Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks at the Olami Summit 2017

friends what an incredible privilege it is to be in this extraordinary gathering I always thought there was no cure for the British cold but I've just discovered it it's called Jewish warmth friends you are terrific to to sit together they bring mashina you have brought something world-changing here and from here go out and inspire the world friends let me thank on your behalf Rabbi Rafi Butler president of Allah me CEO rabbi menachem Deutsch let me thank our wonderful benefactors of Allah me mr. Aaron Wolfson and Elyon incredible people special thank you to Rabbi enough to leash if je roots and the team of the Jewish futures trust you've organized this whole thing and to caught us enough Tilly Bennett who has come especially for this weekend and we thank mrs. Bennett for allowing you out and this is terrific friends you're an amazing group and I have to tell you something I was asking myself why did I shame organized for the All Army all of my UD to come here to London to the banks of the Thames and I suddenly realized it must be because not far from here also on the banks of the Thames the one guy wasn't you issue I really wish had been William Shakespeare he was here so I want to quote you a line from Shakespeare that I found life-changing comes from Twelfth Night and he gets to the very heart of what it is to be a Jew he says some are born great some achieve greatness but some have greatness thrust upon them I realized of a pretty early age I wasn't born great and I wasn't going to achieve greatness but at a certain point in my life at university I suddenly realized that if you're a Jew you have greatness thrust upon you how sir Hausa because we are the heirs of the descendants of the most influential man who ever lived i rama v new claim today is the ancestor in faith of 2.4 billion Christians 1.6 billion Muslims and a few of us most of whom are here tonight here is a man who wore no crown ruled no Emperor commanded no great army performed no miracles and delivered no prophecies but who changed the world by his faithful willingness to follow the call of God we're the descendants of mush Arab a new whom jean-jacques rousseau the inspiration of the French Revolution called the greatest lawgiver in the history of humankind I have to tell you I sit today in the House of Lords it hard to get a minion is there anyone who's seen my speeches will realize somebody you stars people sometimes ask me which is better House of Lords or the house of the Lord sure I say always prefer shul to the House of Lords because in shul only the rabbi gives a sermon in the House of Lords everyone gives his sermon I have to tell you in the House of Lords this magnificent chamber used for the committee work called the Moses chamber and when my predecessor the late rabbi chief our Lord Jacob Ovitz was taken it was introduced to the House of Lords they said to him congratulations you're the first rabbi in the House of Lords he pointed to the great big painting that covers the whole wall of Moshe Rabbeinu bringing down the ten commandments from outside and said no he was the first I'm just the circuit we are the descendants of david i'm alec not merely Israel's greatest king but the greatest religious poet in all of history we are the heirs of the prophets the world's first social critics the first people to speak truth to power when Martin Luther King and Washington at Lincoln Memorial gave his I have a dream speech of the climax of this Beach who does he quote but poop scheme word-for-word from Isaiah from after jacquimo we are their ass and not only then but all the way through history we have innovated you name it in any discipline in physics Einstein sociology Durkheim Levy Strauss in anthropology was invented Hollywood Jews invented psychoanalysis apart from young all the psychoanalyst were Jewish but then I always say if you're not Jewish who needs psychoanalysis anyway all the great psychotherapies are most of them Viktor Frankl Aaron Beck co-founder of cognitive behavioral therapy Marty Seligman 36% of Nobel prizes in economics including this one the greatest music from all and Sherm Berg to the greatest poets in pop music the late Leonard Cohen Paul Simon Bob Dylan all the way to Sergey Brin of Google a Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and the world's greatest technological invention ever it's called Waze alias Google Maps do you know how many marriages Waze have saved do you know how many marriages fell apart because he said to her why didn't you look up the map and she said to him why didn't you ask for directions Waze has brought Charlaine buyers to the world I tell you something Jews didn't innovate once they innovate in every single generation and even though some of those figures were not particularly religious every one of them entailed that is Central Jewish idea that you change the world not by the idea of power but by the power of ideas and that's what Judaism is we are the people whose heroes are teachers whose Citadel's are houses of study and whose pattern is learning and the life of the mind and here is the problem you see this is why every one of you matters because today there are Canada Haro 30 and also million Jews it's a handful it's not the problem the problem is that wherever you look around the world between 1 & 2 & 2 & 3 young Jews is walking away from Judaism and that hurts I tell you why it hurts Jews have been around a long time we burn around twice as long as Christianity three times as though as long as Islam I remember when I was chief rabbi used to part of a British Commonwealth used to be Hong Kong until we had to give it back to the Chinese so when I went there under Chinese rule I had a meeting with the Beijing appointee of Hong Kong mr. Tung Chee Hwa the first governor Chinese governor of Hong Kong a lovely man who loved and admired Judaism he said he said rabbi sacks we Chinese new Jews have been around for a long time we've been around 5,000 years you've been around 6,000 years what I always wanted to know is what did you do for the first thousand years before you had kosher Chinese takeaways I said mr. Tong for the first thousand years we just complained about the food and here it is we have been around longer than almost any other nation we have been scattered to every country in the world we have known in those centuries every fate from the height of tribes to the depths of tragedy and yet never before in Jewish history ever have we had two things that we have simultaneously today sovereignty and independence in Medinah Israel and freedom and equality in the Diaspora there were times when we had one but we never had both before and today when every single prayer that you're bobbing say to your grandparents and their grandparents ever prayed back to 100 generations every one of those prayers has been answered and what are we doing we're walking away that is bad that hurts and that is why when I was a student I said I can't be part of this I'm going to get more Jewish not less I had no intention of being around by the last thing in my mind but I made a decision I can't be one of those who walks away and if you make that same decision there you're going to be more Jewish not less you will together change the course of Jewish history now you know and I know that it isn't easy to be Jewish there are all those laws all that learning all those restraints who you can marry what you can eat when you have to rest but let me tell you something everything today do you know this this is why we have grandchildren because they're the ones who explain it to me you said everything today is an algorithm what an algorithm is I haven't got a clue well I when I was young we had rhythm but we didn't yet they have the algo so this I know that without the algorithm you can have a little neighborhood bookstore you have the algorithm you become amazon.com there were a thousand search engines before Google but you find you're a Larry Page and Sergey Brin and you find the right algorithm you can change the world long ago in a lonely desert at the foot of a mountain in Sinai God entrusted a people a small fractures obstinate people with nothing particularly to distinguish them but he gave them an algorithm it was called terror and that algorithm turned them into the most remarkable tenacious fate defying people the world has ever known how it works I don't know but that it works I do know and you are about to embark on a future every one of you has dreams and plans and you're about to enter a future in which nothing is predictable the world is changing faster than ever before and it gets faster every year and you will need certain strengths to come through and thrive and succeed and let me tell you from personal experience what that algorithm of terror will do to your life number one it will strengthen all your key relationships no one has stronger marriages than religious Jews no one has stronger sense of community than Jews nobody has the same sense of collective responsibility of every Jew all over the world Kanye Sarala ravings a bizarre Shimon bar Yochai said when one Jew is injured all Jews feel the pain nobody has those relationships like we have believe me you cannot get through life and find happiness and success on your own all the studies show that your success in your happiness depend on the strength and quality of those relationships and that is the first thing Judaism will do for you number two all success depends on habits of discipline and willpower ha ha ha Jewish law is the world's greatest ongoing seminar in discipline and willpower try getting up for Chakri's every morning every other challenge becomes easy number three if you want to avoid burnout mid-career you have to find and keep Shabbat the world's greatest seminar in work-life balance a woman from Silicon Valley got in touch with me and said rabbi sex I'm worried or our children are addicted to smartphones they're ruining those social skills that destroying their attention spans they can't concentrate anymore so with my children we have decided as a family we're gonna have a screen free day once a week no smartphones no laptops no iPads she said you'll love what we're calling it we're calling it Shabbat that is the power of Shabbat today in the in Moses day freedom from the slavery to Pharaoh today freedom from tyranny to social media and email number four happiness is a matter of gratitude with attitude and when you are live is a Jew what are the first you say every morning mother honey you thanked before you even think you live a life that way and you will have a lifetime of satisfaction number five Judaism will keep your mind active for a lifetime because to be a Jew has to be a moment of life long learning I tell you something many years ago I was Russia - oh thank you thank you sorry I've just had Siri raising an objection toast of it says otherwise apparently Thank You Siri I didn't know you were Jewish as well but there you are I was rushed into hospital 20 years ago with a life-threatening condition I didn't you know just rushed straight from my doctor almost immediately to hospital had an operation saved my life I was just coming round from the anaesthetic and there's a knock on my hospital door it's an 80 year old Jew with a volume of Gomorrah and these are saying oh I heard you were here rabbi sex I thought we could learn tomorrow together I'm trying to die and he wants to like you more I tell you that will keep you learning and growing through a lifetime number six whatever you do in life you will need an internal moral code we've seen in the past years the past weeks have some of the greatest business people around some of the greatest Hollywood producers can rock monoliths lund and their career in shame why because they thought they could get away with it you never can you need the inner voice that says no and that is what Judaism teaches you and number seven for happiness for success for resilience you need a sense of identity you need to know who you are of what story you are a part we are not some free-floating atom in space blown by every wind to be a Jewish to be part of the greatest story on earth these seven things one make a small difference to your life they will make all the difference to your life they are all part of that remarkable algorithm that turned Jews into the most resilient creative transformative people the world has ever known and yes we may not be born great we may not achieve greatness but if we're Jewish we have greatness thrust upon us and yes it's hard to be a Jew it needs effort of dedication and will but it's the hard things that make you strong it's the hard things that give you pride it's the hard things that make you feel most vividly alive friends I want to win with the little stories curious little story of any of you heard of a a novelist called Dan Brown mister Da Vinci Code he's just written a best-seller called origin of you have you read it the current bestseller I'm not gonna do what IMDB call a spoiler but I will tell you this it's about a revolutionary discovery about how life began and he quotes by name a real figure a brilliant young physicist at MIT called Jeremy England who is found a way of expect explaining how it happened how life began and Dan Brown quotes and other physicists you see this if you look up Jeremy England in Wikipedia as well another great scientist of our age saying if England is right he may be the next Charles Darwin now Dan Brown wants to prove from this that you don't need to believe in God to explain the origin of life let me tell you what's fascinating the real Jeremy England there really is one responded to Dan Brown in an article in The Wall Street Journal just a few weeks ago saying Dan Brown don't use me to disprove God because I believe in God Jeremy England grew up as a sec Ladue 20 years of age he decided no I'm gonna become a religious Jew he lives today and practices and believes as an Orthodox Jew and I have to tell you I think that's a moment of pure poetry why because one of the great events in the modern world was Charles Darwin discovered natural selection and lost his faith today the next Charles Darwin has made a discovery possibly as great as national natural selection and he's found faith and he has found faith as a believing and practicing Jew I think that's a key to show him and I tell you that story to show how one decision like that can change your life and help in some way to change the world he made that decision at your age I made that decision at your age and now you must make that decision change yourself and you begin to change your world I promise you years from now you will look back and say that was the best decision you ever made so let us together take this unique moment of independence and sovereignty in Medinah this rail of freedom and equality in the diaspora and let us really live proudly as Jews true to our faith our blessing to others regardless of their faith and let us go and change the world together [Applause]