Joanne Greenaway's personal take on the extent of the impact of Rabbi Sacks zt'l on our generation...."the driving force behind a renaissance in the UK Jewish community" as published in the Jewish Telegraph.
It’s not what we’ve lost
Many have pondered this week how we can possibly fill the void left by Rabbi Sacks zt’l and the enormity of what he represented
Over the last very short but intense period, it has become apparent that this was not the right question. The legacy of Rabbi Sacks is so inextricably bound up with the stories and development of so many people and ideas, so many organisations and movements.
Instead of that void, Rabbi Sacks has left us with an abundance of literature, of brilliant works to continue to inspire and extend our understanding and insight of Torah and of its interaction with philosophy, science, sociology, world religions.
Rabbi Sacks has left us with an abundance of thriving Jewish communal organisations. Not only did he secure and strengthen Jews College, his alma mater, in its new form LSJS, but he nurtured a plethora of organisations, recognising that diversity is truly a gift and Jewish voices and engagement in multiple ways just lead to a stronger community . In the space of 20 years, he spearheaded a proliferation of Jewish schools unparalleled anywhere in the world, seeking literally to ensure the Jewish future.
He has been the driving force behind a renaissance in the UK Jewish community. Many others have been part of this, not least his dedicated professional team, but he has been a great mentor and empowerer.
Slowly and surely, he developed our pride in being Jewish. You no longer have to live in New York as a Modern Orthodox Jew in order to be self-assertive.
My parents’ generation grew up without this, without the benefit of emerging Jewish culture, of engaging Jewish education, without modern melodies to ancient prayers and without the role model that was Rabbi Sacks. They grew up without his voice to speak for us in Parliament, in the UN, with world leaders, at the TED symposium. Being Jewish back then was not such a source of pride. Being openly Jewish in the public arena came with a degree of awkwardness. Taking a step back the shift in a generation is remarkable. How fortunate we are.
And this impact extends well beyond the mainstream community of the UK. As he responded when asked how it felt to be a Modern Orthodox thinker, he responded “I don’t see myself as a MO thinker, a minority within a minority”. He was a Jewish thinker with a universal message. Rabbi Sacks was not only the Chief Rabbi of our community but to communities the world over. Over the last few years I worked with a number of communities involved in Educating For Impact, a project which promotes change in Jewish schools to secure and strengthen Jewish communities in Europe. It is at its heart about Jewish Education. And Rabbi Sacks was their Rebbe – he was adored by community leaders from Helsinki to Milan who related to him as if he was their own.
I’ve been fortunate to feel, like so many hundreds of others, that he is part of my personal journey: It was Rabbi Sacks who showed me a Judaism that was intellectually based that, coming from a traditional and academic background, allowed me to believe. For myself and my fellow students in Cambridge J-Soc there was a feeling that his scholarship was on a different level and more relevant than that which we were used to in our daily lectures. Moreover, it inspired me to want to learn more, to do more. His was a model of Jewish leadership that I had not previously encountered and that spoke to me. Like a modern- day Rabbi Akiva without a traditional yeshiva background, he inspired those of us who didn’t grow up with a full formal Jewish education.
Here was a leader who moved with the times, who looked for the latest technological outlets to spread Torah. He made it relevant and ambitious.
When I took the decision to work professionally in the community, leaving behind my legal career, I started my work with Agunot at the London Beth Din. I had the opportunity to share this with him and he shared insights with me from cases he had resolved as Chief Rabbi. He knew there was work to be done and he encouraged me to do it. As his daughter Gila so eloquently said in her hesped, he fundamentally didn’t believe there were problems that couldn’t be solved, albeit at the right time.
Sadly, I never managed to meet with him to discuss the future of LSJS – he became very unwell as I joined and his team rightly protected his time as he fought to complete two major works. But I feel the weight of responsibility leading an august institution at which he studied, taught and led, and I am proud to do so. Rabbi Sacks showed us that Jewish education is an exciting and a worthy vocation which is full of possibility. And he modeled leadership that was humble and understated
So in many ways, at this difficult time, we as a community have cause to be grateful. Not for what we have lost this week but for what we gained in this generation. Rabbi Sacks never looked at the micro, he looked at its place in the macro. He was awe inspiring for his ability to see the wider picture, the sweeping vistas of the history of humankind and the changes on a sociological level. And so too we should see how our Jewish world has shifted.
As it says in Isaiah 60;21,
וְעַמֵּךְ֙ כֻּלָּ֣ם צַדִּיקִ֔ים לְעוֹלָ֖ם יִ֣ירְשׁוּ אָ֑רֶץ נֵ֧צֶר מטעו [מַטָּעַ֛י] מַעֲשֵׂ֥ה יָדַ֖י לְהִתְפָּאֵֽר׃
“And your people are all righteous; they shall inherit the land forever; a branch of My plantings, My handiwork, in which to take pride.
We inherit what Rabbi Sacks set before us. He was the trunk and we are his branches, and we can take pride in the community that he has shaped and, with God’s help, continue his handiwork.
