麻豆社

Good morning.

To meet Lily Ebert, who sadly passed away this week, was an inspiration.

For many years, Lily lived with a profound personal struggle. On Yom Kippur 1944, when she was a prisoner in Auschwitz, where her mother, brother and sister were murdered, Lily made a promise to herself: She would survive, against the odds, in order to tell the world what had happened.

Yet, she couldn't. In her own words, 鈥淚 always wanted to pay tribute to my family, and the millions of others who have nobody to remember, but I didn鈥檛 want to speak of the horrors for years because I didn鈥檛 want to upset my children who I deeply loved.鈥� It took Lily 40 years to reconcile that tension and to speak about her horrific ordeal.

The challenge of dealing with opposing priorities, which Lily grappled with for most of her life, is particularly apposite on the 25-hour fast of Yom Kippur, which commences this evening. A day of deep contradictions, Yom Kippur is both the Day of Judgement, on which our fate for the coming year is sealed, and also a happy festival. We stand before God in contrition for misdeeds of the past, and we are also filled with hope and promise for the future.

This apparent contradiction is beautifully illustrated by the renowned Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshischa, who used to carry two notes in his pockets. On one was written 鈥淚 am but dust and ashes鈥� and on the other 鈥淭he world was created for me!鈥� These notes reminded him of two fundamental truths: our humility and our capacity for greatness. This is the tension that Yom Kippur asks us to hold in our hearts.

Life constantly pulls us between opposing priorities. At national level, for example, countries need to strike a balance between economic growth and social welfare, between individual rights and collective security, between national identity and global cooperation.

On a personal level, we face our own balancing acts: freedom versus responsibility, professional ambition versus home life, our personal identity versus societal expectations.

Grappling with such contradictions can be a source of great strength and resilience. We must not shy away from them because it is from the tension between them that we grow.

Through courageously grappling with the most challenging of life decisions, Lily Ebert, whose portrait now hangs in Buckingham Palace, became a model of hope and reconciliation,

A fine tribute to her memory would be if, like her, we can meet the paradoxes of life head on and do what we can for the future peace and stability of our fragile world.

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