Speaker 1: Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Here thousands of
Speaker 1: hours of Dennis's lectures courses in classic radio programs. Had
Speaker 1: to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles. Go to Dennisprager dot com.
Speaker 2: Thank you for coming. I must tell you I was
Speaker 2: stunned to see all the cars in Los Angeles. If
Speaker 2: it goes under seventy, they cancel the lecture. To see
Speaker 2: this number of people show up on a miserable day
Speaker 2: is shows that, if nothing else, you build part of
Speaker 2: your souls in the east.
Speaker 3: But I really was, I was quite taken.
Speaker 2: I thought it would be basically the Rabbi, candor officers.
Speaker 3: And I this morning.
Speaker 2: So I am very delighted to see all of you,
Speaker 2: and do wish you wish about you alone? Just one,
Speaker 2: by the way, I must tell you what doctor a
Speaker 2: goal that that was a very interesting introduction. To keep
Speaker 2: me awake through an introduction to me is an achievement
Speaker 2: having heard a few, and I appreciated that you took
Speaker 2: the time to do that.
Speaker 3: One slight amendment.
Speaker 2: I tried to make the case last night for more
Speaker 2: than the ten commandments. Just want to just want to
Speaker 2: I want to be relieved to know that that got through,
Speaker 2: or I would go back to Los Angeles a little
Speaker 2: disconcerted that only ten that I had left that impression.
Speaker 2: By the way, I am curious talking about that. How
Speaker 2: many of you, And you have no reason to fid me,
Speaker 2: but I am curious. How many of you who were
Speaker 2: here last night did in fact not turn on your.
Speaker 3: Radio in the car when you went home? Wow? Did
Speaker 3: you see that? That is question of those of you
Speaker 3: who did in fact.
Speaker 2: Raise your hand, which is the great majority, how many
Speaker 2: did find it a different experience as a result, about
Speaker 2: half of you, So for half it was not. It
Speaker 2: didn't mean anything either way. All right, keep trying.
Speaker 3: It, I do. I mean, give it, give it a couple.
Speaker 2: Of weeks, three four weeks, and see c indeed, but
Speaker 2: I do appreciate the fact that you gave it a try.
Speaker 3: That's all I can ask. Now.
Speaker 2: What's interesting? Once again, Rabbi Maler asked me to work hard,
Speaker 2: give a speech I never gave in my life, which
Speaker 2: in Jewish life that is now reaching a point of
Speaker 2: greater difficulty. I have exhausted quite a number of topics,
Speaker 2: or at least exhausted as a poor word. They're never exhaustible,
Speaker 2: but I have certainly devoted a lot of thinking to them,
Speaker 2: or a lot of speaking. Why pray. It's ironic that
Speaker 2: I should be giving it now. I actually should have
Speaker 2: given it before you prayed, now that I think about it,
Speaker 2: But hopefully the words will last till the next time
Speaker 2: you pray.
Speaker 3: I want to say one other word about this.
Speaker 2: Rabbi Mahler has asked me to speak on my weakest
Speaker 2: area in Jewish life.
Speaker 3: However, However, there is a however here.
Speaker 2: I have found in my life either this was God's
Speaker 2: will and I mean that very sincerely, or just the
Speaker 2: way fate would have it.
Speaker 3: My lack of instinctive religiosity.
Speaker 2: Is a major reason that I have been able to
Speaker 2: be as persuasive as I am to the very very
Speaker 2: many Jews and non Jews for that matter, but in
Speaker 2: a different way, with who are also very skeptical and
Speaker 2: not inherently religious. See if faith and prayer, religiosity spirituality
Speaker 2: came to me easily came to me naturally, I don't
Speaker 2: think I would be a particularly good lecturer on it.
Speaker 2: It's the very fact that I have had to struggle
Speaker 2: every minute of the way in my own Judaism and
Speaker 2: my own religiosity from my childhood to this moment. That
Speaker 2: has made me capable of addressing the great number of
Speaker 2: Jews who also struggle. See, if it came to me naturally,
Speaker 2: then I wouldn't know what to say to you, folks.
Speaker 3: Hey, I feel it, I believe it, and I wish
Speaker 3: you did and have a great day, and nobody would
Speaker 3: be nobody would be affected.
Speaker 2: So that's why, ironically, the fact that prayer is so
Speaker 2: difficult for me, it's good that I'm speaking on it
Speaker 2: because while it does, I also deeply believe in its importance.
Speaker 2: So it's an important preamble to my thoughts on why pray?
Speaker 2: Now I'm answering this question primarily as a Jew. This
Speaker 2: is not a generic why prayer, even though this would
Speaker 2: be of relevance in many of the areas to non
Speaker 2: Jews as well, but I am specifically. This is a
Speaker 2: very specifically Jewish response. As usual, every talk I have
Speaker 2: given in my life is numbered. One of the nice
Speaker 2: things about that is is at the end I can
Speaker 2: summarize it for you, and if you fall asleep during
Speaker 2: one of the points, you know you only miss that point.
Speaker 2: So there are many advantages in talking in a numbered fashion.
Speaker 2: So I begin by offering the well not begin it is,
Speaker 2: I list for you four types of prayer, and in
Speaker 2: that way you will appreciate what I believe the importance
Speaker 2: of prayer is. Before I do, I have to say
Speaker 2: the one overriding philosophical view I have of prayer, overwhelmingly,
Speaker 2: the purpose of Jewish prayer is to affect you, not God.
Speaker 2: The moment you realize that you are open to taking
Speaker 2: it much more seriously if you are a skeptic, which
Speaker 2: is what most Jews are, I cannot over emphasize this point.
Speaker 2: The purpose of Jewish prayer is to affect the person
Speaker 2: making the prayer, not so much God. When you realize that,
Speaker 2: as I said, all of a sudden, hey, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: I do have to affect me. When do I get
Speaker 2: a chance to affect my soul? I affect my body,
Speaker 2: when I work out, when I eat. When do I
Speaker 2: affect my soul? If you think of prayer as how
Speaker 2: to affect your soul, your inner jewishness, your inner religiosity,
Speaker 2: and your spirit, makes a great.
Speaker 3: Deal more.
Speaker 2: The reason that many, and I would say most Jews
Speaker 2: have very serious problems with prayer is because when they
Speaker 2: think of the word pray, it is virtually synonymous with request.
Speaker 3: And I will show.
Speaker 2: You how that plays almost no role at all in
Speaker 2: Jewish prayer, almost none at all. It's remarkable the proof
Speaker 2: that it to pray in Judaism is to affect you
Speaker 2: and non God is the verb the Hebrew word to pray,
Speaker 2: and if you know any other language, Latin language is Slavic, Semitic.
Speaker 2: Virtually every language has this type of verb, except unfortunately English.
Speaker 3: It's called a reflexive verb.
Speaker 2: If you know Spanish or you know French, you know that.
Speaker 2: For example, when you say I wash my hands, literally
Speaker 2: you say I wash myself the hands. The word in
Speaker 2: frenchis si lave to wash oneself. If there's any verb
Speaker 2: you would never expect to be reflexive, in other words,
Speaker 2: coming back upon the doer, like I washed myself, it
Speaker 2: would be to pray. After all, the most obvious assumption
Speaker 2: is you pray outwardly, You pray towards something, you pray
Speaker 2: to God. In Judaism, le hit palel is the word
Speaker 2: to pray, and it is a reflexive verb, meaning you
Speaker 2: are doing something to yourself. You are pallawing to yourself.
Speaker 2: What does palal mean? To examine or to judge? Do
Speaker 2: you know what the Hebrew word to pray literally means
Speaker 2: to judge or to examine oneself? Nothing whatsoever to do
Speaker 2: with prayer, as it is commonly understood when we use
Speaker 2: the English term, which we have taken from Christianity, English
Speaker 2: being a Christian language more or less, which is not
Speaker 2: in any way a pejorative.
Speaker 3: It's just a fact. But if you'd say it in Hebrew,
Speaker 3: let's go meet palel and knew Hebrew? Truly? Well you go, Oh,
Speaker 3: let's go examine ourselves.
Speaker 2: What a difference. It's almost unconnected to what you normally
Speaker 2: assume prayer is. Okay, that's the first and most important point. Now,
Speaker 2: the four types of prayer, the first and rarest in
Speaker 2: Judaism is the one that you are most you most
Speaker 2: associate with prayer.
Speaker 3: It's petitionary prayer. Oh, please God do the following from
Speaker 3: heal my my mother who was ill, to heal me
Speaker 3: who was ill, to have our team win an important game.
Speaker 3: It would run that gamut.
Speaker 2: Okay, This, in Judaism and in pure logic, is a
Speaker 2: very very morally problematic form of prayer and will. I
Speaker 2: will give you an example. In fact, I gave it
Speaker 2: on the radio during the fires recently in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: You're driving down the block of your where your home
Speaker 2: is located, and you see on your side a house
Speaker 2: is on fire. You instinctively mumble, oh God, let it
Speaker 2: not be my house. You have just prayed that at
Speaker 2: your neighbor's house be on fire. There is no other
Speaker 2: possible way to interpret that prayer. Oh God, let it
Speaker 2: not be my house me since there is a house
Speaker 2: on fire, Oh God, let it be the smiths, may
Speaker 2: their house burn down? Amen, that is what you are saying.
Speaker 2: This is a very serious problem. Petitionary prayer. I'll give
Speaker 2: you another one. Your daughter's getting married at an outdoor wedding,
Speaker 2: and you pray to God that had not rain. But
Speaker 2: what if the city needs rain? What if the farmer
Speaker 2: needs rain? What if they're having a special rain festival.
Speaker 2: Who's gods supposed to listen to the farmer or you? Now,
Speaker 2: let's go to the even more obvious one, or more
Speaker 2: if you will difficult one. Oh God, please heal my mother.
Speaker 2: But your mother is sharing a room with another woman.
Speaker 2: Equally virtuous is your mother. But she has no children,
Speaker 2: Should God pray your Should God heal your mother before
Speaker 2: the woman who has no children and therefore nobody to
Speaker 2: pray for her her husband died or she was never married.
Speaker 2: Very problematic. Petitionary prayer is very problematic. I have always
Speaker 2: felt that it's problematic in another way. Judaism, in fact,
Speaker 2: legislates you may not pray for what's already done. For example,
Speaker 2: your wife is pregnant. You're pregnant, and you may not pray,
Speaker 2: Oh let it be we really want a girl, we
Speaker 2: really want a boy. Can't It's already been decided by
Speaker 2: Jewish law. You can't even make that prayer. It's called superstition.
Speaker 2: It's which craft almost because it's already been done.
Speaker 3: God isn't going to change nature.
Speaker 2: It's already been decided at the moment of conception. So
Speaker 2: the whole notion of oh God, please do the following
Speaker 2: for this individual is a problematic notion.
Speaker 3: Either it's already been done, in which case God can't
Speaker 3: or will refuses to do anything, or you have the
Speaker 3: problem why this person.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying you shouldn't make such prayers. I think
Speaker 2: the one on the house is very problematic. I'm not saying, though,
Speaker 2: that you should not pray for your mother or your
Speaker 2: child God forbid being sick.
Speaker 3: No, not at all.
Speaker 2: I merely want you to understand the very serious problem
Speaker 2: with it, which is part of the reason why Judaism
Speaker 2: almost doesn't have it. It's not in here, It's not
Speaker 2: in the Reform, conservative or Orthodox prayer book of the
Speaker 2: Jewish people.
Speaker 3: Isn't that remarkable?
Speaker 2: We have no oh, please heal so and so. Yes,
Speaker 2: we have a mischabek. It is a later rabbinic addition
Speaker 2: because the Jews couldn't handle it. The absence of a
Speaker 2: petitionary prayer for a sick individual was too painful for Jews,
Speaker 2: and so it was added to the service. It is
Speaker 2: not part of the classic Jewish prayer book. Isn't that incredible?
Speaker 2: Something that has become so much? Oh, if you're sick,
Speaker 2: please come forward. I have come forward. I am not
Speaker 2: opposed to it, And the reason I am not opposed
Speaker 2: to it I will mention a little later. But you
Speaker 2: must understand how logically, morally and Jewishly it's problematic to
Speaker 2: pray for individual things. Please give, Please give.
Speaker 3: What I would pray for I and do is the
Speaker 3: strength to deal with what life or God has dealt me.
Speaker 3: And the wisdom with which to deal that, I think
Speaker 3: is a is more coherent.
Speaker 2: Oh, God, give us the strength to deal with whatever
Speaker 2: it is that life gives to me. That is to
Speaker 2: me a very powerful and virtuous, singular petitionary prayer. God
Speaker 2: is not, in Judaism, a celestial butler. And that is
Speaker 2: what God is. If you primarily see prayer as petition,
Speaker 2: it is God virtually as Santa Claus, this is what
Speaker 2: I want, Please deliver it. And by the way, it
Speaker 2: is never too soon to stop believing in that God.
Speaker 2: If you believe in that God, there's a very good
Speaker 2: chance you will end up an atheist because one day
Speaker 2: you're going to make that prayer God's not going to
Speaker 2: deliver and you'll say, you see, there is no God.
Speaker 2: I know someone very well for whom this happened his
Speaker 2: whole life. He was convinced that God was giving him
Speaker 2: all sorts of wonderful things. And then a dearly, dearly
Speaker 2: beloved relative of his dide and he told me, I
Speaker 2: have never talked to God since God is irrelevant to me.
Speaker 2: And of course, as I've told him, and I am
Speaker 2: very close to this person. I said, listen, the God
Speaker 2: you believed in, you should be an atheist about. I
Speaker 2: don't believe in the God you believed in before either
Speaker 2: Your God was a waiter. The God I believe in
Speaker 2: is not that God. Now we go to the second
Speaker 2: part of petitionary prayer, which is much more acceptable jewishly
Speaker 2: communal petitionary prayer. We do ask God for things in
Speaker 2: this book, but it is always always in the plural.
Speaker 3: We ask God.
Speaker 2: We call God rofei colail a mo Israel.
Speaker 3: God is the healer of the sick of his people Israel.
Speaker 3: We pray to God to heal all the sick.
Speaker 2: That makes sense, for the for the woman next to
Speaker 2: my mother who has no kid and no husband. To
Speaker 2: make the prayer, we are also praying God is the
Speaker 2: healer of all the sick. That makes a great more sense.
Speaker 2: We want all the fires on the block extinguished. Oh God,
Speaker 2: may no fire do damage. Now. I know that it
Speaker 2: is natural to wish your fire the fire not be
Speaker 2: your home. I know it is natural to pray for
Speaker 2: your own relative, and I have no problem with the second.
Speaker 2: I have a problem with the first for the obvious reasons.
Speaker 2: But Jewishly it is the communal idea that is the
Speaker 2: petitionary one, Oh we bless you, who are the healer
Speaker 2: of all the sick of Israel. So therefore number one,
Speaker 2: this is not a big part of Jewish prayer. Petitionary
Speaker 2: one final word about God and helping the individual.
Speaker 3: The more you see.
Speaker 2: God as the God who helps out those in trouble,
Speaker 2: the more you are likely to be, as I said,
Speaker 2: an atheist. And I use Auschwitz as the best example
Speaker 2: when people say God died in Auschwitz or I can't
Speaker 2: believe in God after the Holocaust. And I have a
Speaker 2: whole talk on this and many articles on it. So
Speaker 2: I don't want to belabor the point right now it
Speaker 2: would take too much time.
Speaker 3: But very briefly, what they're.
Speaker 2: Saying is the God who saves people who are in
Speaker 2: terrible straits.
Speaker 3: I no longer believe in, my friends.
Speaker 2: I have to say that, as painful as it is,
Speaker 2: that is not the God of Judaism, as I understand it.
Speaker 2: But you might say, what are you talking about. Didn't
Speaker 2: God save the Jews from Egypt? And when I speak
Speaker 2: on this at length, I point out, yes, God saved
Speaker 2: the Jewish people from Pharaoh, but God did not save
Speaker 2: all individual Jews from Pharaoh. How many Jewish boys were
Speaker 2: thrown into the Nile and drowned. How many Jews were
Speaker 2: beaten to death by Egyptians.
Speaker 3: Slave masters, We don't know, but in its own way,
Speaker 3: it was a mini Holocaust. God does save the Jewish people.
Speaker 3: I do believe that we're here in Pittsburgh four thousand years.
Speaker 2: Later, we are still here. That's pretty remarkable. God does
Speaker 2: save the Jewish people. I believe that as I am
Speaker 2: standing by that Torah, that God saves the Jewish people.
Speaker 2: There is no doubt in my mind. There will be
Speaker 2: Jews as long as there is humanity. There will be
Speaker 2: people dobvining on Neptune one day, I have no doubt
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: Temple Emmanuel of Neptune. I don't think I'll live to
Speaker 3: see it, but it will happen. It is the.
Speaker 2: Individual that can be hurt by the hater, and how
Speaker 2: could it not be that way. I don't believe in
Speaker 2: a god who will stop all rapes, who will stop
Speaker 2: all murders, who will stop all muggings.
Speaker 3: How could that be?
Speaker 2: If I believed in such a God, I'd have to
Speaker 2: be an atheist. I'd have no choice, or I would
Speaker 2: have to do even something worse, that it is God's
Speaker 2: will that people be raped and murdered, which I certainly
Speaker 2: don't believe in. Judaism certainly doesn't believe. It is not
Speaker 2: God's will that the six million or tortured and burned.
Speaker 2: It is against God's will. But God allows you to
Speaker 2: violate his will. God allows you to hurt people. You
Speaker 2: don't like that fact. I don't like it either, but
Speaker 2: intellectually not emotionally, Thank God. That's the way the world works.
Speaker 2: Would you prefer that God stop you every time you
Speaker 2: want to hurt somebody? And where do you draw the
Speaker 2: line at six million? No? But three million yes? Or
Speaker 2: three million stop? But why is three million any less?
Speaker 2: What about one? Why is one murder? O?
Speaker 3: Go? God exists if heel it's one person murdered, But
Speaker 3: if he lets six million murdered, he doesn't exist. It
Speaker 3: makes no sense for that one. What's the difference? That's
Speaker 3: all we have? You and I. We are entire universes.
Speaker 2: Whether we die with five million nine nine nine nine
Speaker 2: others or alone, we still are are away gone extinguished.
Speaker 2: So what where should God draw the line? How about
Speaker 2: he should stop all murdered? What about rape. Should he
Speaker 2: allow rapes?
Speaker 3: Or yes, allow date rape but not stranger rape, or
Speaker 3: he should stop all date rape? Two?
Speaker 2: What about how about punches? Should he allow punches? Don't
Speaker 2: you see how ludicrous it becomes? What evil would you
Speaker 2: allow God to allow? And where would you stop him?
Speaker 2: He made us, he told us what to do. We
Speaker 2: violate it. We have screwed up. It's as simple as
Speaker 2: an unappeal.
Speaker 3: Is that?
Speaker 2: So you'd say, what I pray in a foxhole? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I pray in a foxhole. I'm human, but I'm not
Speaker 2: in a foxhole now and I can think rationally, and
Speaker 2: it's very difficult to believe this foxhole. Yes, that foxhole.
Speaker 3: No. Petitionary prayer is not my cup of tea.
Speaker 2: It's not Judaism's cup of tea, except communally, and even
Speaker 2: then it is a very very small part of Jewish prayer.
Speaker 2: What we said today, I would say ninety nine percent
Speaker 2: of what we said today was not petitionary, even communally.
Speaker 2: So that brings me therefore too. Numbers two, three, and
Speaker 2: four of Jewish prayer, Number two, Part two of Jewish prayer,
Speaker 2: which is more than petitionary and a big part, but
Speaker 2: not the biggest alone is praise. We praise God. Oh
Speaker 2: you are great, you are magnificent, you are the creator,
Speaker 2: you do incredible things, etc.
Speaker 3: Etc. This bothers a lot of.
Speaker 2: Moderns, especially those with advanced degrees, because the thought of
Speaker 2: praising something higher than themselves. After all that graduate work
Speaker 2: is a very difficult emotional.
Speaker 3: Thing to do, and it is a very healthy thing to
Speaker 3: do when done in proportion to assert daily weekly.
Speaker 2: I recognized there is something infinitely higher than me is
Speaker 2: important for a lot of reasons. The most obvious is
Speaker 2: you don't worship yourself. There is something higher than me.
Speaker 2: That's a good reason to do it. But there's another
Speaker 2: reason to do it. It gives you inner peace.
Speaker 3: The thought that there isn't something higher than me or
Speaker 3: us humanity would scare the living daylights out of me.
Speaker 3: We're the highest thing that we know of. Oh, my god,
Speaker 3: that's terrible.
Speaker 2: It gives me peace to know there is a Boreolam
Speaker 2: as a creator of the world. Ah shoo, there's some
Speaker 2: order in this discord, as was read today by the Rabbi. Okay,
Speaker 2: I feel better about that there is a source of
Speaker 2: this universe.
Speaker 3: It isn't just coincidence.
Speaker 2: Yes, I want to praise that God doesn't need praise.
Speaker 2: If you think for one second that the purpose of
Speaker 2: praising God in prayer is to make God feel good,
Speaker 2: your view of God is so primitive as to literally
Speaker 2: be childish. Literally God can do you understand if you
Speaker 2: think God feels good when you praise him? Do you
Speaker 2: understand what you're engaging in your own hubris?
Speaker 3: All God feels really good because Schwartz said he's great?
Speaker 2: Isn't that ludicrous? God, the creator of the world, is
Speaker 2: happy that Prager thinks well of him. Wow, what a
Speaker 2: day Dennis Prager praised me today? Do you have to
Speaker 2: understand it's absurd? God gets no, nothing, nothing out of
Speaker 2: being praised by us.
Speaker 3: It's all for us. And that's what I kept saying
Speaker 3: from the beginning. It's for us.
Speaker 2: I assert there is a creator, and it is magnificent
Speaker 2: what you have done. I have problems with the discord.
Speaker 2: But as was read today, if we had a sunrise
Speaker 2: once a year, we'd be really dazzled by it. The
Speaker 2: fact that it happens every day we yawn. The trick
Speaker 2: is not to yawn.
Speaker 3: The trick is to be blown away every day. We
Speaker 3: just said it again, it's a great. It's a great thing.
Speaker 2: He in the Hebrew ha'ma kadesh betuvo behol young tamid saboration.
Speaker 2: God in his goodness, every day renews the acts of Genesis.
Speaker 3: I get the chills when I say it, isn't it staggering?
Speaker 3: The first sentence of Genesis and the beginning. God created
Speaker 3: the heavens and the earth. God did it this morning.
Speaker 3: God's doing it now.
Speaker 2: A dear friend of mine, doctor David Weiss, very prominent
Speaker 2: scientist in Israel, been honored by a Queen Elizabeth for
Speaker 2: his work in immunology. He's head of immunology at Hadasa
Speaker 2: Medical Center.
Speaker 3: He was a professor. He was the head of chemistry
Speaker 3: at Berkeley's.
Speaker 2: He's a very very well regarded scientist and a deeply
Speaker 2: religious Jew. And he asks one question when he speaks
Speaker 2: about science, or one of the questions he asks is
Speaker 2: a very powerful one.
Speaker 3: He said, you know, we all know that there is
Speaker 3: movement in the universe. For example, we all know that
Speaker 3: the protons and the electrons are going around the nucleus
Speaker 3: of an atom, and that's the original energy of the world.
Speaker 3: Why why do they keep moving? He said? Scientists just
Speaker 3: say that's it. It's a law of nature that they
Speaker 3: keep moving, he said. But that's not an answer.
Speaker 2: It's like it's a tautology. Why do they keep moving
Speaker 2: because they keep moving? They keep moving because God keeps
Speaker 2: moving them. That every day is a big bang, as
Speaker 2: it were. To become aware of this and to reflect,
Speaker 2: of course, you go, this is incredible, not all. You're terrific,
Speaker 2: like you would say to a friend, you're terrific.
Speaker 3: I want to boost your ego. God has no ego,
Speaker 3: but for the sake of our ego and our appreciation
Speaker 3: of what there is in this world, we praise God.
Speaker 2: That's the whole and only reason number three, number three
Speaker 2: part of prayer, and perhaps the greatest part. And I
Speaker 2: have come to realize, if you take it seriously, the
Speaker 2: most important for your happiness you hear me, Not your religiosity,
Speaker 2: your happiness.
Speaker 3: You heard.
Speaker 2: I'm writing a book which I've been writing for too
Speaker 2: many years now, titled Happiness is a Serious Problem. I
Speaker 2: have worked very systematically on the question of happiness for years,
Speaker 2: given actually many courses on it, believe it or not.
Speaker 2: And more important, I'm actually a happy person. And I
Speaker 2: discovered with all the hutzpah that this entails. I actually
Speaker 2: discovered the secret to happiness. For this alone, you will
Speaker 2: have been rewarded for trooping out in this weather.
Speaker 3: I am telling you I have found the secret to happiness.
Speaker 3: If you have this, you will be happy. If you
Speaker 3: don't have this, you cannot be happy. You cannot.
Speaker 2: And there was nothing else I would say about, not
Speaker 2: even health. There are people with health that were not happy.
Speaker 2: There are people who were unhealthy and yet who have
Speaker 2: an essentially happy disposition.
Speaker 3: It's not health. I'll tell you what it is, gratitude.
Speaker 3: If you are a grateful human being, you are definitionally
Speaker 3: going to be a happy human being. If you are
Speaker 3: not a grateful human being, it does not matter what
Speaker 3: you have, it is not possible to be happy. Not possible.
Speaker 3: The single greatest part of Jewish prayer is gratitude, and
Speaker 3: if you take it serious, it will make you a
Speaker 3: better and happier human being. Thank you for what you
Speaker 3: have done. Thank you for this world, Thank you for
Speaker 3: and you just fill it in, just constant hodu la
Speaker 3: chem quito.
Speaker 2: Thanks to God, because it's good. You are the one
Speaker 2: who made this all. You have given all of this
Speaker 2: to us. Thank you, baruch Attah. What is that it's
Speaker 2: a thank you, it's not only a thank you.
Speaker 3: Barruth.
Speaker 2: The word for blessing in Hebrew comes from berek, which
Speaker 2: is me, and it literally means.
Speaker 3: I bend my knee to you. You are bendable to.
Speaker 2: It's a combination of gratitude and awe when you make
Speaker 2: a brusha.
Speaker 3: But it's half gratitude.
Speaker 2: I am grateful to you, you who have, and then
Speaker 2: you fill in the rest of the braha. If you
Speaker 2: can take the gratitude part of Jewish prayer seriously, you
Speaker 2: will not only be a more serious Jew, you will
Speaker 2: be a happier person. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: And number four, a major part of Jewish prayer is
Speaker 2: to affirm the Jewish purpose. There is a purpose that
Speaker 2: we're here. If Jews all knew this, there would be
Speaker 2: no assimilation none. To my mind, it is not possible
Speaker 2: to know and appreciate the purpose of Judaism and assimilate.
Speaker 2: The problem is it's not taught. Judaism became for many
Speaker 2: a folk way of life. The kids rejected it, just
Speaker 2: as kids rejected old European customs of Italian or or
Speaker 2: Polish parents. Judaism ceased being a mission and became a
Speaker 2: folk way from Orthodox to non Orthodox, and that's the
Speaker 2: primary reason so many Jews rejected it.
Speaker 3: Jews would not want to live.
Speaker 2: An East European way of life anymore non Jews would
Speaker 2: when they came to America, or when Enlightenment came in Europe,
Speaker 2: when Napoleon knocked down the ghettos. Jews have ceased to understand.
Speaker 2: And this goes from Orthodox to reform to secular. Certainly
Speaker 2: that we have a mission in this world. Think I
Speaker 2: made it up. Let me read to you from the
Speaker 2: prayer book just said right before I started speaking. This
Speaker 2: is to be found in Reform, conservative and Orthodox prayer books.
Speaker 2: May the time not be distant, Oh God, when your
Speaker 2: name shall be worshiped in all the earth, when unbelief
Speaker 2: shall disappear, and arabin no more. Fervently we pray that
Speaker 2: the day may come when all shall turn to you
Speaker 2: in love, when corruption and evil shall give way to
Speaker 2: integrity and.
Speaker 3: Goodness, and so on and so forth, when.
Speaker 2: All who dwell on earth shall know that You alone
Speaker 2: are God. Oh, May all created in your image become
Speaker 2: one in spirit, ever united in your service. Then your
Speaker 2: kingdom will be established on earth, and the word of
Speaker 2: your prophet will be fulfilled. The Lord will reign forever
Speaker 2: and ever. Pretty big deal. That's why we're on earth.
Speaker 2: The only, only, only reason for Jews is this paragraph
Speaker 2: to bring the world to the one God, so that
Speaker 2: we can become one humanity, so that that we could
Speaker 2: understand there is one moral law, not two. That's why
Speaker 2: the Jews are existent. We are in the service of
Speaker 2: this mission to bring the world to God, not to liberalism,
Speaker 2: not to conservatism, not to feminism, not to socialism or
Speaker 2: all the other isms that Jews invent and give.
Speaker 3: Passion to God.
Speaker 2: From that will flow many of the ideals that Jews affirm. Now,
Speaker 2: no problem with that, But the first and primary aim
Speaker 2: of the Jewish people is to bring the world to
Speaker 2: the one transcendent source of goodness, of good morals, of
Speaker 2: good values.
Speaker 3: God.
Speaker 2: Much of our prayer book is about reminding you and.
Speaker 3: Me what we're here for.
Speaker 2: You forget at the office, you forget when you're raising
Speaker 2: your kids. You forget on Tuesday afternoons. It's easy to
Speaker 2: forget when you're overwhelmed with ear.
Speaker 3: Infections and not enough money to pay bills. So we
Speaker 3: get together, or you do it on your own daily
Speaker 3: or weekly and you reaffirm, Ah, that's why I'm a Jew.
Speaker 3: I forgot.
Speaker 2: That's the greatest single purpose of Jewish prayer, of Jewish
Speaker 2: self examination, to remind you what you're doing. We forget,
Speaker 2: and even when we say it, we don't say it seriously.
Speaker 2: How many read this paragraph and we're thinking about the
Speaker 2: penguins or business or the person next to them, or.
Speaker 3: Just it happens. It happens to me too. It happens
Speaker 3: to all of us. But if you actually did it,
Speaker 3: if you could have the covenant, look at the words
Speaker 3: you're saying. Wow, it's overwhelming. Oh, that's why we're here.
Speaker 3: That's all of Russia Shana Young Kipper service. It's Russia
Speaker 3: Shanam Kipper, much more even than the other services. Is
Speaker 3: to remind you why we're here. The most repeated prayer,
Speaker 3: one of the most is.
Speaker 2: Via Asu Kulama guddah hatla God, we pray to you
Speaker 2: that all mankind will make one community to do your
Speaker 2: will with a full heart. That's why we're here. Russia
Speaker 2: Shan is not a Jewish holiday. Russia Shan is a
Speaker 2: universal holiday. Pessa is a Jewish holiday. Russia Shana is
Speaker 2: Hyom Harat olam Hiyom ya Amat. It is the birthday
Speaker 2: of the world and the day where everyone, not just Jews,
Speaker 2: begins to be judged.
Speaker 3: It is a totally universal holiday. The Jewish New Year
Speaker 3: begins with Passover. The world's new year begins Russia Shanna.
Speaker 3: Most Jews don't know this.
Speaker 2: It's called the Jewish New Year, but only because Jews
Speaker 2: are celebrating it.
Speaker 3: But it is the world's new year. Though world is judged,
Speaker 3: we believe.
Speaker 2: In a God who will judge everybody because everybody has
Speaker 2: a conscience. It's our task to bring the world to
Speaker 2: this one God. And so went better time to make
Speaker 2: you aware of it than when you get together with
Speaker 2: fellow Jews at a synagogue and assert this is why
Speaker 2: we're here, When you realize that it's to praise something
Speaker 2: higher that has made the world and unites it and
Speaker 2: gives it meaning, that it is to affirm gratitude because
Speaker 2: that's the only way we will be happy in a
Speaker 2: difficult world, and that it is to restate what our
Speaker 2: purpose is on this earth as Jews are.
Speaker 3: Doesn't it make it much more meaningful? Then? Oh, please
Speaker 3: help Sally Berkowitz.
Speaker 2: When in your heart you know there's a good chance
Speaker 2: Sally Berkowitz is going to die, and I hope there's
Speaker 2: no Sally Berkowitz ill in this particular synagogue. When we
Speaker 2: get together, we join with fellow Jews in a religiously
Speaker 2: affirmative environment. My friends, even if you didn't pay much
Speaker 2: attention to the dobvining on any given Shabbat, you leave
Speaker 2: the synagogue different than had you stayed home alone. For years,
Speaker 2: I went to synagogues that bored the living daylights out
Speaker 2: of me.
Speaker 3: They drove me out of my mind. Frankly, I read.
Speaker 2: I had a Jewish book, and I would read in
Speaker 2: the back row. But I never stopped going to synagogue
Speaker 2: because the feeling that it induced was worth it. I
Speaker 2: had gotten together with fellow Jews as an island in
Speaker 2: a week of every other concern, to reaffirm that I'm
Speaker 2: part of something larger than me, not just God, but
Speaker 2: a Jewish community. You don't have to love everybody you
Speaker 2: go to school with, and by no means, but it
Speaker 2: is a major statement that I have joined with you
Speaker 2: Friday night and or Shabbat morning, and I have sung
Speaker 2: with you, and I have restated with you what we
Speaker 2: are here for.
Speaker 3: And I have heard words of Torah with you. That
Speaker 3: to me is what prayer is. And that's how I
Speaker 3: worked it out for someone who instinctively does not wake
Speaker 3: up in the morning and go, thou art great and
Speaker 3: please heal my mother.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Shabatchalla more than happy to take questions, comments,
Speaker 2: and reef alternate speeches. Yes, please A dress myself to
Speaker 2: the prayers of young Kipur and Russias Shanna when we
Speaker 2: pray for another year of life.
Speaker 3: This is how I deal with it.
Speaker 2: First of all, I do believe God judges us that
Speaker 2: after all you mention Yom Kipur. The other name for
Speaker 2: Yom Kipur is Yomhadin, the day of judgment. The thought
Speaker 2: that we are judged by God to whom we are
Speaker 2: accountable for our behavior is terrific. I wish everybody felt
Speaker 2: that that. Uh oh, I'm going to have to give
Speaker 2: an accounting for the way I behave. That in and
Speaker 2: of itself is magnificently important. It's again, how it affects you,
Speaker 2: and I think that that's critical. Does God decide on
Speaker 2: russiashana literally decide whether you will live or whether you
Speaker 2: will die? Maybe I don't know. It's possible. I'm not
Speaker 2: certain either way, but to the extent that one is
Speaker 2: willing to grant that God has any connection to whether
Speaker 2: we live or die, that would make sense. Now, of course,
Speaker 2: the people who wrote this were The people who wrote
Speaker 2: this were not stupid. They knew that no matter what,
Speaker 2: even if you are the most righteous person in the world,
Speaker 2: you're going to one year after Russia Shana, you will die.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously, it's just gonna happen.
Speaker 2: Therefore, it depends on the amount of literalness you bring
Speaker 2: to the issue. Let me give you an example of
Speaker 2: something I am embarrassed to say I.
Speaker 3: Only learned this year at that synagogue.
Speaker 2: I learned it from my dear friend and teacher, Rabbi
Speaker 2: Joseph Tulushkin, at whose service I was. He comes and
Speaker 2: does a service in Los Angeles. So he came out
Speaker 2: and he blamed and have killed me. You know, you know,
Speaker 2: when you hear a great point, you go, why didn't
Speaker 2: I think of that? That's when you know it's a
Speaker 2: great point, and it's so obvious, and you missed it
Speaker 2: for forty five years. There is a statement which we
Speaker 2: say at the height of the Russia showing them kipper
Speaker 2: service to shuvatila ut daka, mavirin atrozeira to Shuvah, repentance,
Speaker 2: prayer and charity. They they avert you have in the English,
Speaker 2: the evil decree.
Speaker 3: I could never believe this. It seemed like a bribe.
Speaker 2: All I see, I won't I won't die if I
Speaker 2: give to daka and if I repent and do the
Speaker 2: right things.
Speaker 3: But somebody's gonna die every year. It's not possible.
Speaker 2: And then he showed the Hebrew was incorrectly translated.
Speaker 3: It's not avert the evil decree. It's avert the bitterness
Speaker 3: of the decree. Roa hagazeira, the evil of the decree, literally,
Speaker 3: not the evil decree. Ah, that's very different.
Speaker 2: In other words, I can prepare myself for whatever decree
Speaker 2: it is if I live.
Speaker 3: A certain way. And that's true. As my wife always
Speaker 3: puts it, you die the way you have lived. And
Speaker 3: there's because.
Speaker 2: She worked at she volunteered in a hospice for a
Speaker 2: while and is speaking from some knowledge.
Speaker 3: There's a great deal of truth.
Speaker 2: You do prepare yourself if you have lived a certain way,
Speaker 2: then you are able to handle the evil decree. If
Speaker 2: God forbid God, I want to live not till one
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty five, as you wished me last night, Rabbi,
Speaker 2: I wish that I lived till see one hundred and
Speaker 2: twentieth birthday of my son, who turned one today.
Speaker 3: So that would I mean.
Speaker 2: I don't want to live tw one hundred and sixty five,
Speaker 2: but I appreciate the good words. One hundred and eleven
Speaker 2: would be just about right now at any rate.
Speaker 3: If I were told that I were to die, we
Speaker 3: all think about this. I would have immense pain, but
Speaker 3: it would be ninety nine percent for my loved ones.
Speaker 2: Because I feel very good about the forty five years
Speaker 2: I lived. I feel they've been full, they've been blessed,
Speaker 2: they've been rich. I'm sure many of you can say this,
Speaker 2: but there are many who don't. And I think I
Speaker 2: can meet my maker, I'm not totally certain. With pretty
Speaker 2: clean hands, that's what happens. You can avert the bitterness
Speaker 2: of the decree, whatever it decree is, by how you live.
Speaker 2: It makes it all so much more real to me then,
Speaker 2: And to bang my chest, to bang my heart over
Speaker 2: speaking badly about others, over not honoring parents and teachers,
Speaker 2: over having malicious tongue, that is important. And by the way,
Speaker 2: you know all of them are in the plural. We
Speaker 2: bang for all our fellow Jews. How you act in
Speaker 2: Jewish life is my business. That's why I could have
Speaker 2: the hoodspur to fly here and tell you last night,
Speaker 2: I don't think you should turn the car radio on
Speaker 2: when you go home. That's my Jewish duty that you
Speaker 2: may not have known that. It's a total law. You
Speaker 2: must reprove your fellow jew lovingly. You must be receptive
Speaker 2: to their reproof. We're in it together. We're like a team.
Speaker 2: If the first basement has a wrong move, the shortstop
Speaker 2: has to tell them. It's no service to the team
Speaker 2: if he doesn't tell the first basement. Listen, if you
Speaker 2: just put your glove this way, you'll be able to
Speaker 2: get those the short hops better that we are a team,
Speaker 2: a tiny team in this world. I am stuck with
Speaker 2: you and you are stuck with me. We don't have
Speaker 2: to love each other with our you know, and the
Speaker 2: sense oh, I love every Jew. Anybody who says that
Speaker 2: drives me out of my mind. I love every Jew.
Speaker 2: It's a it's not possible. B. It's not it's not
Speaker 2: even desirable. There are obnoxious Jews. What am I supposed
Speaker 2: to do with them? But I do have to take
Speaker 2: you seriously as a fellow Jew and say, you know,
Speaker 2: we're in it together, and let me tell you how
Speaker 2: I think you might play first base.
Speaker 3: Better, and you have to do it to me. And
Speaker 3: in that sense, that's why we bang in the plural.
Speaker 2: Uh oh, we've all done this, then we all have
Speaker 2: to pay the price and so on. So knowing all
Speaker 2: of that, it is made im Kipper and Russia Shana
Speaker 2: much more meaningful than just a literal This is it,
Speaker 2: This is decided. But you could bribe God with enough saduka.
Speaker 3: It never sat well with me. Yes, okay, well we
Speaker 3: can pray. Just joking, she asks.
Speaker 2: Why are we experiencing all this intermarriage and what can
Speaker 2: we do about it? Very briefly, that too is a
Speaker 2: topic unto itself. There's a very very good reason, or
Speaker 2: I should say simple reason why there's so much intermarriage.
Speaker 2: People marry people with whom they share everything or most everything.
Speaker 3: It's as simple as that.
Speaker 2: Very few American Jews marry Mayans because they don't share
Speaker 2: that much. American Jews marry American non Jews with whom
Speaker 2: they share everything, and specifically, most American Jews are non
Speaker 2: religious and their convictions are liberal. So you have liberal
Speaker 2: non religious Jew marrying liberal, non religious non Jew. They
Speaker 2: have everything in common that when when you when I
Speaker 2: think of intermarriage, I think of people who are different
Speaker 2: marrying Jews and non Jews like I just described.
Speaker 3: Are no are no different. There's no reason they shouldn't marry.
Speaker 2: Ideologically, the only real intermarriage and Jewish life would in
Speaker 2: most cases would be if your son or daughter married
Speaker 2: a Republican.
Speaker 3: That would be an honest to goodness intermarriage.
Speaker 2: Most Jews are ideologically liberal, ethnically Jewish, not ideologically Jewish.
Speaker 2: If Judaism is the source of your values, the odds
Speaker 2: are you will want to marry someone for whom Judaism
Speaker 2: is the.
Speaker 3: Source of his or her values. Is their passion, is
Speaker 3: their commitment. If you knew the Jewish mission in the
Speaker 3: world and believed in it, you'd want to marry somebody
Speaker 3: who shared that mission, a converter, a born Jew. But
Speaker 3: if you have no Jewish mission, have no Jewish ideological distinctiveness,
Speaker 3: why on God's earth should you not marry a non
Speaker 3: Jews identical to you? It is no different.
Speaker 2: We raise our kids, just like the kids were raised
Speaker 2: next door who don't have a Jewish surname. If your
Speaker 2: kid has Shabbak and your kid has Judaism, and your
Speaker 2: kid has a Jewish mission, and your kid does the Alenu,
Speaker 2: and your kid understands this, your kid will want to
Speaker 2: marry someone with whom it's shared. We marry people to
Speaker 2: share our deepest things in life. If the deepest thing
Speaker 2: in your life is social justice liberalism, you'll marry a
Speaker 2: liberal social justice person. It's racist to tell most of
Speaker 2: our kids not to marry non Jews because the only
Speaker 2: difference between them and a non Jew is racial, not ideological.
Speaker 2: Does I answer your question? Yes, good question, Your rabbi
Speaker 2: chef Rabbis ask good questions. If prayer is so wonderful,
Speaker 2: what I sit in back a shoe reading a book
Speaker 2: most of my life? And why would I like to
Speaker 2: see all the restructuring? Because you can have too much
Speaker 2: of a good thing to put it in the most
Speaker 2: positive light. I was raised and even though not Orthodox,
Speaker 2: I went to Orthodox synagogues till a few years ago, and.
Speaker 3: I made it.
Speaker 2: I made a mistake for me, Certainly, it's not a
Speaker 2: mistake for other Jews. I fully appreciate the beauty of it.
Speaker 2: For many Jews, the uh, the amount of dobvining in
Speaker 2: the traditional service is to my mind, simply too much.
Speaker 3: You either have you either have to read.
Speaker 2: It as if you were in an Evelyn Wood reading
Speaker 2: dynamics course. In fact, I have often said evelyn Wood
Speaker 2: must have grown up in an Orthodox synagogue.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: The the the the speed with which the sitter is
Speaker 2: gone through on Shabbat is uh makes makes reference to
Speaker 2: the to the words extremely difficult, if not impossible. And
Speaker 2: this massive amount of words just didn't have an effect
Speaker 2: on me. It does on others, and I appreciate that,
Speaker 2: but for me and most Jews, clearly it does not
Speaker 2: have that effect. That was my problem. I want it shortened.
Speaker 2: The ability to appreciate and ruminate over the words becomes
Speaker 2: more real to me. Secondly, I personally very much believe
Speaker 2: that God gave us music, that music is one of
Speaker 2: the great gifts of God. For me, again, these things
Speaker 2: are very personal. For some people, music is not that powerful,
Speaker 2: but for many people it is. In Jewish life all
Speaker 2: powerful music by and large.
Speaker 3: I should say not in Jewish life.
Speaker 2: For Jews, all powerful music is not Jewish to get
Speaker 2: really to get my passion stirred musically, I go to
Speaker 2: Handel's Messiah and it's a Christian oratorio. Now, obviously I
Speaker 2: don't believe the words, or i'd be Christian, but I cry,
Speaker 2: I get excited. Do I get excited in regular shools?
Speaker 2: By and large, I don't. I want to sing, or
Speaker 2: at least I want to be moved by powerful music
Speaker 2: and instruments, which are not allowed in Orthodoxy. Though ironically,
Speaker 2: as I tell my Orthodox friends, God himself asked that
Speaker 2: we use musical instruments in the temple. So we have
Speaker 2: a double burden here, which has always struck me as odd.
Speaker 2: The temple is destroyed, so we have to not only
Speaker 2: pay the price of no temple, but pay the price
Speaker 2: of no instruments which the temple used in order to
Speaker 2: make us love to pray. To me, it is the
Speaker 2: quintessence of illogic Nvuha Netsar destroys my sm temple, so
Speaker 2: I can't use music two thousand, three thousand years later.
Speaker 3: That's one of the reasons I'm not Orthodox.
Speaker 2: It's that idea does not make sense to me. Something
Speaker 2: that doesn't make sense to me I cannot accept unless
Speaker 2: it's divine. I'm prepared to accept divine irrationality because I'm
Speaker 2: not God. I'm not prepared to accept human irrationality. So
Speaker 2: I don't keep you on to shaming.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I therefore now in a service with music and study
Speaker 2: and song. It's the first time in my life I
Speaker 2: look forward to every Shabbat morning. I would much rather
Speaker 2: go to synagogue where I'm going now than sleep, and
Speaker 2: God knows I need the sleep, and I would love
Speaker 2: to be able to sleep in on Saturday morning. But
Speaker 2: the thought that I missed this, it's almost like if
Speaker 2: you had season tickets to a sport and you missed
Speaker 2: a great game, you'd be disgusted. I'd be disgusted to
Speaker 2: miss it. So what I fantasized jewishly actually materialized in
Speaker 2: a certain service that I attend, and I know therefore
Speaker 2: that it's real and possible. And by the way, it's
Speaker 2: not unique.
Speaker 3: When I went to my friend Rabbi Joseph Tulushkin service
Speaker 3: at a synagogue in Los Angeles for Russia shunning Young
Speaker 3: Kipper the same I was equally touched. Then the music
Speaker 3: was a major, major part of it.
Speaker 2: So I have no problem at all with prayer I
Speaker 2: have a problem with the traditional way of doing it.
Speaker 3: By the way, the Sefara Dim do it differently. They
Speaker 3: actually do read every word in the citter out loud,
Speaker 3: they don't run through it like the Ashkenazi Orthodox. But
Speaker 3: I find that as boring to sit and say every
Speaker 3: single word of a large service. Does that answer you totally?
Speaker 2: I need to know, because if not, you know, come
Speaker 2: back to mess and how by taking from the traditional
Speaker 2: prayer book but not everything, and by combining it frequently
Speaker 2: with music, it does it for me, and different synagogues
Speaker 2: will have to experiment. But the lack of experimentation in
Speaker 2: this regard and is rather amazing to me. I understand
Speaker 2: why the Orthodox don't experiment, and I fully respect that,
Speaker 2: but I don't understand why the Conservative and reform are
Speaker 2: so often addicted to ways that haven't worked. They look
Speaker 2: at that, they look around, and in particular, I think
Speaker 2: in many Conservative synagogues where the canter has gone to
Speaker 2: cantorial school and has learned many cantorial melodies, there is
Speaker 2: no congregational participation and he is basically a soloist for
Speaker 2: on display that no longer works. When Jews could not
Speaker 2: in Eastern Europe, afford opera tickets. It was the one
Speaker 2: place they could hear a great voice. That is not
Speaker 2: the case any longer. And the proof is that, by
Speaker 2: and large Mite, this is purely an impressionistic reaction. I
Speaker 2: think conservative are appealing the least between reform and orthodox
Speaker 2: to a younger generation that is purely impressionistic and may
Speaker 2: have no demographic basis.
Speaker 3: But in terms of weekly attendants, I have frequently found that, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I wrote an article in the second issue of
Speaker 2: the journal that I write, I've now written thirty five issues.
Speaker 2: This is a long time ago, and that the article
Speaker 2: was titled when Rabbis and canters become doctors and artists.
Speaker 3: You know the old saw. It certainly wasn't mine.
Speaker 2: When when rabbis became doctors the Jews got sick, which,
Speaker 2: by the way I subscribed to, I essentially subscribed to
Speaker 2: that Judaism is not a subject to be studied. It
Speaker 2: is a way of life to be lived. PhDs study things,
Speaker 2: Rabbis teach things. There's a very big difference. Rabbis are
Speaker 2: to inspire. The same thing happened though with canters they
Speaker 2: became artists. It became a cantorial art. Now there is
Speaker 2: an art, there's no question. But it was supposed to.
Speaker 3: Be art in the service of inspiration and not art
Speaker 3: for art's sake. Do you know after the article was.
Speaker 2: Written, I got a letter I published in my journal
Speaker 2: from the head of the Reform Cantorial School at the time,
Speaker 2: and he said, and it's almost verbatim, whoever said the
Speaker 2: purpose of a cantor was to inspire?
Speaker 3: I didn't even react to the letter that it's so
Speaker 3: self indicting from my perspective, whoever said the purpose of
Speaker 3: a cantor was to inspire? Everybody says it except the
Speaker 3: cantorial school. That's the answer to that empty synagogue say it.
Speaker 3: That's who says it. So that's that's it could work.
Speaker 3: It's a great book, it's great stuff. Thanks.
Speaker 2: Yes, how did drig your hand up? I totally agree
Speaker 2: with you. Just heard one critical word that I said.
Speaker 2: My indictment was primarily of conservative So that's why I
Speaker 2: totally agree with what you said back there.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm sorry, Rabbi. We introduce the services of feeling
Speaker 3: class to uh can we discussed in the firstship hot
Speaker 3: services that we have as FIRS all the problems and
Speaker 3: problem out of you mentions doing that you raise this morning,
Speaker 3: uh ass evolve as now monthly service. Uh These nons
Speaker 3: mystical impmentations in the UNBO general they're want and Bible
Speaker 3: and the junior services and them we deal uh in
Speaker 3: discussion with issues of feeling.
Speaker 2: From the Jewish perspective, you find that people who participate
Speaker 2: are praying for people who have asked that we pray
Speaker 2: or pray for loved ones who are in selfdale and
Speaker 2: often healthcare professionals as well, the.
Speaker 3: Craive that they have the ability to serve their patients. Well,
Speaker 3: you wig of what you said before that healing, what
Speaker 3: are your reactionists? From what I sense to the Jewish
Speaker 3: belief day and God to the mission that position ever
Speaker 3: careres the specifically we're healing on individual basis can be
Speaker 3: offered in the midst of the right. As I said,
Speaker 3: and I hope I made it clear, I myself say
Speaker 3: them I do I come. We are all.
Speaker 2: In some ways not totally integrated beings. I have Dennis
Speaker 2: the Jew, I have Dennis the rationalist. I have Dennis
Speaker 2: the moralist, Dennis the animal. Then you name it as
Speaker 2: you do, as you do and so on. Dennis the
Speaker 2: rationalist has a problem with please heal so and so
Speaker 2: for the reasons.
Speaker 3: I mentioned, Dennis the Jew can offer it and do.
Speaker 2: I might add, though, that there was a secondary or
Speaker 2: if not even primary, alternate purpose to doing that.
Speaker 3: When you come up here, if you have it that way,
Speaker 3: I don't know and say and Sonia Silberman and it's
Speaker 3: got ben Ahern. It is an When.
Speaker 2: I have done that for a particular relative I'm thinking of,
Speaker 2: it meant a lot to me that her name was
Speaker 2: announced to the community as in need of their amain. Okay,
Speaker 2: more than there's a better chance now that God's going
Speaker 2: to send a drug. That's how I thought. But that
Speaker 2: in itself is empowering. There are people behind me. When
Speaker 2: my Christian friends tell me they have prayed for me,
Speaker 2: I have been touched. And it's not even my religion.
Speaker 2: So certainly if my own community says, oh, Dennis is
Speaker 2: such and such as sick, we all.
Speaker 3: Say, I mean to her recuperation. That's a very powerful thing.
Speaker 3: That's why I'm for it, sure, just that I don't
Speaker 3: want Jews to depend on it, because it's an invitation
Speaker 3: to angst and ultimately atheism. That's why that's why I
Speaker 3: spoke against.
Speaker 2: It so strongly, to the extent that I did. Okay,
Speaker 2: but surely it must be done. There's another reason, and
Speaker 2: I meant to say this in my talk. If God
Speaker 2: is my friend, my father, my heavenly father, how could
Speaker 2: I not share with him what I want? Not in
Speaker 2: the sense of petition, but in the sense of I'm
Speaker 2: telling him. Don't you don't tell your friend you know,
Speaker 2: you know, Jerry.
Speaker 3: I wish my I don't know my cousin were feeling better.
Speaker 3: He's really sick.
Speaker 2: Don't you tell that to a dear friend. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to tell it to God, God, the author of
Speaker 2: all possible remedies. I'm not going to tell I wish
Speaker 2: somebody were well.
Speaker 3: So that I'm glad you pushed me further in this
Speaker 3: to make it clear, because there's such a fine line
Speaker 3: between rejecting it and relying on it. I don't want
Speaker 3: jeus to rely on it.
Speaker 2: Okay, back there, Yes, okay, And if I didn't answer you,
Speaker 2: please rise again and tell me how does having an
Speaker 2: intermarriage affect one's Jewish identity?
Speaker 3: I think that.
Speaker 2: Frankly, by and large, and there are always exceptions, at
Speaker 2: somewhat putting the cart before the horse. Mostly one had
Speaker 2: a fairly weak Jewish identity in order to intermarry. It's
Speaker 2: not the intermarriage that causes a weakening of the Jewish identity,
Speaker 2: but the Jewish idea identity was fairly weak, and therefore
Speaker 2: the intermarriage was allowed. This is not an indictment. It
Speaker 2: is merely a description people with a very strong Jewish identity.
Speaker 2: I mean, just as if you have a very strong
Speaker 2: passion for anything, if you have a strong passion for animals,
Speaker 2: there's a good chance you will marry somebody who, at least,
Speaker 2: if nothing else, is not oblivious to animal suffering. Okay,
Speaker 2: the odds are if you care a great deal about
Speaker 2: how animals are treated, you wouldn't marry a man who
Speaker 2: loved bullfights. Okay, we do the things we most care about.
Speaker 2: People don't only marry on love. Some do and find
Speaker 2: that in the long run you need more than love,
Speaker 2: not less than love, but more than love. And therefore
Speaker 2: I don't know what effect it has on the identity.
Speaker 3: It can't be a strengthening one. Usually. Having said that,
Speaker 3: it doesn't mean it's ever too late.
Speaker 2: In fact, one of the most common problems I have
Speaker 2: I hear when I go around around North America lecturing
Speaker 2: and already have twice here, one a husband and one
Speaker 2: a wife.
Speaker 3: And it is it is. I hear it everywhere I go.
Speaker 3: And this is with two.
Speaker 2: Jews married, not a Jew in a non Jew, that
Speaker 2: one in adulthood became seriously Jewish and the other one
Speaker 2: did not move in that direction. It is one of
Speaker 2: the most sad problems said, because it's not the one
Speaker 2: who didn't move fault. When a spouse changes, the non
Speaker 2: changing spouse has a right to say, wait a minute,
Speaker 2: this is not what I married.
Speaker 3: I fully understand that. My heart goes out to both
Speaker 3: of them.
Speaker 2: To the Jew who is becoming more seriously Jewish, my
Speaker 2: heart goes out because I want you to be more
Speaker 2: seriously Jewish. Thought of a secular life frightens me. It's
Speaker 2: so boring at its inner core, it is empty. On
Speaker 2: the other hand, I feel terrible for the other spouse, who,
Speaker 2: through no fault of his or her own, has a
Speaker 2: new person that they're married to. That is why ideally
Speaker 2: one has grown up Jewishly before marrying.
Speaker 3: That's the ideal.
Speaker 2: Well, we don't live in an ideal world, and I
Speaker 2: fully acknowledge that. But if you can somehow know where
Speaker 2: you are or where you're moving before, or at least
Speaker 2: defer marriage till you have made peace with that evolution.
Speaker 2: But even then it's no guarantee because people still will
Speaker 2: evolve later. I don't know if that fully answers you,
Speaker 2: but it's the identity needs to precede the marriage.
Speaker 3: That's the ideal child of an intermarriage. Okay, if there
Speaker 3: is a I'm sorry, I was the last line. Well.
Speaker 2: By reform Judaism, a child of any Jewish parent, male
Speaker 2: or female is considered Jewish.
Speaker 3: According to a.
Speaker 2: Conservative and Orthodox it's the child of a Jewish mother only.
Speaker 2: But in real life, the question is what does the
Speaker 2: child think of himself? Not what does Jewish law think
Speaker 2: of them? Because if you don't care, who cares what
Speaker 2: Jewish law thinks of you? If you don't care about Judaism,
Speaker 2: So the ultimate question in life is what do you
Speaker 2: think you are? Not what is the what does Jewish
Speaker 2: law think you are? And that depends on the Jewish parent.
Speaker 2: It also depends on the non Jewish parent being open. However, statistically,
Speaker 2: I am told that the great majority of children of
Speaker 2: intermarriage do not opt for a Jewish identity, and it
Speaker 2: is not surprising that they wouldn't who who in the
Speaker 2: world opts to be a minority in Israel, they would
Speaker 2: opt to be Jewish because Israel.
Speaker 3: In Israel, the Jews.
Speaker 2: Are a majority, so all intermarried couples should make aliyah.
Speaker 3: Yes, do you think that the help to the general
Speaker 3: problem of the feeling for the evil?
Speaker 2: Does prayer help you deal with the general problem, deal
Speaker 2: pragmatically with the with the problem of evil.
Speaker 3: I think it does for many people. I'll tell you
Speaker 3: how I deal with it.
Speaker 2: It's not so much through prayer as it is through
Speaker 2: a knowledge that there is a God, that God doesn't
Speaker 2: want the evil to behave the way they do, that
Speaker 2: they will ultimately pay for what have done. I believe
Speaker 2: deeply in an after life, or I would probably go mad.
Speaker 2: I think the more aware you are of cruelty in
Speaker 2: this world, the more your sanity depends on some ultimate justice.
Speaker 2: At least that's how I feel, because I am deeply
Speaker 2: conscious of the horrors that people inflict on others. That's
Speaker 2: what keeps me sane, rather than prayer in and of itself.
Speaker 2: But my weekly attendance at a synagogue is an island.
Speaker 3: Of peace in a turbulent world. It is my own profession.
Speaker 3: Everyone has his or her own challenges.
Speaker 2: I cannot do what a lot of people I know do,
Speaker 2: and that is tune out from you know, Bosnian rapes,
Speaker 2: Somalian starvation, homeless diseases, fires, tornadoes. I not only have
Speaker 2: to know about them, I have to immerse myself in
Speaker 2: them and then talk about them three hours a day.
Speaker 2: So the Shabbat to me, you know, I'm working very
Speaker 2: hard this Shabbat, and yet in some ways it is effortless,
Speaker 2: beyond effortless. It's rejuvenating to be with fellow Jews. Talking
Speaker 2: tore is my favorite thing in the world. It's just
Speaker 2: an absolute delight. My wife is amazed at my stamina.
Speaker 2: I mean, I flew yesterday after five hours of sleep
Speaker 2: NonStop across the country, got dressed, came here, spoke last night.
Speaker 2: I'm on LA time right now. So my day started
Speaker 2: this morning at six o'clock LA time talking Judaism. Got
Speaker 2: another talk tonight, good, another one tomorrow morning Tomorrow night.
Speaker 3: In Virginia. Fly three o'clock in the morning LA Time
Speaker 3: on Monday and do my show in the afternoon and
Speaker 3: then in the evening teach Genesis I have a busy man,
Speaker 3: do you know, I I it doesn't eat me up
Speaker 3: because I love it. This to do a.
Speaker 2: Jewish weekend, which I do, thank God, frequently, and by
Speaker 2: the way, in almost every instance, bring my family or
Speaker 2: at least one member of the family. And the only
Speaker 2: reason my wife. She was scheduled to be with me today.
Speaker 2: But it's Aaron's first birthday, and I wouldn't have missed that.
Speaker 2: But this was scheduled before we even knew they would
Speaker 2: be an Aaron. So it's quite all right, and I'm
Speaker 2: very happy to be here anyway. I don't think he
Speaker 2: knows that it's his first birthday. I like all Jewish parents.
Speaker 2: He's brilliant, but not that brilliant, thank God, I might add.
Speaker 3: But this is powerful stuff. This is sanity inducing stuff.
Speaker 2: Get together and sing, you know, at the place I
Speaker 2: go in La we goes like this. We have an
Speaker 2: hour of service from ten to eleven. Rabbi leads a
Speaker 2: tora discussion from eleven to twelve, and then from twelve
Speaker 2: to two. People all bring dairy pot luck food and
Speaker 2: we sit and we sing for two hours. I can't
Speaker 2: I can't believe how much I enjoy it. I mean,
Speaker 2: it is an island. It is just an island, And
Speaker 2: I commend the idea to you. It's so it's not
Speaker 2: the prayer itself as it is this Jewish whole, whole.
Speaker 3: Thing that does it for me anybody else. Yes, sir,
Speaker 3: it seems to me that the four points that you
Speaker 3: mean about types of prayer uni primarily those types that
Speaker 3: actual understanding of what one was doing. Yes, the rest. Uh,
Speaker 3: The more the aspect that I come across in many
Speaker 3: books about the Jewish prayer, that it has more the
Speaker 3: almost mantra like power of the U language. Yeah, what's
Speaker 3: It's a very good point.
Speaker 2: And for the second time I ever give this talk,
Speaker 2: I will have to incorporate that.
Speaker 3: It'll probably be when you invite me back.
Speaker 2: It's the only rabbi in America who's asked me to
Speaker 2: speak on this, then I salute him.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Yes, there is a monstra like power. Harold Kushner has
Speaker 2: made that point. I don't know Aramaic, certainly not well.
Speaker 2: I mean I I know a little cause of the gamura,
Speaker 2: cause of the talmut, but the cottish, the the prayer
Speaker 2: we say in commemorating the death of someone is an
Speaker 2: Aramaic ninety nine percent of Jews saying it don't know
Speaker 2: what they're saying, but it has an an unbelievable power
Speaker 2: godal Goddah shemeh Rabba.
Speaker 3: Just as I intelle it now right, if we were
Speaker 3: to say it in English, magnify and sanctify, be the
Speaker 3: great name, it would not have one tenth of.
Speaker 2: Power, even though you don't know the original. You're right,
Speaker 2: there is an element of that. And the Orthodox would
Speaker 2: argue that not dwelling on every word is okay because
Speaker 2: there is perhaps this greater montral like power.
Speaker 3: And I respect that. Say, I am.
Speaker 2: Actually a living pluralist, a living and breathing Jewish pluralist.
Speaker 2: I am not Orthodox, but there is no part of
Speaker 2: me that thinks that they are invalid. I gave it
Speaker 2: a forty year chance. That's a long time, that's all.
Speaker 2: There are people who fall in love with it overnight. Fine,
Speaker 2: not just fine, terrific. Is there anybody who rather have
Speaker 2: a Jew secular than Orthodox?
Speaker 3: There may be, but I wouldn't.
Speaker 2: And I asked the Orthodox, would you rather have a
Speaker 2: Jew secular than reform? And there were some who would
Speaker 2: And it's crazy, just crazy. So I appreciate that that
Speaker 2: could be powerful. I am too much in the brain.
Speaker 2: I am a creature of Judaism and Western Greek rationality,
Speaker 2: and so are the vast majority of my peers, which
Speaker 2: is why they're.
Speaker 3: Not in shule.
Speaker 2: And to them I address these comments. I guess that's
Speaker 2: the most honest way I could respond.
Speaker 1: This has been timeless wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit Dennisprager
Speaker 1: dot com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses,
Speaker 1: and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.