Posts Tagged: jonathan sacks
New Perspectives on the Haggadah
This year, in response to the pandemic, Koren Publishers offered a free download of their Haggadah with the commentary of the former Chief Rabbi of...
Parshat Tzav: Left- and Right-Brain Judaism
The institution of the Haftorah -- reading a passage from the prophetic literature alongside the Torah portion -- is an ancient one, dating back at...
Anyone Who Mistreats Other Human Beings Is Not a Pious or Religious Jew
Sacrifices, the subject of this week’s parsha, were central to the religious life of Biblical Israel. We see this not only by the sheer space...
Artificial Intelligence: The Forbidden Fruit of the 21st Century
Long before the invention of self-driving cars and robotics, Jews conceived the idea of man-made life. Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming so advanced now that it...
Parshat Mishpatim: We Must Understand in Our Own Way
Two words we read toward the end of our parsha -- na’aseh ve-nishma, “We will do and we will hear” -- are among the most...
Why Storytelling Is Essential to Jews and Judaism
Sometimes others know us better than we know ourselves. In the year 2000, a British Jewish research institute came up with a proposal that Jews...
Parshat Vayigash: The Power of Reinterpreting the Past
In this week's parsha, Joseph does something unusual. Revealing himself to his brothers, fully aware that they will suffer shock and then guilt as they...
Parshat Vayera: The Need to Live With Uncertainty
I have written about the binding of Isaac many times in these studies, each time proposing an interpretation somewhat different from the ones given by...
Parshat Bereishit: The Genesis of Love
In The Lonely Man of Faith, Rabbi Soloveitchik drew our attention to the fact that Bereishit contains two separate accounts of creation. The first is...
The Torah Is a Way to See the World
When I was Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, I had wonderful friendships with other religious leaders, not least the two...
The Message of the Torah: ‘Out of the One, Many’
In the glorious song with which Moses addresses the people, he invites them to think of the Torah -- their covenant with God -- as...
The Torah as God’s Song
At the end of his life, having given the Israelites at God’s behest 612 commandments, Moses gave them the final mitzvah: “Now therefore write down...
Why Do Jews Drift Away From Judaism?
When I was a student at university in the late 1960s -- the era of student protests, psychedelic drugs, and the Beatles meditating with the...
The Jews Are a Nation of Storytellers
Howard Gardner, professor of education and psychology at Harvard University, is one of the great minds of our time. He is best known for his...
