If Judaism can’t thrive in total freedom, it doesn’t deserve to survive, according to author and radio personality Dennis Prager.
Speaking at a tribute to the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Prager, a self-described non-denominational Jew, said that rational, intellectual reasons must exist for identifying as Jewish.
“If we need anti-Semites to keep us Jewish, we [Jews] are not worthy of surviving,” the Los Angeles-based Prager told the full house at the Toronto Centre for the Arts on June 26. “I don’t want to rely on Arafat or on Nazis to stay Jewish.”
Though not wishing to proselytize, Prager said he believes the Torah’s innate wisdom is relevant to all peoples.
“It is inconceivable that the Torah has only something to say to the Jews. It’s like saying that vitamin C is only good for Presbyterians,” he said, eliciting a laugh from the 970 people in attendance.
“The Torah is too profound to only be learnable from by a Jew,” he continued. “Only Jews are obligated to follow its laws, of course that’s true. But its insights, its values and its wisdom are either universally applicable, or they are not applicable to Jews.”
Raised in an Orthodox home in Brooklyn, Prager said he resented the fact his yeshiva world lacked “an ability to take the non-Jew and the non-Orthodox Jew seriously. It seemed the only people to be taken seriously thought and talked and observed like they did.”
The occasion of Prager’s lecture was the June 29 yahrzeit of the Lubavticher Rebbe. He lauded Chabad’s choice to “just say no: No, we are not going to judge Jews by how many hours they keep between milk and meat – in fact, if they keep any at all. [Chabad] has achieved something remarkable here: they don’t measure Jews by their observance.”
He said he disagrees with Orthodox Jews who say discussing Jewish values with the rest of the world is futile.
If the focus is only on Jews who have left Judaism, “you’ll never find them,” he cautioned. “We [Jews] have to announce to the world what we stand for. Then, Jews will find us.
“The moment you say only Jews can prosper from what Judaism has to say, you are in effect saying to most alienated Jews that Judaism is ethnicity, not wisdom. But it is wisdom.”
Addressing the title of his talk, “Why be Jewish,” Prager said the answer can be found by examining what he called Judaism’s “trinity”: “It’s God, Torah and Israel. Those are the three dimensions of Judaism. You can’t have two. That is what Judaism consists of, along with chosenness.”
Regarding God, Prager said he would despair if he lost his faith.
“The reason is simple. The world is too awful. I have asked on my radio show: ‘If you don’t believe in God and you are sensitive to human suffering, please call me and tell me how you don’t go crazy.’”
Prager said his phone has yet to ring.
“I get many calls from atheists, but I never got a call to answer that,” he said. “It is not possible to be sensitive to human suffering, not believe in God and not go a little nuts.”
He added that what keeps him sane is the belief that there is a good God ultimately governing the universe. “Can I account for every instance of unjust suffering? Of course I can’t.”
It’s unreasonable to think that God would meddle in every injustice, Prager said. “If God interfered every time, we would be robots.”
Prager explained the Torah’s relevance using a modern analogy: “One day, I realized why I never learned to program my VCR, which I had owned for years. It was because I never read the instruction book.
“Then it dawned on me: If I need an instruction book for something trivial like my VCR, I need one for how to live life. It is dangerous to believe we’re naturally good – if we are, then we don’t need an instruction book. The Torah is so relevant. How do I know what position to take on any given subject? By asking my heart? I don’t trust my heart.”
Prager said he believes the Torah is a divine book, a confession that he called “a big deal, coming from a Jew who can’t call himself Orthodox.”
If men had written the Torah, he said, Jews would have come out looking much better.
“The Christians of the New Testament are terrific. The Muslims of the Koran are terrific. The Jews of the Jewish Bible stink. Why on earth would people portray themselves so negatively? That’s the greatest single argument for the divinity of the Bible.”
Ultimately, Prager maintains that there are intellectual reasons for being Jewish, and that “if you showed the Jews the relevance of Judaism, they wouldn’t leave.”
If you examine Judaism rationally, he said, “I have no doubt that you’ll say that the Torah is the way to live.”
Speaking at a tribute to the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Prager, a self-described non-denominational Jew, said that rational, intellectual reasons must exist for identifying as Jewish.
“If we need anti-Semites to keep us Jewish, we [Jews] are not worthy of surviving,” the Los Angeles-based Prager told the full house at the Toronto Centre for the Arts on June 26. “I don’t want to rely on Arafat or on Nazis to stay Jewish.”
Though not wishing to proselytize, Prager said he believes the Torah’s innate wisdom is relevant to all peoples.
“It is inconceivable that the Torah has only something to say to the Jews. It’s like saying that vitamin C is only good for Presbyterians,” he said, eliciting a laugh from the 970 people in attendance.
“The Torah is too profound to only be learnable from by a Jew,” he continued. “Only Jews are obligated to follow its laws, of course that’s true. But its insights, its values and its wisdom are either universally applicable, or they are not applicable to Jews.”
Raised in an Orthodox home in Brooklyn, Prager said he resented the fact his yeshiva world lacked “an ability to take the non-Jew and the non-Orthodox Jew seriously. It seemed the only people to be taken seriously thought and talked and observed like they did.”
The occasion of Prager’s lecture was the June 29 yahrzeit of the Lubavticher Rebbe. He lauded Chabad’s choice to “just say no: No, we are not going to judge Jews by how many hours they keep between milk and meat – in fact, if they keep any at all. [Chabad] has achieved something remarkable here: they don’t measure Jews by their observance.”
He said he disagrees with Orthodox Jews who say discussing Jewish values with the rest of the world is futile.
If the focus is only on Jews who have left Judaism, “you’ll never find them,” he cautioned. “We [Jews] have to announce to the world what we stand for. Then, Jews will find us.
“The moment you say only Jews can prosper from what Judaism has to say, you are in effect saying to most alienated Jews that Judaism is ethnicity, not wisdom. But it is wisdom.”
Addressing the title of his talk, “Why be Jewish,” Prager said the answer can be found by examining what he called Judaism’s “trinity”: “It’s God, Torah and Israel. Those are the three dimensions of Judaism. You can’t have two. That is what Judaism consists of, along with chosenness.”
Regarding God, Prager said he would despair if he lost his faith.
“The reason is simple. The world is too awful. I have asked on my radio show: ‘If you don’t believe in God and you are sensitive to human suffering, please call me and tell me how you don’t go crazy.’”
Prager said his phone has yet to ring.
“I get many calls from atheists, but I never got a call to answer that,” he said. “It is not possible to be sensitive to human suffering, not believe in God and not go a little nuts.”
He added that what keeps him sane is the belief that there is a good God ultimately governing the universe. “Can I account for every instance of unjust suffering? Of course I can’t.”
It’s unreasonable to think that God would meddle in every injustice, Prager said. “If God interfered every time, we would be robots.”
Prager explained the Torah’s relevance using a modern analogy: “One day, I realized why I never learned to program my VCR, which I had owned for years. It was because I never read the instruction book.
“Then it dawned on me: If I need an instruction book for something trivial like my VCR, I need one for how to live life. It is dangerous to believe we’re naturally good – if we are, then we don’t need an instruction book. The Torah is so relevant. How do I know what position to take on any given subject? By asking my heart? I don’t trust my heart.”
Prager said he believes the Torah is a divine book, a confession that he called “a big deal, coming from a Jew who can’t call himself Orthodox.”
If men had written the Torah, he said, Jews would have come out looking much better.
“The Christians of the New Testament are terrific. The Muslims of the Koran are terrific. The Jews of the Jewish Bible stink. Why on earth would people portray themselves so negatively? That’s the greatest single argument for the divinity of the Bible.”
Ultimately, Prager maintains that there are intellectual reasons for being Jewish, and that “if you showed the Jews the relevance of Judaism, they wouldn’t leave.”
If you examine Judaism rationally, he said, “I have no doubt that you’ll say that the Torah is the way to live.”
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