An Ode to Joy

Before his rather sudden passing in 2020, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was one of the most eloquent and influential religious leaders of the generation. As Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth for over two decades, he offered a universal message cultivated from the Jewish and Western cannons he knew so well. One concept that figured prominently in his work was joy. “I think of Judaism as an ode to joy,” he once wrote. “Like Beethoven, Jews have known suffering, isolation, hardship, and rejection, yet they never lacked the religious courage to rejoice.” In this volume, organized by the Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership, academics and writers explore the significance of joy within the Jewish tradition. These essays and reflections discuss traditional Jewish primary sources, including Biblical, Rabbinic and Hebrew literature, Jewish history and philosophy, education, the arts, and positive psychology, and of course, throughthe prism of Lord Sacks’ work. 


Erica Brown is the Vice Provost for Values and Leadership at Yeshiva University and the founding director of its Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership. She previously served as the director of the Mayberg Center for Jewish Education and Leadership and an associate professor of curriculum and pedagogy at The George Washington University. Dr. Brown was a Jerusalem Fellow, an Avi Chai Fellow, the recipient of the 2009 Covenant Award, and is a faculty member of the Wexner Foundation. She has written or co-authored 15 books on the Hebrew Bible, spirituality, and leadership and has been published in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Tablet, First Things, and The Jewish Review of Books and wrote a monthly column for the New York Jewish Week. She tweeted on one page of Talmud study a day @DrEricaBrown. Her latest book is Kohelet and the Search for Meaning (Maggid).  
Shira Weiss is the Assistant Director of the Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership. Dr. Weiss teaches Jewish Thought at Yeshiva University's Bernard Revel Graduate School and has previously taught at Stern College for Women. She has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment of Humanities, The Templeton Foundation, Oxford and Ben Gurion Universities. She 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.