Jonathan Sacks

Humanitas Visiting Professorship in Interfaith Studies (2011-2012)

The Humanitas Visiting Professorship in Interfaith Studies brings eminent leaders and thinkers from the world’s major religions to the University of Oxford to reflect on the place of faith in society. The Visiting Professorship in Interfaith Studies has been made possible by the generous support of Gil Shiva and Xavier Guerrand-Hermes and is hosted by Trinity College, Oxford.

Jonathan Sacks is a rabbi, philosopher, scholar of Judaism and former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth.

Lord Sacks spoke on ‘A Jewish Theology of the Other’, particularly focusing on religious identity in the context of networks of relationships, and the necessity of recognising the ‘other’ before recognising one’s self.

In the first lecture ‘After Babel: A Jewish Theology of Interfaith’ Lord Sacks stated that there is Biblical evidence for God’s love of diversity. He argued that only by realising that we are fighting friends, not enemies, can we ‘pull religions back from violence’.  He further asserted that religion should be separated from political power, thus allowing it to be more open to the ‘other’.

In the second lecture ‘Truth and Translatability’ Lord Sacks focused on religious diversity as a given positive reality and about the challenge of embracing different truths and translating key cultural themes, in particular the concept of faith, into different languages.

His third lecture ‘The Face of the Other: The Curious Nature of Biblical Narrative’ focused on Biblical narrative structure, claiming that beneath every narrative there is another narrative often going in the opposite direction, and that the Bible is designed to be looked at on these different levels.