Freedom begins with what we teach our children. That is why Jews became a people whose passion is education, whose heroes are teachers and whose citadels are schools.
Interpretation
Teaching children is the first step toward freedom and a better future.
This quote emphasizes the vital role of education in achieving freedom and shaping a society. Jonathan Sacks suggests that by prioritizing education and valuing teachers, communities can empower their children, ensuring a legacy of knowledge and enlightenment that fosters growth and resilience against oppression.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of educational reform, one could use this quote to highlight how foundational education is to societal development.
Stabilizing the euro is one thing, healing the culture that surrounds it is another. A world in which material values are everything and spiritual values nothing is neither a stable state nor a good society. The time has come for us to recover the Judeo-Christian ethic of human dignity in the image of God.
Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent.
Jews read the books of Moses not just as history but as divine command. The question to which they are an answer is not, 'What happened?' but rather, 'How then shall I live?' And it's only with the exodus that the life of the commands really begins.
Why did God create mankind? Because God likes stories.
Find people not to envy but to admire. Do not the profitable but the admirable deed. Live by ideals.
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.
To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature.
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
This will never be a civilized country until we spend more money for books than we do for chewing gum.
I loved to read, and I think any child who loves to read will read anything, including the back of the cereal box, which I did every morning.
School prepares for the alienating institutionalization of life by teaching the need to be taught. Once this lesson is learned, people lose their incentive to grow in independence; they no longer find relatedness attractive, and close themselves off to the surprises which life offers when it is not predetermined by institutional definition.
Think! Think and wonder. Wonder and think. How much water can 55 elephants drink?
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