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:…
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…
Few texts have had a deeper influence on Western civilisation than the first chapter of Genesis, with its momentous vision of the universe coming into being as the work of God. Set against the grandeur of the narrative, what stands out is the smallness yet uniqueness of humans, vulnerable but also undeniably set apart from all other beings. The words…
The responsible life is a life that responds. The Hebrew for responsibility, achrayut, comes from the word acher, meaning “other.” Our great Other is God Himself, calling us to use the freedom He gave us, to make the world that is more like the world that ought to be. The great question, the question that the life we lead answers,…
To see that someone is good and to say so is a creative act – one of the great creative acts. There may be a few individuals who are inescapably evil, but they are few. Within almost all of us is something positive and unique, but which is all too easily injured, and which only grows when exposed to the…
When we recognise the goodness in someone, we do more than create it, we help it to become creative. This is what God does for us, and what He calls us to do for others….
Never think of people as things. Never think of people as types: they are individuals. Never be content with creating systems: care also about relationships. I believe that relationships are where our humanity is born and grows, flowers and flourishes. It is by loving people that we learn to love God and feel the fullness of His love for us….
Just as God makes the natural world by words (“And God said… and there was”) so we make the human world by words, which is why Judaism takes words so seriously….