Transcript In the 19th chapter of Sefer Shemot in the parsha of Yitro, God summons the people to Mount Sinai and gives them a remarkable offer. In the Rabbi’s phrase, He invites us to become God’s partners in the work of creation. And He says to the people, “You have seen how I have brought you out of Egypt, on…
…solve the problem of how to speak to people about leadership in a Jewish way. Is there such a thing as a distinctive kind of Jewish leadership? We know many of the schools of leadership in the universe. Moshe gets lessons from Yitro [Moses’s father-in-law], who’s a Midianite…I am learning Torah to solve problems…I’ve always learned Torah that way. “Covenant…
…Conversation, Bechukotai) On Judaism and Islam (Covenant & Conversation, Chayei Sarah) Particular Paths to a Universal God (Covenant & Conversation, Yitro) Loving the Stranger (Covenant & Conversation, Mishpatim) The Universal and the Particular (Covenant & Conversation, Mikketz) Minority Rights (Covenant & Conversation, Behar) The Home We Build Together (Covenant & Conversation, Terumah) Short Quotes from Rabbi Sacks on Interfaith Dialogue…
There is a verse so familiar that we don’t often stop to reflect on what it means. It is the line from the first paragraph of the Shema, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your me’od.” Deut. 6:5 That last word is usually translated as “strength” or “might”. But…
Koren Publishers have launched a new Magerman edition of the Koren Tanach featuring, for the first time, the complete translation of Chumash by Rabbi Sacks zt”l. You can order your copy here and view the opening pages below. Peek Inside…
This five-part series of mini booklets is all available to download for free. It was created in 2007, following a discussion with student leaders, who were troubled by many of the typical questions plaguing young people today. These booklets are a way of sharing the conversation, the questions and answers, and the ideas discussed on that day. To be a…
Jews constitute only the tiniest fragment – one fifth of one per cent of the population of the world – but they make up an extraordinarily high percentage of leaders in any given field of human endeavour….
Judaism has a structural peculiarity so perplexing and profound that though its two daughter monotheisms, Christianity and Islam, took much else from it, they did not adopt this: it is a particularist monotheism. It believes in one God but not in one exclusive path to salvation. The God of the Israelites is the God of all humankind, but the demands…
Philosophical ethics, true to its Platonic origins, focuses on what we have in common: rationality (Kant), emotion (Hume), or our desire for pleasure and aversion to pain (Bentham). Duty, obligation, sympathy, solidarity – these are the things we share in virtue of our universality. They belong to Man, not men; Humanity, not individual human beings; the unity of the moral…