The Philos Project

Robert Nicholson:

Hello everyone. My name is Robert Nicholson, I’m the President of the Philos Project. And I’d like to welcome you to this very first instalment of our Nexus Speaker Series. I’m very excited to be talking today with someone who I personally honour and respect very much, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, former Chief Rabbi of the UK, to talk about his excellent new book, which is entitled Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times. It’s a terrific book and certainly a much needed guide for anyone trying to navigate this contentious and confusing world of ours., Rabbi Sacks, thank you so much for joining us.

Rabbi Sacks:

It is just great to be with you. And may I congratulate you Robert on the whole Philos Project and indeed the participants in this sort of conversation, because I’ve been so moved by the seriousness of the engagement that people have brought to bear, and I feel very privileged to be in your midst, if not physically, then at least metaphysically.

Robert Nicholson:

<laughs> Thank you for saying that, I really appreciate that. Well, for those of you tuning in, the Philos Project is, I think most of you know, is an international leadership community based in New York City that promotes positive Christian engagement in the Near East. Now, originally I had planned to speak with Rabbi Sacks myself hoarding him, asking him big questions about morality and times of crisis and all of that. But one of our Philos team members had an even better idea and she asked why not invite some of Philos’ best young leaders to join the conversation themselves to ask their own questions, drawn from their professional lives about some of the moral challenges that they’re facing day to day. So we are going to be doing that here in a moment. First though, as I mentioned at the outset, this is the first instalment of our Nexus Speaker Series.

Our annual fall Nexus conference has been cancelled for reasons that we all know, my favourite new phrase, due to COVID. So we created this series to bring the same rich and stimulating content right to your home. And I think it’s extremely fitting that we’re starting the series with our guest and I’d like to introduce him. Now, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks undoubtedly, one of the greatest religious and philosophical leaders of our day was born in London in 1948, married his wife, Elaine in 1970, with whom he has three children and several grandchildren. And he served as the Chief Rabbi of the UK and the Commonwealth from 1991 until 2013. And somehow in between all of that, he found time to write over 30 books, including Not in God’s Name and one of my personal favourites, a book on biblical leadership. His new book, the book that we’re going to be talking about today is called Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times and it’s already a bestseller in the UK, and now it’s been published here in North America on September 1st. He has degrees from Cambridge and Oxford. He’s been awarded 18 honorary degrees, if you can believe that. He also is a recipient of the 2016 Templeton Prize and the 2014 Canterbury Medal from the Beckett Fund, where I had the privilege to hear him speak in person. And among the many things that he has achieved that I have not, Rabbi Sacks was knighted by Her Majesty the Queen in 2005 and took his seat in the House of Lords in October 2009. Rabbi Sacks, thank you so much again for being with us and congratulations on the new book.

Rabbi Sacks:

Thank you so much. Let me explain a Jewish concept to you…

Robert Nicholson:

Okay

Rabbi Sacks:

…which is extremely relevant. It’s called nachas, which you would call what pride, I suppose.

Robert Nicholson:

Yes.

Rabbi Sacks:

And given that my parents were both immigrants and you always wonder as a little kid, my parents have given me so much, what can I give them?

Robert Nicholson:

Mm.

Rabbi Sacks:

And when in 2005 Her Majesty the Queen made me a Knight, Sir Jonathan Sacks, this allowed my mother, my late mother to come to Buckingham Palace

Robert Nicholson:

Wow

Rabbi Sacks:

and meet the queen. And I thought, that’s it forget about the knighthood, forget about anything else, the books, the honorary doctorates, that moment I gave nachas to my mother, and it was a great sort of moment in my life. <laughs>

Robert Nicholson:

That’s a beautiful story.

Rabbi Sacks:

I think Jewish kids do these things only to give a little pride to their parents. So that was a great moment for me. I can’t remember what the actual ceremony was, but I can remember my mother was beaming. <laughs>

Robert Nicholson:

I was going to say the look on her face I’m sure was priceless.

Rabbi Sacks:

It was great, it was just great.

Robert Nicholson:

Well, at this point, I’d like to dive right into the conversation and give the floor over to our Philos leaders. Our first question comes from Nick Hawatmeh in Washington, DC.

Nick Hawatmeh:

Hi, Rabbi Sacks. My name is Nick Hawatmeh. I’m originally from Michigan, but I currently live in Washington DC. Given the extent of cancel culture today, how can I know whether it’s worth it for me to start a blog, give a public speech, or even write an article. If I’m worried about one day doors being closed on me for having those opinions, what’s the point of taking such risks?

Rabbi Sacks:

Well, Nick, that’s an extremely powerful and challenging question. The only answer I can give is every single creative thing you do as a leader, as a thinker, as a pastor comes with risks. There is no such thing as the risk-free life, the life that is so risk free isn’t the life at all. There was a great Jewish mystic, a famous one in the 19th century called Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, very mystical, very full of love and music and poetry. And he said some very cryptic things, but very powerful things. And one of his most powerful statements has been taken now and turned into a song, which we teach our five year old children. And its words are “the whole world is a very narrow bridge and the main thing is never to be afraid.”

Robert Nicholson:

Mm.

Rabbi Sacks:

So if you keep your eyes straight ahead of you, you don’t look down, you don’t look side sideways, you take life as a tightrope walker, just, just do it and keep steady and you will come through it. Yeah, it’s full of risks, let’s not minimise the that, but we can handle those risks. Just focus on the way ahead. And of course, supposing you are criticised. You know, when you’re a Chief Rabbi for 22 years, you get quite expert in being criticised. Any day in which I wasn’t criticised was kind of a special, festive day, but they didn’t happen terribly often. So how do you deal with that? And the answer is, if you are criticised, there are two possibilities, either your critic is right or he’s wrong. Supposing he’s right, well, in that case, you’ve learned something, it’s been a learning experience for you, and you’re going to be a bit wiser in future. If he’s wrong, then that’s his problem not your problem.

And that actually helps you get through all the criticism. Now, anyone who is going to challenge you years from now for something you said in all innocence today, frankly, that’s a morally unacceptable world. It’s true we are headed that way, but we cannot allow that to happen, because a free society depends on free speech, freedom of expression, the open communication of our thoughts to others and the willingness to listen to the thoughts of others, even though they are different from our own. Out of that openness, great things come – civilisation, progress, mutual understanding, tolerance. So, every open society needs open conversations, every free society needs free speech. So don’t worry that one day you will be hauled to account for something you said in all innocence today, because then you’ll get in touch with me and me with a few friends and we’ll come and fight your cause, but I promise you, you will not be left alone. So go for it, Nick, go for it. <laughs>

Robert Nicholson:

Let’s move to the next question. Our next question comes from Emily Jones, who is joining us today from Jerusalem.

Emily Jones:

Hi, my name is Emily Jones and I’m a journalist. My question is, you’ve said it’s not so much self-help, but other help that we need. And it was almost always someone else who set you on a new trajectory in life. How can I look for such people to help me and what makes someone a good person to give other help?

Rabbi Sacks:

OK, here’s a story. I’m 20 years old, the year is 1968. I’ve just finished my second year at university. I am in a state of some turmoil because the previous year was the Six Day War, which all of my generation found really quite traumatic. And also I was studying Philosophy. I decided I would spend that summer, the summer of 68 in the United States. In those days, I don’t know if you can do this anymore, you could get a ticket for unlimited travel on Greyhound buses for a hundred dollars. So I went right around the United States meeting every Rabbi I could find and having the most wonderful conversations with thought leaders of the Jewish world. When I  was having these conversations, almost everyone said to me, there is one Rabbi you must meet Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who is known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

So, I asked where is he? And they said, he’s in Brooklyn, 770 Eastern Parkway. So I took the subway to 770 Eastern Parkway. I walked in, I said, “I have come 3000 miles to meet the Lubavitcher Rebbe, could I have an appointment please?” His disciples fell about laughing. They said, “do you know how many thousands of people are waiting to meet the Rebbe? Come back in 10 years’ time and we’ll try and make an appointment.” So I said to them, “well look okay, but, I’m travelling around the States, I don’t know where I am going to be but I do know that I have an aunt in Los Angeles, here’s her phone number. If the Rebbe can see me, please phone that phone number.” Well, I travel around the States, I arrived at Beverly Hills. Sunday night, the phone goes “the Lubavitcher Rebbe can see you on Thursday evening.” Now I had absolutely no money so the only way I could get from Los Angeles to Brooklyn was a nonstop journey on a Greyhound bus, 72 hours. I don’t necessarily recommend it unless you’re doing penance for something or other. So, eventually Thursday evening, I get to meet the Lubavitcher Rebbe. It’s a long story, I’m not going to bore you with it, but that was a conversation that changed my life. Now that was an ‘other’ who played a crucial role in my life. And I think, how was I lucky enough to meet this guy? Well, answer, I took a 3000 mile plane trip to America, <laughs> I took a 72 hour journey from Los Angeles to Brooklyn. You know, there was nothing accidental about it. I tried to put myself in the way of significant others, people I admire, and I’ve kind of done that all my life.

So you can spend your life being willing to travel a long way to meet somebody that you think might just have a truth that you need. And that is, you know, that’s one answer. But in the book I tell the story of how I nearly drowned on my honeymoon. I’m not going to tell you this story again, because it is just too painful to me, but it’s there in the book. And as I went under for the fifth time, not able to swim, completely out of my depth, I kind of lifted my hand and somebody from nowhere, because I didn’t see anyone close to me, grabbed hold of my hand and dragged me almost unconscious to the shore. Now that was not something I planned, it really wasn’t. So it’s a combination of actually going out to search for those ‘others’, which I’ve done throughout my life. And sometimes just thanking Providence for sending us the ‘other’ we need when we need that ‘other.’

Robert Nicholson:

I’d like to turn to Matthew Garces.

Matthew Garces:

My name is Matthew Garces originally from Georgia, but currently live in Washington DC. A question I have for you is as an individual, I possess many identities. I’m a Christian, a Latino, a man, just to name a few. Is there a right way to involve identity and politics without descending into the dangers of identity politics?

Rabbi Sacks:
We all have identities, <laughs> hopefully not too many of us have identity politics because identity politics is a way of saying my particular identity is all that matters. And of course, Matthew rightly says for none of us is that true. We’ve got multiple identities. I’m Jewish, I’m English, I’m British, I’m European, I’m Western. And I hope many other things as well. So, I think we’re all multiple identities, and identity politics, number one, radically simplifies that to a point which is really dehumanising because we’re all bigger than one box. Secondly, it is closely identified with the concept of victimhood, I suffer because I am X. And victimhood is a really, really bad thing because I mean, there are victims and we have to help victims and we must be compassionate and caring about them. But for me to define myself as a victim is really quite dangerous because if I define myself as a victim, I am saying that someone else other than me is responsible for my fate. In other words, I am handing over sovereignty over my life to somebody else. Well, I’m sorry, I’m not going to hand over my sovereignty to anyone else. Therefore, and I learned this from Holocaust survivors. All those years that I was Chief Rabbi, I became very, very close to our British Holocaust survivors. And the extraordinary thing is they were all victims, but none of them defined themselves as victims. They said, no, we’re going to take responsibility for our life.

And I found that moral courage of a high order, and I could never, ever go down that road of victimhood again. Victimhood, in other words, is a no-through road, it’s a blind alley. Once you’ve put yourself there, there’s really no way out. And thirdly, you know, what then becomes of identity? And the short answer is, I will invoke the identity I choose when I think it adds something to the conversation. So for instance, I’m a Rabbi, I’m a religious leader, but you will know from the book that that was, as it were, my second career, my first career was as a professional philosopher. So, you know, I thought to myself, you know, that in, in the year 2000, in the Summer of 2000, there was a big gathering of 2000 religious leaders, at the United Nations, modestly entitled The Millennium Peace Summit.

Put 2000 religious leaders together,  you do not get peace, but, you know, you’re sitting there thinking “who am I, you know, I’m one in 2000,” and then I thought, “hang on, no, no, no, not every religious leader is a philosopher and not every philosopher is a religious leader, so that combination of identities helped me say something that was really different from almost everyone else.” So I think I can speak in the public domain for instance as a Jew, if I feel there’s something very universal about the Jewish experience, that the Jewish experience gives particular expression to. And then I can drop that into the conversation and people will say to me, thank you for sharing that with us. And I think that applies to any kind of identity. There will be times when one or other of our identities allows us to contribute something to the conversation that nobody else can. And that is how you do identity without identity politics.

Robert Nicholson:

That’s very good advice. Our next question comes from Elisha Gray, who is joining us from Atlanta.

Elisha Gray:

Hi, my name is Elisha. I’m from Baton Rouge, Louisiana  but now I currently  reside in Atlanta, Georgia. My question is, how can we avoid considering ourselves as victims of societal trends, while at the same time realising that there are in fact conditions that exist that are not ideal for human flourishing and for our own success.

Rabbi Sacks:

Elisha, what a really good question. Actually, Robert, where do you find these wonderful people with these incredible questions?

Robert Nicholson:

They are wonderful, they are wonderful.

Rabbi Sacks:

Fantastic. There are societal trends out there and not all of them are nice. Some of them are yes, but many of them are really, really not. We just mentioned identity politics. There’s cancel culture, return of public shaming, post-truth, fake news, all this stuff, I mean really, really bad stuff off. And, of course there’s good stuff. I think in the last six months, we’ve all realised that it ain’t all gloom if we have Zoom. You know, here it is coming along and allowing us to connect globally like we could never do before. So, we are set in a cultural context in which many currents of that context are ones that we find challenging or even damaging. How can we avoid being victims of it? The short answer to that was given by that really great man, Viktor Frankl through his experience in Auschwitz as told in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning. Viktor Frankl said, “when I came to Auschwitz and they took from me, absolutely everything I had – my clothes, my hair, my name, my parents, my wife, everything,  there was nothing left.”

And he said, “I suddenly realised that there is one freedom that can never be taken away from us, and that is the freedom to choose how to respond.” So we have a culture today that has many elements that are quite damaging, But nobody can ever take away from us the freedom to choose how to respond. Do we go with the flow, or do we go against the flow. Now there’s an wonderful American, it’s a shame I really didn’t know about him many, many years earlier in my life, called Warren Buffett. And Warren Buffett has two great principles in life – when everyone else is selling, buy, and when everyone else is buying, sell. And that is, I think, what is known as being a contrarian. And that is how I’ve behaved towards contemporary culture for as long as I can remember. The good bits of the culture, fine, with the bad bits, okay, you know, I’m, I’m going to go in the opposite direction, I really am.

When I was, as I say, a Philosophy student in Cambridge in 1970, 68, 70, and every other philosopher there was, was an atheist, I thought, okay,<laughs>, that’s them, it’s not me. I’m  going to go in the opposite direction. And since I was working with some of the finest philosophers in the world at the time, my doctoral supervisor was somebody called Sir Bernard Williams, my undergraduate tutor was somebody called Sir Roger Scruton, I mean these are giants. And, the fact is that it would’ve been so easy to go with the flow on that one. They were my teachers, they were the greats, but I thought, no, absolutely not, absolutely not. My ancestors for the last three and a half thousand years were not simply pursuing an illusion. And, you know,  I kept my faith, they ran with Moses, with Isaiah, and I think, you know, 50 years on, I can see that was the right decision. So the short answer, Elisha is go with the flow on the good bits, on the bad bits, be a contrarian, be a Warren Buffett of the mind.

Robert Nicholson:

I love it. Let’s turn to Washington DC.

Frank Schembari:

My name is Frank Schembari and I live in Washington, DC, and I am the Vice President of the Philos Project’s DC Chapter. My question is, is there way to read the news more judiciously? You said that there’s people not like ourselves that make us grow, how do we seek out people not like us when social media is designed to narrowcast us based on our views, interests and demographics.

Rabbi Sacks:

Frank, that’s an absolutely fabulous question. And the answer is, don’t get your news from the social media.

Robert Nicholson:
<laughs>

Rabbi Sacks:

Just forget it. You know, you will get 50% of the truth, but you won’t know which 50% is true and which not. I just wouldn’t take that, I wouldn’t take that risk, Ever since the pandemic began, forget about the British press that I’ve been following, I’ve been following, well, several American newspapers, but most notably the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Now, I don’t know the New York times or the wall street journal, but I can tell you that having read both every day for the last six months, I think they’re on different planets, living in different universes. there’s almost no overlap whatsoever between the two of them. And I think to myself, goodness, how on earth is anyone in America going to get a grasp of the truth as Matthew Arnold called it, seeing it steadily and seeing it whole?

So I have always made a point, certainly for the last 50 years, of seeing what things look like from the other side. If for instance, you read my book, Morality, I haven’t checked the Index, but I think you will probably find the person I quote most is Nietzsche. And Nietzsche is the person whose views, every single one of whose views, is opposite to mine. But he was a brilliant man and very profound and very candid in what he said. So I always, I mean, I really spend a lot of time reading Nietzsche, not because I’m ever going to agree with him,  humanity isn’t about the will to power, and so much else of what he has to say is absolutely appalling, but this is a man from whom I learned. I mentioned Sir Bernard Williams, my doctoral supervisor, he was the most brilliant atheist of his day.

And I was in those days very religious and you know, we, we had a wonderful relationship. He didn’t agree with a single thing I said, and I didn’t agree with much of what he said, but my goodness, I learned from that man. I made a friend of Richard Dawkins, the British atheist, Stephen Pinker, the American atheist, the late Amos Oz. the Israeli atheist. We did public conversations, I did public conversations with all of these people, and I tried very hard, I mean, really to see the world through their eyes. And that allowed me to have a much firmer grasp of truth, because I had to enter into their way of seeing things, and then as it were, think my way through it. And that deepened my thought in a way that couldn’t have done otherwise. So, basically I adopt the same approach to news. I will never ever come to a verdict or judgement on anything without having read at least two alternative viewpoints. And please don’t settle, please don’t settle for the easy thing of using social media to find out what the news is. Use it to find out what your friends are doing, but not the world is doing.

Robert Nicholson:

That’s extremely good advice. And I have to say it’s very comforting to know that I’m not the only person who, despite disbelieving most of what he says, finds Nietzsche to be one of the most important thinkers in the last few hundred years. When I say that to friends and family they’re horrified, but it’s exactly what you said, the stimulation of reading that other view, it sharpens your own.

Rabbi Sacks:

Robert, can I tell you a little story?

Robert Nicholson:

Sure, please.

Rabbi Sacks:

In 1990, I delivered the big six lectures for the BBC known as the Reith Lectures. They’re the big intellectual event of the year. The first person to give them in 1948 was Bertrand Russell and a big thing, six 30 minute broadcast lectures on the radio. And, I did that thing then, you know, quoting Nietzsche, quoting all sorts of other people and people afterwards, when they’d heard all the lectures came up to me and said, “Rabbi Sacks, we can see that you went to Cambridge and Oxford to study because you quote your opponents.” I said, it’s true, I quote my opponents and I did go to Oxford and Cambridge, but actually that’s not why I quote my opponents. In the first century BCE, there were two famous schools in Rabbinic Judaism in Israel, the house of Hillel and the house of Shammai. And they disagreed about absolutely everything, ie they were Jewish. So, the Talmud says, eventually the law was decided in accordance with the house of Hillel and the Talmud in Eiruvin says, why so? And it answers, because the school of Hillel were compassionate and modest and taught the views of their opponents as well as their own, and taught the views of their opponents before they taught their own.”

Robert Nicholson:

Wow.

Rabbi Sacks:

And I said, “that is why I always quote my opponents.” So that is a very, very good principle. In academic life, in religious life, in political life, always have the largeness of heart and mind to be able to quote your opponents, and then you really get that, you really get to truth.

Robert Nicholson:

Absolutely. Beautiful. Let’s move to our Washington DC Chapter President, Kenzi Dickhudt.

Kenzi Dickhudt:

Hi, my name is Kenzi Dickhudt and I’m a graduate of Hillsdale College. Rabbi Sacks, how can people of faith respond better to the crises of addiction, depression, and suicide?

Rabbi Sacks:

It seems to me that just being human and having the capacity for empathy is going to take you halfway there. To see somebody in pain, mental pain, just like physical pain does evoke from us, or should, reactions of compassion, which allow us to reach out to others. And of course now you can’t do it physically, but you can do it metaphorically and give them a hug and let them know that you are with them. That’s the first thing. The second thing is that these are really, really serious areas and don’t enter them lightly except to give unconditional non-judgmental comfort, but don’t enter them lightly because depression is really something that requires trained professional intervention, ditto with addiction, and of course, suicide is, you know, I assume we’re talking about somebody contemplating suicide, these are really, really dangerous things. Before I was Chief Rabbi, I ran our Rabbinical Seminary and we put all Rabbis through a three year course in counselling, which trained them to deal with issues like this, but also train them to know what the limits of their expertise were.

It was tremendously important for them to recognise, here is a point at which I have to hand over to the professional. That’s really incredibly important. So, but that is, as it were the, the beginning. The second thing I think I would like to say is that the treatment of depression is a profoundly spiritual one. I mean, you don’t enter it lightly, but it is profoundly spiritual. Maimonides in the 12th century called a Rabbi, a rofeh nefashot, a healer of souls, or what today we would call a psychotherapist. That’s what that word means. And it’s really serious and it’s been my privilege to come to know, I mean, I haven’t seen him for a year,  a wonderful man, one of the heroes of our time, Aaron, known to his friends as Tim, Beck, the creator of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, a man who is deeply, deeply spiritual, but who has developed a form of therapy, which turns out to be the most effective form of psychotherapy that we have at the moment, as effective as drug treatment. I mean, it’s not totally effective in all cases, but I see the connection between his spirituality and his therapy as really very fundamental as it was in the case of Viktor Frankl. But I just want to tell you a story, I don’t know what relation this has to anything, but it’s about addiction.

We are coming up to the Jewish High Holy Days. And one thing we do, especially on our holiest day, which is the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur is we atone. We do teshuvah, we repent and hope to win Divine forgiveness. For the 22 years that I was Chief Rabbi, the BBC allowed me, invited me each year to make a half an hour television programme for sort of BBC One, prime television, as a message from the Jewish community to Britain as a whole.

Robert Nicholson:

Wow.

Rabbi Sacks:

It was extraordinary because we’re only half a percent of the population, really extraordinary. So I had to make it very, very universal, obviously. And one year, I mean, 22 times, it was fascinating. One year I was saying to myself now, how do I communicate to a completely secular public, the idea of repentance? And I thought a long time and I suddenly realised, the nearest equivalent we have is curing an addiction, because you have to go through exactly the same processes of regret, remorse, change of behaviour, et cetera, et cetera. I mean every element of repentance is involved in curing an addict. So, for part of the programme, I spent a day filming in a centre in north London, working with 18 year old heroin addicts.

Robert Nicholson:
Oh.

Rabbi Sacks: And I came to know the kids and I came to know the people who worked with them. I mean really wrenching, really wrenching. And the person who ran the centre, who was an angel sent straight from heaven, because I asked her, “what do you give these kids that gives them the ability to break free of addiction?” And listen to what she said, she said two things, “number one, we are the first people they have met who give them unconditional love.” Fine. “Second,” and this just blew me away, she said, “we are the first people they have met who care enough about them to say, No.”

Robert Nicholson:

Interesting.

Rabbi Sacks:

And I thought, wow, that is one of the most profound things I have ever heard. It explains most of religion to me, God cares enough about us to say no.

Robert Nicholson:

Interesting.

Rabbi Sacks:

So, you know, I couldn’t possibly have the expertise to deal with that kind of addiction. But I do know that the people who do so are actually angels. That was one of the great epiphanies of my life.

Robert Nicholson:

Interesting. That’s very interesting, God tells us “no”. You know, I never thought about that. Okay, few more questions. Let’s turn it over to Adedeji Olajide. He’s tuning in from Los Angeles.

Adedeji Olajide:

Hi Rabbi Sacks. My name is Adedeji Olajide, I’m a native of Los Angeles, California, and a graduate of Azusa Pacific Seminary. Amidst the global pandemic that COVID-19 has caused, there’s a lot of uncertainty, a lot of anxiousness, and a lot of stress. What are some ways we, as a society can push towards hope?

Rabbi Sacks:

There are two words that people confuse with one another. They think they’re similar, they’re actually completely dissimilar, and they are optimism and hope.

Robert Nicholson:

Mm.

Rabbi Sacks:

Optimism is the belief that things are going to get better. Hope is the belief ur if we work hard enough together, we can make them better. Optimism is a passive virtue, whereas hope is an active one. It needs no courage, just a certain naivety to be an optimist, but sometimes it takes a great deal of courage to have hope. I always explain to people ur as a Jew, when I look back on Jewish history, I think to myself, no Jew can be an optimist, but no Jew worthy of the name ever gave up hope. And that is the crucial distinction. Don’t listen to the optimists, the guys who get up and say, it’ll all be over by Christmas or it’ll et cetera. Just ignore them, they’re the optimist, forget it. Optimism is the cheapest thing there is. Go for the guys with hope, the guys who say to you, you know, I’m going to make things better, are you willing to join me? And out of that comes a hopeful society.

Robert Nicholson:

I like that. These are very good answers, Rabbi, thank you. We have two more, and these are coming from outside the United States. ur next question is from Ivanna. Ivanna is joining us from Guatemala.

Ivanna Gandara:

Hi Sacks. I am Ivanna Gandara and I am currently living in Guatemala. I am also a graduate from Nomad? University. Rabbi, what are the limits of online communication and why does this matter for culture?

Rabbi Sacks:

I have two tracks on this, they’re slightly different. Number one, only ever say online what you would say face to face.

Robert Nicholson:

Yes.

Rabbi Sacks:

Because electronic communication has something called the disinhibition effect, which means that we can be ruder, angrier, et cetera, et cetera than we ever would be face to face. So Rule One is never say online what you wouldn’t say face to face. And that is if you are communicating with a specific individual or individuals. If you’re not, if you’re simply making a case, making an argument, then I think you can use another criterion, which is: be fair to your opponents. I have known very great minds who were extremely extreme or eccentric, and what won my allegiance and affiliation was the fact that though their own views were quite difficult to handle, they were always fair to the opposition, and that had a huge impact on me. So, go through this discipline, having made your case, think how that could be challenged by somebody whose views are different from your own.

And then how could you answer that challenge? And you build those three things, your argument, the fact that you have listened to the argument of the other side, and the fact that you have countered that counter-argument, will build itself into an online posting that is distinctive by its fairness and by its willingness to recognise that your views are not the only ones. So do that and you will have a wonderful form of online communication, and bear in mind the general principle –  to win respect from others, you have to give respect to others.

Robert Nicholson:

Yes, amen. Our last question Rabbi, I think a very important one, certainly for us, all of us at the Philos Project comes from Igor Sabino. Igor Sabino is joining us from Brazil.

Igor Sabino:
My name is Igor Sabino, I am an Evangelical Christian from Brazil and I wanted to know, what are the ways that we Christians can help in the fight against antisemitism?

Rabbi Sacks:

One of the truly extraordinary things of my lifetime is that the Jewish-Christian relationship has been transformed in many parts of the world. For almost 2000 years, Jews and Christians stood in a tense relationship with one another, and today we meet as cherished friends. The most dramatic form of that story of course is Pope John  XXIII, a man who reflected deeply about the Holocaust, who read widely about it, read the writings of a French Jewish historian, Jules Isaac, who had written about what he called The Teaching of Contempt of the third and fourth century church fathers, met with Jules Isaac in 1961, and out of it came that immense movement known as Vatican II and Nostra Aetate. Pope John XXIII didn’t live to see that because he died in 1963 and this took place in 1965, but it completely transformed Jewish-Catholic relations.

And of course, in America they’ve always been especially good. So Igor, you have Jewish Brazil in Rio, in São Paulo, I think, good communities to be in touch with your loyalty?? and let them know you are there. And I promise you they’ll call on you when they need you. And likewise, I call on and have done for many years. Jews throughout the world stand in defence of threatened Christian communities, especially in the Middle East. You know,  in Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria, heaven knows where, I mean, we are dealing with historic Christian communities that have been there since the third and fourth centuries in Mosul for example,  and I think today there’s not a single Christian left in Mosul. I mean there were horrendous pogroms there, I mean really, really horrendous. So, actually the best help comes when we stand shoulder to shoulder fighting the other person’s threat. And I have never felt comfortable asking for support from my Christian friends without, at the same time, trying to lead from the front in coming to the support of their communities that were endangered.

And in fact, in any community, any community where you have these multiple faiths, it becomes very beautiful when you stand together. I remember for instance, how we stood together with the Hindu community when there were at least two horrendous terrorist attacks in Mumbai, for example. And the British Hindu community, which is almost a million strong, I mean, it’s big, you know, really appreciated the fact that they weren’t alone when they were going through their anguish. We can do this, it’s just so good, it’s so good for us, it’s so good for the people we help, and I think it’s so good for religion, because too often we have done one another harm and we have to say, “never again.”

Robert Nicholson:

Those are beautiful, all of these answers Rabbi, beautiful, beautiful answers. And I want to thank you for your work, but especially for the way that you embody your work in public life and I’ve seen you doing exactly what you are describing right now, which is to advocate not only for the Jewish people, but for other people from, and not just from one other community, from many. And I think that’s what I find to be the most inspiring thing about you, is not that you just have good ideas, right? That you’re a philosopher, but that you live out those ideas in real time for the benefit of other people. It’s really a beautiful thing to watch and you certainly remain a major inspiration for me and I think for most of us on the call here and I really want to congratulate you for this new book, Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times, I think  it could not be more timely and it’s extremely impressive and it has a message that I think you can see resonates deeply. And  it resonates exactly where I think it matters most, which is with the next generation. So thank you so much for being with us today, it’s really an honour and a pleasure.

Rabbi Sacks:

Thank you so much, Robert, thank you for the gifts you give us. Thank you for the gifts everyone who has helped put this together technically <laughs> have given this.

Robert Nicholson:

Yes.

Rabbi Sacks:

Thank you for the deep concern and understanding and depth of the questions. Thank you for all the people who are part of your project. And if I can just say this, the Rabbis said, well, the Bible says, book of Exodus says, that when the Israelites finished building the Sanctuary, Moses blessed them. So I wonder whether I could give that self-same blessing to everyone who takes part in your Philos Project – May it be God’s will that His presence live in the work of your hands.

Robert Nicholson:

Thank you so much for that, that’s so beautiful. I want to thank you again. I want to thank all of the Philos leaders who joined us today, they’re some of my favourite people and I think you can see why. And I want to thank you all for tuning in to this first instalment of the Nexus Speaker Series. I would encourage all of you to go to Amazon or to your preferred bookseller right now and order Rabbi I Sacks’ new book, Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times. It’s an excellent, excellent read, I promise you won’t be sorry. Stay tuned for details on our next Nexus Speaker, it’s going to be very exciting. I won’t spoil the surprise, but I promise you that you won’t want to miss it. Thanks everyone, and have a great week.