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Are you a conservative Jew? If not, how can you speak to what his "profound faith" says about divorce?

I can't. But, my wife and one or two religious people on this thread think his Old Testament interpretations on divorce are .... self-serving.

How would you like to be his 13 year old boy tomorrow? Walking into school with everyone looking at you after your Dad was whining about his divorce on the air? Even in California, that's unspeakably sad. Was it necessary?

Maybe his wife was really awful and the divorce is unavoidable. But, his denial of the harm divorce does to kids is disturbing.

I think you and others are misrepresenting his position on the effect that divorce has on kids. I don't think he's denying that divorce can be harmful to children; rather, he seemed to say that it was not inevitable that divorce harms kids. That to prevent it requires that the (former) couple be united, determined, and perseverant to make sure that it does not.

I could be mis-remembering or mis-understanding what was said. But I remember being surprised by one of the callers that agreed with him. The caller claimed his kids were doing great but that the parents were working very hard together towards that goal, and that they didn't have any resentment towards each together. I had to ask myself, "well, then why not remarry"?

My wife and one or two religious people on this thread think his Old Testament interpretations on divorce are .... self-serving.

Well, it certainly seems that way. As Christians (I assume you are?) we have the benefit of Christ's divine interpretation and clarification of the Torah. But if we are going to be fair, we have to attempt to see the issue from the position of a Conservative Jew who relies solely on the Torah, Talmud, rabbinical tradition, and so forth.

A few years ago I did a study of the various doctrines of divorce in the Christian community. They broke down into four categories: 1) no divorce, period; 2) divorce, but no remarriage, period; 3) divorce and remarriage under strict circumstances (adultery/abandonment); 4) divorce and remarriage under liberal circumstances. I think it's safe to say that taken together, #1-#3 are all stricter than Dennis Prager's position, and represent the overwhelming majority; #4 is a minority position.

During the course of that study it was clear that Jesus' statements on divorce were stricter than anything clearly laid down in the Old Testament. Interestingly, the divorce question was an ongoing debate in Jesus' time. Many had what basically amounts to the Prager position, that Scripture allows it but regulates it; some took the position that it should be allowed only in limited circumstances. (The two schools of thought were named for individual rabbis, I believe, whose names escape me at the moment.)

Some scholars suggest that Jesus was simply agreeing with the strict school of thought. Other suggest he was going even further than that school of thought.

But either way, it seems clear from that study at least, that the mainstream Christian teaching on divorce is at the very least on the conservative end of the Jewish spectrum; and, quite possibly, considerably stricter.