Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

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.

The answer to the question, Who am I? is not simply a matter of where I was born, where I spent my childhood or my adult life or of which country I am a citizen.

Love is central to Judaism: not just love between husband and wife, parent and child, but also love for G-d, for neighbor and stranger.

It taught me that humility is not thinking you are small. It is thinking that other people have greatness within them.

In Judaism, faith is not a rival to science, an attempt to explain the universe. It’s a sense of wonder, born in a feeling of gratitude.

It is through the word – speaking and listening – that we can have an intimate relationship with G-d as our parent, our partner, our sovereign, the One who loves us and whom we love.

If you want to change the world, start with why.

Only in Israel was G-d seen not just as a power but as the architect of society, the orchestrator of its music of justice and mercy, liberty and dignity.

Age brings the reflection and detachment that allows us to stand back and not be swept along by the mood of the moment or passing fashion or the madness of the crowd.

We should be free to live as we choose, worship as we choose, and identify as we choose.

We are each, to some extent, who we chose to become. Neither genes nor upbringing can guarantee that we become the person our parents want us to be.

Moses at the rock was not so much a prophet as a man who had just lost his sister.

Where there is hierarchy, there will be competition as to who is the alpha male.

G-d wanted the Israelites to create a model society where human beings were not treated as slaves, where rulers were not worshipped as demigods, where human dignity was respected…

The spies feared success, not failure. It was the mistake of deeply religious men. But it was a mistake.

To be a Jew is to seek to make a difference, to change lives for the better, to heal some of the scars of our fractured world. But people don’t like change.

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.

The service of the Priests in the Temple was accompanied by silence. The Levites sang in the courtyard, but the Priests – unlike their counterparts in other ancient religions – neither sang nor spoke while offering the sacrifices.

Where families are strong, a sense of altruism exists that can be extended outward, from family to friends to neighbors to community and from there to the nation as a whole.

The account in Deuteronomy is about society. Moses at the end of his life told the next generation where they had come from, where they were going to, and the kind of society they were to construct.

Moses’ intercession with G-d did not, in and of itself, induce a penitential mood among the people. Yes, he performed a series of dramatic acts to demonstrate to the people their guilt. But we have no evidence that they internalized it.

What was the connection between the internal Jewish struggle and the Christian burning of Jewish books?

Reflections from Rabbi Sacks’ following his first visit to Auschwitz in 1995

In Judaism, to be without questions is a sign not of faith, but of lack of depth.

To love is to thank. To love is to want to bring an offering to the Beloved. To love is to give. Sacrifice is the choreography of love.

For each of us G-d has a task: work to perform, a kindness to show, a gift to give, love to share, loneliness to ease, pain to heal, or broken lives to help mend.

Regular attendance at a house of worship is the most accurate predictor of altruism, more so than any other factor, including gender, education, income, race, region, marital status, ideology, and age.

We cannot see G-d’s face; we cannot understand G-d’s ways; but we can encounter G-d’s glory whenever we build a home for His presence here on earth.

These were all innovators, pioneers, ground-breakers, trail-blazers, who formulated new ideas, originated new forms of expression, did things no one had done before in quite that way. They broke the mold. They changed the landscape. They ventured into the unknown. Yet their daily lives were the opposite: ritualized and routine.

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.