With the recent death of Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of Great Britain, the Jewish people lost one of their foremost leaders and teachers. But to Meir Soloveichik, Sacks’s greatest legacy might have been in his ability to convey Judaic ideas to people of other faiths and of no faith at all. Soloveichik writes of the man he calls “the most gifted voice for biblical belief in his time”:

Britain gave the contemporary world two of its most influential atheists, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. And it was the same nation’s chief rabbi who developed the most forceful response to them. . . . Sacks wrote that for all their fame as critics of traditional religion, the New Atheists lacked “the passion of Spinoza, the wit of Voltaire, the world-shattering profundity of Nietzsche.”

Europe’s embrace of secularism, Sacks noted, was followed by a refusal to have children. “Europe is dying,” he bluntly observed in 2009. He said this was an unspeakable truth but he said it all the same. And because he always spoke in a measured manner, without antagonism, his voice reverberated. In the 20th century it was Communism that posed the greatest threat to people of faith. Several European leaders capably made the case against it. In 21st-century Europe, contemporary secularism continues its societal march, and it was Sacks who most ably stood atop the rhetorical religious ramparts. Who will take his place?

In her eulogy, Sacks’s daughter Gila described how, immediately after her father’s death, she turned to his most recently published reflections on the Torah passage read in synagogue that Sabbath. Jews around the world will continue to read his exegetical insights and learn from his remarkable mind. In this we will find consolation. But for other Europeans of faith whose greatest intellectual defender is now gone, what has been lost may well be irreplaceable.

Among those Sacks influenced were not only Christian and post-Christian Westerners, but also many Muslims, as Ed Husain writes:

Rabbi Sacks brought philosophy and theology together in a modern conversation on how to live as people of faith, with love for God, but also as loyal components of the modern world. The prophets came to teach us how to live in reality, not leave it.

In this pursuit, he was a pioneer and many Muslims in the West—and, more recently in Morocco, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan—have turned to the rabbi’s books, online videos, recorded conference appearances, and social-media clips. For a long while, his books were contraband. [But] many imams and Muslim activists saw in Rabbi Sacks’s writings a deep divine wisdom, the critical spirit of Aristotelian philosophy.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.