_(english).jpg "Taking the Spiritual Dive")
_(english).jpg "Genetic Screening for Breast Cancer Genes")
_(english).jpg "Judaism and the 12-Step Program")
+.jpg "Knowledge and Wisdom")
+.jpg "Moshe, Miriam and Prophecy")
+.jpg "Don't Give Up")
Moses' Challenge
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksIt was the worst crisis in Moses' life. Incited by the 'mixed multitude', the Israelites complain about the food: 'If only we had meat to eat. We ...
What Counts
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThis week's Torah portion begins with a continuation of the census begun in last week's - the act that gives the entire book its English name: the ...
Love as Law, Law as Love
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksOn the face of it the connections between the Torah portion and haftarah of Bamidbar are slender. The first has to do with demography. Bemidbar ...
The Chronological Imagination
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksI want, in this study, to look at one of Judaism's most distinctive and least understood characteristics - the chronological imagination. The ...
Faith As A Journey
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksIn its account of the festivals of the Jewish year, this week's Torah portion contains the following statement: You shall dwell in thatched huts ...
Of Love and Hate
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksAt the center of the Torah is Vayikra. At the center of Vayikra is the "holiness code" (chapter 19) with its momentous call: "You ...
Fire - Holy and Unholy
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThe shock is immense. For several weeks and many chapters - the longest prelude in the Torah - we have read of the preparations for the moment at ...
Violence and the Sacred
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksJudaism is less a philosophical system than a field of tensions - between universalism and particularism, for example, or exile and redemption, ...
Between Destiny and Chance
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThe third book of the Torah is known in English as "Leviticus", a word deriving from Greek and Latin, meaning, "pertaining to the ...
Three Types of Community
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksA long drama had taken place. Moses had led the people from slavery to the beginning of the road to freedom. The people themselves had witnessed God ...
Two Types of Religious Encounter
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksFraming the epic events of this week's Torah portion are two objects - the two sets of tablets, the first given before, the second after, the sin of ...
Prophet and Priest
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThe portion of Tetsaveh, as commentators have noted, has one unusual feature: it is the only portion from the beginning of Shemot to the end of ...
In the Details
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksOn the opening phrase of Mishpatim - "And these are the laws you are to set before them" - Rashi comments: "And these are the ...
Two Narratives of Creation
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThe Torah describes two acts of creation: God's creation of the universe, and the Israelites' creation of the mikdash or mishkan, the sanctuary that ...
The Politics of Revelation
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThe revelation at Mount Sinai - the central episode not only of the parshah of Yitro, but of Judaism as a whole - was unique in the religious ...
To Be a Leader of the Jewish People
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThat day, God saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians ... The Israelites saw the great power God had displayed against the Egyptians, and the ...
Freedom's Defence
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksAnd you shall explain to your child on that day, 'It is because of what the Lord did for me when I went free from Egypt'. It was the moment for ...
Of Lice and Men
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThroughout all Egypt the dust turned into lice. But when the magicians tried to produce lice by their secret arts, they could not. The lice attacked ...
Leadership and the People
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThe sedra of Shemot, in a series of finely etched vignettes, paints a portrait of the life of Moses, culminating in the moment at which God appears ...
Altruism and Religion
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksReligion is the best antidote to the individualism of the consumer age.
Generations Forget and Remember
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksLessons of assimilation, acculturation, and exile.
Choice and Change
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThe sequence from Bereishit 37 to 50 is the longest unbroken narrative in the Torah, and there can be no doubt who its hero is: Joseph. The story ...
Disguise
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksJoseph is now the ruler of Egypt. The famine he predicted has come to pass. It extends beyond Egypt to the land of Canaan. Seeking to buy food, ...
The Refusal to be Comforted
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThe deception has taken place. Joseph has been sold into slavery. His brothers have dipped his coat in blood. They bring it back to their father, ...
Fear or Distress?
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksJacob and Esau are about to meet again after a separation of twenty two years. It is a fraught encounter. Once, Esau had sworn to kill Jacob in ...
Encountering God
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksA unique approach to prayer by the biblical Jacob.
Between Prophecy and Oracle
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksRebecca, hitherto infertile, became pregnant. Suffering acute pain, "she went to inquire of the Lord" [vatelekh lidrosh et Hashem] ...
Hopes and Fears
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThe Torah portion of Chayei Sarah focuses on two episodes, both narrated at length and in intricate detail. Abraham buys a field with a cave as a ...
Even Higher Than Angels
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksIt is one of the most famous scenes in the Bible. Abraham is sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day when three strangers pass ...
Making Space
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThe call to Abraham, with which Lech Lecha begins, seems to come from nowhere: "Leave your land, your birthplace, and your father's house, ...
True Morality
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksIs there such a thing as an objective basis of morality? For some time, in secular circles, the idea has seemed absurd. Morality is what we choose ...
A Living Book
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksIt is the most famous, majestic and influential opening of any book in literature: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the ...
Moses the Man
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThat very day the Lord spoke to Moses, "Go up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho, and view ...
The Heart, the Home, the Text
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksBy now Moses had given 612 commands to the Israelites. But there was one further instruction he still had to give, the last of his life, the final ...
Why Be Jewish?
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksIn the last days of his life Moses renews the covenant between God and Israel. The entire book of Devarim has been an account of the covenant - how ...
Listening and Law
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksIt would be reasonable to assume that a language that contains the verb "to command" must also contain the verb "to obey." The ...
Letting Go of Hate
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksDarkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence ...
Greatness Is Humility
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThere is a fascinating detail in the passage about the king in this week's parsha. The text says that "When he takes the throne of his kingdom, ...
The Politics of Freedom
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksHaving set out the broad principles of the covenant, Moses now turns to the details, which extend over many chapters and several parshiyot. The long ...
The Morality of Love
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksSomething implicit in the Torah from the very beginning becomes explicit in the book of Devarim. God is the God of love. More than we love Him, He ...
Why Is the Jewish People So Small?
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksNear the end of Va-etchanan, so inconspicuously that we can sometimes miss it, is a statement with such far reaching implications that it challenges ...
Profits and Prophets
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThere are few more blazing passages in the whole of religious literature than the first chapter of the book of Isaiah, the great "vision," ...
The Prophetic Voice
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksDuring the three weeks between 17 Tammuz and Tisha b'Av, as we recall the destruction of the Temples, we read three of the most searing passages in ...
The Zealot
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksWith Pinhas a new type enters the world of Israel: the zealot. "Pinhas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned My anger away from ...
Not Reckoned Among the Nations
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThe year is 1933. Two Jews are sitting in a Viennese coffee house, reading the news. One is reading the local Jewish paper, the other the ...
Losing Miriam
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksIt is a scene that still has the power to shock and disturb. The people complain. There is no water. It is an old complaint and a predictable one. ...
Seven Principles of Jewish Leadership
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksWe are free. We are responsible. And together we can change the world.
The Leader as Servant
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksKorach had a point. "You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the LORD is with them. Why then do you set ...
The Fear of Freedom
by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan SacksThe episode of the spies has rightly puzzled commentators throughout the centuries. How could they have got it so wrong? The land, they said, was as ...
