Achieving your ambitions

Sometimes the best way of achieving you ambitions is to stop pursuing them and to let them pursue you. – R. Jonathan Sacks

Service

The prophet serves G-d in a way that is constantly changing over time. When people are at ease the prophet warns of forthcoming catastrophe. When they suffer catastrophe and are in the depths of despair, the prophet brings consolation and hope.

R. Sacks, Parshat Shmini

Multiculturalism and Moral Relativism

The first people to try multiculturalism, the Dutch, were also the first people to regret it. When asked what the difference was between tolerance and multiculturalism, they replied that tolerance ignores differences; multiculturalism makes an issue of them at every point… Multiculturalism is part of a wider phenomenon of moral relativism, a doctrine that became influential as a response to the Holocaust. It was argued that taking a stand on moral issues was a sign of an “authoritarian personality”. Moral judgment was seen as the first step down the road to fanaticism.

But moral relativism is the deathknell of a civilization. In a relativist culture, there is no moral consensus, only a clash of conflicting views in which the loudest voice wins. Multiculturalism, entered into for the noblest of reasons, has suffered from the law of unintended consequences. By dissolving national identity it makes it impossible for groups to integrate because there is nothing to integrate into, and forces them to find sources of pride elsewhere. Without shared values and a sense of collective identity, no society can sustain itself for long.

Chief Rabbi J. Sacks, ‘The Times’, February 2011

QOTD

To defend a country you need an army. But to defend an identity you need schools.

Chief Rabbi Sacks

God Said and it was

Judaism marks the world’s first transition on a national scale from an oral to a literate culture. Hence the unique significance it attaches to the spoken and written word. We discover this at the very beginning of the Torah. It takes the form of the radical abandonment of myth. G-d spoke and the world came into being. There is no contest, no struggle, no use of force to subdue rival powers – as there is in every myth without exception. Instead, the key verb in Genesis 1 is simply leimor, “G-d said [vayomer], Let there be . . . and there was.” Language creates worlds.

The Chief Rabbi J. Sacks

A moment of Zen

G-d lives in people, and they are rarely the most successful or even the most overtly religious. Religion, when it leads to self-righteousness, can become a barrier separating us from G-d. - The Chief Rabbi J. Sacks

Balak

From the Chief Rabbi:

In this weeks parsha, emissaries go from Moab to Midian. Balak king of Moab wants Bilaam to curse the Israelites. Bilaam's answer is a model of propriety: Stay the night, he says, while I consult with G-d. G-d's answer is unequivocal: "Do not go with them. You must not put a curse on those people, because they are blessed."

Obediently, Bilaam refuses. Balak redoubles his efforts. He sends a second set of emissaries. Bilaam's reply is exemplary: "Even if Balak gave me his palace filled with silver and gold, I could not do anything great or small to go beyond the command of the LORD my G-d." However, he adds a fateful rider: "Now stay here tonight as the others did, and I will find out what else the LORD will tell me." The implication is clear. Bilaam is suggesting that G-d may change His mind. But this is impossible. That is not what G-d does. Yet to our surprise, that is what G-d seems to do: That night G-d came to Bilaam and said, "Since these men have come to summon you, go with them, but do only what I tell you." Why does Bilaam ask again? Why would G-d change his mind?

The true meaning of G-d's second reply, "Go with them," is, "If you insist, then I cannot stop you going - but I am angry that you should have asked a second time." G-d did not change His mind at any point in the proceedings. In scenes 1, 2 and 3, G-d did not want Bilaam to go. His "Yes" in scene 2 meant "No" - but it was a No Bilaam could not hear, was not prepared to hear. When G-d speaks and we do not listen, He does not intervene to save us from our choices. "Man is led down the path he chooses to tread."

The difference between a false prophet and a true prophet is: the false prophet speaks. The true prophet listens. The false prophet tells people what they want to hear. The true prophet tells them what they need to hear. The false prophet believes in his own powers. The true prophet knows that he has no power.

"No" is the hardest word to hear, but it is also often the most important - and the sign that someone cares. That is what Bilaam, humbled, eventually learned and what we too must discover if we are to be open to the voice of G-d.