Diary of a Chief Rabbi

IF EVER YOU GET TIRED of communal controversy, there is one antidote that, I guarantee, will re-inspire you. Go and visit one of our Jewish schools. There, on the faces of our five-year-olds, you will see one of the miracles of Jewish life - an ancient tradition renewing itself through education and the love of children.

That was what I felt on Tu Bishvat when, together with the local rabbis, I visited the new Hertsmere Jewish Primary School. The teachers had decided to join forces with the new Moriah primary school in Pinner to celebrate the day. Together, the children sang the songs of Tu Bishvat, made the blessing over fruit, and planted trees. Through their eyes you could see more vividly than in any adult encounter the meaning of this ancient day, the New Year for trees. Already they were beginning to internalise one of Judaism’s great ideas, that nature is God’s creation and we are its guardians. At the age of five they were learning, in the most joyous way, the awe and responsibility that are the Torah’s ecological imperative.

One of the children made a marvellous remark, in a way that only children can. The teachers had made a cake for the occasion. After all, if Tu Bishvat is the trees’ new year, it must be their birthday, so there had to be a birthday cake. I asked the children what kind of cake it was. On Shavuot we have cheesecake. What kind of cake do we have on Tu Bishvat? Quick as a flash one of the children put up his hand. His answer? Treescake!

IT WAS ANOTHER SCHOOL that provided one of the most memorable moments of our recent visit to Hong Kong, the first time we had been there since the hand-over to Chinese rule.

The Jewish community in Hong Kong is small but immensely lively. At its heart is the Ohel Leah synagogue, built in 1902, a gracious building in the Indian Sefardi style of the community’s founders. There are now three other places of worship, but Ohel Leah continues to epitomise the traditions of Hong Kong Jewry, an oasis of spiritual calm in the heart of a city that never stays still. (The Hebrew word for ‘city’, ir, is related by some of our commentators to the word er, meaning ‘awake’, because ‘a city never sleeps’. Nowhere in the world is this more true than in Hong Kong.)

Recently, the trustees of the community have engaged in an ambitious development programme. Two years ago Elaine and I went there to consecrate the new community centre, a magnificent resource with restaurants, lecture halls, lounges, a fine Jewish library and an Olympic-size swimming pool. This time we had gone to see the renovation of the synagogue, restored to its former glory by an outstanding team of architects and conservationists from Australia.

We were anxious to see how the new political environment was working out. The short answer is: so far, so good. China is one of the few civilisations never to have had a tradition of anti-semitism. The Chinese have a considerable respect for Judaism, its antiquity, its traditions, its love of the family, and the high value it places on education. My meeting with the new head of Hong Kong, Mr Tung Chee-Hwa, was constructive and encouraging. How China develops in the future will be one of the great questions of the twenty-first century. Meanwhile, Hong Kong remains a fascinating arena of the encounter between East and West.

Chief Rabbi in Hong Kong with right to left Tung Chee-Hwa (Chief Executive of Hong Kong) & Michael Green (a leading member of the Hong Kong Jewish Community)

All this, though, seemed far away the moment we stepped into the Carmel school. Started just seven years ago, it has more than doubled in size since our last visit. Led by two outstanding Anglo-Jewish educators, Jonathan Cannon and Michael Cohen, it has grown to over two hundred pupils, a remarkable number given the small size of the Jewish community. The children, just like their counterparts in Hertsmere and Pinner, shone with their enthusiasm for Judaism and its celebrations.

Even there, though, we couldn’t help noticing the impact of Hong Kong’s relentless business culture. I had told the children the old Hassidic story of the treasure under the bridge. A Hassid dreams of a cask of gold under the bridge in St. Petersburg. Eventually he discovers it under the floor of his own house. The moral is that however far you travel, you eventually realise that the greatest treasure is the one closest to you - your own faith and the lessons you learned as a child.

The children listened attentively. When the story ended, one of them - all of nine years old but already a budding tycoon - put up his hand. "Please sir, after he found the gold, who did he get to look after his investments?" Only in Hong Kong! Never mind. In the Carmel School, Hong Kong Jewry is building one of its truly great achievements.

THERE IS, OF COURSE, a serious lesson in all this. A Jewish community can have magnificent synagogues. But these alone will not secure its survival. Schools will. Not by accident does our greatest prayer, the Shema, say,

"You shall teach these things diligently to your children."

From the days of Moses, Judaism predicated its existence on education, the handing on of our heritage from one generation to the next.

Today, more than three thousand years later, I am in awe of the wisdom of that command. Ours is the most ancient faith in the West, yet it remains full of vigour. Why? Because we have at last remembered what a previous generation forgot, that Jewish schools are our best investment in the future. So long as we put the needs of children first, Judaism will stay young. That is the secret of Jewish renewal.