There are so many nuanced messages in this week’s piece, but one line jumped out at me due to a personal experience I once had with Rabbi Sacks.

My family and I were privileged to know Lord and Lady Sacks from our time serving as the Community Rabbi and Rebbetzin in Western Marble Arch Synagogue and one Shabbat we were on a walk through Regents Park with them, together with Rabbi Lionel and Natalie Rosenfeld. At one point I realized that our eldest son, Yishai, who was 6 at the time, was not walking with us. After the initial panic we noticed that he was in fact walking alongside his ‘friends’, Rabbi Sacks and Rabbi Rosenfeld.

After much laughter at the scene, we asked Yishai what he was doing?! He replied that they had been discussing Prime Ministers, and Rabbi Sacks had asked his opinion about the current political climate. 

Love unites but it also divides. It leaves the less-loved feeling abandoned, neglected, disregarded, “hated.” In contrast, by including others and showing them that they matter, relationships blossom. In that moment in Regents Park, Yishai felt totally loved and appreciated. In a moment where he could have felt like the ‘third wheel’, he was instead made to feel valued.

Rabbi Sacks embodied this message and understood that to connect and pay attention to one, comes at the expense of possibly ostracizing another. Love is needed to bridge gaps within society, yet by giving our love to some it can potentially create deeper divides between others.

Therefore, as Rabbi Sacks articulates, law is necessary to ensure that love is targeted and used appropriately, so that the best of love and law can create a society we can be proud of, in perfect harmony.