Episode #2 Houses in a Valley

In this episode, Rabbi Reinman discusses the role of perspective and viewpoint in the study of history. One people’s best times may be the worst times for other people.

CHAPTER 2
Houses in a Valley

Previously, we presented two questions. One, which period of history could be considered the best time ever in human experience? Two, if a 60-foot length of rope was attached to a rope stretched all around the Equator and the elongated rope could float free in defiance of gravity, how far off the earth’s surface would the rope be at every point along its length?

So, when indeed was the best time in history?

Let us hear the eighteenth-century British historian Edward Gibbon. “If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman Empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the gentle hand of four successive emperors whose character and authority commanded involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and the Antonines, who delighted in the image of liberty and were pleased to consider themselves as accountable ministers of the laws.”

According to Gibbon, writing from the perspective of an eighteenth-century British pagan, the second century of the common era was the best of times. For the Jewish people, however, it was the worst of times....

Read full chapter and earlier chapters at www.rabbireinman.com.