TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: Marrying An Airline Stewardess - How Did That Work?
Date: 02/07/24 Length: 00:44:45
Daniel Lapin 0:00
Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome to all you Happy Warriors. Welcome to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin, show where I your rabbi, reveal how the world really works. I welcome each and every one of you devotees of the rabbi Daniel Lapin show, every one of you happy warriors. And why do I call you Happy Warriors? Well, because this show focuses as much on your soul as on your body. And I know that every single listener possesses a young and vibrant soul. What is more, we're all Happy Warriors and and I want you to hear this because it may sound negative and disturbing, but it isn't because to live productively you have to fight. To live productively means you're in a fight every day against the force of entropy, if nothing else, that force in nature that makes things wind down to the lowest state of order, the things that make weeds grow and paint peel and cause rust, we've got to fight against entropy. Entropy is what the force that makes us resist exercising and resist dieting and resist doing all the things that we know we should do to better ourselves, if nothing else, you fight to maintain your possessions. You fight to build and maintain your family and your money, your body and your business, your professional career. Look something you've heard from me before is that God created a world in which chaos and disorder rule. That is the second verse of Genesis. That's how important it is that in God's manual to humanity. The very second verse says that the world is chaotic. It's Tohu, bohu, which, by the way, is a word that's found its way into some dictionaries, just chaos. The natural condition is chaos. Civilization is very, very unusual throughout the the spectrum of history, life is a fight, and that's a good thing. To stop fighting and seeking and striving is to die. And I call you not just warriors, but happy warriors, because to throw yourself into the fight for eight or 10 hours a day, six days a week, well, that's one thing, but to do all that with a debonair smile on your face and a jaunty pace to your stride, To do all that while generating an irrepressible surge of happiness, welling up in your soul and spreading a smile to everyone in your vicinity. Well, that means you are spiritually grounded in everything that is life affirming, devoted to your faith, your families, your finances and your friends, knowing that you can triumph over those who both intentionally and unknowingly promote a dark social abyss of satanic secular socialism, as I call it, and all The many destructive and evil social pathologies that it generates. Just look at what's happened to the west since the 1960s when I reveal how the world really works, it's in the hope that you will help defeat those pathetic creatures of modern secular fundamentalism, those orphans of history who possess neither Judeo Christian fortitude nor even pagan ferocity, which would almost be welcome to tell you the truth, those hideous hermaphrodites and fanatical feminists running our media education and bureaucracies who possess neither the strength of men nor the intuitive gentleness and wisdom of women, but oh, what damage they manage to inflict. Well, never fear happy warriors, because here on the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show I solemnly commit to help you transform timidity to triumph. Together you and me, we will replace diffidence with determination, and we will displace the divided councils of doubt with the steady eyes and firm hearts of those of us who know where we are going and know just how we going to get there, we strive for success, first with our families in our faith and then our finances and our friends forming bonds of the like minded, after which we will be ready to take on the formidable task of saving our frighteningly fragile civilization from all of those who would force us to surrender our freedoms and our souls to the whims and dictates of those who consider themselves to Be our superiors, our elites, our bettors, our bosses, our rulers. But before we change the world, we have to change ourselves. And what a good start we have, each of you happy warriors, a gentle giant with a huge and humble heart. Yes, we'll succeed, but before we make the world a better place, we have to make our homes and businesses better place, and then our efforts in our dreams become leveraged, and together, we achieve so much more. The two sure ways of building a bridge over the dark abyss of mortality is by building a family and building our finances and connecting with others who share your worldview, or even others who share a part of your worldview, The key is connect, and perhaps nowhere is connection more firmly validated than in the idea of marriage. But you know who also else was? A happy warrior, Winston Churchill. I just recently read that in the summer of 1941 when the fate of England was still very much in doubt, Winston Churchill sat down for dinner with an American war correspondent by the name of Quentin Reynolds. And Quentin Reynolds subsequently described the dinner, and he said that one of the most memorable, memorable things that Winston Churchill said at the dinner was I like a man who grins when he fights. And gosh, what a better definition of happy warrior. Is there somebody who grins while he fights, he exudes happiness while he's in the midst of the struggle. How wonderful that is, isn't that? I mean, it's really terrific. So let me tell you two fairy stories,
Daniel Lapin 8:18
and you have to decide which one is likely, which one is a reasonable depiction of how the world really works and which one is an adulterated bilge water. Okay, so the first story is the princess and the peasant, and there are numerous variations of it, but it goes something like this, one beautiful summer day, the Princess went for a ride in her beautiful carriage on through a lovely, big forest with wonderful trees and birds singing in the trees and foxes and rabbits scuttling around, when all of A sudden the wheel fell off her wagon, her carriage and her courtiers were very perturbed. They had no idea what to do about it. They were totally incapable of anything when some of them started walking back to the palace to seek help. But meanwhile, out of the forest strode a handsome young peasant, and he put his shoulder against the carriage, lifted it up, removed the wheel, took it into his cottage, or the workshop next to his cottage, and he fired up his forge, and he started hammering on his anvil, and he fixed the wheel, came back to the carriage where the princess was sitting, lifted the carriage and replaced the wheel and instructed the footman to drive the carriage back to the palace. Well, the princess came back and told her father, the King, the whole story, and he said, Well, why didn't you bring the young man back with you? And she said, I wanted to he seemed such a nice young man, but I didn't know what you'd say. King said, Well, I say, let's send some of our servants out to find him and bring him back for dinner. And the princess and the peasant got married, and the peasant became a prince, and they lived happily ever after. And that is the one story, the other story. Well, first of all, before I even tell you the other story, why don't I remind you that I would very much appreciate I would love it if you make sure that you are a member of our happy warrior community, you know, as you seek to improve yourself in order to improve those around you and to improve your life, doing so in the company of others embarked on a similar journey makes it very much easier, and what's more, one of the most energizing activities you can do is help somebody who's trying to do exactly what you're trying to do. And the remarkable effect is that you get a jolt of energy that propels you forward in your journey as a result of you having tried to help someone else. And I always feel that's one of the most wonderful things about being part of the happy warrior community is not just that you can get the help and the interest and the guidance of others also trying to become more successful, happy warriors, but you can help others. And being a giver is a more profound and rewarding activity for a human being than be than being a receiver. Being a giver is hugely valuable, the effect it has on us when we have an opportunity to give. It's wonderful. And you know, in my community, every now and then, people who are fundraising for various causes knock on the door. So of an evening, the doorbell might go and we'd go along, and there might be a rabbi or two rabbis on the doorstep, and we invite them in, and they explain the cause that they are trying to raise funds for. Sometimes it's a bereaved family, sometimes it's people with medical needs, but whatever it is. We always try and give them something. It may not be a large sum, but we give them what we can. And then I always thank them for coming. And I can tell that's not common. I can tell from the response I genuinely thank them. It's a sincere sentiment, because they enabled me to be a giver, and that's really quite a wonderful thing. So if you become a happy warrior, you give to the community, and through that, you grow and you become a more successful person yourself. So please go ahead and do that. I also, each week, try to prepare a special podcast bonus specifically for members of the Happy Warrior community. And this week, the title of the bonus is, do you know a narcissist how to cure him or her. So yes, there's a lot of talk about people with narcissism and who suffer from narcissistic personality disorder. And it's apparently there's so much talk about it. It seems so common. I thought you might like a little ancient Jewish wisdom on narcissism, who the narcissist is, and what to do about it. So all of that, just go to the rabbiDaniellapin.com website, Rabbi Daniel lapin.com and look to see how you can become a member of our happy warrior community. That would be wonderful. And there are also access. You are given to resources that we've prepared. You have those available. You also are able to interact with other happy warriors, with other members of the community. So if you enjoy the podcast and you benefit from it, then I think you'd like to benefit also from being a member of the happy warrior community, and that turns you into a giver, not just to take. Here, which is really what we're all trying to become. So this is that first story, The Princess and the peasant, and they all have happily ever after. And the second story is Cinderella, to make a long story short, the prince falls in love with this beautiful girl who's actually a peasant girl. She has nothing, no money, no family, no nothing, prestige, prominence, nothing. But she has a pure heart, and she has her natural beauty, and the prince falls in love with her, and he then loses her, but he searches her out, he finds her, and they both live happily ever after, she becomes the princess, obviously. So there are the two stories, which is a more accurate depiction of real life, and which do you think is an adult, unadulterated Bilgewater? Is it more real that a high prestige woman seeks out a handsome, strong peasant and they live happily ever after? Or is it more likely that the prince seeks out a beautiful peasant girl, and she becomes a princess, and they all live happily ever after. Well, you might say, well, how can I possibly tell you they're both fairy stories. That's true, but we can consider them in the context of a thought experiment, and we can ask ourselves, which one is more true to life, which one is part of how the world really works? And the answer is that, by means of something called hypergamy, we can tell which one is more realistic. And that is that, in general, women would like to be a man with a man, a woman, women, most women would like to be with a man who is taller, smarter and richer than they are, and so the princess and the peasant? Nah, I don't think so. And in any event, the peasant is going to pretty much stay a peasant. He is pretty much who. He can grow. He can become better. He but is he ever going to feel comfortable in the palace? Probably not. But women are different. Women are adaptable. Women will begin to reflect the man who with whom they spend their life. And so yes, the peasant girl marries the prince, the slipper fits, and within a few months, she looks and behaves as if she's been part of royalty all her life.
Daniel Lapin 18:08
And yes, women do seek out they would they want to be with a man who is ideally taller, smarter and richer. Now, two out of three is pretty good, and most women will go with two out of three. Taller is interesting, because that's how God created us. Men are, on average, taller than women in the United States. For instance, we know that the average male height is five foot nine and a half inches, and the average female height is five foot, four inches and and we also know that if we by means of a computer, we put together all the men and women in the United States into 150 million couples. We know that about 70% of them would be a couple in which the man is taller than the woman. But in real life, if you start noticing as you're moving around in couples, you notice that it's more like 90% so the fact that most couples, a very high proportion of couples, the man is taller than the woman, well, it's more than would be the case through just random statistical probability, because clearly, women have chosen taller men, or men have chosen shorter women, or both. But it's a deliberate action, because if it wasn't a deliberate action, it would be about 70% of couples would have a taller man, but the reality is much closer to 90% therefore it is a deliberate choice on the part of people. Literally. What it means is that women desire to look up to their husband. Women like to have to go up. On tiptoes to plant a kiss on their husband's lips. What they like. There are women who will go out on a date with somebody shorter or same height as them, and they will deliberately not wear high heels for that date, all part of this sensation that having said, like you, I know many wonderful marriages where the girl is of the same height or taller than the man. However, in all the cases I can think of he's smarter and makes more money. Is that really where human relationships are at? I hear you asking, have we not become more sophisticated than that? Do we really care about seemingly insignificant characteristics like height or intelligence or money. After all, isn't love all you need. I'm pretty sure the Beatles told us that it was they did sing, love is all you need. But the Beatles were wrong, and I your rabbi am right. Another example of the prince marrying the peasant girl, but not the reverse is that, well, some of you may remember, if you are of a certain age. You might remember that until about the mid 1970s airline stewardesses, that's right, they weren't cabin attendants or flight attendants. Yet, airline stewardesses had to be single and below the age of 35 and then after that, everything changed. Let me read to you from a United Airlines advertisement from this period. It's really quite remarkable. Here's one. It's United Airlines from that period, every passenger gets warmth, friendliness and extra care, and someone may get a wife. That's what an ad This is a newspaper advertisement for United Airlines said during this period that, yeah, because it was very common that particularly in the first class cabin, the people, the men. It was mostly businessmen flying first class very often found their wives serving them a meal or coffee on a flight. It was not uncommon at all Eastern Airlines. They're no longer in business, but you may remember they used to run the shuttle between Boston and New York and Washington, DC. Eastern Airlines, they would boast in printed material, which I have seen to potential stewardesses that were applying to come and work as flight attendant stewardess at its Miami based flight attendants Training Center, they called it the finest school for brides in the country. That's what they said, because it very often happened. Very often happened that a male business first class business traveler would would start floating with the stewardess and and part of the reason she became a stewardess was because she knew that this was a good avenue to marrying a good guy. That's what they did. And by the way, there's no shortage of prominent and successful men who married former stewardesses, Henry Fonda's Well, it was his fifth wife, Shirley. She had been an American airline stewardess. They met on a flight. There was a guy, John gutfund, who was the CEO of Salomon Brothers, big financial investment bank in New York. And his wife, Susan gutfund, she had flown as a stewardess for Pan Am, the Sultan of Brunei is married to an ex stewardess, Sarah Netanyahu, the wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Well, she worked as an EL AL flight attendant. Vladimir Putin's first wife, Ludmilla, was a flight attendant. I don't I think on one of. The Russian airlines. But, yeah, that's that is exactly how it used to be very common. And so you could tell, therefore you could understand, that the idea of the prince, the wealthy, first class traveling businessman, marrying the hard working peasant girl who became a stewardess, very common, no problem. But let me ask you. You know, it's a long time ago already they began admitting male flight attendants. That was in 71 I think it was a lawsuit against an airline from a male and from then onwards, they began accepting male flight attendants or stewards. How often do you think that a male steward ends up dating and marrying a female passenger flying first class? Yeah, that's right. Not so much, yeah, because the peasant and the princess doesn't work. It's not reality, but the peasant girl and the prince ABS Cinderella story, absolutely, that does work. So
Daniel Lapin 26:21
Bloomberg, financial, they they've got a very interesting Bloomberg financial they did a study with the help of okay Cupid, which is a website, dating website, and they started you. They also used statistics from the US Department of Labor, and they were looking to see how jobs match up. And it's a very interesting thing. I have a copy of it and I retain it, but let me just read you two or three sentences from it. When it comes to falling in love, it's not just fate that brings people together, sometimes it's their jobs. We scanned data from the US Census Bureau 2014, American Community Survey used upon labor statistics and from OKCupid, and we covered three and a half million couples to find out how people are pairing up high earning women, for instance, doctors and lawyers, tend to pair up with their economic equals, while middle and lower tier women often marry up. In other words, female CEOs tend to marry other CEOs. However, male CEOs are okay marrying their secretaries Exactly, exactly, because to a man who is a natural masculine man, the value of a woman is not economic, and he may not necessarily be able to articulate it, but deep down in his in his soul, he recognizes that her value is her capacity to bring meaning and fulfillment to his life. It is only through her that he can acquire immortality through children and so ladies, if you're at the dating stage of life listening to me now, please don't talk to guys on a date about your work. He really doesn't want to know. He may be polite, he may feign interest in what you're telling him about your job, but he's also registering you as a no go. It's of no interest to him. I know this is this is rough to hear, and it makes me sound oh so sexist, but never mind what I sound like. The more important thing is that I tell you only the truth, and the truth is that the man, and unless the man has been ruined and damaged beyond repair by the failed culture out there, a man really doesn't see you in terms of your economic strength and your economic ability. He sees you as something far greater than that. He sees you as a feminine compliment to his masculinity. He sees you as bringing purpose to his life, and ultimately, he sees you as granting him immortality through the fruit of your womb, you are able to concretize his unspoken dreams, to talk about your latest promotion or your latest sales triumph. You know, God bless you and good luck to you. But that's not what he's interested in hearing. And so important, I think, to understand that ancient Jewish wisdom depicts a certain way of visualizing the male female relationship as the sun and the moon, and that's why the Hebrew word for the noun, the Hebrew noun for sun, is a masculine word, and the Hebrew word for moon, lava Na is a feminine word. It's also why the good Lord created the period of the moon to correspond pretty much to the time period that most women during their fertile years experience as their monthly period about 29 days moons. Average period is 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and three and a third seconds. Obviously, to degree of astronomical precision that doesn't apply to human beings, but it's it's impossible to mistake the sun and the moon for anything other than a lens through which to see male and female. She is in his orbit. The moon revolves around the Sun. That's right, and that's one of the reasons, probably the main reason, why, in a Jewish wedding ceremony, the groom stands beneath the wedding canopy, and then the bride is brought in and she walks around her husband, she orbits him seven times the number of words in the first Hebrew sentence of Genesis. And so, yeah, we're talking about male and female, and the one important aspect of it is that she reflects his light, and that is what I'm talking about. The woman is comfortable naturally reflecting the light of her husband. And what that means is that if the husband is a prince, then she becomes a princess. She reflects exactly what he is and and that's why the the the Cinderella story, is so much more realistic than the peasant and the princess story, because we should understand from our understanding of how the world really works. We should get that the man does not ever grow and change to resemble the woman. Doesn't happen, but it does happen the other way around. Happens all the time, and you probably, as I'm talking, you're probably thinking of numerous instances where you've seen exactly this happen, where a man and a woman marry, and after a few months, you start realizing that she's she starts she's got some of his interests, she can talk about them. And I mean, how common is it? Very common.
Daniel Lapin 33:22
And ancient Jewish wisdom tells us that a marriage is brought about when a man provides finance, communication and physical intimacy. In other words, a marriage is the sharing of a bed, a bank account and meals. And I say meals because some of the best conversations I've ever had were over a meal. It's one of the reasons that when a man meets a woman and invites her out on a date, one of the most common dates is a dinner, a meal, a lunch, whatever it is, a coffee. Maybe because when you sit facing one another over a table and you share food somehow or another, the conversation is real and meaningful. It's one of the reasons that in business we if we want to propose a deal to somebody else, we try and invite them to a meal. And somehow or another, we realize that if they eat our food, they are more open to our ideas. And intuitively, a man knows that in sense, in the sense of wanting to make sure that if he is providing the dinner, he doesn't want the woman to pay half, and only a lesser man will come away from a date where a woman didn't pretend to pull out her purse to offer to pay half the bill, and he'll say, well. She didn't pull her financial weight. That's a lesser man, but a masterful masculine man understands that he is honored and enlarged by a woman eating his food. And what's more, when the coffee comes in, and maybe it comes in a coffee pot. Instead of two separate cups, he's happy to have her pour the coffee. He's happy for her to, as it were, be the hostess at the meal, even though he wants to be the one who paid for it, perfectly natural, perfectly normal and perfectly appropriate, the fascinating idea from ancient Jewish wisdom is that not only does the marriage ceremony and the formality of a marriage come about through finances, which is the ring communication and and that's when he says to her, will you be my wife According to the laws of Moses and of Israel and and the physical intimacy is a natural In fact, there's even a symbolic representation of that in some Ashkenazi communities, so quite common. So the interesting idea is that not only is it the initiation of a marriage, but the marriage is maintained on an ongoing basis by finances, communication and intimacy. There's a story I tell, and in all candor, I have to acknowledge that Susan denies that it happened. Now, I don't know how I could possibly have it so clearly in memory if it didn't actually happen, but I suppose it's not inconceivable that I've told the story often enough that it's sort of become real in my memory. At any rate, she will insist it didn't happen. I insist it did happen, newly married and I take her for a meal, right? Because taking my woman to eat the bison that I killed and dragged back to the cave is a pleasure. In this case, it's paying for a nice restaurant meal, and the smoothie waiter at this restaurant comes over and and he he has us looking at the the the menu. I don't look very much at the menu. I just say to him, bring me a large steak and a plate of French fries, and if you've got a beer, I'll take a beer too. And that's all I say. And then he sort of sends me a silent facial reproach of the fact that I dared to order before the lady. And he turned to Susan, and he said, and what would madam have? And I wanted to say to him, madam, I'll have exactly what I just ordered. But no, he looks only at her. And you know, she newly married, she looks down the menu and all the way up the menu, and I know her eyes going over to the Price column as well. And and I want to just order for her. But at that point, she says, you know, just maybe bring a plate and I'm going to just share what my husband had. Well, you got to remember this as many years ago, I was newly married and I was an idiot, and so I said, Susan, don't do that. If I wanted half a steak, I'd have ordered half a steak. Please, order a steak and fries. Eat half of it, and I'll have the other half. And that way you'll have the half you wanted, and I'll have the one and a half that I'll be quite happy with, certainly preferable to just a half, and I insist that I saw tears well up in my bride's eyes. And it was then that I realized something really important, and that is, to a man, a stake is, well, it's a steak, of course. What did you think I was going to say? But to a woman, the steak was much more. It was about communication and connection. She wanted to eat half of my steak, and I missed it. I missed the signal entirely. But I've tried my hardest ever since then to remember that meals are not just for eating and for admiring and appreciating the wonderful food that she cooked and created, but it's a chance for communication. It's a chance for conversation. It's a chance to really listen to her she. And I've tried to do that as hard as I can. Failed many times, I'm sure, but I've certainly tried to do that consistently ever since then. And so that's how it goes, my friends, you happy warriors, whether you are yet married or not yet married, whether you are building your your marriage and your family, I want you to remember one thing, which is that if you've got a great marriage, everything else in life seems terrific. But if your marriage is struggling, if your marriage is stressed, then it doesn't really matter what else is good, because coming home to attention filled home carries over into almost everything else in your life and makes it less so. The key thing to understand that I'm speaking now to men is if you want to make your marriage better, remember you are the sun and she is the moon. Don't tell her what to do. You change yourself. It's a very big thing. I will tell you that in my marriage counseling work, and I don't do it as much today as I used to, but in my marriage counseling work, about 75% of the couples that would come sit down in my office and explain to me what the problem was. In about 75% of the cases, I said to the woman, thank you. I understand everything you've told me you may go home now. I don't need you here anymore, and everything else could be done with a husband. That's not exactly the same as saying that husbands are responsible for 75% of the problems in marriage. And I'm not trying to say that, but I am saying is that the condition of the marriage can and should be able to be rectified, improved, vastly improved by actions the husband takes unilaterally. You just have to remember the power you exert is very similar to the power that the sun exerts over the moon. That's not a license to become a tyrant. It's not a license to become a bully, because that's not how it's done. The sun does it by radiating warmth and light and a gravitational pull that is irresistible. Think about that. And so I guess I'm really saying to husbands and to men, you can really make so much of a difference or entirely on your own, please join the Happy Warrior community. We talk a lot about these areas. We talk about the five F's. We talk about the family and faith and finances and fitness and friendship. And
Daniel Lapin 43:10
I also will mention that I coach up to three men at a time. Yes, men. I don't coach women. I coach men, but don't many aspects of what men speak to me about have to do with their marriage, yeah, and in the overwhelming majority of cases, everything can be dealt with with a man alone. So for that reason, and also for reasons of wholesomeness and health. I don't coach women, but I do coach men. I coach three at a time, and in general, about three at a time. And do I have any vacancies? Yes, I do, actually one at the moment, and I'm sure that will be filled soon. I'm almost always finding that my coaching schedule is full and it's based on the 5f principles, which is that all five crucial areas of our lives interact with one another and and have powerful effects on one another. We have to know how to be aware of that and how to employ that for positive purposes. And so until next week, Happy Warriors, part of our community. Thank you for everything you do to promote the show, and I wish you a week of great success with your family, your finances, your friendships, your fitness and your faith. I'm RabbiDaniel Lapin, God bless you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
