Ancient Jewish Proverb Says

What is the latest academic rage in China? Science? Medicine? Computers? How about Jewish Studies! A Center for Jewish Studies recently opened in China offering degrees up to the Ph. D. level and there are already over 200 students. Although there has been a Jewish community in China for centuries with a very complicated history, we don’t tend to think of China as being a place in which Judaism would be a topic of study. All the more surprising that the Jewish Program is well funded and growing rapidly. I think the first thing that we would all like to know is why would China want to grow its own native Judaic scholars? While some of the students might be Jewish, it must be a very small number. So why all this interest in Jewish history, culture, and religion? I think the answer tells us a lot about China and ourselves as well. China is an ancient culture that has a long and interesting history. We learn in High School that, when Europe was still in the Iron Age, China had science, literature, and technology. But the China of today is rapidly changing. It’s not just politics, communism or capitalism; it’s not just culture, east or west, but it is about the basic human values that create a country out of millions and millions of diverse peoples. It is ironic that a country as large as China seeks to takes lessons from our history, the history of a people that has always been a tiny sliver of humanity. You see the Chinese know that as a people they are changing. They sense that the structures that have lasted for centuries are crumbling. The Great Wall was meant to insulate, China but in the age of the internet there is no isolation, there is only change. Many Chinese also know that not all change is for the better that’s why they want to understand one of the most miraculous events in human history- Jewish survival. As many Chinese scholars try to deal with the bigger social issues of change and how to preserve that which is unique in their culture, they realize that it is the history of the Jews that holds the key to preserving a culture in the face of change and challenge. We have and do live all over the globe. We have survived in cultures that were hostile to every value that we hold dear and yet, through it all, we have maintained our culture, faith, and identity. That fact is even more impressive when we consider how very small our nation is. I hope the Chinese learn much about our culture. Maybe it will spark some of us to rediscover it for ourselves. With all the hand-wringing in the Jewish community about Jewish survival it is interesting to note that, at least so far, we still have a lot to teach the world. Now the question is can we appreciate our own culture enough to preserve it? An ancient Jewish proverb says…