Jonathan Sacks
ARTICLES BY: Jonathan Sacks
‘I Was Just Following Orders’ is Never an Excuse
The opening chapters of Exodus plunge us into the midst of epic events. Almost at a stroke, the Israelites are transformed from a protected minority...
When is it Permitted to Tell a Lie?
After the death of Jacob, Joseph's brothers were afraid. Years earlier, when he had revealed his true identity to them, he appeared to have forgiven...
The Story of Joseph and the Dawn of Forgiveness
There are moments that change the world: 1439 when Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable-type printing press (though the Chinese had developed it four centuries before),...
The Difference Between Appearance and Reality
Finally after 22 years and many twists and turns, Joseph and his brothers meet. We sense the drama of the moment. The last time they...
The Heroism of Tamar
This is a true story that took place in the 1970s. Rabbi Dr Nahum Rabinovitch, then Principal of Jews College, the rabbinic training seminary in...
Violence Defiles Us All, Even When Necessary
From beginning to end, Genesis 34 tells a terrifying story. Dina, Jacob's daughter - the only Jewish daughter mentioned in the entire patriarchal narratives -...
In Judaism, Love is Not Enough
Judaism is supremely a religion of love: three loves. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and...
Was Jacob Right to Take Esau’s Blessing?
Was Jacob right to take Esau's blessing in disguise? Was he right to deceive his father and to take from his brother the blessing Isaac...
The Kindness of Strangers, and the Origin of ‘Loving-Kindness’
In 1966 an 11-year-old black boy moved with his parents and family to a white neighbourhood in Washington. Sitting with his two brothers and two sisters...
The Lesson of the Binding of Isaac: We Don’t Own Our Children
"Take your son, your only son, the one you love—Isaac—and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I...
The Perfect Matriarchs and Patriarchs
In an extraordinary series of observations on this week's parsha, Nahmanides (Ramban, Rabbi Moses ben Nahman Girondi, 1194 - 1270), delivers harsh criticisms of Abraham...
Morals Make Us Human, and They Can Be Taught
Are we naturally good or naturally bad? On this, great minds have argued for centuries. Hobbes believed that we have naturally "a perpetual and restless...
The Genesis of Justice
There are words that change the world, none more so than two sentences that appear in the first chapter of the Torah: Then God said, "Let...
The Jewish Leader’s Call to Responsibility: Celebrate Life
In the year that we recently parted with, 5774, it became dangerous once again to be a Jew. Israel, subject to sustained missile attack, discovered...
