Sharansky’s Faith

Natan Sharansky is a towering figure in the Jewish world, but the true essence of his greatness is often misunderstood. Upon achieving victory over the Soviet regime after years in prison and at last arriving in Israel, in 1986, Sharansky might have been expected to adopt an easy life, to collect honoraria delivering speeches around the Jewish world. Instead, he dedicated himself to public service, first as a minister in the Israeli government and then as leader of the Jewish Agency. This took him from experiencing universal adulation into the realm of politics, where criticism would be constant. As Sharansky quips, the refuseniks reversed the trend: First they went to prison, then they worked in government.

How his experiences in captivity motivated his later career is the subject of a new book he has written with Gil Troy, Never Alone: Prison, Politics, and My People. If there is a central theme to Sharansky’s life, it is his balance of particularity and universalism, the defense of the Jewish people on the one hand and human-rights advocacy on the other. In an attempt to bridge this gap, Sharansky offers an interpretation drawing on two biblical figures: King David and the prophet Isaiah.

This argument, alas, fails in its intended application, but it gives us the perfect prism through which we can see Sharansky’s own greatness.