The RDL Podcast with Rabbi Daniel Lapin

There are hundreds of self-improvement books, programs and courses that promise to improve your life. They all talk to your heart when they identify the exact area you want to change for the better. But most of the time, you don’t follow through, do you? Why not? Well, that is the essence of this show along with the antidote to stagnation. Why do we accept our current circumstances even though we’re not happy? Is there hope? Of course. And you’ll be surprised to discover just where it is. There really is a way to make sure to inoculate yourself against stagnating in your life. The Book of Exodus helps! And where did all the toilet paper really go? Who took it and why? All explained in this enlightening show with your rabbi.

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Sadly, there can be several different kinds of tough times. Some tough times torment just a neighborhood or even just one family. Other tough times impact an entire nation or even many nations. Some tough times are on account of health, others are financial, some are political and military turmoil, and occasionally, tough times can comprise several simultaneous threats.  But regardless, these ten tips, tools, and techniques are useful in all troublesome times. I explain each of these in depth during the show:

1) Become a generalist

2) Today’s strategic timeline ends tonight

3) Insulate yourself from public panic, fear, & hysteria

4) Make connections

5) Cash is king

6) Your life and the lives of those you love are more valuable to you than to the ‘authorities’

7) Be capable of defending yourself

8) Force yourself to be happy and grateful

9) Keep yourself, your clothing, & your habitation clean

10) Write! Write! Write!

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Politicians prefer solving immediate problems for which they can claim credit now. But statesmen also consider approaching problems that cannot yet be seen but whose approaching footsteps can be heard. The virus is making a relatively small number of people sick. Economic depression will actually kill many more. Even unemployment lowers the lifespan significantly.  Science is outstanding at explaining what things do and why they do it. It is appallingly bad at explaining what individual people do and why we do those things. But a crowd of people acting in unison, say a crowd watching an exciting football game, a crowd gathered for revolution, a crowd subscribed to a certain ideology or theology; well, its behavior is quite easy to predict. For it is not an individual person or even a lot of individual people. No, it is a ‘thing’. A sort of huge animal with countless heads and legs but on an animal nonetheless. It is predictable and often frightening. Perspective: January-March 2020: >9,000 suicides, >8,000 road accident fatalities, >15,000 flu deaths (2017-2018 season) Total American deaths during 1Q2020 >700,000.  Total American COVID-19 deaths to date of this podcast: 206.  Also, the role played by Christians in the founding of modern Israel in 1948. And what God expects from us at a time like this.

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What can your rabbi possibly add to all the Niagara-like cascade of conversation on corona virus? I’m not a doctor, so what can I possibly say that would meaningfully add to the diarrhea-like deluge of drivel clogging the Internet. Well, let’s really creep into the core of corona, using not only education and intelligence but also wisdom. Let’s dive to the depths of the disease. What does the Golden Calf of the Book of Exodus have to do with corona? Let’s start with the difference between education, intelligence and wisdom. When you think intelligence, think the notorious Leopold-Loeb murder of 1924. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes spoke about shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater. What he meant was that if you were in that theater, you were in far more danger of being trampled to death than by being incinerated. What is driving the current fear, panic, & hysteria about Corona? Who exactly is yelling “Fire!” and why? Remember the fear and panic about Y2K in November 1999? None of the terrors actually materialized.  Remember the hysteria about the swine flu “pandemic” in 2009 and the Ebola hysteria in 2014? No? Oh, that’s right, there wasn’t any! Know why? Because the name of the president at the time started with an “O” not a “T”. Talking of O, remember his war on “for-profit” universities? Socialism spurns education for profit and all else for profit. Even medicine. Especially medicine must be governmental. Which brings us all the way back to the corona crisis.

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If we were each alone and isolated, every one of us would languish, wither, and perish. Only by human cooperation can we all together build an interactive economy in which we each can thrive. Here are the only two ways to organize human cooperation: One, build a dictatorial tyranny in which you promise the peasants security and equality but never actually deliver. Keep them constantly divided into fighting factions and provide them with drugs and limitless cheap and mindless entertainment. This helps transform them into fools, and fools buy their empty promises.  The second way is build and maintain a democratic government of and by the people, with power only with the permission of the people. Promise them nothing but protection for their property, their bodies & their lives from both foreign foes and internal bandits and predators. Guarantee freedom. Get out of their way and let each citizen achieve whatever he or she can. In that world, each of us can find the meaning in our work, build every aspect of our lives, and find immortality in our families. So, be a happy warrior and never a tennis ball floating down the gutter of life. That only brings the tyrants.

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You may not know it, but your rabbi knows that you probably help humanity every day.  Do you realize that you probably enhance the lives of your fellow citizens every day? Are you a saint? No, of course not. It’s just that money is one of the only two areas in which while you try to help yourself, you are actually also helping others. Is money physical or spiritual? The explanation will surprise you. The fatal flaw of socialism that makes ‘redistribution of wealth’ perfectly logical and even desirable. Why your rabbi thinks of universities as kindergartens. Why everyone needs a pet gorilla to help you increase your income. Why neither economics nor psychology are real sciences. How price “re-anchoring” makes people pay $3 for a $0.45 cup of coffee? Do you drink $50/bottle wine? The spiritual success strategies you need to know for achieving financial abundance. Let your rabbi teach you more about sales because even if you don’t know it, you are a sales professional.

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Hey single men! Have you ever wanted to propose marriage to your future wife but been lost for words? Your rabbi to the rescue. In this show, a sample proposal speech you can use to start the rest of your life. No need to struggle for the right words. No need to be embarrassed as you stutter your way through some trite, overused formula. No, sound like the man you wish you were! She’ll be thrilled and wedding bells will ring.  Why does Bible often say, “Young man and virgin” rather than “Young man and young woman”? The magical moment that can put you on the road to financial prosperity? How a pledge produces power. Do housewives and stay-at-home-moms hurt the country’s economy? Why did the Soviets construct so many huge & hideous buildings? Why are so many American government buildings built since 1962 so brutal and block-like? Why is all government housing so identical and soul-destroying? How to feel like a god not a rat Become a happy warrior, not a tennis ball floating down the gutter of life. 

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Why do you dress differently in the morning if you are staying home alone from how you’d dress if you’re going to be seeing many people? Are you more comfortable in ‘fashionable’ clothing than in utilitarian coverups? You might consider an adventure vacation, right? Swim with the sharks in South Africa? Sure. See penguins in Antarctica? Why not. How about a week at a nudist resort in Jamaica? That would be something different, so are you up for it? I suspect not. Why not? Do you have too much of that old-time puritanical repressiveness? C’mon, live for a week like a healthy naked animal. Why am I not persuading you? Why should we grant government the power to punish us for taking off our clothing in public? If you don’t like my naked appearance, don’t look; but don’t stop me from undressing how I choose. If Adam and Eve had nice green clothes made from fig leaves, why did God make them additional outfits out of leather? Would human beings come up with the idea of clothing with zero cultural input? What did famous feminist, Camille Paglia, mean when she said that if civilization were left in female hands, “we’d all be living in grass huts”. Comparing female models and movie stars of the 1950s to current times, do contemporary unisex and androgynous fashion styles have anything to do with our culture’s leftist tendency to eliminate distinctions between men and women. To participate in reviewing changes in American life the past twenty years and getting your name into a book visit www.RabbiDanielLapin.com/masterclass. Be a happy warrior, not a tennis ball floating down the gutter of life.

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You thought that if people are ‘religious’, they must be devotees of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, or Hinduism, right? Wrong! Here are 3 important requirements of a religion. (A) It links you to something bigger than you. (B) It links you to many other people. (C) It requires you to offer sacrifices. As your rabbi explains in this show, there are many, many more religions than those I listed. Here are some I talk about in this show: Church of Ethical Culture; Church of Scientism; Church of Climate Change. No, do not laugh. It is very rude to laugh at other people’s belief systems. The 3 shocking facts that every devotee of scientism ought to know. The 3 amazing scientific facts that every poet ought to know. Fraud and fakery in science. Reviewing the changes in American life the past twenty years and getting your name into a book https://www.RabbiDanielLapin.com/masterclass. Be a happy warrior, not a tennis ball floating down the gutter of life.

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Are we all logical, thoughtful human beings when it comes to money? The rising price of Tesla stock would suggest no. The $700,000,000 that smart investors sunk into Theranos would also suggest that for most of us, emotions seriously impact our financial decisions. What is more, we are also susceptible to mass hysteria. That’s right; mass hysteria—when many people come to believe passionately with irrepressible conviction in things that are unprovable and even unlikely. Things like, oh let’s see, witches in colonial Massachusetts, evil clowns torturing toddlers in their preschool dungeon, and, oh yes, climate change threatens our way of life. Wait till you hear what was supposed to happen in 2020 according to 97% of scientists in 2004. And while we’re on that 97% of scientists twaddle you’ve heard a thousand times, your rabbi clears it all up once and for all in today’s show. How long have you owned your Tesla? Well, the battery warranty might be expiring and you know what it’s like when your tired phone starts needing recharging by lunchtime. You do know that the battery in your Tesla is exactly like your phone battery only bigger, right? Why I’d rather own a Tesla than a Ford but I’d rather own Ford stock than Tesla stock. Why socialism makes sense to so many otherwise smart & successful people. Why the Bible favors private ownership over public ownership. Is it moral to use force to protect your property? I tell you why you might want to visit https://rabbidaniellapin.com/masterclass/ How the billionaires preening their virtue at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week are saving the glaciers while being scolded by a Scandinavian schoolgirl. And many other frivolous and fun facts from your favorite rabbi.

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