Product Description

For too long, Jews have defined themselves in light of the bad things that have happened to them. And it is true that, many times in the course of history, they have been nearly decimated: when the First and Second Temples were destroyed, when the Jews were expelled from Spain, when Hitler proposed his Final Solution. Astoundingly, the Jewish people have survived catastrophe after catastrophe and remained a thriving and vibrant community. The question Rabbi Jonathan Sacks asks is, quite simply: How? How, in the face of such adversity, has Judaism remained and flourished, making a mark on human history out of all proportion to its numbers?

Written originally as a wedding gift to his son and daughter-in-law, A Letter in the Scroll is Rabbi Sacks's personal answer to that question, a testimony to the enduring strength of his religion. Tracing the revolutionary series of philosophical and theological ideas that Judaism created -- from covenant to sabbath to formal education -- and showing us how they remain compellingly relevant in our time, Sacks portrays Jewish identity as an honor as well as a duty.

The Ba'al Shem Tov, an eighteenth-century rabbi and founder of the Hasidic movement, famously noted that the Jewish people are like a living Torah scroll, and every individual Jew is a letter within it. If a single letter is damaged or missing or incorrectly drawn, a Torah scroll is considered invalid. So too, in Judaism, each individual is considered a crucial part of the people, without whom the entire religion would suffer. Rabbi Sacks uses this metaphor to make a passionate argument in favor of affiliation and practice in our secular times, and invites us to engage in our dynamic and inclusive tradition. Never has a book more eloquently expressed the joys of being a Jew.

This is the story of one man's hope for the future -- a future in which the next generation, his children and ours, will happily embrace the beauty of the world's oldest religion.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #138738 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-16
• Released on: 1995-05-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Amazon.com Review
A Letter in the Scroll, by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of Britain, was inspired by a project he assigned to several university students. He suggested that they write to some of the most accomplished Jewish men and women in the world and ask what being Jewish meant to them. They sent out 200 letters and received six, mostly tepid, responses. Sacks considered these responses to be evidence of "confusion and demoralization at the heart of contemporary Jewish identity." He then decided to address the question himself, and A Letter in the Scroll is his answer. The book is a personal theology of Judaism, and it is a challenge to new generations of Jews to define the nature of their place in the story of Israel. Sacks's central theme is that "Judaism is not a theory, a system, a set of speculative propositions, an 'ism.' It is a call, and it bears our name." Sacks makes this argument in many ways, with reference to theology, philosophy, ancient history, and his personal experience. Most impressive, however, is his concise, direct, and wise use of Scripture: "The most eloquent words God spoke to Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets was to call their name," he writes. "Their reply was simply Hineni, 'Here I am.' That is the call Jewish history makes to us: to continue the story and to write our letter in the scroll." --Michael Joseph Gross

From Booklist
Sacks, Chief Rabbi of Britain, writes eloquently about Judaism in a highly personal essay that was originally presented as a wedding gift to his children. His words speak directly to all Jews about what it means to be Jewish, why it is important to maintain a Jewish identity, and the value of the Jewish way of life. Raising themes such as the relationship between God and man, the idea of covenantal morality, and the problem of ambivalence and assimilation, Sacks formulates his thesis: that over the millennia, Jews have come to define themselves by their disasters, expulsions, persecutions, and holocausts, not their survival and strength. In a clear, steady style that can also soar, Sacks explains why this disaster-driven thinking denies the beauty and strength of Judaism. Important ideas explained in a highly accessible manner. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Michael Novak, George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion and Public Policy, American Enterprise Institute Of all the questions of life, the two most penetrating are: "Who am I? Who are we?" Rabbi Sacks answers beautifully. On matters of faith he is one of my favorite writers. -- Review

Customer Reviews

An excellent Jewish philosophy book
Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of England, writes fluidly and lyrically. While this is a general, basic Jewish philosophy text, it is appropriate not only for beginners but also for those with a more advanced knowledge of Judaism. Rabbi Sacks explores a variety of ideas within Judaism including: the egalitarian nature of each Jewish person's relationship with G-d, the Hebrew Bible as the first way to understand the world and how it works without resort to myth, the covenantal relationship between the Jewish people and G-d and the covenantal relationships within Jewish families, Judaism as a rejection of both tribalism and universalism, the synagogue as a revolutionary institution, etc.

The only piece of the book that troubled me was Rabbi Sacks' treatment of the destruction of the Second Temple. While he regards it as political disaster in which the Jewish people lost their national independence, he also feels that it brought about "the flowering of its religious vision." Sacks further states, "[n]ow that the Temple lay in ruins, every Jew became a holy person, offering prayer instead of sacrifice, and achieving atonement through repentance. At long last the ideal of Sinai had become a reality. Israel really was a 'kingdom of priests.'" This fits in nicely with other ideas earlier expressed, affirming the dignity of every individual, particularly in their relationship with G-d. However, Sacks does not deal with the desire to rebuild the Temple (together with its attendant priests and sacrifices) as an important strain within Jewish thought and liturgy.

Overall, this was a pleasure to read and I recommend it highly.

well written but outdated
Rabbi Sacks wrote this to persaude Jews to be better Jews - but I'm not sure he would persuade anyone who isn't already converted, especially in view of recent events.

On the positive side, this book is very well written and easy to read. I started it at 4:30 Shabbos afternoon and was 2/3 done with it five hours later. And when Rabbi Sacks writes as a rabbi, he does quite well - that is to say, I found his analysis of difficult Torah passages (e.g. the almost-sacrifice of Isaac) quite enlightening.

Much of his writing is a historical attempt to show Judaism's contributions to the world and how Judaism differed from paganism; I don't really know enough about paganism to agree or disagree with all of his points. (I generally find his analysis persuasive, but as a Jew who doesn't have a lot of pagan friends, I'm kind of biased).

The only reason I gave this book four stars instead of five is that because of the recent outbreak of anti-Semitism around the world, it is totally outdated. Sacks writes that Jews have no reason to be ambivalent about their identity or scared to be Jews, because "neither now nor in the foreseeable future can [anti-Semitism] hold center stage in the political arena" (p. 221) - words that made sense in the late 1990s when he wrote them. Yet now a worldwide terrorist army, incited by al-Jazeera and other state-supported media in Islamic states, has announced its plan to destroy all of the world's Jews, and is only a few nuclear weapons away from making substantial "progress" in that direction. And Israel is being hammered at by terrorist aggression, and most of the world sympathizes with the terrorists. If Rabbi Sacks writes a second edition (and I hope he does) it will have to be substantially modified to address these unpleasant realities.

Substantive and Inspiring
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks is always articulate and thoughtful. This book is no exception. Using beautiful language, he explains why Judaism is valuable for both individuals and for the world. The fact that the manuscript was a wedding gift to his son and daughter-in-law just adds to the poignance of the writing.