This collection makes Rabbi Jonathan Sacks' brilliant essays on the weekly Torah portion available in book form for the first time. Rabbi Sacks fuses Jewish tradition, Western philosophy and literature to present a highly developed understanding of the human condition under God's sovereignty. This first volume in the five-volume series includes several concise essays for each parasha of Bereshit.

What is Judaism? A religion? A faith? A way of life? A set of beliefs? A collection of commands? A culture? A civilization? It is all these, but it is emphatically something more. It is a way of thinking about life, a constellation of ideas. One might think that the ideas Judaism introduced into the world have become part of the common intellectual heritage of humankind, at least of the West. Yet this is not the case. Some of them have been lost over time; others the West never fully under...

This collection makes Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ brilliant essays on the weekly Torah portion available in book form for the first time. Rabbi Sacks fuses Jewish tradition, Western philosophy and literature to present a highly developed understanding of the human condition under God’s sovereignty. This final volume of the series contains several concise essays for each parasha of Deuteronomy.

Time and again, in the midst of troubled times or facing difficult decisions, I’ve found the words of the weekly parasha giving me guidance – or, conversely, the events themselves granting me deeper insight into the Torah text. For that is what ‘Torah’ means: teaching, instruction, guidance. Torah is a commentary on life, and life is a commentary on Torah. Together they constitute a conversation, each shedding light on the other. So wrote Rabbi Sacks in the introduction to his first collec...

This collection makes Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ brilliant essays on the weekly Torah portion available in book form for the first time. Rabbi Sacks fuses Jewish tradition, Western philosophy and literature to present a highly developed understanding of the human condition under God’s sovereignty. This second volume in the five-volume series includes several concise essays for each parasha of Exodus.

Faith in the Future addresses some of the major themes of our time: the fragmentation of our common culture, the breakdown of family and community life, the lack of moral direction and the waning of religious belief. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks asks: How can we construct a humane social order that honors human dignity and difference, one in which we can be both true to ourselves and a blessing to others? In the turbulent state of the modern world, can we give those who come after us a cohere...

One People?, first published in 1993, examines ways of mending the schisms between Reform and Orthodox Judaism, between religious and secular Jews in Israel, and between Israel itself and the diaspora - all of which have been deepened by the fierce and continuing controversy over the question of “Who is a Jew?”

The Jewish people, having survived for thousands of years in the most adverse circumstances, including the Holocaust and horrific terrorist attacks, is today also threatened by intermarriage and assimilation. Jewish communities throughout the diaspora are experiencing demographic decline: Why has this happened, and can anything be done to reverse the trend? Times have changed and that, in consequence, communal priorities need to change also.In Will We Have Jewish Grandchildren?, Ra...

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks saw it as his mission to distill the most basic and relevant Jewish ideas for all readers, those with extensive Jewish experiences and education, as well as those without. The short books collected in this volume articulate Rabbi Sacks’ most concise conceptions of Judaism, applicable to diverse individuals and communities.Judaism calls for moral sensitivity, dedication to learning, self-reflection, and personal betterment, all put to the service of social ...

For the 125th anniversary of the United Synagogue, during his time as Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks wrote Community of Faith, a penetrating evaluation of the role of the synagogue in Jewish life today.The book explores the choices faced by religious leadership in the modern world and the ways in which the synagogue embodies a living community of faith. It analyses the importance of morality and faith for Jewish individuals and the community, and suggests ways in which the ...

This collection makes Rabbi Jonathan Sacks' brilliant essays on the weekly Torah portion available in book form for the first time. Rabbi Sacks fuses Jewish tradition, Western philosophy and literature to present a highly developed understanding of the human condition under God's sovereignty.

Why was Abraham ordered to sacrifice his son? Was Jacob right in stealing the blessings? Why were we commanded to destroy Amalek? What was Moses’ sin in hitting the rock? And how did the Ten Commandments change the Jewish people, and humankind, for good?Essays on Ethics is the second companion volume to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s celebrated series Covenant & Conversation. Believing the Hebrew Bible to be the ultimate blueprint for Western morality, Rabbi Sacks embarks upon an ethical e...