Stabilizing the euro is one thing, healing the culture that

Hear, O children of the spirit, the solemn words of Jonathan Sacks, a teacher of faith and a guardian of wisdom: “Stabilizing the euro is one thing, healing the culture that surrounds it is another. A world in which material values are everything and spiritual values nothing is neither a stable state nor a good society. The time has come for us to recover the Judeo-Christian ethic of human dignity in the image of God.” In these words, he reminds us that no coin, no currency, no empire of wealth can secure a people if their soul lies neglected. The balance of ledgers may calm the market, but only the balance of the heart can calm the world.

For though men may place their trust in gold and silver, though they may build alliances of trade and treaties of commerce, these are but fragile shields against despair. When material values are enthroned as gods, the soul of society withers, and the people lose sight of their sacred worth. Sacks, seeing the turmoil of Europe’s financial crisis, spoke not only to bankers and politicians, but to all who would listen: the true crisis is not of the euro, but of the culture that bows before wealth while forgetting the eternal treasure of human dignity.

Consider, my listeners, the fate of ancient Carthage. It grew rich upon trade, its harbors filled with goods from distant lands, its coffers heavy with coin. Yet its wealth was built upon cruelty, upon the sacrifice of innocents and the hunger for conquest. And when Rome came against it, Carthage found that gold could not shield its soul. Its markets burned, its walls fell, and its memory was cursed. Wealth without spiritual values, riches without compassion, lead not to endurance but to ruin.

But look also to those societies that remembered the sacred worth of the human person. The Hebrews, though often exiled, carried within them the flame of the Judeo-Christian ethic, the teaching that man is made in the image of God, and that dignity belongs not to the rich alone, but to every soul. This vision gave strength beyond armies, hope beyond exile, and renewal beyond loss. For when a society grounds itself not only in trade and treasure but in reverence for the human being, it builds upon rock, not upon sand.

Sacks warns us: a stable state cannot exist where the people worship wealth and neglect the spirit. It may appear strong for a season, but within it festers emptiness. And when the winds of trial come—when disasters, wars, or plagues arise—it will collapse, for it has no anchor beyond itself. But where spiritual values are honored, where compassion, justice, and dignity guide the hand of power, then the nation can endure storms, for its soul is whole.

The lesson, O listeners, is clear. Do not measure your life, your community, your society by coins or possessions alone. Measure them by the worth you grant to others, by the reverence you show to the weak, by the compassion with which you treat the stranger. Rebuild the culture around you with justice and with mercy, for this is the true healing that wealth cannot purchase.

In your own lives, hold wealth lightly, but hold dignity firmly. Work for bread, yes, but work also for the good of your neighbor. Teach your children not only to count coins, but to count kindness. And when you see your nation bowing too deeply before the idols of materialism, speak boldly of higher things, of the ethic that binds heaven to earth, and of the human dignity that no treasury can measure.

Thus remember Jonathan Sacks’ wisdom: stabilizing the euro, or any coin of man, is fleeting. But healing the culture, restoring the balance between the material and the spiritual, is the only path to a lasting good society. Take this teaching as a mantle upon your shoulders, and live so that the soul of the world may be healed.