Posts Tagged: jonathan sacks
A Father’s Love
“The boys grew up. Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the outdoors; but Jacob was a mild man who stayed at home among the...
We Must Look to the Future, and Move on From the Past
He was 137 years old. He had been through two traumatic events involving the people most precious to him in the world. The first involved...
The Hardest Part of Love is Letting Go
There is a mystery at the heart of the biblical story of Abraham, and it has immense implications for our understanding of Judaism. Who was Abraham...
Britain’s Former Chief Rabbi Tackles the Roots of Islamist Terror in New Book (INTERVIEW)
An ominous shadow has swept across the Middle East and North Africa, leaving chaos and carnage in its wake. Mad men armed with Kalashnikovs and depraved...
In Judaism, We Stand on the Shoulders of Previous Generations
Mark Twain said it most pithily. “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the...
Judaism Is a Religion of Listening, Not Seeing
What exactly was the first sin? What was the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil? Is this kind of knowledge a bad thing --...
If God Is Just, Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?
In majestic language, Moses breaks into song, investing his final testament to the Israelites with all the power and passion at his command. He begins...
Former British Chief Rabbi Calls for Kindertransport-Type Rescue of Syrian Refugees
Former British Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks called on the U.K. to absorb thousands of Syrian refugees in light of the growing crisis that took the world by storm this week,...
Judaism Is Defined by Joy
Happiness, said Aristotle, is the ultimate goal at which all humans aim. But in Judaism it is not necessarily so. Happiness is a high value. Ashrei, the...
Children Do Suffer the Sins of Their Parents
There is, on the face of it, a fundamental contradiction in the Torah. On the one hand we hear, in the passage known as the...
Judaism’s Environmental Responsibility
Some commands in the Torah were understood so narrowly by the sages that they were rendered almost inapplicable. One example is the ir ha-nidachat, the city...
The Power of Gratitude Can Literally Save Your Life
In the early 1990s, one of the great medical research exercises of modern times took place. It became known as the Nun Study. Some 700...
The Right and the Good
Buried among the epic passages in Va-etchanan – among them the Shema and the Ten Commandments – is a brief passage with large implications for...
Why Are There So Many Jewish Lawyers?
At the beginning of Devarim, Moses reviews the history of the Israelites’ experience in the wilderness, beginning with the appointment of leaders throughout the people...
