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Nov. 28, 2025 - Dennis Prager Show
56:01
Timeless Wisdom - Does God Intervene in Your Life?
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Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
Hear thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs.
And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com.
Shabbat Shalom.
Please be seated.
Java, either one, either one goes.
A lot of things to talk to you about today.
Nice to see you all, always.
It's a certain high coming here, every Chavez.
I think a lot of you feel it.
And I was thinking, talking to some fellow congregants, those of you who come in the beginning for Steve Marmer's Torah session and stay through the end of lunch are here from 9, correct?
9 to 2.
That's five hours.
And it's great five hours.
I mean, that's a real Shabbat.
If you've had Shabbat dinner with your partner, spouse, friends, relatives, so you really have a Shabbat?
After two o'clock, the Talmud tells us God doesn't pay as much attention.
What do you mean, only for?
No, no, no.
The Talmud tells us a lot, Barry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
This one I have not cited earlier because many of you will think it's a green light to go golfing at two o'clock.
But it is not.
No, it's very, it gives me great satisfaction to think that, to play some role on it.
I just wanted to say how important it is.
You all know that, or you wouldn't be here.
A number of items.
I'm reading a very depressing book.
In fact, it's so depressing that I debated whether to read it.
Capital?
Yes.
No, capital is not depressing.
Capital is boring.
Which is also depressing in its way.
I agree.
You're right.
And by the way, very few people would yell out capital.
It takes a special member of the audience to think of Das Capital when you say you're reading a depressing book.
No, in all seriousness, it's this brand new book on the terrible tragedy of World War II of the Indianapolis.
This was the ship that had taken the parts of the atom bomb secretly.
No one knew of its trip or the contents of the box to islands off of Japan and that made it perfectly safely.
And on its way back to a base in Asia, it was blown up by a Japanese torpedo and nobody knew it.
That's the great scandal of the U.S. Navy.
That one of its largest ships, the largest loss of naval life in American history, would not even be known.
It was found four days later by an airplane, an American airplane, who they said the chances were one in a billion.
That's what they said, in finding the men.
They saw an oil slick.
It was by sheer unbelievable chance that they were flying in that area.
Number two, it had to be a crystalline clear ocean for the oil slick to stand out from the visibility of an airplane.
They also had to be looking in that spot at that exact moment.
And they thought that the oil slick meant that a Japanese submarine was in the area because it would have let out some oil, apparently.
Anyway, they went down to see what the oil slick led to, and it led to men.
So, had this fortuitous thing never happened, they still wouldn't have known.
It is the scandal of the U.S. Navy that it happened.
I only tell you this because I was just reading when they got the first men onto a plane that landed in the ocean, which itself was unbelievably chancy on the part of the pilot.
It was against all rules to land in the ocean, incidentally, even though it was a plane that could theoretically land on a calm lake, not with 12-foot swells.
But he did, got men on board, had very, very little water, and would take the men had not drunk in four days.
They were delirious.
They were, some would simply die.
Then they saw their friends eaten by sharks.
It was hell, truly hell.
And they would go with the water that they had in the cockpit, they would give, and then they would go back, refill, and come back, but they forgot who they last went to.
And the author notes that not one man lied.
Everyone who had had anything said, I drank already.
And then she writes, It's very touching.
This honesty was not learned just by being in the military.
This honesty was learned at home and in their schooling and churches when they were children.
And this is this, I don't even know if this writer has any religion or anything like that.
This is not a quote-unquote conservative or traditional book.
It's just the most detailed story of what happened to the Indianapolis.
But I thought I'd share that with you about the power and the need.
And I don't know, and this is an I don't know.
Sometimes we say I don't know as a euphemism for I don't think.
But I simply don't know if the same circumstances were repeated, whether the percentage rate of honesty would have been 100% as it was on that little plane in the Philippine Sea.
So it's a powerful lesson.
It's a good one to tell your kids how honesty matters, because we don't normally think it's so dramatic.
But this is as dramatic as possible.
The men are dying of thirst and are honest.
The guy giving the water didn't remember who the last guy was.
He was just too busy giving out rations.
Did they survive?
I don't know.
I'm not up to it.
I'll let you know next week.
How many are there?
In the plane, there were about 30, including on the wing.
They strapped men on the wing to get them out of there because daylight had ended and they were afraid others would be either eaten by sharks or just sink.
Captain died, but wasn't he court-martial?
No, the captain did not die, that I know.
He was court-martialed.
That's a separate issue.
That's a scandal, too.
Oddly enough, Indianapolis.
Yes.
Okay.
Last night for dinner at my home, I had, we had, my wife and I had a 23-year-old Israeli/slash-American and his American girlfriend.
She being 28, a wonderful young couple.
He is modern Orthodox.
She is quite from.
And by the way, how did this happen?
It was very interesting.
I had met this guy once in my life.
I've never met her.
I met this guy once in my life.
He came to the Prager University Summit, which we had a few weeks ago at the Beverly Hotel.
It was Beverly Hills Hotel?
The Montage Hotel.
The Montage, the Montage Hotel.
Overpriced.
And we, so this guy's 23, and where has he been working the last six months?
He's been working for a company that teaches young men how to be more personable and just how to conduct themselves.
And he said, I said, so what do you think of it?
He said, well, am I here or what?
His point was extremely well taken.
He had obviously impressed me so much at the Prague University Summit that I invited him to my house.
It was a very funny answer.
It was very effective.
The guy could, you know, he would charm you out of your wallet.
I mean, there's no question.
If he had bad ethics, the guy would be an incredibly suave mafioso.
But he was very, he really was impressive.
He gave you an idea.
He's going back to Israel to work full-time for Memory.
Memory is the fantastic website you should know of, which brings to you Arab language broadcasts and television casts, all translated, so you know what they're really saying, not the propaganda that they say at diplomatic conferences.
So I said, so I assume you have to know Arabic.
He said, oh, yeah, I know Arabic.
I know it fluently.
I said, oh, really?
Did you study it in school?
He said, no, I taught it to myself.
That's impressive.
I got to tell you.
Teaching yourself Arabic to that level, that memory hires you full-time.
And he's in love with America.
He totally adores this country and what it stands for.
So anyway, we were taught, we spoke for four hours.
And that's quite something.
But that's, of course, an ode to Shabbat.
You're not going to speak four hours on Thursday night if you have people over.
You have too much to do.
That's Shabbat is the best thing going.
So anyway, we spoke for four hours, and we spoke a lot about the Torah and Judaism and Orthodoxy and everything.
And then she said to me, she said, I said, oh, so yes, so you'll find this fascinating.
I hope otherwise I wouldn't have raised it.
One of the key arguments that I heard in yeshiva for the revelation of Torah from God was, and I didn't, I wasn't impressed in fourth grade, and I'm not impressed today.
But it is a very, very popular proof, quote-unquote proof for God's revealing the Torah.
God didn't reveal it to one person.
God revealed it to 600,000 or a million or 2 million people.
That is considered a very powerful argument in traditional Jewish life.
This is not a new argument.
This is a very ancient and from my yeshiva and from hers, it is still repeated as a powerful argument.
The reason, and I told her, I said, the argument is meaningless because you're basing an argument of faith on faith.
You can't use that.
You can't take faith to prove faith.
You have faith that there were a million people there, or I don't care, 500 or whatever.
But that's a statement of faith.
That's not a proof.
So to her credit, she said, you're right.
And that ended that lifelong argument for God's revelation of the Torah.
So then she said, so why do you believe that God gave the Torah?
I said, and that was a very good question, and it's one you should all ponder.
To whatever extent you believe God, I believe, as you know, God is the ultimate author of the Torah.
So I'm sure everyone here believes that at least parts of the Torah are divine.
Okay, I think that that's fair.
So you have to answer, you have to come up with that answer.
Why do you believe the Torah or chunks of the Torah are divine?
And so I said to her, I believe, and by the way, I don't think I could have given this answer five years ago.
This is the beauty of being forced to write.
Tangential statement.
83.4% of you know my theory, but for the, oh, God.
16.6% of you who do not.
Very simple, my mirrors theory.
The mirror of the body is a physical mirror.
The mirror of the mind is your writing.
The mirror of your character is the people you attract to your life.
There are three mirrors in life.
How do you know what your mind thinks?
How do you look at your mind?
Write.
Then you can look at your mind.
So I was forced because of the Torah commentary, I was forced to write and write and write and write on Torah.
And it was then that I had to come up with, you know, hey, I'm making this assertion in the introduction that this is a divine book.
This is ultimately from God.
What's my argument?
And My overarching, I have many, many details to fill in there, but my overarching argument is, and I said to her, I believe that the Torah is divine for the same reason that I believe that life from non-life is divine.
We have zero scientific explanation for how life came from non-life.
Is that correct, scientists in the room?
Zero.
Science has no clue how life came from non-life.
So one of the arguments I have for God is God made life from non-life.
So here is what I posed.
The Torah is to what preceded it as life is to what preceded it.
Life is so different from non-life as the Torah is different from non-Torah that existed prior to Torah.
The Torah's values are as miraculous and wisdom are as miraculous as life.
That's my argument, my chief argument.
It's so true for my own faith that I want to tell you another thing that I worked through.
And I want to read it to you because the wording is important.
I do not believe in the Torah because I believe in God.
I believe in God because I believe in the Torah.
Which is the opposite of the way, also the opposite of the way people think of it.
If you ask any religious Jew, why do you believe in the Torah's from God?
Because it is the God and God gave the Torah.
But I have it the opposite.
The Torah is my evidence that there is a God.
And that's why I believe in God.
So now, obviously, I believe in God for non-Torah reasons.
Like life from non-life, that has nothing to do with the Torah.
There are reasons I, but all of those are belief in the Creator.
For non-Torah reasons, I believe in the Creator.
For Torah reasons, I believe in God.
El rachum v'chanun erech hapayim v'rav chesed v'emet.
The God who is infinitely merciful and filled with justice and goodness and kindness.
That...
Because the Creator alone doesn't do me any good.
If you don't believe that God is good, God is just, God cares about you, then you might as well be an atheist.
Aristotle's God and atheism are co-equal to me.
Aristotle's God created and then retired.
So these are very important concepts in a person's life.
And it was so interesting to watch her, a lifelong Orthodox Jew from New Jersey, heading to Israel as he is.
He's going to work for memory and she's going to go to a yeshiva again.
And it truly, these are things that made her think, which is to her credit, because very often you can't get through the power of what you've been taught your whole life by your school and parents.
So I wanted you to know that.
Why the Torah?
All I do is come across another reason in the Torah for how different it was.
Know obvious ones like the ban on child sacrifice.
I did a lot of research.
Child sacrifice was universal.
There wasn't, we don't know of a culture in the ancient world that did not have human sacrifice.
You don't have to just restrict it to children.
You know, virgins, enemy combatants.
I mean, there was just now an article.
It's too bad I didn't think I would speak on this, but maybe I'll remember for next week.
There was just an article in, I think, National Geographic, but it could have been the New York Times or the Washington Post about how they found from the 16th century in, I think, Peru, but certainly Central America, thousands and thousands of skulls, and they knew that they were all sacrificed.
And they were sacrificed, I think, in a day.
And that's how much sacrifice, I mean, ritual sacrifice, where they're conscious and opened up and their heart is taken out, and the heart is then given to the gods.
And I'm thinking the Torah was 2,500 years before that, and said, You shall, this is an abomination to God to sacrifice human beings.
Where did that come from?
Really, seriously, I just want to ask people: where did that come from?
If you have a singular experience in the human condition, an honest atheist has to ask, where did it come from?
So I really were left either with God or supermen.
And the Torah goes out of its way to tell you the Jews were not supermen.
They were jerks.
I mean, you know, all things being equal, they were unimpressive.
By the way, that's such a powerful thing.
You know, this I've told you so often, the very depiction of the Jews is pretty awful.
Is it one of the major arguments for the credibility of the Torah?
There's no parallel to that, where the religious group described in its own holy work are such losers.
Right?
But by the way, the elevation of the Jew in history is also one of the most powerful arguments for the divinity of the Torah.
What lifted us?
What lifted the Jewish people to become so central to the human species?
The Torah.
Where there isn't even, I mean, there is to an extent, there is an ethnic line from Abraham to the Jews or the Israelites leaving Egypt, but the Torah goes out of its way to tell you that's not the only people who left Egypt.
An ehrevrav, a whole bunch mixture.
I mean, you know, multiculturalists would be thrilled to know this was not pure race.
I mean, there is no Jewish race anyway, but it was a bunch of mixture of peoples.
The Torah elevated everybody.
You don't know if you could even date yourself back to Sinai.
You don't know if you came from the Abrahamic line or the great mixture.
Right?
You don't know.
And I'm sure you care.
There's no reason to care.
The Talit is a challenge, by the way, in life.
After my Torah commentary, I'm writing an essay on how to keep the Torah on at all times.
And the answer is with one of those clips, which I don't know.
I don't like the clip.
It reminds me of a Thai clip.
And I don't know.
Okay, none of you care, and I don't blame you.
Okay.
It is truly one of the things I have muttered before a crowd that should not be heard because it's irrelevant.
These are the arguments.
Now, I have one big thing for you.
And I'm debating because that took a lot of time.
Should I go to a big subject or discuss what I just did?
Okay, so listen to this.
So, has God intervened in your life?
This is the subject.
And I have a list of seven possibilities with regard to the issue of God intervention in our life.
And I will be honest that while writing this list, I was debating which Steve Marmor will vote for.
I think I know, but I have a thousand bucks on it.
It was a Vegas, it's a Vegas, Beth.
Yes, that's right.
We'll take a vote.
What he would vote on exactly, yes.
All right, now you got to hear it very carefully.
There are some subtle distinctions, and maybe they're too subtle.
Maybe I should consolidate it into six or five.
But here it goes: With regard to perceiving God in one's life, there are the following seven possibilities.
Number one, God directly and unmistakably makes himself known to an individual.
All right, is that clear?
Two, we call out to God and then clearly perceive his presence or response.
Okay, so in other words, in number one, God is the actor.
In number two, we called on God and then he acted.
And this is absolutely clear to us that this happened.
Number three, at some point, we decide to recognize that God has acted in our life.
The key word there is decide.
Is that clear?
Number four, we believe, but are not certain God has acted in our life.
Though we can't pinpoint necessarily when, but I'll leave it at that.
Number five: God has acted in our life, but we are unaware of it.
That's a possibility.
I'm not denying that God has acted, but I'm just not aware of it happening.
Number six, we believe God acts in some people's or even nations' lives, but simply do not know if he has done so in our own.
You get the difference between that one and the one before.
In other words, I believe God acts in some people's lives, but I have no idea if I'm one of them.
And number seven, we believe God knows us, but does not intervene in our life.
Do you want me to read them again?
Yes, sir.
Okay.
So then I'll take a vote on which category you feel you fall into.
No.
Because I don't know why you would choose more than one.
But maybe you tell me afterwards why, because I may have to make the list different.
Okay?
But only vote for one.
God directly and unmistakably makes himself known to an individual.
So, in other words, you know without a question, God has intervened in your life.
Okay.
Number two, so wait for me to do the whole list and then we'll vote.
Number, I don't so it means I'll read it a third time when you vote.
We call out to God, and the first one is we didn't have to call out.
We call out and then clearly perceive God's response, God responding.
Number three, at some point, we simply make a decision to recognize that God has acted in our life.
Four, we believe, but are not certain God has acted in our life.
Three and four may be the same thing.
If they are, I'll get rid of it.
Okay, number five, God has acted in our life, but we're unaware of it.
In other words, I believe God has acted in my life, but I don't know when it has happened.
Just that I believe that God has acted in my life.
Number six, we believe God acts in some people's lives, but I do not know if He's acted in my own.
But I do not deny the possibility that God acts in some people's lives.
I just don't know if I am one of them.
And number seven, we believe God knows us, but has not intervened or does not intervene in people's lives.
So He's not Aristotle's unmoved mover.
It's not a God who created the world and then retired.
He knows us, and in my belief, therefore, there will be an afterlife where He gives us our just dues of reward and punishment, etc.
So now vote as I read them.
Number one: God directly and unmistakably has made himself known to me.
Okay, so one did not know.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
I'll even keep a vote.
Eight, nine, ten.
Is that a vote, Lilia?
Yeah, ten.
Okay.
I'm sorry?
I did 11.
11.
Okay, good man.
Thank you.
But you can't vote for more than one.
No.
No, but you tell me why later you would vote for more than one.
Number two, I have called out.
I'll do it in that way.
I have called out to God, and clearly God has responded.
Wow.
Okay.
Two, four.
Your hand is down.
Okay, fine.
Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.
It's 11, 11.
At some point, I've decided to recognize that God has acted in my life.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Don't give me 11, please.
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.
I believe, but I'm not certain God has acted in my life.
Two, four.
Okay.
God has acted in my life, but I have no idea when it happened.
Just I assume that it's happened.
Three.
Okay.
Four, thank you.
I believe God acts in some people's lives, but there's no way of knowing if he's acted in mine.
One.
Two.
I thought you'd vote for that one.
That's two.
And finally, I believe God knows us but does not intervene in our life.
One.
I'll pant you there.
Two, three, four, five.
Okay.
Who didn't vote?
That's a good one.
Yes, it's a good one.
Okay, one, two, three.
Okay, so everybody voted.
By the way, 22, 38, 42, 46, 48, 53, and 3.
So that's 56, and me is 57.
Yeah.
There's an ambiguity to me in number 3, which is the one that's closest to my view.
And what's the ambiguity?
That the decision about what to think of it is in my hands.
So I can decide that God is acting in my life, whether he did or not.
That's the ambiguity.
Yes, because it's your decision that's the operative element.
In other words, I can decide, and God himself will say no, I didn't decide.
That's correct.
That's fair.
Fine.
Okay, but that's why I wrote we decide.
So that's what you would vote for?
Yeah.
Oh, so I'll add one more here.
That was on.
Yes, thank you.
19.
That's, by the way, that's the biggest winner.
Interestingly, yes.
Did you want to change your vote?
You didn't vote?
Okay, we're at 20 there.
Yes, that's correct.
He'll send you a bill.
Yes, uh-huh.
I have a very close friend who describes an event where God directly on his own.
He's sort of the number one.
And I believe in that.
You believe in number one.
Well, no, for your friend.
Right, that's fine.
Then vote for number one.
That's why I wrote, God directly and unmistakably makes himself known to an individual.
Oh, not to me.
It could be right.
I didn't say to you.
Right, that's right.
Yes.
Right, I should be clearer then, because what did you vote for?
Three.
So three is down to 19.
Yeah, you're right, though.
I asked you if it operated in your life.
And I think I should stick to that, actually.
But it doesn't matter.
Wait, one moment, Baram?
That would be number six.
We believe God has acted in some people's lives.
Oh, yeah, you would be six.
We believe God acts in some people's lives, but he simply didn't.
We simply do not know if he has acted in our own.
No, that's what you said, though.
I believe that God directly spoke to some people.
Yes, exactly.
Right, but not to me.
So then you're vote.
That's number six.
He's right.
Can we get this done before church law?
Not sure.
Not sure.
And maybe people won't want to.
What are you going to rush to?
Golf?
Yes.
I want to know what's the number 22.
We only go to seven.
Okay.
Hold on, yes.
What's really impressive about this, in my opinion, is not who answered what.
How many people did not answer?
Because this is a biased example.
Very few people did not answer.
This is a biased example.
You're talking to a very biased example.
Correct.
You should categorize those who believe in God and those who don't believe in God.
That's the way to look at it.
Oh, absolutely.
And the fact that so few people actually know what it did not have.
Everybody answers means they're all computers in God, which is very impressive to me.
I agree with you.
I will tell you, though, I would be very interested to have a secret vote at the University of Michigan senior class.
No, no, I'm very serious.
I wonder, they all claim, or vast numbers claim to be irreligious, but not many claim to be atheist.
And I would be surprised actually if the majority said none of these apply to me, there is no God.
And if there is one, he doesn't give a damn about anybody.
That is such a void to affirm, if you can affirm a void, that I'm not sure.
So your point is great.
You know, maybe, but even if I was thinking next time I go to a college campus to have the audience vote, but the audience is biased because they came to my lecture.
So that wouldn't be your test.
I would like to see a secret test at a college.
Yes.
I was just thinking of the book.
When you have that kids in college, you know, 18 to 24 or whatever, they haven't necessarily been in life experiences that have prompted them to think about God or to ask God or to, they're not married yet.
Their kid's not mine.
No, I agree with you.
It's very young to.
Well, it would be interesting what all of you would have voted at 24.
Who knows?
Alan, what did you vote for?
I would vote for one of them.
God directly and unmistakably makes himself known to an individual.
And that is how you feel in your life.
Did this happen because of who was the original actor, God or you?
God.
So a sort of, you've had sort of a theophany repeatedly?
No, just one time.
One time.
Do it you feel.
Well, there isn't anyone here who doesn't want to know.
I don't want to push, but either tell me now or tell me later.
But you know, when I, as you know, my brother, died of brain cancer and I was to say it was distressing is obviously, also obviously an understatement about it telling me you feel that one of the things this is very important, it is worth standing.
Yeah, so my brother died of brain cancer when he was in his mid-50s and it was a terribly disturbing, distressing event.
And one evening I would say it's between sleep and and and sleep, between consciousness and unconsciousness and I had, I challenged God, why had this happened to my brother?
I had the sense that God spoke to me and said, okay, you want to know what's going to happen after this life, I'm going to show you.
And There was a gold curtain, and there was a gap between the curtain, and I can't.
There was no image between the curtain.
It was just a sense, a very clear sense that whatever was coming after this life was better than this life.
And it was a terribly, it was a deeply comforting moment.
And I felt that God had revealed something to me at that moment.
Wow.
Did this change you in any way?
Yes, it did.
I mean, it comforted me to the extent that I have much less fear than I did before.
Has anybody had a one-time theophany, a one-time yes, a one-timer?
Please stand.
So I was in sixth grade for Iran, and I was a terrorist school.
I used to go around bullying everybody.
And one night on the studio, I dreamt that I'm in the courtyard trying to bully a kid.
And the clouds gathered, and a voice came out of the clouds and said, This is God speaking to you.
I am watching you.
That was the end of me terrorizing.
Wow, I didn't know either of your cases about this.
Yeah, I'm going to come to in one moment.
I'm just thinking about that.
That, by the way, is a perfect example of an answer to the truly foolish atheist question: what difference does it make?
It's like, you know, as I've said, it makes the same difference as when you know the highway patrol is next to you and you're driving.
Does that make a difference?
Yes, if you're normal, it makes a difference.
Yes, please.
The people who feel they have that experience.
Yeah.
Do they commonly share that with other people?
Or is that something you tend to not talk about?
Obviously, not because you didn't know about Alex and yeah, that's right.
Well, I mean, it's not like I go around stopping somebody ask me about the afterlife, or I will talk.
We expect you at the end of the day.
I think the reason the reason you don't speak about it is just you don't know who your audience is.
If I were to tell this to anybody, they think I'm a raccoon.
Right.
Other than that, you tell my kids about it.
Uh-huh.
Steve, what did you vote?
Number three, the topic.
At some point, we decide to recognize that God has acted in our life.
Yeah, I think I'm close to that one.
I may be four.
We believe, but are not.
Well, why would you not do four?
We believe, but are not certain that God has acted in our life.
Because you've decided to be certain?
No, I believe that the lotus of openness to it is in us.
We open or close the portal, open or close the blinds.
So what do okay, so I want to ask all of you, what let me just tell you what prevents me from One or two, or even certitude on three.
It's not me and my life.
It's all those that clearly, or to me clearly, God did not intervene to help.
I am somewhat paralyzed by that.
And I don't say this with any pride.
I am actually a little, I think I'm a little childish in this regard.
But that's what prevents me, not my own life.
My own life is, if I would tell you the coincidences that brought me to this place today, one is one in a million, the next is one in 10 million, the next is one in three million.
And no matter what I would do to flub it, God seems to have directed where I would have been.
But I so think I'm not any one bit more worthy than one Jew who walked into a gas chamber.
So what is your answer to that?
But that's not what question three asks.
Question three asks, in your life, do we?
Right.
Okay, fair enough.
I agree with you.
So how do you answer all the lives that there doesn't seem to have been intervention?
You didn't ask those people.
Right.
That's a very, by the way, I'll prove to you that you're right.
That's right.
Okay, so I'd like to offer two proofs of why you're likely right.
Yes.
But that's still not quite getting my point.
I could decide that God is acting in my life, and it turns out that He did.
He could be acting in my life, and I could decide not to recognize it.
So it's my openness plus.
Just because I decide that God is acting in my life doesn't mean that it's true.
Correct.
That's why you like the word decide.
Right.
And so, but that's me.
And I'm not saying, I'm not, I'm saying that for all of the others who act like for Allah, he could have awakened and said, boy, I really had a nightmare.
Or, boy, I must have eaten.
Right, I hallucinated.
I hallucinated.
Right.
R.I. could have dismissed it as a psychotic episode.
Right.
But instead, he decided that it was a matter of time.
So, right.
So it's a decision in any event, in many ways.
I want to tell you why I said to you, I have two proofs that you're right.
That if you'd have asked those Jews, maybe they would have come up with the same answer.
There is a book out written, I believe, by one of, I think it's two authors, and I think one of them is both a sociologist and a rabbi.
I'm vague on that, but I remember it was a very important book, Theological Reflections on, no, not reflections, but something of the Holocaust.
Anyway, the point is they did a tremendous amount of research on the beliefs of Holocaust survivors, and people, many of whom lost their families to horrible deaths.
And they concluded, which gave it a lot of credibility, that there were a fair number of atheists who came out believers, and there were a fair number of believers who came out atheists.
But the data showed that it was the same.
In other words, the percentages of believers and atheists stayed the same, even though some shifted categories.
The second point that I want to make to you is in this book, The Indianapolis.
These men are in the ocean.
They're boiling all day, many of them burned horribly by the torpedo fires, horribly burned, face, arms, bodies.
And they watch their friends eaten alive by sharks.
But it's noted that in virtually every instance they came to believe in God.
And you might say, well, of course, in foxholes, there are no atheists, the famous line that is given.
But I've never found that to be a particularly intelligent response.
Because you could argue the very opposite.
In foxholes, or at least out in the sea where your friends are all dying, there were no believers.
That would be just as logical a response.
We're not getting saved.
In fact, it's fascinating.
There were quite a number of Jews on the Indianapolis.
You can tell by their names, obviously.
And one of them, who was quite, never hallucinated, most of the men ultimately hallucinated with no food, no water, and just sun.
So they hallucinated a terrible amount.
But this guy never hallucinated, and he either didn't pray or just was disinterested.
His name was Blum.
And he was a very heroic figure in the ocean, I just might add.
But I would have liked to have interviewed Blum afterwards.
And the men, I will tell you as well, the men found tremendous comfort in saying the 23rd Psalm.
They would say that over and over in the ocean.
And I would have been with them.
I mean, there's not even an issue.
It is important to know that.
Yes.
You know, did you ever read the book I'm Broken?
No.
It's a fascinating story of Louis Mamburini, who was an airline Air Force pilot, and they were going, I believe, during Korean War or World War II.
And he was on a rescue mission to go get other people, and their own plane, the rescue plane, went down in the water.
And they had a tiny, there were three people who survived.
And there was a tiny little, I feel like they were like baby clothes.
You know, it was not normal equipment as we have today.
Three guys, one super healthy, complete athlete.
Louie got bumped and he was suffering.
He had damage from falling out.
And the other person was not healthy.
The two who survived, which were they, were he himself, Louie was a runner.
He was this incredible speed runner.
Olympic.
Yeah.
But he said he was never, he was a scoundrel as a kid.
He used to actually, his brother got him into running because he used to steal.
And he'd run really fast to get away.
But the point is, he said, I wasn't a religious man, but I suddenly, I remember, the sharks were not only circling, they were bumping underneath this little float that they had.
And he said, you just start praying.
He said, I thought back to movies I'd seen, and he started saying, like, either the psalm or a prayer.
The other guy kept saying, we're going to do it.
The one who's healthy.
We're going to die.
We're going to die.
We're never going to make it.
He died.
And the two who prayed had these miracles happen.
A bird flew, an albatross came and landed on his head and let him have food.
He put little things in his fingers to catch the fish.
He found little hooks over the side.
Fish came up to him and said, here I am.
And then he eventually got rescued, but then he got rescued into a Japanese prisoner camp.
And he survived.
It's an amazing story.
It sounds like it.
All right, we'll just take these and then we've got to stop.
Yes.
I think given all those options, I feel there's kind of like a merging of some of them.
Sometimes they have to take it on faith.
And for my own example, when I was a kid, I was always doing stuff that I mean, just always.
And I remember when I was very, very young, before I learned how to swim, I fell into the swimming pool in my apartment.
And one of the people that lived there just happened to look out and pulled me out of the water.
And I remember another time when I was in my early 20s, I was on my way to work.
I was driving a Volkswagen on the freeway going on the on-ramp.
And you know, when you're in your 20s, you think you're invincible, you drive like a machine or whatever.
So I went on too fast and I rolled down the embankment.
Another 10 or maybe another 10, 12, 15 feet hour fell off the overpass.
And I knew there was no way I could have survived that.
But I rolled down the hill and all I had, it wasn't a Volkswagen.
All I had was a scratch on the floor.
So sometimes God, in some ways, is looking out for you, and there's a reason why we're here.
All right, fair enough.
We just, yes.
For us.
Well, your example was this book and the people in the sea dying.
I think when you get in a situation when you basically realize that you're not the driver, it's a sheer luck.
So at that point, you become a believer because that's your only hope.
Well, or you realize you're not the driver.
I thought you were leading to that.
Not just that.
If you are not the driver, your next step, who is the driver?
That's right.
That's right.
No, that's a very that's maybe I should deal with why do people many people not all get more religious when they get old?
It's a very interesting subject.
You cool stone controlled situation when you're getting cold.
Yeah.
Because when you're young and healthy, everything is not.
That's right.
So right.
So which is the age in which you have a more realistic view of whether there's a God?
80 or 18?
That's the question.
Final one, yes.
I kind of have to case like Thebes.
It's a conscious decision.
With all the luck and the life that I've had and the fortune that I've had, I thank God and I always say God takes care of me.
No matter what.
And I've got many instances.
I guess I could say that it's luck.
And as far as you're concerned, Boris, God helps those who help themselves.
So if you think that, yes, if there's a situation where you can't do anything in the ocean or whatever, I get that.
But if you're sitting on going, okay, God, give me a job.
Okay, God, do me this, let me do that.
It's not going to happen.
You have to get up and do it.
And you're this example for it.
You got up and did it.
You see it?
Important thing.
Of course, it's always in your hand.
God is all God never helped you directly.
That's, guys, back to parting the sea.
Until you start walking into that sea, he's not going to park it for you.
Do you know, by the way, that's brilliant that you raised it.
I wanted to end with that.
Do you know the Agada in the Talmud that the sea didn't open till one of the Jews went up to his head?
Yes, and he was up to his death.
That's right.
Mitch.
Okay, yeah.
I just wanted to address the thing about more than one, going for more than one, because my experience is that before I believed in God, there were things that brought me to a belief in God.
At that point, then my relationship was more praying and seeing responses, and even going through periods of life where I felt no response and having to decide that I still believed.
So I have to have all three of those.
The first one.
I see.
That's fair.
Thank you all, Shabbat Shallo.
This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
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