The RDL Podcast with Rabbi Daniel Lapin

Try to make a movie or write a book in which the terrorists are Muslims and you’ll have CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) to deal with. Just try depicting a money-loving character in your movie as a Jew and you’ll feel the weight of the ADL (Anti Defamation League of Bnai Brith) drop on you like a bag of cement. Depict African-Americans or Italian-Americans badly and you’ll instantly incur the wrath of the NAACP or the Italian American Civil Rights League, respectively. So, aren’t you curious why entertainment media routinely mock Evangelical Christians with impunity and why the evil, murderous villain in most movies and TV shows is the successful, wealthy, businessman? Why don't Christians have an anti-defamation league?  How come the institution of business has no defender?

I demonstrate how people are like fireflies. The only lie I told was about who invented car air-conditioning. Learn why almost all of us are in sales, the power of face-to-face communication, and how the government created a new profession of bootlegger. I know that all you busy happy warriors sometimes yearn for a little solitary confinement, but remember why it’s not a reward but a torture. Remember that your best moments of joy, achievement and satisfaction always involved at least one other person. The pros and cons of using money to influence your children. Stories are about feelings, but numbers are about facts; this is why good business professionals are number-obsessed. Why do sales professionals do more good for society than professors? What is a friend worth? What is a Facebook friend worth? Here's how to discover how many real friends you have. Lastly, learn why your facial expression is so important and how to modify it.

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Why does the number of mentally ill individuals in America just keep climbing? Who said, “If you will not have God, you should pay your respects to Hitler and Stalin."? Let’s talk truthfully about mass shootings. First of all, unlike familicides or felony-related homicides, the perpetrators are almost always suicidal. Why are they also nearly always white men?  Yes, they mostly involve firearms, but let’s seriously explore all the other commonalities they possess which are so very politically incorrect. When was anything the government banned removed from society? Alcohol during prohibition? No! Drugs for the past 40 years? No! But banning guns will work? Really?

Have you heard of the famous Elephants’ Graveyard in Africa? Why is nature so private about death? Where are all the dead pigeons in New York?  Is death a technical problem or a philosophical problem? Together, we discover the latest work being done to defeat death. Why exactly does death disturb us?  How has growth in crime paralleled the growth in children born to single mothers that began…yes, that’s right: in 1962? More innocent people die violently in American road accidents every single day than have died in the last three mass shootings. Why does no one seem to care about them? More than 70 Americans die of homicides every single day. Again, doesn’t anyone care? Why do we seem to care more when fewer people die in what we call a mass shooting? Every month there is at least one mass killing carried out with knives or axes, rather than guns. Why don’t you hear about these events? Is it possible that America’s increase in abortion, both clinically and culturally, spreads a subconscious mood of death? Why is the number of people who’d mourn your departure so important? Eliminating cancer would add only 3.3 years to the average lifespan and eliminating heart disease would add only 4 years, so for people to reach 120 years or older would require a whole lot more. Will technology ever bring 300-year lifespans? Would that even be good for the environment? ...just kidding…

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Rabbi Daniel and Susan Lapin converse over breakfast about the General Patton Principle. This explains why the most effective person to solve a particular problem may not be the most gentle, refined and polite person.  General Patton and his 3rd Army beat back the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge in January 1945, but his tirades were often vulgar and profane. Yet, not only did the men under his command love him but so did their mothers because they knew that he really cared about their sons.  The very best doctor to perform a dangerous surgery might possibly be a serial adulterer but no normal person, no matter how religious, would spurn this doctor in favor of a less competent surgeon because of his marital ethics. Obviously, we were responding to two angry letters attacking us for our enthusiastic support for President Trump’s re-election.  We emphasize how this Patton Principle applies in many areas equally applicable to the lives of listeners in Africa or South America who might care nothing about American elections.  We also spoke about our children and child rearing in general with special emphasis on consistency and both father and mother singing from the same music.  We looked into why New Yorkers have looted during their power outages since 1977 but did not during blackouts earlier than that. What changed during the 1960s?  We inquired whether knowing that some things are just plain wrong helps stop us from doing those things and we explored the role of moral will power. Why is that kind of self-discipline, capable of helping us resist the urges of our appetites and impulses, acquired mostly through religion and the military?

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Won’t ya let me take you on a sea cruise? Johnny Rivers 1974 and Rabbi Daniel Lapin 2020. You need only three permanent principles in order to make sense of Robert Mueller’s testimony on Capitol Hill. Also, more news on Secularists Anonymous - my twelve-step program for recovering secularists. Seriously, guys, it’s no longer 1859 or even 1972. It’s time to get over it. A secular world view is just a failure. For instance, can you explain the Middle East without using words like "God" and "religion"? Okay, you asked for it - Here's another story about Llucky, the Llama belonging to the Llapins. Finally, learn why you should pay as much attention to what people do NOT say as you pay to what they do. The titanic struggle between the G and the g.

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Do you know the name of your most valuable employee? Do you know the name of the person most to blame for your problems and predicaments? Do you know the name of the person you are most responsible for educating and improving? Here's a clue: All three people carry the same name. Your physical characteristics are things like: height, skin color, hairstyle, and body type. Your spiritual characteristics are things like: integrity, resourcefulness, optimism, resilience, imagination, fluency and eloquence. Unless you are a swimsuit model, your spiritual attributes can make you far more money than your physical ones. So how do you improve them? Well, that’s why you’re listening to this show - stand by to learn priceless strategies.

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So, there was your Rabbi struggling with what to name this episode. At first, I thought of calling it “Even Poor People Deserve Compassion”. Then, I thought we’ll call it “Especially, Poor People Deserve Compassion”. Then, I thought about “We Love Poor People”. As you can see, the ideas were flowing fast and furious, but I was worried about appearing to lack compassion—one of the very worst sins in today’s secular theology. So, then I came up with “Poor People Means Virtuous People”. If you want to know why, in the end, I chose the title I did use, listen on. Now, for those of you who plan to write to me in righteous indignation, howling in protest at this podcast; I will save you time and trouble. Just cut and paste from what follows: “Doesn’t your faith command you to care for the poor? How dare you deny their existence! You’re such an ignoramus, you don’t you even know that over 30 million Americans live below the poverty line. I suppose you think it’s their fault. That’s called blaming the victim, you heartless human being.” There, see how helpful I can be? Now, if you invest the time to listen, you’ll hear the answers to all of those questions and many others you may not have yet thought of.

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If you liked being a happy warrior, well, I’ve upped the ante. It’s now a little harder. It’s easy to laugh when I speak about your rabbi (that would be me) revealing how the world REALLY works, but the truth is that learning how the world REALLY works and adapting to it is immensely painful. Having our illusions shattered is always painful; the slogan is easier than the reality. How the world REALLY works is quite different from the ways in which many of us wish it worked. Many fondly labor under the delusion that we live in a secular age in a secular world. Nothing could be further from the truth. I explain why I feel nothing but compassion towards former secularists who are having their entire worldviews obliterated. Secularism is the tired expression of yesterday’s cultural dinosaurs whose perception of reality is being pulverized. Only anti-scientific secular dinosaurs would believe dogmatically that a man can become a woman. Only tired and aging secularists would believe that it costs nothing if the government pays for it. Why can the 1999 movie 'The Matrix' help explain the quandary of secularism today? People used to think that the more educated and wealthy a society became, the more secular it would be. The growth of Islam, Christianity and Judaism thoroughly refutes that lie. Also, hear about my trip to Ghana last week, a place where 70 percent of the population is Christian. Learn where over a billion Africans are headed. Further, why is it MUCH harder for women to find good men to marry than it is for men to find good women? There are only four conditions of womanhood. Here's a hint: girlfriend is not one of them. Wise women seek security and all wives thrive in its cocoon. Men have failed since 1962 to be able to project power - not brutality, not tyranny, not bullying - but calm, competent, benevolent, masculine power.

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Never use the word “fair”.  The political landscape of many countries is changing because citizens are asking their governments, “What have you done to our country?”  Please allow me to teach you the hierarchy of moral obligations.  What does the Biblical dictum “Love your neighbor like yourself” actually mean?  I tell you about  two important books; but for your own health, tell nobody, not even your closest friends about them.  Many secular liberals speak of compassion but practice very little of it themselves.  Boasting of your commitment to “Women’s Rights” while betraying your wife.  Caring less about those closest to you. The reprehensible evil of government taxing the legacy you bequeath to your children. Is it unseemly for me to care so much more about my children than I care about your children?  Are you willing to pull the trigger on military reprisals? Why the state desires to educate your child. How political propaganda changes your mind. Why it is moral for any state to view its citizens as more valuable than any other people in the world. Would you like to hear about the guests who came to dinner and never left?

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You’ll love taking this boat trip with your rabbi.  The one big lie that, if you fall for it, will utterly distort your vision of your own life.  Do you know the one colossal difference that forever distinguishes humans from animals? Clue: Progressives hate it.  A few fun fire facts especially for happy warriors.  Why do so many feel guilty about using a lot of energy?  The difference that fire made to Adam and Einstein and why your electricity bill has skyrocketed.  You’ll love this poem about a boat trip.  Resolving a perplexing and prophetic Bible passage about…..batteries! Find spiritual joy and existential ecstasy by using energy.

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Responding to a thoughtful listener’s letter attacking my views on marriage as “ridiculous”.  Would we stand for a system that forces young people to undergo at least four years of religious indoctrination before getting on with their lives?  Would we cruelly withhold jobs and employment from anyone brave enough to try and evade this brutal system of compulsory madrassas? Would we allow imams, clerics, and priests to impose their destructive dogmas on young minds?  Of course not, right?  But we do just that!   Secular Fundamentalism is a religion; it’s a militant faith, a community of shared values, heresies and sacraments. Today’s modern secular fundamentalism has its fanatics and its saints and we force millions of tomorrow’s leaders into bowing down to its idols.  The power of numbers over stories.  Making important life decisions with our heads and never with our hearts.  How to decide just who among us gets the rare and desirable resources we all covet.

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