Diary of a Chief Rabbi

Rosh Hashanah Message

At this time of the year, I think back to my late father of blessed memory and what he taught me.

He had come to this country at the age of five as a refugee from Poland. At fourteen he had to leave school to support the rest of the family. As a result, he never had a proper formal education. I vividly remember the conversations we used to have when I was a child. On our walks back from the synagogue I used to ask him questions. His reply was always the same. He used to say, "Mein kind, I never had a Jewish education, so I do not know. But one day you will have the education I missed, and you will teach me the answers."

Can you imagine the effect those words had on a five year old child? I was a grasshopper, but I felt like a giant. My father wanted to learn from me. He wanted us, his sons, to go on ahead of him. He gave us two extraordinary gifts: the pride to want to grow as Jews, and the space in which to do so.

There is good news and bad news in our community. The good news is that many of our children - more than at any time I can remember - are growing as Jews. They have thought hard about our Jewish heritage. They have breathed the atmosphere of Israel. They sense the drama of Jewish life in modern times. They know that contemporary culture has nothing to match the power of Judaism, its ethics, its spirituality, its depth of meaning. They want to be more Jewish.

The bad news is that sometimes we are their greatest obstacles. We can feel threatened when our children want to become more religious than we are. Consciously or unconsciously, we stop them growing. If a certain level of observance is good enough for us, why not for them?

The answer is simple. What worked thirty years ago no longer works today. The pressures of contemporary life are enormous. We are living through an age of unprecedented change. When the wind blows most strongly, it is then that you need deep roots. That is how we preserve families when marriage is breaking down. It is how we sustain traditions in an anti-traditional age. It is how we keep hold of a sense of right and wrong when popular culture seems to suggest there is no right or wrong.

Our children need a stronger Jewish commitment than we did. We should celebrate this fact and give it every encouragement. To be a Jewish parent is not to want our children to be like us. It is to want our children to go beyond us - to be stronger, deeper, better educated, more observant Jews than we were. That was the gift I received from my father.

At this time of the year we call God Avinu Malkenu, "Our father, our king". A king demands obedience. A father wants his children to grow. Not by accident do we put the word Avinu before the word Malkenu. God is our parent before He is our king. That is why He wants us not to stay still. He wants each year, and each generation, to go beyond the one before. May we and our children do so - and may we be written in the book of Jewish life.

Wishing you, your families and the Jewish people a ketivah vechatimah tovah,