00:00:00.000Hey everybody, today in the Charlie Kirk Show, a conversation with my friend Dennis Prager about his new book, The Rational Passover Haggadah.
00:00:59.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:12.000Welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:01:14.000Super thrilled and honored to have with us today a mentor of mine and a teacher of mine, someone who I've listened to hundreds of hours of his content.
00:01:23.000His fireside chats have literally changed my life.
00:01:26.000And he's the author of an exciting new book, The Rational Passover Haggadah.
00:03:16.000I mean, theoretically, this could have been a left-to-right book, but because it will be used by a lot of Jews, presumably, who are used to right to left when they do anything in Hebrew, I put it that way.
00:03:27.000It could have been in either direction, but actually, I think people get a kick out of it because it's the first time they're ever turning pages from right to left.
00:03:58.000You could answer it actually in some ways better than I, because you're a Christian and you've read my, my uh Torah commentaries.
00:04:04.000Bible commentaries, uh, there are 4 000 reviews of my Rational Bible series uh on Amazon.
00:04:12.000That's a lot for for a bible commentary.
00:04:14.000The great majority are from Christians for whom my, my work has been actually uh, reinforcing of their faith, because I only use reason and i'm i'm not making a case for Judaism and i'm making a case for God.
00:04:31.000I'm making a case for the Bible and i'm making a case here for the importance of the, of what is uh the, the seminal event of the exodus.
00:04:42.000You know, Christianity rises and falls, if you will, but it's based upon the the, the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.
00:04:50.000Judaism is is, is rooted in two events as well, the creation uh, and and the exodus, and that's repeated in in Jewish liturgy always those two events, it.
00:05:02.000Without those two events, there's no, there's no Judaism, just as there's there's no Christianity without, without the crucifixion and resurrection.
00:05:10.000But the the creation and the exodus, are seminal to Christians too.
00:05:15.000So i'll give you an example of what I do.
00:05:17.000I ask a question that any thinking person would ask and and would like an answer to, if God took the Jews out of Egypt, why didn't God take the Jews out of Europe?
00:05:29.000So that's, that's an example of an issue I discuss.
00:05:42.000Everything in the book is for everybody.
00:05:44.000You know I, you'll love this, Charlie.
00:05:46.000Uh, so whenever i'm asked about this question, I I say it from when I was a kid in in Yeshiva Jewish religious school.
00:05:56.000I remember thinking this, this can't be just for Jews.
00:06:00.000And later I came up with this idea, uh, the notion that the Tora only speaks to Jews is as bizarre as Beethoven only speaks to Germans or Shakespeare only speaks to the English.
00:06:15.000Either and I go further either it speaks to everyone or it doesn't speak to anyone.
00:06:22.000That is my deepest belief about everything that I write that has to do with Hebrew scripture.
00:06:28.000It's either universal in its import or it's insignificant completely.
00:06:34.000And these questions you go a level deeper.
00:06:37.000Not only did why did God not intervene in Europe, but why Egypt in particular?
00:06:43.000It's just an interesting question to mull over it.
00:06:46.000Why that incident and why that period of time?
00:06:49.000And so entirely right, and so just the word haggadah is, is I, I?
00:06:55.000I just want to make sure our listeners are sure uh, certain of this.
00:07:01.000It means literally, it's including modern Hebrew.
00:07:05.000Hagid is to tell So, the literal translation of Haggadah is the telling.
00:07:13.000The whole purpose of the Seder is to tell the story of the Exodus.
00:07:18.000Through all the trials and the tribulations, and then, of course, God's deliverance of his people.
00:07:24.000So, I want to ask you something that may or may not be covered in this book, Dennis, but something that you've been saying for the last year and a half in particular.
00:07:32.000And as a sidebar, I don't think you've received credit from the world, Dennis, for how clear you were on the lockdowns, how early you were.
00:07:40.000You were one of the few people, and I don't mean this in a bad way, over the age of 60 that actually had a clear argument of why the lockdowns were a mistake, truly.
00:07:51.000And it was from not just the mistake, but the worst mistake humanity ever embarked on.
00:07:57.000You connected, though, a Bible verse that's very interesting, which is, you know, after God delivered, you know, people, Jewish people from Egypt, and they're in the desert, very quickly they say they want to go back to Egypt because at least they had meat.
00:08:12.000Can you kind of recount that and then explain that to our listeners?
00:09:52.000By the way, I just want to add parenthetically, that is part of, that's one of the biggest reasons I believe in the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible.
00:10:02.000Not to say their non-authenticity elsewhere.
00:10:05.000I'm just speaking specifically of the Old Testament, is how negatively the Jews are depicted.
00:10:12.000Nobody would make up such an unappealing past.
00:10:17.000If people wrote the Torah, the first five books, they would have portrayed their ancestors as much more positively than they are portrayed in the Torah.
00:10:27.000That is the biggest single proof that it was not written just by men.
00:10:34.000If they had an opportunity just to edit it out, there would have been plenty of chances to do that.
00:10:39.000David would have said, get rid of that Bathsheba part, okay?
00:13:00.000By the way, talking about that, you want to know one of the proudest achievements of my life that Costco has ordered 25,000 copies of Deuteronomy.
00:13:11.000I mean, I pinch myself, I must tell you.
00:13:14.000The thought that Costco is ordering a massive amount of a book on Deuteronomy.
00:13:20.000I mean, how many people who visit Costco can spell Deuteronomy when they get their life-size ketchup bottles and enough mayonnaise to fill up their pool?
00:13:56.000I've been studying Hebrew all of my life.
00:13:59.000Interest that what may interest you is, or and your and your listeners, viewers, is that the most important thing to know is grammar more than vocabulary.
00:14:12.000You can always look up a word, but you must master the grammar.
00:14:18.000And I am one of, I am the one in 100 human beings who loves grammar.
00:14:24.000So it was a real blessing that I mastered Hebrew grammar and able to explain this.
00:14:30.000So aside from everything else that has enabled me to write this stuff, but you know, and this will resonate with you, a lot of Christians are now having a Passover Seder.
00:18:16.000So out of nowhere, I said to my daughter-in-law on the phone about two years ago, you know, Miriam, you know what I really want to be in your life?
00:18:29.000And she calls me dad, which I think is great.
00:20:09.000I've been wanting to talk to you, Dennis, for my audience's sake, our audience's sake, not for mine, because I do know your answer to this, but I think your answer is one of the most helpful because we've received, I would say, probably 100 emails about this in the last six months.
00:20:23.000And you've received this question, no exaggeration, at least a thousand times in your career in person, which is one of the, as you would say, the 11 statements or 10 commandments in the wonderful PragerU video, which actually connects with the Passover because it starts with, I'm the Lord your God who delivered you from Egypt, I'm not mistaken, right?
00:20:43.000Which is a reminder, which is the hardest commandment for some people to follow.
00:20:50.000One of this, I could read this email, but basically this person says, I've tried, Charlie, to do what you say, which is follow the Ten Commandments, because as you say, Dennis, we have the Ten Commandments.
00:24:23.000I had, like most people, I had difficulties with my parents at a certain age, you know, and so let's say my early 20s, my late teens.
00:24:34.000But because of this law of the Ten Commandments, which I believe is incumbent upon me, as I explain in the Ten Commandments, every commandment is in the singular, not the plural.
00:24:44.000Hebrew has a different word for you, plural and you singular.
00:26:38.000And until nearly his last year, I had him on my radio show every year on his birthday, July 18th.
00:26:45.000So I asked him every couple of years, hey, dad, what's the biggest difference between America today and when you grew up in the 20s and 30s, 1920s, 1930s?
00:27:08.000So Dennis, I want to shift gears here about another book you wrote that I don't think I've really had a chance to dive in and explore much with you.
00:27:14.000I think we did it previously a little bit, which is happiness is a serious problem.
00:27:19.000You know, I know two people in the last couple of weeks that have committed suicide, young people.
00:27:24.000It's a tragedy that's happening in our country.
00:27:27.000You see the numbers, Dennis, because of the lockdowns, not because of the virus.
00:27:31.000Alcoholism, drug use, anxiety, depression.
00:27:40.000I mean, it could be helpful to people, but it starts with a moral claim where you say you have a moral obligation to be happy and that it's a choice.
00:28:21.000This is, as I say on my happiness hour on my radio show, I have for 22 years, the happy make the world better and the unhappy make it worse.
00:28:31.000And everybody knows that's true in their own family life or among friends or whomever.
00:28:36.000The unhappy make things worse for people.
00:28:39.000So not only is it a moral achievement to be pursued, it is also a moral obligation.
00:28:45.000And at the risk of being a bit gross, I guess, if that's the word, I may be overstated.
00:28:53.000I regard bad moods as I regard bad breath or bad body odor.
00:30:23.000He chose to be happy despite losing his children, despite his wife's condition, and despite his country shooting each other, killing each other in the hundreds of thousands.
00:30:36.000If Lincoln can do that, I suspect most of those listening right now could do that.
00:33:53.000Every time I go to a university, there's the preliminary attack on the sexist intolerance, xenophobic, homophobic, xlamophobic, race, bigoted speaker coming to the campus.
00:34:04.000So there was this article in the Wyoming paper.
00:34:07.000Again, Dennis Prager, bigot, homophobia, dabba, dabba, dabba, daba, an anti-Semite.
00:35:04.000What's your message to a young person who might just be trying to find their way right now?
00:35:11.000Well, it's really two sides of the same coin.
00:35:16.000You have a choice in this country, or really in any country.
00:35:21.000Are you going to fight your society or are you going to fight yourself?
00:35:26.000I was raised that the biggest problem in Dennis Prager's life is Dennis Prager, who's the greatest message my religious upbringing could give me.