Righteousness Righteousness shall you pursue By Rabbi Albert Chai MBE UHC Leeds

The world is a gift to all of us, so together, let us live life in the best possible way, bringing peace and serenity to all.

Some years ago, Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal of blessed memory. was invited by Rabbi Eliezer

Silver. a well-known scholar, to join a special service of prayer and reflection as part of a gathering

of Holocaust survivors. To the rabbi's surprise. Simon Wiesenthal politely declined the invitation and proceeded to explain why "You see," he said, "in the Mauthausen concentration camp,

there was this one religious man who had somehow managed to smuggle inside a siddur.

"At first, I greatly admired the man for his courage that he had risked his life in order to maintain his worship. But the very next day, to my horror, I realised, that this man was instead 'renting out' this siddur in exchange for

 food. And how people were giving him their very last pieces of bread to spend just a few moments with it."

Wiesenthal said: "If this is how   religious people act, it is just not for me" and his devotion to Jewish prayer and organised worship from that day forward was fractured.

As he turned to walk away, Rabbi Silver touched him on the shoulder and gently said, "Simon, open your eyes"

"Why look at the one who used his prayerbook to take food out of the mouths of the starving? My friend, look at the scores of Jewish people who were so willing to give up their last pieces of bread in order to use the

 siddur and thus pray to Almighty God?

"That is faith, that is unquestionable devotion to God, even in the most harrowing of times!"

The two men embraced, and Simon Wiesenthal did attend the service of survivors the very next day.

For me. the most important lesson of all is the way we view life, the way we view each other, the way we see the good in another person, the way we challenge ourselves to love instead of hate, to understand, to respect

 and bring goodness to our world. This is true righteousness.

I therefore remind myself at this moving time of the year, as we read this week's sidra and hear the shofar for the very first time this weekend', that the need to be righteous is the most important of all.

The world is a gift to all of us, so together, let us live life in the best possible way, bringing peace and serenity to all.