Two leaders named Agrippa succeeded Herod. Agrippa I had peaceful relations with the Jews and preserved the Torah lifestyle. But Agrippa II, opposite to his father, quickly became an oppressor of the Jews. With Christianity growing as a movement in Judea, the Jews dividing themselves into rival factions, and Rome cracking down on everybody, the stage was set for the tragic destruction of the Temple.

• Philo, philosopher of assimilation
• the Essenes - more pious than the pious
• Jesus of Nazareth - just another messianic movement?
• the rabbinic response: ignore it
• Paul - the greatest PR man in world history

Rabbi Wein continues his examination of the reign of Herod by dissecting his relationship with the Torah scholars of the day, and Hillel and Shammai in particular. Hillel and his students acquiesced to his rule while Shammai's students launched open rebellion. Herod's subsequent persecution of Torah scholars was merciless, yet paradoxically, to "repent" of these sins, he restored the Temple to its former beauty and contributed so extensively to the architecture of Israel that his handprint endures to this day.

• the eternal legacy of Hillel
• the mass suicide at Masada
• the influx of Roman converts, such as the great Onkelus
• a survey of Herodian buildings, including many familiar ones

Rabbi Wein opens this most serious of lectures with an acknowledgment that no lecture can accurately depict all the horrors of the Holocaust or answer the nagging philosophical questions it raises. Nevertheless, he demonstrates how Hitler’s intense propaganda campaign created a genocidal environment. Anti-Jewish boycotts became anti-Jewish riots; riots were placed by mass shootings by the einsatzgruppen, and ultimately, the Jews faced the indescribable torture of the killing camps.

• the psychology of cruelty - how the Nazis dehumanized the Jews
• life in the ghettos
• the two sides of the Judenrat - helping the Jews or doing the Nazis' bidding?
• Thereisienstadt, the “show” camp
• Treblinka and Auschwitz - models of murderous efficiency
• the countries of Europe condemned, with the exception of courageous Denmark - Could more Jews have been saved?

Herod, Roman governor of the Land of Israel for seventy years, was a bloodthirsty dictator. To give legitimacy to his rule, he married a Hasmonean daughter. Though he is recorded to have loved her and had children with her, he loved his power even more. From his shifting loyalties within the power structure of Rome to his barbaric murder of his own children, this lecture paints a harrowing picture of the most treacherous times in Jewish history.

• Julius Caesar, Brutus, Marc Antony and Cleopatra - Learn the facts behind the famous names
• Shammai's fearless stand against Herod
• the tragic last gasp of the Sanhedrin
• political intrigue that proves that truth is stranger than fiction

While Julius Caesar and Pompei struggled with each other for rule of the Roman Empire, a parallel struggle raged on between the last of the Hasmoneans dynasty. These complex events intertwined and set the conditions that brought about the end of Hasmonean rule, the rise of Herod, and Roman domination over the Land of Israel.

• Hyrkanus vs. Aristobulus - Alexander Yanai's sons fight for the throne
• Julius Caesar vs. Pompei - cutthroat political rivalry
• Antipater's manipulations to get Herod into power
• Hillel, the great yet humble rabbi who stood apart from it all

When the fearsome Alexander Yanai came to power, he strengthened the position of the Sadducees, the deniers of the Oral Law. To the traditional Jews or Pharisees, this was grounds for civil war. Rabbi Wein brings to life the Talmudic stories that reveal Alexander Yanai’s paranoia and the defiance that led to one of the bloodiest periods of Jewish history.

• the Sadducees - Jewish deniers of Oral Law
• the Pharisees - ready to defend Judaism at all costs
• Alexander Yanai - from prison to the palace
• Simchas Bais Ha Sho'eva - the rebellion that sparked a war
• Shlomtzion Ha Malka - the righteous queen who (temporarily) restored the peace

The victory of the Maccabees installed the Hasmonean family as the new rulers of the Jewish people, but the heroism of the early generation did not last for long. Beginning with the rule of the righteous Shimon Ha Maccabee and ending with the tragic and corrupt Yochanan Hyrkanus, Rabbi Wein sheds light on the forces that caused the precipitous descent of the Hasmonean dynasty.

• the tragic fate of Judah Maccabee and his brothers
• the dual of Simon Maccabee - king and Kohain Gadol
• the alliance with Rome and what it meant for the Jews
• the split between the Sadducees and Pharisees, rebels vs. traditionalists

With the death of Alexander, the Greek empire divided into two rivaling ones: the Seleucid Empire of the north and the Ptolemaic Empire of the south. Precariously sandwiched in between was the Land of Israel. The deceptively peaceful period that saw the creation of the Septuagint turned out to be the calm before the storm of Greek oppression, the Maccabee rebellion, and the Chanukah victory and miracle.

• the story of Chanukah told with historical detail
• the two sides of the Septuagint
• the origin of the fast of the 10th of Teves
• Judah Maccabee and his brave, self-sacrificing family