Rabbi Sacks in conversation with Sivan Rahav Meir

Rabbi Shaw:

Good afternoon, and welcome here in London, at Rabbi Sacks’ home here in London, and wherever you’re watching us today, across the world, welcome to what should be a fascinating and interesting discussion. We are delighted here at Mizrachi UK to be facilitating, bringing together two of the Jewish world’s global educators, Rabbi Sacks, and Sivan Rahav Meir.

And certainly Sivan, welcome to the UK, I know you’ve just arrived, literally a few hours ago. In the next seven days, I think it’s three cities, seven schools, 10 communities, thousands of people to spread Torah, in this beautiful time of Rosh Hashanah. And of course, if you have any questions you want to add to this discussion, please do just add it in the page beneath, and we’ll try and take as many questions as we can, but let’s get started.

There’s a lot to get through and we’re going to start, I guess, with Rosh Hashanah. And, I think one of the most important questions people want to know is, and I’ll start with you Rabbi Sacks. What for you personally is the most meaningful or powerful moment over the Yamim Noraim, and why?

Rabbi Sacks:

Well, I think there’s a beginning and ending powerful moment. The start of it all is the sound of the shofar. It’s an extraordinary thing that something that wordless and that basic, an animal horn, it’s not a sort of trumpet or a metal instrument, something that basic can have echoed through so many key moments in Jewish history. So that was the sound the Israelites heard as they stood at the foot of Mount Sinai and made a covenant with God. That was the sound they heard when they conquered Jericho. It was the sound they heard every Jubilee year when liberty was proclaimed throughout the land. It’s the sound, tragically, but still defiantly, that we sound when we go and visit Auschwitz.

And remember, you know, what happened to our people when they were powerless, facing this ultimate hate, and the sound of the shofar says, we’re still here, you did not defeat us. And somehow or other the sound of the shofar to me is what’s so fundamental about Judaism. It’s simple, it’s basic, and we each invest it with our own set of meanings, and yet it unites us, across countries, and across times. So I think, you know, if I were to identify one moment, that would be the moment when you’re standing in shul wherever you are in the world and somehow you’re in some kind of communion with the Jews of all previous generations and the Jews throughout the world who are sounding the shofar likewise.

Rabbi Shaw:

Sivan.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

First of all, thank you. Thank you Rabbi Sacks. Ba’al habayit, hamara d’atra, ba’al habayit, thank you for hosting us. It’s a zechut, kavod, privilege, todah. I’m sure these are only some of the books in this house, we are just in one room, so, thank you. That’s the place where all the content comes from, that’s really impressive.

Rabbi Sacks:

I am a chamor nosei sefarim [lit. a donkey carrying books, meaning someone with access to great knowledge but who doesn’t make use of it].

Sivan Rahav Meir:

And thank you Rabbi Shaw for really inventing this format of this journey in London, in the UK, for this week. I’m really excited to be here, to meet the community, very special. My answer is, maybe this year, I think every time you see in the siddur how imperfect we are, it really touches me. Because of the year, the last year in Israel was really hard. I know you planned to ask about the elections, but I can’t ignore the fact. We, the Meir family, my kids just told me, we went to vote four times this year, first time, Jerusalem municipality, iriyah to choose our mayor, second time because of the results there, we had to go again, because nobody achieved like 40% because of this system. So two campaigns, just think of a kid in Jerusalem, only for the mayor and then general elections in Israel, as you all know, and then round two, and maybe even round three. My kid asked me a few days ago, “mummy, I know we were the only democracy in the Middle East, but aren’t you a little bit exaggerating?”. So I think we are a little bit exaggerating.

Rabbi Sacks:

Israel is a hybrid democracy.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Yes, hybrid democracy, I like it, yeah. So I think all these campaigns, all these slogans, the atmosphere, they all say “I’m perfect, I’m the best, you’re the worst, it’s only me, you’re awful, I’m perfect”. And I think the process now during Ellul and during Tishrei is exactly the opposite, it’s so important to us, to our soul to understand these lobbies, it’s not true every time I see now during selichot when we say kedalim ucherashim dafaknu delatechaas paupers and as beggars, we knock on your door, we’re beggars, we’re imperfect, we’re not as strong as we think. Every time I see in the siddur, we’re a little bit broken, that’s my slogan this year. I mean, after hearing all these campaigns, I think that’s the right campaign to all of us, we’re not perfect.

Rabbi Shaw:

Not just to Israel these things are happening. I think other countries…

Sivan Rahav Meir:

I’ve heard something going on here in the UK.

Rabbi Shaw:

England’s quiet, nothing really happening here, it’s a very quiet political scene here in the UK. I received a lovely question from a 12 year old and I think it’s so important that we, you know, children’s questions sometimes can really enlighten us, and I’ll just read this question to both of you. The question is; “how does teshuvah work as a process? If you can sin all year, knowing that come Ellul, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur you can just do teshuvah and be forgiven, how is this different from the Christian concept of sin and confession to achieve forgiveness?” For a 12-year-old.

Rabbi Sacks:

Well, this is a terrific question! It’s a brilliant question, answered by the Mishnah, because the Mishnah tells us that ha’omer echteh ve’ashuv (Mishnah Yoma 8:9), Yom Kippur is not mechaper, somebody who says “I will sin and then I will do teshuvah for the sin,” is not atoned for and so it doesn’t work. Sorry, whoever asked the question, sorry, it really doesn’t work.

Rabbi Shaw:

Okay, how does it work? So, that’s not how it works.

Rabbi Sacks:

And you know, roughly speaking, this is not precisely what the Sages meant, but they gave this beautiful phrase of hatovel vesheretz beyado (Rambam, Hilchot Teshuvah 2:3),you know, if you immerse yourself in a mikvah, but you’re still holding on to the source of impurity. So, you know, if you committed a sin and you say I’m going to repent for it, if you don’t really repent, that urge, the sin is still really there. And so you didn’t really mean it, so it just doesn’t work. The truth is, and it’s a sad truth, that we can fool lots of people. The person we most readily fool is ourselves, but we really can’t fool Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So, He knows if we are genuinely sorry that we did what we did, or whether we’re just going through the formalities and it just doesn’t work.

Rabbi Shaw:

I mean, teshuvah, I guess, in the world you’re in, in terms of the media, in terms of politicians, there’s always that discussion about, you know, people who’ve done something wrong and they do teshuvah. How does that work, kind of in Israel, into the political sphere the people find it difficult to kind of, I think we were speaking before about how nowadays no-one, everyone, no-one can do teshuvah because it’s out there for people to see and how’s that work, I mean, in the sort of media world?

Sivan Rahav Meir:

I think, it’s a completely different concept than what we see in our daily life, because, Rabbi Sacks, when we came here and you just told us about the pre-selichot sicha you had here in London, you said, we have no rachamim, no mercy in the, let’s say the public sphere, I think.

Rabbi Sacks:

We are unforgiving.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Unforgiving. Exactly, everything you post for the rest of your life. Somebody will take a picture of the screen, even if you won’t erase it, there is no teshuvah, it’s out there. Everything you say as a politician, as a journalist, as a singer, as a figure, as a celebrity, nothing. The archive always remembers and it’s really hard. So Hashem really offers us a concept that is a Divine concept. It can be erased up there, it’s hard to erase things down here, it’s easy to change things up there. And you know, someone just told me before we started this, shidur, this broadcasting live.

Someone just wrote, look at you three. I mean, you, the three people that are sitting here, I think you both are, I don’t know about myself, but you two are definitely the Rabbanim here. That’s the perfect example of teshuvah, of the, let’s say, the ability to change, to choose your own path in life. I’ll just say, Rabbi Shaw, you were brought up here in London, not as a teenager, maybe Jewish, but not.

Rabbi Shaw:

Traditional.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Traditional. And if I remember correctly, remember the fascinating story, Rabbi Sacks, how you met the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and he changed your life. You were also chiloni, masorti, secular, traditional, I don’t know, but I also come from a not observant house in Israel. Great parents, great family, not, you know, not dati. So, look, it’s possible to, to change, to reconnect to your Judaism. Looking at you two, it makes me optimistic. I mean, it’s possible.

Rabbi Shaw:

I can thank Bnei Akiva for my journey.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Bnei Akiva? So, Bnei Akiva and the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Rabbi Sacks:

I mean, you look at our heroes, Yehudah, whose name we carry because we are yehudim. Yehudah was the man who sold his brother as a slave. You know what, he did teshuvah, aval ashemim anachnu (Bereishit 42:21), you know, he said, clearly haelokim matza et avon avadecha (Bereishit 44:16), he candidly admits he sinned. Then, he changes to the opposite extreme and says to the man he doesn’t know is his brother, Yosef, “let me stay as a slave and let my brother Binyamin go free.” So, Yehudah committed one of the worst sins ever, and yet, did teshuvah and became the person whose name we carry. David Hamelech, a similar story, 10 generations on. So the Torah tells, Tanach tells us such stories, and they’re very powerful stories because as you say, they’re very optimistic. However low we have sunk, we can climb out of that pit and we can climb to the heights.

Rabbi Shaw:

Staying on Rosh Hashanah, another interesting question, and maybe this is more for you Sivan , we got asked this question; “I’m a mum.” No, I’m not, but the question is; “I’m a mother of four young kids and I absolutely love davening on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, please share some thoughts to help balance davening on the one hand and entertaining and inspiring my kids on the other. Many thanks and Shanah Tovah.” So it’s, you know, as I said, definitely a Rabbi Sacks question but I think, Sivan.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

No, wow, it’s like, I think I sent the question to myself, I have five kids and she has four maybe, but it’s my way. I think that’s really, these are real life questions. I mean, we’re facing, it’s not only, you know, philosophical concepts, that’s the real issues. I think the most spiritual tefillot are the tefillot, the prayers when mothers daven with the kid that is interrupting. They always come when you start Amidah, when you start Shemonah Esrei, they have this system, you know, you start Pesukei DeZimra, it,s okay, Shema Yisrael, then you stand, they come. And so, first of all, my advice, piece of advice, tip, they grow up. Well, I mean, they grow up. I have five kids, the little one still comes during Amidah. I’ll tell you something, the girl, my girl she’s 13. She doesn’t know, she goes to shul sometimes, she doesn’t come in the middle, they grow up, they become more mature.

These are hard years, raising small kids today takes, I think we need the most, I mean the hardest middah today is patience because everything’s so fast and accessible, available. So, even like, pregnancy, nine months, that’s like, you know, for nowadays that’s like…

Rabbi Shaw:

A lifetime.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Yeah, a lifetime, it’s eternity. So basically, but I don’t want to just tell her, at the end of the day, it passes. Take advantage of these special times when you have the time to be with them. For years, I didn’t go to shul shabbas morning, even today, sometimes I’m with my kids. And it’s also holy to understand that what we do at home in the inner place, I mean in daled amot, you know, it’s also holy. That’s something I didn’t as a young mother, I’m 38 today, but when I was like, in my twenties, I didn’t get it.

And now I start really realising that what I do out there is, at the end of the day, it’s important, but it’s not the real test. I mean, it’s good, you get all these, you know, likes, feedback, response, everything when you’re out there. What you do in there, that’s the real challenge, that’s the real test. And that’s really holy, don’t feel like it’s bedi’eved, that’s lechatchila, now you’re with the kids, find the time, with your husband, of course, he’s part of the system, find the right time. But I think that’s the conflict, that’s the thing, don’t run away, be there.

Rabbi Shaw:

Embrace it.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Yeah.

Rabbi Shaw:

I know, Rabbi Sacks, you’ve spoken many times about the importance of what Sivan is saying of that home environment, of what is happening, I mean obviously, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we go to shul. There’s also the aspect that we’re not a shul-based religion, we’re a home-based religion and how that balance we’ve got to find in terms of those two areas of going to shul, and obviously having strong identities at home.

Rabbi Sacks:

I think to myself, you know, what led me in one particular direction, the road of teshuvah. And that is the simple fact that my parents are aleihem hashalom, although they didn’t know very much, loved Judaism, they just loved it. Whenever my father felt Jewish, I saw him stand an inch taller. And, you know, he loved going to shul. He loved, you know, whatever was Jewish, gave them pride. And I think that is the biggest thing they gave me and my three brothers, that sense of Jewish identity and Jewish practice being a privilege, being a real zechut you know, a kavod. So, I’ve always known. You know, for 22 years, I was Chief Rabbi of this community and we really focused on building Jewish day schools. And we built a lot of Jewish day schools, but I always knew that the biggest single influence on how children develop is home, it’s not school. School is right up there at number two, but it’s not number one.

Somebody asked me, “What do I have to say to my children to make sure they don’t marry out?” And I said, “Don’t say anything. Just let them see that you love everything about being Jewish.” And that is, I think, the most powerful example. And I remember just watching my dad davening, just watching your parents’ tefillah, that itself is something very beautiful. And for your children to see that there’s certain things that are really holy, you know, it’s something they don’t see very much in the culture outside.

Rabbi Shaw:

This is true, that’s definitely true. Then we’ll move away from Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and focus on the big questions that are happening in the Jewish world. And obviously Rosh Hashanah’s linked to that of course. But I’m going to read to you an opening passage from a recently published book called #IsraeliJudaism, which I think we will discuss before the web. We’re going to discuss later on how technology is really shaping our lives. It’s by Shmuel Rosner, Camil Fuchs and the Jewish People Policy Institute. And they say the following thing, I’ll read to you and I want to get your comments on this.

It says, “Zionism was a political movement with political objectives. Zionism was a spiritual movement with spiritual objectives. Zionists sought to rescue the Jews from a bitter fate, persecution, antisemitism, and assimilation. It sought to rescue Judaism from a bitter fate, exhaustion, paralysis, insignificance, and irrelevance.” To what extent do you agree with that opening statement and where are we today in terms of the Zionist movement? Where are we going to be in the next 10, 20 years?

I know it’s quite a wide ranging question, but I think it goes to the heart of Israel and probably the diaspora as well. How we relate to Israel, what Israel means to us, and where we’re going as a nation. So I think we’ll start with you, Sivan, kind of how does that make you view those statements?

Sivan Rahav Meir:

First of all, I see it now as a Mizrachi shlichah this year in the States. In Israel, you sure who you want to convince baruch hashem, Zionism, there’s no dispute. There is a dispute, you still have to explain the basic fact the Jewish people came back to their homeland. They have the justification of the case, just talking about Jerusalem. The discussion sometimes, we think the discussion is ‘67, the Six Day War. Sometimes we have to argue, to talk about ‘48, the Independence War, the legitimacy, the case for Israel.

So first of all, we still have this issue. You see BDS, you see here in Britain, you see all kinds of trends and things that are taking place. So anyway, I think we still have to work on the basic recognition of the basic Zionist movement, but of course it’s not enough.

And the next level, we can’t ignore the fact that after building a house, you have to put things in it. You have to have content in our content. And that is the question. What is the spiritual cultural content of our state? 71 is a good age to start thinking about what’s going on with us. And do we have a unique message to the world? Or we just copy paste what’s going on in, let’s say the West, the liberal West. Do we copy paste?

Sometimes people accuse me as an Orthodox woman, oh, you want Tehran, you want Iran, you and Rouhani are best friends, you just want another version, a Jewish version of Tehran. That’s not right, I think most Orthodox Jews do not want such a thing, but we do not want to have this to be another state of the United States.

So what do we want? That’s the main question. What do you mean a Jewish state, Jewish culture, Jewish vision? I think that’s the issue today and that’s the next challenge Zionism is facing.

Rabbi Shaw:

Both in Israel and the diaspora?

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Of course, of course. All of us.

Rabbi Shaw:

Best before we carry on. Obviously if this area now, if any questions you want on this area about Israel-diaspora relations and what we’re talking about, please do just put your questions in. And hopefully I’ll get them and be able to ask them.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Is it working by the way? Yeah?

Rabbi Shaw:

We’re getting questions.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

That’s the thing with David Rubin here. With Joanna, with Dan, there’s a whole staff working.

Rabbi Shaw:

Oh, this studio is…

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Yeah, studio behind the scenes. Thank you. Everything’s working? Baruch Hashem. Great. Okay.

Rabbi Shaw:

Rabbi Sacks.

Rabbi Sacks:

The most fundamental thing was really not fully put to the fore by any of the great Zionist thinkers. People thought of Israel across a whole range. Bialik, Berdichevsky, A. D. Gordon, Rav Kook z”l, and all the rest of them. Each had their own particular vision of Zion. And yet the simplest vision of the lot, the one on which the Torah based is that the Torah is the constitution of a society. You don’t expect a religious document to look like the Torah. Most religious literatures are about the welfare of the soul and finding grace and salvation. Whereas the Torah is about how you run an economy, how you run an agriculture, how you run a welfare system. What do you do with the widow of the orphan and the stranger within your gates, et cetera, et cetera.

Zionism obviously had this very physical dimension, which was totally necessary. Jews had nowhere that they could call home in the Robert Frost sense. As the place where when you have to go there, they have to let you in. And that was shown during the Shoah with the most tragic consequences.
At the same time, Ahad Ha’am, who had this cultural Zionism, or ruchani Zionism, was clearly mistaken in thinking all you needed was this spiritual regeneration that could then spread to the rest of the world.

One way or another, you need to bring those two strands together, and they haven’t quite come together. The end result is that people don’t realise how great and how Jewish Israel actually is. So, when I look at all the bad things that happen, rachmana litzlan], the suicide bombings after 2002. What does Israel do? They become the world’s experts in rapid response, in post-traumatic stress disorder. Along come all the missiles, they come along and invent Iron Dome. You throw anything at Israel and it has this capacity of turning a klala, a curse, into a bracha, blessing. And they then go and sell it to the rest of the world. This is astonishing, I mean, absolutely incredible.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

We have traffic jams, we invent Waze. Yeah.

Rabbi Sacks:

Yeah. Waze to my mind is the most ruchni invention ever, because it did more for shalom bayit than anything. You know how many marriages fell apart because “why didn’t he sit down?”, “why didn’t you read the map?” And she said to him, “why didn’t you stop and ask for instructions?” Marriages fell apart over this. Waze came along and created shalom bayit.

So one way or another, Israel finds solutions to the world’s problems. The second thing it does, magnificently, is uvacharta bachayim, to sanctify life, by developing medical technologies, nanotechnologies, life enhancing things. You have a quadriplegic in Israel, so what does he do? He invents the exoskeleton, something that for the first time in history allows quadriplegics to walk. One way or another this is affirming life the whole time through.

Now, if you could communicate some of this, secular Israelis would not feel so secular. They would suddenly understand, “Hey, I can relate to that, actually, that’s what I’m about.” I’ve often said that secular Israelis are the only people who truly believe that secular Israelis are secular, heim ma’aminim b’nei ma’aminim. They’re really deeply believing, except that nobody reached out to them.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

By the way, I’ll add to these beautiful facts the demographic numbers about birth in Israel. We’re the only place where it’s not declining. Western democracy which believes in life and bringing the next generation into this world. You know what’s going on in Europe when it comes to the percentage, .so you also see it in Israel, the positive.

Rabbi Sacks:

In Europe, there is not one country out of the 27, that has even a zero population growth, which is 2.1. They range from Britain at 1.8 to Germany and Spain, 1.3. Italy, 1.3. And to have a child in Israel after the Shoah, that is like Job in the book that bears his name. In the last chapter, he has more children.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Yeah.

Rabbi Sacks:

People think that Hashem is giving back the children that he lost. No, that’s not the point of the last chapter. The point is that after everything that Job went through, he had the courage to have children again. And we heard this story about Mrs. Ovitz, a Holocaust survivor, 104 years old with 400 direct descendants, that is choosing life.

So I think if people could only see the spirituality of secularity in Israel, you would begin to bring these worlds together and let not only Jews, but the world see that Israel is actually different.

And then you would immediately see some of the issues that need addressing like the education system in Israel. We predicated our very existence on education. Israel should be spending a higher percentage of its GDP on education than any country in the world, and it isn’t right now. And you begin to address problems of poverty because you know that’s a serious issue for the Torah. So if you could do these things, Zionism would have a new lease of life, Israel would have a better image in the diaspora, and dati and chiloni Jews in Israel would come closer to one another.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

I’m taking this message back with me to Israel, I’ll tell them, I’ll translate it into Hebrew, beautiful, spiritual, and sometimes you should look from abroad, you see how good we are, spiritual and good we are. Because we’re in the middle of trying to form a coalition, so you don’t always remember that.

Rabbi Shaw:

So I apologise for bringing down from that beautiful level down to the reality of Islam today, which of course you just mentioned Sivan. Which of course we’ve had another election, hopefully the last one for a while, but we don’t know. There seems to be division in Israel in terms of…

Sivan Rahav Meir:

What do you say? There seems to be a division.

Rabbi Shaw:

Seems to be, yes.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

That’s a British way to describe us.

Rabbi Shaw:

Again, when I looked to answer here in the UK and again, we seem to have a little bit of division and the same in America. It seems a real polarisation of views and ideas. Obviously I’m not asking you who’s the next Israeli government, because I don’t think anyone knows. But in terms of how are you seeing as a broadcaster, and you Rabbi Sacks as a spiritual leader, what is happening in the world? Why it’s happening and what can we do as Jews? Maybe as humanity, to kind of realise, why is this happening? Why is this polarisation happening and what can be done about it?

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Okay, I want to tell you two things, two positive things about these elections. Although usually I interview the people anyway, that’s my job, usually I’m the drill on this and I’m on your side. So when someone says, “I just want to say only two things.” I’m like, “No, no, no. Choose one, because it won’t be long.”

But two great things that we learned this month. First thing, we can’t do it alone. All these sectors, fragments and parts in our diverse society, nobody can do it by himself. They all thought they can do it. You see the campagins. Only Netanyahu, I don’t want guns, the left they are, and guns only me, Netanyahu, listen to me, I’m sorry, but nobody, Lieberman, I can’t sit with the charedim, I really hate them. There were awful campaigns about the religious Zionism, about the haredim. I bannedd them, they’re extreme, they’re crazy.

Also, the Arabs were not willing to sit with you, they will not sit with them. Now, the final result, you see the numbers. The people of Israel said something here, nobody won the elections, nobody. They all, it’s a mutual, was a failure, but this failure means something. We can’t do it by myself, we need each other, we need each other’s assistance, we need each other’s help, we need Hashem’s help by the way.

But that’s the first positive message I get here. Don’t be too,kochi be’otzem yadi], it’s only me, it’s not only you, but it’s not only you. We said something here to our leaders. We all voted and said to them, “You must do it together.” Otherwise nobody will be the leader.

Second positive thing. I come from the States, as I said, I’m only there for a month. But there’s something there that is too sensitive. Everywhere when I speak, people come and say, someone in Atlanta, some woman told me before I started talking, she said, “Just don’t mention the T word.” I’m like, “The T word?”

Rabbi Shaw:

Teshuvah?

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Teshuvah, Torah. And she whispers, “Trump.” Trump, like it’s the shem hameforash, you don’t even mention him. And she said, “It’s too sensitive here.” The Jews, it’s too sensitive. Okay, okay, I didn’t mention Trump, but in Israel, nobody will come and tell me, don’t mention the B word, Bibi, yes.

We talk about things. I think the situation there is not so healthy. If you can’t discuss things, it’s really Europe, maybe this nation is really divided. It’s not my issue, but I see the people there, they are really, and in Israel, we can still argue and it’s important. We talk, we shout, we discuss things. We have conflict. We have confused conflicts and disputes, but we still, we’re part of the same family. And we talk about the things. Although we have our machlokot, we’re still part of the same nation, that’s how I feel.

Rabbi Shaw:

Rabbi Sacks, in terms of the polarisation, and you’ve written a lot about this in terms of what’s happening in the world today, both here in America and I guess in a different way in Israel. I think it’s different in Israel than what’s happening maybe in the Western world, but sort of ideas and thoughts on this area.

Rabbi Sacks:

You have to establish commonalities as well as differences. For me, the Seder table, it’s not very Rosh Hashanah sort of thing. Maybe the lulav and etrog is the best example, you know. The Seder table, you have the chacham, the rasha, the tam, the she’eino yode’a lishol, yet they’re completely different but they’re sitting at the same table telling the same story. You have the lulav and etrog, the hadassim and aravot, representing four different kinds of Jew, but you hold them together into agudah echat, into one group, and that becomes terribly important. I remember on a very, very sad occasion, I flew to the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin, and I flew with the Prime Minister John Major, with the head leader of the opposition Tony Blair, and the leader of the third party, Paddy Ashdown.

And normally, a flight from London to a Ben Gurion takes four and a half hours, but on the Queen’s plane, it takes eight and a half hours, it’s a very old plane. So we’re just sitting together, the four of us for eight and a half hours, and talking like friends, like real friends. I mean, John Major was being very, very open with the other two, telling them things he would never normally tell. Because there used to be this English thing called dining with the opposition. In public, you can be opponents, but privately at night you have a l’chaim together or you have a meal together, and you realise that your opponent is also a human being with a life story, with a life. So we’ve lost a little of that, and that’s seriously bad news.

I had to speak in America, the Shabbat after the 2016 presidential election. On Shabbat, in a shul where I suspect that 98% of the congregation had voted in one direction. The next day, I had to address a conference of Jewish organisations where I suspect 98% voted the other way. So I had to, somehow or other…

Rabbi Shaw:

Did you say the T word, or you didn’t say it?

Rabbi Sacks:

I didn’t say any word anywhere near the T word. What I was trying to do was to build a connection across a divide. And you just do that, you just do that by focusing very hard on the other person. vayar elokim… ki tov, (Bereishit 1:4) and you see something good in the other person. And somehow you communicate that you have seen that something good in the other person. Immediately, they begin to open up, and then you can talk much more constructively. And I don’t think anyone practises this art anymore, but it’s not a difficult art, it’s a very, very important art. I explained when I did Ted two and a half years ago, I was just trying to explain to them how I immediately knew when I met Elaine, that this was the person I had to marry. And I knew it because she was happy. She was exactly the opposite of me, I was miserable, and existential angst, and all the rest of it. And I suddenly realised that it’s the people not like you who make you grow.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Wow. For marriage, that’s a good tip, you do not have to be similar.

Rabbi Sacks:

This year we celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary, so it seems to have worked so far.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

But you’re not so miserable.

Rabbi Sacks:

Of course not, you marry somebody who’s happy, and then you change. But I do think we need to learn that art of working together across divides. Because it’s not good for politics, it’s not good for peoplehood. It’s really bad news.

Rabbi Shaw:

I mean, you mentioned the plane. Trump has a plane, maybe he could fly all the different leaders on his plane for eight hours, and maybe we could solve the world’s problems in that way. Those long plane journeys might be… Just before we leave Israel, I want just one question, which, again, to lift it up a bit as well, in terms of same way we asked about Rosh Hashanah, one experience that’s inspired you, what about Israel? An experience that inspired you about the State of Israel, Medinat Yisrael, that you want to share? I just think people want to hear your inspiration about Israel, so…

Sivan Rahav Meir:

I’m surprised to see how connected you are here in Britain and in the US, and how people are connected. Anyone in the States now asks me, where are you from? Where do you live in Israel? So I say Yerushalayim, but more than 90% ask where in Yerushalayim? And I like it, they’re involved. It’s not like a vague concept, the concept of Jerusalem, it’s the real Jerusalem, the tachlis, the practical, the real. And this neighbourhood, the other neighbourhood, they want to be connected. Sometimes they are even more excited than me as an Israeli. I’m seventh generation in Israel. My great grandparents came during the First Aliyah, the first pioneers, they established the city of Rishon LeZion. Sometimes it makes us, just like Rabbi Sacks mentioned earlier, sometimes we, the tsabarim, it’s obvious, it’s muvan me’elav. It becomes banal. it becomes not exciting. Coming sometimes to see you, how you see us so connected. You see the walls, in all the schools in America I see they hang pictures. They’re like, yeah, maybe we would, the Israelis would say they’re naive, they’re innocent, they’re tamim, yeah, they’re Americans. I like this temimut, you need to export that, I like it, you can teach us what’s so special about our state.

Rabbi Shaw:

And the pride we have in Israel.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

The pride you have, the interest, you’re so interested. You live it, I mean, really, I see, really, for me, it’s a new thing for me to know how I meet brothers and sisters for the first time in my life, but I really feel so close and they feel so close. I feel it for the first time. I was really concentrated in Israel, I knew nothing about world Jews, and now for me, meeting, this is great.

Rabbi Shaw:

Okay, so that’s kind of the inside out.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Yeah.

Rabbi Shaw:

What of the outside in? As a diaspora Jew, your experience of Israel in terms of inspiring for you.

Rabbi Sacks:

As far as I’m concerned, Israel is where Judaism makes sense. You take Succot, you celebrate Succot in London with the cold and the wet and the rain and the wind, and you call that zeman simchatenu? And then you go to Israel and you see what it is, what it’s like, and you suddenly say, ah, now I understand. You go to tikkun leil Shavuot in chutz la’aretz, you’ve finished, you daven about 3:30 in the morning, 5 o’clock in the morning, you walk back and you think, what am I doing? You go to the Kotel, and you see the groups streaming in from all sections of Yerushalayim, and you know perfectly well that even though that’s the Kotel, it’s the wrong side of the wall, as it were, but that’s what it felt like bizman shebeit hamikdash hayah kayam. And you think to yourself, this is what Shavuot is all about, this is kabbalat hatorah. Everything makes sense in Israel. And in chutz la’aretz, Ramban says this, that ikar kol hamitzvot yoshvim be’eretz Hashem. Everything makes sense in Israel.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

But I must ask, because the conclusion is, okay, let’s just tell people, make Aliyah, that’s the only way of being a real Jew today. And we know the majority of the American Jews will not make Aliyah tomorrow morning, okay? Even if I will be a great shlicha for the Mizrachi movement, I don’t see six million Jews leaving here in Britain. So what is your answer to those who say, yeah, it’s okay, it makes sense there, it makes sense here, too. What are the options for these Jews? That’s the majority of the Jews today.

Rabbi Sacks:

The truth is, as Isaiah said, tzav letzav kav lekav (Isaiah 28:10), little by little. Don’t expect it to happen immediately. Even kibush ha’aretz in the time of Yehoshua was not instantaneous. Great movements take time. Already something that anyone would have said would have been impossible just a few decades ago, that Israel should have the largest Jewish population in the world, more than in the United States, that’s already happened. Major Aliyot from former Soviet Union, from France today, America is getting very worried about the growth of antisemitism, in Britain, British jewry is, all of Europe is. And, again, I simply wonder if Herzl were to come back to life and see what he created, what he set in motion, I don’t know if he’d have made any sense of it at all, he didn’t think in quite such dramatic terms. So I think everything is going to plan. But in the meanwhile, we use technology like this to abolish distances. And we managed to abolish some of these, some of the dimension of galut, and some of the other distances between Jews in Israel and Jews in chutz la’aretz. I think it’s on schedule and I think it’s happening even faster than anyone could have imagined.

Rabbi Shaw:

Okay. Can I move on to another area which is more, I guess, about Judaism and other areas do with it. And I’ve got an interesting question just came in, and I’ll read it to you. It says, it’s to both of you, “would you say that wellness and mindfulness are usual additions to the philosophy of Judaism?” Which I guess they’re saying that these are new things have come into the Western psyche. Would you say they’re already incorporated within the teachings of the Torah? So.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

I just read a fascinating new book called Mo’adim Lesicha, maybe you’ve heard of it? No, okay. Really recommend to everybody who can read it in Hebrew. Beautiful book. Koren Maggid just published it in Israel. Talks by Rabbi Sacks to the chagim. You have a great translator in Hebrew.

Rabbi Sacks:

Oh, I see.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Tsur Erlich, yeah, mamash, mamash.

Rabbi Sacks:

Tsur Erlich is brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Because translating means also, you know, really-

Rabbi Sacks:

If Tsur is watching in or listening in, I want to say kol havkavod Tsur, you’re incredibly good, thank you.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

He’s busy with your next book, maybe, I don’t know. But anyway, mamash, he takes your spirit. It’s not easy to really try and translate the spirit. So I just read something about Succtot there, that may be a spoiler because I looked over. And what Rabbi Sacks says about living in a society of wealth, that’s something you write I think in many places. Also about this book, the fifth chumash we read, Sefer Devarim, that living in a society of wealth, that’s also a great challenge. Living with prosperity and with Western world developing, flourishing, good, positive world. You wrote that a society that faces a crisis, okay, it’s hard. But it’s maybe harder when the society is not facing any crisis. I really liked it because today, too, everything is so convenient and nice and cosy and available and accessible. And that’s even the hardest.

Maybe that’s the hardest thing to be a proactive Jew nowadays, when you have it all. And you really have it all. In Israel baruch hashem, in America, I was just here in Golders Green, it was hardest to choose the kosher restaurant, you have recommendations, but it was hard to choose.

Rabbi Shaw:

You chose a good one.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Yeah, we chose a good one? Okay. But my great-grandparents, they suffered, they were really hungry, they were really thirsty. We’re not really hungry, we’re not really thirsty, we’re not praying to get one orange from Eretz Yisrael, we have it all. And being Jews today, choosing Judaism today, I just formed?, that’s real heroism, that’s real courage, that’s real gevurah. That’s my idea from the new book.

Rabbi Shaw:

Rabbi Sacks, you always said “we survived exile, can we survive freedom?” It’s the same idea.

Rabbi Sacks:

Yeah. There was a singer whom I really didn’t follow and I didn’t even think was Jewish, which will show how dumb I am, I’m afraid, called Neil Sedaka. Man whose name is Sedaka is probably Jewish. And he became very successful and very famous. And he wrote a song, I think, called I Miss The Hungry Years.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Wow.

Rabbi Sacks:

You know, when you’re struggling to succeed, those are the vivid years. And there’s something about Pesach, where we remember lechem oni the bread of affliction, the bitter herbs of slavery. There’s something about Succot where we remember home less and less. And we don’t forget the hungry years, because if you forget the hungry years, you lose the drive, you lose everything that makes you creative.

But I think directly to address the question, is wellness and is mindfulness, are these Jewish concepts? The answer is a hundred percent. You have to go and read chapter four of Hilchot De’ot of the Rambam when he says that being healthy is a positive mitzvah. And I think it’s incredible how far we have come in increasing life expectancy. And much of that is to do with healthy lifestyle. Exercising well, eating carefully, and all the rest of it. And that is an absolutely positive mitzvah, the Rambam counts it as such, and should be accepted as such, it should be adopted as such. And most frum people I know, do take health seriously. They have personal trainers, and they do their… I try and do my 10,000 steps a day, and we work at it.
Mindfulness is another word for kavannah and is a fundamental Jewish value. I mean, really when we make a bracha of any kind, that is, should be an exercise in mindfulness, I would certainly recommend the teaching of mindfulness. When you eat an apple, that’s an apple, you make a bracha over an apple. If you begin to think of it, an apple is something, a Divine creation. You eat it more mindfully and you probably put on less weight.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

By the way, someone texted me from Israel. You spoke about heroism and bravery. That’s real bravery coming to Rabbi, Professor, Lord Sack’s house and talking with your English. So, I’m sorry.

Rabbi Sacks:

[Laughs] Your English is a lot better than my Ivrit.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Yes, we can switch to Ivrit and then, I tried to read Shakespeare and Churchill during the night, but sorry, that’s the level.

Rabbi Sacks:

[Laughs] You’ve done very, very well.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

I tried.

Rabbi Sacks:

Sivan, you’ve done very well.

Rabbi Shaw:

I think another area of the world that has changed rapidly of course is technology. And obviously we are busy getting messages on our phones to ask each other, which I think is a part of it. And we’re hearing a lot about the dangers of technology, of smart phones and screen addictions and sort of internet usage that’s sort of unfiltered, but let’s try and turn around. What would you say, what should young people be doing with technology? What are the benefits? What should they be focusing on to use this incredible technology for the better? What are the areas? Especially young people in both Jewish and the community at large, in terms of the modern day Jew and the modern day person, what do you think?

Rabbi Sacks:

Sivan you are the expert on this. We’ve just been following in your slipstream.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

[Laughs] Okay. Now, first of all, maybe there is some hypocrisy here because when it comes to my kids, no smartphones. So maybe, mummy, you’re on Facebook all day, you have this internet, millions of 9Baruch Hashem) followers, and all these social medias. What about us? But it’s important to me to let them now live in a more closed society. I think we’re doing mistakes with nowadays kids and for me, it’s important they’re not weird, I send them to schools where they will not feel weird, no, there is no Instagram all day and Facebook all day, and the kids do not upload pictures all day. I don’t know what is the minimum… the right age? I think my age is too young. I don’t know how my parents left me at the age of 38.

I see what it does to me. So, maybe there is some hypocrisy here, because as I said, I support really letting kids grow. Still, I don’t know until when, but as much as I can, it’s important for me. I see it affects them, I see it, it’s a good thing, but I can’t ignore the reality. Most of humanity, of course, people in our age were there, it influences us. And what I discovered after our fifth child was born, Yehudit, maternity leave, you have some time to think. I discovered something really fascinating. Rashi is not on Facebook, and Rambam, he didn’t upload a story for 800 years. And I was thinking to myself, I’m so concentrated, I’m focused. That’s where my mind is occupied with. I’m there for news, for culture, entertainment, politics, finance, everything comes, what can I do?

Where’s the Torah? I know the perfect situation is of course, open a book and sit, but what will the people of the book do with the Facebook area? And that’s why I decided to try, I’m a journalist, I’m not a Rebbetzin, I just posted one idea of Rashi. I remember it was a few years ago, and the surprising thing was to see it was the most popular post I ever had. I posted about… I saw people are more interested in scoops about Sara Imeinu than scoops about Sara Netanyahu. Now that’s a… Okay, so I decided to try just that it’s still, I just started two, three years ago. I try to bring these figures into our field and just make them be there. Of course, it’s not something, it’s not high-level. I just want it to be accessible to people who do not sit and study. Maybe that’s their Yeshiva for the day. I think we can, that’s this first stage how we can use technology, but I’m sure Rabbi Sacks has more profound ideas of this area.

Rabbi Sacks:

So now the truth is that I’ve been fascinated by this issue for some years, because I asked myself the question, why did Hashem reveal himself to our people at the time that he did. Somebody had once asked me this question on television, the question stayed with me. And I suddenly realised it had to do with information technology, that civilisation began with the invention of writing, that Judaism began with the invention of the alphabet, that every invention in information technology had huge spiritual implications. The next one after the alphabet was ancient Greece, which became the first alphabet to have letters for vowels, which actually changed the way people read it. It actually changed the direction of writing, Greek was originally written like Hebrew from right to left, and once they added the vowels, they moved it to left to right.

It energised the left hemisphere of the brain, and that led to all sorts of… Christianity was born with the invention of the codex. The Reformation happened with the invention of printing. Nationalism happened with the invention of national newspapers, etc. So every single new information technology has dangers and great potential benefits. They’re very disruptive. We are seeing right now a world being disrupted by smart phones and social media. You can be much ruder electronically, than you can face to face. And if you wonder why politics has got so rude in Britain and America, it’s the indirect consequence of smartphones. So when I saw the late Steve Jobs launch the iPad, I came in the next morning to, I was then Chief Rabbi, and I said, this is the face of the future, this is the game changer, even though technologically it was just a great big iPhone, but nonetheless, it was clear to me it was going to replace newspapers and magazines, and that was going to be big.

So that’s when we began to get interested in this stuff. And what really made me very interested indeed, and very anxious indeed, was the rise first of Al-Qaeda and then of ISIS, expert users in YouTube videos. We even travelled to Palo Alto to meet with the people in Google to find out what they were doing to combat ISIS videos. And they were telling us how difficult it is for them to combat it, because every time they take down a site, there are 30,000 other sites that immediately rise up. So, that is when I committed myself to saying that we have to combat the spread of evil on the Internet by using the Internet to spread good. So they’re very, very big issues here, but your caution Sivan is absolutely correct, because I did the research on this and virtually every single major developer of these technologies stop their kids from using it. Steve Jobs would not let his kids have an iPhone or an iPad, so you’re right.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

He knew something.

Rabbi Sacks:

He knew, he knew.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

But how come Shabbat… because of this really, we’re so connected all the time and everything becomes so superficial. And when I was a teenager, when we wanted to ask a philosophical question, we ask “if a tree falls in the forest and nobody heard it, was there really a sound?” Today you should ask, if two girls went to a mall and didn’t upload a post, a story, did they really go there? Everything becomes so… How come Shabbat, which is I think the remedy, the pure, the solution, I mean, maybe it’s our failure. I would expect Shabbat to become much more popular today, people to just disconnect…

Rabbi Sacks:

It is!

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Do you see it? Maybe after the lectures, I feel it becomes more and more…

Rabbi Sacks:

Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post has just embraced Shabbat as part of her Thrive campaign. She isn’t Jewish at all, I mean, Arianna Stassinopoulos as she was once, probably Greek Orthodox. So for her to embrace Shabbat is serious. Lots and lots of other people are doing so, they’re talking about screen-free day, they’re talking about digital detox. There is no question whatsoever that Shabbat is the perfect antidote. Jean Twenge of San Diego, of University of California, San Diego, who wrote the book iGen, which is the book on the current, what they call Gen-Z in the States, the kids who grew up with the social media, says that the best ration is an hour a day, but you use it much more than that, you will become very, very depressed because overexposure to social media, particularly for teenage girls is very dangerous.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Teenage girls, specifically.

Rabbi Sacks:

Teenage girls. In Britain, 14 year old girls, one quarter of them, say they have self-harmed. They’ve done something dangerous to themselves because they were depressed because of social media, one quarter of 14 year old girls. So that’s serious.

Rabbi Shaw:

Can I come to a close soon, of our wonderful discussion here. So I want to ask, focusing back in Rosh Hashana, which is in a few days’ time, you’ll be in Leeds, which we love. They’re looking forward to it, on your UK tour, but just, I guess, one minute thought on what you feel is the, I guess, the place we can make the most progress in this next year. Where should be focusing as Jews in terms of our areas of improvement? Where’s the area in the 21st century today where you think the way the world is going, that we should be focusing on today?

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Maybe I’ll start just because I want you to conclude and to summarise. I think, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, haRabbi miLubavitch, once said a beautiful sentence, influenced my life. I didn’t have the zechut of meeting him like Rabbi Sacks, but I read a lot of his, he left us huge legacy and I read a short sentence. He once said to a bar mitzvah kid that came to get a bracha. And this kid told him “Rebbe I came to New York to get a bracha, but I also go to the football game for this and this group and the stadium.” So the Rebbe smiled, and he said, “in real life, kid, don’t be a fan, be a player.” Means you can love this team, hate this team. I don’t care when it comes to baseball, football, but in real life, don’t be a fan be a player. Be active. Fans are just like fans and Jews can be fans, just sit there, standing there, clapping their hands or shouting something, but they can be players, go down there to the field because you’re part of the group, you affect the results. That sentence as a teenager really changed what I think… I was a fan, I decided to be a player, not sitting and saying, “oh, these charedim and these mitnachalim, and these extreme crazy people, and these orthodox…I want to be part of the team.”

Rabbi Shaw:

Participate, don’t be a spectator.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Participate, be an active Jew. Be part of the… join, the team.

Rabbi Shaw:

Okay, active Jew.

Rabbi Sacks:

It’s a brilliant answer. When we think of the shofar, we normally think either of the binding of Isaac and the ram’s horn, or we think of the sound of tears, but the Rambam, as you know, has a completely different view. He says, the shofar is uru yeshenim mishenatchem (Rambam, Hilchot Teshuvah 3:4) , it’s God’s wake up call, and he talks about how hashochechim et ha’emet behavlei zeman (Rambam, Hilchot Teshuvah 3:4), you lose a sense of what’s important and what isn’t important.

Rabbi Sacks:

And the shofar is God calling us to say “live for what’s important, not for what’s urgent.” I think all the stuff that we’ve been reading in our newspapers for the last few weeks and months and years is very urgent, but absolutely and totally unimportant. The difference it’s going to make to anything that counts is pretty close to zero. And Judaism is saying live for the things that are important, celebrating life, consecrating life, writing down the people into the Book of Life, and all of those things with all the mitzvot that make us say, “thank you Hashem for giving all these things into my life.” So I would say, live for what’s important not for what’s urgent and daven hard to Hashem to give us the strength to become the person he needs us to be.

Rabbi Shaw:

Beautiful thought to end.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Amen.

Rabbi Shaw:

Thank you, Rabbi Sacks for hosting us and thank you, Sivan. It really has been an honour to have two remarkable Jewish leaders at this table, and…

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Thank you Rabbi Shaw, Chief of Mizrachi, the Head of the Mizrachi UK here in Britain, todah rabah, and thank you the staff here.

Rabbi Shaw:

Thank you to World Mizrachi for all of this, and obviously to Yeshiva University, and all that have been watching from around the world. Thank you for joining us. Hope it has been a very inspirational prelude to Rosh Hashana. Wishing all of you out there a Shana Tova U’metuka.

Rabbi Sacks:

Shana Tova.

Sivan Rahav Meir:

Shana Tova.