I am writing on Election Day in Israel. By the time you read this, the votes will have been counted, and the familiar, often unedifying business of coalition-building will have begun.
There will be negotiations, accusations, demands, and concessions. Promises will be made, some broken. Yesterday’s opponents may become partners, while allies find themselves on opposite sides of the negotiating table.
We have seen it all before. Hardly Israeli democracy’s most uplifting feature.
Yet this election coincides with an anniversary that should give our prospective leaders pause.
This Shabbat, the 20th of Heshvan, marks the sixth Hebrew anniversary of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks’s death, arguably the greatest Jewish thinker and moral voice of our generation.
How desperately we need him today.
How we miss his wisdom, his intellectual clarity, his understanding of human nature, and, above all, his ability to identify the moral questions beneath the political arguments.
Rabbi Sacks combined profound religious conviction with intellectual generosity. He understood that one could disagree passionately without diminishing another’s humanity.
He recognized that societies need more than laws and institutions. They need a shared moral purpose.
And that is precisely what we are missing.
Beyond Israel, the picture is scarcely more reassuring.
France has witnessed extraordinary scenes of civil unrest, and the UK is anxious to the point of the prime minister recommending stocking up on food and water.
Across Europe, economic insecurity, political polarization, and public distrust are placing enormous strains on democratic societies. International tensions contribute to a growing atmosphere of apprehension.
Political disagreement increasingly resembles personal enmity. Social media rewards outrage while moderation struggles to be heard.
Rabbi Sacks examined what happens when societies lose their shared moral foundations.
His final major book, Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times, reads almost like a warning to our generation.
Its argument was simple: a society cannot survive if everyone concentrates on individual rights and interests while neglecting responsibilities toward others.
We are skilled at asking what society owes us, but less comfortable asking what we owe society.
Rabbi Sacks described this as the movement from “We” to “I.” A free society’s survival depended upon reversing it.
Nowhere is this more important than Israel.
Victors and vanquished alike bear responsibility for this country’s future.
Election winners acquire authority to govern, but no license to humiliate those who voted against them. Victory brings responsibility toward the entire nation, including those with different aspirations.
Equally, those who lose are not released from their obligations toward the state. They retain the right, indeed the duty, to challenge, scrutinize, and oppose. But opposition must never become a desire to see the country fail simply because one’s preferred leaders are no longer in power.
The government belongs to those elected to lead it. The country belongs to all of us.
I believe Rabbi Sacks would have recognized this as the essence of covenant.
A contract serves individuals pursuing their interests. A covenant creates mutual responsibility, binding people together even when interests diverge.
Coalition agreements are contracts. Parties negotiate ministries, budgets, and influence. Compromise is unavoidable and legitimate.
But beneath those contracts must lie something greater: a covenant with the people of Israel, recognizing that no election should divide us into those who matter and those who do not.
The State of Israel must endure
Jewish history offers a sobering warning.
The Talmud famously attributes the destruction of the Second Temple to sinat chinam, baseless hatred among Jews.
Disagreement is inevitable, but danger arises when disagreement becomes hatred, opponents become enemies, and winning an argument matters more than preserving the community.
For nearly 2,000 years, Jews prayed for restored sovereignty. Generations endured exile, persecution, and suffering while dreaming of returning to Zion.
What a terrible indictment if, having achieved what our ancestors scarcely imagined, we undermined it through our inability to live together.
External enemies would dearly love to destroy our state. We must not assist them by tearing ourselves apart.
Rabbi Sacks frequently returned to the biblical example of Moses, whose greatness lay in his willingness to carry the burdens of others. He did not seek leadership for its privileges. His authority rested upon his devotion to a people who were frequently difficult, divided, and ungrateful.
There is a lesson for every aspiring prime minister, minister, and Knesset member.
Leadership is responsibility, not reward. Public office is an opportunity to serve, not simply exercise power.
But responsibility lies with us all.
When we speak contemptuously about fellow Israelis, circulate inflammatory messages, or question opponents’ patriotism, we contribute to the divisions we deplore.
And what example are we setting for our children? Are we teaching them that democracy involves winning and losing with dignity, or that political opponents must be defeated, discredited, and humiliated?
Rabbi Sacks distinguished between optimism and hope: optimism believes things will improve; hope is the conviction that our actions can improve them.
Israel itself is surely one of the greatest expressions of that hope.
Our sovereign Jewish state represents the triumph of determination, sacrifice, and faith over seemingly impossible circumstances.
Surely we can learn to disagree without endangering everything we have achieved?
None of this requires abandoning deeply held convictions. Rabbi Sacks was never an advocate of bland consensus or intellectual surrender. Moral courage sometimes demands standing firmly against prevailing opinion.
But conviction and courtesy are compatible. Respecting someone’s dignity does not require accepting their argument.
Six years after his passing, Rabbi Sacks’s voice is silent, but his message remains urgent.
We cannot know precisely what he would have said about today’s politics. But his writings suggest the questions he would ask: What society are we building? What do we owe one another? Will our decisions leave our country stronger, kinder, and more united?
Those questions must be answered by victors and vanquished alike.
Governments come and go. Coalitions form and dissolve. Politicians rise and disappear from the stage.
But the State of Israel, the extraordinary achievement of generations of Jewish sacrifice and aspiration, must endure.
We have inherited something infinitely more precious than political power: a homeland, a history, and a shared destiny. We have a solemn obligation to hand them on, secure and flourishing, to those who come after us.
The election will determine who governs Israel for the next few years. How victors and vanquished alike behave in its aftermath will determine the kind of Israel our children and grandchildren inherit.
That is the challenge Rabbi Sacks leaves us.
And surely, there could be no more fitting tribute to his memory than to rise to it.
The writer is a rabbi and physician. He writes and teaches on Jewish ethics, leadership, and resilience. His work appears on rabbidrjonathanlieberman.substack.com and youtube.com. @rabbidrjonathanlieberman