Nov 13
The Weizmann Institute is my anchor in Israel.  With this inspiring honor, you have fixed that anchor more firmly I thank you all.
My personal attachments to Israel and Israelis go back to the earliest days of my adult life.  Strong, and lasting friendships, rooted, as they should be, in science, began during the fruitful sabbatical year I spent at the Institute in the early '70s.  In that year, my family was also entwined in these connections, and so the Weizmann was cross-linked into the two bright ribbons that have made my life so joyous: family and science.
To have been a scientist through most of the second half of the 20th Century is to have had the best of troubling times.  We have been part
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of the most extraordinary advancements ever in our species' comprehension of the universe that gave us life and sustains us.  When those in my generation were still students, we could not imagine the depth of insight into the natural world -- from galaxies to genes to quarks -- that now is commonplace to us.
World-wide, including in Israel, people and nations have prospered from the technological fruits of those scientific insights.  Scientists and engineers together with bold entrepreneurs together with bold entrepreneurs have applied the science in answer to human needs.
In contrast, scientists have not succeeded so well in conveying to the public the deeper significance of those insights.  Scientists know that
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that deep significance demands respect for the physical integrity of our planet and the universe in when it spins ; respect for the myriad living things that share the planet; appreciation of the contingency of all natural phenomena including ourselves; recognition of the interdependence of all living things including ourselves and tolerance towards all the members of our own species, that is all humans regardless of our remarkably different ways.
Science then supports age-old visions of ethical conduct.  The failure of scientists to convey this deep significance of 20th Century science, to insist that its lessons must be the exchange for the technological benefits, is our burden.  Can we scientists, now using new ways, succeed in sharing what we have learned?  There by we might counteract the intolerance bred in my country and yours and world-wide by fanaticism -- an intolerance that leads to violent tragedies that wound us all?  If we cannot, our great accomplishments will be for nought.