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but with Abraham. Noah, 
says the Torah, “walked with 
God” (6:9). But God said to 
Abraham, “Walk on ahead 
of Me …” (Gen. 17:1). So 
the point was not new, but 
the drama and power of the 
Midrash were stunning.

COURAGE TO TAKE RISKS
Suddenly, I understood that 
this is a significant part of what 
faith is in Judaism: to have 
the courage to pioneer, to do 
something new, to take the 
road less traveled, to venture 
out into the unknown. That is 
what Abraham and Sarah had 
done when they left their land, 
their home and their father’s 
house. It is what the Israelites 

did in the days of Moses when 
they journeyed forth into the 
wilderness, guided only by a 
pillar of cloud by day and fire 
by night.
Faith is precisely the courage 
to take a risk, knowing that 
“Though I walk through the 
valley of the shadow of death, 
I will fear no evil, for You are 
with me” (Ps. 23:4). It took 
faith to challenge the religions 
of the ancient world, especially 
when they were embodied in 
the greatest empires of their 
time. It took faith to stay 
Jewish in the Hellenistic age, 
when Jews and Judaism must 
have seemed small and paro-
chial when set against the cos-
mopolitan culture of ancient 
Greece and the Alexandrian 
empire.
It took the faith of Rabbi 
Yehoshua ben Gamla to build, 
already in the first century, the 
world’s first-ever system of uni-
versal, compulsory education 
(Baba Batra 21a), and the faith 
of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai 
to realize that Judaism could 
survive the loss of indepen-
dence, land and Temple, on the 
basis of an academy of scholars 
and a culture of scholarship.
In the modern age, even 
though many of Jewry’s most 
distinguished minds either 
lost or abandoned their faith, 
nonetheless that ancient reflex 
survived. How else are we to 
understand the phenomenon 
that a tiny minority in Europe 
and the United States was able 
to produce so many shapers 
of the modern mind, each of 
them a pioneer in his or her 
own way: Einstein in phys-
ics, Durkheim in sociology, 
Levi-Strauss in anthropology, 
Mahler and Schoenberg in 
music, and a whole string of 
innovative economists from 
David Ricardo (the law of com-
parative advantage) to John 
von Neumann (game theory) 
to Milton Friedman (monetary 
theory), to Daniel Kahneman 

and Amos Tversky (behavioral 
economics).
They dominated the fields 
of psychiatry, psychotherapy 
and psychoanalysis, from Freud 
and his circle to Viktor Frankl 
(logotherapy), Aaron T. Beck 
(cognitive behavioral therapy) 
and Martin Seligman (positive 
psychology). The pioneers 
of Hollywood and film were 
almost all Jewish. Even in pop-
ular music the achievement is 
stunning, from Irving Berlin 
and George Gershwin, masters 
of the American musical, to 
Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, 
the two supreme poets of popu-
lar music in the 20th century.

STANDING FIRM 
DESPITE OPPOSITION
In many cases — such is the 
fate of innovators — the peo-
ple concerned had to face a 
barrage of criticism, disdain, 
opposition or disregard. You 
have to be prepared to be 
lonely, at best misunderstood, 
at worst vilified and defamed. 
As Einstein said, “If my theory 
of relativity is proven success-
ful, Germany will claim me 
as a German and France will 
declare me a citizen of the 
world. Should my theory prove 
untrue, France will say that I 
am a German, and Germany 
will declare that I am a Jew.” 
To be a pioneer — as Jews 
know from our history — you 
have to be prepared to spend a 
long time in the wilderness.
That was the faith of the early 
Zionists. They knew early on, 
some from the 1860s, others 
after the pogroms of the 1880s, 

Herzl after the Dreyfus trial, 
that European Enlightenment 
and Emancipation had failed, 
that despite its immense scien-
tific and political achievements, 
mainland Europe still had no 
place for the Jew. Some Zionists 
were religious, others were 
secular, but most importantly 
they all knew what the Midrash 
Tanhuma made so clear: When 
it comes to rebuilding a shat-
tered world or a broken dream, 
you don’t wait for permission 
from Heaven. Heaven is telling 
you to go ahead.
That is not carte blanche 
to do whatever we like. Not 
all innovation is constructive. 
Some can be very destructive 
indeed. But this principle of 
“Walk on ahead,” the idea 
that the Creator wants us, His 
greatest creation, to be creative, 
is what makes Judaism unique 
in the high value it places on 
the human person and the 
human condition.
Faith is the courage to take 
a risk for the sake of God or 
the Jewish people; to begin a 
journey to a distant destination 
knowing that there will be haz-
ards along the way, but knowing 
also that God is with us, giving 
us strength if we align our will 
with His. 
Faith is not certainty, but the 
courage to live with uncertain-
ty. 

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 
served as the chief rabbi of the 
United Hebrew Congregations of 
the Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His 
teachings have been made available 
to all at rabbisacks.org. This essay 
was published on Oct. 12, 2015.

“TO BE A PIONEER — AS JEWS 
KNOW FROM OUR HISTORY — 
YOU HAVE TO BE PREPARED 
TO SPEND A LONG TIME 
IN THE WILDERNESS.”

