The Happiest Man On Earth

The Power of Friendship and Love

After turning 100 years old Eddie Jaku wrote a great book telling us that the secret to being happy was the friendship and love that he had shared, first from his family and then his friends.

On the front cover of his book, “The Happiest Man on Earth” is a photo of Eddie- a very happy old man with his sleeve rolled up displaying the deep scar where the six numbers tattooed by the German Nazis are still clearly legible.

The horrors of various concentration camps could not kill the joy of the friendship that he had of one friend, and one family member, who also survived. The German Nazis killed most of his family and friends, and most of his German “friends” collaborated with the Nazis in persecuting, murdering, and looting the Jews all over Germany.

The city of Leipzig, where Eddie’s family had lived for over 200 years, was so respectful toward the Jews, (who were an integral and valuable part of the culture and economy) that they held the weekly market on a Friday so as to not interfere with the Jews weekly Sabbath.

Yet on the night of 9th November, or Kristallnacht - the night of the broken glass- “atrocities were being committed by civilised Germans all over Leipzig, all over the country. Nearly every Jewish home and business in my city was vandalised, burned or otherwise destroyed. As were synagogues. As were our people.”

Eddie was dragged from his bed, beaten almost to death, and then forced to watch as the house his family had lived in for 200 years was burnt to the ground.

“It wasn’t just Nazi soldiers and fanatical thugs who turned against us. Ordinary citizens, our friends and neighbours from before I was born, joined in the violence and the looting. When the mob was done destroying property, they rounded up Jewish people- many of these young children- and threw them in the river that I used to skate on as a child. The ice was thin and the water freezing. Men and women I’d grown up with stood on the riverbank, spitting and jeering as people struggled. “Shoot them!” they cried “Shoot the Jewish dogs!”

“What had happened to my German friends that they became murderers? How is it possible to create enemies from friends, to create such hate? Where was the Germany I had been so proud to be part of, the country where I was born, the country of my ancestors? One day were were friends, neighbours, colleagues, and the next we were told we were sworn enemies.

“When I think of those Germans relishing our pain, I want to ask them, “Have you got a soul? Have you got a heart?". It was madness, in the true sense of the word - otherwise civilised people lost all ability to tell right from wrong. They committed terrible atrocities, and worse, they enjoyed it. They thought they were doing the right thing. And even those who could not fool themselves that we Jews were the enemy did nothing to stop the mob.”

We must never forget the 9th of November and the madness of Kristallnacht, or the lesson of the friendship and love that kept Eddie, his friend, and his sister, alive to survive and live out their long lives in the peace and safety of a world that could once again tell right from wrong.

We will indeed need these lessons as the world once again goes headlong in a new worldwide madness that is even today persecuting people with different views that don’t conform to the “government approved narrative”. Where censorship of Biblical truths is sanctioned and enforced and people are thrown in prison in “civilized counties” for speaking such obvious truth as the difference between a man and a woman. Where has gone the Germany, the America, the Australia, the Britain who were the leaders of the world in Christian values, and the standards of justice and truth, that was so evident only a few years ago?

You will not find that Eddie Jaku is an overtly religious man, he never quotes scripture, and there is only one reference to him praying to God throughout his book. But his many examples of the necessity of friendship and love in times of our greatest difficulties demonstrate the true value and purpose of worshiping God, as elaborated in the Bible:

For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous.
Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.
We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers.
Whoever does not love abides in death.
Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? (1John 3:11-17)

Eddie Jaku gave a TED talk at 100 years old, it is well worth the time to watch, as is reading his book “The Happiest Man On Earth”.

Click here for the link to the TED talk, or copy and paste below.

https://www.ted.com/talks/eddie_jaku_a_holocaust_survivor_s_blueprint_for_happiness?subtitle=en