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Editorial cartoon: To bomb, or not to bomb
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Dennis Prager
Opinion: Can Halachah ever be wrong?
Many years ago, one of the most respected Orthodox rabbis of our generation, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, the chief rabbi of Efrat, told me the following story — and, of course gave me permission to tell it in his name.
Opinion: In defense of acquiring material things
Every year around Christmas and Chanukah time, writers, commentators, pundits and many rabbis, priests and ministers exhort Americans against spending money on things. We are too materialistic, we are told every year. Happiness, not to mention a meaningful life, depends on our having non-material things, not material things.
Climate change: A reasoned skeptic’s response
In my two columns on why thoughtful people might be skeptical about the apocalyptic global warming/climate change scenario, I addressed the issue with a seriousness and respect that Joey Green does not exhibit in his response. He apparently felt that sarcasm and put-downs comprise an adequate response. They don’t.
Opinion: Global warming: Part 2
This is how I began Part 1 of this column, two weeks ago: “In the belief that there are people on the left who are more interested in understanding the right rather than in simply dismissing its decency, I would like to briefly explain why many thoughtful people are skeptical of the claims made on behalf of global warming.”
Man-made global warming: Why many of us are skeptical [Part 1]
In the belief that there are people on the left who are more interested in understanding the right rather than in simply dismissing its decency, I would like to briefly explain why many thoughtful people are skeptical of the claims made on behalf of global warming. By “global warming” I am referring to the claims of Al Gore that man-made carbon dioxide emissions are causing dramatic increases in the Earth’s temperatures; increases that will devastate much of the Earth.
Opinion: Why is it so hard to become a better person?
The purpose of the High Holy Days (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) is moral introspection: Every year, Jews meditate on the issue of becoming a better person.
Opinion: For a Happy New Year, here’s what to do
Jews get to celebrate the new year twice a year — on Rosh Hashanah and on Jan. 1. But there are differences between the two holidays: Rosh Hashanah is used more for introspection, and New Year’s is more a time for celebration and partying.
Opinion: When rabbis politicize the High Holy Days
Every year, Jewish listeners to my radio show write to me from around the country about their rabbi using the High Holy Days to deliver political sermons.
Opinion: Still the only solution to the world’s problems
There is only one solution to the world’s problems, only one prescription for producing a near-heaven on earth.
Dennis Prager: First fight yourself, then society
Some 20 years ago, I was putting my older son, then about 8 years old, to bed and asked him what he learned that day in school. Normally he would answer, as boys usually do, “Nothing.” But that night, he had an answer.
Dennis Prager: Adults who do not speak to a parent
For two decades I have been on a crusade: to convince adults who have cut off all communication with a parent to re-establish contact.
Maybe San Francisco will wake jews up
If San Francisco succeeds in banning circumcision, some good may come of it.
Liberalism and the decline of a society’s character
While most American Jews and other liberals believe in the intrinsic goodness and moral superiority of liberal policies, powerful arguments can be made that liberal policies actually diminish a society’s moral character. Many individual liberals are wonderful people, but the policies they advocate tend to make a people worse.
My Jewish Credo
About 20 years ago, a Jewish publication in Australia invited me to make a list of my basic Jewish beliefs. I found the exercise much more difficult and much more significant than I had anticipated. I have come to believe that all those who consider themselves thoughtful individuals should draw up a list of their fundamental beliefs — not only religious ones, but political, social and moral as well. At least as much as our psyche and our nature, our core beliefs are what make us who we are.
Can We Celebrate the Death of Evil People?
We live in a time very different from any in the past.
Dancing with the Rabbis?
On April 3, under the auspices of the American Jewish University, in its Gindi Auditorium, five Los Angeles rabbis competed with one another in an evening titled “Dancing With the Rabbis.” As reported in this newspaper, the sellout crowd loved the evening.
What about innocents who are executed?
I devoted my last column to the Torah’s insistence on taking the life of murderers. I noted that this was the only law in all five books of the Torah; that, unlike every other time the Torah calls for capital punishment, only with regard to murder is the death penalty declared a value; and that God gave this law to Noah, not to the Jews alone, as a fundamental basis of civilization.
Murderers should die
Last week, Rhode Island announced that it will release Michael Woodmansee from prison this August, 12 years early, because of “good conduct.” He will have served 28 years of his 40-year sentence. His crime? In 1975, Woodmansee tortured a neighbor’s 5-year-old son to death.
A Jew visits Vietnam
I spent last week in Vietnam and Cambodia. Visiting these two long-suffering countries made me revisit some of the basic beliefs that have shaped my life. The most important of these is communism. Nothing has shaped my political and social outlook as communism has: its mind-boggling evil — more than 125 million civilians killed, countless others tortured and enslaved — and the amoral reactions to it among so many in the West. Unfortunately, this reaction also has a lot to do with 20th century Jewish life, which I will address shortly.
No God, no moral society
Every reader of this column — no matter how alienated from religion — is familiar with the adage, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Even the United Nations issued a postage stamp with these words chiseled into stone. I suspect, however, that many people who are familiar with this verse either have no idea where it’s from, or believe it’s from the New Testament. In fact, it is from the Torah, the very middle of it, as if to say, “this is what the Torah is all about.”
Honor your father and mother
To make the case for the Torah, I can think of no better verse with which to begin than the fifth of the Ten Commandments: “Honor your father and your mother so that your days be lengthened on the land that I give you.” Proper understanding — and living by — this commandment is indispensable to making a good society. And to properly understand it, perhaps the most important point to be made is that the Torah commands that we honor our mother and father; it never commands us to love them.
The Case for the Torah
With this first column of the year, I have decided to devote a number of my columns this year to making the case for the Torah.
A Yeshiva boy and Christmas
When I was 20, I spent my junior year in college in England. When classes let out for the last two weeks of December, I traveled to Morocco, where something life-changing occurred.
Ultra-Orthodox Yeshivas and secular universities
The Wall Street Journal recently published a column about ultra-Orthodox (Charedi) Jews in Israel who do not work for a living. Sixty-five percent of ultra-Orthodox men ages 35-54 do not go to work. Instead, they study Torah while demanding increasing amounts of money from the taxes paid by Israelis who work for a living. The author of the column, Evan R. Goldstein, wrote: “Voluntary unemployment has become the dominant lifestyle choice for [Charedi] men. And even if there was a desire to work, [Charedi] schools leave students unprepared to function in a modern economy.”
I wish settlements were the issue
According to every liberal editorial page in America (and virtually every editorial page abroad), according to President Obama, the United Nations and every other liberal institution, and according to Jews on the left, the major impediment to peace in the Middle East is Israel’s continuing construction of settlements in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Human nature, Judaism and liberals: response to my critics
If my mail is any indication, I suspect I aroused considerably more anger among Jews by arguing that man is not basically good (and that the belief in man’s innate goodness is neither rational nor Jewish) than I would have had I argued that there is no God.
Are people basically good?
Ask most Jews if they believe that people are basically good and you are likely to get a positive response.
Jews, Christians, Muslims and self-criticism
One of the most brilliant individuals writing today, a man who goes by the pen name of Ibn Warraq, writes in his book “Defending the West” that a unique aspect of the West has been its self-criticism.
A response: The case against the Islamic center
As listeners to my radio show hear me say almost daily: 1) There are good people on both the left and the right (and bad people, too), and 2) We should prefer clarity to agreement. So if my correspondents and I can clarify where the decent people who are for and the decent people who are opposed to the proposed Islamic center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero differ, we will have engaged in a public service.
A question for ‘progressive’ Jews who support the Ground Zero mosque
Jews who call themselves “progressive” and are overwhelmingly in favor of building a $100 million Islamic center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero need to explain why, 26 years ago, “progressive” Jews were just as adamant in opposing the Catholic convent that was built near Auschwitz.
Why has America treated Jews so well?
If there is anything that religious and secular Jews, liberal and conservative Jews, can agree on, it is that we live in a country that has treated Jews better than any other in which Jews have lived.
Siddur Baseball
When I was a kid in yeshiva, we played a game during davening (prayer services) called siddur (prayer book) baseball. We mostly played this at Orthodox summer camp during Shabbat services — because it was baseball season, and because Shabbat services were much longer than the daily service.
How Open-Minded Are Jewish Liberals?
Jewish liberals, like other liberals, believe that there are three positive traits that describe liberals far more accurately than they describe conservatives — compassionate, intellectual and open-minded.
Lessons for the Rest of Us From the Success of Chabad
Most Jews, whether Orthodox, non-Orthodox or secular, acknowledge that Chabad is a uniquely successful Jewish enterprise.
Musical Instruments on Shabbat?
My 15 years in yeshiva and a lifetime of work with Orthodox Jews and Orthodox organizations have given me an immense respect for Orthodoxy. It is impossible to
imagine Jewish life without the Orthodox, their seriousness about Judaism, and their commitment to learning and practice.
An Open Letter to Israel’s Jews
Anyone who has the chutzpah to write a public letter to 6 million people needs to explain where he is coming from, so permit me to briefly identify myself.
Rabbi Clarifies Left’s Beliefs
As my radio show listeners across the country have heard innumerable times, a guiding principal of my show is that I prefer clarity to agreement. Instead of trying to out-argue their ideological adversaries, I suggest to my listeners that they should strive for clarity about where they and their opponents differ. This not only prevents shouting, insulting and defensiveness, it helps each side see where they really differ and where, perhaps, they do not. Married couples have told me that this approach has been helpful in marital disputes.
A Letter to young Jews
There is a good chance that being a Jew means little or nothing to you. That would make a great deal of sense because few Jews have been raised to take Judaism seriously. This is not a judgment on your parents. Most of them weren’t raised that way either. It is just a fact.
When Jews on the Left See Americans on the Right as Nazis
“There should be absolutely no division when it comes to condemning the use of the Holocaust and Holocaust imagery for domestic political purposes.”
— ADL Statement
A Jewish Value That Has Influenced My Radio Show
In 28 years as a radio talk-show host, I have not consciously humiliated a single person — whether a caller to my show or a public figure.
A response to a reader
Two of my favorite journals ever since I was in college have been Commentary and The New York Review of Books. The first is a major right-wing publication, the second a major left-wing one. Though on opposite sides of just about every issue, they both have a feature that should be present in any journal that takes ideas seriously: a response from the authors to letters to the editor.
Jews and Big Government
Why do most American Jews support the president’s and the Democratic Party’s health care plan?
Jews and God — a Troubled Relationship
We Jews need to face a sad, even tragic, fact. Things are not going very well in the relationship between God and most Jews.
All polling data agree that among Americans, Jews believe in God less than any other ethnicity or religion-based group. More Jews are agnostic, more Jews are atheist, more Jews are secular than any other group.
Jews and the Afterlife
Years ago, I attended a funeral officiated by a prominent Los Angeles Conservative rabbi. In his remarks at the grave site, he told the grieving family and friends of the deceased that Judaism does not affirm a belief in an afterlife, rather “we live on through our good works and in the memories of loved ones.”
Jews, College, Money and Nachas
Given these difficult economic times, I would like to make a suggestion that, if enacted, can save many readers $200,000 or more per child. Do not send your son or daughter to an expensive college.
Messengers Who Forgot Their Message
For my first column as a contributing writer for The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, I thought I would share some thoughts on 40 years in Jewish life and introduce myself to readers through a brief, specifically Jewish, autobiography.
A Question for My Friend Alan Dershowitz
Harvard Law professor Alan M. Dershowitz is that rare individual who is both a highly respected academic and well known to the general population.
Seek the Convert
If Jews do no seek converts, they must make peace with the fact that the rest of mankind will either remain where it is, adopt other religions, or invent new ones.
How Jews, Christians See Gibson’s Film
Early this past summer, Mel Gibson invited me to see "The Passion," his film on the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. The invitation was significant in that I was the first practicing Jew and active member of the American Jewish community to be invited.
Prefer Your Teen to Smoke or to Cheat?
Decades of lecturing around America and of speaking with parents on my radio show have led me to an incredible conclusion: More American parents would be upset with their teenage children if they smoked a cigarette than if they cheated on a test.
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Who is that masked Jewish man? It’s Hero Man!
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