Now ahead of his fifth yahrzeit in November this year, Koren have brought out an edition of the Chumash, compiling a commentary from selected writings of his on the Torah over four decades.
“I had been advocating for the idea we should undertake a commentary on the Chumash drawn from his various essays and Koren had at the same time embraced that idea as well,” said Dayan Binstock, who has contributed a foreword to the British edition, published this week. (Apart from English spellings, there are minor differences with the tradition in other countries, for example in the choice of some haftarot).
“They asked me to review each section as it came out,” he said. “On the whole I was very pleased with what their editors were doing. They had very judiciously drawn from the different essays to synthesise a commentary as well as could be done.”
In a preface, the current Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis writes that his predecessor “presents our Torah heritage in all its immeasurable beauty, conveyed with his inimitable profundity and incisive clarity”.
The UK edition has been dedicated to the late philanthropist Conrad Morris, whose family have donated thousands of copies to United Synagogue congregations.
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As you might expect from Rabbi Sacks, the focus of the commentary is more an elaboration of the spiritual and ethical ideas of Judaism rather than an exposition of individual phrases. Some passages of commentary are like mini-essays. In the broad sweep of his erudition Adam Smith may rub shoulders with Maimonides. But his thoughts were always anchored in a subtle and sophisticated interpretation of the Torah text.
As for the translation, gone are the “yea’s” and “thou’s” which lent a veneer of antiquity to Hertz. It “doesn’t read in a stilted way,” said Dayan Binstock. “There is a fine literary flavour and it is very insightful. He will just rephrase the verse in such a manner that it reads very nicely to the contemporary ear, at the same time being an accurate and a faithful translation of the Hebrew.”
Joanna Benarroch, president of the Rabbi Sacks Legacy, said the translation was “not just word for word. In his inimitable way, it’s poetry in prose.
“One of the things Rabbi Sacks did was he never just read the surface narrative. He always delved beneath the surface. The way he has translated it gives you a really beautiful picture of the parashah.”
The Chumash features extracts of the actual commentary he had begun writing for the first three sedarot of Exodus. But mostly, the exegesis has been taken from his numerous books and Covenant and Conversation, the email series on the weekly Torah portion he produced over many years (and which was later collected in several print volumes), supplemented by observations from lectures and newspaper articles (including from the JC).
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An editorial team led by his niece Jessica Sacks, an accomplished biblical translator, “combed everything he wrote and spoke to find these references”, Benarroch said. “It was a massive job.
“There may be something things you recognise but there will be lots that you don’t as you won’t have read every single book that he wrote.”
The commentary, she said, “gives you a bird’s eye view of what Rabbi Sacks taught about that parashah but if you want to delve more deeply– which he would have wanted you to do – then you have got all the sources [listed] in the back.”
The Chumash encapsulates his belief in a “Judaism engaged with the world”, she said. “Inspiring the next generation to him was imperative. This is something everyone can pick up, everyone can learn from.” It represents “his life’s work. This is his legacy – something he was always working up to.”
The Koren Chumash, with a translation and commentary by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, is out now (the Conrad Morris edition in the UK, the Magerman edition in the USA)
