Jonathan Sacks
ARTICLES BY: Jonathan Sacks
Interpreting the First Commandment: Philosophy or Prophecy
One of the most profound disagreements in Judaism is that between Moses Maimonides and Judah Halevi on the meaning of the first of the Ten...
Justice and Compassion Equal Tzedek
As Moses begins his great closing addresses to the next generation, he turns to a subject that dominates the last of the Mosaic books, namely...
The Life Free of Suspicion
It is a fascinating story and from it comes one of the great principles of Judaism. Two of the tribes, Reuben and Gad, see that...
On Parents and Teachers
Just beneath the surface of this week's parshah (Bible portion) is an exceptionally poignant story. It occurs in the context of Moses' prayer that God...
The Hardest Word to Hear
The story of Bilaam, the pagan prophet, begins with a bewildering set of non-sequiturs - a sequence of events that seems to have no...
Why Was Moses Not Destined to Enter the Land?
It is one of the most perplexing, even disturbing, passages in the Torah. Moses the faithful shepherd, who has led the Israelites for forty years,...
Power vs. Influence
The Korach rebellion was an unholy alliance of individuals and groups unhappy with Moses' leadership. There was Korach himself, a member of the tribe of...
How to Develop the Outer Persona and the Inner Person
Our Torah portion, this week's sedra, ends with one of the great commands of Judaism - tsitsit, the fringes we wear on the corner of...
Leadership Beyond Despair
Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, is remarkable for the extreme realism with which it portrays human character. Its heroes are not superhuman. Its non-heroes...
Israel’s Wedding – Thoughts on Shavuot
In Judaism, mysteries have a habit of becoming controversies, none more so than in the case of Shavuot, otherwise known as Pentecost or the Feast...
Love as Law, Law as Love
On the face of it the connections between the sedra and haftarah of Bemidbar (Numbers) are slender. The first has to do with demography....
The Chronological Imagination
I want, in this study, to look at one of Judaism's most distinctive and least understood characteristics - the chronological imagination. The modern world...
Faith as a Journey
In its account of the festivals of the Jewish year, this week's parshah contains the following statement: You shall dwell in thatched huts for seven...
Of Love and Hate
At the center of the mosaic books is Vayikra (Leviticus). At the centre of Vayikra is the "holiness code" (chapter 19) with its momentous...
