Conservative activist Daniel Lapin, the Religious Right’s favorite rabbi who was also tied to the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal, appeared today on the 700 Club to tell host Pat Robertson about his new book on the “ancient Jewish wisdom” of “making money.”
Robertson introduced Lapin by asking: “What is it about Jewish people that make them prosper financially? You almost never find Jews tinkering with their cars on the weekends or mowing their lawns. That’s what Daniel Lapin says and there’s a very good reason for that, and it lies within the business secrets of the Bible.”
Later in the interview, Robertson said that Jews are “polishing diamonds, not fixing cars.”
“When you correctly said in Jewish neighborhoods you do not find Jews lying under their cars on Sunday afternoons, no, I pay one of the best mechanics around to take care of my BMW, I’d be crazy to take my time doing it myself,” Lapin said. “Or for me to mow my lawn, I’m the worse lawnmower in the world, but the young man who lives down the street from me, he’s one of the best and he’s happy to do it and I’m happy.”
He added that paying for such services is all about “taking care of God’s other children.”
Lapin also repeated his claim that God doesn’t want people to retire, and commended Robertson for still hosting the 700 Club.
“There’s no Hebrew word for retirement; the general rule is when there’s no Hebrew word for something, it’s a bad idea. For instance, there’s no Hebrew word for adolescent, because when you think about it an adolescent is just somebody who wants all the privileges of adulthood with none of the responsibilities,” Lapin told Robertson. “No word for adolescent, no word for retire and I’m very happy that you’ve taken that lesson to heart.”
Robertson agreed that retirement is a violation of God’s law. Lapin added that there is also no Hebrew word for “fair.”
At the end of the interview, Lapin said that the United States has embraced a Marxist government that “turns people into slaves.”