Yeshiva University’s Sacks-Herenstein Center is proud to announce the recent publication of “An Ode to Joy: Judaism and Happiness in the Thought of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and Beyond,” co-edited by Dr. Erica Brown and Dr. Shira Weiss, published by Palgrave Macmillan.
In this volume, academics and writers explore the significance of joy within the Jewish tradition. Essays and reflections discuss traditional Jewish primary sources, including Biblical, rabbinic and Hebrew literature, Jewish history and philosophy, education, the arts, and positive psychology, through the prism of Rabbi Sacks’ work.
With forewords by Rabbi Sacks’ daughter Gila and Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar, contributing authors include those who shared close, personal relationships with Rabbi Sacks, as well as leading scholars, such as professors Jonathan Sarna, Meir Soloveichik, Suzanne Last-Stone, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, and Martin Seligman, who were deeply influenced by his thought.
The theme of joy was central to Rabbi Sacks’ conception of Judaism, as he wrote in his “Essays on Ethics” (Maggid, 2016, p. 315), “I think of Judaism as an ode to joy.” As he develops this idea further, Rabbi Sacks acknowledges happiness not only as part of a healthy emotional range, but as emblematic of a Jewish national soul all too often stamped by difficulty and oppression: “Jews have known suffering, isolation, hardship, and rejection, yet they never lacked the religious courage to rejoice. A people that can know insecurity and still feel joy is one that can never be defeated, for its spirit can never be broken nor its hope destroyed.”
Gila Sacks writes that her father did not take joy for granted but put forth effort to achieve it. “It was not, for Rabbi Sacks, simply an emotion — something which came, and left, fleetingly; which one either felt or did not feel at any given moment. It was rather something to be worked at, learned and earned. Nor was joy the absence of pain, the opposite of sadness, something to be found by overcoming or erasing the bad parts of life. Instead, joy had to coexist with sadness, each making space for the other, shedding new perspectives on the other. Above all, for Rabbi Sacks, joy was active — something we could create through how we lived.”
During these difficult times when joy is especially needed, the community is invited to two upcoming book launch events. On Sunday, Feb. 4 at 8 p.m., Ben-Shahar will present “Finding Joy in Crisis” at Cong. Rinat Yisrael in Teaneck. On Monday. Feb. 5 at 8 p.m., book contributors Rabbi Dr. JJ Schacter, Dr. Shaina Trapedo and Dr. Liel Leibovitz will be in conversation on YU’s Wilf Campus, Belfer Hall 218, New York City.
Books will be available for purchase at both events as well as on Amazon. To register, visit www.yu.edu/sacks-center/calendar.
Dr. Shira Weiss is the assistant director of the Sacks-Herenstein Center. She teaches Jewish thought at YU’s Revel Graduate School and has previously taught at Stern College. Dr. Weiss is the author of “Joseph Albo on Free Choice” (Oxford, 2017); “Ethical Ambiguity in the Hebrew Bible” (Cambridge, 2018); co-author of “The Protests of Job: An Interfaith Dialogue: (Palgrave, 2022); as well as articles in academic journals and anthologies.
