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How Rabbi Jonathan Sacks Can Light the Way Forward for Today’s Challenges
The late-Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, Jonathan Sacks, who passed away in 2020. This photo was taken at a National Poverty Hearing in 2006 at Westminster, London. Photo: cooperniall/Flickr.
Last week, the Safra Center in New York City held an event commemorating the 20th anniversary edition of Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ A Letter in the Scroll, and his upcoming fourth yahrzeit. I sat down in the packed synagogue and looked up at a compilation video of Rabbi Sacks speaking at different events through the years.
I took one look at his face, and my whole body relaxed. For one brief moment, the tsunami of hate, lies, and violence that now fills our lives faded into the background.
His face represented everything that’s been missing: A rabbinical figure who is warm, wise, sacred — who fully represents G-d — and can help us put today’s ugly reality into a larger historical perspective.
The video that followed is perhaps his most cherished: “Why I am a Jew,” based on the final chapter of the book. At this point, there were very few dry eyes in the room.
A brief excerpt is below:
I am a Jew because, being a child of my people, I have heard the call to add my chapter to its unfinished story. I am a stage on its journey, a connecting link between the generations. The dreams and hopes of my ancestors live on in me, and I am the guardian of their trust, now and for the future.
The panelists that were chosen to discuss Rabbi Sacks’ timeless relevance were well up to the task: Natan Sharansky, who has been appointed the Chair of the Global Advisory Board of the Rabbi Sacks Legacy; Michal Cotler-Wunsh, Israel’s Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism; Dan Senor, columnist, podcaster, and co-author of Start-Up Nation; and Rabbi David A. Ingber, the founding rabbi of Romemu, the largest Renewal synagogue in the United States.
“Rabbi Sacks was a moral lighthouse,” said Sharansky, who wrote the foreword for the new edition of the book. “And his light is needed more than ever in these dark times.”
Michal Cotler-Wunsh said that Rabbi Sacks predicted today’s collapse of morality in his last book, Morality, and told the audience, “the outrage of the world was at us for refusing to be slaughtered.” Before Oct. 7, “we were living through an anomaly in Jewish history.” This, she said “is the normal.”
But she also sees this as an “opportunity to strengthen our identity: we are a people. We have to lean into this next chapter.” She said that after Oct. 7, “140% of the people called up, showed up. As volunteers and reservists. And that is the most important notion of “Hineni, here I am, ready to heed Your call.”
“This is on us: We are deployed,” Cotler-Wunsh said. “We are one people with one past and one future. We have to fight.”
A couple of nights later, I went to a Shabbat event that can only be described as anti-sacred. Desperate to fit into today’s self-idolatry, it promoted an Instagrammed soullessness. I couldn’t imagine many of the people in attendance showing up “when challenge calls,” unless they could get a selfie out of it.
I tried to see the evening through the larger historical cycle that the panelists discussed: We got through idolatry; now we need to get through today’s self-idolatry. But how is that going to happen when so many of our nonprofits, with the promotion of “influencers” and the Instagram self-adulation bubble, have become part of the problem?
A few days before the Safra event my son, now 15, had exchanged unpleasant words with a rioter holding a “F— Israel” sign. It was not the first time he had stuck up for our people, but I think it was the first time he fully understood the role his generation, Gen Z, is meant to play.
“People do not become leaders because they are great. They become great because they are willing to serve as leaders,” Sacks wrote.
“What matters is the willingness, when challenge calls, to say, Hineni, ‘Here I am.’”
In 2016, I had dedicated my Passage to Israel book to him, using the quintessential Sacks quote below. I pray that more parents begin to understand — using Rabbi Sacks’ extraordinary texts — that the fight for our children’s future begins with their souls.
You are a member of an eternal people
A letter in their scroll.
Let their eternity live on in you.
Karen Lehrman Bloch is editor in chief of White Rose Magazine. A version of this article was originally published by The Jewish Journal.
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Israel Says Missile Launched by Yemen’s Houthis ‘Most Likely’ Intercepted
Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi addresses followers via a video link at the al-Shaab Mosque, formerly al-Saleh Mosque, in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
The Israeli army said on Saturday that a missile fired from Yemen towards Israeli territory had been “most likely successfully intercepted,” while Yemen’s Houthi forces claimed responsibility for the launch.
Israel has threatened Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement – which has been attacking Israel in what it says is solidarity with Gaza – with a naval and air blockade if its attacks on Israel persist.
The Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the group was responsible for Saturday’s attack, adding that it fired a missile towards the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.
Since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023, the Houthis, who control most of Yemen, have been firing at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade.
Most of the dozens of missiles and drones they have launched have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.
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Iran Holds Funeral for Commanders and Scientists Killed in War with Israel
People attend the funeral procession of Iranian military commanders, nuclear scientists and others killed in Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 28, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Large crowds of mourners dressed in black lined streets in Iran’s capital Tehran as the country held a funeral on Saturday for top military commanders, nuclear scientists and some of the civilians killed during this month’s aerial war with Israel.
At least 16 scientists and 10 senior commanders were among those mourned at the funeral, according to state media, including armed forces chief Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Revolutionary Guards commander General Hossein Salami, and Guards Aerospace Force chief General Amir Ali Hajizadeh.
Their coffins were driven into Tehran’s Azadi Square adorned with their photos and national flags, as crowds waved flags and some reached out to touch the caskets and throw rose petals onto them. State-run Press TV showed an image of ballistic missiles on display.
Mass prayers were later held in the square.
State TV said the funeral, dubbed the “procession of the Martyrs of Power,” was held for a total of 60 people killed in the war, including four women and four children.
In attendance were President Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior figures including Ali Shamkhani, who was seriously wounded during the conflict and is an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as Khamenei’s son Mojtaba.
“Today, Iranians, through heroic resistance against two regimes armed with nuclear weapons, protected their honor and dignity, and look to the future prouder, more dignified, and more resolute than ever,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, who also attended the funeral, said in a Telegram post.
There was no immediate statement from Khamenei, who has not appeared publicly since the conflict began. In past funerals, he led prayers over the coffins of senior commanders ahead of public ceremonies broadcast on state television.
Israel launched the air war on June 13, attacking Iranian nuclear facilities and killing top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
TRUMP THREAT
Israel, the only Middle Eastern country widely believed to have nuclear weapons, said it aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.
Iran denies having a nuclear weapons program. The U.N. nuclear watchdog has said it has “no credible indication” of an active, coordinated weapons program in Iran.
Bagheri, Salami and Hajizadeh were killed on June 13, the first day of the war. Bagheri was being buried at the Behesht Zahra cemetery outside Tehran mid-afternoon on Saturday. Salami and Hajizadeh were due to be buried on Sunday.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would consider bombing Iran again, while Khamenei, who has appeared in two pre-recorded video messages since the start of the war, has said Iran would respond to any future US attack by striking US military bases in the Middle East.
A senior Israeli military official said on Friday that Israel had delivered a “major blow” to Iran’s nuclear project. On Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that Israel and the US “failed to achieve their stated objectives” in the war.
According to Iranian health ministry figures, 610 people were killed on the Iranian side in the war before a ceasefire went into effect on Tuesday. More than 4,700 were injured.
Activist news agency HRANA put the number of killed at 974, including 387 civilians.
Israel’s health ministry said 28 were killed in Israel and 3,238 injured.
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Pro-Palestinian Rapper Leads ‘Death to the IDF’ Chant at English Music festival
Revellers dance as Avril Lavigne performs on the Other Stage during the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm, in Pilton, Somerset, Britain, June 30, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
i24 News – Chants of “death to the IDF” were heard during the English Glastonbury music festival on Saturday ahead of the appearance of the pro-Palestinian Irish rappers Kneecap.
One half of punk duo based Bob Vylan (who both use aliases to protect their privacy) shouted out during a section of their show “Death to the IDF” – the Israeli military. Videos posted on X (formerly Twitter) show the crowd responding to and repeating the cheer.
This comes after officials had petitioned the music festival to drop the band. The rap duo also expressed support for the following act, Kneecap, who the BCC refused to show live after one of its members, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh – better known by stage name Mo Chara – was charged with a terror offense.
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