“A ritual is a physical expression of a value,” says Dennis Prager in his 2004 lecture on Deut. 26. “It took me about 50 years to figure that out. I wish you knew how much struggle is behind a simple line.<\/p>\n
“We have that in secular life. When I shake your hand, it says I come in peace to you. If someone were to refuse to shake your hand, you would read a great deal to that.”<\/p>\n
I’ve had a lot of people refuse to shake my hand, always people who’ve been offended by something I’ve written. I take it as an extreme form of hostility. When I can shake hands with someone, I feel like we have a chance to talk things through.<\/p>\n
Dennis: “There are two views of ritual in Christianity and in Judaism. Two extremes. One extreme is within Judaism — that ritual does not have meaning. God instructed it. You do it. You don’t ask questions. In my yeshiva training, we were taught to not ask reasons for rituals.<\/p>\n
“On the other hand, there are those Christians who say ritual is not necessary.<\/p>\n
“Both make a terrible mistake.”<\/p>\n
“A civilization will not survive without ritual, but ritual without meaning is pointless.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“A ritual is a physical expression of a value,” says Dennis Prager in his 2004 lecture on Deut. 26. “It took me about 50 years to figure that out. I wish you knew how much struggle is behind a simple … Continue reading