Take Two Tablets

The Answer: “Take Two Tablets.” The Question: “What did God say to Moses on Mount Sinai?”

Today is a silver anniversary.

Something significant happened exactly 25 years ago today. Ronald Reagan was president, spearheading then the fight against communism. He told a story about a collective farm in the Soviet Union, one in which a state commissar grabbed a farm worker and said, “Comrade, how are the crops?”

“Oh,” said the farm worker, “Comrade Commissar, if we could put the potatoes in one pile, they would reach the foot of God.”

The commissar corrected him, “This is the Soviet Union, comrade. There is no God.”

“That’s all right,” said the farm worker, “there are no potatoes.”

But that’s a joke — that’s not what happened on February 3, 1983. On that day, Ronald Reagan did something else. He proclaimed 1983 to be “The Year of the Bible.” (For the full text of the proclamation, go to: http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/
speeches/1983/20383b.htm.)

Okay, so we don’t remember that.

1983 — The Year of the Bible.

How could we forget?

1983. It was a very good year. It’s remembered for...