Reports on bombings…
Rabbi Sacks: After the chaos and cacophony of the London bombs, a sound much more powerful.
Silence.
That's the sound of Britain expressing not anger, but grief. Determined not to be intimidated by terror, but to identify with its victims.
The big question of our time is, will we harm or heal God's fractured world?
Rabbi Sacks (at rally): We cannot get to heaven by creating hell on earth, and therefore, let all of us join hands and proclaim that if anything is sacred, human life is sacred.
Within our community, we mourn the loss of Miriam Hyman, Susan Levy, Anat Rosenberg, but the victims came from so many faiths, so many communities, and that grief has turned us into one community. Let that grief unite us now.
Rabbi Sacks: The bombers believe that you can change the world by fear. You can't. Fear makes us small. Hope makes us great.
I'm going to meet some people who are no less committed to changing the world, but in a quite different way.
Attendee: Nigeria is right up against some of the countries that he mentioned.
Rabbi Sacks: June 2005, and in North London, a group of Jews is meeting to talk about poverty.
Clive Lawton (Chair, Tzedek): We're not just a community of Jews, we're a community of human beings, so just from the very beginning of the Bible, God created Adam. All humanity equal and in the image of God.
Rabbi Sacks: For them, at the heart of the Jewish faith lies the conviction that we are our brother's keeper. We're responsible for those whose needs are greater than our own.
Rachel Heilbron: A strong part of my Jewish identity is about caring for other people in as many different ways as I can, and for this campaign, it's about justice, and I feel that there's so much injustice in the world, and if I can help to alleviate other people's suffering, it's my duty as a Jew to do that.
[to attendee]: To say that you want him to work hard to make poverty history.
Julie Blane: Because I was brought up a Jew, I do feel a sense of obligation to the wider world, but I hope that my non-Jewish friends and colleagues also share that. I believe they do, and I think we'll see that in Edinburgh.
Rabbi Sacks: You don't have to be Jewish to support the campaign to Make Poverty History, but to these people, being Jewish means that they can't not support it. On the eve of the G8 Summit, they're determined to remind the world's most powerful people of their obligations to the poorest and weakest.
Gordon Brown MP (then leader of the Labour Party): No politician this year was able in any advanced industrial country to ignore the pressure that people were bringing to bear for a cause that was not necessarily in their self-interest.
Rabbi Sacks: Were you expecting that response? We talk about being a consumerist, ‘Me’-first culture, and yet this is extremely altruistic, very concerned with people a long way away.
Gordon: I'm not naive enough to believe that there is only altruism, but I do believe that we underestimate the strength of the moral sense, and you can see it expressed in the reaction to poverty in Africa, to disaster in Asia. People are not just recognising that we depend on each other, because that could simply be enlightened self-interest on their part, but people are sharing in this moral sense, that crosses geographical boundaries, that makes people who are strangers geographically and far away from each other actually moral neighbours.
It's a recognition that this is part of what it is to be a human being.
Rabbi Sacks: You've spoken about the power of churches, faith groups across the world. What can religious groups contribute to politics?
Gordon: I think when the chapter that is written about what happened to global poverty at the beginning of the 21st century is written, there will be a proud and historic role attributed to churches and faith groups, not just in Britain, but right across the world.
And as you get the chance to study different religions and different faiths, each one of them has a golden rule. Each one of them is about respect for the dignity of each individual and our duty, not just our recognition of their needs, but our duty to help the needs of others.
I thought the words of Gandhi expressed it very well, because he said, “If you're in any doubt about what you as an individual should do, recall the face of the poorest and most vulnerable person you've ever met. Ask whether what you're doing is in any way going to help that person, and then you will be in no doubt what to do.”
Rabbi Sacks: How far has your vision been connected with social justice as you encountered it in the Bible?
Gordon: I was brought up by a father who kept telling me that you can make your mark for good or for bad, and he always focused me and our family - and I suppose all his parishioners - on the idea of personal responsibility. I think social justice advances when you combine a sense of anger and outrage about what is wrong with an acceptance that things will not change fully unless people, yourself and others, accept full responsibility for their lives.
So on the one hand, there was always compassion, but there's also anger if there's an injustice. It's the combination of these two which is the values that I was brought up to respect, and I owe that to the faith in which I was brought up and to the influence of my parents.
Rabbi Sacks: Politicians like Gordon Brown have put their weight behind the Make Poverty History campaign, but improbably, it's really been led not so much by politicians but by rock stars and comedians.
You might think they're the kind of people who have a licence to be irresponsible, but that's not how they see it.
Bob Geldof (pop star, first organiser of Live Aid): Twenty years ago, many of us around the world watching here now saw something happening that was so grotesque in this world of plenty that anyone should die of want, that we felt physically sick and decided we were going to change that.
Rabbi Sacks: Twenty years ago, when he organised the first Live Aid event, Bob Geldof was the first to admit that he wasn't specially qualified to do anything about famine in Ethiopia, but by doing something, he gave others permission to step forward too.
Virtue is contagious.
Bob Geldof: The great Geldof animus is anger. People mistake me for being ideological. It's not what I'm thinking. Irritability and irascibility are the great motors. We were living in the mid-eighties and it was the time of butter mountains and wine lakes and surplus, overabundance.
Here was something, to live in a world of surplus and to die of want, seemed to me to be not only intellectually absurd, but morally repulsive. And it's that glaring, obvious truism that drives me bananas.
Rabbi Sacks: And where does that anger come from? It's not religious, is it?
Bob: No, it's not religious. I mean, cornily, and obviously the profound psychological moment, the pillar psychological moment of my life, was the death of my mother at six or seven. And I suppose from that comes unfairness. You know, you get this sense that's not fair.
So that's how I got into the whole thing, but it wasn't holy at all. And I know that's not great for this sort of programme, but that's the way I view it. The religious then insisted that this emptiness that I constantly feel is a God-shaped hole, they say. It's not. Secularists say it's a mum-shaped hole. It's not.
But, you know, Life magazine wrote a profile saying, you know, God chooses bizarre instruments for His work. And, you know, one day He knocked on the door and this scruffy paddy pop singer answered and God just looked and said, ‘He'll do,’ you know, and it's a nice story.
But, you know, no one was knocking on my door in those days, least of all God, you know.
Rabbi Sacks: What you're talking about cuts very deep indeed in many, in most of us. That sense of sacred discontent when we see the world that is, is so glaringly not the world that ought to be.
And perhaps that goes deeper than conventional distinctions between religion and secular thought and just speaks to some very profound conscience in all of us.
Bob: I don't feel a sacred discontent. I do feel a great discontent. But the element of the sacred isn't there. But I do feel the sacred, though I'm atheist. It's just I don't or can't believe in - or find it unnecessary to require a God - to have a sense of morality or in order to do something good or bad.
Bob (at rally): Now, for those who question why we should even try, I'll tell you why. See this little girl. She had 10 minutes to live 20 years ago. And because we did a concert in this city and in Philadelphia and all of you came and some of you weren't born… because we did that. Last week, she did her agricultural exams in the school she goes to in the northern Ethiopian highlands. She's here tonight, this little girl.
What was great about Biran was that she is such an exemplar of, you know, what could have these million people who did die could have been. And so here was the absolute proof that whatever it is we're doing, it works. Just for her alone. For her alone, 20 years of massive effort is worth it.
Rabbi Sacks: OK, Bob, one last question. You've got this 12-year-old watching the television, watching Bob Geldof. And that might have been you X years ago. What do you say to him? What's your message to a future Bob Geldof?
Bob: And there's a great line from Tennyson. “Come, dear friends, there's time yet for newer worlds.” And newer worlds must be made fresh daily. It cannot be that we are utterly satisfied with the way we live at any one moment. A constant alertness to the state of suffering and hurting is a good way to wake every morning. Though that sounds pious, and I really don't mean to be pious, and it's not something I feel every morning.
I just get furious and you... get angry. That's my message.
Rabbi Sacks: You do the anger, I'll do the pious. Thank you so much.
Bob (at rally): I think I'm just as dismayed today 20 years later.
Rabbi Sacks: Anger and piety may sound a world apart, but they're not. In many ways, I wish more religious people would feel the anger which drives Bob Geldof to take on injustice. But anger isn't the only way to change the world.
Chava Lehman's method is much gentler, but just as effective.
Nearly 30 years ago, Chava founded a school in Golders Green for children with learning difficulties. Only instead of highlighting their special needs, she focused on their special-ness.
Chava herself has retired. Even so, she remains committed to her former pupils like Hezki here. Who as adults with ageing parents need her now perhaps more than ever.
Rabbi Sacks: Chava, you created “Kisharon,” where Hezki went to school, and Kisharon is a very unusual word in the circumstances. Explain.
Chava Lehman: Well, it is the Hebrew word for ability, talent or flair, and everybody can do something. And the most disabled child can, even Hezki, when he was lying on his stomach and couldn't do anything, he'd give you a smile, he would make your day. And that's a great thing if you make somebody's day, make somebody happy.
Rabbi Sacks: What happened to Hezki after he started going to Kisharon? You saw the changes.
Rachel Josebashvili, Hezki’s mother: I saw the changes. I wish I could show you the video of his development throughout the years. Hezki was the child who couldn't sit, couldn't walk, couldn't talk, couldn't do anything, couldn't crawl.
The school's policy was not to take the child with these disabilities because there was no way they could cope with it. But Mrs. Lehman had a bit of a pity on me and gave me a two-month break.
Chava: You're very persuasive.
Rachel: And in the two months that he was at Kisharon, he made such progress that Mrs. Lehman took him as a full-time student. If not for Kisharon's work, Yechezkel might be in the wheelchair today, vegetating. That is thanks to hard work of the staff of Kisharon, and that's what we want further on.
For me, Mrs. Lehman is someone that saved my life, never mind Hezki's.
Rabbi Sacks: And this follow-up group for children who are really no longer children, it's called Tikvah, which means...
Rachel: Tikvah means hope.
Rabbi Sacks: Did you not find that difficult in a situation that other people might have found hopeless?
Rachel: To some people it might sound hopeless, it might look hopeless. For us, once we had these children, this was a hope for bettering ourselves, bettering for the whole family. The whole family learns something new by having a special needs child in the house. They sort of grow up in a different way than when there is no disabled child in the house.
We're trying to show the public, all together, that these children have got their own tachlis, their own purpose in life. What purpose? We don't always understand, we don't always realise, and we're not always told.
Sarah Hanstster, Tikvah family support group: There is hope for them too. There is a place within society for them too. That is how Tikvah was born, and we thought that was a hopeful, positive name, Petach Tikva, which means opening doors of hope.
Rabbi Sacks: The Door of Hope.
Chava: They give us as much as we give them.
Rabbi Sacks: There's an old Jewish tradition that hidden in our midst are 36 “Lamed Vavniks,” righteous people who don't even know themselves that they're that. They're not superhuman, but supremely human, because they bring hope to people who have none. When I see the effect that Chava Lehman has had on the lives of those she's encountered, I can't help thinking that it's a tradition to which we would do well to pay more attention.
Very good, very good. Well done, Hezki. It's great.
Boxing Day, 2004. And in a matter of minutes, a place that many regarded as an earthly paradise was transformed into a kind of hell. Last year's Asian tsunami prompted many to ask, where's God in all this suffering? It's not a question any of us can answer, and so for me, a better question in moments of crisis, is always, where are we?
Daryl Phillips and Amanda Simons know exactly where they were. They were there, in Thailand on holiday, when the wave struck.
Daryl: We heard a noise, a big noise. We looked out, I ran and looked out the balcony, just saw brown, muddy water coming towards the bungalow. From all directions it was just water. We jumped off the side of the balcony as the water smashed through the room. I remember being under the water for a while. I think all the building had collapsed on top of us.
Amanda: Things then piled up on top, so you're being pushed under the water as well as being trapped. For me, that's where I thought it would end. And out of nowhere, someone pulled my hand and pulled me out, because I'd managed to keep my hand up above. This Thai man pulled me out, and I just remember him because of what he was wearing. He had very bright purple trousers on and an orange T-shirt that was really bright.
And sadly, hours later, I saw him dead. So, if that Thai man hadn't have pulled me out, I definitely wouldn't be sitting here. I don't understand how someone who clearly saved my life then died.
Rabbi Sacks: People helped you at the time, didn't they?
Daryl: Once we eventually found each other after a few hours. A Thai guy took off his flip-flops and gave them to me so I could climb up the mountain or the hill. This has happened in his area. He's probably lost friends, family. He needs to get up there as well, but he's actually taken off his shoes and given them to me. An English guy gave me some shorts, and everybody was helping everyone.
Thai guys gave Amanda shirts, but they were just so helpful, the Thai people, and that's one of the reasons we felt it's nice to go and help them. They helped us when we needed it.
Rabbi Sacks: You took the decision once you'd come back that somehow you wanted, when the opportunity arose, to go back and help rebuild some of the things that were destroyed.
Amanda: For us, maybe if you survive something like that, in order to move on or start to get on with life, I think going back and helping them is maybe a way forward - or what we thought for us - and maybe not for everyone.
Daryl: Everybody was like, oh yeah, you've gone back, you're really brave to go back, but we both felt that we had a reason to go back because we needed to repay the people that helped us, whereas other people that came on the trip didn't have a reason to go back. They came back out of the goodness of their hearts.
Rabbi Sacks: So, Liran, you weren't there, but you chose to go out there. Why was that?
Liran Yechiel: I think that seeing the footage on TV, like the rest of the nation, I think it was very shocking, and I think that everyone really wanted to do something to help.
Rabbi Sacks: And you went out as a Jewish group. Was that an expression of your values?
Daryl: Personally, I was very happy for it to be any group. For me, it was about helping Thailand. I didn't care if it was, you know, what religion or whoever went.
Amanda (with remote): Fifty-eight. That was the first day we arrived. This is when that kid fell over.
Rabbi Sacks: So you all went together as a group. What did you actually do when you got there, Daryl?
Daryl: What we did do every day, actually, was we'd do construction in the morning, or whatever, and then we'd go in the afternoon to a refugee camp. I'd play football with the boys, the girls would like to do face painting with the girls, the kids, and that was just really successful. I thought that was really good.
Rabbi Sacks: And what was the most powerful moment during that for you? The point where you felt, yeah, we are making a difference.
Amanda: There was one, at one point, there was a small village called Tapatwan which was really badly affected, and they'd completed 20 houses, completely finished them, and they had like a fete, like a little party, when they handed over the keys for the 20 houses, and that was, you know, that really was like, that's when it's completed.
Daryl: I was once playing football with the kids, and I went into like this school area where they were painting the kids, and there was just, you know, 20 kids running around really happy, face painted, they had their faces painted, and it was nice, you know, they were smiling, and that was good.
Rabbi Sacks: You know, for me, Daryl, the question is never, ‘Why did this happen?’ Because I know I'm not going to be able to answer that, but ‘What then should I do?’ And for me, that's the religious question. To be able to say, ‘Look, it's there, people are suffering, what can I do?’ That, it seems to me, is a voice we can hear whether we're very religious or not very religious.
Amanda [looking at screen]: This is how we communicated.
Rabbi Sacks: You know, you see one kid smile after what happened. That's not nothing.
I find myself coming back to those powerful words of Moses - “I set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore, choose life that you and your children may live.”
In the 21st century, that choice has suddenly become terribly real. We're doing bad things to our world. Some in the name of power, others in the name of money, and yes, some in the name of God.
I think we have to take a stand.
The people I've met in the course of making this film believe that we can make a difference, and they're right. Bob Geldof's quote from Tennyson sums up the challenge of Rosh Hashanah, the New Year. It is not too late to seek a newer world.
There's no life without a task, no person without a talent, no place without a fragment of God's light waiting to be redeemed. If we are where we are because God wants us to be, then there must be, in every situation, something He wants us to do.
God is the question.
Our lives are the answer.
All it takes is the ability to listen. When God calls, He simply whispers our name. And the greatest reply, the reply of Abraham, father of monotheism, is “Hineini,” Here I am, ready to heed Your call to mend a fragment of Your all-too-broken world.
