One People?: Tradition, Modernity, and Jewish Unity

by Jonathan Sacks

One People? is a full-lenth study of the major problem confronting the Jewish future: the availability or otherwise of a way of mending the schisms between Reform and Orthodox Judaism, between religious and secular Jews in Israel and between Israel itself and the diaspora - all of which have been deepended by the continuing controversy over the question 'who is a Jew?'. This text is a study of the background to this and related controversies. It traces the fragmentation of Jewry in the wake of emancipation and enlightenment, the development of heterodox religious denominations and secular Zionism, the variety of Orthodox responses to these challenges and the resources of Jewish tradition for handling diversity. It sets out the intractability of the problem and ends by examining strands in both Orthodox Jewish thought that might make for convergence and conciliation. The analysis employs a variety of disciplines - history, sociology, theology and halakhic jurisprudence - to comment on a subject in which these dimensions are inextricably interwoven.

It also explores key issues such as the underlying philosophy of Jewish law and the nature of the collision between tradition and modern consciousness in the clash of perceptions between Orthodox and Reform. Written for general readers as well as the academic, this book aims to present a thought-provoking presentation of the dilemmas of Jewish Orthodoxy in modernity.

Genres: Judaism, Jewish

272 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 1993

About the author

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Henry Sacks was the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. His Hebrew name was Yaakov Zvi.

Serving as the chief rabbi in the United Kingdom from 1991 to 2013, Sacks gained fame both in the secular world and in Jewish circles. He was a sought-after voice on issues of war and peace, religious fundamentalism, ethics, and the relationship between science and religion, among other topics. Sacks wrote more than 20 books.

Rabbi Sacks died November 2020 after a short bout with cancer. He was 72.

Reviews

[Jayde Schwerin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another brilliant read, as always when reading Jonathan Sacks.

[Elisheva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not an easy read but a fantastic book, important for anyone thinking about Jewish unity.

[Christian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great sociohistorical analysis, debatable philosophy, beautiful conclusion. There are two basic problems: First is, that he starts from the false premise of a jewish unity – there was never such a thing as a “real” ethnic/national&c. unity. It is an ideal worthy to aspire to and on the other hand faith grants the tools to presuppose it as ontological fact. On the other hand he ends with the equally false conclusion that you could judge the value of one’s other religion. You cannot, period. The whole confusion emerges through his reading of the terms “inclusivism” and “pluralism”. While his analysis has brilliant points, is interesting and insightful, he still fails to account for their meaning in terms of their epistemological presuppositions and consequences. Of course, the “one-truth-stance” of inclusivism is ontologically the right point, but epistemologically, pluralism is needed.
From this two things follow: The enterprise to answer the question of unity isn’t the same as answering who is a jew and who is not. It is rather about developing a strategy (inclusivism) for orthodox jews to even think about “the rest”, speaking from a firm point of ontological “knowledge”. This strategy is naturally grounded on halakha. As someone not really proficient in this field, I would have preferred to have a somewhat deeper introduction to this part. But even more important would have been a discussion about what enables someone to judge in the name of halakha for and over the whole of Judaism. This and the general tradition of overly relying on past authority lacks of epistemological humility we should have evolved until now. Tolerance is not the acceptance of the faults of others, but the acknowledgment of one’s own fallibility.
Secondly, because he doesn’t recognize the epistemological aspects of such a debate, he somewhat arbitrarily jumps from his beautiful biblical analysis of the “rejection of the rejection” to inclusivism, ignoring that he is only able to do so, because there is still a space of “we know not” and only language to fix a unity. No, Judaism doesn’t even have a common religion as he proposes while still acknowledging the “paradox” of orthodox vs. reform &c. Either you can think of reform as jewish or you can’t. He can, obviously, but fails to see the reason why. “Judaism” is, as every religion and ideology, an empty significant, an identitymarker defined by all of those who use it. Shared identity in this sense is a shared language with varieties of accents and dialects, as Rabbi Sacks himself notes. But still he misses that a shared language doesn’t implies a shared meaning. It means the by and large same relationship to the same set of symbols (significant), which isn’t the same (as) meaning (signifié).
“One people” is an intriguing book with the right practical conclusion – agreeing to respectfully disagree, as he has put it years later. This might be all that is needed, as he somewhere notes. But still it lacks the final bit of philosophical sophistication I expected from such a great mind.

[Eddie Mochon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good description of the ideological responses of each sector to modernity, tough in my opinion he overstates the importance of ideas in this historical processes, and ignores almost completely the psychological, socio-economical or other factors that played an important role in the development of the different positions. I guess i could say he's a wonderful rabbi, but not that much a historian or sociologist.