No Spare Jews

Late last year TRADITION published our largest issue ever—350+ page volume on the intellectual legacy of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks zt”l, released in cooperation with the Rabbi Sacks Legacy on the occasion of his 5th yahrzeit.

Among that collection’s many essays exploring R. Sacks’ thought is a particularly pertinent one titled  “Inclusive Orthodoxy: Vision, Context and Connections” by Rabbi Dr. Benjamin J. Elton, who serves as the Chief Minister and Senior Rabbi of The Great Synagogue in Sydney, Australia.

Inclusive Orthodox Judaism was an idea that Sacks championed during his tenure as Chief Rabbi of Britain, and Elton’s essay lays out this conception of inclusion—its roots and sources, its possible flaws, alternative models and how they differ from Sacks’ vision.

In this conversation Elton recalls hearing someone say “We have no spare Jews, so if our common boat is too small we best better builder a bigger boat.” That was so on point that we chose it as the title for this episode, which also touches on issues of Jewish unity since October 7th, and—for R. Elton’s community of Sydney—since the Bondi Beach massacre of last December.

Read the entire special issue on Rabbi Sacks’ intellectual legacy open access at TraditionOnline.org, order a hard copy to have in your library, and renew your subscription to our quarterly print journal.

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