Tomorrow evening we begin celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. And there’s one thing about it I find enthralling. The New Year is, by tradition, the anniversary of creation – and you would have thought that we’d choose as our readings from the Bible, the opening of Genesis, “In the beginning God created,” and from Isaiah, “behold I am creating a new heaven and earth.”

But we don’t. Instead we read about Sarah’s prayer for a child, Hannah’s prayer for a child, and how those prayers were answered. Instead of talking about the grandeur of the universe, we talk about the birth of a child. Why?

Because we believe that a single human life is like a universe. If you want to understand the miracle of creation, look at the face of a child.

I find it moving that on this day of days we place children at the centre of our prayers. Children are the victims of the 21st century. 30,000 of them die every day of preventable diseases. In 88 countries there are children deprived of any education at all. In the Middle East, children have been turned into rock throwers and suicide bombers. In Beslan they became victims on the altar of hate.

Even in Britain, we’ve turned children into mini consumers, premature adults. We’re witnessing the death of innocence, the disenchantment of childhood.

And who protests? Sometimes after a tragedy our concerns are aroused for a day or two; then we forget and go on to other things. Talk to politicians about children and their eyes glaze over. I, for one, think that our neglect of children is the scandal of our time.

Today throughout the world, rival ethnic groups are replaying battles centuries old, but a culture that cares for children thinks about the future more than the past. It spends money on schools, not weapons; it consecrates families, not feuds. And it never teaches its children to hate.

People sometimes ask, what good does a religion do? To which one answer is that it ritualises the things that never make the news; it reminds us of values contemporary culture makes us forget.

One is that the greatest question the future will ask about us is: Did we make the world a little better for our children. To which the answer is: Not yet.

Children have no power, no wealth, no voice, no vote. But we are their guardians, and if we would only put children first, we’d create a different and better world.

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