Well, hello, a very relaxed Dennis Prager here from my weekly, nearly weekly. I mean, I do whatever I can.

Sometimes it's absolutely impossible. I'm traveling a lot. But I will do that is I'll try to still squeeze it in or do one in advance before the trip.

But I take this very seriously. It's completely nonscripted. It's totally spontaneous. So it's a risk for me because, you know, what if I say something truly regrettable?

I'm stuck.

This is my home. Did I say it was? I'm Dennis Prager, but people know people assume it. I'm Dennis Prager. This is my home. This is my fireplace. This is one of my easy chairs. And this is my cigar.

So I don't usually talk about something in the news. I have a 15 hours of national radio show each week to three hours a day, Monday to Friday, and believe me, I get immersed in what's happening.

So I use this as an opportunity to talk about all sorts of things. Sometimes if it's in the news, I will, but generally not. I get a chance to talk about things that matter that are not in the news as it were.

Then I take your questions. Sometimes there are things in the news. So anyway, welcome to my home. It's great to be with you. And I am now going to talk to you about cigars.

And before you give up because you have no interest in cigars, this is a bigger deal than it sounds. I'm not going to talk to you about the tobacco flavoring and yummy comparisons between Nicaragua and Cuban, nothing like that.

I am asked, I won't say every day, but I'm often asked, why do you smoke cigars? Aren't they dangerous? This is what I want to talk to you about the word dangerous and about cigars as an example.

And about a philosophy of life. I am a philosophy of life on almost everything. I have had this. This is built into me. This is my, my approach to life is to think things through and have a philosophy of life.

And just be aware of what I'm doing and then march on through life. So for example, doctors often more doctors than anybody else will say to me, you know, there are real risks with tobacco and smoking.

And I think that's why we're doing this. We want you around a long time or even more challenging. Why do you do it? You have so many young listeners. So our viewers, I should say, and I, I take all of this very seriously. And I am very open about it as you can see right now.

I can tell you my approach as I take a pop.

Well, there are many aspects to this question. One of them is, I believe that it's important to enjoy life.

And this may sound so. Who doesn't think it's important to enjoy life? Well, it has ramifications. What I just said. I give you an example. This is really powerful.

As many of you know, I am a religiously committed Jew. And I take my religion very seriously. And there is a very well, I don't know if it's very well known, but dear friend of mine, one of the most prominent rabbis in America, rabbi David was Nika has taught this often that there are five questions. This is in the Talmud.

And one is the second holiest work of Judaism. The holiest is the Bible specifically for Jews, the Old Testament. And in the Talmud, which is as big as the encyclopedia Britannicus gigantic, is philosophy and morality and religion and law and stories and legends and opinions and debates, especially debates.

So here's one fascinating thing. Some rabbi, this is about 15, 1800 years ago. Some rabbi said when we die, God will ask, when a Jew dies specifically, when a Jew dies, God will ask him or her five questions.

It's an interesting thought. And one of those five is,

did you partake of every permitted pleasure? Interesting. This is a religion, at least when understood, I think normatively, is very keen on our enjoying life.

It's very keen on self discipline. It's very keen on non-heavenism, but it's very keen on enjoying life. As is my other great love, Americanism. As I call it, I'm not the only one to call it that name.

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