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Extinction in a Station Wagon. As an Orthodox Jew, Author Wouk (who now lives in the Virgin Islands during the winter) is not overly sympathetic to the "improvisations" of Reform or Conservative Judaism, and he finds Orthodoxy hale and hearty despite the stringencies of its demands in the world of the barbecue pit and the P.T.A. There has been, he admits, "a well-known cascading-from orthodox to Conservative, and from Conservative to Reform groups. But Reform does not swell as it might, because of attrition into disinterest and loss of identity. Nor, curiously, does orthodoxy seem to diminish ... It is, if anything, on the rise."
Wouk feels, though, that Judaism is gravely threatened today in America, and he threat is not the traditional one of exclusion or persecution. He personifies Judaism as "Mr. Abramson" disappearing down a broad highway at the wheel of a high-powered station wagon, with the golf clubs piled in the back. Wouk puts it in terms of an imaginary news tory: "Mr. Abramson left his home in the morning after a hearty breakfast, apparently in the best of health, and was not seen again. His last words were that he would get in a round before going on to the office." Of course, adds Author Wouk. "Mr. Abramson will not die. When his amnesia clears, he will be Mr. Adamson, and his wife and children will join him, and all will be well. But the Jewish question will be over in the United States. If this should happen—and I do not for a moment think it will—would it be a solution that either the Jews or the United States would welcome? Does America want the disappearance of its people of Abraham?"
Wouk is sure that the answer to both questions is no. and that the only hope lies in training the best brains among the young in the law. And this to him means Orthodoxy. "If I stand up to be counted in that communion, it is not because I hold it perfect, or because I miss the stresses that have sent many into dissent and assimilation. It is because I sense in my bones that Jewish survival rests with the law . . . The formulas of dissent make a pleasant compromise for people who want an easier life than the law asks, or who have little training and yet want a taste of Judaism. But the formulas die away in the training of the young. They are of the hour. The law is of eternity."