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Good morning. “It always comes back to haunt you in the end.” This is how Joe Root, England’s Test Cricket Captain, warned, in a conversation with a journalist, against the practice of ‘sledging’, a term used to describe the verbal abuse of one’s opponents in order to intimidate or distract them. The current excitement surrounding the Cricket World Cup prompts me, more than ever, to reach for my favourite sporting analogy: We should all try to be batsmen and not bowlers! Whereas it’s the job of the batsman to score runs for his team, it’s the job of the bowler to bowl the opponents out. But real life shouldn’t be like cricket. We should never prioritise attacking others for what they believe above the pursuit of what we believe. To put it another way, we must never define ourselves by what we stand against rather than what we stand for. This weekend, the Jewish world will celebrate the festival of Shavuot, the anniversary of the day on which the Torah was given at Mount Sinai – just seven weeks after the Israelites were delivered from slavery in Ancient Egypt. Yet, the Torah does not tolerate any notion of retribution or hatred of the Egyptians. On the contrary, it commands, “You shall not hate the Egyptians, for you were strangers in their land.” The digital age has seen the proliferation of opinion journalism, which is, by definition, less concerned with reporting the facts than being heard over the noise of the crowd and winning the argument. This increases the potential for a reductive impact on the quality of our public discourse. Of course, robust debate and disagreement are essential for the health of any democracy. Our D-Day commemorations over the past two days have highlighted our responsibility to challenge and, if necessary, fight with all we have against the wrongs of the world, but that must not exclusively be what defines us. Many polemicists have seen their stars rise in direct proportion to the number of times that they have publicly humiliated their political or ideological opponents during media interviews or on social media. Sadly, the more confrontational they are, the more confrontational their opponents become. And so, our society becomes ever more polarised. Commentators and campaigners who are bowlers and not batsmen, those who would sooner criticise than create, would do well to take heed of the Jewish Sages who taught that true wisdom is the capacity to learn from every person and true heroism is the ability to turn an enemy into a friend.