Sacks Wins Templeton Prize

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From the Lampert Library

rabbi sacks1Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is in very good company as the recipient of the 2016 Templeton prize. Previous winners have included the Dalai Lama, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, Mother Teresa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Billy Graham.

The Templeton Prize is the most prestigious prize that you’ve probably never heard of. It is given to a living person who has made an outstanding contribution in a spiritual dimension. Sir John Templeton, who established the prize, called these people “entrepreneurs of the spirit.” The recipients are bound only by “the quest for progress in humanity’s efforts to comprehend the many and diverse manifestations of the divine.” (From the Templeton Foundation’s website.) Each recipient generates a series of big questions related to his or her field of interest.

The prize was first awarded in 1973 and is named for Sir John Templeton the American –born British businessman. The value of the prize is adjusted so that it always exceeds that of the Nobel Prizes. It is currently valued at about 1, 500,000 dollars. The Prize will formally be presented to Rabbi Sacks in May.rabbisacks7

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks served as the 10th Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregation of Great Britain from 1991 to 2013. He oversaw a revitalization of Jewish life in Great Britain despite growing religious secularization across Europe. Sacks was in the forefront of encouraging appreciation and respect for all faiths and in not rejecting science the intersection of science and religion.

Rabbi Sacks was nominated for the prize by Lord George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, who said of him, “There are public intellectuals and religious leaders, but few who are both at the same time. There are academic scholars and popular communicators, but he (Sacks) is both, reaching out far beyond his own constituency through the spoken, written and broadcast word.”

rabbi sacks3Rabbi Sacks was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2005 and awarded a Life Peerage in the House of Lords in 2009.

Rabbi Sacks retired from the Chief Rabbinate in September of 2013 and was appointed Professor of Judaic Thought at New York University, Professor of Jewish Thought at Yeshiva University and Professor of Law, Ethics and Bible at King’s College, London.

rabbisacks5Among Rabbi Sacks’ other honors are multiple American National Book Awards; Keter Torah Award; Abraham Kuyper Prize, Princeton Theological Seminary; The Norman Lamm Prize, Yeshiva University; and the Jerusalem Prize. Rabbi Sacks is the author of close to thirty books including Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence, The Great Partnership: Science, Religion and the Search for Meaning, The Jonathan Sacks Haggada, Covenant and Conversation: Genesis, and The Koren Sacks Siddur. The Koren Sacks Rosh Hashana Mahzor (2011) and the Koren Sacks Yom Kippur Mahzor (2012) are the first new United Kingdom Mahzorim in a century.

rabbisaks2For more information on Rabbi Sacks, the big questions, and the Templeton Prize refer to the Foundation’s website www.templetonprize.org . An animation on Jewish identity created by Rabbi Sacks can be found at http://www.rabbisacks.org/why-i-am-a-jew and other talks by Rabbi Sacks at www.rabbisacks.org.

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