Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks was one of the true giants of the Jewish world. He died on November 7 at age 72. His impact was profound, his reach universal.
Rabbi Sacks was a global figure whose life and career was not limited being Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom. He was also a philosopher; theologian; Biblical scholar; radio and television commentator; magnetic orator; and author of 25 books on everything from the scientific method to the nuance of Jewish observance. His work heralded a true transformation in Jewish life. While universal in his reach, his impact was perhaps most powerful upon young Jews.
But of all his titles, the one Rabbi Sacks cherished most, and the one Rabbi Sacks was most cherished for, was that of teacher. While granted a life peerage by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2009, as a teacher, Lord Sacks had no peer.
I first met Rabbi Sacks as a young man and years later had the extraordinary honor and privilege to befriend him. Along the way, I witnessed the profound impact he had on young Jews. He was an omnipresent and prominent occupant in our home despite never having set foot in it.
Rabbi Sacks’did what no other Rabbi of our age could do in retaining and strengthen his unchallenged status of universal acceptance by all streams of normative Judaism. He breathed the hope of faith into a new generation, writing, “[T]o ask is to believe that somewhere there is an answer; we ask not because we doubt but because we believe.”
So many things set Rabbi Sacks apart. One was his sense of responsibility – to the the Jewish past, to fellow Jews, and most importantly, to the Jewish future. He taught us how to stick to our guns while respecting those with whom we disagree, and of the transcendental importance for people of all faiths to restore what he called “the common good in divided times.”
Rabbi Sacks gave this Jew, and many others, the courage not to conform when conforming was wrong, and the tools of strength and knowledge to swim upstream when that was the right direction.
Rabbi Sacks chronicled the Jewish journey in wondrous, even magical imagery. In confronting every crisis – ancient, medieval, or modern – Rabbi Sacks reminded us that the Jewish people responded always with renewal, and must still.
He made us see how the Jewish people used their inheritance as the world’s oldest continuing faith, to stay young, vibrant and creative; or, as he put it, “traditionally revolutionary.” Just as he described how Jews managed to polish our faith with new customs to a new shine with each generation, so too did he make it gleam for us.
Sacks published widely beloved and eminently readable commentaries to accompany Jewish prayer-books for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. His Covenant & Conversation commentaries on the weekly Torah portion are read aloud and discussed every week at Shabbat dinner tables by tens of thousands of Jewish families around the world.
While Judaism was his life, and the Jews his people, humanity was Rabbi Sacks’ congregation. As Chief Rabbi, he became a media fixture across the United Kingdom. He broadcast BBC Radio’s Thought of the Day until the end, and developed loyal followings of Jews and non-Jews around the world.
He broke down even the densest topic into simple yet beautiful pieces, conveying the lessons of faith, history, and philosophy in single transcendent sentences.
Even the mighty sat at the teacher’s feet and listened. At his gala retirement celebration in 2013, Prince Charles said Rabbi Sack’s “guidance on any given issue has never failed to be of practical value and deeply grounded in wisdom increasingly hard to come by.”
Rabbi Sacks chronicled how, despite incomprehensibly impossible conditions, Jews didn’t just merely survive, but thrived in impossible circumstances, facing persecution on the one hand and assimilation on the other.
He challenged us to enrich the life of the larger society in which Jews lived by explaining how Jewish generations that preceded us did just that. “Through thirty-seven long and difficult centuries they remained faithful to the mandate given by God to Abraham in the first words of covenantal history: ‘Through you shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ And we are their heirs,” he said.
Rabbi Sacks once wrote, “[T]o be immortal all you need to do is engrave your values on the minds of your children.” He made that mark on his own children – Joshua, Dina, and Gila – and to all the children of Israel.
As he so loved to say, “The good we do lives on in others, and it is one of the most important things that it does.” May that be his enduring testament and our enduring inheritance.
Thomas Rose is Sr. Advisor and Chief Strategist to Vice President Mike Pence and former Publisher and CEO of the Jerusalem Post
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