Perhaps no part of Rabbi Sacks’s oeuvre has enjoyed as big a readership as Covenant & Conversation, his essays on the weekly Torah portion. They began as an email series in 2007, were subsequently collected in book form and now reappear in a special family edition which is intended to encourage inter-generational learning.

For parents who have children at Jewish schools and want to support their education, the new two-volume set could hardly be a better resource. The new publication has been edited by Rabbi Daniel Rose, the British Israeli who looks after educational projects for Koren, the Jerusalem-based publisher with which for many years Rabbi Sacks enjoyed a fruitful collaboration.

Rabbi Rose, a Sinai and Hasmonean pupil from Edgware, studied in Israeli yeshivot and British universities before making aliyah and later gained a doctorate from the Hebrew University. “Rabbi Sacks was always someone who gave a lot of himself to the young people. He was always at the Bnei Akiva bayit, he would have teachers round to his house.”

Rabbi Dr Daniel Rose

As a teacher himself - he taught at Immanuel College - he has used Covenant & Conversation in the secondary school classroom. “I always believed you could repackage Rabbi Sacks’s complex philosophical ideas for a younger audience,” he said.

So when Rabbi Sacks’s team advertised for ideas on how his work could be brought to more youthful readers, Rabbi Rose jumped at the chance. He helped develop an online curriculum for schools, Ten Paths to God.

The family adaptation of Covenant & Conversation started as sheets distributed by email, which were “designed for families to use around the Shabbat table”. For Rabbi Sacks, “family was the first educational institution in the life of a child and the most important,” Rabbi Rose said. “So maybe every Friday night could be a Seder night of some sort.”

Each essay on the parashah in the family edition is divided into two parts — a short “core idea” and then a more extended extract of how the idea is developed. It is supplemented along the way by suggested questions to discuss, a short story which relates to the theme of the sidrah, additional teachings of Rabbi Sacks and further educational material.

“As an educator, I have always believed in the power of story and Rabbi Sacks was an exemplar of this, using stories to educate. Even for the little kids, parents could tell the story and hopefully that’s a way to connect to the theme as well,” he said.

Rabbi Sacks’s strength was being able to link to the sidrah to “big themes. I always called him the rabbi of big-picture Judaism”.

The family edition contains two essays for each sidrah and there is also now a companion volume on the festivals, similarly adapted from his earlier writings, Ceremony & Celebration.

Meanwhile, Koren have also recently launched the Rabbi Sacks Book Club, republishing some of his earlier titles, including the influential Will We Have Jewish Grandchildren?, his manifesto for what became Jewish Continuity.

​

The two-volume Covenant & Conversation - Family Edition is available from Koren at £45.95 and Ceremony & Celebration - Family Edition at £22.95