On Tisha B’ Av, 1492, two days before Christopher Columbus set sail on his voyage of discovery, the Abarbanel carrying a Torah scroll, led 100,000 of his fellow Jews out of Spain.
Afterward, he settled first in Naples, Italy and then Venice, where he dedicated his life to studying Torah and writing commentaries on Tanach.

Directed by Ashley Lazarus

To purchase on a USB Drive please go to: Abarbanel Film – USB

How the film on the Abarbanel was made [Running Time – 8 minutes]

Because Chanuka conveys a military as well as a spiritual message it does not fit comfortably into any of the holiday niches of Judaism. There is no other holiday on the Jewish calendar devoted to military victory. There is no special day of commemoration for the military triumphs of Joshua, Saul, or David, magnificent as they may have been. And if you will raise the issue that those biblically recorded triumphs were not really permanent then neither was the victory of the Hasmoneans and even the Temple itself was destroyed only a few centuries later. What therefore made this military victory so special and different as to warrant an eternal holiday of commemoration on its behalf?

Jewish holidays do not usually commemorate the spilling of blood, even the blood of our enemies. On the latter days of Pesach only the abridged Hallel is recited instead of the full-throated and longer version, since so many human beings – Egyptians all – perished in the Red Sea miracle. Why the sensitivity towards the Egyptian dead and not towards the Syrian/Greek dead? Why the full Hallel recited on Chanuka and not on the latter days of Pesach?

To our rescue in this matter comes the other ritual aspect of Chanuka, the commemoration of the lighting of the candelabra in the Temple and its accompanying of the long burning flask of pure oil. It is this aspect of Chanuka that comes to dominate the holiday though the military victory is recorded as part of the special prayers of the holiday. The military victory though also miraculous in terms of the odds against its success was manufactured and wrought by humans – by human courage, sacrifice, tenacity, strategy, and tactics.

Everything created by humans is subject to reversal, destruction, decay, and abandonment. Military victory in the long run of history, is temporary at best and futile at worst. All of the great pantheon of famous warriors of the distant past and of the near present as well testify to this disappointing truth, there are only temporary victors in wars; rarely if ever is there any true permanence to these triumphs. Only when the military victory is itself combined and even sublimated to spiritual accomplishment, only when God is acknowledged as having somehow fashioned the victory, only when there is symbolic religious ritual attached to the celebration of physical triumph, only then can that victory be seen as having some sense of permanence.

The memory of the victory of the Hasmoneans is glorified because of the candles of Chanuka. It is possibly a greater victory, so to speak, than the drowning of the Egyptians which required no Jewish sacrifice to bring it about nor is there any special ritual commandment associated with it. In such a situation our triumph cannot ride roughshod over human sensitivities and empathy, even towards enemies. However, Chanuka with its spiritually uplifting message of eternal fuel and lights allows us to exult fully in the military victory of the Hasmoneans as well. For it is no longer just a triumph of arms and war but rather one of the human spirit of Divine aid and continuing guidance.

Over the ages, Jews have embellished Chanuka with various customs and folkways. Jewish art and creativity have flourished in fashioning Chanuka candle holders. They range from the exotic and precious to the mundane and primitive. The exhibit of Chanuka menorot at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem is one that I never tire of visiting and studying. Special Chanuka foods are legendary, mostly based upon some connection of being baked, roasted, or cooked in oil. Doughnuts, potato pancakes, dairy delicacies etc. are all the order of the day. Commemoration always requires some sort of form and ritual. It can never stand alone and hope somehow to be truly remembered.

Many of the great days of the State of Israel’s past sixty years of triumphal memory are slowly receding from public view and observance because there is no ritual of religious observance present to seal them into the hearts and souls of the vast public. Ceremony and tradition are the powerful memory aids of human society. Without their presence everything is in danger of being lost in the haze of the past, no matter how great and meaningful the triumph may have been at the time of its occurrence. It is the small flickering lights of Chanuka that keep the victories and achievements and heroism of the Hasmoneans alive for us today. So let us rejoice in our Chanuka holiday and attempt to always keep the spirit of the original Hasmoneans alive and well within us for all our generations.

One of the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of a democratic society is that it allows evil forces to operate with impunity under the protection of democratic processes and guarantees.  In our time, freedoms of expression, assembly and speech have been greatly expanded so that there is almost nothing outside their purview and definition.  We see that positive forces in society are constantly placed on the defensive by the aggressive nature of the attacks made upon them by groups and individuals who are truly harmful to the general welfare of the society.  The exploitation of legal protections that democracy offers by forces that are anti-democratic is one of the dilemmas that constantly face democratic governments throughout the world. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said that one was not allowed to gratuitously and falsely shout “fire” in a crowded theater.  But much of the demagoguery that currently fills our airwaves, campuses and other public venues is, in my opinion, certainly analogous to falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theater.  It can cause dire consequences and injury and death to innocent people.

Of course, dictatorships are closed societies and are able to clamp down on their opponents.  They are not hampered by the niceties of democracy and limited governmental power.  There is no independent judiciary present in those countries that can thwart extreme measures to crush opposing ideas and minority opinions.   No matter how dangerous the threats to our sense of security and the ability to go about our daily business normally may be, we still do not wish to revert to becoming a totalitarian state where our freedoms are stifled, and “big brother” is constantly monitoring our behavior and speech. Therefore, we find ourselves walking along a narrow precipice between trying to ensure maximum domestic tranquility and yet preserving all privileges and rights that are the hallmark of Western democratic society.   The inability to suppress the anarchists in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century led to the eventual Bolshevik revolution, which eliminated all freedoms.  The Weimar government in interwar Germany allowed the Nazi party freedom of speech and assembly that eventually led to Hitler coming to power and the deaths of tens of millions of innocent people. There just is no easy policy apparent in dealing with terrorist groups and extremist ideologies that employ and exploit the democratic freedoms allowed them as structures of Western society.  It is always part of the never-ending struggle between our moral conscience and the practical realities that life imposes upon us.

Every Western country has done great evil in trying to protect itself from external and internal enemies   Every country has also allowed itself to be endangered and its citizens violently killed because of moral conscience and democratic ideals, all of which allowed violence and terrorism to flourish in their midst.  It is obvious to all that our generation will not be spared the angst of dealing with the two poles of this issue.  And, it will always be a Hobbesian choice.

To a great extent, it all will depend upon how real and persistent the danger to the security of the ordinary citizen is.  If the public feels that it is not safe to go about its ordinary business because of the threat of terrorism, then the niceties of civil liberties and protected freedoms of assembly, speech and immigration will undoubtedly be of secondary importance.  In theory, this does not have to be but in practice it always is.  Dictators rise to power through emergency decrees, which somehow are never revoked because in a dictatorship the emergency never ends.  Adolf Hitler ruled Germany based on a six- month emergency decree that led to twelve years of Nazi rule.  Hitler’s emergency was based on a trumped-up fear of a communist coup.  The power structure in the Soviet Union ruled for seventy-five years, justifying its tyranny of the Russian people and other nations for fear of counter-revolutionary, capitalistic fervor that would overthrow the government.  In World War II, the United States, to its lasting shame, evacuated Japanese-Americans from the West Coast and placed them in internment camps for the balance of the war. War and danger always seem to engender xenophobia, even in the most liberal of societies.

There is a growing public clamor for more effective security measures and for shutting down immigration.  All admit that such policies run counter to the traditional values of Western democracy.  And yet, it is equally obvious that no society can tolerate continued waves of senseless terrorism forever.  There are and there always will be political leaders who will exploit such situations for their own personal gain and ambition.  It becomes doubly difficult to be able to deal with the problem on a rational and pragmatic basis, avoiding demagoguery and simplistic solutions that simply will not accomplish their desired goal.  So, we have much to keep in mind as our current situation unfolds, as we hope for the correct balance of security and personal freedoms

It was not so much the allure of Enlightenment but rather the poverty and persecution in Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century that were the main causes for the rampant loss of faith and tradition then amongst millions of Jews. The statement of the rabbis: “A poor person is as a dead person” remains as an astute and realistic assessment of human life.

Between the First and Second World War, the Jewish economy collapsed completely in most of the eastern European countries where Jews resided. Much, if not most of the collapse was due to government sponsored anti-Semitic decrees aimed to destroy traditional Jewish industries such as liquor, textile and tobacco. All of those industries were taken away from the Jews by the government with little or no compensation. Thousands and thousands of Jews found themselves on the streets unemployed.

The Joint Distribution Committee, the Jewish welfare organization, distributed large amounts of money and food just to keep Jews alive. Unemployment among Jews in certain areas ran as high as 40%. Even the jobs that they had were not enough to make a living.

Roman Vishniac was a photographer who took pictures of Jews living at this time. In the 1930s he went through Poland, Romania and the Carpathian area taking pictures of Jewish life. There are photos of Jewish children going to school barefoot, wearing tattered clothing, their bodies emaciated. There was disease, lack of sanitation – it is hard to believe the time period is the 20^th century.

Between the wars the position of the Jews reverted back to what it had been 100 years earlier. Any progress that had been made socially, economically and otherwise in that time was wiped out.

The difference was that a century earlier the Jews were still mostly religious and could find solace – real solace – in their situation despite the poverty. King David stated in Psalms that “If not for Your Torah, I would then have been completely lost in my poverty and desolation.” This refers not only to immersing one’s self wholeheartedly in the study and support of Torah and its values, which is certainly the plain import of the verse, but a perspective of life. A person eventually has to observe one’s self in terms of eternity if life is to have any real and lasting meaning.

Masses of Jews not only abandoned this perspective after the First World War but invested meaning in their material situation. When this rug was pulled out from under them by the economic realities of the post-war world and rising anti-Semitism they had the worst of both worlds and were extremely vulnerable to the horrors that were to follow.

A woman, a complete stranger, walking by the counter on her way to squeeze some tomatoes, said to me: “The word you used for noon is incorrect. The word is used only for midnight.” Before I could even thank her for that piece of linguistic instruction she was already giving the tomatoes a hard time at the other end of the store. I know that she meant well but it really was none of her business. If I wish to be grammatically incorrect it is my personal privilege to be so. The store manager understood my request perfectly. But I know that she, like all practitioners of the art of free and unsolicited advice, meant only well and for my benefit.

I appear on Israeli television three times a week on a pre-recorded “Ask the Rabbi” format as well as a once a week full hour lecture. I receive many comments, both oral and written, about these programs. I also receive a great deal of free advice about the contents and appearance of the program. A person pursued me for weeks insisting that the ties that I wear on the program are not the “right kind” and suggested a tie store here in Jerusalem that I should use to buy the “right kind” of tie. I suspected that the tie store was in actuality owned by his brother-in-law but then was angry at myself for harboring such negative thoughts about a fellow Jerusalemite who undoubtedly had my best interests at heart.

After so many decades of serving as a congregational rabbi I am quite accustomed to receive much free advice in copious amounts from varying sources. Every person has a number of people, confidants, whose unsolicited advice he is prepared to hear and perhaps even follow. But most unsolicited advice from people who really don’t know or understand you should be shrugged off. And if a rabbi is to keep his sanity – a prime requirement for the profession – then he must become semi-immune to free advice being offered so generously and regularly to him. I receive unsolicited advice on every facet of my life from well-meaning people, many if not most times about issues that are obviously out of their realm of expertise.

I try to smile, thank the person, and then continue on my own merry way. Even parents have to be wary of giving unsolicited advice to their children when those children are grown and out of the house. Even though honoring one’s parents is a cardinal commandment in Jewish life, one is not bound to follow their advice or wishes in personal matters, such as the choice of a mate or profession. Parents often and naturally find it difficult to let go. But I have witnessed many times in my rabbinic career families torn apart because of unsolicited advice and instructions given by parents to adult children. I once had a case of a married couple who were constantly warring over the penchant of the husband to advise his wife, who had her own tastes, as to the type and style and color of the clothing she wore. If one’s opinion is not requested then it should not be given gratuitously. Free advice in family matters, no matter how small and seemingly unimportant, is usually a recipe for contentiousness and difficulties. Thus free advice is rarely free of later consequences, usually completely unforeseen.

The main reservoir of free advice here in Israel, as perhaps in other parts of the world as well, is the taxi-driver. There is no subject about which he is not well-versed and more than willing to share his knowledge with his long-suffering fare customer. A taxi-driver who somehow recognized me once advised me as to the proper topic for next Shabbat’s sermon in my synagogue, a synagogue which he never visits or attends. I think he wanted a sizeable tip for the advice that he gave me on top of the taxi fare on the meter. People should rein in their good intentions and wisdom as far as others are concerned. Free advice is often wrong and most times unwanted. How did that woman in the fruit and vegetable store know that I did not perhaps mean midnight? After all who wants to receive a fruit and vegetable delivery after midnight? Well, I don’t know why I am offering you all of this free advice on free advice. Please feel free to ignore it at your discretion. Free is rarely valuable.

                                There are many underground springs of water in the Judean Desert. The largest is Ein Gedi, hard by the Dead Sea. This spring nurtures a thriving kibbutz that owns a mineral water bottling company that bottles and markets, not surprisingly, Ein Gedi spring water. It also has large agricultural holdings, almost exclusively devoted to date palms, nurtured by the waters of that same spring. And it is a great tourist site in Israel, famous for its Dead Sea spa and skin treatments center and one of the most interesting botanical gardens in the world. The botanical garden is not formally landscaped but rather it is scattered throughout the grounds of the kibbutz itself. The climate of Ein Gedi – temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit for seven months of the year – with the presence of the spring water combine to allow an enormous variety of plant and tree life to flourish. There are over a thousand different species of cactus in the garden, with natural shapes that challenge one’s imagination. The flowering bushes are a constant riot of color while the great fig and fichus trees tower over the landscape. A two to three hour walk through the grounds of the kibbutz, and especially through the rain forest component of the garden, will convince one of the absolute magnificence and infinite variety of nature in God’s world. And all of this possible because of that great underground spring of sweet water that exists in the middle of the desert next to the brackish waters of the Dead Sea.

                                The Dead Sea itself is one of the major attractions and landmarks of the Judean Desert. The Israelis, early on in the settlement of the Land of Israel, established major manufacturing plants alongside the Dead Sea in order to extract and commercialize the mineral riches of the area. Bromides, manganese, salt and potash are the major chemical products that are processed in the Dead Sea Works. These chemicals are exported to the entire world, mainly through the port facilities of Ashdod. A tour of the Dead Sea Works is a fascinating experience.

                                The caves of the Judean Desert were the storage place for the famed Dead Sea Scrolls and other important archeological and scholarly finds. The Bar Kochba caves, explored by Yigal Yadin, revealed a new picture of the famed Jewish leader whose rebellion in 135 CE almost succeeded in freeing the Jews in Israel from the domination of Rome. Aside from the historical treasures of the desert, there is varied plant and animal life. At the rest stop at Kfar Adumim near Jericho, tame gazelles and ibex come to share your lunch with you, if they can. There are large signs all around that forbid feeding these animals, but the true Israeli blithely ignores such signs, especially if some type of governmental agency erected them. And the animals know that and therefore they come to the rest stop in some numbers.

                                The views from the Judean Desert, in every direction, are breathtakingly spectacular. One gazes down on Jericho, the oasis and spring of Joshua and Elisha, and sees the sprawling Arab town that now occupies the place. The Bedouins still make their homes in tents in the desert, but in decreasing numbers. Most of the Bedouins have become urbanized and find work at the Dead Sea hotels complex and other enterprises in the area. But the desert itself remains unchanging – seductive, serene, sinister and silent. In my opinion, any visit to Israel should include a visit to the Judean Desert.

                            Our current struggle, whether here in Israel where we face a foe (just as the ancient Syrians of Mattisyahu’s time) that has yet not reconciled to our right to exist in our homeland and be different than our neighbors, or in America where terror stalks the land, if not in fact any longer but certainly in mind, requires of us these same two elements that make up the Chanuka story. There are no cheap victories in the cause of human progress and freedom. “According to the effort and the pain is the reward,” was one of the favorite aphorisms of the rabbis of the Mishna. We, the Jewish people, out of all nations should realize by our history how costly the battle for good and fairness and tolerance and independence truly is. Assimilation, ignorance of Jewish values, fear of losses, fright as to being a minority, are all eventually to be cowardice in the Jewish view of things. Risk, sacrifice, devotion, integrity and tenacity are the weapons of the success of the Chanuka story. They are our weapons of success today as well in our war against terrorism in Israel and worldwide.

                            Light in the world cannot be judged as being man-made alone. We do not have enough fuel by ourselves to light eternal lights that burn on for centuries and millennia. According to most historians this year is the 2165^th Chanuka. That is a pretty long time to keep a flame going. But since this flame is inspired by faith in the Creator and by loyalty to His value system and lifestyle and is not merely the product of another good human idea, its eternity is guaranteed. It is the miraculous, the unexpected, that makes for the natural continuity of Israel and goodness in the world. So, as we light and view the flames of Chanuka in this troubled year, literally in the winter of our current discontent, we should take heart and hope about the eventual triumph of good over evil, of holiness over profanity, of the few over the mighty many, of the original story of Chanuka repeating itself  “in our time as in those days.”  So, may I wish you, my friends, a happy, joyous, meaningful, memorable, and latke/doughnut filled Chanuka.

Those of us who lived through the last two-thirds of the twentieth century experienced one of the most turbulent and certainly the most violent and murderous period in human history. Between Hitler, Stalin, Mao and an assortment of lesser murderers, over one hundred fifty million people lost their lives by governmental action, war and terror. This represents a greater number than the entire estimated population of the then known world at the time of Julius Caesar. To this astronomical number needs to be added another forty million people who died in World War I and in the influenza epidemic that swept the world in its aftermath. There had never before in human history occurred such a bloodletting over a condensed period of less than a hundred years.

The twentieth century also recorded the destruction of the old order that prevailed in Europe and the Middle East for many centuries. The four great empires of Europe – the Ottoman, German, Austrian and Russian – were destroyed in World War I. The surviving empires – the British, French and the minor colonial powers – were greatly weakened by that great war even though at the time they failed to truly realize that their days as imperial powers were now coming to an end. But the generation of World War I is almost gone from the scene and all of its horrors are now relegated to the pages of books and to grainy films.

It is the generation of World War II that is now also beginning to pass from the scene as well. This realization makes me more likely than ever to look back at that watershed of human history and its aftermath, much of which still influences all of humanity today. How could such a disaster have occurred? Who was responsible for it? Was it inevitable or was it caused solely by evil individuals? And of course hovering over all of this is the specter of the Holocaust and its disastrous effects upon world Jewry. I therefore, in my dotage and in a looking back mode, purchased a book by Allan Bullock, the British historian, entitled “Hitler and Stalin, Two Parallel Lives” and read all one thousand pages of it avidly. Bullock’s talent is to interweave the lives of these two monsters together and show how they almost by themselves created the disaster that was Europe for a large part of the twentieth century. It is a masterpiece of detail and research and so easily readable that it turns into a page turner. Its ability to explain the madness of each of the protagonists, to make sense of the inexplicable and almost indescribable decisions and policies of these two men and to describe the power that each of them had over entire nations of millions of people is truly enviable.

Bullock enters the warped minds of each of his subjects, Hitler and Stalin, and shows how their behavior and policies, self-destructive and insane as they may have been, made perfect sense to them from their own perspective. It is chilling reading but it certainly puts the century into some sort of perspective and emphasizes to the reader how history is made by people and their policies and beliefs and not by blind historical forces of economies, social systems or class struggles. The Jewish view of life is that all individuals are responsible for their actions and decisions and the consequences that flow from them. Hitler and Stalin, and later Mao and Pol Pot and others of this ilk, are responsible personally for all of the tens and tens of millions done to death through their decisions in the twentieth century. As being a member of the generation that witnessed these events, I remember vividly the impressions they made upon me.

As a small child I remember my parents listening in dismay to the screeching hysterical speeches broadcast and translated over American radio of Adolf Hitler. The voice of that evil person is deeply embedded in my memory. I remember the sight of the first Holocaust survivors reaching Chicago in 1947. My mother and father gave away our dining room table and chairs to one of the survivor families who had nothing. We ate in our kitchen for a number of years thereafter and never felt the poorer thereby. I never thought my parents’ behavior in this matter strange or even especially magnanimous. It was natural to me having grown up with my grandfather and my parents and watching their daily behavior and acts of hospitality, charity and kindness towards others.

At that time the Irgun and Lechi were fighting the British and the Arabs in the Land of Israel. The only newspaper that regularly carried news about the situation then in Palestine was the New York Times, which obviously did not yet appear in Chicago at that time on a regular basis. About once every two weeks a copy of the paper miraculously appeared in our school and everyone waited in line to read the old news. It was heroic for us to feel that Jews were actually fighting others for their rights and land. The Friday that the state was declared, May 14, 1948, I walked to the synagogue with my father as was our customary behavior. I remember that he wept every step of the way. It was at that moment that the idea of my living in Jerusalem in a Jewish state crystallized in my mind and heart. It took almost fifty years for it to be realized, with a great many twists and turns along the way, but somehow the Lord allowed it to truly happen. My gratitude for that knows no bounds. The enthusiasm in the Jewish world, in all of its sections and circles, was then overwhelming. At a mass rally that was held at the Chicago Stadium to mark the occasion of the creation of the state, the blue and white flag of Israel was raised to the rafters. Uncontrollable weeping swept over the nearly twenty thousand people crammed into the stadium. The entire two thousand year- long exile with all of its tragedies poured out of the Jewish souls gathered there. It was an electric moment. I regret deeply that my children and grandchildren do not have such a moment to remember when their time will come to look back.

Though not yet of army draft age, I remember my trepidation at the announcement of the invasion of South Korea by North Korean troops and the subsequent American response. Stalin was still somewhat of a revered figure in America, especially in liberal Jewish America. His true nature and the real face of Soviet Communist life had not yet been fully revealed. I attended college at a university infested with left leaning fellow-travelers to whom the Soviet Union could do no wrong and the United States could do no right. However, my teachers at the yeshiva, some of whom had tasted the paradise of Soviet life during the Russian army’s occupation of Lithuania in 1940 and 1941, set us then naïve Americans straight about atheistic Communism and the benevolence of the great “Father of Mankind,” Josef Stalin.

Reading Bullock’s book only served to confirm to me a fact that I have long known in my life experience – how right my rabbis were and how wooly-headed and wrong most of my college professors were. And this rule applies not only in relation to attitudes and judgments towards Stalin and the Soviet Union. It has proven itself true regarding almost all other matters of life and the world itself. The opinions of Torah scholars on all matters of life should never be discounted or shrugged off lightly. They are the pegs upon which the tent of our lives holds firm. Looking back should not be a matter of nostalgia solely. Nostalgia often distorts reality, both past and present. The past is a masterful teacher if we only let it penetrate our minds and hearts and learn from it. And only if we have an accurate and mostly true assessment of what that past actually contained and was. The past can never be reconstructed to operate in the present. But making intelligent decisions, personal and national in the present, requires a knowledge and appreciation of the past. Looking back is an essential part of wisdom and probity in life. Every generation is individual, special and unique. But it must be admitted that those of us who lived through the last two-thirds of the twentieth century certainly lived through an unequalled epic time in human and Jewish history.

As in all of Wouk’s works there is plenty of insightful humor present on the human condition and the foolish foibles of human beings, even of paragons of faith and religious observance. After all, Wouk was one of the gag writers for the famous radio comedian of seventy years ago in the United States, Fred Allen. But Wouk’s primary influence on me stems not from his written words, engaging and talented as they are, but rather from a speech that he delivered over sixty years ago to a banquet of the Hebrew Theological College in Chicago, a banquet I attended (but did not have a place setting or food there). He had just received fame as prizewinning author and playwright and was outed to the general American public as somehow being a practicing Orthodox Jew. In those days such a successful American Jew who still observed the Sabbath and ate only kosher food was a rarity. And his speech at that banquet was masterful in delivery and content.

He predicted the wave of assimilation that would overtake American Jewry in the coming decades and warned that if there were no spirituality or traditional observance, no love of Torah or of Israel present in the coming generations they were doomed to disappear from Jewish life and history. I had never heard anyone put forth the case for traditional Jewish life and values so ably and bluntly. I said thank you to him after the speech as I stood in line at the dais with hundreds of others, many of whom asked him to sign copies of his book that they had brought along. The speech inspired me then and continues to inspire me now. It strengthened my then youthful and perhaps even naïve belief that Orthodoxy was the only way to go even in America and that I should somehow contribute to its defense and growth.

I met Wouk again at a Sabbath synagogue in Palm Springs, California where he then resided. And I met him for a third time in Yemin Moshe in Jerusalem where he owned a home and partially resided. He had vaguely heard of me and was courteous to me. I reminded him of his speech in long ago Chicago and he ruefully smiled and said: “them were the days!” And I thanked him for writing the seminal “This Is My God,” a book that I have used and given to others countless times in my long rabbinic experience and career. This book, above all others that he has penned will surely stand the test of time and changing literary tastes and forms.

At the conclusion of The Lawgiver, Wouk has written an epilogue about the characters in this novel. In concluding the epilogue itself Wouk wrote a beautiful, heart-wrenching farewell to his wife. He wrote: “We shared our time under the sun for sixty-three years, during which I did all my literary work. Before we met I wrote nothing that mattered. Whoever reads a book by Herman Wouk will be reading art deeply infused with her self-effacing and incisive brilliance, books composed during a long literary career managed by her common sense, with which I am sparsely endowed.

Here is Betty Sarah Wouk, the girl I met by God’s grace in 1944, a Phi Bete and an enchantment, working in Navy personnel. She rests in peace beside our firstborn son, who accidentally died in Mexico when almost five years old. My place at Abe’s other side awaits me in God’s good time.”

            In a completely unscientific survey that I decided to make after hearing of the above conversation, I asked the Arab custodian at the yeshiva where I teach, and with whom I have very cordial relations, the very same question: “If you were not born and reared as a Moslem, what faith do you think you would follow?” He looked at me very quizzically, fearing perhaps that I had some nefarious motive driving me in asking      that question. When I further explained to him that I really had no missionary, monetary or political motive in mind when asking the question but that I was just taking a survey on the issue and that his answer would be non-binding upon him, he squinted and thought for a moment. He then said: “Even though many of the Arabs  (not me, naturally) currently see the Jews as an enemy, if we were not Moslems we would probably follow Judaism.” He then added thoughtfully, “It is interesting that over all of the centuries, very few Jews ever became Moslems.” I walked away from that conversation in a very thoughtful and pensive mood. It seems that we are everyone else’s second choice, the true fallback, fail-safe faith for much of civilization.

            Young Jews that I have known here in Israel and some of who were later students of mine told me that when they toured Nepal and India and came into contact with gurus and the holy men of the Eastern religions, they were amazed by the curiosity and interest that these people evinced in Judaism. One young man even told me that the main reason that he opted to come to Jerusalem to study Torah was the fact that he was so ignorant of Judaism that he could not answer any of the questions posed to him by the head of the ashram about Judaism. That ashram head was very disappointed in him and severely chastised him for his Judaic ignorance. The Jewish boy decided to remedy that failing by enrolling in a Jerusalem yeshiva and spending time studying Torah. But the interesting point that he made to me was that somehow Judaism as a faith (not necessarily Jews as a people) was held in much higher regard in that part of the world than any of the other religions, such as Christianity and Islam. Now, I understand that Christians and Moslems can have a relationship with Judaism, since their faiths sprang from Judaism and its scriptures and values. But I was somewhat surprised to learn that the Eastern religions, which at least superficially seem to have no relationship to Judaism and its values, and in fact may still be considered to be pagan in the eyes of Judaism, also find Judaism as a possible second choice of faith and lifestyle.

Naturally, all of this that I am writing is not based on any scientific study or academic research. Yet my intuition tells me that the above conclusions that I have made are real and do reflect a prevalent attitude in those societies.

            Of course, one aspect of the “Jewish problem” is that the world may admire and appreciate Judaism but it has little tolerance for Jews. This phenomenon is ages old and I am not going to discuss the prevailing anti-Semitism in the world again in this column. However, I do find it interesting that there are some anti-Semites like Farrakhan who can refer to Judaism itself as being “a gutter religion,” while other Jew-haters restrict their venom only to the people of Israel while somehow still “admiring” the faith of Israel. Nevertheless, all of history and common sense has shown us that the practical reality of this world is that there can be no Judaism without Jews and therefore we will have to continue to annoy those who do not wish us well by continuing to survive.

            For almost a century there appeared to be a second choice for Jews as well. This second choice was not Christianity (although 250,000 Jews did convert to Christianity in Western and Central Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – these conversions were in the main for social and economic reasons and to a certain extent were therefore insincere and thus bitterly resented by the Christian society into which these Jews wished to assimilate) or Islam, but rather it was secularism in its varying guises.

The most virulent and damaging form of nineteenth century secularism was undoubtedly Marxism in all of its malignant forms. Since Marxism was a utopian dream, a vision of how all human problems could be solved by human society itself, it had great appeal to Jews, who are by nature and belief utopian and given to messianism. Marxism was secular messianism. And thus a large section of the Jewish people, though by no means ever the majority, deserted the old Judaic faith and climbed upon the wagon of their second choice.

This second choice cost millions of Jewish lives and hundreds of millions of non-Jewish lives. It destroyed families, institutions and values that had carefully been nurtured over centuries. It left a wasteland of disillusionment and spiritual emptiness in much of the Jewish world. But is has pretty much disappeared from the Jewish scene as of today. Last month, I heard a radio interview with the owner of the largest flag company in Israel. He remarked that this was the first May Day in the sixty-five year history of the company that not one red flag was ordered! The Jewish Left, vocal and shrill as it still is, nevertheless has pretty much been defanged by history and events.

            The other forms of secularism that formed the second choice for Jews a century ago have also undergone radical changes. Zionism was threatened by its ugly child, Post-Zionism. Post-Zionism was the force of the future in the Jewish intellectual and academic world until Arafat unveiled its true face and unbelievable danger. While assimilation, the desertion of Judaism for the “good life” continues unabated in America, it is not really a form of secularism. It is basically an abandonment of Judaism without any second choice at all, nothing that substitutes another form of faith or of idealism. It is certainly a type of soulless nihilism, built upon materialism and Jewish ignorance. However, here in Israel, secularism is alive and well but not as alive and well as one would think while reading the Israeli press or listening to some of the diatribes of its politicians. Here, secularism is a second choice, but almost only a default choice.

Though there is attrition in the Orthodox ranks, estimated currently to run at about six percent of the youthful Orthodox population, this is counterbalanced in actual numbers by the Teshuva movement – the number of secular Israelis “returning” and becoming observant and traditional. Most secular Israelis suffer not from disillusionment with Judaism or rebellion against it, as from complete ignorance of Judaism, its values, and teachings. As Berel Katzenellenson, the Labor Zionist leader of the 1930’s, put it: “We hoped to raise a generation of knowledgeable, but yet non-believing secular new Jews (apikorsim, is the Hebrew word); instead we have raised a generation of ignoramuses (am haaretz) who know nothing about their history and heritage.” The secular Jew in Israel is nevertheless very Jewish, simply because he lives in a society where a large section of the population is observant and an even larger section of the population is traditionally inclined. Militant Jewish secularism and anti-religious activity still exist here, but in my opinion, these are more closely bound to the political struggles, the budget allocations, army service, etc. with the religious political parties in the country than with Judaism as a faith itself. I am convinced that if there were no religious parties here in Israel, a much greater section of the secular Israeli population would be very receptive to the practices of Judaism and to a more religious lifestyle.

In any event, here in Israel, secularism is also a declining second choice. The destruction of the illusions of post-Zionism, the wave of anti-Semitism sweeping Europe, the bias of the non-Jewish media and the hypocrisy of the United Nations, all have combined to force a most sobering assessment of our future here in the Land of Israel and our survival as a people. Whenever that situation of danger has occurred in Jewish history, Jews usually prefer to remain with their first choice, the old-fashioned thirty-three hundred year old Judaism of Torah and tradition.