To the Jewish community of our country – and the world – I wish to say L'Shanah Tovah Tikatevu – the literal translation being “May you be inscribed in the Book of Life for a good year." It is often shortened to Shanah Tovah simply “Good Year”. We also have Gemar Chatimah Tovah which means "May your final sealing in the Book of Life be good." Or, one could just say Yom Tov “Good Day” or Gut Yuntiff which means "Good Holiday." Whichever, may all of you be blessed on this, the first day of Tishrei in the year 5772.
In the introduction you have heard reference was made to my disability. And, indeed, losing the major portion of one’s vision is a daunting test. The challenge, however, is to find ways to overcome a disability and, eventually to live a bigger and more fruitful life than before.And that, Honoured Guests, is the theme of this short address to you this evening.
What I would like to propose to you is the topic of “Disability” and, in particular, how this world we inhabit has become disabled since an unregulated and corrupt free market – nevertheless under the unethical control of some and with the promise of untold riches - was unleashed upon us. Never before have we seen such wealth and, never before had it been held in so few hands!
But, before I expound upon this thesis of “A World Disabled”, I should like briefly to sketch to you one of the themes from that amazing set of books by Ursula Le Guin - “The Earthsea Quartet” - which teh author based on a parallel earth, at a time long ago and light years away from this planet.
The noble Arren arrives on the Island of Roke, where the great school of the Mages - the wise men – is situated. Arren, which means “sword”, says to the Archmage: “The winds blew fair, but the news I bear is ill.”
Arren then talks about how the magic had gone from the lands. Spells had no more power and the words of wizardry were forgotten. There was a sickness among people and, even though the autumn harvest had been poor, the populations of the different lands seemed careless about it. And when the sickness befell one, you became like a person who has been told he must die within a year, and tells himself it is not true, and that he will live forever.
People were speaking but there was no depth in their speech and no meaning. They had become people that lost the ability to feel all passion.
The world had become rebellious and piratical; most men had become liars and the story all over was the same: The Springs of Wizardry had Run Dry. It was all evil and no remedy in sight; a plague that drifted from land to land, blighting the crops and the flocks and peoples’ spirits.
“They go about, Arren says, without looking at the world”.
Now let as Fast Forward.
Some years ago now the most powerful governments of our world made a pact to eradicate poverty by the year 2014. Instead, now we have to come to terms with the most dire of prospects: Poverty for all except a handful of the privileged – our greatest disability and challenge since our ancestors stood up on their hind legs for the first time.
When the President of the world’s greatest military power last week could say that the European crises is scaring the world and that the current financial crisis is the worst crisis since World War II, then there is something rotten going on.
But are we surprised? No, we cannot be when we accept that in supposedly democratic capitalist structures oligarchies control the central banks and, politicians deliver their constituents to all kinds of financial evil in exchange for the funding of their campaigns
We are talking of times in which raiders and looters sail the seas of our destiny and, wherever the banks go, the tanks go. It is a war of greed and the public has become dumbed-down onlookers.
Long-term planning has been traded for short-term profit taking. And, in the process, we’ve become victims of new words, such as retrenchment, downscaling, rationalization, change management – all pseudonyms for simply firing people in an effort to increase returns – and, it is done without paying heed to the losses incurred in terms of valuable skills and, our humanity.
Traders, or rather rogue traders, have lost billions for the banks. What we forget is that someone else’s loss are always another’s gain - we only get to know who lost the money but, we are never informed as to who it is had come into possession of those riches!
And believe you me ladies and gentlemen, we have to be very careful when we seek to think about millions, billions, trillions and zillions, because only a handful of people have the slightest inkling of what magnitudes these numbers represent. That is why the world – and even the bankers and ministers of finance themselves and even economists - can so easily be fooled by the clever clowns that focus on playing with our lives by the folly of speculation and fluctuation.
Those are the reasons why you and I have come to live under the shadow of financial fear.
This has become a sad world in which even religion and philosophy has failed us dismally.
The world is sick; the world is bleeding through a hole that has opened into the realm of death and destruction. As in Le Guin’s Earthsea Quartet this world is in dire need of sages to venture forth, identify the hole through which we are bleeding and, close up that fatal and fearful wound.
Sages who, once the repairs have been completes, will restore to all creatures their divine right to demand noble leadership, to insist on the re-institution of the ideals of service, of volunteerism and of chivalry and, to have wisdom, proper justice, a deeply entrenched sense of the fair, true equity and considered tolerance to this world.
As the Archmage tells Arren: “Nature is not unnatural. What we are experiencing in the world right now is not the righting of the balance, but an upsetting of it, and there is only one creature that can repair it, and that creature is called “we” and only “we” can do so by regaining the desire for life and the joy of its simplicity.
It is when we crave power over life – endless wealth, unassailable safety, immortality – it is then that desire becomes greed. And if knowledge allies itself to that greed then comes evil. It is then that the balance of the world is swayed and ruin weighs heavily in the scale.”
In an age where we are drowning in information but starving for wisdom, we require urgently the integration and confluence of the wisdoms from many different minds and many diverse fields of inquiry.
Raw data in itself is not very useful in our attempts to solve the seemingly insurmountable problems that surround us. There is a critical need for individuals who have the ability to establish appropriate relationships between relevant data and true knowledge and who, at the same time, possess the ability to identify the differences and similarities of patterns within the context of those relationships.
It is my belief that once the origins and consequent implications of these patterns are understood that these may then transmute into valuable knowledge. It is knowledge only which allows us to make predictions about our world. Information by itself does not do so and is quite useless.
Wisdom arises when knowledge is transformed into insight and principles and, once the source of such patterns becomes implicit, evidence of truths may then emerge that can be applied both universally and eternally.
The Archmage from Le Guin’s Earthsea – in our modern world - will have to be found in the ability of many intellects to debate differing perspectives in neutral and non-aggressive environments – a unique process of rational and sequential discussion by which global crises may become resolved.
The LSB is such a repository of wisdom where many of the world’s greatest minds have been brought together. The names on the LSB listings include numerous Nobel Laureates and range through the world’s top scientists, economists, anthropologists, businessmen, clerics, philosophers, sports personalities and many more diverse professions.”
The LSB has the most extensive speaker and advisory network in the world. It represents the greatest names and a plenitude of magnificent ideas. To that list now have become added the names of distinguished South Africans who bring with them a very particular brand of understanding and a unique experience of a shared world and its concomitant challenges which have become commonplace to all humankind.”
In an ever more connected and changing environment, organizations increasingly require external experience to gain knowledge, advantage, insight and wisdom.
In salutation to you, Wendy Morris, who has been responsible for all of this evening to finally happen in South Africa , I conclude with the words from that wonderful sixties song by the Beatles:
“Whisper words of wisdom,
let it be, let it be
And when the brokenhearted people
Living in the world agree
There will be an answer,
let it be, let it be
For though they may be parted
There is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer,
let it be, let it be.”
