The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels
by Thomas Cahill
reviewed by Antoinette M. Aubert
Most Americans, especially the young, fail to grasp that there is no such thing as history. The events of the past create and define us. We are living in the past, reaping the consequences of actions taken centuries, even millennia ago. Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization, has taken upon himself the enormous task of explaining the intricate web of history. He is writing a series he calls The Hinges of History. The Gifts of The Jews: How a Tribe of Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels is the second book in the series.
Gifts of The Jews is a fascinating look at the development of Jewish civilization and the way that civilization created the world we know. Cahill takes us on a remarkable journey illustrating that every radical idea of liberty and justice began in the Hebrew Bible. Every time an American states "I've gotta right" he is stating a philosophy that began when Abraham left his home to follow his God into the desert. Along the way Cahill traces an incredible journey, as we watch a people go from nomads to philosophers; from barely surviving wanderers to the founders of civilization.
Much of the book is a re-telling of the Old Testament. Cahill illustrates how particular events and people shaped western civilization. Concepts such as hope, justice, mercy come from the Hebrew Bible.
The Jews started it all -- and by "it" I mean so many of the things we care about, the underlying values that make all of us, Jew and gentile, believer and atheist, tick.
Abraham setting out for a new land was revolutionary. Before Abraham predetermination was the accepted law of the land. Fate was decided for us from the day of birth and it was inconceivable that fate could be changed. Abraham in setting out for a new land defied gave the world the concept of progress and advancing one's life; "The very idea of vocation, of a personal destiny, is a Jewish idea."
Slowly from this primitive, at times barbaric, people comes the concept of the individual and individual's worth. The Hebrew God does not in one fell swoop demand that his people become civilized. Rather the Bible itself, with it's many inconsistencies and backtracking, show the starts and stops that lead to the ideas of a loving God and a humane people. Each story taken individually seems to meander pointlessly. Analyzed as a whole Cahill traces the beginnings of altruism.
In the end Cahill can not help but apologize for daring to validate God's role in inspiring the best of humanity. He knows that in the post-modern age the intelligentsia look down on the religious as superstitious, gullible rubes. Nevertheless as a historian he must reveal the central role religion played in establishing the rule of law and the rights of the individual. Today it is, ironically, a sacrilegious violation of Political Correctness to validate religion, even historically.
I have enjoyed the trips Cahill has taken me on from the darkness of a primitive age on to the birth of my own world. I look forward to the next installments of this journey.
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Published by Doubleday
List price: $23.50 Buy it at Amazon.com!
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