Jonathan Henry Sacks (March 8, 1948 – November 7, 2020) was born to a traditional orthodox family in London, he studied Philosophy in Cambridge. His education did not take place in isolation, solely the product of Jewish day schools and yeshivot, but occurred in a largely public and secular environment. As a young Jew growing up in the aftermath of the holocaust, he was able to become, simultaneously, a religious Jew and a citizen of a multiethnic society.

In his own Jewish tradition he found inspiration in the medieval Jewish philosophical, especially Maimonides, who demonstrated to Sacks that the relationship between philosophy and religion need not be antagonistic to one another, so long as one understood the place, role, and purview of each.

After an introduction to the life and work of rabbi Jonathan Sacks special attention will be given to the way he uses the particular tradition of Judaism to bring healing to a fractured world. It can be seen as an invitation to look at our own particular Christian tradition in our society and think about ways how we can use it to contribute to a better world.

Klaas Spronk is professor emeritus of Old Testament at the Protestant Theological University in The Netherlands.
S. Béla Visky is professor of ethics at the Protestant Theological Institute of Cluj-Napoca.