The call. It was never my ambition or aspiration to be a rabbi. I went to university to study economics.

I then switched to philosophy. I also had a fascination with the great British courtroom lawyers,

legendary figures like Marshall Hall, Rufus Isaacs and F.E. Smith. To be sure, relatively late, I had studied for the rabbinut,

but that was to become literate in my own Jewish heritage, not to pursue a career.

What changed me professionally and existentially was my second major Yechidut,

my face-to-face conversation with the Lubavichar

rabah in January 1978. To my surprise, he vetoed all my career options, economist, lawyer,

academic, even becoming a rabbi in the United States. My task, he said, was to train rabbis.

There were too few people in Britain going into the rabbinette, and it was my mission to change that.

What is more, he said, I had to become a congregational rabbi myself, not as an end in itself, but so that my students could come and see how I gave sermons.

I can still hear in my mind's ear how he said that word with a marked Russian accent, sermons.

It was also highly specific as to where I was to work in Jews College, today the London School of Jewish Studies, the oldest extant rabbinical seminary in the English-speaking world. So I did. I became a teacher at the college, and later it's principal.

Eventually, I became again after consulting with the rabbi, chief rabbi.

For all this, I have to thank not only the rabbi, but also my wife Elaine.

She did not sign up for this when we married. It wasn't even on our horizon, but without her constant support,

I could not have done any of it. I tell this story for a reason to illustrate the difference

between a gift and a vocation, between what we are good at and what we are called on to do.

There are two, these are two very different things.

I have known great judges who were also brilliant pianists.

Wittgenstein trained as an aeronautical engineer, but eventually dedicated his life to philosophy.

Ron Heifitz qualified as a doctor and as a musician, but instead became the founder of the

School of Public Leadership at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. We can be good

...