On Healing the World: The Shloshim Tribute
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As part of the online service created by The Rabbi Sacks Legacy to mark the completion of Shloshim (thirty days of mourning in the Jewish tradition) for Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks zt”l, we shared clips of key moments of his life and teachings.
This powerful message, on the importance of seeing what is wrong with the world and rather than accepting it, striving to put it right, comes from the summer of 2013 when Rabbi Sacks addressed Sinai Indaba's annual Torah convention of the foremost international Jewish leaders and thinkers conference in Johannesburg. The full talk, entitled, 'To Heal a Fractured World' is available to watch here.
"What can be cured is not precious.... and all of this is implicit in the name of our people: Yisrael.
"We are the people who never stop wrestling with God, and He never stops wrestling with us. We never stop wrestling with the world, and the world never stops wrestling with us. We do not accept. When we see evil, we protest.
"The world has suffering within it. And God says, I want you to be the the people who don't accept that suffering, who go out and alleviate it, heal it, and make the world that is a little closer to the world that ought to be.
"And that is our challenge. Our life. The world is God's question. And what we do with our lives is the answer."
This international tribute video was live-streamed during the evening of Sunday 6th December 2020.
