TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: The Rabbi and The Rapper; A Conversation
Date: 12/13/24 Length: 01:34:54
Daniel Lapin 0:00
Greetings, Happy Warriors, and welcome to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show, where I your rabbi, provide details on how the world really works. And today I have a really special show. I had a lot of fun with this. It's it's going to seem like an interview, but I didn't think of it as an interview. To me, it was more of a conversation with a very special person, our highly unusual personality. So I'll tell you about that. I also want to thank those of you who've been actively promoting the show. Our numbers of subscribers keeps on growing to my enormous gratification. So I do appreciate that, and I also very much appreciate those of you who become part of the Happy Warrior community. And as always, for you who have put out the special effort to do that, I put out the special effort to produce a little mini bonus podcast, especially for you guys, in which I generally deal with topics that I may be less likely to do in a more public format. So that'll be waiting for you on your we Happy Warriors special member page and and with the holidays coming up, I also hope that some of you will consider gifting people with a membership to the We Happy Warrior community. What's great about it is that it provides access to so much material on an as wanted, on an as needed basis. So you give somebody a year's membership to the Happy Warrior community, and you're giving a whole lot of benefit there. You're giving a sense of belonging, a sense of connection, and as well, access to material that we have laboriously assembled over the past years. So thanks for thinking of that. Here's something else we've also got. Susan did a 45 minute video program of how to make Challah. Challah is special festival bread, and there's nothing that tastes anything like it. It's really quite extraordinary. It is. It's the bread we use for Shabbat on Friday night and on Shabbat morning. It's the bread we use for festivals and holidays. And with Chanukah coming up, we will be doing that as well. So why not learn how to do it? You'll also be able to download a recipe that not a the recipe. And I'll tell you something, most women jealously guard their recipes and and this, in this case, Susan is generously with an open heart, offering her recipe to people who take on the project of making their own chala. So that you'll find at Rabbi Daniel lapin.com that's available for anybody the making, the art of making Challah with Susan Lapin. And then something else we also do, which at this time of the year is extremely useful. I mean, I do it, and most people, I know, do it, and and that is they, they take advantage of Charting Their Course. And we prepared a book with with weekly directions and weekly inspirationals and a means of keeping a track of what you're trying to accomplish and making sure you do so. It's a journal called Chart your Course. And again, if you go to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin website, you will see it there. And I hope you will enjoy it. Make use of it as the beginning of January looms onto the horizon, and so, okay, the conversation I had was with a guy called Zuby. It was a wide ranging conversation, and it was quite extraordinary. It was one of those conversations where, you know, I kind of almost wish that I do a Joe Rogan type, long form podcast where we could have spoken for a few hours, because I really would have enjoyed doing that. But as it is, for the amount of time we did speak, I did enjoy it. So you're probably going to want to find out more about Zuby, and you can, of course, listen to his podcast, which I enjoy very much. And you can also listen to his music. And some of you, maybe many of you, maybe all of you. And you know, it's distinctive. It's for those, who, who are ardent enthusiasts, are. That music, I believe it is of a very high caliber, and something you'll enjoy. So there it is. You're gonna enjoy me talking to my special guest, Zuby. Welcome Happy Warriors to the Rabbi, Daniel Lapin show where I your rabbi, reveal how the world really works. And today is an unusual showing that I am absolutely delighted to have a guest, and our guest is a very well known podcaster, a a personality that has appeared on many, many, many shows. His name is Zuby, Z-U-B-Y, the real Zuby and his podcast is called Real talk with Zuby, Susan and I - actually he came to Susan's attention first, and she said, You got to listen to this guy and what struck her was that he tells the truth. Now, you see, I tell the truth also so that that part's easy, but he does it in a way that looks friendly and he smiles. And more importantly, not only does he look as if he likes the people he's talking to? I think he really does. And so I've got a lot to learn from our guest today, so I'm going to be trying to do just that, and you are going to enjoy the insights and the views of this man, Zuby, probably better than I can, because if I do it, I'm just going to be overflowing with with admiration. But if you do an introduction, maybe you just give people a bit of an overview of how, how you happened onto the scene a few years back.
Zuby 7:02
Firstly, thank you for the introduction. I was smiling as you were saying that I appreciate the kind words. So as you said, my name is Zuby. I'm an independent rapper, author, host of the real talk with Zuby podcast and public speaker. Originally from the UK, family background from Nigeria. I grew up in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia, currently living in Dubai. Wow, I don't know where to begin my story. I do a lot of things, and I've been to a lot of different places. I started my music career when I was studying computer science at Oxford University. Not your typical rapper origin story, but I was in my first year of university, and I started rapping as a hobby. I'd been a hip hop fan for many years prior to that, and after I'd been rapping for about 10 months, I released my very first album called commercial underground. I put that out when I was 19 years old, when I was still in university, and people really liked it. Fast Forward many years, I went full time into my music in 2011 from then, I have released nine albums and EPS. To date, I wrote and released my first book in 2019 also started my podcast january 2019 and that was a very transformative year for me. So eight years into doing all of this full time. About 1213, years into the full journey, I started to gain a lot more attention, not just in the UK, but all over the world, primarily through Twitter, of all places. At the beginning of 2019, I had been on, well, the app is now called X, but at the time it was called Twitter, I'd been on that platform for a decade, and I'd accumulated about 18,000 followers by january 2019, as I speak today, I've got over 1.2 million on x alone, over 2 million followers across social media. So the past five years have really been a massive spike, and a lot of people now know me for my social and cultural commentary, and I'm all constantly bewildered and humbled by the amount of people around the world in all these different countries who know who I am, who appreciate my voice and who find something of value through all The different channels of information that I put out.
Daniel Lapin 9:22
You've, you've been in a lot of places. You know the UK, well, you know the United States. Well, you know the Middle East. And how do you I, if you were in charge, you could wave. How do you find the balance between a society with a lot of fixed rules, in which one lacks a certain degree of freedom to do absolutely anything, but at the same time, everything functions. You can you can walk around the streets. Everything is good. You know, I think of a place maybe like Singapore, but. Uh, versus, you know, the United Kingdom, or the United States, where where liberty and free liberty, perhaps, has been confused with with license and freedom has become, if it's possible, in excess, in a certain way, so incredibly free, but with obvious problems as people express their freedom in different ways. Switzerland may be somewhere in between. You know, it's there a lot of rule if you, if you have, if you had to pick your ideal society? What is it in that sense?
Zuby 10:46
That is an excellent question, and it's actually very multi layered and multi faceted. In my opinion, I have traveled to 45 countries so far and spent a lot of time in probably at least seven or eight of those that I could say that I've perhaps lived in to maybe to some degree, it's a complicated question for many reasons, and it's because there's not really a single answer. It depends on so many different factors. So right now, I live in the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. This is a city of about 3 million people in a country of about 10 million it has, I haven't been to Singapore, but as I understand, it has many parallels with Singapore. And these are unique places in many ways, if you even compare the UK and the USA, sure, historically, they share some similar roots, obviously, but on an obvious level, the USA is Texas alone is bigger than the entire United Kingdom. The USA has about five times the population of the UK, and so you cannot necessarily govern the UK and the USA the same way you might not be able to govern the countries of India and China with over a billion people each certainly not the same way you govern Singapore or govern Switzerland. So it's complicated. You also have to add in history, religion, cultural background, all sorts of different things. Oh, I think we've Yes, I think, okay, there we go. A little out. Okay,
Daniel Lapin 12:31
you're saying China and India are large. They have their own problems. Yes,
Zuby 12:37
yeah. So I was saying that some of it is just a matter of scale, and the sheer number of human beings that you're dealing with, if you take countries like China or India, each of them has over 1.2 billion people. You compare that to somewhere like Iceland. Iceland has about 300,000 and you have smaller countries with maybe closer to around 10 million. You've got places like, I don't know Sweden and Norway. You mentioned Switzerland before. I don't know off the top of my head, the population of Switzerland. So size itself is a factor. And then you add on history, culture, religious traditions, all of these types of things. And there's not, I don't believe that there's a single form of governance that you can just apply to every single nation, and it's going to work out fine. There's so much cultural and historical context, I could tell you, from a sort of ideological perspective, what would be the sort of zooby utopia. The zubi Utopia would essentially be a nation where there are relatively few laws that need to come from the government itself. You have the basic ones. Do not kill, do not steal, you know, respect private property rights, right, don't take what's not yours. You know, the very basic thing sort of a non Aggression Principle, let's say. But you'd also have a society where people have other strong moral codes that go beyond what is legal and what is illegal. So this can come from faith. This comes from family. This comes from social norms and cultural norms. If you think about it, I mean, I would imagine that on a day to day basis, the way that you behave and the way that most of us behave, it's not primarily based on what is legal and what is illegal. We have other moral codes. We were raised in a certain way. We live amongst certain people. We you have a you have a religious faith, so you live by laws that are not necessarily I mean, especially being a Jewish person, you live by many hundreds of laws that are not laws according to the, you know, the the state of. The state of Maryland or the United States of America. These are just social, moral, cultural, religious codes that you believe in. So I think in an ideal society, it would be relatively libertarian from the governmental aspects. However, it wouldn't result in just hedonism and chaos and licens licentiousness, as you said earlier, fantastic word, because people have those other moral codes that they're living by, and they respect one another, and they respect human life and human dignity, and everyone you know, wants to just live by that golden rule and love and treat their neighbors as themselves. So to me, that is what would be the ideal. And I think interestingly enough, the more that people abandon or disobey those inner codes, let's call them or cultural codes, then I think that actually, that that can actually in time, in time, lead to more tyranny, because the state or the government has to step in and keep creating new laws because people just don't know how to act right. People are just going crazy, and it's creating all of these downstream issues. So you they can't really be quite so laissez faire, and the state just comes in and it's like, Hey, if you yourselves as individuals and as communities, if you cannot regulate yourselves, we shall come in here and regulate you. But I think if people regulate themselves well as individuals and as communities and as a wider society, then we can live without such heavy handed state.
Daniel Lapin 16:46
You know, you sound like the founders of the United States. One of them said that the Constitution of this country was created only for and he used the word a religious people, meaning exactly your point that this system of minimal government, which was the original design the federal government, has swollen by many, many orders of magnitude since the country's founding, but their original concept was exactly what you've just said, which is really remarkable, and it kind of did work like that for for quite a long time. Fascinating. It really is, yeah, it would be, it would be wonderful to live in a place like that. And, yeah, you're right. I mean, the the more individual restraint is abandoned, the more external governance becomes more urgent,
Zuby 17:53
for sure. I mean, I think you can see this on even different levels of humanity. For example, I'm not a parent yet, but I'm an I'm an uncle times 10, and I will be a parent for sure in the future. So you know, I have spent a good amount of time around young children, and it's like, if you have a child, let's say I don't know, a three year old, a five year old, a 10 year old, it doesn't matter their age. If you have a child who is who regulates himself well and is generally well behaved, and has a sense, a good sense, of right and wrong, and wants to do what is right. You don't need to be particularly heavy handed, right? You don't really need to discipline him all too often or tell him off or enforce too many rules and boundaries, because you could just give him a couple, Hey, be kind to people. Don't take people's stuff, don't hit people, and be respectful, right? And he can just take those four codes and just apply it to everything. And you know, he'll probably mostly stay out of trouble. But if you have another child who is much more naughty and disobedient and unstable and chaotic, then you might need to, you might need to give him 100 rules, and he'll still disobey them. And you need to now have okay if you violate this one, this is the punishment, and if you do this one, and this one, and by the next thing you know, you have now 200 300 different rules, and they're not even at that stage, they might not really be being obeyed. And so I think, yeah, I think you can, you can just have a softer touch at every level. I think this is even true of ourselves as individuals. I think when we you know the hardest person to discipline, perhaps, is yourself. It's something that we struggle with, even as adults and but the better you do it, then, I mean, obviously, the better your life will tend to go as well. But, yeah, if you do it yourself, then no one else has to, kind of come in and step in and do
Daniel Lapin 19:57
Is a very foundational. A Jewish statement written down about 2000 years ago, which says defining what is real strength in it, who, you know, who is a really strong who's a mighty person. And the answer is, He who can regulate himself. Yep, I love it, and that's exactly it. And there's a piece I haven't got the exact wording, but the poet John Milton wrote about Oliver Cromwell that long before he achieved battlefield victories, he had already achieved far greater victories in controlling himself. So yeah, that's very much a part of it. And I yeah, I hope you very soon will have a number of little people to raise and steward and and help make their way in the world. But before that happens, there has to be a Mrs. Ruby. And is there a Mrs. Ruby? Yet?
Zuby 20:59
Yes, there is
Daniel Lapin 21:02
how wonderful. Then I I want to go back, if I might, and we're all, we're all a work in progress. And I say that there are many things that I have said and done from years ago that I don't want to be judged by so no judgment at all. But if you don't mind, I want to go back to you mentioned Twitter are now known as x and and and, gosh, how wonderful that that platform exists under the leadership and the ownership it does exist now. It really changed everything in America, but you wrote, and we're going back five years to be February 2020. Is it? Can I go back? You know,
Zuby 21:50
I get nervous every time I'm doing an interview, and someone so someone brings up one of my, one of my 170,000 plus tweets. And years ago,
Daniel Lapin 22:03
you know, I always explain cities as the height of of human achievement, and it was when, when human beings build a city, it's extraordinary. You know, a beavers don't build cities. Giraffes don't build cities, alligators don't build cities. This is a uniquely human thing, and a city is a place of such potential. There is so much extra economic output that we're each capable of in close proximity to other people, that there's plenty left over for nice streets and pretty buildings and art galleries and music and museums. Cities are great places. But then, in a recent podcast, I pointed out that that without without exception, the urban areas of America voted for a set of policies that I don't agree with, the set of policies, the Biden Obama Harris policies and rural areas went the other way and and so somebody got a hold of me and said, Hey, I don't understand. You know, you always say cities are great places, and now you're, you're running them down as as places where. And I put it out even more that in the countryside, I can be a man, because, you know, if, if, if an animal has to be shot, my wife doesn't want to do it, I'll do it if the tractor needs to be repaired, or if the well stops pumping water, you know, I got to go do these things, but you live in a city, it doesn't need me. My wife picks up the phone and calls the guy to come fix it. So there is no masculine role for a guy in the city. The masculinity finds expression in in the country, as it were, I can, I can be useful in the city. I'm kind of redundant. Which, which for a guy is one step ahead of being impotent. It's horrible. But anyway, so, yeah, there's a cities can be fantastic, but if they go wrong, they can be pretty bad as well. So, yeah,
Zuby 24:11
sure. Well, I think, I think in general, the closer you are to nature, the more that both men and women fall into their natural gender roles. The more you add in urbanization and technology, the more you sort of squash the differences between the genders. When you add tech that's able to I mean, the biggest obvious difference that we have is in terms of physical size and strength and endurance and speed. But when you add in computers and cameras. Look at this podcast we're doing right here. I don't need to be particularly masculine to do a podcast, right So, yeah, I think that's just an interesting thing that happens. If you want to see people quickly fall back into gender roles, then just introduce any type of emergency or real world situation. You have to deal with nature, and I think that's why people in the country, part of why they're much more in touch with that.
Daniel Lapin 25:07
That's so interesting. I don't even know if this in the UK, if this is still a thing, but the author of Peter Pan, JM Barry, did a wonderful play called The admirable Crichton, and I don't know if that came across your radar screen at all, but an aristocratic London family, and the Butler is this, you know, obsequious guy who takes care of whatever they need, and then the family goes on a trip, and they get shipwrecked on an island, and it turns out that the only guy who knows how to make fires and how to make shelter and how to do all the practical things of life, is the butler. And so whereas the daughter of the family, the heiress of the family, barely noticed him before on the island, she falls in love with him. Interesting. All of a sudden he became masculine, as you just said, you know, he took away the city, and all of a sudden, there's a role. Anyways, here's what you said, here's what you wrote on Twitter five years ago. Zuby, are you ready? I hope so. What you wrote is, here's advice for women, how to land a great guy. And here it comes. And And folks, you happy warriors, you know, don't get mad at me. He said, it not me. Here it is. Be in shape is number one, grow your hair long, be sweet. Learn to Cook, and don't be annoying. And then you added one more. You said if, if you were really going to be honest, you're also going to add be young, but you said that's not controllable. So you're not really saying that, but you really are. First of all, the reaction to that must have been quite interesting.
Zuby 27:19
Do you know the best part about this Rabbi is I had a list for men as well.
Daniel Lapin 27:26
That was my next question for guys,
Zuby 27:30
and the list for men was far more difficult to achieve. But which one do you think got the got the strong reaction and generated the anger?
Daniel Lapin 27:40
Well, I'd like to say that the reaction to this one that I read was different. You got men reaction, women reaction, I'm going to think that they were somewhat different and and so I think probably women responses was a frenzy of uncontrollable fury, and a lot of men responses probably was Yeah, right on, but don't tell anyone I said so
Zuby 28:08
yeah, it was right on, yeah. And that makes sense, yeah. Well, and you know what? Let me, let me wait for you to ask a question here.
Daniel Lapin 28:16
And well, let's, look at the man one. What is your list for guys
Zuby 28:24
getting a great okay, I can't, well, I cannot remember what I wrote. So we'll try to come up with five. I'm gonna try to come up with five, with five off the top of my head, I'm gonna start with the same one. Be in shape. Be physically fit, take care of yourself, be in good health, as much as you can be. I would say number two is become competent. And that's a huge bucket, because there's many, many different things that you can be competent in, and you don't need to be competent in every single thing. Nobody is expecting you to be a musician and a plumber and an electrician and a pilot and a doctor and a lawyer, right? Just you know, become confident at something. Have some be making be of benefit to society. Maybe that's a good way to put it. Offer something of value to society, and with that competent also comes confidence. A lot of people try to put the confidence first, but I think that True Confidence is derived from competence. So get in shape, become competent. Let's see I would say, I would say it's connected to the first one, but I would actually just say, present yourself well. Present yourself well into your body language, your attire, your grooming, all of these things that are quite easy to overlook, especially when life gets busy. But you know, make sure. Your clothes are fitted well, present yourself in the best way possible, right? We can't alter our facial genetics or our height or those type of things, but everyone, whether you're tall, short, conventionally handsome or not, if you present yourself well to the world, then both men and women are likely to treat you with more respect. You show that you're presenting yourself with respect, and it tends to be reciprocated. I will say, again, it's connected to number two, but I will say, have the capacity to provide this doesn't mean you have to be super wealthy or you need to become a millionaire, but be, have the capacity to provide. Be, you know, this links to being competent and being useful. And I would also say, have the capacity to protect. Maybe, maybe we could lump those two together, protection and provision. And then let me throw one more in there. And I will say, build your build your character. Build your character. This is a combination of things. It's a, you know, I think, a combination of kindness, assertiveness, confidence, knowledge, being intelligent, or at least intellectual, not being someone who has no knowledge of anything around the world. Let me, make those five. I could add a few more things, but no
Daniel Lapin 31:30
that I think that's great. Is building character linked to having an internal, an internal set of values, or is it something? Is that a separate thing?
Zuby 31:45
Yes, let's Yeah, you could separate them, or you could put them together. When I when I say character, I also should add moral fiber, because you could be somebody who is charming and charismatic and confidence, and, you know, all of these positive traits. But if you at the core, if your morality is corrupt at the core, then you might just be a charming psychopath. So that's why it has to be tempered with kindness and honesty, and, you know, a genuine care for other human beings. I think, you know, I think you can almost sort of separate the concepts of being good at being a man and being a good man. I don't think these are the same thing. You can be both. You could be a good man but not be good at being a man. So this would be the sort of typical nice what a lot of women would decry as a nice guy, right? Meaning that maybe you you don't really have strong values, you don't have a lot of backbone. You're nice to everyone, but you're kind of just weak and blow wherever the wind blows,
Daniel Lapin 32:55
that kind of nice guy finishes lost, and the reason is because he is a good man, but not good at being a man,
Zuby 33:04
exactly. And then if you want to take the extreme opposite, you can have someone who's good at being a man, meaning that they're very masculine and very competent, very confident. They're, you know, they're, they're great at protecting, great at providing or whatever, but they're just not a good man morally, ethically, morally, their values are just corrupt. And so you really want to combine the two, I think, and I think sometimes so much focus is put on one and a lot is forgotten about the other. So you know, you might talk to you might talk to be in certain circles, maybe even perhaps so I would say, in many religious circles, for example, there is so much focus in the messaging for men. Whether this is coming from it could be in Judaism, it could be Christianity, but there's so much focus. I can certainly speak for modern Christian churches on being a good man, and that is very important, but the part of being good at being a man is often overlooked or missed out. And so you have these guys who are like that man, like, Man, I'm I'm such a nice guy, right? I'm so nice, like, I've got my values or whatever. But why? Why am I not getting the respect I deserve? Why are, why are women overlooking me for the sort of bad boy type? And it's probably because that so called Bad Boy, or the guy you might think is a jerk is probably very good at being a man, but he's not a good man. And then, if you flip it, a lot of the sort of modern masculinity advice and stuff that's out there is very, focused on, you know, building wealth, building your muscles, building your so called social circle, becoming strong, becoming confidence, learning how to approach, learning to be good in social situations. But it tends to miss the moral aspect, right? That's just not even talking about the. The Invisible
Daniel Lapin 35:01
inner core just isn't there.
Zuby 35:04
Yeah, and, and if you don't have that, then, yeah, it can result in so I'm sure we can all think of examples from modern times and certainly throughout history, of men who were certainly, you know, masculine, and they had leadership qualities, and they were charismatic, and they knew how to, you know, drive people and so on. But at the core, they were, they were corrupt, right? A lot of, a lot of dictators, a lot of wicked tyrants. They had this sort of mentality where, okay, like this, this guy is masculine and powerful, but without the benevolence it can it can be even more dangerous than if you were not so masculine and capable, if that makes sense. Yeah,
Daniel Lapin 35:54
very much. So you, you, you conjured alive again, as seen from my past, and when you spoke about competence, Susan and I raised six daughters, and so amazing over the years, we met, and they're all married now, but we met many young suitors, and at the time, We were living on an island near Seattle, fairly remotely. And one young man flew in to meet one of our daughters, and he rented a car at the airport, apparently, and then drove over, and she was, I think she was our oldest daughter. This was the story with and we had a window in the attic that sort of looked out. And when he arrived, her five sisters and one brother were all at the window getting an initial glimpse of this guy. And he pulled up in his car, and rented car, obviously, and came to the door, and a few moments later she went out, and again, her siblings eyes were glued from upstairs as she walked out to the car with him, and he walked her to the passenger side, and he tried to open the passenger side door, and he fiddled and keyed and put the key the other way and tried it. And the giggles from upstairs this. Everyone was in hysterics at this, and then finally he gave up, left her standing at the passenger door, went around to the driver's side, climbed in, leaned across and opened the passenger door, and everyone cracked all, I mean, her siblings all cracked up and said, that's done. She's as far as she's concerned, if you didn't figure out how to open your car door before you arrived, you lack competence. And that was exactly
Zuby 38:01
after all the effort, I was there waiting for a happy ending, after, the flight was happy.
Daniel Lapin 38:08
No, I'm afraid that's
Zuby 38:11
incompetent. Oh, man, that's a that's a shame. That's tough, yeah. Well, that's, that's how it was when you were describing it. It sounded like a scene from what is it? Is it like? Is it Pride and Prejudice? It sounded like I am getting the right, the right.
Daniel Lapin 38:29
Yeah. And a lot of life in the Lapin household resembled English novels.
Zuby 38:35
Okay, that's funny.
Daniel Lapin 38:40
I don't know if you ever, if you ever encountered the series of the English series, I don't even know if it's around anymore today, by Richmond Crompton, William the Williams stories about a 10 year old Okay, well, a 10 year old boy gets into a lot of mischief, so that that was Also a very much part of the background. But anyway, that's that, that's how that was you. You mentioned being able to provide. Let's talk for just a moment about the fact that in the women's list, how to make yourself ready for a terrific guy and a good marriage. There was no mention there of financial ability. But on on the guy side, there was being a provider. So that would, that would obviously, you know, and I'm not shocked to that, obviously, but I just wanted to try and dig into that a little bit deeper and sort of clarify my own thinking on this as well. But so So clearly we're saying that being able to financially provide is far more important. Important for a guy than for a girl, and I would go a step further before seeing what you think if I say that the financial side of it impacts the core identity of masculinity. And so as sadly, we know, because of the financial collapse of a number of different industries in in the in the United States, since the 80s, manufacturing in the Northeast steel in places like Pittsburgh, when these things vanished, and there was mass loss of jobs, and then there was lots of subsequent Fallout, when when a town's main industry collapses or leaves, then a lot of secondary and supportive entities are imperiled as well. And so what what was discovered is something that is is fairly logical and not shocking, and that is that that loss of income, the loss of an ability to provide cuts deep into the masculine essence of a man. Now losing a job and having financial stress is hard for a woman as well, no question about it, but it doesn't imperil her femininity, oh
Zuby 41:35
no, and it doesn't imperil her life in the same way, because men are something like four times more likely to take their own lives following a job loss than a woman is. It might even be nine times. It's a big multiplier. It's several 100%
Daniel Lapin 41:52
that's exactly what I was trying to get to. Yes, that's exactly right. So how are we supposed to integrate that together with the push for gender egalitarianism, the essence that men and women are exactly the same, and we've got to stop this idea of being acculturated. So are we saying that that's an acculturated difference, or are we saying that's hard wired into what being a man is.
Zuby 42:26
I would make the argument that every enculturated difference that exists or double standard that exists in a society or a culture or tradition. I would argue that every single one of them has some form of biological rooting. And this doesn't mean that they're all good. Some of them are good, some of them are bad, but they're all rooted in biology, if you think of Okay, let's take something basic. I don't know, women, women and children first, never hit a woman. How come never? I mean, you shouldn't really hit anyone, but never hit a woman. Why? Okay? Why is that? That concept is rooted in biology. Men in general are bigger and stronger, and so there is something that both men and women recognize is particularly bad about a man hitting a woman. Now, under the law, maybe they may be treated the same, and nobody is out there saying, Hey, it's okay for women to hit men, or even for men to hit men, or for women to hit women. But these sort of double standards, as people call them, they are. They're biologically rooted. So somebody could say that it's an unfair double standard that men are expected, even the even feminists, even these modern feminists and progressives and so on, they still expect a man to pay for the first date. In most cases, they still want the Manchester taller than them. So you can't really get around the biology, but just just at the same time, someone could say, hey, it's not fair that looks are not as important. You know, men care more about looks than women care about looks. And someone might say that that's not fair, right? Men are not spending billions or trillions of dollars every year on all of these cosmetics and different skin products and plastic surgeries and all these types of things, but it's because, you know, as much as people may want to be in denial, everyone at their core knows that beauty is a more important asset to a woman than it is to a man. Just like having money or wealth, the ability to provide that's more important for a man, it's not the be all and end all, and certainly when it comes to I think the reason people get confused with a lot of the egalitarian stuff is because people are sort of conflating legal, social, cultural and biological. Okay, so if I make a statement about the. Differences between men and women, or their different things they're attracted to, or their different expectations, or so on. Someone may hear that and think that I'm trying to make some type of legal mandate, and I'm trying to say that only men should be allowed to do X and women should not be allowed to do X. And I'm not saying that, and I wouldn't say that. What I'm saying is that the actual results and the weightings on all of these things, they're not equal. They're not egalitarian. And a lot of people get really confused. For example, there are a lot of young women out there, some of them not even so young, who are constantly confused as to why men are not attracted to the same thing that they are. Okay? So maybe you have a woman. Maybe you have a woman who's in her 30s, and she thinks that she should be very attractive to men because she is super educated. She has lots of degrees. She's a good income earner. She's very confident, she's strong, she's assertive, you know, she might say things like, you know, men can't handle me. They're intimidated by me or so. So she's basically become the type. She's basically become a female version of the man she wants to date or marry, right? So she she a lot of a lot of women, have turned into the men that they wanted to be with. And then, lo and behold, a man with those traits in general is not going to be attracted to those same things. In fact, the more masculine and the more competent and the more confident he is, and the better a provider he is, in fact, may perhaps the less He will even care about those things. In fact, some of those things will start to become a detraction rather than an attraction, because he wants to be, he wants to be the leader, right? He doesn't want to be a stay at home husband or whatever. You know, he wants to be the one who is able to be capable and provide and have someone depend on him to some degree, and they then have that masculine and feminine polarity. Now I understand there are rare, exceptional couples where this is inverted, and the man lives the more traditional female role, and he's a stay at home father, and the wife goes out and earns the living and the brand is here. Of course, across billions of people, there are going to be some situations where that works out, but for the majority of people, that's not the dynamic that either the man wants or the woman wants. And even statistically, those types of relationships are less likely to go the distance, because, yeah, they don't. They don't tend to last. You really have to be very exceptional for that type of dynamic to work, because it's difficult. The truth is, it's difficult for a woman to respect a man that she doesn't look up to. A woman has to look up to her man to in some degree. I mean,
Daniel Lapin 47:59
not to. I'm not trivializing it at all. On the contrary, your point about these things being rooted in biology, I love that. That's That's exactly that really makes a lot of sense when you use the phrase looking up to a fascinating study I did, which is that men on average are taller than women, as as you pointed out. And if you did a computer, you know data about people's gender and height. We know in the United States because you get measured every time you go to the doctor, you get weighed, and you get your height gets measured and and if you randomly matched up a man with a woman throughout the 300 million people of the United States, you'd end up with about a 58% of couples thus created, the man would be taller than the woman. 58 to 62 is not sure, but somewhere in the 60% range in reality, if you look in real life, you just ballpark the figure. The couples in which the man is tall is about 90%
Zuby 49:11
Yeah, I was gonna say probably about 90 Yeah. So the, I would bet you, I would bet you that that is true across the entire globe, not just the US.
Daniel Lapin 49:21
I'm sure you're right. I'm sure you are. And so the only alternatives are that men look for shorter women, women look for taller men, or both. Those are the only ways to explain it, because statistically, there's too many cases like that. And I think maybe in a funny way, it's exactly the point you made a woman wants to look up to her man. Yes, height is the metaphorically
Zuby 49:44
and yeah, yeah, literally, literally and metaphorically. So, I mean, you know, it's, it's kind of funny, because we've known all of this for 1000s upon 1000s of years, and it's a. Me in sort of very modern times where all of this stuff has been questioned again and up for debate, and people feel like they need a study to understand the most basic things that exist. But it's nothing new. I mean, our species has been this way forever.
Daniel Lapin 50:18
In fact, you, as you say, our great, great grandfathers, who I think lived on the same continent, actually are would would both have agreed that that if a woman, if a wife is much richer than her husband, it's probably not going to be so good. And so, you know, 150 years ago, guys would have known that today, it's a lot more controversial to well, to talk about that. Do you
Zuby 51:01
know what's interesting is maybe it is, in a way, but perhaps I'm seeing these conversations taking place more in the recent years than perhaps at any other time in my own lifetime. But they don't tend the conversations don't tend to happen with a lot of nuance or a lot of honesty. And I think that we live in a time, at least in the West, where people are just so emotionally charged that it's very difficult to have a lot of conversations honestly, and people avoid having many conversations because there's always somebody out there who's going to be upset or who's going to misinterpret something, or who's going to there's going to be someone, you know, if we put this, if a million people heard this conversation, there's going to be at least several 1000 of them who would take some of the statements we've said in the past hour, and they would say that we are misogynistic and that we hate women, and that we're sexist and that we're this, and that we're that we're none of these things. But just by saying some of these statements, these facts, and I've noticed is yes, and something I've noticed is I've coined this term called the the the obsession with exceptions. And this is something that we're suffering. This is something we're suffering with a lot in the Western world, which is that any time you make any type of generalized statement that is not true of every single human being on Earth, someone wants to jump in and point out the exception. If I say that men are taller than women, someone's going to want to jump in and talk about how their sister is six foot two, and actually she's taller than most men, and so on and so forth. As if, yes, as if, as if, we're not aware that there are that some women are taller than some men.
Daniel Lapin 52:50
The the term is obsession with exceptions. Obsession with exceptions. That's what I call it. I'll quote you on that. That's wonderful. Okay, that's exactly right, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, it's almost greater concern for the exception than than, you know, when I use the word normal, that's a bad word, yes,
Zuby 53:12
yes. And if you really want to see, I mean, boy, I mean there, I can think of so many examples where this causes massive triggering and backlash. For example, if you say that, generally speaking, it's best for a child to have a mother and a father and be raised in a tube, raised in a two parent house. Oh my, uh oh, uh oh. You say that one in public and oh boy. You know, people, people will hear that. And the most obvious statement in the world, most obvious statement in the world, and someone will start jumping in and talking about, well, what about if the father is abusive? Or are you saying that single mothers are terrible? Or are you saying that everyone who's raised by a single mom is bad? And hey, well, I was raised by a single mom, and I came out fine, and I didn't, I didn't say any of that. I didn't say any of that. I simply said that, if we look across the board, if you want studies, they're studies. You don't need studies for this, though, two is more than one, and other things being equal, it is obviously better for a child to have both a mother and a father. That's never been controversial before. It shouldn't be controversial now. It doesn't mean there's never any exceptions. It doesn't mean that that is not the situation. It's going to result in a disaster. Obviously not. But I think this is part of why. For the past 10 years in particular, it's been very difficult for some of these conversations to happen. If you want to have a conversation about what's going on in the USA or in Western Europe with immigration, the whole border crisis, okay, you want to just talk about that. Honestly. You want to talk about sensible border policy, sensible immigration policy. Literally, you can start the timer. Within 60 seconds, there's going to be. An accusation of racism or xenophobia or hating immigrants, or even worse, you know, being being being a Nazi or being a fascist. Or within 60 seconds, the conversation has gone from Hey, I think we should, I think we should have some sensible restrictions and boundaries on immigration, so all of a sudden you're being accused of hating millions of billions of people, or being hateful, or something like that. And once that happens, it, you know, it sort of halts the conversation. Or public
Daniel Lapin 55:34
schools in America, many public school districts have banned the observance of Mother's Day. Because what about children who have two fathers?
Zuby 55:44
Oh my gosh. And so,
Daniel Lapin 55:47
you know, everybody, everyone above a certain age, remembers making Mother's Day cards at school when you were in second grade, or whatever it was. But now that's not done. Because what about children who have two fathers and no mother at all, I would assume,
Zuby 56:02
surely, surely exception. Yeah, surely they, Surely they must have gotten rid of, rid of Father's Day first, because I would have thought Father's Day would be more triggering than mother's days, since
Daniel Lapin 56:13
they certainly did exactly that. What? Why? How do we get here? What do you can you think of any do you have any thoughts on why the obsession with exception is is more prevalent today than our grandparents day.
Zuby 56:29
People are just weaker. Honestly, I think that in the modern, developed West, we have just become, generally speaking, people have become physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, flabby, sedentary and flabby. Life has been so easy for so long. Let's say at least basic survival, right? Basic survival is so easy. I was once talking to a young guy in Nigeria who really, really he'd never been to the USA before. And he was just telling me about how much he wants to go to the USA and how amazing the USA is and stuff. And I was curious, so I asked him, Why, why do you want to go to the USA so much like what's and he said, he said, because it always stuck with me. He said, because in the USA, even the poor people are fat.
Zuby 57:32
So if you want to talk about the land of excess, the land of surplus, the land where you can just survive very easily. That's a that's a great example all around the world, all through human history, if you were poor, you were struggling to get enough calories. Whereas now people say that people are fat because they're poor, people now say that poverty is the cause of obesity, like Think, think about that switch. That's quite an amazing thing. You once said,
Daniel Lapin 58:06
If I'm not mistaken, as you can see, I've sort of trolled you a little bit here, but you once said that it cannot be coincidence that nutrition and money are not taught in schools isn't Didn't you say that? I did, yeah, I said that very recently. I never thought in nutrition, to me, there's a sinister reason why money isn't taught at schools. And in my view, I may be overreaching here, but in my view, if you if one of the surest ways of being independent is to have a few dollars. And if you know how to make money and you know how to look after money and you know how to invest money, your likelihood of becoming a dependent of government is diminished and and so I think there's almost, there's almost, there's a discouragement of that. And there's also the implication that having money is synonymous with being evil. You obviously have trod on the fingertips of widows and orphans if you have a few dollars. And so we don't want to talk about that. It's sort of it's almost like the old days, pre World War in England, where making money was vulgar. You know, it wasn't discussed so. So to me, the fact that they don't talk about money is sinister. Is not a good thing. I never thought of the nutrition aspect. If it's not accidental, as you said, why would they not want to teach children about nutrition?
Zuby 59:38
The exact same reason you said, the exact same reason, because if people are physically in shape and independent and less reliant on Big Pharma and less reliant on all of their weird concoctions and oh, let me. PM, let me swap out my titles,
Daniel Lapin 1:00:01
yeah, of course,
Daniel Lapin 1:00:07
apropos of what we were saying earlier, you said that when almost anything you say, people jump on but it's always nice when you can quote somebody else at it, and one of the early stage feminists was Gloria Steinem, who famously said, she said, when we finally succeeded in turning men into what we wanted them to be, we discovered that we'd rather date truck drivers.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:45
I miss I miss that. Sorry,
Daniel Lapin 1:00:47
I just said, you know, in one of the ways of avoiding the anger of the of the audiences is quote people, you know, Gloria Steinem, one of the big early stage feminist leaders. She once said, you know, we've tried to demasculinize Men, we've tried to make them in our image. We've tried to make them sensitive and and compassionate. And she said, Well, we finally succeeded in making men in the image we wanted, and we discovered that we now would rather date truck drivers. I ah,
Zuby 1:01:24
that's how feminists tend to do it. They create all this chaos, and then 20 to 30 years later, they come back around to finding out that more conservative types were correct all along.
Daniel Lapin 1:01:34
Masculinity isn't toxic. It's vital.
Zuby 1:01:39
It's vital. And I would say absence of masculinity is toxic. If you look at the if you look at the behaviors that people associate with, so called toxic masculinity, it typically stems from a lack of true masculine virtue and guidance, oftentimes from an absent father, right? If, if masculinity were toxic, it would be kid boys who grew up without fathers would be less violent and less prone to committing crimes, and they would do better financially and be less likely to use drugs and so on and so forth. And it's we all know that it's the opposite. So we need, we need more healthy masculinity and more healthy femininity.
Daniel Lapin 1:02:18
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, there's a wonderful feminist. She's a very liberal, extreme left feminist academic in Philadelphia called Camille. When you went sorry,
Zuby 1:02:29
when you when you just said, wonderful feminist, it sounded like an oxymoron. Well,
Daniel Lapin 1:02:35
well, she, she, yeah, yeah, no, but she isn't, you know why? Zooby, because she's honest. And she said, if the world had no men to this day, women would be living in grass huts. Yep, yeah. So yeah, she had,
Zuby 1:02:56
she has got a she has said some real stuff.
Daniel Lapin 1:02:58
No, she's wonderful. Yeah. Sorry. Back. Are we okay for another few minutes? Yeah, no problem. We're back to nutrition. I was very interested in what you said that that nutrition and money is not taught in schools. There's a reason for that,
Zuby 1:03:16
yeah. So, I mean, if there is some sort of sinister reason that nutrition is not taught, I would say that it's very similar and parallel to the reason why money and finances are not taught. Because if you take care of your health and you know about nutrition and looking after your body, then that is less profits for Big Pharma that's less profits for the whole medical industry and everything that's downstream of that, like this is billions of dollars on the line here. So I don't believe that whoever these actors are out there who are kind of running these things, and by the way, some of it, I just think is, some of it is just market forces with a bit of government corruption. But how would I put this? I've lost my train of thought slightly there, trying to tie together the point that I wanted to make.
Daniel Lapin 1:04:17
Well, the the COVID thing really showed us something, because Susan and I have done a number of books on the dignity and morality of making money. We one of the things I like about Donald Trump is he's not embarrassed about being rich, whereas every politician to date that I could think of in America falls over their feet, trying to reassure us that they grew up poor, even when it's not true, in a middle class family, God, God forbid, they could have had an upper middle class background. You know, money is evil and bad, so we've, we've, we've done a lot of work. You know, I have a book called thou shalt prosper, the 10 Commandments for making money. Me where the importance and the value to society of making money, making money is evidence that you have served another human being. I mean, that's what it is, and unless you took the money from him with a gun and so and so. I was a very I was a big proponent. I was saying, you know, being in business is wonderful. Everybody should find some way. And then came COVID, and we saw the collusion between government and big pharma, and that was shocking,
Zuby 1:05:31
yep, yep, yep. I mean, it's been there. It's been there for a long time. It's been there for decades. I just think that it was thrust in the faces of anyone who was willing and open minded enough to be observant and to connect the dots. The profit motive was. The profit motive was, was crazy.
Daniel Lapin 1:05:55
We found that when we were in Europe or when we were visiting in Israel, the food is better. We're eating better food than we're eating in America. And somebody recently told me, I've not had a chance to look into this, to to know it myself, but somebody told me that there are foods that are not permitted in Europe, in most European countries, that are permitted in the United States. And yep, that
Zuby 1:06:20
is, that's, that's one, that's 100 that's 100% true. I say this as a someone who's from the UK spent tons of time in Europe and also spends huge amounts of time in the USA, and that is 100% true. In fact, you can take the same Take, take cereal, for example. That's a good example. You can take the same brand of cereal, look at the UK version, or the Australian version or the German version, and look at the American version. The American version will have twice as many ingredients. When it will have the coloring will be different and it will have many ingredients, particularly colorings and various additives that are not present in the international version. So that is 100% true. That's definitely true.
Daniel Lapin 1:07:09
Oh gosh, that's Wow. That is depressed.
Zuby 1:07:14
And also, if you actually look at the nutrition information itself, for example, if you look at the sugar content again, it could be the same, the same food and very similar packaging from the same company, and the American version might have, in some cases, 50% more sugar, 50% more sugar in the American version compared to the one you'd get in and yeah, It's kind of scary.
Daniel Lapin 1:07:39
And is is at root without, you know, we can spend hours on the topic, but just, Is this because of lobbying and and collusion between big business and government?
Zuby 1:07:53
It is, yeah, the the lobbying, I mean, the whole lobbying system in the USA is insane. I don't really, I don't know much about the history of it. I don't know why it's allowed. I don't know why it's legal. I think like per, isn't it something like per Congress member, there's like, six lobbyists or something like that even be easily
Daniel Lapin 1:08:10
Yes, it's, we're ambitious people.
Zuby 1:08:14
Yeah, it's a career path. And then I know in the US in particular, you have, like, the the corn subsidies. So isn't that why high fructose corn syrup is in. It's mad, absolutely, it's an absolutely madness,
Daniel Lapin 1:08:25
yes, yeah. And congressmen know that they can't threaten these various farm subsidies. It's, you know, yeah, it's,
Zuby 1:08:33
I hope, I hope that this is something that changes now that RFK Jr has been appointed into the Trump administration, I do hope. I mean, he's very, he's very, very, very aware and clued up on all of this stuff. So we
Daniel Lapin 1:08:47
were thrilled at that, and we very much hope he gets confirmed by the Senate, because we'd love to see him tear into that a little bit. Yeah,
Zuby 1:08:55
for sure. You know, right now the USA, the obesity rate in the USA amongst adults, I think, is currently sitting around 4041, 42% and it's on track to, in a decade, it's on track, at the moment, to hit 50% and that's that's the obesity rate. Like you don't want to have a population of 350 400 million people, and 50% of them are clinically obese. That's a really bad sign. I mean, it's already at the stage, isn't it, where I believe over 70% of young men in America now are not fit to qualify for the military.
Daniel Lapin 1:09:34
Well, that's all right, they just change the standards, because that way they're able to get the women in as well.
Zuby 1:09:39
Yeah. So, I mean, it's concerning for the military, but also, if you just think, like, that's, um, it's a bit, it's quite a damning indictment just on the state of the health of the nation, because if you just go back 40 or 50 years ago, the majority, the majority of young men would have been fit for the military. So. So it's not a good trend. It's, you know, I tend to just look at look at trends, and see which direction things are heading, not just where they are right now, but, you know, is this something that's getting better or something that's getting worse? And I think if you look across the USA, or you look across humanity in general, there are many areas where we are making good progress, but then there's other areas, some of which are very concerning, where it's going completely the wrong way. I mean, I'll tell you something that the USA is number one at which it should be shameful that it's number one at is the USA is number one in single motherhood. The USA has the highest percentage of children growing up with only one parent in the home, it has one of the highest divorce rates in the world. Like, that's not something that's spoken about anywhere near as much as it should be. You shouldn't have half of the marriages ending in divorce. I mean, that's a that's a nightmare. In India, it's under 1% so how can it be under 1% in one country and in another? It's around 50. It's like, come on. Guys like, what are we what are we
Daniel Lapin 1:11:04
doing? Say they will actually argue and and I think your most recent podcast guest, a lady whose name I don't remember, but it was a wonderful interview, spoke a little bit about this, they were the other side would say, look, marriage is an oppressive regime. It's good that there are so many women today who don't feel that their only alternative is to to be a slave to a man.
Zuby 1:11:34
Yeah, it's a shame. It's a shame because, you know, if you look at also at the family courts and certainly the divorce laws in many of the states and in many countries, it's also very hostile towards men. So if you are a man of means, marriage can be a very scary proposition. It can be a very scary proposition. I'm speaking very honestly here, when you have these no fault divorce systems. And again, it's not just about the laws, it's also about the society in the culture again. So you're, you're, I would I imagine you're, you're, you're quite embedded in the Jewish community, right? So the the law, the law of the land, still applies to your community, but you have additional, you have an additional layer of religious, social, cultural codes, which will cause that stability? Right? The expectation is so many
Daniel Lapin 1:12:25
years with within, within the community. If a couple has, as every couple inevitably does have, from time to time, difficulties, challenges, disagreements, problems, the first recourse is not well, obviously you've got to get out of this. In other words, the wife is not going to be meeting with people who are encouraging her to get out. The husband is not being told to finally get free. On the contrary, the community is going to be playing an important role in not allowing an instinctive response that is sort of an immediate response. It's going to require time during which, in most cases, people are able to work it out, and later on, they're very grateful that they stayed together and got through the difficult thing. But in the general culture in the United States, the response of most therapists marriage therapists is very often, oh, well, you know, get out,
Zuby 1:13:29
yeah. And it's not just a marriage therapist, it's just, gosh, I'll tell I'll tell you something. I'll be, I'll be very, very honest with you. I'll tell you what sends a chill down my spine as a man who is not yet married, but who will be in the future, is almost on any it could be on YouTube. It could be on social media. It could even be in certain just conversations you overhear, in any situation where there is a a difficulty, there's a difficulty in a marriage, and they're the husband and wife are bumping heads and they're struggling get on. If you look at the comments, if you look at the advice, if you look at what people are saying, the overwhelming sentiment is, end it. Get out of there. And I'm not, I'm not talking about I'm not talking about somebody as being beaten up. I'm not talking about adultery. I'm not talking I'm talking about people saying, Oh, they have grown apart, or they're just not really feeling it, or they're just, like, not happy in this moment, or what. And so it's like, when I see that it hurts, it that that is what, like, freaks me out. Because I'm just like, Man, how is there this, like societal and cultural messaging that, because I look at it, I mean the average, I believe the average length of marriage in the USA now is about eight years.
Daniel Lapin 1:14:52
Statistically, I don't know, I don't know. That's incredible.
Speaker 1 1:14:55
It's about, it's about eight years. So mate, okay? Let me let me caveat that maybe it is the average length of a marriage that ends in divorce, but I think this is just all marriages. I think the average length is eight years. And if that's going to be the case, then why? Like, at that point, it's just dating with extra complications. I know people who date for longer than eight years. So if, if people are going to get married, and they're going to tie their knot and they're going to do this ceremony, they're going to stand in their church or their synagogue before God, before their friends, before their family, they're going to say, Hey, rich for richer, or poor for poorer, in sickness and in health, all of this, and then three years down the line, four years down the line, seven years down the line, they're just gonna split. When things get a bit difficult, it's kind of this is why so many, by the way, I'm sure, I'm sure you're aware of this, but this is part of why so many people around my age and younger are massively delaying marriage or not getting married at all. Like it's a big factor, because they're just like, well, what's the, what's the point of this, if, um, if this is the sort of typical, if this is the typical
Daniel Lapin 1:16:06
I was just, I was just looking at the Pew Research figures, okay, 40 years 1980 to 2020. In 1980 what percentage of 40 year old people had never been married, 6% only 6% of 40 year olds had never been married in 2022 that percentage changed to nearly 30% Yep, so going on for a third of people of the age of 40 have never been married. Yep, that's, that's what you're talking to. It's,
Unknown Speaker 1:16:47
sorry, go, go on. You're about to say something. You're
Daniel Lapin 1:16:49
attributing that largely to cultural hostility to marriage. Is that when you're saying and
Zuby 1:16:57
legal hostility as well, legal hostility the family courts and those the divorce courts are not they're not fair. They're not fair, though the laws need to be they need to be updated. So as much as people bemoan, you know, particularly conservative people, this is an area where I think the messaging really needs to change, where there's so much bemoaning of the decline in marriage rates, and, you know, hey, why aren't these young men getting married? Or, you know, these young women, and there's a lot of finger waving, but there's not a lot of real attempt to understand why they think what they think. You know, there are, there are irrational reasons to not get married, but there are very many rational reasons not to, and people want to overlook those rational reasons. And again, there's, I would also say that there is a contagion element to it. So you've described to me briefly your family, you and your wife have been together for how long?
Daniel Lapin 1:18:06
Oh, I was hoping you wouldn't ask that. What did you Susan's calling from the other side of the office, 27 Oh, no, not 4740 47 Susan says we've been together for 40 married for 47 years. No, that isn't true. It's not 47 years.
Zuby 1:18:30
How old is your oldest child? It's 4545 years. 45 okay, amazing. Okay. And you have, and you have and you have seven children.
Daniel Lapin 1:18:38
We had, we lost one of four months ago, we had said, Oh yeah, oh
Zuby 1:18:44
my I'm so sorry to hear that. My condolences. Yeah, my condolences. Oh, gosh. Well, the point I was going to make is you said you have six daughters, and they're all married, yes, okay, so they have seen the example laid out by you and your wife? Probably, I'd imagine also other people around in their community, friendship, questions, so on, absolutely now you have to remember, there are millions of people around the USA who have their whole life experience has been the complete opposite. They've never even seen a marriage work. It didn't work for their parents. It didn't work for their friends, parents. It didn't work for their brother, for their sister, their aunt, their uncle, everyone around them, all the marriages they saw like it didn't work. There's there's people growing up in environments where only 20% of their friends have fathers. So if you come from that type of environment, zooming,
Daniel Lapin 1:19:39
fix it, wave. What's your magic wand? Wow, how does one come how does one come back from that
Zuby 1:19:49
is where we need. God. Well, no, really, really, I wish I knew. I think. I do think that. In the absence of in the absence of religion, I'm going to speak broadly, and I'm going to say religion, because certainly in India, it seems to be working with Hinduism. In Israel and Jewish communities, it's working with Judaism and strong Christian communities. It's working with Christianity. I'm here in the Islamic world, and you know, they're doing decently well in this regard. So in the absence, when you strip away religion, a lot of things fall apart. And I think that this is one of them, because if you don't believe like then marriage does become just a piece of paper. So it is being treated like just a piece of paper, because when you take away the spiritual and godly component of it, then like, you know, what really is the difference between, say, you have a couple that is cohabiting, maybe they even have Children, and they're not married, but they love each other, and they're committed to each other, and then you have similar but they have the marriage license from a non religious perspective. It's like, well, what's the difference here? Yeah, right. And people come in and they start talking about tax breaks. I'm like, if tax breaks is the best answer, that means you don't have a good answer. So I think we're just naturally the secular progressivism is naturally resulting in what it does, just like it results in certain attitudes towards life and death, and certain attitudes towards sexuality or attitudes towards like many other things. It's all downstream of well, if we don't believe, you know, if we don't believe that God exists and there's that higher power, authority, then coming back around to how we earlier started the conversation, then it's natural to fall into hedonism, nihilism, selfishness, just, you know, do what you know, do what you want, as long as it doesn't harm anyone, it falls back into purely consent based, consent based morality, and consent is important. But I think you and I would both say that consent is not the only component to morality, but that's essentially where we've ended up and where we're still heading, in many ways.
Daniel Lapin 1:22:22
Well, wow. I mean, I find your music intriguing. I don't know much about that genre of music, but is there a story behind your song, legacy?
Zuby 1:22:36
Yeah, yeah, good question. I haven't listened to that song so recently, but I think it's hinted at in the it's hinted at in the title. I found it tantalizing. Yes, yeah. So I think from certainly, from my teenage years, from my late teens, I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to achieve in the world, and what I want the world to remember me for. And for the past 1819, years, I've been on this path. I've been on this journey to try to fulfill that. And I've achieved some elements of it. There are some very large components of it, which I'm yet to achieve, and which I'm very excited about. We've been talking about a big one, and that's the whole, you know, not just coming from a family, but beginning my own family, and creating my own familial and genetic legacy. That is something I'm excited about, but the fact that I have been a positive influence, you know, if I died tomorrow, if I died tomorrow, I'd be happy, right? I could say, Hey, I had a positive impact, and I managed to inspire millions of people during my relatively short time on Earth. I pray I won't die tomorrow. I hope I have many, many more decades to live. Amen. But yeah, the song is just touching on, yeah, just that concept of legacy and building something and creating and leaving something that stays on when you're long gone from the physical realm.
Daniel Lapin 1:24:15
Thank you. I felt there was something profound behind it. I could talk to you for a long time, and I hope we'll have another chance to do just that. I should really wrap us up and take us in for a landing. But the one thing that Susan and I have been talking about, we were both very curious about your take on this a let you know your wife has a job. She's offered work and and she she comes home a little later than usual one day. Oh, anything happened? She says, Yeah, you know Tom and I stopped off for a drink. To decompress from a tough day. Who's Tom. Tom's my friend. It's nothing to it. It's just totally platonic. That's all there is to it, or the other way around. Susan, I'm if you don't mind, I'm going to go out for coffee with Jennifer, who's Jennifer. I've known her for years. We're just she's been a good friend to me for many, many years. She's just a platonic friend. Is there such a thing in the zooby world view? Is there such a thing as a platonic friend between a man and a woman?
Zuby 1:25:41
Wow. This is so funny. If my fiance hears this, she's going to laugh, because we, we had this conversation very early on in our relationship, and my answer then ended up, my answer ended up getting me in trouble.
Daniel Lapin 1:25:59
Sorry, because,
Zuby 1:26:00
yeah, so, yeah, no, so I think, I think I said no. I initially said, No, I did have some caveats, but she just remembered the no parts and so, so now, well, ended up getting myself in. Yeah, okay, can men? Is the question? Can men and women just be platonic friends? Yes, yes, but with caveats, and not in the exact same way that male male friendships are and female female friendships are. So yes, but with caveats.
Daniel Lapin 1:26:42
There's there's, there's clearly
Zuby 1:26:44
more. Join in the caveat. If you want me to on that one, I can go into this one caveat, if you want me to, yeah, all
Daniel Lapin 1:26:50
right, take it. Take a couple of caveats. So
Zuby 1:26:54
take a couple. Okay, if there is genuinely no physical sexual attraction between the two, then it's possible. It's also possible, if they are, let's say, let's say both are in a committed relationship, or even in a marriage, and that's fully and truly respected, and they are friends, right? Just in the way that I'm sure your, you have family, friends, who you hang out with, and you would say, yeah, like, I'm friends with, I'm friends with that woman. It might be your, your A good friend of yours, his wife. So you wouldn't, you wouldn't go out solo with her for dinner and hang out over but you'd say, yeah, yeah. Like, we're, we're friends. But it's not the I'd say there's maybe I would say there's a limit to the depth of the friendship. Does that make sense? So it's never, it's not going to be in the same, the exact same way your male friends are
Daniel Lapin 1:27:55
no but also, one of the problems, I think, is that sexual attraction grows with proximity. And so there are many cases where where a couple a guy, doesn't find a go particularly attractive, and then after they've sort of been around one another, it sort of becomes more she becomes more attractive, and so
Zuby 1:28:23
that can it? Can't it can happen. I again, I think the again, we're talking exceptions here. So my general rule, I would generally say, so like I could, I could have answered that and said No, first of all, and then added the caveats. But I could also say yes with caveats or no. But there are some exceptions to me that's kind of the same. It's kind of the same answer. I mean, I could argue that I have, you know, I could say that I have dozens of female friends, right? Some of them I grew up with in Saudi Arabia. I've known them since I was four years old. Other ones, it might be, you know, a friend's a friend's wife, like, what I call a friend's wife, of like, a male friend's wife, a friend, yeah, but I also wouldn't call her up and hang out with her and be like, Yeah, let's go for a drink. You see what I mean, yeah. But we're definitely on friendly terms, and then acquaintances. Obviously, I have, gosh, 1000s of female acquaintances, but yeah, it depends on, I guess it also depends on how you use the word friend. I sometimes use the word friend a bit loosely, and I really mean acquaintance when I say it, but I don't know.
Daniel Lapin 1:29:37
I With your permission, I'm going to send you one of the books that Susan and I wrote and was published just a few months ago, it's called the holistic you integrating your family, your finances, your friendships, your fitness and your your family, your finance, your friendship, your fitness and your faith. It's the 5f and. Um, we, we spend a little bit of time discussing this platonic relationship between men and women. So, so, yeah, I, I'd start off with the no and caveats, and you start off with the yes and caveats. I think we, I think we probably end up in the same place, from what it sounds like to me,
Zuby 1:30:22
yeah, yeah, you know, I think again, you know. I think there's a danger in falling into what I call the obsession with exceptions. But I think there can also be a not a danger per se, but a lack of nuance, in disregarding exceptions that do exist. I think sometimes things are made so black and white that I don't know. People can kind of get locked in. Let's say, for example, right? Like, I've heard people, you know, say a rule, something like, I don't know, someone might say something like, you know, under no circumstances should a man be alone with a woman who's not his wife? And I get the I understand the intention behind that, but it's like never. Like, no circumstance at all. Like, you can't think of any circumstance where that might be like, okay, like, I could certainly think of some. So I think, like, I know what is meant by it, but when it's kind of just said flat out, like, in a way that, you know, it would be like me just coming and saying, you know, nobody should What, then, you know, no one should watch TV. Like, no at all. Like, never. There's no circumstance ever where you should, you know, sort of, sort of look at a TV. I'm like, you know, I don't know. I could think of, I don't think, like, watching a bit of TV here and there is going to be the end of the world. But hey, I'm rambling a little
Daniel Lapin 1:31:58
bit now. It's a one of the Jewish principles is the the golden middle path in in looking at a course of action, look at one far extreme, unthinkably ridiculous, far left extreme, and now look at the extreme in the other direction, and carve a passage somewhere in the middle, but yeah, no, I
Zuby 1:32:24
when in doubt. Just, just apply, just just be sensible. Yeah,
Daniel Lapin 1:32:28
yeah, right. Hey, listen, we, we've got to bring this in for a landing. And reluctantly, I must tell you, I there's so many things I would love to explore further together with you, and maybe, God willing, at some point in the future, we will. I'll just tell you, my wife and I had a wonderful we only had a day in Dubai. We'd arranged a stopover, so we came into town for the night and looked around a little bit. And it was, it was great. Was really, wonderful, really, yeah, we would. We thought a lot about trying to come back for a week and sort of really get a chance to look around a little bit. So it's, you know, I'm not, I it's not mysterious to me that you're there, it makes sense, but you obviously get around a great deal as well, and you travel a lot, so I hope your travels will bring you to our neighborhood, and when they do, we look forward to seeing you in person together with your family. So thank you very much indeed, Ruby, really appreciate the time. Very much. Enjoyed the conversation and and look forward to another opportunity.
Zuby 1:33:50
Amen. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Daniel Lapin 1:33:53
Well, there you are. I'm sure you enjoyed that as much as I did. It's part of revealing how the world really works, right? I mean, there were so many timeless truths that shone through in that conversation, so many things that made me think to myself, right on, that's exactly and it's putting it really, really well. So hope you enjoyed that, and let me know, because I will do more of these interviews with high quality people, if indeed you do enjoy it. So we are, of course, as usual, close to the end, at the end of the show. As a matter of fact, today, it was devoted to my conversation with zooby. And next week, we join up together again for the next show, but in the meantime, stay focused on your five F's, your family, your finances, your friendships, your fitness and your faith. I'm Rabbi. Daniel Lapin, God bless.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
