Make Gentle the Life

Commentary About This Jonathan Sacks Quote [Longer Commentary]

This universal yearning to connect and understand transcends culture and faith, challenging us to move beyond the divisive boundaries of ‘us’ and ‘them’. This isn’t just about understanding the world around us but understanding the vastness and depth within us. Just as our true essence unfolds in moments of deep reflection, so too does society’s potential for unity when we dare to transcend the barriers that seem to define us. Rabbi Sacks suggests that multiculturalism, originally seen as a bridge, may have inadvertently deepened societal chasms. Instead, he champions ‘integrated diversity’, a vision where each individual, rooted in their unique cultural and personal narrative, contributes harmoniously to the collective story.

But this journey, as Sacks illuminates, is not just sociopolitical; it’s spiritual at its core. Recognizing the inherent divinity in one another is foundational to building together. The challenge, then, is to foster a world where unity and diversity are not in opposition, but where the celebration of one amplifies the beauty of the other. And perhaps, as we deepen our inner attunement, we’ll find that the wisdom to achieve this balance has been within us all along.

The Home We Build Together

This is the Chief Rabbi’s [Jonathan Sacks] thesis on the future of British society and the dangers facing liberal democracy. A counterweight to his earlier book, “The Dignity of Difference”, Sacks makes the case for ‘integrated diversity’ within a framework of shared political values.’Multiculturalism has run its course, and it is time to move on’. So begins Jonathan Sacks’ new book on the future of British society and the dangers facing liberal democracy. Arguing that global communications have fragmented national cultures and that multiculturalism, intended to reduce social frictions, is today reinforcing them, Sacks argues for a new approach to national identity. Offering a new paradigm to replace previous models of assimilation on the one hand, multiculturalism on the other, he argues that we should see society as ‘the home we build together’, bringing the distinctive gifts of different groups to the common good. Sacks warns of the hazards free and open societies face in the twenty-first century, and offers an unusual religious defense of liberal democracy and the nation state.

—Rabbi Sacks’ website [The Home We Build Together: Recreating Society].