Menachem Forester is a student at the Chabad Yeshiva nestled in the ancient Venice Ghetto, established in 1516. The Ghetto, no longer designed to lock up Jews, is the vibrant center of Jewish life in the ancient Italian city. Every night, Forester makes the twenty-minute walk from the Jewish Ghetto to the pillars in the central town square, Piazza San Marco. Imported from Turkey in the 12th Century, the pillars rise high as a symbol of the political power of a trading center that linked the east and west.

But Forester sits at the pillars of another part of their symbolism. In 1533, it was the site of the mass burning of the Talmud. Venice was an early center of Jewish printing, home of the Bomberg Talmud, whose iconic layout became the standard to this day. Besides copies of the Talmud, other priceless manuscripts and Jewish books were burned on a quest to destroy Jewish knowledge, sparked by the hatred of the Spanish Inquisition.

When Forester arrives at the square, he opens his Talmud and spends an hour in Torah study. This is my way of responding to the tragedy of almost 500 years ago, he says. What better way than to study Torah and our Jewish tradition in the very place which our enemies sought to destroy it.

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Forester represents the remarkable era that we live in as Jews. Beyond the doom and gloom that Jews love to focus on and there are serious challenges we live in a remarkable time. As the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks would say: almost all Jews live in free countries where they can openly practice. We have a country where Jews have sovereignty. We are equipped with modern weaponry just over a month ago, while on a rabbinical solidarity mission in the wake of the most recent Gaza conflict, I got a glimpse of Israels newest weapon: the state of the art F-35 combat aircraft. Today Jews can defend themselves against our enemies and are free to study Torah where its books were burned some five centuries ago.

Lying at the core of what drives us as Jews is a sense of personal empowerment, the guts to stand up for ourselves, the guts to learn Torah in the very place that symbolizes its destruction.

Some years ago, I visited the British Museum. I wandered through the exhibits of ancient peoples like the Hittite and Babylonians. I saw the massive stone reliefs of Sennacherib exiling the Ten Tribes, the statues of the Greeks, Romans, Persians and others. Each empire rose and fell, and today their cultures exist in museums and archaeological sites. I stood there as a Jew, not very different from the ancient Jews who challenged these empires with the ideas of monotheism, justice, compassion and the mission to infuse the world with Divine purpose.

These superpowers had might that dominated the world for a few centuries, but each had its sunset. Yet the ideas that stand at the center of Judaism have the staying power because they transcend the limitation of time. Given by God at Sinai, they have meaning and are relevant every time and every place.

The lesson is clear. The ideas of the Torah are the core of our identity. If we care about a Jewish future, we dont need to change Judaism to fit a popular agenda of political-social action, even though Judaism does teach compassion. Nor is the answer to a Jewish tomorrow a secular nationalism devoid of the spiritual bond to the Jewish homeland. What we need is to teach the next generation authentic Torah. We need to instill in them wonder for Jewish knowledge, so they can find modern relevance to the ideas of this era. If they deeply appreciate it, they will pass it on to the next generation.

If youre looking for a place to start studying, drop by the Piazza San Marco at 10:00 PM every night. Menachem would be delighted to have a study partner.

Rabbi David Eliezrie is president of the Rabbinical Council of Orange County California. His email is rabbi@ocjewish.com

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