Rabbi Sacks speaks about The Jerusalem Unity Prize

I think I just want to say, on behalf of all of us, what an immense privilege it has been to be part of this extraordinary evening with its just overwhelmingly beautiful mood. And therefore I want to first thank UJA, not only for this evening but for all it does and it continues to do to bring Jews of all kinds together, to work together and to provide that canopy under which we all take shelter. So to you, Eric, and to all who work with you and for you, we thank you for this evening and for your extraordinary work. 

I want to say thank you to Gesher and to its leader, Rabbi Yoni Sherizen, that does the most extraordinary things in bringing Jews together in Israel.

I have to tell you, I have to pinch myself every time I do a session with Gesher, that I am actually sitting in a room with Chilonim and Charedim together, each of them respecting and listening to the other. 

Because the good news about the Jewish people is that we're among the world's best speakers. The bad news is we're probably the world's worst listeners. And yet in Gesher people do listen to one another, and I just feel the Shechina whenever I go into Gesher and I see these people so different and yet so clearly open to one another and lifted by one another. 

I want to pay tribute to Kvod Rosh Ha’Ir, the Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat. On the phrase in Psalms, “Yerushalyim k’ir k’chubra la yachdav,” Jerusalem rebuilt as a city united together. Chazal said Jerusalem is “ir she’oseh kol Yisrael chaverim,” the city that makes all Jews friends. Because the Jewish people is the circumference of a circle at whose centre is Yerushalayim. And so Jerusalem is our living symbol of unity. 

But above all, to the parents, to Racheli and to Ophir and this extraordinary courage and chein that you have shown. Ezehu Gibor? Who is a real hero? One who is able to bring a little light to bear on the darkness of this world, who is able to respond to an act of hate with love, who is able somehow to rescue a bracha from a klala. That is heroism and that is an inspiration to every single one of us. 

I'm here playing away, you know, as an Englishman in New York. This is a double galut. But I remember the first time I came here, over 40 years ago, when I was a young student, undergraduate at university. I had the privilege of meeting a very great man, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who reached out to me in a most extraordinary way, and to everyone. And I remember thinking then, ‘How come this man did what no Jew has ever done?’ I mean, we never had an outreach campaign before.

There was a little one by Moses of Coucy, the Semag, in the 13th century in France, but nothing, I mean, nobody ever did it before. Why did it have to wait until now for somebody like Lubavitcher Rebbe? 

And I once just hazarded this speculation, that here was a man who lived through the Shoah, who saw the destruction of all the heartlands - of Chabad, of Chassidic life, traditional Jewish life, and he was a mystic. He believed in tikkun. And how do you do tikkun for an act of pure evil like that? And it suddenly occurred to me that just as the Nazis hunted down every Jew in hate, he said, our tikkun will be to search out every Jew in love. 

And you, both of you, are part of a tikkun, not less than that. And we salute you.

Friends, if you look at Jewish history, you find something extraordinary. The Jewish people was assaulted by some of the greatest empires the world has ever known. Egypt of the Pharaohs, Assyria, Babylon, the Alexandrian Empire, the Roman Empire, the mediaeval empires of Christianity and Islam, all the way through to the two great forces of the 20th century, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

Every one of them tried in some way to attack either Jews or Judaism. And every one of them, the superpower of its day, has been consigned to history. And our tiny vulnerable people can still stand and say, “Am Yisrael Chai.” The Jewish people lives. 

And yet, three times in history, our people went into exile. Once in the days of Joseph and his brothers. A second time after the destruction of the First Temple. A third time after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. 

And all three times for the same reason.

The reason that the Torah says about Joseph and his brothers, “Vayisna’u oto,” they hated him, “Lo yachlu dabro l’shalom.” They could not live and speak peaceably with him. And that is what happened in the days of Joseph. 

In the days of Bayit Rishon, after a mere three kings of Israel, the kingdom split in two. And as in deference to where we are, Abraham Lincoln said, “A house divided in itself cannot stand.”

And then, in the Bayit Sheini period, if you read Josephus, you see there were times when the Jews inside Jerusalem were more intent on fighting one another than the enemy outside. 

This means there is only one people on earth capable of threatening the future of the Jewish people.

And it is the Jewish people. 

If we are united, no power on earth can prevail over us. 

You know, there was once a time, Seuda Shlishit,  the Chasidim are sitting with the Rebbe at a Tisch. And one of the Chasidim asked the Rebbe, “Rebbe, you know, we waited so long. Why doesn't the Mashiach come?” 

And the Rebbe looks at the Chassidim and says, “Tell me, Yingeler, how could the Mashiach come? Because if the Mashiach is a Chabadnik, the Satmars won't recognise him. If he's a Chasid, the Mitnagdim won't recognise him. If he's Orthodox, the Progressives won't recognise him. And if he’s religious, the Chilonim won't recognise him. So how could the Mashiach come?” 

And then he looks at this young man and says, “You think we are waiting for the Moshiach? Actually, the Moshiach is waiting for us. And the time has come. And the time is now.”

The Torah dates our birth as a people to two different dates. Of one view, we were born as a people, “Vayehi sham l’goy,” we became a nation in Egypt. Another verse says, and we're going to read it this Shabbat, that we became a nation on Sinai. That is when we accepted our mission statement to be “V’atem tihiyu li mamlechet Kohanim v’goy kadosh.”

What is the difference? The difference is a unity of fate or a unity of faith. 

In Egypt, because we all suffered together under Mitzrayim, we came together as an Am, a community of fate, of Goral. At Har Sinai, we became a community of faith.

Our people saw our God, heard Him with their ears. And we became not just an Am, but an Eida. That dual nature of Jewish peoplehood saved us. Why? Because there were times in history when we didn't share a fate. You know, 11th century, the 11th century, when Spanish Jewry is experiencing its Golden Age, the Jews of Northern Europe were being massacred in the Crusades. In the 15th century, lehefech. When Spanish Jewry was being expelled, the Jews of Poland were enjoying their bright summer of tolerance.

So when fate divided us, faith united us. 

Today, we don't necessarily agree on faith. I once - to emphasise Jewish unity - did a big public conversation with the guy that I think of as Admor Shel HaChilonim, the Rebbe of the secularists, Amos Oz, the Israeli writer.

And the first sentence he said was, “I don't think I'm going to agree with Rabbi Sacks on everything. But then, on most things, I don't agree with myself.”

So when we don't have a unity of faith, we are held together by unity of fate.

And today, Ribbono shel Olam, we are not short of enemies. And we all share the same fate. Because no soneh Yirael, no terrorist, ever asked, ‘Tell me, are you a modern Orthodox Jew or a Reform?’ They don't.

We share the same fate. And that is inextinguishable. And therefore, wherever we're divided, we find somehow, there is a source of unity. Of course, that unity is never a diverse… it's never uniformity, it's always diversity. I once pointed out that Judaism is the only civilisation known to history, all of whose canonical texts are anthologies of arguments. 

In Tanach, Avraham argues with God, Moshe Rabbeinu argues with God, Iyov, Yirmiyahu… the Mishna, Rabbi X says this, Rabbi Y says that… in the Midrash, “Shivim Panim LaTorah.”

That is it. I think God chose us, because He loves a good argument. 

But the truth is, we don't need uniformity.

We need unity. 

There's an incredible bracha - I don't know if you ever thought how strange it is - that we make after having a cup of coffee, a glass of water, “Borei nefashot rabot v'chesronan.” It's an extraordinary blessing. We thank God for making many different kinds of people and their deficiencies. Now, this is the only place in the whole of Judaism where we thank God for making us deficient. How come? The answer is, if we had no deficiencies, if we had no chesronot, if we lacked nothing, we'd never need one another.

But because we all lack something, and because we're all different - what I like, you have, and what you like, I have. And the bracha, “Borei nefashot rabot v'chesronan,” is a bracha of coming together in our diversity to form a unity. 

To put it very bluntly, I don't need you to agree with me. I need you to care about me. 

That unity of caring for one another is all we aspire to, and all we need. 

Judaism is a choral symphony scored for many voices.

We may not be one denomination, one opinion, or one party, but we are, and always will be, one people. The smallest, most diverse people on the face of the earth, and our diversity is our richness. 

Friends, let us reach out a hand to one another.

The Hebrew word for hand, yad, is gematria 14. When we walk hand in hand, that is 28, which is gematria koach. When Jews walk hand in hand, we are the greatest force for good in the world.

Therefore, in the merit of Eyal and Gilad and Naftali, zichronam livracha, let us walk hand in hand to the future, because when there is peace between us, then maybe we will be at peace with the world. Bimheira b'yameinu. Amen.