But he wasn’t ready for the giant who met him outside the Pilgrim Church’s dilapidated Gothic sanctuary near downtown Detroit. The Rev. Henry Covington was as tall as a basketball player, but weighed 400 pounds or more.

“His body seemed to unroll in layers, a broad slab of a chest cascading into a huge belly that hung like a pillow over the belt of his pants. His arms spread the sleeves of his oversized white T-shirt. His forehead was sweating, and he breathed heavily, as if he had just climbed stairs,” wrote Albom, in “Have a Little Faith,” a slim book that represents his return to non-fiction 12 years after his inspirational bestseller “Tuesdays With Morrie.”

Albom’s first impression was crystal clear: “If this is a man of God … I’m the man in the moon.”

Covington certainly stood in stark contrast to the other clergyman whose image was fixed in the writer’s mind at the time — the late Albert Lewis, the articulate leader of the Jewish congregation in which Albom grew up, in Cherry Hill, N.J.

The elderly rabbi had shocked Albom by asking him to deliver his eulogy, when that became necessary. This led to eight years of talks between “the Reb” and the skeptical journalist, who had walked away from his Jewish faith after college. This process resembled those philosophical Tuesday dialogues between Albom and a favorite college professor, Morrie Schwartz, in the years before he died of Lou Gehrig’s disease.

But Albom wasn’t looking for another book during his weekday visit to Pilgrim’s Church. He had — while working to boost Detroit charities — dropped by to learn more about the tiny Pentecostal flock’s work with the homeless.

Albom expected to meet people there scarred by life on the street or behind bars, but didn’t expect to find one in the pulpit.

In “Have a Little Faith,” Albom describes a dramatic sermon in which Covington explored the twisted road that led to redemption: “Amazing grace. … I coulda been dead. … Shoulda been dead! … Woulda been dead! … His grace … saved a wretch. And I was a wretch. You know what a wretch is? I was a crackhead, an alcoholic, I was a heroin addict, a liar, a thief. I was all those things. But then came Jesus.”

At first, “I wasn’t sure that I trusted him,” said Albom, in a quick telephone interview. “I thought, ‘Isn’t there supposed to be some minimal ‘goodness’ quotient in all of this? How can you have done all of that and now call yourself a man of God?’ “

As Albom met members of Covington’s church and heard their stories, bonds of trust developed, followed by friendship. Then some of the lessons he learned there began to overlap and interact with what he was learning in his pre-eulogy talks with Rabbi Lewis. There was an emphasis on respecting others, doing good works and helping needy and struggling seekers.

The writer rediscovered his own Jewish roots, but he also had to confront the blunt, powerful claims of Covington’s preaching. The rabbi’s approach was broad, universal and embraced all faiths. The preacher’s faith reached out to others, but remained rooted in the claims of Christianity. He didn’t force the needy to convert, but he witnessed to them and prayed for their conversion.

This led Albom back to some of the big questions that emerged from the dialogues with his rabbi: “How can different religions coexist? If one faith believes on thing, and another believes something else, how can they both be correct? And does one religion have the right — or even the obligation — to try to convert the other?”

At the end of the book, Albom concludes: “God sings, we hum along, and there are many melodies, but it’s all one song.” At the same time, he chooses to worship in his familiar Jewish congregation, as well as at Pilgrim’s Church.

“What can I say? I like Henry’s sermons and I like the people and I like the spirit in that church. It is what it is,” said Albom.

“I’ve decided that I’m not wise enough to tell you that one faith is better than another. God will have to sort it all out. That’s in God’s hands.”

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This has been a consistent pattern in recent surveys and it can be seen in most pews, from conservative evangelicals to liberal mainline Protestants, said Greg Smith, senior researcher at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. This pattern is especially clear among American Catholics.

“The people who attend worship services more often are going to be opposed to abortion and those who rarely or never attend are going to support legalized abortion,” he said. “You go once a week? It’s going to be about two-thirds against. Rarely if ever? It’s about two-thirds in favor. …

“That division is still there. But the big news is that both of these groups have been moving in the same direction for the past year or so. We’re seeing support for abortion rights weakening across the board.”

A new Pew Forum survey found that the percentage of Americans saying they believe abortion should be “legal in all/most cases” fell from 54 to 47 percent during a single year. Meanwhile, the percentage of people who said they believe abortion should be “illegal in all/most cases” rose from 40 to 44 percent. The “undecided” camp grew from 6 to 9 percent of those polled.

“The nation remains pretty evenly divided,” said Smith. “However, what we can see is that support for legalized abortion is weakening in many groups and it’s stalled in others. … How much people practice their faith is a crucial factor in this.”

Support for abortion rights remains high among American Jews, but the latest Pew survey showed a drop from 86 percent in favor a year ago to 76 percent now. Support among Americans with no religious affiliation at all fell from 71 percent in favor of legalized abortion to 68 percent.

One of the most dramatic shifts came among members of white mainline Protestants — liberal churches that have consistently supported abortion rights. The numbers were especially dramatic when church attendance was factored into the equation, noted Smith.

Support for abortion rights among mainliners who attended church once a week fell from 54 to 42 percent, while support among those who said they attended less often than that fell from 68 to 60 percent.

To no one’s surprise, opposition to abortion rights among evangelical Protestants remains high, but the numbers have risen even higher in the past year. Church attendance is a major factor, with 79 percent of white evangelicals who worship once a week saying abortion should be “illegal in all/most cases.” A year ago, 73 percent took that stance. Among white evangelicals who go to church less often, opposition to abortion rose a dramatic 12 percent — from 47 to 58 percent.

The contrast between regular and occasional worshippers was also dramatic among white Catholics. Opposition to abortion rights rose from 57 to 67 percent among Catholics who reported going to Mass once a week. Among those who said they attended Mass less often, support for legalized abortion declined slightly during the past year, from 65 to 62 percent.

These numbers are logical because Catholics who are active in the church are exposed more often to sermons, prayers and ministries that incarnate church teachings on the sanctity of human life, said Deirdre McQuade of the pro-life office at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“Those who are less invested in the sacraments — attending church, receiving the Eucharist and going to confession — may have less access to the truth about life, and fewer resources to believe and accept it,” she said.

In the end, stressed Smith, this survey underlines two realities. First, there is little evidence that America’s debates about abortion are fading. Second, it’s clear that religious faith and practice remains one of the most crucial dividing lines on this issue.

“It’s important to realize that millions of Americans see themselves as caught in the middle” on abortion issues, he said. “Take those mainline Protestants, for example. Even though it seems that their support for legalized abortion is weakening, they probably see themselves as moving from one position in the middle to another position in the middle. They may be changing what they believe, but not very much.”

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Why is matzoh the only bread at Passover? Because the Hebrews had no time to bake leavened bread as they fled Egypt. Why dip bitter herbs into chopped apples, dates, nuts and wine? Because this paste resembles the clay they used in slavery to make bricks. Why dip parsley into salt water? The parsley represents new life, mixed with tears.

This year, some liberal Jews will hear a new question during the ritual meals that define this weeklong season, which begins at sundown on Wednesday, April 8.

The question: “Why is there an orange on the Seder plate?”

The answer, in a new rite written by Rabbi Peter H. Schweitzer of New York, will please many unorthodox Jews.

“To remind us that all people have a legitimate place in Jewish life, no less than an orange on the Seder plate, regardless of gender or sexual identity,” states “The Liberated Haggadah,” a rite for “cultural, secular and humanistic” Jews. “And to teach us, too, how absurd it is to exclude anyone who wants to sit at our table, partake of our meal, and celebrate with us the gift of life and the gift of freedom.”

The goal is to provide an enjoyable and educational Passover for Jews who are united by culture, art, music, literature, foods and folkways — but not faith. Nearly half of American Jews, said Schweitzer, consider themselves “secular” or “cultural” Jews, as opposed to “religious” Jews.

“This is not some small offshoot, it is half of our Jewish world,” stressed the rabbi, who leads the City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism, part of a network of 30 “secular Jewish communities” in North America.

“We have common values and experiences, even if we are not united in the practice of the Jewish religion. … We still want to find a way to celebrate these rituals that define the major transition points in our lives and in the lives of Jewish people throughout our history.”

However, Schweitzer faced a major challenge in writing this particular “Haggadah,” which fits into a tradition of new Passover texts that honor specific moments in Jewish history and culture. Many families freely adapt pieces of different Seder texts to create their own unique rituals.

At the heart of Passover, is the biblical story of Moses and the spectacular series of miracles that helped the Jewish people escape from captivity in Egypt. However, the “Liberated Haggadah” argues that scholars have deconstructed most of the Exodus narrative, leaving modern Jews with a mere “myth” that is rich with symbolism and meaning, but not the gravity or authority of historical fact.

Even casual of participants in this new Seder are sure to notice that a big, big player is missing in this postmodern dinner drama.

Moses is still here and so is his sister, Miriam, along with a quiet character named Nahshon who may or may not have jumped into the Red Sea, which may or may not have parted to allow the Hebrews to escape. But the God of the Bible is gone.

“In early versions of the Haggadah,” notes this text, “Moses makes only a passing appearance, and all of the credit for the escape goes to Moses’ god Yahweh. Here, in this version we prefer to tell, Yahweh is the one who only gets a passing reference.”

This is important, because many “secular” or “cultural” Jews are atheists and many are agnostics. Others, noted Schweitzer, believe in some form of divine power, but not in the kind of God who hears prayers and intervenes in human life.

Thus, traditional prayers are free to evolve into poems or meditations on “human empowerment.” What was once an ancient story of divine liberation can become a story of human liberation to inspire all who suffer oppression and yearn for freedom.

“We want,” the rabbi explained, “to say what we believe and to believe what we say. We think that people who do not believe should not have to use language in these rites that make it sound like they do, in fact, believe. … Our goal is to live good, just, moral lives and we believe that we have the power to do that on our own.”

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When pollsters ask Americans the Eternal Question they almost always say, “I believe in God.”

Ask young Americans about faith and the response is something like, “I believe in God and stuff.” Finding the doctrinal meaning of “and stuff” is tricky.

“God made us and if you ask him for something I believe he gives it to you. Yeah, he hasn’t let me down yet,” said a 14-year-old Catholic from Pennsylvania, when researchers Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton asked him why religion matters. “God is a spirit that grants you anything you want, but not anything bad.”

The key is that this God — part Divine Butler, part Cosmic Therapist — watches from a safe distance.

“God’s all around you, all the time,” said conservative Protestant girl, 17, from Florida. “He believes in forgiving people and what-not, and he’s there to guide us, for somebody to talk to and help us through our problems. Of course, he doesn’t talk back.”

If grown-ups roll their eyes at litanies such as these, most teens offer a chilly response that sums up their creeds — “whatever.”

Thus it was significant, in the Josephson Institute’s latest Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, that 48 percent of the students surveyed in 100 random public and private high schools said they had “never” violated their own “religious beliefs” during 2007. Other parts of this survey made headlines, especially its reports that a third of the students said they stole something from a store during the previous year, while 38 percent committed plagiarism, 64 percent cheated on a test and 83 percent lied to a parent about something important.

Few of these young people are “unbelievers” or, heaven forbid, “secularists,” noted Smith, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. The overwhelming majority of them — like their parents — would insist that they are practicing Christians, Jews, Muslims or whatever.

“Plenty of religious kids do steal and cheat and whatever,” he said, responding to the Josephson survey. “They have in their heads some image of what ‘religious’ really looks like. For many — not all — young people, the meaning of that word is so vague it can mean almost anything or nothing whatsoever. The bar is set low and their take on religion certainly doesn’t include concepts such as self sacrifice, repentance or self mortification.”

These young people are religious, he stressed. They are simply practicing a new religion, one that Smith and Denton called “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” When crunched to its basics, this faith teaches that:

* A God exists who “created and orders the world” and watches over our lives.

* This God wants people to be good, nice and fair to one another, as taught by most major religions.

* The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good.

* God is rarely involved in daily life, except when needed to solve a problem.

* Good people go to heaven.

This is not a faith that can stand on its own, noted Smith, in a lecture at the Princeton Theological Seminary Institute for Youth Ministry. Instead, it is a “parasitic religion” that creates weakened, less rigid versions of other faiths — such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism. There may even, he noted, be “Nonreligious Moralistic Therapeutic Deists” in modern America.

When describing their beliefs, most young people say it’s important to be kind to one another and to try to live a good life. There are few limitations on behavior, other than loose rules that say it is wrong to hurt other people, especially one’s friends. “Don’t be a jerk” is a common refrain.

Words such as “sanctification,” “Trinity,” “sin,” “holiness” and “Eucharist” have little or no meaning. Most references to “grace” refer to the television show “Will and Grace.” If teens mention being “justified,” this almost always means that they think they have a good reason to do something that others consider questionable.

This faith, Smith explained, blends well with popular culture and media.

“It’s a religion that works at the level of email and texting and long hours talking on your cellphones,” he said. “It’s all about relationships. Your religion has to work with your friends and it has to bring you happiness. That’s what really matters.”

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It’s Ramadan. Will your devout Muslim parents smile if you serve dinner several hours before sundown?

It’s Good Friday. Will the Catholic college cafeteria serve hamburgers?

It’s Thanksgiving. Can you predict the foods that will be on your mother’s table? Will the German grandmothers bake Christmas cookies at the Lutheran church? Is the tuna casserole served at potluck dinners at rural Minnesota churches truly a sacrament?

When it comes to the rhythms and symbols of faith, it’s easy to see the role that food plays, especially in the intense and emotional final months of the religious calendar.

“Food is all about the stories that define our lives,” said Daniel Sack of the University of Chicago Divinity School, author of the book “Whitebread Protestants: Food and Religion in American Culture.”

“I’m not just talking about religious rituals that involve food. ? For many church people, what happens in the social hall week after week is more important than what happens in the sanctuary. They come for Communion, but also for community.”

Sack said food traditions — with a big “T,” as well as with a small “t” — demonstrate why it’s almost impossible to draw a line showing where religion ends and culture begins. Food is one of the basic building blocks of life and, thus, is one of the “passions” that religious believers have always struggled to keep under control.

Change what people eat and you change their lives. However, there are times when the religious significance of food is obvious and there are times when it is not. While studying this subject, Sack said he began sorting the different kinds of food traditions into four groups.

* Sometimes, the food becomes a holy object in and of itself. One example is when a Buddhist takes a food offering to a temple. In other cases, ordinary food becomes sacred as part of an intricate ritual that is defined by prayers and scripture — such as the bread and wine in a Catholic Mass.

“What is crucial is that this sacramental understanding of food seeps into other parts of life,” said Sack. “And we’re not just talking about Christianity. If you start talking about bread and wine, it’s hard to take that symbolism out of there.”

* Most religious traditions, to varying degrees, claim some right to control the role that food plays in daily life. This is most obvious in faiths such as Judaism, with its “kosher” traditions, and in Islamic laws to establish what is and what is not “halal.” In other faiths, believers fast from eating certain foods at different times of the week or year.

* In many cases, these sacred laws and traditions then begin to shape the festivals and the cuisine of a particular culture or ethnic group. At this point the line between Greek cooking and Greek Orthodox cooking starts to blur. What role does faith play in the menus of Ethiopian, Italian, Lebanese, Indian or Swedish restaurants?

* Food also reflects what people believe about family and community life. It would be strange to see conservative Evangelical leaders serve the same food at a men’s dinner that they serve a luncheon for the women’s group. Foods reflect social roles, too.

Sack said that every community, every family, cannot help but develop informal rituals linked to meals, because meals are such symbolic times of fellowship. And when the times change, so do the meals.

Consider the food served at youth-group meetings. Once, parents organized these meetings and prepared the food, helping to maintain a sense of watch-care and protection from the outside world. Today, most churches hire professional youth pastors who plan multi-media programs and — naturally — send out for pizza.

“When we assimilate at the level of the table, we have truly assimilated to the world around us,” said Sack. “When you take this view of life, those parents are not just sending out for pizza — they are sending a symbolic signal of acceptance of the surrounding youth culture. ?

“You see the same thing happening when people start lining up those fast-food boxes at church potluck dinners. Some megachurches even have food courts, these days. Who has the time to prepare those special dishes that people used to take to church?”

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This means well-connected American Jews have almost a full year to lobby for their favorite rabbi to make the unofficial, but totally buzz-worthy, list of the nation’s 50 top rabbis. The pre-Passover list in Newsweek was such a hit that the film-industry players who created it are already gearing up for the sequel.

The goal was to jump start discussions about what it means to be an “influential” rabbi today, said Jay Sanderson, head of the Jewish TV Network and producer of the PBS series “The Jewish Americans.” But it’s hard to talk about shepherds without discussing their flocks. That was the point.

“The whole concept of what it means to be an effective leader is changing so fast and this is certainly true for the Jews,” he said. “So some people are talking about the fact that we didn’t ask, ‘Who is the most learned rabbi?’ or ‘Who has the most powerful pulpit? Instead, we specifically asked, ‘Who is the most influential rabbi and what does that mean, today?’…

“Some of our rabbis are preaching in what can only be called ‘virtual pulpits.’ “

When it comes to buzz, it didn’t hurt that the list was created by Sanderson and two other top mass-media executives — Gary Ginsberg of News Corp. and Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton — rather than by panels of community leaders and scholars.

The result was an earthquake in the Jewish blogosphere and wide coverage in the mainstream press.

It also didn’t hurt that three of the top five picks were from Los Angeles, while the rabbi of the largest congregation in Washington, D.C., was ranked No. 10 and the leader of New York City’s largest congregation fell all the way to No. 23. The top pick was Orthodox Rabbi Marvin Hier of Los Angeles, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Museum of Tolerance and Moriah Films. The Top 50 list stressed that he is “one phone call away from almost every world leader, journalist and Hollywood studio head.”

The 2007 edition began with a 100-candidate shortlist and its creators plan to cast their nets wider next year. Feminists were upset that only five women made the cut.

The project’s guiding principles can be seen in the 100-point system used to rank the rabbis. First they asked if the rabbis were known around the world, as well as in America. (20 points) The other questions: Do they have media presence? (10 points) Are they leaders in their own cities? (10 points) Are they leaders within their branches of Judaism? (10 points) How many Jews, in one way or another, follow them? (10 points) Do they have political and social clout? (20 points) Have their careers had a major impact on Judaism (10 points) and the wider culture? (10 points)

In the first list, 18 of the top 50 were listed as Reform, 17 as Orthodox, 10 as Conservative, three as Reconstructionist and two as “Jewish Renewal” rabbis. Next time, said Sanderson, the team will make a stronger effort to identify rabbis with the various movements within that complex Orthodox camp.

After all, the Orthodox rabbi whose selection drew the most flack was Rabbi Yehuda Berg at No. 4, founder of the Kabbalah Center in Los Angeles. He has become a cultural phenomenon by preaching red-string power to Madonna, Britney Spears and many other trendsetters. Some Jewish leaders content that Berg is not really a rabbi.

“Any list that has Yehuda Berg on it is a list that I do not want to be on,” said an anonymous rabbi who made the list, but vented to the Jerusalem Post. “I think his name up there on the top tells you all you need to know about the Jewish sophistication of these folks.”

Sanderson welcomes the ongoing debate. The key, he said, is that rabbis have to take their various takes on the ancient faith directly to modern Jews — where they are.

“Picture a young Jewish woman on her treadmill watching the Today Show,” he said. “How do you talk to her about Judaism? The answer is that you have to go on the Today Show, because she isn’t going to be sitting in your congregation during the High Holy Days. That’s the reality, right there.”

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The purpose of Hanukkah menorahs is to publicize the miracle at the heart of the “Festival of Lights,” when tradition says a one-day supply of pure oil burned for eight days after Jewish rebels liberated the temple from their Greek oppressors. Thus, most families place their menorahs in front windows facing a street.

So far, so good.

The lighting of the first candle should be at sundown on the first night of the eight-day season, which begins on Friday (Dec. 15) this year. Hanukkah candles should burn at least 30 minutes and it’s forbidden to use their light for any purpose other than viewing or meditating.

Blessings are recited before the first candle is lit, starting with: “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us by His commandments, and has commanded us to kindle the lights of Hanukkah.” Each night, another candle is added — with eight burning at the end of the season.

That’s it. That’s what Jews are supposed to do during Hanukkah. They’re supposed to light the candles and give thanks to God.

It’s all about lights shining in darkness.

“This is a simple holiday with a simple message and it isn’t supposed to be all that complicated,” said Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, the largest umbrella group for Orthodox Jews in North America.

“You come home from work, you light the candles, you say the blessings and then you sit down with your kids and play games with dreidels. … It’s pretty small stuff compared with all of the emotions of Passover.”

Some Jewish families will sing Hanukkah songs and fry some potato pancakes called “latkes,” homemade donuts or other festive foods using hot oil — a key symbol in the season. Many parents give their children small gifts each night, such as coins or chocolates wrapped in gold foil to resemble coins.

This is where, for many, the Hanukkah bandwagon starts to get out of control. As the Jewish Outreach Institute Hanukkah website bluntly states: “Hanukkah is the most widely celebrated American Jewish holiday, possibly because it is a fun, child-centered occasion.”

Everyone knows why Hanukkah keeps getting bigger and bigger, said Weinreb, who also has worked as a psychologist specializing in family issues.

“How can a Jewish kid growing up in America or anywhere else in the Western world not get swept up, to one degree or another, in the whole business of Christmas? The music is everywhere and the decorations are everywhere. Many of your school friends are having parties and they’re all excited about the gifts they’re going to get,” he said.

“From a Jewish perspective, all of this is a rabbi’s worst nightmare. You want to find a way to say, ‘That’s not us.’ But, in the end, many people lose control.”

Before you know it, someone else’s Christmas tree turns into a holiday tree and, finally, into something called a Hanukkah bush.

The end result is ironic, to say the least. Hanukkah is supposed to be a humble holiday about the need for Jews to resist compromising their beliefs in order to assimilate into a dominant culture. However, for many families it has become the biggest event on the Jewish calendar — because it is so close to the all-powerful cultural earthquake that some people still call “Christmas.”

Those old-fashioned notions about giving children a few modest Hanukkah gifts have evolved into expectations of a nightly procession of toys, clothing and electronic goodies. And, in many of America’s 2.5 million households with one Jewish parent and one Christian parent, the rites of the shopping mall have been blended to create the pop-culture reality called “Chrismukkah.”

All of this is easy to understand and hard to resist.

“One gift a night for eight nights is just commercialism, pure and simple. That has more to do with Toys ‘R’ Us than it does with Judaism,” said Weinreb. “Hanukkah is not the Jewish Christmas and we all know that. Hanukkah is what it is. We just need to do what we are supposed to do and let the holiday take care of itself.”

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However, there is a passage in this Jewish text that is relevant right now. The crucial Hebrew words are in tractate Eruvin, page 65b, and they are “be’kiso, be’koso, u’ve’kaso.” This rabbinical text says a person’s true essence is found in “his cup,” “his pocket” and “his anger.”

Witness the rich and powerful Mel Gibson and his roadside rant about the “blanking” Jews who are “responsible for all the wars in the world.” His cup was too full and his anger spilled over.

“Ancient Jewish wisdom informs us that one way we can know what a person is really like is by how he behaves when he is drunk. From this we can safely assume that Mel Gibson doesn’t think much of Jews,” noted Rabbi Daniel Lapin of Toward Tradition, which has received some financial support from Gibson.

“However there is another nugget of ancient Jewish wisdom emphasizing that we owe atonement for that which lies in our hearts only to God. … We humans are morally obliged to make good to other people only for those things we do.”

But what should Gibson do now?

After the superstar’s hellish meltdown, many of his critics — Jewish and otherwise — called for him to be excommunicated from Hollywood.

Anti-Defamation League Director Abraham H. Foxman slammed his early apology and wrote online: “We would hope that Hollywood now would realize the bigot in their midst and that they will distance themselves from this anti-Semite.” Superstar agent Ari Emanuel of the Endeavor Agency went even further, stating that Jews and gentiles alike must “demonstrate that they understand how much is at stake in this by professionally shunning Mel Gibson and refusing to work with him.”

Is repentance irrelevant? In his second apology, Gibson tried to discuss his failure in religious terms. The Catholic traditionalist also opened a door to meeting with conservative Jews who have talked with him in the past.

“The tenets of what I profess to believe necessitate that I exercise charity and tolerance as a way of life,” he said. “Every human being is God’s child, and if I wish to honor my God I have to honor his children. … I’m not just asking for forgiveness. I would like to take it one step further and meet with leaders in the Jewish community, with whom I can have a one-on-one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing.”

If Gibson desires more than what Christians call “cheap grace,” he needs more than a few holy day media events, according to Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. In Judaism, repentance is “a play in four acts” and the first is verbal confession. This must be followed by “complete cessation of the offending behavior” and sincere regret.

The tough fourth act, he said, requires long-range planning and an “acceptance of a way to change that is real, not self-delusional.” In a way, fighting anti-Semitism will be similar to fighting the bottle.

“You can’t deal with an alcohol problem through a photo-op with the head of the local detox program,” said Adlerstein, writing for Jewish World Review. Recovery programs that work, demand “growing self-awareness and lots of time. Not coincidentally, they require the privacy of secure surroundings, far from public scrutiny.

“We will help you understand your personal demons, but only away from the cameras and the mikes. Redemption will come through the small, still voice of conscience, not at a press conference.”

This will be hard, in the hot Hollywood spotlight.

Reporters cannot follow Gibson into the confession booth or interview his priest afterwards. But they can ask questions about his work and his recovery.

While filming “The Passion of the Christ,” Gibson told the Eternal Word Television Network that he asked priests to hear daily confessions, including his own, and to celebrate daily Mass. It would be interesting to ask if he seeks similar spiritual disciplines in the future.

Still, Gibson has said that he “disgraced myself and my family.” That’s a realistic place to start, said film critic Michael Medved, an Orthodox Jew.

“When a long-married, 50-year-old father of seven gets arrested for drunk driving at nearly twice the speed limit at 2:30 in the morning,” noted Medved, “it’s safe to assume that he faces even more serious problems than exposing his anti-Semitic attitudes.”

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It has given birth to organizations large and small, from local Lions Clubs to the Communist Party. It has started revolutions and manipulated the world’s wars. Using their great wealth, the conspirators control mass media and steer the churches.

No, this isn’t part of “The Da Vinci Code.”

This is a different Zion conspiracy. This is the great Jewish plot, as described by an early covenant in the Islamist organization Hamas. Where can one learn the truth?

“Zionism scheming has no end, and after Palestine, they will covet expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates River,” proclaims article 32. “When they have finished digesting the area on which they have laid their hand, they will look forward to more expansion. Their scheme has been laid out in the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’ “

Sooner of later, anyone who studies modern anti-Semitism ends up studying this infamous document, with its 24 chapters that claim to reveal the minutes of a vast Jewish network that rules the world. Although its origins are the subject of debate, scholars agree that it emerged in 1905 in Russia and has become a touchstone text for conspiracy insiders around the world.

“Conspiracy theories are, by their very nature, insidiously seductive. It doesn’t matter if you are talking about who shot John Kennedy, who blew up the World Trade Center or who is driving up oil prices,” said Daniel Greene, curator of a U.S. Holocaust Museum exhibition entitled “A Dangerous Lie: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

“A great conspiracy theory answers all kinds of questions in a very uncomplicated way. It gives you the secret information that you need to know to understand why some people are oppressed and others are powerful. And, of course, if anyone says they have evidence that proves that the conspiracy theory is wrong, then that just proves that they are part of the conspiracy. You can’t win.”

This conspiracy can be summed up in four words: “The Jews did it.”

As could be expected, Nazi Germany produced 23 or more editions of “The Protocols.” By this time, explained Greene, Adolf Hitler did not need to quote the text by name, because its ideas had become part of the air he was breathing. There is also evidence that German leaders knew the book was a fake.

“I believe that ‘The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion’ are a forgery,” wrote master propagandist Joseph Goebbels. However, he also said, “I believe in the intrinsic, but not the factual truth of the ‘Protocols.’ “

The current exhibit, which precedes a larger project about propaganda scheduled for 2008, demonstrates that this text’s unique brand of hatred knows no borders — especially not in the Internet age.

There is a copy of industrialist Henry Ford’s 1920 book entitled “The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem.” There is a Pakistani edition of “The Protocols” that King Faisel of Saudi Arabia offered to foreign diplomats as a gift. There is another another edition in Japanese, which is a mystery to many scholars since there are fewer than 1,000 Jews in Japan, out of a population of nearly 130 million.

An edition recently published in Syria suggests that the 9/11 attacks were planned and executed by Jews, seeking a way to further involve the United States in the Middle East. An infamous Spanish edition is even more cynical. It shows finger puppets representing the U.S. economy, the Masons, the Communists, Christianity and the Nazi swastika — all being controlled by a palm marked with the Star of David.

Yes, there are anti-Semites who insist that Jews planned the Holocaust as a deadly gambit that would give them the ultimate “victim” trump card in international affairs.

Do they really believe this?

“They may want to believe that it is true because, to them, it feels true,” said Greene. “So there is truthiness out there and, from the beginning, ‘The Protocols’ has been an assault on the very idea of truth. But people are supposed to debate the facts, not what they feel in their gut. If people will use their heads, they will be able to see this kind of hatred for what it is.”

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Consider these Exodus instructions: “Thou shalt make a candlestick of pure gold: of beaten work shall the candlestick be made: his shaft, and his branches, his bowls, his knops, and his flowers, shall be of the same. And six branches shall come out of the sides of it; three branches of the candlestick out of the one side, and three branches of the candlestick out of the other side.”

Counting the center candlestick, this created a unique candelabrum with seven lamps, a number that in scripture symbolizes holiness and completeness. The result is a shape familiar to anyone who has studied religion, liturgy and art. It is also a crucial symbol in America’s debates about the role of public faith in the month of December.

“The menorah is the premier symbol of Judaism, especially if the goal is to symbolize the Jewish faith,” said Steven Fine, visiting professor of Jewish history at Yeshiva University in New York City.

While many assign this role to the modern Star of David, this scholar of art and archaeology begs to differ. The weakness of the six-pointed star is also its strength, Fine explained. It has no historic meaning and, thus, can be used by every imaginable kind of Jew, from Orthodox believers to those who choose to assimilate into secular cultures.

“You could not say that about the menorah and that’s the point,” said Fine. “The menorah is different because of its deep roots in the Jewish faith itself. … For the prophet Zechariah, it represented the very eyes of God watching over us in our lives. You can’t get more religious than that.”

And there’s the rub. We live in an age in which government officials — local, state and national — are wrestling with holiday trees, menorahs, creches, angels, ears of corn, Santa statues, plastic snowmen and a host of other secular and sacred objects that church-state partisans keep dragging into the public square. The result is what columnist Jonah Goldberg calls “Christmas Agonistes,” a condition produced by some cliffhanger decisions at the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1980s.

There are few guidelines carved in stone. The court did establish what many activists call the “reindeer rules” that allow displays of religious symbols on public property as long as they are surrounded by other symbols, which are usually borrowed from pop culture.

Another ruling said that most nativity scenes are “religious” while most menorahs are “cultural.” Following this logic, many educators forbid the singing of religious Christmas songs, while teaching students to sing Hanukkah songs about the “mighty miracle” that allowed Jewish rebels long ago to defeat their Greek and Syrian oppressors.

Jewish tradition teaches that when it came time to open the recaptured temple, only one container of pure oil could be found for the holy lamp. However, this one-day supply burned for eight days. Thus, menorahs used at Hanukkah — which begins this year at sundown on Dec. 25 — have eight candles or lamps.

It’s easy, said Fine, to understand why some people have their doubts about court rulings that say the menorah is now a “secular” or “cultural” symbol.

In his book “Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World,” the historian notes that through the centuries: “The menorah became the marker of Jewish religious space, Jewish bread, Jewish tombs, occasionally Jewish homes and — when worn as jewelry — Jewish bodies. This practice continued from late antiquity through the Middle Ages and into modern times. …

“Mosaics and screens that in a church context might be decorated with a cross were adorned with menorahs in synagogues — and were often made by the same artisans for both religions. The menorah and the cross were thus twinned symbols, both serving their communities as markers separating them from one another.”

At the same time, it is also hard to understand why some religious believers now celebrate when courts declare their sacred symbols safe, neutral and tame, said Fine.

“Who could have imagined anyone claiming that the menorah is a secular symbol? Then again,” he said, “who could anyone have imagined that we would ever face this kind — this degree — of secularization. That’s something for Jews to think about.”

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