Timeless Wisdom: Why Pray?

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Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com. Thank you for coming. I must tell you, I was stunned to see all the cars in Los Angeles. If it goes under 70, they cancel the lecture. To see this number of people show up on a miserable day shows that, if nothing else, you build heartier souls in the East. But I really, I was quite taken. I thought it would be basically the Rabbi Kantor, officers, and I this morning. So I am very delighted to see all of you and do wish you a Shabbat Shalom. Just one— by the way, I must tell you, Dr. Golden, that was a very interesting introduction. To keep me awake through an introduction to me is an achievement, having heard a few, and I appreciated that you took the time to do that. One slight amendment: I tried to make the case last night for more than the Ten Commandments. Just want to— I want to be relieved to know that that got through, or I would I would go back to Los Angeles a little disconcerted that only 10, that I had left that impression. By the way, I am curious, talking about that, how many of you— and you have no reason to fib me, but I am curious— how many of you who were here last night did in fact not turn on your radio in the car when you went home? Wow. Did you see that? Did you see that? That is— Question: of those of you who did in fact raise your hand, which is the great majority, how many did find it a different experience as a result? About half of you. So for half, it, it was not, uh, it didn't mean anything either way. All right, try it, keep trying it. Uh, I do, I mean, give it a, give it a couple of weeks. 3, 4 weeks and see, uh, see indeed. But I do appreciate the fact that you, uh, you gave it a try. That's all I can ask. Now, it's interesting, once again Rabbi Mahler asked me to work hard, give a speech I never gave in my life, which in Jewish life that is now reaching a point of, of greater difficulty, I have exhausted quite a number of topics, or at least exhausted is a poor word, they're never exhaustible. But I have certainly devoted a lot of thinking to them, or a lot of speaking. Why pray? It's ironic that I should be giving it now. I actually should have given it before you prayed, now that I think about it, but hopefully the words will last till the next time you pray. It's, uh, I want to say one other word about this. Rabbi Mahler has asked me to speak on my weakest area in Jewish life. However, however, there is a however here. I have found in my life either this was God's will, and I mean that very sincerely, or just the way fate would have it. My lack of instinctive religiosity is a major reason that I have been able to be as persuasive as I am to the very, very many Jews and non-Jews for that matter, but in a different way, who are also very skeptical and not inherently religious. See, if faith and prayer, religiosity, spirituality came to me easily, came to me naturally, I don't think I would be a particularly good lecturer on it. It's the very fact that I have had to struggle every minute of the way in my own Judaism and my own religiosity, from my childhood to this moment, that has made me capable of addressing the great number of Jews who also struggle. See, if it came to me naturally, then I wouldn't know what to say to you. Folks, hey, I feel it, I believe it, and I wish you did. And have a great day. And nobody would be, nobody would be affected. So that's why, ironically, the fact that prayer is so difficult for me, it's good that I'm speaking on it, because while it does, I also deeply believe in its importance. So it's an important preamble to, to my thoughts on why pray. Now I'm answering this question primarily as a Jew. This is not a generic why pray, even though this would be of relevance in many of the areas to non-Jews as well, but I am specifically— this is a very specifically Jewish response. As usual, every talk I have given in my life is numbered. One of the nice things about that is, is at the end I can summarize it for you, and if you fall asleep during one of the points, You know you only missed that point. So there are many advantages in talking in a numbered fashion. So I will— I begin by offering the— well, not begin the— it is I list for you 4 types of prayer, and in that way you will appreciate what I believe the importance of prayer is. Before I do, I have to say the one overriding philosophical view I have of prayer. Overwhelmingly, the purpose of Jewish prayer is to affect you, not God. The moment you realize that, you are open to taking it much more seriously if you are a skeptic. Which is what most Jews are. I cannot overemphasize this point. The purpose of Jewish prayer is to affect the person making the prayer, not so much God. When you realize that, as I said, all of a sudden, hey, that makes sense. I do have to affect me. When do I get a chance to affect my soul? I affect my body when I work out, when I eat. When do I affect my soul? If you think of prayer as how to affect your soul, your inner, your inner Jewishness, your inner religiosity, and your spirit, makes a great deal more sense. The reason that many, and I would say most Jews, have very serious problems with prayer is because when they think of the word pray, It is virtually synonymous with request. And I will show you how that plays almost no role at all in Jewish prayer. Almost none at all. It's remarkable. The proof that to pray in Judaism is to affect you and not God is the verb. The Hebrew word to pray, and if you know any other language, Latin language is slightly Slavic, Semitic, virtually every language has this type of verb except, unfortunately, English. It's called a reflexive verb. If you know Spanish or you know French, you know that, for example, when you say, "I wash my hands," literally you say, "I wash myself the hands." The word in French is "se laver," to wash oneself. If there's any verb you would never expect to be reflexive, in other words, coming back upon the doer, like I wash myself, it would be to pray. After all, the most obvious assumption is you pray outwardly, you pray towards something, you pray to God. Uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh. In Judaism, lehitpallel is the word to pray And it is a reflexive verb, meaning you are doing something to yourself. You are palaling to yourself. What does palal mean? To examine or to judge. Do you know what the Hebrew word to pray literally means? To judge or to examine oneself. Nothing whatsoever to do with prayer as it is commonly understood when we use the English term, which we have taken from Christianity— English being a Christian language, more or less— which is not in any way a pejorative, it's just a fact. But if you'd say it in Hebrew, 'Let's go mitpalel,' and knew Hebrew truly well, you'd go, 'Oh, let's go examine ourselves.' What a difference! What I mean, it's almost unconnected to what you would normally assume prayer is. Okay, that's the first and most important point. Now, the 4 types of prayer. The first and rarest in Judaism is the one that you are most— you most associate with prayer. It's petitionary prayer. Oh, please God, do the following. From heal my mother who is ill, to heal me who is ill, to have our team win an important game. It would run that gamut. Okay. This in Judaism and in pure logic is a very, very morally problematic form of prayer. And I will give you an example. In fact, I gave it on the radio during the fires recently in Los Angeles. You're driving down the block of where your home is located, and you see on your side a house is on fire. You instinctively mumble, "Oh God, let it not be my house." You have just prayed that your neighbor's house be on fire. There is no other possible way to interpret that prayer. "Oh God, let it not be my house" means, since there is a house on fire, "Oh God, let it be the Smiths. May their house burn down. Amen." That is what you are saying. This is a very serious problem, petitionary prayer. I'll give you another one. Your daughter's getting married at an outdoor wedding, and you pray to God that it not rain. But what if the city needs rain? What if the farmer needs rain? What if they're having a special rain festival? Who's God supposed to listen to, the farmer or you? Now let's go to the even more obvious one, or more, if you will, difficult one. Oh God, please heal my mother. But your mother is sharing a room with another woman equally virtuous as your mother, but she has no children. Should God pray your— should God heal your mother before the per— the woman who has no children and therefore nobody to pray for her? Her husband died, or she was never married. Very problematic. Petitionary prayer is very problematic. I have always felt that it's problematic in another way. Judaism, in fact, legislates you may not pray for what's already done. For example, For example, your wife is pregnant, or you're pregnant, and you may not pray, "Oh, let it be, we really want a girl," "We really want a boy." Can't. It's already been decided. By Jewish law, you can't even make that prayer. It's called superstition. It's witchcraft, almost. Because it's already been done. God isn't going to change nature. It's already been decided at the moment of conception. So the whole, the whole notion of, oh God, please do the following for this individual, is a problematic notion. Either it's already been done, in which case God can't or refuses to do anything, or you have the problem, why this person? I'm not saying you shouldn't make such prayers. I think the one on the house is very problematic. I'm not saying though that you should not pray for your mother or your child, God forbid, being sick. No, not at all. I merely want you to understand the very serious problem with it, which is part of the reason why Judaism almost doesn't have it. It's not in here. It's not in the Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox prayer book of the Jewish people. Isn't that remarkable? We have no, oh, please heal so-and-so. Yes, we have a Mishabera. It is a later rabbinic addition because the Jews couldn't handle it. The absence of a petitionary prayer for a sick individual was too painful for Jews, and so it was added to the service. It is not part of the classic Jewish prayer book. Isn't that incredible? Something that has become so much— oh, if you're sick, please come forward. I have come forward. I am not opposed to it, and the reason I am not opposed to it I will, I will mention a little later. But you must understand how logically, morally, and Jewishly it's problematic to pray for individual things. Please give, please give. What I would pray for, if I would, and do, is the strength to deal with what life or God has dealt me. And the wisdom with which to deal. That, I think, is more coherent. Oh God, give us the strength to deal with whatever it is that life gives to me. That is, to me, a very powerful and virtuous singular petitionary prayer. God is not, in Judaism, a celestial butler. And that is what God is if you primarily see prayer as petition. It is God virtually as Santa Claus. This is what I want, please deliver it. And by the way, it is never too soon to stop believing in that God. If you believe in that God, there's a very good chance you will end up an atheist. Because one day you're going to make that prayer, God's not going to deliver, and you'll say, you see, there is no God. I know someone very well for whom this happened. His whole life he was convinced that God was giving him all sorts of wonderful things, and then a dearly, dearly beloved relative of his died. And he told me, I have never talked to God since. God is irrelevant to me. And of course, as I've told him, and I am very close to this person, I said, listen, the God you believed in, you should be an atheist about. I am. I don't believe in the God you believed in before either. Your God was a waiter. The God I believe in is not that God. Now we go to the second part of petitionary prayer, which is much more acceptable Jewishly. Communal petitionary prayer. We do ask God for things in this book, but it is always, always in the plural. We ask God, we call God Rofei Cholei Amo Yisrael, God as the healer of the sick of his people Israel. We pray to God to heal all the sick That makes sense. For the woman next to my mother who has no kid and no husband to make the prayer, we are also praying. God is the healer of all the sick. That makes a great deal more sense. We want all the fires on the block extinguished. Oh God, may no fire do damage. Now I know that it is natural to wish your fire the fire not be your home. I know it is natural to pray for your own relative, and I have no problem with the second. I have a problem with the first for the obvious reasons. But Jewishly, it is the communal idea that is the petitionary one. Oh, we bless you who are the healer of all the sick of Israel. So therefore, number one, this is not a big part of Jewish prayer. Petitionary. One final word about God and, and helping the individual. The more you see God as the God who helps out those in trouble, the more you are likely to be, as I said, an atheist. And I use Auschwitz as the best example. When people say God died in Auschwitz, what they're— or I, they can't believe in God after the Holocaust, And I have a whole talk on this and many articles on it, so I don't want to belabor the point right now. It would take too much time. But very briefly, what they're saying is the God who saves people who are in terrible straits, I no longer believe in. My friends, I have to say that as painful as it is, that is not the God of Judaism as I understand it. But you might say, what are you talking about? Didn't God save the Jews from Egypt? And as I— when I speak on this at length, I point out, yes, God saved the Jewish people from Pharaoh, but God did not save all individual Jews from Pharaoh. How many Jewish boys were thrown into the Nile and drowned? How many Jews were beaten to death by Egyptian slave masters? We don't know, but in its own way, it was a mini Holocaust. God does save the Jewish people. I do believe that. We're here in Pittsburgh 4,000 years later. We are still here. That's, that's pretty remarkable. God does save the Jewish people. I believe that as I am standing by that Torah. That God saves the Jewish people. There is no doubt in my mind there will be Jews as long as there is humanity. There will be people davening on Neptune one day. I have no doubt about it. Temple Emmanuel of Neptune. I, I don't think I'll live to see it, but it will happen. It is the individual that can be hurt by the hater. And how could it not be that way? I don't believe in a God who will stop all rapes, who will stop all murders, who will stop all muggings. How could that be? If I believed in such a God, I'd have to be an atheist. I'd have no choice. Or I would have to do even something worse: that it is God's will that people be raped and murdered. Which I certainly don't believe, and Judaism certainly doesn't believe. It is not God's will that the 6 million were tortured and burned. It is against God's will, but God allows you to violate his will. God allows you to hurt people. You don't like that fact? I don't like it either. But intellectually, not emotionally, thank God that's the way the world works. Would you prefer that God stop you every time you want to hurt somebody? And where do you draw the line? At 6 million, no, but 3 million, yes? Or 3 million, stop? But why is 3 million any less? What about 1? Why is 1 murder okay? God exists if he lets 1 person murdered, but if he lets 6 million murdered, he doesn't exist? It makes no sense. For that one, what's the difference? That's all we have. You and I, we are entire universes. Whether we die with 5,999,999 others or alone, We still are away, gone, extinguished. So what, where should God draw the line? How about he should stop all murder? What about rape? Should he allow rapes? Or yes, allow date rape but not stranger rape? Or he should stop all date rape too? What about, how about punches? Should he allow punches? Don't you see how ludicrous it becomes? What evil would you allow God to allow, and where would you stop him? He made us, he told us what to do, we violated it, we have screwed up. It's as simple and unappealing as that. So, you say, would I pray in a foxhole? Yeah, I'd pray in a foxhole. I'm human. But I'm not in a foxhole now, and I can think rationally. And it's very difficult to believe this foxhole yes, that foxhole no. Petitionary prayer is not my cup of tea. It is not Judaism's cup of tea, except communally, and even then it is a very, very small part of Jewish prayer. What we said today, I would say 99% of what we said today was not petitionary, even communally. So that brings me, therefore, to numbers 2, 3, and 4. Of Jewish prayer. Number 2. Part 2 of Jewish prayer, which is more than petitionary, but not— but, and a big part, but not the biggest alone, is praise. We praise God. Oh, you are great, you are magnificent, you are the Creator, you do incredible things, etc., etc. This bothers a lot of moderns. Especially those with advanced degrees, because the thought of praising something higher than themselves after all that graduate work is a very difficult emotional thing to do. It is a very healthy thing to do when done in proportion. To assert daily, weekly, I recognize there is something infinitely higher than me is important for a lot of reasons. The most obvious is you don't worship yourself. There is something higher than me. That's a good reason to do it. But there's another reason to do it. It gives you inner peace. The thought that there isn't something higher than me, or us, humanity, would scare the living daylights out of me. We're the highest thing that we know of. Oh my God, that's terrible. I have— it gives me peace to know there is a Borei Olam, there's a Creator of the world. Ah, phew, there's some order in this, in this discord, as was read today by the rabbi. Okay, I feel better about that. There is a source of this universe. It isn't just coincidence. Yes, I want to praise that. God doesn't need praise. If you think for one second that the purpose of praising God in prayer is to make God feel good, your view of God is so primitive as to literally be childish. Literally. God can— do you understand? If you think God feels good when you praise him, do you understand what you're engaging in? Your own hubris. Oh, God feels really good because Schwartz said he's great. Isn't that ludicrous? God, the creator of the world, is happy that Prager thinks well of him. Wow, what a day! Dennis Prager praised me today. I do— you have to understand, it's just, it's absurd. God gets no— nothing, nothing out of being praised by us. It's all for us. And that's what I kept saying from the beginning. It's for us. I assert there is a Creator, and it is magnificent what you have done. I have problems with the discord, but as was read today, if we had a sunrise once a year, we'd be really dazzled by it. The fact that it happens every day, we yawn. The trick is not to yawn. The trick is to be blown away every day. We just said it again. It's a great thing in the Hebrew. "HaMachadesh betuvo bechol yom tamid ma'asei bereishit." God in his goodness every day renews the acts of Genesis. I get the chills when I say it. Isn't it staggering, the first sentence of Genesis? "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." God did it this morning. God's doing it now. A dear friend of mine, Dr. David Weiss, very prominent scientist in Israel, been honored by Queen Elizabeth for his work in immunology. He's head of immunology at Hadassah Medical Center. He was a professor, he was the head of chemistry at Berkeley. He's a very, very well regarded scientist and a deeply religious Jew. And he asks one question when he speaks about science Or one of the questions he asks is a very powerful one. He said, you know, we all know that there is movement in the universe. For example, we all know that the protons and the electrons are going around the nucleus of an atom. And that's the original energy of the world. Why? Why do they keep moving? He said scientists just say that's it, it's a law of nature that they keep moving. He said, but that's not an answer. It's just, it's like, it's a tautology. Why do they keep moving? Because they keep moving. They keep moving because God keeps moving them. That's that. Every day is a Big Bang, as it were. To become aware of this and to, to reflect Of course you go, this is incredible. Not, oh, you're terrific, like you would say to a friend, you're terrific, I want to boost your ego. God has no ego. But for the sake of our ego and our appreciation of what there is in this world, we praise God. That's the whole and only reason. Number 3. Number 3 part of prayer, and perhaps the greatest part, and I have come to realize if you take it seriously, the most important for your happiness. You hear me? Not your religiosity, your happiness. You heard I'm writing a book which I've been writing for too many years now, titled "Happiness is a Serious Problem." I have worked very systematically on the question of happiness for years, given actually many courses on it, believe it or not, and more important, I'm actually a happy person. And I discovered, with all the chutzpah that this entails, I actually discovered the secret to happiness. For this alone, you will have been rewarded for trooping out in this weather. I, I am telling you, I have found the secret to happiness. If you have this, you will be happy. If you don't have this, you cannot be happy. You cannot. And there was nothing else I would say about— not even health. There are people with health that were not happy. There are people who were unhealthy and yet who have an essentially happy disposition. It's not health. I'll tell you what it is: gratitude. If you are a grateful human being, you are definitionally going to be a happy human being. If you are not a grateful human being, it does not matter what you have. It is not possible to be happy. Not possible. The single greatest part of Jewish prayer is gratitude. And if you take it seriously, it will make you a better and happier human being. Thank you. For what you have done. Thank you for this world. Thank you for— and you just fill it in, just constant. Hodu l'Hashem kitov. Thanks to God because it's good. You are the one who made this all. You have given all of this to us. Thank you. Baruch ata. What is that? It's a thank you. It's not only a thank you. Baruch, the word for blessing in Hebrew, comes from berech, which is knee. And it literally means I bend my knee to you. You are bendable to. It's a combination of gratitude and awe when you make a bracha. But it's half gratitude. I am grateful to you. You who have, and then you fill in the rest of the bracha. If you can take the gratitude part of Jewish prayer seriously, you will not only be a more serious Jew, you will be a happier person. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And number 4, a major part of Jewish prayer is to affirm the Jewish purpose. There is a purpose that we're here. If more— if Jews all knew this, there would be no assimilation. None. To my mind, it is not possible to know and appreciate the purpose of Judaism and assimilate. The problem is it's not taught. Judaism became for many a folk way of life. The kids rejected it, just as kids rejected old European customs of Italian or Polish parents. Judaism ceased being a mission and became a folkway from Orthodox to non-Orthodox. And that's the primary reason so many Jews rejected it. Jews would not want to live an East European way of life any more than non-Jews would when they came to America. Or when, when Enlightenment came in Europe, when Napoleon knocked down the ghettos. Jews have ceased to understand, and this goes from Orthodox to Reform to secular, certainly, that we have a mission in this world. Think I made it up? Let me read to you from the prayer book just said right before I started speaking. This is to be found in Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox prayer books. May the time not be distant, O God, when your name shall be worshiped in all the earth, when unbelief shall disappear and error be no more. Fervently we pray that the day may come when all shall turn to you in love, when corruption and evil shall give way to integrity and goodness, and so on and so forth, when all who dwell on earth shall know that you alone are God. Oh, may all created in your image become one in spirit, ever united in your service. Then your kingdom will be established on earth, and the word of your prophet will be fulfilled: the Lord will reign forever and ever. Pretty big deal. That's why we're on earth. The only only, only reason for Jews is this paragraph: to bring the world to the one God so that we can become one humanity, so that we could understand there is one moral law, not two. That's why the Jews are existent. We are in the service of this mission to bring the world to God, not to liberalism, Not to conservatism, not to feminism, not to socialism, or all the other isms the Jews invent and give passion to. To God. From that will flow many of the ideals that Jews affirm now. No problem with that. But the first and primary aim of the Jewish people is to bring the world to the one transcendent source of goodness, of good morals, of good values. God. Much of our prayer book is about reminding you and me what we're here for. You forget at the office, you forget when you're raising your kids, you forget on Tuesday afternoons. It's easy to forget when, when you're overwhelmed with ear infections and, and not enough money to pay bills. So we get together, or you do it on your own daily or weekly, and you reaffirm, ah, that's why I'm a Jew. I forgot. That's the greatest single purpose of Jewish prayer, of Jewish self-examination, to remind you what you're doing. We forget. And even when we say it, we don't say it seriously. How many read this paragraph and were thinking about the penguins? Or business? Or the person next to them? Or just— it happens to me too, happens to all of us. But if you actually did it, if you could have the kavanah, look at the words you're saying Wow, it's overwhelming. Oh, that's why we're here. That's all of Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur service. It's Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur much more even than the other services is to remind you why we're here. The most repeated prayer, one of the most, is V'Yasu Kulam HaGudah Chatla Sotritsun Chabalei Vav Shalem. God, we pray to you that all mankind will make one community to do your will with a full heart. That's why we're here. Rosh Hashanah is not a Jewish holiday. Rosh Hashanah is a universal holiday. Pesach is a Jewish holiday. Rosh Hashanah is Hayom Harat Olam. Hayom Yaamid B'Mishpat. It is the birthday of the world and the day where everyone, not just Jews, begins to be judged. It is a totally universal holiday. The Jewish New Year begins with Passover. The world's New Year begins Rosh Hashanah. Most Jews don't know this. It's called the Jewish New Year, but only because Jews are celebrating it. But it is the world's New Year. The world is judged. We believe in a God who will judge everybody because everybody has a conscience. It's our task to bring the world to this one God. And so what better time to make you aware of it than when you get together with fellow Jews at a synagogue and assert, this is why we're here. When you realize that it's to praise something higher that has made the world and unites it and gives it meaning, that it is to affirm gratitude because that's the only way we will be happy in a difficult world, and that it is to restate what our purposes on this earth as Jews are, doesn't it make it much more meaningful than, "Oh, please help Sally Berkowitz," when in your heart you know there's a good chance Sally Berkowitz is going to die? And I hope there's no Sally Berkowitz ill in this particular synagogue. When we get together, we join with fellow Jews in a religiously affirmative environment. My friends, even if you didn't pay much attention to the davening on any given Shabbat, you leave the synagogue different than had you stayed home alone. For years I went to synagogues that bored the living daylights out of me. They drove me out of my mind, frankly. I read. I had a Jewish book and I would read in the back row. But I never stopped going to synagogue. Because the feeling that it induced was worth it. I had gotten together with fellow Jews as an island in a week of every other concern. To reaffirm that I'm part of something larger than me. Not just God, but a Jewish community. You don't have to love everybody you go to shul with, by no means. But it is a major statement that I have joined with you Friday night and/or Shabbat morning, and I have sung with you, and I have restated with you what we are here for. And I have heard words of Torah with you. That to me is what prayer is, and that's how I worked it out for someone who instinctively does not wake up in the morning and go, "Thou art great, and please heal my mother." Thank you. Shabbat Shalom. More than happy to take questions, comments, and brief alternate speeches. Yes, please. Address myself to the prayers of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah when we pray for another year of life. This is how I deal with it. First of all, I do believe God judges us. That after all, you mentioned Yom Kippur. The other name for Yom Kippur is Yom Hadin, the Day of Judgment. The thought that we are judged by God to whom we are accountable for our behavior is terrific. I wish everybody felt that, that, uh-oh, I'm gonna have to give an accounting for the way I behave. That in and of itself is magnificently important. It's again how it affects you, and I think that that's critical. Does God decide on Rosh Hashanah, literally decide whether you will live or whether you will die? Maybe. I don't know. It's possible. I'm not, I'm not certain either way, but to the extent that one is willing to grant that God has any connection to whether we live or die, that would make sense. Now, of course, the people who wrote this were The people who wrote this were not stupid. They knew that no matter what, even if you are the most righteous person in the world, you're gonna— one year after Rosh Hashanah, you will die. I mean, obviously it's just going to happen. Therefore, it depends on the amount of literalness you bring to the issue. Let me give you an example. Of something I am embarrassed to say I only learned this year at that synagogue. I learned it from my dear friend and teacher, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, at whose service I was. He comes and does a service in Los Angeles, so he came out, and he explained, and it killed me. You know when you hear a great point, you go, "Why didn't I think of that?" That's when you know it's a great point. And it's so obvious and you missed it for 45 years. There is a statement which we say at the height of the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur service. Uteshuvah, utfila, utz'dakah ma'avirin et ro'ah hagzera. Teshuvah, repentance, prayer, and charity, they avert, you have in the English, the evil decree. I could never believe this. It seemed like a bribe. Oh, I see. I won't die if I give tzedakah and if I repent and do the right things. But somebody's going to die every year. It's not possible. And then he showed the Hebrew was incorrectly translated. It's not avert the evil decree, it's avert the bitterness of the decree. Roah hagazeirah, the evil of the decree, literally, not the evil decree. Ah, that's very different. In other words, I can prepare myself for whatever decree it is if I live a certain way. And that's true. As my wife always puts it, you die the way you have lived. And it is— there's— because she worked at— she volunteered in a hospice for a while and is speaking from some knowledge. There's a great deal of truth. You do prepare yourself. If you have lived a certain way, then you are able to handle the evil decree. If, God forbid— God, I want to live not till 165 as you wished me last night. Rabbi wished that I live to see the 120th birthday of my son who turned 1 today. I mean, I don't want to live to 165, but I appreciate the good words. 111 would be just about right. At any rate, if I were told that I were to die— we all think about this. I would have immense pain, but it would be 99% for my loved ones, because I feel very good about the 45 years I lived. I feel they've been full, they've been blessed, they've been rich. I'm sure many of you can say this, but there are many who don't. And I think I can meet my maker. I, I'm not I'm totally certain, with pretty clean hands. That's what happens. You can avert the bitterness of the decree, whatever it decrees, by how you live. It makes it all so much more real to me then. And to bang my chest, to bang my heart over speaking badly about others, over not honoring parents and teachers, over having malicious tongue. That is important. And by the way, you know, all of them are in the plural. We bang for all our fellow Jews. How you act in Jewish life is my business. That's why I could have the chutzpah to fly here and tell you last night, I don't think you should turn the car radio on when you go home. That's my Jewish duty. You may not have known that. It's a Torah law. "Hochech tochech adamitecha." You must reprove your fellow Jew lovingly. You must be receptive to their reproof. We're in it together. We're like a team. If the first baseman has a wrong move, the shortstop has to tell him. It's no service to the team if he doesn't tell the first baseman, "Listen, if you just put your glove this way, you'll be able to get those short hops better." that we are a team, a tiny team in this world. I am stuck with you and you are stuck with me. We don't have to love each other with our, you know, in the sense, "Oh, I love every Jew." Anybody who says that drives me out of my mind. "I love every Jew." A, it's not possible. B, it's not even desirable. There are obnoxious Jews. What am I supposed to do with them? But I do have to take you seriously as a fellow Jew and say, you know, we're in it together, and let me tell you how I think you might play first base better. And you have to do it to me. And in that sense, that's why we bang in the plural. Uh-oh, we've all done this, then we all have to pay the price. And so on. So knowing all of that, it has made Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah much more meaningful than just a literal, this is it, this is decided, but you could bribe God with enough tzedakah. It never sat well with me. Yes? Why are we experiencing so much pain and suffering in the world? Okay, well, we can pray. Just joking. She asks, why are we experiencing all this intermarriage and what can we do about it? Very briefly, that too is a topic unto itself. There's a very, very good reason, or I should say simple reason, why there's so much intermarriage. People marry people with whom they share everything, or most everything. It's as simple as that. Very few American Jews marry Mayans, because they don't share that much. American Jews marry American non-Jews with whom they share everything. And specifically, most American Jews are non-religious, and their convictions are liberal. So you have a liberal, non-religious Jew marrying liberal, non-religious non-Jew. They have everything in common. When I think of intermarriage, I think of people who are different marrying. Jews and non-Jews like I just described are no different. There's no reason they shouldn't marry. Ideologically, the only real intermarriage in Jewish life would, in most cases, would be if your son or daughter married a Republican. That would be an honest-to-goodness intermarriage. Most Jews are ideologically liberal, ethnically Jewish, not ideologically Jewish. If Judaism is the source of your values, The odds are you will want to marry someone for whom Judaism is the source of his or her values, is their passion, is their commitment. If you knew the Jewish mission in the world and believed in it, you'd want to marry somebody who shared that mission, a convert or a born Jew. But if you have no Jewish mission, have no Jewish ideological distinctiveness, why on God's earth on earth should you not marry a non-Jew who's identical to you? It is no different. We raise our kids just like the kids were raised next door who don't have a Jewish surname. If your kid has Shabbat and your kid has Judaism and your kid has a Jewish mission and your kid does the Aleinu, and your kid understands this, your kid will want to marry someone with whom it's shared. We marry people to share our deepest things in life. If the deepest thing in your life is social justice, liberalism, you'll marry a liberal social justice person. It's racist to tell most of our kids not to marry non-Jews because the only difference between them and a non-Jew is racial. Not ideological. Does that answer your question? Yes, good question. Did you— you're Rabbi Sheff? Rabbis ask good questions. If prayer is so wonderful, why'd I sit in back of shul reading a book most of my life? And why would I like to see all the restructuring? Because you can have too much of a good thing, to put it in the most positive light. I was raised, and even though not Orthodox, I went to Orthodox synagogues till a few years ago. And I made a mistake for me. Certainly it's not a mistake for other Jews. I fully appreciate the beauty of it for many Jews. The amount of davening in the traditional service is, to my mind, simply too much. You either have to read it as if you were in an Evelyn Wood reading dynamics course, In fact, I have often said Evelyn Wood must have grown up in an Orthodox synagogue. The speed with which the Siddur is gone through on Shabbat makes reference to the words extremely difficult, if not impossible. And this massive amount of words just didn't have an effect on me. It does on others, and I appreciate that. But for me and most Jews, clearly, it does not have that effect. That was my problem. I want it shortened. The ability to appreciate and ruminate over the words becomes more real to me. Secondly, I personally very much believe that God gave us music, that music is one of the great gifts of God. For me, again, these things are very personal. For some people, music is not that powerful, but for many people it is. In Jewish life, all powerful music, by and large, I should say not in Jewish life, for Jews, all powerful music is not Jewish. To get really, to get my passion stirred musically, I go to Handel's Messiah, and it's a Christian oratorio. Now, obviously I don't believe the words, or I'd be Christian, but I cry, I get excited. Did I— do I get excited in regular shuls? By and large, I don't. I want to sing, or at least I want to be moved by powerful music and instruments, which are not allowed in Orthodoxy. Though ironically, as I tell my Orthodox friends, God himself asked that we use musical instruments in the temple. So we have a double burden here, which has always struck me as odd. The temple is destroyed, so we have to not only pay the price of no temple, but pay the price of no instruments, which the temple used in order to make us love to pray. To me, it is the quintessence of illogic. Nebuchadnezzar destroys my temple, so I can't use music 2,000, 3,000 years later. Ah, that's one of the reasons I'm not Orthodox. It's that idea does not make sense to me. Something that doesn't make sense to to me, I cannot accept unless it's divine. I'm prepared to accept divine irrationality because I'm not God. I'm not prepared to accept human irrationality. That's why I don't keep Yom Tov Sheni. Now, I therefore now, in a service with music and study and song, I— it's the first time in my life I look forward to every Shabbat morning. I would much rather go to synagogue where I'm going now than sleep. And God knows I need the sleep. And I would love to be able to sleep in on Saturday morning. But the thought that I missed this, it's almost like if you had season tickets to a sport and you missed a great game. You'd be disgusted. I'd be disgusted to miss it. So what I fantasized Jewishly actually materialized in a certain service that I attend. And I know therefore that it's real and possible. So, and by the way, it's not unique. When I went to my friend Rabbi Joseph Telushkin's service at a synagogue in Los Angeles for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the same, I was equally touched, then the music was a major, major part of it. So I have no problem at all with prayer. I have a problem with the traditional way of doing it. By the way, the Sephardim do it differently. They actually do read every word in the Siddur out loud. They don't run through it like the Ashkenazi Orthodox. But I find that as boring to sit and say every single word of a large service. Does that answer you totally? I need to know, because if not, you know, come back to me.

I'm still concerned as to how one gets involved in prayer service and how that—

by taking from the traditional prayer book but not everything, and by combining it frequently with music. It does it for me, and different synagogues will have to experiment. But the lack of experimentation in this regard is rather amazing to me. I understand why the Orthodox don't experiment, and I fully respect that, but I don't understand why the Conservative and Reform perform are so often addicted to ways that haven't worked. They look around, and in particular I think in many conservative synagogues where the cantor has gone to cantorial school and has learned many cantorial melodies, there is no congregational participation, and he is basically a soloist on display. That no longer works. When Jews could not in Eastern Europe afford opera tickets, it was the one place they could hear a great voice. That is not the case any longer. And the proof is that by and large, my— this is purely an impressionistic reaction— I think conservatives are appealing the least between reformers and liberals. Form and orthodox to a younger generation. That is purely impressionistic and may have no demographic basis, but in terms of weekly attendance, I have frequently found that. You know, I wrote an article in the second issue of my, of the journal that I write. I've now written 35 issues. This is a long time ago. And the article was titled, "When Rabbis and Cantors Become Doctors and Artists." You know the old saw, it certainly wasn't mine, when doctors, when rabbis became doctors, the Jews got sick. Which, by the way, I subscribe to. I essentially subscribe to that. Judaism is not a subject to be studied, it is a way of life to be lived. PhDs study things, rabbis teach things. There's a very big difference. Rabbis are to to inspire. The same thing happened though with cantors. They became artists. It became a cantorial art. Now there is an art, there's no question, but it was supposed to be art in the service of inspiration and not art for art's sake. Do you know, after the article was written, I got a letter. I published in my journal from the head of the Reform Cantorial School at the time, and he said, and it's almost verbatim, "Whoever said the purpose of a cantor was to inspire?" I didn't even react to the letter. It's so self-indicting from my perspective. Whoever said the purpose of a cantor was to inspire? Everybody says it except the Cantorial School. That's the answer to that. Empty synagogues say it. That's who says it. So that's— it could work. It's a great book. It's great stuff. Thanks. Yes. Oh, did you have your hand up? Okay. I totally agree with you. You misheard one critical word that I said. My indictment was primarily of conservatives, so that's why I totally agree with what you said. Back there. Oh, I'm sorry, Rabbi.

It's not mystical incantations in one row, in general. They're bona fide authentic Jewish services. And we deal in discussion with issues of healing from a Jewish perspective. We find that people who participate are praying for people who have asked that we pray for them, praying for loved ones who are themselves ill, and often healthcare professionals come as well to pray that they have the ability to serve their patients well. In light of what you said before about healing, what are your reactions to this? Also, might I add, from what I sense to be Jewish belief dating back to the Mishnah and Talmud, that bakashot, petitionary prayers specifically for healing on an individual basis, can indeed be offered in the midst of the shot x-rays.

Right. I, as I said, and I hope I made it clear, I myself say them. I do. I come— we are all in some ways not totally integrated beings. I have Dennis the Jew, I have Dennis the rationalist, I have Dennis the moralist, Dennis the animal, Dennis, you name it, as you do, as you do, and so on. Dennis the rationalist has a problem with "please heal so-and-so" for the reasons I mentioned. Dennis the Jew can offer it and do. I might add though that there is a secondary, or if not even primary, alternate purpose to doing that. When you come up here, if you have it that way, I don't know, and say, "And, uh, and, uh, Sonia Silberman, and Yitzchak ben Aharon." It is an— when I have done that for a particular relative I'm thinking of, it meant a lot to me that her name was announced to the community as in need of their amen. Okay? More than, "Ah, there's a better chance now that God's gonna send a drug." That's how I thought. But that in itself is empowering. There are people behind me. When my Christian friends tell me they have prayed for me, I have been touched. And it's not even my religion. So certainly if my own community says, "Oh, Dennis Prager, such-and-such is sick, we all say amen to her recuperation. That's a very powerful thing. That's why I'm for it, sure. Just that I don't want Jews to depend on it because it's an invitation to angst and ultimately atheism. That's why. That's why I spoke against it so strongly, to the extent that I did. Okay, but surely it must be done. There's another reason, and I meant to say this in my talk. If God is my friend, my Father, my Heavenly Father, how could I not share with him what I want? Not in the sense of petition, but in the sense of I'm telling him. Don't you— don't tell your friend, you know, uh, you know, Jerry, I wish my my— I don't know— my cousin were feeling better. She's really sick. Don't you tell that to a dear friend? I'm not going to tell it to God, God the author of all possible remedies. I'm not going to tell, I wish somebody were well. So that— I'm glad you pushed me further in this to make it clear, because there's such a fine line between rejecting it and relying on it. I don't want Jews to rely on it. Okay, back there. Yes, I can't even— and if I didn't answer you, please rise again and tell me. How does having an intermarriage affect one's Jewish identity? Yeah, I think that frankly, by and large, and there are always exceptions, it's somewhat putting the cart before the horse. Mostly One had a fairly weak Jewish identity in order to intermarry. It's not the intermarriage that causes a weakening of the Jewish identity, but the Jewish identity was fairly weak, and therefore the intermarriage was allowed. This is not an indictment. It is merely a description. People with a very strong Jewish identity, I mean, just as This is if you have a very strong passion for anything. If you have a strong passion for animals, there's a good chance you will marry somebody who at least, if nothing else, is not oblivious to animal suffering. Okay? The odds are if you care a great deal about how animals are treated, you wouldn't marry a man who loved bullfights. Okay? We do the things we most care about. People don't only marry on love. Some do, and find that, that in the long run you need more than love. Not less than love, but more than love. And therefore, I don't know what effect it has on the identity. It can't be a strengthening one usually. Having said that, it doesn't mean it's ever too late. In fact, one of the most common problems I have I hear when I go around, around North America lecturing, and already have twice here, one a husband and one a wife. And it is, it is, I hear it everywhere I go. And this is with two Jews married, not a Jew and a non-Jew, that one in adulthood became seriously Jewish and the other one did not move in that direction. It is one of the most sad problems. Sad because it's not the one who didn't move forth. When a spouse changes, the non-changing spouse has a right to say, "Wait a minute, this is not what I married." I fully understand that. My heart goes out to both of them. To the Jew who is becoming more seriously Jewish, my heart goes out because I want you to be more seriously Jewish. Thought of a secular life frightens me. It's so boring. At its inner core, it is empty. On the other hand, I feel terrible for the other spouse who, through no fault of his or her own, has a new person that they're married to. That is why, ideally, one has grown up Jewishly before marrying. That's the ideal. Well, we don't live in an ideal world, and I fully acknowledge that. But if you can somehow know where you are or where you're moving before, or at least defer marriage till you have made peace with that evolution— but even then it's no guarantee because people still will evolve later. I don't know if that fully answers you, but it's, uh, the identity needs to precede the marriage. That's the ideal. Child of an intermarriage? Okay, if there was— I'm sorry, what was the last line? Well, by Reform Judaism, a child of any Jewish parent, male or female, is considered Jewish. According to Conservative and Orthodox, the child of a Jewish mother only. But in real life, the question is, what does the child think of himself? Not what does Jewish law think of them? Because if you don't care, who cares what Jewish law thinks of you if you don't care about Judaism? So the ultimate question in life is, what do you think you are? Not what does Jewish law think you are. And that depends on the Jewish parent. It also depends on the non-Jewish parent being open. However, statistically, I am told that the great majority of children of intermarriage do not opt for a Jewish identity. And it is not surprising that they wouldn't. Who in the world opts to be a minority? In Israel, they would opt to be Jewish because in Israel, the Jews are a majority. So all intermarried couples should make Aliyah. Yes? Do you think that prayer helps you to confront the general problem of dealing pragmatically with evil? Does prayer help you deal with the general problem, deal pragmatically with the problem of evil? I think it does for many people. I'll tell you how I deal with it. It's not so much through prayer as it is through a knowledge that there is a God, that God doesn't want the evil to behave the way they do, that they will ultimately pay for what they have done. I believe deeply in an afterlife, or I would probably go mad. I think the more aware you are of cruelty in this world, the more your sanity depends on some ultimate justice. At least that's how I feel, because I am deeply conscious of the horrors that people inflict on others. That's what keeps me sane, rather than prayer in and of itself. But my weekly attendance at a synagogue is an island of peace in a turbulent world. It is. My own profession, everyone has his or her own challenges. I cannot do what a lot of people I know do, and that is tune out from, you know, Bosnian rapes, Somalian starvation, homeless, diseases, fires, tornadoes, I not only have to know about them, I have to immerse myself in them and then talk about them 3 hours a day. So the Shabbat to me, you know, I'm working very hard this Shabbat, and yet in some ways it is effortless. Beyond effortless, it's rejuvenating. To be with fellow Jews talking Torah is my favorite thing in the world. It's just an absolute delight. My wife is amazed at my stamina. I mean, I flew yesterday after 5 hours of sleep nonstop across the country, got dressed, came here, spoke last night. I'm on LA time right now, so my day started this morning at 6 o'clock LA time talking Judaism. Got another talk tonight, another one tomorrow morning, tomorrow night in Virginia. Fly 3 o'clock in the morning, LA time, on Monday, and do my show in the afternoon, and then in the evening teach Genesis. I am a very busy man. Do you know why I— it doesn't eat me up? Because I love it. This, to do a Jewish weekend, which I do, thank God, frequently, and by the way, in almost every instance bring my family, or at least one member of the family. And the only reason my wife— she was scheduled to be with me today, but it's Aaron's first birthday, and I wouldn't have missed that, but this was scheduled before we even knew there would be an Aaron, so it's quite all right, and I'm very happy to be here. Anyway, I don't think he knows that it's his first birthday. I like Like all Jewish parents, he's brilliant, but not that brilliant. Thank God, I might add. But this is powerful stuff. This is sanity-inducing stuff. Get together and sing. You know, at the place I go in LA, it goes like this: we have an hour of service from 10 to 11. Rabbi leads a Torah discussion from 11 to 12, and then from 12 to 2, people all bring dairy potluck food, and we sit and we sing for 2 hours. I can't believe how much I enjoy it. I mean, it is an island. It is just an island, and I commend the idea to you. So it's not the prayer itself as it is this Jewish whole thing that does it for me. Anybody else? Yes, sir.

It seems to me that in the 4 points that you made about types of prayer, that you addressed primarily those types that involve an intellectual understanding of what one was doing.

Yes.

I wonder whether you could address the more— the aspect that I've come across in many books about Jewish prayer that express more the almost mantra-like power of the Hebrew language.

Yeah. It's a very good point, and for the second time I ever give this talk, I will have to incorporate that. It'll probably be when you invite me back. It's the only rabbi in America who's asked me to speak on this, and I salute him. Yes, there is a mantra-like power. Harold Kushner has made that point. I don't know Aramaic, certainly not well. I mean, I know a little because of the Gemara, because of the Talmud. But the Kaddish, the prayer we say in commemorating the death of someone, is in Aramaic. 99% of Jews saying it don't know what they're saying. Same, but it has an unbelievable power. Just as I intone it now, right? If we were to say it in English, magnified and sanctified be the great name, it would not have one-tenth the power, even though you don't know the original. Uh, you're right, there is an element of that, and the Orthodox would argue that not dwelling on every word is okay because there is perhaps this greater mantra-like power. And I respect that. See, I am actually a living pluralist, a living and breathing Jewish pluralist. I am not Orthodox, but there is no part of me that thinks that they are invalid. I gave it a 40-year chance. That's a long time. That's all. There are people who fall in love with it overnight. Fine. Not just fine, terrific. Is there anybody who'd rather have a Jew secular than Orthodox? There may be, but I wouldn't. And I asked the Orthodox, would you rather have a Jew secular than Reform? And there were some who would. And it's crazy. Just crazy. So I appreciate that that could be powerful. I am too much in the brain. I am a creature of Judaism and Western Greek rationality. And so are the vast majority of my peers, which is why they're not in shul. And to them I address these comments. I guess that's the most honest way I could 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.

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