In a 2004 lecture on Deuteronomy 15, Dennis Prager says: "If we really listen to God, there won't be poor people? I believe there is a basis for this.
"Right now, the vast majority of poverty in the world is induced by human sin. Certainly all starvation. If you did a history of the famines of the last 80 years, you'll find overwhelmingly it was corrupt government. If people were good, we would have had the food. There is enough food on this planet to feed everybody."
"How come North Korea is having a famine and South Korea isn't? Because North Korea is run by monsters."
"If you create a society of people listening to God, you won't have poverty. People will take care of each other better. When you think there won't be poverty if people observe God's law, you think that will be because of charity. But that's only half of it. People won't seek charity. They'll work hard."
"In a God-fearing society, people won't be lazy."
Dennis Prager wishes for a return to indentured servitude. "If I have piled up a lot of debt to you, if I steal from you, I go to jail. What does that do for you? If I steal from you, why do I not owe you to return what I owe? What they had in ancient Israel was bonded indenture. Doesn't that make sense?"
"There was a God presence in these people's lives that we can have but there were ways to have it then that were dramatic. To enter the holy temple and to have a sacrifice done for your sins, if that didn't make you more aware of your sins... Today we have no ceremony for sins. Only the Catholic church has retained it in the sacrament of confession.
"We don't have the rituals to get us bonded with God. If you knew that every year, you can't have the first of everything. God is the source of these trees, these oxen, so I bring them back to God."
"Why do you get close to your kids? Because of how much you've sacrificed. If you don't sacrifice, you don't get close."
"I ask myself, Dennis, have you sacrificed for God?"
"Ninety percent of people who study Torah do it incorrectly. I feel bad for them. They are so caught up in gee, what does firstlings mean? What did they ancient Canaanites do? Let's learn this text, what does it really mean? But they don't apply the lessons to their own life. Of course you are not going to bring your first ox to Jerusalem. The point of this isn't what to do with your first ox in ancient Israel but what do you sacrifice to get close to God?
