Dennis Prager Show - Timeless Wisdom - Is Honesty the Best Policy?

Nov. 8, 2025 - Dennis Prager Show

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Timeless Wisdom - Is Honesty the Best Policy?

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	November is National Family Caregivers Month.
	One in four Americans is stepping up to help older loved ones with everything from meals to bills.
	Family caregivers spend thousands out of their own pockets each year, and too many have to quit their jobs to keep providing care.
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	Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
	Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs.
	And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com.
	I'm very honored to be here for many reasons.
	First, because I so admire your work.
	And while you expect a speaker to say that, you don't always expect the speaker to believe that.
	You can believe that I believe that.
	For example, what I just heard and what I do know about Catholic schools, I attended a Jewish religious school through high school, and we have everything in common.
	Obviously, we don't have the same theology, but everything else is the same.
	I even defend, I'll never forget, some of you may remember my first venture in radio was Religion on the Line, where I was the moderator, and it was a wonderful 10 years.
	I was the moderator of priest, rabbi, minister each week, different ones each week.
	And I learned so much.
	It was like 12 PhDs worth of education in religion.
	And I'll tell you, one fascinating little aspect of this was there was one thing that I was not aware of.
	I couldn't be.
	It's something that really Catholics would be much more aware of.
	And that is a lot of Jews leave Judaism.
	A lot of Protestants leave Christianity.
	And a lot of Catholics, unfortunately, are lapsed Catholics.
	But nobody has the resentment that the ex-Catholics seem to have.
	They would call, and I'm telling you, 80-year-old men would be angry at some nun for wrapping his knuckles 70 years earlier.
	And I remember thinking, what's so bad about that?
	I told the story frequently.
	There was a rabbi in eighth grade who threw me over two desks.
	And to give you an idea of how different the world is today, I never told my parents because they would have thrown me over two desks.
	It's such a different world.
	And I give you my word, I remember vividly thinking, he was right.
	I deserved it.
	It's a different world in which we live today.
	And, you know, people are so easily offended and traumatized and so on.
	But I'll tell you exactly what a kid in a Catholic school got, that a kid in a Jewish school got, that a kid in the most expensive secular school does not get.
	I'm good at summarizing differences in a sentence or two.
	And this took me much of my life to realize what I learned that you don't learn in any secular school in our country, but you would learn in any Jewish or any Christian, any Catholic school.
	And that is that the greatest problem in my life is me.
	Whereas in secular school, you learn that the greatest problem in life is society.
	It is all the difference in the world.
	It produces an entirely different human being.
	I was raised to believe that the biggest problem in Dennis Prager's life is Dennis Prager.
	Is Dennis Prager's nature, Dennis Prager's appetites, Dennis Prager's flaws?
	You don't get that in any secular school.
	Oh, we have to battle all these outside problems.
	And then they have the litany of them, and to the extent that they exist.
	I'm not here to politicize any discussion.
	But, you know, you learn, oh, yo, your task in life is to fight environmental degradation, is to fight racism, is to fight sexism, is to fight inequality, this is to march for AIDS, is to march for breast cancer.
	It's all lovely, but it doesn't produce character.
	That's what the Catholic school produces, and that's what the Jewish school produced.
	So I understand exactly the appeal being made for a Catholic school.
	It's exactly the one that I make if I speak to an all-Jewish audience on behalf of a Jewish school.
	There's another thing that Catholics and Jews have in common.
	We run late.
	It is why I showed up at 10:15.
	It was so silly of me.
	I was told I'd speak at 10.30, and here it is 11, and I'm just introduced.
	And I realize that's exactly what happens at a Jewish event.
	But when Protestants run an event, if it says 10-11, you speak at 10-11.
	I mean, that is it.
	It's a given.
	I'll never forget.
	I mean, this is very, it's a fascinating thing.
	And I remember my first trip to Israel, I was 18 years old, and I went to a movie theater in Safed, which is a funny thing to begin with, this city of mysticism.
	You go to a movie theater.
	But anyway, I went to a movie theater and I looked at the Times and I know Hebrew, like I know English, so I read it, and it said for each showing, it added approximately.
	What is that about?
	I mean, approximately.
	And finally, one more preliminary point.
	You might, as a Jew speaking to Catholic businessmen, saying, what could I give from a business standpoint?
	I mean, of course, my talk is about ethics, but just from a business standpoint, and then I realized the great graffiti in the men's room at Brooklyn College Boylan Hall, and over the urinal, in fact, was one of these great insights, and it was, Jesus saves, Moses invests.
	That's the only thing I can really share from a business standpoint.
	You know, I hate to be so carnal, but the first time I went into that hall and did my duty, I laughed so hard it was difficult.
	It was, but it made a permanent impression on me, and obviously on you, too.
	Well, I'm glad you, for every reason, I'm obviously honored, as I said, that you invited me, but I'm also delighted because I have the belief that honesty, the truth, I'll macroize it for a moment, truth is the single most important virtue.
	Nothing else approximates it in importance.
	And in fact, I have a theory, and I've written on this, that lies are the mother of modern evil.
	If there were no lies to Talk about something obviously dear to Jews' memories and everybody who's sensitive.
	There would not have been a Holocaust if there were no lies.
	The Germans had to create a world of lies about Jews to enable normal people to think that a Jewish baby deserved to be shot.
	That's the only possible explanation.
	Truth is, truth is more important than compassion.
	Forgive me, truth is more important than love.
	Truth is the great macro value.
	So if you're asking me to come here and speak on is honesty the best policy, you're asking a man with deep passion about an issue that I have thought about my entire life.
	And it is a very, very real question in daily life.
	You know, I get calls from parents who know that I have so often spoken on the radio, and I will come to this in its context, about cheating on tests and how I am opposed to it, strongly opposed to it, and think we need to.
	And then parents will call me and say, Dennis, if I teach my child to be really honest, aren't I teaching them eventually to lose out in life?
	There are parents who actually think that.
	That in the final analysis, you have to cheat in order to get ahead.
	It's not true.
	It isn't true, and I will make that case.
	But your topic that you gave me, is honesty the best policy, business ethics and honesty and business ethics, is a very real question.
	It's not a rhetorical question to many Americans.
	Is honesty the best policy?
	Because not always do the dishonest get punished, at least in this world.
	I'll have a word to say about the next world too, because that comes in handily.
	I am not, strictly speaking, a businessman.
	I don't run a business as such.
	So whenever I address businesses on this issue, I address businesses a lot on other issues, especially the happiness issue that is very dear to me for other reasons, and sometimes political issues.
	But whenever I address businesses on this issue, I feel a little humble in that I don't run a business as such.
	And you might think, well, he doesn't know the daily temptation to be dishonest that we businessmen confront.
	But that's a mistake.
	In terms of honesty or dishonesty, we are all, whatever we do in life, we are all confronted with the question of whether you should be honest or dishonest regularly.
	Regularly.
	It doesn't matter what your profession is, it doesn't matter if you don't have a profession.
	In that sense, we are all businessmen.
	The doctor is a businessman.
	The doctor can be honest or dishonest.
	We all know that.
	These issues have been raised on does he first run an honest operation period?
	Does he diagnose honestly?
	Does he or she prescribe unnecessarily?
	Do they see if it's in the health area?
	Do they see a patient endlessly?
	Or does the therapist?
	There are therapists who have time limits.
	I will see you X amount of time.
	And beyond that, unless there is a really compelling reason, I want you to go out on your own.
	After all, you could keep billing forever.
	You can bill for procedures that are not necessary.
	I mean, everybody.
	And I picked a doctor because that's the area where you'd think it's the most difficult to be dishonest.
	I mean, you're saving lives.
	It's inherently so noble.
	The plumber.
	The plumber can be dishonest.
	The plumber is confronted on every occasion.
	Do I give you an absolutely honest bill the contractor?
	I mean, an honest contractor?
	Some people think it's an oxymoron on how much they keep billing and what do they really get the best service?
	Do they live by their contract?
	Has a contractor ever come in underbid ever in the history of the country?
	You know, we told you it might cost this.
	It actually costs less.
	Here's a check.
	I mean, how often does that happen?
	As compared to the other direction, she's sorry, costs overran what we thought they would.
	The lawyer, I mean, the temptation for a lawyer to cheat is astonishing in the way the billing system works.
	You know that lawyers can bill you?
	I'm serious while they shower.
	If they're thinking about your case, they are allowed.
	I'm not kidding.
	I am not kidding.
	I wish I could do that.
	You know, I think about very serious subjects when I shower.
	I just can't bill anybody.
	But I know my next contract with Salem Radio, I'm going to raise that.
	You know, I don't only work when I'm on the air.
	I work in the shower.
	I, you know, elsewhere in the bathroom.
	I'm thinking about subjects.
	Talking about me as a talk show host.
	Let me use my profession as a really good example of the temptation and the ease with which dishonesty can play a role.
	And I'll give you the it sounds trivial, but you see, this is the thing with honesty.
	The moment you start allowing a little of the water in, the dike will break eventually.
	I am not a believer in all or nothing in any area of life.
	It just doesn't work.
	However, on honesty, it's as close as I get to an all-or-nothing approach.
	I obviously don't want nothing.
	I'd rather have you somewhat honest, but somewhat honest is close to somewhat pregnant.
	It's close to, it's not exactly.
	So I made a lot of rules for myself in my career, which now is 29 years in radio, which is pretty rare.
	And I believe that a major reason that I have stayed in a profession known for firing people, the media, regularly for so long is really one word, the biggest word of all, and the byword of this whole talk I'm giving, credibility.
	You can't buy credibility.
	It is the greatest thing you can possibly have.
	There's an ancient phrase from the Talmud, the Jewish, most important Jewish work after the Bible.
	Tov, Shame told me, Shemin Tov.
	And I only said it in Hebrew because the word for word and name and the word for oil is very similar, shame and shemin.
	And the phrase is, it is better to have a good name than good oil.
	I mean, those days, good oil is a very valuable thing.
	And it is.
	A good name is everything.
	Or really, a good name.
	That's why I believe, by the way, that when people's names are ruined through false accusations in the media, people should, in fact, pay a price.
	Do you know that the Torah, the first five books, of course, of the Bible, actually says that lying witnesses should be punished in the same way that the person whom they testify falsely against would have been punished had their testimony been believed.
	And that's even in a capital case.
	So if I lie about you murdering someone, I am put to death.
	That is how bad it is to ruin a human being's name.
	And so having credibility and having a good name is worth everything.
	And it's true for any business any of you are in, and it's true for my business.
	That is the reason, for example, that I do very well with sponsors.
	So I made a rule that I would never personally endorse.
	Whoever advertises on my show, I have no control over.
	I'm on 120 stations.
	I can't know who advertises on my show in Atlanta.
	I can't monitor every ad, nor am I expected to.
	But if I voice an ad, I am very precise.
	I'll give you a very simple little example.
	If any of you have heard a talk show, you've probably heard order these flowers or order this product.
	And here is a special exclusive to Dennis Prager listeners only.
	Put in Prager where you sign in, and you get the following deal.
	I never use the, it's in the text, but I never say exclusive because I know it's not exclusive.
	All the talk show hosts have the same deal.
	So, and nobody knows this, by the way.
	I don't think there is anyone who has listened to my doing these ads, has noticed that all of my colleagues, and this is not at all a bad mouthing of them, I don't even think it has occurred to them.
	And if it did, I think they would drop the word.
	So I'm only speaking about me here.
	I have actually quite honorable colleagues.
	But I am very strict on that.
	I know that it's not exclusive because if you put in one of my colleagues' names, you get the same good deal.
	So it isn't exclusive to Dennis Prager listeners.
	So you get the deal if you write in Prager.
	That's all.
	And it doesn't hurt the sponsor.
	But it's very important to me that I didn't tell what I knew to be untrue.
	It's not exclusive.
	That's a very important standard to keep because once I allow that knowing, then what will I allow next time?
	And then what do you allow the next time?
	Honesty is the area.
	Truth is the area where I think people have to be the strictest.
	I don't have to tell you.
	We're all sinners.
	I am, by the way, here's another Catholic-Jewish similarity.
	We both believe in gradations of sin.
	I have arguments with Protestant callers who say all sins are equivalent, and I love these people, but I want to punch them.
	I mean, you know, it just drives me out of my mind.
	All sins are equivalent.
	You know, that's why, you know, one of the books I, if God gives me, you know, the years to write, one book I'm dying to write is, I know the title, God has common sense.
	Because so often God is depicted as bereft of common sense that it drives me out of my mind.
	And so I know that there are areas, we all sin, and there are areas, frankly, where I believe the consequences to humanity are just less than they are in other areas.
	And honesty is number one.
	And it never fails that if you begin with X, then it's 2X, and then 3X, and then 4X.
	That's got to be the area where I believe the most strictness prevails.
	That is why in teaching our children, I am so adamant about that issue.
	In fact, I just did part three on my show of Raising Good Children, a semi, well, it's a semi-regular feature that I've decided just for this year.
	And I asked parents this question: What you have in raising your child, what drives you craziest?
	What makes you most angry?
	See, a parent has to, and look, because we all get angry and should, by the way, get angry at our children.
	It's not that only that we do, we should.
	The question is when.
	And you have to pick and choose.
	Every parent knows this.
	If you get angry over every wrong thing they do, it's going to be a house of anger.
	So you have to pick and choose.
	And my choice is to get angry only over character issues, character issues, not other issues, like grades.
	I would never yell at a kid for bad grades.
	I didn't.
	And I got the appropriate grades to my conduct from my kids.
	So don't think there was some magic here.
	There wasn't.
	But my concern is character.
	And you didn't get an A, you didn't get even a B. You know, I'll discuss it.
	Why didn't you?
	And, you know, maybe you're watching too much television.
	There are a hundred things that I care about.
	But anger is where you mean and did you lie.
	Lying is just has to be the number one, the number one issue.
	And that is why I'm going to raise an issue now.
	And I know in advance that a significant number of you will disagree with me.
	And that's fine.
	If people don't disagree with me, I probably would lose my job.
	But I want you, if you do disagree with me, to think and at least hear me through.
	I have asked parents, I have written on this, and I get very angry responses on both calls and in email.
	And when I've written on it, in the papers that published it or the internet sites, here's a question: Would you rather your teenager cheat or smoke?
	And the smoking, I mean, I don't mean marijuana, I mean a cigarette, or unlikely a cigar.
	So cigarettes.
	And parents usually say one of many possible things.
	One, it's an unfair question.
	I don't want either.
	Okay, but I gave you either or.
	I don't want either either.
	Okay?
	Obviously, I am asking you to confront.
	And here is my bottom line: smoking cigarettes is a health issue.
	Cheating on tests is a moral and a character issue.
	They're not the same.
	And we have blurred the distinction between health and ethics to our tremendous disadvantage.
	Dodger Stadium saw a man beaten essentially to death.
	I still can't get over it.
	I'm so angry over it.
	Man wore a giant's shirt and they kicked him in the brain until he had his brain damaged in an induced coma for wearing a giant's shirt.
	I mean, what have we come to?
	What have we come to?
	And I remember saying on the radio, these guys who probably wearing typical clothing of gang members and so on, perfectly okay to get seats.
	And had they smoked a cigarette, the armed forces would have been on them.
	They couldn't have had two puffs before they were escorted out.
	We have, in fact, elevated health, as I say, health über alis.
	Health over everything.
	Well, I'm sorry, some very wonderful people have smoked cigarettes.
	I don't, by the way, smoke cigars and a pipe.
	Just want to, for full disclosure, don't smoke cigarettes.
	My father is 93 and smokes a few cigars a day, still does.
	Now, so I don't even think cigars is a health issue.
	I don't because you don't inhale.
	They're a huge difference.
	See, you're laughing because of Mr. Clinton.
	But it is not.
	There is no parallel.
	I'm dead serious.
	The war against tobacco is a misnomer.
	It should have been war against cigarettes, not against tobacco.
	They are not the same.
	And the entire purpose is different.
	It's not a nicotine high.
	Be that as it may.
	It is critical to understand what the effects that we have had in the education of young people are.
	It reminds me of the guy who committed a rape but put on a condom first.
	So he got a great message in school about safe sex.
	He didn't get a great message about ethics to understate the case considerably.
	Now, obviously, that is not the norm.
	I just don't assume it is the norm.
	But it is an exception to prove my point.
	What we give kids is far more about their health than it is about their character.
	And as I was saying, plenty of good people smoke cigarettes, but not plenty of good people cheat.
	That's just the way it is.
	And I am more interested in good people than people who are doing the healthiest things for their bodies.
	It's a good thing to be healthy for your body.
	But as I have said since I began radio, studies have just been released and show that no matter how much you jog, you will still die.
	I actually think that there's a part of the mentality of the modern age that, you know, if you just eat right and if you don't smoke and you don't drink and you don't this and you don't that, you'll live forever.
	But you don't.
	You die anyway, and one of the major joggers of our time died while jogging in his 40s.
	I'm not saying you shouldn't take care of your body or you should, and obesity is a very real problem in our society.
	And I absolutely know that cigarettes kill up to a third of smokers.
	That's the statistic from the Lung Association.
	But still, I confront parents with the question.
	Here, here's the way to put it.
	If your 15, 16 year old smoked a pack of cigarettes or cheated on a series of tests, which would elicit more anger from you at your child?
	That's what I'm saying.
	We have priorities, folks, whether you like it or not.
	We have priorities.
	And if you say to your child they're the same, you're confusing your child.
	Because it's not unethical to smoke a cigarette.
	It's unhealthy.
	And if that's unethical, then eating dessert is unethical.
	Then being lazy is unethical.
	Then watching television is unethical because you're a couch potato.
	Where does that end?
	If we blur what is right and make right and wrong indistinguishable from physical health and physical non-health, we have blown the battle for making good people.
	There are fat, good people.
	They exist.
	They're unhealthy, but they may be saintly.
	Let me give you another example of the cheating in daily life that prevails, and I've learned about in the course of my career talking about ethical issues.
	That you don't have to be, as I said, a businessman.
	Here's a case.
	I'll give you an example of someone who may be a full-time mom.
	So she doesn't have theoretically, where are her temptations to cheat?
	I'll give you one.
	The woman who goes to a department store, knowing that she needs a nice dress for an affair on Friday night or Saturday night, quote-unquote buys the dress, wears it over the weekend, and returns it on Monday.
	You know how common that is?
	I'll tell you how common that is.
	Billions of dollars are lost in sales in America over people who do that.
	Not just dresses.
	But they buy and then return after they got the use out of it that they knew they were quote-unquote buying for.
	That, my dear friends, and this is an audience that will appreciate this, is a violation of thou shalt not steal.
	Just as if you had gone over with a gun to a cash register and a 7-Eleven, give me your money.
	There is no difference between what that woman did with the dress and a holdup at a 7-Eleven, except for the terror element.
	That's a factor, yes.
	Nobody is terrorized like the shopkeeper with a guy with a gun.
	I admit that.
	But beyond that, it is the same ethical level.
	And it is rampant stealing in the United States.
	Men do it with electronic goods.
	Women do it with dresses.
	But people don't want to hear about it.
	It's the toughest issue to confront.
	The toughest.
	It's easy to tell people about sexual ethics compared to this.
	It's easy to tell people about drugs compared to this.
	It's easy.
	Honesty, that's where people do the most rationalization.
	What's wrong?
	What's wrong?
	What is the department store going to lose?
	Come on, what about Nordstrom?
	They're rich.
	That's what people tell me on the air.
	They tell it to me.
	Who's hurt?
	Who's hurt?
	I bring it back in good condition.
	People's ability to rationalize cheating people is just astonishing.
	So this pervades all of society.
	Now, there's a price, there's a price that you pay.
	Now, there are two final issues that I want to address, and that is the religious issue, the God issue, and the price that people pay, the human issue, even if you're an atheist.
	I want to tell you what you can tell a child beyond God says thou shalt not steal, which I happen to think is a good thing to tell children.
	Because if they don't believe it, then maybe at 40 they'll hear the parental tape or the priest's tape or the nun's tape or the Catholic school teacher's tape in their ear, in their mind.
	But this one applies to anybody.
	You want to know what I consider the biggest price you pay for lying, cheating?
	Here it is.
	And you may not have guessed this.
	Because you may say, well, you'll get a bad reputation.
	That's true.
	That's very big.
	There's a bigger one, and on personal-ish grounds only.
	You think everybody else is like you.
	That's a horrible way to go through life.
	I have met such people.
	I have met business people who, whenever possible, did in fact act somewhat dishonestly.
	They were absolutely convinced that everybody else wanted to cheat them, rob from them, just as much as they did from others.
	That is an inherent punishment.
	See, I don't believe, you don't believe that the bad are punished in this world fully.
	We all know that.
	Everybody knows that.
	An atheist knows that.
	A religious Jew, religious Catholic, anybody knows that.
	Right?
	I mean, what proper punishment is there for a mass murderer?
	That's the way it is.
	But there are punishments in this world, nevertheless, for certain things.
	And the person who cheats and lies thinks everybody else cheats and lies too.
	And the price paid is awesome.
	Imagine if you went through life thinking everybody wants, forgive the language, to screw you.
	It's a very bad way to walk through life.
	Because I must tell you, and I have paid the price only once.
	I have been cheated once.
	Okay, it happens.
	I generally walk through life, I don't think like a naive fool, but generally trusting the people that I deal with.
	I know I don't lie and cheat and steal, and I assume that most of that, not all.
	Some people, it's clear they do.
	But generally speaking, it's not my first assumption that they are lying, cheating, and stealing from me.
	It's a great way to walk through life.
	It's a better way.
	Among other things, it enables you to have close friends.
	I don't know any lying, cheating, stealing person who has close friends.
	How could they?
	Why would they want to be friends with another cheat?
	See, they don't want to be friends with people like them.
	They want to be friends with people like me.
	But people like me don't want them as friends.
	It's a very big price you pay for living.
	You enter a different world.
	It's a parallel universe, the world of the cheat.
	I don't mean the one who's done it once or twice in his whole life.
	We're all sinners, obviously, but I mean the one for whom it is a regular non-issue in his life.
	It's a very big price to pay to think that others are out to get you the way you are out to get others.
	Huge price.
	You also pay the price that I mentioned earlier, and that is of credibility.
	Now, in the final analysis, I don't know businesses that are routinely in the business of cheating people, of lying, of misrepresenting that succeed.
	Businessmen tell me that over the course of time, the word gets out, and they failed.
	I mean, you know, you're going to look at Madoff and tell me, look, Madoff, Madoff succeeded for a very long period of time.
	Did he pay a price?
	Forget the fact that he's in prison till he dies.
	His own son committed suicide because of him.
	Can you think of a worse price to pay?
	I mean, Madoff should be almost a biblical tale.
	He should.
	He should be used as like a biblical tale to teach young people.
	Look at what happened.
	It's bad enough your child dies.
	It's bad enough your child commits suicide.
	For your child to commit suicide because of you, I can't imagine going on.
	Of course, people go on and they must go on if their child kills themselves.
	And then overwhelmingly, it has nothing to do with the parent.
	It's just terrible issues that the child had, and parents should not walk around with that guilt.
	But in his rare case, that was the reason.
	I was telling my wife just last night when talking about this how much I would love to interview Madoff.
	Bernie Madoff.
	I would love to.
	Not to yell at him.
	No, I just want to, what did you think?
	I just want to wonder, what did you think?
	Did you think you would never get caught?
	It would never, you would die first.
	But even if you thought you would die first, it would get caught and your children would be saddled with it.
	Your wife would be saddled with it.
	What did you think?
	And there's a possibility that he didn't think.
	Just like, I don't know, the woman, and obviously it's not the same gradation, but it's of the same sin.
	The woman who takes the dress for the weekend and then returns it, knowing in advance she's going to return it.
	What does she think?
	The answer is that it's unbelievably easy to dull our conscience.
	Which brings me to the final point, which we certainly share, and that is God and religion.
	I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic.
	I'm in the middle, which is sad in and of itself.
	I wish I were more optimistic about America's future.
	And the primary reason is the God and religion issue.
	The founders of this country, I'm just finishing a book on that as being one of the subjects of this book.
	The founders of this country, all, and that includes the non-Christian believing Jefferson and Franklin.
	But they were deep God believers and deep believers that if we abandon our religion, which in this country was Christianity rooted in Judeo-Christian values, that's an American term, Judeo-Christian, that if we abandon that, we lose.
	The entire American experiment is predicated on the belief that you have people of integrity that free.
	Let me explain something.
	The more secular a society, the bigger the government.
	This was the only experiment in history to have tiny government.
	It never existed.
	And the reason we can have little government is not because people were born better in America, morally better.
	The human being is born with moral issues to begin with.
	Rather, there was the belief that the value system rooted in the Bible of this country can maintain people of sufficient character that you don't need a big state to control them.
	As Europe gets more secular, the governments get bigger.
	You have to control, somebody has to control people.
	People stink.
	So, and the final analysis, you have to control.
	Either I control Dennis or the state controls Dennis.
	There is no third possibility.
	How can, so how do I learn to control me?
	The American answer was, and is, or should be, it was certainly, that we all feel morally accountable to God.
	That's the American answer.
	Thereby, there was a term precedes my birth, but not by much, where you would describe, commonly you would describe a person who is a good man or a good woman in America as a God-fearing man or a God-fearing woman.
	It was common parlance.
	If I would say today, if I went to give a speech where I went to a graduate school at Columbia University and I said to them, you should all aspire to be God-fearing men and women, I would be laughed out of the auditorium.
	I would get more respect if I advocated Wiccan religion.
	I'm not kidding.
	I am not kidding.
	But that is exactly what the belief was.
	You are accountable to God so the state can be small.
	No God accountability, state accountability.
	The reason that I would not have sexually harassed a woman in the workplace was because I was raised with values that precluded that possibility.
	As those values declined, the society took over teaching how men should treat women in the workplace.
	See?
	So now there are an infinite number of laws, many of them absurd.
	Like, he looked too long.
	It was a hostile work environment because he stared at me.
	And beyond that, all I'm saying is, and this is a big all, when religion fades, the state gets stronger.
	It will substitute for God and religion in trying to make people good.
	I don't want that.
	I don't want the state telling me how to behave.
	I have no problem with God telling me how to behave.
	That keeps a free society and a much better society.
	By the way, part of it is religion's fault.
	Too many pastors, too many priests, too many rabbis decided that their task was to make parishioners feel good.
	Right?
	Feel good.
	I want you to feel good about coming to church or synagogue.
	My rapt concern about making me feel good at synagogue when I was a kid was zero.
	Dennis Prager doesn't feel good about attending synagogue?
	Hmm.
	Oh, whoa.
	Oh, boy.
	The heavens are shaking.
	He got up and he said, this is right.
	This is wrong.
	Have a great Shabbat.
	Have a great Sabbath.
	That was it.
	He didn't try to be liked.
	Nobody called him by his first name.
	It was Rabbi Chill, and that was the end of the issue.
	You stood up when he walked by.
	This is basically gone.
	me Jerry.
	No, and it was all meant well.
	Priests and the rabbis and the pastors who do this meant well.
	It's a big mistake.
	Big mistake.
	You want to feel good?
	get a massage.
	And the irony is, those are not the churches and synagogues that draw the most people.
	That's the irony.
	The let's all feel good about each other thing didn't work.
	That's not where people are flocking in Christianity or Judaism.
	The only growing movement in Judaism, and there's no acts to grind, I'm not an Orthodox Jew.
	I'm a traditional, but not an Orthodox Jew.
	But Orthodox Judaism is the only branch of Judaism growing.
	You know why?
	They make demands and they don't say, call me Jerry.
	So religion has played, as I often say on the radio, secularism has affected religion much more than religion has affected the secular society in my lifetime.
	It's too bad.
	But without God, this whole honesty thing doesn't pan out.
	It just doesn't.
	Because it's so easy to rationalize why you cheat or why you steal or why you just do anything wrong.
	But when it is taught properly, when religion does its job right, God really does want you to be a good person.
	And we quote Micah, I think it's 4:6 oh man, has God not told you all he wants to pursue justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.
	It's basic, basic teachings like this: that there is a God who does judge us.
	Yes, it's not a dirty word to judge, it's a good word.
	As I tell my fellow Jews, do you really want Hitler and his victims to have the same fate?
	That would give you peace.
	The only way I have any mental stability is in the belief that Hitler and his victims don't have the same fates.
	That there is a good judge up there who judges people and who does it fairly.
	Otherwise, I'd go nuts because of the unbelievable imbalance of injustice in this world.
	So it's not only not an oxymoron to be a good Catholic and a good businessman, I believe it's better for business, better for your name, better for society, better for Catholicism, and better for America.
	Thank you very much.
	Thank you.
	I'm not standing here in order to keep you applauding, but because I have a couple of where are my hostesses.
	Did you want me to do top two questions, or you want me to sit down?
	Oh, I have a few here that we're giving.
	Okay, great.
	I'll just answer two questions that were handed to me.
	A number were, and I'd like to answer them, and then I'll let you go.
	So don't leave yet if you don't have to, because it's just going to be two questions, and I am of the belief that the speaker should leave before the audience does.
	It's a long-standing belief of mine.
	So here was a question submitted to me from one of you.
	If my goal is to eventually donate money to the church or to a Catholic education, and I can make more money by investing in ways you might consider less ethical than others, am I behaving less ethically if my motivation is to share the wealth with others?
	It's an important question, and it comes from, it doesn't come from a bad place, it comes from a good place.
	But I'm not a big fan of judging things by intentions, but I'm just mentioning that.
	Here I have three quick answers to this.
	First, one good thing, it doesn't always work.
	But I try it a lot.
	What does God want?
	If I had to stand in front of God, God, listen, I'm going to be a little loose on the ethical thing, but as a result, this Catholic school is going to get a bonanza.
	What do you think God is going to say?
	Bonanza.
	Okay?
	I don't think so.
	All right?
	I mean, if we really, you know, hey, God, what do you say?
	He says no.
	It doesn't say thou shalt not steal, except in the case of a good recipient.
	The number of asterisks around do not steal is astonishing.
	That has more than any other of the commandments asterisks around it.
	Number two, this notion of sharing wealth with others.
	Sharing wealth is not the highest good.
	It is a good, but it is not the highest good.
	Justice is higher.
	Truth is higher.
	Honesty is higher.
	A lot of things are higher than sharing wealth with others.
	Okay?
	It's a nice thing, but it's not the highest.
	And finally, I like to cite for you, because I've taught the Torah my entire life, and it's my favorite book, and I get my values from it.
	There is a line in, I believe, Deuteronomy.
	I know it in Hebrew and in English.
	It is, justice, justice shalt thou pursue.
	We have no other example in the Torah of a noun doubled.
	Why doesn't it just say, justice shalt thou pursue?
	Why does it say justice, justice?
	And the traditional Jewish answer to that I have always accepted and think is quite intelligent.
	Justice in the means and justice in the ends.
	That's why it is there twice.
	So you can't have the just end of giving a worthwhile charity money if the just means were not there to give it.
	And finally, there was one other question.
	President Obama in his recent speech suggested that in contemporary America we are all connected, quote-unquote connected.
	Hence, some people may be more responsible than others when it comes to serving the public good.
	Are we all connected?
	And if so, are we ethically bound to do as much as we can to benefit society as a whole?
	Well, sure we are.
	I just like to comment.
	That's a self-evident answer.
	Of course, you know, when you die at your funeral, do you want to be spoken of as having the, you know, the finest car collection or having done the most good that you could with your life?
	I mean, the answer is self-evident, but I want to talk about the connected.
	I have been teaching, and please visit Prager University on the internet.
	It's free, and I mean, people support it, but it's free to attend, so to speak.
	And it's my attempt to bring American Judeo-Christian values to all areas of life.
	And one of them is called the American Trinity, the term I have coined.
	Most of us have not been able to say what are American values?
	What are they?
	We have lost our ability to teach what this country stands for.
	It's nobody's fault.
	We just lost it.
	And I lost it too.
	I always had a feeling, and then about 20 years ago, I emptied my pockets one night, looked at the coins, and I thought I was an idiot.
	The American value system had been staring at me since I was a child on every coin and every bill.
	In God we trust, e pluribus unum, liberty.
	No other country in the world has those three as its basic values.
	We are losing all of them.
	We're losing all secularism is taking over for in God we trust, multiculturalism for e pluribus unum from many one.
	And all sorts of values have been preceding the value of liberty.
	It's so you can't have one if we don't celebrate two things.
	We are all the children of God.
	That's connected.
	We're all Homo sapiens is not connected.
	This is nonsense.
	Oh, I really feel connected to you.
	We are both human beings.
	It's very nice, but it doesn't work nearly as well as you and I are created in God's image.
	That's big.
	That's real connection, and I mean it sincerely.
	I feel it.
	I've been to 100 countries, and I feel at one with people everywhere.
	It's a wonderful feeling.
	And it emanates from my belief.
	This Cambodian is created in God's image every bit as much as me.
	There's no difference.
	It's a beautiful, beautiful connection.
	We've lost that.
	So now we are all hyphenated Americans.
	It's not from many, one.
	It's from one many.
	That loses your connectedness when everybody becomes a hyphenated American.
	So I do fear for our sense of connection when that happens.
	When we felt it doesn't mean a damn what your race is, what your ethnicity is.
	It doesn't mean anything.
	If anybody should be in the forefront of arguing that color is irrelevant, it's religious people.
	God does not know race.
	It is of no inconsequence.
	God does not know ethnicity.
	God knows character, the soul, the creation in his image.
	That's what every religion should be screaming from the rooftops.
	Then you really have a connectedness.
	So that would be my response.
	And I just want you to know: I hope that these words meant something to you.
	There's a beautiful Hebrew saying that words that go from the heart enter the heart.
	And I think whether you agree with every word I said or not, I think the fact that they come from my heart and my mind is clear.
	And I hope that they entered your heart and your mind.
	I love speaking to businesses because I believe that business should once again have the name that it had.
	You are the creators of the country that has given more people more affluence and more opportunity for affluence than any other country on the face of the earth.
	Affluence is not created by the state.
	Affluence is created by the guy and the woman in business.
	And we should never forget that.
	It is a noble calling.
	And it is an honor to appear before the people who make that possible.
	Thank you again.
	This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

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