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To defend a country you need an army, but to defend a civilization you need education.
Jews know this in their bones. Our community could not exist for a day without its volunteers. They are the lifeblood of our organizations, whether they involve welfare, youth, education, care of the sick and elderly, or even protection against violence and abuse.
Religiosity turns out to be the best indicator of civic involvement: it’s more accurate than education, age, income, gender or race.
Europe is dying. That is one of the unsayable truths of our time. We are undergoing the moral equivalent of climate change and no one is talking about it.
Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent.
Much can and must be done by governments, but they cannot of themselves change lives.
Some years ago there was a study to discover the most stressful occupation. It turned out not to be the head of a large business, football manager or prime minister, but rather: bus driver.
Part of the beauty of Judaism, and surely this is so for other faiths also, is that it gently restores control over time. Three times a day we stop what we are doing and turn to God in prayer. We recover perspective. We inhale a deep breath of eternity.