Dennis Prager, Prophet

     I have been listening to Dennis Prager since 1982 when he was a radio broadcaster neophyte. My late father, a long time voracious consumer of late night talk way back to the days of Barry Farber in New York, introduced me to Dennis as "moderator" of a midnight Sunday show called "Religion on the Line".  Every week there would be a Catholic priest, a Rabbi, a Protestant pastor and, often, a representative of another faith or philosophy like Hinduism, Buddhism or Islam. They collegially discussed faith and its impact on daily life in the context of their own theologies, reflecting on the large similarities in values and distinguishing the differences in beliefs.

I am a pretty articulate person, but from the moment I heard Dennis, facilitating and questioning and yes, pontificating based on his broad education and, though he was then young and arguably inexperienced, I found myself wishing I could frame my thoughts as concisely and forcefully as he did. This was a contemporary (we are roughly the same age; as Dennis was starting his work in Los Angeles, like me a New York transplant, I was beginning a West Coast legal career that led to my becoming a prosecutor at the State Bar in 1986, which lasted 25 years) I could admire and emulate.

I looked forward to hearing Dennis before I went to sleep as much as watching the night time soap opera "Dallas". Now there is an irony.

Dennis always speaks something I have felt but could not frame at the moment of my experience. In a world in which I largely feel gaslighted by the public discourse and the demands of political correctness, he confirms that I am not in fact crazy to believe and think as I do on a variety of subjects.

He is passionate without ever becoming angry or nasty with those who disagree with him. That is a rarity with radio personalities of the left or the right. He doesn't demean the one with whom he disagrees. His motto is that he seeks clarity rather than agreement.

It is that clarity of thought in a world of psychological and verbal jumble that, to me, makes Mr. Prayer a prophet.  Today people think of prophets as augurs, like the people in those storefronts reading tarot cards and crystals.  No, this is like the men (alas, yes, they were mostly men, sorry political correct tyrants; there are a few women today who might qualify as prophets thought) of the Pentateuch who simply were able to sift from the forgive the word, "crap", of the societies in which they lived and find objective truth and try to warn the people of that truth in order to save their very souls. The men of old stood in the desert and shouted to the deaf. Dennis sits at a microphone and stands at podiums, and quietly proclaims and responds to questions of the thoughtful and the less than thoughtful, assuring those of us who usually feel at sea in the world that we are not, in fact, in need of a straitjacket, and keeping the truths of God and man and republic in circulation. A voice in the wilderness he is. 

There are many wonderful commentators on talk radio. But I can truthfully say that if Dennis were not on the air I would be bereft and might not even listen any longer. I would have to be satisfied with my reading only, for even my Church (I am a Catholic) is a victim of confusion and the preaching is geared to avoid offense. I haven't heard a single preaching on abortion since my former pastor retired (he has since died). Dogma and practice seem to be completely divergent. Dennis, my Jewish cousin, keeps me on track even theologically. 


It is rare for me to say that I wish I personally knew a "celebrity" (yes, Dennis you are a celebrity, a cerebral celebrity), but I would be honored, delighted to share a meal with Mr. Prager.

I live in California, in Los Angeles.  Dennis helps me to know that I am not alone. And that I should not despair.