Inaugural John and Anna Belfer Oration in the History of Jewish Philosophy
Monday, 30 June 2025
The Great Synagogue, Sydney
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC
We meet tonight on the traditional lands of the Gadigal, and I pay my respects to their Elders past, present, and future.
Chief Justice,[1] Your Grace,[2] Justices of the Supreme Court,[3] Auxiliary Bishop,[4] Dean,[5] Archdeacon,[6] Special Envoy to Combat Anti-Semitism,[7] Chief Minister and President of the Great Synagogue,[8] Chancellor and Vice Chancellor,[9] distinguished guests all.
‘Philosophy’—literally the love of wisdom from the Greek philosophia—like its etymology, is a discipline derived from the Hellenistic world of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Predicated on a common purpose—seeking to understand the world and our relationship to it and within it—its concepts, frameworks and approaches have evolved in different eras and through different traditions.
As such, and of necessity, it is a conversation, a collaboration, and an exchange between the past and the present—between inherited traditions and contemporary interpretations. In keeping with tonight’s Oration, the traditions to which I refer are the Abrahamic intellectual traditions of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths, ‘the religions of the Book’.
The intellectual life of the Middle Ages saw schools of thinking flourish in the cosmopolitan centres of multiethnic and multifaith communities of the times: the 9th century Abbasid caliphate court in Baghdad; in Córdoba and Toledo in the 10th-12th centuries under the Spanish Umayyads; in 11th century Palermo under the Norman Kings of Sicily. In all of these communities, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scholars lived and studied alongside each other, not only in mutual tolerance but in a mutual intellectual embrace.
Writing, exchanging, translating, and commenting on philosophical texts in Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin, engaging in dialogue and debate they learned from each other and from the ancient wisdoms, which they calibrated into their modernity, expanding the wealth of human knowledge.
The Jewish contribution was then, and indeed from much earlier, as it is now, fundamental to this understanding and expansion. From the pioneering first-century Jewish scholar and exegete, Philo of Alexandria[10]; through Sadia Gaon;[11] and Maimonides, also known by the Hebrew acronym Rambam[12]; up until the modern-day, including Martin Buber,[13] Jewish philosophy is one of Judaism’s great gifts to world culture.
The History of Jewish Philosophy, an initiative of The University of Notre Dame Australia’s Centre for the History of Philosophy,[14] is an important addition to our city’s intellectual life. Convened by the distinguished scholar of medieval Jewish philosophy Dr Raphael Dascalu[15], it will constitute a further deepening in academic and public understanding of this remarkable intellectual legacy, articulated through research on the history of Jewish philosophy and its interface with wider Abrahamic academic traditions, translation projects, and undergraduate and postgraduate teaching.[16]
Tonight’s Inaugural Annual Oration, named in honour of John and Anna Belfer, endowed by the Belfer Trust, is an integral part of the Centre’s initiative.
A cross-institutional collaboration—between a Catholic University and this, “Sydney’s majestic and historic Jewish sanctuary”[17], heart of Sydney’s Jewish community since 1878[18]—is living testimony to the strength, the potential, and the rewards interfaith and interdisciplinary exchange provides.
It is an embodiment of what should never be forgotten in all our diversity. There are many roots, there are many branches; there is, however, one trunk: our common humanity, and with that, our shared and vital purpose: to strive to live better lives, not just for ourselves, but for each other. In these times of escalating global conflict and fracturing social cohesion, it is a timely reminder that this is a time for conversation.
The conversations, a word I use in a widely generic sense, facilitate the very purpose of philosophy—to inform, to interrogate, to provide a source of knowledge without which we will see nothing, or, perhaps more accurately, we will see only what we want to see.
This is something that concerned Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, in the 2019 third P.M. Glynn Lecture on Religion, Law and Public Life. There, he warned of modernity’s toxicity when it loses the capacity for self-critique and treats the perspective of others derisively. He called for “a shared language”[19], not so as to result in shared views, but, rather as a basis for discourse, a discovery of ideas, and for wisdom derived from learning.
We look forward to all three tonight.
It is now my honour to launch this, the inaugural John and Anna Belfer Oration in the History of Jewish Philosophy, delivered by tonight’s speaker Rabbi Dr Benjamin Elton.[20]
[1] The Honourable Andrew Bell, Chief Justice of NSW
[2] His Grace the Most Reverend Archbishop Fisher OP, Catholic Archbishop of Sydney
[3] The Honourable Justice David Hammerschlag, Chief Judge in Equity, Supreme Court of NSW, and The Honourable Justice François Kunc, Supreme Court of NSW
[4] The Most Reverend Richard Umbers, Auxiliary Bishop, Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney
[5] The Very Reverend Sandy Grant, Dean, St Andrew’s Cathedral
[6] The Reverend Athinagoras Karakonstantakis, Archdeacon, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia
[7] Ms Jillian Segal AO, Australia's Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism
[8] Rabbi Dr Benjamin Elton, Chief Minister, The Great Synagogue, Sydney, and Mr David Lewis, President, The Great Synagogue
[9] The Honourable Chris Ellison, Chancellor, The University of Notre Dame Australia, and Professor Francis Campbell, Vice Chancellor, The University of Notre Dame Australia
[10] 20 BCE-50 CE
[11] 882-942
[12] 1138-1204
[13] 1878-1965
[14] ‘Notre Dame Launches Jewish Philosophy Initiative’, 12 June 2025, University of Notre Dame website, available here
[15] ibid.
[16] ‘History of Jewish Philosophy’, University of Notre Dame website, available here
[17] Mr David Lewis, President, The Great Synagogue, Sydney, ‘Law Service for Commencement of Law Term Address’, The Great Synagogue, 12 February 2025, available here
[18] ‘Who We Are’, The Great Synagogue website, available here
[19] Rowan Williams, ‘Overcoming Political Tribalism’, ABC Religion and Ethics online, 2 October 2019, available here
[20] Rabbi Dr Benjamin Elton, Chief Minister of The Great Synagogue.