Good afternoon. The first item of business this afternoon is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth.
Presiding Officer and members of the Scottish Parliament, thank you very much for the opportunity to address you today.
A week ago, Jews around the world celebrated the festival of Shavuot, or Pentecost. As we marked the anniversary of the giving of the ten commandments by God to Moses at Mount Sinai 3,300 years ago, we recalled the response of the Israelites immediately after this epic historic event. They unanimously and enthusiastically declared:
“All that the Lord has said we will do.”
That was a call to action. The children of Israel highlighted for us the essence of Judaism—a life that is devoted to the pursuit of constructive, meaningful and positive deeds. Our great book of the Talmud, the Ethics of the Fathers, puts it this way: it is not the talking that is important; it is the doing.
A religious life must embody good deeds, and faith must lead to responsible living. The people who change the world are not the dreamers and thinkers. The people who change the world are the doers, and the sincerity and integrity that accompany their actions are crucial. Abraham Lincoln commented:
“The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just”.
In a quiet reflective moment, when we look deep within ourselves, we know whether what we have done is the right thing for the right reason, no matter what the consequences.
With all that, reasonable, simple action is not enough. Through his revelation to his people at Sinai, God was going one step further through setting a seemingly unattainable goal. A group of slaves, liberated from Egyptian bondage just weeks before, were invited to embrace a moral and legal code that would transform mankind, but only if they were willing to open their hearts and reshape their lives and conduct accordingly. That is the very approach that the Israelites adopted, as they went on to achieve the seemingly unachievable.
As public representatives, members of this Parliament will have many ambitions and aspirations for Scotland. For the sake of bettering this country, we should constantly challenge ourselves and seek to do more and to achieve more. Let us set our sights high. As Pablo Picasso said,
“I am always doing things I can’t do, that’s how I get to do them.”
May God be with you in all your noble endeavours to achieve truly great things for Scotland.