Prime Minister - Transcript - Remarks, Passover Eve Service

PRIME MINISTER: It's wonderful to be here. Shabbat shalom! You have made me feel very, very welcome. I'm very pleased to be here with my dear friend Josh, and Amie, and with all of you. Can I thank Rabbi Gabi, Rebbetzin Mushka, to my Jewish friends who are here and to Jewish friends all over the country. Can I acknowledge the Boon Wurrung people and Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin nation. Josh shared with you that I've become, through my Jewish friends, a great admirer of the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. He was an incredibly wise man. And when I speak to my Christian friends, I say you should read a lot of Rabbi Sacks' work. He knows a lot about the Old Testament. He knows it a lot better than us. He was a very wise man. And he said of this time, and I think of all times, that as you come together to celebrate Passover, teach your children the history of freedom if you want them to never lose. And I think Passover is so much about that, teaching our children. We can become complacent about freedom. We can become complacent about our prosperity. We can become complacent about so many things that we could take for granted as a country as amazing as Australia, where so many have come and found freedom and found prosperity. Community, those who come together to celebrate Passover, and you gather around the same table. It is a time to remember that all of these things never came easily. And there were those who went before us to ensure that we could enjoy them in this country. But our faith inspires us and we share it with our children. So our children and our communities never forget. Never, ever forget the incredible price that has been paid for our freedom and our liberty and the wonderful life we're allowed to live in this country. And through telling the story and the passing down of that story, it creates connection, it connects generations. It connects values that underpin community and family. And we're encouraged to rededicate ourselves to those things, as we gather in the bonds of family and community. And that's why I love places like this. I love the community of faith. Something else Rabbi Sacks wrote, he said the purpose of Judaism is to honour the image of God in our people, and this is something very special about the Jewish community. There is a deeply held belief in the dignity of every single human being. Everything else comes from there. Everything flows from there. And that isn't a, an, an Arabic belief, it's a belief in both the frailty of every human being, as well as their strength. And in appreciating the frailties of others and the vulnerabilities of others, we understand the vulnerabilities and frailties of ourselves. And that leads to the other great thing that I love about Rabbi Sacks' work when he talks about the covenant of community, because it's a community of people who understand their weaknesses and their strengths and their vulnerabilities and their passions. And it all comes together and creates a beautiful community that isn't focused in here, but in true faith communities, they focus out. And the work that you do to support your community, and to have reached out to your community over the course of this trial of the pandemic, of these testing times of the pandemic. And as your community has held fast to each other and understood what each other is needed, I, as so many faith communities all around the country I observed - Hindu communities, Islamic communities, Christian communities, of course Jewish communities, in so many different faiths, in so many different places. Sikh communities, cooking the biggest curries I've ever seen. They're massive! They cook them in these massive (inaudible), they don't have, they don't have, they have a shovel - I've done it. But that's the expression of faith. Our faith is dead if it is not expressed in being the hands and feet of God, and being able to reach out and touch other lives. And that's why I think this is such a wonderful community and a wonderful time for community. Josh knew Eddie Jaku very well, and he's a tribute to Eddie was just wonderful. And when you try and understand how someone could have experienced what any and so many others have experienced, but could be so full of love and grace and light and generosity, it all comes back to that fundamental sense of values and faith and belief that you derive from coming together in this way. And it was Eddie who said, may you always have lots of love to share, lots of goodwill to spare, and wonderful friends that care. So can I thank you for your very warm welcome. I feel I'm very much amongst friends. I'm going to have a crack at this, Rabbi.