Rabbi Sacks on a Responsible Life

JInsider (March 2010)

There is a way of living that leads to the responsible life and that is simply life-transforming. And that is to take any event that happens any day, something that’s challenging, or difficult, or painful, and say to yourself, “What is God asking of me at this moment? I’m in a situation. Supposing He has sent me this situation to elicit a response from me.”

That response is what responsibility is. I don’t know what it may be. You come into your office, you see somebody just looking a little down and you give them a word or two of highly-focused praise. You may change their day. You may change their life. You see somebody across the street looking lonely, I don’t know what, depends on the place, the time, the circumstances. But there’s almost not a day that goes by that you can’t transform somebody’s life for the better, in some way.

So always ask of yourself, “What is God calling for me to do, here, where I am?”