The Charlie Kirk Show - The Rational Passover Haggadah with Dennis Prager
Aired: 2022-02-27
Duration: 37:23


=== Authenticity of the Hebrew Bible (15:12) ===

[00:00:00]  Hey everybody, today in the Charlie Kirk Show, a conversation with my friend Dennis Prager about his new book, The Rational Passover Haggadah.
[00:00:07]  How do you live a happy life?
[00:00:09]  How do you flourish when times are tough?
[00:00:12]  Dennis Prager goes over all of that and more.
[00:00:14]  Get involved with Turning PointUSA today at tpusa.com.
[00:00:17]  That's tpusa.com.
[00:00:19]  We are making hope happen.
[00:00:20]  We're educating your children and grandchildren every single day.
[00:00:22]  So go to tpusa.com.
[00:00:24]  That's tpusa.com, where we play offense with a sense of urgency to win the American Culture War, tpusa.com.
[00:00:31]  You can email me directly, freedom at charliekirk.com, and support our show at charliekirk.com/slash support.
[00:00:36]  Dennis Prager is here.
[00:00:37]  Buckle up.
[00:00:38]  Here we go.
[00:00:38]  Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
[00:00:40]  Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
[00:00:42]  I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
[00:00:46]  Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
[00:00:49]  I want to thank Charlie.
[00:00:50]  He's an incredible guy.
[00:00:51]  His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
[00:00:58]  Turning point USA.
[00:00:59]  We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
[00:01:08]  That's why we are here.
[00:01:11]  Hello, everybody.
[00:01:12]  Welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.
[00:01:14]  Super thrilled and honored to have with us today a mentor of mine and a teacher of mine, someone who I've listened to hundreds of hours of his content.
[00:01:23]  His fireside chats have literally changed my life.
[00:01:26]  And he's the author of an exciting new book, The Rational Passover Haggadah.
[00:01:31]  Did I say that right, Dennis?
[00:01:33]  Perfectly.
[00:01:35]  And I encourage everyone.
[00:01:37]  You're really coming along in your Judaica.
[00:01:40]  It's, I still got to get some of these other words right.
[00:01:43]  Trust me, it's it's it's tough.
[00:01:45]  But Dennis, I just want to say your rational Bible, Genesis in particular, it really is life-changing, truly.
[00:01:52]  It's meant to be.
[00:01:53]  Thank you.
[00:01:54]  Coming from you, that's a big deal.
[00:01:56]  But as I said, that's the reason I work so hard on this is to change lives.
[00:02:02]  This one is part of the series and not part of the series.
[00:02:07]  I've used the term the rational because I only use reason, but it's not about a biblical book.
[00:02:13]  It's about the Passover Seder, the most ancient ritual that is still practiced in the world.
[00:02:20]  We're talking about something that has taken place for over 3,000 years.
[00:02:26]  It's astonishing when you think about it.
[00:02:28]  The Passover Seder, recounting the Exodus from Egypt.
[00:02:33]  And this is the 2,000-year-old book that is used to this day.
[00:02:37]  And I explain it like I do Genesis and Exodus, and now later in the year, Deuteronomy.
[00:02:43]  And that's why it's for everybody like my Bible books.
[00:02:47]  It's for Jews, Christians, and everybody else.
[00:02:50]  And so too, the rational Passover Haggadah.
[00:02:53]  So I noticed this book, unlike the Rational Bible of Genesis, is similar to how the Torah is, goes from the right to left.
[00:03:01]  Is that correct?
[00:03:03]  Yeah, because this one has Hebrew, and my Bible commentary is all English.
[00:03:08]  And so if it's Hebrew, it has to go from right to left.
[00:03:11]  Excuse my ignorance on this.
[00:03:12]  Just, yeah, okay.
[00:03:13]  Yeah, right, exactly.
[00:03:15]  That's exactly right.
[00:03:16]  I mean, theoretically, this could have been a left-to-right book, but because it will be used by a lot of Jews, presumably, who are used to right to left when they do anything in Hebrew, I put it that way.
[00:03:27]  It could have been in either direction, but actually, I think people get a kick out of it because it's the first time they're ever turning pages from right to left.
[00:03:36]  Yeah, I was a little bit disoriented.
[00:03:38]  It's a little bit left to right.
[00:03:39]  I'm sorry, left to right.
[00:03:41]  As I was doing it.
[00:03:42]  So I'm a Christian, Dennis.
[00:03:45]  Why should Christians buy this book?
[00:03:48]  Why should we care about the rational case for a Passover Haggadah?
[00:03:52]  Well, it's not the case for.
[00:03:54]  It's a rational explanation of.
[00:03:57]  Like you.
[00:03:58]  You could answer it actually in some ways better than I, because you're a Christian and you've read my, my uh Torah commentaries.
[00:04:04]  Bible commentaries, uh, there are 4 000 reviews of my Rational Bible series uh on Amazon.
[00:04:12]  That's a lot for for a bible commentary.
[00:04:14]  The great majority are from Christians for whom my, my work has been actually uh, reinforcing of their faith, because I only use reason and i'm i'm not making a case for Judaism and i'm making a case for God.
[00:04:31]  I'm making a case for the Bible and i'm making a case here for the importance of the, of what is uh the, the seminal event of the exodus.
[00:04:42]  You know, Christianity rises and falls, if you will, but it's based upon the the, the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.
[00:04:50]  Judaism is is, is rooted in two events as well, the creation uh, and and the exodus, and that's repeated in in Jewish liturgy always those two events, it.
[00:05:02]  Without those two events, there's no, there's no Judaism, just as there's there's no Christianity without, without the crucifixion and resurrection.
[00:05:10]  But the the creation and the exodus, are seminal to Christians too.
[00:05:15]  So i'll give you an example of what I do.
[00:05:17]  I ask a question that any thinking person would ask and and would like an answer to, if God took the Jews out of Egypt, why didn't God take the Jews out of Europe?
[00:05:29]  So that's, that's an example of an issue I discuss.
[00:05:34]  That's not a Jewish question.
[00:05:36]  That that's the great question of.
[00:05:38]  Why does God allow suffering?
[00:05:40]  That's for everybody.
[00:05:42]  Everything in the book is for everybody.
[00:05:44]  You know I, you'll love this, Charlie.
[00:05:46]  Uh, so whenever i'm asked about this question, I I say it from when I was a kid in in Yeshiva Jewish religious school.
[00:05:56]  I remember thinking this, this can't be just for Jews.
[00:06:00]  And later I came up with this idea, uh, the notion that the Tora only speaks to Jews is as bizarre as Beethoven only speaks to Germans or Shakespeare only speaks to the English.
[00:06:15]  Either and I go further either it speaks to everyone or it doesn't speak to anyone.
[00:06:22]  That is my deepest belief about everything that I write that has to do with Hebrew scripture.
[00:06:28]  It's either universal in its import or it's insignificant completely.
[00:06:34]  And these questions you go a level deeper.
[00:06:37]  Not only did why did God not intervene in Europe, but why Egypt in particular?
[00:06:43]  It's just an interesting question to mull over it.
[00:06:46]  Why that incident and why that period of time?
[00:06:49]  And so entirely right, and so just the word haggadah is, is I, I?
[00:06:55]  I just want to make sure our listeners are sure uh, certain of this.
[00:06:58]  What does that mean exactly?
[00:07:00]  Is it?
[00:07:01]  It means literally, it's including modern Hebrew.
[00:07:05]  Hagid is to tell So, the literal translation of Haggadah is the telling.
[00:07:13]  The whole purpose of the Seder is to tell the story of the Exodus.
[00:07:18]  Through all the trials and the tribulations, and then, of course, God's deliverance of his people.
[00:07:24]  So, I want to ask you something that may or may not be covered in this book, Dennis, but something that you've been saying for the last year and a half in particular.
[00:07:32]  And as a sidebar, I don't think you've received credit from the world, Dennis, for how clear you were on the lockdowns, how early you were.
[00:07:40]  You were one of the few people, and I don't mean this in a bad way, over the age of 60 that actually had a clear argument of why the lockdowns were a mistake, truly.
[00:07:51]  And it was from not just the mistake, but the worst mistake humanity ever embarked on.
[00:07:57]  You connected, though, a Bible verse that's very interesting, which is, you know, after God delivered, you know, people, Jewish people from Egypt, and they're in the desert, very quickly they say they want to go back to Egypt because at least they had meat.
[00:08:12]  Can you kind of recount that and then explain that to our listeners?
[00:08:15]  I found that to be very interesting.
[00:08:18]  Well, that's part of the reason that I think that we have no wisdom today is because we have no Bible today.
[00:08:26]  I mean, why are universities the most foolish institutions in society?
[00:08:31]  Because they're the most secular.
[00:08:33]  They're the most God-free and Bible-free.
[00:08:36]  It's not even an attack.
[00:08:38]  It's just a description.
[00:08:40]  The wisdom in the Western world comes from the Bible.
[00:08:44]  There's non-biblical wisdom, Shakespeare, whom I mentioned earlier, clearly as an example.
[00:08:49]  But these people were steeped in the Bible.
[00:08:53]  And so here's a perfect example.
[00:08:56]  People are ingrates.
[00:08:58]  The story of the Exodus is the story of many things, including ingratitude.
[00:09:04]  God splits the sea.
[00:09:05]  God brings 10 plagues.
[00:09:08]  God gives them manna in the desert.
[00:09:10]  And all they do is complain.
[00:09:12]  You know, I'm working on the book of Numbers now because I'm doing the first five books of the Bible, the five books of Moses.
[00:09:18]  So people say, What does that mean, numbers?
[00:09:21]  I go, numbers of complaints.
[00:09:26]  That's my theory on what I mean.
[00:09:28]  There's another reason because there's a census taken, but that's my quick answer.
[00:09:34]  It's the book of numbers of complaints.
[00:09:36]  And God gets so disgusted with the Israelites, Hebrews, Jews, whatever you want to call them, that he wants to get rid of them.
[00:09:47]  He actually has an argument with Moses.
[00:09:49]  You know, let me start a new nation with you.
[00:09:51]  I'll get rid of them.
[00:09:52]  By the way, I just want to add parenthetically, that is part of, that's one of the biggest reasons I believe in the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible.
[00:10:02]  Not to say their non-authenticity elsewhere.
[00:10:05]  I'm just speaking specifically of the Old Testament, is how negatively the Jews are depicted.
[00:10:12]  Nobody would make up such an unappealing past.
[00:10:17]  If people wrote the Torah, the first five books, they would have portrayed their ancestors as much more positively than they are portrayed in the Torah.
[00:10:27]  That is the biggest single proof that it was not written just by men.
[00:10:34]  If they had an opportunity just to edit it out, there would have been plenty of chances to do that.
[00:10:39]  David would have said, get rid of that Bathsheba part, okay?
[00:10:42]  I didn't like that.
[00:10:43]  It wasn't my shining moment.
[00:10:45]  Oh, my God.
[00:10:45]  Is that true?
[00:10:47]  That's exactly right.
[00:10:49]  Or, you know, again, all of these complaints and the ingratitude.
[00:10:56]  And by the way, also remarkable in the Torah, most of the heroes are not Jewish.
[00:11:01]  Nobody talks about this.
[00:11:03]  I do, beginning with Noah.
[00:11:06]  Noah was not a Jew.
[00:11:08]  And Noah was the most righteous man in his generation.
[00:11:11]  God destroys the world, keeps Noah and his family alive.
[00:11:14]  Then who is Moses saved by?
[00:11:17]  The daughter of Pharaoh, which is unbelievable.
[00:11:19]  The daughter of Pharaoh saves a Hebrew baby.
[00:11:22]  It's incredible.
[00:11:25]  Or the midwives who won't kill the Jewish boys when they're born.
[00:11:30]  They are, I think, undoubtedly not Hebrews.
[00:11:34]  And Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses or Cyrus.
[00:11:41]  Cyrus.
[00:11:42]  Yeah.
[00:11:42]  Oh, that's later.
[00:11:43]  Yeah, I'm just talking Torah, but you're absolutely right later as well.
[00:11:47]  There is ironically, it's a Jewish book, but it's the least ethnocentric book you'll ever read.
[00:11:55]  I've never heard anyone make that argument.
[00:11:59]  That's why people should get my books.
[00:12:01]  Listen, I want to make it clear.
[00:12:03]  Nobody writes Bible commentaries to get rich.
[00:12:06]  I just want to make this clear.
[00:12:11]  However, you do get wise.
[00:12:12]  I want to ask you, Dennis, about how you write this.
[00:12:15]  Just kind of a more technical question.
[00:12:18]  I've written a couple books, nowhere near as many as you have.
[00:12:21]  But to go, you're a lot younger.
[00:12:23]  You'll get there.
[00:12:24]  Well, if I read, Dennis, if I write a rational commentary on Leviticus, I would love to explain how I got there.
[00:12:34]  So fair enough.
[00:12:38]  Explain how you write this because this is tough work.
[00:12:41]  I mean, I'm just flipping through this.
[00:12:44]  You go through exactly the different interpretations and a rational perspective.
[00:12:49]  I mean, I could imagine you could spend months on just one verse.
[00:12:54]  Sometimes that's happened actually.
[00:12:57]  It happened.
[00:12:58]  Deuteronomy is coming out next.
[00:13:00]  By the way, talking about that, you want to know one of the proudest achievements of my life that Costco has ordered 25,000 copies of Deuteronomy.
[00:13:11]  I mean, I pinch myself, I must tell you.
[00:13:14]  The thought that Costco is ordering a massive amount of a book on Deuteronomy.
[00:13:20]  I mean, how many people who visit Costco can spell Deuteronomy when they get their life-size ketchup bottles and enough mayonnaise to fill up their pool?
[00:13:31]  Pick up a copy of Deuteronomy.
[00:13:33]  They'll mistake it for a barbell because it's going to be very tough.
[00:13:37]  That's fine with me as long as they read it.
[00:13:40]  But this is a tremendous amount of work.
[00:13:45]  I couldn't do it if A, I haven't been teaching it all of my life.
[00:13:49]  B, I didn't know biblical Hebrew so well.
[00:13:52]  And I know it very, very well.
[00:13:55]  I love languages.
[00:13:56]  I've been studying Hebrew all of my life.
[00:13:59]  Interest that what may interest you is, or and your and your listeners, viewers, is that the most important thing to know is grammar more than vocabulary.
[00:14:12]  You can always look up a word, but you must master the grammar.
[00:14:18]  And I am one of, I am the one in 100 human beings who loves grammar.
[00:14:24]  So it was a real blessing that I mastered Hebrew grammar and able to explain this.
[00:14:30]  So aside from everything else that has enabled me to write this stuff, but you know, and this will resonate with you, a lot of Christians are now having a Passover Seder.
[00:14:44]  So this thing is like perfect.
[00:14:46]  It guides them step by step through it and explains everything.
[00:14:52]  That's so it's like a godsend to a Christian who was interested.
[00:14:57]  Listen, I believe from the New Testament that some differ, and I respect that, that the Last Supper was a Passover seder.
[00:15:09]  I mean, the connection with Christianity is...

=== Honoring Parents and Kids (11:54) ===

[00:15:12]  And there are many pastors who believe that, several.
[00:15:15]  Yes, it would seem.
[00:15:16]  I think the New Testament pretty much suggested.
[00:15:19]  That's right.
[00:15:19]  That's right.
[00:15:20]  And also, we know it was during Passover.
[00:15:22]  We know that for sure.
[00:15:23]  That's right.
[00:15:24]  That we know for sure because of the Paschal sacrifice.
[00:15:27]  That's exactly right.
[00:15:28]  We know the timing for sure.
[00:15:30]  I want to ask you about something with the grammar issue, which is funny because I listen to all your fireside chats.
[00:15:36]  You like being corrected with grammar as well.
[00:15:39]  Can you talk about how people need to be okay, in fact, excited with correction?
[00:15:45]  I think that's a very unique thing.
[00:15:47]  Well, you know, this is so, folks, this is the, this is one of the reasons Charlie Kirk is so special.
[00:15:53]  And, you know, I don't say these stuff to butter anybody up.
[00:15:56]  Then there's no need for me to butter you up.
[00:15:59]  But that you would pick up on that and care about that is a statement about you as much as it is about me.
[00:16:06]  So here's my theory.
[00:16:09]  Why wouldn't I want to be corrected?
[00:16:11]  If I'm corrected, that means I won't make this mistake a second time.
[00:16:17]  Why do I want to be in error ongoing?
[00:16:23]  It's the a person must be so deeply insecure to resent being corrected.
[00:16:34]  It's the biggest favor you could do for me.
[00:16:37]  I don't want to speak incorrectly.
[00:16:39]  I don't want to recite a fact that isn't accurate.
[00:16:43]  On selfish grounds, it's not noble that I want to be corrected.
[00:16:47]  It's selfish.
[00:16:50]  And a lot of people don't take correction well at all.
[00:16:53]  In fact, because that's so deeply insecure.
[00:16:57]  We live in the age of safe spaces.
[00:17:02]  People are triggered.
[00:17:04]  All these terminology.
[00:17:08]  Grow up.
[00:17:08]  Hello.
[00:17:09]  Grow up.
[00:17:10]  It's all it's about.
[00:17:13]  One of the other things you talk about a lot on your fireside chat, which is a similar, it's a connect.
[00:17:18]  It's not a direct connection, but it's in the arena.
[00:17:22]  It was being easy.
[00:17:24]  I've tried that.
[00:17:28]  Charlie, I love you.
[00:17:29]  I really do.
[00:17:31]  You tried that?
[00:17:34]  How did it go?
[00:17:35]  It wasn't easy.
[00:17:39]  That's great.
[00:17:40]  It's not easy to be easy.
[00:17:43]  That's right.
[00:17:47]  What does your wife think?
[00:17:50]  She says, I need to be easier.
[00:17:53]  So talk a little bit about it.
[00:17:58]  I love that you picked up on that.
[00:18:01]  So I'll tell you how that came about.
[00:18:04]  You may know because I'm so delighted about how much you listen to what I say.
[00:18:10]  So I am a father-in-law and a father.
[00:18:16]  So out of nowhere, I said to my daughter-in-law on the phone about two years ago, you know, Miriam, you know what I really want to be in your life?
[00:18:29]  And she calls me dad, which I think is great.
[00:18:32]  And she goes, what, dad?
[00:18:34]  And I said, easy.
[00:18:37]  I want to be an easy parent.
[00:18:40]  I mean, I didn't want to be an easy parent when my kids were five.
[00:18:45]  That's a different story, but my kids is late 30s.
[00:18:49]  And so I said, I want to be in your life and in David, my son's life.
[00:18:56]  I want to be easy.
[00:18:58]  I don't want to be a burden on my daughter-in-law.
[00:19:02]  And that I really, really live by that.
[00:19:07]  And to have that aim in life, to be easy in people's lives, not a burden.
[00:19:15]  I got to say, I was very grateful to my parents.
[00:19:19]  who lived respectively, father to 96, mother to 89.
[00:19:23]  I always used to tell people how grateful I was for how few demands they made on me emotionally or as they got older.
[00:19:34]  They were so self-sufficient.
[00:19:36]  They'd so enjoyed each other that, you know, they were a non-issue in terms of trouble in my life.
[00:19:47]  And that's very rare for kids to be able to say about parents, or frankly, parents to be able to say about kids.
[00:19:54]  But that's the dream.
[00:19:55]  You just not be a burden on people.
[00:19:58]  I don't want to be a burden on my friends or certainly not on my wife.
[00:20:03]  And it's a great goal in life.
[00:20:07]  That's a good segue to a topic.
[00:20:09]  I've been wanting to talk to you, Dennis, for my audience's sake, our audience's sake, not for mine, because I do know your answer to this, but I think your answer is one of the most helpful because we've received, I would say, probably 100 emails about this in the last six months.
[00:20:23]  And you've received this question, no exaggeration, at least a thousand times in your career in person, which is one of the, as you would say, the 11 statements or 10 commandments in the wonderful PragerU video, which actually connects with the Passover because it starts with, I'm the Lord your God who delivered you from Egypt, I'm not mistaken, right?
[00:20:43]  Which is a reminder, which is the hardest commandment for some people to follow.
[00:20:50]  One of this, I could read this email, but basically this person says, I've tried, Charlie, to do what you say, which is follow the Ten Commandments, because as you say, Dennis, we have the Ten Commandments.
[00:21:00]  We don't need a police.
[00:21:01]  We don't need jails.
[00:21:02]  Everyone follows it.
[00:21:03]  The world would naturally order itself.
[00:21:05]  So I've been talking a little about that.
[00:21:07]  They said, but Charlie, the one I cannot follow is I can.
[00:21:10]  I says, I cannot understand the whole honor your parents thing in the Bible.
[00:21:16]  I really tried.
[00:21:17]  Now, I know the details matter.
[00:21:19]  He says that his mom is unfair and all of this.
[00:21:22]  I can go into the details if it matters, Dennis, but let's just talk more broadly.
[00:21:26]  You've heard this question many times.
[00:21:28]  What does it mean to honor your parents versus loving your parents?
[00:21:33]  Well, that's my point that I made when I first started teaching the greatest document in history, the Ten Commandments.
[00:21:42]  And again, this is why I'm in love with the Bible and especially the first five books, the one which I'm writing my commentary on.
[00:21:51]  There is a law to love your neighbor.
[00:21:54]  Love your neighbor as yourself.
[00:21:55]  There's a law to love the stranger.
[00:21:58]  Love the stranger because he was strangers to the land of Egypt.
[00:22:01]  There's a law to love God.
[00:22:02]  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your might.
[00:22:07]  But there's no law to love your parents.
[00:22:11]  You don't have to love your parents.
[00:22:14]  And it's so liberating that fact because people are racked with guilt if they don't love their parents.
[00:22:21]  But you have to honor them.
[00:22:23]  And I'll give a non-parental example and then go back to parents.
[00:22:28]  I was in many years ago, I was in a radio studio and Jimmy Carter walked in.
[00:22:34]  I can't stand Jimmy Carter.
[00:22:36]  But Jimmy Carter had been president of the United States.
[00:22:40]  And I, Dennis, stand up for a president or ex-president of the United States.
[00:22:47]  I stood up and shook his hand.
[00:22:49]  I honored the president.
[00:22:51]  I didn't honor Jimmy Carter.
[00:22:53]  I have no desire to honor Jimmy Carter, but I honored the president.
[00:22:59]  If you don't want to honor your mom or your dad, that's fine.
[00:23:03]  But you have to honor the father and mother of your life.
[00:23:07]  Is it sometimes impossible they're truly evil human beings or one of them is?
[00:23:15]  In every instance in life, exceptions are not the rule.
[00:23:20]  Seatbelts save lives.
[00:23:22]  Sometimes they kill people.
[00:23:24]  If your car is on fire and it crash and your seatbelt is broken, you're trapped and you will die of being burned alive.
[00:23:35]  But it is fair to say seatbelts save lives.
[00:23:38]  As a rule, you honor your father and mother.
[00:23:41]  If nothing else, send them text messages, send them email messages, leave messages on their voicemail.
[00:23:48]  You don't have to hug them.
[00:23:50]  You don't have to love them.
[00:23:51]  You don't have to say beautiful nothings to them.
[00:23:56]  But the most obvious arena of not honoring is ignoring them like you're dead, unless they're evil.
[00:24:04]  And there are people who have forgiven evil parents, but that's another subject.
[00:24:10]  You have, look, I begin all of my commentaries on the Bible in the introduction.
[00:24:19]  I begin with this little story.
[00:24:23]  I had, like most people, I had difficulties with my parents at a certain age, you know, and so let's say my early 20s, my late teens.
[00:24:34]  But because of this law of the Ten Commandments, which I believe is incumbent upon me, as I explain in the Ten Commandments, every commandment is in the singular, not the plural.
[00:24:44]  Hebrew has a different word for you, plural and you singular.
[00:24:50]  It's all in the singular.
[00:24:52]  You, Dennis, have to honor your father and mother.
[00:24:55]  Because I believe that God demanded that of me, I honored my parents no matter how difficult my relationship was.
[00:25:03]  It later became lovely, but when it was difficult, I am happy to say now I honored them.
[00:25:10]  I contacted them at least every week.
[00:25:13]  I called my parents every week, no matter where I was in the world, and I traveled to 130 countries.
[00:25:19]  So that's a lot of telephone calls.
[00:25:22]  And that was it.
[00:25:24]  That is what I had to do because God said so.
[00:25:27]  Next, I'm sorry to be so long-winded, Charlie.
[00:25:31]  I just want to make one more point.
[00:25:35]  Every totalitarian regime, every cult begins with removing parental authority.
[00:25:46]  In some ways, honor your father and mother is the most important commandment, oddly enough, because it is the antidote to totalitarianism.
[00:25:58]  Stalin said, your commitment is to the party, not your parents.
[00:26:03]  Hitler said, your commitment is in the Hitler Jugend, the Hitler youth.
[00:26:08]  Your commitment is to me, not your parents.
[00:26:11]  And that's what we are getting now in our schools.
[00:26:14]  Your commitment is to your school and teachers, not your parents, because leftism is a cult.
[00:26:22]  And it's the only one of the Ten Commandments that comes with a promise.
[00:26:25]  And also, it involves your nation.
[00:26:28]  So you might live long in the land of which you are.
[00:26:32]  Yeah, because no nation will survive without parental authority.
[00:26:36]  My dad died at 96.
[00:26:38]  And until nearly his last year, I had him on my radio show every year on his birthday, July 18th.
[00:26:45]  So I asked him every couple of years, hey, dad, what's the biggest difference between America today and when you grew up in the 20s and 30s, 1920s, 1930s?
[00:26:56]  And his answer was always the same.
[00:26:59]  Say, when I was a kid, the parents ruled the house.
[00:27:02]  Today the kids rule the house.

=== Choosing Happiness as a Moral Achievement (04:41) ===

[00:27:06]  That's wisdom.
[00:27:08]  So Dennis, I want to shift gears here about another book you wrote that I don't think I've really had a chance to dive in and explore much with you.
[00:27:14]  I think we did it previously a little bit, which is happiness is a serious problem.
[00:27:19]  You know, I know two people in the last couple of weeks that have committed suicide, young people.
[00:27:24]  It's a tragedy that's happening in our country.
[00:27:27]  You see the numbers, Dennis, because of the lockdowns, not because of the virus.
[00:27:31]  Alcoholism, drug use, anxiety, depression.
[00:27:34]  It's all on the increase.
[00:27:36]  But you have a different take on happiness.
[00:27:38]  It's not a self-help book.
[00:27:40]  I mean, it could be helpful to people, but it starts with a moral claim where you say you have a moral obligation to be happy and that it's a choice.
[00:27:48]  Please explain that to our listeners.
[00:27:51]  Yeah, this is a life changer for a lot of people.
[00:27:54]  People think of happiness as an emotional state.
[00:27:58]  I think of it as a moral achievement.
[00:28:03]  That's why we have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
[00:28:08]  For the founders of this country, the pursuit of happiness was in the moral sphere.
[00:28:14]  That is a good thing.
[00:28:16]  Life is good.
[00:28:17]  Liberty is good.
[00:28:18]  And the pursuit of happiness is good.
[00:28:21]  This is, as I say on my happiness hour on my radio show, I have for 22 years, the happy make the world better and the unhappy make it worse.
[00:28:31]  And everybody knows that's true in their own family life or among friends or whomever.
[00:28:36]  The unhappy make things worse for people.
[00:28:39]  So not only is it a moral achievement to be pursued, it is also a moral obligation.
[00:28:45]  And at the risk of being a bit gross, I guess, if that's the word, I may be overstated.
[00:28:53]  I regard bad moods as I regard bad breath or bad body odor.
[00:28:59]  Why do we brush our teeth every day?
[00:29:00]  Why do we take a shower every day?
[00:29:02]  We don't have to.
[00:29:04]  We do it for others.
[00:29:06]  I brush away my bad breath.
[00:29:08]  I wash away my bad odors for others.
[00:29:12]  You should do the same with your bad mood.
[00:29:14]  You got to wash it away.
[00:29:16]  I wish people looked at bad moods the way they do bad breath.
[00:29:21]  Be a better world.
[00:29:23]  And you walk through what that actually means to be happy.
[00:29:26]  So, Dennis, some people say, Dennis, things are so terrible, I can never be happy.
[00:29:31]  But you say, it's actually not about your circumstances, about something completely different.
[00:29:35]  It's about a state of mind.
[00:29:36]  It's a choice.
[00:29:39]  Well, the greatest advocate of that was Abraham Lincoln, who led a very, very difficult life.
[00:29:47]  The man was married to a woman who was probably bipolar.
[00:29:51]  He lost two of his sons whom he adored.
[00:29:55]  That alone is very hard to overcome and be happy.
[00:30:00]  And then his nation were killing each other at the greatest rates in American history in any foreign war.
[00:30:10]  And yet this man said, we're as happy as we choose to be, as we decide to be.
[00:30:14]  I thought he said, I think he said as we reckon to be, but I'm not certain.
[00:30:19]  But basically, we're as happy as we choose to be.
[00:30:21]  And that is correct.
[00:30:23]  He chose to be happy despite losing his children, despite his wife's condition, and despite his country shooting each other, killing each other in the hundreds of thousands.
[00:30:36]  If Lincoln can do that, I suspect most of those listening right now could do that.
[00:30:42]  It's a choice.
[00:30:43]  By the way, that's another one of my many, many theories of life.
[00:30:47]  Virtually everything is a choice.
[00:30:50]  Very little is built in.
[00:30:52]  You choose whether to be happy.
[00:30:54]  You choose whether to marry.
[00:30:56]  You choose whether to have children.
[00:30:58]  You choose whether to be religious.
[00:31:00]  God never appeared to me.
[00:31:02]  I made a choice.
[00:31:03]  And as a young man, I would prefer to lead a religiously active life than a secular life.
[00:31:10]  That's it.
[00:31:11]  That's the choice I made.
[00:31:13]  God did not tell me what to do in that sense.
[00:31:16]  I got no theophany, no epiphany.
[00:31:19]  I just decided I have two choices, a religious life or a secular life.
[00:31:25]  A religious life is infinitely deeper than a secular life.
[00:31:28]  That's where I'm going.
[00:31:30]  It was the greatest decision I ever made.
[00:31:33]  And believing everything is a choice actually informs people's politics.
[00:31:37]  If you think that things aren't a choice, then you would need big government to make decisions for people.
[00:31:44]  It's a very important thing to believe.
[00:31:47]  And I agree with it totally.

=== The Biggest Problem Facing Nations (05:34) ===

[00:31:48]  I want to close with this, Dennis, kind of just more broadly about the country.
[00:31:54]  Your book on America is phenomenal.
[00:31:56]  You coined the American Trinity, which I use quite often in God We Trust Liberty and E Pluribus Unum.
[00:32:02]  I'm afraid that all three are simultaneously under attack from within.
[00:32:07]  I'm not going to ask you whether or not you're optimistic or pessimistic because I already know your answer.
[00:32:11]  It's completely irrelevant.
[00:32:12]  There's no good way to answer it.
[00:32:14]  Instead, let me ask you this.
[00:32:16]  Are you starting to see a revival from people, at least from what you're seeing, to get us closer towards a restoration of liberty?
[00:32:24]  Well, given that I'm neither prone to optimism or pessimism, there will be some credibility in my answer.
[00:32:33]  If San Francisco kicks out three of its members of its school board, we are approaching messianic times.
[00:32:44]  That's all I can say.
[00:32:46]  I mean, if that doesn't give you reason to at least perceive the beginnings of the counter revolution, then nothing will.
[00:32:56]  I mean, they kicked out the head of the school board, who then charges all of these mostly Asians in San Francisco with white supremacy.
[00:33:11]  I mean, at what point will we regard these attacks as utterly as laughable?
[00:33:19]  They're not only evil, they're just laughable.
[00:33:22]  Larry Elder is the black face of white supremacy.
[00:33:25]  That's written by a Los Angeles Times columnist.
[00:33:28]  The woman should have been fired.
[00:33:30]  She's an idiot.
[00:33:32]  This is only an idiot could write that.
[00:33:34]  Larry Elder is the black face of white supremacy.
[00:33:39]  It would be like saying, I'm the Jewish face of anti-Semitism.
[00:33:43]  Well, Dennis, they've gotten close to say that before.
[00:33:45]  That woman, Wyoming or something or Colorado.
[00:33:50]  University of Wyoming.
[00:33:52]  I treasure that.
[00:33:53]  Every time I go to a university, there's the preliminary attack on the sexist intolerance, xenophobic, homophobic, xlamophobic, race, bigoted speaker coming to the campus.
[00:34:04]  So there was this article in the Wyoming paper.
[00:34:07]  Again, Dennis Prager, bigot, homophobia, dabba, dabba, dabba, daba, an anti-Semite.
[00:34:13]  I got such a kick out of that.
[00:34:15]  I guess she didn't read my book on anti-Semitism.
[00:34:19]  Or dare to look up your Bible commentary on the Torah.
[00:34:22]  Yes, exactly.
[00:34:24]  Minor details.
[00:34:26]  So, Dennis, so just final question.
[00:34:29]  A lot of people are listening.
[00:34:30]  You talk about a lot on your program, The Fireside Chat, which I recommend everyone to listen to.
[00:34:36]  It's unscripted.
[00:34:38]  Dennis gets the number of fireside chats right about 10% of the time.
[00:34:42]  Otto and Snoopy are there.
[00:34:44]  It's terrific.
[00:34:46]  And I really enjoy it.
[00:34:48]  And it's really enriched my life.
[00:34:50]  But, Dennis, there's a young person listening that all these are good resources.
[00:34:56]  What's your closing message to this generation at this time?
[00:34:59]  Because there's been a great injustice done to them.
[00:35:00]  The lockdowns, it was generational theft.
[00:35:03]  There's no other way to put it.
[00:35:04]  What's your message to a young person who might just be trying to find their way right now?
[00:35:11]  Well, it's really two sides of the same coin.
[00:35:16]  You have a choice in this country, or really in any country.
[00:35:21]  Are you going to fight your society or are you going to fight yourself?
[00:35:26]  I was raised that the biggest problem in Dennis Prager's life is Dennis Prager, who's the greatest message my religious upbringing could give me.
[00:35:35]  And it has informed my whole life.
[00:35:38]  I am my biggest problem.
[00:35:40]  The left tells you you're fine.
[00:35:42]  America is your biggest problem.
[00:35:45]  It's a double lie.
[00:35:47]  You are your biggest problem, and America is a terrific place.
[00:35:53]  That's well said.
[00:35:55]  The Rash Passover Haggadah by Dennis Prager.
[00:35:58]  Everyone, check it out.
[00:36:00]  I'm honored to be able to have it here.
[00:36:02]  And Dennis, I can't wait.
[00:36:03]  I have to, I told you, I'm finishing Exodus, and then Leviticus is a paper shortage.
[00:36:09]  Is that right?
[00:36:11]  No, Deuteronomy was the paper shortage.
[00:36:13]  So that's coming.
[00:36:14]  I didn't do them in order.
[00:36:15]  Leviticus will be the fifth because I will be contemplating shooting myself while doing Leviticus.
[00:36:25]  Dennis, I can't wait for Leviticus to be.
[00:36:27]  That will be a real accomplishment, I have to say.
[00:36:29]  You're damn right, it will.
[00:36:31]  I know a couple verses that, I mean, the whole book could be on the verse.
[00:36:36]  You know, the whole book could be the whole, you could have a whole book on just some of the Leviticus verses, is what I'm saying.
[00:36:44]  Oh, yeah.
[00:36:44]  Oh, I do actually.
[00:36:45]  I have 20,000 words I've already written on do not lie with a man as with a woman.
[00:36:52]  20,000 words on that verse.
[00:36:55]  As Dennis always says, how do you know the founding fathers were awesome?
[00:36:58]  They put Leviticus 25 on the Liberty Bell.
[00:37:00]  That's how you knew.
[00:37:02]  That's right.
[00:37:03]  God bless you, Dennis.
[00:37:04]  Thank you so much for joining.
[00:37:05]  You're a great friend and a teacher.
[00:37:06]  Thank you.
[00:37:08]  Thank you.
[00:37:11]  Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
[00:37:13]  Email us your thoughts, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:37:14]  Thanks so much for listening.
[00:37:15]  God bless.
[00:37:19]  For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.