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April 10, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:05:08
The Dishonesty Slope
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Hey everybody, Dennis Prager and Julie Hartman, a.k.a.
Dennis and Julie.
Do you know, folks, if you really like this, we like it even more.
And if you really like this, you should consider subscribing.
Oh, that was totally unanticipated.
That's true.
Please do, in fact.
It helps tremendously in getting the word out.
I was making, though, a truly serious point just for people to know how much we love this.
Love it.
Highlight of my week.
Yeah.
Seriously, it is.
Okay, I just thought people should know that.
Because the last show we talked about, you know, people asking me, do you really believe in the products that you advertise?
As if I would take money and be dishonest about a product.
I just want people to...
That's part of the magic of this show is that we...
It's so real.
It's us.
It is Dennis and Julie.
You know, my favorite thing in life is realness.
I seek it in others.
That's right.
I mean, it's just...
I totally get it.
I'm smiling like a silly puppy because it's just another area of such similarity.
Real is truly one of my favorite things.
So I have a question for you.
Has there ever been a time in your life where you haven't been real?
I mean, early on in your life.
By the way, no.
And interestingly, I can't think of any.
It's a very good question.
I never really pondered it much.
I must say I take some credit for it, but I don't take all credit for it.
I couldn't operate.
I mean, I feel silly and redundant, but it's the same thing with me.
Yeah, that's a big part of it.
It's not in my user manual of Julie Hartman.
It's not an option.
It's really not.
Do you know in regard to that, when...
I was talking about in the last, Dennis and Julie, about people asking me, well, do you really believe in that product?
Does it really work?
And my thinking, what, are you kidding?
I'm going to say something that I don't believe for money.
People don't know, but I want to share this with people for a moment, and you'll get a kick out of it now that you see ads and read them.
How much we accept dishonesty as normative.
Advertising is a perfect example.
So, it's an interesting question.
Buy X detergent.
It's the best detergent you will ever buy.
Now, it's an interesting question, and I mean it as such.
I'm not just raising the issue.
And then I have more to say about ads.
Look, it's not provable that it's not the best detergent.
Well, it might be provable now that I think of it.
They could do tests.
But is the claim it's the best detergent there is inherently dishonest since nobody has tested all detergents?
It's tricky because then everything that you would say, including what I just said, because not everything is a generalization, then everything you would say would be technically...
Well, no, no.
Generalization is understood to have exceptions.
If you say it's the best...
If you say this batter...
Yeah, it's probably a little dishonest.
Yeah, I think it is.
So what if you say...
We sincerely believe it is the best detergent out there.
That's fine.
Well, I mean, you're totally right.
It is, but that's not particularly good advertising.
Because people won't care if you believe it.
By the way, I'm not sure that's true.
I think people...
I have found I'm very effective with sponsors.
And I think a big reason is people do believe me.
Well, you, I mean, I will say this of Dennis.
You use every single product you advertise.
And I see, because we sit here and do ad reads, you are very careful, for instance, to not call friends.
That's right.
So here's one of my favorites.
That's what he does.
But here, my honesty actually works to the benefit of the commercial.
So here's an interesting question.
Almost every ad that I read, even for...
A station in Minneapolis, or I'm on in a lot of cities, obviously.
So I will get a local ad to read.
I want you to visit my friend, Elliot, da-da-da-da, who has the great realty office in Minneapolis.
So, of course, I always drop my friend, because I don't know the guy from Adam.
But I've heard it does a good job, so I'm okay with promoting his realty practice, his realty business.
But here's the interesting question.
Aside from, I will not say ever my friend if it's not my friend, I don't know why that helps.
I think it undermines an ad.
Totally.
It makes it seem like nepotism.
Exactly.
Yes.
Why do they think that that's a good thing?
I mean...
I don't know.
You picked up on it immediately.
Yes.
But did you ever think of it before I raised it?
Yes, I have because it's better if you just eat.
It's actually kind of better if they're not your...
That's right.
I don't know the guy.
I can only tell you this is one hell of a business.
Not only is it better if he's not your friend, it actually would be all the more better if he's your enemy.
I don't happen to like Elliot, to be honest.
I think he's somewhat of a schmuck.
But...
My enemy Elliot!
Buddy runs a really fucked realty business in Minneapolis.
That would be...
Right?
It's worth testing, but I don't know who would want to be the guinea pig.
That is so funny.
Or here's another one that I never do, and Sean can testify to this, where it will say, so...
An exclusive discount for my listeners.
But I know it's not exclusive to my listeners.
It's the same discount to every other person doing the ad.
That I did not consider.
And you will hear on today's episode that I did not consider that.
Right.
No, but it's true.
No, but I'm learning.
Yeah, of course you're learning.
And you know I edit the ad reads.
You do.
Exactly.
But you see...
People get used to...
I mean, this is not in the realm of cheating people out of money or lying about serious matters, but it's a very bad slope to start sliding down, the dishonesty slope.
Oh, totally.
I, like many others, I'm sure you're included in this group, was really taken with Solzhenitsyn's Live Not By Lies.
I think that is one of the more important, powerful, and incredibly concise essays of our time.
What you just said a few moments ago about the amount of deception around us.
We have lost the ability to identify lies and react appropriately to them.
Even when I talk to people who aren't so much of my political persuasion and I list the avalanche of lies that bombards us every single day.
Men are women.
Women are men.
You know, police are inherently racist.
President Obama was recently in Australia and he...
I'm laughing.
I called Obama Xi by accident.
He spoke to a foreign minister and said that Donald Trump was in charge of China's ascension, or Donald Trump was responsible for China's ascension.
Totally blowing past all of the things that Trump did to combat the threat of China.
And totally, oh, I don't know, blowing past the fact that our current President Joe Biden is proven to have been compromised by the Chinese.
But again, we just were constantly, constantly bombarded with lies, big and small.
And so my point is, when I talk to people who aren't of my political persuasion about that, they will sort of dismiss it as like, well...
That's just the world we live in now.
Everyone lies.
Not dissimilar to what we talked about last week with life is a game.
Oh, I have to play the game dirty because everyone else is playing the game dirty.
It's like, well, I'm not going to be upset by a lie because it happens all of the time.
It's really, really sad.
We used to live in a time where people would be angry at a lie.
Now people can't even identify a lie, and when they do, they aren't angry.
Right?
Men give birth.
And you know, okay, so this is very interesting.
I'm curious to see if this is something that you've encountered in your life or if it's just among people my age.
I notice this would happen in college a lot.
It was very sort of part of the culture when you would run into someone on the street.
Who you knew peripherally or you were friends with from afar.
You talked to them.
How's your semester going?
And then both of you would say, we should get lunch sometime.
That's right.
Yeah, that's famous.
That's an American thing, by the way.
And it would be joked about at Harvard because all of us would do it and no one would ever follow up or have lunch.
That's how you say goodbye in Hollywood, Sean just said.
And actually, I'm a little ashamed.
I did that.
Right.
And then I stopped.
I'm with you, but it's a way of saying, I don't want you to think I never want to see you again.
Yes.
No, exactly.
So what I've started doing is, it's so nice to see you.
I hope to be able to see you sometime in the future.
I hope, you know.
That's a nice way.
I'll go, it's great running into you.
I'll make a joke like, let's meet outside of the hasty puddle.
Or, you know, I'll make some joke about.
Right, right.
I'll see you here this time next week or something.
Well, I have a thought and I lost it.
Hey, it shows how relaxed we are.
Oh, yes.
Actually, I have a thought on how relaxed we are for a moment.
Of course you do.
Because I have a thought on everything.
Yes.
Hey, you see these specks?
What's your thought on that?
Right here.
Specks?
Yes.
He has a theory on everything.
Yes, I have a theory on that that they don't matter.
That is my theory.
Fair enough.
So...
Just a reflection on what we do.
The appeal of what we're doing is, back to your word, real.
And people are not used to it.
See, I'll give you an example.
Being a talk show host for 40 years, the very first time I tried out, and I got the job that night, It was very moving to me, obviously.
I knew it was going to change my life, and it did.
So from the very beginning, I knew, I said to myself, and I was 32 years old, 33, whatever, I always get it wrong, it doesn't matter.
And I remember saying, you must talk normal.
Because the great majority of talk show hosts, and these people overwhelmingly are interesting and bright.
You can't be a dummy and have a talk show.
It doesn't last.
Maybe you could do it on dummy subjects, but not on serious subjects.
Anyway, so it's not a knock on them.
It's just, this is a...
How I heard the average talk show, hey everybody, welcome to the show, it's great to be with you, hey, what do you think?
And I thought, that's not how they talk when they're off the air.
So I decided I will, and here's the irony, it takes effort to be real.
You would think it's effortless because you're just you, but especially if you do public work, it takes a great deal of effort.
To make sure that you don't enter public forms of speech but speak real.
And obviously, given my success, for which I am deeply grateful, it worked.
And that's what this is.
You know me and I know you and it's real.
I just wanted to say that because People should attempt to be real.
People need to monitor themselves.
And I think people are afraid to be real because they think that if they're real, they won't be impressive.
They will sound boring or whatever it is.
It's an insecurity, I think.
Yes, and because everyone, apropos of the cheating thing, everyone else is fake.
So if you're real...
Then you're the odd one out, or you're not participating in the quote-unquote game.
So anyway, I remember as well something else I want to raise.
It's also about, in this case, PragerU.
I just got this from Megan, who is the producer.
Oh, she's the best.
She's terrific.
She's the cutest baby.
Yes, Riley.
Boy, that's impressive.
You remember the name.
Yes, that's true.
No, not that impressive.
It's impressive for me.
No, for, yes.
Yeah, for me.
So listen to this that was just received with a donation to PragerU.
I'm a psychotherapist who refers to and shares PragerU videos with my clients.
They are a great aid in becoming mature and developing a healthy psychological perspective.
If more people watched and absorbed material presented by PragerU, I would have to find another line of work.
By the way, that's exactly what I said.
Well, not exactly, but see, I'm trying to be more precise with my language.
Right.
Because even though it's not lying, it's, you know, anyway.
Imprecise.
It is imprecise.
That's what I said on your radio show when you had me on to talk about PragerU.
I said, you know, obviously politically it changed my life, but I think it's made me a healthier, happier person.
This is, so this is what I want to address for a moment.
Do you think any left-wing show or institution in America got a note like that from a therapist?
No.
I show your stuff and it helps people become so mature and healthy it would put me out of business if everybody saw it.
Well, you know what?
There's, okay.
First of all, a...
There's so much baked into that message.
There's humility.
There's admiration.
There's even the word mature.
I don't think a psychoanalyst on the left would say, I want my clients to become...
They would say, I want to liberate my clients or help my clients self-love.
Or understand how crappy their parents are.
You can tell by the way that people write.
Before we move on from the speaking thing, I have told you, and I've said on this broadcast, that when I first discovered you...
I knew that we would be friends.
I remember thinking, this guy gets me.
I get him.
If I ever met him, we would really hit it off.
Clearly, I was right.
Of course, it was your values, but a big thing that really, really increased your credibility in my mind was your voice.
Your voice made a big impression on me because I could tell that it was the way that you normally speak.
You don't have, even on my show, and I think the way I speak on my show is 90% there of how I usually speak.
I try to be more conscious of my diction and the way that I pronounce words.
But sometimes broadcasters will slow down.
They'll be like, we'll get to that in just one moment.
But they'll kind of have a certain cadence, and I'm even trying to get rid of something like that, because that isn't exactly my real voice.
Anyway, the way that you speak, which is no different on air as off air, makes a huge, huge, huge impression.
Well, good.
I'm happy to hear it, and I know that.
Oh, you wanted to say something else?
Because I want to get back to this message.
No, I was going to say that person is so...
You can tell the way that people write, too.
No leftist, I'm sorry, would have that much humility and praise and modesty and admiration baked into that message.
Well, you pick it all up, and you picked up the word mature.
Oh, yes.
Mature is a conservative word.
That's a great subject.
I am going to write a column on...
Words that only conservatives use.
We've talked about this.
We did?
Oh yeah, we talked about this and I'm ashamed that we never followed up with it.
We were going to, together, come up with a list of words and also come up with, like, if you see someone on the street, how can you tell if they're conservative or not?
With what they wear or the way that they carry themselves.
Oh, well, that's interesting.
I can't.
I used to think I could.
Oh, I can.
Oh no, I'm not sure you can.
If you followed me for six months in airports, you would find...
I have found this.
This was a total revelation to me.
I cannot predict who will come over to me and say thank you for your work.
Okay, so I have a question.
It could be heavily tattooed.
It could be any race, any ethnicity.
And it could be a white, totally...
Conservative looking person who hates my guts.
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So, do you find...
Well, let me just say, I agree with you partially.
I think with men, it's sort of a toss-up.
With women, I can pretty much predict...
Oh, that's interesting.
Okay, I don't know women's clothing like I do men's.
It's interesting.
I would get it right with women.
With men, I agree it's more of a toss-up.
That's fascinating.
I'm going to try to now make mental notes about the...
Maybe I'll take...
When they take a selfie with me, maybe I'll have them do it with my camera too.
No, no, it would be...
No, it would be very interesting.
That must be fascinating for you to see who comes up to you.
Oh, it's beyond belief.
There is just no way, as I say, there is no way to know.
There's no way by age.
There is no way buy clothing, at least to my knowledge, or tattoos, or hairdos, or no hair.
And I like that fact, by the way.
I do.
But I want to get back to this thing, that the bigger point that I made was, and I'd like everyone listening to this to think about this.
Can they think of a left-wing institution?
Broadcast anything that goes public that somebody would write thanks to you.
Oh, no, no.
That somebody would write to them.
Thanks to you, people are getting happier and more mature.
What were all the words that he used?
This was fascinating.
Becoming mature and developing a healthy psychological perspective.
See, what I love about that message, the reason why I use the word humility, was the fact that he is a psychoanalyst or psychotherapist, is referring his clients to PragerU, shows that he...
He just wants to help them.
He wants to help.
He doesn't care about being in control or being the savior.
Anything that will help his clients, even if it's outside of his purview, he is willing to pass along to them.
That just would not be the same on the left.
It just wouldn't.
There's no sense of humility or some people may know something that I don't know.
Right.
I agree with you and yet I want to just re-emphasize my biggest point is healthy psychological perspective and maturity.
Those are not left-wing values.
Yes.
Maturity is almost a silly word on the left.
So sometimes, I had someone ask me recently, you know, because I get so many emails, which I love, love getting all the emails I get.
Someone said to me, you know, what if someone writes into you and they're a fake and they're pretending to like you, but they just want to, like...
But why would they do that?
Well, I mean, there are some manipulative people in the world that would pretend like, you know, let's say...
In order to what?
To fake you into...
To get coffee and then, you know...
I have not had that once in all of my career.
Exactly.
I have not.
I mean, you've had a way longer career than I have.
But what I'm saying is, I don't think that would happen in large part because a person couldn't be able to mimic an email, like a conservative email.
No, they couldn't.
They wouldn't know how to write it.
I'm being dead serious.
Oh, that's so interesting.
No, they wouldn't.
And by the way, there's this test in Jonathan Haidt's book.
I think it's called The Righteous Mind, the book.
It's in one of his books for sure.
I don't know if it's that particular one, but he did this study or he cites a study where he put like 40 liberals into a room and 40 conservatives and gave them each prompts.
And they said to the liberals, answer them as if you are conservative.
And then they said to the conservatives, answer them as if you are liberals.
That is brilliant.
Isn't it brilliant?
The conservatives got the liberals exactly right and the liberals got the conservatives...
Totally wrong.
They could not imitate what conservatives think.
Or, you know, like, one of the questions was, like, you know, what makes America exceptional?
And the, like, liberals were like, oh, the, you know, white people have been able to earn some, or, like, our flag is, like, no, sorry, they wrote, like, the flag is so great, and the Constitution is so, like, it was so, like, surface level of what they thought conservatives believed,
and then the real conservatives No one could ever fool me because I would be able to see in an email that they clearly don't believe what they say.
But on the flip side, when I get emails, so many of them from our listeners who are so bright, so smart.
I mean, obviously, it's clear that they're conservative if they're writing to me, and they're often expressing their conservative values.
But I can just tell with the first three lines who they are.
Some people write, Dear Miss Julie.
That's so polite.
By the way, you don't have to call me Miss Julie, but it's so polite.
Dear Miss Julie.
Would a leftist ever write to a peer and say, Dear Miss something?
Well, the odds are they wouldn't use dear.
Well, that's another great point.
Or our listeners will write, you know.
Your broadcast has made me a better conversationalist.
It's made me a better this.
Do you think a leftist would say, you know, has made me better in any way or has improved my character?
I mean, it's just a totally different worldview and set of values.
I think that in the vast majority of cases, the more the left influences a person, the worse they become.
Oh.
I'll give examples because the generalization sounds so severe.
So I would like to know how many people can say if their child went woke in college, which happens in the millions, you know, I just want to say my kid came home from filling the name of the school and is now kinder, finer, more mature, more responsible.
Has a deeper relationship with his mom and me.
It wouldn't happen.
Of course not.
They come home angry at America, at the parents, at life.
They've been screwed.
As I say often, since you're a living recording machine.
Have I said this here?
You get a BA in ingratitude, an MA in ingratitude, and a PhD in ingratitude.
I don't believe you said it here, but you have said it.
Oh, that I know, but I don't know.
Oh, no, I'm only talking about here.
Okay, yeah.
Well, that's the truth.
You get degrees in ingratitude.
It's an astonishing thing.
The worst trait there is in the human being is ingratitude, in my opinion.
It leads to everything else.
Ingrates are bad people.
And you know from my Bible commentary, that's what God gets all ticked at the Israelites, their non-gratitude.
That's what ticks them off.
And the Torah is so amazing.
It really is unbelievable.
It's like eating candy reading it.
I know that's not so stupid to say or a weird analogy, but it is.
I agree with you.
Let me say a word about that.
So I have an interesting...
I take on prayer.
Unlike most religious people, I don't get into prayer.
And I don't defend myself and I don't condemn myself.
It's just the way it is.
But I have a cute way, cute in the positive and perhaps negative way, of explaining myself in this regard.
I am much more interested in what God has to say to me than what I have to say to God.
And that's what God has to say to me, the Torah.
I'm pointing at your copy of my commentary.
That's how I look at it.
It's a really well put way to explain it.
It sort of reminded me of the Alan Dershowitz.
Isn't that more interesting?
Yes.
Well, you know, I'm really...
Wait, what about the Dershowitz?
Oh, the Dershowitz.
Oh, yeah.
Yes, right.
Well, that sort of proves your point.
Dershowitz thinks if there's a difference between the Torah and his opinion or his view, he's right, Torah's wrong.
You think you're wrong, Torah's right.
Right.
Again, I'm sorry, audience.
I feel like we're always saying how similar we are, but it's the truth and we're real.
I also am not particularly into prayer.
I prayed when I was at the Western Wall.
Sometimes if I go into church, I'll say a quick prayer.
It's not that I never do it, but I don't do it often.
And I view thinking about God as a kind of prayer.
Or thinking about my family and wishing and hoping for the best for them, you know, when I'm driving or when I'm walking around in life.
I sort of feel like I never pray, but also pray constantly, if that makes any sense.
Yes.
Because I'm contemplating the divine.
I'm contemplating good and evil.
I'm contemplating what God wants of me.
I'm contemplating what I can learn from Him.
So it's not technically prayer, but it sort of is.
And I would suspect...
I mean, I know that is the same of you, but...
Right.
It's funny.
I like the way you put it because...
Here we go again.
I hope people aren't getting annoyed.
So I'm not going to emphasize the similarity between us.
I will just note that I think about God a lot.
Me too.
That's a very interesting point, but I pray very little.
Maybe I should think of that as prayer.
Well, I would be...
Sean is saying expand our definition of prayer.
Well, yes, he would like it expanded to what we just said.
If you're thinking about God, it's a form of prayer.
So, I mean, we have to be honest to Judaism and Christianity that when we say prayer, it's not merely thinking about God.
It's speaking to God.
No, it's speaking to God.
I mean, that's what prayer is.
The prayers that mean, well, I don't want to get into the prayers that mean the most.
It's going to take us into a very detailed arena, which is not necessary.
But I just want to go back to the Torah.
That is my experience of God, not prayer.
Yeah.
I feel like the more that I'm reading and the more that I'm growing in my knowledge of God, that's a better use of my time and, frankly, a more enjoyable use of my time than prayer.
When I pray, and I know that there's technically sort of no wrong way to pray.
Actually, I don't know if that's entirely true.
If you just sit and make God your cosmic butler, as you say, that's a wrong way to pray.
Okay, so he thinks it's wrong to keep praying for things.
Right, I agree.
My celestial butler thing.
But my prayers, whenever I do...
Do prayers.
They last only like two or three minutes.
And I feel like I'm doing it wrong because I always start off with thanking God.
And I go through all, you know, the things that I'm grateful of.
And then I always say I'm also thankful for the things that I'm forgetting to thank you for right now.
And then I go through, you know, please protect my family and my friends.
And then that's kind of it.
I don't know what more in prayer I'm supposed to be doing and I'm willing to learn or find out.
But I don't sit in like...
I don't know.
I feel like it's just a pretty short thing.
And then the bulk of the prayer or getting closer to God is trying to understand Him and learn more about Him.
So that's why you study.
That's why I study, yes.
But I don't...
Please, actually, I'd love it if the viewers would write in to me, especially we have a lot of religious viewers.
I spoke in Sacramento a couple of weeks ago, and I was...
Yeah, I get the city somewhat mixed up, but I'm almost certain it was Sacramento.
And there were a little over 900 people there, almost all Christians.
And I was interviewed by a pastor.
Am I right?
I have to believe I'm right.
Maybe I... Yeah, okay.
So, he at the end...
I looked at the people and said, I'd like to end with a prayer.
Of course, I bent my head, as everybody did.
And when he finished, I went over to him and I said, I want you to know I have heard such prayers probably a thousand times.
Yours was the most moving I had ever heard.
Oh, wow.
And I may play it on the air, although I'm afraid to because it may seem self-serving because a lot of the prayer was on my behalf.
But it was so moving to me the way he said it.
And it was so obviously real, again real, that I just wanted to note that.
The prayer that most moves me is spontaneous prayer from a sincere believer.
Right.
In Judaism, almost all prayer is wrote.
I'm not saying that as a negative, but I don't relate to it as much.
There's a prayer book.
We say the same prayers every single day, every single Sabbath, every single holy day.
Some people are deeply moved by it.
My brother is one of them.
I'm not.
Even though they're beautiful, they're inherently beautiful.
But as I say to people, Shakespeare is inherently beautiful and profound.
But if I read Hamlet every week, it would be difficult to find it meaningful by the hundredth week.
But it's not here or there.
I just want to go back to the point I'm making, why the study of the Bible in particular, The Torah, the first five books, is so meaningful.
Did you have some questions?
I did.
So it's a perfect introduction.
What I will say first though is that I understand what you're saying about the rote prayers.
I do think there is something really nice about repeating something a lot.
For instance, the Pledge of Allegiance.
I'm really glad that I know that.
And I think about lines from it.
Or even the prayer, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil.
You know, those are nice lines to sort of have in your back pocket.
You're right.
To bring up and think of.
I agree.
That's one of the good things about it.
How many kids at your school that you graduated from?
Thank you, Dennis.
How many know the pledge by heart?
Oh, God.
Well, well, well.
I'll tell you something very interesting.
When at our graduation, there was the anthem, people didn't put their hands over their hearts, or they didn't take off their caps.
People kind of looked around like, what do we do?
They didn't know the proper etiquette.
I would say very few know the Pledge of Allegiance.
Certainly under 30%.
Your graduation from Harvard, they actually had the Star Spangled Banner?
Well, interestingly...
I'm shocked.
They had the music of it, but not the lyrics, which I thought was interesting.
They probably thought that they had to do it, but they just played the melody.
Was the flag waving?
I don't know.
I don't recall.
I think there was a flag on a post, but it was not a big flag.
I mean, they have huge Harvard flags and all of that.
I don't think there was a big American flag.
Do they have an LGBTQ flag?
I'm sure they've definitely had it up in the yard, but I don't think they had it up at our graduation.
But it's fascinating because people didn't know what to do.
And also, I was speaking with someone about this fairly recently.
You're not supposed to display the flag at night.
You're supposed to take it down before sunset.
You're also not supposed to let the flag touch the ground.
You're supposed to take it down when it's raining.
You're supposed to shine a light on it if it's in the dark.
People don't know that.
People have no idea about that.
There's a way to fold it up?
I learned that way.
Believe it or not, when I was in elementary school.
I went to a pretty traditional elementary school.
I went to an Orthodox Jewish camp.
It's important that I'm noting that it's Orthodox Jewish.
And every day before sunset, we took the flag down and at sunrise put it up.
I think that's wonderful.
It was wonderful.
And everybody was quiet and reverential.
I can't wait to teach my kids things that...
I want them to know.
I mean, I want to teach them how to fold the flag.
I want to teach them about...
Folks, I'm glancing over at Julie's copy of my Rational Bible.
It's almost all underlined.
Oh, my God, of course.
You sort of should note the lines you're not underlining.
It would be easier.
I do this with a lot of books, but your book...
Oh, look at this page.
Yeah, I love it.
By the way, I do love it.
It means the world to me.
Well, my dear...
Oh, I also...
I write, by the way, with the belief that everything I say must be that important that you would underline it.
Well, you said that you want at least one underline a page.
You've got it from mine.
So I just want to show one other thing to the audience.
I think they'll find it to be very touching.
I think I am the only person alive.
And I recognize this privilege.
Who has a signed copy from all three.
See, I wanted Sue to sign it.
So typical Sue.
She's like, I have to think about the proper thing to say before I sign it.
But I have Dennis, Joel Alperson, and Joseph Telushkin.
That is the only one, I think.
That is really cool.
That is really cool.
Wow.
I know.
And each of you wrote lovely things.
Anyway.
Even I? You wrote...
Sometimes it's nice to talk with you, Julie.
That is impressive.
That was bloody impressive, ladies and gentlemen.
All the guys cracked up.
Boy, you're easy to crack up.
No, we're not.
That was a very funny, spontaneous rib.
I loved it.
I thought it was great.
Thank you.
You know, this is what happens when I work with men.
All they do is rib each other, and now I'm getting better.
Zach knows.
He used to not be great at the rib, but now I'm better.
He said to our beloved Julie.
Dennis, I'm so sweet.
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Talking about working only with men, which is all we have here.
Would you say that...
It's a coin toss.
Oh, come on.
A coin toss.
Did I say coin toss?
Coin toss.
Or, you already know.
If I could say to you, Julie, an all-women staff or all-male staff?
I am not even going to dignify that part of the response.
And it's not because of opposite-sex issues.
Because I would choose all-male staff, too.
Duh!
Exactly.
You're not moody.
They bring me cheese puffs from Trader Joe's.
Who does?
The men.
Actually, no!
Suzette!
I was never brought cheese puffs.
Suzette, the call screener brings them.
Exactly, you see?
I'm an awful woman.
So it's good to have a woman.
I'm not showing woman solidarity.
Okay, so we're going to talk about circumcision.
Oh.
Brit?
Yes, Brit means covenant.
I'm telling you, I learned so much from Shabbat dinner.
I know the prayer now.
You're getting there, yes.
That's right.
Like before I used to just sit there.
It's really something.
Yeah, no.
By the way, the amazing thing, and this is the argument for rote prayer, you go to a Jewish home anywhere on earth.
And you will be able to sing that song Friday night.
That's really special.
It is special.
I like to zoom out in the world and I think about all the homes around the world that are doing it.
It's really, it's lovely.
Julie's not Jewish, by the way, just for the record.
Julie.
Anyway.
Okay.
So, circumcision.
My question for you here.
Well, first, of course, the circumcision is a covenant, hence the word, the Hebrew word you just said.
Right.
Well, the...
All right, so I'm going to try to be as untechnical as possible.
When Jews invite you to the circumcision of an eight-day-old boy, they'll say, come to our bris.
Bris is, there are two ways of pronouncing a lot of Hebrew words.
And if one is brit, in this case, or bris.
S or T. I do it with the T, but a lot of people will just say bris.
So you're really saying, literally you're saying, come to my son's covenant.
Right.
Brit Milah is covenant of circumcision.
Milah is circumcision.
Bris or Brit is covenant.
Okay, go ahead.
The covenant is between God and the Jews, and as you say here, though I can read the actual text of the Torah, you say the covenant is that the Jews are to keep God alive in the world, and God is to keep the Jews alive.
So, a few questions for you here.
First, with circumcision, I guess I know that you say, If I knew God, I'd be him.
If I knew him, I'd be him.
I understand you give very good arguments about circumcision is certainly more sanitary.
I never say sanitary.
I never give health.
There are health benefits, but it's not the reason for it.
So is the primary reason for it specifically is that there's almost like there's a physical mark, almost like the mark of Cain, which is protection.
There's the physical mark.
Well, I don't know if it's protection, but it's a reminder, and it is done on the organ of procreation.
It is also done on the organ of sexual pleasure, so that...
You're reminded of your duty.
Yes, exactly.
So, I mean, thank God there is no comparable circumcision with women.
It would be sadistic and awful.
That's correct.
And this has, contrary to the people in the no-circ movement in San Francisco, who say, oh, it deprives men of a lot, having no foreskin deprives them of a lot of sexual pleasure.
First of all, Very few people would know that unless as an adult you got circumcised and you could say, oh, yesterday or last week I had much more pleasure in sexual activity than I do now.
I've never met a guy who was circumcised and every Jewish guy I know has been circumcised.
Whoever confided in me, you know, just...
It's not very sensitive, my penis, because I have no foreskin.
Welcome to Dennis and Julie.
It's absurd.
So, I mean, again, totally understood why circumcision specifically is not applied to women.
But why do you think men were the ones who had a mark, if you will, of sorts?
Why is it that men are singled out?
Well, I don't actually cover that because if I don't have something particularly important to say, I just don't say anything.
Look, the tradition holds that men are more obligated to ritual law than women are.
Why?
So that's an interesting question, why?
The traditional response, interestingly, is that women need it less than men do.
Isn't that interesting?
Oh, yes.
It was actually an anti-male, pro-female.
That's the tradition.
Sort of like God being a he, because men need to be more civilized.
Yes, because having a female tell you don't murder is not as effective as a man saying to you don't murder.
Which is just a fact.
Among men.
But I think among women too.
So one answer is that ritual law is more needed by men to control their natures than by women.
And so that was one reason that would be given.
Also, I mean...
The fact is that that organ is owned only by men is obviously going to be a factor.
Dr. Marmer, whom we both know, and I hope I don't misquote him, he has an interesting take as a psychoanalyst, which is a psychiatrist plus, psychiatrist exponential, because you have to be a psychiatrist.
You have to be an MD to be a psychiatrist.
You have to be a psychiatrist to be a psychoanalyst.
Psychoanalysis is out of favor today because for whatever reasons they're not big Freud fans and Freud developed that.
But anyway, he has a psychoanalytic take and I really hope I'm not misquoting him but I'd like to give him credit and anybody credit if I don't have the idea.
Remember, child sacrifice was ubiquitous.
It was in every culture.
He thinks this is the way, in the most primal sense, the father gets to experience that extremely negative emotion of harming, even.
And I really pray I'm not misquoting him.
His rival, his son, father-son rivalry is notorious throughout history.
The son that killed the father, the father would kill the son.
And the second the Brit is over, all he wants to do is protect his son.
So he gets to harm him and then protect him.
For the rest of his life.
Fascinating.
It's all subconscious, obviously.
No father, I circumcised both my sons, or I had them both circumcised.
I didn't think for a second I was harming them.
But you have to acknowledge that...
There's a painful process.
Very interesting.
Yes.
Very, very.
This is not exactly related to the subconscious, but I'd also like to credit Dr. Marmer the binding of Isaac's story, which I called it that because I read your commentary, and the more accurate thing is to call it the binding rather than the sacrifice.
Well, that's what it is in Hebrew.
He wasn't sacrificed.
Right.
So I talked with Dr. Marmer about it.
I already said he's my psychiatrist on the show.
And I think it's so funny because during our psychiatry appointments, which, you know, once a month or whenever we meet, we just talk about the Torah.
We both agree that's probably just the healthiest thing to do.
Oh my God, it's so fun.
We always go past the time.
It's really fun.
Anyway, he has a great point.
Very interesting take about the binding of Isaac's story, which I want to get to.
We may not have time.
Where he says it was...
It was sort of a symbolic thing to teach the Jews that part of being Jewish is that your posterity, your family members, your children are going to die.
Well, the way that he would put it, this I do know, and the way I would put it, and I think I do put it in there.
Every Jew who raises his or her child to be a Jew...
Knows that there may well be sacrifice.
Way better said.
That's exactly his point.
So back to the circumcision.
By the way, it's worth noting to you and to the audience, I think I found the synopsis of ethical monotheism in one Torah verse, which is chapter 18, verse 19. God is talking about Abraham, and he said, Did I mention there that that's an ethical monotheism summary?
The Torah revealed ethical monotheism, and this is the verse that summarizes what it means.
Okay, so you did.
By the way, I wasn't trying to take credit away from you.
I forgot that you...
No, no, no.
Anyway, I wrote ethical monotheism up here.
The issue wasn't credit.
The issue was solely, you're so right.
And I wondered, did I note that?
You did.
And you say, God is moral, God demands moral behavior from all human beings, and God will judge them according to his universal moral law.
So my question with regard to circumcision is, you say that the exchange, and as just evidenced here, is I, God, will keep you, the Jews, alive if you, the Jews, keep me, God, alive.
And so my question...
Well, not if.
Just, that's the deal.
I keep you alive, you keep me alive.
So I guess my question, here's what I have written down here, is shouldn't, like, shouldn't the Jews, I guess the way that this is positioned, like, shouldn't there be more proof rather than, like, shouldn't it be an outcome or proof than a promise?
Like, a promise seems a little quid pro quo-y, like, of God.
In other words, shouldn't God just keep the Jews alive?
If they are fulfilling their promise, then he won't keep them alive if they don't?
Well, to a certain extent, you're right.
Because I note in one of my arguments against unconditional love, if you...
I don't remember which book it's in.
I assume Deuteronomy.
It might also be Exodus.
And that is, if you keep my laws, you will be my cherished people.
It's an if.
That's the way it's phrased in Exodus.
Yes, or Deuteronomy, yes.
Good.
That's correct.
You got the answers.
Okay, so how much time do we have?
Twelve.
Twelve minutes?
Okay.
How'd you like that, Sean?
I said twelve.
I have a built-in clock.
You know what?
That's very interesting you say that.
When I wake up at night, I can tell you definitely what hour of the night it is, 2 or 3 or 4 o'clock.
And sometimes, I swear to God, I can get the minute.
I can go, it's 4.47 a.m.
And it's just like a thought.
It's just, I can't explain where it comes from.
Okay, so given that, we'll talk about Isaac another time because that's an hour conversation.
So I'd like to move on to the story where Abraham bargains God down to ten people with destroying Sodom and Gomorrah.
So as background, and you can tell me, you can correct if my synopsis is faulty, but...
Sodom and Gomorrah, these evil cities, evil people inhabit them, and God wants to destroy them.
And Abraham, and this is an amazing chapter, it really is, to show that Abraham can, apropos of the name of Israel, struggle with God, contradict God, challenge God, is just an amazing thing.
So Abraham says to God, well, God says, if there are 50, that's right, he starts with 50. If there are 50 righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah, I will not destroy the city.
Well, Abraham says, what if there are 50 righteous?
Will you destroy the city?
God says, no.
I will save it because of 50. Okay, got it.
So Abraham introduces the number 50. And then God says no.
And then Abraham bargains him down.
Abraham goes, well, what about 45?
And God goes, okay, if there are 45. And Abraham bargains him all the way down to 10. And then God does not...
God says that's it.
No, God doesn't say that's it.
It's interesting.
So he says, he gets them down to ten.
Well, would you save the cities, God, if there were ten righteous people?
God said, yes, I will.
And then Abraham keeps quiet.
Oh, that's, well, that's a, I'm glad you're here because that's a really important detail.
Yes.
Even Abraham knows.
That's right.
So the lesson that Dennis points out is, As hard as it is that you may have to destroy a city and have those ten righteous be killed, you need a certain number of righteous people in order to not destroy a city.
To save a society.
In other words, it's sort of a lesson in cost-benefit analysis.
Yes, it's unfortunate you may have to kill the ten, but if it means rooting out the evil and destroying the city, then that's what you do.
Look, to a certain extent, that's what the Allies did in bombing German cities.
I was just, and in Japan.
Yes, that's right.
Which is, yeah.
So, my question for you, though, is why does God...
By the way, if people say, well, there weren't 50 honorable people in...
Hiroshima, Nagasaki.
Yeah, what I was thinking of the German city, which is the one that was most...
Not Leipzig.
Berlin?
No.
It doesn't matter.
Whichever city.
Maybe it was Leipzig.
But it doesn't matter.
Remember, you have to do it proportionately.
There are very few people in Sodom and Gomorrah compared to Germany.
Of course.
So, of course, they were righteous people in Germany.
But they obviously had zero impact.
Right.
And in Japan.
And in Japan.
So, look.
I understand that you have to be able to see the forest through the trees.
The point of the story is that Abraham will...
Those of us who aren't God, which is every one of us, can talk to and challenge God.
That's the takeaway.
And also the takeaway about the cost-benefit analysis with the city.
My question for you, though, is why does God get bargained down?
Like, why does he start...
Abraham started the bargain.
No, I know, but...
If God believed ultimately that it was the right thing to do to have the number be 10, why was he willing at the beginning of the story to have it be five times that at 50?
Because that's what Abraham asked.
I'll tell you why.
One obvious reason to me is to teach.
All of these things are there to teach us.
Right.
You can argue with God.
Right.
No, that's what I... Okay, so God isn't going to go at a shortcut.
All right, stop arguing.
We're going to end this at 10. You keep arguing.
Go right ahead, Abraham.
And Abraham shows how you argue with God because he keeps saying...
And he's very polite.
I know I'm just a human and you're a God, but nevertheless, it's very powerful.
It is very powerful.
I want to tell you about a new film that Dennis and Sue Prager recommend.
Nefarious is a spiritual thriller from the filmmakers behind God's Not Dead and Unplanned.
It's excellently well acted, suspenseful, and scary in all the right places.
It's like C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters.
But much more than that, it's a powerful reminder that the battle between good and evil, ultimately between God and Satan, is being fought not just around us, but within us.
What better way to bring God into the marketplace than through the movies?
In a world that calls good evil and evil good, nefarious is a good kind of red pill, especially if you enjoy a good role.
So, it also raises the question...
Did God know, did God allow Abraham to bargain him down because he knew that Abraham would bargain him down?
In other words, would, let's say Abraham, would God have destroyed the city if there were 50 righteous people, if Abraham had stopped there?
And said to God, please don't destroy the city if there are 50 righteous people.
Let's say Abraham didn't bargain him down.
Would God have still done that?
Or was it because he knew?
I take your question as a compliment.
Why?
Because you were blind that I know what God would do.
It's true, actually.
I didn't consider that.
I know.
There's no way to know.
The point of the story is to teach.
I love the Torah.
I love the Torah.
Even more than I love God.
I know it sounds heretical.
I'm just being open and honest.
I find loving God a difficult process.
Be that as it may, I certainly respect and obey God or try.
But I love the Torah.
You know, I'll say my line again.
I don't believe in the Torah because I believe in God.
I believe in God because I believe in the Torah.
And by the way, that's why I... I so want people to read this.
If you have issues with God, my commentary will help you tremendously.
And so, I love that story.
The first person to know the God, who is the God of the Bible, creator of the world, is Abraham.
And he argues with God.
The idea that you can't argue with God is completely alien to both the Torah and Judaism.
I visited an ultra-Orthodox rabbi.
This was 40 years ago.
This was a Chabad rabbi.
Chabad is the famous ultra-Orthodox Jewish group that is open to everybody.
But don't hug the rabbi like I did.
Your story is one of the ten funniest stories that I have ever heard.
We'll tell it in a moment.
And his wife died at a wedding at, I think, 29 years of age.
And I went to pay him a morning call, or shiva call as known in Judaism.
And he looks at me, this ultra-Orthodox bearded rabbi, and he says to me in Yiddish, And I don't know Yiddish, but I know enough to understand this.
Dennis!
He goes like this.
Dennis!
Man plans, God laughs.
That's a heretical statement.
But it is very Jewish.
You can get annoyed with God.
You can even say that about Him.
And that's, by the way, why I like Judaism.
It's real.
You're allowed to be real.
It really is an amazing thing.
And God created us this way.
I mean, obviously, the Torah is showing examples of people like Abraham.
Let's tell your story, because we don't have a ton of time.
Oh, yes, yes, you're right.
Okay, so very quickly.
The punchline is awesome.
After I got back from Israel, I went on a trip.
A hundred non-Jews, Harvard students were taking to Israel.
Best trip of my life.
And when I got back, all I wanted to do was talk about, learn about Israel.
So I decided to go to the Chabad for Shabbat dinner.
I knew the rabbi.
I forget how, but we were friends and I'd meet with him sometimes.
And whenever we'd meet, he would not hug me or anything.
We'd kind of get coffee and I just thought, oh, whatever, okay.
And so I get back from Israel.
I was feeling super in the mood to hug, especially with the Jews.
And so I go up to him and I go, Rabbi Hershey!
And I open up my arms and I'm like, Israel was so fun!
And I take a step towards him and he lunges backwards.
And then I go...
Oh, Rabbi Hershey, I don't have COVID. And then I took another step forward.
That is one of the great moments in Jewish history.
And one of my friends cut in.
I don't have COVID. Well, with all due respect to Rabbi Hershey, who I think watches this show, why didn't you just tell me?
Like, why did you have to let me be humiliated?
Because if Hattie told you, we would not have this hilarious moment.
Okay, that's fair.
I don't have COVID. Wait, so who did tell you?
One of my friends cut in who's Jewish and was like, you can't hug him.
I'm like, well, okay.
Anyway.
By the way, I'll explain.
Orthodox Jews, modern Orthodox, not as much, but the truly traditional or right-wing Orthodox, you don't touch a member of the opposite sex who is not a member of your immediate family.
Yeah.
That's the practice.
Wish I had known that, but now I do.
Now you do.
You know what I love?
My litmus test for whether or not I'm going to be embarrassed is if it makes a good story.
If it makes a good story, why the hell would I take it?
Oh, remind me next week.
Okay.
All right.
Will do.
You can email me at julie at julie-hartman.com.
I love getting emails.
And forward me emails if I haven't responded so they're at the top of my inbox.
And you can follow us at DennisJuliePod.
And shalom.
Yep.
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