יום שלישי, כ״ב תמוז תשפ״וTuesday, July 7, 2026
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Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks was the former chief rabbi of the British Commonwealth and the author and editor of 40 books on Jewish thought. He died earlier this month.
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By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Our task as a people of destiny is to bear witness to the presence of G-d – through the way we lead our lives (Torah) and the path we chart as a people across the centuries (history).
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
In Judaism taking a census must always be done in such a way as to signal that we are valued as individuals. We each have unique gifts. There is a contribution only I can bring. To lift someone’s head means to show them favor, to recognize them. It is a gesture of love.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Hope is one of the very greatest Jewish contributions to Western civilization, so much so that I have previously called Judaism “the voice of hope in the conversation of humankind.” Without this, Jews and Judaism would not have survived.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The Torah is based, as its narratives make clear, on history, a realistic view of human character, and a respect for freedom and choice. Philosophy is often detached from history and a concrete sense of humanity. Revolutions based on philosophical systems fail because change in human affairs takes time, and philosophy has rarely given an adequate account of the human dimension of time.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
What does Parshat Emor tell us about Shabbat that we do not learn elsewhere?
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Who then were Esau and Jacob? What did they represent and how is this relevant to Yom Kippur and atonement?
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
This video explores the connection between Jews as a people, Judaism as a religion, and Israel as a state. It also shows how this connection is intrinsic to the link between antisemitism and anti-Zionism; something too often overlooked or misunderstood.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Jews became the only people in history to predicate their very survival on education. The most sacred duty of parents was to teach their children. Pesach itself became an ongoing seminar in the handing on of memory.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The Sages say, it's as bad as all three cardinal sins together – idol worship, bloodshed, and illicit sexual relations. Whoever speaks with an evil tongue, they say, is as if he denied G-d. Why are mere words treated with such seriousness in Judaism?
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
he sacrifices a woman brings on the birth of a child, and the period during which she is unable to enter the Temple, have nothing to do with any sin she may have committed or any “defilement” she may have undergone. They are, rather, to do with the basic fact of human mortality, together with the responsibility a parent undertakes for the conduct of a child
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
In this exchange between two brothers, a momentous courage is born: the courage of an Aharon who has the strength to grieve and not accept any easy consolation, and the courage of a Moshe who has the strength to keep going in spite of grief.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The contemporary world continues to be scarred by violence and terror. Sadly, the ban against blood sacrifice is still relevant. The instinct against which it is a protest – sacrificing life to exorcise fear – still lives on.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
From the perspective of eternity we may sometimes be overwhelmed by a sense of our own insignificance. We are no more than a speck of dust on the surface of infinity. Yet we are here because G-d wanted us to be, because there is a task He wants us to perform. The search for meaning is the quest for this task.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
There is a fascinating feature of the geography of the land of Israel. It contains two seas: the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. The Sea of Galilee is full of life. The Dead Sea, as its name implies, is not. Yet they are fed by the same river, the Jordan. The difference is that the Sea of Galilee receives water and gives water. The Dead Sea receives but does not give. To receive but not to give is, in Jewish geography as well as Jewish psychology, simply not life.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The idea that one might worship “the work of men’s hands” was anathema to biblical faith. More generally, Judaism is a culture of the ear, not the eye. As a religion of the invisible God, it attaches sanctity to words heard, rather than objects seen. Religious art is never “art for art’s sake.” Unlike secular art, it points to something beyond itself.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
How can Moses invoke the people’s obstinacy as the very reason for G-d to maintain His presence among them? What is the meaning of Moses’ “because” – “may my Lord go among us, because it is a stiff- necked people”?
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
For once Moses, the hero, the leader, the liberator, the lawgiver, is off-stage in the only instance where the name of Moses is not mentioned at all in any parsha since the first parsha of the book of Shemot. Instead our focus is on his elder brother Aaron. The story of Aaron and Moses, the fifth act in the biblical drama of brotherhood, is where, finally, fraternity reaches the heights
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The very concept of making a home in finite space for an infinite presence seems a contradiction in terms. The answer, still astonishing in its profundity, is contained at the beginning of this week’s parsha: “They shall make a Sanctuary for Me, and I will dwell in them [betokham]” (Exodus 25:8).
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Whichever way we look at it, there is something striking about this almost endlessly iterated concern for the stranger – together with the historical reminder that “you yourselves were slaves in Egypt.” It is as if, in this series of laws, we are nearing the core of the mystery of Jewish existence itself. What is the Torah implying?
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
With the revelation at Sinai, something unprecedented entered the human horizon...the politics of freedom was born
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
We have here two ways of seeing the same events: one natural, the other supernatural. The supernatural explanation – that the waters stood upright – is immensely powerful, and so it entered Jewish memory. But the natural explanation is no less compelling. The Egyptian strength proved to be their weakness. The weakness of the Israelites became their strength.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Judaism believes it’s a religious duty to teach our children to ask questions.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
In this week's parsha, the Torah is preparing the ground for one of its most monumental propositions: In the darkest night, Israel was about to have its greatest encounter with God. Hope was to be born at the very edge of the abyss of despair.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
About Batya Chazal said “The Holy One, blessed be He, said to her: ‘Moses was not your son, yet you called him your son. You are not My daughter, but I shall call you My daughter.’ ”
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
We can only change the world if we can change ourselves. That is why the book of Genesis ends with the story of Joseph and his brothers.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The stories of Judah and of his descendant David tell us that what marks a leader is not necessarily perfect righteousness. It is the ability to admit mistakes, to learn from them and grow from them. The Judah we see at the beginning of the story is not the man we see at the end.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Judaism was and remains unique in its combination of universalism and particularism. We believe that God is the God of all humanity. He created all. He is accessible to all. He cares for all. He has made a covenant with all. Yet there is also a relationship with God that is unique to the Jewish people. It alone has placed its national life under His direct sovereignty
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
So as we celebrate Chanukah, spare a thought for the real victory, which was not military but spiritual. Jews were the people who valued marriage, the home, and peace between husband and wife, above the highest glory on the battlefield. In Judaism, the light of peace takes precedence over the light of war
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Jewish history may seem to signify irretrievable loss, a fate that must be accepted. Jews never believed the evidence because they had something else to set against it – a faith, a trust, an unbreakable hope that proved stronger than historical inevitability
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Moral dilemmas are situations in which doing the right thing is not the end of the matter. The conflict may be inherently tragic. Jacob, in this parsha, finds himself trapped in such a conflict: on the one hand, he ought not allow himself to be killed; on the other, he ought not kill someone else; but he must do one or the other.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
How do we come to know that “God is in this place”? “By ve’anokhi lo yadati – not knowing the I. ”We sense the “Thou” of the Divine Presence when we move beyond the “I” of egocentricity. Only when we stop thinking about ourselves do we become truly open to the world and the Creator.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Normally we strive to individuate ourselves by differentiating ourselves from our parents. Isaac was not like this. He was content to be a link in the chain of generations, faithful to what his father had started. Isaac represents the faith of persistence, the courage of continuity/
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Hidden beneath the surface of Parshat Chayei Sarah, for example, is another story, alluded to only in a series of hints. Here are three clues in the text...
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Learning to honor G-d by honoring those made in His image: Humankind.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Abraham gave birth to a new nation whose greatness consisted precisely in the ability to live by that voice and create something new in the history of mankind. “Go for yourself ” – believe in what you can become.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Recently, an entirely new scientific basis has been given to morality from two surprising directions: neo-Darwinism and the branch of mathematics known as Games theory. As we will see, the discovery is intimately related to the story of Noah and the covenant made between G-d and humanity after the Flood.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
At the opening of the Torah, at the very beginning of creation, is foreshadowed the Jewish doctrine of revelation: that God reveals Himself to humanity not in the sun, the stars, the wind or the storm but in and through words – sacred words that make us co-partners with God in the work of redemption.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
And so Moses dies, alone on a mountain with God as he had been all those years ago when, as a shepherd...
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
So, as Moses faced his own life’s end, what was there left to do? The book of Devarim contains and constitutes the answer.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The terms of Jewish history were about to shift from Divine initiative to human initiative. This is what Moses was preparing the Israelites for in the last month of his life. This is the epic significance of Nitzavim
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The setting: Jerusalem some twenty centuries ago. The occasion: bringing first fruits to the Temple. Here is the scene as the Mishnah describes it.[1] Throughout Israel, villagers would gather in the nearest of 24 regional centres. There, overnight, they would sleep in the open air. The next morning, the leader would summon the people with words from the book of Jeremiah (31:5): “Arise and let us go up to Zion, to the House of the Lord our God.”
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Never be in too much of a rush to stop and come to the aid of someone in need of help. Rarely, if ever, will you better invest your time. It may take a moment but its effect may last a lifetime
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
If having a king is a good thing, why does God say that it means that the people are rejecting Him? If it is a bad thing, why does God tell Samuel to give the people what they want even if it is not what God would wish them to want?
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Remarkably, despite the exiles and horrors of history, Jews did not see themselves as victims. This is the message Moses imparts throughout sefer Devarim: Never define yourself as a victim
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Greatness is humility. This idea – counter-intuitive, unexpected, life-changing – is one of the great contributions of the Torah to Western civilization and found in the words of Moses in this week's sedra
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
A key to help unlock the entire project outlined by Moses in Sefer Devarim, the final book of the Torah, from a most unlikely source...
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Wishing you a Tzom kal (an easy fast)
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The great leaders of Israel were the great defenders of Israel, people who saw the good within the not-yet-good. That is why they were listened to when they urged people to change and grow. THat is how it was in the time of Moses; that is how it remains today
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The Torah is not myth but anti-myth, a deliberate insistence on removing the magical elements from the story and focusing relentlessly on the human drama
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
God was saying, “From My perspective, seeing the future, it would have been better to send women, because they love and cherish the land and would never come to speak negatively about it. However, since you are convinced that these men are worthy and do indeed value the land, I give you permission to go ahead and send them.”
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
God commanded our ancestors to be different, not because they were better than others For this reason, assimilation is the opposite of the answer.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The life-changing idea of Chukat: we are dust of the earth but there is within us the breath of God. We fail, but we can still achieve greatness. We die, but the best part of us lives on.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The story of Korach has much to teach us about one of the most disturbing phenomena of our time: the rise of populism in contemporary politics. Korach was a populist, one of the first in recorded history – and populism has re-emerged in the West, as it did in the 1930s, posing great danger to […]
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
In this week’s parsha, Moshe reaches his lowest ebb. What is striking is the depth of Moses’ despair, the candor with which he expresses it, and the blazing honesty of the Torah in telling us this story.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The challenge that emerges from the way the Torah describes taking a census is that we must “lift people’s heads.” Never let them feel as if they are merely a number. Make those you meet feel important, especially the people whom others tend to take for granted.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
In Bamidbar, the fledgling Jewish nation is ready to move on. This time they are looking forward, not back. They are thinking not of the danger they are fleeing from but of the destination they are traveling toward, the Promised Land.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Parshat Behar deals with a problem that is as acute today as it was 33 centuries ago: The inevitable inequalities that arise in every free market economy teaching us to ask not, “what can I gain?” but “what can I give?”
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Kedoshim is not just about order. It is about humanizing that order through love – the love of neighbor and stranger. Love needs order.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Evil speech destroys relationships. Good speech mends them. This works not only in marriages and families, but also in communities, organizations and businesses. So: in any relationship that matters to you, deliver praise daily
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Has there been a moment when you felt like a faker, a fraud, and that at some time you would be found out?
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The best argument against the world of ancient Egypt was Divine humor. The plagues were G-d’s joke at the expense of the magicians who believed that because they controlled the forces of nature, they were the masters of human destiny. They were wrong.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Judaism is “gratitude with attitude.” And this, according to recent scientific research, really is a life-enhancing idea and the source of the command to give thanks is to be found in this week’s parsha
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
We can be good at many things, but what gives a life direction and meaning is a sense of mission, of something we are called on to do. That is the significance of the opening word of today’s parsha, Vayikra.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
For two thousand years in the absence of a Temple its place was taken by the synagogue. Why, if the Torah is timeless, does it devote such space to what was essentially a time-bound structure? The answer is deep and life-transforming,
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
We must never forget that when Aaron was left to lead, the people made a golden calf. But never forget that Moses needed an Aaron to hold the people together. In short, leadership is the capacity to hold together different temperaments, conflicting voices and clashing values.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The sedrah of Tetzaveh, in which the name of Moses is missing and the focus is on Aaron, reminds us that our heritage derives from both. Moses is a man of history, of epoch-making events.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Parshat Terumah begins the seismic shift from the intense drama of the Exodus, with its wonders and epic events, to the detailed narrative of how the Israelites constructed the Mishkan--the Tabernacle. The Nation begins building its HOME.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
One passage in this week’s sedrah shows how differences in interpretation can lead to, or flow from, profound differences in culture. Ironically, the subject concerned – abortion – remains deeply contentious to this day.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
By delegating the judicial function downward, Moses would bring ordinary people – with no special prophetic or legal gifts – into the seats of judgment. Precisely because they lacked Moses’s intuitive knowledge of law and justice, they were able to propose equitable solutions.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The genius of the biblical narrative of the crossing of the Reed Sea is that it does not resolve the issue of whether it was a miracle or merely natural, one way or another. It gives us both perspectives-you decide
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Only later did I discover the real significance of Elijah’s cup, and found, as so often, that the truth is no less moving than the stories we learned as children.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
How moving it is, therefore, that the first recorded instance of civil disobedience – predating Thoreau by more than three millennia – is the story in this week's parsha of Shifra and Puah, two ordinary women defying Pharaoh in the name of simple humanity.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Is it permitted to tell a white lie? Not only is it permitted to tell a white lie to save a life; it is also permitted to do so for the sake of peace. And we learn this in this week's
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
For perhaps the first time in his life, Judah came close to his brother Joseph. The irony is, of course, that he did not know it was Joseph.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
From Joseph we learn three principles. The first: Dream dreams. Second: Leaders interpret other people’s dreams. Third: Find a way to implement dreams:
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Parshat Vayeshev has the form of a Greek tragedy. Judaism is the opposite of tragedy. It tells us that every bad fate can be averted and that despair is never justified; today’s curse may be the beginning of tomorrow’s blessing.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Why not paint Jacob in more attractive colors? It seems to me that the Torah is delivering, here as elsewhere, an extraordinary message: that if we can truly relate to God as God, in His full transcendence and majesty, then we can relate to humans as humans in all their fallibility.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
More than prayer changes G-d, it changes us. It lets us see, feel, and know that “G-d is in this place.” That is why, and where, Jacob, established Ma’ariv, the evening prayer.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Rav Kook believed that just as in the Torah, Jacob and Esau and Isaac and Ishmael were eventually reconciled, so will Judaism, Christianity, and Islam be in future. They would not cease to be different, but they would learn to respect one another.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Abraham and Holocaust survivors shared the commitment to first building the future and only then allowing themselves to remember the past. That is what Abraham did in this week’s parsha.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Abraham was acting on both occasions--the banishment of Ishmael and the sacrifice of Isaac--against his emotions, his paternal instincts. What is the Torah telling us about the nature of fatherhood?
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The premise of the Torah is that G-d must be found somewhere in particular if He is to be found everywhere in general. As Shabbat is holy time, Israel is holy space. That is why, in Judaism, religion is tied to a land, and a land is linked to a religion.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
On the one hand, Sukkot is the most universalistic of all festivals with the sacrifices brought by the 70 nations; on the other, it is the most particularist of festivals, the festival of a people like no other, whose only protection was its faith in the sheltering wings of the Divine presence.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Yom Kipper, the Day of Atonement, is the supreme moment of Jewish time, a day of fasting and prayer, introspection and self-judgment. At no other time are we so sharply conscious of standing before God, of being known by Him. But it begins in the strangest of ways. Kol Nidre, the prayer that heralds the evening […]
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The search for perfect justice is not for us, here, now. It is – as Moses taught the Israelites in the great song he sang at the end of his life – something that faith demands we leave to G-d, who alone knows the human heart, who alone knows what is just in a world of conflicting claims, and who will establish perfect justice at a time, and in a way, of His choosing, not ours.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The sages believed with great force that an agreement must be free to be binding. Yet we did not agree to be Jews. We were, most of us, born Jews. We were not there in Moses’ day when the agreement was made. We did not yet exist. How then can we be bound by the covenant?
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The more we learn about the psychology of bereavement and the stages through which we must pass before loss is healed, so more the wisdom of Judaism’s ancient laws and customs becomes ever more clear.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
At the heart of Judaism is a twofold understanding of the nature of God and His relationship to the universe.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Where then does Jewish singularity emerge? The clue lies in the precise wording of Bilaam’s blessing: “Behold it is a people that dwells alone.”
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
In the Torah, law and narrative are intertwined for the very profound reason that G-d’s law is not arbitrary. It speaks to the human condition, arising out of human history.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
We identify with the heroes of the Bible because, despite their greatness, they never cease to be human, nor do they aspire to be anything else. Hence the phenomenon of which the sedra of Beha’alotecha provides a shattering example: the vulnerability of some of the greatest religious leaders of all time, to depression and despair.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Maimonides holds there is not one model of the virtuous life, but two. He calls them, respectively, the way of the saint and the sage. It is this deep insight that led Maimonides to his seemingly contradictory evaluations of the nazirite
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
There are accounts of battles, rebellions, and collective failures of nerve, and a strange story about a pagan prophet and a talking donkey.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Judaism survives due to Divine Providence and the foresight of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai who resisted cognitive breakdown, created solutions for tomorrow's problems, who did not seek refuge in the irrational, and who quietly built the Jewish future.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
Why should unintentional sins require atonement at all? What guilt is involved? Had the offender known he would not have done what he did. Why then does he have to undergo a process of atonement?
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
In the sanctuary, the specific domain called “the holy” is where we meet God on His terms, not ours. Yet this too is God’s way of conferring dignity on mankind.
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The Sanctuary as a human construct, mirrors the Divine creation of the universe. Each creation culminates in the Sabbath placing the sanctity of place in subordinate position to the holiness of time.
July 3, 2026 
