Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

To understand the power of this anti-climax, we must remember that only since the invention of printing and the availability of books have we been able to tell what happens next merely by turning a page.

The sedra of Shemot, in a series of finely etched vignettes, paints a portrait of the life of Moses, culminating in the moment at which G-d appears to him in the bush that burns without being consumed. It is a key text of the Torah view of leadership, and every detail is significant. I want here to focus on just one passage in the long dialogue in which G-d summons Moses to undertake the mission of leading the Israelites to freedom – a challenge which, no less than four times, Moses declines. I am unworthy, he says. I am not a man of words. Send someone else. It is the second refusal, however, which attracted special attention from the sages and led them to formulate one of their most radical interpretations.

Moses’ insight was profound. He knew that you cannot change the world by externalities alone, by monumental architecture, or armies and empires, or the use of force and power.

It was Moses who mediated with God.

It was the Septuagint, the early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, that translated tzara’at, the condition whose identification and cleansing occupies much of Parshiyot Tazria and Metzora as lepra, giving rise to a long tradition identifying it with leprosy.

For me, one of the gifts of this strange, difficult time has been the ability to slow down the prayers so that I am able to listen to them speaking to me. Praying is as much about listening as speaking. And faith itself is the ability to hear the music beneath the noise.

This week’s sedrah, Shelach Lecha, ends with one of the great commands of Judaism – tzitzit, the fringes we wear on the corner of our garments as a perennial reminder of our identity as Jews and our obligation to keep the Torah’s commands.

he sacrifices a woman brings on the birth of a child, and the period during which she is unable to enter the Temple, have nothing to do with any sin she may have committed or any “defilement” she may have undergone. They are, rather, to do with the basic fact of human mortality, together with the responsibility a parent undertakes for the conduct of a child

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.

What then does the Torah say about Abraham? The answer is unexpected and very moving. Abraham was chosen simply to be a father.

Power works by division, influence by multiplication. Power, in other words, is a zero-sum game: the more you share, the less you have.

There is something very strange about the festival of Succot, of which our parsha is the primary source. On the one hand, it is...

There is a deeper message in Parshat Tetzaveh - the principle of the separation of powers, which opposes the concentration of leadership into one person or institution. All human authority needs checks and balances if it is not to become corrupt. In particular, political and religious leadership (keter malchut and keter kehunah) should never be combined. Moses wore the crowns of political and prophetic leadership, Aaron that of priesthood. The division allowed each to be a check on the other.

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.

Faith is the courage to take a risk for the sake of God or the Jewish people

Hidden beneath the surface of Parshat Chayei Sarah, for example, is another story, alluded to only in a series of hints. Here are three clues in the text...

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

Note, first, that this is not an adjustment of an existing name by the change or addition of a letter, It is an entirely new name, as if to signal that what it represents is a complete change of character. Second, as we have seen, the name change happened not once but twice. Third – and this is the puzzle of puzzles – having said twice that his name will no longer be Yaakov, the Torah continues to call him Yaakov. G-d Himself does so.

If you are prepared to learn something new, you can be 103 and still young. If you are not prepared to learn something new, you can be 23 and already old.

Judaism is less a philosophical system than a field of tensions – between universalism and particularism, for example, or exile and redemption, priests and prophets, cyclical and linear time, and so on.

Hope is one of the very greatest Jewish contributions to Western civilization, so much so that I have previously called Judaism “the voice of hope in the conversation of humankind.” Without this, Jews and Judaism would not have survived.

We sense the pressure Moses is under.

Moses did not speak about today or tomorrow. He spoke about the distant future.

The challenge that emerges from the way the Torah describes taking a census is that we must “lift people’s heads.” Never let them feel as if they are merely a number. Make those you meet feel important, especially the people whom others tend to take for granted.

There is something profoundly spiritual about listening-shema. It is the most effective form of conflict resolution I know.

Torah opposes slavery; G-d desires the free worship of free human beings, yet slavery's permitted-?!

Moses prepares the Israelites for freedom by discussing-children, several times in the parsha

The Sanctuary as a human construct, mirrors the Divine creation of the universe. Each creation culminates in the Sabbath placing the sanctity of place in subordinate position to the holiness of time.

Social media brought about a return to an ancient phenomenon, public shaming providing us a way of understanding the otherwise bewildering phenomenon of tsara’at,

What united them was not the dynamic of the crowd in which we are caught up in a collective frenzy but rather a sense of common purpose, of helping to bring something into being that was greater than anyone could achieve alone. Communities build; they do not destroy. They bring out the best in us, not the worst.