On Sunday, November 2, 2025, Zahava and Moshael J. Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought Clinical Assistant Professor Rabbi Dr. Dov Lerner participated in 鈥淭he Intellectual Legacy of Rabbi Sacks,鈥 a launch event for Tradition鈥檚 special volume exploring the intellectual legacy of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. The conversation was moderated by Rabbi Dr. Samuel Lebens, associate professor in the philosophy department at the University of Haifa.
Rabbi Dr. Lerner鈥檚 essay in Tradition, 鈥,鈥 tracks Rabbi Sacks' thoughts on messianism and redemption. Reading the former chief rabbi of England鈥檚 works, including To Heal a Fractured World, The Great Partnership, Not in God鈥檚 Name and Future Tense, among others, 鈥渋t was striking how central a concern messianism and the belief in redemption were to Rabbi Sacks,鈥 Rabbi Dr. Lerner remarked. 鈥淣ot only does Rabbi Sacks鈥 thought on this evolve over time, but it revolves over time. There is a massive shift in the way Rabbi Sacks speaks about messianic hope.鈥
Rabbi Dr. Lerner proposed that in the earlier days of Rabbi Sacks鈥 rabbinic career, his ideas surrounding messianism were a 鈥渟omewhat parochial, narrow, limited political vision where Jews would have sovereignty, independence and justice in their homeland.鈥 This vision, inspired by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Maimonides and Rabbi Judah Alkalai, was both a 鈥渕ore modest vision, but also much more activist. Something you have to get up and act upon.鈥
In his later writings, Rabbi Sacks proposed a very different view, shifting from the thought of Maimonides to the Arizal, a leading rabbi and Jewish mystic. This new vision of messianism is far more 鈥渆xpansive, ambitious and cosmic. What we expect to see at the end is not just Jewish sovereignty, but cosmic healing, where there is no pain, suffering, aging, iniquity and inequality. A kind of almost perfect world.鈥
Other speakers at the symposium included Gila Sacks, daughter of Rabbi Sacks; Jeffrey Saks, editor of Tradition; Rabbi Menachem Penner, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America; Rabbi Dr. Raphael Zarum, dean of the London School of Jewish Studies; Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Sinensky, director of the ; and Dr. Malka Z. Simkovich editor-in-chief of the Jewish Publication Society (JPS) and visiting professor at the Bernard Revel Graduate School for Jewish Studies.
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