NOVEMBER 4 • 2021 | 7

DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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wisdom into contemporary 
insight and realistic policy.
To my mind, only Rabbi 
Sacks has earned the title of 
gadol in recent times. 

ENGAGING THE WORLD
Rabbis today, like the clergy 
of other religions, have been 
compartmentalized as the 
leaders of the faithful only, 
with little to say in the public 
square. The sad result is that 
many rabbis now perceive 
themselves in this limited 
way too. But Rabbi Sacks 
always championed “a Judaism 
engaged with the world.” 
He was able to speak to 
all people, using a language 
anyone could understand 
and that could move them to 
action. He was at home in the 
beit midrash, the Jewish house 
of study, and in the academy, 
but he learned to be most 
at home in the community. 
Toward the end of Morality, 
his final book, he writes: 
“I had the privilege of 
studying with some of the 
greatest philosophers of our 
time, yet I learned more about 
morality in my years as a 
congregational rabbi than I 
did at Oxford and Cambridge, 
and I did so by conducting 
funerals. 
“
As a young rabbi in an 
aging congregation, I often 
did not know the deceased 
personally, so I had to ask 
relatives and friends what they 
were like and what they would 
be remembered for. 
“No one ever spoke about 
the clothes they wore or the 
cars they drove, the homes 
they lived in or the holidays 
they took. They spoke about 
their role in their family, their 
place in the congregation and 
its activities, the good deeds 
they did, the causes they 
supported, the voluntary work 
they undertook and the people 
they helped. 
“It is not what we do for 

ourselves but what we give 
others that is our epitaph and 
that ultimately floods life with 
meaning.”
The loss of Rabbi Sacks is 
felt most acutely by British 
Jews proud that such a great 
thinker and rabbi emerged 
from their ranks. Yet his 
influence spread across the 
oceans to the entire Jewish 
world, and well beyond 
the Jewish community. He 
began as a rabbi in a small 
synagogue, then he became 
the chief rabbi of Anglo-Jewry 
and, in his later years, a rabbi 
to global Jewry as well as to 
some of the most influential 
people, both Jewish and non-
Jewish, on the planet. 

INSPIRING OTHERS
I am not fond of hyperbole, 
but I honestly wonder if we 
will ever see his kind again. He 
was a genuine gadol, a Jewish 
voice heard by all, a rabbi in 
the widest sense of the term. 
But he is not the last 
true rabbi, because of the 
other great focus of his life: 
leadership and empowerment. 
I am just one of thousands of 
men and women for whom he 
is a crucial inspiration, who 
have built their leadership 
upon his principles. His many 
books line our shelves, and his 
deep belief in us compels us to 
continue his legacy. 
No one can fill his shoes, 
but I am sure he would prefer 
that we fill our own. He would 
always say, “Education is not 
what we do, it is who we are.” 
Rabbi Sacks was not the last 
true rabbi, precisely because he 
was a true rabbi to the last. 

Rabbi Raphael Zarum is dean of the 

London School of Jewish Studies, 

where he trains teachers and lectures 

in modern Jewish thought. This article 

is adapted from “The Last Rabbi,” an 

essay in The Jewish Quarterly, Issue 

246, November 2021, and is used with 

permission.

Bring
Danny Home!

The Detroit Jewish News 
urges the community to 
continue raising awareness 
for Huntington Woods native 
Danny Fenster — a journalist 
who has been unjustly held 
without cause and without 
specified charges for
165 days

by a military regime in 
a gruesome prison in 
Myanmar (Burma).

The family is looking for people 
to create portraits of Danny that 
can be shared on social media at 
https://bringdannyhome.com/pages/gallery.

You can also support Danny at: 
BringDannyHome.com 
fenster-verse.tumblr.com 
facebook.com/groups/1164768597279223.

Journalist Danny Fenster, before his captivity, wearing a 
Detroit Pistons cap