Rabbi Sacks and Citation of Sources

by R. Gil Student

I. A Man of Books

In honor and commemoration of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ fourth yahrtzeit, the Rabbi Sacks Legacy organized a global day of learning on the subject “People of the Book.” I consider myself a student and devotee of Rabbi Sacks and am honored to participate in this year’s theme by discussing Rabbi Sacks’ attitude towards books and specifically the citation of sources.

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with Rabbi Sacks’ writings immediately recognizes that he quotes from a wide variety of sources. His earlier writings contain a plethora of references to, and studies of, Jewish scholarship on the issues of modernity and religion. His later writings add a growing number, reaching a dizzying level, of citations from the social sciences. It is hard to find anyone who was more well-read on the latest ideas than Rabbi Sacks. He always managed to find lessons about people and society that help us better understand the Torah and find in it guidance on the best path forward. Rabbi Sacks’ writing is a veritable bibliography of conservative social science and related Jewish sources.

Interestingly, one exception to that is his Siddur commentary. Presumably due to the extreme space limitations, Rabbi Sacks omitted most of his sources in his Siddur commentary, both in his 2007 revision of the classic Singer Siddur and in his 2009 Koren Siddur. For example, in the commentary to the Singer Siddur (p. 277), Rabbi Sacks explains that “Shema” does not mean merely “to hear” but, more actively, “to listen, understand, internalise, respond and obey.” Rabbi Sacks explains further, “Secular terms for understanding are permeated with visual images. We speak of insight, foresight, vision, observation, perspective; when we understand, we say ‘I see’. Judaism, with its belief in an invisible, transcendent God, is a culture of the ear, not the eye. The patriarchs and prophets did not see God; they heard Him. To emphasie the non-visual nature of Jewish belief, it is our custom to cover our eyes as we say these words.” This is a fascinating insight, albeit one made by Rav David Cohen (“the Nazir”) in his Kol Ha-Nevu’ah (1:20). Rabbi Sacks does not mention the source of his insight in his Siddur commentary but he cites this in detail in his 2009 book, Future Tense: A Vision for Jews and Judaism in the Global Culture (p. 190).

II. To Cite or Not to Cite

Rabbi Sacks offers a creative resolution to a distinct problem within Rambam’s literary output. Rabbi Sacks quotes Rambam’s introduction to his commentary on Avos: “We can now resolve the apparent contradiction between a famous saying of Maimonides and another by the sages. Maimonides declared, ‘Accept the truth, whoever said it.’” (Future Tense, p. 221). In contrast, Rabbi Sacks says, the Sages took a very different approach: “The sages said, ‘Whoever recites a teaching in the name of the one who said it, brings redemption to the world.’” This poses a contradiction which requires resolution. Let us unpack the problem and then we will explore Rabbi Sacks’ answer.

At first reading, there does not seem to be any contradiction at all. Accepting the truth from any source does not pose any opposition to quoting the source’s name. Quite the opposite, these two sayings are complementary. Utilize any source but make sure to cite it. This seems to be an excellent combination of ideas that serves as the basis of much of Rabbi Sacks’ literary activity. We could reframe the question in a way that deals with practice, halachah le-ma’aseh. In his introduction to his commentary on Avos, Rambam says that he will not cite his sources. Not long after his important, timeless statement to accept the truth from whoever says it, Rambam adds: “I also will not say, ‘So-and-so said this’ or ‘So-and- so said that’ because that would be unnecessarily wordy. Furthermore, it might make a reader who does not accept the author concerned think that what he said is harmful or has an untoward meaning that he is unaware of. Therefore, I decided to leave out the author’s name, for my aim is to help the reader and explain what is hidden away in this tractate” (Translation from R. Yaakov Feldman, The 8 Chapters of the Rambam, p. 23). This declaration seems to directly contradict the saying of the Sages, that you should quote a teaching in the name of the person who originally said it. What should we do in practice — cite the name of the source no matter what as the Sages instruct or omit the name of the source as Rambam himself acted?

Rabbi Sacks does not ask this question. Instead he frames the problem differently. He writes: “Maimonides was interested in the truth of a proposition, not its author. For the sages, the reverse was true. Who said it is not irrelevant, but essential” (ibid.). Rabbi Sacks does not discuss practice here but ideas. Should we focus on the individual who originated an idea, who first thought it or at least who first told us about it? Or should we focus on the idea itself? This is not primarily about literary styles but about learning styles, which only indirectly affects how we write. There is a logical flaw, or a false argument, known as the “genetic fallacy” or the “fallacy of origins.” In this argument, you dismiss or accept an argument based solely on the idea’s origin rather than its content. It seems that Rambam would accept that the genetic fallacy is a flaw while the Sages would reject it because they consider the origin important. It is to this problem of thinking rather than writing that Rabbi Sacks brings our attention and to which he offers an original solution.

III. Torah and Wisdom

In the past, I have answered this contradiction by distinguishing between the gavra and the cheftza, the person and the item (see my recent book, Articles of Faith: Traditional Jewish Belief in the Internet Era, ch. 14). Rabbi Sacks offers his own, original resolution by distinguishing between wisdom, chokhmah, on the one hand, and Torah on the other. He writes:

“Chokhmah is the truth we discover; Torah is the truth we inherit. Chokhmah is the universal heritage of humankind; Torah is the specific heritage of Israel. Chokhmah is what we attain by being in the image of God; Torah is what guides Jews as the people of God. Chokhmah is acquired by seeing and reasoning; Torah is received by listening and responding. Chokhmah tells us what is; Torah tells us what ought to be. Chokhmah is about facts; Torah is about commands. Chokhmah yields descriptive, scientific laws; Torah yields prescriptive, behavioural laws. Chokhmah is about creation; Torah is about revelation.” (ibid.)

Chokhmah refers to philosophy in its classical sense — all the categories of science and thought. Chokhmah constitutes original human thought, discoveries, pure reason and evidence. Within Rabbi Sacks’ list, we can see three broad categories of distinctions between chokhmah and Torah:

1) Chokhmah comes from human discovery and innovation while Torah comes from revelation and tradition
2) Chokhmah is primarily descriptive of the world while Torah is prescriptive about how we should act and think
3) Chokhmah is available to all people while Torah is uniquely Jewish

Rabbi Sacks suggests that when the Sages instruct us to cite the source of a statement, they refer to Torah. Torah is about tradition, transmission of sacred information, participation in a religious act of study. The identity of the source of a statement is crucial in weighing its reliability, whether it is part of that tradition. In contrast, chokhmah is a factual matter and must be replicable. It must stand on its own regardless of who first discovered or expressed it. Rabbi Sacks explains:

“Maimonides and the sages were talking about different kinds of truth. Truth as chokhmah has nothing to do with its author. Had Einstein not discovered the theory of relativity, eventually someone else would have done [so]. But when we speak of a revealed truth, it is vital to know the chain of transmission. Was the person who said it reliable? Was he part of the chain of tradition, from Moses across the generations? That is an essential difference between the truth we discover and the truth we inherit.” (ibid., pp. 221-22)

Rambam was discussing philosophy and ethics, chokhmah, and not content that is inherently Torah. When Rambam explains the ethical implications and obligations in Avos, he builds his approach on the ideas of both rabbis and scholars, sages and philosophers, in the spirit of chokhmah. According to Rabbi Sacks’ approach, the Sages never said that it is important to cite ethicists and philosophers by name because their ideas must be able to stand on their own. However, when it comes to halakhah, Jewish law, you must cite sources because the ideas are Torah, part of the tradition.

IV. Lessons from Literary Styles

It is interesting that while this theory satisfactorily explains Rambam’s approach in his commentary to Avos, it seems to fail with regard to other works within Rambam’s oeuvre. In his magnificent summary of halakhah, the Mishneh Torah, Rambam almost never cites his sources. Indeed, there is an entire secondary literature of commentary attempting to identify Rambam’s sources in Mishneh Torah. In regard to philosophy, Rambam quotes a number of philosophers in his major philosophical work, Moreh Ha-Nevukhim. When it comes to Torah, Rambam does not quote his sources; when it comes to philosophy, he does. This poses a significant challenge to Rabbi Sacks’ approach.

Perhaps we can suggest that both of these works are exceptions to Rambam’s approach, not counterproofs. Rambam explains in his introduction to Mishneh Torah that his goal with that work is to provide a clear and concise halakhic guide. Sources and names would complicate the text and confuse the reader. Ideally, a halakhic work should quote sources by name but Mishneh Torah would fail as a popular text if it did so. Indeed, most halakhic codes in subsequent generations likewise omit names and sources as a general rule (e.g. Shulchan Arukh, Chayei Adam, Kitzur Shulchan Arukh).

In Moreh Ha-Nevukhim, Rambam quotes sources in order to sharpen the contrast between different approaches. Ideally, a work of philosophy would not need to cite sources. However, Rambam wanted to contrast the different views in order to better demonstrate their lessons and their relative strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, he made an exception for Moreh Ha-Nevukhim. Rav Yitzchak Shilat offers precisely this explanation in his analysis of Rambam’s introduction to Avos: “In his great analytical work, the Moreh, which is intended for someone ‘who has delved into the philosophical wisdoms and knows their subjects’ — Rambam quotes the different opinions in their sources’ names in order to sharpen the explanation, to address the different views explicitly, to embrace the truth and reject the falsehood” (Hakdamos Ha-Rambam La-Mishnah, p. 261).

This last step of reconciling Rabbi Sacks’ explanation with Rambam’s other works is important for another reason. As we mentioned earlier, Rabbi Sacks himself was a tireless bibliographer. His books and essays are filled with stories and lessons from scholars of a broad spectrum of subjects. If sociology and psychology, economics and physics, and all the other wisdoms Rabbi Sacks utilizes in his teachings fall within the domain of chokhmah, why does he bother to cite his sources? According to his own approach, the truth must stand on its own! Chokhmah does not need support.

I believe there are two answers. First, contemporary rules of writing require proper sourcing of ideas. Even if Rabbi Sacks artfully worded his writings to avoid committing what we today call plagiarism, he still would have been an ungrateful and ungracious author by failing to quote his sources. Much more importantly, by citing his sources, both sacred and secular, Rabbi Sacks teaches his readers how to live a life of constant learning. He quotes books to show that a true scholar is a lifelong student who always reads. Not only does he read but he brings the full resources of everything he learns into his thought process, even into his Torah learning. A good educator teaches students facts. A great educator teaches students how to learn. In his writings, Rabbi Sacks educates on two levels. On one level, he teaches us his inspiring and insightful ideas. On another level, he teaches us how to learn, how to read, how to think and how to apply those lessons to life. In that sense, Rabbi Sacks’ citation of sources is his greatest lesson of all.