蜜芽传媒

From Rabbi Julia Neuberger - Senior Rabbi at the West London Synagogue:

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Recently, I visited The Hook Lighthouse, at the tip of the Hook Peninsula in County Wexford. One of the oldest lighthouses in the world, it is the oldest operating lighthouse in Ireland. 36 metres high, it marks the eastern entrance to Waterford Harbour, guiding ships away from rocks and towards the river estuary.听 The existing tower dates from the twelfth century, though tradition has it that Dubh谩n, a missionary to the Wexford area, established some sort of beacon there as early as the fifth century.

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Nothing unusual about all that. But what IS fascinating is that the first custodians of the lighthouse were a small group of monks whose monastery was situated on the peninsula. They lit warning fires and beacons throughout the years, possibly starting as early as the fifth century, and they became the first official lighthouse-keepers. They probably helped build the tower too. The inside has the feel of a monastery, though eventually, with the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth century, it became home to secular lighthouse keepers. But what鈥檚 so fascinating is that part of the religious duty of these monks, as they saw it, was to save life. In Jewish tradition, we are taught: 鈥淗e who saves a human life is as if he has saved a whole world.鈥� Those monks, from a different tradition, and probably even long before the present lighthouse was built, obviously felt the same. They carried coal up the tower by 115 uneven steps day and night to make the fire at the top that served as a warning. They lived, slept and prayed there. And, through their efforts, countless lives were not lost at sea, numbers we鈥檒l never know. 鈥淗e who saves a single life is as if he has saved a whole world鈥�. By that reckoning, those monks, and their successors, saved world after world after world.