Is a Leader a Nursing Father?

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

It was the emotional low of Moses' life. After the drama at Sinai, the revelation, the golden calf, the forgiveness, the building of the Tabernacle ...

Sages and Saints

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

As mentioned in a previous Covenant and Conversation, there was an ongoing debate between the sages as to whether the nazirite - whose laws are ...

The Ever-Repeated Story

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

The Jewish people’s unfolding destiny, in 5 acts.

The Limits of the Free Market

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

As I was writing this essay a newspaper headline caught my eye. It read, "The UK's richest people have defied the double-dip recession to ...

Eternity and Mortality

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Our parsha begins with a restriction on the people for whom a Kohen may become tamei, a word usually translated as "defiled, impure, ...

The Scapegoat

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

The strangest element of the service on Yom Kippur, set out in Leviticus 16:7-22, was the ritual of the two goats - one offered as a sacrifice, the ...

Holiness and Childbirth

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

The sidrot of Tazria and Metzorah contain laws which are among the most difficult to understand. They are about conditions of "impurity" ...

Teach Your Children Well

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

The world we build tomorrow is born in the stories we tell our children today.

The Thanksgiving Offering

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Among the sacrifices detailed in this week's sedra is the korban todah, the thanksgiving offering: "If he offers it [the sacrifice] as a ...

Self and Sacrifice

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

The laws of sacrifices that dominate the early chapters of the book of Vayikra / Leviticus, are among the hardest in the Torah to relate to - for it ...

Mirrors of Love

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

The Torah in Parshat Vayakhel, which describes the making of the Mishkan, goes out of its way to emphasize the role women played in it: The men ...

The Birth of a New Freedom

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Witnessing the birth of a new idea is a little like watching the birth of a galaxy through the Hubble Space Telescope. We can witness just such an ...

The Aesthetic in Judaism

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Why is the Torah so specific and emphatic, in this week's parsha, about the clothes to be worn by the Kohen and the Kohen Gadol? "These are the ...

The Architecture of Holiness

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

From here to the end of the book of Exodus the Torah describes, in painstaking detail and great length, the construction of the Mishkan, the first ...

The Custom That Refused To Die

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

There's an enthralling story about the Ten Commandments and the role they played in Jewish worship and the synagogue. It begins with a little-known ...

Music, Language of the Soul

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

For the first time since their departure from Egypt the Israelites do something together. They sing. "Then sang Moses and the children of ...

The Necessity of Asking Questions

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

It is no accident that parshat Bo, the section that deals with the culminating plagues and the exodus, should turn three times to the subject of ...

Freedom and Truth

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Why did Moses tell Pharaoh, if not a lie, then less than the full truth? Here is the conversation between him and Pharaoh after the fourth plague, ...

Who Am I?

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Moses' second question to God at the burning bush was, Who are you? "So I will go to the Israelites and say, 'Your fathers' God sent me to ...

The Last Tears

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

At almost every stage of fraught encounter between Joseph and his family in Egypt, Joseph weeps. There are seven scenes of tears: 1. When the ...

The Day Forgiveness Was Born

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

There are rare and special moments when the world changes and a new possibility is born: when the Wright brothers in 1903 made the first man-made ...

The Author of Our Lives

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

It was Joseph's first real attempt to take his fate into his own hands, and it failed. Or so it seemed. Consider the story so far, as set out in ...

What is the Theme of Stories of Genesis?

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

One of the most fundamental questions about the Torah turns out to be one of the hardest to answer. What, from the call of God to Abraham in Genesis ...

The Jewish Journey

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Why is Jacob the father of our people, the hero of our faith? We are "the congregation of Jacob," "the children of Israel." Yet ...

The Birth of the World's Oldest Hate

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

"Go and learn what Laban the Aramean sought to do to our father Jacob. A Pharaoh made his decree only about the males whereas Laban sought to ...

The Tragedy of Good Intentions

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Why did Rebecca tell Jacob to acquire the blessing through deceipt?

E.g.: The Power of Example

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

So familiar are we with the story of Abraham that we do not always stop to think about what a strange turn it is in the biblical narrative. If we ...

Individual and Collective Responsibility

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

I once had the opportunity to ask the Catholic writer Paul Johnson what had struck him most about Judaism during the long period he spent ...

The Faith of God

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

There is a deep question at the heart of Jewish faith, and it is very rarely asked. As the Torah opens we see God creating the universe day by day, ...

Walking Together

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

There is one image that haunts us across the millennia, fraught with emotion. It is the image of a man and his son walking side-by-side across a ...

A Journey of a Thousand Miles

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Our parsha contains the most serene description of old age and dying anywhere in the Torah: “Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good ...

The One Word that Can Change Your Life

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

The power of saying, "I'm sorry."

How to Reverse the West's Decline

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

The greatest civilizations eventually fall due to their own internal decay.

The Future of European Jewry

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Those who deny Jews or Israel their freedom will lose, or fail to gain, their own.

Christianity's Rise in China

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

China realizes what the West is rapidly forgetting: a civilization is as strong as its faith.

British Academic Freedom?

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

The anti-Israel campaign raises the question: Does academic freedom exist on campus?

Letters to the Next Generation: Yom Kippur...

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

It's never too late to start again. A stirring 23-page pdf ebook.

The Meaning of Kol Nidrei

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

The extraordinary history and lesson of this moving prayer.

Did You Ask A Good Question Today?

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Judaism is a religion of questions.

God's Alarm Clock

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Maximizing our greatest gift – time.

Humanity's Litmus Test

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

We cannot write the future. Only our children can do that.

Work and Human Dignity

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Why the highest form of tzedakah is helping someone find a job.

Israel Struggles

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

If there were justice in the world, Israel would be seen as a role model among the nations.

Economics Needs Ethics

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

No amount of regulation will restore our sense of honor andshame.

Israel: The Gateway of Hope

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

The Jewish connection with Israel goes back 4,000 years to the first recorded syllables of Jewish time.

The New Anti-Semitism

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

What it is and how to deal with it.

Can a Country be Born in a Day?

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

God has brought His people home and promised to one day give them peace. No people need it more. No people have earned it more.

Seeking Peace

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

Let us say to our enemies: We do not seek our freedom at the cost of yours; therefore do not seek yours at the cost of ours.

Will Our Children Marry Jewish

by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

The Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth spells out his view on the issue of Jewish continuity and how to achieve it.