The Charlie Kirk Show - The Eternal Truths Behind Judaism with Dennis Prager

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:00.000 Happy Sunday.

00:00:01.000 No advertisers in this episode.

00:00:03.000 I sit down with the legendary Dennis Prager, who is my second favorite Jew ever to live. 1.00

00:00:10.000 It's a joke, everybody. 0.98

00:00:12.000 My favorite Jew being Jesus and Dennis being the second.

00:00:14.000 He's so special.

00:00:15.000 He's impacted me almost more than any other thinker.

00:00:18.000 I can't think of anybody more, but he's up there.

00:00:20.000 I've read almost all of his books, listened to his podcasts.

00:00:24.000 He's such a clear thinker, and he loves this country, and he loves the Lord.

00:00:28.000 We talk about a lot of different things.

00:00:29.000 This book, Deuteronomy, and his perspective of what's going on in the world.

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00:01:56.000 Text this episode to your friends of my conversation with Dennis Prager, the legend himself, live from the Turning Point USA America Fest in Phoenix, Arizona.

00:02:07.000 Dennis Prager is here.

00:02:08.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:02:09.000 Here, we go.

00:02:10.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:02:12.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.

00:02:14.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:02:18.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:02:21.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:02:22.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:02:23.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.

00:02:30.000 Turning point USA.

00:02:32.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:02:40.000 That's why we are here.

00:02:43.000 Dennis Prager, welcome back to the show.

00:02:46.000 So do I call you Charlie or Mr. Kirk?

00:02:49.000 Something like that.

00:02:50.000 It would have to be Charlie.

00:02:52.000 Charlie, you are a delight.

00:02:55.000 Charlie, I am happy it wasn't there for you to hear me praising you.

00:03:02.000 What you have done is borders on the miraculous.

00:03:08.000 And I have zero reason to butter you up, right?

00:03:11.000 I was going to come to you for a loan, but Charlie, you gave a speech for, am I looking in the camera right now?

00:03:21.000 Okay, you out in Cameroon, I just want to tell you, Charlie, before this gave a speech to about 120 Jewish conservatives, which, by the way, is an enormous achievement to begin with.

00:03:33.000 College Jewish conservatives? 0.83

00:03:35.000 Who could do that? 1.00

00:03:37.000 Okay.

00:03:38.000 And I heard most of it, and I began my talk to them as a Jew speaking to Jews saying, if all rabbis spoke like Charlie Kirk did to their congregations, it would be the messianic age. 0.68

00:03:53.000 I'm speaking within Jewish terms. 0.51

00:03:55.000 This would bring the Messiah for you.

00:03:57.000 Again, for us the first time, it doesn't matter. 0.96

00:04:01.000 Rabbis don't speak as effectively about being a Jew as you did.

00:04:08.000 And nobody knows that.

00:04:09.000 Certainly, you're a larger audience.

00:04:12.000 So I mean.

00:04:13.000 Thank you.

00:04:13.000 And in some ways, you were hearing it back because it was your ideas that were just.

00:04:18.000 So I addressed that.

00:04:20.000 I actually addressed that also because you had made mention of that.

00:04:23.000 These are, you know, Dennis's ideas, many of these.

00:04:27.000 So this is a very serious point I want to make, if I may.

00:04:33.000 When people tell me, and I'm not saying you have, but if people often will come over, Dennis, I'm just telling you, no, you changed my life.

00:04:40.000 And I always say, and I would take a lie detector test easily, because I mean this completely seriously.

00:04:49.000 You, the person I'm talking to, you are half the reason.

00:04:51.000 You get half the credit.

00:04:54.000 Because how many people hear this and it bounces off their back?

00:04:57.000 It means nothing.

00:04:58.000 That means you were receptive to really important ideas and even willing to change.

00:05:08.000 That gives a person great credit.

00:05:10.000 So that I have touched you is an enduring praise of my life.

00:05:16.000 It's ongoing.

00:05:17.000 It's something I struggle with, which is, you know, sometimes I wonder when I do my speeches, how much of it has to be material I come up with versus things you get from somebody else.

00:05:27.000 And I've just decided it's actually completely irrelevant.

00:05:30.000 That's, of course.

00:05:31.000 That's what the left thinks.

00:05:33.000 You always have to be new.

00:05:35.000 The conservative conserves what is good.

00:05:37.000 Yes.

00:05:38.000 That's our job.

00:05:40.000 I can't do better than Beethoven.

00:05:43.000 You know, I'm into music, right?

00:05:45.000 So the fact that you ask that is to your credit, but your answer is correct.

00:05:52.000 So I was really enjoying one of your Bible commentaries the other day, Exodus.

00:05:57.000 Right.

00:05:58.000 You have Deuteronomy out now.

00:05:58.000 Which is excellent.

00:06:00.000 Right.

00:06:00.000 Is that correct?

00:06:01.000 And there was one part I just opened up randomly.

00:06:04.000 That's right.

00:06:04.000 You can open up randomly.

00:06:06.000 Because it's a series of essays as much as it is a book.

00:06:09.000 So it doesn't require you could start in the last chapter.

00:06:13.000 It's a sequential reading.

00:06:14.000 Right.

00:06:15.000 As a Christian, I found it to be fascinating.

00:06:19.000 The moral advance of eye for an eye.

00:06:23.000 Walk our audience through that.

00:06:26.000 So my Bible commentary: there's Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy are out.

00:06:32.000 I have numbers in Leviticus left.

00:06:35.000 So I realized earlier in my life that I could explain stuff that people dismiss as primitive.

00:06:45.000 That intellectual honesty shows how great this stuff is.

00:06:50.000 Eye for an eye was a moral advance.

00:06:54.000 It sounds bad to the modern mind, which is not all that wise, but it was an immense achievement.

00:07:02.000 Number one, it said an eye for an eye, not a life for an eye, not two eyes for an eye.

00:07:10.000 So it abolished death for anything except death.

00:07:15.000 And it abolished revenge.

00:07:18.000 Oh, you caused me to lose an arm. 0.99

00:07:24.000 I'm going to take both your arms and both your legs. 1.00

00:07:27.000 So it was, you have to have justice, not revenge.

00:07:32.000 Number two, it couldn't be exacted.

00:07:36.000 You can't do the same amount of damage.

00:07:38.000 And God or Moses or whomever you ascribe those biblical verses to knew that. 0.81

00:07:45.000 They weren't dumb then.

00:07:47.000 They knew you can't exactly take out an eye, and that's pre-surgery. 0.99

00:07:51.000 You're probably going to kill the guy if you try to take out an eye.

00:07:55.000 So it was understood as a statement of egalitarianism, not a statement of practice.

00:08:01.000 Human equality.

00:08:02.000 Yes, that's right.

00:08:03.000 And that's right.

00:08:04.000 And that's the third.

00:08:05.000 The eye of a nobleman is not worth more than the eye of a serf.

00:08:10.000 And that is parallel in the other commandment, which is you do not favor a rich person or a poor person.

00:08:16.000 Yes, we're all in God's image.

00:08:18.000 Very similar of this idea of human equality.

00:08:20.000 What I found interesting, though, and I'm paraphrasing, is you didn't totally discount the idea of revenge in your essay.

00:08:29.000 Right.

00:08:29.000 There's just revenge and unjust reason.

00:08:31.000 We also talked about that because revenge is a dirty word in Seattle. 0.97

00:08:33.000 Yeah, of course it is, because people don't think things through.

00:08:37.000 I go the opposite way.

00:08:39.000 I would say that if you, I just literally yesterday finished a book that just came out.

00:08:45.000 I saw it reviewed in the Wall Street Journal and I decided to read it.

00:08:48.000 And I don't even remember the name.

00:08:50.000 It's really painful.

00:08:51.000 But anyway, it was about a couple, like 18 and 17 years old, I think, a Canadian couple in the 1980s went overnight from British Columbia to Seattle and some horrible human being captured them, horribly killed him, raped her, and then shot her to death.

00:09:17.000 When you read that, what he did to these kids, and you don't want to exact revenge, there is something morally wrong with you.

00:09:30.000 I not only defend the desire for revenge, providing it's just, that's critical.

00:09:35.000 Unjust revenge is an injustice.

00:09:39.000 It's retribution at that point, right?

00:09:41.000 Yeah.

00:09:44.000 It's not just.

00:09:45.000 That's bad enough.

00:09:46.000 It's not just.

00:09:48.000 Retribution and revenge are sort of in the same category.

00:09:52.000 So I don't know how to make a distinction.

00:09:55.000 There's something wrong with your heart and your mind if you don't want people who inflict suffering to suffer.

00:10:05.000 I think there's something wrong with you.

00:10:05.000 I do.

00:10:07.000 And in the American context or the kind of current modern context, the idea of eye for an eye has been completely discarded in the sense where they say, you know, we must have criminal justice reform or we must not have the exact justice upon you.

00:10:25.000 So how do you take that teaching?

00:10:27.000 Because as you write in your essay, you can't just chop somebody's leg off for a leg.

00:10:31.000 You have to then use prudence and wisdom.

00:10:33.000 Right.

00:10:34.000 So in the case of eye for an eye, the only one that was ever meant literally is life for a life.

00:10:39.000 And most people, even Christians and Jews who know their Bible, don't remember this.

00:10:47.000 When God creates the world, he gives very few laws.

00:10:50.000 Genesis has almost no laws.

00:10:52.000 All the laws are in the later four books.

00:10:55.000 One of them is, if a human being takes another human's life, by humans shall his life be shed, for in the image of God, man is created.

00:11:06.000 In other words, if you don't take the life of a, and it's clear constantly, it has to be premeditated murder, but if you don't take the life of a premeditated murder, murderer, you have violated God's belief that you should sustain the notion that man is created in God's image.

00:11:26.000 There is something wrong there.

00:11:27.000 But with all the others, eye for an eye, leg for a leg, arm for an arm, tooth for a tooth, it was always understood as monetary compensation.

00:11:35.000 What is written is that they're all equal.

00:11:40.000 Your tooth, if you're a rich man, is not more valuable than my tooth as a slave.

00:11:47.000 I was watching one of your speeches recently and it created a series of aha moments.

00:11:51.000 And I think it was a speech you gave about 10 years ago, which is what's so great because it's timeless.

00:11:55.000 Right.

00:11:55.000 I tried that with all my speeches.

00:11:57.000 Well, and you succeed, which you were talking about how the Bible is a book of distinctions.

00:12:02.000 Never heard it phrased that way.

00:12:03.000 Right.

00:12:04.000 And you talk about the distinction between God and man and man and woman and God and nature and then man and nature and evil, man and animal.

00:12:12.000 And it goes on.

00:12:12.000 Right.

00:12:13.000 But then it was an aha moment where you mentioned it subtly in your speech, but mind you, it was a decade ago.

00:12:19.000 So it wasn't as bad where you said, and the left is trying to get rid of these distinctions.

00:12:19.000 Right.

00:12:24.000 But that could be even more forcefully said.

00:12:27.000 Everything they're trying to do is trying to get rid of distinctions.

00:12:30.000 That's correct.

00:12:31.000 Why does the left need to get rid of distinctions so badly?

00:12:35.000 This is a very tough question to answer.

00:12:38.000 And it's not 100%, but I think it's more than 50% of the answer.

00:12:46.000 The Judeo-Christian worldview is order.

00:12:51.000 And therefore, they know that in their gut.

00:12:55.000 They loathe the idea that we need a God or we need a Bible.

00:13:00.000 And so they hate order.

00:13:04.000 Order reflects on the orderer, on divine order.

00:13:08.000 So they create chaos. 1.00

00:13:10.000 Men give birth the non-binary claim about human sex and gender. 1.00

00:13:18.000 This is the antithesis, literally the antithesis of the Bible. 0.99

00:13:22.000 And God created Adam, the human being, male and female, he created them.

00:13:27.000 That is divine order.

00:13:29.000 We are the left.

00:13:30.000 We are gods.

00:13:31.000 Yes.

00:13:32.000 So it's man's order because in some ways, you're right.

00:13:34.000 I think there is an element where some of the left wants chaos, drug usage, pornography, and all this, but there's also a fair amount that want Mao's order or Hitler's order.

00:13:45.000 Well, they will create their order, their totalitarian terror state once chaos destroys our order.

00:13:52.000 Yes, as a means to be able to get to their end.

00:13:55.000 That's right.

00:13:56.000 And so just elaborate a little bit more, because I paraphrased just previously here the Bible being a book of distinctions.

00:14:02.000 Why is that such an important takeaway from well?

00:14:05.000 The word for holy in Hebrew means distinct.

00:14:09.000 So it gives you an idea of how important it is to the biblical, the Hebrew word, kadosh. 0.52

00:14:16.000 Kadosh is separate.

00:14:19.000 The world is divided.

00:14:21.000 What does God do?

00:14:22.000 He doesn't create for six days.

00:14:24.000 He creates very, very, very, he separates the first day.

00:14:28.000 Yes, he separates night and day, land and water, and separates man and woman, human and God, man and animal.

00:14:41.000 This is another one.

00:14:43.000 This is the next, but this has been since I began speaking at the age of 21.

00:14:47.000 One of my favorite things you talk about.

00:14:49.000 Well, yes.

00:14:50.000 But I was really onto it early.

00:14:52.000 Yeah, you were.

00:14:53.000 When people said they would save their dog before a stranger because they love their dog.

00:14:57.000 So you don't believe then that humans are intrinsically more valuable?

00:14:57.000 Oh, okay.

00:15:00.000 Of course not.

00:15:01.000 My dog is more valuable than any human being other than maybe my child or my wife or my husband.

00:15:08.000 And I'm not sure in husbands and case at all, the dog would always.

00:15:12.000 You go to religious schools.

00:15:14.000 That's right.

00:15:15.000 I've asked this to Christian kids and Jewish kids in religious schools, and the same answers amazingly. 0.99

00:15:22.000 One-third vote for the dog, one-third for the stranger. 0.93

00:15:24.000 Who would you say first?

00:15:26.000 And one-third don't know.

00:15:29.000 And I'll never forget to his great credit.

00:15:31.000 Well, to all their credit, actually.

00:15:34.000 So it was, I'll never forget, it was at the Nixon Library.

00:15:36.000 I gave this speech, and the Christian teacher came over and said, my students voted for the dog.

00:15:44.000 That means we're doing something wrong at our Christian school.

00:15:47.000 And I said, you are doing something wrong. 1.00

00:15:49.000 And I salute you. 0.96

00:15:51.000 I did this in Miami, Florida, a few years ago at the largest Orthodox Jewish school, asked the kids the same question, got the same answers I got at secular schools.

00:16:01.000 And the rabbi came over to me.

00:16:02.000 The principal said, we're doing something wrong at our Jewish school.

00:16:06.000 They should have all answered the human being.

00:16:09.000 For someone who is unsure listening, even after that, explain why this is not even a close call, not even in the same galaxy.

00:16:17.000 Well, in the secular world, it's a close call because the secular world says you decide.

00:16:24.000 And how do you decide based on love?

00:16:26.000 Of course, I have dogs.

00:16:27.000 I love my dogs more than all these creatures.

00:16:29.000 Yes, follow your heart.

00:16:30.000 That's the one law of secular society.

00:16:34.000 And that's why they hate us.

00:16:36.000 We say follow God.

00:16:38.000 And they are incensed at the idea.

00:16:41.000 Follow God, not follow your heart.

00:16:42.000 Yes, that's the whole left-right dilemma.

00:16:46.000 Secular conservatives don't know this, but that's the fight.

00:16:51.000 And we also believe the human being has a soul.

00:16:55.000 Yes.

00:16:56.000 That's what the secular world doesn't believe.

00:16:58.000 It's just random combustion of material.

00:17:00.000 That's all.

00:17:00.000 That's right.

00:17:03.000 What's the most difficult commandment to follow?

00:17:05.000 So I know you know my answer, and I heard you speak about it.

00:17:08.000 It changed my week.

00:17:08.000 I'm very touched.

00:17:09.000 I thought about it all week, and I thought it was brilliant.

00:17:12.000 Oh.

00:17:13.000 You just read it then.

00:17:15.000 Read it or heard it.

00:17:16.000 Yeah.

00:17:16.000 Oh, is that touching to me?

00:17:16.000 Yes.

00:17:18.000 Yeah, it might have been in think a second time or something.

00:17:20.000 Yeah, yes.

00:17:21.000 It is in think a second time.

00:17:22.000 Wow.

00:17:24.000 Folks, you have no idea how flattered I am.

00:17:27.000 But not flattered on an ego sense, much higher than that.

00:17:31.000 I don't care about my ego, that you're taking these ideas seriously and could cite which work.

00:17:38.000 So, yes, I'm very, very open.

00:17:40.000 I debated in writing my Bible commentary: do I inject me, Dennis, into the commentary?

00:17:48.000 And I realized I cannot not.

00:17:50.000 I cannot not.

00:17:51.000 You're also not writing a textbook.

00:17:53.000 Right.

00:17:55.000 But it should be worthy of a textbook.

00:17:56.000 No, but it is.

00:17:57.000 But you know what I'm saying?

00:17:58.000 That is correct.

00:17:58.000 But it is not.

00:17:59.000 But it's more honest that.

00:18:01.000 Your fingerprints are all over.

00:18:02.000 That's right.

00:18:03.000 And I'm saying, look, I'm a human being.

00:18:07.000 This is how it's affected this human.

00:18:09.000 So I admit that, and it's the truth.

00:18:12.000 The toughest law of the 613 in the Torah, the first five books, has been love God with all your heart, with all your soul.

00:18:20.000 Not that I have had a life that has had that much pain.

00:18:24.000 I've had pain, but everybody's had pain.

00:18:27.000 But there are people who have had horrific, beyond belief, unspeakable, unfair pain.

00:18:34.000 So how do I love the God who made a world where Auschwitz is possible, where Gulag is possible, where Mao starvation of 60 million is possible?

00:18:47.000 But I have an interesting observation.

00:18:50.000 It's to God's credit that he tells us to love him because it means he knows he's not lovable.

00:18:56.000 Isn't that big?

00:18:58.000 That's very big.

00:18:59.000 It's very big.

00:19:02.000 There's no commandment to love your child.

00:19:05.000 That comes naturally.

00:19:08.000 Loving the stranger is not natural.

00:19:10.000 Loving God is not natural.

00:19:14.000 So I said this to a Christian pastor, and he said, well, loving God comes easy to me.

00:19:19.000 I said, okay.

00:19:20.000 I said, then why would God command it if it became easy to you?

00:19:22.000 Right.

00:19:23.000 Tell me you got a commandment that comes easy.

00:19:25.000 I mean, that's exactly what you said.

00:19:26.000 What did he say?

00:19:28.000 He just said, okay, no, it was kind of fumbled for words.

00:19:31.000 Right, exactly.

00:19:31.000 It wasn't really well thought.

00:19:34.000 I don't know how it comes easily to anybody who is aware of how much suffering there is in the world.

00:19:41.000 I'd be honest.

00:19:42.000 By the way, it's interesting.

00:19:44.000 My father loved God.

00:19:46.000 And my father's sister jumped out of a window and killed herself.

00:19:49.000 My father was in World War II, saw horrific things for two and a half years.

00:19:56.000 But he did love God.

00:19:57.000 So I will say on this pastor's behalf, some nature, some people have a nature that finds that easier than others.

00:20:09.000 Some people, I think, are also conflating loving life and loving God.

00:20:14.000 I don't, because I really love life.

00:20:16.000 I know you do.

00:20:16.000 No, I know.

00:20:18.000 But tell me why that's distinct then, because life is the fruit of which we.

00:20:23.000 Well, yes.

00:20:24.000 So that, by the way, is a good challenge to me.

00:20:26.000 So, Dennis, you love life.

00:20:28.000 God created life.

00:20:30.000 Why the hell don't you life?

00:20:31.000 Yes, totally. 0.58

00:20:33.000 So it's a very fair question.

00:20:35.000 I didn't say I don't love God.

00:20:37.000 I said it's the hardest commandment for me.

00:20:39.000 Okay.

00:20:39.000 It's the most difficult.

00:20:40.000 Yes.

00:20:42.000 I mean, I don't eat shellfish because I believe God commanded that to me.

00:20:46.000 That one's actually easy for me.

00:20:47.000 Oh, well, you've adopted that.

00:20:47.000 Yeah.

00:20:49.000 Well, not by necessarily choice.

00:20:51.000 I just don't agree with shellfish very much.

00:20:54.000 You don't agree with shellfish where they have opinions you don't share?

00:20:57.000 My digestive system is.

00:20:58.000 Oh, your digestive system is not enough.

00:21:00.000 I seek.

00:21:01.000 Oh, that is hilarious.

00:21:02.000 The mollusk and I are not great for you.

00:21:04.000 So let me just say this.

00:21:06.000 The reason I don't have shrimp is not because it doesn't agree with me.

00:21:10.000 It's because I believe God commanded me not to.

00:21:14.000 But that's not a big challenge.

00:21:16.000 It's not difficult.

00:21:16.000 But exactly.

00:21:17.000 Right.

00:21:17.000 So I don't eat shrimp.

00:21:19.000 I got a pretty good life.

00:21:20.000 Yes.

00:21:21.000 Right.

00:21:22.000 But loving God, who also allows for evil.

00:21:27.000 Well, not only allows, created a being who could do it.

00:21:30.000 I mean, we have to be honest and created a world with earthquakes and cancer.

00:21:36.000 God is not off the hook.

00:21:39.000 You got to be fair.

00:21:41.000 You got to also say, look at all the beauty that I thank him for.

00:21:46.000 But you can't say, oh, he has nothing to do with any of the bad things.

00:21:51.000 I mean, cancer is natural.

00:21:53.000 Earthquakes are natural.

00:21:54.000 See, that's why I call my commentary the rational Bible.

00:21:58.000 I can't come to God faking myself.

00:22:01.000 You have to be real.

00:22:04.000 You know, real is probably one of my five favorite words.

00:22:06.000 Like and earn.

00:22:08.000 Yes.

00:22:08.000 You know what?

00:22:09.000 Oh, God.

00:22:11.000 You don't know how I could cry that I touched you this way is such an achievement.

00:22:17.000 It means the world to me.

00:22:19.000 But yes, isn't it true about like?

00:22:21.000 Like is explain to the audience because not every not every language has a word for love.

00:22:26.000 No, very few do.

00:22:27.000 And it's probably the most misused, good word.

00:22:30.000 People use it as a filler.

00:22:31.000 No, the most misused, well, when they say like, that's correct.

00:22:36.000 Yeah.

00:22:36.000 No, I don't mean it in that way.

00:22:37.000 They use like less than love.

00:22:40.000 Love has really been abused.

00:22:42.000 That's exactly.

00:22:43.000 I just mean like as a filler.

00:22:45.000 It's a fill.

00:22:46.000 Right. 0.94

00:22:46.000 Fair enough. 0.94

00:22:48.000 I love the word like.

00:22:50.000 That's funny.

00:22:52.000 And I'm actually, I am, I value it in many ways more than love.

00:22:58.000 And I'll give a very dramatic example.

00:23:00.000 A lot of people don't like their child, but they love their child.

00:23:06.000 You're a lucky parent if you like your child.

00:23:11.000 Not every language has a word for that.

00:23:12.000 No, I don't know.

00:23:14.000 I don't know of a language that does.

00:23:16.000 And I've studied a lot of languages.

00:23:17.000 I love languages.

00:23:19.000 And they may have some, like in French, il ne pleais, it pleases me.

00:23:23.000 That's the closest you can get, but that's not the same as I like.

00:23:27.000 It pleases me is fine. 1.00

00:23:30.000 I'm not knocking French. 0.99

00:23:31.000 I mean, you know, most languages don't have it, but at all.

00:23:35.000 But it is a great thing to like someone really, really great, including your kid, including your spouse.

00:23:44.000 If a woman came over to me, if I meet couples all the time and they open up to me because of my male-female hour and I go, so how are you guys doing?

00:23:52.000 I don't know, whatever.

00:23:53.000 And you know, I really like him.

00:23:56.000 I wouldn't think, oh, she doesn't love him.

00:23:58.000 I would think, wow, that is a great, they must get along great.

00:24:02.000 The best description I heard for like is, do you spend your free time willingly?

00:24:07.000 Oh, that's a good one.

00:24:09.000 That's just a circumstantial definition.

00:24:11.000 So I spend my free time willingly with pizza.

00:24:11.000 Right.

00:24:15.000 Well, then you like it.

00:24:16.000 Like pizza.

00:24:16.000 Yes, that's right.

00:24:18.000 So I want to transition here and I'm trying to get to as many best hits as I can.

00:24:23.000 Yeah.

00:24:24.000 Happiness.

00:24:25.000 We live in the most unhappy country in history.

00:24:25.000 Yeah.

00:24:29.000 Not in my country time.

00:24:30.000 Most oppressed, suicidal, alcohol.

00:24:32.000 I mean, in American history.

00:24:33.000 That's right.

00:24:33.000 Yeah.

00:24:34.000 No, I don't know about.

00:24:34.000 And not the world history.

00:24:36.000 And by the way, I loved your take on the Danes and the Swedes, which is comfortable versus happy, which I think is a great distinction.

00:24:36.000 Yeah.

00:24:36.000 Okay.

00:24:44.000 Right.

00:24:44.000 But happiness is a serious problem.

00:24:48.000 That's the name of my book on happiness.

00:24:50.000 It's a game changer.

00:24:51.000 Yeah, it's meant to be.

00:24:52.000 But let's dive in on one part of it, which is the challenge for our audience should be to act happy regardless of how you feel.

00:25:00.000 Well, that's the moral obligation, yes.

00:25:03.000 And that is the opening chapter of my book.

00:25:08.000 And it is the one that blows people's minds.

00:25:12.000 They have never heard of happiness as a moral obligation, only as an emotional state.

00:25:18.000 But it is a moral obligation.

00:25:21.000 Even if you don't feel it, you owe it to others.

00:25:24.000 And I have a great analogy.

00:25:26.000 It's a little gross, but it is what it is.

00:25:28.000 This is going to be one of my questions. 0.91

00:25:30.000 No, is it the wife and the husband?

00:25:30.000 Take it away.

00:25:32.000 No.

00:25:33.000 Because you've used that one before.

00:25:34.000 Woman says I'm not in the mood.

00:25:36.000 Oh, that's another one.

00:25:37.000 Yeah.

00:25:38.000 But that, that, I'm now speaking about, oh, oh, mood.

00:25:43.000 That's where you attach the two.

00:25:43.000 Yes.

00:25:45.000 Yeah, this is different.

00:25:46.000 But we'll get to that later.

00:25:46.000 But that's related.

00:25:47.000 Yes.

00:25:48.000 So the gross, semi-gross, not horrible.

00:25:54.000 I analogize bad mood to bad breath or bad body odor.

00:26:00.000 Every one of us thinks we have a moral obligation if we leave the house and let's say we live alone.

00:26:07.000 If we leave, or certainly you do to the person who lives with you, if you're living with someone, I owe it to everyone to be to be nice smelling, to get rid of my body odor, mouth odor.

00:26:20.000 I owe it.

00:26:21.000 It's a moral obligation.

00:26:22.000 That is how you should regard bad mood.

00:26:25.000 Bad mood equals bad breath.

00:26:27.000 Think of it like that.

00:26:28.000 So is bad breath natural?

00:26:31.000 Is a bad mood natural?

00:26:31.000 Yes.

00:26:32.000 That's why people say, yeah, well, then you're not acting naturally.

00:26:35.000 Okay, so why don't you toot in public?

00:26:38.000 That's natural.

00:26:40.000 But so someone says the other day, because I mentioned this on our program, the themes of this, I got an email.

00:26:45.000 Charlie, it feels so forced.

00:26:47.000 I want to be who I am.

00:26:50.000 Which is to be happy some days, unhappy.

00:26:52.000 No, You don't want to be who you are.

00:26:54.000 You want to be who you should be. 1.00

00:26:56.000 This is an idiocy. 1.00

00:26:58.000 I want to be who I am. 1.00

00:26:59.000 Who the hell are you? 0.98

00:27:00.000 What is that? 0.99

00:27:01.000 I never understood that.

00:27:02.000 Hello, Dennis.

00:27:02.000 Who am I?

00:27:03.000 Who are you?

00:27:05.000 I know what I want to be.

00:27:07.000 That's what matters.

00:27:09.000 I want to be a good person.

00:27:10.000 I want to be someone who people enjoy being with.

00:27:12.000 I want to be a father figure to younger men.

00:27:15.000 I have a whole list of things.

00:27:17.000 I want to be ethical.

00:27:19.000 I don't want to be perfect, by the way, just for the record.

00:27:21.000 I have zero desire to be perfect.

00:27:24.000 Okay.

00:27:25.000 And I cultivate my vices, like my multiple cigars a day, et cetera.

00:27:32.000 I am no saint, but I try to be a good person.

00:27:35.000 So this notion, yes, you know who you are. 1.00

00:27:40.000 If you want to be who you are, dear sir, you will be a rapist. 1.00

00:27:44.000 You will be a murderer. 1.00

00:27:45.000 You will be a bank robber. 0.99

00:27:47.000 That's what people are naturally.

00:27:49.000 That's the raw material.

00:27:50.000 Yes, that's the raw material.

00:27:52.000 You don't want to be who you are.

00:27:54.000 You want to be who you should be.

00:27:57.000 The other argument they'll say is it's just so much effort to act.

00:28:00.000 That's true.

00:28:01.000 Everything in life.

00:28:02.000 That's why people don't marry now. 1.00

00:28:03.000 It's why people don't have children. 0.95

00:28:05.000 Everything good is an effort.

00:28:06.000 That's correct.

00:28:07.000 Well, you certainly won't write a book if you believe in not making efforts.

00:28:11.000 Or build a family.

00:28:12.000 Or build a family.

00:28:13.000 That's right.

00:28:13.000 What a great way.

00:28:14.000 So let's have on your tombstone, here lies so-and-so.

00:28:18.000 Sam.

00:28:19.000 Yeah.

00:28:19.000 Here lies Sam.

00:28:21.000 Didn't do much.

00:28:23.000 But he was comfortable.

00:28:24.000 He was miserably comfortable.

00:28:24.000 But yeah.

00:28:26.000 So, but let me ask you: over a period of time, do you find if you act happy, you become how you act?

00:28:31.000 That's right.

00:28:32.000 You become who you act no matter what you do.

00:28:35.000 That act kind for a year, you'll end up kinder.

00:28:39.000 What did the Schindler's listen?

00:28:40.000 Oh, this is the yes.

00:28:41.000 Yeah, I'm telling you.

00:28:44.000 This is powerful stuff. 0.57

00:28:45.000 So Ray Fine was the Nazi commandant in Schindler's List.

00:28:51.000 Great movie.

00:28:53.000 And he said in a New York Times interview at the time, I can't wait till the movie is over.

00:29:01.000 The filming.

00:29:01.000 The filming is over.

00:29:04.000 I am actually acting meaner off set. 0.64

00:29:08.000 Acting like a Nazi commandant in a concentration camp has made me a worse person. 0.50

00:29:15.000 He's acting. 0.64

00:29:16.000 He knows he's acting.

00:29:18.000 He's reading lines written for him.

00:29:20.000 Yes.

00:29:20.000 And it's making him worse.

00:29:22.000 We know this with Daniel Day-Lewis.

00:29:24.000 We know this with Joachim Phoenix.

00:29:26.000 We know this with the other previous actor that was the Joker who killed himself.

00:29:32.000 Name escapes me.

00:29:34.000 They become the characters that they act.

00:29:37.000 Yo, it's one example after the other.

00:29:39.000 Oh, it's very risky, but you are, you become who you act.

00:29:42.000 Okay.

00:29:43.000 So I kind of shared another pragerism a couple months ago that my wife completely agrees with. 0.99

00:29:52.000 And I was shocked at the negative reaction I got from women. 1.00

00:29:56.000 Let me tell you what it is.

00:29:58.000 When at some event, Erica was there and we were doing something together.

00:30:02.000 Erica says, you know, every once in a while, I thank Charlie for being loyal to me.

00:30:07.000 And I didn't think anything of it and whatever. 0.99

00:30:10.000 The amount of emails I got from women saying how primal, how tribal, you know, what do you think? 0.99

00:30:17.000 I'm married to some sort of animal, which, of course, I respond, yes, you are married to a beast. 0.99

00:30:22.000 His nature is Genghis Khan.

00:30:25.000 What is your response to that? 0.85

00:30:27.000 Just build out that argument.

00:30:28.000 This email is tragedy.

00:30:30.000 We live in Dennis when I got those emails.

00:30:33.000 I'm not, but I totally get why you would be.

00:30:36.000 And you have a wonderful wife that she would say that.

00:30:40.000 That's a very big deal.

00:30:41.000 I have to add that.

00:30:43.000 And the ignorance, it's not just ignorance. 0.77

00:30:49.000 They take pride in their ignorance about life and about men in particular. 0.87

00:30:56.000 Yes, it is a struggle for every man who is heterosexual to stay monogamous.

00:31:02.000 Yes, to not spread the seed infinitely far.

00:31:06.000 We are built for variety of mates.

00:31:10.000 Or as one person, and I wish I knew who it was, but I'm acknowledging this is not my quote, but it's brilliant.

00:31:18.000 Men love women and women love a man.

00:31:23.000 And you have to be a grown-up. 0.82

00:31:27.000 If you're a woman, men who don't acknowledge that go on the young Turks. 0.99

00:31:35.000 But The women, the women who don't acknowledge that are afraid of reality. 1.00

00:31:46.000 Reality is no longer what is real. 1.00

00:31:49.000 What do I want it to be? 1.00

00:31:52.000 Women want men to be them, but in a different body. 0.99

00:31:56.000 That's basically what women yearn for. 1.00

00:32:00.000 And when they find out we're not, I'm sorry, darling, I'm not you with a beard. 0.98

00:32:07.000 I'm not you, period.

00:32:09.000 In fact, the name will become increasingly unknown to people.

00:32:14.000 In fact, I have Hugh Hefner's nature.

00:32:18.000 Hugh Hefner, for those who don't know, is the founder of Playboy.

00:32:21.000 I don't know if he slept with a thousand women. 0.82

00:32:24.000 And his life was devoted to sex. 0.51

00:32:26.000 That's all he devoted his life to.

00:32:29.000 That is normal male nature.

00:32:33.000 I don't care if your husband is a rabbi, priest, well, not priest.

00:32:37.000 I do care if your husband's a priest.

00:32:38.000 That's an issue.

00:32:39.000 But or minister or holy man or anything.

00:32:46.000 My wife knows that about me, and it's part of the reason I adore her.

00:32:51.000 I don't have to fake that I'm her.

00:32:53.000 I'm not, but I am faithful. 0.86

00:32:56.000 But I fully acknowledge that for every male, and the proof is gay males.

00:33:03.000 This is not societally induced. 0.88

00:33:04.000 Men don't want variety because society told them to. 1.00

00:33:08.000 Gay men want more than five men. 0.90

00:33:10.000 They want a thousand men. 1.00

00:33:12.000 Remarkably promiscuous. 0.98

00:33:14.000 They are. 0.96

00:33:14.000 Yes. 0.96

00:33:15.000 Unless some, to their credit, and they get a lot of credit, who are loyal to one man.

00:33:15.000 Yes.

00:33:22.000 And I know gay couples and I give them credit for that.

00:33:27.000 The other thing that you mentioned is, and it's controversial when women say they're not in the mood. 1.00

00:33:34.000 Yeah, of course it's controversial.

00:33:36.000 You wrote a column on it. 0.85

00:33:38.000 Yes, I wrote a column in Daily Coast said that I advocated marital rape. 0.98

00:33:44.000 One thing people must understand about the left, they're not just mean and vicious and dishonest. 0.99

00:33:55.000 They're shallow.

00:33:56.000 People must understand if you're not shallow, you can't be a leftist.

00:34:00.000 You could be a liberal.

00:34:01.000 You could be a conservative.

00:34:02.000 That's very interesting.

00:34:04.000 That point is very deep about how shallow the left is.

00:34:06.000 That's right.

00:34:06.000 It is a deep point about their shallowness.

00:34:09.000 In fact, they're deeply shallow.

00:34:11.000 Their shallowness is deep.

00:34:13.000 How's that?

00:34:14.000 Now you really got me.

00:34:15.000 Well, I was just one-upping your witticism.

00:34:15.000 Yeah.

00:34:19.000 So anyway, they wrote that I was advocating marital rape.

00:34:23.000 What I wrote, and it's on the internet, it's like 10 years old. 1.00

00:34:28.000 When a wife is not in the mood, I think that that's correct. 0.98

00:34:31.000 That's what I didn't say. 1.00

00:34:33.000 By the way, the irony is my grandmother knew this, who never graduated high school.

00:34:38.000 In other words, 100 years ago, women were far more sophisticated in their knowledge of men than they are today because they go to college now.

00:34:48.000 Isn't that amazing?

00:34:49.000 It's totally amazing.

00:34:51.000 So yes.

00:34:52.000 So my argument is, what in life should mood ever dictate?

00:35:00.000 And I said, what if your husband said, I'm not in the mood to go to work?

00:35:04.000 You have an obligation. 0.69

00:35:06.000 Marriage is obligations. 0.95

00:35:08.000 In Judaism, which is my fundamental value system, it is a contract. 0.92

00:35:14.000 It is called a contract. 0.78

00:35:16.000 A ketubah. 0.97

00:35:17.000 A man gives a contract. 0.74

00:35:18.000 Ketubah means contract. 0.99

00:35:20.000 I owe you X, you owe me Y.

00:35:22.000 It is understood.

00:35:24.000 And by the way, so is it in the New Testament, correct?

00:35:27.000 Yes, that's correct.

00:35:28.000 Well, it's a covenant is the word we use.

00:35:30.000 Well, perfectly, which is also taken from Judaism and the Torah.

00:35:33.000 And we can set it to be even a higher level of in the Catholic faith.

00:35:37.000 It's a sacrament.

00:35:38.000 Yes, before God.

00:35:39.000 Yes, it's a sacrament in the Catholic faith.

00:35:41.000 That's right.

00:35:41.000 Exactly.

00:35:42.000 In Christianity, it says Jesus with the church as man and woman.

00:35:44.000 And doesn't it say his body is yours and your body is his?

00:35:49.000 Well, that really runs.

00:35:50.000 So that's why they hate Judeo-Christian values, because we say mood, again, back to heart.

00:35:56.000 Yes.

00:35:56.000 We don't believe the heart is a good guide.

00:35:59.000 The left does.

00:36:01.000 How do you define heart then?

00:36:02.000 Just emotionally?

00:36:03.000 Okay.

00:36:04.000 Feelings.

00:36:04.000 That's right.

00:36:05.000 Not reason. 0.98

00:36:06.000 So if you're not in the mood to have sex with your husband, fine. 0.98

00:36:06.000 Yes. 0.98

00:36:09.000 So any decent husband will understand that that happens and periodically it's an end of the issue.

00:36:15.000 Certainly you're not feeling well.

00:36:16.000 It was a lousy day, et cetera.

00:36:18.000 But if it's routinely, I'm just not in the mood, please understand.

00:36:22.000 I mean, and I made it clear if your husband is a good man, if he's loyal.

00:36:26.000 All the necessary.

00:36:27.000 If he loves you.

00:36:28.000 Yes.

00:36:28.000 Preambles.

00:36:29.000 But they are necessary.

00:36:31.000 Obviously, if you have a creep, you don't owe him anything.

00:36:34.000 I understand that.

00:36:35.000 But if he's a good guy, what is it?

00:36:38.000 One French woman, and it's fitting that I was a French woman, said, when I came to realize how 20 minutes could make my husband happy, I thought, what the hell is 20 minutes? 0.95

00:36:50.000 It's a very powerful little argument. 0.93

00:36:53.000 Right? 0.96

00:36:54.000 It's very French.

00:36:55.000 It's very French.

00:36:56.000 Yes, because they were sophisticated.

00:37:00.000 Any closing thoughts, Dennis?

00:37:01.000 20 minutes.

00:37:04.000 Closing thought.

00:37:05.000 Yes, I beg your massive number of followers to please, because I didn't write it to get rich.

00:37:13.000 I wrote it to touch people's lives.

00:37:14.000 And it does.

00:37:15.000 And you're an example.

00:37:17.000 Thank you.

00:37:17.000 The rational Bible, any one of the three.

00:37:20.000 They're also very powerful audiobooks.

00:37:23.000 Oh, good.

00:37:24.000 I know.

00:37:24.000 I chose the guy who reads it.

00:37:26.000 I wish it was you, but he's powerful and takes his time.

00:37:26.000 He's great.

00:37:30.000 You also do the fireside character.

00:37:32.000 But you can underline in the physical and the heart cover is beautiful.

00:37:36.000 And the paper is not easy to find.

00:37:38.000 Well, you know what?

00:37:39.000 You know, did I tell you?

00:37:40.000 Because there was a delay.

00:37:41.000 No, I have a contract.

00:37:42.000 In my contract with my publishers, I must approve the paper or it doesn't get published.

00:37:50.000 Really?

00:37:51.000 Yes, it's in my contract.

00:37:53.000 Because so many books are printed on fish rackets. 0.94

00:37:55.000 It's just on garbage.

00:37:57.000 Right. 0.89

00:37:57.000 Deuteronomy is out. 0.89

00:37:59.000 Genesis, Exodus, and then Leviticus.

00:38:01.000 No, then numbers.

00:38:03.000 Into the wild?

00:38:04.000 Is that into the wilderness or something, right?

00:38:06.000 Yes, it's what it means.

00:38:07.000 In Hebrew, the name of the book is in the wilderness.

00:38:09.000 How on earth did we get English numbers?

00:38:13.000 Because numbers versus into the wild is like...

00:38:15.000 Because there were a lot of censuses in numbers.

00:38:19.000 It's a great question.

00:38:21.000 Listen.

00:38:21.000 This is one of my 500 questions I've ever read.

00:38:24.000 Well, imagine how I feel.

00:38:26.000 You went from the most interesting book.

00:38:28.000 I was a Krager book on numbers.

00:38:29.000 Oh, really?

00:38:29.000 He's a mathematician?

00:38:31.000 No, but you go from the most into the wild to numbers.

00:38:35.000 I know.

00:38:36.000 So here it goes the other way.

00:38:36.000 It's okay.

00:38:38.000 You know what the Hebrew word for Exodus is?

00:38:40.000 The book?

00:38:40.000 Journey or Exit?

00:38:42.000 No, that's what the Hebrew word for that is.

00:38:44.000 But the name of the book in Hebrew.

00:38:45.000 No, I don't know.

00:38:46.000 Names.

00:38:47.000 Oh, come on. 0.87

00:38:48.000 Yes.

00:38:48.000 So they swap.

00:38:50.000 In one case, the English is fascinating and the Hebrew is boring and then the other way around. 1.00

00:38:56.000 I think you should just go with Into the Wild. 1.00

00:38:58.000 Is it in the wilderness or is it in the wilderness?

00:39:01.000 So it'll be numbers in the wilderness.

00:39:03.000 Yes.

00:39:03.000 I think that's smart.

00:39:04.000 Yes.

00:39:05.000 Dennis, God bless you.

00:39:07.000 Thank you so much.

00:39:07.000 He has blessed me, and you're one of those blessings.

00:39:10.000 Well, thank you.

00:39:11.000 Thank you.

00:39:14.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:39:15.000 Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:39:18.000 Thank you so much for listening and God bless.

00:39:23.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - December 18, 2022

The Eternal Truths Behind Judaism with Dennis Prager

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