In a couple of hours I hope I’m going to ask him, ‘How do you keep up hope?’ I’m referring to former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whom I have the privilege of interviewing over Zoom later this morning about his remarkable book Seven Ways To Change The World.

I asked his office to arrange this opportunity before the High Holydays as we badly need messages of positivity and empowerment. Our key Rosh Hashanah theme this year is making the world better. The world desperately needs it, and we need it too. We have to feel that there is something we can do, something we must do, so that we maintain our sense of direction and purpose, our tikvah, our hope and our determination. That is the essence of practical teshuvah.

I will ask Gordon Brown what specific contributions faith communities can make. Should he say, ‘Aren’t you a faith leader, what do you think?’ I’ll reply with some of the actions, big and small, taken by so many in our congregation and beyond, since that’s what keeps me determined and inspired.

We’re in the Torah week of ‘tsedek tsedek tirdof, justice, justice shall you pursue.’ (Deuteronomy 16:20) The rabbis had a principle of zero unemployment; God, they assumed, would surely never allow one single word in the holy Torah to be redundant. So why this repetition of tzedek, justice? It comes once to teach you to resolve potential conflicts calmly and fairly, like who should go first in a one-way shipping lane, and once for when you really need to resort to the courts,’ suggests the Talmud. (Sanhedrin 32b) ‘Once for legal justice, once for social justice,’ I’ve heard it said, or ‘Once for educational, once for ecological justice.’

A wonderful aspects of Torah interpretation is that the words strike us differently every year. So here’s what they’re saying to me today: The first tzedek teaches us the centrality of justice. The immense injustices in our world and the sufferings they cause millions of people, especially children, make the need for justice overwhelming. Hence the second tsedek: don’t let the big picture make you feel there’s nothing you can do. Contribute what you can; make one situation, one person’s life, fairer and better.

Yesterday I heard Clare Balding’s appeal for the people of Pakistan on behalf of the DEC. Over thirty million people affected, she said, outlining the scale of the flooding. Then she continued: if you can give ten pounds, that’s blankets, fifty pounds, that’s food for a family for a month. She left her listeners feeling that we can make a difference. World Jewish Relief has also appealed.

Tsedek, justice, and chesed, loving kindness, are Judaism’s supreme and universal values. They light the path forward for all humankind. They stand at the forefront of our values; they must guide our minds, hearts and deeds. That’s the first tzedek.

Then we need to break them down into what we can do, each according to our gifts and opportunities, every day. I’ve never forgotten what Sandra, the late and much missed Leslie Lyndon’s wonderful sister, said to me one day: ‘When I feel low, I go and give blood. I won’t have a day contributing nothing.’

In the meantime, I’ve had that Zoom interview. Hope, said Gordon Brown, is having the dream, like Martin Luther King, then step by step making the impossible possible. It’s large numbers of people doing what they can, day in, day out, with commitment and determination, and it begins with faith communities.