Rabbi Jonathan Sacks claimed that a good life consists of love and work, while a life well lived requires seeing the meaning of existence, which happens when we create a community. He transcended the framework of Judaism, becoming a guide for all people.
He was called a “superstar” and a “rabbis’ rabbi.” Jonathan Sacks’s voice has been heard all over the world, not only in the British media. When I listen to his lectures, speeches, conversations, and the debates in which he participated, I am amazed by his oratorical skill, masterful use of paradox, and sense of phrase. He knew how to speak in different situations: he could concentrate his message into an aphorism, and analyze texts with great precision. He often said that he was interested in that which is more deeply hidden; that before answering the “how?” and “when?,” he wanted to know the “why?” He quoted the Bible and the writings of rabbis, but also the works of Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky, the theories of sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, and even the iPhone voice assistant Siri.
Sacks was a spiritual leader, philosopher, teacher, intellectual, and author of more than twenty books. For twenty-two years (1991–2013), he was Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain and the Commonwealth—the most senior rabbi in a union representing the British Orthodox movement in Judaism. His spoken and written words, however, reached much further, to followers of all branches of Judaism and other religions, as well as secular Jews and atheists. He emphasized the strength that comes from community, and from feeling grateful. “He expected a huge amount of mankind, womankind, there was an optimism in the way in which he felt each one of us capable of changing the world. But he also understood the foibles and vanities and complexities of the human soul,” said journalist and BBC presenter Emily Maitlis in a tribute broadcast after Sacks’s death in 2020. Sacks has been referred to as an important teacher by many, including Tony Blair and King Charles III. During a Rosh Hashanah party at the White House in October 2022, President Joe Biden cited the rabbi’s words as his inspiration.
Components of Meaning
What meaning can the words of a rabbi have for non-believers or those with no connection to Judaism? In my mind, it was Sacks’s erudition and openness to various ways of formulating the human experience that made him a guide for everyone. He often referred to Viennese psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s theory that the most important thing for human beings is a sense of meaning. This, according to Sacks, is Judaism: seeking and giving meaning to life.
The components of meaning might include being part of a community, continuous learning, and a willingness and readiness to change the world for the better, to name but a few. Analyzing the book of Ecclesiastes, Rabbi Sacks found in it tips for a good life, which consists of work and love. This is “the same conclusion that the rather godless Jew Sigmund Freud arrived at as well,” he said in A Life Worth Living and the Jewish Tradition, an interview conducted at The Yale Center for Faith and Culture.
Simcha––a Hebrew word meaning “gladness” or “joy”—could also be an antidote to the “vanity of vanities” mentioned in Ecclesiastes. Sacks emphasized that simcha can be felt even in the hardest times. This might be the experience William Blake described in the poem Auguries of Innocence: “Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / And Eternity in an hour.” Simcha might also be what Eckhart Tolle called “the power of now.” Many people share Sacks’s belief. In a video describing her reasons for being religious, the American neuroscientist and actor Mayim Bialik (of The Big Bang Theory fame) explained that practicing Judaism is like “a vehicle for mindfulness […], committing to a structure of intention and meaning.”
The carriers of meaning are the rituals that Sacks analyzed in fascinating detail in his lectures. One such ritual is the weekly holiday––Shabbat, when work ends, and effort, struggle, and strife cease. This is a time dedicated to relaxing and enjoying being with others. The joy of the holiday, according to Sacks, is open; it is the joy of an embrace to which everyone, including strangers, should be invited. He recalled a passage from the book of Deuteronomy (16:14): “Be joyful at your festival––you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites, the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns.”
If we assume that everyone––regardless of skin color, culture, or social class––was created in the image of God, then by celebrating together, we can experience an epiphany, a divine presence. “The idea of being close to God is not opposed to being close to other people. It’s something that happens when you’re close to other people,” said Sacks during the aforementioned interview at Yale. Shabbat, according to the rabbi, is the most extraordinary of all utopias because it is a utopia that happens here and now. The British anthropologist Victor Turner wrote about the difference between a hierarchical society and a community of equals; the moment when society disappears and community emerges. Shabbat is one of these moments: a time when all power relations and hierarchies are suspended.
In his book A Letter in the Scroll, Sacks uses a metaphor: each of us is one of the letters, each letter is important, but only together––in creating families, communities, society––can we comprise words, sentences, paragraphs, whole stories. Life is worth living if you see the meaning of your existence, and that happens through encounters. We need the other letters.
Travel and Learn
“A life worth living, in Judaism, is a journey,” said Sacks. There were several very significant journeys in the life of the rabbi and his family, such as the path taken by his maternal great-grandfather, Aryeh Leib Frumkin, an Orthodox rabbi from Lithuania. The news of the pogroms taking place in the territory of the Russian Empire in 1881 led him to deem aliyah––emigration to Palestine––a common imperative for Jews. After leaving his home, he remained a rabbi, but was also a pioneer: he built the first house and planted the first citrus tree in Petah Tikva––the second most important industrial center in Israel today, after Haifa. A few years later, wounded in an attack organized by Arabs from a neighboring village, he decided it would be safer to raise his children in the UK.
His great-grandson Jonathan was born in London. Jonathan’s father, Louis Sacks, had to leave school and start working at the age of fourteen––his parents couldn’t afford to pay for his further education, having saved enough for only one of their children. Neither Louis nor his wife had much knowledge of Judaism, but what they passed on to their sons (Jonathan was the eldest of three brothers) was a love of the religion and pride in being Jewish. One day, while in the synagogue, a young Jonathan asked his father a question. His father replied, “I didn’t have an education so I can’t answer your questions. But one day you will have the education that I didn’t have, and when that happens, you will teach me the answer to those questions.” Sacks recalled this conversation with great emotion––as an expression of faith in education and, at the same time, openness to the fact that children can be teachers for their parents.
In late spring 1967, after his first year at Cambridge, Sacks and his father traveled to Israel. This trip, which they could not afford until that time, turned out to be a profound experience for both men. The son watched his father, then sixty years old, become a young man again. Israel made a huge impression on Sacks; it remained a place that he loved and he considered its existence extremely important.
Shortly after their trip, in June 1967, dramatic events led to the outbreak of the Third Arab-Israeli war, also known as the Six-Day War. Sacks saw this time as very significant. In London, even the least religious Jews were coming to the synagogue every day. “Miraculously, [in] six days it was over, but I was left with this afterthought […] what made all of us so connected with a nation thousands of miles away, most of whose population we’d never met? […] All of a sudden this was about peoplehood, about connection, about history, about hate.” In order to understand this, Sacks embarked on another journey.
Putting Oneself into Situations
In 1968, he spent his summer holidays in the US, equipped with a small amount of money, bus tickets, and chutzpah––as he said: “that number one survival mechanism.” During this trip he met many rabbis, two of whom were particularly important to him: Joseph Ber Soloveitchik, and Menachem Mendel Schneerson––a Hasidic rabbi, the last leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch group, and an extremely significant figure for Judaism.
Sacks went to Schneerson’s headquarters and asked to speak with the rabbi. “Do you know how many thousands of people are waiting to see the Rebbe? Forget it!” he was told. Sacks left the phone number of his aunt in Los Angeles, whom he intended to visit, asking that Schneerson contact him if he was able to meet. Sure enough, the phone rang: “The Rebbe will see you on Thursday.” When they met, Sacks’s questions were met with short answers, and Schneerson soon began to question Sacks in turn, wanting to know what he was doing for the Jewish community in the UK. He replied: “In the situation in which I currently find myself…” But Schneerson interrupted: “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.” Through this conversation, Schneerson challenged him to act. “A good leader creates followers; a great leader creates leaders. And that’s exactly what the Rebbe did for me,” recalled Sacks in an interview with Rabbi Mark Golub on the talk show L’Chayim. After returning to the UK, Sacks began working for the Jewish community, but he did not immediately become a rabbi: he lectured in philosophy and was preparing for a career in law. However, when he saw that none of his friends were choosing to become rabbis, he felt that this was his task, that he should put himself into that situation.
He recalled the day he was installed as Chief Rabbi at St. John’s Wood Synagogue in London as the day that gave meaning to his whole life. He was pleased that his father––then over eighty years old––could still participate in the ceremony. Similarly, when he was knighted in 2005, he was happy that his mother, an admirer of the Queen, was present at Buckingham Palace. He managed to bring his parents naches––pride and joy.
“I will not let you go until you bless me”
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks died in November 2020, shortly after being diagnosed with cancer. He departed on Shabbat. His wife, Lady Elaine Sacks, recalled that her husband’s last words were wishes of a good Sabbath to the doctor who was treating him.
Sacks’s legacy continues to inspire people to live and to learn, bringing reminders of the importance of storytelling––both for the identity of individuals, and for group identity. For me, perhaps the most important thing in the rabbi’s message is a determination to keep searching for a way to save things in unfavorable circumstances. This is well illustrated by Sacks’s response to David Gregory’s question during a joint debate with Simon Schama on Genius and the Story of the Jews: which passage from the Bible would he give to explain why the Jews survived? The rabbi points to a scene in the book of Genesis (32:27) where Jacob is fighting with an angel, who, unable to win, tells Jacob to let him go. “I will not let you go until you bless me,” replies Jacob. “Somehow,” comments Sacks, “we have wrestled with some of the worst persecution and suffering any people has ever known, and we have said to every tragedy, ‘I will not let you go until you bless me.’” The stories that Sacks illuminated with his interpretation, and from which he distilled meanings, have the strength and power to enter into dialogue with our own stories.
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