Noted Jewish historian Rabbi Berel Wein explores the Second Commonwealth and its aftermath in an in-depth, engaging account of the Second Temple's rise and fall. At the close of the Babylonian Exile, the Jewish people found themselves in a time of great internal development and external challenge. The Second Temple was being built and Rabbinic Judaism was being founded while Jewish culture confronted the cornerstones of Western civilization in the seductions of Greek and Roman society.

Later the destruction of the Second Temple gave rise to the beginnings of a written Talmud, while the Jewish community faced recriminations for rejecting the alternate montheistic religions of Christianity and Islam. In the last third of the series, Rabbi Wein takes you into the Sephardic culture of the golden Spanish exile. At first it was a synthesis of Moslem and Jewish ideas where Jewish life flourished. Later Moslem/Christian fanaticism destroyed the marriage of cultures. Rabbi Wein ends the series with discussions of the Gaonim and Rishonim, especially the Rambam (Maimonides) and Ramban (Nachmonides) and their historical context.