TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: The Sad Story Of a Doomed Marriage
Date: 06/23/23 Length: 43:11
Daniel Lapin 0:00
Greetings, happy warriors and I am your rabbi. I am Rabbi Daniel Lapin welcoming you to the show, where I regularly remind you that the more that things change, the more we need to depend upon those things that never change. And that's what we focus on during the show, understanding the things that never change. Because if we can remain safely anchored to the realities that never change, then we're free to experiment, we're free to roam far afield, we're free to vary our explorations and our adventures. Knowing that we are constantly safely tethered, it's almost similar to a ship lying to an anchor. And even though there might be heavy winds, and they could be stormy conditions, provided that the ground tackle is strong enough provided the chain and the anchor are all correctly sized for the conditions, you can sit out the storm. And so knowing what the things are that never change and tethering ourselves to those things means that regardless of the storms, that swirl turbulently, around the foundations of our being, we are nonetheless able to safely explore the wonderful world of our adventures.
Daniel Lapin 1:43
Now one of the things that stays the same regardless of of where you are, or what you're doing, is that it is useful to be able to subscribe to the show. So whatever platform you happen to be listening on, it would be wonderful, if you would go ahead and subscribe. That is something that would be valuable to me and also to us. So just go ahead. And you'll see almost every show says please subscribe. And in that I'm no different. I mean, I could of course explain why you are morally obliged, because after all, I am providing you this show absolutely free of charge. So the least you could do is subscribe, but we don't have to actually go there. And I will just leave it at that that subscribing would be absolutely terrific.
Daniel Lapin 2:39
This week, we saw the observance of a day called Juneteenth, which is a sort of a contraction of June 19. And this started off in 1865, about two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, ending slavery in the United States. And in Texas, June 19 that year was observed as a day of renunciation of slavery. Well, in 2021, President Joe Biden turns it into a federal holiday. So nobody goes to work on nobody works for the federal government at any rate, and that's more and more and more and more people every single year. Goes to Work on June 19. When was the last federal holiday done. the Last Federal holiday was 1983. And that was Martin Luther King Day. So federal holidays are being added, and no prizes for guessing what the next one is going to be. But June 19, has another reason to celebrate and observe. And that was the date in 1953. On which the Soviet spies, Ethel and her husband Julius Rosenberg, were executed. They were electrocuted. In his memoirs, Nikita Khrushchev, who was for many years, the head of the Soviet Empire spoke warmly and flattering me about Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, saying that their efforts enabled the Soviet Union to achieve its goal of building an atom bomb far quicker than it might otherwise have taken. And so in Khrushchev's memoirs, the Soviet spies, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg get applauded and they get credited, and they were caught and tried and executed all astonishingly quickly in those days. There were not any Endless Death Row appeals. And they were both executed on Friday, June the 19th in 1953.
Daniel Lapin 5:12
I want to tell you a story about a friend of mine. He is a senior United States military officer. He's an officer in the Army has been decorated and very recognized for many years, I am not going to mention his name for reasons that will become obvious in the story. But any of you who have known me for a few years, probably know who it is because I have spoken about him in the past. And I usually mentioned his name. But in this context, I'm going to leave the name out. And I'm going to tell you that he approached me via a telephone call, and asked me, he said it would be very meaningful to the family if I would officiate at the wedding of his daughter. She was going to be getting married in June, and was going to be this lovely spring wedding. And he, he said, Look, apart from our friendship and the closeness my family feels towards you, we'd also like it, because my daughter is marrying a guy who is not only South African, which is the country in which you are born and spent your earliest years. But he's also Jewish. And so what could be better than for you to officiate at the marriage between this guy, I'm going to call him Kevin. Okay. And our daughter, let's call her Hannah. Now, I should mention that my friend, this decorated army officer is a very committed Bible-believing Christian. And I should also mention that Kevin is a South African, he moved to the United States a few years back. He is an MD. And, yes, he is Jewish. But at the same time, it's important that I tell you that he knows about as much of Judaism, as I know about neurosurgery, which is to say, not a whole lot. I would say that Kevin is a practicing religious Jew. And as much as Groucho Marx is a practicing member of the Muslim faith. All right, which is to say, pretty much not at all.
Daniel Lapin 8:14
So you know what, while we're talking while we're talking about weddings, and June weddings, and it is, of course, the season for weddings, this would be a really good time for me to recommend that you get either for yourself, maybe you are getting married, maybe you're thinking of getting married, maybe you're already married, but you'd like to restrict lengthen the closeness between you and your spouse. I have something just for you. And it's called the Lasting Love Set.
Daniel Lapin 8:56
And what it is, is, it is two books and a CD program, an audio program. The first book is Hands Off! This May Be Love: God's gift for establishing enduring relationships. And that is a book that we publish. It's written by a friend of ours called Gila Mandelson. The second book is called I Only Want to Get Married Once: Dating secrets for getting it right the first time. And that one is written by another friend of ours called Sarah Levitan. And the third item in the Lasting Love Set is Madame I'm Adam: Decoding the Marriage Secrets of Eden. And that is by Susan Lapin and me and the way that people tell me they've been deriving a lot of benefit from the Lasting Love Set is by each partner reads one of the books at a time, then they switch books. And then together, they listen to the audio program. And they stop it regularly. They you know, they may listen for three or four minutes, some income comes up and I said something, they stop it and they discuss it. And this very process of both of you reading the same two books, having a chance to discuss what you reading with one another. Both of you simultaneously listening to an audio program having to do with the unchanging principles of male-female relationships. Remember, I always say the more that things change, the more we need to depend on those things that never change. And regardless of 60 years of feminist ideology, and regardless of several decades of seriously aggressive, socialistic indoctrination in most Western countries, the bottom line is that what a woman wants from a man, and what a man wants from a woman still remains true for 99.75% of men, and 99.83% of women. And, yeah, I did make up those stats. So we, we would love you to take a good look at this, you go to the website, RabbiDanielLapin.com. And you look for the Lasting Love Set, okay, Lasting Love Set. And it's the two books Hands Off!, I Only Want to Get Married Once and it's the audio program, Madam I'm Adam: Decoding Marriage Secrets of Eden, and do your relationship a favor, which is another way of saying do yourself a favor. Without belaboring the point. It goes without saying that if you know any particularly young people who are dating or seriously courting, or getting married, or have just got married, great gift for them, do not hesitate. Because the benefits that accrue from the feelings of renewed closeness are really important. It's just it's so important, particularly for young couples, it's so important for them to be able to nurture a feeling of spiritual closeness.
Daniel Lapin 12:37
The physical closeness is exciting and, thrilling and delightful and wonderful. And that is there. But it isn't enough. You know, some people make the mistake of thinking it is enough. But they'll quickly discover it isn't. There needs to be a way and and women particularly want to make sure that this exists. They want to know that the guy can feel close to them without his hands without touching. And one of these books addresses that very directly Hands Off! This May Be Love. But the very process of spending time together, listening to something together, or pausing the program and discussing it, reading books and then exchanging the books and talking about them. That is such a machine for closeness in gendering. It's really almost as thrilling as the physical connection. And it's something that you can gift to a young couple. And it's something that you may possibly be able to derive great benefit from with your partner and your spouse as well. I shouldn't say partner, that's become a euphemistic term today I should just say spouse.
Daniel Lapin 13:58
So. So there I am. Faced with a slightly awkward situation, where my wonderful military officer friend, who is a deeply committed Christian, is asking me to officiated the marriage between his daughter and this South African Jewish doctor. So, I've got a number of problems. First of all, I don't officiate at Interfaith marriages because I believe that interfaith marriages are on the road to do it is so difficult to make a marriage work. It is so challenging, there's so much you have to know. There's so much you have to do that. Starting off with a fundamental difference in faith is very awkward and very problematic. So I, I'm not going to do it, but at the same time, I feel sad about it. And so I had to sit down with my officer, United States Army officer friend. And I had to explain why I was not going to be able to accede to his request. And I said that we sat down. And I said, Look, Anna is a devout Christian. Kevin, is a Jew by birth. What I'm trying to tell you is that your daughter believes in God, while your future son-in-law does not. Your daughter lives her life, in close connection with Jesus, in deep conviction that the Bible is the Word of God, and your future son-in-law, Kevin has no feelings for faith at all. It look he, he looked a bit puzzled. And I said, Look, when you describe Hannah, as Christian, when you speak of your daughter as being a Christian girl, you are describing her beliefs and her values. You're telling me about the way she lives her life? Essentially, you're telling me that if an invisible private detective would follow Hannah, your daughter around, he would know that she was a Christian? What, in the first few hours at most? And he said, Yeah, probably. And he said, that will be true for me, too. If your invisible private detective followed me around, he'd know that I was Christian in a short space of time as well. And I'd said, yeah, I get that. And if the invisible private detective followed me around, he'd know I was Jewish, also, in the first couple of hours or less? Absolutely. How long? Do you think the private detective would have to follow Kevin around to discover that he is Jewish? And he said, I've never thought about I don't know, what's the answer? And I said, six months, a year, maybe longer. That's, there will be no indication of it at all. And so he said to me, he looks a little worried at this. And he asked if I would have a zoom conversation with Hannah and Kevin together. And I said, Yeah, I if, if they want to, I don't want to impose myself on them. But, you know, by all means, let them know, you asked me tell them that I said that I was not able to do it. And then I'll absolutely make myself available to them for a conversation. And that's what we did. We had a conversation. And a few things emerged from the conversation quite quickly. One was that Hannah, this lovely young Christian girl, was absolutely thrilled about the prospect of her forthcoming marriage, because she believed that when a Christian marries a Jew, she moves even closer to God.
Daniel Lapin 18:44
Kevin, on the other hand, in answer to some of the questions I asked him, had clearly not given Judaism a thought, since the very perfunctory Bar Mitzvah celebration that his family through for him 13 years earlier. So Hannah, was excited about the wedding precisely because Kevin was Jewish, although she hadn't discussed it enough with him to realize that he was actually sick, a secularized human being of Jewish ancestry. And Kevin, on the other hand, when I asked him what attracted him to Hannah, here's exactly and I'm, I'm looking at my notes, as I'm talking to you right now, to make sure I get his words exactly right, because I put them down verbatim. I saw this good-looking girl in the next car at a traffic light, and I followed her until I could get her to give me her number he proudly announced and that, my friends, was Kevin's basis for married life. Yes, Hannah's belief system was indeed Christianity, while Kevin's belief system was, well, nothing really. He believed in and when I was pushing him on the question of what sort of things did you believe in? What are the value systems by which you intend running your life? He spoke in very vague and undefined terms. And you regular listeners, you know, what I think of vague and undefined terms. He spoke of Kevin said, Well, I believe in human goodness. But again, Yeah, completely meaningless. And what was also clear that the otherwise ordinarily outgoing and, and, and friendly and, and, and likeable sort of guy suddenly became somewhat flustered and very uncomfortable with his part of the conversation. He said to me, he said, Look, I'm just not that interested in organized religion. And I love that term, by the way, it says, if, if you could find a church that was chaotic, and disorganized, you know, the person will Oh, that would be great. It's just organized religion I don't like it's like a term that has come to mean absolutely nothing. But at the same time, it says, Well, I'm not a bad person. But it's just you see, organized religion has so much negativity associated with it, that someone like me, couldn't possibly be associated with it. And that's generally what organized religion actually means.
Daniel Lapin 21:51
So, So Kevin, who sort of radiated, being the sort of really extroverted sort of guy in the part of our zoom call, where we were talking about religion and values and, and beliefs matter, he was he was just not himself at all. And I, I pushed him until I got him to say that religion would be playing no part in his future life and in his future home. I asked him how he would feel about the fact that his wife would be at church every Sunday, and in due course, would take his children with her as she should do. He, his his facial expression, didn't even move the change, not a whit. I would have to say that Kevin was utterly indifferent to what I saw as a slight problem, which is that this family was going to split up every Sunday morning. What was even more astonishing to me, I have to tell you, is that it was not. It was not significant at all to him either. That he planned on spending Saturday mornings, at his car club racetrack. Yeah, Kevin was into racing cars. And, so Hannah was going to go to church on Sundays. I imagine she assumed that he would go to synagogue on Saturday morning, but he wasn't. Kevin has no intention of going to synagogue, why should he? It's an utterly meaningless exercise to him, he's going to indulge his hobby of car racing. So this sort of highlighted for me, and I was able to report this to Hannah's dad, my friend. This is why I just do not think that people have fundamentally different beliefs should marry.
Daniel Lapin 24:11
And you might say, What business is it of yours and it's my business because we all pay the price of divorce. When, when my children were really little, we lived on a street where there were a lot of I mean, every family had kids and on the long summer afternoons and evenings, it was it was really a delight to be out on the street because the we were on a dead end street and this whole street just turned into this playground. You know, the girls were playing over in one section and the whatever they were doing and the boys were doing something else, there were several groups. Everybody's having a grand, old time. All of a sudden, without us knowing that there had been problems at all. The kids came home one day and told told us, the boy and a girl, a brother and a sister who lives down the street and we're friendly, their parents are getting divorced. And this sent shockwaves up and down the block, I have to tell you. And indeed, the dad moved out, the mom became a single mom. Eventually, she started dating, and there was a succession of guys, I must tell you, the boy and the girl started spending more time at our house than they ever used to. And it was so sad to watch the changes that were coming about in this boy in this girl. And eventually, the boy became a teenager and adolescent. And by the time he was 15, he was in trouble with the police, literally the only boy on the whole block that was ending up in mischief that required him to being brought home in a cop car on several occasions. And it was it was something that it was it was a fairly painful lesson for my children, I have to tell you. So yes, I think it's okay to be opposed to divorce because it's costly for everybody.
Daniel Lapin 26:25
Now, I will say this, a secularized American of Jewish ancestry like Kevin, he could safely marry a secularized American Girl of Christian ancestry. And that would be possible, because they would have the same lack of beliefs. But for him to marry a girl who lives a daily relationship with Jesus, that is sheer folly, it doesn't make sense, it's not a good thing. In the same way, no believing Jew would marry a believer of another faith. No secular Jew ought to marry a believer of any faith, beliefs matter greatly. ethnicity is largely irrelevant. I believe race is largely irrelevant with ethnicity. But beliefs really do matter. People have completely different ethnic or racial backgrounds. But as long as they share the same belief, of course, they will have successful marriages. Two of the pastor's with whom I was most close. We're both black-skinned pastors with white-skinned wives. And it made it was just fine, lovely, lovely couples, with great marriages, why shouldn't they be? Absolutely the same beliefs? Obviously, that's not a problem.
Daniel Lapin 28:01
So I thought, what might be useful for you all, if you know somebody in this kind of situation? Or maybe, maybe you are as well. But you know, maybe you're a believer, and you're contemplating marriage to somebody who doesn't believe you may be saying to yourself, you know what, it doesn't really matter. Or you may be saying to yourself, I'm going to be able to change their belief, you know, after we've been married a while they'll come to believe the way I do. I urge caution with those kinds of predictions I have to tell you, but how would you like a three-part test? To determine whether you and the person you're thinking about share the same beliefs? I'm going to give you three questions. And each question is going to have an A answer and a B answer. And if you end your beloved answer, 1-A, 2-A, 3-A, you're good to go. Let me put it this way. I can't say that there was a misspeaking there that's not true. That's not all we need for a successful marriage. However, if you answer 1-A, 2-A, 3-A and she answers or he or your intended your paramour answers, 1-B, 2-B, 3-B, then I can tell you that is a really bad harbinger for any marriage that the two of you might be thinking of contracting. And I say contracting because I always like to help people remember that marriage is a key contractual commitment. It's not love.
Daniel Lapin 30:05
I was doing a wonderful interview with an Australian podcasting woman called Linh Podetti. And I've, I've spoken to her often it's just a pleasure. She is so vivacious. And so amazingly fascinated, or at least she appears to be fascinated. She's a very stimulating person to talk to. Because her facial expressions and the questions she asks, just makes the time fly. And before I knew where I was, our interview was already finished. And it'll be posted very shortly we did this interview just a couple of days ago. It's about the third or fourth I've done with I'm doing another one in a few weeks' time. And one, at one point I asked, I said, Your daughter comes to you in a few years' time, and you have helped her into your business. Linh has a very interesting business, she helps people hire virtual assistants from other countries. And, so I said, let's imagine your role has been with you in the business, your daughter has built her own business, she's very successful, making a lot of money. And now she comes to you. And she says, I want to marry this guy, you've met him, I brought him to a barbie the other day. And I'd like to marry him. And it turns out, you know, that this guy is a very nice guy. But he is not an ambitious man. And he has a very entry-level kind of job. And he's sort of happy with it, you know? And I said, you know, let's say he's making 30 or $40,000 a year, your daughter is making three or $400,000 a year. How would you feel about your daughter marrying this guy? And she smiled beautifully. And she said, as long as they love each other? And I said Linh, of all the couples who will have got divorced in the year 2023 in Sydney, Australia. What percentage of them do you think, told one another? I love you. When they got married. And she's very bright girl. She's, uh, she knew exactly where I was going with this. And she laughed. She said, 100% all of them. I said, right. And that's the ones who got divorced. So clearly, the fact that your daughter and her beloved loved one another is completely irrelevant. And she said, we're going to have to book another interview, we got to delve more deeply into that question. I've got to understand this better. Well, fortunately, her daughter is still very young. So she's got plenty time to get this clear. But those are very real questions. And just because we're living in the 21st century, it doesn't change anything. That question cropped up in my great-grandfather's village in Lithuania. You know, who knows? 150 years ago or more? That same question crops up.
Daniel Lapin 33:27
You got to remember that technology more than anything else, camouflages, how little things have changed. You remember, Rabbi Daniel Lapin says, the more that things change, the more we must depend upon those things that never change. And these are things that I'm talking about now, that never change. So how would you find out? Whether the person that you are thinking of forming a marriage with how do you how can you find out what their belief system is? Well, fortunately, for you, I have prepared and this is the crux of today's show. This is the core, I've prepared three questions. And you both have to answer these questions and then you just see whether you answer the same or you answer differently.
Daniel Lapin 34:31
Question number one, how do you think human beings came to be on this planet? Answer A, God created us in His image and placed us here Answer B: Well by a lengthy process of random, materialistic evolution, primitive proto-plasm turned into people. That's answer B.
Daniel Lapin 35:09
Question number two. Where is the human race headed? Answer A: to an ultimate day of God's choosing when a grand messianic redemption will take place, resulting in the whole world recognizing God and His truth. Answer B: where's the human race headed? To an ultimate day of destruction and oblivion? That will wipe us out through overcrowding, poverty, global warming, acid rain, nuclear explosion? Of course, meteorites, or any combination of the above? You get the idea? Is the future glorious and joyful? Or is the future doomed and horrible? Unless, of course, government seizes ever more power, and then collaborates with other governments to form a strengthened United Nations. And they take it because that'll solve all the problems.
Daniel Lapin 36:13
So. So there, you've got Question number one, how do human beings come to be on this planet? And question number two, where is the human race headed?
Daniel Lapin 36:24
And finally, question three, also with answer A, and answer, B. One, what are we really supposed to be doing? While we're here? What is our purpose on this planet? Answer A: we are supposed to be developing our relationship with God, and becoming closer to him through studying his Bible, and following his wishes. Answer B: we should all work together to head off the threats to humanity that we looked at in answer 2-B above. If they're too formidable for us to solve alone, we should urge our government to solve them by passing laws about how many flushes it takes to work your toilet, and what electric light bulbs you may use and what cars you may drive. And if the problems are too much for even one government to solve, then we should urge governments to cooperate through the United Nations in order to solve them. And we should grant the United Nations sovereign power to be able to bring about a solution that is vitally necessary.
Daniel Lapin 37:43
Those my friends are the three terrific existential questions, to ask somebody to try and find out if you're on the same spiritual page. The answers are, how did we get onto this planet? What is the future looking like? And what are we supposed to be doing meanwhile, between arriving on this planet and departing this planet?
Daniel Lapin 38:07
And when you know the answer to one, two, and three, each of those three questions you'll know right away. And so again, you know, if you are in the situation, or you know, young people who are, you would be doing them a big favor by giving them these three questions and saying them listen, instead of going to a movie with your boyfriend or your girlfriend, instead of going to a movie. Why didn't you go somewhere where maybe a quiet restaurant where you can have a meal, and the tables are not scrunched too close together, and you can talk? And why didn't you just explore these three questions together? Because if nothing else, the process of a spiritual exploration of this kind will bring you closer together, you will feel a deep connection, which is joyful. It's wonderful. It's really beautiful. Well, I don't have to tell you that Kevin and Hannah could hardly have reacted to these questions more differently from one another. And again, I want to stress that giving the same answer to all three questions is not by itself a sufficient guarantee of marriage. But I will tell you this. Having different answers is a sure recipe for disaster. I wish I could tell you that I managed to dissuade Kevin and Hannah from getting married. They did marry and they found a Rent-a-Rabbi to stand alongside the pastor to provide quasi-pseudo-kosher certification for the benefit of Kevin's traditionally-minded grandmother from Cape Town. In South Africa, beliefs really do matter. And so I will leave it at that, without telling you anything more about Kevin and Hannah. There no shocking surprises there.
Daniel Lapin 40:19
So that ladies and gentlemen, happy warriors one in all, that is pretty much where we're up to just remember, the more that things change, the more we need to depend on those things that never change. And five things that never change are your five F's. The idea that a happy family life, a happy person, a fulfilling life comes from maintaining these five. That isn't something that's going to change. You know, Samuel Johnson, who was a wonderful British writer, he lived for much of the 1700s. He was an older guy at the time of America's War of Independence and the Declaration of Independence. But he did live through that time. He also wrote, I think, the first and greatest Dictionary of the English language. His name was Samuel Johnson, and a very, a very, very extraordinary right at any at any rate, Samuel Johnson says the following, to be happy at home is the end of all human endeavor. Isn't that beautiful? To be happy at home is the end of all human endeavor. In other words, bottom line, if you have a happy home, you're a lucky human being. And one of the ways to bring that luck, one of the ways to make sure you do and you will build it or you will change it into that, or you will do whatever is necessary. One of the ways is by focusing on The Holistic You. Now you can download The Holistic You at RabbiDanielLapin.com. Just look for an e book called THe Holsitic You for free, it's yours. And it speaks about how to integrate the crucial five fundamental elements of your life, your faith, your friendship, your finance, your fitness, and your family. Those five and so, have a look at that ebook at RabbiDanielLapin.com. And until next week, I your rabbi, wish you a week of positive progress with your friendships and your faith, with your finance and your fitness and of course, your families. God bless.
