Quotes from Jonathan Sacks

Science does not yield meanings, nor does it prove the absence of meanings. The meaning of a system lies outside the system. Therefore the meaning of the universe lies outside the universe.

To believe in God, faith and the importance of religious practice does not involve an abdication of the intellect, a silencing of critical faculties, or believing in six impossible things before breakfast.

The test of faith is whether I can make space for difference. Can I recognize God's image in someone who is not in my image [...]? If I cannot, then I have made God in my image instead of allowing him to remake me in his.

As historian Will Durant wrote: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."1

In this case the Torah is emphasising that Exodus ends as Genesis began, with a work of creation. Note the difference as well as the similarity. Genesis began with an act of divine creation. Exodus ends with an act of human creation.

Parashat Behar sets out a revolutionary template for a society of justice, freedom, and human dignity. At its core is the idea of the Jubilee, whose words ("Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof") are engraved on one of the great symbols of freedom, the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.

Narrative teaches us the complexity of the moral life and the light-and-shade to be found in any human personality. Without this, self-righteousness can destroy the very perceptions and nuances, the tolerance and generosity of spirit on which society depends.

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.

Homo sapiens, discovering God singular and alone, discovered the human being singular and alone. There is no greater dignity than that

Jews became the people whose heroes were teachers, whose citadels were schools, and whose passion was study and the life of the mind.

Wisdom tells us how the world is. Torah tells us how the world ought to be. Wisdom is about nature. Torah is about will.

When a human being makes many coins in a single mint, they all come out the same. God makes every human being in the same image, His image, yet they all emerge different.

His body did not accompany his people as they entered the land, but his teachings did. His sons did not succeed him, but his disciples did. He may have felt that he had not changed his people in his lifetime, but in the full perspective of history, he changed them more than any leader has ever changed any people, turning them into the people of the book and the nation who built not ziggurats or pyramids but schools and houses of study.

I come from a religious tradition where we make a blessing over great scientists regardless of their views on religion.

Religion was the robe of sanctity worn to mask the naked pursuit of power.

The home God makes for humanity is counterbalanced by the home humanity makes for God.

A humanitarian as opposed to a group ethic requires the most difficult of all imaginative exercises: role reversal – putting yourself in the place of those you despise, or pity, or simply do not understand. Not only do most religions not do this.

What all four stories tell us is that there comes a time for each of us when we must make an ultimate decision as to who we are. It is a moment of existential truth. Lot is a Hebrew, not a citizen of Sodom. Eliezer is Abraham's servant, not his heir. Joseph is Jacob's son, not an Egyptian of loose morals. Moses is a prophet, not a priest. To say yes to who we are, we have to have the courage to say no to who we are not. Pain

Within us is the breath of God. Around us is the presence of God. Near us is the home we build for God. Ahead of us is the task set by God: to be His agents of justice and compassion. Never has a nobler account been given of the human condition, and it challenges us still.

The alternative to morality is violence. Violence is the attempt to satisfy my desires at the cost of yours.

What he tells them is unexpected, counter-intuitive. In effect he says this: "You know what your parents suffered. You have heard about their slavery in Egypt. You yourselves have known what it is to wander in the wilderness without a home or shelter or security. You may think those were the greatest trials, but you are wrong. You are about to face a harder trial. The real test is security and contentment

Greatness is humility.

A consumer-driven, advertising-dominated culture militates daily against ongoing attachments. It is constantly inviting us to switch to a different brand, try something new, go for a better deal elsewhere. It should not come as a surprise that this begins to affect human relationships as well. A society saturated by market values would be one in which relationships were temporary, loyalties provisional and commitments easily discarded.

A decent society will be one in which enemies do not allow their rancour or animosity to prevent them from coming to one another's assistance when they need help.