Rabbi Sacks in conversation with Daniel Taub

Ambassador Daniel Taub, introductory remarks

Daniel: … Is religion part of the problem, or is it part of the solution? 

Rabbi Sacks: Well, Daniel, it's an enormous privilege to be sitting here with you in this amazing gathering. I've never seen Sefirat HaOmer generate such excitement. I've never seen such a full shul. In England, we could only get a shul this full by putting a big sign outside saying, “No Jews Admitted.”

But it's an enormous privilege to be here and to pay tribute to you, Daniel, and the incredible work you and Zahava did in London, as shagrirei Medinat Yisrael. Friends, you have no, you cannot begin to imagine what a Kiddush Hashem Daniel was, both as a spokesman for Medinat Yisrael and as a brilliant spokesman for Torat Yisrael. You were a total Kiddush Hashem.

Of course, there was a big difference between Daniel in London and Daniel here. In London, I have to tell you, he wore a tie. But here in Israel, Daniel, you can see the real Daniel emerge. And we thank you and bless you for an extraordinary service you did for Medinat Yisrael and for Am Yisrael. 

You have to listen very closely to history if you are to read the future that is being born today.

What happened in 1989 was the following. I gave the Reith Lectures in 1990. What happened in 1989 was the Berlin Wall fell. The Cold War came to an end. The Soviet Union began its implosion. And as you remember, Francis Fukuyama published his thesis of the end of history. Market Economics and Liberal Democracy were about to conquer the world.

However, if you really listened to 1989, you would have heard two other sounds, and you would have had to connect them. The first thing is what happened before the fall of the Berlin Wall, which I think was in November 1989. In February 1989, the Soviet Union was forced to leave Afghanistan.

And that sent an extraordinary signal throughout the Muslim world. That a small group of religiously motivated Mujahideen were able to bring about the humiliating withdrawal of one of the world's two great superpowers. That was the first, little hammer blow effect. 

The second one was extraordinary. And here it is. From Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against a writer in England called Salman Rushdie. And a book called “The Satanic Verses.” And that book was burned in the streets of Bradford. This was the first time that a fatwa from Iran was able to have global repercussions. It eventually had repercussions around the world. I can't tell you how many people were murdered as a result. His publishers in other countries. His translators in other countries. His publishers in Italy. His translator in Japan.

And for the first time, people began to get a sense of the global reach of radical Islam. Those were the two noises that nobody was noticing. 

And it was, I mean, Bernard Lewis, Princeton was alive to this. He was the only real Navi, the only real prophet. But people hadn't realised. And it became very clear to me that something bad was about to happen.

I did not raise it directly in the Reith Lectures. We decided, as a family. You know, I didn't want to put my family at risk, God forbid. And we kept it beneath the surface but I could sense something bad was going to happen. Now, what I mentioned in the Reith Lectures or in the published form, is that in 1832, a Frenchman called Alexis de Tocqueville came to America. Saw something extraordinary.

I mean, he knew post-revolutionary France. And he knew that America had enacted, in the First Amendment, separation of Church and State. So he came to America seeing religion had no power at all. And he assumed that it would therefore have no influence. And all of a sudden, he comes to America and he sees religion as the most influential force in the whole of America. He called it the first America of America's political institutions.

And he writes in 1832, intellectuals have been saying since the 18th century, religion is dying. He says the facts don't bear this out at all. Now, people 180 years after Alexis de Tocqueville were still saying this. And my beloved friend, my favourite atheist in the universe, Richard Dawkins, and so on. All these people are saying religion is dead. Guys, you know, wake up.

If it didn't die in the 18th century, which was a much more secular age than ours, it's certainly not going to die in the 21st century. And the real question is, will religion speak, as Abraham Lincoln put it, “to the better angels of our nature?” Or on the contrary, will we reinvent God in our image? Will we invoke divine mandate for the pursuit of power? 

Now, I say in the book that the pursuit of power is the principle articulated by the first person to say “God is dead.” Nietzsche. And to say that it is better to be feared than to be loved, the standard principle of radical Islam today, was put forward by Machiavelli, who was not one of the Tzadikim Gemurim, I have to say.

And you remember, you know, Machiavelli was dying. A Catholic priest is sitting there and says, ‘Machiavelli, do you renounce belief in the devil? Say you renounce the devil.’ And Machiavelli is going... He says, ‘Machiavelli, listen, you're about to die. Renounce the devil.’ He says, ‘Urrr.’ Machiavelli opens his eyes and says, ‘Listen, my father, considering where I'm about to go, now is not the time to make a new enemy.’

So, you know, I mean, to have a Machiavellian and Nietzschean approach to religion, I thought, deserved not a secular analysis, but a religious protest. “Not in God's Name” is a religious protest against violence in the name of God. And I'm saying categorically, whether you're a Jewish, Christian or Muslim, this is a Chilul Hashem, not a Kiddush Hashem, and that somebody's got to stand up and say it.

And I have to say that I'm very touched that Muslims have been among the most grateful and among the most enthusiastic readers of the book. Young Muslims in Britain and America. Because I'm saying what I think needed to be said, and frankly, I'm glad I said it.

Daniel: That's absolutely true. What comes across forcefully from the book is that this is an argument against radical religious extremism coming from an unexpected place, coming from a place of faith, where generally what we will hear are people that are attacking religious extremism from a place of maybe Western liberalism, from secularism, and so on. 

Rabbi Sacks: The one thing you have to understand when you're speaking to young Muslims, or not-so-young Muslims, is heim ma’aminim bnei ma’aminim. They are very, very religious. And Western politicians use a secular language talking to them, and they talk straight past them. If you're going to engage with a Muslim, you have to speak the language of faith.

And I took a very principled decision, I mean, from the opening sentence of the book, “When religion turns men into murderers, God weeps.” I wanted to say at the very beginning, I'm speaking to you as a believer, not as a secularist. And they appreciate that, and that's allowed this book to penetrate Muslim hearts and minds in a way that I really want it to.

Daniel: So from that point, what you do in the book is you actually go back to some of the core, shared texts between what you call the Abrahamic faiths, and try to engage in a process of grappling with them and rereading them. And in a really beautiful way, you identify a theme of sibling rivalry that runs through particularly the book of Bereishit, and engage in a - I don't know whether to call it a reinterpretation or a rediscovery - of the text, that is very different to the text that we and people of other faiths were brought up with. 

And one of the things that I think will be interesting to a lot of people here is to ask, what are we actually doing when we engage in that process of reinterpreting texts? You tell us, for example, that between revelation and application, there has to be an interim filter of interpretation. But when we do that, what actually are we doing? Are we trying to discover the real truth? Or are we saying there's a band of possible interpretations, and we can maybe choose the interpretation that fits best for our time? Can you share with us just a little about what the process of interpreting different texts is? 

Rabbi Sacks: Daniel, Moshe Rabbeinu had to receive the Torah twice. The Luchot Rishonim, they broke. They were the holiest things there ever was. The holiest objects that ever existed. And they fragmented like a meteorite hitting the atmosphere of the earth. And it was only the Luchot Sheniot, which Moshe Rabbeinu, “p’sol lecha,” HaKadosh Baruch Hu said, ‘You are my partner in this. You carve the tablets and I will inscribe them.’ And that's why Moshe Rabbeinu's face shone after the Second Tablets, but not after the First. And it was only the Second Tablets that survived intact. 

What was the difference between the First Tablets and the Second Tablets? According to Rabbi Yochanan in the Gemara, the difference is that the First Tablets only contained Torah SheBichtav. But the Second Tablets were combined. The Second Tablets came together with Torah SheBa’al Peh. 

And Rabbi Yochanan said that HaKadosh Baruch Hu only made the brit with Israel on the condition that they accepted both the Torah SheBichtav and the responsibility of Torah SheBa’al Peh. So, what is that responsibility of Torah SheBa’al Peh? 

You know, there's this fascinating story where Moshe Rabbeinu reminds the next generation what it was like. At the first Shavuot, he says, you heard a “kol gadol v'lo yasaf.”

And Rashi gives two interpretations of this, which are completely opposed. Kol gadol v'lo yasaf, a great sound that was never heard again. Or, a kol gadol v'lo psik, that never ceased, that was ever heard again.

So, how do you reconcile a great voice that happened once and never again, while having a voice that continues to never stop? And the answer is, of course, the voice that was heard once was the Written Torah. The voice that never ceased was the Oral Torah. Our dialogue with God.

And that's why I call my Parashat HaShavua “Covenant and Conversation.” Because the covenant was based on that 3,000-year-old unstoppable conversation between us and Hashem. I'm sure that Hashem… you know, I once said Judaism is the only civilisation in the history of the world, all of whose canonical texts are anthologies of arguments.

You know, in Tanach, Avraham argues with God. Moshe Rabbeinu argues with God. Iyov. In the Midrash, Shivim Panim LaTorah, 70 different interpretations. In the Mishnah, Rabbi X says this, Rabbi Y says that. Comes the Gemara and doesn't say Rabbi X is right and Rabbi Y is wrong. It deepens the argument.

So I assume that Hashem only chose the Jewish people because he loves a good argument. And it is this ongoing conversation that allows us to hear within the Word of God for all time, the Word of God for this time.

And I actually believe that the 21st century places a huge responsibility on us as Jews. You see, Judaism gave rise to two other religions that call themselves, define themselves, as Abrahamic monotheisms. 

And yet, there was one principle of Judaism they never accepted. “LeChasidei HaOlam yesh lahem chelek l’Olam Haba.” That you don't have to be of our faith to have a share in Heaven. Christianity was explicitly predicated on the opposite. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus. Outside the Church, no one is saved. 

And hence, Christianity and Islam became missionary religions that believed that you have to either convert or conquer the world. And they criticised us for the narrow parochialism of Judaism, that saw itself as a chosen people but didn't engage with the rest of the world.

I have argued throughout my career that Judaism has a principle for the world, which I call “The Dignity of Difference.” That Hashem wants us to be different. That before we had the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, we already had, in Chapter 10, the division of humanity into 70 nations and 70 languages.

And when I spoke - the only time I spoke in the United Nations - in the summer of 2000 when they had this modestly entitled gathering of 2,000 religious leaders. It was called “The Millennium Peace Summit.” You can see how successful we were. Only one year later we had 9/11…

Daniel: Imagine where we would have been without it. 

Rabbi Sacks: And I have to tell you, if you're ever invited to address 2,000 religious leaders, let me tell you something.

There's one thing that we all have in common, which is we can all give drashot, but we can't take them. So they're a very difficult audience to speak to. But I have to say, you know, when I was doing this, a Hindu guru - I mean a famous guru, everyone who passed by in the corridor was kissing his feet.

I said, ‘Well, I could handle that once in a while.’ He said, ‘I want you to be the keynote speaker at my counter-conference in Mumbai.’ And I said, ‘What's your counter-conference?’ He said, “The World Conference of Non-Evangelising Religions.”

And you have no idea how threatened Hindus feel, you know, because Christians and Muslims have fought over the soul of India. And they just want to be recognised as people of their own faith. 

So I actually feel that this concept of God making a covenant with humanity through Noah, and then going to Abraham and saying, ‘Abraham, leave everything that makes human beings conform. Your birthplace, your land, your father's house, all the things that make you conform and want to be like everyone else. And go and be different. Not just for your sake or your children's sake, but for the sake of the world. Because I like difference.’

I have an idea that the real message of monotheism is not one God, one truth, one way. 

The real message of monotheism is that unity up there creates diversity down here. 

And it is only that message that will take humanity safely through the 21st century. So I believe we have a message here for Christians, for Muslims, for every faith in the world.

That God actually likes difference. That's why He created not one life form, but three million life forms. That's why He created not one language, but the 6,000 plus that are spoken today.

And have you ever seen more difference in one tiny little people than a group of Jews gathered at the Kotel? Right? You know, here they are from 103 different countries, speaking 82 different languages, mostly all at once. And we are a living anthology of difference. 

And I think that is what I was trying to say in this book.

That if you read beneath the surface, yes, God chose Yitzchak and not Yishmael. Yes, he chose Ya’akov and not Eisav. Yes, he chose… But at the end of the day, he is not rejecting Yishmael. And Chazal knew this. Do you know how many rabbis were called Rabbi Yishmael? They didn't think Ishmael had been rejected.

He didn't reject Eisav. Moshe Rabbeinu commands, at the end of his life, “Don't hate Eisav, he's still your brother.” So God chooses. He doesn't reject.

And I think that is not a contrived reading of those narratives. The proof is that a lot of non-Jews have read this book who know Tanach. And they say, you know what? That's right.

We never saw it before, but we see it now. 

I had a Christian Bible scholar say, ‘We never thought Genesis is about sibling rivalry.’ But as the eldest of four brothers, I know all about sibling rivalry. That's why I dedicated the book to my younger brother, with great love. 

Daniel: You spoke about the luchot there. It always occurred to me that the reason why the fragments of the first luchot were kept in the Aron, were commanded to be kept in the Aron, maybe wasn't because they were holy, but because they were dangerous.

And they were dangerous because there was a fear that somebody would get hold of one part of the luchot, one part of Truth, and make that into their whole truth. And that would become extraordinarily dangerous. So I wonder…

Rabbi Sacks: Can I say something to you? Did you ever hear a more beautiful Dvar Torah from a diplomat? I have to tell you. I sat there loving Daniel’s divrei Torah. And I tell you this, that this is what makes him such a brilliant ambassador. Because the Brits know - they may not like Israel all that much, because they read a lot of negative stuff - but they know Israel is the Holy Land. And when they hear an ambassador speaking about the Holy Book in a holy way, this is a Kiddush Hashem. 

Daniel: But I do want to stay for a moment on that process of reexamining our text, because I think it's so fascinating. Because whether it's the original meaning or it's a reinterpretation, the presentation of the text that you present is really quite radically different to the one that many of us grew up with. You are presenting for us, for example, a picture of sympathy, of empathy, of understanding for the rejected. And certainly there is a counter-tradition.

I mean, the Rabbanim told us, “Halacha: Eisav soneh et Ya’akov,” and if anything, they were taking an aggressive, assertive interpretation and embedding it. And I think it's interesting to ask ourselves, what are the sensitivities, the sensibilities, that we bring to bear when we engage in this reinterpretation? And also, where are the lines? You know, there are all sorts of hard texts that maybe our sensibilities will encourage us to reinterpret. And how do we maintain the corpus of what we think is important? What are the parameters and what are the values that we bring to bear? 

Rabbi Sacks: Can I give you a classic example, please, of a fragment that is dangerous? The one you just quoted. “Halacha: Eisav soneh et Ya’akov,” That is half of the sentence. May I read to you the full sentence? Right? You know, there is this moment that Ya’akov has been fearing. He's divided his camp into two. He's sent all the gifts. He's wrestled at night - “VaYeiavek ish imo,” and all of a sudden, the next morning, he meets Eisav, and Esau falls on his head, “VaYenashkeihu.” And there are dots over the letters.

And the question is, what do the dots signify? And as you remember, it says, “And he kissed him and he wept.” So there was one Midrashic tradition that Eisav, “VaYenaskeihu,” was not trying to kiss him, but trying to bite him. And a miracle happened. Yaakov's head was turned into marble. And why was Eisav crying? Not out of joy of reconciliation, but because of toothache. He had broken his teeth on Yaakov's neck! 

Along comes Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, who really did not like Romans, who he saw as Edomim. He hated them. And you know the famous story, that he was in a cave for 12-13 years, etc. But he said this, “Halacha: Yadua sheEisav soneh et Ya’akov, ela b’oto sha’a, nichmeru rachamav u’neshako becho libo.” But at that moment, even though in general, Esau hates Jacob, at that moment, Esau's compassion was aroused, and he kissed Jacob with a full heart.

So the very text that was cited to show that there is an eternal antisemitism, of Eisav leYa’akov, shows exactly the opposite. That Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai said, ‘There was a moment, when that hatred was suspended,’ and mistama it can be suspended in the future. For which read the Iggrot, Iggrot HaReayah of Rav Kook z”l, who quotes this and many other p’sukim like it. 

So of course we know, that Chazal understood certain p’sukim in their way. So the question is, what is p’shuto shel mikra and what isn’t p’shuto shel mikra? Rashbam, Rashi's grandson, says, you know, my Zeyde, you know, out of his love, you know, he was inclined towards the Midrash, “midrashim sheHeim ikar.” He regards Midrash as the fundamental interpretation, but he says he didn't always descend to, in his loving phrase, “omek p'shuto shel mikra,” to the deep, plain sense of mikra. I offer my interpretation here, as omek p'shuto shel mikra. Let me tell you, you know, it says, that Jacob is told by his sons, that Joseph is still alive.

And he doesn't know. Do I believe them? Do I not? And he saw the carts, carrying goods, that Joseph had sent, and he said, ”Joseph is still alive.” Now you know what Chazal say.

How did a bunch of carts persuade Jacob? Because, they say, actually, he saw this as a coded message from Joseph, that last time, when Joseph was 17 years old, and he was sitting and having a gemara shiur with his father, they were learning the sugya of egla arufa. Right? The calf that broke… So, now tell me, I mean, is that omek p'shuto shel mikra? 

I never said this to a gentile, and they said, ‘Ah, that's what it really means!’

But when you read the narrative, Genesis 21, of that incredibly emotive moment, when Hagar and Ishmael have been cast out into the desert, and the waters run out, and Hagar can't bear to see Ishmael die, and she hides him under what little shade there is left. And suddenly the angel comes, and says to Hagar, God has heard, kol haNa’ar b’asher hu sham…” To really, to understand that the Torah is asking us to empathise with Yishmael, that's p'shuto shel mikra, there's no other way.

Daniel: Do you think, I mean, the p'shat that you're giving is so powerful, but it is not the p'shat that has carried the majority of interpretation over the generations. And I'm wondering, I'm wondering, you mentioned a number of reasons, but do you think perhaps one of the reasons is that the leadership role in interpretation over the generations was given to men, and not to women. And that those empathetic, sensitive interpretations of the text might have had more of a voice if we had more of a feminine interpretation of the Torah?

Rabbi Sacks: First of all, you're right. Second of all, I'll bring you a proof from Tanach. We find twice in Tanach: Torahת in the construct coupled with an abstract version.

The first case is in Malachi, which is talking about “Ki siftei Kohen yishmeru da’at, v’Torah yevakshu mipihu,” the lips of the Kohen preserve knowledge and seek Torah from its voice. And it says, “Torat emet al piv,” the law of Truth was on his tongue. There's only one other similar phrase in the Tanach, and that is of course from the last chapter of Mishlei, “Eishet chayil mi yimtza… v'Torat chesed al l'shona.” That's talking about an eishet chayil, which I translate in my siddur not as a woman of worth. Eishet chayil means woman of strength. A woman of moral strength. And it seems to me that the Torah is telling us if you want truth, go to the Kohen.

And the kehuna was always available, but if you want chesed, you have to go to a woman. And rachamim, the name for compassion, both Hebrew and Arabic - and compassion is a virtue in both Judaism and Islam, the central divine virtue - comes from the word meaning a womb. It means that in both languages.

So both chesed and rachamim are seen as feminine virtues in Tanach. And Torah of truth without chesed is simply unbearable. 

And one of the most important things that has happened in our time is to see women emerge as teachers of Torah to the highest possible degree and they’re bringing chesed back centre stage to what Judaism is about.

And about time - I have to say really about time. I salute you. Thank you.

It's really quite special to see over there… It's been my privilege to work with Gila Fine from Koren Maggid Books and of course, the person without whom I wouldn't have achieved a single thing in the whole of my life, my wife Elaine, who…. 

Daniel: Trying to take the textual interpretation that you suggest and to move forward, you suggest a sort of taxonomy of skills that we need to develop - of empathy, of finding those positive elements of our narrative that can play out in our treatment of the other.

And that's something that struck a very deep chord with me. In our negotiations with the Palestinians, for example, I was very involved in the history of incitement, which is a terrible history with the sort of indoctrination in Palestinian school books and so on. And so I was the head of the Israeli side of a negotiation track called the Cultural Peace Negotiations.

And in that role, I had to go through a lot of Palestinian children's textbooks, children's television, and saw some of the - I would call it child abuse - indoctrinating children with this horrendous, horrendous incitement, caricatures and so on. And when I asked myself why this was, I think I began to understand that, to a great degree, it was because at that time the Palestinians didn't have anything to replace it. Their national identity was to a great extent predicated on a sense of victimhood and glorification of martyrdom.

And it made me realise, as Israelis, that we have a strategic interest in the development of a positive Palestinian national identity. Because only if there is some sort of positive vision there, only if there is some sort of ‘yes,’ will we be able to say ‘no’ to the more negative elements in our society. 

And then I wonder whether the same thing isn't true on the Israeli side of the equation.

And I'm wondering whether our historical narratives sometimes don't pull us apart rather than pull us together. If you think about the frictions in Israeli society, sometimes it strikes me that these are the results of different lessons we’ve learned, different survival mechanisms. You know, we have in 2,000 years of exile Jews who learned that the only way to survive was to out-Maccabee the Maccabees, to ou-Eisav Eisav, to be physically strong.

We have those who thought that the threats were not physical but were spiritual. So they had to raise the ghetto walls higher. We have those who decided that the way to respond was to out Einstein, to become the greatest intellectual.

And now we are all back here in our ‘Dalet Amot’ and we are trying to navigate all of these different lessons that we have learned, all these different survival mechanisms. And so I'd like to ask that the tools that you suggest, those empathetic tools, those tools of revisiting that historical narrative, if you look at internal Israeli society for a moment, are there lessons that we could learn that can help us bridge from between the tribes of Israeli society? 

Rabbi Sacks: Yeah. First of all, let's establish. You're absolutely right. There's a lot of pain and humiliation in the Palestinian narrative. And it was the view of the late Sir Isaiah Berlin that all nationalism is born in a feeling of victimhood and humiliation. That's the birth of us. 

And it could well be that we, as a people, find that true about us as well. What do we say in “Arami oved avi”? “Sham leGoy.” It was only in Egypt  - sham, galut -that we became a nation.

It is only in Sefer Shemot that we read, in the first words “Hinei am Bnei Yisrael, rav v’atzum mimenu.” And they're said by - I suppose you might call him an antisemite - Paro. So, maybe we were born in pain and suffering.

And, according to Rav Soloveitchik zt”l, that's the Brit Goral that defines us as a people. And that is why I find it so extraordinary that other half of the verse which I quoted the first part of just now from Devarim Chapter 23, at the end of his life, Moshe Rabbeinu says one of the most counterintuitive things in the whole of Torah. He says, “Lo tetaev Mitzri, ki ger hayita ba’artzo.” Don't hate an Egyptian because you were strangers in his land.

I can't figure that out. The Egyptians practised Hachnasat Orchim? They put up our ancestors in the Cairo Hilton?!

I mean, they enslaved us, they tried slow genocide. So what is Moshe Rabbeinu saying, “Don't hate an Egyptian because you were strangers in his land”? And why was he doing it then, to the next generation about to cross the Jordan and build the Land? 

And I think the answer is this.

If he had failed to take the hatred out of the Israelites' heart, he would have succeeded in taking the Israelites out of Egypt, but he would not have succeeded in taking Egypt out of the Israelites.

They would still be slaves. Not physically, but spiritually.

Slaves to the heart. 

And Moshe Rabbeinu, in that one statement, “Lo tetaev Mitzri,” was saying what I think is the single most important sentence in 21st-century politics. 

If you want to be free, you have to let go of hate.

There is no other way. 

And that's really what I want to say. Not only to the Palestinians, not only to Israel's enemies, but all those people who are boycotting Israel at campuses across the world, and painting Israel in these outrageous colours. I want to say, you are not helping the cause of freedom.

If you want to be free, you have to let go of hate. 

And I want to say to the Palestinians, if you want to give your children a future, don't teach them to hate the people with whom they must one day learn to live. We have to get that message across.

But now, let's come to Am Yisrael. You know, it's a fascinating thing. HaKadosh Baruch Hu could have chosen all of humanity - he did that once with Noah. You know, if you can, then go for it big time. You know, go for the whole world.

Or, alternatively, since the whole world contains good people and less good people, go for the Tzaddikim. You know, just make it come from the Lamed Vavniks. Why did You choose Am Yisrael? 

For those English people in the audience, I call us the Leicester City among the nations. That makes sense, you know? We're not exactly the biggest or richest nation in the world, but sometimes we win the Premier League, you know. 

So why did He go for us? And I think He wanted to tell the world a story that the Shechina lives not just among the Tzaddikim.

He lives among all of us - among the TziBuR - Tzadikim, Beinonim, Reshaim. 

We have an extraordinary bracha. It's a unique bracha that you make after you've had a glass of water or a cup of coffee: “Borei nefashot rabot v’chesronan.” We thank God for creating many different kinds of souls and for creating their deficiencies. The lack. 

Now, in every other bracha, we thank God for creating something positive. How come in this bracha, we thank God for creating something negative, that we lack something? We have a chisaron? 

The answer, I think, is this. If we had no chesronot, we'd never need anyone else. But since we all have chesronot, and since we are nefashot rabot, we're all different from one another, it means that what I lack, somebody else has. What somebody else lacks, I have. And that is what brings us together. 

I once wrote a whole book about “The Home We Build Together,” which David Cameron, very nicely, said was an influence on his politics.

It was about how to create national identity in a very diverse ethnic country. Like Britain. It wasn't written for Israel, but it was an interesting thing, and it was based on this concept of the Mishkan. Everyone brought something different, but they all brought it to make a house for Hashem.

In other words, society is the whole we build together, that's what it's all about. 

And that is what is so important about the Jewish people, our diversity. We don't come before God saying, ‘Ribbono shel Olam…’ we don't speak in the first person singular. Some Chazanim do, actually. Like, you know, “V’ani Tefilati.” Somebody wrote a nice tune for it so let’s sing it. But actually, all those bits of the davening in the first person singular, should be said in silence. And it's only the stuff in the plural that we say together.

If you think about it, you know, when we stand up and say “Hashem, ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu…” and everyone's thinking, well, you know, we sing, we literally, well, I don't think I did, but probably the guy next to me did, you know. But it's so much easier when you're confessing together. 

And I think the genius of Judaism is that we have the guys who are physically strong. We have the people who are spiritually strong. We have the people who are intellectually strong. We have these masculine interpretations of Torah as Truth, and these now feminine interpretations of Torah as Chesed.

And we are that complex interweaving of voices. The Aruch HaShulchan, you know, that wonderful code of law, one of the most beautiful codes of law, says in the Hakdama to Choshen Mishpat, he asks this question, you know, the last mitzvah Moshe Rabbeinu gave to Am Yisrael was to write a Sefer Torah. We should all take part in writing at least a letter in a Sefer Torah.

And he says, “Kitvu lachem et haShira haZot,” write this song. And the Aruch HaShulchan asked the obvious question, ‘If Moshe Rabbeinu meant “kitvu lachem et haTorah hazot,” why did he call the Torah a song? 

And the Aruch HaShulchan says - because those who know music and anyone who comes to the shul and hears this wonderful choir here in the Great Synagogue knows - that the beauty of music is complex harmonies. 

And the same applies to spiritual beauty as well as musical beauty.

And that's why the Jewish people was meant, I think, to show the world that God chooses all of us.

Because each one of us has something that someone else needs. And that is how that understanding should make us realise that it's not just Charedim who are perfect, though I know they all are. And the Datiim Tzioni’im guys, they're doubly perfect. And the Chilonim are 100% perfect. But Hashem needs us all together, because each one of us on our own is tov, but all together we are tov me’od. 

Daniel: So this evening we are marking the translation of “Not in God's Name” into Hebrew, “Lo B’Shem Ha’El,” an absolutely beautiful translation with a beautiful introduction by President Ruby Rivlin, who calls you “Echad miAnakei HaRuach,” one of the giants of the spirit, which is a beautiful description. 

So it leads me to wonder whether there is something different in the way an Israeli audience will read this book to the way that maybe audiences around the world will read it.

And I think about this group of people here, for example. And there are two things that strike me that maybe might be different in their reading. 

The first is that, sadly, it is to be expected that there is probably nobody in this room whose life has not been touched - and some of them in a very close way - by acts of extremist violence, in many cases religiously motivated.

So the issue you are grappling with is an issue that is so close. This evening I saw that an explosive was thrown at Kever Rachel. Places of religion are so tied in with places of violence. I think there is something extraordinary immediate about the issue that you are grappling with. 

But there is something else where I think there may be a slight difference in the approach of an Israeli audience, and maybe a Jewish audience outside Israel. And that is the attitude to Jewish power and Jewish sovereignty.

And I have to say that, you know, for us in this extraordinary period of the Omer, where we are celebrating the four new dates that were added to the calendar - the first new dates in 2000 years - that tell the most astonishing story of the return of the Jewish people to sovereignty. Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron, Yom HaAtzmaut, next week Yom Yerushalayim. And it is something that I think inspires us.

You know, when one of my sons was going into the army, he wanted to get into a tough combat unit, and only after - he was a skinny fellow, and he was worried that he wouldn't weigh enough to get into the unit. And only after the tryouts did he tell me that actually when he went to the Yom Gibush tryouts, he actually loaded up his pockets with coins so that he would weigh enough to get into the unit. 

And I was so moved to hear this because I couldn't help thinking about my grandfather, who had done everything he possibly could to get out of being recruited into the Red Army.

And to me that meant, you know, it symbolised what it meant to be in a Land where you are responsible for your destiny. You are living your own sovereignty. 

And the sense that I have from the book, there is a slightly greater ambivalence about Judaism and sovereignty, Judaism and power, than most Israelis feel. And I want to read you a sentence, not from this book, but from another - if I can say, my favourite - of your books.

And anyone who hasn't read it really has an extraordinary treat in store for them. It's known both as “A Letter in the Scroll” or “Radical Then, Radical Now.” And if you have read it, and you need a single book to recommend to a friend about the history of Judaism as the history, the radical history of ideas, you couldn't do better.

But I want to read a sentence that I think Israelis and non-Israelis hear differently. You're talking about, writing about, the Destruction of the Temple and the dispersion of the Jewish people amongst the nations. And what you say is, “This was politically a disaster, but spiritually it unleashed a set of developments always implicit in the Covenant of Sinai, but never fully achieved so long as Israel was caught in the arena of power. The irony is that it took the loss of Israel's national independence to bring about the flowering of its religious vision.”

And I wonder if, in the same way as you find blessing in tragedy, you may find something - if not tragic, something a little bit worrying - in the blessing of the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty and Jewish power in the State of Israel. 

Rabbi Sacks: Let's split that up into different bits. How will you read the book differently in English than Hebrew? There are real differences between the two languages. I discovered this 20 years ago when I had the great zechut to win something called The Jerusalem Prize. That is the prize awarded on Yom Yerushalayim, here in Yerushalayim, in Beit HaNassi by Kvod HaNassi.

The Nasi at the time was not particularly a religious individual. And he gave a little speech in Ivrit which was quite… the guys from England didn't hear what he was saying.

And what he said was this. I see Rabbi Sacks has won his award for his contributions to religious education in the Diaspora. He said “Chinuch Dati zeh yoter tov miKlum, aval…” ‘It's better than nothing but… what we really need is to forget these religious schools, have secular schools, these people to speak Ivrit, and so on and so forth.

I came back and I had breakfast with one of your predecessors, the then-Israeli Ambassador. I said, “Kvod HaShagrir. Now I understand how it is that after 4,000 years, the Hebrew language still doesn't have a word that means ‘tact.’

If you tell this to any Israeli, they say “Tact? B’Ivrit zeh ‘tact’!” 

So, you know, there are certain things that are very Jewish and you tell it the way it is. Dugri. Forget about the tact. 

But let us say something now about powerlessness and power or tragedy. One of my principles is that Judaism is “The principled defeat of tragedy in the name of hope.” That there were two extraordinary civilisations in antiquity - ancient Greece, ancient Israel, and western civilisations built on both of them together. And Greeks gave the world tragedy - Aeschylus, Sophocles, there is no equivalent. What is the Hebrew for tragedy? “Tragedia.”

You know, we had, we knew, bad things happened, we knew machsor. But, for a tragedy in the sense of, you know, hubris followed by nemesis, you know, somehow or other, our hopes are destined to be shattered on the hard rocks of reality. That is not a Jewish belief.

There is no Aeschylus, and there is no Sophocles among the Prophets. Even the most miserable of the lot, Yirmiyahu HaNavi, was the one who taught us “Yesh tikva l’acharitech,” and Israel is the living symbol of that. and the fact, and the symbol of that symbol is it is the country whose national anthem is Hatikva. So, Jews were able to extract some kind of bracha out of every single event that other people would have seen a klala.

Every bad thing that happened to us, we wrestled the way Jacob wrestled with the angel, and we said to that pain and that suffering, “Lo ashaIeichecha ki im beirachtani,” I will not let you go until you bless me. I will not let you go until you bless me. And so we turn the worst tragedy of all -  the loss of land, of home, of sovereignty, of the Beit HaMikdash - goodbye kings, goodbye kohanim, goodbye korbanot, goodbye Avodat Hashem…

Somehow, we turned that into a bracha. Somehow, we rescued the entire literature of the Torah SheBa’al Peh. We turned Yom Kippur, which was an event that only happened in the Beit HaMikdash in Yerushalayim, to something that could happen everywhere where Jews gathered. Every place where they gathered to daven became a fragment of Jerusalem. Every Jew who did Teshuva became a little fragment of the Kohen Gadol. Every prayer became a Korban.

And so we rescued bracha out of tragedy. 

And I learned this from the Holocaust survivors. They were my educators and I learned this. Because I wondered how on earth do you live, having seen what you saw, know what you knew? And I looked at them and I finally understood that they didn't even speak about what happened - very often to their own spouses, their own children - until maybe 40, 50 years had passed. And I understood that they said, ‘First build the future, then you can mourn the past.’ And that is exactly what Medinat Yisrael did.

Don't forget, the only day they were willing to call the Yom HaShoah was the day that recalled the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. They said, first build the future and then we'll mourn the past. They waited for 13 years until the Eichmann Trial, before the Shoah really penetrated Israeli consciousness.

There was an instinct, a profoundly spiritual instinct, even among the most chiloni of the Chiloni Zionists, to make a blessing over life. And don't look back, otherwise you become Lot’s wife and your tears turn you into a pillar of salt. 

So, after the Holocaust, no Jew could accept the condition of powerlessness. At the end of the day, you were powerless for 2,000 years, and do you know what that added to the vocabulary of humankind? Work it out.

It added these words: disputation, forced conversion, expulsion, inquisition, auto da fé, ghetto and pogrom, even before the word Shoah was coined. Our powerlessness was not to be sustained. And that is why Medinat Yisrael today has changed the situation for every single Jew in the world.

And I know some Jews criticise Israel. God forbid that we should ever, ever, ever lose this incredible gift that God has given us. Medinat Yisrael is the fulfilment of the prayers of 100 generations of our ancestors.

Because Israel today exists, every Jew in the world has a home. In the sense given by Robert Frost as, “The place that when you have to go there, they have to let you in.” Israel is the heart of Jewish life. And I say this as a real Anglo wearing a tie…

And look at what Israel has done. How many… Jews as farmers? You know, we’ll sell you a tie, we’ll sell you a nice suit. Since when did Jews become farmers? Jews came to Israel and became the greatest farmers in the world. Jews, as you said, when the Czar's recruiting offices came, they ran away. Jews aren’t soldiers. Suddenly, because of Medinat Yisrael, they became the finest soldiers in the world. They find that here’s a land with no natural resources except the intelligence of its people. So it becomes the most creative, high-tech industry in the world. 

And they throw missiles at Israel. Israel invents Iron Dome. They build tunnels into Israel and Israel invents… You name it. Israel turns every klala into a bracha and then gives it to the whole world.

And for that, we stand up and salute Israel. 

But, at the end of the day, Israel is 68 years old. And Prince Charles and I are both 68 years old. We're both enjoying… at the moment. But I have to tell you that Israel has to begin to realise that every Jew is… whatever you read in the newspapers, that you have, let's say in Britain, a Prime Minister like David Cameron. I did not know in advance, because I knew David Cameron from as soon as he became Leader of the Opposition. And I didn't know he would turn out to be an Ohev Israel, Medinat Yisrael, the way he has.

He's turned out to be the most incredible friend of, supporter of Israel, supporter of Jews and Jewish life in Britain. One of the most outspoken critics of radical Islamism in the whole of Europe. 

I'll tell you this. We have enemies. We really have. But we have many friends. And they're good and wonderful friends. I go around the States - the whole of the United States is full of them, except on the university campuses. And even among the enemies, if you put your arm around them and you befriend them, you can tell “Eizehu gibor?” You know, that wonderful sentence from Avot d’Rabi Natan, “Eizehu gibor? HaOseh sono ohavo.”

One of the most difficult university campuses for Jews has been York University in Toronto. Big problem. I happened to be there a few weeks ago.

And I said, okay, you know, I'm there to speak to the Jewish students and the Jewish faculty. And suddenly, dawned on me, if I'm going to this university that's been so anti-Israel, I ought to, go meet the President. I went into the student lounge with that horrible figure of a Hamasnik with a map of Israel with no State of Israel.

His name is Shukri. He's an Egyptian. He's a Muslim. I sat with him for 45 minutes. And, you know, he told me the limits of his power as President, etc. We sat and listened. And there was a little communion. Okay, so beseder, I left. I don't know if I achieved anything. 

An hour later, I’m giving a lecture to the faculty. And he walks in. And he sits down at the front and he listens to the lecture. And just before I leave, he gets up and gives a speech. He says, “I thank God that it was just so arranged that I should have the chance of meeting this rabbi, because he is a friend.”

Now, we haven't got that mural down yet, because it's not magic. But, you know, if we go out and we say to the people who hate Israel, ‘Guys, do understand this. More than hate destroys the hated, it destroys the hater. 

And we are telling you, as Jews, we know how you feel, especially. You feel humiliated by the world. You feel humiliated by us. Let me tell you, friends, we know that song. We've been to that place.

We have to tell you that the way you are choosing, we understand it 100%. But that is not the way. If all you can do is see yourself as a victim, you are condemning yourself to the eternal powerlessness.

Because a victim has said, I'm not the actor here. I'm only the object, not the subject. And therefore, we are telling you, ‘Friends, we hear your tears. We hear your pain. And we are telling you that defining yourself as a victim and teaching your kids to hate is not the way out of your misery. It's the way to perpetuate your misery.’

And we are telling you now, let us learn the way of power, which only exists if we can make space for the people not like us. 

Because without making space for the people not like us, we don't have a free society. We just have another enclave of terror.

And therefore, I salute Israel's power. And we couldn't live without it. But at the same time, we should not fear.

Because we and this incredible country, stronger than we think we are. And when Jews are united, no power on earth can ever prevail against us. 

Daniel: We are unfortunately going to have to start drawing to a close. But I want to pick up on the use of the word ‘hope.’ And I want to talk about hope in Israeli society for a moment.

And it's a word that is in a sense disappearing. If I had to describe where the younger generation of Israelis are, it's not that they're not hopeful, but they by and large unhitch hope from peace. They're hopeful in other directions.

But the chance of actually reaching a peaceful accommodation isn't on the radar screen. I remember one morning, I was leaving the house early in the morning with my suitcase to go to the peace negotiations. And one of my younger kids saw me tiptoeing out of the house.

He goes, “Abba, where are you going?” 

I said, “I'm going to the negotiations.” 

He said, “What are you trying to achieve?”

I said, “Peace.”

He said, “No, seriously?”

And there really is a sense that the forces against us may be, in a sense, almost like the way that you described the Torah, perhaps in some ways “Not in God's Name” is a book with a text and a subtext. And the text is a very positive, optimistic text.

It talks about what we can achieve through empathy, what we can achieve through the positive parts of our narrative. But the subtext is the history of this tribalism, the history of what you call this “pathological dualism.” And it seems to be so strong, particularly when we look at our neighbourhood.

We look at what is going on in the countries next to us. I sometimes say that when we look at our neighbours, we feel like the Jewish jury in the trial of the Mafia boss. After weeks of hearing the descriptions of how he got rid of all his adversaries in terribly cruel ways, this jury is sent out to consider their verdict.

And then they come back in and the judge turns to the jury, the foreman, the Jewish foreman of the Jewish jury, and he says, “Have you reached a verdict on which you all agree?” 

And the jury foreman says, “Yes, my lord, we have.” 

He said, “How have you decided?”

“We've decided we don't want to get involved.”

And that's the way that we feel in this region.

But it's the region in which we find ourselves. And as you point out in the book, we are talking about indoctrination through madrasas throughout the region that have been funded with not just millions but billions of petro-dollars. 

And the question is, where in this environment can we truly draw some hope? So maybe some thoughts to conclude.

Rabbi Sacks: Number one, you know, there was a great Chief Rabbi called J. H. Hertz. A man of rather outspoken views and a glaring temperament. Somebody once asked him, ‘How long do Chief Rabbis serve?’ And he replied, ‘Chief Rabbis never retire, and only very rarely, die.”

The Dictionary of National Biography said about Chief Rabbi J. H. Hertz, who used to have fighting matches with the lay leadership of Anglo Jewry on a regular basis, said he never despaired of a peaceful solution to any problem once every other alternative had been exhausted. And that is precisely my view of the Middle East. I don't despair of peace, but first, every other alternative has to be exhausted.

Secondly, what will bring it about? I will tell you what will bring it about. 

For centuries, from 1096 from Pope Urban II onward, Christians and Muslims fought a series of wars known as the Crusades. Those Crusades, and they went on and on and on, one after another, never brought either side in Europe to peace.

Why was it that Europe found its way to peace after the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648? It found its way to peace not when Christians were fighting Muslims and Christians were killing Muslims and Muslims were killing Christians, but when people suddenly realised that all over Europe, Christians were killing Christians. Catholics were fighting Protestants, and Christians were killing one another, and serious human beings - John Milton, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, even one of our guys, Baruch Spinoza, who got excommunicated after that, so, anyways, yeah. So, it is when you realise, not when you realise that you're killing your own, but when you realise you're killing your friends.

Now you won't know, but I know, which countries’ petrodollars funded the spread of madrasas, taking Wahhabi Islam, which was a small sectarian group of an element of Islam, and spread it right across Pakistan and elsewhere, and those are the people who are now discovering that the terrorists, the Sunni extremists to which they gave rise, are now a threat to them. 

That is when you get peace. Not when you're very nice and friendly and do all this stuff, but when your enemies discover they're killing themselves.

That is when peace comes. When everything else has been exhausted and you suddenly realise “Haterem tayda ki avda Mitzrayim.” You know, when Pharaoh's own advisors come to him and say ‘Don't you realise? You're not hurting Israel, you're hurting us.’

That's when peace comes. Until then, it is our job to keep hoping, as my favourite prayer says, - roughly translated from the Yiddish - ‘Ribbono shel Olam, I know You will help me, but You think you could help me until then?’ 

So I think we have to keep hoping for peace until peace comes. And it will come, not through us, but through the sheer realisation on the part of our enemies, that they wanted to destroy us and in the end all they're doing is destroying themselves.

Which they are doing right over the region. In Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen, in Libya, in Somalia, in Afghanistan. You name it. They're destroying themselves. And one day peace will come.

Now listen, chevra, I want us to realise here we are standing between Yom HaZikaron and Yom Yerushalayim, in this extraordinary moment, in this extraordinary place. Here in “Yerushalayim HaBnuya, k’ir sheChubra la yachdav.” Ir sheOse kol Yisrael chaverim. 

Think about this.

For a hundred generations, our ancestors prayed more in hope than expectation. “Teka bshofar gadol l’cheiruteinu v’sa nes leKabetz galuyoteinu.”  Sound the great Shofar to bring us back “m’Arba kanfot haAretz.” In our time we have seen this.

We've seen “Hashiva shofteinu k’varishona.” Allow us to judge ourselves rather than to be judged by others. Let there be no more shiyabud malchuyot. According to Shmuel, the only difference between olam hazeh and yemot haMashiach is “ein bein olam hazeh l’vein yemot haMashiach ela shiyabud malchuyot bilvad.” 

We've seen that prayer fulfilled. We pray “VeliYeruslayim b’rachamim tashuv,” and since 1967 Jerusalem has been reunited. We have seen every prayer our ancestors prayed come true in our time. 

But there was one prayer they always kept to the last.

“Hamevarech et amo Yisrael b’Shalom.” It was our deepest prayer but we always knew it would be the last prayer to be answered. And I don't know if you realise that when we say in the present tense, “Oseh shalom bimromav,” even the Ribbono shel Olam, still at this moment, is trying to make peace in his upper chambers, because not all the angels are satisfied with the seating arrangements. ‘You want me to sit next to him? Forget it!’ The Almighty has to make peace every day up there in Heaven.

You expect him to make peace all of a sudden, k’heref ayin, down here? The truth is we always knew peace would be the last prayer to be answered. But every other prayer has been answered. 

And therefore, we come to this prayer knowing that the Ribbono shel Olam stood by us as we stood by Him.

We now stand knowing that the greatest superpowers the world has ever known stood against us and tried to destroy us. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, the Alexandrian Empire, the Roman Empire, the mediaeval empires of Christianity… and all the way through to the third Reich of the Soviet Union. “Heima karu v’nafalu v’anachnu kamnu v’nitodad.” Every one of them has been assigned to history, and this tiny little people, one-fifth of one percent of the population of the world, can still stand and sing “Am Yisrael Chai!”

If HaKadosh Baruch Hu caused us to survive - "Shechechiyanu v’higiyanu laZman haZeh” - can we doubt that one day He will fulfil that last blessing of all? 

And until then, we will never give up hope. And that day will come, bimheira b’yameinu. Never doubt it, because it will come, bimheira b’yameinu, Amen.