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REMARKS BY:	DONNA E. SHALALA, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 
PLACE:		The University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel  - Honorary Degree 
DATE:		December 4, 1998

Being at this extraordinary university reminds me how fortunate we are to live in a time when information is power and education is progress.a time of open doors and open minds. We've certainly come a long way since the time of the scholar Beruria. She was one of the very few Jewish women to ever teach the Talmud. And she was so highly respected as a sage, her legal views and homilies were even quoted in that sacred text. Her contemporaries said she "could read three hundred traditions of three hundred masters in a single winter's night." But Beruria had the misfortune of living in second-century AD Palestine-under the despotic rule of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. Hadrian forbade religious rites, closed schools, and killed or exiled many Jewish scholars. Beruria was also persecuted, and she even had to witness the brutal execution of her own father. But despite the oppression, she staunchly refused to give up teaching and scholarship-and she never did.

Why would this woman risk everything for teaching, for learning? Perhaps because the Egyptian scholar Taha Hussein was right when he asserted, "Knowledge is like water and air-the natural right of every human being." Perhaps because after food, shelter and family, learning is a basic human hunger. Or perhaps because learning is the key to everything we want for ourselves, our nations, and our world.

Learning is the water of progress. This ancient value made this region the cradle of civilization. And we've witnessed this tradition arise anew. In Israel alone, fifty years ago, there were only two institutions of higher education. Today, there are seven universities-as well as 50 regional colleges, private colleges, and branches of foreign universities that dot the landscape from Eilat on the Red Sea to northern Galilee.

But as we reflect on and applaud these accomplishments during this anniversary year, perhaps we need to ask ourselves a question: In our modern world, what's the real value of education.of learning.of sharing knowledge to the individual; to the nation; and to the world? That's the question I want to explore today.

The importance of education to the individual was noted over eight hundred years ago, by the great philosopher and physician Maimonides. He commented, "The spiritual perfection of man consists in his becoming an intelligent being-one who knows all that he is capable of learning." Back in his day learning was a luxury. Today it's a survival skill. First, because we're living in the age of information and communication.

When Maimonides was alive, the average person could expect to gain as much information in a lifetime- as is now contained in one edition of the New York Times. But we all know that information isn't knowledge. That's a crucial distinction at a time when a wide and raging river of information is cascading around the world.A time when 1000 new books are added to the shelves every day, and 65,000 new sited are added to the Internet every hour. Anyone who logs onto the world wide web knows exactly what I mean-there's just too much information our there. But education is like a search engine-it helps you wade into this risky river of information and extract knowledge.

The second reason learning is a survival skill today is because we live in an age of change. We know that educated individuals are better able to cope with change. As President Hayuth as written, "It's been said that the educated person is the one who has learned how to learn.and how to change." Changeability is crucial when it's predicted that the next ten years will bring as much technological change as the last forty. When fifty percent of all scientific knowledge will be obsolete within a decade. And when change is the only constant we can count on in the new millennium.

The third reason learning is a survival skill is because it provides a greater chance to be healthy. We know that educated individuals tend to be healthier. They smoke less, exercise more, and eat better. And they know how to take better care of themselves, to make wiser health choices, and to live healthier lifestyles. In the United States, over the past two decades we've seen this inverse relationship between education and health-less schooling leads to greater mortality rates for cancer, heart disease and other illnesses. Evidence from many countries suggests that as you increase your level of education-you also increase your chances of being in good health. And as an old Arab proverb states, "He who has health has hope; and he who has hope has everything."

But if education.learning.sharing knowledge is important to the well-being of an individual-it may even be more important to the well being of a nation. Without a doubt, strong and healthy societies can only be built-and sustained-on the foundation of an educated citizenry. As the English statesman Lord Brougham said, "Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave." So nations that progress think of education not as a nagging expense-but a national investment.

Education also promotes understanding between groups within a society-especially as students from diverse backgrounds share lecture halls, laboratories, and libraries. Haifa's own Dr. Hassan Khalileh, who is the first Israeli-Arab Maritime Archeologist in the world, has spoken to this. "I'm a Moslem Arab," he said, "but I've been influenced by Jewish society and culture because I work and study at the University of Haifa." That's why colleges and universities in America factor diversity into admission-and why the U.S. is having a great national debate about protecting diversity. We can certainly take a page from this extraordinary university-the most pluralistic in Israel and dedicated to building closer ties among Jewish, Druze and Arab people on and off campus. For example, your new Druze Studies cluster-the first of its kind in Israel and perhaps the world-offers more than information, it offers wisdom.

Education can also improve the health and welfare of our countries-especially if we're willing to increase our investment in scientific research. We're living in a golden age of science; a golden age of research; a golden age of discovery. Today, the pace of discovery is not limited by imagination, or intellect, or ability-but mostly by resources. That's why, in the United States, we've just made the largest investment in our National Institutes of Health in history. This will steady the stream of research money. It will allow universities and scientists to plan as well as discover. It will help attract and train some of the best minds of the next generation for science. It will provide more funding for Israeli scientists-and their counterparts around the globe-who compete for grants from our National Institutes of Health. It will reinvigorate our war on cancer and expand our assault on other diseases-so that someday, if the children of the millennium want to read about cancer, or AIDS or diabetes-they'll have to open the history books and not the newspaper. And with this increase, our National Institutes of Health intend to reach around the world even more.

As this knowledge is shared throughout our increasingly interconnected world, it will help researchers around the globe decipher scientific mysteries; discover medical treatments; and design health strategies.

That brings me to my third point-the importance of education.of learning.of sharing knowledge.to the world-and especially to global peace and global health. We know that educated nations can expand, enhance and enrich global knowledge. We also know that knowledge today cannot be contained-it flows like water across boundaries, barriers and borders. Knowledge can even cause these barriers to crumble- and so enhance the common good.

Science and research, especially, are the great global unifiers. They speak their own language-a common language that calls for relentless pursuit of truth, well beyond the halls of diplomacy and the corridors of power. A mathematical formula that's true in Urdu is also true in Uzbek. The laws of physics are the same in India as they are in Pakistan. Even during the Cold War, scientists from East and West huddled together at our National Institutes of Health to study brain cells-cells that didn't know communist from capitalist. It was precisely the flow of information, the sharing of knowledge, and the open trading of ideas that started the thaw in the Cold War. While battle tanks still faced each other across the Fulda Gap in Central Europe-their gun barrels almost touching-American and Russian scholars, researchers and teachers were quietly building a bridge across the gap. Russian scientists attended conferences sponsored by our Centers for Disease Control-while American Fulbright scholars lectured in medical schools in Moscow. As they exchanged information-they also changed attitudes. Friendship replaced fear. Ideas replaced ideology. Discovery replaced distrust. Eventually, when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down like the Walls of Jericho, these earlier educational and scientific exchanges had laid the groundwork for new bilateral and multinational agreements between nations based on peace and progress.

Education.learning.the sharing of knowledge is also helping bring peace here to the Middle East. We've seen the proof right here at the University of Haifa-now my university! Sharing not just an institution-but their ideas-Jewish, Druze, Arab and Christian students come to better understand one another as they study and work together. Just like the Jewish and Palestinian researchers in Jerusalem who are working together to find ways to locate a single cancer cell among the millions of healthy ones. And understanding other cultures-why they operate as they do; why they think as they do; why they react as they do-is always the first step on the long and arduous road to peace.

But education, learning, and the sharing of knowledge aren't just important to global peace-they're just as important to global health. They help ensure a world where a medical discovery made by any one nation will benefit us all. A world where scientific information learned by any one group will benefit us all. And a world where research done by any one individual-like Hava Weinberg's work here at Haifa to reveal genetic damage in Chernobyl victims-will benefit us all. Such a world demands that we all pursue a strategy of global engagement. That's why your Health Minister Matza and I have been working with Dr. Gro Brundtland, the new Director-General of the World Health Organization, and her colleagues to attack global health issues from tobacco to infectious disease. And that's why multinational and bi-lateral efforts that allow us to increase and share learning and knowledge-Whether it's the U.S.-Israeli Women's Health Conference I just attended, or private efforts like "Doctors without Borders"-are so important. And as we've seen time and time again, when we share across barriers, reach across barriers, learn across barriers-and destroy barriers-we all win.

In the eighteen hundred years since Beruria refused to stop teaching and researching, the value of education.of learning.of sharing knowledge.to the individual; the nation; and the world, has only increased. No wonder in many of the shtetels of Eastern Europe, Jewish mothers used to dab a little honey on the cover of a book-to prove to their children just how sweet learning could be. We celebrate the sweetness, the importance, of learning-as we also celebrate twenty-five years of the University of Haifa- and fifty years of Israel-a state that continues to build on the rich educational tradition of scholars and sages like Beruria.

My wish for all of you is to continue, further and enrich this extraordinary intellectual tradition. Because I've no doubt that somewhere at the University of Haifa is a student, scholar, researcher or professor who may discover new paths to better health.or map a new route to understanding the origins of the universe.or blaze new trails in the global struggle for equality and peace. For all of us, the ultimate lesson is to remember that for ourselves, our nations and our world-There is always more to discover.There is always more to explore.There is always more to learn.And there is always peace to work for. And on that note, let me say, for those who believe that Arab and Jew, Druze and Christian cannot live and work and study together-let them come to the University of Haifa.