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Dec. 4, 2025 - Dennis Prager Show
01:11:26
Timeless Wisdom - Why Keep the 10 Commandments?
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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.
You mean it ends here?
The buck stops here.
Is that it?
Rabbi Mahler and Cantor Cohen, Nancy Berkowitz, ladies and gentlemen, Shabbat Shalom.
Thank you for coming as far as Squirrel Hill.
And which I never heard of till now, but I assume it's pretty local.
Maybe no one came from Washington, but I came from Los Angeles to meet you.
So somebody traveled very far, and I'm very honored to be here.
And it's a special Shabbat for me, as you heard, my third child's first birthday tomorrow.
But when I make a commitment, I keep that commitment, and I'm very touched to be here.
I am very grateful to Rabbi Mahler, and I am very honored to be at this pulpit.
I'm grateful to him, among other reasons, for picking the topics that he chose, because he forced me to develop new thoughts and new talks.
You know what he could have taken from the tried and shrew, but he didn't.
Also, I must tell you, I am touched that a Reform congregation would choose the topic, why keep the commandments?
And I'll tell you why I'm touched.
The Reform are not usually identified with keeping the commandments.
Well, let's be honest, that is not the first thing one thinks of when one thinks of Reform Jews.
In fact, when I'm in my more impish moods at Reform temples, I say that many Reform Jews should not, in fact, think of themselves as Reform Jews because they don't reform Jewish law.
They drop Jewish law, and they should think of themselves as drop Jews.
That is my challenge to Reform Jews.
I am a member of a Reformed temple where I am to be found in Los Angeles every Shabbat that I'm not on the road.
So I'm speaking to dear friends, fellow Jews.
And it's a serious, serious question, the state of commandments in Reform Jewry.
But my topic is larger than the Reform Jew.
It's the Jew period.
Why keep the commandments?
So I'd like to work this out with you, and I would like to have as much time as possible afterwards for questions, comments, and alternate speeches.
Let me begin by defining commandment.
If I were to ask any Jew who has ever heard the word mitzvah, what does mitzvah mean?
Overwhelmingly, I am told, or you would be told, the definition of mitzvah is good deed.
Not true.
Mitzvah means commandment.
And you picked the key word, commandment.
My friends, it's a tough thing for us moderns to swallow, but Judaism is filled with commandments.
As one Catholic theologian once put it, it's the Ten Commandments, not the Ten Suggestions.
It's a very important point.
It is a religion that is filled with commandments.
And we moderns don't like to be commanded, especially those who resonate to the 60s, whose bumper sticker really was question authority.
For people who have the bumper sticker question authority, the notion of a religion of commandments is not easy to take.
Suggestions, perhaps, things that we might want you to do, but commandments is tough.
Judaism is filled with it, and I would like to make it clear this evening on this very difficult subject.
If you're not Orthodox, see, for the Orthodox, life is not easy, but philosophy is.
God gave commandments, 613, plus the oral law.
And my God, it's all out there.
Now go ahead and do it.
If you're not Orthodox, what are you supposed to do as a Jew?
Let me tell you something personal.
This is my, and I hate to use the term because it has such Christian connotations, but nevertheless, it's my crusade in Jewish life to develop passionate, vibrant, dynamic, non-Orthodox religiosity.
We don't have enough of it.
We have one here and two here and three here.
I'll give you a personal example.
I do a daily show on ABC Radio in Los Angeles.
It's my other life as a talk show host.
And I'm now on daytime, but for a while I was on at nighttime.
And before the station asked me to do a nighttime show, they knew my conditions.
I would have to be pre-recorded Friday night.
I would not broadcast Friday night or Saturday.
I won't now.
I won't, I hope, ever.
I certainly wouldn't for millions and millions of dollars.
There is nothing, a national show, millions of dollars, I will not broadcast on Shabbat.
It is one of the lines that I have drawn in the sand, as it were.
In Los Angeles, those Jews who don't know my theology but know me from the radio, every single one of them that I have ever met believes that I'm Orthodox.
And the interesting thing about it is, there are two types of Jews who, hearing I won't work on Shabbat, won't broadcast on Shabbat, think I'm Orthodox.
And the two types are Orthodox Jews and non-Orthodox Jews.
That's a very interesting thing.
The Orthodox assume it for the same exact reason the non-Orthodox assume it.
Anybody who takes the Shabbat that seriously must be Orthodox.
And I have the liberty and freedom being in a Reformed temple to be critical because I only reserve critical remarks to that denomination in which I'm speaking.
It is a terrible indictment of Reform and conservative Jews that the moment you are known as taking a Jewish law seriously, you're assumed to be Orthodox.
It's the ultimate indictment.
I mean, it's up here.
It's here.
You know, it's not like, well, if they heard I won't mix linen and wool together in a jacket, then they assume I'm Orthodox.
I can understand that.
Because most Jews are not that keen on the mitzvah of Sha'at Nase.
I understand that, and for I'm sure many of you, it's an unknown.
But you can't have linen and wool in the same clothing.
By the way, I think there's great profundity to it, and maybe I'll talk about it later.
But it's not Sha'atnez that I'm known for observing in Los Angeles.
It's the Shabbat, the fourth commandment of the Ten Commandments.
That's a big deal.
You can't get much bigger than the Ten Commandments.
This is the state of Jewry today.
A Jew says he won't broadcast on the Shabbat.
Oh, he must be Orthodox.
Isn't that sad?
That's what I mean.
That's the problem.
That's why I began by saying, why aren't you identified with commandments?
It's one thing to reform Jewish law, which I'm all for, but it's quite another to drop Jewish law, which you can't do and call yourself authentically, seriously Jewish.
A serious Jew is a commandment, a mitzvah-oriented Jew.
That's what makes Judaism different.
The Jew who says he doesn't need, she doesn't need Jewish laws, is speaking the words of Paul.
The notion that Jewish values can live without Jewish practices is Christian.
That's Christianity.
Jewish values without mitzvahs.
Please understand that Christianity is a Jewish development.
An organic Jewish development.
We no longer need these particularist laws.
We just need the values and we will add on faith in Jesus.
A Jew without Jewish commandments, without Jewish law, is a Christian without Christ.
I don't say that pejoratively because I don't think of Christian as a pejorative term.
I'm saying this utterly and totally descriptively.
You may in fact be in the wrong religion, and I say that not at all critically.
I say that too descriptively.
It's a free country.
But to argue I don't need Jewish law, I am not Orthodox, I'm reform, is not to be honest to reform and certainly not honest to Judaism.
It is a religion of commandments, whether we like it or not.
And the truth is we don't.
The truth is we have rebelled against it.
If you want to read one of the most fascinating episodes of world history, let alone Jewish history, read about how the Jews followed Shaptesvi, the false Messiah in the 17th century, the Turkish Jew who said he was the Mashiach.
And half of Jewry, and that means half of Orthodox Jewry, followed him.
And do you know what his motto was?
Matir Isurim.
He was a play on the Hebrew words where we say that God frees the captives, Matir Asurim.
He said, God is Matir Isurim.
Now God frees that which was forbidden.
His movement was a total antinomian movement.
It's an anti-law movement.
I grew up in the yeshiva world.
I went to yeshiva till I was 18.
And in that world, the mitzvahs are called Ol Malchut Shemaim, burden of the kingdom of God.
It's a burden.
Even the Orthodox regard it as a burden.
It's a difficult thing.
But life is difficult.
And therefore, Judaism says, even though it's difficult, it needs to be followed.
The question that you might have, or one might have, who's not Orthodox, well, how much?
We will talk about that tomorrow.
Tonight is the case for the commandments.
Why keep the commandments even if you're not Orthodox, as it were?
Judaism is composed of commandments for a number of reasons.
Number one, because it is not enough to give people moral goals and leave them without an implementation by which to implement it.
Judaism could easily have said what Rabbi Hillel said.
You read it tonight in the prayer book.
When Hillel, the great rabbi of the Talmud, was asked by a pagan, Rabbi, tell me what Judaism is while standing on one leg, Hillel said, that's easy.
Excuse me.
That's easy, he said.
Do not do to others what is hateful unto you.
The rest is commentary.
Now go and study.
Why didn't the Torah then simply have, why didn't God give a Torah or Moses or Jewish history?
We won't get into that now.
Why is there a Torah in Judaism?
Why is there a body of law?
Why doesn't Judaism merely say, don't do to others what you find hateful to yourself?
Why doesn't Judaism merely say what Micah said?
God has already told you all that he wants.
Pursue justice, do loving kindness, and walk humbly with your God.
So long and have a nice week.
Why not?
Why is Judaism so vast in its law?
Because, my friends, you cannot make a good world if only have good values.
Good values need a way to implement them.
Let me give you a non-religious, non-moral example.
What would you think of somebody who was told the following in order to be a good driver?
Listen, it is very important to be a good and courteous driver, and now here's your license.
Right, it's laughable, isn't it?
Now, why would you trust, would not trust people to drive well without many, many laws of driving, lessons in driving, but you will trust people to lead a good and holy life with no laws on goodness and holiness.
That's my question to any Jew who thinks he can live without the commandments.
How are you going to lead the good life that we all hold Judaism wants from you if you drop the recipe?
It would be like someone told me who has never cooked in his life, Dennis, here is, I want you to come out with filet mignon.
You've tasted it.
You know exactly what it's like.
I don't know if I've actually ever tasted it, keeping kosher, right?
Would I have tasted it?
I don't know.
I don't know what.
Sirloin, that's right.
Not sirloin.
Dennis, make a lemon cake.
I'm much better at cakes.
Dennis, make a lemon cake.
And no rules.
That's how I would regard be good, be holy, no rules necessary.
Judaism tells you how.
That's case number one for the commandments.
You want to be good?
We will tell you how to be good.
I'll give you an example.
There is a law in the Talmud.
It's one of my all-time favorite laws in Judaism.
A Jew who enters a store is not permitted to ask the storekeeper the price of an item if he knows he will not buy it because you are not allowed to raise the hopes of the storekeeper for no reason.
Now, I'm sure none of you have ever done this.
But there are people who will do the following.
They will go to a store to decide what they want to buy and then order it by mail because it's cheaper.
It's done constantly in photography, in stereo, even in some fashions where people will have certain ways of getting things wholesale.
I mean, you know, the joke about Jews that the 600 or the 11th commandment is, thou shalt not buy retail.
And in doing, in keeping that law, Jews often violate this law.
You can't go in and say, oh, can I just see those cameras there for a minute?
And, oh, thank you.
Could you tell me why is the Minolta different from the canon?
Oh, thank you very much.
And can I just see the Nikon, please?
And then you take 15 minutes of a man's livelihood and go by and then call up some New York mail order house and save yourself $50.
That is absolutely, by Jewish law, it is thievery.
You have stolen their time, their expertise, their overhead.
And I'll prove it to you.
If you want to be fully honest, this is what you'd have to say.
Sir, I'd like to take about 20 minutes of your time to see your cameras, but I have to tell you, honesty demands that I tell you at the outset, no matter which I choose to buy, I will not buy it here.
Okay?
Then you can do it.
Then you are not deceiving anybody.
But I suspect you wouldn't do that.
Judaism is filled with laws on how to be a good person.
The laws of La Shon Hara.
The laws of how to speak about people when they're not present.
Who thinks about that in our society where you have entire magazines that are gossip magazines?
I was raised that how you talk about people when they're not present is an extremely important issue.
You can destroy people's lives.
And we have people in America and in the Western world, paparazzi they're called, whose entire livelihood and whose entire life is devoted to photographing people when they are not celebrities, when they are not aware of being so.
As Princess Dai just now with the case where at the place where she does her exercises, the owner installed a video camera in the ceiling to sell it to the newspapers in Britain.
And he said, I see nothing wrong.
He thinks he's a nice guy.
He sees nothing wrong.
Hey, what's wrong?
Can a man make a living?
If the man were in a Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox synagogue, had he been Jewish and had he been a member, there's a very good chance he either would not have done it, or if he did do it, the rabbi would have said, I just want you to know, sir, you violated a very serious Jewish infraction.
The world needs mitzvahs, not just Jews.
Humanity needs mitzvahs.
It is not enough to have a few nice moral precepts.
The moral precepts are to tell you the purpose of the laws.
But the law's purpose, the law's existence is there so that you know how to do the good things that it wants.
It's not enough to say, be nice.
We need a roadmap on how to be nice.
In addition, Judaism not only doesn't rely on good principles, it doesn't rely on faith alone.
Just as Judaism says, we will teach you how to be good and how to be holy.
We will not rely on nice values alone.
Judaism also says, and this is contrary to Christianity, that it is not enough to have faith.
It is possible to believe in God and be despicable.
Whether you are Jew, Christian, or Muslim, or none of them, it is possible to believe in God and be disgusting.
That is why faith alone, Judaism, never believed that faith alone would make a good Jew.
You can have the deepest faith in God, but if you do not practice Judaism, Judaism doesn't trust you.
Judaism does not trust human nature for good reason.
I think after Auschwitz, I don't have to make the point that it is not enough to trust human nature.
Number three, number one was it is not enough to have good principles.
You need laws to achieve it.
It is not enough to have good faith.
You need practices.
Number three, it is not enough to have good intentions.
Good intentions, the road to hell is paved with.
And my God, if you don't know that after communism, then communism has taught nothing.
Why did many Jews find Marxism and socialism appealing and capitalism disgusting, even though Marxism produced hell and capitalism produced free countries?
How come?
Because a lot of Jews got seduced by judging something by its intentions and not by its practices.
In practice, selfish capitalism has produced far better societies than altruistic socialism.
But it is a fact.
Capitalism is based on selfishness.
There's no question about it.
It's a given.
When you get caught up in judging intentions and not results, you can end up being anti-capitalism and pro-Marxism.
What could be more beautiful to each according to his needs, from each according to his ability?
Isn't that beautiful?
Sure is.
In theory, it sounds great, but intentions don't make a good world.
That is why, for example, I have never had a problem with all the plaques in Jewish places.
You know, the Harry Berkowitz toilet and the Liddy Berkowitz fountain and so on.
I have never had a problem.
For one thing, when I use the Harry Berkowitz toilet, I am very grateful to Mr. Berkowitz.
Okay, that's one reason.
The other is, I never ever assess goodness or evil by its intentions, only by its outcome.
That people have done bad things and had good intentions does not to me excuse the bad.
And that people may have selfish intentions and do good never reduces the good.
I much rather have a Jew who gave 10% of his income, which the Torah asks us to give, commands us to give, out of a desire to have his name known than a Jew who gives 1% of his income totally altruistically.
And if you don't believe me, ask the poor.
Who do they prefer?
Only rich people can say it is better to give 1% of your income altruistically than 10% because you want credit from the community.
Oh, I ask Jewish upper-middle-class kids all the time, who did a better thing?
The man who gave a dollar from his heart to a woman whose daughter needed money for surgery, or a man who gave $100 because it was the law and the Torah.
Oh, and they're very divided.
Half vote for the dollar, half vote for the hundred.
When I asked this question in Lamarada, California, to lower-middle-class non-Jewish kids, every single one voted for the man who gave $100.
They were totally unimpressed by the fact that the man who gave the dollar cried.
Totally unimpressed.
Only rich kids are impressed by the heart.
The poor are impressed by deeds.
Judaism is interested in making a good world, not making you feel good about yourself.
That the state of California is deeply interested in because it has a task force on self-esteem.
But Judaism does.
That's right.
We have a state task force on it.
Argument number one, therefore, for commandments is that you cannot rely on moral values.
Need the means to achieve those ends.
You cannot rely on faith alone.
You need practices dictated.
And number three, you cannot rely on good intentions.
You need good behavior.
Judaism tells you to be holy, to be good, and to be Jewish.
Jewish law tells you how to be holy, how to be good, how to be Jewish.
Because, point number four, feelings are not nearly as important as actions.
This is quintessential Judaism.
How you feel is less important than how you act, with one exception that I will come to later.
That's why I gave the example of giving to the poor.
The poor don't care how you feel nearly as much as they care about how you act.
If you visit sick people at the hospital because you believe God commanded it, as opposed to waking up and going, you know, it's another beautiful day to visit the sick.
Nobody wakes up like that.
Maybe 10 out of a million people will feel that way.
Most of the Jews who formed Biker Cholem societies visit the sick societies, did it because it's a mitzvah to visit the sick.
And when you drop the idea of it's a mitzvah to visit the sick, do you know what you'll end up dropping?
Bikur Cholem societies.
We don't have them anymore.
Or we don't have them outside of the mitzvah-oriented community.
If you think it's a mitzvah, you're more likely to do it than if you just think it's a nice thing to do.
Mitzvah is a very big deal.
Judaism doesn't care if you feel holy, feel good, or feel Jewish.
You've got to act it.
First, feeling holy.
That's new age talk.
I am in touch with my spiritual side.
I feel holy.
God is within me.
That's very nice, but it's not Jewish.
How you feel spiritually is between you and your navel.
Between you and the rest of the community is whether you act holy.
And I will talk about acts of holiness within Judaism in a moment.
Number two, feeling good.
I once did something on my radio show, which was an absolute revelation to me.
When I was doing my night show years ago, I got on one night and said, folks, no commentary tonight.
I just have one question.
I want you to call up and tell me if you think you're basically a good person.
For two hours, everybody who called in said he or she was basically a good person.
I tried it one more time.
Same thing happened.
Everybody who called in said he or she was good.
So I concluded one of two things.
Either, no, one of three things.
Either all my listeners are good people.
Two, most of my listeners are liars.
Or three, everybody thinks he's a good person.
And folks, number three is it from Dr. Mengele, the torturous Nazi barbarian doctor at Auschwitz, who thought he was a good person by all the documentation we know from relatives and people who knew him after the war to Mother Teresa.
Everybody, in fact, there's a good chance Mengele thought he's a better person than Mother Teresa did.
So this thing about, oh well, you know, I'm a good person, so I don't need all these laws.
I hear that all the time.
Hey, everybody thinks that.
It's very humbling, very, to recognize that the people you think are the slime of the earth are as convinced of their goodness as you are.
It's a very humbling experience.
Therefore, one has to make one very important conclusion: How is it possible, if the world is so filled with evil, that there are so many people walking around thinking they're basically good?
How do you reconcile that?
And here is the answer: because people judge themselves by their intentions, not by their actions.
And Judaism is totally concerned the opposite way.
What are your actions?
Whether you visit the sick because you think God will punish you if you don't, or visit the sick because you want to be known in the community as the sick person visitor, or whatever reason, it's not important.
What's important is you brought joy to the sick.
That is why Judaism is a behaviorist religion.
It is a religion of commandments for all these reasons.
And the third part: feel holy, feel good, feel Jewish.
I love when I hear about parents who say that they feel so Jewish.
Why don't their kids?
I'll tell you why.
Why should they?
Unless you act Jewish, how you feel is irrelevant.
Folks, I love classical music very deeply.
There is no reason on earth why my kids would love classical music just because I love classical music.
The only possible chance I have to instill love of classical music in my kids is to teach it to them.
Hey, let's sit down, listen to this really rousing Rossini overture.
You'll really like it and try and try and work on it and work at it.
But the fact that I love Beethoven is irrelevant to my kids and ought to be.
I love my car.
Should my kids love my car?
So you love being Jewish.
You feel Jewish?
So what?
I'd rather have you feel less Jewish and act more Jewish.
That is the Jewish message.
Act, act holy, act good, act Jewish.
How you feel is important to you and God and nobody else.
Oh, your shrink, your spouse, but basically nobody else.
A fifth reason.
Judaism believes that the deed shapes the heart far more than the heart shapes the deed.
If you keep acting Jewish, keep acting holy, and keep acting good, you may actually end up inside Jewish, inside holy, and inside good.
Let me give you the Jewish or religious part.
Common question I am asked by Jews and non-Jews.
You know, Dennis, I'm an agnostic.
I don't know if there is a God.
I don't know if there isn't.
And you keep speaking about the importance of religion.
How am I supposed to get started if I'm an agnostic?
And my answer is the quintessential Jewish answer.
I'm going to cite to you now a statement from the Talmud that blows a lot of minds.
It is Jeremiah speaking in the name of God, Jeremiah the prophet, according to the rabbis.
It is better that the Jews Abandoned me, but kept my mitzvot.
In Judaism, it is more important to keep the mitzvot than even believe in God.
Now, it is certainly important in Judaism to believe in God.
If there is no God, and I'm going to talk about that in a moment, then the whole commandment system fails.
If there's no commander, why keep the commandments?
So, God is central, but Judaism is so behaviorist that God Himself is quoted as saying, better that you abandon me, but keep my laws, because the ending of the sentence is critical.
Through my laws, they will come back to me.
You want to feel religious, my friends?
Act religious.
Most of you, or I don't know you, but most Jews have it backwards.
They wait to feel religious until they act religious.
It's completely backwards.
You act religious first, then you feel religious.
Do you know when I feel Shabbat?
When I make Shabbat, not when the sun sets Friday.
The sunset on Friday is incredibly similar to Thursdays.
I feel Shabbat when I make Shabbat.
When I make sure to be home by sunset, ending my work early.
When my wife lights the candles, when we turn off the stereo and radio and TV and all the technological obstacles to being human, then I feel Shabbat.
If I went to a ball game Friday night, how the hell am I supposed to feel religious?
Because of who?
The penguins?
What is going to make me feel religious in a secular Friday night?
You act it, you'll feel it.
You don't always feel it.
I asked a very right-wing Orthodox friend of mine, a dear friend, in fact, a rabbi, I said, let me ask you, Davin, three times a day, how often do you have kavana?
How often do you have real intent?
Do you really feel it?
He said, about one in ten times.
He said, but if I didn't do it three times a day, I wouldn't even have those.
That's true for all of our lives.
We do certain things so as to engender the feeling about it.
You wait for the feeling.
If you keep act loving to your spouse, there's a remote chance you'll start feeling it.
We are in a much, much, much too feeling-based a society.
Much too.
We have raised a whole generation to believe that how they feel is the most important thing in the world.
And we have wrecked havoc morally and emotionally, believe it or not, with it.
Well, I feel out of love.
Bye-bye, spouse.
Now, I have very liberal views on divorce.
But there's no question that there are people who, at the first onset of no violins, uh-oh, that's the end.
There isn't a marriage in history that every moment had violins playing.
For any people like that, there were special institutions for them, in fact.
By the way, I don't even think it would be good.
It's not real.
If you have violins playing all the time, you'll never appreciate the violins.
If I had Beethoven on in the background all day long, I would become inured to Beethoven.
Thank God that one doesn't have the intensity of those love feelings at all times.
You would never appreciate it when you did.
We are so much too much feelings-oriented.
And one of the great messages of Judaism to modernity is: hey, wait a minute.
Feelings are important, but they ain't everything by any means.
Not religiously, not emotionally, and certainly not morally.
Feelings are not that important.
They're important, they are not everything.
I ask kids if they'd save their dog or a stranger first.
Your kids.
Ask them when you get home.
Would you save a dog or a strange dog or a stranger first if both were drowning?
Most don't vote for the stranger.
Why?
I love my dog.
I don't love the stranger.
Everything is feelings.
I feel for my dog.
So I said, Well, what if somebody felt for their hamster?
No problem.
No problem.
I have this on tape because people always think, and I'm sure half of you believe I'm exaggerating.
That's why you have to ask your kids or grandkids.
Would you save your dog or a stranger first?
No, two out of three chances they'll save their dog.
Because they have no standards.
They were raised to rely on their feelings.
Everything is feelings.
Who, hey, impose values on my kids?
What do you think I am?
A Republican?
Therefore, we never impose values on our kids.
All we do is ask how they feel.
How are you feeling?
My son, when he was two years old in the park, was pushed down by a five-year-old kid who just walked by, pushed him down.
I think the kid was practicing to be a Nazi.
At any rate, what's interesting was the mother of the little Nazis' reaction.
She went over to her son and she went as follows: What's troubling you, darling?
I never met that woman in my life, but there's something that I know as a given.
This woman attended graduate school.
That is learned behavior.
You have to learn that reaction to your kid being a disgusting child.
The average parent would have smacked the kid or yanked the kid or yelled at the kid.
But if you go to graduate school, you learn that kids' feelings are more important than their behavior.
I don't believe that.
If my kid were a bully, my kids' feelings would be secondary to this father.
You don't hurt kids.
I don't care how bad your feelings are.
I mean, nobody goes and pushes down kids because they're feeling good by definition.
So what?
It's a tautology.
Obviously, if you hit somebody, you're not feeling good.
So what?
But if you're not feeling good, you don't have permission to hurt people.
Judaism is a deeply civilizing religion because and only because of its mitzvah system.
Because it says how you behave is more important than how you feel, is more important than your intentions, and is more important than moral principles, faith, and so on.
That's part of the case for why keep commandments.
I'm not done.
The other is because there's a commander who commanded them.
That's not a little thing in Judaism.
If God has no relationship to the commandments, okay, then it's very hard.
Everything I said still stands, but it is very difficult to make a bikur cholim society.
It's very hard to make a visit to Sikh society generation after generation if you don't think God gives a hoot if you did.
Let's be honest.
The people who are most convinced that God is behind the commandments are more likely to observe them.
I believe God is behind the commandments, but I believe that the commandments, or some of the commandments as we perceive them, need to be from within changed.
I don't believe that God's will is that a woman stay unmarried because a son of an unfortunate creature did not give her a divorce.
I think we are misconstruing God's will.
But I believe that God is behind Judaism or I wouldn't be here tonight.
This is not just a nice idea that ancients came up with.
Anyway, who were these ancients?
The riffraff that got out of Egypt?
The people at the golden calf?
These are the people that authored this stuff?
Now, if there's no God behind Judaism, we're wasting our time, certainly wasting our time after Auschwitz.
Why any Jew would stay Jewish after Auschwitz without believing that God is involved is somewhat of a mystery to me.
There is a commander.
What exactly God commanded, different Jews can differ on, but whether there is a commander of the commandments is a very important issue.
Now, there are two types of commandments according to the rabbis.
And here is the one exception now to all of what I have just said, which will be helpful, I think, but throws in a slight area of complexity.
There are two types of mitzvot, according to the rabbis.
Bénadam Le Chavero and Bénadam la Makom.
Between people, between a person and other people, and between a person and God.
Shabbat is between a person and God.
Do not murder is between people.
Right?
Clear?
Okay.
By the way, sometimes it's not clear.
But let's take two that are clear.
Sabbath is a law between man and God.
Do not murder is a law between man and fellow human being.
Okay.
Now, why keep those specifically?
Here is where an interest I have developed for myself, a slight modification on what I've said.
Why not murder?
Let's talk first about the laws between people.
Why not murder?
Well, the obvious answer is because it's wrong.
Okay, let's continue this dialogue with myself.
Why is it wrong?
Because it's wrong to take another person's life.
Why is that wrong?
Because you don't want your life taken.
So?
But what if I can get away with it?
It's still wrong.
Why?
Because it's wrong.
And then the discussion more or less ends.
Do you want to know, according to Judaism, why you shouldn't murder?
This may bother a lot of you because God said so.
This will bother you because you have been raised in a secular educational universe which holds that reason alone dictates morality.
My friends, that's a subject unto itself, but let me tell you, on purely rational grounds, that's not true.
I can make a very good argument for acting like Hitler.
Hitler took his ethics from nature.
You know, there's a great deal of glorifying of nature these days, like free willy.
The film Free Willie with the big killer whale.
For those of you who fell in love with Willie, may I suggest a sobering antidote?
The Time Life video series on nature.
I think it's volume one.
Watch how killer whales actually behave when they're not on a Hollywood film.
Watch what they do to baby seals, which they take and before they eat them, they throw them one to the other in the ocean, playing with them like a football.
If you see that, Free Willie becomes a little laughable.
Nature is not beautiful, my friends.
Nature has beauty, but nature is not beautiful any more than humanity is beautiful.
Humanity has beauty, humanity has ugly, so too the rest of nature.
That's why I don't romanticize nature.
But Hitler believed very deeply that we are part of nature, just like your average graduate of Stanford believes today, and believed that we should therefore act like natural beings.
What is the law in nature?
Survival of the fittest.
If you are strong, it is your biological imperative to eat the weak.
When I was in safari in Africa, I saw it.
Do you know which zebras were eaten by the lions?
The maned, the unhealthy, the weak, the ones who couldn't run fast enough with the flock.
So Hitler didn't begin with Jews, my friends.
He began with the maimed and the weak.
Hitler thought this stuff through.
We will model ourselves after nature.
We will destroy in the human species its weak the same way in which the animals do it among theirs.
The idea that you should protect the weak is a religious idea.
It is not a natural idea.
It is not a rational idea.
So when you argue murder is wrong, I beg you to understand that is as much a leap of faith as mine is, that this, the sixth one, Lothirzach, do not murder, is from God.
I admit it's a leap of faith that God gave the Ten Commandments.
I fully admit it.
I'm asking you to acknowledge that if you believe murder is wrong, you have made an equal leap of faith.
Mine is to God, yours is to absolute morality.
Except that mine has a little more reason to it.
Because in the final analysis, your morality is based on you.
And I can prove you're not God, but you can't prove that my God isn't God.
At least I have that advantage.
I have something transcendent that says do not murder.
You don't.
If that's what you believe, a commander says do not murder makes that commandment real, makes it absolute, makes murder wrong with a capital W. Not a matter of personal opinion.
So my friends, I'll put a plus double, in my opinion.
I wrote an article on this, Why Not Loot?
And I wrote in it that my happiness at that answer would not be shared by most Jews of my generation.
Most Jews of my generation would not want that response from their kid.
The response they would want is, because I think it's wrong.
The second response is not Jewish.
My kid's response is, I hope my kid thinks it's wrong, but you know what?
I don't trust what people think.
I trust people who think God thinks it's wrong more than I trust people who just think it's wrong.
You may not.
You may have more faith in human nature than I, but you have to confront the fact that it may not be the Jewish response.
It's very nice if you think stealing is wrong.
We're all pleased, and I hope my kid thinks it's wrong.
I am happier for the world, not for my kid, for the world, that he thinks God thinks it's wrong to steal.
Because when push comes to shove, that's the best answer, rationally and in terms of moral effectiveness.
There too, feelings are secondary.
A commander said, don't murder.
And finally, the laws between man and God.
Here's the one exception to everything I said.
Remember, I told you, Jewish laws to give 10% of your income to charity, to Tzudaka, that that's a law.
And whether your heart is in it or not doesn't matter, that's the law.
Okay.
Here's a very interesting thing from the Torah.
When God tells Moses to collect money from the Jews to build the temple, totally different wording is used.
And it's unique in the Torah.
It says, Asher Yid Venu Libo.
The opposite of everything I have said tonight, the Torah says, Jews, if you, Jews were collecting for my temple, but only give what your heart prompts you to give.
That's powerful.
It runs against everything I said.
It runs against everything else in the Torah.
When it comes to doing for God, then and only then is your heart critical.
On the laws between the person and God, it's very different than in the laws between person and person.
I don't care why you give 10% to the poor, just give it, the Torah is saying.
But we do care why you give to the holy temple.
There, your heart is the barometer and not the act.
Isn't that incredible?
I learned from this, therefore, a very big lesson.
God doesn't care whether my heart is in my charity giving, he cares about the poor more than my heart.
But when I make Shabbat, when I pray, when I build a sukkah for sukkot, when I keep kosher, or whatever else it might be in the laws between Jew and God, then God cares a great deal whether it's my heart or it's just a deed.
Because you see, while the poor benefit, God doesn't benefit.
There's no such thing as making God benefit from keeping Shabbat.
God doesn't sit back and go, oh, Prager's keeping Shabbat, it's made my day.
The poor do.
The poor, you give the poor $100, you've made the poor's day.
But God and people are very different.
You can't make God's day, as it were.
All the laws between man and God are done for you.
The laws between man and man are all done for the other.
You get the difference?
It's a tremendous difference.
All the laws between man and man are for the sake of other people.
All the laws between man and God are for your sake and only your sake, not God's sake.
Therefore, whether you feel it or not is very important.
I have therefore concluded the following.
Judaism holds as one of its 13 principles of faith that God rewards the good and punishes the bad, and I believe that.
I don't believe that Hitler and his victims have the same fate.
I believe that there is an afterlife because Judaism affirms that belief, and I believe that in some way the souls of the good are rewarded and the souls of the bad are punished.
I don't know how, so don't ask me, please, any question about the afterlife.
I know nothing about it.
I do, however, have that belief.
But I do not believe that God rewards you if you keep Shabbat.
If you rescued a Jew in the Holocaust and the Nazis killed you, I think God rewards you.
But if you keep Shabbat, I don't believe you get a reward.
And I'll tell you why.
The whole point of the mitzvah is for you.
Asking God to reward me for keeping Shabbat is like asking the following.
It's as if I said to you, I have a software program for you to learn.
You then learn how to do this word processing program, and then you ask me for a reward.
Do you know what the reward of learning a software program is?
The ability to use a software program and be productive.
The reward of keeping Shabbat is Shabbat.
The reward of saving a Jew is not saving the Jew.
You might have been murdered.
The reward in ethics is not nearly as clear as the reward in ritual, is the reward in holiness.
The reward in holiness is immediate.
I have a richer life thanks to Shabbat.
I do not keep the Shabbat because I will be rewarded in the afterlife.
I keep the Shabbat, A, because God said so, but B, because I'm selfish.
I don't give charity because I'm selfish.
I give charity because I have to.
I don't want to.
I want to spend the money on me.
I keep Shabbat because I'm selfish.
There's a big difference.
And if you keep Shabbat and you can't stand it, you're doing it wrong.
And I learned this from some Orthodox Jews.
In a negative way, I learned it.
In London, about two years ago, I was speaking at an Orthodox synagogue.
At the end of the talk, a man got up and he said, Mr. Prager, what is your thinking on why would a Jew who keeps the mitzvahs get cancer?
It's always bothered me, he said, and I want to hear your thinking.
And for some reason, I decided, instead of giving the usual answer I have on good people suffering, I decided to confront him because when he posed it, some lights went on in my mind.
I said, sir, I have to answer you first with a question.
Do I hear you correctly that you are saying that you believe that if a Jew keeps the mitzvahs, he should somehow or she should somehow be more protected from cancer than a Jew who doesn't?
He said, of course.
Why else keep them?
I was startled.
I was startled.
And this is a guy who went to yeshiva 15 years.
I was startled.
So I asked the rest, everybody in this shuel.
I said, I am terribly curious.
If you feel the way this man does, please raise your hand.
That you believe that if you keep the mitzvahs, God will protect you from disease.
Nearly everybody raised his or her hand.
Now, I don't know if this is true for all Orthodox, and I would never make that claim, but it was true for that shule.
And I don't think that they were that different from a lot of other Jews who keep these laws.
And I was shaken.
And I wrote a whole article on this in my journal, and I realized something.
That a lot of Jews who observe the laws don't enjoy doing it.
If you enjoy the Shabbat, you're a chazer.
You're a pig.
If you also want God to reward you for it, I should get a double reward.
I get both the reward of Shabbat and the reward for doing it.
What a slob.
If you don't get a reward from doing Judaism after trying it seriously for a while, then do it differently.
Maybe there's something wrong.
Now, I don't mean that every single time I get a bigger reward theoretically if I had a $4 million offer to do a Saturday broadcast.
But in the deepest sense of what reward is, I am much more rewarded for Shabbat.
It gives me a real serious family life and friends' life.
I have 25 hours when I don't care about a clock.
It never happens.
25 hours without ever hearing or reading any news.
I read six newspapers a day to comment on the news every day for three hours on the radio.
On Shabbat, unless a bomb were burst on my block, I would not know if America were at war.
Because I don't listen or watch anything on Shabbat.
I am a free man.
I wouldn't give that up for any money on earth.
I have all the time in the world with my wife and kids.
There's no money on earth that could possibly take that away from me.
And then God's going to reward me on top of that?
I sit there going, thank you, God, thank you, God.
Shabbos is the greatest present you could have given me.
Because I would be with my computer tonight or giving a speech tomorrow, just as I am every other day.
Or I would have taken the offer to do this TV thing or this radio thing.
And like now, it's not an issue.
Saturday invitation, except to a shule.
Except to a shule.
That's it.
That's the one time where the feelings are paramount in the laws between man and God.
Therefore, I conclude, Judaism is a mitzvah system.
You cannot go around saying, I believe in Jewish values, but not Jewish practices.
You can say it, but it's not Jewish to say it.
You can modify them, you can reform them, but you cannot drop them.
And before you reform them, it is incumbent upon you to study them and know them.
To know Judaism is to know its commandments.
And to know its commandments is ultimately to know its commander.
Thank you, Shabbat Shalom.
Yes, please.
If you'd stand, please.
I'll repeat it even if you stand, though.
I'm going to stick my neck.
I know it.
He said he's going to stick his neck out and he knows it.
I'm not worried about me enjoying it.
But what I wanted to provide is getting children who are not enjoying to this day to not have a screen today, how many know that it's an amount of watching.
How do I claim this is supposed to be fun?
They were supposed to get together, that's what they like, but without TV, without radio, without going out to shop, how do I do that?
Right, great question.
He said, what about his kids?
How is he going to explain to his kids that no TV, no radio, no shopping is fun?
Now, just to give a very important little opening difference, I never use the word fun.
I spoke of enjoying, you know, there are, I enjoy my work.
I cannot say that three hours a day of live, intense getting attacked by caller after caller is fun.
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, but I deeply enjoy my work.
I would say that anybody who enjoys their work would not argue that it's mostly fun.
The deepest joys of life tend not to be fun, and the things that are most fun tend not to bring any joy.
It's a great deal of fun to go to a hockey game or a baseball game, and I'm all for it.
But it does not bring joy.
The things that bring joy are generally not that much fun, and the things that are fun bring very little joy.
For example, if you really want to get sharp with your kids, just look at them.
They're usually not fun.
But in the long scheme of things, there is joy to be had from children.
Else, nobody would have them.
Or certainly another one.
Kids are a perfect example of the fun versus joy issue.
I didn't say Shabbat was fun.
I have more fun at them all.
I do.
I have more fun at a baseball game.
I said that the joy, and you know the difference?
Very often you know it afterwards.
The trick is to know, I'll give you a perfect example.
I hate fasting, as perhaps you can tell.
And I do not look forward to Yom Kippur.
25 hours of no drinker or eating is not my idea of fun.
My idea of fun is a dessert.
Okay?
It has never failed in my adult life that I have the deepest sense of joy and cleansing after Yom Kippur.
It works like magic every year, and I am stunned.
It really is.
It is something I laugh at myself how much I rue it coming up and how much I'm happier when it's over.
It works every year.
Yom Kippur is the best example of behavior-inducing feelings.
It even says so in the Torah.
Are supposed to torment your soul through not eating and drinking in order to induce this feeling.
And by the way, it's not an unhappy day.
The torment is not meant that you should be unhappy.
Historically, it was a happy day.
In fact, it was often a day when single women met single men.
It's very interesting in Jewish history.
But in any event, that's the problem, too, with the way we have raised the generation.
Fun is too important.
And we have funned kids' brains to death.
This is Beabis and Butthead are practically living examples of what is considered fun.
Shabbat is to give you a taste of real joy, not real fun.
What do I say to my kids?
This is the way we do it.
You don't like it.
In your home, you can watch 24 hours of TV and drink booze and do whatever you want to do that you think is the most desirable thing.
You don't give your kids a choice about school.
I don't give my kids a choice about Judaism.
Judaism is at least as important to me as going to school.
Now, as it happens, though, I have, this is a slightly separate point, but very germane.
As a parent, I have made my choice on where to place my emphases.
Unlike many Jewish parents, the kids' grades are not that important to me.
The kids' character in Judaism is.
If you make a stand on everything, you'll produce a neurotic.
Therefore, I decided where to slacken off, and I do with regard to grades.
I don't want them to flunk out, obviously, but it's just I don't go crazy over A's, and I don't go batty overseas.
Okay?
Most Jewish parents go crazy over grades.
I go crazy over the Jewish.
They know how important it is to me.
And they will have the rest of their lives to rebel.
But in my home, we don't have a TV on.
And you know what?
When they see you believe it, they'll live with it.
There is nothing like parental conviction to make a point.
It's when they suspect ever so slightly that you don't really mean it that they see that loophole and then try to break it.
It's true for everybody.
My station, I was very flattered.
My station, when they asked me to broadcast at nights, didn't even ask me if I would do Friday night.
When they came with the offer, they said, and Friday night will be pre-recorded.
When people know you won't bend on something, they don't try to bend you, whether it's your employer or your children.
It's a fascinating thing in life, and it's very, very comforting because then the temptations aren't even thrown at you.
So that's my long answer to your very important question on the thing with kids.
Fun is fun, joy is joy.
If I may, how do you make them joy?
You want me to call?
Yeah, tell the story about how you make the mosty.
Yes.
Right.
That surely introduces an element of fun.
Oh, absolutely.
I'm not anti-fun, and the rabbi is right.
He has a head start, having heard the tape on this.
But I'm honored that you did.
Let me tell what the rabbi is referring to.
Having said all that I said, I try to make Shabbat and Judaism fun as well, especially when they're little.
I mean, the things that I do in my home on Shabbat would get me arrested if we had religious police.
I mean, when I uncover when the kids were young, but now we have a new young one coming up, so I guess I'll resurrect these things.
But when the kids were very young, I would make as if I were a magician, uncovering the rabbit, you know, put up with the hola cover.
I mean, it's much better when you see it, I assure you.
It's not a knee slapper.
I appreciate that.
Anyway, one night, my wife played a trick on me.
And I went, pause, and underneath was a balloon, which the kids thought was hilarious, which then immediately went to the ceiling.
So, of course, I want you, because in a sense that answers you, of course, it should be with fun, but I am not going to predicate it, especially, I assume your kids were teenagers.
No, 11, 20 old.
All right, 11.
Well, look, though, remember, I had a head start.
I started when they were born.
It is tougher to start when they're 11, not to mention 15.
It doesn't mean impossible, it just means harder.
And what you do is, at a given point, the joy of the look, what is more meaningful than love?
Even they may poo-poo it, but what is more beautiful in life than love?
Nothing.
So, in the final analysis, my kids don't miss TV Friday night because what they have instead is so rich.
Us.
We always have guests, half the time, not non-Jewish guests, at our Friday night table.
After the long, long meal, we retire to the living room.
And my son, who's 10, very often has a friend over.
But whether he does or not, he has invented a game, and it doesn't matter if my guest is.
I don't want to drop names, but I have some very interesting guests home.
It doesn't matter what station in life the guest is.
My kids, I am first their daddy.
And he crawls around the living room trying to get by without my seeing him.
This is a game he made up.
If I allowed electronic toys, he'd be with his computer or his little Game Boy.
Exactly.
But he has.
One of the beauties of Jewish law is you don't realize its effects.
You know, for example, everybody speaks of Friday night being mitzvah night, by which they're referring to husband and wife making love.
Now, I never liked the word because the thought that it's a mitzvah, I have to be commanded to make love to my wife, takes a little of the romance out of it.
But why did Friday night develop the reputation of husband and wife conjugal relations night?
It's no bigger mitzvah to do it than on a Thursday night.
Absolutely not.
Okay?
So then why?
Why did Friday night get the reputation of making love night?
Being married and keeping Shabbat, the answer one night hit me.
There's nothing else to do.
I realize, incredible, it just dawned on me one night when you're in bed by 9 o'clock and you're not going to watch TV, listen to radio, put on stereo, or go out, what are you going to do?
So there's a little ingenious element in the way it works, the law.
There was back there a hand, yes?
You've alluded to our octopus before we said, after October, we don't know anybody because you do.
Without a belief that God is behind it.
That God is behind him.
If God is an intersector in the need in any way, then what did I do for?
Yeah, that's tomorrow morning's subject.
I asked this gentleman to raise that question so as to elicit.
The only time I don't respond to a question is when that's the next subject.
That is the next topic that's tomorrow morning at 10.30, correct?
So I truly invite you.
By the way, it's a good time to invite you as well for what else?
Sunday morning.
Sunday morning?
At 11 is the lecture, breakfast at 10:30.
Okay.
What's the topic on Sunday?
Why keep Jewish rituals in a rational world?
Oh, yeah, which is the follow-up of this.
Why keep Jewish rituals in a rational world?
I'll be talking about the impact of the ritual in our lives.
So I hope you will be able to attend the upcoming ones.
Anybody else?
About Dr. Nightlife.
Yes.
Yes.
I think you have a comma there.
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