Abraham – One Man Who Chose a Different Path

This post follows the arc of The Mystery of the Jews, from a pagan world of despair to the enduring mystery of Jewish survival, mission, and impact on humanity.

A Pagan World & A Different Conclusion

There was a time when everyone in the world was pagan, when almost every society:

• Practiced human sacrifice.
• Routinely killed “unproductive, sick, and unwanted” children.
• Treated women and children as property at best.

Life itself was a meaningless endeavor, and the question arises: in such a world, would you have believed any differently?

Remarkably, in this darkness, one man came to a different conclusion, chose a different path, journeyed in a different direction, and discovered and followed the one God, living by His divinely given principles.

Abraham, Covenant & Voices Of His Time

Only one man did this, and his name was Abraham, with whom God made a covenant. Thomas Cahill, in The Gifts of the Jews, asks what the nations of the second millennium BCE would have said about Abraham’s journey if we could have canvassed them.

• In much of Africa and Europe, people would have laughed at his “madness,” pointing to the heavens where they believed an unearthly creature plotted life for all eternity, and where humans could not escape their fate.
• The Egyptians are pictured shaking their heads in disbelief.
• Early Greeks might have warned Abraham with the story of Prometheus, advising him not to overreach but to accept resignation.
• In India, Abraham would have learned that time is black, irrational, and merciless.
• Across continents and societies, he would hear similar counsel.
• Wise figures such as Heraclitus, Lao Tzu, and Siddhartha told followers not to journey but to sit, compose themselves by the river of life, and meditate on its ceaseless, ultimately meaningless flow.

A People Unlike Any Other & Sinai

Abraham is one man who charted a radically different course, and from that one man evolved a people unlike any other.

These are people who would cross paths with virtually every great civilization in history, whose history would be unlike any other, and whose impact on humanity would be unprecedented. They became known to the world simply as “the Jews.”

Over 3,300 years ago, an event occurred only once in human history: an entire nation collectively experiencing Divine revelation at Mount Sinai.

There, the Jews received the Torah, the Ten Commandments, and the Five Books of Moses from God, for themselves and, through them, for the world.

What happened at Sinai is presented as something that changed the world forever, giving humanity for the first time a Divine moral compass, a guide for how best to live, refine oneself, and improve the world.

Flourishing, Exile & Relentless Persecution

In the ancient world, in the eastern Fertile Crescent, the region known as the Cradle of Civilization, lies the Holy Land, the Land of Israel.

There, for centuries, the Jewish people flourished and lived in peace until they failed to live up to their Divine covenant, and then destruction struck them through their enemies.

• First came the Babylonians
• Then the Persians
• Then the Greeks
• Finally, the Romans, with all their fury, forced the Jews into exile and dispersion

For more than 2,500 years, the Jews suffered persecution:

• They were tortured and massacred
• Their synagogues were burned
• Their women were violated
• Their books were vandalized and set on fire

This pattern continued century after century, throughout their history and into modern times.

It has been attributed to reasons such as jealousy, scapegoating, and the fact that Jews stood up, and still stand up, for an absolute moral standard grounded in belief in one God and in the holiness of human purpose, which in turn fuels the demonic and destructive forces of antisemitism.

Antisemitism, Hitler & A War Against Conscience

David Lloyd George, former British Prime Minister, is quoted as saying that among all forms of fanaticism that wreak havoc in human nature, none is as irrational as Antisemitism.

As an extreme example, the film points to Adolf Hitler, describing how he projected his own failings and those of his followers onto the Jews.

Hitler declared that Providence ordained him to be the greatest liberator of humanity, claiming to free humanity from what he calls a ‘false vision’ named ‘conscience’ and ‘morality’.

He asserts that the Ten Commandments have lost their validity, that conscience is a Jewish invention and a blemish, and that Christianity, along with Bolshevism as its “illegitimate child,” are both inventions of the Jews.

He frames the struggle for world domination as a contest between himself and the Jews, declaring that everything else is meaningless.

For more than 2,500 years, since the first exile in 586 BCE, Jews were scattered across the globe like stubble in the wind, in line with the verse that God would scatter them among the nations from one end of the earth to the other.

Scattered, Yet Flourishing & Transforming The World

Across these 2,500 years, Jews were repeatedly driven out of their homes, country after country.

Yet, despite persecution and even the unimaginable devastation of the Holocaust, something remarkable occurred: supported by unswerving faith and trust in God and His Torah, the Jews not only survived but flourished and changed the world.

Historian Paul Johnson said, “It is almost beyond our capacity to imagine how the world would have fared if the Jews had never emerged.”

According to this quotation, a world without Jews would have been radically different, and while humanity might eventually have stumbled upon Jewish insights, this is uncertain. The film credits Jews with key ideas such as:

• Equality before the law
• Sanctity of life
• Dignity of the human person
• Individual and collective responsibility
• Peace as an ideal

These and other elements are part of the basic “furniture” of the human mind, without which the world might have been a much emptier place.

Gifts To Civilization & Extraordinary Achievement

• John Adams, the second President of the United States, is quoted as saying that the Hebrews have contributed more to civilized humanity than any other nation.
• He notes that they gave religion to three quarters of the globe and influenced the affairs of humankind more, and more positively, than any other ancient or modern nation.
• Woodrow Wilson, the 28th US President, is quoted as saying that the laws of Moses provided guidance and inspiration to the people and institutions that prepared the modern world, and that if people had the eyes to see, they would easily recognize how much, beyond religion, is owed to the Jews.

The film highlights one striking statistic:

• Since Alfred Nobel established the Nobel Prizes, more than one-fifth of all Nobel Prizes have gone to Jews.
• It occurs despite Jews making up less than one-half of one percent of the world’s population, yet receiving over twenty percent of Nobel Prizes for scientific, social, economic, creative, and intellectual contributions to human progress.

It emphasizes that beyond the pursuit of human excellence, the distinctive contribution of the Jews lies in their passion for meaning, purpose, morality, and human dignity, which has placed them, for better and worse, at the forefront of change.

A Small People & An Unbroken Hope

Winston Churchill said that some people like the Jews and some do not, but no thoughtful person can deny that they are, beyond question, the most formidable race ever to appear in the world.

• Over 2,500 years ago, there were about 10 million Jews. Today there are just under 14 million.
• In contrast, around 2,000 years ago, there were approximately 30 million Chinese, and now there are over 1.4 billion, underscoring how the Jews have remained small in number, echoing the biblical line that only a small number will remain among the nations where God leads them.

Throughout these 2,500 years of exile, something equally astonishing occurred. The Jews never let go of their dream of returning to their God-given ancient homeland.

They never lost hope, never stopped believing that one day their dispersion would end. This hope is captured in the ancient declaration, repeated every year: “Next year in Jerusalem.”

Natan Sharansky, Soviet Prison & “Next Year In Jerusalem”

In 1978, standing before a Soviet court about to sentence him to 15 years in prison for studying Hebrew, practicing Judaism, and requesting a visa for Israel, Natan Sharansky spoke of this stubborn hope.

He noted that for 2,000 years, the Jewish people were scattered across the world, yet every year Jews still said to one another, apparently without reason, “Next year in Jerusalem.” Even as he stood further than ever from his dream and his people, facing many years of prison camps, he repeated the exact words to his wife and his people.

After nine years of imprisonment, Sharansky was freed and, in 1986, immigrated to Israel, while the communist regime that had oppressed and imprisoned him collapsed and ceased to exist.

The film points to an ironic parallel: after the Nazis were defeated in 1945, just three years later in 1948, the United Nations voted for the reestablishment of the Jewish homeland, the State of Israel.

Twice Returned & A People Who Dared To Be Different

To this day, after 2,500 years of dispersion to more than 100 countries on five continents, the Jews are described as the only people in history to survive, maintain their identity, and return not once but twice from exile to their ancient homeland.

The story of Abraham and the story of the Jews is the story of one man who dared to be different and his descendants: a people whose wanderings seemed endless, whose persecution was unrelenting, whose vision for a better world was unparalleled, whose belief in one God and commitment to His Torah, and whose dream of returning to their homeland remained unshakable. From one man came one people who dared to be different.

How The Jews Changed How We See The World

Thomas Cahill says that without the Jews, humanity would see the world with different eyes, hear with different ears, feel with different feelings, and set a different course for life.

Historian J. M. Roberts stated that no other people have produced a greater historical impact from such comparatively small beginnings and limited resources. To understand the Jews, the film suggests, one must understand history and the remarkable role they have played within it.

However, to grasp how they survived against all odds, one must look beyond history into the realm of the Divine.

Sir Thomas Newton, Bishop of Bristol in the 18th century, is quoted as saying:

• The preservation of the Jews is one of the clearest and most remarkable acts of Divine Providence, asking what but a supernatural power could have preserved them in a way no other nation most explicitly preserved.
• He also notes that the destruction of their enemies is no less remarkable and warns that this should serve as a caution to anyone who raises a clamor or persecution against them.

Covenant, Eternity & The Secret Of Immortality

The biblical promise: “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you,” and the film concludes that Jewish history shows that God has kept His covenant and promise to the Jewish people.

Leo Tolstoy asked, “What is the Jew? What kind of unique creature is this whom all the rulers of all nations have disgraced, crushed, expelled, destroyed, persecuted, burned, and drowned, and who, despite their anger and fury, continues to live and flourish.”

He calls the Jew the symbol of eternity, the one who, following the faithfulness of his ancestors, has long guarded the prophetic message and passed it on to all humanity, concluding that such a people can never disappear.

Mark Twain, writing in 1899, described how the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Persians rose, filled the world with splendor, and then faded away, and how the Greeks and Romans also rose, made a great noise, and then vanished. Other peoples appeared and held their torches high for a time, only to see them burn out, so they now sit in twilight or have disappeared. The Jew, Twain writes, saw them all, outlasted them all, and is still what he always was, showing no decadence, no infirmity of age, no weakening, no slowing of energy, and no dulling of his alert and active mind.

Mark Twain concludes that all things are mortal except the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains, and he asks: What is the secret of his immortality?