Why Jacob? That is the question we find ourselves asking repeatedly as we read the narratives of Genesis. Jacob is not what Noah was: righteous, perfect in his generations, one who walked with God. He did not, like Abraham, leave his land, his birthplace and his father’s house in response to a Divine call. He did not, like Isaac, offer…
It is one of the most enigmatic episodes in the Torah, but also one of the most important, because it was the moment that gave the Jewish people its name: Israel, one who “wrestles with God and with men and prevails” (Gen. 32:29). Jacob, hearing that his brother Esau is coming to meet him with a force of four hundred…
At the beginning of this parsha Moses performs a tikkun, a mending of the past, namely the sin of the Golden Calf. The Torah signals this by using essentially the same word at the beginning of both episodes. It eventually became a key word in Jewish spirituality: k-h-l, “to gather, assemble, congregate.” From it we get the words kahal and…
At a dinner to celebrate the work of a communal leader, the guest speaker paid tribute to his many qualities: his dedication, hard work, and foresight. As he sat down, the leader leaned over and said, “You forgot to mention one thing.” “What was that?” asked the speaker. The leader replied, “My humility.” Quite so. Great leaders have many qualities,…
One reason religion has survived in the modern world despite four centuries of secularisation is that it answers the three questions every reflective human being will ask at some time in his or her life: Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live? These cannot be answered by the four great institutions of the modern West:…
One of the most striking features of the Torah is its emphasis on love of, and vigilance toward, the ger, the stranger: Do not oppress a stranger; you yourselves know how it feels to be strangers, because you were strangers in Egypt. Ex. 23:9 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God,…
Here are the questions written by young readers of the Family Edition and sent in to Rabbi Sacks, along with his responses. The competition ran in the weekly Covenant & Conversation: Family Edition series, and the children whose questions are featured below received an inscribed copy of the Koren Aviv Weekday Siddur. Question from David, aged 7, from Arizona, USA:…
Below is an extract from the introduction of “Deuteronomy: The Renewal of the Sinai Covenant”, the fifth instalment of Rabbi Sacks’ Covenant & Conversation book series on the weekly parsha. To learn more about this series, please click here. With the book of Deuteronomy, the entire biblical project becomes lucid and reaches its culmination. Deuteronomy is the last act of…
QUOTES Chiefly Quotes: A collection of quotes from Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks zt”l The Rabbi Sacks Legacy is delighted to share ‘Chiefly Quotes’, an inspirational PDF collection of 1600 quotes collated by Rabbi Johnny Solomon through his research of Rabbi Sacks’ canon of written work, and then arranged by theme. You can also find our growing bank of Rabbi Sacks…
Moses surely knew that some of his greatest achievements would not last forever. The people he had rescued would one day suffer exile and persecution again. The next time, though, they would not have a Moses to do miracles. So he planted a vision in their minds, hope in their hearts, a discipline in their deeds and a strength in…