"The Golden Age" of Spain was not only a period of relative peace and prosperity for the Jews, it also saw a "renaissance" of Jewish poetry and philosophy. A lesson in how peaceful times can spawn creativity, the parallels and differences to modern Jewish society become eminently clear.

• Abdul Al Rahman, caliph of Spain
• Chisdai ibn Shaprut, the first court Jew
• the powerful yet dangerous position of court physician
• the "sunbelt" theory of world development
• the birth of the pan-Arab dream
• how Jews became the emissaries between Christians & Moslems

The year 1000 is the transitional year between the periods of the Gaonim and the Rishonim. The center of Jewish life became Spain - not Babylonia. Rabbi Wein paints the picture of how Jews rose to wealth and prominence there, including the spell-binding story of the career of Shmuel HaNagid, Jewish prime minister of Granada, symbolizing an unparalleled moment of hope in Jewish history.

• Why did Babylonia disappear so completely?
• The pattern of internal Jewish conflict
• The steady rise of Spanish Jewry
• The unlikely Jewish kingdom of the Khazars

Rabbi Wein treats us to a double-screen show as he describes the development of the Sephardic and Ashkenazic communities. Contrasting the Islamic approach toward the Jews with Christian, Rabbi Wein shows the political and religious forces that shaped each community and the great sages each produced.

• The end of Babylonian Jewry & the rise of North Africa
• The legend of the four captives
• The Moors and the Berbers - who were they?
• The Rif - rosh yeshiva for 60 years
• Rabbeinu Gershom and his famous decree against polygamy

Life is seldom quiet for a Torah leader, and this was certainly true for Rabbi Saadia Gaon, author of the first book of Jewish philosophy for the masses, Emunos v'Deos. He fought and won three major battles in his life, thus establishing the primacy of Babylonia over all Jewish communities worldwide, defeating the corrupt Exilarch Dovid ben Zakkai, and sending the Karaite movement on the path to its ultimate downfall.

• The stormy life of the Saadia Gaon
• Known genius from the age of 25
• The terrible privations he faced for standing up for Torah
• Babylonia vs. Jerusalem - the debate over the Jewish calendar

Jewish leadership in 7th century Babylonia was divided into two spheres. The Exilarch held political and economic power while the Gaonim, the heads of the yeshivas, controlled all religious matters. But because these is so much overlap between them, this division was a recipe for disaster. Rabbi Wein narrates the power struggle that gave rise to the deviant movement of the Karaites and details the works of Torah scholarship that arose to combat it.

• competing yeshivas meant competing Gaonim
• the Sherira Gaon and his famous letter
• the "culture of corruption" and how it affected the Jews
• Anan - how one man's petty conflict nearly destroyed the Jewish people

In the 7th century, Islam spread like wildfire, taking down both the Byzantine and Persian Empires. With a thorough analysis of the tenets of Islamic theology, including the historical origins of the anti-Semitism of the Koran, Rabbi Wein uncovers the massive influence Islam held over the world in religion, technology, culture, and war.

• Mohammed's failed to attract and convert the Jews
• Conversion by the sword - a Moslem invention
• The march from Mecca to Medina and the original jihad
• The Biblical distortions, especially of the Akeida

With the fall of Rome, the non-Jewish world plunged into the Dark Ages, but for the Jews of Babylonia, these were times of enlightened scholarship. While war raged on in the world at large, the Talmudic scholars put the finishing touches on the monumental work which has sustained the Jews through the long centuries of exile.

• how Christian theology brought on the Dark Ages
• the strange theory of the "witness people"
• the Eastern Orthodox versus Roman Catholic Church
• how the end of Jewish autonomy in Babylonia meant the end of the Talmudic Era
• the mind-boggling accomplishment of writing the Talmud in the age before pen and paper

After 300 years of world domination, the Roman Empire was so big and unmanageable it had to split into two. Thus, the Byzantine Empire was born, but when its emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, once again, the Jews were caught in the cross-roads of war. Yet despite an official doctrine of anti-Semitism, the Jews clung on in Babylonia, producing the Talmud and preserving the Torah lifestyle at all costs.

• women as the vanguards of the early Church
• Helena, the mother of Constantine
• the theory of the "witness people"
• the development of the permanent Jewish calendar

The Talmud can be described as a transcription of the lectures, conversations, and stories told in the great yeshivas of Babylonia for 350 years. It collected together the entire Oral Tradition - the Mishnah and Midrash. Spanning a tremendous range of topics, the give and take discussions between its rabbis are truly awe-inspiring.

• Why was Babylonia such a haven for the Jews?
• What is the Midrash?
• Rav and Shmuel - the rivals who gave the Talmud its flavor
• Rabbi Yochanon and Reish Lakish - an unlikely pair

When Antoninus succeeded Hadrian as the emperor of Rome, the Jews at last enjoyed a brief respite of peace. Rabbi Yehudah ha Nassi seized the moment by calling together a convention of Torah scholars in which the Mishnah, the first written record of Oral Law, was compiled and edited. With Talmudic stories illustrating the lives of the Mishnaic rabbis, listeners get a glimpse into the forces of genius that created the book that is the backbone of the Talmud.

• the miracle that gave Rabbi Meir Baal Ha Nes his name
• Roman pursuit of the Jewish sages
• Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the cave
• the origins of the Zohar