Your spouse asks you to stop doing something. Your boss at work asks you to start doing something. You kid asks you why you’re doing something. Wouldn’t it be great to come back with the right answer every time? The answer that, a day later you still admire rather than the answer you think of a day later and wish you’d given. How do you react wisely off the cuff? By arming yourself with the right basic beliefs. But when you start off with a wrong basic belief you end up making bad intuitive decisions in all the many daily circumstance. Your rabbi equips you with an invaluable tool.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A reasoned analysis of the Florida school shooting.  Yes, there is a way to stop these tragedies, but, no, it has nothing to do with guns.  What percentage of the hundreds of people you encounter every day are really crazy?  How many so-called “homeless” are mentally imbalanced?  Do you know why they are not being cared for in medical facilities where they would be safe—and so would we?  Do you know any families being torn apart by having to struggle with a deeply troubled teenager all alone?  Is the SCOTUS ruling of Roe v. Wade in 1973 connected  in any way to the Parkland, Florida school shooting?  Why did Hitler use precious resources killing 3 million Jews in Poland in 1942 while his eastern front was crumbling at Leningrad?  Could you protect your family from a violent home invader?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why does Socialism exercise an almost irresistible appeal to secular people?  Why are intellectuals, academics, bureaucrats, career-politicians and others drawn so powerfully to, liberalism, progressivism, well, actually to Socialism?  We cannot combat what we don’t understand.  We cannot defeat what we cannot get a hold of.  Let’s probe the real roots of the problem. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Grand Coulee Dam.  Air-conditioning.   Hoover Dam.  Empire State Building.  Over 3 million miles of highway.  Golden Gate Bridge.  Verrazano Bridge.  Holland Tunnel.  George Washington Bridge.  Automatic transmissions.  Commercial jet travel. Electric refrigerators.  That and more took place 1900-1960.   Since then…?  Almost nothing!  What! Why?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is there a scientific test for honesty?  The most important organ for making money (If you’re not a swimsuit model!)  Do identical twins have same or different fingerprints?  The power of optimism in financial interactions.  Do you know what medical school your doctor attended; do you know if he attended medical school at all?  The danger of fear and how to get rid of it.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everything we think we know about Mutiny on the Bounty is a lie!  3 Hollywood movies distorted the truth.  The 1850 novel, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a great work of art nourishing our higher selves with serious thoughts about good and evil, marriage and morality, hypocrisy and nobility, the inevitability of consequences and yes, adultery.  The 1995 movie The Scarlet Letter starring Demi Moore has as much to do with the book as the movie Free Willy has to do with Moby Dick, another great American novel written by Herman Melville at the same time as The Scarlet Letter.  And while we’re on the topic of books and animals, I tell you something you don’t know about The Life of Pi.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Communicating effectively produces wonderful results in romantic, business & social interactions.  Only in politics is the reverse tolerated. Here’s what a politician would call a spade: “It’s a one person operated, foot-powered implement of ligno metallic composition designated primarily though by no means exclusively for use in agricultural, horticultural, & constructional activities for purposes of carrying out such excavational tasks as may  be designated by supervisory grades.”  Why I would eliminate and ban the use of these meaningless slurs: Anti-Semite, Homophobe, Racist, Sexist, & Capitalist. My answer to a young friend’s worry that “Trump will get us into a war.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Masturbation, the art of selfishness.   Why is the smallest room in the house, the bathroom, so over decorated?    Monogrammed towels?  Soap shaped like seashells?  Really?  Why are we so embarrassed about a perfectly natural bodily function like emptying our bowels?  What does relieving oneself have to do with masturbation?   Why did Onan in the Bible have to die?  If a woman never marries, is she better off with a child or without?  Why are welfare recipients not the most patriotic and appreciative citizens?  How to avoid all awkwardness in the masturbation conversation with teenagers.  Why did the great, great, grandmother of King David dress up as a prostitute?  Why did her former father-in-law not recognize her?  No it won’t grow hair on your hands or make you blind, but it will…….

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mrs. Lapin and I were offered a guided tour of the new Museum of the Bible in Washington DC.  We accepted, planning on spending an hour there.  We were confident that an hour would more than suffice.  We know the Bible, right?  We frequently visit Israel.  We’ve already seen one too many archeological artifacts.  Gosh, was I wrong! We spent five hours there.  They couldn’t get rid of us. And we are eagerly planning our next visit; sooner rather than later.  How often is your rabbi speechless?  Ridiculous, right?  But I was lost for words.  The museum is deeply moving for any American regardless of faith and profoundly impactful for any sentient human being.  In this show, I describe what we saw and I place it in cultural context in terms of the socio-political canyon that cuts through our American culture.  This is an immensely significant addition to our nation and I feel indebted to the Green family, creators of Hobby Lobby whose generosity and vision made it possible.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People say, “I’m not religious but I’m spiritual”.  What does that really mean?  What is spiritual reality?  Why do prostitutes still prosper in the era of Tinder with quick and free hook-ups?  Why are so many mental health professionals secular when every indication is that spiritual reality is a powerful factor in mental rehab?  The role of Darwin, Freud, and Marx at the start of the 1900s.  My close encounter with a real, live African lion. Definitions of spiritual and physical and how many of the joys in your life depend upon each? The exact location of heaven. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices