Israel – The Gateway of Hope

Introductory comments

Rabbi Sacks: Thank you so much. And I can't tell you what a privilege it is for me to be in your company.

You are such very special people. And just wandering around the school and joining in the davening and seeing the beautiful things that are done here is, to me, very special. To me, school is the most important place of all.

Because that's where you can see the most extraordinary miracle you will ever see. And that is the world's oldest faith become young again in the faces of its children at Jewish day schools. 

And so, tell me, who is here from Akiva? Can we hear a loud roar, please?

Who's here from Yavneh? Who's here from Torah Day School? And do we have somebody here from Masora? Fantastic. “Az beKol ra’ash gadol…”

Friends, you are absolutely terrific. And I'm very moved to see you all. I have to say that school, for me, my favourite place, normally, when I was Chief Rabbi for those 22 years, whenever I went around the Commonwealth, because I was Chief Rabbi of the Commonwealth, including places like Australia and Canada, and places like New Zealand and Hong Kong in those days, the best bit was always going to school.

And I would always go and meet, as a representative of the Jewish community, whoever happened to be the Head of State in that country. 

So when I went to New Zealand, the Head of State is the Governor-General, and we could not meet. He wasn't there in Wellington, which is where he's based.

And we just couldn't fix a meeting. So we said, “Let's meet in Auckland, at my favourite place.” And the Governor-General said, “What is your favourite place?” And I said, “Well, a school, of course. There's a Jewish day school in Auckland.”

So we met at the Jewish day school. And I said a few words to the kids.

And then the Governor-General, who isn't Jewish, you know what the Governor-General is? He's in place of the Queen, because the Queen is the Head of State in New Zealand. 

And he spoke to the kids. But I don't know if he'd ever spoken to Jewish children before, because he said to the school, he said, “Now children, what would you like to be when you grow up?” Expecting, I don't know what, a soccer player or a hotshot television star? And one five-year-old young man in the front row put up his hand, “Please, sir, please, sir.”

And the Governor-General turned to him and said, “Yes, young man, what would you like to be when you grow up?”

And he said, “Please, sir, the King.”

So I explained to the Governor-General that we teach our children to aim high. 

So I don't know if you can all be kings and queens, but when we say “Avinu Malkeinu,” when we call Hashem both our Father and our King, that means we're all members of the Royal Family.

If you've been following Kate and William and all that, little baby George, so you are all members of the Royal Family. 

Friends, we've just celebrated Pesach, we've just observed Yom HaShoah, and we're about, shortly, to celebrate Yom HaAtzmaut. And I just want to share with you two little stories about the connection between them.

[Is this a roaming mic with this?] I want to tell you a little story, because really this is your story. And here it goes. Once, 20 years ago, I was in Hong Kong on a visit.

And after a very hectic day of making speeches and things, we were left in our hotel room and I switched on the television. I don't often get a chance to watch television, and I found myself watching a programme called the Discovery Channel. Do you have the Discovery Channel? Yeah, what is it, a sort of history channel, is that right? 

And lo and behold, to my amazement, I turned it on and I saw that I was looking at a documentary about the great buildings, the temples, built by Rameses II of Egypt.

And I don't know if you know this, but you probably do, that Rameses II is the person that most people think was the Pharaoh of the Exodus. And the documentary was showing these extraordinary buildings, temples he built in Luxor, in Karnak, and in Abu Simbel. Have any of you been to Egypt? Have you seen anything? I've only seen them from that documentary.

And it was amazing! Can you imagine? These buildings have lasted for 3,300 years. 

And for about 10 minutes I was carried along with the enthusiasm of the narrator in this documentary, until I suddenly had a thought. It suddenly occurred to me, who built those buildings? 

Your ancestors and mine.

“Avadim hayinu leParo beMitzrayim.” We built them. And then I thought, what if, like Michael J. Fox in “Back to the Future,” we could travel back in time and actually visit Rameses II? And I imagined the following conversation.

I would go up to him and I would say, “Oh, mighty Rameses! I am a visitor from more than 3,000 years in the future.”

And I see Rameses saying, “Who is this meshugene?”

And you go on, explain yourself. And you say to him, “Rameses, I have some good news for you and some bad news.”

He says, “What's the good news?”

You say, “Believe it or not, Rameses, there's a nation alive and well today that will be alive and well 33 centuries from now.”

And he says, “What's the bad news?” 

And you say, “It's not going to be you.”

And he says, “Who then?”

And you take him to the front of the temple and you point to the slaves building those buildings and you say, “You see those slaves? Those Israelites? The people you call the Ivrim, the hapiru, the Hebrews? They are going to be alive and well 3,300 years from now.”

That must sound like the craziest thing anyone could possibly say. The Egypt of Rameses II was by far the longest-lived and mightiest empire in the ancient world. It was already more than 15 centuries old by the time of Moshe Rabbeinu.

Have you seen the Great Pyramid of Giza? The Great Pyramid of Giza was built already 1,000 years before Moshe Rabbeinu, and for 4,000 years it was the tallest man-made structure on earth. Until some English people just north of Cambridge, where I went to study, built the steeple of Ely Cathedral. If you don't count the steeple then it was the tallest building until the Eiffel Tower which was built in - do you know? - 1889. So there it is.

This amazing, all-powerful empire that bestrode the narrow world like a colossus. 

And what were the Jews? They were nothing. They were slaves.

And we know exactly what the Egyptians thought of the Jews because, I don't know if you know this, does anyone know the first reference to Israel anywhere outside of Tanach? Anyone know? 

It is on a… it's an engraving on a block of black basalt granite which is today in the museum in Cairo and it's called the Manepta Stele and it was inscribed by Pharaoh Manepta IV who was the successor of Rameses II and it contains these lines. The first reference to Israel outside of Tanach. It says, “Israel is laid waste. Her seed is no more.”

The first reference to Israel in the world outside of Tanach was an obituary. That the Jews are like they didn't exist at all. And here you are telling Ramses II that his civilisation is going to collapse and our civilisation is going to survive to today?

Isn't that crazy? How did it happen? And the answer I think is this. 

That ancient Egypt and ancient Israel asked the most fundamental question that any of us can ask. And that is, how in this all-too-brief span of years that we call our life can we be part of something eternal? 

And the ancient Egyptians came up with an answer.

How do you become immortal? By building monuments of stone so great that they will outlast the winds and sands of time. And it's true. The buildings survived.

But the civilisation that gave rise to it died very soon after. It went after the Exodus. It went on a decline and never recovered.

The Jewish people heard through Moshe Rabbeinu, from HaKadosh Baruch Hu, the following answer. 

How do you become immortal? Not by building monuments of stone. But by engraving your values on the hearts of your children. And they on theirs, and so on to the end of time.

And that is how Jews became the eternal people and you are the latest chapter in that story. You are part of the eternal people. 

Now we know that Moshe Rabbeinu brought that nation to the brink of the Promised Land. He wasn't able to see it. I don't know if you know. Did you learn how the story of the Exodus inspired America? Did you learn that? You know what was the first ship that set sail for America? The Mayflower in? In 1620. And the Mayflower was full of people who read the Bible and they said, in the Arabella in 1630, when John Winthrop made his famous speech about “the city on a hill,” what is he quoting? Devarim! They read Tanach and they read it in Hebrew and for them that was the Exodus. I mean it's a little embarrassing for me from England to have to say this, but for those people on the Mayflower and the Arabella, Pharaoh was the English King, George III, the Egyptians were the English and the Red Sea was the Atlantic Ocean. 

But they were setting out on their own journey to freedom and it inspired them. It inspired Jefferson and Franklin as they sat in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776 and they were designing the Great Seal of the United States, and Benjamin Franklin designed it as Pharaoh and the Egyptians, i.e. the English, drowning in the Red Sea. And Thomas Jefferson, who was a bit more diplomatic, designed a seal showing the Israelites going through the wilderness guided by the Pillar of Cloud, the Clouds of Glory that led them through the Midbar.

Jefferson in his second inaugural, what was that? 1805. He was the third President of the United States, spoke about Yetziat Mitzrayim and it's been part of American culture ever since.

I don't know if you know this. Do you know this? Martin Luther King, in 1968, delivered a speech - where was it? Memphis, I think. Delivered a speech in which he spoke about the last day of Moshe Rabbeinu's life. Do you know this? He spoke about the last day of Moshe's life and he turned to his audience and he said, “I have climbed the mountain and I have seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you but I promise you you will get to the Promised Land.”

That was in 1968. He spoke about the last day in Moshe Rabbeinu's life and couldn't have known - but subconsciously maybe he did know - that that was going to be the last day of his life.

Because, Rachmana litzlan, he was assassinated the next day and 40 years on, more or less to the day, the first black American President they had and they got to the Promised Land. 

So this is a story that inspires not only us but it inspires every nation that seeks for its freedom. 

However, I want to tell you something.

Do you remember the passage in the Haggadah when “Amar Rabbi Elazar ben Azariya, harei ani keven shivim shana,” he said “I'm like a man of 70 years old.”

Anyone know why he said that? Did everyone hear that? He was a young man, he was 18 years old, and as soon as they made him head of the Jewish community his beard turned white overnight. I have to say that is a miracle that happens to everyone who is appointed head of the Jewish community.

You see it happened to me when I was made Chief Rabbi 23 years ago. They said to me, “Aren't you a little young for the job?” And I said, “Don't worry. In this job I will age rapidly.”

And you remember what Rabbi Elazar Ben-Azariah says? “Velo zachiti sheTe’amer Yetziat Mitzrayim baLeilot ad sheDerasha Ben-Zoma,” I never understood why you told the story of going out of Egypt at night until Ben-Zoma explained to me,” and he did it on the basis of the verse, “Lema’an tizkor et yom tzeitecha meiEretz Mitzrayim kol yemei chayecha,” You shall remember going out of Egypt all the days of your life. “Yemei chayecha,” The days of your life, “Kol yemei chayecha, haLeilot,” all the days of your life, that includes the night. “VeChachamim omrim,” And the Sages said what? “Yemei chayecha, haOlam haZeh,” This life. “Kol yemei chayecha, leHavi liYmot haMashiach.” That’s the Messianic Age. 

And that’s what we read in the Haggadah but what we don't read in the Haggadah is what Ben-Zoma replied to the Sages. Have any of you learned this? The next bit which is left out of the Haggadah, and if you want to read it, it's in the Gemara Brachot 12. Ben-Zoma replied to the Sages, “Are we going to remember the going out of Egypt in the Messianic Age?” There is an explicit verse in Jeremiah chapter 23 which says, “The time will come says God when you will no longer say Chai Hashem, long live God who brought us out of the land of Egypt but long live God who brought us out of the lands of the north and of all the countries to which you have been scattered.”

Jeremiah said there will one day be an Exodus even greater than the one that happened when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. And that happened in my lifetime - I'm the same age as the State of Israel - promise you don't mention this to anyone… but we're about to celebrate our 66th birthday together and…. We have seen this miracle take place in our time and what a miracle it is. 

Moses led the Israelites out from Egypt. The Jews who came to the Land of Israel came - from the last time I looked - 103 different countries, speaking 82 different languages, usually all at once, and there has never been anything like it ever. 

It never happened in the annals of any other nation. My own, I don't know if you read my little book, “Future Tense,” but I tell the story of my own great-grandfather, Rabbi Aryeh Leib, who was a Rabbi in Lithuania, and in 1871 he made Aliyah and he went and he lived in Jerusalem, and the people of Jerusalem asked him, ‘No one's ever told the story of the history of Jerusalem,’ and they asked him to write, and he did a four-volume work called “Toldot Chachmei Yerushalayim,” a history of the Sages of Jerusalem from the time of Ramban.

Ramban was exiled from Spain in 1265 to go and he went to Yerushalayim and he rebuilt the Old City and refounded the Jewish presence there. He then - I don't know if you know this - but in 1880 and 1881, pogroms broke out throughout the whole of Russia, more than 100 times, and my great-grandfather, who was a Rav who came to Yerushalayim to study and learn, realised that if there are pogroms happening and they're affecting the future of millions of Jews, then Aliyah can't just be for a few unusual people who want to sit and learn all the rest of their lives.  It's now a vital necessity for the Jewish people.

And he went on - I think what must have been almost the first ever Aliyah campaigns around Europe - telling people to move to Israel. And he himself moved to a little place in Israel, well I'll tell you about it, in the Yarkon River, a valley in the Yarkon River, where people had gone to found the first settlement, the first new settlement in Israel.

The trouble is they all caught malaria. It's a malarial swamp. And they left this place, and my great-grandfather led the return in 1882. And what is fascinating is what they called it, because they had all caught malaria because of the stagnant water there, and he remembers that there is a reference in Hoshea, in the Prophet Hosea, when he says God will bring the people back another time like He did by bringing them through the Wilderness. And God says, ‘I will turn the valley of trouble,’ this valley that gave them all malaria, into a door, a gateway of hope. In Hebrew that is Petach Tikva, today the sixth biggest town in Israel. 

In those days, there was only one house; my great-grandfather built the first house there and he led the return to Petach Tikva. It was actually the oldest settlement but Rishon LeTzion claimed that title because all those guys left and by the time they came back it was already Rishon LeTzion. Second best only, it doesn't matter but I tell you, nothing like this has ever happened in all of history. 

Why? Because Jews never lost the hope that one day they would return.

If any of you read the Kuzari, Yehuda HaLevi? Oh no, oh right you would, don't worry but he just talks about his biggest dream in life is to go, he wrote all the most beautiful poems of longing to go to Israel. “I am in the West but my heart is in the East.” “LeChol Shiryich ani kinor,” those extraordinary poems he wrote which we still… the words of which were woven into Yerushalayim Shel Zahav.

The Rambam, when he had to leave Cordoba at the age of 13 in Spain to escape from fanatical Muslims, his family went to Israel. He couldn't live there because the Yishuv was almost non-existent and he had to go in the end to Fustat near Cairo, today a suburb in Cairo.

But Jews never gave up the hope and that is the miracle of Yom HaAtzmaut. 

The truth is that Israel is such a remarkable country and it is not just Jews who ought to acknowledge that, for the whole world… I tell you what, tell me please, I need your help here because you know better than I do, what do you think are the most important problems facing humanity in the 21st century?

What do you think? Come on, there is no right or wrong answer here.

Children answer

I am taking this out of the Jewish domain for one moment… So listen, let's just figure this out, number one the single biggest problem facing humanity in the 21st century is climate change. That is seriously important unless you are told it isn't seriously important and here it is, destruction of rainforests. 

Do you know that Israel was the first country deliberately to plant trees and create forests instead of remove them? Israel is 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.

The growing inequality between rich and poor, between Third World countries and First World countries, Israel is the supreme example of a Third World economy that became a First World economy. No country has gone through an economic transformation like Israel.

Asylum seekers, I don't know what problem, that's a problem in Dallas? It's a problem throughout Europe, all the people from the poor countries who want to come to the rich countries, that is the major problem in Europe today. There are only two countries in the world that were built out of asylum seekers. Which are they? The United States and Israel.

And as you must surely realise by what you're seeing on your television screens or reading about it in newspapers every day - in Syria, in Egypt, in Lebanon and in Yemen, trying to create democracy in a part of the world that never knew democracy. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that is a total and open democracy, with freedom of speech, freedom of the press and independent judiciary.

I call Israel a hyper-democracy because every taxi driver knows he ought to be Prime Minister, so that is the hyper-democracy. 

So Israel is not just a source of hope for us. It is a source of hope for the world. 

Never did a prophecy come more true than that horrific vision of Ezekiel, when he sees - we read it as Haftarah over Pesach - when he sees the Valley of Dry Bones, of people reduced to a valley of dry bones, and says God to Ezekiel, ‘The people are saying “Avda tikvateinu,” our hope is lost. And I will do a miracle and I will take these people back out of their graves and take them back to the Land of Israel.’

Never was any nation in the whole history of humanity reduced to… like the valley of dry bones, like the Jewish people after Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen and Dachau and the whole horrendous events that we just remembered in Yom HaShoah. And yet, somehow, almost prophetically enough, Naftali Hertz Imber wrote Israel's national anthem. Took those words from Ezekiel, “Avda tikvateinu” and added “Od lo avda tikvateinu,” our hope is not yet lost. And Israel became the country whose national anthem means hope. Hope is what Israel is a symbol of for the world.

That you do not have to be a great big country to be great. You do not have to have extraordinary natural resources in order to become one of the leading economies of the world. You don't have to live in the Middle East and resign yourself to a failure of democracy. You can create democracy. 

And Israel should be a sign of hope to the world.

But still, you'll say to me,’How come the second Exodus was greater than the first Exodus, as Jeremiah said it was?’

Listen, there was something that happened before you were born. It was called the First Gulf War. Did anyone hear about this? Yeah? We were in Israel, I and my family, our children were young then. We were in Israel for the whole of the Gulf War. As Saddam Hussein from Iraq launched 39 Scud missile attacks on Israel and miraculously none of them hit. I mean only one person died as a result of it, one Scud missile out of all those 39.

It was a time of miracles but there was one little miracle that nobody noticed and nobody commented on, but I just want you to listen to this.

Ben Gurion Airport was closed throughout the whole of the Gulf War. The airport was in direct line of the Scud missiles so it was not safe to fly into and land in Israel. And walking through Ben Gurion Airport was deserted. No one there. Except for one flight which came every day without interruption. 

Do you know what that flight was? It was the daily flight bringing Jews from Russia on Aliyah to Israel.

And do you remember the opening words of the Parasha of Beshalach? [quotes Exodus 13: 17]

Even with all the miracles and wonders of the Exodus, God didn't lead them the straight way because He said, ‘If they see war they'll want to go straight back.’

And we were witness, 23 years ago, to see what made the second Exodus greater even than the first Exodus, because here were the Jews of Russia who saw war and didn't want to go back. they just… Friends, that is the power of the miracle you and I are privileged to live in… Israel has been reborn. The Jewish people has been reborn, and I just want to tell you this.

1995 - each year when I was Chief Rabbi, for 22 years I made a television programme for BBC. One television programme a year as a message to the British nation as a whole. Now a television programme is a lovely opportunity, and in 1995 they asked me to make the programme… (because part of the school is on March for the Living, is that right?)

They wanted me to make this television programme in Auschwitz as part of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. And I said, ‘I will only make this television programme if I can tell the story in the Jewish way.’ 

Have any of you learned the Mishna of Perek Asiri of Pesachim? Have you learned that? Do you know how we're supposed to tell the story on Pesach? “Matchil biGnut uMesayem BeShevach.” You tell the story on Pesach, beginning with the bad news, but ending with the good news.

A Jewish story is already always a story of hope. 

So I explained to the BBC, ‘I will only tell the story of Auschwitz if I can tell it as a story of hope.’

 And they said, ‘How are you going to do that?’ 

I said, ‘We will spend 25 minutes of the programme in Auschwitz, but for the last five minutes, I want you to show pictures of how the Jewish people has miraculously come back to life again.’

And this is what we showed. Scenes of Jerusalem rebuilt and scenes of Jewish children at Jewish day schools. 

You are the rebuilding of the Jewish people.

Yerushalayim and Medinat Yisrael are the rebuilding of the Jewish country. And we are privileged to have been the generation that witnesses, not only remembers the first Exodus, but is living through the second as well. 

We are privileged to live in an age of miracles.

May Hashem bless every one of you. May every one of you be a source of pride to our people as you grow up and as you go out into the world. 

And may we say that we have seen, on your faces, the Jewish future.

And it is smiling. It is a wonderful future. So thank you.

I bless you. Shabbat Shalom.