{"id":48450,"date":"2013-03-10T15:18:08","date_gmt":"2013-03-10T23:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=48450"},"modified":"2013-03-10T15:24:02","modified_gmt":"2013-03-10T23:24:02","slug":"i-wanted-to-be-holier-than-dennis-prager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=48450","title":{"rendered":"I Wanted To Be Holier Than Dennis Prager"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listening to Dennis Prager on KABC radio beginning in August of 1988 turned me on to Judaism. I read Prager’s book The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism<\/a><\/em> and by December of 1989, I had decided to convert.<\/p>\n

With a lifelong tendency towards extremism, I initially decided that I wanted to be holier than Dennis Prager. Dennis didn’t pretend to be anything he wasn’t. He didn’t pretend to be Orthodox. He just didn’t have an Orthodox temperament. He wasn’t a saint. He’d played the field as a single man. I wasn’t going to be like that. I was going to be holier. <\/p>\n

I gave up masturbation. Following the Orthodox practice, I refused to shake hands with women. I grew a beard and wore a yarmulke and tzitzit around my parents home where I was living from 1989-1993 while I struggled with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. <\/p>\n

Dennis Prager struggled with prayer. I read some books on the Jewish approach to prayer and they turned me on before I did much praying from the siddur (Jewish prayer book), when I realized how much drudgery it was. The inspiration only went so far. I decided I’d use prayer time in shul to study Torah, just like Dennis Prager does. <\/p>\n

I started meeting girls and I gave up my chastity and found myself having a great time playing the field. I quickly saw that I was not only not holier than Dennis Prager, I was considerably less holy.<\/p>\n

I tried to fence myself in by studying more Torah and observing those Torah laws that weren’t too inconvenient. I figured I could cheat on the sexual guidelines so long as I was strict and pious in everything else. I’d be 612 (613 commandments are traditionally ascribed to the Torah). <\/p>\n

So did I feel any guilt about being less holy than Dennis Prager? Not really. I figured that so long as I was in the ballpark of what Dennis prescribed I was doing fine. <\/p>\n

I came to Judaism by following the personal example of a moderate man and so I never got too down on myself until I blew up my relationship with Dennis in early 1998 (by blogging about him) and that led me to therapy and to eventual realizations about my deep-seated intimacy disorder that manifested in various emotional addictions. <\/p>\n

Life lets you know what you’re good at. In the face of female temptation, it was quickly apparent that I was not cut out for moral leadership. Instead, like Rousseau, I found I did better at writing confessional literature. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listening to Dennis Prager on KABC radio beginning in August of 1988 turned me on to Judaism. I read Prager’s book The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism and by December of 1989, I had decided to convert. With a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dennis-prager","category-personal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t