During the several exiles which marked low points in the history of Israel.

The Jewish people faced many great challenges, among them the special challenge of how to remain faithful to God, his word of revelation, his commandments and promises: how to continue to live in hope in a foreign land when there was no possibility of Temple worship.

While some of the Jews capitulated and assumed the religion, and even the morality, "the stranger's ways", of their country of exile, a small group remained faithful in spite of all difficulties. Several books of the Bible give us a glimpse of the life of these faithful ones, these "poor of Yahweh". Often these Jews in exile were quite prosperous, but they were still "the poor of Yahweh" because their humility taught them that prosperity was God's blessing and God's blessings demanded gratitude and praise - essential elements in a personal religion.

Thus Tobias was a prosperous religious man. Neither the difficulties of life in exile nor the opportunities which exile offered for prosperity drew his heart away from God and the obligations of his religion. Is there not a message here for a world pock-marked by secularism and relativism?