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Speaker 1: On this episode of Newsworld, my guest is Dennis Prager.

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Speaker 1: He is the national radio host of The Dennis Prager Show,

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Speaker 1: heard around America and around the world. He has talked

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Speaker 1: to millions of people over the last forty years. He's

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Speaker 1: traveled to one hundred and thirty countries all fifty American states,

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Speaker 1: has lectured on the Seven Continents, conducts symphony orchestras. Is

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Speaker 1: a best selling author of nine books, co founded the

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Speaker 1: online nonprofit Praguer University, whose videos have been viewed around

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Speaker 1: the world over a billion times a year. Today, he's

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Speaker 1: here to talk about his new book, The Rational Passover Haggadah,

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Speaker 1: in which he boldly addresses the most difficult questions about passover.

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Speaker 1: The nearly two thousand year old Passover Haggada has inspired

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Speaker 1: millions around the world every year to learn about and

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Speaker 1: relive one of the most fas stories of all time,

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Speaker 1: the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. I'm really pleased

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Speaker 1: to welcome my guest, Dennis Breger. Thank you for joining me.

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Speaker 1: I'm truly honored to be with you. The new book

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Speaker 1: is actually part of a series which is very I

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Speaker 1: think impressive. Thank you. If people don't start taking the

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Speaker 1: Bible seriously in the West, at least. I don't have

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Speaker 1: any optimism for the West, not because God will punish us.

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Speaker 1: I don't have that sort of belief. I believe deeply

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Speaker 1: in God, but we will punish ourselves if we don't

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Speaker 1: get our values from the Bible like the Founders did.

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Speaker 1: Whether they were Trinitarian Christians or not, they got their

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Speaker 1: values from the Bible. That's why there's a Biblical verse

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Speaker 1: on the liberty bell, to give just one example. So

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Speaker 1: I feel a task to bring the brilliance of the Bible,

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Speaker 1: the first five books, specifically, because that's the basis of

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Speaker 1: everything in the Old and New Testament to his wide

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Speaker 1: an audience of atheists, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, you name it.

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Speaker 1: Because I know Biblical Hebrew very very well, and that's

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Speaker 1: a tool for me to do it, and because I've

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Speaker 1: been teaching it all of my life. This is not

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Speaker 1: a biblical book. I called the Rational Bible. Genesis and

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Speaker 1: Exodus are out, Deuteronomy is coming out later in the year.

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Speaker 1: I took a detour to explain the oldest holiday in

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Speaker 1: the world, pass over three thousand years of observance. By

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Speaker 1: the way, I just want to say this, mister speaker,

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Speaker 1: No nation and no religion can survive the death of ritual.

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Speaker 1: The fact that Jews have been practicing the same ritual

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Speaker 1: for three thousand years is a very big reason they

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Speaker 1: have survived. That America has abandoned July fourth, Memorial Day,

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Speaker 1: largely Christmas, Thanksgiving, Lincoln's birthday, Washington's birthday, the Pledge of Allegiance.

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Speaker 1: It has abandoned ritual, and that is a major reason

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Speaker 1: we are struggling to survive. So that's why I think

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Speaker 1: this is so applicable to people of every background and

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Speaker 1: every faith. Well, it's to me fascinating. We've been talking

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Speaker 1: a lot here at Kings three sixty about the degree

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Speaker 1: to which the society has slid into lives and deaths

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Speaker 1: of despair, the number of suicides, the number of drug overdoses,

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Speaker 1: the number of young people who have now been brainwashed

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Speaker 1: into believing that global warming will end their lifetime and

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Speaker 1: therefore they have nothing to look forward to. It's astonishing

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Speaker 1: how much the collapse of belief, and as you point out,

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Speaker 1: ritual as the architectural structure on which belief hangs, how

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Speaker 1: much it's created a vacuum and the inability to fill

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Speaker 1: that vacuum with purely rational or for that matter, purely

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Speaker 1: hedonist behaviors, and that sense, it seems to me you're

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Speaker 1: sort of filling an extraordinarily important gap in the whole

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Speaker 1: nature of the survival of Western civilization. Well, thank you,

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Speaker 1: but I know it's just not an issue of whether

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Speaker 1: you're complimenting me. You're making a very important statement of

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Speaker 1: filling the whole. Secularism creates a gigantic whole. There are

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Speaker 1: many wonderful secular people, and there are some awful religious people.

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Speaker 1: That's a given. But secularism creates a whole, and you

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Speaker 1: cannot live a fully secular life. What you do is

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Speaker 1: you create secular religion. You mentioned one environmentalism. Environmentalism is

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Speaker 1: a religion. It is not a science. It is a religion. Feminism, Marxism, socialism,

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Speaker 1: all these isms are to fill the whole that secularism

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Speaker 1: has created. A personal proof has been you're going to

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Speaker 1: find this amazing. Costco has ordered thirty five thousand copies

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Speaker 1: of my Deuteronomy book coming out later in the year. Now.

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Speaker 1: My view is if Costco orders Deuteronomy, there is definitely

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Speaker 1: some demand that we're not aware of on the part

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Speaker 1: of people to fill their lives with some content they

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Speaker 1: have never been given. I mean it is not an

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Speaker 1: insult for me to say that. I don't think almost

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Speaker 1: anyone working in the highest echelons. I don't mean workers

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Speaker 1: don't know if the CEO of Costco could spell Deuteronomy.

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Speaker 1: I want you to explain from it. You entitle your

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Speaker 1: five volume work the Rational Bible. Now why did you

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Speaker 1: pick that term? My root to God and faith is entirely,

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Speaker 1: and I mean entirely through reason. I'm not boasting. I

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Speaker 1: don't have a mystical bone in my body. If it

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Speaker 1: doesn't make sense to me, I reject it, which may

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Speaker 1: be arrogant. And as a result, however, I have been

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Speaker 1: able to bring a vast number of people to take God, Bible,

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Speaker 1: and ultimately Christianity or Judaism seriously because my approach is

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Speaker 1: completely rooted in a this makes sense and I use reason.

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Speaker 1: So the title of my series is the Rational Bible,

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Speaker 1: and this one is the Rational Passover Haggadah. Okay, let

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Speaker 1: me go back there, because I was once upon a

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Speaker 1: time a historian by training. What is your relationship with God? Well?

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Speaker 1: And where did it start? You asked the sixty four

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Speaker 1: thousand dollar question, Well, thank you, and then all I

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Speaker 1: want is a sixty four thousand dollar answer. Where did

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Speaker 1: it start? Let me answer the first one first and

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Speaker 1: then go backwards. My relationship with God will not satisfy

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Speaker 1: all religious people. I don't have a particularly warm relationship

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Speaker 1: with God. In fact, I wrote an essay in my

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Speaker 1: book of essays, Think a Second Time, so this is

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Speaker 1: a very long time ago. I wrote that loving God

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Speaker 1: is the most difficult law in the Bible. It is

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Speaker 1: a law. It's in the Book of Deuteronomy, and it

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Speaker 1: is an interesting thing. Why would God, or if you will, Moses,

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Speaker 1: or if you will Joe, whoever you believe, wrote it.

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Speaker 1: I believe it's from God. Why would God tell us

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Speaker 1: to love him? And my answer is because he knows

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Speaker 1: it doesn't come naturally. There was so much suffering in

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Speaker 1: the world that if you're sensitive to it, it's not

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Speaker 1: easy to love God. So we're told to love God.

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Speaker 1: We're not told to love our children. That comes naturally,

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Speaker 1: but we're told to love God because it doesn't come naturally,

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Speaker 1: and it certainly doesn't to me. Secondly, you asked my relationship,

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Speaker 1: so I don't view God as the provider of what

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Speaker 1: I need. In other words, I don't ask God for anything.

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Speaker 1: I have made one request of God, ironically, one prayer

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Speaker 1: and sort the joke is on you, Dennis, and actually

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Speaker 1: was fulfilled. But I am ninety nine percent interested in

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Speaker 1: what God wants from me and one percent interested in

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Speaker 1: what I want from God. I am very preoccupied with

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Speaker 1: what God wants from me, and I try to devote

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Speaker 1: my life to fulfilling that. When did I start with God.

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Speaker 1: I was raised in a religious Jewish home. It was

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Speaker 1: an Orthodox Jewish home, went to Yeshiva Orthodox Jewish schools

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Speaker 1: till I was nineteen. That's why I have such a

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Speaker 1: solid background Biblical Hebrew, for example, and so there's no

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Speaker 1: question that has played a role in my religiosity. Nevertheless,

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Speaker 1: I have tried to do everything through it makes sense,

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Speaker 1: and it does make sense, and I try to make

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Speaker 1: sense of the most difficult parts of the first five

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Speaker 1: books of the Bible, and that's why people read it.

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Speaker 1: I find it fascinating because you drive home a fascinating

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Speaker 1: point in your book that there are actually two parallel

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Speaker 1: liberations occurring, that there's a liberation that really relates to

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Speaker 1: the Egyptians, and there's a liberation that relates to sin

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Speaker 1: and to the worship of false gods, and that in

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Speaker 1: a very real sense, both of them are captured in

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Speaker 1: the past over. And I found myself because we have

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Speaker 1: a wonderful computer or specialist, and Alan is also a

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Speaker 1: rab by, and so he saw my interview. He was

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Speaker 1: an excuse to start handing me more material to read

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Speaker 1: and to get a full feeling for the Passover. And

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Speaker 1: as I was going through it, I was really struck

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Speaker 1: with how and I think it's very hard for Americans,

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Speaker 1: who tend to be very here and now people to

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Speaker 1: realize we're discussing three thousand years of shared tradition that

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Speaker 1: is as alive today as it was the night people

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Speaker 1: began to leave Egypt, and that's kind of astonishing. Well,

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Speaker 1: this is part of the magic of Jewish survival. So

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Speaker 1: I opened up the Rational Passover Hagada with the beginning

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Speaker 1: of the recitation. How Goda means recitation to recite, to tell,

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Speaker 1: So the beginning of the telling is we were slaves

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Speaker 1: in Egypt. And I make a point, it doesn't say

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Speaker 1: they were slaves in Egypt. It says we were slaves

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Speaker 1: in Egypt. It is impossible to overstate the significance of

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Speaker 1: the difference. When I was a kid, I said I

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Speaker 1: was a slave in Egypt as a big deal. I

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Speaker 1: was not. They so this notion I wish were carried out.

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Speaker 1: I wish we said, we signed the Declaration of Independence,

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Speaker 1: we fought Britain, we made a constitution that would change

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Speaker 1: the way Americans related to their past. You were there,

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Speaker 1: remember that old program on TV. You are there? That's

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Speaker 1: what this how God it does? You are there. As

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Speaker 1: for the other point, the two liberations, there are two

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Speaker 1: types of enslavement, external and internal. External is a pharaoh,

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Speaker 1: is a dictator, is a totalitarian state. Internal bondage is addiction.

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Speaker 1: Just to give a perfect example, we are not liberated

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Speaker 1: until we're liberated from our nature or from the parts

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Speaker 1: of our nature that enslave us, our appetites, our addictions.

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Speaker 1: And we're not liberated, obviously, until we're free from an

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Speaker 1: external enslaver. That is why the purpose of the exodus

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Speaker 1: was only partially fulfilled leaving Egypt. It was fully fulfilled

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Speaker 1: at Sinai when the law was given well, and that's

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Speaker 1: part of what strikes me. There's a book on the Enlightenment,

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Speaker 1: which goes into the distinction between a Scottish and English Enlightenment,

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Speaker 1: which retained a very deeply religious core, and Wrench Enlightenment,

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Speaker 1: which had an essence driven religion out and had created

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Speaker 1: a secular revolution. And I was always struck by that

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Speaker 1: distinction that in a way, the Wesley Brothers and the

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Speaker 1: level of passion that they created around salvation, changed the

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Speaker 1: entire trajectory of English culture away from the kind of

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Speaker 1: activities which might have led to a French Revolution and

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Speaker 1: towards a pattern of salvation which ultimately, in the next

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Speaker 1: generation leads Wilberforce, as a devout Methodist, to lead the

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Speaker 1: anti slavery movement in a way that was totally unpredictable.

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Speaker 1: And I really believe that we, by having over emphasized

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Speaker 1: rationality in the last two or three generations, that we

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Speaker 1: really miss a great deal of the core of life,

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Speaker 1: which fundamentally involves an emotional connectivity that has to be

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Speaker 1: fulfilled beyond yourself. I couldn't agree more. And it may

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Speaker 1: sound odd, given that I said my route to God

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Speaker 1: is through reason, and I still contend that my mind

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Speaker 1: has to be satisfied before I do anything. However, having

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Speaker 1: said that the most meaningful things in life come through

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Speaker 1: the emotion. Your love of your friends, your love of

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Speaker 1: your spouse, hopefully your love of your children, of your parents.

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Speaker 1: If you have that, love is emotional. Music is emotional.

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Speaker 1: Bonding with other people in a community is emotional. Listen.

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Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of the Sabbath from Friday night

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Speaker 1: sunset Saturday night sunset. I don't read a newspaper, I

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Speaker 1: don't listen to radio, I don't watch television. I just

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Speaker 1: spend it with friends. Friday night Shabat dinner with friends.

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Speaker 1: I found that a synagogue in La where I teach

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Speaker 1: every week, and that goes through two o'clock as we

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Speaker 1: have lunch together. Then I have my second lunch with friends.

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Speaker 1: I've had my Shabbat lunch with for forty years. It

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Speaker 1: is a highlight of my life every single week. People

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Speaker 1: who come by invite to share the Friday night dinner

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Speaker 1: with Their first reaction is you have this every week?

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Speaker 1: And I say, it's what keeps me saying. And I

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Speaker 1: can't advocate this strongly enough that people have a Sabbath

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Speaker 1: in their life. These powerful emotional bonds are a major

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Speaker 1: source of my joy in life. But a component of

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Speaker 1: that is that also involves friends, that somehow you are

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Speaker 1: participating not just in ritual, but you're participating in a

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Speaker 1: renewal of a human bond which transcends your own individuality.

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Speaker 1: I entirely agree. However, were it not for the religious component,

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Speaker 1: I would not meet with them every week. We would

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Speaker 1: all find reasons to be too busy that Saturday afternoon

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Speaker 1: or that Friday night. One of my lunch friends is

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Speaker 1: a psychiatrist. You know, I've just got to see some patience.

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Speaker 1: There's always reason not to do it. I believe that

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Speaker 1: God commanded me to observe the Sabbath, just as I

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Speaker 1: believe God commanded me not to murder. It's in the

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Speaker 1: ten Commandments. You have to have something of faith in

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Speaker 1: your life. I meet with my friends because I love

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Speaker 1: my friends. But were it not for the commandment of

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Speaker 1: the Sabbath, we wouldn't meet every week. So one point

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Speaker 1: is that the process of Passover and studying Passover and

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Speaker 1: the meaning of Passover is relevant to everyone. It's not

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Speaker 1: just a Jewish tradition, but in fact it has a

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Speaker 1: meaning that is potentially accessible to everybody. Could you walk

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Speaker 1: us through that just a little bit the motto of

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Speaker 1: my life with regard to teaching the first five books

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Speaker 1: of the Bible and therefore the Rational Bible. I've been

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Speaker 1: teaching this for forty years to Jews and non Jews,

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Speaker 1: and I said before every class, either the Torah speaks

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Speaker 1: to everyone, or it speaks to no one. The idea

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Speaker 1: that any of this stuff only speaks to Jews is

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Speaker 1: to me as absurd as Beethoven only speaks to Germans,

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Speaker 1: or Shakespeare only speaks to the English. Shakespeare speaks to everyone.

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Speaker 1: Beethoven speaks to everyone, And my deepest belief is all

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Speaker 1: of these texts speak to everyone. It is hard for

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Speaker 1: me to imagine somebody reading my Rational Bible or the

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Speaker 1: Rational Passover by God. I'm thinking Jesus doesn't apply to me.

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Speaker 1: There are four thousand reviews on Amazon of my Rational

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Speaker 1: Bible series, and most of them are from non Jews,

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Speaker 1: and people should read how it has affected their lives.

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Speaker 1: There's a universal message or there's no message. So that's

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Speaker 1: the reason I write this stuff. Well, in a sense,

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Speaker 1: it's almost the definition of God. Yes, if there is

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Speaker 1: a God, then God relates to everyone. Yes, that's exactly right.

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Speaker 1: There has never been such a notion that God only

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Speaker 1: speaks to the Jews. Jews have never had that notion.

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Speaker 1: I have to say the Torah is critical of Jews.

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Speaker 1: I'm critical of Jews, but I got to give Jews

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Speaker 1: credit where it is deserved. There's no such thing as

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Speaker 1: a Jewish God. God is universal. God is God. Yes,

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Speaker 1: exactly so. But it's interesting you do make a point

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Speaker 1: from a historian standpoint that there are a remarkable number

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Speaker 1: of details about ancient Egypt, right that sort of validate

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Speaker 1: the probability that this was pretty close to contemporaneous in

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Speaker 1: being written. When I write about the Torah on here,

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Speaker 1: obviously I'm writing about Passover, which is from the Torah.

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Speaker 1: The ubiquity of stuff nobody would know later on and

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Speaker 1: has been verified by archaeology, for example, is really one

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Speaker 1: of the many arguments I make for the authenticity of

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Speaker 1: the Torah. Who would know this stuff later on? There

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Speaker 1: are things in the Tour that are inexplicable. Tore again

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Speaker 1: is the first five books that are inexplicable without knowing

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Speaker 1: ancient let's say Acadian or Mesopotamian, and who knew that?

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Speaker 1: People say, well, the stuff comes from the Second Temple

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Speaker 1: period after let's say the fourth century BC. But they

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Speaker 1: wouldn't have known about this. They were no more familiar

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Speaker 1: with that stuff than we are. So yes, I think

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Speaker 1: there are many persuasive elements for the historicity of the events,

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Speaker 1: But one of the questions you wrestle with, which is

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Speaker 1: I think one of the hardest for people to understand,

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Speaker 1: is that if God took the Jews out of Egypt,

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Speaker 1: why didn't they take them out of Europe during the Holocaust?

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Speaker 1: And why isn't he protecting people right now in Ukraine?

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Speaker 1: That's right. I don't know of a better response than

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Speaker 1: a rabbi in the nineteen fifties, Milton Steinberg, I believe

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Speaker 1: was his name, and he said something brilliant. He said

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Speaker 1: it as follows. The believer has to account for one thing,

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Speaker 1: the existence of unjust suffering. The atheist has to account

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Speaker 1: for the existence of everything else. I find that to

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Speaker 1: be incredibly insightful. I fully acknowledge. That's why I use reason.

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Speaker 1: I don't have a mystical answer for the amount of

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Speaker 1: unjust suffering. I have a rational answer, which is not

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Speaker 1: emotionally satisfying, but it is quite rational and to me

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Speaker 1: therefore pretty satisfying and that is what is God supposed

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Speaker 1: to do? The questions are endless. Why did God allow

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Speaker 1: the Holocaust? Why did God allowed the Armenian mass murderers?

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Speaker 1: Why did God allow Paul Putt in Cambodia? Why did

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Speaker 1: God allow the Inquisition? Why did God allow slavery? Why

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Speaker 1: did God allow a woman to be raped yesterday in

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Speaker 1: the Bronx? The only answer is if you're really asking

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Speaker 1: a serious question, then you want God who have deprived

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Speaker 1: humans of free will? You want God to have made

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Speaker 1: robots that could do no more evil than a flower can.

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Speaker 1: But I don't want to be a flower, and neither

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Speaker 1: does anybody who asks the question. They want to have

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Speaker 1: the freedom that always comes with the possibility of evil.

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Speaker 1: Now there's a tougher question, and that is natural unjust

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Speaker 1: suffering earthquakes and cancer. I don't have an answer. Could

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Speaker 1: God have made a world where it is not possible

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Speaker 1: for a cell to metastasize, where even if you walk

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Speaker 1: out in the snow in a bathing suit, you won't

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Speaker 1: get pneumonia, or you won't even get a cold. Do

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Speaker 1: we want a world where there would have been absolutely

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Speaker 1: no illness, no possibility of illness? Maybe so, But I

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Speaker 1: think people need to grapple with what they're really asking

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Speaker 1: for when they ask the question. One of the things

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Speaker 1: that I was most struck with is the centrality of

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Speaker 1: having the children, starting with the youngest, asking the four

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Speaker 1: questions and instructs me that it is so relevant to

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Speaker 1: the mess the United States is in right now that

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Speaker 1: I really was looking forward to just asking you expand

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Speaker 1: upon why it's important for the children to be active participants.

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Speaker 1: I will. By the way, I gotta tell you, I'm

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Speaker 1: very honored you obviously read the book. Yes, Alan made me.

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Speaker 1: You know, the Rabbi stands over you. He says this

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Speaker 1: you must read before you talked to God. Bless Alan.

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Speaker 1: That's fine with me. I don't care why you read it.

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Speaker 1: I'm very very pleased. I will answer you about the children.

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Speaker 1: That's central to the whole thing. But just tell me

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Speaker 1: why you feel it's relevant to the United States, because

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Speaker 1: for two generations we have lacked the courage and the

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Speaker 1: discipline to involve our children in their own civilization, and

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Speaker 1: then we have been surprised that when they are left uneducated,

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Speaker 1: that they drift back towards barbarism. Okay, I'm glad. I

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Speaker 1: asked that's exactly right. So the Haganah and the evening

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Speaker 1: are dedicated to children. They are the centerpiece because it

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Speaker 1: is a biblical law. Again, the satyr comes from biblical

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Speaker 1: law that you have to tell your children about the exodus.

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Speaker 1: It's simple as that. Therefore, that obviously is central. And

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Speaker 1: the other obvious point is that they are the future.

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Speaker 1: By definition, young people are the future. Young people are

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Speaker 1: not intrinsically more valuable than old people, but they are

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Speaker 1: the future. If you don't get the children, you lose

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Speaker 1: your future. This is all cliches, but they're all true,

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Speaker 1: So you're right. The ceremony centers around the four questions.

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Speaker 1: And I remember reciting it when I was the youngest

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Speaker 1: in the house. I was the younger of two siblings,

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Speaker 1: and I said it starting probably when I was five

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Speaker 1: years old. I didn't even know exactly what I was saying.

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Speaker 1: I said it in Hebrew, and it's four questions. The

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Speaker 1: kid knows the satyr revolves around him or her. The

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Speaker 1: kid knows that the way to learn is to ask questions.

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Speaker 1: That's a very very very Jewish thing to do. You

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Speaker 1: ask questions, and that is the mode of learning. So

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Speaker 1: the kid asks the questions, and the rest of the

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Speaker 1: evening is in effect and answer, and the questions are

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Speaker 1: all why is this night different from all other nights?

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Speaker 1: That's how all four begin. We eat different foods, people

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Speaker 1: are reclining, not just sitting. Hey, please explain all of

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Speaker 1: this to me. And then my favorite part is, not

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Speaker 1: only are there four questions, there are four kids. The

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Speaker 1: Hagada says there are four types of kids, the bad kid,

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Speaker 1: the wise kid, the simple kid, and the kid who

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Speaker 1: doesn't know how to ask questions. And you have to

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Speaker 1: know how to address each one. And it's brilliant. They

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Speaker 1: knew thousands of years ago, this psychological sophistication. You can't

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Speaker 1: raise every kid. The same kids come out differently. But

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Speaker 1: my favorite point, and this one I think is original

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Speaker 1: to me. I certainly am happy to quote others. When

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Speaker 1: I was a kid, I didn't understand something. Why is

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Speaker 1: there no good child? There's a bad child, a wise child,

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Speaker 1: a simple child, and child doesn't know how to ask

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Speaker 1: where is the good child? I never got an answer,

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Speaker 1: But life has taught me there is no goodness without wisdom.

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Speaker 1: It's a wonderful statement. One other thing is just to

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Speaker 1: go back to this resent because it's so historically amazing

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Speaker 1: and so real, and I think that that's part of

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Speaker 1: what we shy away from is coming to groups with reality.

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Speaker 1: I get the sense that pass over as an annual

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Speaker 1: event occurred extraordinarily early and was driven into the mind

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Speaker 1: of the culture of us the right phrase with enormous firmness,

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Speaker 1: probably while Moses was still alive, but certainly in the

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Speaker 1: next generation after that. I mean, is that your sense

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Speaker 1: that it actually literally that the dinner and the experience

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Speaker 1: of it probably started up very quickly, shortly after leaving Egypt.

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Speaker 1: It's not even my sense unless one thinks it was

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Speaker 1: made up. That's why I say the holiday is about

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Speaker 1: thirty three to thirty five hundred years old, depending on

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Speaker 1: when you date the Exodus. I tend to date it

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Speaker 1: around twelve hundred BC, others a little earlier, a little later.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't matter to be in the least when it's dated,

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Speaker 1: but it began at the beginning. This is the oldest

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Speaker 1: ongoing holiday in the world. There's no close second. And

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Speaker 1: it does everything I mean. I'm telling you the importance

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Speaker 1: of ritual in keeping a nation or a religion alive.

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Speaker 1: But there's so much more. I'll tell you another thing

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Speaker 1: that the satyr does. It inculcates a kid's gratitude. The

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Speaker 1: most famous song in there, that Dianu, is all a

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Speaker 1: song of gratitude. Well, God, thank you for doing this,

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Speaker 1: because even if you had just done that, we would

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Speaker 1: be thankful. And then here's another thing, Oh, thank you

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Speaker 1: for that, and even if you just did that, we'd

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Speaker 1: be thankful. It's a phenomenal song. It's a bit hyperbolic,

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Speaker 1: but it makes incredibly important point, and that is gratitude

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Speaker 1: is the mother of happiness, the mother of goodness, and

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Speaker 1: the mother of survival. So we're not grateful to the

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Speaker 1: founders of America anymore. We may not survive. Okay, somebody

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Speaker 1: who doesn't have anything like your knowledge. When I read that,

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Speaker 1: I got sort of the reverse in the sense that

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Speaker 1: it struck me it was building a layer cake of

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Speaker 1: God's generosity, that you did this for me, and then

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Speaker 1: you do this for me, and then you did this

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Speaker 1: for me. I mean, it's an amazing list, all right,

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Speaker 1: So we don't differ at all. That's exactly what it is,

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Speaker 1: a layer cake of God's generosity. I'll live with that.

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Speaker 1: But in any event, it teaches you gratitude. Well, it

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Speaker 1: would if you were capable of being grateful. Yes, that's fair.

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Speaker 1: One of the problems of the modern world is if

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Speaker 1: you place yourself ahead of God. This goes right to

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Speaker 1: the core of the Ten Commandments. If you place yourself

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Speaker 1: ahead of God, it's impossible to feel gratitude because you

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Speaker 1: felt you were owed it. You'll like this then, one

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Speaker 1: of my theories about higher education, I say this on

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Speaker 1: my radio show often today you get a BA in ingratitude,

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Speaker 1: a master's ingratitude, and a PhD in ingratitude. Yeah, there's

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Speaker 1: a lot to then. I think that is part of

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Speaker 1: the sickness of our current culture. Just for a minute,

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Speaker 1: at a practical level, tell us about Prager University and

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00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 1: so the listeners who might not be from it, what

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00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:05,320
Speaker 1: can they find there and how can they interact with it? Well,

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00:32:05,400 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 1: we've become, thanks to our work, thanks to God, thanks

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00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:14,960
Speaker 1: to supporters, were by far the largest conservative video site

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Speaker 1: on Earth. We have over a billion views a year.

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00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:22,080
Speaker 1: Sixty five percent of the viewers or under thirty five

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00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 1: years of age. We put out a five minute video

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00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:31,480
Speaker 1: every week on really every subject except stem science, technology, engineering, math.

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00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 1: We're not going to teach you math in five minutes.

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00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:37,240
Speaker 1: Nor is that our aim. Our motto is we teach

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00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 1: what should be taught, and it just isn't taught. There

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00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:45,560
Speaker 1: were now five hundred of these videos up. They're given

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00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:51,280
Speaker 1: by some of the finest minds around in Europe and

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00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:58,240
Speaker 1: the United States. Every background, every color, every religion, and

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00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 1: they change people. I'll give you one example. A girl

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Speaker 1: at Harvard wrote me a letter about a year and

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00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:08,880
Speaker 1: a half ago. I don't see much of my mail.

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00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 1: Thank god I saw this one. She said, your book

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00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 1: and prayer you. My book is still the best hope

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00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:20,160
Speaker 1: about America and American leftism. And she said I went

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00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:26,120
Speaker 1: from a liberal to conservative. And I got in touch

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00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:30,160
Speaker 1: with her, and she was then a sophomore at Harvard.

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Speaker 1: She turned out to be a brilliant, wonderful young woman.

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00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:38,080
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm starting a podcast with her. I've never

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Speaker 1: done any broadcast with a partner. Starting a podcast with her.

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Speaker 1: Julie Hartman. She just wrote a piece for The Wall

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Speaker 1: Street Journal about how her fellow students at Harvard her sheep.

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Speaker 1: And that's pretty gutsy for a kid at school to say,

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00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:59,040
Speaker 1: but they are sheep. Where sheep are teaching kids to

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00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:03,960
Speaker 1: be sheep. This is what we saw. So we're having

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00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:07,000
Speaker 1: a huge effect. I went to Romania and Hungary a

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00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:11,359
Speaker 1: lecture over a thousand young people, all because they watch

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00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:15,520
Speaker 1: Pragri You videos. You want your kid to know, and

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00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:22,400
Speaker 1: in sophisticated, entertaining five minutes, what non leftists think about

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00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 1: any subject, pragor You provides it amazing. Well, I want

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Speaker 1: to thank you for joining me, and we're going to

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00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:32,360
Speaker 1: both have a link to buy your new book, The

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00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:35,840
Speaker 1: Rational Passover Haggadah, and we're gonna have a link to

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00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:39,520
Speaker 1: pragri University so that everybody who listens can sample for

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00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:43,680
Speaker 1: themselves this extraordinary work that you've been involved in. Dennis,

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00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 1: I thank you for just a remarkable conversation. Well, I

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00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:50,760
Speaker 1: gotta tell you I do a lot of these. Nobody

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00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 1: surpasses you. It is a total joy for me. Really,

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00:34:56,040 --> 00:34:58,759
Speaker 1: it's a total joy. I would love to do it again. Well,

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00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:00,719
Speaker 1: we'll try to find a time and we'll do it again.

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Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Be well, Thank you to my

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00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:10,879
Speaker 1: guest Dennis Prager. You can get a link to buy

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00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 1: The Rational Passover Haggadah on our showpage at Newtsworld dot com,

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00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:18,160
Speaker 1: and you can also find a link to Prager University.

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Speaker 1: Newtsworld is produced by Gingwige three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our

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00:35:22,719 --> 00:35:27,360
Speaker 1: executive producer is Garnsey Sloan, our producer is Rebecca Howell,

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00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:31,319
Speaker 1: and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the

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00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:35,680
Speaker 1: show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the

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00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:39,239
Speaker 1: team at Gingwich three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld,

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00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:42,399
Speaker 1: I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate

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00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 1: us with five stars and give us a review so

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00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:49,200
Speaker 1: others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners

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00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:52,840
Speaker 1: of Newtsworld can sign up for my three free weekly

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00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:57,799
Speaker 1: columns at Gingwish three sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm

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00:35:57,880 --> 00:35:59,959
Speaker 1: newt Gingrich. This is newts World