Timeless Wisdom: Why Pray?

On Today's Show: In this episode of Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager, Dennis explores the importance of prayer in Judaism. He delves into the four types of prayer, highlighting the problematic nature of petitionary prayer, where individuals pray for specific outcomes. Dennis emphasizes that Jewish prayer is meant to affect the person making the prayer, not God. He discusses the significance of praise, affirming the Jewish purpose, and gratitude, which he believes is the single greatest part of Jewish prayer. Dennis also touches on the concept of Yom Kippur and the importance of living a life that prepares one for the "bitterness of the decree."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Here thousands of
hours of Dennis's lectures courses in classic radio programs. Had
to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles. Go to Dennisprager dot com.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Thank you for coming. I must tell you I was
stunned to see all the cars in Los Angeles. If
it goes under seventy, they cancel the lecture. To see
this number of people show up on a miserable day
is shows that, if nothing else, you build part of

(01:00):
your souls in the east.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
But I really was, I was quite taken.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
I thought it would be basically the Rabbi, candor officers.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
And I this morning.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
So I am very delighted to see all of you,
and do wish you wish about you alone? Just one,
by the way, I must tell you what doctor a
goal that that was a very interesting introduction. To keep
me awake through an introduction to me is an achievement
having heard a few, and I appreciated that you took
the time to do that.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
One slight amendment.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
I tried to make the case last night for more
than the ten commandments. Just want to just want to
I want to be relieved to know that that got through,
or I would go back to Los Angeles a little
disconcerted that only ten that I had left that impression.
By the way, I am curious talking about that. How

(01:57):
many of you, And you have no reason to fid me,
but I am curious. How many of you who were
here last night did in fact not turn on your.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Radio in the car when you went home? Wow? Did
you see that? That is question of those of you
who did in fact.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Raise your hand, which is the great majority, how many
did find it a different experience as a result, about
half of you, So for half it was not. It
didn't mean anything either way. All right, keep trying.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
It, I do. I mean, give it, give it a couple.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Of weeks, three four weeks, and see c indeed, but
I do appreciate the fact that you gave it a try.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
That's all I can ask. Now.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
What's interesting? Once again, Rabbi Maler asked me to work hard,
give a speech I never gave in my life, which
in Jewish life that is now reaching a point of
greater difficulty. I have exhausted quite a number of topics,
or at least exhausted as a poor word. They're never exhaustible,
but I have certainly devoted a lot of thinking to them,
or a lot of speaking. Why pray. It's ironic that

(03:12):
I should be giving it now. I actually should have
given it before you prayed, now that I think about it,
But hopefully the words will last till the next time
you pray.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
I want to say one other word about this.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Rabbi Mahler has asked me to speak on my weakest
area in Jewish life.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
However, However, there is a however here.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
I have found in my life either this was God's
will and I mean that very sincerely, or just the
way fate would have it.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
My lack of instinctive religiosity.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Is a major reason that I have been able to
be as persuasive as I am to the very very
many Jews and non Jews for that matter, but in
a different way, with who are also very skeptical and
not inherently religious. See if faith and prayer, religiosity spirituality

(04:16):
came to me easily came to me naturally, I don't
think I would be a particularly good lecturer on it.
It's the very fact that I have had to struggle
every minute of the way in my own Judaism and
my own religiosity from my childhood to this moment. That

(04:36):
has made me capable of addressing the great number of
Jews who also struggle. See, if it came to me naturally,
then I wouldn't know what to say to you, folks.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Hey, I feel it, I believe it, and I wish
you did and have a great day, and nobody would
be nobody would be affected.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
So that's why, ironically, the fact that prayer is so
difficult for me, it's good that I'm speaking on it
because while it does, I also deeply believe in its importance.
So it's an important preamble to my thoughts on why pray?
Now I'm answering this question primarily as a Jew. This

(05:19):
is not a generic why prayer, even though this would
be of relevance in many of the areas to non
Jews as well, but I am specifically. This is a
very specifically Jewish response. As usual, every talk I have
given in my life is numbered. One of the nice

(05:39):
things about that is is at the end I can
summarize it for you, and if you fall asleep during
one of the points, you know you only miss that point.
So there are many advantages in talking in a numbered fashion.
So I begin by offering the well not begin it is,

(05:59):
I list for you four types of prayer, and in
that way you will appreciate what I believe the importance
of prayer is. Before I do, I have to say
the one overriding philosophical view I have of prayer, overwhelmingly,

(06:22):
the purpose of Jewish prayer is to affect you, not God.
The moment you realize that you are open to taking
it much more seriously if you are a skeptic, which
is what most Jews are, I cannot over emphasize this point.

(06:42):
The purpose of Jewish prayer is to affect the person
making the prayer, not so much God. When you realize that,
as I said, all of a sudden, hey, that makes sense.
I do have to affect me. When do I get
a chance to affect my soul? I affect my body,

(07:03):
when I work out, when I eat. When do I
affect my soul? If you think of prayer as how
to affect your soul, your inner jewishness, your inner religiosity,
and your spirit, makes a great.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
Deal more.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
The reason that many, and I would say most Jews
have very serious problems with prayer is because when they
think of the word pray, it is virtually synonymous with request.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
And I will show.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
You how that plays almost no role at all in
Jewish prayer, almost none at all. It's remarkable the proof
that it to pray in Judaism is to affect you
and non God is the verb the Hebrew word to pray,

(07:55):
and if you know any other language, Latin language is Slavic, Semitic.
Virtually every language has this type of verb, except unfortunately English.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
It's called a reflexive verb.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
If you know Spanish or you know French, you know that.
For example, when you say I wash my hands, literally
you say I wash myself the hands. The word in
frenchis si lave to wash oneself. If there's any verb
you would never expect to be reflexive, in other words,

(08:30):
coming back upon the doer, like I washed myself, it
would be to pray. After all, the most obvious assumption
is you pray outwardly, You pray towards something, you pray
to God. In Judaism, le hit palel is the word

(08:52):
to pray, and it is a reflexive verb, meaning you
are doing something to yourself. You are pallawing to yourself.
What does palal mean? To examine or to judge? Do
you know what the Hebrew word to pray literally means

(09:14):
to judge or to examine oneself? Nothing whatsoever to do
with prayer, as it is commonly understood when we use
the English term, which we have taken from Christianity, English
being a Christian language more or less, which is not
in any way a pejorative.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
It's just a fact. But if you'd say it in Hebrew,
let's go meet palel and knew Hebrew? Truly? Well you go, Oh,
let's go examine ourselves.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
What a difference. It's almost unconnected to what you normally
assume prayer is. Okay, that's the first and most important point. Now,
the four types of prayer, the first and rarest in
Judaism is the one that you are most you most

(10:09):
associate with prayer.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
It's petitionary prayer. Oh, please God do the following from
heal my my mother who was ill, to heal me
who was ill, to have our team win an important game.
It would run that gamut.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
Okay, This, in Judaism and in pure logic, is a
very very morally problematic form of prayer and will. I
will give you an example. In fact, I gave it
on the radio during the fires recently in Los Angeles.

(10:51):
You're driving down the block of your where your home
is located, and you see on your side a house
is on fire. You instinctively mumble, oh God, let it
not be my house. You have just prayed that at
your neighbor's house be on fire. There is no other

(11:15):
possible way to interpret that prayer. Oh God, let it
not be my house me since there is a house
on fire, Oh God, let it be the smiths, may
their house burn down? Amen, that is what you are saying.
This is a very serious problem. Petitionary prayer. I'll give
you another one. Your daughter's getting married at an outdoor wedding,

(11:37):
and you pray to God that had not rain. But
what if the city needs rain? What if the farmer
needs rain? What if they're having a special rain festival.
Who's gods supposed to listen to the farmer or you? Now,
let's go to the even more obvious one, or more
if you will difficult one. Oh God, please heal my mother.

(12:00):
But your mother is sharing a room with another woman.
Equally virtuous is your mother. But she has no children,
Should God pray your Should God heal your mother before
the woman who has no children and therefore nobody to
pray for her her husband died or she was never married.

(12:21):
Very problematic. Petitionary prayer is very problematic. I have always
felt that it's problematic in another way. Judaism, in fact,
legislates you may not pray for what's already done. For example,
your wife is pregnant. You're pregnant, and you may not pray,

(12:42):
Oh let it be we really want a girl, we
really want a boy. Can't It's already been decided by
Jewish law. You can't even make that prayer. It's called superstition.
It's which craft almost because it's already been done.

Speaker 3 (12:59):
God isn't going to change nature.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
It's already been decided at the moment of conception. So
the whole notion of oh God, please do the following
for this individual is a problematic notion.

Speaker 3 (13:16):
Either it's already been done, in which case God can't
or will refuses to do anything, or you have the
problem why this person.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
I'm not saying you shouldn't make such prayers. I think
the one on the house is very problematic. I'm not saying, though,
that you should not pray for your mother or your
child God forbid being sick.

Speaker 3 (13:35):
No, not at all.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
I merely want you to understand the very serious problem
with it, which is part of the reason why Judaism
almost doesn't have it. It's not in here, It's not
in the Reform, conservative or Orthodox prayer book of the
Jewish people.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
Isn't that remarkable?

Speaker 2 (13:52):
We have no oh, please heal so and so. Yes,
we have a mischabek. It is a later rabbinic addition
because the Jews couldn't handle it. The absence of a
petitionary prayer for a sick individual was too painful for Jews,
and so it was added to the service. It is
not part of the classic Jewish prayer book. Isn't that incredible?

(14:18):
Something that has become so much? Oh, if you're sick,
please come forward. I have come forward. I am not
opposed to it, And the reason I am not opposed
to it I will mention a little later. But you
must understand how logically, morally and Jewishly it's problematic to
pray for individual things. Please give, Please give.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
What I would pray for I and do is the
strength to deal with what life or God has dealt me.
And the wisdom with which to deal that, I think
is a is more coherent.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
Oh, God, give us the strength to deal with whatever
it is that life gives to me. That is to
me a very powerful and virtuous, singular petitionary prayer. God
is not, in Judaism, a celestial butler. And that is
what God is. If you primarily see prayer as petition,

(15:22):
it is God virtually as Santa Claus, this is what
I want, Please deliver it. And by the way, it
is never too soon to stop believing in that God.
If you believe in that God, there's a very good
chance you will end up an atheist because one day

(15:44):
you're going to make that prayer God's not going to
deliver and you'll say, you see, there is no God.
I know someone very well for whom this happened his
whole life. He was convinced that God was giving him
all sorts of wonderful things. And then a dearly, dearly
beloved relative of his dide and he told me, I

(16:06):
have never talked to God since God is irrelevant to me.
And of course, as I've told him, and I am
very close to this person. I said, listen, the God
you believed in, you should be an atheist about. I
don't believe in the God you believed in before either
Your God was a waiter. The God I believe in

(16:28):
is not that God. Now we go to the second
part of petitionary prayer, which is much more acceptable jewishly
communal petitionary prayer. We do ask God for things in
this book, but it is always always in the plural.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
We ask God.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
We call God rofei colail a mo Israel.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
God is the healer of the sick of his people Israel.
We pray to God to heal all the sick.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
That makes sense, for the for the woman next to
my mother who has no kid and no husband. To
make the prayer, we are also praying God is the
healer of all the sick. That makes a great more sense.
We want all the fires on the block extinguished. Oh God,

(17:26):
may no fire do damage. Now. I know that it
is natural to wish your fire the fire not be
your home. I know it is natural to pray for
your own relative, and I have no problem with the second.
I have a problem with the first for the obvious reasons.
But Jewishly it is the communal idea that is the
petitionary one, Oh we bless you, who are the healer

(17:50):
of all the sick of Israel. So therefore number one,
this is not a big part of Jewish prayer. Petitionary
one final word about God and helping the individual.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
The more you see.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
God as the God who helps out those in trouble,
the more you are likely to be, as I said,
an atheist. And I use Auschwitz as the best example
when people say God died in Auschwitz or I can't
believe in God after the Holocaust. And I have a

(18:30):
whole talk on this and many articles on it. So
I don't want to belabor the point right now it
would take too much time.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
But very briefly, what they're.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Saying is the God who saves people who are in
terrible straits.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
I no longer believe in, my friends.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
I have to say that, as painful as it is,
that is not the God of Judaism, as I understand it.
But you might say, what are you talking about. Didn't
God save the Jews from Egypt? And when I speak
on this at length, I point out, yes, God saved

(19:07):
the Jewish people from Pharaoh, but God did not save
all individual Jews from Pharaoh. How many Jewish boys were
thrown into the Nile and drowned. How many Jews were
beaten to death by Egyptians.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
Slave masters, We don't know, but in its own way,
it was a mini Holocaust. God does save the Jewish people.
I do believe that we're here in Pittsburgh four thousand years.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Later, we are still here. That's pretty remarkable. God does
save the Jewish people. I believe that as I am
standing by that Torah, that God saves the Jewish people.
There is no doubt in my mind. There will be
Jews as long as there is humanity. There will be

(19:56):
people dobvining on Neptune one day, I have no doubt
about it.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
Temple Emmanuel of Neptune. I don't think I'll live to
see it, but it will happen. It is the.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
Individual that can be hurt by the hater, and how
could it not be that way. I don't believe in
a god who will stop all rapes, who will stop
all murders, who will stop all muggings.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
How could that be?

Speaker 2 (20:29):
If I believed in such a God, I'd have to
be an atheist. I'd have no choice, or I would
have to do even something worse, that it is God's
will that people be raped and murdered, which I certainly
don't believe in. Judaism certainly doesn't believe. It is not
God's will that the six million or tortured and burned.

(20:51):
It is against God's will. But God allows you to
violate his will. God allows you to hurt people. You
don't like that fact. I don't like it either, but
intellectually not emotionally, Thank God. That's the way the world works.
Would you prefer that God stop you every time you
want to hurt somebody? And where do you draw the
line at six million? No? But three million yes? Or

(21:14):
three million stop? But why is three million any less?
What about one? Why is one murder? O?

Speaker 3 (21:21):
Go? God exists if heel it's one person murdered, But
if he lets six million murdered, he doesn't exist. It
makes no sense for that one. What's the difference? That's
all we have? You and I. We are entire universes.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Whether we die with five million nine nine nine nine
others or alone, we still are are away gone extinguished.
So what where should God draw the line? How about
he should stop all murdered? What about rape. Should he
allow rapes?

Speaker 3 (21:54):
Or yes, allow date rape but not stranger rape, or
he should stop all date rape? Two?

Speaker 2 (22:00):
What about how about punches? Should he allow punches? Don't
you see how ludicrous it becomes? What evil would you
allow God to allow? And where would you stop him?
He made us, he told us what to do. We
violate it. We have screwed up. It's as simple as
an unappeal.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
Is that?

Speaker 2 (22:23):
So you'd say, what I pray in a foxhole? Yeah,
I pray in a foxhole. I'm human, but I'm not
in a foxhole now and I can think rationally, and
it's very difficult to believe this foxhole. Yes, that foxhole.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
No. Petitionary prayer is not my cup of tea.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
It's not Judaism's cup of tea, except communally, and even
then it is a very very small part of Jewish prayer.
What we said today, I would say ninety nine percent
of what we said today was not petitionary, even communally.
So that brings me therefore too. Numbers two, three, and
four of Jewish prayer, Number two, Part two of Jewish prayer,

(23:09):
which is more than petitionary and a big part, but
not the biggest alone is praise. We praise God. Oh
you are great, you are magnificent, you are the creator,
you do incredible things, etc.

Speaker 3 (23:25):
Etc. This bothers a lot of.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
Moderns, especially those with advanced degrees, because the thought of
praising something higher than themselves. After all that graduate work
is a very difficult emotional.

Speaker 3 (23:39):
Thing to do, and it is a very healthy thing to
do when done in proportion to assert daily weekly.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
I recognized there is something infinitely higher than me is
important for a lot of reasons. The most obvious is
you don't worship yourself. There is something higher than me.
That's a good reason to do it. But there's another
reason to do it. It gives you inner peace.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
The thought that there isn't something higher than me or
us humanity would scare the living daylights out of me.
We're the highest thing that we know of. Oh, my god,
that's terrible.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
It gives me peace to know there is a Boreolam
as a creator of the world. Ah shoo, there's some
order in this discord, as was read today by the Rabbi. Okay,
I feel better about that there is a source of
this universe.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
It isn't just coincidence.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yes, I want to praise that God doesn't need praise.
If you think for one second that the purpose of
praising God in prayer is to make God feel good,
your view of God is so primitive as to literally
be childish. Literally God can do you understand if you
think God feels good when you praise him? Do you

(25:10):
understand what you're engaging in your own hubris?

Speaker 3 (25:14):
All God feels really good because Schwartz said he's great?

Speaker 2 (25:21):
Isn't that ludicrous? God, the creator of the world, is
happy that Prager thinks well of him. Wow, what a
day Dennis Prager praised me today? Do you have to
understand it's absurd? God gets no, nothing, nothing out of
being praised by us.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
It's all for us. And that's what I kept saying
from the beginning. It's for us.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
I assert there is a creator, and it is magnificent
what you have done. I have problems with the discord.
But as was read today, if we had a sunrise
once a year, we'd be really dazzled by it. The
fact that it happens every day we yawn. The trick

(26:04):
is not to yawn.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
The trick is to be blown away every day. We
just said it again, it's a great. It's a great thing.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
He in the Hebrew ha'ma kadesh betuvo behol young tamid saboration.
God in his goodness, every day renews the acts of Genesis.

Speaker 3 (26:26):
I get the chills when I say it, isn't it staggering?
The first sentence of Genesis and the beginning. God created
the heavens and the earth. God did it this morning.
God's doing it now.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
A dear friend of mine, doctor David Weiss, very prominent
scientist in Israel, been honored by a Queen Elizabeth for
his work in immunology. He's head of immunology at Hadasa
Medical Center.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
He was a professor. He was the head of chemistry
at Berkeley's.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
He's a very very well regarded scientist and a deeply
religious Jew. And he asks one question when he speaks
about science, or one of the questions he asks is
a very powerful one.

Speaker 3 (27:05):
He said, you know, we all know that there is
movement in the universe. For example, we all know that
the protons and the electrons are going around the nucleus
of an atom, and that's the original energy of the world.
Why why do they keep moving? He said? Scientists just

(27:28):
say that's it. It's a law of nature that they
keep moving, he said. But that's not an answer.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
It's like it's a tautology. Why do they keep moving
because they keep moving? They keep moving because God keeps
moving them. That every day is a big bang, as
it were. To become aware of this and to reflect,
of course, you go, this is incredible, not all. You're terrific,

(27:56):
like you would say to a friend, you're terrific.

Speaker 3 (27:59):
I want to boost your ego. God has no ego,
but for the sake of our ego and our appreciation
of what there is in this world, we praise God.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
That's the whole and only reason number three, number three
part of prayer, and perhaps the greatest part. And I
have come to realize, if you take it seriously, the

(28:32):
most important for your happiness you hear me, Not your religiosity,
your happiness.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
You heard.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
I'm writing a book which I've been writing for too
many years now, titled Happiness is a Serious Problem. I
have worked very systematically on the question of happiness for years,
given actually many courses on it, believe it or not.
And more important, I'm actually a happy person. And I

(29:07):
discovered with all the hutzpah that this entails. I actually
discovered the secret to happiness. For this alone, you will
have been rewarded for trooping out in this weather.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
I am telling you I have found the secret to happiness.
If you have this, you will be happy. If you
don't have this, you cannot be happy. You cannot.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
And there was nothing else I would say about, not
even health. There are people with health that were not happy.
There are people who were unhealthy and yet who have
an essentially happy disposition.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
It's not health. I'll tell you what it is, gratitude.
If you are a grateful human being, you are definitionally
going to be a happy human being. If you are
not a grateful human being, it does not matter what
you have, it is not possible to be happy. Not possible.

(30:11):
The single greatest part of Jewish prayer is gratitude, and
if you take it serious, it will make you a
better and happier human being. Thank you for what you
have done. Thank you for this world, Thank you for

(30:33):
and you just fill it in, just constant hodu la
chem quito.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Thanks to God, because it's good. You are the one
who made this all. You have given all of this
to us. Thank you, baruch Attah. What is that it's
a thank you, it's not only a thank you.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
Barruth.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
The word for blessing in Hebrew comes from berek, which
is me, and it literally means.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
I bend my knee to you. You are bendable to.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
It's a combination of gratitude and awe when you make
a brusha.

Speaker 3 (31:14):
But it's half gratitude.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
I am grateful to you, you who have, and then
you fill in the rest of the braha. If you
can take the gratitude part of Jewish prayer seriously, you
will not only be a more serious Jew, you will
be a happier person. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

(31:41):
And number four, a major part of Jewish prayer is
to affirm the Jewish purpose. There is a purpose that
we're here. If Jews all knew this, there would be
no assimilation none. To my mind, it is not possible

(32:02):
to know and appreciate the purpose of Judaism and assimilate.
The problem is it's not taught. Judaism became for many
a folk way of life. The kids rejected it, just
as kids rejected old European customs of Italian or or
Polish parents. Judaism ceased being a mission and became a

(32:25):
folk way from Orthodox to non Orthodox, and that's the
primary reason so many Jews rejected it.

Speaker 3 (32:34):
Jews would not want to live.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
An East European way of life anymore non Jews would
when they came to America, or when Enlightenment came in Europe,
when Napoleon knocked down the ghettos. Jews have ceased to understand.
And this goes from Orthodox to reform to secular. Certainly

(32:56):
that we have a mission in this world. Think I
made it up. Let me read to you from the
prayer book just said right before I started speaking. This
is to be found in Reform, conservative and Orthodox prayer books.
May the time not be distant, Oh God, when your
name shall be worshiped in all the earth, when unbelief

(33:17):
shall disappear, and arabin no more. Fervently we pray that
the day may come when all shall turn to you
in love, when corruption and evil shall give way to
integrity and.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
Goodness, and so on and so forth, when.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
All who dwell on earth shall know that You alone
are God. Oh, May all created in your image become
one in spirit, ever united in your service. Then your
kingdom will be established on earth, and the word of
your prophet will be fulfilled. The Lord will reign forever

(33:52):
and ever. Pretty big deal. That's why we're on earth.
The only, only, only reason for Jews is this paragraph
to bring the world to the one God, so that
we can become one humanity, so that that we could

(34:13):
understand there is one moral law, not two. That's why
the Jews are existent. We are in the service of
this mission to bring the world to God, not to liberalism,
not to conservatism, not to feminism, not to socialism or
all the other isms that Jews invent and give.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Passion to God.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
From that will flow many of the ideals that Jews affirm. Now,
no problem with that, But the first and primary aim
of the Jewish people is to bring the world to
the one transcendent source of goodness, of good morals, of
good values.

Speaker 3 (34:56):
God.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
Much of our prayer book is about reminding you and.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
Me what we're here for.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
You forget at the office, you forget when you're raising
your kids. You forget on Tuesday afternoons. It's easy to
forget when you're overwhelmed with ear.

Speaker 3 (35:19):
Infections and not enough money to pay bills. So we
get together, or you do it on your own daily
or weekly and you reaffirm, Ah, that's why I'm a Jew.
I forgot.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
That's the greatest single purpose of Jewish prayer, of Jewish
self examination, to remind you what you're doing. We forget,
and even when we say it, we don't say it seriously.
How many read this paragraph and we're thinking about the

(35:58):
penguins or business or the person next to them, or.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
Just it happens. It happens to me too. It happens
to all of us. But if you actually did it,
if you could have the covenant, look at the words
you're saying. Wow, it's overwhelming. Oh, that's why we're here.
That's all of Russia Shana Young Kipper service. It's Russia

(36:25):
Shanam Kipper, much more even than the other services. Is
to remind you why we're here. The most repeated prayer,
one of the most is.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
Via Asu Kulama guddah hatla God, we pray to you
that all mankind will make one community to do your
will with a full heart. That's why we're here. Russia
Shan is not a Jewish holiday. Russia Shan is a
universal holiday. Pessa is a Jewish holiday. Russia Shana is

(36:56):
Hyom Harat olam Hiyom ya Amat. It is the birthday
of the world and the day where everyone, not just Jews,
begins to be judged.

Speaker 3 (37:09):
It is a totally universal holiday. The Jewish New Year
begins with Passover. The world's new year begins Russia Shanna.
Most Jews don't know this.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
It's called the Jewish New Year, but only because Jews
are celebrating it.

Speaker 3 (37:25):
But it is the world's new year. Though world is judged,
we believe.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
In a God who will judge everybody because everybody has
a conscience. It's our task to bring the world to
this one God. And so went better time to make
you aware of it than when you get together with
fellow Jews at a synagogue and assert this is why

(37:50):
we're here, When you realize that it's to praise something
higher that has made the world and unites it and
gives it meaning, that it is to affirm gratitude because
that's the only way we will be happy in a
difficult world, and that it is to restate what our
purpose is on this earth as Jews are.

Speaker 3 (38:12):
Doesn't it make it much more meaningful? Then? Oh, please
help Sally Berkowitz.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
When in your heart you know there's a good chance
Sally Berkowitz is going to die, and I hope there's
no Sally Berkowitz ill in this particular synagogue. When we
get together, we join with fellow Jews in a religiously
affirmative environment. My friends, even if you didn't pay much

(38:45):
attention to the dobvining on any given Shabbat, you leave
the synagogue different than had you stayed home alone. For years,
I went to synagogues that bored the living daylights out
of me.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
They drove me out of my mind. Frankly, I read.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
I had a Jewish book, and I would read in
the back row. But I never stopped going to synagogue
because the feeling that it induced was worth it. I
had gotten together with fellow Jews as an island in
a week of every other concern, to reaffirm that I'm
part of something larger than me, not just God, but

(39:27):
a Jewish community. You don't have to love everybody you
go to school with, and by no means, but it
is a major statement that I have joined with you
Friday night and or Shabbat morning, and I have sung
with you, and I have restated with you what we

(39:47):
are here for.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
And I have heard words of Torah with you. That
to me is what prayer is. And that's how I
worked it out for someone who instinctively does not wake
up in the morning and go, thou art great and
please heal my mother.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Thank you, Shabatchalla more than happy to take questions, comments,
and reef alternate speeches. Yes, please A dress myself to
the prayers of young Kipur and Russias Shanna when we
pray for another year of life.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
This is how I deal with it.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
First of all, I do believe God judges us that
after all you mention Yom Kipur. The other name for
Yom Kipur is Yomhadin, the day of judgment. The thought
that we are judged by God to whom we are
accountable for our behavior is terrific. I wish everybody felt
that that. Uh oh, I'm going to have to give

(40:48):
an accounting for the way I behave. That in and
of itself is magnificently important. It's again, how it affects you,
and I think that that's critical. Does God decide on
russiashana literally decide whether you will live or whether you
will die? Maybe I don't know. It's possible. I'm not

(41:11):
certain either way, but to the extent that one is
willing to grant that God has any connection to whether
we live or die, that would make sense. Now, of course,
the people who wrote this were The people who wrote

(41:40):
this were not stupid. They knew that no matter what,
even if you are the most righteous person in the world,
you're going to one year after Russia Shana, you will die.

Speaker 3 (41:50):
I mean, obviously, it's just gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Therefore, it depends on the amount of literalness you bring
to the issue. Let me give you an example of
something I am embarrassed to say I.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
Only learned this year at that synagogue.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
I learned it from my dear friend and teacher, Rabbi
Joseph Tulushkin, at whose service I was. He comes and
does a service in Los Angeles. So he came out
and he blamed and have killed me. You know, you know,
when you hear a great point, you go, why didn't
I think of that? That's when you know it's a
great point, and it's so obvious, and you missed it

(42:28):
for forty five years. There is a statement which we
say at the height of the Russia showing them kipper
service to shuvatila ut daka, mavirin atrozeira to Shuvah, repentance,
prayer and charity. They they avert you have in the English,

(42:53):
the evil decree.

Speaker 3 (42:56):
I could never believe this. It seemed like a bribe.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
All I see, I won't I won't die if I
give to daka and if I repent and do the
right things.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
But somebody's gonna die every year. It's not possible.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
And then he showed the Hebrew was incorrectly translated.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
It's not avert the evil decree. It's avert the bitterness
of the decree. Roa hagazeira, the evil of the decree, literally,
not the evil decree. Ah, that's very different.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
In other words, I can prepare myself for whatever decree
it is if I live.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
A certain way. And that's true. As my wife always
puts it, you die the way you have lived. And
there's because.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
She worked at she volunteered in a hospice for a
while and is speaking from some knowledge.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
There's a great deal of truth.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
You do prepare yourself if you have lived a certain way,
then you are able to handle the evil decree. If
God forbid God, I want to live not till one
hundred and sixty five, as you wished me last night, Rabbi,
I wish that I lived till see one hundred and
twentieth birthday of my son, who turned one today.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
So that would I mean.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
I don't want to live tw one hundred and sixty five,
but I appreciate the good words. One hundred and eleven
would be just about right now at any rate.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
If I were told that I were to die, we
all think about this. I would have immense pain, but
it would be ninety nine percent for my loved ones.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Because I feel very good about the forty five years
I lived. I feel they've been full, they've been blessed,
they've been rich. I'm sure many of you can say this,
but there are many who don't. And I think I
can meet my maker, I'm not totally certain. With pretty

(45:09):
clean hands, that's what happens. You can avert the bitterness
of the decree, whatever it decree is, by how you live.
It makes it all so much more real to me then,
And to bang my chest, to bang my heart over

(45:30):
speaking badly about others, over not honoring parents and teachers,
over having malicious tongue, that is important. And by the way,
you know all of them are in the plural. We
bang for all our fellow Jews. How you act in
Jewish life is my business. That's why I could have

(45:51):
the hoodspur to fly here and tell you last night,
I don't think you should turn the car radio on
when you go home. That's my Jewish duty that you
may not have known that. It's a total law. You
must reprove your fellow jew lovingly. You must be receptive
to their reproof. We're in it together. We're like a team.

(46:12):
If the first basement has a wrong move, the shortstop
has to tell them. It's no service to the team
if he doesn't tell the first basement. Listen, if you
just put your glove this way, you'll be able to
get those the short hops better that we are a team,
a tiny team in this world. I am stuck with
you and you are stuck with me. We don't have

(46:36):
to love each other with our you know, and the
sense oh, I love every Jew. Anybody who says that
drives me out of my mind. I love every Jew.
It's a it's not possible. B. It's not it's not
even desirable. There are obnoxious Jews. What am I supposed
to do with them? But I do have to take

(46:59):
you seriously as a fellow Jew and say, you know,
we're in it together, and let me tell you how
I think you might play first base.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
Better, and you have to do it to me. And
in that sense, that's why we bang in the plural.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Uh oh, we've all done this, then we all have
to pay the price and so on. So knowing all
of that, it is made im Kipper and Russia Shana
much more meaningful than just a literal This is it,
This is decided. But you could bribe God with enough saduka.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
It never sat well with me. Yes, okay, well we
can pray. Just joking, she asks.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
Why are we experiencing all this intermarriage and what can
we do about it? Very briefly, that too is a
topic unto itself. There's a very very good reason, or
I should say simple reason why there's so much intermarriage.
People marry people with whom they share everything or most everything.

Speaker 3 (48:07):
It's as simple as that.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
Very few American Jews marry Mayans because they don't share
that much. American Jews marry American non Jews with whom
they share everything, and specifically, most American Jews are non

(48:31):
religious and their convictions are liberal. So you have liberal
non religious Jew marrying liberal, non religious non Jew. They
have everything in common that when when you when I

(48:52):
think of intermarriage, I think of people who are different
marrying Jews and non Jews like I just described.

Speaker 3 (48:59):
Are no are no different. There's no reason they shouldn't marry.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Ideologically, the only real intermarriage and Jewish life would in
most cases would be if your son or daughter married
a Republican.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
That would be an honest to goodness intermarriage.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
Most Jews are ideologically liberal, ethnically Jewish, not ideologically Jewish.
If Judaism is the source of your values, the odds
are you will want to marry someone for whom Judaism
is the.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
Source of his or her values. Is their passion, is
their commitment. If you knew the Jewish mission in the
world and believed in it, you'd want to marry somebody
who shared that mission, a converter, a born Jew. But
if you have no Jewish mission, have no Jewish ideological distinctiveness,

(49:55):
why on God's earth should you not marry a non
Jews identical to you? It is no different.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
We raise our kids, just like the kids were raised
next door who don't have a Jewish surname. If your
kid has Shabbak and your kid has Judaism, and your
kid has a Jewish mission, and your kid does the Alenu,
and your kid understands this, your kid will want to

(50:25):
marry someone with whom it's shared. We marry people to
share our deepest things in life. If the deepest thing
in your life is social justice liberalism, you'll marry a
liberal social justice person. It's racist to tell most of
our kids not to marry non Jews because the only
difference between them and a non Jew is racial, not ideological.

(50:50):
Does I answer your question? Yes, good question, Your rabbi
chef Rabbis ask good questions. If prayer is so wonderful,
what I sit in back a shoe reading a book
most of my life? And why would I like to

(51:10):
see all the restructuring? Because you can have too much
of a good thing to put it in the most
positive light. I was raised and even though not Orthodox,
I went to Orthodox synagogues till a few years ago, and.

Speaker 3 (51:35):
I made it.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
I made a mistake for me, Certainly, it's not a
mistake for other Jews. I fully appreciate the beauty of it.
For many Jews, the uh, the amount of dobvining in
the traditional service is to my mind, simply too much.

Speaker 3 (51:53):
You either have you either have to read.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
It as if you were in an Evelyn Wood reading
dynamics course. In fact, I have often said evelyn Wood
must have grown up in an Orthodox synagogue.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
The the the the speed with which the sitter is
gone through on Shabbat is uh makes makes reference to
the to the words extremely difficult, if not impossible. And
this massive amount of words just didn't have an effect

(52:30):
on me. It does on others, and I appreciate that,
but for me and most Jews, clearly it does not
have that effect. That was my problem. I want it shortened.
The ability to appreciate and ruminate over the words becomes
more real to me. Secondly, I personally very much believe

(52:53):
that God gave us music, that music is one of
the great gifts of God. For me, again, these things
are very personal. For some people, music is not that powerful,
but for many people it is. In Jewish life all
powerful music by and large.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
I should say not in Jewish life.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
For Jews, all powerful music is not Jewish to get
really to get my passion stirred musically, I go to
Handel's Messiah and it's a Christian oratorio. Now, obviously I
don't believe the words, or i'd be Christian, but I cry,

(53:38):
I get excited. Do I get excited in regular shools?
By and large, I don't. I want to sing, or
at least I want to be moved by powerful music
and instruments, which are not allowed in Orthodoxy. Though ironically,
as I tell my Orthodox friends, God himself asked that

(53:59):
we use musical instruments in the temple. So we have
a double burden here, which has always struck me as odd.
The temple is destroyed, so we have to not only
pay the price of no temple, but pay the price
of no instruments which the temple used in order to
make us love to pray. To me, it is the

(54:21):
quintessence of illogic Nvuha Netsar destroys my sm temple, so
I can't use music two thousand, three thousand years later.

Speaker 3 (54:35):
That's one of the reasons I'm not Orthodox.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
It's that idea does not make sense to me. Something
that doesn't make sense to me I cannot accept unless
it's divine. I'm prepared to accept divine irrationality because I'm
not God. I'm not prepared to accept human irrationality. So
I don't keep you on to shaming.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
Now.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
I therefore now in a service with music and study
and song. It's the first time in my life I
look forward to every Shabbat morning. I would much rather
go to synagogue where I'm going now than sleep, and

(55:19):
God knows I need the sleep, and I would love
to be able to sleep in on Saturday morning. But
the thought that I missed this, it's almost like if
you had season tickets to a sport and you missed
a great game, you'd be disgusted. I'd be disgusted to
miss it. So what I fantasized jewishly actually materialized in

(55:44):
a certain service that I attend, and I know therefore
that it's real and possible. And by the way, it's
not unique.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
When I went to my friend Rabbi Joseph Tulushkin service
at a synagogue in Los Angeles for Russia shunning Young
Kipper the same I was equally touched. Then the music
was a major, major part of it.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
So I have no problem at all with prayer I
have a problem with the traditional way of doing it.

Speaker 3 (56:16):
By the way, the Sefara Dim do it differently. They
actually do read every word in the citter out loud,
they don't run through it like the Ashkenazi Orthodox. But
I find that as boring to sit and say every
single word of a large service. Does that answer you totally?

Speaker 2 (56:37):
I need to know, because if not, you know, come
back to mess and how by taking from the traditional
prayer book but not everything, and by combining it frequently

(56:58):
with music, it does it for me, and different synagogues
will have to experiment. But the lack of experimentation in
this regard and is rather amazing to me. I understand
why the Orthodox don't experiment, and I fully respect that,
but I don't understand why the Conservative and reform are

(57:20):
so often addicted to ways that haven't worked. They look
at that, they look around, and in particular, I think
in many Conservative synagogues where the canter has gone to
cantorial school and has learned many cantorial melodies, there is
no congregational participation and he is basically a soloist for

(57:45):
on display that no longer works. When Jews could not
in Eastern Europe, afford opera tickets. It was the one
place they could hear a great voice. That is not
the case any longer. And the proof is that, by
and large Mite, this is purely an impressionistic reaction. I

(58:08):
think conservative are appealing the least between reform and orthodox
to a younger generation that is purely impressionistic and may
have no demographic basis.

Speaker 3 (58:19):
But in terms of weekly attendants, I have frequently found that, you.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
Know, I wrote an article in the second issue of
the journal that I write, I've now written thirty five issues.
This is a long time ago, and that the article
was titled when Rabbis and canters become doctors and artists.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
You know the old saw. It certainly wasn't mine.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
When when rabbis became doctors the Jews got sick, which,
by the way I subscribed to, I essentially subscribed to
that Judaism is not a subject to be studied. It
is a way of life to be lived. PhDs study things,
Rabbis teach things. There's a very big difference. Rabbis are

(59:04):
to inspire. The same thing happened though with canters they
became artists. It became a cantorial art. Now there is
an art, there's no question. But it was supposed to.

Speaker 3 (59:18):
Be art in the service of inspiration and not art
for art's sake. Do you know after the article was.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
Written, I got a letter I published in my journal
from the head of the Reform Cantorial School at the time,
and he said, and it's almost verbatim, whoever said the
purpose of a cantor was to inspire?

Speaker 3 (59:46):
I didn't even react to the letter that it's so
self indicting from my perspective, whoever said the purpose of
a cantor was to inspire? Everybody says it except the
cantorial school. That's the answer to that empty synagogue say it.
That's who says it. So that's that's it could work.

(01:00:10):
It's a great book, it's great stuff. Thanks.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Yes, how did drig your hand up? I totally agree
with you. Just heard one critical word that I said.
My indictment was primarily of conservative So that's why I
totally agree with what you said back there.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
Oh, I'm sorry, Rabbi. We introduce the services of feeling
class to uh can we discussed in the firstship hot
services that we have as FIRS all the problems and
problem out of you mentions doing that you raise this morning,
uh ass evolve as now monthly service. Uh These nons
mystical impmentations in the UNBO general they're want and Bible

(01:00:53):
and the junior services and them we deal uh in
discussion with issues of feeling.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
From the Jewish perspective, you find that people who participate
are praying for people who have asked that we pray
or pray for loved ones who are in selfdale and
often healthcare professionals as well, the.

Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
Craive that they have the ability to serve their patients. Well,
you wig of what you said before that healing, what
are your reactionists? From what I sense to the Jewish
belief day and God to the mission that position ever
careres the specifically we're healing on individual basis can be

(01:01:36):
offered in the midst of the right. As I said,
and I hope I made it clear, I myself say
them I do I come. We are all.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
In some ways not totally integrated beings. I have Dennis
the Jew, I have Dennis the rationalist. I have Dennis
the moralist, Dennis the animal. Then you name it as
you do, as you do and so on. Dennis the
rationalist has a problem with please heal so and so

(01:02:14):
for the reasons.

Speaker 3 (01:02:15):
I mentioned, Dennis the Jew can offer it and do.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
I might add, though, that there was a secondary or
if not even primary, alternate purpose to doing that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
When you come up here, if you have it that way,
I don't know and say and Sonia Silberman and it's
got ben Ahern. It is an When.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
I have done that for a particular relative I'm thinking of,
it meant a lot to me that her name was
announced to the community as in need of their amain. Okay,
more than there's a better chance now that God's going
to send a drug. That's how I thought. But that

(01:03:08):
in itself is empowering. There are people behind me. When
my Christian friends tell me they have prayed for me,
I have been touched. And it's not even my religion.
So certainly if my own community says, oh, Dennis is
such and such as sick, we all.

Speaker 3 (01:03:28):
Say, I mean to her recuperation. That's a very powerful thing.
That's why I'm for it, sure, just that I don't
want Jews to depend on it, because it's an invitation
to angst and ultimately atheism. That's why that's why I
spoke against.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
It so strongly, to the extent that I did. Okay,
but surely it must be done. There's another reason, and
I meant to say this in my talk. If God
is my friend, my father, my heavenly father, how could
I not share with him what I want? Not in
the sense of petition, but in the sense of I'm

(01:04:09):
telling him. Don't you don't tell your friend you know,
you know, Jerry.

Speaker 3 (01:04:14):
I wish my I don't know my cousin were feeling better.
He's really sick.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
Don't you tell that to a dear friend. I'm not
going to tell it to God, God, the author of
all possible remedies. I'm not going to tell I wish
somebody were well.

Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
So that I'm glad you pushed me further in this
to make it clear, because there's such a fine line
between rejecting it and relying on it. I don't want
jeus to rely on it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
Okay, back there, Yes, okay, And if I didn't answer you,
please rise again and tell me how does having an
intermarriage affect one's Jewish identity?

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
I think that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Frankly, by and large, and there are always exceptions, at
somewhat putting the cart before the horse. Mostly one had
a fairly weak Jewish identity in order to intermarry. It's
not the intermarriage that causes a weakening of the Jewish identity,
but the Jewish idea identity was fairly weak, and therefore

(01:05:25):
the intermarriage was allowed. This is not an indictment. It
is merely a description people with a very strong Jewish identity.
I mean, just as if you have a very strong
passion for anything, if you have a strong passion for animals,
there's a good chance you will marry somebody who, at least,
if nothing else, is not oblivious to animal suffering. Okay,

(01:05:49):
the odds are if you care a great deal about
how animals are treated, you wouldn't marry a man who
loved bullfights. Okay, we do the things we most care about.
People don't only marry on love. Some do and find
that in the long run you need more than love,

(01:06:10):
not less than love, but more than love. And therefore
I don't know what effect it has on the identity.

Speaker 3 (01:06:19):
It can't be a strengthening one. Usually. Having said that,
it doesn't mean it's ever too late.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
In fact, one of the most common problems I have
I hear when I go around around North America lecturing
and already have twice here, one a husband and one
a wife.

Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
And it is it is. I hear it everywhere I go.
And this is with two.

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
Jews married, not a Jew in a non Jew, that
one in adulthood became seriously Jewish and the other one
did not move in that direction. It is one of
the most sad problems said, because it's not the one
who didn't move fault. When a spouse changes, the non

(01:07:07):
changing spouse has a right to say, wait a minute,
this is not what I married.

Speaker 3 (01:07:12):
I fully understand that. My heart goes out to both
of them.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
To the Jew who is becoming more seriously Jewish, my
heart goes out because I want you to be more
seriously Jewish. Thought of a secular life frightens me. It's
so boring at its inner core, it is empty. On
the other hand, I feel terrible for the other spouse, who,

(01:07:36):
through no fault of his or her own, has a
new person that they're married to. That is why ideally
one has grown up Jewishly before marrying.

Speaker 3 (01:07:52):
That's the ideal.

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
Well, we don't live in an ideal world, and I
fully acknowledge that. But if you can somehow know where
you are or where you're moving before, or at least
defer marriage till you have made peace with that evolution.
But even then it's no guarantee because people still will
evolve later. I don't know if that fully answers you,
but it's the identity needs to precede the marriage.

Speaker 3 (01:08:16):
That's the ideal child of an intermarriage. Okay, if there
is a I'm sorry, I was the last line. Well.

Speaker 2 (01:08:32):
By reform Judaism, a child of any Jewish parent, male
or female is considered Jewish.

Speaker 3 (01:08:38):
According to a.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
Conservative and Orthodox it's the child of a Jewish mother only.
But in real life, the question is what does the
child think of himself? Not what does Jewish law think
of them? Because if you don't care, who cares what
Jewish law thinks of you? If you don't care about Judaism,

(01:09:02):
So the ultimate question in life is what do you
think you are? Not what is the what does Jewish
law think you are? And that depends on the Jewish parent.
It also depends on the non Jewish parent being open. However, statistically,
I am told that the great majority of children of
intermarriage do not opt for a Jewish identity, and it

(01:09:24):
is not surprising that they wouldn't who who in the
world opts to be a minority in Israel, they would
opt to be Jewish because Israel.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
In Israel, the Jews.

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
Are a majority, so all intermarried couples should make aliyah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
Yes, do you think that the help to the general
problem of the feeling for the evil?

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
Does prayer help you deal with the general problem, deal
pragmatically with the with the problem of evil.

Speaker 3 (01:10:01):
I think it does for many people. I'll tell you
how I deal with it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
It's not so much through prayer as it is through
a knowledge that there is a God, that God doesn't
want the evil to behave the way they do, that
they will ultimately pay for what have done. I believe
deeply in an after life, or I would probably go mad.
I think the more aware you are of cruelty in

(01:10:29):
this world, the more your sanity depends on some ultimate justice.
At least that's how I feel, because I am deeply
conscious of the horrors that people inflict on others. That's
what keeps me sane, rather than prayer in and of itself.
But my weekly attendance at a synagogue is an island.

Speaker 3 (01:10:52):
Of peace in a turbulent world. It is my own profession.
Everyone has his or her own challenges.

Speaker 2 (01:11:03):
I cannot do what a lot of people I know do,
and that is tune out from you know, Bosnian rapes,
Somalian starvation, homeless diseases, fires, tornadoes. I not only have
to know about them, I have to immerse myself in
them and then talk about them three hours a day.

(01:11:27):
So the Shabbat to me, you know, I'm working very
hard this Shabbat, and yet in some ways it is effortless,
beyond effortless. It's rejuvenating to be with fellow Jews. Talking
tore is my favorite thing in the world. It's just
an absolute delight. My wife is amazed at my stamina.

(01:11:49):
I mean, I flew yesterday after five hours of sleep
NonStop across the country, got dressed, came here, spoke last night.
I'm on LA time right now. So my day started
this morning at six o'clock LA time talking Judaism. Got
another talk tonight, good, another one tomorrow morning Tomorrow night.

Speaker 3 (01:12:09):
In Virginia. Fly three o'clock in the morning LA Time
on Monday and do my show in the afternoon and
then in the evening teach Genesis I have a busy man,
do you know, I I it doesn't eat me up
because I love it. This to do a.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
Jewish weekend, which I do, thank God, frequently, and by
the way, in almost every instance, bring my family or
at least one member of the family. And the only
reason my wife. She was scheduled to be with me today.
But it's Aaron's first birthday, and I wouldn't have missed that.
But this was scheduled before we even knew they would

(01:12:51):
be an Aaron. So it's quite all right, and I'm
very happy to be here anyway. I don't think he
knows that it's his first birthday. I like all Jewish parents.
He's brilliant, but not that brilliant, thank God, I might add.

Speaker 3 (01:13:10):
But this is powerful stuff. This is sanity inducing stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:13:17):
Get together and sing, you know, at the place I
go in La we goes like this. We have an
hour of service from ten to eleven. Rabbi leads a
tora discussion from eleven to twelve, and then from twelve
to two. People all bring dairy pot luck food and
we sit and we sing for two hours. I can't

(01:13:42):
I can't believe how much I enjoy it. I mean,
it is an island. It is just an island, And
I commend the idea to you. It's so it's not
the prayer itself as it is this Jewish whole, whole.

Speaker 3 (01:13:59):
Thing that does it for me anybody else. Yes, sir,
it seems to me that the four points that you
mean about types of prayer uni primarily those types that
actual understanding of what one was doing. Yes, the rest. Uh,

(01:14:21):
The more the aspect that I come across in many
books about the Jewish prayer, that it has more the
almost mantra like power of the U language. Yeah, what's
It's a very good point.

Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
And for the second time I ever give this talk,
I will have to incorporate that.

Speaker 3 (01:14:42):
It'll probably be when you invite me back.

Speaker 2 (01:14:44):
It's the only rabbi in America who's asked me to
speak on this, then I salute him.

Speaker 3 (01:14:49):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:14:50):
Yes, there is a monstra like power. Harold Kushner has
made that point. I don't know Aramaic, certainly not well.
I mean I I know a little cause of the gamura,
cause of the talmut, but the cottish, the the prayer
we say in commemorating the death of someone is an
Aramaic ninety nine percent of Jews saying it don't know

(01:15:11):
what they're saying, but it has an an unbelievable power
godal Goddah shemeh Rabba.

Speaker 3 (01:15:19):
Just as I intelle it now right, if we were
to say it in English, magnify and sanctify, be the
great name, it would not have one tenth of.

Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
Power, even though you don't know the original. You're right,
there is an element of that. And the Orthodox would
argue that not dwelling on every word is okay because
there is perhaps this greater montral like power.

Speaker 3 (01:15:43):
And I respect that. Say, I am.

Speaker 2 (01:15:46):
Actually a living pluralist, a living and breathing Jewish pluralist.
I am not Orthodox, but there is no part of
me that thinks that they are invalid. I gave it
a forty year chance. That's a long time, that's all.

(01:16:09):
There are people who fall in love with it overnight. Fine,
not just fine, terrific. Is there anybody who rather have
a Jew secular than Orthodox?

Speaker 3 (01:16:19):
There may be, but I wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (01:16:22):
And I asked the Orthodox, would you rather have a
Jew secular than reform? And there were some who would
And it's crazy, just crazy. So I appreciate that that
could be powerful. I am too much in the brain.
I am a creature of Judaism and Western Greek rationality,

(01:16:44):
and so are the vast majority of my peers, which
is why they're.

Speaker 3 (01:16:47):
Not in shule.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
And to them I address these comments. I guess that's
the most honest way I could respond.

Speaker 1 (01:16:55):
This has been timeless wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit Dennisprager
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