Quotes from Rabbi Sacks

“If the symbol of Jewish timelessness is the everlasting light, the symbol of Jewish time is the counting of the Omer.”

Studies in Renewal (1) – From Integration to Survival to Continuity

“Time is not a series of eternal recurrences in which nothing ever ultimately changes. Cyclical time is deeply conservative; covenantal time is profoundly revolutionary. Both find their expression in the counting of the Omer.”

Counting Time, Covenant & Conversation: Emor (https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/emor/counting-time/)

“We are currently in the midst of one of the least understood periods of the Jewish calendar. It is called “the counting of the Omer”, the 49 days between Passover and Pentecost. It is our custom to make a special blessing on each of these days. In seasonal terms, this was the time of the grain harvests, of which an offering was brought to the Temple. But the Jewish festivals are not only about the seasons. They are also about history. From this perspective the counting of the Omer represents the journey between the Exodus (Passover) and the revelation of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai seven weeks later. It is, in other words, a reminder of the journey from liberation to the constitution of liberty.”

Without responsibility, liberty becomes lawlessness - The Times article, 26 April 2003, https://rabbisacks.org/archive/without-responsibility-liberty-becomes-lawlessness/

“We learn two lessons from the story of Purim. The first is that “uMordechai lo yichra v’lo yishtachaveh”, Mordechai would neither kneel nor bow down. The Jewish people does not bow down to any pressure. Especially the Jewish people in Israel. “V’hu yolichenu komemiyut l’artzenu,” and He will lead us upright to our land. Because of Israel, because of your strength, because of your refusal to be intimidated, every Jew walks a little taller today.”

“The fate of Haman has been throughout history the fate of individuals and nations: that those who try to destroy the Jewish people end by destroying themselves. Great empires sought to harm the Jewish people: from Egypt, Babylon, Greece and Rome in ancient times, to the Third Reich and the Soviet Union in the twentieth century. They seemed at the time to be indestructible. Yet every one of them has disappeared, while our tiny, vulnerable people can still say “Am Yisrael Chai”.”

'What Lessons Can We Learn from the Story of Purim?' A thought for Purim, shared by Rabbi Sacks in Sderot in 2008

“Chanukah is about the freedom to be true to what we believe without denying the freedom of those who believe otherwise. It’s about lighting our candle, while not being threatened by or threatening anyone else’s candle.”

From Optimism to Hope, p. 94

“Never believe that a handful of dedicated people can’t change the world. Inspired by faith, they can. The Maccabees did then. So can we today.”

Inspired by Faith, We Can Change the World Eight: Thoughts for Eight Nights (video 1)

“There are as many ways to the Divine Presence as there are Jews, said Rav Nachman of Bratslav. Or as I put it: Where what we want to do meets what needs to be done, that is where God wants us to be. However long we live, life is short, too short. Every day matters. Every day in which we do not do some good deed, take some step toward God, is a day wasted – and our days on earth are too few to waste even one. May God bless you in the coming year, and may He bless us all, with peace, with health, with happiness, with life.”

Ten Days, Ten Ways: Paths to the Divine Presence, Tishrei 5768

“For ten days, beginning on Rosh Hashanah and reaching a climax on Yom Kippur, we have prayed, ‘Remember us for life, O King who desires life, and write us in the book of life – for Your sake, O God of life.’ Now, having survived the trial, we are faced with the deepest question of all. What is life? What is this gift we have been granted? What gives life meaning, purpose, substance? What will redeem us from the shadow of death? Kohelet’s answer, in a word, is joy.”

From the audio recording 'Kohelet: Radical Joy'

“Hope rebuilds the ruins of Jerusalem. The Jewish people kept hope alive and hope kept the Jewish people alive. That, I think, is the message of Tisha B’Av.”

'We are the People that Build': A Tisha B'Av video message

“Hope rebuilds the ruins of Jerusalem. The Jewish people kept hope alive and hope kept the Jewish people alive.”

“That I think is the message of Tisha B’Av. And it’s the message the world needs right now.  Because we need to know that what can be lost can be regained. And what has been ruined can be rebuilt. We have a great deal that has been lost or ruined in our world – economically, politically, educationally, and above all socially. And we have to show what it is never to give up hope – that we can rebuild what has been ruined.”

“The early Zionists had a lovely phrase: Livnot U’Lehibanot. To build and to be built. The more you build the stronger you become – the more you yourself are built. And that is what our challenge is. The whole world has seen – okay the Temple has not been rebuilt – but the whole world has seen Jerusalem today. What it is to take a city that was ha’aveilah, v’hachareiva, v’habezuya, v’hashomeyma – that was ruined and desolate – and turn it back into kelilat yofi, one of the most beautiful cities in the world.”

“The Jewish people are the people who try and show the world what it is to build. Let each of us, in our way, try and help mend a broken society and do so the right way – be’ahavat chinam – just by love of other people and love of the work. The more we build, the more we will be built. And let us be known as the people that doesn’t destroy. We are the people that build.”

'We are the People that Build' A Tisha B'Av video message

“At the heart of Jewish faith is Jerusalem, the holy city whose name is peace. Has a people ever loved a city so deeply for so long? Almost every prayer in the Jewish prayer book includes a prayer for Jerusalem. The word itself figures more than 900 times in the Bible. Jerusalem, David’s city, the place where the Temple stood, home of the Divine Presence, the place where, still today, you can feel God’s closeness as nowhere else. And though all that remains of the Temple is one wall, still to stand and pray in that spot is to feel the presence of three thousand years of Jewish prayers and tears and hopes.”

Israel – Home of Hope CD

“Never has a city had such power over a people’s imagination. Never were a people more loyal than our ancestors who endured twenty centuries of exile and persecution so that their children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren could come home to Jerusalem, ir hakodesh, the holy city, the home of the Jewish heart.”

From the speech delivered by Rabbi Sacks on receiving The Guardian of Zion Award from Bar-Ilan University’s Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies