Jewish ethics emanates from two poles, the particular and the universal, a dichotomy best summed up by the maxim of Hillel the Sage: “If I do not stand up for myself, who will do so? But if I stand only for myself, what am I?” to which he famously added “And if not now, when?” Nobody embodies those twin mandates—and the urgency with which we must act on them as reflected in their postscript—better than lawyer, statesman, and clergyman Rabbi David Saperstein.
Rabbi Saperstein serves as director emeritus of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC) after 40 years as its director and counsel. He left that position to serve as the first non-Christian U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, our nation’s chief diplomat on religious freedom issues, advocating for religious freedom and the security of religious minorities across the globe.
A constitutional scholar who taught for over 35 years at Georgetown University, including at its Law Center, Rabbi Saperstein is a powerful champion for individual religious expression and freedom from government intrusion. Newsweek called him the most influential rabbi in America, and he has been described as Washington, D.C.’s quintessential advocate for religious rights.
When he left the RAC for government service, Rabbi Saperstein asked his colleagues to pass the torch of hope “from hand to hand, from heart to heart, until the radiance of peace and righteousness for all God’s children shines to the ends of the earth.”