Kiddush Hashem in a Complicated World

Rabbi Sacks: So I've been asked to say just a few words about Kiddush Hashem. What does it mean in the context of today, in the context of Medinat Yisrael, in the context of a sometimes deeply divided Jewish world. So let me begin with the concept of Kiddush Hashem itself.

What does it mean? We find it, classically, in four different contexts: Number one, classically, the makor of the whole mitzvah: “Lo yechalelu et shem kodshi v’nikdashti betoch Bnei Yisrael ki ani Hashem m’kadishchem.” That, according to Rashi, is “la’avor al devarai mezidim.” According to Rashi, it's got nothing to do with the world outside.

It is to sin b'meizid. If you sin b'shogeg, yesh takana. You bring a chatat, you do teshuva, but a meizid, that is a Chilul Hashem. 

According to Ibn Ezra, “im Bnei Aharon yedaber.” The whole perek, that perek of Vayikra is about Avodat HaKohanim.

In other words, according to Ibn Ezra, Kiddush Hashem is specifically focused on kohanim. Why? Because they are holy individuals, their avodah is holy within kedusha and the Beit HaMikdash, and therefore they are expected to be role models of kedusha. And therefore, when they break any law, any mitzvah, in addition to the chet prati, the individual chet that they commit by doing something they shouldn't do, there's also a chet klali, a general sin, because they have failed to be role models of what it is to be kadosh, to be holy. That is the first instance, and it's quite a limited concept.

Then, second, the concept appears vastly expanded. In one book in particular, the book Sefer Yechezkel. Yechezkel HaNavi speaks about Chilul Hashem in a completely new way, and he says this: when Bnei Yisrael go into galut, that is Chilul Hashem. When Hashem punishes the people by giving them defeat and sending them into exile, it makes HaKadosh Baruch Hu look as if He is powerless to help them, and that is a Chilul Hashem. 

And at that, in Yechezkel, is carrying forward an idea we first encounter when Moshe Rabbeinu prays for HaKadosh Baruch Hu to forgive the people for chet haEgel, and he says, “Lama yomru mitzrayim leimor beroa hotziyam laharog otam b’harim,” how will it look to the world? And Yechezkel says, that is what Galut looks like. It looks as if HaKadosh Baruch Hu is powerless to save his people, and when that happens, the question is, what will the world say? And that, for him, is this vast macrocosmic concept of Chilul Hashem.

Then, we come to the tragic reality, that in the days of Chazal, as codified by the entire discussion of Chilul Hashem, and as codified by the Rambam in Perek Chamishi of Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah, Kiddush Hashem means to be willing to die for HaKadosh Baruch Hu, to undergo martyrdom, to die al Kiddush Hashem. And the whole debate among Chazal is simply, on what mitzvot and under what circumstances do we say yehareg ve'al ya'avor? But that if you die al kiddush Hashem, that means you are showing that Hashem matters to you. You love, “v'ahavta et Hashem Elokechai b'chol levavcha uv’chol nafshecha,” - afilhu Hu notel et nafshecha. The love of God matters to you more than life itself, that is a Kiddush Hashem.

But what a tragic phenomenon it was that Chazal knew, that in their world, that the world didn't want to know about HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and the only way they found for sanctifying Hashem was to be willing to die for Hashem. 

Historically, the most remarkable transformation of that idea in our time - and it's a very moving one - was the collective decision of the Jewish people to say about all the victims of the Shoah that they died al Kiddush Hashem. Because in every previous era when Jews died al Kiddush Hashem, they had a choice, convert or die, transgress or die. In the Shoah they had no choice at all, and therefore when the Jewish people collectively said all the victims of the Shoah died al Kiddush Hashem, they said a very moving and beautiful and true thing. 

And then fourthly, the Rambam mentions, on the basis of Gemara, If somebody well known to be very righteous and very saintly does something that is unbecoming, even if it's not a sin, that is a Kiddush Hashem. And Rambam gives an example of this [see source cited above], and that is a Kiddush Hashem. And when an individual acts in the opposite way, that is a Chilul Hashem.

Now, these four dimensions seem to have nothing connecting them, and the question is, what is at the basis of them? 

To which we have to add one other element, which is very striking. Chilul Hashem is the only sin in the book for which there is no kapara in one's lifetime. Every other sin, there's kapara -  through Teshuva, through Yom Kippur, through yissurim, but Chilul Hashem, there is no such thing as kapara in your lifetime.

So the question is, what is Kiddush Hashem? Is it one mitzvah among the taryag, or has it got something special about which Chazal say there is no mitzvah that matters so much that if, God forbid, you break it, there's no kapara in your lifetime?

I think we have to understand an absolute yesod, a fundamental principle of Torah here. And here it is.

If we read the Torah carefully, we see that the Torah is the early history of Am Yisrael. That's its subject - beginning, middle, and end, with one remarkable phenomenon. The Torah, which is about the Jewish people, does not begin with the Jewish people.

It begins with four archetypal scenes of humanity as a whole: Adam v'Chava, Cain v'Hevel, Noah and the flood, Babel and its builders. And they have nothing to do with the Jewish people, but with humanity as a whole.

What is going on here? 

The short answer is this. Twice, at the beginning of human history, HaKadosh Baruch Hu attempts to establish a relationship with all humankind. The first was ontological. HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, “Na’aseh adam k’tzalmeinu kidmuteinu.” The first relationship that God sought to establish is on the basis of what it is to be human. To be human is to be in the image and likeness of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. 

But that failed.

First with Adam and Eve, then with Cain and Abel, then with the world - “Mala ha’aretz hamas.” Full of violence.

After the flood, HaKadosh Baruch Hu attempts a second relationship with all humanity. This time not ontological, but covenantal. The first chapter of Bereishit has the word “tov” seven times. The ninth chapter of Bereishit has the word “brit” seven times. It's all to do with the Brit Bnei Noach. And here, the same phrase is used, but completely differently.

“Shofech dam haAdam damo yishfech ki b’tzelem Elokim asa et haAdam.”

But there is one big difference between Tzelem Elokim as it appears in Bereishit 9, than as it appears in Bereishit 1. In Bereishit 1, it is me who is in the image of God. In Bereishit 9, it is you who are in the image of God. It's the other person. 

And those were the two relationships HaKadosh Baruch Hu tried to establish with all humanity. And they both failed.

And only after the failure of the second relationship, when the builders of Babel failed to recognise and honour the difference between heaven and earth by trying to build on earth a tower that reached heaven, it is only then that Hashem calls to Avraham Avinu. 

And the whole focus of the Torah moves from all of humanity to one man, to one marriage, to Avraham and Sarah, to one family, and eventually to one nation. 

Why? 

Because having failed to establish a relationship with all humanity, HaKadosh Baruch Hu says to Avraham Avinu, ‘I want you and your children to be the bearers of My presence to the world.’ “V’nivrechu b’cha kol mishpachot haAdama.”

As it says five times in Bereishit, ‘Through you My light will be refracted into the world.’

Or to put it another way, there are two ways of teaching anything. Number one, by general rules, and number two, by specific examples.

Having failed to reach humanity through specific rules, Hashem says I will try the second way, by a living example. Let Avraham Avinu and his children be living examples of what it is to be people who live in My image, people who live by My will. And that, in an extraordinary way, actually happens, then and now.

Here is Avraham Avinu, a person who lives apart, alone, by his own light. Avraham HaIvri - he is on one side, the whole of the world is on the other side. He fights for his neighbours, he prays for his neighbours, but he stays true to himself.

And what do his neighbours say? They say to this man, who has kept himself separate, “Nesi Elokim ata betocheinu.” And that is the power of Avraham, to be a Kiddush Hashem. Even the Bnei Chet, even the Hittites, recognised “Nesi Elokim ata betocheinu.” And so it was in history. I mean, I still find myself awestruck by the fact that 2.4 billion Christians, 1.6 billion Muslims, and a few of us, most of whom, by the looks of it, are here this evening.... More than half the population of the world today consider themselves spiritual descendants of Avraham Avinu. Here is a man who ruled no empire, performed no miracles, commanded no army, delivered no great prophecy, and yet, without the slightest shadow of doubt, was the most influential human being that ever lived, and his influence today is greater than it ever was. 

And that is the power of Kiddush Hashem.

To walk according to Hashem's call. “Ki yedativ lema’an asher yetzaveh et banav v’et beito acharav v’shamru drech Hashem la’asot tzedaka umishpat…” - To walk humbly in God's way, and to teach your children to do justice and charity. That is something that can change the world. And we see through the history of what they call Abrahamic monotheism, how Avraham Avinu actually did this. 

And I have to tell you that that is what defines us as Jews. You want the simple definition of what it is to be a Jew? Every one of us is a shagrir shel HaKadosh Baruch Hu in the world. Every one of us is God's ambassador to the world. And that is what Moshe Rabbeinu meant when he said, “Hi chochmatchem uVinatchem l’einei haAmim,” - He is your wisdom, your understanding, in the eyes of the people. 

That's what he meant when he said, “V’raoo kol amei haAretz ki shem Hashem nikra alecha” - All the people of the land, let us call you by the name of Hashem. 

That is what he said. And it's true. And it really is true. And that is what Kiddush Hashem means. The word “shem” means not just a name, but a reputation.

In Hebrew and in English, we use exactly the same concept. Shem tov, to have a good name, means to have a good reputation. Shem means not God as He is in Himself, but Hashem as He is perceived by the rest of humanity.

And whenever we do things that make humanity think well of a God, that is Kiddush Hashem, and when the opposite happens, that is Chilul Hashem. And that is why the command begins by being addressed first and foremost to the kohanim. They had to behave in an exemplary way, and subsequently, after Churban Beit HaMikdash, Churban Bayit Sheini, that role of being role models passed from kohanim to Talmidei Chachamim.

And it is also the thing that makes us Am Yisrael as a whole. The Sforno says on the phrase, “mamlechet kohanim,” he says that means we are to the rest of the world what the kohanim are to Israel. We are the exemplars of what it is to be kedoshim.

But that is very difficult. And it is difficult for precisely, or for 2,000 years it was very difficult, for precisely the reason Yechezkel HaNavi said. Because in Galut, in Chutz La'aretz, even in the most beautiful of all gilded Galut, we are powerless.

And when we are powerless, we're a small minority - we make a lot of noise, we make up for our lack of numbers by sheer volume - but the fact is that when we are powerless to shape our own destiny, it is as if, kivayachol, HaKadosh Baruch Hu himself is powerless. And for that reason, Chazal said in one of the most daring of their remarks in the Bavli, that when Jews are in Galut, HaKadosh Baruch Hu Himself weeps. And that reached its ultimate in the Shoah, in the Warsaw Ghetto, the Piaczesna Rav, writing his drashot as one by one, the members of his family are taken from him to Treblinka, and he writes his great work, “Aish Kodesh.”

He says, Hashem is retreating into His innermost chambers and weeping, and if one drop of Hashem's tears were to escape, it would destroy the world. 

Which is why the creation of Medinat Yisrael was not just a political event of the most immense consequence. It was also the greatest Kiddush Hashem in 2,000 years of Jewish history.

Because the birth of Medinat Yisrael, as it were, kivayachol, brought the Shechina out of Galut and back into the Reshut HaRabbim. And therefore every single Jew who lives in Medinat Yisrael is part of the great mitzvah of Kiddush Hashem, which is etzem kiyuma shel haMedina. The mere fact that there is a Medinat Yisrael is itself a Kiddush Hashem of the highest order.

And the truth is, that just as you only read the bad news in the newspapers about Israel, so you only read the bad news when you read the English papers, but the truth is - and maybe this doesn't come through because it isn't articulated as loudly as it should be - the world recognises this. You may see Israel criticise the truth. The honest truth is, when you're talking b’arba einayim to political leaders in the West, they all know that Medinat Yisrael is a human miracle like which there is no other.

The way that it has taken a barren land and make it green again. The way it has taken the language of the Bible, make it speak again. The way it has taken a scattered, shattered people and make it live again.

This is a miracle everyone truly sees. 

And it is the sustained Kiddush Hashem that is Israel. And when I speak to non-Jews about Israel, I'm very straight and they understand this very simply.

If we were to identify the five problems that will dominate history in the 21st century, it is absolutely clear what they are. Number one, climate change, global warming, although in England, we're praying they'd send a little global warming in our direction. Secondly, the growing disparity between first-world economies and third-world economies. Number three in Britain, in Europe, in America, the problem of asylum seekers. Number four, the problem of terror, which is now a global problem. And the problem five, the problem of the Arab Spring. How do you bring democracy to a part of the world that never knew democracy? 

Israel has achieved miracles in all those five areas. 

It is the only country in terms of climate change which hasn't de-forested but planted forests. Israel was the only country in the world that had more trees at the end of the 20th century than it had at the beginning of the 20th century.

Israel is the world's single greatest example of a third-world economy that became a cutting-edge first-world economy. 

As for asylum seekers, Israel took people from 103 different countries talking 82 different languages - usually all at once -, and turned them into “goy echad baAretz,” into one nation on earth. 

In terms of terror, Israel has always led the world. And any country that suffers the risk of terror comes to Israel and its experts for advice. 

And finally, in terms of bringing democracy to a part of the world that never knew it, Israel not only brought democracy but what I call hyper-democracy. If you can imagine such a thing.

In all these things, Israel has been and continues to be a Kiddush Hashem. 

However, we are all heirs of history. And something happened, not now, something happened 200 years ago in the 19th century in Europe, and we are still paying the price for it today.

It happened because of one of the greatest crises the Jewish people ever faced. Here was the crisis. French Revolution. The birth of democracy. Rationalism. The Enlightenment. And throughout Europe, throughout enlightened, scientific, rationalistic Europe, country after country seemed to offer Jews, for the first time, freedom and equality as citizens of the new nation-states of Europe. 

But at that very moment, there was born that phenomenon that initially had no name. Eventually, in 1879, somebody gave it a name.

Antisemitism. Racial antisemitism. That began in Europe in the 19th century.

At the very time that Europe was promising that a rational age would put an end to the prejudices of the past, at that very moment those prejudices mutated and came back in a form more virulent than they have ever had. And the result was that in one country after another, Jews found themselves faced with the following choice. You want to be part of Europe? Then stop being Jews. At least, don't be Jews in public. Become, if I can use the phrase, ‘secular Marranos.’ Hidden Jews who hid their Jewishness. If you want to be part of us, give up what makes you different and become Frenchmen or Germans of the Jewish persuasion. 

At that point, a split began in the Jewish people which still survives to this day. There were Jews who said, ‘Yes, we want to be part of the European nation-state and if that means giving up much of our faith and practise as Jews, we will do so.’

They became assimilated. They became very secular. 

And there were other Jews who said, ‘If that is the deal you are offering us, we prefer to decline the bargain. We will stay Jewish, but we will turn our back on the Europe that so discriminates against us.’

At that moment, a rift was created in Am Yisrael, but it was not created by Am Yisrael. That is the important thing.

It was created by a seemingly tolerant but actually viciously antisemitic France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and Russia. 

And then there came the Shoah. 

It all ended in the worst crime against humanity since human beings first set foot on earth.

And still we weep and still we limp. However, strange are the ways of Providence. And it was precisely that division of the Jewish world into two that led to the two distinct miracles of Jewish life after the Shoah.

First of all, it was precisely those deeply assimilated and highly secular Jews, like Moses Hess, like Yehuda Leib Pinsker, like Theodor Herzl, completely assimilated Jews, who became the driving force behind secular Zionism, which itself was a driving force in the first post-Holocaust Jewish miracle, the creation of Medinat Yisrael, and the rebirth of Jewish sovereignty after 2,000 years. 

Who knows whether we would have had Medinat Yisrael without that tahalich shel chilun, without that secularisation that led Herzl to understand that you need to act in the political arena and not just in the Beit Knesset. 

On the other hand, it was those deeply religious, highly segregated Jews, of whom all that remained after the Shoah was an ud mutzal m'aish, a brand plucked from the burning, a mere handful. It was those people from the Chassidic movements and the yeshivot who created the second miracle of our time, the rebirth of Torat Yisrael, which today flourishes in Israel, in the United States, in virtually every Jewish community. Today, there are more Jews learning in yeshiva than at any previous time in the whole of Jewish history. More than in the great age of Mir and Ponevezh and Volozhin, more even than in the days of Sura and Pumbedita, from which came Talmud Bavli. 

These were two extraordinary miracles - the rebirth of Medinat Yisrael and the rebirth of Torat Yisrael, and we owe that to that deep division between those two groups of Jews, each of whom performed a specific function in the redemption and renaissance of the Jewish people after the Shoah.

These were miracles, and the truth is, we are all in the debt of those individuals. However, dor v'dorshav, every generation has its seekers and its search, its particular mitzvah. And having now reclaimed and rebuilt Medinat Yisrael, having now reclaimed and rebuilt the Ohala shel Torah, now a new challenge faces all of us in the Jewish world, but particularly those who live here in Israel.

And the challenge is simply this, and it is so obvious that it hardly needs stating. We went as a people three times into Galut. Number one, in the days of Yosef and his brothers. Number two, after Churban Bayit Rishon. Number three, after Churban Bayit Sheini. 

And each time for the same reason.

In the first days of the First Temple, after a mere three kings, Shaul, David, Shlomo, the kingdom split in two, and always Israel was a tiny country surrounded by large empires. And to survive as one nation on earth was difficult, but to survive as two was impossible, and hence the destruction of the loss of the northern kingdom. And then the destruction of the Bayit Rishon and Galut Bavel. In Bayit Sheini, the Jewish people were so factionalised that the eyewitness accounts tell us the Jews were more intent in besieged Jerusalem in fighting one another than in fighting the troops of Vespasian and Titus outside.

It all came from that problem that first began with Yosef and his brothers - “Lo yachlu dabro leShalom.”

Now I find it extraordinary that Jews were attacked by the greatest superpowers human history has ever known. Egypt of the Pharaohs, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, the mediaeval empires of Christianity and Islam, all the way to the Third Reich and the Soviet Union.

Every one of those superpowers has been consigned to history, and our tiny people can still stand and sing, “Am Yisrael Chai.” 

There only ever was one people capable, chas v'shalom, of defeating the Jewish people, and that is the Jewish people. 

So what then is our situation today? We have a very strong secular public. We have a very strong religious public, but very little connection between them. There is a rare form of cerebral lesion, of brain damage, in which the right and left hemispheres of the brain are both intact, but the connection between them - I'm not a medic, I think it's called the corpus callosum, am I right? - the connection between them is broken. The result is dysfunction of the personality.

I think the Jewish people sometimes seems to me as if we're collectively suffering from this cerebral lesion. Friends, you, I include me in the you, are the corpus callosum of the Jewish people. We have a very special role here, and it's very rare, and it's very special, because you speak to both sides.

You understand both sides, and Hashem has given you - and I suppose me as well - a great and vitally necessary task, which is to keep those two hemispheres in some kind of connection with one another. Without that, without you, without us, we could split apart, and that cannot happen. We cannot.

It happened three times. We can't ever let it happen again. 

Or if I can use a slightly different image. On Shabbat, we just read of Yaakov Avinu's dream of a “sulam mutzav artza v’rosho magia haShamayima,” a ladder connecting those who are firmly rooted down here on the material earth, and those who live wholly head and totally in heaven. 

You and I are the ladder, and the thing about a ladder is, people tread on it. It's not comfortable to be a ladder. Believe you me. But it happens to be necessary, because if we are the ladder connecting those who are “mutzav artza,” and those who are ”magia haShamayima,” then we are the bridge between heaven and earth. 

Now, it is really, really uncomfortable to be a bridge between heaven and earth. I remember the day I got appointed Chief Rabbi. Rabbi Jackson may remember this. Somebody sent me, a friend of mine from Israel, sent me a letter one hour before I was inducted, saying, ‘You haven't even been appointed, and you've already upset the right wing, and you've upset the left wing. You must be doing something right.’

So it is an uncomfortable task, but it's a necessary one. And you will know, every bit as well as I know, that people in that position know exactly what we have to do.

Here is how the Rambam puts it, how Chazal put it. People in that position are “olvim v’einam ne’elavim, shomim cherpatam v’einam meshivim davar, v’aleihem haKatuv omer, ’v’haya k’tzeit haShemesh b’gvurato’.”

You can be criticised and even insulted by the right and by the left, but you never respond. You can hear yourself denigrated, but you don't reply. And you do that often enough, you become a walking, radiating Kiddush Hashem. Kiddush Hashem is one of those things about which we say, “lefum tzara agra.” 

It's hard work. It's sometimes painful, but it is the most beautiful and necessary thing we are ever, ever called on to do. Every single act, every single word that you utter, b'darchei noam uv’darkei shalom, heals one of the multiple fractures in the Jewish world.

Fractures which go back long before we were born, for which none of us was responsible, but we are an injured people and every kind and generous word heals one of those fractures. And that is Melechet Shamayim. That is Hashem's work down here on earth.

And you, simply by being here, simply by refusing to be drawn into this, this extreme or that extreme, every one of you is a walking role model of being Mekadesh Shem Shamayim. And if ever, as a result of what you do here, the Olam HaChiloni and the Olam Lo Chiloni - I don't know exactly the right word to use in the opposite direction - if ever the people on that side and that side were to open in love and respect to the other, the result would be the greatest Kiddush Hashem in 2,000 years of Jewish history. 

Because here we are, in Eretz Yisrael, in Medinat Yisrael, and I don't kid myself that the Jewish future is being made in London or New York or even Los Angeles in Florida, which also has oranges and sunshine. Still, that's Galut. 

And the Jewish future is made here and only here in Medinat Yisrael. And hence, everything you do to heal any injury in Am Yisrael is a Kiddush Hashem she'ein kamohu.

I have to tell you that sometimes, when we read this week's parasha, when we read “Vayivater Ya’akov levado,” of Jacob, of the Jewish condition, of being left alone, and you feel we're a tiny minority of a minority, and people start wrestling with us, an unnamed adversary, and we fight back, and we limp as a result - “v’hu tzolea al yereicho.” But you know what made Ya’akov Yisrael? He said to his adversary, “Lo ashaleichacha ki im beirachtani” - I am not going to let you go until you bless me. I'm going to fight with you in that extreme, and I'm going to fight with you in that extreme until you open in love with one another. Then I will retire from the scene. But until then, I will be Yisrael. 

“Ki sarita im Elokim vaTuchal.” Because Jews know that we always win the fight in the end.

Yours is the holiest fight of them all, and you will succeed. And you will be a blessing to Am Yisrael, biMedinat Yisrael, and a source of naches to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the like of which you and I cannot imagine. May Hashem bless you, Hashem, “oz l’amo yitein,” may He give you repeated and renewed strength, so that Hashem “y’varech et amo b’shalom,” bimheira b’yameinu. Amen. 

Moderator: I'm just reading some of the questions that were submitted by members of the audience, or members of the Greater Beit Shemesh community. Rabbi Sacks is very hopeful about spraying the message of Judaism to the Gentiles, notwithstanding the resurgence of antisemitism and or anti-Zionism.

How would he respond to the following written by Howard Jacobson? And has he ever tried to persuade Jacobson to see a more positive side to Judaism? This is the quote from Jacobson: ”The question, when will Jews be forgiven the Holocaust? And its implied answer, never, have political implications right enough, but there's an important non-political lesson to be drawn from them. If it's not for anything that they have done, but for what's been done to them that Jews cannot be forgiven, then it's in vain for Jews to strive to alter the way the world sees them. In vain that they try to improve their public relations image, adopt a sweeter demeanour, or hang their heads in embarrassment.” 

Rabbi Sacks: Let me tell you this. Antisemitism is the world's oldest hatred. It has mutated time and time again, and we are living through the latest mutation. And it is serious. It is very serious indeed.

It is so serious that in May 2007, I went to address the three leaders of Europe: Angela Merkel, who was chairing the European Union, Jose Manuel Barroso, who was the head of the European Commission, and Hans-Georg Pottering, head of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. And I addressed them all, and I told them that Jews in Europe today are asking, is there a future for Jews in Europe? And you will have seen in today's papers or tomorrow's papers, whatever, that a report has just come out along these lines, and I already alerted the leaders of Europe to this six years ago.

Antisemitism is serious, and yes, we have enemies. But we also have friends, and we have good friends, and we would have more friends if we went out to make them. When we persuaded, as a conference of European rabbis, the European Union to hold a conference on antisemitism in its headquarters in Brussels in 2003, I got up and said these words, which I've repeated to every British Prime Minister, and they've repeated them actually in public: “Jews cannot fight antisemitism alone. The victim cannot cure the crime.”

And therefore, we need friends in the fight against antisemitism, and we will find those friends. The truth is, if we could make three friends in the 21st century, we'd have half the world on our side. Which three friends? Number one, India. Number two, China. And number three, the Catholic Church. There are a billion Indians. There are 1.2 billion Chinese, and there are 1.2 billion Catholics.

And the latest Pope is a pretty good guy, and wrote a book with a rabbi, and you know, at one way or another, he's an oheiv Yisrael, Pope Francis. 

Why do I say those three friends? Because India and China are two ancient civilisations, pretty much as old as Judaism itself, and the only two great civilisations that never had a history of antisemitism. The Catholic Church, since 1965, Vatican II, has become ba’alei teshuva in terms of their own recognition of their own horrific treatment of the Jews over history.

Those friends - I'm not saying any one of those three relationships is an easy one to consummate, but if we did it, they would be very important. So for instance, I am pointing out now, in speeches in Britain, in America, just now in Spain, to three to two Catholic universities, and so on, that today it's not just Jews being persecuted, Christians are being persecuted throughout the Middle East, and large parts of the rest of the world. I don't know how many, 80,000 have left Aleppo, 20,000 have left Homs, eight million Coptic Christians living in fear in Egypt. In 2010, the last church burned to the ground in Afghanistan. There is no church in Afghanistan. 10 years ago, there were one and a half million Christians in Iraq, today less than half a million. In 2007, the last Christian bookseller in Gaza had his shop burned to the ground and then his throat slit. Christians are being persecuted in the Middle East, and I have said loud and clear to every Christian group I can speak to, we have to stand together on this. Jews and Christians together.

We are both surrounded by enemies, and we have to end the estrangement between us and stand side by side in defence of the right of Christians to live their faith anywhere without fear, the right of Jews to live their faith anywhere without fear, and the right of Medinat Yisrael to live in safety. 

So we have to go out and make those friends. It's hard work, but it can be done.

And yes, antisemitism keeps coming back, but we just have to keep defeating it. 

Moderator: Does Rabbi Sacks perceive a current or coming clash of Christianity and Islam, and how would that evolving relationship or confrontation between those two religions bear upon the Jewish world, especially the European Jewish community, but not only? 

Rabbi Sacks: Well, as they say in England, couldn't possibly comment on that, Minister. Although, you know, if somebody else has a machloket, then we feel less alone, right? Truth is, I don't like to see it that way.

I'll tell you something extraordinary. I mean, this tiny example, I don't say, I don't use it just as a tiny example, but as a general truth. I wrote a book. It was called, in English, “Radical Then, Radical Now,” and in America, it was called “A Letter in the Scroll.” Very interesting. You know why it was called different in America and in England? Because in America, my books are read by Jews. In England, they're read by non-Jews. Very interesting. So they didn't understand what is “A Letter in a Scroll,” so they chose the title, “Radical Then, Radical Now.”

My brothers, who live in Yerushalayim and who have a rather mischievous sense of humour, said to me, you see, they've translated your book into Ivrit, and it reads, “Ridiculous Then, Ridiculous Now.” This is a plain book of Jewish pride. 

2002, 11 years ago, the Queen celebrated her Golden Jubilee. She invited, made an afternoon dinner, tea party in Buckingham Palace. The kol ma’aminim shehu, all the datot, everyone there - all the Muslims, the Sikhs, the Hindus, the Jains, the Zoroastrians, the Baha'is, all there. And a quite frum - I don't say Haredi, but yes, quite a Haredi Muslim came up to me and said, “Are you the Chief Rabbi?” 

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “My wife wants a word with you.”

I just want you to remember what was happening in May 2002. I don't need to remind you. That was after, that was after the suicide bombing in the Park Hotel in Netanya. It was Jenin, it was a bad time for Jewish-Muslim relations. And I was dreading what she was going to say to me, and this lady comes up with a hijab.

She said, “Chief Rabbi, I just want to thank you for your book, ‘Radical Then, Radical Now’.”

It was an extraordinary thing. I actually, that book was serialised in the Times. To remind you that Jews are less than one-half of 1% of the population in Britain.

I asked the Editor of the Times, “Why are you serialising this book? It's got nothing in it for non-Jews.” This non-Jew replied to me, “Why are we publishing it? Because you're our Chief Rabbi.”

I have to tell you, I did much better mit the goyim than with the yidden.

We actually had somebody, Michael Gove, our Secretary of State for Education, stood up when we were lighting Chanukah candles in 10 Downing Street last year, and he got up and he said, “I agree with the Chief Rabbi on everything, and if that doesn't prove I'm a Gentile, I don't know what will.” 

From which I learned that if you stand up for your faith in a reasonable and gentle way, and a generous way, you strengthen the faith of others, whatever the faith of others. That even a Jew speaking with pride about Jewish faith can strengthen the Muslim faith of a very religious Muslim woman.

So I don't like to think of Christians and Muslims fighting one another. The truth is, as I'm sure you know, the single biggest conflict in the 21st century will be the fight of Muslim against Muslim. That is going to be the defining fight of the 21st century.

It's the internal battle within Islam, which is very similar to the internal battle within Christianity that took place in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. And that battle we can have nothing to say on, except to pray that it is resolved as speedily as is possible. 

But don't let us seek to draw any hope from any conflict between Christians and Muslims. The truth is, we have to stand side-by-side with persecuted Christians, and we have to stand side-by-side with those Muslims who speak with generosity and awareness that the 21st century is forcing all of us to make space for one another. 

Moderator: When we were in yeshiva, we were taught about Avodat Hashem that revolves around Torah learning and the Beit Midrash. “That was really inspiring then, but as an adult with family, children, jobs, a mortgage, etc., we can at best be kovea itim leTorah. What kind of religious life should lay people have? What are the religious priorities? We can no longer measure ourselves by the standards taught in yeshiva, but we're not sure what new standards to apply.”

Rabbi Sacks: It's a famous machloket in the Gemara. The Gemara says the following, that if you say Shema Yisrael morning and evening, that technically constitutes a fulfilment of mitzvat Talmud Torah. And actually, it clearly does, because the bracha of Ahava Rabba is, you know, according to the Ba’alei Tosafot and so on, it is actually a bracha al HaTorah, and it actually exempts you from saying Birkat HaTorah if you forgot to say it at the beginning.

There's no question whatsoever. So the machloket is, may you tell this to people or may you not? 

And one deia is assur, because they'll think, you see, I don't need to learn anymore. I said Kriyat Shema, I fulfilled the duty. But the other rav says mitzva lomar l’am HaAretz. It's a mitzva to tell people this, precisely because of the guilt feelings of the person who asked that question. You know, Hashem demands a lot of us, and not all of it can we do at any given moment in our lifetime. And there are moments when we are able to study more and do less, and there are moments when we do more and we study less.

And bringing up children and earning a parnassa and creating shalom bayit and doing acts of chesed are also precious to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And the truth is, God gave us increased life expectancy and Daf Yomi on the iPad, so that we should never despair, because even if we don't have time now, we will have time. And I know Hillel said never say that out loud, but I'm just telling you, and they've just discovered that if you learn Daf Yomi, it’s a segula against all sorts of brain things you shouldn't worry about, it keeps the brain active until ad 120. 

And so I say to the questioner, you do what Hashem wants you to do at this particular time, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves what you do. “V’gadol haTalmud sheMeivi lidei ma’aseh,” and therefore, all the learning you did in yeshiva, you are now turning into ma'aseh, and all the learning you feel guilty about not doing, He will give you time enough in the years to come to do. Okay? Stop feeling guilty. 

Moderator: “My question concerns the parenting of our children today. My oldest, not my oldest, but the oldest of the questioner is 26, and my youngest, 14. I feel as if there are generations between them. We cannot parent our youngest child the way we did with our oldest. The modicum of control which we had over her environment no longer exists. The rules have changed, and most importantly, they will continue to change at a rapid pace. This is enormously challenging. I would like to know how Rabbi Sacks would advise today's parents regarding raising children in a world where technology is constantly changing our lives. How can we understand the impact of this new reality? What can we do to inoculate our children against the ubiquitous presence of the Internet? How can we compete with the constant bombardment of entertainment?”

Rabbi Sacks: You know, Hashem, 3,300 years ago, gave us Shabbat as a protest against slavery in Egypt. Today, he gives us Shabbat as a protest against iPhones, smartphones, iPads, texts, emails. I mean, we are enslaved. Our kids are enslaved to these things.

And I have to say, you know, that's why we have grandchildren, so that they teach us how to use an iPad. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu gave us Shabbat, and that guarantees that we have 25 hours of blessed freedom from all this stuff, and it will guarantee that we will be not only the world's first, but also the world's last People of the Book, because on Shabbat you can't use a Kindle.

So everyone else will have forgotten what is a book, and we will still remember what is a book. Shabbat is Hashem's way of keeping us sane, and let me explain how. 

In 2011, Macmillan Cancer Charity in Britain did a survey of 18 to 30-year-olds in Britain, and this is what they discovered.

The average British 18 to 30-year-old has 237 Facebook friends. When asked on how many of those could you rely, in a difficult moment, the average answer was two. One quarter answered one, one-eighth answered none.

You come to a shul, you find real friends, not Facebook friends. On every friend in shul, you know you can rely. And that's why coming here to shul, that's why Tefilla, that's why Shabbat, that is why kovea itim laTorah are our protection of sanity against whatever are the, you know, the zeitgeist, the madness of this time or that time.

They have kept us sane. 

Secondly, you have to use parental Internet controls. 

And thirdly, you have to realise that the Internet brings good things as well as bad things. It has made accessible the world of learning in a way that never happened before. And I happen to believe that Hashem, every development in information technology is Hashem hitting us on the head and saying, use this, l’hagdil Torah ul’ha’adira. Go figure the following.

When people look back on the 21st century, the buzzword they will use is what? Globalisation. For everyone else, it is the newest of the new. For us, it is the oldest of the old.

For 2,000 years at least, probably 26 centuries, we were scattered across the world. But we were - and we were seen by others - as one people. We were, by 2,000 years, the world's first global people.

Now, go figure what kept us together, given that the Jews didn't speak the same weekday language. Rashi spoke French, Rambam spoke Arabic, Sephardi Jews spoke Ladino, et cetera, et cetera. We were living under different dispensations, Rashi's in Christian France, Rambam's in Muslim, etc.

What kept us together? The answer is we were connected to the same text. It was the first hypertext. Jews were the first people to establish cyberspace. We were the world's first virtual community. And therefore, all of this technology was actually Hashem telling us to join together with other Jews across the world and learn together. And we'll show you the power of this technology.

I happened to go at the end of the war in Kosovo, you remember, 30, 40 years ago. Each year, I used to make a television programme for the BBC, for BBC One, before Rosh Hashanah, as a message to the nation. So it was always a problem, you know, how do you take something Jewish and make it relevant to everyone? And I did it from Pristina.

And the war was just ending. The NATO troops were just ending their campaign. I was flown in by the RAF. And I stood there in the middle of Kosovo, in the middle of Pristina, with all the bomb rubble. And, you know, the Christians had been fighting the Muslims. Now the Muslims were fighting the Christians. There was a tank in front of every church. 

And I stood there and I said, now you see the power of one word to change the world. The word “forgiveness.”

Selicha, mechila. 

If Christians and Muslims can forgive one another, they have a future. If they can't, they will be fighting the Battle of Kosovo of 1389 to the end of time.

I went to see the head of the NATO forces, General Sir Michael Jackson. No, not that Michael Jackson, the other Michael Jackson. This non-Jew who was head of the NATO forces said, “We owe your people,” he said to me, “an immense debt.”

I said, “How come?”

He said, “When the refugees are coming back and, you know, it's hard to give people a sense of normality after their whole lives have been disrupted. And what is the sign that things are back to normal? The schools open on time. Your people have made sure that our schools open on time.”

So I'm hearing that the Jews in Pristina are responsible for all the schools in Pristina. I come out, I ask somebody, how many Jews are there in Pristina? And they say nine. I'm thinking nine Jews are running the education system in Pristina.

And I suddenly realised that HaKadoesh Baruch Hu invented the pelaphone strictly for Am Yisrael. You get on the phone, every Jew knows another Jew. You get on the phone to the Joint. You get on the phone to the Jewish Agency. Within five minutes, you've got the whole of Am Yisrael standing on Pristina and opening all the schools on time. Thanks to the miracle of mobile phones and new technology, we can be connected to every Jew anywhere in the world.

 So let us use it leKadesh shem Shamayim. And in the meanwhile, I will confess that I am so inept at this technology that I'm the only person I know whose mobile phone gives him an inferiority complex. 

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