[7] He completed his higher education at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he gained a first-class honours degree (MA) in Philosophy.

While a student at Cambridge, he travelled to New York City, where he met with rabbis Joseph Soloveitchik and Menachem Mendel Schneerson to discuss a variety of issues relating to religion, faith, and philosophy.

A visiting professor at several universities in Britain, the United States, and Israel, Sacks held 16 honorary degrees, including a doctorate of divinity conferred on him in September 2001 by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, to mark his first ten years in office as Chief Rabbi.

[28] His Covenant & Conversation commentaries on the weekly Torah portion are read by thousands of people in Jewish communities around the world.

A regular contributor to national media, frequently appearing on BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day or writing the Credo column or opinion pieces in The Times, Sacks was awarded The Sanford St Martin's Trust Personal Award for 2013 for "his advocacy of Judaism and religion in general".

[30] At a Gala Dinner held in Central London in May 2013 to mark the completion of the Chief Rabbi's time in office, the Prince of Wales called Sacks a "light unto this nation", "a steadfast friend" and "a valued adviser" whose "guidance on any given issue has never failed to be of practical value and deeply grounded in the kind of wisdom that is increasingly hard to come by".

[31] In his installation address upon succeeding Immanuel Jakobovits as Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth in September 1991, Sacks called for a Decade of Renewal which would "revitalize British Jewry's great powers of creativity".

The Chief Rabbi began his second decade of office with a call to 'Jewish Responsibility' and a renewed commitment to the ethical dimension of Judaism.

[40] In a pamphlet written to mark the completion of his time as Chief Rabbi entitled "A Judaism Engaged with the World",[41] Sacks cites three individuals who have had a profound impact on his own philosophical thinking.

The first figure was the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson who "was fully aware of the problem of the missing Jews... inventing the idea, revolutionary in its time, of Jewish outreach... [He] challenged me to lead.

Sacks called Rabinovitch "One of the great Maimonidean scholars of our time, [who] taught us, his students, that Torah leadership demands the highest intellectual and moral courage.

The following thoughts, which are his, are a small indication of what I learned from him – not least that Torah is, among other things, a refusal to give easy answers to difficult questions.

Sacks possesses a rare ability to hold in delicate balance the universal demands of the modern, multicultural world with the particularism associated with Judaism.

"[44]: 1  This is a view supported by Rabbi Nathan Lopez Cardozo, who wrote in The Jerusalem Post that Sacks's "confidence in the power of Judaism and its infinite wisdom enabled him to enter the lion's den, taking on famous philosophers, scientists, religious thinkers and sociologists and showing them that Judaism had something to teach that they couldn't afford to miss if they wanted to be at the forefront of philosophy and science.

What make Lord Sacks' approach so effective is that he is able to do so without any exception of the wider world taking on Judaism's theological beliefs.

"[39]: xvi The framework for Sacks' philosophical approach and his interaction between the universal and the particular is not too dissimilar from those positions adopted by other leading Orthodox thinkers of recent times.

As noted in the introduction to Radical Responsibility: "Torah, for Jonathan Sacks represents the particularistic, inherited teachings of Judaism, while hokhmah (wisdom) refers to the universal realm of the sciences and humanities.

"[39]: xviii  Framed in religious terms, as Sacks sets out in his book Future Tense: Tirosh-Samuelson and Hughes are of the opinion that whilst Torah v'Chokhmah is certainly a valid overarching framework, they note that Sacks' perspective is one rooted in modern orthodoxy: "Although he will try to understand various denominations of Judaism, he is always quick to point out that Orthodoxy cannot recognize the legitimacy of interpretations of Judaism that abandon fundamental beliefs of halakhic (Jewish law) authority.

[49][50] As this diversity of covenantal bonds implies, however, traditional Jewish sources do clearly deny that any one creed has a monopoly on spiritual truth.

He wrote further that he was an "enemy" of the Reform, Liberal and Masorti movements, leading some to reject the notion that he was "Chief Rabbi" for all Jews in Britain.

"[60] Sacks years earlier (2004) drew some criticism when he and his beit din prevented the retired Rabbi Louis Jacobs, who had helped establish the British branch of the Masorti movement, from being called up for the reading of the Torah on the Saturday before his granddaughter's wedding.

[61] Sacks expressed concern at what he regarded as the negative effects of materialism and secularism in European society, arguing that they undermined the basic values of family life and lead to selfishness.

In 2009, Sacks gave an address claiming that Europeans have chosen consumerism over the self-sacrifice of parenting children, and that "the major assault on religion today comes from the neo-Darwinians".

[62][63] Sacks made remarks at an inter-faith reception attended by the Queen, in November 2011, in which he criticised what he believed to be the selfish consumer culture that has only brought unhappiness.

"[66] In July 2012 a group of prominent British Jews criticised Sacks for opposing plans to allow civil marriage for gays and lesbians.

[78] Rabbi Meir Soloveichik wrote a tribute piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled "What Gentiles can Learn from Lord Sacks".

[79] Awarding the Genesis Prize Lifetime Achievement Award to Rabbi Sacks posthumously in late 2021, Israeli President Isaac Herzog paid tribute to him and praised him as “a master articulator of the Jewish foundation of universal values" who "unapologetically verbalized a proud, dignified Jewish identity.