{"id":166317,"date":"2024-12-17T16:34:21","date_gmt":"2024-12-17T14:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/?p=166317"},"modified":"2024-12-20T10:09:36","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T08:09:36","slug":"rabbi_sacks_archive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/en\/rabbi_sacks_archive\/","title":{"rendered":"Rabbi, Lord, Professor: On Rabbi Jonathan Sacks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cThe time will come when the nations of the world will recognize that the power of ideas is greater than the idea of power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These words were uttered at an event held in Jerusalem in May of 2014, an event celebrating the renewal of the National Library of Israel. The speaker, an honorary doctorate from Hebrew University, was Rabbi Lord Professor Jonathan Sacks, who served as Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth for 22 years – one of the most famous Jews in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you had got ahold of Jonathan Sacks as a child in the 1950s and told him that he would one day be the bearer of so many prestigious titles, that he would meet the Pope, or that King Charles III himself would mourn his passing (in Hebrew), he would probably have responded with typical British politeness and told you that you must be mistaking him for someone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks was born in London, just two months before the State of Israel declared its independence, to Louis and Libby Sachs, proud working-class Orthodox Jews. Louis was born in Poland, and he invested all his energy in becoming part of British society and looking after the welfare of his children. While he wasn’t able to pass down a legacy of Talmudic knowledge, he made sure they took pride in their identity and were given a proper Jewish upbringing, even while attending primarily Christian schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rabbi Sacks once said that \u201cMy father would rather lose a friend than compromise a principle and my mother kept all the friends my father lost.\u201d The old dictum, \u201cBe a Jew at home and a man in the street\u201d, typified the prevailing atmosphere in which Jonathan Sacks was raised.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Members of the National Library of Israel\u2019s Archives Department pictured with items from the Rabbi Sacks Archive, London, 2023<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Somewhat ironically, it was during his school years at Christ\u2019s College that Sacks was involved for the first time in educational activity related to his Jewish origin: Almost half of the students were Jewish. Together with a few friends, Sacks worked to organize a regular morning study hour devoted to learning Judaism. This was the first time he was able to draw young people to study the sources and foundational texts of their heritage. During this activity, he learned something else: The teachers, who were Christian almost without exception, not only did not oppose this study hour, they showed real respect to their students\u2019 devotion to their own faith. Difference does not necessitate hatred or division \u2013 this would be a guiding motto for the duration of Rabbi Sacks’ life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 18, he began studying philosophy at Cambridge University. Three years later, in 1969, he earned a 1st Class Honours Degree and was awarded a Rhonda Research Fellowship in Moral Philosophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But academic success was not his only important accomplishment in these years. There were other events during this time which were significant in shaping his personal and public future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of these was the 1967 Six Day-War, which led to a global wave of Jewish and Zionist awakening. This shift was felt even in the halls of British universities, including Cambridge. Jewish students collected donations for Israel and also began to become increasingly interested in their own Judaism and its practical significance in their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another major turning point took place in 1968 when Sacks travelled to New York, in what turned out to be far more than a simple bit of tourism. There, in the city containing the largest population of Jews in the world, he encountered Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson \u2013 the Lubavitcher Rebbe. The young Sacks came to the meeting as a skeptic, with a list of questions which concerned him at the time. But he left with his head filled with no less important and piercing questions which the Rebbe asked of him: How many Jewish students are there in Cambridge? What are you doing to develop your Judaism in this environment? And most importantly \u2013 what are you doing for other Jewish students?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sacks once recalled to an audience –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI\u2019d come to ask a few simple questions, and all of a sudden he was challenging me. So I did the English thing. You know, the English can construct sentences like nobody else, you know? They can construct more complex excuses for doing nothing, than anyone else on earth. (laughter)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I started the sentence, ‘In the situation in which I find myself…’ \u2013 and the Rebbe did something which I think was quite unusual for him, he actually stopped me in mid-sentence. He says, ‘Nobody finds themselves in a situation; you put yourself in a situation. And if you put yourself in that situation, you can put yourself in another situation.'”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The man who was then just Jonathan Sacks, a bright Jewish student at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, returned to England to complete his degree. But his view of his role in the world and his studies, had radically changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That year, he met his future wife Elaine, as she walked across the campus courtyard with a friend \u2013 “I thought, this is the person most unlike me I\u2019ve ever encountered. She radiated joy.” It was love at first sight, for both of them. He needed just three weeks to buy a ring and pop the question in the middle of Oxford Circus. Elaine accompanied him from there on out, including on his travels to distant locations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And travel he did. It was the beginning of the path of a great teacher who would very quickly become a guide for masses of people around the world, whom Prince Charles, the future King, would later call \u201ca light unto the nations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Rabbi Jonathan Sacks with his wife, on their wedding day. Photo courtesy of the Rabbi Sacks Legacy<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

In the following years, alongside academic achievements like an MA at New College, Oxford (1972), a PhD from the Philosophy and Theology department at King\u2019s College (1981), a visiting professorship at the University of Essex (1989), and a visiting professorship for Theology and Religious Studies at King\u2019s College (1998), he began to operate at the religious level as a teacher and spiritual leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He lectured on matters of philosophy and theology at academic institutions around the world, and received rabbinic ordination at Jews’ College and Yeshiva Ezt Chaim an in London (1976). Two years afterward, he began serving as a synagogue Rabbi in Golders Green and then in Marbel Arch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where many had failed, or had even failed to make the attempt \u2013 Rabbi Sacks succeeded. He was able to bring ancient Jewish ideas and traditions into the 20th<\/sup> century, managing to engage new Jewish audiences, especially amongst younger Jews. He gave new life and exposed people to ideas that were thousands of years old, ideas which were previously often considered irrelevant and detached from modern life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He wrote, spoke, and gave sermons on many a platform and for a variety of media, events, and institutions, both Jewish and non-Jewish. With elegant, quiet charisma, he presented his religious and philosophical approach, which was founded on a deep and unshakable Jewish faith, yet consisted of ideas – particularly liberal and humanistic ideas – that belonged to philosophers and thinkers of all religions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He spoke to Jews and of Judaism in a way that no-one had done before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1991, with the retirement of Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits, he was offered the position of Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, the top rabbinical position in the United Kingdom. It was a shining opportunity, which included more than a few perks. But he understood the great responsibility involved in the role and wondered whether it was right to take on such a burden. He thus appealed, in a letter which later became very famous, to the man who first set him on the path of leadership \u2013 the Lubavitcher Rebbe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The letter provides an image of a modest man, unexcited by the power derived from his office, but who is well aware of the unique virtues and worldview that he can bring to the table, and who also possesses a fierce desire for change and renewal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He accepted the role, and completed the transition from unofficial grassroots community leader to his new formal position as the title-holding, premier representative of British Jewry. His first plan of action focused on education \u2013 with an emphasis on strengthening Jewish identity and ties to the younger generation, particularly university students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His influence soon extended beyond the British Isles. He received honorary degrees and titles from many academic and religious institutions around the world, and Jews \u2013 both young and young at heart \u2013 flocked to his lectures and enthusiastically read his books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A search of the National Library\u2019s collections<\/a> results in dozens of books written by Rabbi Sacks, both in English and Hebrew translation. These books, the majority of which deal with timeless, universal questions like the relationship between religion and science, the place of the individual in modern society, tolerance among cultures, dealing with human radicalism, and more, became bestsellers around the world and were read by Jews and non-Jews alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the archive of Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, which can also be found at the National Library, there is a review of one of Sacks\u2019 books, Crisis and Covenant<\/a><\/em>, in which Leibowitz wrote the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIt should be noted that these things were not said to a specifically Jewish audience, but to a general academic audience. Yet the author speaks as a Jew in all of his being, whose heart is given to the problem of Judaism among the Jewish People today, and not to presenting it to the outside world, and it is needless to say \u2013 without any purpose of ‘show[ing] the nations and the ministers her beauty\u2019 \u2026 The book in general is an important contribution to Jewish thought in our day and we must \u2013 and are even commanded \u2013 to dress it in Hebrew garb.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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Review by Yeshayahu Leibowitz of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks\u2019 Crisis and Covenant<\/em><\/a>. The Yeshayahu Leibowitz Archive, the National Library of Israel<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The ability to connect different worlds, the belief in the inclusion and acceptance of the other, is one of the most prominent cornerstones of Rabbi Sacks\u2019 thought. In a brief conversation on any subject in the world, he could quote Rabbi Saadyah Gaon, Blaise Pascal, Abraham, and Philo. He was unafraid of contrary ideas or the people who advocated them. In his speeches, he often referred to Nietzsche as his \u201cfavorite atheist\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Rabbi Jonathan Sacks at the National Library of Israel, 2016. Photo: Hanan Cohen<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

But despite the accusations of ideological rivals who could not contain such a diversity of ideas, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks was not the kind of person who changed his opinions based on whoever he spoke to last. He was the same man when he spoke to the Pope and when he spoke to sixth graders at a Jewish school in Texas. His liberal and humanist views were planted deep in ancient Jewish thought. He was a complete man, straight as an arrow, filled to the brim with knowledge originating from different corners of the globe and with religious and national pride, a pride originating in all the good his nation and faith had to offer the world, without condescending over others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tolerance he spoke so much about was not just directed outwards towards other cultures but also and perhaps primarily inwards, towards ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he came to speak at the 2014 renewal ceremony at the National Library\u2019 of Israel’s previous abode, he ended his speech (which included quotes from Isaiah, Amos Oz, Sergei Brin, Akhenaton, Rashi, Maimonides, and Plato) in a direct reference to what he considered to be the Library\u2019s most important role:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201c\u2026the National Library is a library that can form connections between Jews in this very, very fragmented Jewish world that we have now, where the gap between religious and secular continues to grow. As I began by saying, if there is one thing that even secular Jews believe profoundly, it is that we have a share in this heritage of literature and literacy. That is what makes the Jewish people what it is. That\u2019s what Amos Oz was trying to tell us. That is what that wonderful MK Ruth Calderon, was doing in her maiden speech in the Knesset, when as a woman and as a secular Jew, she gets up and gives a Talmud lesson to the members of Knesset. It was a brilliant lesson, and it was a lovely way of saying, \u201cYou know what? This text belongs to all of us.\u201d [\u2026] A campaign, a way of extending the National Library so that everyone can plug into it, is a way of opening up the Jewish text and the Jewish commentary to what Torah She\u2019be\u2019al Peh<\/em> \u2013 the Oral Torah \u2013 is really supposed to be, the ongoing conversation scored for many voices of Jews in conversation with the terms of their destiny. We like argument. In fact, I don\u2019t think we know any other form of conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See the full 2014 speech here:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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