The safety of tomorrow depends on what we teach our children today.

Man's engineering skills have brought him into the shadow of his own self-destruction. His knowledge, enabling him to conquer nature in large part, has not taught him to conquer himself. He now can reduce civilization to flaming ruins overnight and bids fair to do so. Does he have the wisdom to discern this and the moral strength to avert it?

The safety of tomorrow's world depends on what we teach our children today. Centuries ago, in far-off Palestine, the prophet Malachi cried, "Have we not all one father? Hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?" (Malachi 2:10) Based on that immortal statement stands the noble concept of the Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of God. If we can teach our children to live by that concept, we can redeem them and ourselves from our moral failure.

This religious instruction, which can save the world, must be imparted diligently to our children from infancy--not in the public schools, for the Constitution of our country wisely decrees the separation of Church and State, but in homes and houses of worship. More than this we cannot do; less than this we dare not do, for the future of civilization hangs in the balance.

How true today, therefore, is the ancient injunction: "I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live" (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Thus we can have a fair, free, and fruitful world, if we will, in which our latest discoveries, planned so largely for destruction, can be turned to constructive purpose and made man's faithful servant instead of his dreaded master. We are made in God's image; we can be God-like in fact as well, if only we can crown our intellect with compassion and understanding. We need merely brains to understand our fellowman, but we need soul to love him. We have the will to live; do we have the will to love?

Sidney S. Guthman is a past member of the Civil Service Commission of Long Beach, California. He is the former Grand Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of California. Recently, the Long Beach Veterans Administration Medical Center awarded him a special merit citation for his work as Chaplain, and he is Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Sholom, Leisure World, California. A longtime member of the Long Beach Scottish Rite Bodies and Chaplain of Al Malaikah Shrine Temple, Rabbi Guthman was recently appointed Chaplain of the Long Beach Police Department, the first time a Rabbi had been so honored.