For me, the defining moment was the reaction to the publication of my book, The Dignity of Difference, which was my response to 9-11, and it was published on the first anniversary of 9-11.

I had felt that 9-11 was going to shape the future of the world,

and that as an act of religiously motivated violence, we had to recognize the potential for violence

in religions, and respond to that. So I wrote this very, very strong

book, perhaps too strong, called The Dignity of Difference in which I argued that the great

religions had to make space for one another. This was a radical thing to say. And for many of my

rabbinical colleagues, not only in Britain but around the world, it was

simply too radical.

And the reaction was quite sharp and difficult.

In essence, I, as a chief rabbi, as defender of the faith, was accused of, really, I suppose,

one has to say, heresy, which is an awkward position to be in if you are defender of the faith.

And the attacks were so strong and so widespread that I reached a point of what I can probably call

black despair. I was not able to see a road from here to there. And that's when I had the

revelation, as near as I'll come to hearing a voice from heaven saying,

do you realize that if you resign over this, if you allow yourself to be defeated,

it won't be you who is defeated simply, it will be everyone who ever put their faith in you.

And that was when I realized that leadership is not primarily

about the leader. It's about keeping faith with everyone who asked you to lead. And at that

moment the whole tenor of my life changed. It stopped being personal. It was not about me.

It was about ideals and it was about ideals and it was

about people and about not letting them down. And having changed direction 180 degrees

and no longer seeing this as an attack on me personally, I acquired a strength which I'd never had before and has never

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