#Sacks
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Jonathan Sacks: Of Lice and Men Vaera
Jonathan Sacks: Of Lice and Men Vaera The dust of the earth was turned to lice all across Egypt. The magicians tried to produce lice with their sorcery, but they could not. Meanwhile the lice still infested people and animals alike. “This,” the magici
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Jonathan Sacks: Leadership and the People Shemot
Jonathan Sacks: Leadership and the People Shemot The 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 to him in the bush that burns without being consumed. It i
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Jonathan Sacks: Generations Forget and Remember VAYECHI
Jonathan Sacks: Generations Forget and Remember VAYECHI The drama of younger and older brothers which haunts the book of Bereishit from Cain and Abel onwards reaches a strange climax in the story of Joseph’s children. Jacob/Israel is nearing the end of
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Jonathan Sacks: Choice and Change VAYIGASH
Jonathan Sacks: Choice and Change VAYIGASH The 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 begins and ends with him. We see him as a child, beloved – even
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Jonathan Sacks: Disguise MIKKETZ
Jonathan Sacks: Disguise MIKKETZ Joseph 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, Joseph’s brothers make the journey to Egypt. They arrive at the palace of th
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Jonathan Sacks: Refusing Comfort, Keeping Hope וישב
Jonathan Sacks: Refusing Comfort, Keeping Hope The deception has taken place. Joseph has been sold into slavery. His brothers dip his coat in blood. They bring it back to their father, saying: “We found this. Try to identify it. Is it your son’s robe
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Jonathan Sacks: Between Prophecy and Oracle Toldot
Jonathan Sacks: Between Prophecy and Oracle Toldot Rebecca, hitherto infertile, became pregnant. Suffering acute pain, “she went to inquire of the Lord” [vatelech lidrosh et Hashem] (Bereishit 25:22). The explanation she received was that she was carr
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Jonathan Sacks: Hopes and Fears CHAYEI SARAH
Jonathan Sacks: Hopes and Fears CHAYEI SARAH The sedra of Chayei Sarah focuses on two episodes, both narrated at length and in intricate detail. Abraham buys a field with a cave as a burial place for Sarah, and he instructs his servant to find a wi
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Jonathan Sacks: Even Higher than Angels VAYERA
Jonathan Sacks: Even Higher than Angels VAYERA It 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 by. He urges them to rest and take some food. The text calls t
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Jonathan Sacks: Our Children Walk on Ahead LECH LECHA
Jonathan Sacks: Our Children Walk on Ahead LECH LECHA The call to Abraham, with which Lech Lecha begins, seems to come from nowhere: “Leave your land, your birthplace, and your father’s house, and go to a land which I will show you.” Nothing has pre
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Jonathan Sacks: True Morality Noach
Jonathan Sacks: True Morality Noach Is 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 it to be. We are free to do what we like so long as we don’t harm othe
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Jonathan Sacks: A Living Book BEREISHIT
Jonathan Sacks: A Living Book BEREISHIT written by Rabbi Sacks in 2012 It is the most famous, majestic, and influential opening of any book in literature: “… בּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א” “When God began creating heaven and earth, the ear
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Jonathan Sacks: Moses the Man Ha’azinu
Jonathan Sacks: Moses the Man Ha’azinu That 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 land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel
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Jonathan Sacks: Yom Kippur How It Changes Us
Jonathan Sacks: Yom Kippur How It Changes Us Read an extract from the Koren Sacks Yom Kippur machzor. To those who fully open themselves to it, Yom Kippur is a life-transforming experience. It tells us that God, who created the universe in love and forgiv
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Jonathan Sacks: The Heart, the Home, the Text-Vayelech
Jonathan Sacks: The Heart, the Home, the Text-Vayelech By 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 mitzva in the Torah. Now therefore write this song an
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Jonathan Sacks: Why Be Jewish? ניצבים
Jonathan Sacks: Why Be Jewish In 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 it came about, what its terms and conditions are, why it is the core of Is
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Jonathan Sacks: Listening and Law Ki Tavo
Jonathan Sacks: Listening and Law Ki Tavo It would be reasonable to assume that a language containing the verb “to command” must also contain the verb “to obey.” The one implies the other, just as the concept of a question implies the possibility
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Jonathan Sacks: Greatness is Humility SHOFTIM
Jonathan Sacks: Greatness is Humility SHOFTIM There is a fascinating detail in the passage about the king in this week’s Parsha. The text says: “As he presides upon his royal throne, he must inscribe a copy of this Torah for himself upon a scroll, in
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Jonathan Sacks: The Politics of Freedom Re’eh
Jonathan Sacks: The Politics of Freedom Re’eh Having set out the broad principles of the covenant, Moses now turns to the details, which extend over many chapters and several parshiyot. The long review of the laws that will govern Israel in its land beg
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Jonathan Sacks: A Tiny, Treasured People Va’etchanan
Jonathan Sacks: A Tiny, Treasured People Va’etchanan There is a statement made towards the end of Parshat Va’etchanan, and it is so inconspicuous that we can sometimes miss it, but it is a statement with such far reaching implications that it chal
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Jonathan Sacks: The Prophetic Voice MATOT-MASEI
Jonathan Sacks: The Prophetic Voice MATOT-MASEI During 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 prophetic literature, the first two from the opening
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Jonathan Sacks: The Zealot Pinchas
Jonathan Sacks: The Zealot Pinchas With Pinchas a new type enters the world of Israel: the zealot. “Pinchas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the Priest, has turned My anger away from the Israelites by being zealous with My zeal in their midst, so that I did
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Jonathan Sacks: Not Reckoned Among the Nations-בלקBalak
Jonathan Sacks: Not Reckoned Among the Nations-בלקBalak The 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 notoriously antisemitic publication Der Stürmer. “How c
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Jonathan Sacks: The Leader as Servant KORACH
Jonathan Sacks: The Leader as Servant KORACH written by Rabbi Sacks in 2012 “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 yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?” Num. 16:3 So sa
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Jonathan Sacks: The Real World Shelach Lecha
Jonathan Sacks: The Real World Shelach Lecha The 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 Moses had promised. It was indeed “flowing with milk and ho
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Jonathan Sacks: Is a Leader a Nursing Father? BEHA’ALOTECHA
Jonathan Sacks: Is a Leader a Nursing Father? BEHA’ALOTECHA 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, and the book-length codes of purity an
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Jonathan Sacks: The Ever-Repeated Story BAMIDBAR
Jonathan Sacks: The Ever-Repeated Story BAMIDBAR Bamidbar takes up the story as we left it toward the end of Shemot. The people have journeyed from Egypt to Mount Sinai. There they received the Torah. There they made the Golden Calf. There they were forgi
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Jonathan Sacks: The Limits of the Free Market Behar, Bechukotai
Jonathan Sacks: The Limits of the Free Market Behar, Bechukotai 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 become even richer over the past year.”[1]
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Jonathan Sacks: Eternity and Mortality Emor
Jonathan Sacks: Eternity and Mortality Emor Our Parsha begins with a restriction on the people for whom a kohen may become tamei, a word usually translated as defiled, impure, ceremonially unclean. A priest may not touch or be under the same roof as a dea
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Jonathan Sacks: Love Is Not Enough ACHAREI MOT – KEDOSHIM
Jonathan Sacks: Love Is Not Enough ACHAREI MOT – KEDOSHIM The opening chapter of Kedoshim contains two of the most powerful of all commands: to love your neighbour and to love the stranger. “Love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord” goes t
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Jonathan Sacks: Holiness and Childbirth TAZRIA – METZORA
Jonathan Sacks: Holiness and Childbirth TAZRIA – METZORA The sidrot of Tazria and Metzora contain laws which are among the most difficult to understand. They are about conditions of “impurity” arising from the fact that we are physical beings, e
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Jonathan Sacks: The Everlasting Flame (Yom Ha’atzmaut animation)
Jonathan Sacks: The Everlasting Flame (Yom Ha’atzmaut animation) With audio recorded during a speech delivered to Bnei Akiva on Yom Ha’atzmaut in 2013, this animated video illustrates a beautiful message from Rabbi Sacks about the co
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Rabbi Sacks: Israel: Home of Hope (animated video)
Rabbi Sacks: Israel: Home of Hope (animated video) This new animation illustrates Rabbi Sacks’ narration included in the album Israel: Hope of Hope, originally produced to celebrate Israel’s 60th anniversary in 2008, and now re-released
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Jonathan Sacks: Food for Thought SHEMINI
Jonathan Sacks: Food for Thought SHEMINI The second half of Exodus and the first part of Leviticus form a carefully structured narrative. The Israelites are commanded to construct a Sanctuary. They carry out the command. This is followed by an account of
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Jonathan Sacks: Rambam’s Guide for the Perplexed on the Seder Night
Jonathan Sacks: Rambam’s Guide for the Perplexed on the Seder Night One of Judaism’s greatest sages, Rambam (Maimonides) offers us a deeply meaningful insight into the nature of the Seder night. In showing us the difference between how
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Jonathan Sacks: The Story We Tell-The Rabbi Sacks Legacy
Jonathan Sacks: The Story We Tell-The Rabbi Sacks Legacy When we read the Pesach story, we come across something so remarkable, it appears to be counterintuitive… On behalf of Elaine and myself, I’d like to wish you and your families, a
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Jonathan Sacks: Why Do We Sacrifice?
Jonathan Sacks: Why Do We Sacrifice? Vayikra The laws of sacrifices that dominate the early chapters of the Book of Leviticus are among the hardest in the Torah to relate to in the present. It has been almost two thousand years since the Temple was destro
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Jonathan Sacks: Encampments & Journey- Vayakhel, Pekudei
Jonathan Sacks: Encampments & Journey- Vayakhel, Pekudei Right at the end of the book of Shemot, there is a textual difficulty so slight that it is easy to miss, yet – as interpreted by Rashi – it contains one of the great clues as to the nature of Je
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Jonathan Sacks: Mirrors of Love Vayakhel
Jonathan Sacks: Mirrors of Love Vayakhel The Torah in Parshat Vayakhel, which describes the making of the Mishkan, goes out of its way to emphasise the role women played in it: The men accompanied the women, and those who wanted to make a donation brought
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Rabbi Jonathan Sacks Makes ENTIRE European Union Go Quiet with Chilling Warning Against Antisemitism
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks Makes ENTIRE European Union Go Quiet with Chilling Warning Against Antisemitism
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Jonathan Sacks: The Aesthetic in Judaism Tetzaveh
Jonathan Sacks: The Aesthetic in Judaism Tetzaveh Why is the Torah so specific and emphatic, in this week’s Parsha, about the clothes to be worn by the Kohanim (Priests) and the Kohen Gadol (High Priest)? “These are the vestments that they shall make:
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Jonathan Sacks: The Architecture of Holiness TERUMAH
Jonathan Sacks: The Architecture of Holiness TERUMAH 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 collective house of worship of the Jewish people. Preci
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Jonathan Sacks: The Slow End of Slavery MISHPATIM
Jonathan Sacks: The Slow End of Slavery MISHPATIM In Parshat Mishpatim we witness one of the great stylistic features of the Torah, namely its transition from narrative to law. Until now the book of Exodus has been primarily narrative: the story of the en
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Jonathan Sacks: The Custom that Refused to Die YITRO
Jonathan Sacks: The Custom that Refused to Die YITRO 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 fact. There was a time when there were not three par
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Jonathan Sacks: Music, Language of the Soul BESHALLACH
Jonathan Sacks: Music, Language of the Soul BESHALLACH For the first time since their departure from Egypt, the Israelites do something together. They sing. “Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the Lord.” Exodus 15:1 Rashi, explain
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Jonathan Sacks: Freedom and Truth VAERA
Jonathan Sacks: Freedom and Truth VAERA 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, arov, “swarms of insects”[1]: Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron
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Jonathan Sacks: Who am I? SHEMOT
Jonathan Sacks: Who am I? SHEMOT Moses’ second question to God at the Burning Bush was, ‘Who are You?’. He asks God in the following way: “So I will go to the Israelites and say, ‘Your fathers’ God sent me to you.’ They will immediat
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Jonathan Sacks z”l: The Jewish Journey VAYISHLACH
Jonathan Sacks z”l: The Jewish Journey VAYISHLACH Why is Jacob the father of our people, the hero of our faith? We are “the congregation of Jacob”, “the children of Israel.” Yet it was Abraham who began the Jewish journey, Isaac who was will
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Jonathan Sacks z”l: The Birth of the World’s Oldest Hate VAYETSE
Jonathan Sacks z”l: The Birth of the World’s Oldest Hate VAYETSE “Go and learn what Laban the Aramean sought to do to our father Jacob. Pharaoh made his decree only about the males whereas Laban sought to destroy everything.” This passage from
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Jonathan Sacks z”l: The Tragedy of Good Intentions TOLDOT
Jonathan Sacks z”l: The Tragedy of Good Intentions TOLDOT It is the deep, reverberating question at the heart of Toldot. Why did Rebecca tell Jacob to deceive Isaac and take Esau’s blessing? Her instruction is brisk and peremptory: “Now, my son,
Miscellaneous | Miscellaneous
Jonathan Sacks – A Nail of Faith – A Story for Succot
Jonathan Sacks – A Nail of Faith – A Story for Succot Here is what I learned from the first time I built a sukkah (aside from the fact that I am not particularly good at woodwork!). Wishing you and your families a wonderful Sukkot. Chag Sameac
Advice & Self-Help | Advice & Self-Help
Jonathan Sacks z"l - The Power of Praise Vayeshev 5781
Jonathan Sacks z”l – The Power of Praise Vayeshev 5781 Reuben is the leader who might have been but never was. He was Jacob’s firstborn. Jacob said of him on his deathbed, “Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, the first sign of my s
