Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Israel defies the laws of history because it serves the Author of history. Attached to greatness, it becomes great. Through the Jewish people, G-d is telling humankind that you do not need to be numerous to be great. Nations are judged not by their size but by their contribution to human heritage.

In the sanctuary, the specific domain called “the holy” is where we meet God on His terms, not ours. Yet this too is God’s way of conferring dignity on mankind.

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.

In Judaism, monarchy had little or no religious function.

Israel can learn practical politics from a Midianite but it must learn the limits of politics from G-d Himself.

A large part of what Moshe is doing in the book of Devarim is retelling that story to the next generation, reminding them of what G-d had done for their parents and of some of the mistakes their parents had made. Moshe, as well as being the great liberator, is the supreme storyteller. Yet what he does in this week's parsha, Ki Tavo, extends way beyond this.

Art in Hebrew – omanut – has a semantic connection with emunah, faith or faithfulness. A true artist is faithful both to his materials and to the task...

We find G-d not only in holy or familiar places but also in the midst of a journey, alone at night.

We can only change the world if we can change ourselves. That is why the book of Genesis ends with the story of Joseph and his brothers.

Framing the epic events of this week’s sedrah are two objects: the two sets of tablets – the first given before, and the second after, the sin of the Golden Calf. Of the first, we read: “The tablets were the work of G-d; the writing was the writing of G-d, engraved on the tablets.”

To this day American politics is based on the biblical idea of covenant. American presidents almost always invoke this idea in their Inaugural Addresses in language that owes its cadences and concepts to the book of Devarim.

Regardless of guilt and responsibility, if we commit a sin we have transgressed a boundary.

If we change the way we think, we will change the way we feel.

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:

This week's parshah inspired the Jubilee 2000 initiative leading to debt cancellation of $34 biilion

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.

All human authority needs checks and balances if it is to remain uncorrupted. In particular, political and religious leadership, keter malchut and keter kehunah, should never be combined.

Most people talk about what. Some people talk about how. Great leaders, though, start with why. This is what makes them transformative.

Pesach represents the start of the great journey of Jewish history – from slavery to freedom, Egypt to the Promised Land.

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.

They were about to enter a land they had not seen. They had no idea what they were fighting for.

In this exchange between two brothers, a momentous courage is born: the courage of an Aharon who has the strength to grieve and not accept any easy consolation, and the courage of a Moshe who has the strength to keep going in spite of grief.

Our best defence is not abstract principle but specific memory

When ten of the men came back with a demoralizing report and the people panicked, at least part of the blame lay with Moshe.

According to Rashbam, despite G-d’s assurances, Jacob was still afraid of encountering Esau. His courage failed him and he was trying to run away. G-d sent an angel to stop him from doing so.

Three moments, sharing the same message, made a deep impression on me: Greatness is humility.

He did so for the butler and baker in prison and, in this week’s parsha, for Pharaoh. His interpretations were neither magical nor miraculous.

The Egyptians sought not merely to enslave, but also to put an end to, the people of Israel. One way of doing so was to kill all male children. Another was simply to interrupt normal family life.

There is a fascinating feature of the geography of the land of Israel. It contains two seas: the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. The Sea of Galilee is full of life. The Dead Sea, as its name implies, is not. Yet they are fed by the same river, the Jordan. The difference is that the Sea of Galilee receives water and gives water. The Dead Sea receives but does not give. To receive but not to give is, in Jewish geography as well as Jewish psychology, simply not life.

The more positive emotions – such as contentment, gratitude, happiness, love and hope – they expressed in their autobiographical notes, the more likely they were to be alive and well 60 years later.