The report, which has been labelled a Marxist document by its critics, points to the difference in life expectancy between residents of the deprived Glasgow suburb of Calton and its more affluent neighbour Lenzie.

Life expectancy in Calton only averages at 54 - lower than that in some areas of the Gaza Strip and Iraq - compared with 82 in Lenzie.

News reports highlighted the fact that many of Calton's early deaths are drink, drug and gang-related.

Hang on a minute! Are tendencies towards drug and alcohol addiction and gang violence the automatic results of poverty or are they perhaps contributory to its causes?

Those permanently hung over and drugged to the eyeballs or engaging in gun crime are less likely to be able to secure responsible jobs and therefore earn less.

Also alcohol and drugs cost considerable amounts of money. And convenience junk food is often more expensive than the healthier variety.

While it is right that society does everything it can to alleviate the plight of the poor, at the end of the day we all have choices as to how we deal with our lot.

Many of our ancestors in the heim who were poor lived frugally in order to provide the best that they could for their offspring rather than wasting the money they did not have on booze and drugs.

Approaching Rosh Hashanah teaches us that we all have choices, at least some power over even seemingly impossible circumstances.

Drink and drug abuse are not exclusive to the poor. In Britain's contemporary drink and sex-centred culture, alcohol and sexually related illnesses are not only suffered by the poor but also by the young and pampered rich.

One columnist recently predicted the virtual extinction of teenagers from self-abuse while the elder generation preserves itself by keeping fit, mentally agile and healthy eating.

On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we all pray for long life and are very grateful that modern society has given us the means through better health care and preventive medicine to achieve this wonderful goal.

In fact, long life was the first item on our shopping list to the Almighty in our Rosh Chodesh blessing for the month of Ellul last Shabbat.

As we prepare for the New Year, it is pertinent to review this monthly shopping list in view of the world situation this year.

We pray for peace at a time when not only are negotiations between Israel and her neighbours floundering, but a new Cold War is on the horizon between a once-again aggressive Russia towards the West and its allies in Eastern Europe.

This is just to add to the ongoing problems of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and instabilities in Pakistan, Zimbabwe and the Sudan.

Certainly a lot to pray for as well as the threats to peace nearer home, within our own families and communities.

We then, in the days of the credit crunch with soaring oil and food prices, pray for prosperity.

If we possess any ethical values that prayer should not be just a selfish one for ourselves but a collective one for all of humanity so that the present situation in which large corporations make huge profits at the expense of the consumer no longer continues.

It is natural to want to protect oneself and one's family first and possibly ease one's conscience by giving charity to offset possibly ill-gotten gains.

But in order to provide a fairer system of distribution of wealth for all living on our planet beset at this time by so many problems, we Jews should be in the forefront of promoting ethical business practices which do not exploit the poor for the benefit of the already rich.

May all our prayers come true, not only for ourselves, our families and our people but also for the whole world.

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