Three thousand three hundred years ago, a group of slaves were liberated and began what Nelson Mandela calls the long walk to freedom. And ever since, at this time of the year, we've re-lived their story on what we call Pesach, Passover, the Jewish festival of the exodus; and we'll be celebrating it soon, at the beginning of next week.

To me it raises a fascinating question. Imagine we could travel back in time and meet the great Pharaoh himself, Ramses II. I know what I'd say. Ramses, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that one people alive now will be still be alive in thousands of years' time. The bad news is: it won't be yours. It will be that group of slaves out there, building your great temples, the people you call the habiru or Hebrews, the children of Israel.

Nothing could sound more absurd. The Egypt of the Pharaohs was the greatest empire of the ancient world; and the Hebrews were nothing - slave labour, powerless, not even yet a nation. Yet it was they, not the Pharaohs, who survived, and still do to this day. How did it happen? The answer, I believe, is this.

Ancient Egypt and ancient Israel were two peoples who asked the most fateful question of all. How, in this all too brief span of years, do we create something that will endure? How do we acquire a share in immortality? The Egyptians gave one answer. Build great monuments of stone -temples, pyramids - that will outlast the winds and sands of time. And they did. What they built still stands. But only the buildings, not the civilization that once gave them life.

The Israelites gave a different answer. You don't need to create monuments. All you need to do is tell the story, generation after generation. You need to engrave your values on the hearts of your children, and they on theirs, so that you live on in them, and so on to the end of time. You need to build a civilization around the home, the school, and education as a conversation between the generations. You need to put children first. That is what Jews did for thousands of years; and it's why we're here today.

And if there's one message I would like to shout from the rooftops, it would be this. Care about marriage, parenthood and the family. Let's spend time with our children, telling them our story, handing on to them our hopes and dreams. We don't do it enough nowadays; and it makes all the difference. It's the thing, the only thing, that keeps a civilization alive.

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