成人快手

Harvey Belovski, rabbi at Golders Green United Synagogue:聽
Today, 9th April, is the anniversary of the death of a remarkable man. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor in pre-war Germany. Known as an extraordinary teacher and thinker, he was ordained at the age of 25 in Berlin. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, he opposed the regime from the start. Just two days after Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Bonhoeffer delivered a radio address warning people against sliding into a cult of the Fuhrer 鈥� Hitler鈥檚 title. The broadcast was cut off in the middle of a sentence, perhaps by the Nazis. Bonhoeffer put himself at incredible risk to fight the growing tide of hatred.
Numerous key positions in the church were given to Nazi supporters, and he often found himself isolated and harassed by the authorities. Yet, against much of society and many in his church, he campaigned passionately to derail Hitler鈥檚 genocidal mission against the Jews. He said: We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself. After a stint in the UK, Bonhoeffer returned to Germany in 1935, to start an underground seminary, preaching love for the Jewish people and resistance to the Nazis. Eventually, he was taken to a concentration camp and executed on 9th April 1945, just two weeks before liberation.聽
Thank God, most of us will never experience the kind of choices faced by Dietrich Bonhoeffer or the personal cost. But in our small way, I believe each of us has opportunities to stand up for things that are important. It can be to protect someone vulnerable who鈥檚 being bullied in the playground. It might be to call out a racist comment in the supermarket. Or it can be to stand up for a colleague at work who鈥檚 having a rough time. It鈥檚 so easy to remain silent and not get involved, especially when we may encounter abuse in response. Bonhoeffer taught us that we must stand up and be counted and to fight wrong whenever we see it: for ourselves, for society, and, most of all, for our children.聽
As he said: The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children. What kind of a world do we want to leave to our children?