Jewish Press Chief Editor Elliot Resnick made his debut as a radio talk show host last Thursday, filling in for Rabbi Yehuda Levin during the second half of his show – “Levin at 11” on 620 AM.
During his half-hour on air, Resnick urged the show’s audience to stand tall and defend biblical values in American society. “We are not imposing anything on anyone,” he said, addressing an argument often made against the propriety of publicly advocating for Torah ideal. “We are preserving traditional American values. The values we are pushing for…are the values that animated this country for 250 years,” he said.
He also argued that spreading biblical morality in American society should be seen as an act of kindness considering how many people are desperately seeking meaning in life.
In making this point, he quoted from Jose Ortega y Gasset’s famous work, The Revolt of the Masses (published in 1930): “Without commandments, obliging us to live after a certain fashion, our existence is that of the ‘unemployed.’ This is the terrible situation in which the best youth of the world finds itself today. By dint of feeling free, exempt from restrictions, it feels itself empty.”
He also quoted a line from a novel by Isaac Breuer, grandson of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch: “I should, therefore I am.” Without a “should,” said Resnick, life feels vacuous.
He ended off the show by interviewing his mother, Mrs. Molly Resnick – a former NBC News producer and an international lecturer – on some of the harmful effects mainstream psychology has on society.
“We are here for a purpose, and the purpose is to be representatives of G-dliness and goodness and kindness in the world,” she said. “So if we don’t start with focusing on that and we go back into our past and what our mother did to us…we are delving into irrelevant issues that are not going to get us anywhere.”
She noted that the Lubavitcher Rebbe always told people who came to him with personal problems to do mitzvos. Why? “Because only by focusing on the other rather than on the self – which is what we’re [unfortunately] always focusing on, self and me – only by doing that are you really following a G-dly purpose,” she said.
Portions of the show will be available on YouTube later in the week.