Don’t Despair; Do This Instead – With Rabbi Daniel Lapin: Are separate nations part of God’s plan? What is the solution to problems we’ve forgotten? What are the traditions we need to return to? Where do traditional values come from? Tune in to hear this enlightening session with Rabbi Daniel Lapin from the ProFamily Legislators Conference!

Air Date: 12/21/2021

Guest: Rabbi Daniel Lapin

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. WallBuilders Live, we’re taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. And we’re thankful that you are here with us today.

We have got a fantastic, fantastic lineup for you over the next three days. It’s actually all part of one presentation by Rabbi Daniel Lapin who just spoke to the legislators at our ProFamily Legislators Conference and we’re going to bring the talk to you right here on WallBuilders Live. “Don’t Tremble, Don’t Despair, Don’t Rage, Do this Instead.” 

Rabbi Daniel Lapin with the answer for that today, tomorrow, and the next day. So it’s going to be three of our WallBuilders Live programs to bring you the entire presentation that he gave at the legislator’s conference, so looking forward to sharing that with you over the next three days. You can always go to our website, wallbuilderslive.com, and get all of the programming all at once.

And also, you can get all kinds of programming from the last few weeks, we’ve had several other speakers from the legislators’ conference that we’ve shared with you, Kelly Shackleford, June Hunt, Mike Johnson. And then we’ve got more of those coming up in the next few weeks. So, a lot of great information, it’s powerful, it’s encouraging.

Now it’s eyes wide open, we don’t perfume in this up, right. We don’t cover up what’s happening in the country. We realize there’s huge challenges in our nation right now. But we also know that God’s word has all of the answers and those are the answers we bring to you here on WallBuilders Live.

I’m Rick Green, former Texas legislator, and America’s Constitution coach. Let’s jump right in with Rabbi Daniel Lapin at the ProFamily Legislators Conference.

ProFamily Legislators Conference

Rabbi:

Look, we all use the term traditional values, right? We use that all the time, we say we believe in traditional values and traditional values. But what does tradition really mean? And the definition that I would like to place before you this morning is that tradition is the solution to problems we’ve forgotten.

IMPORTANT TRADITIONS

And here’s the second part. When you forget tradition, those problems roar back and punish us. And so what are these traditions? Well, how about that men should grow up and escape adolescence and marry a woman? Now, this is so shocking that you can actually get penalized out there by saying that because tradition is something which prevents problems. How about that a married husband and wife should have children and raise a family?

How’s about that they should educate their children? How’s about that they should work? Work? Why? Doesn’t the government give out money? Well, yes, but the trouble is with that beautiful model is that you eventually run out of other people’s money. These are some of the traditional values.

Now, where do they come from? Well, how about the traditional value of loving our country? What about that one? I’m sure most of you will not be shocked to hear that that’s a biblical value. Genesis chapter 10 verse 5, and God wants everybody to settle in the separate islands of their nations, cultures, families, and countries. Yes. God does not want everybody in one big together amorphous mass. God never said workers of the world unite.

You know, I clearly remember my father used to take me to the zoo in Johannesburg, South Africa quite often. Now you might think to yourself, that’s rather a long way to go from the United States just to go to a zoo, but we actually live there at the time. And for a period, they had an animal there, and I’d heard about it. They got this animal and my father wanted to go to the zoo, and I wanted to see this animal. And the animal was called Eliga. You can understand what they did. They crossed a lion and tiger.

And I kept on trying to tag my father to the enclosure, he didn’t want to go. And when I eventually succeeded in getting him to the Eliga cage, I had not seen him look so sad for as long as I could remember, as a little boy. And I was oh, this is amazing. Look at this animal. And you could sort of see the stripes sort of vanishing and melding into the tawny color of the regular.

Now today, looking back, I also feel depressed even thinking about it because I understand what made my dad miserable. God created separate creatures and separate species. And animals are not supposed to be crossed. And neither are plants. God likes things to be separate. He doesn’t want everything to be one big amorphous mass. And so the idea of nations and countries is exactly what we should be doing.

And we even find in the federal system of separate states, the whole idea that different states can try different things and we can learn from one another. That was the idea. But the big danger that our founders understood was the danger that is being faced by the European Economic Union, whose demise I am sure we will all live to see because the tendency is to take over from the center. The yearning and the urge to wield power over other people is a characteristic of petty human beings.

A MOMENT FROM AMERICA’S HISTORY

Rick:

Got to interrupt for a moment, folks, we got to take a quick break. Stay with us, we’ll be right back on WallBuilders Live and we’ll jump right back in with Rabbi Daniel Lapin.

This is David Barton with another moment from America’s history. Revisions today often assert that our Founding Fathers were atheists or agnostics or deities. This charge is not new. In fact, Patrick Henry was even called a deist in his lifetime. Clearly, no one could question his patriotism. But Henry was hurt that they would question his Christianity.

Against the charges he was a deist, Patrick Henry thundered “Deism with me is but another name for vice and depravity. I here to say by the deist that I am one of their number. And indeed, that some good people think I am no Christian, this thought gives me much more pain than being called a traitor. Being a Christian is a character which I prize far above all this world has or can boast.” Patrick Henry was quick to refute the charge of deism and to declare his open belief as a Christian.

For more information on God’s hand in American history, contact WallBuilders at 1808REBUILED

Rick:

We’re back here on Wallbuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us through the break. Folks, this is Rabbi Daniel Lapin speaking at the ProFamily Legislators Conference, let’s just jump right back in where we left off before the break.

LORD ACTON

Rabbi:

Lord Acton the British historian and politician and thinker used to say famously, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” And so yes, there is a tendency to want to pull everyone together into one big amorphous mass to isolate any potential for individuality. Well, it’s not only that, is its God. 

Yeah, we get that. That’s from the Bible. That’s how we know him and we know His Word. And it’s country. Yes, that’s absolutely right. God wants us to be organized in countries, but He also wants us to be organized in families. And that’s part of it as well. That’s pretty clear in the Bible. In fact, we start off with the first two chapters of Genesis right there.

Now if you want to remember most easily what tradition is, we owe a great debt to that profound thinker and moral philosopher of the 20th century, John Lennon who wrote and sang a song in 1971 called Imagine. And imagine says, “No God, no religion.” 

It says “No heaven and no hell. And it’s clear, no family. And it’s also no countries, no borders.” All everything all the same. So if you want to know what tradition is, just go where John Lennon went and go the other way. And that’s how you can tell.

Now, many people are worried about well, you know, is that communistic? And is there a communistic plot? And John Lennon himself in a famous interview considered, he said, I’m not much of a communist myself, but the I-themes of the song I got from Yoko Ono. And yes, it is taken from the Communist Manifesto. So a lot of people think, oh, well, you know, does this mean that their communist cells infiltrating American.

What I want to tell you is that I can’t tell you they are not. But I can tell you, they don’t have to be. It always, sadly mystified me since 2001 security authorities in the United States would try and determine whether an event was a terrorist event if the Muslim involved had been actively connected with other Muslims, he had been part of a group of Muslim terrorism. And they never ever understood that when you have a coherent belief system, even if it’s an evil belief system, you don’t need anybody telling you what to do.

NO INSTRUCTIONS NECESSARY

In exactly the same way, then if your family got cursed away on a desert island, and the people at the next table got cursed away on another desert island, and people a third table got cursed were on a desert island, and with clandestine surveillance equipment the government watched and they’d see that’s weird. 

These people have no connection with each other, no radios, no telephone, and they’re all setting up their little societies in exactly the same way. They all seem to build a church. Like, how did they do that? Well, we don’t have to be in contact with one another if we are part of a cohesive belief system. We all know what to do.

And what we dismiss as a communism, if we’re brave, progressivism if we’re less brave; socialism, if we’re somewhere in between. It’s all exactly the same. And does it need to be instructed to people? Not at all any more than when I have an appointment and I leave 20 minutes to tear down the freeway and get to my appointment on time, and then it turns out, there’s a fender bender on the other side, doesn’t even affect my side of the freeway. 

And everybody on my side slows down. And so I say, you know what, there must have been a meeting last night, a hate lapping meeting. Don’t laugh. I’m sure they exist.

And in fact, I hope they do, otherwise it means I’m not saying anything provocative. But you see, there was a hate lapping meeting last night in a dark cellar. Everyone came with candles, and they had a meeting to determine how to make me late for my appointment. Everybody said, well, what you got to do is go on to interstate 6:35 and slow down at 9:15 tomorrow morning. No, that didn’t have to happen. Because you can count on human beings slowing down when there’s an accident on the other side of the road because we are all infatuated with sex and death.

Rick:

Okay, friends, quick break. We got to do just a couple of breaks once in a while. Alright, quick break here, we’ll be right back and you’ll get to jump right back in with Rabbi Daniel Lapin. Stay with us here on WallBuilders Live.

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Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. We’ve been listening to Rabbi Daniel Lapin today and yesterday, and frankly, tomorrow as well. This is a presentation he gave to the legislators at the ProFamily Legislators Conference called “Don’t Tremble, Don’t Despair, Don’t Rage, Do this Instead.” let’s pick up with Rabbi Daniel Lapin.

THE START OF LIFE AND END OF LIFE

Rabbi:

We’re all absolutely infatuated with the start of life and the end of life. And it’s no accident that the world of progressivism seizes control of a both. There was no plot, and there does not have to be a plot. People do not have to get together with each other. If per chance, they have a compliant media system that turns them into a unified group, well, then it’s so much easier. 

But even without that, they’d be fine. Because just like ISIS, and just like us, when you’ve got a cohesive belief system, nobody has to tell you what to do. If you’re part of ISIS, nobody has to say seize any opportunity to harm America and kill Americans. Nobody has to tell you that. It’s part of your fundamental belief system. It’s easy.

And so it is that all you’ve got to do is strip tradition out of people’s lives. All you got to do is strip away the biblical foundations of reality. And the result is traditional values fall away. It happens automatically. And so we had that during the 1950s, a group of secularized Jews from Germany, part of what was known as the Frankfurt School had come to the United States to escape Hitler. And these are Jews who had long ago and whose families had long ago rejected the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And all you have to do is reject the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then it follows as day follows night, it follows that you will then reject tradition and its values because they come right out of that Bible. And that means then you become automatically a person with a certain set of beliefs, which consistently violate traditional values, even when it’s illogical. 

When a young girl has an eating disorder because she thinks that she’s overweight, we don’t take her to a nutritionist. We take her to see a psychiatrist who tries to help her adjust her thinking to match the reality of her body.

A PSYCHIATRIST OR A SURGEON?

But what happens if that same young girl decides that she’s a man? Do we take it to a psychiatrist? No, actually, you can get into trouble if you do that. You have to take it to a surgeon. It’s illogical. If a girl thinks she’s overweight, we go to a psychiatrist. If we ever go things, she’s another sex, okay, no problem. Yeah, we’ll adjust your body. 

Why? These are two opposite ways of treating the same problem because nowhere in the Bible does it say anything at all about God made obese people and he made thin people. But it does say at the very opening and the book of Genesis, male and female, he created them and therefore that must be undone.

Don’t you think that they might possibly be a few intelligent people in the Democratic Party who say to everyone, guys, tone a down with us letting boys play on wrestling teams with girls. Hey, tone this down about letting guys into bathrooms that have clearly have girls marked on the door. Tone down, America’s not ready for this. We got a midterm election coming up. We got 2024 coming. Please tone it down and they cannot tone it down. That would be like somebody coming to you and say, hey, could you turn down your Christianity, please? 

No, I can’t. It’s a belief system, which is the 180 degrees inverse of our belief system. Male and female he created. Well, we got to undo that clearly. And so no matter what the cost, don’t talk to me about political costs. We’re talking about principle here, male and female, He created them, not on my watch. And they have to tackle that.

All of this is happening. The Frankfurt School comes here and in the 50s, they are dismantling the American university system. The American university system that one of the early presidents of Yale University, Ezra Stiles, wrote in his writings, he called Yale University, “Our New England, Beit Midrash” Beit Midrash? 

That’s what he wrote. Trouble is Beit Midrash is the Hebrew phrase. It’s the Lord’s language Beit Midrash means a place where you study God’s word. It’s a higher elevation than a seminary or a theological college, or it’s a much higher level. 

Beit Midrash is where you wash your hands before you go in and you make your hearts as pure as you can. And then you sit down with other similar scholars, and you study God’s word for 10 hours. That’s what a Beit Midrash is. That’s where my father sent me when I was 11-12 years old. So I’d got over Legos by them.

A MOMENT FROM AMERICAN HISTORY

Rick:

Alright, friends, hang on one second. We got to do one more break today and then we’ll finish out with Rabbi Daniel Lapin. Stay with us, we’re going to take a quick break here on WallBuilders Live.

This is David Barton with another moment from America’s history. Crime is one of America’s most serious problems today. Its affects reach not only the direct victims of its violence, but even those who have not been attacked. The concern for crime has not been limited to this century, however. Our founding fathers were also concerned about it. Yet the effects of crime unquestionably were much less and their generation.

So what was there deter to crime? Signer of the Constitution, James McHenry answered that question. He explained, “The Holy Scriptures can alone secure to society, order and peace; in vain, without the Bible, we increase penal laws and draw protections around our institutions. Bibles are strong defenses. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses.” Founding Father, James McHenry believed that widely teaching the Bible was the best means to deter crime.

For more information on God’s hand in American history, contact WallBuilders at 1808REBUILD.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Let’s go back to the ProFamily Legislators Conference. All through this program today, and tomorrow, and the next day we’re hearing Rabbi Daniel Lapin. Let’s pick up where we left off before the break.

Don’t Despair; Do This Instead – With Rabbi Daniel Lapin

Rabbi:

Not that long ago, it used to be Yale was that New England, Beit Midrash. The Frankfurt School of people come over and they turn the universities into the temples of a new faith called secular fundamentalism. And are they fundamentalists?

And so it doesn’t take long, as David Barton explained so beautifully last night, it doesn’t take long before all the teachers in the schools across America are the products of this new style university system. And it doesn’t take long before they corrupt the schools. Because when you eject tradition, it doesn’t remain empty in a vacuum because nature abhors a vacuum. All you got to do is get rid of God and tradition and the problems come roaring back. Because tradition is the solution to problems we’ve forgotten.

And when you forget tradition, the problems come back and punish us. And so it didn’t take long; 1962, the Supreme Court rules that a few moments of prayer at the start of the day in American schools is illegal. How has that come about? We asleep in a way we were because we all saw America as formidable and indestructible. We’d won World War II and we didn’t realize how frighteningly fragile and flimsy is our Bible-based civilization.

Rick:

Okay, folks, we are at a time for today. We will pick up tomorrow with more of Rabbi Daniel Lapin. He’s speaking at the ProFamily Legislators Conference on “Don’t Tremble, Don’t Despair, Don’t Rage, Do this Instead.” Well, more of that tomorrow here on WallBuilders Live. Don’t miss it. Be sure and check out our website today as well, WallBuilderslive.com.