"Man: "And on that day", says the Lord God," ""I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the Earth" ""in broad daylight." ""I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation. "" "Abba Eban:" "In the morning of their long exile, the people of Israel saw the words of their prophets fulfilled." "Man:" "Both husband and wife shall be taken, the old folk and the very aged." "Their houses shall be turned over to others, for I will stretch out my hand against the inhabitants of the land." "Eban:" "In the year 586 before the common era," "Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia, destroyed Jerusalem, and burned the Temple- the holiest place of the Jewish people and the center of their worship." "In this tragedy, the prophets of Israel saw a divine purpose." "Their people had violated the sacred laws of their God, and they had been punished." "But now if they returned to the ways of the law, they could win forgiveness." "This was the promise of their God according to the prophets." "Man:" "I will strengthen you, I will help you," "I will give you as a light to the nations that my salvation shall reach to the end of the Earth." "Eban:" "Thousands were exiled from Judah to Babylon, the land of their conquerors." "It could have been the end of the Jewish story." "But instead, it was only the beginning." "The people of Judah had been humbled by the sword." "They were now to rely upon something more powerful than the sword:" "an idea and the words that express it." "In the land of exile- in the far country of the two great rivers" "Nebuchadnezzar was king." "His chief city, Babylon, was his attempt at immortality." "It was the cultural capital of the world." "What the Jewish exiles discovered here would have a far greater impact on history than all the glories of this city now in ruins." "In a sense, they discovered their very identity." "Exiled from their homeland, threatened with extinction as a people, they resisted and ultimately transformed themselves." "In the centuries following the destruction of their temple the Jews would live under the domination of different and different cultures..." "Persians, Greeks, Egyptians, Romans." "Through every trial they would survive, preserving their identity as a people." "They understood that upon their survival depended the survival of their revolutionary ideas about God and about the purpose of human existence." "They were embarking upon a long and harrowing journey." "The story began in the most voluptuous city in the world, where the desert blossomed and teemed with life... a sort of paradise." "In this place, the Jews came to believe more profoundly than ever before that there was a universal dimension to their faith, that the dominion of their God extended to all lands, to all time." "And yet, in their exile, the Jews still yearned for what they had lost." "[man singing in Hebrew]" "Man:" "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion." "[singing continues]" "Man:" "We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof." "For there, they that carried us away captive required of us a song." "If I forget thee, o Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning." "If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth." "Eban:" "Torn from their homeland, the Jews now had to face the unfamiliar..." "Strange religions, strange customs, and a strange and wonderful city." "Babylon the great, it was called- the center and the envy of the civilized world." "In remote regions of Iraq and in mudbrick cities of Morocco, there is an image today of that once great place." "Babylon was a crossroads where cultures met and ideas metamorphosed." "It was an oriental city, fond of subtleties." "The exile had sent the Jews all over the Near East, into Egypt and Asia Minor, but principally to Babylonia." "And there they settled." "Babylonia was the direct heir of ancient Mesopotamia, where laws had first been codified and time divided into hours and minutes." "Within Babylonia, there were linguists, mathematicians, astronomers, and physicians." "In most ways, it was a nourishing climate for the Jewish exiles." "Portions of the great gate of Babylon survive today, a gate dedicated to Ishtar, queen of heaven." "Its richly tiled walls covered with beasts, real and imaginary, confronted anyone who entered this city." "In this land, between the Tigris and Euphrates, the Jews followed their familiar pursuits." "The words of the prophet Jeremiah in a letter to the exiles established a principle by which they would live." "Man:" "Thus says the God of Israel to all the exiles from Jerusalem to Babylon:" "build houses and live in them." "Take wives and have sons and daughters." "but seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, for in its welfare you will find your welfare." "Eban:" "It was here in Babylon that they began to forge their character as a people." "It was here that Judaism was born." "God had once been worshiped through the Temple sacrifices of the priests." "Now he would be worshiped by individuals, by the people in their way of life." "They sanctified the smallest details of life, thus creating a Jewish identity that would grow and develop to this very day." "The portions of dough once reserved for the priests of the Temple were still set aside, though the priestly duties had ceased- for there was no temple." "[woman muttering]" "Their traditions defined the foods they could eat, defined the way those foods must be prepared." "They limited themselves to those that were proper according to sacred law, that were fit- the Hebrew word was "kasher"." "Kosher." "[praying in Hebrew]" "In preparing meat, they were scrupulous in removing all blood- removing it in the way the animal was killed, removing it afterwards by repeated salting and washing." "[speaking Hebrew]" "In a hundred ways- in the food they ate, in their ceremonies of purification, of circumcision, of blessing, they reinforced their separate identity." "In remaining separate, they guarded their belief in their universal God and his laws." "It was in Babylon that Jewish scribes compiled the writings they had brought from Judah- the history, the laws, the legends of the Jewish people- and combined them with what had been passed down by word of mouth to form the first 5 books of the Bible:" "the Torah." "Babylon was to remain a home of the Jews for centuries." "But in the end, all its ingenious and immense constructions crumbled into desert dust." "What the Jews had nurtured there- their beliefs and their unity as a people-survived." "Toward the end of the sixth century, barely two generations after the Jews had arrived captive in Babylon," "Cyrus the Persian absorbed the land into his empire." "Under Cyrus and his successors, the Persian empire spread across the fertile crescent until it encompassed all of media and Babylonia and reached towards its rival:" "Greece." "The kings of Persia enjoyed great pomp in life and in death." "They carved their tombs into the shoulders of mountains and massed great cities on their plains." "Persepolis, where they harnessed captive kings to their chariots..." "Its palace was perhaps the most beautiful building in the ancient world." "To restore order in their vast domain, the Persian kings allowed exiled peoples to return home." "Cuneiform records show that the imperial treasury was turned to reconstructing cities and temples throughout the empire." "In the Jewish memory, the Persian kings seemed the bearers of divine forgiveness." "Man:" "Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia..." ""the Lord God of heaven hath given me" ""all the kingdoms of the Earth." ""Whoever is among you of his people..." ""let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and rebuild the house of the Lord. "" "Eban:" "Many had grown accustomed to life in Babylonia;" "many stayed on in what would remain the largest Jewish community outside Judah." "But others-the hopeful, the dedicated- headed toward the Holy Land, headed toward a place that had lived on in their dreams as the land of milk and honey." "[ram horn blows]" "The first of them arrived at the walls of Jerusalem in the year 538 before the common era." "The reality of what they found was harsh." "Jerusalem had been torn asunder." "Their fields had lain fallow for years." "Its buildings in ruins, its walls broken, their city lay defenseless." "Years of hardship stretched before them." "The final task of rebuilding was completed almost a century later by a Jewish noble at the Persian court." "He was Nehemiah, a patriot of deep religious conviction." "The Persians placed Nehemiah in authority over Jerusalem." "He brought order to the city and rebuilt its defenses." "The Jews had recovered their ancient home." "Woman:" "Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the lands!" "Come into his presence with singing!" "Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!" "Give thanks to Him, bless His name!" "In Babylon the Jewish religion had become the property of the people, a faith preserved and cherished by every individual." "Home now in Judah, the Jews were still subject to an alien rule." "They needed something of their own which would bind them forever to their God." "That something was the law." "It arrived in Jerusalem from Babylon in the hands of Ezra the scribe." "He brought with him the code of law that the scholars had edited in Babylon- the Torah." "It is said that Ezra brought the people together in solemn assembly and read them the book of the law." "Within the Torah, the first books of the Bible, were set out the marriage customs, property laws, the ethical standards, the civil regulations, and the religious requirements of the Jews." "Each individual could now judge his own acts, for the sacred law was written down and available to everyone." "Written down, it was made permanent." "it endowed the people of Judah with the cohesiveness that would enable them to restore themselves." "It would help them preserve their faith against the greatest challenge to their individuality that the Jews had ever faced." "They were a people who would reshape the world." "They exalted the body's performance to the level of art." "They built in a style, simple and austere, that would be copied forever." "With the Greeks, seemingly for the first time, man put aside his preconceived notions and superstitions in order to use logic when he considered himself and his immediate world." "This was the place, the time, of endless curiosity." "They were a people of poets- Homer and Sappho... and playwrights" "Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, Aristophanes... and above all, of philosophers- Socrates, Plato, Aristotle." "The Gods the Greeks served were believed to dwell beyond the mists of mount Olympus." "They were capricious, as likely to loose a thunderbolt as to tune a lyre." "They were numerous, and often very human in their failings, their anger, and their willfulness." "Athene, Goddess of war and wisdom." "Poseidon, master of the white horses of the sea." "Apollo, archer and rider of the sun." "And Pan, part man, part goat, the maker of fear and lonely places." "The Greeks were colonizers, exploiters, traders, entrepreneurs." "By the fifth century, the influence of Greek culture was felt throughout the Mediterranean." "The Greeks were also formidable soldiers- well-disciplined, ruthless, and not reluctant to fight." "Alexander the great... conqueror of the world." "By the time of Alexander's death in the year 323, the Greek way of life had been established all over the Near East." "The Greeks thought of themselves as bringing civilization to the barbarians." "[man singing in Greek]" "Eban:" "Wherever they went, the Greeks brought with them their own environment- their language, their way of dressing, their music, their logic, and their theater." "[man speaking Greek, crowd laughing]" "Eban:" "The Jews at first looked askance at this strange form of instruction and entertainment, but many soon found themselves seduced and became enthusiastic audiences." "[singing in Greek]" "Eban:" "The Jews were influenced in other ways as well- in the architecture of their homes and public buildings, in their language, their dress and manners, and in their appreciation of beauty." "In time, they might even set a Greek architrave above Corinthian columns to enclose the scrolls of the Torah." "So great was the Hellenistic influence on the Jews that their Torah, the histories of their nation, their psalms, and the words of their prophets- all of these had to be translated from Hebrew into Greek because so many Jews now spoke only Greek." "The volume that was produced in the third century came to be known in the Hellenistic world as "the book... "" ""biblos", in Greek... the Bible." "Many Jews now lived in foreign lands throughout the Hellenistic world." "Over the next two centuries, large communities would develop at Sardis and Ephesus in Asia Minor, at Antioch, and at Alexandria in Egypt." "The culture they experienced was vibrant, dynamic, and alien." "These sketches done by 19th-century students of the beaux arts in Paris bring to life the extravagance of this Greek world." "One of the largest of all Jewish communities outside Judah was that of Alexandria in Egypt." "Several hundred thousand Jews lived in the great port city, a haven for all the shipping of the Mediterranean." "The barter and trade of its doc and markets was matched by a traffic in rumors..." "In stories of far-off places, and in newly minted ideas." "Like all Greek cities, there were palaces and theaters, places for sport, for burial, for the arts... for the good life... for learning." "There was the museum, organized like a university for the study of science, literature, and the fine arts." "Students came there from all over the world to hear lectures from such as Euclid, the mathematician, and Pythias, the geographer." "And there was a library, the trustee of 700,000 manuscripts, together representing the accumulated wisdom of most of mankind." "Jews throughout the Hellenistic world absorbed from the Greeks their devotion to learning." "They immersed themselves in the study of their sacred texts." "Alexandria was a place of fusion." "Its very existence indicated a new era in history." "In Alexandria, the Hellenistic way of life and its intellectual concepts met the ideas of the orient- principal among which was the singular Jewish concept, the profound and revolutionary belief in one God and a universal morality." "The tension created by this meeting had enormous consequences for the Jews." "The differences between their ways and the ways of the Greeks would splinter the practices of the Jewish people." "By the beginning of the second century," "Alexander the Great's empire had disintegrated into separate kingdoms." "Judah fell under the sway of Syria." "In Jerusalem, a group of priests, allied with the Syrians, set about to change the form of Judaism- to make it more Greek, less distinctive- to make the Jewish people like any other within the Greek world." "This led to popular revolt." "Revolt, in turn, provoked repression by the Syrians." "Their king, Antiochus Epiphanies, sided with the Hellenists." "He forced Jewish practices into the darkness." "He forbade, under penalty of death, circumcision, observance of the Sabbath, and possession of a copy of the Torah." "In the year 168 before the common era, he plundered the Temple, ordered pagan sacrifices in every town, and tried to supplant the one God with alien Gods and Goddesses." "He stationed troops in Jerusalem." "But they could not prevent rebellion." "Antiochus had to send in more troops." "The result was massacre." "The rebels were driven into the badlands, the hills of Judah, where they fought on." "Their leaders were the Maccabees," "Mattathias and his 5 sons." "One of the sons, Judas Maccabee-the hammer- took command of the Jewish resistance." "Judas Maccabee's command grew from a desperate band hiding wherever it could to an organized force... to an army, resolute and expert." "After 3 years in the wilderness, it was strong enough to storm Jerusalem." "The Maccabees defeated the troops garrisoned in Jerusalem and liberated the Temple." "The traditions of the people had triumphed." "Having won independence for all of Judea by force of arms, the Maccabees now established a line of high priests." "They were supported by a conservative group who wished only to observe the strict letter of the law as defined in the Torah." "The priests and their supporters became a single party known as the Sadducees." "Their counterpart was a group known as the Pharisees." "They were scholars, many of simple background, who taught among the people." "They believed that the laws of the Bible were open to interpretation, open to discussion and analysis." "Perhaps through them Greek civilization had its greatest influence on the Jews." "For they admired Greek logic- the subtlety of Greek thought- and they applied it to their own studies." "It was the Pharisees who first proposed the resurrection of the dead and life after death as articles of faith." "It was they who advocated the threefold duties of worship, charity, and study." "Study." "Examination of the meaning of the word." "For many, it was a public activity... in schools and in the streets." "For others, it was intensely private." "The members of the scholarly sect, which lived here in Qumran, are known principally for some documents which they hid for safety in these caves, documents which were not found again for two millennia." "The scholars' business was the unremitting study of the Torah." "They eschewed private property, endured a rigid discipline, and lived in communal houses." "So inflexible was their doctrine that it would not even allow their bowels to pursue their natural function on the Sabbath day." "some of them were celibate." "In many ways, they were the first community of monastics in the Mediterranean world." "The legacy of these solitaries was a vast collection of religious and theological documents now known as the Dead Sea scrolls." "Their survival into the 20th century would provide the oldest known copies of texts from the Hebrew Bible." "From the book of Deuteronomy..." "Man:" "Therefore shall ye lay up these words in your heart and in your soul," "And bind them as a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes." "Eban:" "Among the objects found at Qumran were sacred amulets, called phylacteries in Greek, tefillin in Hebrew." "The devout wore them at all times." "One was placed on the forehead between the eyes." "The other was fastened on the left arm so that the words it contained rested on the heart." "The phylacteries were a reminder of the continual presence of God." "They contained excerpts from his laws." "On the leather was incised the Hebrew letter, shin." "The straps by which they were attached were knotted to form the Hebrew letters daleth and yodh... shin, daleth, yodh- the letters of the sacred name Shaddai, the almighty." "[murmur]" "So for the devout, what they carried next to their hearts and minds in every waking moment was a reminder of their covenant with God." "But no amount of prayer rising from the deserts and barren hills of Judah could protect the Jews from a culture in which almost everything that was valued was purely material." "Man:" "Romans... let others fashion bronze and living faces from marble." "Let others track the planets with their instruments and predict when the stars will appear." "Romans... never forget that government is your medium, that your art is to practice men in the habit of peace." "Eban:" "The Romans brought peace with a vengeance." "By the first century before the common era, the world of imperial Rome stretched along both shores of the Mediterranean... eastward into Syria and Mesopotamia, in the process swamping Judah, which was refashioned into a roman province, Judea." "The Romans occupied Jerusalem in the year 63 b. c. e." "and set up a puppet government." "Judea was now subject to imperial Rome." "The brief span of Jewish independence that had lasted a hundred years since the victory of the Maccabees was brought to an end." "The Jerusalem of this day now had a population of hundreds of thousands." "This was the heart of the Jewish world." "Here was the Temple." "Here, too, were priests- the scholars, the teachers, the passionate advocates of the many branches of the Jewish faith." "Some welcomed the roman conquerors- hoping that Rome would bring stability to this country divided by sects and parties." "Others saw the Romans as a punishment from God." "[swords clanking] [crowd cheering]" "Roman society was rigidly defined by class." "The class that governed Judea was essentially bureaucratic- tax collectors, functionaries- men without imagination or conscience." "They were used to rule and impatient of dissent." "They built in Judea, as they built in all their conquered territories, as if they meant to stay." "They brought with them their impressive talents as organizers, settlers, makers of permanence." "In the year 37 before the common era, they set up a Jew as ruler in Judea." "His name was Herod." "He became a king of Judea, but never a king of the Jews." "The Jews feared him at first and then hated him." "He was a tyrant." "Adamant, ambitious, imaginative, merciless..." "Herod the king was a highly volatile mixture of policy and passion." "He built cities whose foundations lasted into the 20th century." "His name became a byword for cruelty." "In fits of insane rage, he slaughtered his own wife and two sons." "This was his palace at Jericho, one of many." "A developer of massive projects," "Herod transformed the appearance of Judea's chief cities." "The money for all this came from taxes." "Herod razed any towns that refused to pay and sold their inhabitants into slavery." "Ruthless as he was," "Herod never ceased trying to win the sympathy of the people." "In times of famine he even sold the crown jewels to buy grain for a starving populace." "Although Herod was Jewish, he was never accepted by the people." "They saw him as an ally of Rome, a usurper of the Jewish throne." "There was no denying this aqueduct, 8 miles long, brought water to what was his greatest achievement" "Caesarea, a city dedicated to his patron Caesar Augustus." "Herod took a minor anchorage and made it into a great port." "The streets of the town and its drains were flushed by the movement of the tides." "The city boasted a racetrack, an amphitheater for 20,000 people, a courthouse, a theater, and-rising above the city- a temple to Augustus that could be seen far out to sea." "Caesarea was cosmopolitan and elegant, but it was a city in contention between pagan and Jew." "Herod's construction of pagan cities in the land further fueled the people's resentment against their king." "Under Herod, even the priesthood of the Temple in Jerusalem was corrupt... the office of high priest itself was bought and sold." "But when Herod decided to rebuild the Temple, the priests became suspicious." "They protested... but were overcome." "Herod proceeded with his grand design." "The priests had said that their faith required that no sound of hammer and chisel be heard in the Temple during the construction- clearly requiring a miracle." "Herod had the stone quarried elsewhere and carted in silently." "The priests had said that only they could undertake the work, and they, unfortunately, had no skills as artisans." "Herod set up a training program for the priests, and before long," "1,000 priests were employed in construction." "The architectural triumph of the whole grand design was the magnificent colonnades with marble Corinthian columns 50 feet high." "The great outer court was open to everyone," "Jew and gentile alike, women as well as men." "It was as much a market as a holy place." "The inner courtyard was the place of assembly for worship, and women were accommodated there in galleries along its sides." "The sanctuary enclosure was reserved to Jewish men." "the sanctuary itself, of course, was the exclusive province of the priests." "Herod's temple could claim its place among the wonders of the world." "It was said that from a distance, because of the profusion of its white marble, it glittered like a snow-covered mountain." "What the Temple really stood for was something Herod could not comprehend, or chose not to." "[chanting in foreign language]" "The desire of the people was for a way of life made holy through justice and an understanding of God's will." "Understanding... this could be arrived at only through learning and the study of their sacred texts." "In the land of Judea, there were many academies of holy learning." "The Pharisees- the scholars and teachers- brought study to the people." "The Greek ideal had been for universal education of the people." "The Pharisees made it a Jewish ideal as well." "The academies of Judea attracted students from Jewish communities everywhere." "Among those who came from Babylon to study in Judea in the days of king Herod was a man called Hillel." "To pay for his education, he worked as a woodcutter." "He brought a depth of wisdom that would infuse the teachings of the Pharisees with a new humanity and compassion." "Man:" "The more Torah, the more life;" "the more study and contemplation, the more wisdom." "Eban:" "When asked to define the essential message of Judaism," "Hillel is said to have replied..." "Man:" "What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor;" "that is the whole of the Torah;" "all else is commentary." "Eban:" "His words would be cherished by generations of scholars to this very day." "Judea in the years following king Herod's death was a land beset by difficulties." "The first century of the common era saw a series of roman governors there- men who had little knowledge of Jewish ways and who wished only to profit at the expense of the people." "There was political repression and poverty." "The tumultuous years of that century would be long remembered, written about, portrayed, debated." "It is in times of suffering like these that the dreams of a people become most vivid." "In Judea, the hope for a God-appointed savior began to stir the populace." "They waited expectantly for the leader promised by the prophets... an anointed one, a messiah." "Leaders did appear." "Some claimed to be messiahs;" "some, prophets;" "others simply wished to take up arms against Rome." "Throughout the land, people responded to those who offered hope." "Among these was a man called Jeshua, a young carpenter from Galilee." "He was a preacher who quoted the prophets and whose words reflected the teachings of the Pharisees." "Man:" "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." "On these commandments depend all the law and the prophets." "Eban:" "His teachings, like those of the Torah, spoke of justice to man and worship of God, yet he asked his followers to go beyond the laws- to attain a selflessness and humanity which would purify and transform them." "Man:" "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you." "You must be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect." "Eban:" "Great crowds followed the preacher Jeshua, from Galilee and Judea and beyond the Jordan." "To the roman rulers this Jesus, as they called him, was a political threat- a possible focus of rebellion." "Since Herod's death, Judea had been in ferment." "In Jericho, a former slave of Herod had proclaimed himself king and sacked the palace." "In Galilee, a rebel army attacked two roman legions." "The rebels were punished in the roman style... 2,000 men nailed to crosses." "In Idumea, 10,000 men were under arms." "Samaria was in revolt." "Rebels, fanatics, messiahs everywhere." "The roman response, as always, was greater force and greater cruelty." "Anyone with a following was suspect." "the Romans looked for ringleaders and killed them." "Among those who died was the preacher from Galilee, Jesus." "But the spirit of revolt in Judea could not be quelled." "Rebellion broke out again in the year 66 of the common era... with devastating consequences." "It began here... at the great roman fortress of Masada." "This complex brooded 1,300 feet above the Judean desert, to the west of the Dead Sea." "In the summer of the year 66, a band of revolutionaries, called Sicarii, seized the fortress and massacred its garrison." "Herod had built a palace complex there, well-supplied with water and fortified with masonry to withstand a siege." "It became a desert stronghold of rebellion." "Masada was one of the opening engagements of a widespread war." "The details of what later happened there are nature of conjecture, but Masada's resistance made it a legend forever." "All of Judea had followed Masada into revolt, driven by the desperate hope for independence." "For 4 years, the Jews battled roman forces." "Then, in the year 70 of the common era, in the early spring, the Romans began the final act." "Titus, son of the emperor Vespasian, brought 4 legions to assault Jerusalem." "They laid siege to it for 5 months." "The city was reduced to starvation- its inhabitants dying in the streets." "The Jewish defenders turned against each other." "The most extreme- the Zealots- fought anyone they thought might yield to roman might." "They seized the Temple, and from behind its sacred walls they attacked both Romans and their fellow Jews." "The city seethed with violence and death." "Finally, in the Jewish month of Av, the roman forces stormed the Temple mount." "On the ninth day of that month, on orders of the roman general, the Temple was burned to the ground." "The Temple, the center of the nation, the center of the faith, was turned to ashes." "Systematically, the legions reduced the city, that had been so great, by fire." "They destroyed houses, meeting places, public buildings... everything but 3 of the towers that Herod had built." "The Romans left Jerusalem in ruins, and the tenth legion set up its camp among the smoking stones." "[man singing in foreign language]" "Nothing remained of Herod's white and gold temple." "All that survived was a segment of the wall protecting the hill on which it had stood." "But for as long as it existed, men would recognize it what it was and would venerate it." "Man:" "The Lord has done what he purposed, has carried out his threat;" "as he ordained long ago, he has demolished without pity;" "he has made the enemy rejoice over you and exalted the might of your foes." "Eban:" "Titus, in triumph, carried off the sacred objects of the Jews- among them the holy menorah, the symbol of the people." "He had put Judea in chains... he gloried in his success and proclaimed it to the roman populace with a triumphal arch." "But it was an empty victory and a vain boast." "The full weight of empire had fallen on the Jews, merciless and inflexible, but it had not quite destroyed them." "Life returned, very slowly, in modest ways, but it did return." "In the countryside of Judea a scholar, Jochanan Ben Zakkai, established a small academy." "It was a humble place, a place where teachers and scholars might gather, where the learning of the people might be preserved." "With no temple in Judea, no priests, no center of worship, the task of preserving the Jewish heritage fell to the scholars known as Pharisees." "Their teachings would be handed on from generation to generation." "It was at the academy of Ben Zakkai that, for the first time, scholars were ordained and given the title "rabbi"." "It was the rabbis who, in time, became the shapers of Judaism, the leaders of the Jews." "From the destruction of Solomon's temple more than 600 years before to the roman destruction of the Temple that Herod had built, the Jewish people had not only survived conquest, they had sanctified a body of knowledge and custom," "of ritual and belief that we now call Judaism." "In the centuries to come, the beliefs so passionately held by the Jews would spread around the world." "For now there were more Jews living and working and worshipping outside of Judea than there were left in the Promised land." "In a sense, the dispersion strengthened the Jewish people and kept Judaism alive after they had once more seen their temple reduced to ashes." "It was the Jews of the Diaspora- congregations in North Africa, far south in Egypt, in Greece and Anatolia and in Rome itself- who demonstrated the overriding and everlasting force of the word." "It was they who passed its message of a universal God and a universal moral code to the rest of mankind."