Lord Jonathan Sachs | First One Through

In biblical times, after the Great Flood destroyed the known world, mankind responded not with humility but with defiance. They sought to raise themselves above God’s wrath, building the Tower of Babel as a monument to their own power, reaching for the heavens.

Centuries later, as the Great Depression ransacked America, another tower began to climb skyward. John D. Rockefeller, the oil titan turned philanthropist, commissioned an audacious complex in the heart of Manhattan. Out of the rubble of despair rose Rockefeller Center, a collection of soaring structures anchored by “30 Rock,” a 70-story monument of steel and stone.

*Construction workers having lunch as they build the RCA Building in 1932*

At its entrance, the vision was chiseled into eternity: “Wisdom and Knowledge shall be the stability of thy times” — the words of Isaiah engraved above the door. Flanked by sculptures representing Light and Sound, the building proclaimed its purpose: to be the voice of news and entertainment for the world, a modern temple to information and culture.

*Sculptures atop the main entrances of 30 Rockefeller Plaza* *(photo: First One Through)*

Yet curiosity lingers when one gazes up at that famous inscription. The line from Isaiah 33:6 was never meant to stand alone. The full verse concludes: “…and the fear of the Lord is his treasure.” But that final clause was deliberately omitted. The builders sanctified wisdom and knowledge, but excised God. The omission transformed Rockefeller Center into secular scripture, elevating man’s wisdom over divine truth. For nearly a century, the complex stood representing a modern Tower of Babel: a singular voice beaming news, culture, and entertainment to a world tuned to one frequency.

*Sculpture above doorway of 30 Rockefeller Plaza (photo: First One Through)*

But the world has shifted. The authority of a single edifice has collapsed. The pandemic pulled workers from office towers into spare bedrooms and kitchen tables. The internet, social media, and ubiquitous cell phones scattered the once-unified audience into billions of isolated “my-truthers.” The great tower that once declared itself master of wisdom and knowledge no longer reigns over truth — or even news. Instead, we have a digital cacophony, a post-Babel of infinite voices, each one clamoring for relevancy.

In the ancient tale, God looked down upon Babel, saw mankind united in defiance, and scattered the people with a confusion of tongues. It was divine intervention that broke apart the human project. The modern incarnation lacks lightning bolts from the heavens with thunderous judgment. The fracture came from within. By sanctifying ourselves over the divine, the builders enshrined wisdom and knowledge as supreme — and in so doing, they planted the seeds of our undoing.

Even in scattering, the ancient world retained stability. Though tongues differed, mankind still clung to faith. Out of the dispersion of dialects came hundreds of religions, with Abraham’s radical monotheism, affirming that there was one God who bound the human family together, at its heart. In contrast, modern society’s disdain for God has left us truly unstable. We do not scatter into tribes of belief but dissolve into atomized individuals, each enthroning himself as arbiter of truth, each rejecting the notion of any higher authority.

There is no “stability of thy times.”

As Lord Jonathan Sacks once observed, “If you want to take this diverse, fractured culture and turn it into a united nation, you have to get them to build something together.” Culture is not born of proximity but of purpose. Yet even that is not enough. For building without faith leads only to another Babel — a project that may rise high but will ultimately fracture under the weight of its own pride.

Our ancestors knew this instinctively. They struggled, they questioned, they even quarreled with God — but they never erased Him from the story. Faith provided the mortar that held their collective together. In contrast, our age has celebrated knowledge while amputating belief, enthroning technology while dismissing transcendence. We build networks instead of communities, platforms instead of sanctuaries. And without faith, what we construct collapses into confusion, as surely as Babel once did.

A Way Forward

The modern Tower has already cracked. Today’s Titans do not build skyscrapers broadcasting monoliths of truth but platforms and algorithms addicting both tweeter and tweeterdom. We live in a splintered archipelago of isolated truths. To endure, we must restore the missing half of Isaiah’s wisdom. It is time to harken to Isaiah’s full words and engage with humble faith together with wisdom and knowledge, so that we may yet build a more perfect union.

Perhaps an answer for us today is not chiseling new words above our heads into the stone of Rockefeller Center to amend the verse. The real task is closer to home. Each of us can sanctify our own entrances with God’s presence. A mezuzah affixed to the doorpost — of a house, an apartment, and our workplaces — serves as the quiet reminder that wisdom and knowledge alone are not enough. It is God’s presence within that provides the stability of our times. Where the tower excised Him, the mezuzah restores Him. And if enough doorways bear that mark, perhaps our fractured society can yet rediscover a shared foundation.

*30 Rockefeller Plaza at night, September 2025 (photo: First One Through)*

The first part of the Hebrew bible showcases leaders who exhibit a full range of leadership qualities and attributes. The first monotheist, Abraham, was a religious leader who spoke with God, a military leader who fought battles, and a skilled negotiator who struck treaties with foreign kings. In later books of Old Testament, as the Jews took kings in Israel, the word of God was often imparted by a prophet who kept the ruler in line with God’s desires in a division of labor.

As Jews lost their holy land, the spiritual leaders assumed greater responsibilities to lead the community. Acting as administrators, the rabbis often made poor decisions, such as Rabbi Akiva who backed the Bar Kochba revolt against the Romans in 132CE which almost led to the complete destruction of the Jewish people. Thousands of years later, many prominent rabbis in Europe did not lead their communities to flee to either the holy land or the United States and they perished in the Holocaust. Even today, many brilliant rabbis are not enforcing health protocols amid the pandemic, leading to hundreds of deaths.

It is therefore important to take note and appreciate a rabbi who was able to lead on a local, national and international level both on a spiritual and political basis. Such was Lord Jonathan Sachs who passed away on November 7, 2020.

Lord Sachs was not only the rabbi of the largest synagogue in England, but served as the Chief Rabbi of England who had a seat in the House of Lords. He wrote 25 books, was a professor at several universities and spoke around the world. He stood before English Parliament to clearly denounce anti-Semitism in a speech heard around the world. His message for compassion, love of every Jew, contributing to society, love of God, love of learning, commitment to Israel and building interfaith bonds made him a favorite among Jews and non-Jews around the world.

God created the word through division, separating light and darkness, water and land, and man and woman. Over history, humanity saw similar benefits and instituted mechanisms to separate powers such as military, political, judicial and religious. So it is a rare situation for a leader to earn the respect of so many beyond an anointed title. Such was Lord Jonathan Sachs, an Orthodox rabbi who not only led the spiritual lives of the Jews of England but inspired people of all faiths around the world. May his memory be a blessing.