Herman Wouk Quote
The Second Table of the Ten Commandments reads in Hebrew something like this: 'Don't kill; don't be vile; don't steal; don't tell lies about others; don't envy any man his wife or house or animals, or anything he has.' This sounds shockingly wrong in English. For the English genius, religion is solemn and stately; Canterbury Cathedral, not a shul. The grand slow march of Thou Shalt Nots is exactly right. Religion for the Jews is intimate and colloquial, or it is nothing.
Herman Wouk
The Second Table of the Ten Commandments reads in Hebrew something like this: 'Don't kill; don't be vile; don't steal; don't tell lies about others; don't envy any man his wife or house or animals, or anything he has.' This sounds shockingly wrong in English. For the English genius, religion is solemn and stately; Canterbury Cathedral, not a shul. The grand slow march of Thou Shalt Nots is exactly right. Religion for the Jews is intimate and colloquial, or it is nothing.
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About Herman Wouk
Other well-known works included The Winds of War and War and Remembrance (historical novels about World War II), the bildungsroman Marjorie Morningstar; and non-fiction such as This Is My God, an explanation of Judaism from a Modern Orthodox perspective, written for Jewish and non-Jewish readers. His books have been translated into 27 languages.
The Washington Post described Wouk, who cherished his privacy, as "the reclusive dean of American historical novelists". Historians, novelists, publishers, and critics who gathered at the Library of Congress in 1995 to mark his 80th birthday described him as an American Tolstoy. Wouk lived to 103.
Wouk was a member of the executive committee of the Writers and Artists for Peace in the Middle East, a pro-Israel group.