Personal Reflections on Rabbi Sacks’ Life and Wisdom

I first met Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks in 2004, when my dialogue partner Dr. Akbar Ahmed and I traveled to London as part of the Daniel Pearl Dialogue for Muslim-Jewish Understanding. Rabbi Sacks took a personal interest in this dialogue program.

He accompanied us to mosques and synagogues in the evenings and to Jewish and Muslim day schools in the mornings. I distinctly remember how he mesmerized the kids in a Muslim school with the story of Pharaoh’s daughter, how she defied the law of the land and rescued baby Moses from the river, becoming a revered Jewish heroine, like Miriam, Ruth and Yael after her. There was not a kid in that school who did not aspire to replicate the humanity of Pharaoh’s daughter and be worthy of her legacy.

The last time I met Rabbi Sacks was in Los Angeles in January of this year, when we had the pleasure of exchanging personal copies of our latest books, mine on the “The New Science of Cause and Effect” and Sacks’ on “Morality.”

I have met many rabbis in my life, but what I witnessed in the lobby of the Beverly Hilton that day was something to remember, something that attests to Rabbi Sacks’ stature in the world.

I have met many rabbis in my life, but what I witnessed in the lobby of the Beverly Hilton that day was something to remember, something that attests to Rabbi Sacks’ stature in the world.

The receptionist at the lobby could not believe her ears: “What did you say? Rabbi Sacks is staying in this hotel and is coming down to meet you in the lobby? Look, I hope you are not pulling my leg but, if this is true, do me a favor and introduce me to him. I am not Jewish, you see, but I read everything he writes and listen to each one of his sermons. Did you say he is coming down to the lobby? You mean right now?”

I was happy to introduce the receptionist to Rabbi Sacks, who patiently shared with her his interpretation of his latest essay before he sat down with me to explain why he wrote “Morality.” At the end of that meeting, he told me something I would never forget. “Don’t chase after listening ears,” he said. “They will come seeking your words if you stay the course and remain truthful to yourself.”

I will miss him terribly.

As a tribute to Rabbi Sacks’ life and wisdom, I am sharing the essay that he wrote for the book “I am Jewish: personal reflection inspired by the last words of Daniel Pearl.”

I am Jewish
WHY AM I A JEW? Not because I believe that Judaism contains all there is of the human story. Jews didn’t write Shakespeare’s sonnets or Beethoven’s quartets. We did not give the world the serene beauty of a Japanese garden or the architecture of ancient Greece. I love these things. I admire the traditions that brought them forth. Aval zeh shelanu. But this is ours. Nor am I a Jew because of anti-Semitism or to avoid giving Hitler a posthumous victory. What happens to me does not define who I am: ours is a people of faith, not fate. Nor is it because I think that Jews are better than others, more intelligent, virtuous, law-abiding, creative, generous or successful. The difference lies not in Jews but Judaism, not in what we are but in what we are called on to be.

I am a Jew because, being a child of my people, I have heard the call to add my chapter to its unfinished story. I am a stage on its journey, a connecting link between the generations. The dreams and hopes of my ancestors live on in me, and I am the guardian of their trust, now and for the future.

I am a Jew because our ancestors were the first to see that the world is driven by a moral purpose, that reality is not a ceaseless war of the elements, to be worshipped as gods, nor history a battle in which might is right and power is to be appeased. The Judaic tradition shaped the moral civilization of the West, teaching for the first time that human life is sacred, that the individual may never be sacrificed for the mass, and that rich and poor, great and small, are all equal before God.

I am a Jew because I am the moral heir of those who stood at the foot of Mount Sinai and pledged themselves to live by these truths, becoming a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. I am the descendant of countless generations of ancestors who, though sorely tested and bitterly tried, remained faithful to that covenant when they might so easily have defected.

I am a Jew because of Shabbat, the world’s greatest religious institution, a time in which there is no manipulation of nature or our fellow human beings, in which we come together in freedom and equality to create, every week, an anticipation of the messianic age.

I am a Jew because our nation, though at times it suffered the deepest poverty, never gave up on its commitment to helping the poor, or rescuing Jews from other lands, or fighting for justice for the oppressed, and did so without self-congratulation, because it was a mitzvah, because a Jew could do no less.

I am a Jew because I cherish the Torah, knowing that God is to be found not in natural forces but in moral meanings, in words, texts, teachings and commands, and because Jews, though they lacked all else, never ceased to value education as a sacred task, endowing the individual with dignity and depth.

I am a Jew because of our people’s passionate faith in freedom, holding that each of us is a moral agent, and that in this lies our unique dignity as human beings; and because Judaism never left its ideals at the level of lofty aspirations, but instead translated them into deeds which we call mitzvot, and a way, which we call the halakhah, and thus brought heaven down to earth.

I am proud, simply, to be a Jew.

I am proud to be part of a people who, though scarred and traumatized, never lost their humor or their faith, their ability to laugh at present troubles and still believe in ultimate redemption, who saw human history as a journey, and never stopped traveling and searching.

I am proud to be part of an age in which my people, ravaged by the worst crime ever to be committed against a people, responded by reviving a land, recovering their sovereignty, rescuing threatened Jews throughout the world, rebuilding Jerusalem, and proving themselves to be as courageous in the pursuit of peace as in defending themselves in war.

I am proud that our ancestors refused to be satisfied with premature consolations, and in answer to the question, “Has the Messiah come?” always answered, “Not yet.”

I am proud to belong to the people Israel, whose name means “one who wrestles with God and with man and prevails.” For though we have loved humanity, we have never stopped wrestling with it, challenging the idols of every age. And though we have loved God with an everlasting love, we have never stopped wrestling with Him nor He with us.

And though I admire other civilizations and faiths, and believe each has brought something special into the world, still this is my people, my heritage, my God. In our uniqueness lies our universality. Through being what we alone are, we give to humanity what only we can give.

This, then, is our story, our gift to the next generation. I received it from my parents and they from theirs across great expanses of space and time. There is nothing quite like it. It changed and still challenges the moral imagination of mankind. I want to say to my children: Take it, cherish it, learn to understand and to love it. Carry it, and it will carry you. And may you, in turn, pass it on to your children. For you are a member of an eternal people, a letter in their scroll. Let their eternity live on in you.

Professor Judea Pearl is the director of the Cognitive Systems Laboratory at UCLA.