Sacks Fifth Avenue

For years I've had an itch to write something about the phenomenon of rabbis whose egos were inflated by the prospect of global fame, turbocharged by the internet. But I always stopped short of doing so, apart from one post I did write on the self-promoting clown Shmuely Boteach. Even with that post I couldn't help writing a small addendum questioning if I'd been too harsh.

After all, with so much hostile fire against all Jews, why add your own friendly fire?

The problem is that, as prophetic writings warned us, the greatest Jewish enemies would come from within. But you don't have to be a Tomas de Torquemada or a Karl Marx to cause great damage to the Jewish people.

Which brings me onto the rabbi I have itched to write about for so long but, until now, have resisted: Jonathan Sacks. Going against someone with a big following is always off-putting; and in addition I feel weighed down by all the years of *not* writing about him. But, anyway, let's see if I can at least get some key points down "on paper", which will hopefully be helpful to me at least, therapeutically, and perhaps to anyone else who cares to look.

At this point in time, five years after the subject has died, my comments on him - going back almost three decades - are more akin to historical revisionism than belated personal reflections. It's funny (weird) how, as I age, things that don't seem very long ago to me, are considered (ancient) history by many.

I should also mention that the trigger for this blog post was an article in the Times of Israel, titled: "Five years after his death, online course aims to make Rabbi Sacks’s philosophy go global."

Sacks loved the word "leadership" and all talk relating to being a leader. His many admirers opine that he was that rarest of creatures: a leader who created leaders; similar to the Chabbad rebbe Menachem Scheerson, whom Sacks often mentioned as *his* great spiritual mentor.

Name dropping was something Sacks did often as a way of burnishing his credentials. Likewise, he never tired of referring to his time at Oxford and Cambridge as a would-be (great) philosopher. The point of these references was to show that he could have followed a secular route through life and been a man of letters, an esteemed intellectual. But because of a fateful meeting with said rebbe Schneerson, he sacrificed all this to become the Moses of his generation.

Of course he never really sacrificed anything, even assuming he would have amounted to any great shakes as a non-rabbi. What Sacks actually did is to have his cake and eat it too: he put on the hat of chief rabbi of Britain (an absurdly outdated and non-Jewish concept) while simultaneously pursuing a path towards 21st century global fame and acclaim, well beyond the parochial borders of his supposed Jewish flock.

To be continued ...

Almost 4 months since I wrote the above, let's try a bit more:

I remember when I used to go to Bevis Marks shul seeing a leaflet advertising an upcoming visit by Rabbi Sacks. What struck me as peculiar was the way it said he would be signing copies of his new book, Surely a rabbi wouldn't so something so inappropriate, I thought. Surely he will be here simply wanting to connect with his fellow Jews, as rabbis with "flocks" have always done ? But no, this was the dawn of the limelight-seeking rabbis, with Sacks leading the charge.

Years later, when he announced he would be resigning as chief rabbi in order to focus on other things, I noticed that in perfect synch with this declaration, Sacks' Facebook page changed its descriptor of him to "Global spiritual leader". Once again, I thought "eh?!" That kind of shameless self-aggrandisement surely can't be real, can it ? But it was all in keeping with a man who loved his TED talks and other globe-trotting platforms in the internet age. In fact, from book signing shul rabbi to global spiritual leader, it was all of a piece.

An article in the Jerusalem Post newspaper had noted this fame-seeking tendency following his awful interview with the Guardian in 2002. The article, titled "Legendary Rabbi of England calls for Jewish surrender in Europe", stated:

"Orthodox rabbis from Britain's mainstream United Synagogue Movement say they have long been irked by the inaccessibility of Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Most often, according to one, when a request is made for a meeting the supplicant rabbi will be given an appointment two weeks ahead -- and then for a 10-minute telephone conversation.

"When journalists call, however, it is unlikely to take more than a few seconds before -- "click, click" -- they are greeted by the hushed, bedroom tones of the chief rabbi, he said. Whatever his critics might say, Sacks is never at a loss for words, whether in front of a radio microphone, a television camera, or on the telephone with a journalist."

As stated above, Rabbi Sacks was often referred to as a leader who created leaders. I was always baffled by the overuse of this word among the anglo-Jewish community. Moses, the greatest leader of all, was also the humblest man who didn't think he was up to the job that God offered him. That paradox is the essence of Jewish "leadership": it is thrust upon you precisely because you don't seek it.

All this "young Jewish leadership" and so on just seemed so remote from those spiritual truths. Rather, it reminded me of brash salesmen: pushy, self promoting, silly.

And on a darker, more serious note: we have lived through an age where real leadership has been sorely lacking, a generation with the "face of a dog" whose "leaders" are in reality nothing more than followers, insecurely pandering to fads and fashions. An age of material abundance and virtue signalling. An era of blood-soaked "peace processes" like Oslo, of which Sacks heartily approved.

The more people waffled on about leadership, the more they back-slapped each other about it, the less actual leadership there was. A leader is not "kind to the cruel", he does not confuse "peace" with lies that lead to the savage murder of innocents.

I knew this article would be hard to write. I'll leave it there for now.

Except to add that people get the "leaders" they deserve. There is a reason why so many people admired and elevated Rabbi Sacks and it was because he represented their own desire to have it all: to have "modernity" and the exciting world of globalism that offered so much material gain; and simultaneously to feel spiritually wise.

Sacks saw himself as a modern-day Rambam, elegantly bridging the divide between secular learning and Jewish wisdom, His manifest failings and his virtue signalling were simply a reflection of his admirers. This continues in death, as in life, aided by a well-oiled publicity machine.

[Written a day later:] Rebbe Schneerson of Chabad was a real leader: he didn't talk about leadership, he simply got on with it in the time-honoured fashion. Most importantly he demanded "no land for peace" and was passionate in trying (but failing) to stop Israeli political leaders from making the catastrophic errors of Oslo, Gaza withdrawal etc.

In marked contrast, R. Sacks virtue signalled his "good liberal" credentials to the British in particular and to the world in general, so of course he said nothing of significance about the growing spiritual war on Israel until far too late in the day, and only after so many had spoken up before him despite not having his exalted platform.

I could see, as early as 2000-2001, that a growing hatred of Israel was simply the latest mutation of age-old antisemitism. It was blindingly obvious that the only Jewish state was now the "outcast Jew amongst the nations". I tried to convey as much in a Rosh Hashana sermon at my shul in 2002. I knew that Jews couldn't keep pretending that as "good liberals" who distanced themselves from "evil rightwing" Israeli policies they would be immune from the growing attacks.

Trying to be a "good" Jew is the oldest and most useless trick in the book. Just ask the German Jews who advertised their credentials as uber-patriots in the 1930s and yet still ended up in the same concentration camps as their more "Jewish" co-religionists.

But Jews like Sacks were far too keen to promote themselves as wonderful, admirable, intellectual "thought leaders", requiring as big an audience as possible, so of course they weren't going to call a spade a spade; they weren't going to equate this growing wave of Israel hatred with ancient antisemitism. That might look illiberal and unsophisticated and, most importantly, it might shrink their global audience.

Instead, Sacks wrote books like "The dignity of difference" presenting himself as a man of peace and a great liberal who could sing Kumbaya with his powerful friends in the Labour party, the BBC and the Royal family, as well as the useless "interfaith" institutions.

All while Islamic terrorism burnt down the world, turned his hometown into Londonistan and intimidated the West into cowering obeisance.