We have all learnt so much tonight. All I want to do finally is to say thank you, and I do so with a full heart.
Firstly, thank you to those who shaped tonight’s event, which I know will stay with each of us here for a long time to come. Thank you to the Chief Rabbi, for honouring us with his words this evening, and for his leadership during these turbulent times. To St John's Wood Synagogue for hosting us this evening – it’s special to be back here. And in particular to Dayan Binstock, for his great support for Rabbi Sacks and input into so much of his work for many years. And to all of you for joining us
Thank you to Daniel Taub, Rachel Golberg Polin, and Jon Polin. It has been a privilege to learn from you this evening – we are truly a fortunate people to have leaders like you. With your courage, clarity of purpose, and deep, unfailing humanity, you have done so much these past years to give voice to the things most of us had no words for, and to challenge us as a people: to stand tall, stay true to our values, and to be a better version of ourselves, even when we feared we were breaking. Thank you, on behalf of all of us.
And finally, it is with deep hakarat hatov that I want to thank those who made Rabbi Sacks’ Chumash possible. To the team at Koren, and in particular to Matthew Miller for his vision and determination to bring this project to fruition. To my amazing cousin Jessica Sacks and her editorial team for the great care they took in staying true to Rabbi Sacks’ voice and intent. To the Morris family for sponsoring the UK Conrad Morris edition of the Chumash and ensuring that United Synagogue communities received copies – so that, quite amazingly, people all over our community are already using the Chumash each week in shul.
And to the professional leadership and trustees of The Sacks Legacy for the years of dedication to ensuring Rabbi Sacks’ work can continue to add something to the world. Thank you.
I will admit that I had my reservations about this project. We all knew that publishing his own Chumash was my father’s big remaining dream, and it was the project he was working on when he died. But completing that work without him, and ensuring that the content was truly all his, the voice was his, that we could stay true to his Torah – I wasn’t sure it could happen.
But of all the extraordinary and surprising things that have happened since he died, this moves me the most – that there it is, on the shul bookshelf, on people laps during davening, not just for those with the time or inclination to pick up a book of essays or download a lecture – but that his torah is there for everyone, as part of their shabbat, that my father has become part of the furniture of our Jewish life – that is a blessing beyond words. And I thank you for making it happen.
My reaction to seeing his Chumash, more than to any other of his books, had left me wondering why – why was this his dream, and why does it matter so much that this is his legacy? What is it about a torah commentary per se – he had written many many books and essays on the Torah already, and much else besides. What is different about the pages of this book – the Chumash text, and the notes along the bottom?
It was only when I was trying to explain to a colleague where I was coming tonight that I remembered, most books are not written like this – the classic model of the page of Torah or Talmud, with text at the centre and commentary alongside, on the same page. Most books, most pages, are for one voice alone. But that is not our tradition...
What does it do, what does it say, that our core texts incorporate commentary onto the same page? It is - I think – the most basic way we have of reminding ourselves that there might be multiple ways to get to the truth. Commentary is the systemisation of argument – there, on the page, is the text and the question, the voice and the counter-voice. The commentator isn’t just an explainer, simplifying down the text for the reader to understand – they are a questioner, throwing doubt or light or shade on the text, and role modelling the task for us all – because if they can bring their own voice to the text, so can I, the reader. There is never just one truth on the page – one way to read and hear the word of Torah:
Says the Psalm:
אַחַ֤ת ׀ דִּבֶּ֬ר אֱלֹהִ֗-ים שְׁתַּֽיִם־ז֥וּ שָׁמָ֑עְתִּי
One thing God spoke, and two things I heard.
Says the Talmud in Eruvin:
אֵלּוּ וָאֵלּוּ דִּבְרֵי אֱלֹה-ים חַיִּים הֵן
these and those are the word of the living God
Rabbis Sacks once said:
“…How do we explain that Judaism is a religion of argument and that argument is for us something holy? Because argument is that point in which we live a reality which does justice to more than one point of view. More than one perspective. Hence, all the arguments on the page of a Chumash. So we see them from the eyes Rashi. We see them from Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, from Ramban... we see the point of view of God engaging in the dialogue with those who represent the point of view of humanity - called Abraham, called Moses, called Jeremiah, called Job.… There is the view of Hillel. But there is also the view of Shammai. There is the view of Jacob. But there is also the point of view of Esau. There is the point of view of Adam. There is also the point of view of Eve. And, ultimately, there is the point of view of us down here and there is the point of view of God up there.
“There is always more than one perspective. And Judaism regards that as fundamental to the nature of reality. …We are seeing the world from different perspectives and Judaism wants to confer dignity on how the world looks to me and how the world looks to you.
“Judaism is an attempt to do justice to the fact that there is more than one point of view; more than one truth.”
That is not simply a lesson for us in how to learn Torah.
It is - for me - a lesson in how we are called upon to live in a world which is forgetting how to argue well. All across the world, across our news, our narratives, our wars, across our local small daily aggressions and our terrifying global threats, we see this very simple ability start to fracture. Can I make space for the possibility that someone else might have a valid perspective, even if I disagree with it? That accepting they might have their own truths doesn’t require me to doubt or diminish my own? That – as Rabbi Sacks used to put so simply – people not like me are people, like me?
As Daniel has written, and Jon and Rachel have taught us – if we cannot argue well, if we cannot make space for other people’s views and stories and their humanity, how can we ever hope to build a world in which people - and peoples - can heal and find better ways forward?
So a commentary, in one small way, is a way of saying, I have a voice and you have a voice, I might disagree with you with all my being, but come, let’s sit, let’s have a conversation, and let’s see if our truth can be enlarged as a result.
When my father died, we had no rule book for what came next. But the other day in shul, I looked up from my davening and saw two things: our youngest son Yoni, the last of Rabbi Sacks’ grandchildren, who he never met and who carries his name. And I saw a shul full of people reading the week’s parasha from my father’s Chumash. And I thought: that is a legacy.
For when all is said and done, that is what Rabbi Sacks was – a father, a sabbah, and a teacher of Torah. Baruch Hashem for that legacy, and thank you to all of you for continuing to learn from and argue with his Torah.
May it help us all to learn to argue well, and may our arguments for the sake of heaven bring us a little more peace down here on earth.
