Remembering Rabbi Sacks ztl

How can I accurately describe the emotions I am feeling about the loss of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks?

The truth is that I cannot.

I can only speak from my heart and at this moment, it is broken.

It is shattered in a thousand pieces.

It is aching and crying out into the night.

I woke up this morning at 4.00 am, with Rabbi Sacks on my mind.

In my thoughts.

In my dreams.

I thought about the impact he has had on me personally on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

From his green Siddur that helps me understand my prayers and his beautiful Machzorim that I use throughout the year, to the A3 binders that store every single ‘Covenant and Conversation’ Dvar Torah dating back to 2013.

Each word therein is a pearl of wisdom.

Each idea a world in itself.

Each lesson a masterclass in erudition.

Each and every week a gift from a thinker like no other.

He is simply ubiquitous in my life.

As I look around my study, my eyes fixate on my Semicha Certificate, the beautifully framed document that proves my validity as a Rabbi and there, on the bottom right-hand side, is the signature of Yaakov Zvi ben David Arieh Sacks – Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. It is the academic achievement that I am most proud of as Rabbi Sacks was one of the Rabbis who granted me his authorization to join him in his profession. I am allowed to be called a Rabbi because Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks Of Blessed Memory was one of the signatories on my certificate.

When we met at his house nearly two years ago, he asked me in his gentle, loving way to relate some Torah to him. I did as asked and my surrogate father nodded and smiled. My heart melted.

Throughout our house, whenever Rabbi Sacks released one of his priceless videos, whether it was a talk to camera, a recent interview or a TED talk, you could hear his melodic tones filling the air. Either I was listening to it at one point downstairs or Stephnie was sitting in her study upstairs doing exactly the same. We marvelled together at his insight and the wonderful animated films he narrated and thanked Gd that we were living at a time when Rabbi Sacks could speak to us. He was too good to be true.

I was blessed to visit his house a number of times along with my fellow students and be treated to our very own shiur in his dining room. We held onto every word as if it were a raindrop falling onto a parched field or a pearl prized from an oyster and we marvelled at his extraordinary bookcase which held every type of tome that one could imagine. We were enraptured by his presence and we knew that we were the most blessed and fortunate people that could be alive at that precise moment.

Every time Rabbi Sacks received another prize, we held our heads high. He wasn’t just Rabbi Sacks. He was our Rabbi Sacks. Our hero. Our inspiration. Our Rabbi Sacks.

Throughout our travails over the last decades, whether it was trying to understand the mounting attacks in our beloved Israel or more recently, facing Corbyn and Covid, whenever Rabbi Sacks spoke, we knew that everything would work out OK. Because he was Rabbi Sacks.

He knew.

He could articulate our thoughts so clearly, so accurately.

We could never match his style, wit, grace and authority.

We were but pale shadows of this mighty yet exceedingly humble man.

We knew that he would always be our mouthpiece.

And now, he has left us and we do not know where to turn or whom to turn to.

He has left us.

Rabbi Sacks was our prophet and our sage. A king who did not need a crown, a prince amongst all men.

Rabbi Sacks famously said that “Faith is not certainty. Faith is the courage to live with uncertainty”.

At this moment in our lives, we need his courage, his belief and his love for all humanity to give us the strength to continue without him. Thank Gd, he has left us an extraordinary legacy through his extensive writings and broadcasts. Most of all, he has left us with the memories of how we were so blessed to spend precious time in his company.

Gd decided to take our Rabbi on the holiest day of the week, Shabbat, which could not be a more fitting day for a soul to return to its maker. Yesterday, on the day that he passed away, we read Parshat Vayera, where we learn how Abraham and Sarah, the very first Jews (in the general not historic sense of the world) were blessed with the birth of their long sought-after child, Isaac. Yitzchak was the child to whom Avraham was able to pass on his yerushah - his inheritance and his beliefs, his ideas and his monotheistic world-view. Rabbi Sacks felt to the core of his being that the only way to ensure Jewish Continuity was to talk to the young through a myriad of ways including the recent ‘Covenant and Conversation Family Edition’ versions of his weekly missive. That he died on the very Shabbat when we read of our patriarch and matriarch’s blessing is extraordinary.

There are no coincidences in life.

Rabbi Sack’s first name in Hebrew was Yaakov. As we know, Yaakov, Jacob was the father of the twelve tribes, the B’nei Yisrael. Like his namesake, Rabbi Sacks, was also father to our generations. May he be a Melitz Yoshor for us, the Jewish people. May he speak to Gd passionately in defence, on behalf of his people, our people, whom he loved unconditionally.

May Gd protect him in His divine Shadow until the coming of the Mashiach when we will once more be able to meet him again in rebuilt Jerusalem – may it come speedily in our days. Amen.

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