Author promotes Moses as a model for getting along

Behold Bruce Feiler's optimism. You and your relatives, he says with conviction, can talk about religion and politics at Thanksgiving and survive.

The best-selling author of several books connecting the biblical past to the present, Feiler says he understands it's a risky proposition. But he rejects the conventional wisdom that if you want to get to the pumpkin pie without inciting World War III, keep your opinions about health care, gay rights, abortion, nuclear energy, the bailout, the White House, and Fox News to yourself.

To begin with, he says, keeping your mouth shut requires more self-restraint than most of us have, especially after a glass of wine. And more importantly, it deprives us of the opportunity to occupy common ground.

"We can go at it, yell and scream over contentious issues, but we have a choice. Let's go back through history and see how, in every time, people have gone back to this story for inspiration and hope."

That story, the Old Testament, he says, stars none other than Moses, the subject of Feiler's new book, America's Prophet. The book chronicles Moses' influence throughout U.S. history. As the man who led the Jews to challenge their oppressors, Feiler says, Moses led the way for the Founding Fathers, Harriet Tubman, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and President Obama.

Researching the book, Feiler discovered references to Moses in speeches, proclamations, even the quote inscribed on the Liberty Bell. So prominent was Moses as a model of leadership, "He could have been elected mayor in 1776."

A passionate storyteller, Feiler can, and does, talk for hours on the subject. How he went to Cecil B. DeMille's home, read parts of the original script and tried on the robes Charlton Heston wore in the film The Ten Commandments. How DeMille promoted the movie by distributing hundreds of six-foot-high granite replicas of Moses' tablets across the country and how, 50 years later, this publicity stunt would be tied up in a Supreme Court case. (A 2005 debate over the separation of church and state involved one of the DeMille monuments installed at a Texas courthouse.)

Feiler doesn't expect that after reading his book, the aunt who loves Rush Limbaugh and the brother who worships Michael Moore will cry, 'Eureka, now I get it. The scales have fallen from eyes.' "

He just wants to give them a place to start the conversation.

"If Moses can split the Red Sea," says Feiler, "he can unsplit America."

Feiler, 45, has his own epic story. He was born in Savannah, Ga., but has strong ties to Philadelphia. Five of his family members attended the University of Pennsylvania, including his sister, Cari Feiler Bender, a public-relations consultant in Philadelphia.

"I was the black sheep," Feiler jokes. He went to Yale, where he studied American history.

He is best known for his 2001 book Walking the Bible, a chronicle of his 10,000-mile journey tracing scriptural texts. Feiler followed with a PBS series based on that project, then several other successful books. In June 2008, America's Prophet was headed for publication when Feiler, then living in Brooklyn with his wife and 2-year-old twin daughters, went to the doctor for a routine checkup.

The blood work came back with an elevated enzyme.

"It's probably nothing," the doctor said. On July 2, half a dozen tests later, Feiler learned he had osteosarcoma. Bone cancer. "About 650 people a year get it," Feiler says. "And 85 percent of them are under 21." In a 15-hour operation, surgeons removed seven inches of his femur and one-third of his quadriceps. He received nine months of chemotherapy and spent much of the last year in a wheelchair. His prognosis, Feiler says, "is good, not great." But he quit his crutches for a cane two weeks ago, just in time to start the book tour for America's Prophet.

During the 10-minute walk from Market East to a coffee shop near Independence Hall to meet for an interview, Feiler says, "I was counting the blocks." His boyish face has aged some, his leg and hip give him chronic pain, and although he's made his career writing about religion, he does not believe a Supreme Being will cure his cancer. Still, he says, he tries, and usually manages, not to ask, "Why me?"

"I was the walking guy who might never walk again. Now, by next summer, I might be able to walk without a cane."

During his convalescence, he wrote another book, The Council of Dads - My Daughters, My Illness and the Men Who Could Be Me. Due out in April, it tells of his conversations with six friends who will be influential if the cancer returns and his daughters grow up fatherless.

"I've been blessed to live a life based on my imagination," he says, and as long as he's alive, he will continue to do that.

Author Bruce Feiler will make two appearances in the Philadelphia area to discuss his book "America's Prophet: Moses and the American Story."

Tonight, at 7:30 p.m. at Christ Church, Second Street between Market and Arch Streets. Admission is free.

Sunday, Nov. 8, at Beth Israel in Chester County, at 385 Pottstown Pike (Route 100) Uwchland.

For tickets, visit www.bethisraelpa.org or call 610-458-8550.

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