Plenary, 14 Sep 2005

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Official Report 434KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. The first item of business, as every Wednesday, is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is Sir Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth.

We in the Jewish community are fast approaching the holy of holies of the Jewish year: Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the new year and the day of atonement. These are days in which we engage in honest self-examination. We ask ourselves not what did we do right, but what did we do wrong. We use two ideas that between them have the power to change the world. The first is apology; the second is forgiveness. They are the only ideas that have the strength to break the grip of the past.

Apology and forgiveness tell us that we can mend fractured relationships. We can acknowledge our errors and begin again. We cannot rewrite the past, but we can write a different future. Homo sapiens is the only form of life known to us that can say, "I did wrong. I am sorry. Let us work together to make it different next time." Human beings are the only species that can forgive.

That matters now more than I can say. Today, for the first time in my lifetime, we stand at a crossroads in history—not the history of Scotland alone, or Britain, or even Europe, but of the world. Let me be precise. What we face is not, as some have said, a clash of civilisations. What we face is a clash within civilisations: within Christianity, Judaism and Islam and within the great secular humanist tradition so proudly associated with this city—the tradition of Adam Smith, Adam Fergusson and David Hume.

The question splitting us apart is how we deal with change—unprecedented, anxiety-creating change. Do we deal with it with confidence or with fear, with reason or with inflammatory emotion? Do we seek to impose our views by terror and rage, or do we use the great institutions of what Adam Fergusson called civil society—the willingness to make space for the people not like us? Are we convinced that we are always right, or can we apologise when we get it wrong? Are we destined forever to hate, or do we have the courage to forgive?

A tone of anger has entered public debate since 9/11 and 7/7 that frankly terrifies me, as if there really were a clash of civilisations instead of what there is—a clash within each group between moderates and extremists, those who care for freedom and those who care only for victory at whatever cost. Long ago, Moses set us a challenge, which still resonates:

"Behold I set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse, therefore choose life so that you and your children may live."

Let us choose life and choose it together. Let us focus on the future and forgive the past.

May you have a blessed new year, and may God be with you in all you do.