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My good friend, my Swāmījī, ladies and gentlemen, friends, God has given us a great opportunity to do good. It is said in Jewish tradition, "vayinafash"—God breathed, God gave a soul to creation. The spirit is limitless, infinite, full of unending love. And the body is finite, limited, but able to bring this spirit to fruition. When Swāmījī and I were in the Parliament of World Religions, we were surrounded by the splendid variety and the chaotic togetherness of spiritual, motivated people. We encountered fear and hope. A young man from California said, "I have everything: money, culture, knowledge, passion to engage in improving the state of the world, but my greatest ambition is to become a grandfather, and I am fearful that I will never become one because of the man-made disasters that we bring upon ourselves." I was sitting in the room feeling, this is why I am here. And I answered, "Dear Michael, when I was born, a baby in '43, as a Jew, I was not given a chance to live. My chances of becoming a grandfather were zero. But because there were people for whom I was not someone they were responsible for—an unknown baby—but for whom I became in one instant a loved one, for whom they were prepared to risk their life. It is this compassion that has saved me. It is this compassion that will create a possibility for you, Michael, to become a grandfather." Yes, brothers and sisters, children and grandparents, I believe in this compassion. And therefore, I believe that we, as a human family, as one body and soul, will realize the Millennium Development Goals. We have to become conscious of the opportunity. And therefore, I am grateful to you, my friend Swāmījī, and I am grateful for everybody here who has come. We have entered on a pathway of promise. We have to prepare that in 2015: All children in the world—the 150 million who cannot write, read, and do arithmetic—will have basic education. A billion people who are thirsty, who have only contaminated water within reach, will have fresh water. And girls can go to school because there will be toilets and sanitation for the one and a half billion people who are now deprived of that right. Our co-worker, my co-commissioner, a great woman and a great humanitarian, Wangari Maathai, received the Peace Prize. I was sitting with my sister Wangari in a room when she cried, because despite the planting of thousands and thousands of trees, despite her fight for humanitarian causes, she was taken to prison, prevented from going to a conference we invited her to. I will tell her of this meeting, and in Oslo, when she will speak to the world, she will take with her this moment of hope here, and moments of hope in different parts of the world, of a new unity of spirit and body to realize the dream of peace. Yes, my dear souls, God has given us this infinite power of compassion. We from the spiritual world have to become the vanguard of a new time—a time where our identities in Judaism, in Christianity, in Islam, in Buddhism, in Hinduism, in humanism, in all our different identities, is not a division but is a synthesis of life. And so now, from year to year, till 2015, we will increase our efforts to bring hope out of misery. Franz Kafka, the great spiritual hero of this country, said, "A man stands in front of a rock and is thirsty. On the other side of the rock, there is water, but he cannot see it. One day he will see it." My great teacher Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to be." God has given us, in our soul, eyes to see the water behind the rock. So let us join hands and hearts and souls to discover and open the well of water behind the rock of poverty, of illiteracy, of torture. Yes, brothers and sisters, we will drink together with all humanity out of the well of living water.