Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Learning to honor G-d by honoring those made in His image: Humankind.

A key to help unlock the entire project outlined by Moses in Sefer Devarim, the final book of the Torah, from a most unlikely source...

six heroines, six courageous women without whom there would not have been a Moses.

Sadly, we're no longer an edah; We've fissured and fractured: Orthodox & Reform; religious & secular

In order to choose between right and wrong, between good and bad – in order to live the moral life – we must make sure not only to look, but also to listen.

Judaism is not a religion of blind obedience. Astonishingly of 613 commandments, there is no Hebrew word that means “to obey.” Judaism is the rarest of phenomena: a faith based on asking questions,

God’s “name” is therefore His standing in the world. Do people acknowledge Him, respect Him, honor Him?

What does Parshat Emor tell us about Shabbat that we do not learn elsewhere?

Kedoshim is not just about order. It is about humanizing that order through love – the love of neighbor and stranger. Love needs order.

First in Parshat Yitro there were the Asseret Hadibrot (the Ten Utterances, or general principles). Now in Parshat Mishpatim come the details.

On the face of it, the connections between the sedrah and haftarah of Bamidbar are slender. The first has to do with demography. Bamidbar begins with a census of the people. The haftarah begins with Hosea’s vision of a time when “the number of the children of Israel will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or numbered.” There was a time when the Israelites could be counted; the day will come when they will be countless. That is one contrast between the future and the past.

Parshat Terumah begins the seismic shift from the intense drama of the Exodus, with its wonders and epic events, to the detailed narrative of how the Israelites constructed the Mishkan--the Tabernacle. The Nation begins building its HOME.

Kedoshim contains the two great love commands of the Torah. What are they?

Isaac surely knew that his elder son was a man of mercurial temperament who lived in the emotions of the moment.

Isaac never intended to give the blessing of the covenant to Esau. He intended to give each child the blessing that suited them.

With the revelation at Sinai, something unprecedented entered the human horizon...the politics of freedom was born

The Sukkah represents the singular character of Jewish history, the experience of exile and homecoming, the long journey across the wilderness of time.

As music connects note to note, so faith connects episode to episode, life to life, age to age in a timeless melody that breaks into time.

The story of Korach has much to teach us about one of the most disturbing phenomena of our time: the rise of populism in...

Expiation demands a ritual. Yet Maimonides does not explain why Yom Kippur demanded a rite not used on other days when sin or guilt offerings were brought.

It is almost as if Sukkot were two festivals, not one.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Judah came close to his brother Joseph. The irony is, of course, that he did not know it was Joseph.

It is simply not the same to put on tefillin or keep kashrut or observe Shabbat in the Diaspora as in Israel. The Torah is the constitution of a holy people in the holy land. Only in Israel is the fulfillment of the commands a society-building exercise, shaping the contours of a culture as a whole. Only in Israel does the calendar track the rhythms of the Jewish year.

It is the most famous, majestic and influential opening of any book in literature: “In the beginning, G-d created the heavens and the earth.” What is surpassingly strange is the way Rashi – most beloved of all Jewish commentators – begins his commentary:

Torah isn't a theological treatise or a metaphysical system but a series of stories linked over time

Gardner’s argument is that what makes a leader is the ability to tell a particular kind of story – one that explains ourselves to ourselves and gives power and resonance to a collective vision.

Why did God choose that Israel be blessed by Bilaam? Surely there is the principl “Good things come about through good people” (Tosefta Yoma 4:12). Why did this good thing come about through a bad man?

When G-d said, “I will be what I will be,” He was telling us something not only about G-d but about us when we are open to G-d and have faith in His faith in us.

Laws shape a society, and a society needs space. A sacred society needs sacred space, a holy land. Hence Jews and Judaism need their own land.

In what sense were the Jews in France and the Jews in Spain responsible for one another? What constituted them as a single nation?