In this lecture‑style monologue, Dennis Prager presents himself as an "ethical monotheist" and argues that Judaism’s mission is to combine God with ethics, warning that God without ethics leads to evil (e.g., Khomeini, Crusaders) and ethics without God also leads to evil (e.g., communism, fascism). He then shifts focus to the concept of holiness (kadosh) in Judaism, explaining that holiness is distinct from mere ethical behavior. Holiness, he says, is about preserving separations that God created – life versus death, animal versus divine – and elevating human conduct from animal instincts to God‑like conduct. He illustrates this with numerous halakhic examples: the prohibition against mixing milk and meat, the kohen’s restriction from contact with the dead, the ban on eating eggs with blood spots, and the laws of menstruation and mikvah, all framed as preserving life/death distinctions. Prager also defines holiness as moving from animal‑like behavior (eating with one’s face in a bowl) to "mensch" behavior, arguing that Judaism demands this elevation. He then applies the holiness framework to sexual ethics, contending that without the holiness standard, any consensual sexual act (including incest or homosexuality) would be permissible, and he critiques the “love‑is‑enough” argument. Finally, he contrasts Judaism’s this‑world focus—its detailed mitzvah system and separation of life and death—with other religions that are more death‑oriented, such as Christianity’s focus on salvation. The talk ends with a promotional plug for his show.
Chapters
To begin with, I have to talk to you about the concept of the holy in Judaism. You know, I call myself, and that was so touching to me, Dennis Prager, ethical monotheist. I love that. That's what I am. I'm an ethical monotheist. I believe that God's primary demand is ethics, and the Jewish role in the world is to tell the world that God without ethics leads to evil, and ethics without God leads to evil. That is the summary of the Jewish mission as I understand it. God without ethics gives you Khomeini, gives you Crusaders and Inquisitions, and ethics without God gives you communism, and for that matter, even fascism or Nazism. Those were systems, and especially communism was an ethical system, system of ethics, and it produced the Gulag. When God is dead, you end up, I think, with what Dostoevsky said, When there is no God, all things are permitted. But the thing that I get to talk about a lot less than ethics, and the only reason I talk about it less is because the primary concern is ethical. If people are hurting each other, how could you talk about holiness? First you've got to stop people from torturing people. But Judaism doesn't only want the Jew to be ethical. That is a common and terrible misconception in Jewish life. You know, probably the most common statement I will hear from Jews is, "Well, you know, Dennis, I'm a good person. I give charity. I think I'm pretty kind and considerate. Well, that's what Judaism wants, right? So I'm a good Jew. What do I need any of this other stuff for, especially the rituals?" And then there are answers to that. I just can't get into that right now, even on the ethical basis. But I would love to say to them, if I have more time, "Okay, I grant you you're ethical. Are you holy?" And of course I would get a look, "What do you mean, am I holy?" They would probably walk away thinking, "This guy is really weird. Am I holy? What does it mean to be holy?" And yet that's exactly what the Jew is supposed to be. It's not enough to be good. You are expected to be holy. What holy means I want to explain, and then that will be the preface into the talk itself. You must understand this groundwork or nothing that I will say will really make sense. Because if the holy doesn't matter to you, then, then there is no argument here. My argument with regard to Judaism and sexuality, not just homosexuality, is almost entirely in the realm of the holy. But if you discount the holy and only say you're only concerned about not hurting people, well then anything is permissible. Just let me jump ahead for a moment. If the only issue is not hurting anybody, but everything done in a loving way sexually is alright, what's wrong with incest between adults? And by the way, when I've had gay spokesmen on my programs, I've asked them that. I say, "You say that the only criterion is love." But if the only criterion for permitted sexuality in Christianity and Judaism is whether it's done lovingly, what if a brother and sister over 21 years of age love each other? What's your argument? And I'll never forget one gay spokesman, a Christian, said to me, "What do you mean? Incest is disgusting!" So, it's on tape somewhere at the Federal Communications Commission archives. And it really was classic. I said, "What do you mean it's disgusting? Why is that disgusting, but what you do isn't disgusting?" And I'm not saying what you do is disgusting, but don't you understand? You are to incest what the right wing is to homosexuality. You call that disgusting, they call what you do disgusting. But why inherently is non-coercive, loving incest one whit less beautiful, less Jewish, less Christian than loving homosexuality. That's what I mean when I have to say that I think the holy has to become an issue, even if you're not used to thinking that way. If you drop the concept of the holy, then literally anything except evil goes. And I would never use the word evil with regard to any sexual act that is non-coercive. I would never describe homosexuality as evil. It's not evil. It's not holy. What does holy mean? Holy in Judaism means two things, as I understand it, and one thing as every Jew understands it, whoever deals with the issue. God says to the Jews, and this is, this is in the great, great chapter in Leviticus, You all know, "Love your neighbor as yourself." That's in Leviticus 19. Leviticus 19 begins with— that great sublime chapter of the Torah begins with, "And God said to the Jews, 'Kiddushim tihiyu,' you shall be kiddushim, holy, because I your God am holy." Doesn't say, "You be good because I am good." "You be ethical because I am ethical." You be kadosh because I'm kadosh. That is how we imitate God, is by being kadosh. What does that mean? The etymological root of the word kadosh means separate. If you really want to know how I would summarize all of Judaism in a sentence, it is the preservation of that which God created as separate. That is the most important task in Judaism. It's another lecture for another time about how it has ramifications everywhere. Let me give you one obvious example. Good and evil are separate. You cannot mix them. You can't mix what God wants separate. There is good, there is evil. A person who says, "Well, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," is mixing good and evil, is saying there really isn't good and evil, it's all relative, you can always mix the two. That's an obvious area. There are many others, but I want to talk to you about one in particular, or one or two in particular. The idea of the different, of preserving distinctions in Judaism, is essential. And I will give you one area as an example, and then talk about the second definition of holy, and then go into homosexuality. One is, and this is a dense talk, so I appreciate your being with me, because this is heavy-duty stuff. Judaism is the most life-oriented religion, I believe, that has ever existed. The most this-life-oriented religion. And any of you who have heard me on the radio know I am one Jew who is quite, quite open to other religions. And it was quite pro-Christianity in America today. My point is not to tell you other religions are bad. My point is only to say Judaism is not other religions. It's distinct. One way in which it is distinct is that it is entirely this-life oriented. It believes in an afterlife, but it is this-life oriented in how you live as a Jew. Therefore, what Judaism did, which was essential, was it constantly separated life from death. God, as it were, did not want the Jew to place life and death together. For example, ancient Egyptian religion. When the pharaoh was dead, when the pharaoh died, there was really— it was part of life. In fact, he was buried with living people, as you well know. The Book of the Dead was the Egyptian Bible. They loved death, as it were. Death was part of life. In Judaism, death is death, life is life. And God said, "I put before you," one of the most famous statements in the Torah, "I put before you today life and death, and you shall choose life." Because other civilizations chose death. You choose life. In that regard, Christianity, which was light-years obviously ahead of what the Jews had come from in Egypt, but it has a lot more of a death orientation. God died, after all, in Christianity. Jesus dies. He's resurrected and conquers it, as it were, But there is a very strong death motif. There is also the powerful element of salvation. That is what one really wants to attain as a Christian, is salvation, which is post-life, is death. Judaism is a mitzvah system. This is what you do for breakfast. This is what you do for lunch. This is how you make a yontif. This is how you make a Shabbat. This is how you eat. This is how you drink. This is how you do everything. It is very this-life-oriented. Therefore, wherever there are symbols of life and death, Judaism wants them separated. Give you a few examples. One example that you're all familiar with is the fact that one is not supposed to eat milk and meat at the same time. Milk represents life, meat represents death. You're not to have them at the same time. I find that deeply meaningful, and that is why I do not eat them together, incidentally. It's a very powerful reminder, and the human being needs physical reminders. It's not enough to have abstract concepts. You don't mix the two. That is why, by the way, you're allowed to eat fish with milk. Fish don't produce milk, therefore milk does not represent life Vis-à-vis fish. Now if you're really in tune with what I'm saying and you know your zoology, you will ask about chickens. Chickens don't produce milk. How come you can't have chicken with milk? The truth is, in ancient Judaism you could. Rabbi Yosef of the Galilee, for example, in the Talmud, ate chicken with milk. It was only a rabbinic addition later that lest you ever confuse meat with chicken, They will just arbitrarily call chicken meat, but not really. It's not really. Okay? It was just an arbitrary statement. There are many other examples. The Jewish priest, the kohen, may not come into contact with the dead. It's probably unique in religion that the priests of a religion cannot come into contact with the dead. It's remarkable. In many religions, that's the biggest task of the priest, was what you do with the dead. And in Judaism, unless it's an immediate relative, he cannot come into contact with the dead. He is to serve life only. Another example: if there is a blood spot in an egg, you may not eat it because the egg is would-be life. Then if there's no blood spot, it's not would-be life. If there is a blood spot, you can't. It's life and death. Another example: the laws concerning menstruation and intercourse. The reason for the woman going to the mikvah, to the immersion in natural water, after menstruating and before resuming intercourse with her husband is not at all related to the question of cleanliness. It's a common misconception. The issue is once again life and death. Menstruation is death. It represents death. Intercourse represents life. You can't mix the two. Hence, you can't have intercourse during menstruation. When a woman is no longer menstruating, the Torah has no desire that husband and wife stop having intercourse. So the issue is not even self-control. The issue is life and death. You separate them. That's what it has to do with. That's one area of holiness, and I'm going to come back to it when I talk about homosexuality. The other area of holiness is this: if I had to give a working definition of holiness in Judaism, it is this: We are, we human beings are animals. But we are asked by God in Judaism not to act like animals, but to act like God. The movement from animal-like to God-like is what holiness is all about. Therefore, whatever we can do like an animal, Judaism has laws elevating it. For example, I can show you this in secular life. If somebody is eating, a man is eating a bowl of spaghetti and sticks his face in the bowl and licks up the bowl without using utensils, what would you say about him? Wouldn't you say he eats like a pig? We would use an animal metaphor for exactly what the man was doing. He eats like a pig. To which, of course, I could then ask, So what? What's wrong with eating like a pig? Do you have an answer? It's an interesting question. What is wrong with eating like a pig? Is anybody hurt? Nobody's hurt. Is it voluntary? Voluntary. No victim? It's a victimless crime, eating like a pig. So what is wrong with eating like a pig? Part of you would rebel against that notion, though, because you would say, wait a minute, You're a person. And if you know any traditional Hebrew way of speaking, actually Yiddish, it's like, "Eat like a mensch." You're not eating like a mensch. You're not eating like a human. Well, so what? That's my question. My secular question to you is, so what? Why not eat like a pig? Why elevate yourself? Why separate yourself Why kadosh yourself from the animal? Why not? Animals aren't hurting anybody when they eat like that. Neither are you. But Judaism wants you to be more than ethical. That was my first point. It wants you to be holy. And that means you elevate yourself from the animal-like to the God-like. I don't know if many of you are familiar with this, but in Genesis, when God said, "Let's create man." He says, "Let's create man?" Who's the "let's"? God uses the plural. "Let us create man." And by the way, it's always been a dilemma because it does seem odd. Judaism, which is so vigorously, rigorously monotheistic, has God speaking to somebody. Who is he talking to? Well, some say the angels. Another rabbinic thing is, well, it's the royal "we." God is speaking like a king, "Let us." But he never speaks like that. Who was God talking to when he said, "Let us create man"? The best answer I ever heard, I heard in my— not Miami, but somewhere in South Florida. I was giving a lecture at a symposium, and after my lecture, I went to hear another lecturer. Thank God I did, because he gave an answer in his talk which I found utterly profound and convincing. God was talking to the animals. God said to the animals, "Let's create man. You and I, you the animals and me God, will create man." And that's what we are. It's perfect. That's exactly what people are, a mixture of God and animal. And it's your choice. Do you live like an animal? Do you live like God? That's your choice, and that's what Judaism is about. For the full episode of The Dennis Prager Show, go to pragertopia.com, sign up, and become a full member.
