops, mourners, police, fire engines, and everybody else. Oh great. So that's why I think it's not using common sense. But it doesn't violate Judaism to stand. But I want to know who's mourning, then I can go over, and I often do, who did you lose? Now I don't know, I don't know who's mourning. I don't know who to ask. Who did you lose to? It's not the whole congregation standing. It's someone standing next to that person. Now you mean the person standing next to that person? You are doubling the number of people standing, half of whom— how do I choose who's the mourner? To me it's pointless. But that's not atypical. Alright, I'm going to come back to this section in a moment. And anybody in the furthest? No? Yes, sir? I'll answer anything. You can ask me anything. He wants to know, he saw me in front of the Prager Library when I spoke, and you asked me then, how many listeners do I have? I said we have no way to know. He wants to know, do I now know, and is it growing? How many markets am I in? And what was the final one? My contract, the end of the year. Okay, I'll go backwards. My contract is in fact for 3 years. And it is the world's most effortless contract. They send it to me and I sign it. Okay? That's basically what it is. They love me and I love them. I'm very lucky to do my work and they're very lucky to have me. It's a nice way— no, it is, it's a fact. It's not conceit. What am I supposed to think? I'm lucky to have you? I hate false modesty. It's so silly. Wow, we— whew, what luck that I'm in radio. I'm such— I'm so incapable of doing it, I can't believe I'm on. It's a little odd, right? 31 years I have fooled millions of people. Okay, so then next, the, uh, uh, I— there is no way to assess. That still remains true. You can assess TV because that TVs are hooked up, especially now so often, in some way, and Nielsen is accurate, and they have— they know the number of TV viewers. We still have no scientific way. It's still done in a primitive way, uh, of a handful of people monitoring. The way they choose the people is, for example, they get double the number of either, either, uh, what's the word, not a checkoff, but whatever it is, then the double double the number of things to sign and check off, or even electronically, which is accurate, but it's still so few people. Out of 7 million here, they will give it out to maybe, you know, 200 people, and they're supposed to represent 7 million. And they doubled the number of minorities because they don't think the minorities will fill in properly. I mean, it's actually bigoted, their attitude toward minorities. Uh, so I don't know. All I can tell you is I'm going to Phoenix, uh, a week from Sunday, um, and I'm speaking with my friend Keith Dewitt, and they've already sold 1,200 tickets. That's a lot of people, okay? That's a serious number. And they obviously don't go much higher, but they can't go beyond, I think, 1,800. It's a huge place that we're speaking in. That's a lot of people. I just spoke in Chicago where I'm only on a night, and 1,000 people showed up. So that tells you something, that you have, you know, a good listenership. It's estimated between 1 and 2 million. I never think about it. I can't say I never. I tend not to think about it because there's nothing I can do about it. I don't dwell on what I can't change. I'm on 120 through 130 stations. I would love to be I could be on 540 just like Rush Limbaugh, but I'm not. And I will— this will help you a great deal in your own life. Because men, every man I know thinks he has not fulfilled his potential. Every single man I know carries the burden of failure in his life. Even if you became president, Jimmy Carter does not walk around thinking I have fulfilled what I can do. I became president. Uh, it's, it's, that's just because he doesn't think he did anything, done much in office. No, I'm not saying that as an attack. I think that that's true for virtually every president. This president will be able to say he did a lot. Okay, you're allowed to laugh. I'm not, because I'm not politicizing it. But, but he will be able to. But generally, they can't. And anyway, this man's going to have He's going to have 50 more years of life or so, and then what is he going to do with that? Every man who lives is a failure in his own eyes in some way. So in my life, this is what I said, and my wife is here, she knows how true this is. There were two utterly different ways I could look at my professional life. One, unbelievable, I am so fortunate. I get to say what I believe to so many people and get paid well for it. Wow, am I lucky. And have I accomplished something. The number of people with a national radio show midday is 3. There are 300 million Americans. There are more US senators than there are national talk show hosts. Okay? So, that's great. I just made a pretty big— and 1 to 2 million people, 130 stations. Okay, that's one side. Here's the other side. Equally accurate. Rush Limbaugh has 540 stations, 18 million listeners. So what does that say about you, Mr. P? Okay, which is true? Answer: both are true. That's the way it works. I pinch myself that with the values and what I talk about, I am on at all. That's the side that I really— I should be on 540 stations. I have a lot to say, and I'm good at saying it. I know that. But I'm not. On the other hand, it's mind-boggling that a guy who actually actually talks about the necessity of God for ethics has any audience outside of a religious station? Who does it? So that's the way I look at it. So both are true. I wish I had 540 stations, not for ego and not for money. I'd happily give the 9/10 of it to charity if that were the issue. It's because I want to touch people's lives. Period. End of issue. And I, I I know I do, and I consider it a gift. There's zero ego involved. Zero. You know me. That's why you're here. If it were ego, you wouldn't be coming here. It isn't. I really believe I have a mission. I really believe that there are good things that I say, and I'm very, very lucky that I have a job that allows me to do it. Do I wish I were talking to more people? If I walked through St. Louis now, nobody would recognize me. But if I walked in Phoenix or Minneapolis or Denver or of course LA or a number of other places, my wife is a living witness, every day I'm stopped. And most often multiple times. And you never know who. We were in a— what was it, a restaurant? Was it in Minneapolis when the chef came out? Remember that? You remember? The chef came out at one point. That was really cracking me up. The chef, you know. I get sometimes airline pilots pilots will send me a note, "Glad to have you aboard." That's adorable, isn't it? I got a video of one airplane pilot who stopped me while I was— an American Airlines pilot who stopped me while I was boarding, like, "Hey Dennis Prager, I was just listening to you in Dubai." That's great. He has the podcast, The Prager Talk. And so I said, "You know what, this is so moving, I want to get a video of you." I always carry So I did the open guy, he's saying, "Oh, I listen to you in Dubai, Japan, you know, wherever I fly." So I said, "Do you listen while you fly?" I didn't want to hear yes. It was the one time I admit I would be happy that somebody was not listening to me. And who was our guy? The UPS pilot, right? Yeah, where does he live? Anyway, we have a UPS pilot who— and I don't care if he listens while he flies, just, you know, FedEx, packages. But anyway, he not only listens, he runs a website with the best statements I make. Pragerisms, he calls it. This is a UPS pilot. So listen, my cup runneth over, but I don't walk around I walk around thinking of how much I didn't do. That is the God's honest truth. And so I am no different from other men in that way. That is the way, that is the lot of men. And you know what consoles me? It's the Torah. Moses didn't get into Israel. That's a great thing for every man. Women have their burdens and we men have ours. And ours is I am not what I thought I could be. Every man, there's no man alive, if there was a man who thinks I am everything I thought I could be, watch out for that guy. But I never met, I don't know such a man, and I'm certainly not him. Okay, back there, sir, yes. What do I think of Jews marrying outside the faith, and what would I tell my son? I tell my son what I'm telling you. But I do have a heretical view as well. I have the regular view, and I have a strong view. I think a Jew should marry a Jew. I think a Christian should marry a Christian. I don't understand how you would be committed to your faith and not want to build a home with someone else committed to your faith. It's very hard for me to imagine in that regard. I mean, it's doable. It's done. It's done when the other person has no faith. It's very difficult. I mean, look, America is such an open society. I know in open society that there are people who, you know, both faiths and they somehow work it out, but it's very hard with kids. We have friends who have a son who married a Catholic girl. If you ask the couple— and by the way, the girl's magnificent, just magnificent— and I think she feels more about her Catholicism than he does about his Judaism, but I don't think he'll want his kid baptized. But they did father thinking. They're so in love, and I totally understand that. I don't say this with any condemnation, but they were so in love that they didn't— that they admit that they don't— they'll say, we'll worry about the kids when they come. All right, but they will come and they will have worries. So we're in it. That's one argument. Another argument is the Jews, unlike Christians, weren't endangered species. Christians Jews don't feel as strongly about this, not just for theological reasons, but for endangered species reasons. Most Jews who marry a non-Jew are on their way out of Judaism. Most. Not all. But most. And we can't afford it. You know, if we had 100 million Jews, 500 million Jews. In fact, we should have 500 million Jews. We were 10% of the Roman Empire. It's ludicrous that there aren't half a billion or a billion Jews. But we've been killed so much and forced assimilation and so on that— and then the Holocaust killed 1 out of every 3 living Jews, 9 out of 10 European Jews. So Jews feel— that's why he Even non-religious Jews want their kids to marry Jews. In large measurements, you know, I don't want this people to die. So there were very powerful arguments, I think, that can be made for it. But now let me give you my, uh, the heretical part of me. And there is a, I think that there was a Jew here who I am talking about, who is in his late 50s and has never been married, wants very much to be married, regards having children as a ship that has sailed. And I told him, and he happens to be conservative politically and quite God-centered but not Orthodox. In other words, like me. In that way, except that I'm married. And he can't find a Jewish woman. He's tried JDate and other things. And he's right. I mean, not that they don't exist, but the number of Jewish women who are conservative— I'm not saying it's good or bad being conservative, that's not my point. My point is, what is he going to do? Very few Jewish women are conservative and God-fearing centered and not Orthodox. That's a fact, it's not an opinion. So what's he going to do? And I said, go on regular dating sites and try to find somebody who will honor you, who will honor your, you know, living your Jewish life, participate as much as you want in it, but you're not going to have children so that the issue doesn't apply here. And God said it's not good for a man to be alone. And he was very deeply relieved. And I wasn't the only one who said that to me. A woman said the same thing to me in El Paso, Texas, 30— I don't know, maybe not 30, about 25 years ago. I gave a speech to the Jewish community of El Paso, Texas. A woman comes over to me, also in her 50s, not going to have children, she already had they're not going to have children for biological reasons, and said, you know, Dennis, I've dated every Jewish man in El Paso. I'll never forget her telling me that. And I thought, that's probably true. And I said, you know, well, now what am I going to do? She said, marry an un-Jewish man in El Paso. As long as you give your were free to live your Jewish life. And so that's— so I do draw those— I have that heretical view with someone your age. I would push very hard for someone your age having children to marry a Jewish, you know, basic Jewish woman. Yes, Sam, please. Dennis, you mentioned that you had a food addiction. Thanks, everybody. Originally, you gave a keynote speech about why you're not Orthodox today, but I was just curious if you'd like to give us a summary of that and also how that impacts your observance of Shabbat. Okay, good, that's good. Yes, of course. So in a summary, what did I say to the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations who invited me, to their great credit, to speak on why I'm not Orthodox? Unorthodox. And, uh, when I summarize my, how I, my Shabbat observance, is that correct? That customer? Okay. So first I want to tell you what credit I give them for inviting me. I said that to them. Forgetting anything else, in fact, and by the way, a man got up, I record everything, a man got up after my talk and said, I don't I'm not trying to be offensive to Mr. Prager, but this was very wrong for the Orthodox Union to invite him here. The purpose of our conventions is to strengthen our faith, not question it. And I said, "No, what he said makes perfect sense." And I said, "I respect that, and I'm not insulted, I'm not offended." But, If my coming weakens your faith, that's not good. That, that it's not a faith built, um, in any way on reason and can't, can't take. Now, I, I believe, and it's the only, it's the only political statement I'll make, but it's not political. It's the only thing that even touches on it. I think I mentioned it earlier, Reform congregations are conservative, will not invite me to I don't need to speak on why I'm not a liberal. Jewish communities invite me to speak on happiness or on, you know, why Jewish identity is something that everybody can cheer for. I was just in San Diego for the Jewish community. I was the keynote speaker for the Yom Limud, the Day of Study, and I spoke on happiness as a mitzvah. And I'm very happy to, because I think, because that's why I get to say that behavior is everything, and that has political ramifications. Patients anyway. But I'm not invited there because their edifice is much weaker than the Orthodox's edifice. It's all feelings. The Orthodox at least is based on faith, maybe not rational, which I think often is, but at least it's faith. Whereas in the other case, it's just feelings. So I'm too dangerous to them to even invite. But I said to them, in a nutshell, whenever Orthodox Jews, which they always do, Orthodox, I drive Orthodox Jews a little nuts. I'll tell you why. Because I believe the Torah is from God and I'm not Orthodox. So how many non-Orthodox Jews believe the Torah is from God? 7? 14? Okay, it's very rare. And not only that, I advocate it publicly. So everything I advocate, they love. I have such a huge following among Orthodox rabbis and Orthodox Jews who follow my show, send me emails. I'm speaking at Beth Jacob, by the way, to their youth on Shabbat coming up in November. And, you know, to their credit again, they're inviting me, and more power to them. But I don't— I believe that rabbinic law must change. That's why I'm not Orthodox. That's so— eating chicken with milk is a perfect example. No Orthodox Jew would— every Orthodox Jew I meet in private has no good answer, because nobody in their life has ever confused chicken with milk. And they realize the meaning of separation of milk and meat is lost if chicken is now included with milk-producing animals. And then I ask them about Yom Tov Sheni. If they ask me and I have one second to answer, I go, Yom Tov Sheni, I don't think chicken is milk or chicken is meat. Yom Tov Sheni is where Jews have added a day, a second day, to all of the Jewish law, the holidays of the Torah. Because 2,000 years ago they weren't sure of the calendar. So now we're sure of the calendar. Anyway, I don't even believe that. I think they were sure of the calendar then because there's no Yom Tov Sheni for Yom Kippur. Nobody thought that they were fasting on the wrong day. If they did, they should have a Yom Tov Sheni. You should have a quick fast meal, you know, some way figure it out and then do it again. So because I believe that rabbinic law must change, that makes me not Orthodox. So where does it put observance? So, well, I already told you basically, you know, I'll eat chicken with milk, for example. The biggest pain— and pain, I mean, not pain as in, you know, it's a pain in the tuckus, Jewish, but the biggest moral theological pain is over kashrut. Judaism was ahead of the world in killing animals for 2,500 years, and now it's behind it, I think. The whole point of kashrut was to make killing an animal as painless as possible. I thought that was the whole point. That's why the blade was must be very sharp. Any nick in it, the animal is not kosher. If the animal is wounded, it is not kosher. It has to be done with one cut. So everything was done to make slaughter as humane as possible. But now we have new methods that may make it more humane, like stunning an animal with a benz. Why should they have to know a pattern Apparently, you know, cows led to the slaughter know what they're going to. They smell all that blood and they howl, you know, from terror. I believe an animal can experience terror. Why should an animal that is killed in the Jewish way suffer anything? But they won't change anything. So that's to me a problem. The left changes too much and the right changes too little. And I'm in the middle. I'll be with you in a moment. Let me go back there. Yes, ma'am. Yes, one of the two ma'ams. Would you stand, please? Yes. I can't hear you. Forgive me. You want to come up or do you want to yell? Oh, I feel bad. Is there anything in the Torah that refers to suicide? And it was raised in this woman's mind when Rachel, as I quoted last night, said life wasn't worth it because she didn't have any children. Of course I raised it, but she blamed him. It was not for lament. I understand the lament. There's nothing in the Torah that I know of about suicide, but Judaism isn't only the Torah. I'm not a Karaite, I recognize that Judaism looks very, very down upon suicide and considers it a big sin. But everything— this confuses a lot of people— even those of us who believe in moral absolutes have to recognize that context still determines the absolute. In other words, is it wrong to lie? Yes. Is it always wrong to lie? No. The Christian saving the Jew in the Holocaust did the right thing by lying to the Nazis. By the way, I just want to tell you a story. The thing that I'm very— I know I'm very lucky is what a rich life I have lived. I met a woman, I met the woman who was known for doing this, who slept with a Nazi for years to save the Jews in her house. A deeply religious Catholic Polish woman who felt every day, not only felt that, you know, as a woman she was being totally used, but felt that as a Catholic she was was sinning horribly by committing adultery because he was married. His wife was back in Germany. But she did it to save— he said, 'You don't sleep with me, I send them to the death camp.' It's very simple. And she did. Irene Hauptmann. And she was on my show. And it was very It was very powerful to talk. I was in the presence of an angel. That's what I felt. It's not often you feel that. You're going to say that angel that you're in the presence of. So there are times when suicide is appropriate. I mean, if you know you'll be tortured by the Nazis and you have a cyanide pill, you should chew on it. I would. But having said that, that, like with lying or adultery, context that allows it to be done is very rare. Most suicides, Judaism and God would consider a sin. I once on the radio, actually, and I didn't do it again because I'm not sure I should do it, but I said, I want those I want those of you who are thinking of suicide to know that those who love you will be very angry at you. Their primary emotion will not be sadness for you, but will be anger at you. Maybe I should say it again, because maybe people need to hear that. But it's such a, you know, who commits suicide? I mean, what goes on in the brain, in the mind of a person? I'm not talking about the terrible deal. I'm not talking about horrible suffering. I'm not talking about someone waiting to be tortured by Nazis. I'm talking about someone with, you know, just terrible problems. Most people think about it at some time, you know, just some easy way out, and, or I'll teach somebody a lesson. You know, a lover is jilted and she commits suicide to teach the You got a lesson for what you did. You killed me by breaking up with me. That's why religions have to have very serious taboos on suicide. And that, by the way, is why I am convinced that religion needs to be quiet about the afterlife. Because the more you talk about the afterlife, except in the context of, like, like I do, where to show this ultimate justice, It can be very tempting to leave this life. We are— God built us to want to survive. But because with all the suffering in human history, people would have committed suicide en masse if there weren't this huge, deeply built-in urge to survive. Thank God for that. Lady next to you, yes, please stand Please stand. Thank you. My view on the afterlife? Very simple. There is one, and if there isn't, there is no God. If there's a God, there's an afterlife. If there's an afterlife, there's a God. I don't know how anybody can believe in God and not an afterlife. If there's God and no afterlife, then God is bad. If God is bad, obviously I wouldn't be here today. All the way back there, yes, with the, uh, The keypad that lights up. Yes, you with the blue shirt. Young man in the blue shirt, or purple shirt actually. Yes. Wait, how does Judaism answer the question? What? Of levels of sin? So if someone walks in and steals your Andy Moore versus— versus Berner? Oh, Bernie Madoff. Did Bernie Madoff steal a penny? You know, I'll answer you with this. I, uh, another one of the books I'd like to write— most of the books that I think I think of the book, but I have no title. Here's a book I have a title but no book: God Has Common Sense. It's one of the most heretical things you could say to a lot of religious people, that God has common sense. So I ask, because I get this on the radio, Dennis, all sin is equal. People tell me this. No Jews have ever said that. And Catholics don't say it, so you get it from some Protestants. Not all, some. So I will ask this person, I say, wait a minute, God thinks that taking a stapler from work and raping a girl or molesting a little girl is the same thing? Is equally bad? And then I get the answer, well, in our eyes, of course, they're not equal, but in God's eyes, all sin sin is sin, because it all means rebellion against God. So that's when I just think of my little phrase: God has common sense. God does not see taking a stapler and raping a little girl as the same. If he does, then I'm more moral than God. That's what it would mean, because I know that there's a moral difference. God doesn't. So we're all— since every one of us has done something equivalent to taking the stapler, that would mean that we are all baby rapists. That's what it would mean. And all right, it's not my theology, and it's not my common sense, and it's certainly not Judaism. There are gradations, otherwise we wouldn't have Ten Commandments. Why do we have Ten Commandments if all commandments are equally important? There wouldn't be a Ten Commandments. God wouldn't have revealed 10 specific things at Sinai if he would just say, why would you expect me to reveal anything at Sinai? Well, you have 613 in the 5 books of Moses. Have a nice day. Whether you wear linen and wool in the same garment is exactly the same as do not murder. But there's no such suggestion. That doesn't mean that we're— I mean, there's a very basic Jewish teaching, "K'vay zahir be'mitzvah kamurah b'chikkalah." Be as attentive to a— no, "K'chikkalah ke'chammurah." Be as attentive to the simple one as to the difficult one. The trivial one as to this one thing is important. Okay, that's fine. I don't have a problem with that. And by the way, I don't wear linen wool in the same garment. And I saw on one of the websites, I think, there I was going to get a jacket. It said linen wool. I didn't buy it. It's a Torah mitzvah and I follow it. But if you think that I think that— but I think that God thinks that linen and wool is the same as baby murder? No. Okay. Yes, please stand. Am I the only human— that was good— am I the only human who observes Shabbos and eats chicken with milk? Is there anybody else here who has that combination? You observe Shabbos and don't eat chicken and milk?

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Feels actualized? He feels actualized. He's gone way beyond his potential. I happen to personally know, and I'm putting through, a Harvard student that picked up Arabic over Harvard Westlake in this incredibly scrupulous process. I mean, do you not worry about speaking in absolutes? No, I never worry about spelling. I never speak in absolutes. I speak in generalizations. Oh, no, it's just if you were Oh, that well, that's too bad. All right, am I worried about talking in absolutes here? I don't talk in absolutes, I talk in generalizations. Generalizations are the mother of wisdom. That's my little phrase. If you can't generalize, that means you don't see patterns in life. And if you don't see patterns in life, then there's no wisdom. The world is The world has patterns. Patterns, though, what I always— that's why I call it a generalization, not a law like E mc². Science laws are all, are constant. Generalizations have exceptions. You have— that you have raised a good Jewish kid with good character who goes to Harvard, so did my parents. My brother went to Harvard. I was, I was a peon. I went to Columbia. And so, uh, I didn't put it down because we worshiped it. It's a false god. If you had to pick a surgeon, if you were dying and you had the choice of a guy that went to Cal State Northridge or a Harvard physician, you would pick a Harvard physician? No, I wouldn't. No, that's an interesting question. Would I pick a physician? I mean, one thing, one went to Harvard Medical School. Give me another one because Northridge doesn't have a medical school. Okay, but the guy that went to Harvard— huh? Minnesota. Minnesota. One went to the University of Minnesota. Here's the answer. Raise your hand if you've had surgery. Please raise your hand. Raise your hand if you know what medical school your surgeon went to. No, I'm serious. Do you? You better raise your hand or you're retired. Question? Absolutely. Why? One, keep them up. Two, three, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and I would say 200 raised their hands. So 12 out of 200 know where— I don't know, I just had 3 surgeries a few years ago, I don't have a clue what medical school they went to. There were 2 different surgeons at USC. It never even occurred to me to ask, because I don't give a damn. It doesn't make you a better surgeon if you go to Harvard Medical School. My brother went to Harvard Medical School. No, I didn't make it. No, let me explain. I'm glad you're arguing with me. I really am. I'm the only Harvard student in the cluster that I have. But no, no, no, it's very important. And you're here, it's to your credit. Yeah, go on, go on. Are there anybody— are there any Stanford students here? Of course, but we associate with it. In other words, you talk about reputation, correct? He has a reputation. One of the books you've read is Reputation, that one's reputation was extraordinary, right? But he didn't go to Walter Stitches University, whereas some guy went to Yale or Harvard or Princeton. But his reputation— All right, now I'll ask you a question. Would you rather your son's rabbi went to Harvard or Prager University? Rabbi. I'm talking rabbi, not surgeon, not lawyer. Rabbi. No, no, no, no, wait. Wait a minute. You gotta answer my question. You have a choice. One went to Harvard, the rabbi went to Harvard or took all 60 Prager University courses, which you know nothing else about the rabbi. '78 when you were there. So of course it's waiting. Yes, but so why make you Jewish? Okay, so yes, thank you. Harvard makes nobody Jewish. Okay, all right, God bless you. I'm not fine. Yes, my brother is ethical and went to Harvard. I know that to be true. But do you not— it's true. I didn't say— the door didn't say if you go to Harvard you're bad. I said we shouldn't worship What do you think? You may not, a lot of Jews do. They're, they're, not just Jews, a lot of people, upper middle class, they want their kid to get into a good college. That is the purpose of life. What your purpose in kindergarten is to get into a good elementary school, the purpose of elementary school is to get into a good high school, the purpose of high school— now I always ask the parents this question. Now that your kid has graduated that great college that you worked so assiduously to get him or her into, what's their purpose in life? And then, that's when it matters. Now they're 21, or graduate school, 28. Now what's their purpose for the next 70 years that they're probably going to live? And then the kid has no answer. Make a living because I went to Harvard? Now your kid probably has an answer because they're committed Jews, or committed Christians would. How many kids at Harvard are committed Jews or committed Christians? It's a tiny, tiny element. So that's the issue to me. And by the way, Harvard was founded to produce committed religious people. That's the irony. And so was Dartmouth, and so was Yale, and so— Yale's insignia is from the Torah. Did you know that? It's the breastplate from the from, of all places, Leviticus. That's how much they knew the Torah when they founded Yale. That's my argument. So of course I want great Jews and great Christians to go to Harvard. I want great kids with my values to go to Harvard. It's very important that we break faith. But it's not the aim that I have. You don't have to apologize for even going to Harvard, Dennis Prager, for everything I said. You know, it's okay. Yes. They were in line. I will tell you an email we got because part-time, they cover, they act, the 4 kids who were raised with us act as mishpia at the Hillel house. They got an email from the rabbi each year as the new year starts. He's now a junior. If any of you feel it's my obligation as the rabbi to let you know Many of you feel you no longer qualify based on your Shomer Shabbos status or your kosher status to act as mishpia. You should let me know quietly about Dr. Wexler. And he gave it a lot of thought and he felt he was no longer qualified. Yes, exactly. All right, that's a good orthodox— I don't have to repeat it. It's a good orthodox story. Let me go back here. It's been a while. Lady, yes, please stand. Thank you. What proof is there that there's an afterlife? You need proof in the Bible or proof generally? Real? I'll tell you the real. Let me ask you a question, and I'm asking all of you. Do you believe, even if you're agnostic— and I assume there's a very varied belief structure here— do you really believe Do you really believe— if I woke you at 3 AM, and this is— Kryon Klopap used to say that, the 3 AM questions. Do you really believe you are just physical? There is nothing more to you than chemistry? See, it all depends on that. If you believe you are just chemicals, then there's no afterlife. If you believe that you have a soul, then there is an afterlife. Where are all the bodies? The bodies are chemistry. The bodies have been decomposed. So, and nothing— the soul is what has an afterlife, not the body. Although there are people who believe— Judaism believes in the resurrection of the body. The hope is you get a better one. That's what I always thought. I always look, will I be thinner in the next life? I'm just hoping for that, you know. Or, you know, some women might say, "Just thinner thighs in the next life, thanks very much." But yeah, no, there's a deep belief in all of that. How can you— I don't understand how anybody could believe this is all there is. This is— it's just— everything radiates that there's a God who made us. Everything. It's just logic. You think about it, um, for thousands and thousands of years, even the soul— what is the soul? Tell me where the soul goes. Wait, wait, you see, now you're asking me different questions. You asked me the body deteriorates. There's a soul, we have a soul. The soul, where does it go? It goes to— goes to the non-physical afterlife. That's why God must be non-physical to prove to us that there are the greatest realities not physical. Well, we're not up to trillions, we're only in the billions, but yeah, so what? I don't care what— look, if one soul has an afterlife, 10 billion have an afterlife. The number doesn't intimidate God. Okay, yes ma'am. How we are in God's image. Very good. Well, we're clearly not physically in God's image, and I can prove that to you. We look like monkeys, correct? I mean, isn't that what freaks you out when you see gorillas and monkeys at the zoo? And especially when they look at you, you think, oh my God. It's like a hairy, hairy human, isn't it? No, very serious. So if we're in God's image physically, then so are monkeys. And so for that matter would be almost any animal with a face like ours. But only we are in God's image, which can only mean non-physical. That the point is that we have the traits of God and that we are sacred and animal life's He's not. Doesn't mean we're allowed to abuse animals. I am proud of Judaism. Remember, treatment of animals got into the Ten Commandments. Nobody thinks about that. Your animal has to rest on Shabbat. How many cultures have that? Zero. Zero on earth. Judaism was the first culture to teach proper treatment of animals. And there are other laws in the Torah. You're not allowed to eat the liver of a living animal. You're not allowed to have animals of different sizes on the same the same plow. You're not allowed to stop an animal from eating while it's working in the field. It's unbelievable, the amount of concern for animals. But Judaism, as usual, is in between the extremes. On the one extreme, animals are worthless, you can do what you treat them any way you want. On the other extreme is animals are like humans, and they, uh, they're sacred. They're not. So, uh, all What was the question? Why did I get onto that? Oh, God's image. Yeah. So we're in God's image because we're sacred and because we know good and evil like God does. Oh, and a man who is mourning. He's not in mourning for a parent today. He's in mourning for the Nebraska loss. But with him, in his case, you're all allowed to stand with him because there's no reason not to. You notice, by the way, he has a Huskers yarmulke. Have you noticed? I mean, this is what we call— this is the definition of a fan. All right. Did I say sports? Oh, I dropped it since. You don't have to ask questions, you make statements. your fault, and it is to your credit. I will always cite you, unfortunately. I would like to thank you. Uh, I cited you on the airport. Well, there you go. I am serious about citing. You didn't hear all of this. I would— this will end unfortunately because it's already, uh, it's 2 hours, isn't it? And then there's just 2 hours left. You know, I didn't get a chance to thank them by name. I didn't realize, but I did last time. I did it 3 times. Okay, so I hope I'm not in any way insulting because they were so valuable. So there's a very interesting thing that Joel Alperson came up with. I mean, I never thought to ask that question. He got married late in life, as he pointed out, in his late 40s. And so he is— he asked people who were divorced, including people who had very, very painful divorces the following question. This is a very powerful argument, I think, unless there's a weakness to the question. The question is, would you, looking back, have rather been single to this point or married and had that terrible divorce, or even that terrible marriage. And none of them said they would have preferred to have been single to this point. That doesn't mean they don't exist. That would be— somebody would say that. But I think the great majority of people, with forgetting amicable divorce, they would certainly say that, I presume. But even bad divorce would say, I'd rather have had that than nothing. Now, you can't ask, would you rather have a good marriage? Of course they'd rather have a good marriage. It's a stupid question. But the question is, single or the, the, all the issues that you've had? Even with, even without kids? Wow, that's, that's interesting, which shows the value of having been were married during that time that they feel? That's a very, very— it's really worth asking to show you the value of marriage. You know, a lot of people call my show and say, you know, they're scared to get married, there's a 50% divorce rate. Whether it's 50% or 40%, it's irrelevant to argue. It's a lot of divorce. And, you know, I don't want to get married, you know. And then men say— by the way, men have some— unfortunately, men are right about the— what happens to the many of them financially after divorce, and it isn't right. It's feminism who's not— feminism argued for feminine, for the female, didn't argue for justice, and that's what has happened. It's very wrong for women to get shafted, and it's wrong for men to get shafted. But in any event, this is a question that a lot of men raise, and a lot— my answer is, you know, just because a lot of people get divorced, a lot of women raise. My classic answer, or my standard— not classic— my standard answer is, if you were in a terrible car crash, would you stop? Would that stop the person? Do all the car crashes stop people from seeking to be drivers? Why do all the marital crashes stop people from seeking to be married? That's the way I would answer it in one sentence. Well, it goes fast, doesn't it? So I'm very torn. Maybe 5 more minutes? Sazan, are we okay with that? Thank you, sir. Ma'am, yes, please stand. I just wonder if you could talk a little bit about patrilineal descent, especially since you were talking about the Senate debate and what is reform. Patrilineal descent. The reform movement said a few years ago, or I don't know if it was a few, maybe 20 years ago, that it would now count as Jews the children of Jewish fathers as well as mothers. The halacha Why is he got to be the child of a Jewish mother? The reason given, by the way, by the rabbis was very logical, because we only are sure of the mother, we're not sure of the father. This is pre-DNA, obviously. And you know basically who you came out of. I think that the Reform had 100% logic, especially since the Torah was adamant that you are a Jew by your fathers. The Torah is patrilineal, the rabbis are matrilineal, and Reform said let's go to both. I can't argue with it. The only argument is that Jewish tradition has been for thousands of years the mother, and we shouldn't drop it. So I'm in the middle, I don't have a strong opinion. I don't know how I would have done it. The rest of the ruling is that they will be considered Jewish if they're raised in a Jewish home. But the problem with that is how do you measure that? That doesn't work. So if the kid decides that he wasn't raised in a Jewish home but he wants now to be a very serious Jew and his father's Jewish, that he's not Jewish? It doesn't make sense. That's where they— that's really part of the ruling that makes no sense. So it's a very tough call. My heart is with reform on that decision. In fact, my faculty of reason even is with reform on that, because the Torah said it was practical. But I don't want to necessarily meddle with thousands of years of a definition when it isn't expensive. In other words, let's say my father were Jewish and my mother weren't, and I was a serious Jew, and all it took for me was to undergo some procedural thing, and now I'm officially Jewish. That's all I would do. I have this bizarre belief that I should change more than my whole society should change. Unless my society needs to change. So I don't know, what is the terrible difficulties of the guy— well, I guess for a guy it's a terrible difficulty, now that I think of it, if he's not circumcised, what I just said is a little harder. But in essence, that would be my attitude, to leave it alone and then work through a very simple formula for conversion. But I think that on sheer rational grounds, there's no argument against patching it, especially with DNA. All right, one minute. Let's see. Okay, so we're pretty much number we could never fully answer. Did you not ask anything yet? Please say. There's two things. I'd like to just respond to— Wow, wow. I'd like to just respond to the statement that you should find out where your surgeon went to medical school. I was assistant professor at USC Keck School of Medicine in the late '90s. I was in charge of missing You got something to be upbeat about? No, but, uh, I'd like to— no, no, no, I'll try, I'll try. This is a very tight— I should have— I know I should have ended questioning. One too many. One too many. You're good. You guys got married since last time, right? Why don't you stand up and give them a cheer, everybody? They finally got married. You deserve it. It is the best. It's the second best. The best thing you ever did was get up right now and tell us that surfing schools don't matter. The, uh, who else got married in the last year? Anybody here got married in the last year? Oh, really? No? You're it? We are. So, I mean, is anybody contemplating marrying in the next year? You are? You're contemplating? I know that's a politically incorrect question. It's a new world we live in. The other thing he mentioned aside from the medical school was Isaiah is known— was that Isaiah? Comfort me, comfort me. It wasn't Jeremiah? Anyway, anyway, the prophets say comfort me. I want to comfort you, my people. Can I give you words of comfort, those of you who share my values, about our being a counterculture of what's happening? I don't think in terms of comfort on this issue, to be honest. I really, I'm animated by my belief that I have to do what I have to do, and you have to be, you have to as well. We have We have to fight for a God-centered society once again. We have to fight for these values. And I can't tell you we'll win. I don't know if we— I don't know we won't. But I don't know we will. I know that the battle is an awesome one. I feel like— look, I am worse than you. You're allowed, you have to be preoccupied with what you are preoccupied with. I have to be preoccupied with the bad news. Every night Alan Estrin sends me these articles, and one is worse than the next. And I don't have a choice, I can't tune out. So I really feel it, and, but I, you know, there are tens of millions of Americans who feel like this. We're not just I'm not talking politically because I don't talk politics on the air, but religiously and morally, we're not alone. And the trick is to be vigorous in our ability to articulate these values. That's why I'm so big on giving people the intellectual ammunition to use. That's why Prager University is so important. Because you get in 5 minutes the answers. I mean, there's a video that we put up, 5 minutes, that just explains why we dropped the atom bomb on Japan. Your kids in college are taught that Hiroshima isn't the same name as Auschwitz. It's now common. You look it up, Auschwitz and Hiroshima, see how many hits it gets. They are depicted as the exemplars of a bloodthirsty, awful century. And it's called racist because we didn't drop one on Germany because they were white and the Japanese are not. That's just nonsense. That has nothing to do with it. We killed more Germans, I believe, than we did Japanese. Well, maybe not, I don't know, but we certainly didn't spare them. We did? We killed more Germans? No, we killed more Germans in Germany that we killed Japanese in Japan. Killed a lot of Japanese in the islands around and so on. But I think if we learn the arguments and make them— see, the real battle to me is to prepare one's child for college. And that's the issue. If this college could turn them around. It's just, that's what happens. And I, I'm working to prepare parents with— I have a list, a simple list of about 40 things that they will learn in college. I printed it in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles. If you look at it, what your child will learn in college, you should go over the list and say, do you agree with this? Do you not agree with this? But let me tell you, this is what you will learn. Like, God is completely unnecessary to ethics. That's what they will learn. They will leave college believing God is irrelevant to ethics. That needs to be taught to your child. That there are secular philosophers who acknowledge that there is no secular answer to the question, "Why not murder?" You have— that's your job. Our job is not to get our kids into any college or not college, but to prepare them for college. I've never advocated that kids not go. I advocate that they have to go prepared, otherwise they will be hit by an ideological truck in their first year of college. So with that, my friends, this was a very fast 2 hours. To do more, but we are approaching the end. Doesn't it go fast in the Prager method? 11:30, straight through. Yes, it's a good method, good method. Now, on a Thunder level, how many? By the way, you know what would be very funny? Maybe next year we'll do this just for a few minutes. I bet you, why don't we have, well, we have during the Q&A about 250 people. I bet you that there are 100 different theories on what to eat before you fast. Not only will I get 100 different theories, but every one will be given with deep conviction. That is what is so funny, and the answer is there is no answer. It is like the stand or sit for the Shabbat. Jews have been debating this. There are Jews who say, you know what, I've tried everything, dairy, wheat dairy, don't eat any. Others, meat has a lot of fat in it, so that'll really keep you. Don't eat the other one though, because that'll make you thirsty. Ah, but if you eat this, you get a dozen things locked in the chest. Okay. The answer is, There is no answer. Anybody here super duper hungry? The only reason I'm asking is I'd like to know what you ate and avoid it next year. You're super duper hungry back there? Did you eat right before the holiday? What'd you eat? He can't remember. He's so, he's so hungry he can't remember. What'd you eat? Huh? Pasta? Bad idea! Oh, that runs through you like a worm! Are you very hungry? You're starving, what'd you eat? Chicken and vegetables? That blows my theory. You had chicken and vegetables? You didn't eat enough. What, you're starving? What'd you eat? Yogurt? Man, I'm starving in an hour after yogurt. 22 hours doesn't count, you know. I gotta say, that's ineffective. Anybody believe they have a foolproof method? I'm just curious. You have a foolproof method to keep you not hungry? What is it? Say it again. Set your mind to it. Set your mind to not being hungry? You're good. That is a very effective response. Oh, alright, well that doesn't count. Once you bring the Holocaust in, we— I respect the answer, but I can't go Thank God. You have a method? You believe it's foolproof? I know you got it from Arnold. I see Arnold's method. You eat less and less for 2 days before, very little, then the enzymes aren't all there waiting for food. You have— it's so interesting. She has her method is to eat less and less for 2 days days before, because then the enzymes aren't doing their thing and they're not waiting for more food and your stomach is short. I have the opposite view. I eat more and more for the 2 days. I'm not kidding. That is, I eat very little generally and I stuff myself for 3 of these days and I am fine. I am not even hungry now. And I'm working. All right, that's what I'm saying. That's why they all, they all work. They go Noah has an answer. Yeah, I know that it's get pregnant and then you're allowed to eat. That's— he works for Prager University. This is very worrisome. Very worrisome. His answer is get pregnant and then you're allowed to eat. It's not effective for half the population, or a lot more actually. You have a method, sir? What's your method? No, no, no more questions. I'm sorry. Of course we are. We are not allowed by Jewish law to keep the congregation later than the time, so have no worry. That's his method. Worry about when they're finished. He's sold his eggs and then he's not hungry. That's a good method. Is there anybody else? 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.