Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Speaking of the three pilgrimage festivals – Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot – Deuteronomy speaks of “joy.” But it does not do so equally.

...we can now understand the story of the first sin: It is all about appearances, shame, vision, and the eye. 

Only a civilization based on forgiveness can construct a future that is not an endless repetition of the past. That, surely, is why Judaism is the only civilization whose golden age is in the future.

So long as Moses was in their midst, the people knew that he communicated with G-d, and G-d with him, and therefore G-d was accessible, close. But when he was absent for nearly six weeks, they panicked.

Recently, an entirely new scientific basis has been given to morality from two surprising directions: neo-Darwinism and the branch of mathematics known as Games theory. As we will see, the discovery is intimately related to the story of Noah and the covenant made between G-d and humanity after the Flood.

Your life seems to be coming to a tragic end, your destination unreached, your aspirations unfulfilled. What do you do? WWMD?

From Parshat Vayeishev to the end of Sefer Bereishit, we read the story of Joseph and his brothers. From the very beginning we are plunged into a drama of sibling rivalry that seems destined to end in tragedy.

So the Torah is a unique combination of nomos and narrative, history and law, the formative experiences of a nation and the way that nation sought to live its collective life so as never to forget the lessons it learned along the way. It brings together vision and detail in a way that has never been surpassed.

The only way to stay young, hungry, and driven is through periodic renewal, reminding ourselves of where we came from, where we are going, and why.

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

Yom Kipper, the Day of Atonement, is the supreme moment of Jewish time, a day of fasting and prayer, introspection and self-judgment. At no other time are we so sharply conscious of standing before God, of being known by Him. But it begins in the strangest of ways.

Admittedly, the Talmud questions how free the Israelites actually were, and it uses an astonishing image.

Joseph has the misfortune of being the youngest. He symbolizes the Jewish condition. His brothers are older and stronger than he is. They resent his presence. They see him as a trouble maker. The fact that their father loves him only makes them angrier and more resentful.

Jews became famous throughout the ages for putting education first. Where others built castles and palaces, Jews built schools and houses of study.

All the high ideals in the world count for little until they are turned into habits of action that become habits of the heart.

This means: a leader must lead from the front, but he or she must not be so far out in front that when they turn around, they find that no one is following.

All social institutions in a free society depend on trust, and trust means honoring our promises, doing what we say we will do.

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.

The premise of the Torah is that G-d must be found somewhere in particular if He is to be found everywhere in general. As Shabbat is holy time, Israel is holy space. That is why, in Judaism, religion is tied to a land, and a land is linked to a religion.

Pharaoh perverted symbols of life (the Nile and midwives) into agents of death.

It is almost as if Sukkot were two festivals, not one. It is. Although all the festivals are listed together, they in fact represent two quite different cycles.

Between the Flood and the call to Abraham, between the universal covenant with Noah and the particular covenant with one people comes the strange, suggestive story of Babel:

The more we learn about the psychology of bereavement and the stages through which we must pass before loss is healed, so more the wisdom of Judaism’s ancient laws and customs becomes ever more clear.

Why not paint Jacob in more attractive colors? It seems to me that the Torah is delivering, here as elsewhere, an extraordinary message: that if we can truly relate to God as God, in His full transcendence and majesty, then we can relate to humans as humans in all their fallibility.

We are a hyper-verbal people. We talk, we argue, we pontificate, we deliver witty repartee and clever put-downs. Jews may not always be great listeners but we are among the world’s great talkers.

The real contrast here, though, is the difference between Aaron and his two sons. They were, it seems, opposites. Aaron was over-cautious and had to be persuaded by Moses even to begin. Nadav and Avihu were not cautious enough. So keen were they to put their own stamp on the role of priesthood that their impetuosity was their downfall.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is a kind of clarion call, a summons to the Ten Days of Penitence that culminate in the Day of Atonement. The Torah calls it “the day when the horn is sounded,” and its central event is the sounding of the shofar.

We do not need to prove ourselves in order to receive a blessing from G-d. All we need to know is that His face is turned toward us.

What for the prophets was a dazzling vision of a distant future of peace was, for the Sages, a practical program of good community relations.

“We received Torah from Moses” or “from our parents” isn't enough. We must write our "own" scroll