SEPTEMBER 14 • 2023 | 81

So in parts of the world are 
Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs and, 
for that matter, atheists. No 
historian looking back on our 
time will be tempted to call it 
the age of tolerance.

HUMAN SOLIDARITY
Which brings us back to 
the Yamim Noraim. There is 
a note of universality to the 
prayers on Rosh Hashanah 
and Yom Kippur that we do 
not find on other festivals.
On other festivals, the 
key section of the Amidah 
begins, Atah bechartanu 
mikol ha’amim, “You chose us 
from among all the nations.” 
The emphasis is on Jewish 
singularity.
On the Yamim Noraim the 
parallel prayer begins, “
And 
so place the fear of Lord 
our God, over all that You 
have made … so that all of 
creation will worship You.” 
The emphasis is on human 
solidarity. And human 
solidarity is what the world 
needs right now.

One message resonates 
through these days: life. 
“Remember us for life, King 
who delights in life, and write 
us in the Book of Life for Your 
sake, God of life.”
We sometimes forget how 
radical this was when Judaism 
first entered the world. Egypt 
of the Pharaohs was obsessed 
with death. Life is full of 
suffering and pain. Death is 
where we join the gods. The 
great pyramids and temples 
were homages to death.
Anthropologists and 
social psychologists still 
argue today that the reason 
religion exists is because 
of people’s fear of death. 
Which makes it all the more 
remarkable that — despite 

our total and profound belief 
in olam haba and techiyat 
hametim, life after death 
and the resurrection of the 
dead — there is almost 
nothing of this in most of 
the books of Tanach. It is an 
astonishing phenomenon. 
All of Kohelet’s cynicism and 
Job’s railing against injustice 
could have been answered in 
one sentence: “There is life 
after death.” Yet neither book 
explicitly says so.
To the contrary, King David 
said in a psalm we say daily: 
“What gain would there be if 
I died and went down to the 
grave? Can dust thank You? 
Can it declare Your truth?”
Near his death, Moshe 
Rabbeinu turned to the next 
generation and said, “Choose 
life, so that you and your 
children may live.” We take 
this for granted, forgetting 
how relatively rare in the 
history of religion this is.
Why so? Why, if we believe 
the soul is immortal, that 
there is life after death and 
that this world is not all 
there is, do we not say so 
more often and more loudly? 
Because since civilization 
began, heaven has too often 
been used as an excuse for 
injustice and violence down 
here on Earth.
What evil can you not 
commit if you believe you 
will be rewarded for it in 
the world to come? That is 
the logic of the terrorist and 
the suicide bomber. It is the 
logic of those who burned 
“heretics” at the stake in 
order, so they said, to save 
their immortal souls.

FEAR THE ‘FEAR OF LIFE’
Against this horrific mindset, 
the whole of Judaism is a pro-

test. Justice and compassion 
have to be fought for in this 
life not the next. Judaism is 
not directed to fear of death. It 
is directed to a far more dan-
gerous fear: fear of life with all 
its pain and disappointment 
and unpredictability. It is fear 
of life, not fear of death, that 
have led people to create total-
itarian states and fundamen-
talist religions.

Fear of life is ultimately fear 
of freedom. That is why fear 
of life takes the form of an 
assault against freedom.
Against that fear we say 
from the beginning of Elul 
to Sukkot that monumental 
psalm of David (Ps. 27): 
“The Lord is my light and 
my salvation. Whom then 
shall I fear? The Lord is the 
stronghold of my life. Of 
whom then shall I be afraid?”
On Rosh Hashanah we 
blow shofar, the one mitzvah 
we fulfill by the breath of 
life itself without needing 
any words. On the first 
day of Rosh Hashanah, the 
“anniversary of creation,” 
we read in the Torah 
and haftarah not about the 
birth of the universe but 
about the birth of Isaac to 
Sarah, and Samuel to Hannah, 
as if to say one life is like a 
universe. One child is enough 
to show how vulnerable life 
is — a miracle to be protected 
and cherished. On Yom 
Kippur we wear the kittel, a 
shroud, as if to show that we 
are not afraid of death.
Never before have I felt so 
strongly that the world needs 
us to live this message, the 
message of the Torah that 
life is holy, that death defiles, 
and that terror in the name 
of God is a desecration of the 
name of God.

The State of Israel is the 
collective affirmation of the 
Jewish people, a mere three 
years after emerging from the 
valley of the shadow of death, 
that Lo amut ki echyeh, “I will 
not die but live.” Israel chose 
life. Its enemies chose the way 
of death. They even boasted, 
as did Osama bin Laden, that 
the love of death made them 
strong. It did not make them 
strong. It made them violent.
Aggression is not strength; 
it is a profound self-
consciousness of weakness. 
And the main victims of 
Islamist violence are Muslims. 
Hate destroys the hater. Today 
it is not just Israel or Jews 
whose freedom is at risk. It is 
the whole of the Middle East, 
large parts of Africa and Asia, 
and much of Europe. 
Therefore, let us approach 
the New Year with a real sense 
of human solidarity. Let us 
show, by the way we celebrate 
our faith, that God is to be 
found in life. The love of God 
is love of life. Let us take to 
heart King David’s insistence 
that faith is stronger than fear. 
No empire ever defeated the 
Jewish people, and no force 
ever will. 
May God write us, our 
families, the people and State 
of Israel, and Jews throughout 
the world in the Book of Life. 
And may the day come when 
the righteous of all nations 
work together for the sake of 
freedom, peace and life. 

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (1948-

2020) was a global religious leader, 

philosopher, the author of more 

than 25 books and moral voice for 

our time. His series of essays on 

the weekly Torah portion, entitled 

“Covenant & Conversation” will 

continue to be shared and distributed 

around the world.