The Charlie Kirk Show - The Eternal Truths Behind Judaism with Dennis Prager
Aired: 2022-12-18
Duration: 39:27


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[00:00:00]  Hey, everybody.
[00:00:00]  Happy Sunday.
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[00:00:03]  I sit down with the legendary Dennis Prager, who is my second favorite Jew ever to live.
[00:00:10]  It's a joke, everybody.
[00:00:12]  My favorite Jew being Jesus and Dennis being the second.
[00:00:14]  He's so special.
[00:00:15]  He's impacted me almost more than any other thinker.
[00:00:18]  I can't think of anybody more, but he's up there.
[00:00:20]  I've read almost all of his books, listened to his podcasts.
[00:00:24]  He's such a clear thinker, and he loves this country, and he loves the Lord.
[00:00:28]  We talk about a lot of different things.
[00:00:29]  This book, Deuteronomy, and his perspective of what's going on in the world.
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[00:01:56]  Text this episode to your friends of my conversation with Dennis Prager, the legend himself, live from the Turning Point USA America Fest in Phoenix, Arizona.
[00:02:07]  Dennis Prager is here.
[00:02:08]  Buckle up, everybody.
[00:02:09]  Here, we go.
[00:02:10]  Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
[00:02:12]  Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.
[00:02:14]  I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
[00:02:18]  Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
[00:02:21]  I want to thank Charlie.
[00:02:22]  He's an incredible guy.
[00:02:23]  His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
[00:02:30]  Turning point USA.
[00:02:32]  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.
[00:02:40]  That's why we are here.
[00:02:43]  Dennis Prager, welcome back to the show.
[00:02:46]  So do I call you Charlie or Mr. Kirk?
[00:02:49]  Something like that.
[00:02:50]  It would have to be Charlie.
[00:02:52]  Charlie, you are a delight.
[00:02:55]  Charlie, I am happy it wasn't there for you to hear me praising you.
[00:03:02]  What you have done is borders on the miraculous.
[00:03:08]  And I have zero reason to butter you up, right?
[00:03:11]  I was going to come to you for a loan, but Charlie, you gave a speech for, am I looking in the camera right now?
[00:03:21]  Okay, you out in Cameroon, I just want to tell you, Charlie, before this gave a speech to about 120 Jewish conservatives, which, by the way, is an enormous achievement to begin with.
[00:03:33]  College Jewish conservatives?
[00:03:35]  Who could do that?
[00:03:37]  Okay.
[00:03:38]  And I heard most of it, and I began my talk to them as a Jew speaking to Jews saying, if all rabbis spoke like Charlie Kirk did to their congregations, it would be the messianic age.
[00:03:53]  I'm speaking within Jewish terms.
[00:03:55]  This would bring the Messiah for you.
[00:03:57]  Again, for us the first time, it doesn't matter.
[00:04:01]  Rabbis don't speak as effectively about being a Jew as you did.
[00:04:08]  And nobody knows that.
[00:04:09]  Certainly, you're a larger audience.
[00:04:12]  So I mean.
[00:04:13]  Thank you.
[00:04:13]  And in some ways, you were hearing it back because it was your ideas that were just.
[00:04:18]  So I addressed that.
[00:04:20]  I actually addressed that also because you had made mention of that.
[00:04:23]  These are, you know, Dennis's ideas, many of these.
[00:04:27]  So this is a very serious point I want to make, if I may.
[00:04:33]  When people tell me, and I'm not saying you have, but if people often will come over, Dennis, I'm just telling you, no, you changed my life.
[00:04:40]  And I always say, and I would take a lie detector test easily, because I mean this completely seriously.
[00:04:49]  You, the person I'm talking to, you are half the reason.
[00:04:51]  You get half the credit.
[00:04:54]  Because how many people hear this and it bounces off their back?
[00:04:57]  It means nothing.
[00:04:58]  That means you were receptive to really important ideas and even willing to change.
[00:05:08]  That gives a person great credit.
[00:05:10]  So that I have touched you is an enduring praise of my life.
[00:05:16]  It's ongoing.
[00:05:17]  It's something I struggle with, which is, you know, sometimes I wonder when I do my speeches, how much of it has to be material I come up with versus things you get from somebody else.
[00:05:27]  And I've just decided it's actually completely irrelevant.
[00:05:30]  That's, of course.
[00:05:31]  That's what the left thinks.
[00:05:33]  You always have to be new.
[00:05:35]  The conservative conserves what is good.
[00:05:37]  Yes.
[00:05:38]  That's our job.
[00:05:40]  I can't do better than Beethoven.
[00:05:43]  You know, I'm into music, right?
[00:05:45]  So the fact that you ask that is to your credit, but your answer is correct.
[00:05:52]  So I was really enjoying one of your Bible commentaries the other day, Exodus.
[00:05:57]  Right.
[00:05:58]  Which is excellent.
[00:05:58]  You have Deuteronomy out now.
[00:06:00]  Right.
[00:06:00]  Is that correct?
[00:06:00]  Right.
[00:06:01]  And there was one part I just opened up randomly.
[00:06:04]  That's right.
[00:06:04]  You can open up randomly.
[00:06:06]  Because it's a series of essays as much as it is a book.
[00:06:09]  So it doesn't require you could start in the last chapter.

=== Distinguishing Love And God (14:50) ===

[00:06:13]  It's a sequential reading.
[00:06:14]  Right.
[00:06:15]  As a Christian, I found it to be fascinating.
[00:06:19]  The moral advance of eye for an eye.
[00:06:23]  Walk our audience through that.
[00:06:26]  So my Bible commentary: there's Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy are out.
[00:06:32]  I have numbers in Leviticus left.
[00:06:35]  So I realized earlier in my life that I could explain stuff that people dismiss as primitive.
[00:06:45]  That intellectual honesty shows how great this stuff is.
[00:06:50]  Eye for an eye was a moral advance.
[00:06:54]  It sounds bad to the modern mind, which is not all that wise, but it was an immense achievement.
[00:07:02]  Number one, it said an eye for an eye, not a life for an eye, not two eyes for an eye.
[00:07:10]  So it abolished death for anything except death.
[00:07:15]  And it abolished revenge.
[00:07:18]  Oh, you caused me to lose an arm.
[00:07:24]  I'm going to take both your arms and both your legs.
[00:07:27]  So it was, you have to have justice, not revenge.
[00:07:32]  Number two, it couldn't be exacted.
[00:07:36]  You can't do the same amount of damage.
[00:07:38]  And God or Moses or whomever you ascribe those biblical verses to knew that.
[00:07:45]  They weren't dumb then.
[00:07:47]  They knew you can't exactly take out an eye, and that's pre-surgery.
[00:07:51]  You're probably going to kill the guy if you try to take out an eye.
[00:07:55]  So it was understood as a statement of egalitarianism, not a statement of practice.
[00:08:01]  Human equality.
[00:08:02]  Yes, that's right.
[00:08:03]  And that's right.
[00:08:04]  And that's the third.
[00:08:05]  The eye of a nobleman is not worth more than the eye of a serf.
[00:08:10]  And that is parallel in the other commandment, which is you do not favor a rich person or a poor person.
[00:08:16]  Yes, we're all in God's image.
[00:08:18]  Very similar of this idea of human equality.
[00:08:20]  What I found interesting, though, and I'm paraphrasing, is you didn't totally discount the idea of revenge in your essay.
[00:08:29]  Right.
[00:08:29]  There's just revenge and unjust reason.
[00:08:31]  We also talked about that because revenge is a dirty word in Seattle.
[00:08:33]  Yeah, of course it is, because people don't think things through.
[00:08:37]  I go the opposite way.
[00:08:39]  I would say that if you, I just literally yesterday finished a book that just came out.
[00:08:45]  I saw it reviewed in the Wall Street Journal and I decided to read it.
[00:08:48]  And I don't even remember the name.
[00:08:50]  It's really painful.
[00:08:51]  But anyway, it was about a couple, like 18 and 17 years old, I think, a Canadian couple in the 1980s went overnight from British Columbia to Seattle and some horrible human being captured them, horribly killed him, raped her, and then shot her to death.
[00:09:17]  When you read that, what he did to these kids, and you don't want to exact revenge, there is something morally wrong with you.
[00:09:30]  I not only defend the desire for revenge, providing it's just, that's critical.
[00:09:35]  Unjust revenge is an injustice.
[00:09:39]  It's retribution at that point, right?
[00:09:41]  Yeah.
[00:09:44]  It's not just.
[00:09:45]  That's bad enough.
[00:09:46]  It's not just.
[00:09:48]  Retribution and revenge are sort of in the same category.
[00:09:52]  So I don't know how to make a distinction.
[00:09:55]  There's something wrong with your heart and your mind if you don't want people who inflict suffering to suffer.
[00:10:05]  I do.
[00:10:05]  I think there's something wrong with you.
[00:10:07]  And in the American context or the kind of current modern context, the idea of eye for an eye has been completely discarded in the sense where they say, you know, we must have criminal justice reform or we must not have the exact justice upon you.
[00:10:25]  So how do you take that teaching?
[00:10:27]  Because as you write in your essay, you can't just chop somebody's leg off for a leg.
[00:10:31]  You have to then use prudence and wisdom.
[00:10:33]  Right.
[00:10:34]  So in the case of eye for an eye, the only one that was ever meant literally is life for a life.
[00:10:39]  And most people, even Christians and Jews who know their Bible, don't remember this.
[00:10:47]  When God creates the world, he gives very few laws.
[00:10:50]  Genesis has almost no laws.
[00:10:52]  All the laws are in the later four books.
[00:10:55]  One of them is, if a human being takes another human's life, by humans shall his life be shed, for in the image of God, man is created.
[00:11:06]  In other words, if you don't take the life of a, and it's clear constantly, it has to be premeditated murder, but if you don't take the life of a premeditated murder, murderer, you have violated God's belief that you should sustain the notion that man is created in God's image.
[00:11:26]  There is something wrong there.
[00:11:27]  But with all the others, eye for an eye, leg for a leg, arm for an arm, tooth for a tooth, it was always understood as monetary compensation.
[00:11:35]  What is written is that they're all equal.
[00:11:40]  Your tooth, if you're a rich man, is not more valuable than my tooth as a slave.
[00:11:47]  I was watching one of your speeches recently and it created a series of aha moments.
[00:11:51]  And I think it was a speech you gave about 10 years ago, which is what's so great because it's timeless.
[00:11:55]  Right.
[00:11:55]  I tried that with all my speeches.
[00:11:57]  Well, and you succeed, which you were talking about how the Bible is a book of distinctions.
[00:12:02]  Never heard it phrased that way.
[00:12:03]  Right.
[00:12:04]  And you talk about the distinction between God and man and man and woman and God and nature and then man and nature and evil, man and animal.
[00:12:12]  Right.
[00:12:12]  And it goes on.
[00:12:13]  But then it was an aha moment where you mentioned it subtly in your speech, but mind you, it was a decade ago.
[00:12:19]  Right.
[00:12:19]  So it wasn't as bad where you said, and the left is trying to get rid of these distinctions.
[00:12:24]  But that could be even more forcefully said.
[00:12:27]  Everything they're trying to do is trying to get rid of distinctions.
[00:12:30]  That's correct.
[00:12:31]  Why does the left need to get rid of distinctions so badly?
[00:12:35]  This is a very tough question to answer.
[00:12:38]  And it's not 100%, but I think it's more than 50% of the answer.
[00:12:46]  The Judeo-Christian worldview is order.
[00:12:51]  And therefore, they know that in their gut.
[00:12:55]  They loathe the idea that we need a God or we need a Bible.
[00:13:00]  And so they hate order.
[00:13:04]  Order reflects on the orderer, on divine order.
[00:13:08]  So they create chaos.
[00:13:10]  Men give birth the non-binary claim about human sex and gender.
[00:13:18]  This is the antithesis, literally the antithesis of the Bible.
[00:13:22]  And God created Adam, the human being, male and female, he created them.
[00:13:27]  That is divine order.
[00:13:29]  We are the left.
[00:13:30]  We are gods.
[00:13:31]  Yes.
[00:13:32]  So it's man's order because in some ways, you're right.
[00:13:34]  I think there is an element where some of the left wants chaos, drug usage, pornography, and all this, but there's also a fair amount that want Mao's order or Hitler's order.
[00:13:45]  Well, they will create their order, their totalitarian terror state once chaos destroys our order.
[00:13:52]  Yes, as a means to be able to get to their end.
[00:13:55]  That's right.
[00:13:56]  And so just elaborate a little bit more, because I paraphrased just previously here the Bible being a book of distinctions.
[00:14:02]  Why is that such an important takeaway from well?
[00:14:05]  The word for holy in Hebrew means distinct.
[00:14:09]  So it gives you an idea of how important it is to the biblical, the Hebrew word, kadosh.
[00:14:16]  Kadosh is separate.
[00:14:19]  The world is divided.
[00:14:21]  What does God do?
[00:14:22]  He doesn't create for six days.
[00:14:24]  He creates very, very, very, he separates the first day.
[00:14:28]  Yes, he separates night and day, land and water, and separates man and woman, human and God, man and animal.
[00:14:41]  This is another one.
[00:14:43]  This is the next, but this has been since I began speaking at the age of 21.
[00:14:47]  One of my favorite things you talk about.
[00:14:49]  Well, yes.
[00:14:50]  But I was really onto it early.
[00:14:52]  Yeah, you were.
[00:14:53]  When people said they would save their dog before a stranger because they love their dog.
[00:14:57]  Oh, okay.
[00:14:57]  So you don't believe then that humans are intrinsically more valuable?
[00:15:00]  Of course not.
[00:15:01]  My dog is more valuable than any human being other than maybe my child or my wife or my husband.
[00:15:08]  And I'm not sure in husbands and case at all, the dog would always.
[00:15:12]  You go to religious schools.
[00:15:14]  That's right.
[00:15:15]  I've asked this to Christian kids and Jewish kids in religious schools, and the same answers amazingly.
[00:15:22]  One-third vote for the dog, one-third for the stranger.
[00:15:24]  Who would you say first?
[00:15:26]  And one-third don't know.
[00:15:29]  And I'll never forget to his great credit.
[00:15:31]  Well, to all their credit, actually.
[00:15:34]  So it was, I'll never forget, it was at the Nixon Library.
[00:15:36]  I gave this speech, and the Christian teacher came over and said, my students voted for the dog.
[00:15:44]  That means we're doing something wrong at our Christian school.
[00:15:47]  And I said, you are doing something wrong.
[00:15:49]  And I salute you.
[00:15:51]  I did this in Miami, Florida, a few years ago at the largest Orthodox Jewish school, asked the kids the same question, got the same answers I got at secular schools.
[00:16:01]  And the rabbi came over to me.
[00:16:02]  The principal said, we're doing something wrong at our Jewish school.
[00:16:06]  They should have all answered the human being.
[00:16:09]  For someone who is unsure listening, even after that, explain why this is not even a close call, not even in the same galaxy.
[00:16:17]  Well, in the secular world, it's a close call because the secular world says you decide.
[00:16:24]  And how do you decide based on love?
[00:16:26]  Of course, I have dogs.
[00:16:27]  I love my dogs more than all these creatures.
[00:16:29]  Yes, follow your heart.
[00:16:30]  That's the one law of secular society.
[00:16:34]  And that's why they hate us.
[00:16:36]  We say follow God.
[00:16:38]  And they are incensed at the idea.
[00:16:41]  Follow God, not follow your heart.
[00:16:42]  Yes, that's the whole left-right dilemma.
[00:16:46]  Secular conservatives don't know this, but that's the fight.
[00:16:51]  And we also believe the human being has a soul.
[00:16:55]  Yes.
[00:16:56]  That's what the secular world doesn't believe.
[00:16:58]  It's just random combustion of material.
[00:17:00]  That's all.
[00:17:00]  That's right.
[00:17:03]  What's the most difficult commandment to follow?
[00:17:05]  So I know you know my answer, and I heard you speak about it.
[00:17:08]  I'm very touched.
[00:17:08]  It changed my week.
[00:17:09]  I thought about it all week, and I thought it was brilliant.
[00:17:12]  Oh.
[00:17:13]  You just read it then.
[00:17:15]  Read it or heard it.
[00:17:16]  Yes.
[00:17:16]  Yeah.
[00:17:16]  Oh, is that touching to me?
[00:17:18]  Yeah, it might have been in think a second time or something.
[00:17:20]  Yeah, yes.
[00:17:21]  It is in think a second time.
[00:17:22]  Wow.
[00:17:24]  Folks, you have no idea how flattered I am.
[00:17:27]  But not flattered on an ego sense, much higher than that.
[00:17:31]  I don't care about my ego, that you're taking these ideas seriously and could cite which work.
[00:17:38]  So, yes, I'm very, very open.
[00:17:40]  I debated in writing my Bible commentary: do I inject me, Dennis, into the commentary?
[00:17:48]  And I realized I cannot not.
[00:17:50]  I cannot not.
[00:17:51]  You're also not writing a textbook.
[00:17:53]  Right.
[00:17:55]  But it should be worthy of a textbook.
[00:17:56]  No, but it is.
[00:17:57]  But you know what I'm saying?
[00:17:58]  But it is not.
[00:17:58]  That is correct.
[00:17:59]  But it's more honest that.
[00:18:01]  Your fingerprints are all over.
[00:18:02]  That's right.
[00:18:03]  And I'm saying, look, I'm a human being.
[00:18:07]  This is how it's affected this human.
[00:18:09]  So I admit that, and it's the truth.
[00:18:12]  The toughest law of the 613 in the Torah, the first five books, has been love God with all your heart, with all your soul.
[00:18:20]  Not that I have had a life that has had that much pain.
[00:18:24]  I've had pain, but everybody's had pain.
[00:18:27]  But there are people who have had horrific, beyond belief, unspeakable, unfair pain.
[00:18:34]  So how do I love the God who made a world where Auschwitz is possible, where Gulag is possible, where Mao starvation of 60 million is possible?
[00:18:47]  But I have an interesting observation.
[00:18:50]  It's to God's credit that he tells us to love him because it means he knows he's not lovable.
[00:18:56]  Isn't that big?
[00:18:58]  That's very big.
[00:18:59]  It's very big.
[00:19:02]  There's no commandment to love your child.
[00:19:05]  That comes naturally.
[00:19:08]  Loving the stranger is not natural.
[00:19:10]  Loving God is not natural.
[00:19:14]  So I said this to a Christian pastor, and he said, well, loving God comes easy to me.
[00:19:19]  I said, okay.
[00:19:20]  I said, then why would God command it if it became easy to you?
[00:19:22]  Right.
[00:19:23]  Tell me you got a commandment that comes easy.
[00:19:25]  I mean, that's exactly what you said.
[00:19:26]  What did he say?
[00:19:28]  He just said, okay, no, it was kind of fumbled for words.
[00:19:31]  Right, exactly.
[00:19:31]  It wasn't really well thought.
[00:19:34]  I don't know how it comes easily to anybody who is aware of how much suffering there is in the world.
[00:19:41]  I'd be honest.
[00:19:42]  By the way, it's interesting.
[00:19:44]  My father loved God.
[00:19:46]  And my father's sister jumped out of a window and killed herself.
[00:19:49]  My father was in World War II, saw horrific things for two and a half years.
[00:19:56]  But he did love God.
[00:19:57]  So I will say on this pastor's behalf, some nature, some people have a nature that finds that easier than others.
[00:20:09]  Some people, I think, are also conflating loving life and loving God.
[00:20:14]  I don't, because I really love life.
[00:20:16]  No, I know.
[00:20:16]  I know you do.
[00:20:18]  But tell me why that's distinct then, because life is the fruit of which we.
[00:20:23]  Well, yes.
[00:20:24]  So that, by the way, is a good challenge to me.
[00:20:26]  So, Dennis, you love life.
[00:20:28]  God created life.
[00:20:30]  Why the hell don't you life?
[00:20:31]  Yes, totally.
[00:20:33]  So it's a very fair question.
[00:20:35]  I didn't say I don't love God.
[00:20:37]  I said it's the hardest commandment for me.
[00:20:39]  Okay.
[00:20:39]  It's the most difficult.
[00:20:40]  Yes.
[00:20:42]  I mean, I don't eat shellfish because I believe God commanded that to me.
[00:20:46]  That one's actually easy for me.
[00:20:47]  Yeah.
[00:20:47]  Oh, well, you've adopted that.
[00:20:49]  Well, not by necessarily choice.
[00:20:51]  I just don't agree with shellfish very much.
[00:20:54]  You don't agree with shellfish where they have opinions you don't share?
[00:20:57]  My digestive system is.
[00:20:58]  Oh, your digestive system is not enough.
[00:21:00]  I seek.
[00:21:01]  Oh, that is hilarious.
[00:21:02]  The mollusk and I are not great for you.

=== Words That Do Not Exist (03:11) ===

[00:21:04]  So let me just say this.
[00:21:06]  The reason I don't have shrimp is not because it doesn't agree with me.
[00:21:10]  It's because I believe God commanded me not to.
[00:21:14]  But that's not a big challenge.
[00:21:16]  But exactly.
[00:21:16]  It's not difficult.
[00:21:17]  Right.
[00:21:17]  So I don't eat shrimp.
[00:21:19]  I got a pretty good life.
[00:21:20]  Yes.
[00:21:21]  Right.
[00:21:22]  But loving God, who also allows for evil.
[00:21:27]  Well, not only allows, created a being who could do it.
[00:21:30]  I mean, we have to be honest and created a world with earthquakes and cancer.
[00:21:36]  God is not off the hook.
[00:21:39]  You got to be fair.
[00:21:41]  You got to also say, look at all the beauty that I thank him for.
[00:21:46]  But you can't say, oh, he has nothing to do with any of the bad things.
[00:21:51]  I mean, cancer is natural.
[00:21:53]  Earthquakes are natural.
[00:21:54]  See, that's why I call my commentary the rational Bible.
[00:21:58]  I can't come to God faking myself.
[00:22:01]  You have to be real.
[00:22:04]  You know, real is probably one of my five favorite words.
[00:22:06]  Like and earn.
[00:22:08]  Yes.
[00:22:08]  You know what?
[00:22:09]  Oh, God.
[00:22:11]  You don't know how I could cry that I touched you this way is such an achievement.
[00:22:17]  It means the world to me.
[00:22:19]  But yes, isn't it true about like?
[00:22:21]  Like is explain to the audience because not every not every language has a word for love.
[00:22:26]  No, very few do.
[00:22:27]  And it's probably the most misused, good word.
[00:22:30]  People use it as a filler.
[00:22:31]  No, the most misused, well, when they say like, that's correct.
[00:22:36]  Yeah.
[00:22:36]  No, I don't mean it in that way.
[00:22:37]  They use like less than love.
[00:22:40]  Love has really been abused.
[00:22:42]  That's exactly.
[00:22:43]  I just mean like as a filler.
[00:22:45]  It's a fill.
[00:22:46]  Right.
[00:22:46]  Fair enough.
[00:22:48]  I love the word like.
[00:22:50]  That's funny.
[00:22:52]  And I'm actually, I am, I value it in many ways more than love.
[00:22:58]  And I'll give a very dramatic example.
[00:23:00]  A lot of people don't like their child, but they love their child.
[00:23:06]  You're a lucky parent if you like your child.
[00:23:11]  Not every language has a word for that.
[00:23:12]  No, I don't know.
[00:23:14]  I don't know of a language that does.
[00:23:16]  And I've studied a lot of languages.
[00:23:17]  I love languages.
[00:23:19]  And they may have some, like in French, il ne pleais, it pleases me.
[00:23:23]  That's the closest you can get, but that's not the same as I like.
[00:23:27]  It pleases me is fine.
[00:23:30]  I'm not knocking French.
[00:23:31]  I mean, you know, most languages don't have it, but at all.
[00:23:35]  But it is a great thing to like someone really, really great, including your kid, including your spouse.
[00:23:44]  If a woman came over to me, if I meet couples all the time and they open up to me because of my male-female hour and I go, so how are you guys doing?
[00:23:52]  I don't know, whatever.
[00:23:53]  And you know, I really like him.
[00:23:56]  I wouldn't think, oh, she doesn't love him.
[00:23:58]  I would think, wow, that is a great, they must get along great.
[00:24:02]  The best description I heard for like is, do you spend your free time willingly?
[00:24:07]  Oh, that's a good one.
[00:24:09]  That's just a circumstantial definition.
[00:24:11]  Right.
[00:24:11]  So I spend my free time willingly with pizza.

=== Acting Naturally For Others (04:48) ===

[00:24:15]  Well, then you like it.
[00:24:16]  Like pizza.
[00:24:16]  Yes, that's right.
[00:24:18]  So I want to transition here and I'm trying to get to as many best hits as I can.
[00:24:23]  Yeah.
[00:24:24]  Happiness.
[00:24:25]  Yeah.
[00:24:25]  We live in the most unhappy country in history.
[00:24:29]  Not in my country time.
[00:24:30]  Most oppressed, suicidal, alcohol.
[00:24:32]  I mean, in American history.
[00:24:33]  That's right.
[00:24:33]  Yeah.
[00:24:34]  And not the world history.
[00:24:34]  No, I don't know about.
[00:24:36]  Yeah.
[00:24:36]  Okay.
[00:24:36]  And by the way, I loved your take on the Danes and the Swedes, which is comfortable versus happy, which I think is a great distinction.
[00:24:44]  Right.
[00:24:44]  But happiness is a serious problem.
[00:24:48]  That's the name of my book on happiness.
[00:24:50]  It's a game changer.
[00:24:51]  Yeah, it's meant to be.
[00:24:52]  But let's dive in on one part of it, which is the challenge for our audience should be to act happy regardless of how you feel.
[00:25:00]  Well, that's the moral obligation, yes.
[00:25:03]  And that is the opening chapter of my book.
[00:25:08]  And it is the one that blows people's minds.
[00:25:12]  They have never heard of happiness as a moral obligation, only as an emotional state.
[00:25:18]  But it is a moral obligation.
[00:25:21]  Even if you don't feel it, you owe it to others.
[00:25:24]  And I have a great analogy.
[00:25:26]  It's a little gross, but it is what it is.
[00:25:28]  This is going to be one of my questions.
[00:25:30]  Take it away.
[00:25:30]  No, is it the wife and the husband?
[00:25:32]  No.
[00:25:33]  Because you've used that one before.
[00:25:34]  Woman says I'm not in the mood.
[00:25:36]  Oh, that's another one.
[00:25:37]  Yeah.
[00:25:38]  But that, that, I'm now speaking about, oh, oh, mood.
[00:25:43]  Yes.
[00:25:43]  That's where you attach the two.
[00:25:45]  Yeah, this is different.
[00:25:46]  But we'll get to that later.
[00:25:46]  But that's related.
[00:25:47]  Yes.
[00:25:48]  So the gross, semi-gross, not horrible.
[00:25:54]  I analogize bad mood to bad breath or bad body odor.
[00:26:00]  Every one of us thinks we have a moral obligation if we leave the house and let's say we live alone.
[00:26:07]  If we leave, or certainly you do to the person who lives with you, if you're living with someone, I owe it to everyone to be to be nice smelling, to get rid of my body odor, mouth odor.
[00:26:20]  I owe it.
[00:26:21]  It's a moral obligation.
[00:26:22]  That is how you should regard bad mood.
[00:26:25]  Bad mood equals bad breath.
[00:26:27]  Think of it like that.
[00:26:28]  So is bad breath natural?
[00:26:31]  Yes.
[00:26:31]  Is a bad mood natural?
[00:26:32]  That's why people say, yeah, well, then you're not acting naturally.
[00:26:35]  Okay, so why don't you toot in public?
[00:26:38]  That's natural.
[00:26:40]  But so someone says the other day, because I mentioned this on our program, the themes of this, I got an email.
[00:26:45]  Charlie, it feels so forced.
[00:26:47]  I want to be who I am.
[00:26:50]  Which is to be happy some days, unhappy.
[00:26:52]  No, You don't want to be who you are.
[00:26:54]  You want to be who you should be.
[00:26:56]  This is an idiocy.
[00:26:58]  I want to be who I am.
[00:26:59]  Who the hell are you?
[00:27:00]  What is that?
[00:27:01]  I never understood that.
[00:27:02]  Who am I?
[00:27:02]  Hello, Dennis.
[00:27:03]  Who are you?
[00:27:05]  I know what I want to be.
[00:27:07]  That's what matters.
[00:27:09]  I want to be a good person.
[00:27:10]  I want to be someone who people enjoy being with.
[00:27:12]  I want to be a father figure to younger men.
[00:27:15]  I have a whole list of things.
[00:27:17]  I want to be ethical.
[00:27:19]  I don't want to be perfect, by the way, just for the record.
[00:27:21]  I have zero desire to be perfect.
[00:27:24]  Okay.
[00:27:25]  And I cultivate my vices, like my multiple cigars a day, et cetera.
[00:27:32]  I am no saint, but I try to be a good person.
[00:27:35]  So this notion, yes, you know who you are.
[00:27:40]  If you want to be who you are, dear sir, you will be a rapist.
[00:27:44]  You will be a murderer.
[00:27:45]  You will be a bank robber.
[00:27:47]  That's what people are naturally.
[00:27:49]  That's the raw material.
[00:27:50]  Yes, that's the raw material.
[00:27:52]  You don't want to be who you are.
[00:27:54]  You want to be who you should be.
[00:27:57]  The other argument they'll say is it's just so much effort to act.
[00:28:00]  That's true.
[00:28:01]  Everything in life.
[00:28:02]  That's why people don't marry now.
[00:28:03]  It's why people don't have children.
[00:28:05]  Everything good is an effort.
[00:28:06]  That's correct.
[00:28:07]  Well, you certainly won't write a book if you believe in not making efforts.
[00:28:11]  Or build a family.
[00:28:12]  Or build a family.
[00:28:13]  That's right.
[00:28:13]  What a great way.
[00:28:14]  So let's have on your tombstone, here lies so-and-so.
[00:28:18]  Sam.
[00:28:19]  Yeah.
[00:28:19]  Here lies Sam.
[00:28:21]  Didn't do much.
[00:28:23]  But he was comfortable.
[00:28:24]  But yeah.
[00:28:24]  He was miserably comfortable.
[00:28:26]  So, but let me ask you: over a period of time, do you find if you act happy, you become how you act?
[00:28:31]  That's right.
[00:28:32]  You become who you act no matter what you do.
[00:28:35]  That act kind for a year, you'll end up kinder.
[00:28:39]  What did the Schindler's listen?
[00:28:40]  Oh, this is the yes.
[00:28:41]  Yeah, I'm telling you.
[00:28:44]  This is powerful stuff.
[00:28:45]  So Ray Fine was the Nazi commandant in Schindler's List.
[00:28:51]  Great movie.
[00:28:53]  And he said in a New York Times interview at the time, I can't wait till the movie is over.
[00:29:01]  The filming.
[00:29:01]  The filming is over.

=== Ignorance About Men And Life (07:22) ===

[00:29:04]  I am actually acting meaner off set.
[00:29:08]  Acting like a Nazi commandant in a concentration camp has made me a worse person.
[00:29:15]  He's acting.
[00:29:16]  He knows he's acting.
[00:29:18]  He's reading lines written for him.
[00:29:20]  Yes.
[00:29:20]  And it's making him worse.
[00:29:22]  We know this with Daniel Day-Lewis.
[00:29:24]  We know this with Joachim Phoenix.
[00:29:26]  We know this with the other previous actor that was the Joker who killed himself.
[00:29:32]  Name escapes me.
[00:29:34]  They become the characters that they act.
[00:29:37]  Yo, it's one example after the other.
[00:29:39]  Oh, it's very risky, but you are, you become who you act.
[00:29:42]  Okay.
[00:29:43]  So I kind of shared another pragerism a couple months ago that my wife completely agrees with.
[00:29:52]  And I was shocked at the negative reaction I got from women.
[00:29:56]  Let me tell you what it is.
[00:29:58]  When at some event, Erica was there and we were doing something together.
[00:30:02]  Erica says, you know, every once in a while, I thank Charlie for being loyal to me.
[00:30:07]  And I didn't think anything of it and whatever.
[00:30:10]  The amount of emails I got from women saying how primal, how tribal, you know, what do you think?
[00:30:17]  I'm married to some sort of animal, which, of course, I respond, yes, you are married to a beast.
[00:30:22]  His nature is Genghis Khan.
[00:30:25]  What is your response to that?
[00:30:27]  Just build out that argument.
[00:30:28]  This email is tragedy.
[00:30:30]  We live in Dennis when I got those emails.
[00:30:33]  I'm not, but I totally get why you would be.
[00:30:36]  And you have a wonderful wife that she would say that.
[00:30:40]  That's a very big deal.
[00:30:41]  I have to add that.
[00:30:43]  And the ignorance, it's not just ignorance.
[00:30:49]  They take pride in their ignorance about life and about men in particular.
[00:30:56]  Yes, it is a struggle for every man who is heterosexual to stay monogamous.
[00:31:02]  Yes, to not spread the seed infinitely far.
[00:31:06]  We are built for variety of mates.
[00:31:10]  Or as one person, and I wish I knew who it was, but I'm acknowledging this is not my quote, but it's brilliant.
[00:31:18]  Men love women and women love a man.
[00:31:23]  And you have to be a grown-up.
[00:31:27]  If you're a woman, men who don't acknowledge that go on the young Turks.
[00:31:35]  But The women, the women who don't acknowledge that are afraid of reality.
[00:31:46]  Reality is no longer what is real.
[00:31:49]  What do I want it to be?
[00:31:52]  Women want men to be them, but in a different body.
[00:31:56]  That's basically what women yearn for.
[00:32:00]  And when they find out we're not, I'm sorry, darling, I'm not you with a beard.
[00:32:07]  I'm not you, period.
[00:32:09]  In fact, the name will become increasingly unknown to people.
[00:32:14]  In fact, I have Hugh Hefner's nature.
[00:32:18]  Hugh Hefner, for those who don't know, is the founder of Playboy.
[00:32:21]  I don't know if he slept with a thousand women.
[00:32:24]  And his life was devoted to sex.
[00:32:26]  That's all he devoted his life to.
[00:32:29]  That is normal male nature.
[00:32:33]  I don't care if your husband is a rabbi, priest, well, not priest.
[00:32:37]  I do care if your husband's a priest.
[00:32:38]  That's an issue.
[00:32:39]  But or minister or holy man or anything.
[00:32:46]  My wife knows that about me, and it's part of the reason I adore her.
[00:32:51]  I don't have to fake that I'm her.
[00:32:53]  I'm not, but I am faithful.
[00:32:56]  But I fully acknowledge that for every male, and the proof is gay males.
[00:33:03]  This is not societally induced.
[00:33:04]  Men don't want variety because society told them to.
[00:33:08]  Gay men want more than five men.
[00:33:10]  They want a thousand men.
[00:33:12]  Remarkably promiscuous.
[00:33:14]  Yes.
[00:33:14]  They are.
[00:33:15]  Yes.
[00:33:15]  Unless some, to their credit, and they get a lot of credit, who are loyal to one man.
[00:33:22]  And I know gay couples and I give them credit for that.
[00:33:27]  The other thing that you mentioned is, and it's controversial when women say they're not in the mood.
[00:33:34]  Yeah, of course it's controversial.
[00:33:36]  You wrote a column on it.
[00:33:38]  Yes, I wrote a column in Daily Coast said that I advocated marital rape.
[00:33:44]  One thing people must understand about the left, they're not just mean and vicious and dishonest.
[00:33:55]  They're shallow.
[00:33:56]  People must understand if you're not shallow, you can't be a leftist.
[00:34:00]  You could be a liberal.
[00:34:01]  You could be a conservative.
[00:34:02]  That's very interesting.
[00:34:04]  That point is very deep about how shallow the left is.
[00:34:06]  That's right.
[00:34:06]  It is a deep point about their shallowness.
[00:34:09]  In fact, they're deeply shallow.
[00:34:11]  Their shallowness is deep.
[00:34:13]  How's that?
[00:34:14]  Now you really got me.
[00:34:15]  Yeah.
[00:34:15]  Well, I was just one-upping your witticism.
[00:34:19]  So anyway, they wrote that I was advocating marital rape.
[00:34:23]  What I wrote, and it's on the internet, it's like 10 years old.
[00:34:28]  When a wife is not in the mood, I think that that's correct.
[00:34:31]  That's what I didn't say.
[00:34:33]  By the way, the irony is my grandmother knew this, who never graduated high school.
[00:34:38]  In other words, 100 years ago, women were far more sophisticated in their knowledge of men than they are today because they go to college now.
[00:34:48]  Isn't that amazing?
[00:34:49]  It's totally amazing.
[00:34:51]  So yes.
[00:34:52]  So my argument is, what in life should mood ever dictate?
[00:35:00]  And I said, what if your husband said, I'm not in the mood to go to work?
[00:35:04]  You have an obligation.
[00:35:06]  Marriage is obligations.
[00:35:08]  In Judaism, which is my fundamental value system, it is a contract.
[00:35:14]  It is called a contract.
[00:35:16]  A ketubah.
[00:35:17]  A man gives a contract.
[00:35:18]  Ketubah means contract.
[00:35:20]  I owe you X, you owe me Y.
[00:35:22]  It is understood.
[00:35:24]  And by the way, so is it in the New Testament, correct?
[00:35:27]  Yes, that's correct.
[00:35:28]  Well, it's a covenant is the word we use.
[00:35:30]  Well, perfectly, which is also taken from Judaism and the Torah.
[00:35:33]  And we can set it to be even a higher level of in the Catholic faith.
[00:35:37]  It's a sacrament.
[00:35:38]  Yes, before God.
[00:35:39]  Yes, it's a sacrament in the Catholic faith.
[00:35:41]  That's right.
[00:35:41]  Exactly.
[00:35:42]  In Christianity, it says Jesus with the church as man and woman.
[00:35:44]  And doesn't it say his body is yours and your body is his?
[00:35:49]  Well, that really runs.
[00:35:50]  So that's why they hate Judeo-Christian values, because we say mood, again, back to heart.
[00:35:56]  Yes.
[00:35:56]  We don't believe the heart is a good guide.
[00:35:59]  The left does.
[00:36:01]  How do you define heart then?
[00:36:02]  Just emotionally?
[00:36:03]  Okay.
[00:36:04]  That's right.
[00:36:04]  Feelings.
[00:36:05]  Not reason.
[00:36:06]  Yes.
[00:36:06]  So if you're not in the mood to have sex with your husband, fine.
[00:36:09]  So any decent husband will understand that that happens and periodically it's an end of the issue.
[00:36:15]  Certainly you're not feeling well.
[00:36:16]  It was a lousy day, et cetera.
[00:36:18]  But if it's routinely, I'm just not in the mood, please understand.
[00:36:22]  I mean, and I made it clear if your husband is a good man, if he's loyal.

=== Going Wild In The Wilderness (03:01) ===

[00:36:26]  All the necessary.
[00:36:27]  If he loves you.
[00:36:28]  Preambles.
[00:36:28]  Yes.
[00:36:29]  But they are necessary.
[00:36:31]  Obviously, if you have a creep, you don't owe him anything.
[00:36:34]  I understand that.
[00:36:35]  But if he's a good guy, what is it?
[00:36:38]  One French woman, and it's fitting that I was a French woman, said, when I came to realize how 20 minutes could make my husband happy, I thought, what the hell is 20 minutes?
[00:36:50]  It's a very powerful little argument.
[00:36:53]  Right?
[00:36:54]  It's very French.
[00:36:55]  It's very French.
[00:36:56]  Yes, because they were sophisticated.
[00:37:00]  Any closing thoughts, Dennis?
[00:37:01]  20 minutes.
[00:37:04]  Closing thought.
[00:37:05]  Yes, I beg your massive number of followers to please, because I didn't write it to get rich.
[00:37:13]  I wrote it to touch people's lives.
[00:37:14]  And it does.
[00:37:15]  And you're an example.
[00:37:17]  Thank you.
[00:37:17]  The rational Bible, any one of the three.
[00:37:20]  They're also very powerful audiobooks.
[00:37:23]  Oh, good.
[00:37:24]  I know.
[00:37:24]  I chose the guy who reads it.
[00:37:26]  He's great.
[00:37:26]  I wish it was you, but he's powerful and takes his time.
[00:37:30]  You also do the fireside character.
[00:37:32]  But you can underline in the physical and the heart cover is beautiful.
[00:37:36]  And the paper is not easy to find.
[00:37:38]  Well, you know what?
[00:37:39]  You know, did I tell you?
[00:37:40]  Because there was a delay.
[00:37:41]  No, I have a contract.
[00:37:42]  In my contract with my publishers, I must approve the paper or it doesn't get published.
[00:37:50]  Really?
[00:37:51]  Yes, it's in my contract.
[00:37:53]  Because so many books are printed on fish rackets.
[00:37:55]  It's just on garbage.
[00:37:57]  Right.
[00:37:57]  Deuteronomy is out.
[00:37:59]  Genesis, Exodus, and then Leviticus.
[00:38:01]  No, then numbers.
[00:38:03]  Into the wild?
[00:38:04]  Is that into the wilderness or something, right?
[00:38:06]  Yes, it's what it means.
[00:38:07]  In Hebrew, the name of the book is in the wilderness.
[00:38:09]  How on earth did we get English numbers?
[00:38:13]  Because numbers versus into the wild is like...
[00:38:15]  Because there were a lot of censuses in numbers.
[00:38:19]  It's a great question.
[00:38:21]  Listen.
[00:38:21]  This is one of my 500 questions I've ever read.
[00:38:24]  Well, imagine how I feel.
[00:38:26]  You went from the most interesting book.
[00:38:28]  I was a Krager book on numbers.
[00:38:29]  Oh, really?
[00:38:29]  He's a mathematician?
[00:38:31]  No, but you go from the most into the wild to numbers.
[00:38:35]  I know.
[00:38:36]  It's okay.
[00:38:36]  So here it goes the other way.
[00:38:38]  You know what the Hebrew word for Exodus is?
[00:38:40]  The book?
[00:38:40]  Journey or Exit?
[00:38:42]  No, that's what the Hebrew word for that is.
[00:38:44]  But the name of the book in Hebrew.
[00:38:45]  No, I don't know.
[00:38:46]  Names.
[00:38:47]  Oh, come on.
[00:38:48]  Yes.
[00:38:48]  So they swap.
[00:38:50]  In one case, the English is fascinating and the Hebrew is boring and then the other way around.
[00:38:56]  I think you should just go with Into the Wild.
[00:38:58]  Is it in the wilderness or is it in the wilderness?
[00:39:01]  So it'll be numbers in the wilderness.
[00:39:03]  Yes.
[00:39:03]  I think that's smart.
[00:39:04]  Yes.
[00:39:05]  Dennis, God bless you.
[00:39:07]  Thank you so much.
[00:39:07]  He has blessed me, and you're one of those blessings.
[00:39:10]  Well, thank you.
[00:39:11]  Thank you.
[00:39:14]  Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
[00:39:15]  Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:39:18]  Thank you so much for listening and God bless.
[00:39:23]  For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.