The Gifts Of The Jews By Thomas Cahill Summary

After reading The Gifts of the Jews by Thomas Cahill, I was able to see how the Jews have truly influenced society today. From the progression of agricultural discoveries to the notion of human freedom, I felt that every idea made an impact one way or another. Of the many gifts that the Jews’ have shared, the one most meaningful to me is the concept of how it is our choice to decide whether or not we are going to allow ourselves to become consumed by the various sufferings in life. We should let these hardships “refine us...and to shape us into a fitting instrument for [God’s] revelation, as he did Moshe.” People should move forward, instead of being stuck in the past. In the text, Cahill talks about how the Jews went from being oppressed and enslaved to leaving Egypt and obtaining freedom. While the Jews suffered under the control of Egypt, there was a “...call of Avraham to leave his place and people and set out for an unknown destiny blossomed into the vocation of Moshe to lead his enslaved people out of the god-haunted ambience of cyclical Egypt.”

For example, throughout my high school career, I would always contemplate about how things could’ve been better or different if I went to a different high school. It is not that I disliked my high school, but I’ve been attending the same school since seventh grade, and I would just think about how I could’ve maybe gotten a better high school experience if I went to a different school. I was always scared that by going to a high school that was not that well known meant that I wouldn’t have gotten into a top college, but I was wrong. I was still able to get into the pharmacy program at St. John 's University. Through this experience, I learned that some things are just meant to be, and there is always a reason or a good that comes out of every