The RDL Podcast with Rabbi Daniel Lapin

Three Mediterranean oceanfront countries with similar population densities, similar limited access, similar lack of natural resources. Yet, Malta and Gibraltar are thriving, happy places that attract throngs of tourists while Gaza is a dangerous and oppressive hell hole.  Why? (Clue: It has nothing to do with Israel)  Should countries that start wars and then lose them also lose territory?  How he...

Here’s an unexpected reversal:  It’s not so much that civilization developed water-borne sewerage systems as much as it’s that the cultural values of cleanliness that made it imperative for certain cultures to distance themselves  from their body waste that made civilization possible.  Toilets and sewage systems are more important than banks and art galleries and have to come first.  Cultures that...

True systems like mathematics and physics have no internal contradictions. No law about addition or subtraction contradicts any other law about multiplication or division. No law about gravity or optics contradicts another law about motion or electricity.  Yet, repeatedly, the system known variously as liberalism/leftism/progressivism/secular fundamentalism/socialism reveals internal contradiction...

Deep down, do you harbor a horrible little suspicion  that accepting most migrants or refugees, (whatever you want to call citizens of other countries who want to live in America) is more moral than building a wall or stopping them at the border in any other way?  Deep down do  you suspect that it is more moral to help beggars in Bombay and derelicts in Djibouti than helping  your own sister?   Do...

3 vital questions to ask the man wanting to marry (or date) your daughter. One sure giveaway that he’s a loser.  Hint: It has to do with his mom.  A scary interview with an intensive care hospital nurse.   If civilization was left up to women, we’d still be living in grass huts.  What sexist male pig said that?   It’s also true that there are more female fetuses aborted than male. By their feminis...

What really distinguishes liberalism from conservatism.  Holding your own baby for the first time matters to all people in all places at all times.  Tennis and marshmallows do not.  Feeling hope as the sun rises is something all humans everywhere have always known.  Riding a rollercoaster ride is not. Ancient Jewish wisdom’s take on Scripture is that it covers everything that is applicable to all...

Only about 20% of self-identifying American Jews believe in God and regard His Torah as authoritative.  And the rest?  What do they believe?  Is it true that some parts of American Jewry are viewed as the circumcised wing of the Democratic Party?  Why is so much American entertainment Jewishly flavored?  This is not true for movies and TV programing from England or France.  Is this observation ant...

Let your Rabbi describe to you a book in his library printed in 1936 and entitled “How to Make Love”.  Today’s worst insults and most indicting criticisms:  It’s old fashioned; it’s not modern; it’s archaic; it’s outdated; it’s so yesterday.  Many mistakenly believe that any idea not sufficiently progressive is automatically false and wrong.  But what if some old ideas are actually true and right?...

Is it because the Jews convinced the Romans to crucify Jesus?  No; many who hate the Jews also hate Christianity.  Is it because of Jews like Saul Alinsky, George Soros, Bernie Sanders, Sigmund Freud, Herbert Marcuse and many others?  Partially, perhaps, but many who hate the Jews have never heard of these men. Why is it that Jew hatred seems to go hand-in-hand with communism, progressivism, socia...

This show is about the magical ten years in a man’s life; ages 13—23 years-old. These are the years in which subsequent success in life is rooted and, sadly, the years in which the origin of future failure can be found.  Here are the step-by-step success strategies that a young man should follow for positioning himself for everything good in life.  The show is not about the importance of being coo...

America’s bizarre distinctions in how two human appetites are treated—sex and money.  With sex, anything that two consenting adults chose to do is viewed as nobody else’s business. Anything at all!  With money, even if two consenting adults agree to a certain job at a specific hourly rate, the government steps in to insist that employer must pay employee a minimum amount.  With sex, if one party d...

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...

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 kn...

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 cho...

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...

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...

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 starr...

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 purpose...

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 sh...

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 ar...

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...

How to overcome  the resistance that obstructs every attempt to improve our lives, New Year resolutions notwithstanding.   Health & weight loss; alcohol, drugs, & other addictions, career advance, debt reduction and almost everything else that involves us in a struggle pitting our higher selves and our betterment against our lower desires, our laziness, and our lethargy.  Learn the lesson from a f...

My polite response to the rude people who accosted me for driving a fuel-hungry, twelve cylinder automobile.  Why we circumcise.  The higher and holy purpose of energy and how the Left has it all wrong.  What Chanukah lights have to do with foreskins.  Why airplane engines burn oil not coal like older railway locomotives.  The real purpose of aging and why not to dye your hair. Learn more about yo...

Why does the Canadian town of Halifax send Boston a fifty-foot Christmas tree every year?  Why have great senators of the past like Hiram Revels of Mississippi, Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, & Henry ‘Scoop’ Jackson of Washington been replaced with the clowns, creeps, crooks and cranks in Congress today?   Want to hear a fantastic 100 year-old poem answering this question?  The bullying, gra...

 Why do politicians and the intellectual elite hate successful business professionals, but they prostrate themselves at the feet of super-wealthy stars of sports and entertainment?  What can we learn from the 1991 movie City Slickers starring Billy Crystal and Jack Palance?  Who really owns a business, stakeholders or shareholders?  Where does the ubiquitous dollar $$$ sign come from?  As long as...