Rabbi Sacks lost his brief battle with cancer this weekend, age 72. JR's founder Janet Levin reflects on the wise, and at times controversial, voice of the Emeritus Chief Rabbi

The inopportune death of Rabbi Sacks last Saturday is a tragedy for the world. The ideas he's been communicating so engagingly and effectively since he first went into print in the 1990s have now become widely adopted, and have recently acquired a new urgency: the importance of retaining community cohesion in the face of technological advances; the new priority of “I” versus “we”; the need for preparation to meet the fast accelerating risks of global warming. And his gift for communicating with warmth and entertaining stories, which engaged young and old, changed minds and so made a difference. The respect he encountered across the world translated to respect for Judaism and the Jewish people. We could not have had a better ambassador.

I felt lucky to meet him, if only once, at a reception in 2002. I introduced myself as the editor of Jewish Renaissance, as I knew his office subscribed. His reaction was to hold out his hand. I was surprised, as I knew of the Rabbi’s strong Orthodoxy and the taboo against him shaking a woman’s hand. I told him that I had enjoyed his recent book, Dignity of Difference. Then, another surprise, he told me that he had been amazed by the furore the book had engendered – referring to the reaction caused by his submission to the pressure put on him by the Beth Din (the court of Orthodox Jews) to remove certain passages, those that suggested Judaism was not the only way to truth. For example: “God is greater than religion. He is only partially comprehended by any faith.” He seemed truly disorientated and saddened.

Some years later I was delighted when Sacks agreed to an email interview with JR following publication of The Home We Build Together. This was also controversial, as he was making a case against multiculturalism, then considered the most effective way of making those of all heritages living in the UK feel that they belonged. I felt that the Rabbi was going beyond what was appropriate in proposing an educational canon limited to English history and literature. I spent an inordinate amount of time composing each question. I emailed them altogether, as he requested, and was amazed to get back – within minutes – a carefully argued reply to each of them (see article below). Sacks clearly had an exceptionally brilliant mind as well as a willingness to engage with a publication such as JR, which was generally kept at arm’s length by the Orthodox establishment.

Sacks’s background was Orthodoxy-light – traditional Orthodoxy at home but attendance at a Church of England primary school and then at the secular Christ’s College in Hendon. He went on to study philosophy at Cambridge University, where his PhD supervisor was atheist Bernard Williams, from whom, he told an FT interviewer, he “learned the importance of being open to others”. His first experience of true Orthodoxy was meeting with two emissaries of the Chabad Lubavitch movement while he was a student. On their recommendation, after he graduated (with a Double First) he made a trip to the States to visit the centre of the movement.

It was on this trip that he had a totally unexpected face-to-face meeting with the famous Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson. This was the prelude to his life-long loyalty to serious Orthodoxy, despite it being continually in conflict with his 'openness to others’ and this got him into trouble with both the Orthodox and Liberal wings of Judaism on many occasions.

Sacks’s account of his relationship with the Rebbe demonstrates the Rebbe’s brilliance in spotting a future leader of Jewry, as well as in persuading Sacks that it was the only career alternative he could consider. It is also an example of Sacks’s brilliance at inspirational storytelling.

We are fortunate that Rabbi Sacks was so prolific in his writings and broadcasts. There is no lack of opportunity to share in his intellectual journeys and to find out about the many ways that Jewish history and practice contributes to the world’s mission to make our planet a better place to live. He will be deeply missed.

By Janet Levin, Founder and CEO of Jewish Renaissance

Header photo © Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk

An extract of Rabbi Sacks’s book Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times was published in The Scribe’s anniversary edition, which came out with the Oct 2020 issue of JR; click here to read it.