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In the late 1730s, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzatto—known by his name’s Hebrew acronym “Ramchal”—published his magnum opus, Mesilat Yesharim, roughly translated as The Path of the Upright. It is, no doubt, the Ramchal’s most influential work, a classic in the canon of Torah-based ethical philosophy—essentially a guidebook to how and why the reader should work to perfect his character. The introduction to Mesilat Yesharim has stuck with me, though I have not returned to the book in decades. The Ramchal explains he “composed this work not to teach people what they do not know but to remind them of what they already know, and which is very familiar to them.” He then makes the paradoxical claim that familiar truths are often the ones that most require reinforcement:

But according to their familiarity and to the extent that their truth is evident to all, so too is their neglect very prevalent and forgetfulness of them very great. Therefore, the benefit to be gleaned from this book is not from a single reading, for it is possible that the reader will learn little that he did not already know. Rather the benefit derived [from this book] comes from review and diligent study. For [then] he will be reminded of these things which, by nature, people tend to forget, and he will put to heart his duties from which he hides.

In a similar vein—and particularly for religiously observant Jews and Christians—Josh Hammer’s Israel & Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West makes explicit what we already intuitively know but must constantly internalize and reinternalize. Hammer’s thesis summarized “on one foot”—as Hillel the Elder was asked to summarize the entire Torah for a prospective convert—is that “we are standing at a civilizational inflection point” and must mount a sustained “pushback against the three menacing hegemonies of our time: [radical] Islamism, wokeism, and global neoliberalism.” All three, contends Hammer, represent distinct threats to Western civilization by offering illiberal alternatives to our heritage. Failing to ward them off, he warns, is whistling past the graveyard, perhaps a literal one if we’re not careful.

To advance his case, Hammer builds several arguments into what is essentially an extended syllogism. Each premise may be highly contestable, but Hammer is up to the challenge of defending them all: 1) Judaism undergirds the entire Western intellectual and ethical tradition; 2) science is no substitute for Judeo-Christian morality; 3) our republic is built on, and its health and success depend on adherence to, the Judeo-Christian tradition; 4) Zionism is an integral part of Judaism, and the State of Israel, even if an imperfect entity by Jewish religious standards, is at the least a partial fulfillment of Biblical prophecy; 5) Israel and the United States are partners “committed to defending Western civilization from the forces of tyrannical barbarism”; 6) the United States must remain a strong supporter of Israel; 7) anti-Zionism is antisemitism and threatens the health of our country and society; and 8) that threat comes mostly from woke Marxists—who see the entire world through a warped oppressor/oppressed lens funhouse mirror—and, to a lesser degree, the “Nietzschean” right.

Hammer also proposes an antidote to the poisons he warns about: what a rabbi might call a full-fledged teshuva movement. Teshuva is Hebrew for “return” or “repentance.” In this case, Hammer is talking about a return of Jews to Torah observance, noting correctly that Judaism, “by and large, is a religion of action and deed.” He urges “every Jew [to] take upon himself the weight and gravity of the thousands of years of our people’s history” and “to rededicate” ourselves like the Maccabees of old in defense of the Jewish people, Western civilization, and the founding ideals of the United States.

If Jews are going to play a meaningful role in the public sphere, argues Hammer, they need to take their Judaism seriously. That means caring about more than bagels, lox, and the Holocaust. Even supporting Israel in the vein of secular Zionism isn’t going to cut it. Jews need to engage with their classical faith, not some watered-down version of it. Of course, Jews are less than 3% of the U.S. population, so we are not winning many battles on our own. Hammer thus urges a strengthened partnership with traditional Christians, who have their own “indispensable role[] to play.” Religious Americans, whatever our differences, offer a vision of life’s (and government’s) purpose completely different from the visions offered by radical Islamists, woke true-believers, and neoliberal globalists. Together, we will have to show and persuade our fellow Americans that our basic assumptions about the world and humanity’s role within it are worth defending.

As one might expect from a well-trained lawyer with impeccable scholastic and professional credentials, Hammer builds his case methodically from the ground-up. He begins with first principles—including an excellent summary of core Jewish philosophical, religious, and legal thought—all while seamlessly weaving in a personal narrative of his own spiritual journey. I was particularly surprised by two things. First, he is remarkably open in sharing with the world the story of his return to Torah-based (Orthodox) Judaism. Second, his personal narrative is both moving and inspiring. For me, Hammer’s personal story served somewhat as a mirror, allowing me to reflect on my own journey in a way that I probably haven’t done in decades.

Like Hammer and most American Jews, I was not raised in an Orthodox home. (Although fast-growing, the Orthodox community constitutes only roughly 10% of Jews in America.) We were certainly far more traditional in our observance than Hammer’s family as he describes his upbringing. My father—an Army colonel who began his career during the tail end of the Vietnam war—had no love for hippies, voted for Reagan, and hasn’t voted Democrat since. I can certify that living on an Army base has a way of inculcating a religion-like patriotism unlike any other experience (short of being in uniform). But although my parents kept kosher (at home) and regularly had Shabbat dinner, the idea of taking the Bible seriously was not on my bingo card.

Then, in college, I had experience much like Hammer’s. I found myself on Yom Kippur—while “praying” (better described in hindsight as daydreaming) in an egalitarian, non-Orthodox synagogue service—very hungry at the start of a 25-hour fast in which all food and drink are prohibited. And as I sat there mumbling Hebrew prayers I barely understood and craving a second dinner, I wondered, “what am I doing here?”

Sure, the thought of eating on Yom Kippur filled me with guilt—the only guilt rivaling Catholic guilt, or so I’m told, is its Jewish predecessor. That feeling had nothing to do with God or theology, though. I simply felt bad that I was even entertaining the idea of discarding family traditions and, vaguely, of betraying Jews murdered in the Holocaust. But fasting to appease the memory of dead relatives or on account of the fact that millions of Jews had been murdered also struck me as decidedly irrational. And my inability to explain why I should observe the Torah’s commandment to fast on Yom Kippur—not my grandparents’ commandment, but God’s—gnawed at me. So I started asking questions, first to the Reform and Conservative rabbis on campus, and ultimately of my Orthodox friends and their rabbi.

Let the nonbelieving scoffers scoff, but I wound up where Hammer is: We need revelation. Science has little or nothing to say about morality. If we are going to make a case about “the inherent wrongness” of murder—such as the October 7 massacre—we must, as Hammer says, look to the bedrock “precepts” undergirding “Christendom and Judeo-Christian civilization more generally.” They “flow[] from,” as Hammer so unashamedly puts it, “God’s revelation to the incipient Israelite nation congregated at Mount Sinai.” (Even if you aren’t persuaded on that point, Hammer is correct to observe about the history of religions that “it is on account of God’s revelation at Sinai to the Israelite nation that Christians and Muslims can make authoritative claims to the Truth of the one God, in the first instance.”) 

Of course, the theological differences between Christianity and Judaism cannot be—and should not be—swept under the rug. Doing so should offend anyone with a commitment to his faith and a decent grasp of their respective theologies, laws, and beliefs, both ancient and modern. But any such disagreements, Hammer maintains, are de minimis in comparison to what we have in common, particularly in the aftermath of 9/11 and October 7. Hammer links the two events for obvious reasons; it’s surprising to me that more have not done so.

As to Hammer’s proposed strategy for defending the Western tradition, my experience tracks his. Since helping to lead a trip of federal judges to Israel in the aftermath of the Hamas terrorist attack—widely acknowledged as the worst single attack against the Jewish people since the Holocaust—I have had the opportunity to speak to several predominantly Christian audiences who take their faith seriously. Each time, I’ve been asked how worried I am about antisemitism in this country. And each time, I’ve answered that I am far more worried about this country than I am about being a Jew in this country, and that while the woke mob may be coming for us first, Christians are next. Something about that resonates with Christians, since that seems to be a reliable applause line. Hammer picks up the same theme: “when the ultimate target is Christendom, the Jews will always be the first ones in the crosshairs.” He thus urges “Christians to recognize that stark reality.”

My impression, however—and I suspect Hammer would agree—is that Christians are already in the fight. Sure, some fringes are turning on Israel and the Jews and embracing unfortunate forms of antisemitism we thought had long since died. But thankfully mainstream Christians are stalwart, and they know the stakes. It’s our own people, the Jews, who need to get their collective head in the game. As Hammer puts it, our “elites have been bringing knives to gunfights for longer than I have been alive.” That includes pretending that secularized versions of our Abrahamic faiths would suffice to prevent the moral building blocks of our civilization from crumbling. Winning the battle for the soul of the country, according to Hammer, will require both Jews and Christians to arm themselves, figuratively (and for Jews, he argues, probably literally as well). We will have to return to our respective faiths with renewed seriousness and devotion—and then bring those faiths to the public square without fear or shame. As a yarmulke-wearing judge, I can attest that even with the securest job imaginable, meeting Hammer’s challenge isn’t easy.

Does this book break new ground? To some extent, anyone familiar with the works of Douglas Murray or Meir Soloveichik—and their fellow-travelers among center-right intellectuals concerned with civilizational questions—will find many of the same ideas echoed in Hammer’s book. In my mind, however, that simply means that Hammer is in good company with his arguments.

Indeed, nothing needs to be repeated so frequently and adamantly as what we already know and is familiar to us. As George Orwell succinctly put it long after the Ramchal beat him to the punch: “We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” The bad news is that Hammer’s diagnosis is acute, and if we merely hope the symptoms will resolve on their own, we will risk letting the epochal blessing of Western civilization slip away. The good news, for Hammer’s readers at any rate, is that his erudition and wisdom stand a chance of inspiring a wave of teshuva across faiths.

Hammer truly shines, though, in weaving his personal narrative about his return to Judaism together with history, political philosophy, and current events. Jews and Christians alike will be inspired by his unflinching defense of faith and his explanation of how the core tenets of Judaism are critical to our national survival. And if you ask, does “our” refer to the Jewish people or the United States of America, the answer is easily given on one foot: “yes.”