Episode 8: Morality (Part 2)

Prof. Haidt: Sacks has produced a work of extraordinary depth, beauty, urgency, and erudition. If the prophets of the Hebrew Bible came back to guide liberal democracies and anxious citizens through this difficult time, but first they studied modern history and social science, this is the book they would write for us.

Dan: What was interesting about this book was It was sort of a journey that started in University. H is third year undergraduate tutor was Roger Scruton, his doctoral supervisor at Cambridge was Bernard Williams, this book was a culmination of a long intellectual journey. He kind of went from this inward looking Jewish philosopher to this external moral voice of the age. The fact that that was the last book that he published, it's not by chance because it kind of captured. Who he was at his core, like there's Jewish content running through the book, but there's a very secular outward looking perspective.

Tanya [Narration]: Rabbi Sacks' Morality is the culmination of a lifetime of thought, a book that feels like the natural conclusion of his intellectual journey. Though it wasn't intended as his final book, it became his last published work. Looking back, it's easy to see how it brings together so many of his core ideas, which is why we've called it the application of his thinking.

In Morality, you really see how Rabbi Sacks weaves together threads from his earlier works into a profound social commentary that feels both timely and relevant. Throughout this podcast, especially in our episodes on To Heal a Fractured World, we've explored Rabbi Sacks' unique movement between the universal and the particular.

Most moral philosophers move from the particular to the universal. Rabbi Sacks though, saw the Bible as doing the reverse. Starting from the universal, it then moves to the particular to teach us an important truth, that it is in our differences, not despite them, that the challenge of our shared humanity lies. It is our particular cultures, traditions, religions, and narratives that help us to create a world rich with diversity, but nurtured through unity.

Judaism comes to teach the world what he terms, the dignity of difference. Rabbi Sacks' extraordinary gift was to take the particular teachings of Judaism and translate them into a language that could resonate in the broader universal conversations of the Western world.

From the beginning of his career, certain themes form the backbone of his thinking. The interplay between the universal and the particular, the dignity and freedom of the individual, the importance of covenant and responsibility. At the start, these ideas were often framed in the context of specific Jewish concerns, peoplehood, Halacha, the holocaust, orthodoxy. But as Rabbi Sacks became more prominent as a religious leader, he expanded those ideas outwards. He used the particular teachings of Judaism as a lens through which to offer a broader social commentary on the challenges facing society as a whole. And in doing so, he lived out his own philosophy. He took Jewish concepts and applied them to universal dilemmas, moving from a universal challenge to a particular Jewish insight, and then back to a universal application. It's this seamless movement. between the Jewish and the global that made Rabbi Sacks' work so impactful. And the book that we'll be focusing on in this episode, Morality, encapsulates that journey perfectly.

Dan: There are lots of public intellectuals in the world. There are very few public intellectuals in the world who are also rooted in faith, right? America used to have a few, Israel has a few, but really they're few and far between. And I think what Rabbi Sacks did was he gave us a language that allowed us as Jews to go out there into the world with our heads held high, never kind of being afraid of  a Judaism that engaged with the world, that engaged with its challenges, that engaged with its opportunities, that challenged it as much as the world challenged us.

Tanya: That was Daniel Sacker. Dan worked alongside Rabbi Sacks for nearly a decade and became a vital part of his team. In the Preface of Morality, Rabbi Sacks acknowledges Dan's contributions, noting that he conducted much of the research for the book and offered valuable suggestions on both style and substance.

I was curious about the evolution of the book. How did it emerge and why? I questioned Dan on this. Interestingly, his opening remarks mirror the journey we have made in our series from Rabbi Sacks' book Radical Then Radical Now (or, A Letter in the Scroll) to the book we're looking at today, Morality.

Dan: You know, for me, there, there were kind of two books that really frame, like, if anyone comes to me and says, I haven't read anything by Sacks before, like, what are the books I should read?

I'm like, if you want to understand him as rabbi sacks, read A Letter in the Scroll. Right? That is his philosophy about what it is to be Jewish in this time and this place and why it matters. Right? That's his answer to the question, why be Jewish? Right? The question of Jonathan Sacks: Public Intellectual Moral Philosopher is this book. It's Morality. And they bookended a career, not that A Letter in the Scroll was the first book he published, but it was the first book that really got traction.

You know, from someone who during his life started, you know, the early books were all about, intra issues or, faith after the Holocaust or like really kind of deep Jewish issues. A Letter in the Scroll was the first book that kind of began to turn him a bit more outward. And he's like, how do I kind of get to the Jews who don't really see the value of Judaism in the, in the modern world? Well, that was the answer to that book. And then gradually he kind of turned outwards as his career flourished. And he kind of went from this inward looking Jewish philosopher to this external moral voice of the age.

And then lockdown happened and kind of everything went online and the book became a Sunday Times bestseller. But what was really interesting was when the paperback came out, which was after he passed away, we asked the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to write an introduction. And in that introduction, it is such a moving piece of writing because: A) He calls the book a masterpiece, right? And I genuinely think it is. It's one of those books that will sit on people's shelves and people will go to it. When the Washington Post reviewed it, they had a beautiful description that has stuck with me, which was they called it an ethical will, right? It was like his ethical will. And actually, you know,  I miss him every minute of every day as do so many people. But, the fact that that was the last book that he published, it's not by chance because it kind of captured. Who he was at his core, there's Jewish content running through the book, but there's a very secular outward looking perspective.

Tanya Narration: As we've discussed in previous episodes, Dan highlights how Rabbi Sacks masterfully balanced the particular and the universal in his work. He sees this dynamic as a core element of Rabbi Sacks' philosophy, shaping much of his thinking. In fact, Dan believes that Morality represents a final synthesis of Rabbi Sacks' journey, where the specific wisdom of Judaism meets its universal application.

Dan: What was he trying to do right throughout his life, through all the books that you've spoken about on this podcast, and all the books that he wrote throughout his career, the 40 odd books, what was he trying to do? In my eyes, he was trying to do two things, right? He was trying to turn to Jews and say, listen, Judaism matters, right? It matters in today's world. And the reason why it matters in today's world is because there are lots of applications and there's lots of things going out there in the world that are very relevant to your daily life, that Judaism has something really meaningful to say about it. You want to talk about political rebellions, you go to Korach, you wanna talk about like, you wanna talk about economic, you go to the census and the half of shekel and the lesson that you learn from that.

But then he did one thing that went one step further, which was without trying to be a proselytizing faith in the way that other monotheistic faiths are. He was saying to the wider society, you're grappling with these really big issues and they're really difficult and there are certain things that if you look to the faith communities and if you look to my faith, there are things that can help inform those really difficult decisions you're taking. So it's not by chance that when Prime Ministers wanted to consult on really difficult issues, they would call him up because he wasn't a politician. He was in the house of Lords, but my God, he was not a politician, right? He was a smart, softly spoken, but deeply wise individual. And within that space, it meant that he could sit with Tony Blair and learn and teach Torah and talk about the big society.

Tanya: So, in 2020, Rabbi Sacks releases Morality, a book that seamlessly blends decades of Jewish wisdom and philosophy with the real cultural, moral and sociological challenges of our time. As only a deeply engaged moral thinker and religious leader could. I couldn't help but wonder, was there something specific going on, some pressing issue or context that pushed Rabbi Sacks to write this book at this particular moment? He was witnessing in the Western world that led him to claim that we needed, in his words, a cultural climate change?

Dan: Remember 2017. Trump had been elected, Brexit had happened, antisemitism was rising, the Labour Party in Britain was in, you know, the quagmire. It was a really divisive time, both economically and politically and culturally and socially. So he sort of said, if you want to bring society back together, you have to do a search and replace operation in your mind, and wherever you encounter the word self, change it for the word other. So self help becomes other help, self esteem becomes other esteem.

So, you know, there was huge division. Within society, I think people, you know, we're now, well, eight years on from like the Brexit referendum, right? But people forget quite how divided and divisive the Brexit referendum was within British politics. People forget, okay, they're now seeing it again because Trump's coming back onto the scene. But the first time that he ran, quite how divisive and divided American politics became and has remained and to be honest, was leading up to it, but it was supercharged with the Trump candidacy, in 2015, 2016, there was a lot of people thinking like is this the end of like liberal democracy as we know it? Like is this kind of Fukuyama's end of history, end of civilization? And so already there, you had sort of Templeton that was thinking about outsourcing the morality. You had TED that was thinking about what are the kind of weeds that we've got and how do we kind of move from this future you, which is what the conference was focused on to the future us.

And then in July of 2017, we went to New York and he spoke at something called the Chautauqua institution. And he actually spoke on the same stage as, do you remember when Salman Rushdie was attacked in 2022 I think? So it was, it was on that stage. And in 2017, that was the first time that you started talking about this idea of cultural climate change. And I think after that conference and the speech went down really, really well and a few people afterwards sort of in conversations with him picked up this phrase, oh, cultural climate change, I've never heard it described described that way.

And so I think like that, that sense of there's all these different things going on and actually under an umbrella, you know, you have global warming and global warming is caused by any number of different things. And so if you have cultural climate change, it's caused by any number of different things and they can be sort of super high salaries in economics or divisive politics or lack of free speech in academia or like all these kind of trigger points that were going on. And it was sort of this umbrella phrase that we kind of felt maybe there's something there.

Tanya Narration: So in response to the rise of divisive politics and polarization, radical individualism, and the rise of the selfie generation, Rabbi Sacks begins to speak about the idea of cultural climate change.

In 2018, he was asked by the BBC to record an audio series on the state of morality in the 21st century.

Dan: For that program, we basically created a list of people that he admired that he wanted to speak to, and so we spoke to like Nick Bostrom about AI and David Brooks and Melinda Gates and Jonathan Haidt and Irina Hertz and Jordan Peterson and Steven Pinker and Robert Putnam and Mike Sandel, Mustafa Suleiman from DeepMind, and Gene Twain who had been talking a lot about the "I" generation. He had the most amazing conversations and I I was privileged enough to to work on that series with him and like sitting and listening to some of these conversations was just remarkable watching these heavyweight public intellectuals go, go, you know, and have this back and forth and this dialogue and this sort of constructive, engagement. And the original idea for the book was we take the transcripts of those conversations, kind of finesse the transcripts a little bit, and then he would like top and tail it and, and that, and there would be a book about morality in the 21st century, which on paper was a great idea.

And then when we actually came to do it, it didn't feel 'Sacksian'. It, it felt like the cheap version of what the book should be. Not that anything that anyone was saying was cheap. It was all very deep and meaningful. But it just wasn't him. And so, like, a book that was never really on his radar to write at that point in his life kind of became a project that really spoke to the time.

Tanya [Narration]: One of the thinkers that featured in that series was Professor Jonathan Haidt, an expert on the moral foundations of society and someone Rabbi Sacks admired and engaged with many times over the years. He agrees with Rabbi Sacks' definition of the state of morality in the Western world as cultural climate change, and he explained to me why.

Prof. Haidt: So I think Rabbi Sacks is right to refer to it as cultural climate change. It's changing a few basic parameters that have extraordinary and far reaching effects. So if you raise the co2 concentration in the atmosphere from whatever x parts for x parts per, you know per million to you know 50 or 100 percent more than X parts per 100 million, you get a lot of different changes around the planet.

And I think in the same way, as we change a couple of parameters that Rabbi Sacks talks about, we get that. And so diversity is one. The more you have a diverse society the more fracture points you have. Diversity brings many benefits, but it also is hard for a it's harder for diverse society to cohere. So rising diversity is is in our societies are much more diverse now and that makes it more challenging. The technological environment, if people are not they don't need other people they're spending much more time alone that is a rapid change. In my book, The Anxious Generation, I argue that the period 2010 to 2015 is the great rewiring of childhood. That's the period where young people, and us older people too, went from having a flip phone that we use just to communicate to having a smartphone by 2015, which can take up all of our time. And for half of all teenagers in America, they say they are online almost all the time because they're constantly doing this doing this. So these are changes like raising the co2 level that have very profound and far reaching effects.

So, how do we combat that?

Well with CO2 with climate change, it's easy. There's only two or three climate change and I think is it methane? There's one other gas that plays a role, but there are just two gases that really matter a lot and we can try to reduce those. Here it's much harder just for the two that I mentioned, you know, diversity, and I think Rabbi Sacks was very good on this. In Britain, you have the same issues we do in America, just with slightly different populations and issues. But, I believe, you know, he talked about the need for assimilation. He talked about the need to rethink how we, how we're handling diversity. He consistently recognizes the value of it. But unlike some scholars who just say, oh, it's good, good, good. We can never criticize it. He wrestled with the question of how do you maintain a cohesive society as you increase diversity?

Tanya Narration: This was a question that deeply concerned Rabbi Sacks, especially as an Orthodox Jew. On the one hand, he was committed to his particular tradition and heritage, and on the other, he was a loyal British citizen and a champion of the values promoted by the Western liberal tradition. He addresses this topic in many of his early works, such as The Dignity of Difference or The Home We Build Together.

However, in 2020, with the publication of Morality, Rabbi Sacks shifts his focus not only to the challenges of multiculturalism, but, perhaps more urgently, to the need for a shared moral language and code. His thesis can be summarized in the opening sentence of the book.

Rabbi Sacks zt"l: It's about us, not me, about ‘We’, not ‘I’. If we focus on the ‘I’ and lose the ‘We’, if we act on self interest without a commitment to the common good, if we focus on self-esteem and lose our care for others, we will lose much else.

Tanya [Narration]: In earlier episodes, we discussed Rabbi Sacks' approach to the concept of the self, not as an isolated self contained entity, but as something that comes to life through relationships with others. In his ontology, his philosophy of being, Rabbi Sacks rejects the notion that we are destined for a solitary individualistic existence.

Instead, as social creatures, our identities are shaped and transformed through our connections with others. This perspective is central to his idea of covenant because in a contractual relationship, I exchange goods or services, but ultimately, I view the other person as a means to an end. However, in a covenantal relationship, there's a deeper commitment. The other person is not a tool for my benefit. But rather a partner, a subject in their own rights. So covenant is about mutual responsibility, working together to create something larger than either one of us alone can. It's a relationship that not only changes the world, but transforms us in the process.

It was this way of thinking about morality that is unique and stands in contrast to the rule based universal moral philosophies of the Enlightenment. For Rabbi Sacks, then, morality isn't just a set of abstract rules, it's relational and communal. It's about the covenantal responsibility we have to each other and to God. It's about forming a web of duties that ties us to our community and to the world.

Now, we're not going to dive too deeply into the complex philosophical ramifications of this moral vision, but it is important to recognize how vital this kind of collective morality is in today's world. Because we become so individualistic, trust, collective responsibility, and meaningful conversations have eroded, and Rabbi Sacks saw this breakdown in part as a result of certain Enlightenment philosophies that placed too much emphasis on individual autonomy.

So that was the theory, but what about the practical application? How could his vision be applied and advanced in contemporary society? I asked Professor Haidt if he agreed with Rabbi Sacks' assessment, and whether he has found a way of addressing these challenges himself

Prof. Haidt: This has been one of the biggest questions in sociology. What keeps a society together? And traditionally it's been shared gods, shared blood, and shared enemies. And that kind of worked for many thousands of years with a lot of dead people from conflicts. But as Rabbi Sacks so beautifully illustrates the rise of liberal democracy, the liberal tradition in Europe and then America. We found ways to, to live together without shared blood, especially in America. God certainly have helped, but we can kind of do it maybe without God, it's certainly not essential. And shared enemies really helped. Certainly America and Britain got huge boosts from World War Two in terms of social capital, in terms of the ability to hang together and create what we call the greatest generation.

But a large diverse secular liberal democracy in a sense shouldn't exist. It should fall apart that's what you would kind of expect. It'll fall apart unless there are other things like binders or Something to sort of increase the the centripetal force the force binding it together to counteract the centrifugal force of a large diverse society Rabbi Sacks really really understood that. And in Morality, he talks a lot about what it takes to have a good, decent, and, cohesive society.

And of course, so much of modernity, back to the Industrial Revolution and rising, income and individuality, has been a weakening of, of these tight local parochial relationships that are natural and easy for humans out to a broader more individualistic society that certainly is more prosperous, we're all much more productive. But we've lost the social capital for one thing the trust and I think throughout I could say I think I first met Rabbi Sacks at an event at NYU around 2012 something like that and what was most striking to me was just how much he understood this problem. And he could see that Western countries, certainly the UK and the US, were ignoring it, were losing their social capital, losing their trust.

Now, you ask me, what can we do about this? That's a really, really hard problem, because so many of the trends that are happening are in a sense centrifugal trends, they break us open. And so rising wealth is one, people are interdependent when they need other people. But as we get wealthier, we get more labor saving devices and now we get the phones and the internet. People don't really need each other to, meet their material needs. That is, like, I know, I've noticed young people, including my children, they really, really hate to ask anyone anything in person. They hate to ask for directions, because they're so, you can get everything on the phone. You don't need other people. And the more we free people from dependence on other people, the more we're encouraging an I based world, and we're making it difficult to have a we based world, as Rabbi Sacks urged us to do. The technology is a big piece of this. Declining family size, declining religiosity.

So I think the trends for Western secular liberal democracies are not good. The trends are going in the wrong direction on what you might call moral capital or social capital, but especially moral capital, what it takes to have a moral community.

Tanya Narration: So Professor Haidt underscored exactly what Rabbi Sacks outlines at the beginning of his book. The alarming trends around the breakdown of a shared language to talk about morality and ethics. This concern isn't new for Rabbi Sacks. It's something he addresses in his earlier works as well. When we lose the ability to have constructive, respectful conversations about moral issues, public discourse becomes aggressive and polarized, as we've witnessed over the last few years. And what's the result? Trust erodes, social capital thins, and we lose our shared sense of moral purpose. Because without a common moral language, civility itself is in jeopardy.

So while Professor Haidt has chosen to emphasize the role of technology in the youth in addressing this malaise, Rabbi Sacks focus is on winning back the common good. That is our ability to reclaim that shared moral discourse. Rabbi Sacks believed that our fragmented, polarized world could only be healed through a return to covenantal thinking, where relationships, responsibility, and the common good are central to how we live. He laid out this vision concisely in his powerful TED Talk of 2017. Dan explains why this TED Talk was so central to Rabbi Sacks' vision of the Good Society.

Dan: Fast forward to April 2017, and he gives a speech at the TED conference. The TED conference, as I'm sure the listeners know, is one of the most prestigious speaking platforms in the world. And this was the main TED conference in Vancouver. The framing of that conference had been around the future you. And Rabbi Sacks basically gave a talk, where he said, if we want to think about the future you, we need to think about the future us. And we need to think about "us" like the "we" in three elements the "we" of relationship the "we" of identity and the "we" of responsibility

Tanya: So in other words, for Rabbi Sacks, the future of humanity had to turn from the 'selfie' outwards to the group picture, right?

Dan: I think it was written as a polemic against the moment in time as kind of saying like, look, there's all these things that are trying to drive us apart.

I think one of the things he was trying to remind people in the book is you don't just have rights, you also have responsibilities. And you have responsibilities to society. You can't just take from society without giving. You can't think of yourself and not think of the other. And like, I'm sure there's a smarter way of defining that as a philosophy, but ultimately, for me, that that's what he was always trying to remind us. You don't operate in isolation. You operate either as part of a community, as part of a group, as part of a society, as part of a nation. And that within that, there are things that you can expect to receive, but there's also things that people can expect to receive from you. And I think what he felt is that that pendulum had swung too far towards people thinking about what they could take and not thinking about what they needed to give.

And I think Morality was trying to reset that balance and saying, you know, he's not against individualism, right? He's not against individual rights and everything else, but he is very much for the common good. And he is for a sense of a common humanity. And what, what does that mean when you break it down? It means that you have responsibilities as well as rights.

Tanya [Narration]: Dan captures here something Sam and I discussed in the previous episode, the outward looking posture that affirms one's own identity and inner conviction and at the same time turns outwards towards the other. This is something Rabbi Sacks embraced in both his life and his philosophy.

Earlier, we heard from Joanna Benarroch about Rabbi Sacks’ manifesto as Chief Rabbi, a vision of Judaism deeply engaged with the world. His theology focuses on the complex, sometimes messy work of healing our world here and now, rather than a religious philosophy that looks only to spiritual realms detached from everyday reality.

For Rabbi Sacks, this outward facing stance wasn't just a religious ideal. It was a model for how individuals should exist within their communities, societies, and nations. He believed that if freedom leads us to turn inward, demanding rights over responsibilities, then something has gone wrong in society.

He warned us of this in his 2016 speech upon receiving the Bradley Prize. And so as Rabbi Sacks so beautifully writes, the Jewish question is not, what can the world give me? But rather, what can I give to the world? At its heart, the Jewish story is a story of responsibility.

In his book, The Anxious Generation, Professor Haidt writes, offers some tangible remedies to combat the cultural climate change that Rabbi Sacks warns us about. He highlights the importance of limiting social media and screen time for children, promoting independence, free play, and real world responsibility.

He also stresses the need to foster social cohesion. Even as we face increasing polarization and diversity, according to Professor Haidt, there are ways to bring people back together despite these challenges. But with the speed and intensity of this cultural shift, I couldn't help wonder, is there really a panacea to these problems?

So I asked him if we can realistically find a way to reverse these trends.

Prof. Haidt: I think that, there are a few things that we must do, if we're to have any hope of making it through this. And one, I think, is to give kids as normal a human childhood as we can before they just sort of each descend into their separate pods and with a phone glued to their face. So one of the things I argue for in The Anxious Generation is don't give kids a smartphone until age 14.

Don't let them have social media accounts until age 16, and especially send them out much more to play in groups where they will learn the skills of getting along with other people in order to keep the game going, resolving disputes in order to keep the game going. This is a small piece of the puzzle it's the one I've been working on recently. This could be the existential question of the century. There are several including climate change global warming. But I think holding together large diverse secular societies is one of the existential questions we face and I think Rabbi Sacks and particularly his book Morality is essential reading for understanding why we're in this mess.

An example of a way that we can at least push back on on the way this I culture is is taking our children and really changing their developmental pathways in ways that will make it harder for us to have a successful liberal democracy, but your question is a really difficult one because there are multiple trends, multiple sociological factors that are changing. It's very hard to change sociological factors. And I think we have to see a lot of the conflicts in Europe and America as the response in a, in a society to these changes. I think the fact that immigration has become so central in the U S and the UK, and has led to some, to violence and assassinations, I think is just an example of how important it is to get these issues right, they will be with us for a long time.

You use the word panacea, there is no panacea. This is a really difficult question that social scientists need to work out. And I wish to God we had social science departments and universities that were truly focused on solving this range of problems that were not to some extent going in for certain progressive ideologies that Rabbi Sacks and I both were concerned about because it's distracting social scientists from these existential questions about liberal democracy.

 So I think Rabbi Sacks and I both observed some of the same very worrisome trends sociological trends that we're going to make it more difficult to have a decent cohesive liberal democracy. When when I see a problem and I think wait, here's a solution like we should do this I unfortunately I have this tendency to found non profit organizations and then that takes up a lot of my time for the rest of my life. But the, the first one that I founded was Heterodox Academy because I saw that the universities, which were so essential for understanding what's happening to us and for producing the scholarship. Universities were being sucked into the culture war. Most professors are on the left, that's always going to be the case for psychological reasons. But that's not a problem unless it corrupts their mission. And they see their mission not as finding the truth, but as helping one team. And so I founded Heterodox Academy to encourage more viewpoint diversity in the academy to make, make graduate school especially and professional life safe for libertarian or centrist or God forbid, even an occasional conservative scholar.

Tanya Narration: During our conversation, it became clear that like Rabbi Sacks, Professor Haidt is a cautious optimist, but also realistic about the challenges facing Western democracies.

This got me thinking, had any particular piece of Jewish wisdom from his encounters with Rabbi Sacks influenced his own work? I was curious to find out. His answer turned out to be both enlightening and inspiring.

Prof. Haidt: So I've been very concerned about the need for viewpoint diversity. And that's a very Jewish project. And this is something that I wasn't fully aware of until I met Rabbi Sacks. I first met him at a NYU event in 2012 or so  But I then I met him at a hotel, we had a lovely afternoon tea together and that really, that really affected me.

He turned me on to certain quotes from the Talmud about how essential it is to have viewpoint diversity. He reminded me that the Talmud, of course, is so unusual in human history because it preserves the losing arguments. It's a very Jewish way of thinking to say, "you know what? We actually need we need people to critique us. In fact one of the great quotes that I got from Rabbi Sacks, this is a quote from Not in God's Name, where Rabbi Sacks told me about Rabbi Judah Lowe of Prague a rabbi of Prague in the 16th century, and this rabbi was referring to an Islamic scholar from four centuries previously named Averroes, Averroes, something like that.

And Averroes was saying that, philosophers should always cite the views of their opponents. And now here, I quote from Rabbi Lowe, and this is in the book, Not in God's Name. So the Rabbi Lowe, 16th century, says, It is not proper that we despise the words of our adversaries, but rather we must draw them as close as we can. Therefore, it is proper, out of love of reason and knowledge, that you should not summarily reject anything that opposes your own ideas. Even if such beliefs are opposed to your own faith and religion, do not say to your opponent, speak not, close your mouth. If that happens, there will take place no purification of religion.

And so at the time I, my favourite philosopher was Stuart Mill who made these same points, who said he who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. But what I discovered from, getting to know Rabbi Sacks and his work is that all my work, all that I've been doing is a very Jewish project.

My book, The Righteous Mind, is really about how we actually need left and right. We need them engaged in the right way in order to make progress. Heterodox Academy was about creating a kind of a, like a Torah study community. Like we need to engage with each other, not kick out the heretics and the deviants.

Out of Heterodox Academy grew the Constructive Dialogue Institute, which Caroline Mel runs and it offers programs that train students, ideally freshmen in college, you know, arriving in college, to understand the moral psychology that divides us and to become really skillful at talking across divides.

All of this is, I think, a very Jewish approach to the challenges of society and the challenge of difference and difference is not something to be feared or pushed away or punished, it's something to be welcomed so that you can improve your own understanding.

That is a lesson I learned from Rabbi Sacks that actually my thinking is very Jewish.

Tanya Narration: Professor Haidt had hit the nail on the head when he spoke about Rabbi Sacks' openness to challenge. Rabbi Sacks didn't just welcome opposing views, he saw it as a cornerstone of individual growth and the root of a healthy society. In his chapter, in the book Morality, entitled ‘Two Ways of Arguing’, he delves into how argument is a quintessentially Jewish concept that is appropriated for formative rather than divisive ends.

The key lies in knowing how to argue. For Rabbi Sacks, argument wasn't about power or victory. It was a collaborative search for truth, one that always under every circumstance, upheld the dignity of the other, even in disagreement. Rabbi Sacks didn't just preach this principle, he lived it. In my conversation with Dan, I was given a glimpse into the private side of a man whose public teachings aligned with his most intimate actions.

Dan: The one thing that you have to know about Rabbi Sacks is he never stopped learning. Like, he never stopped. And that manifested itself in a number of different ways. Like, A, he would read all the op ed pieces in every paper, in every paper around the world. Like, I mean, he was constantly interested in trends and what people were thinking and how were they engaging with issues. It manifested itself in books. So he would read so much, like, I mean, books would arrive, and he'd read them overnight, cause he, he didn't sleep, and he'd sort of come to me the next day, and the thing I love most about books obviously, he didn't do this on Shabbos or Yom Tov, but he would read a book with a pencil and he'd underline, like, particular sentences or, like, highlight particular bits, and he'd give me the book the next day, and it meant that I could read the book on, like, double speed because I only had to read the underline or the highlighted bits.

The first week, when I finally started working for him and I was, I was working for him sort of informally before it became formal, but, my first week on the job, he would often work at home in his study. So we were working, I can't remember if it was like a times op ed or a or a thought for the day broadcast. And he emailed it through to me, this, this text. And so I opened it up and first week on the job and I read it and it was obviously beautiful and I sort of sent him back an email that was, you know, Oh, this reads really well, I really like this. you know, should I send it in? And I press send on the email and the email when 10 seconds later, my phone went and it was him. He was like, Dan, I'm like, yeah, it's like, um, there's a million people in the world that I could send that to who would give me that feedback. That's not your job. He's like, I know what I need to do to make it better. I've read it again, give me 10 minutes or whatever and he put the phone down. And I was like, Oh my God, like, you know, this is like, well, what's going on? And so he sent me back an edited draft that was infinitely better than the first draft and tightened the argument and, you know, everything else. And we sent it in.

The following week, we were working on another thing, again, I can't remember if it was an op ed or a broadcast, and he sent me a transcript again. And I was like, look, I'm not going to make the same mistake twice. I absolutely ripped it to shreds. I like red lined stuff. I left comments on stuff, I'm like, you pull your punch in the second half. Like why have you not done this? And I hesitated for a minute, and then I pressed send. And 10 seconds later, I got a withheld and I'm like, Oh my God, this is the second week of my dream job, I'm about to get fired. And I pick up the phone and he's on the end of the phone and he's like, better, better, right?

And, and this sense of excitement that, I mean, aside from the fact that, like, he was the most remarkable mensch at an individual level, and the things that he did, and the people he called, and the meetings he took, and the books he read of other peoples, and the comments, like, I can't begin to tell you how much of that stuff happened that no one, will ever know about like the WhatsApp messages when someone was ill that he sent, just the time that he gave people was unbelievable, but what he expected from those of us that worked with him was challenge, right?

He said to me during that call. He said six words that kind of redefined my relationship with him over the next like nine years. You're empowered to say no. You're empowered to say no. Five words. and from that moment on, I kind of knew what my role was. My role was not there to kind of just get stuff done. My role was there to push him to the extent that I could with my limited intellectual capability versus him as like the smartest person I've ever been in a room with, to kind of say, like, is this the best we can do? Does this work? And he wouldn't just want it from me. He would have expected me to talk to two or three other people in the crowd and be like, how did that land? Like, what worked, what didn't work? And the reason was that he just, he had this relentless desire to improve. And that manifested itself in his thinking, right?

So the more he read, the more his views began to change. And he wasn't one of these dogmatic philosophers who was like, I've got my way of thinking and the world conforms with me, right? He was like, look, I've got a sense of what I think needs to happen, but there's stuff going on out there and that stuff can influence my thinking and can shift me a little bit and can move me. And that's not a sign of weakness, that's a sign of strength, right? The weakness is when you never move your position. The strength is when you're, you've got rooted beliefs, which he had from Orthodox Judaism and he was never, you know, he never once moved from that position within Orthodox Judaism, but he saw what was going on in the world and he saw the trends and that's why he wanted to come into those trends and contribute to that public dialogue in a way that mattered because he was constantly kind of fine tuning his interventions, and having people around him that would push him to fine tune those interventions, and that's what gave him impact, and that's what gave him influence beyond the Jewish community. It was a very deeply thought out, methodical process of development. And that, and that's one of the biggest lessons I took from working with him was just never settle, never think that you've achieved a pinnacle of something, because there's always another mountain to climb.

Tanya Narration: It shouldn't surprise us to hear this about Rabbi Sacks because it highlights how his religious and moral philosophy seamlessly intersected with his everyday actions. As we've often emphasized, Rabbi Sacks believed that individuals can only be transformed and in turn transform others when they align themselves with something beyond the self. Whether it is the way we as Jews are committed to the generations before us and to the laws of our tradition, or as citizens to those we live among and to the greater good of society. When we understand that our freedom is not an arbitrary value, but a privilege to be used responsibly, society will flourish.

Over the last eight episodes, we've explored many aspects of Rabbi Sacks' philosophy. I've argued that his thought can be envisioned as a triangular framework, emphasizing human freedom and dignity at one point, human responsibility at another, and covenantal duty at the third. Only someone who understands why they are free, will commit to another in covenant, whether with God or with another person. And through that covenantal commitment, will act responsibly for the sake of the greater good. We've shown how Rabbi Sacks uses the principle of covenant rooted in the Bible to navigate Jewish issues such as peoplehood and Halacha in his early writings. But as his thinking broadens to address more universal concerns such as science and religion, multiculturalism and morality, covenant remains central. For him, commitment to a covenantal way of life is the beating heart of any healthy society. So it's no surprise that his last words focused on the importance of covenant

Rabbi Sacks zt"l: Covenantal politics, by contrast, is about "we the people," bound by a sense of shared belonging and collective responsibility. About strong local communities, active citizens, and the devolution of responsibility. It's about reminding those who have more than they need of their responsibilities to those who have less than they need. It's about ensuring that everyone has a fair chance to make the most of their capacities and their lives.

One of the great historical lessons is that societies become strong when they care for the weak. They become rich when they care for the poor, they become invulnerable when they care for the vulnerable.

That is the beating heart of the politics of covenant. My firm belief is that the concept of covenant has the power to transform the world. It sees relationships in terms, not of interest, but of moral commitment. It changes everything it touches from marriage to friendship, to economics and politics by turning self interested individuals into a community in pursuit of the common good.

There is nothing inevitable about the division, fragmentation, extremism, isolation, the economics of inequality, or the politics of anger that have been the mood of Britain and America in recent years. There have been the legacy of the misplaced belief that societies can function without a moral bond. They can't, at least not for long. That is why we are where we are, but we can change. Societies moved from I to we in the past. They did so in the 19th century. They did so in the 20th century. They can do so in the future. And it begins with us.

Tanya [Narration]: Throughout this podcast series, we have embarked on a profound and enriching journey through some of Rabbi Sacks' most significant works, delving deeply into the ideas and ideals that shaped his intellectual and spiritual legacy.

We have explored the central themes, the intricate structure and the timeless relevance of each book, while reflecting on the evolution of his thought throughout his life. We began with A Letter in the Scroll (or Radical Then, Radical Now), and we termed it ‘The Call’. It was a book that brought us face to face with the depths of Jewish identity and heritage, with a mandate to protest and a call to responsibility.

We moved to Future Tense, which we termed The Narrative. We examined Rabbi Sacks' vision for the Jewish people as a people engaged with the world, taking agency for their future and responsibility writ large. We explored his vision of a paradigm shift in our national narrative and why self perception forms a central role in shaping our destiny.

We then progressed to what we termed ‘The Mission’, as seen in his book, To Heal a Fractured World, which challenged us to think about our ethical responsibilities to society, and surprisingly, focuses on the role of the faith of ordinary individuals that encourages small acts of kindness and compassion extending beyond the self, rather than giant leaps of universal proportions.

And finally, we turned to the book Morality, which we termed ‘The Application’, where we wrestled with the social and cultural challenges of our time, grappling with a problem, of the erosion of shared values and what it means to rebuild a collective moral framework, based on some central principles of Jewish theology, such as collective responsibility, covenantal duties, and the right way of arguing.

At the heart of that exploration has been Rabbi Sacks' methodology, his ability to weave Jewish tradition with contemporary thought, to speak in a voice that is both ancient and modern, deeply Jewish, yet universally human. His writings have consistently intersected with the pressing issues of our day, the challenges of identity in an age of individualism, the tension between faith and modernity, and the crisis of meaning in an era that prizes autonomy over community.

This journey has not merely been an academic exercise, it has been an invitation to each of us to think more deeply about our own role in the world. What is our mission? What story do we tell about ourselves? How do we contribute to the moral and spiritual renewal of society? What does it mean to take responsibility? How can I continue the cultural and religious heritage that I have been gifted?

Rabbi Sacks' works offers not just answers, but perhaps more profoundly, the tools to engage with these questions meaningfully, encouraging us to live with purpose, responsibility, and a sense of belonging. We hope. That through this exploration, both those familiar with Rabbi Sacks' work and those encountering it for the first time have found wisdom, clarity, and perhaps even a call to action.

His work challenges us to consider our own personal and communal mission to rethink our moral frameworks and to re imagine the role we play in shaping the future.

In many ways, this series has not just been an exploration of Rabbi Sacks' writing, but an invitation to continue the conversation. Because his vision was always forward looking, and he believed in the power of ideas. He saw the world not just as it is, but as it could be. And he called upon each of us to help bridge that gap.

As we conclude this series, our prayer is that his wisdom helps inspire us to live with intention, to lead with compassion and to strive for a better world.

Tanya: I'm Dr. Tanya White, and you have been listening to Books & Beyond: the Rabbi Sacks podcast. If you would like to send me comments or feedback, please email [email protected]. Don't forget to check us out at rabbisacks.org under the projects tab, and follow us on X and Facebook at (@RabbiSackspod) and instagram (@RabbiSackspodcast), where you will find all information and extra content relating to the episodes.

This is the last episode in our eight part series. And I want to take this opportunity to thank a few people who made this series possible. Firstly, my dedicated students of many decades from whom I learn every day. Without your passion, wisdom, and encouragement, I would never have dreamed this series was possible. You've shown me what it means to engage passionately with the written works of Jewish relevance and our classes stood as the template of this project.

A big thank you to those who sponsored this project before it was even a reality. Your belief in the vision allowed it to become one.

Thank you to our series producer, Amir White, and the team for your patience and professionalism, and to The Rabbi Sacks Legacy with special gratitude to Jonny Lipczer and Joanna Benarroch.

Finally, thank you to you the listeners for coming on this journey with me and for your incredible feedback and encouragement along the way, please continue to share the series with family, friends, educators, and students.

We cannot finish without holding in our minds and hearts that the time of recording, 79 of our brothers and sisters continue to be held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. We pray for their safe return in both body and spirit for the protection of our soldiers and for the return of all evacuees and a lasting peace.