With Israel and "the Jews" so much in the news today, it's amazing to consider that they and their forebears, technically "the Hebrews", have been around for about 4,000 years! Some notable persons have addressed themselves to the fact of this longevity, none more notably than Mark Twain in the year 1899 in his famous essay "Concerning the Jews" in which he concluded by saying:
The Egyptian, the Babylonian and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?
There is an answer but it would be impertinent and certainly irreligious, maybe even a little bit irresponsible to treat so lofty a subject with too hasty an answer. But an answer we need because there is something within every human being to extend life to the ultimate which is immortality. We will be addressing this matter in segments to come.
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