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Yom Kippur – Ceremony & Celebration: Family Edition
Welcome to the family edition for Yom Kippur. In this series, entitled Ceremony & Celebration: Family Edition, we share key ideas and insights from the teachings of Rabbi Sacks throughout the...
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Succot – Ceremony & Celebration: Family Edition
Welcome to the family edition for Succot. In this series, entitled Ceremony & Celebration: Family Edition, we share key ideas and insights from the teachings of Rabbi Sacks throughout the Jewish...
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The Genesis of Justice (Bereishit 5782)
There are words that change the world, none more so than two sentences that appear in the first chapter of the Torah: Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they...
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Shemini Atzeret & Simchat Torah – Ceremony & Celebration: Family Edition
Welcome to the family edition for the upcoming days of Shemini Atzeret & Simchat Torah In this series, entitled Ceremony & Celebration: Family Edition, we share key ideas and insights from...
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Beyond Nature (Noach)
Are we naturally good or naturally bad? On this, great minds have argued for a very long time indeed. Hobbes believed that we have naturally “a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that...
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How Perfect were the Matriarchs and Patriarchs? (Lech Lecha)
In an extraordinary series of observations on this week’s parsha, Ramban (Nahmanides, 1194 – 1270) delivers harsh criticisms of Abraham and Sarah. The first has to do with Abraham’s decision to leave...
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The Binding of Isaac (Vayera)
“Take your son, your only son, the one you love—Isaac—and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” (Gen. 22:2) Thus begins one of the most famous...
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The Kindness of Strangers (Chayei Sarah)
In 1966 an eleven-year-old black boy moved with his parents and family to a white neighbourhood in Washington. Sitting with his two brothers and two sisters on the front step of the house, he waited...
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Was Jacob Right to Take the Blessings? (Toldot)
Was Jacob right to take Esau’s blessing in disguise? Was he right to deceive his father and to take from his brother the blessing Isaac sought to give him? Was Rebecca right in conceiving the plan in...
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Time for Love, Time for Justice (Vayetse)
Judaism is supremely a religion of love: three loves. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.” (Deut. 6:5); “You shall love your neighbour...
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The Parable of the Tribes (Vayishlach)
From beginning to end, Genesis chapter 34 tells a terrifying story. Dina, Jacob’s daughter – the only Jewish daughter mentioned in the entire patriarchal narrative – leaves the safety of home to go...
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The Heroism of Tamar (Vayeshev)
This is a true story that took place in the 1970s. Rabbi Dr Nahum Rabinovitch, then Principal of Jews’ College, the rabbinic training seminary in London where I was a student and teacher, was...
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Appearance and Reality (Mikketz)
After twenty-two years and many twists and turns, Joseph and his brothers finally meet. We sense the drama of the moment. The last time they had been together, the brothers planned to kill Joseph and...
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The Birth of Forgiveness (Vayigash)
There are moments that change the world: 1439 when Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable-type printing press (though the Chinese had developed it four centuries before); 1821 when Faraday invented...
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When Can We Lie? (Vayechi)
After the death of Jacob, Joseph’s brothers were afraid. Years earlier, when he had revealed his true identity to them, he appeared to have forgiven them for selling him as a slave.[1] Yet the...
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On Not Obeying Immoral Orders (Shemot)
The opening chapters of Exodus plunge us into the midst of epic events. Almost at a stroke the Israelites are transformed from protected minority to slaves. Moses passes from prince of Egypt to...
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Freewill (Vaera)
The question is ancient. If God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, then it was God who made Pharaoh refuse to let the Israelites go, not Pharaoh himself. How can this be just? How could it be right to punish...
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Telling the Story (Bo)
Go to Washington and take a tour of the memorials and you will make a fascinating discovery. Begin at the Lincoln Memorial with its giant statue of the man who braved civil war and presided over the...
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The Face of Evil (Beshallach)
After 9/11, when the horror and trauma had subsided, Americans found themselves asking what had happened and why. Was it a disaster? A tragedy? A crime? An act of war? It did not seem to fit the...
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The Structure of the Good Society (Yitro)
In the House of Lords there is a special chamber used as, among other things, the place where new Peers are robed before their introduction into the House. When my predecessor Lord Jakobovits was...
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