Rabbi Daniel Lapin's podcast

Your rabbi equips you with an invaluable tool: 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 o...

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 an...

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.

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? 1960 is approximate date marking the end of Christia...

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 really know if he attended medical school at all?  The danger of fear and how to get rid of it.

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 honestly & 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 wooden-metallic composition designated primarily though by no means exclusively for use in agricultural, horticultural, & constructional activities...

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 of...

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 eage...

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 famous...

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. Make a mistake with...