I read The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism in 1989 and found it so persuasive that I converted to Judaism in 1993. Then I found out that it’s ideas are largely absent from Jewish life, even Orthodox Jewish life. Over the years, I moved from frustration that the ideas of Nine Questions were not more important in Jewish life to disillusionment with Mr. Prager and Rabbi Telushkin. For a while, I wondered if they’d sold me a bill of goods. Then I learned to accept that they’d presented an inspiring vision of Judaism.
Novelist Herman Wouk, an Orthodox Jew, called it: “The intelligent skeptic’s guide to Judaism.”
Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin are secondary text guys in the eyes of primary text guys (such as Rabbi David Hartman). Dennis and Joseph write popular stuff, not scholarship. They don’t advance original insights. Instead, they assemble the best work of others and present it in a uniquely engaging way.
Judging by their writing and lecturing, Dennis and Joseph seem to spend most of their Jewish study time with texts about the primary texts of the Jewish tradition. Thus, they are not regarded seriously by many, perhaps most, scholars of Jewish text.
“It’s not Judaism,” many rabbis (such as Danny Landes) told me about Dennis Prager’s presentation of their religion. “It’s Pragerism.”
