Special Issue: Rabbi Sacks’ Intellectual Legacy | Tradition Journal

With the goal of honoring and exploring the intellectual contributions of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks zt”l, TRADITION  is publishing a special book-length issue (360+ pages) containing essays by rabbinic, educational, and thought leaders in our community from the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom, and around the world.

Produced in cooperation with the Rabbi Sacks Legacy, this special double-issue of TRADITION is set to publish timed with Rabbi Sacks’ fifth yahrzeit in Fall 2025. Jonathan Sacks (1948–2020) served as the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth and was one of the most original and articulate voices on the Jewish scene. He was a long-time member of TRADITION’s editorial board, and a significant contributor—his very first scholarly article was published in our journal’s pages (Spring 1973).

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks was an eloquent spokesman for moral clarity and a religious voice of rare global resonance. Yet for all his public influence, there has been scant engagement with the structure and development of his thought, perhaps because his public influence overshadowed his more rigorous scholarly output. This volume offers a multifaceted portrait of a thinker who combined fidelity to tradition with wide intellectual vistas, moral imagination, and a far-reaching vision of the relevance of Jewish ideas for both the Jewish people and the world. Together, these seventeen essays, organized into five thematic sections, represent what we hope is a serious first step toward a broader scholarly conversation.

—From the Editors’ Introduction

Table of Contents

The Intellectual Legacy of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (Tradition, Fall 2025)

Foreword: The Challenge of Smallness or Greatness, Gila Sacks

Editors’ Introduction: Samuel Lebens, Jeffrey Saks & Tzvi Sinensky

Community Building & Communal Leadership

Staying Alive: The Dangers of Leadership

Erica Brown

Inclusive Orthodoxy: Vision, Context and Connections

Benjamin J. Elton

A Nation of Storytellers: From Pedagogy to Religious Philosophy

Daniel Rose

Rabbi Sacks’ Sermons: An Initial Appraisal

Tzvi Sinensky

Toward a Concept of Community

Gideon Sylvester

Politics, Power & The State of Israel

Not by Might: Aversion to Power in Rabbi Sacks’ Writings

Alex Israel

Israel Advocacy from a Global Pulpit

Michael Laitner

The Jewish State and the Failures of Diaspora: Three Approaches

Malka Z. Simkovich

Theology & Jewish Thought

Ethical Infinity and the Phenomenology of the Scroll

Miriam Feldmann Kaye

Rabbi Sacks as Theological Maverick or Mystical Traditionalist?

Samuel Lebens

Covenantal Theology in the Work of Rabbi Sacks

Tanya White

The Renaissance Rabbi

Raphael Zarum

Intra-Faith & Interfaith Relations

A New Taxonomy of Religious Truth

Barry Kleinberg

Perspectives on Loving the Stranger

Sarah Hass Robinson

The Dignity of Deference: Avoiding Strange Denominational Games

Chaim Strauchler

Hope, Resilience & The Future

Jacob’s Struggle and Messianic Journeys

Dov Lerner

Radical Resilience: Hope, Agency and Community

Mordechai Schiffman and Tamra Wright