The silver lining

(JNS) — Here’s a question that I’ve heard posed on occasion, often from rabbis on Friday evenings: How did our people, displaced from our homeland for two millennia, scattered to the winds, maintain their inherent, recognizable, collective Jewishness?

Was it the mamaloshen of Yiddish? Or keeping Shabbat (inevitably, the rabbis’ favorite answer)? Or perhaps even direct influence from Hashem, confirming once again that we are chosen?

All of these are worthy options and likely played a role in our survival as a people. And yet, cynic that I am, I prefer a much more prosaic answer: that we largely...