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Jonathan Sacks Quotes

Jonathan Henry Sacks, Baron Sacks, is a British Orthodox rabbi, philosopher, theologian, author and politician.

He served as the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from 1991 to 2013. As the spiritual head of the United Synagogue, the largest synagogue body in the UK, he was the Chief Rabbi of those Orthodox synagogues, but was not recognized as the religious authority for the Haredi Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations or for the progressive movements such as Masorti, Reform and Liberal Judaism. As Chief Rabbi, Sacks formally carried the title of Av Beit Din of the London Beth Din. He is now known as the Emeritus Chief Rabbi.Since stepping down as Chief Rabbi, in addition to his international travelling and speaking engagements and prolific writing, Sacks has served as the Ingeborg and Ira Rennert Global Distinguished Professor of Judaic Thought at New York University and as the Kressel and Ephrat Family University Professor of Jewish Thought at Yeshiva University. He has also been appointed as Professor of Law, Ethics and the Bible at King's College London. He won the Templeton Prize in 2016.

He is also a Senior Fellow to the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. Wikipedia  

✵ 8. March 1948
Jonathan Sacks photo
Jonathan Sacks: 13 quotes8 likes

Famous Jonathan Sacks Quotes

“My Lords, I and the vast majority of the Jewish community, care deeply about the future of the Palestinians. We want Palestinian children, no less than Israeli children, to have a future of peace, prosperity, freedom and hope. Which is why we oppose those who teach Palestinian children to hate those with whom they will one day have to live; who take money given for humanitarian aid and use it to buy weapons and dig tunnels to take the region back to a dark age of barbarism.”

Jonathan Sacks

Other

“Judaism is the refusal to give way to despair.”

Jonathan Sacks

The Case for God, first broadcast on BBC1, 6 September 2010

“The meaning of the word "true" here is similar to the word Amen said after a blessing. It is an act of affirmation and ratification, reminding us that the Shema is less a prayer than a declaration of faith.”

Jonathan Sacks

Source: The Authorised Daily Prayer Book (4th ed 2006), pp.386-7

“Faith is not a certainty. Faith is the courage to live with uncertainty.”

Jonathan Sacks

The Case for God, first broadcast on BBC1, 6 September 2010

“The twenty-first century is, and will remain, the Age of Insecurity.”

Jonathan Sacks

Source: From Optimism to Hope (2004), p. 71

“The first of the "request" prayers in the daily Amidah is a fractal. It replicates in miniature the structure of the Amidah as a whole.”

Jonathan Sacks

Source: The Authorised Daily Prayer Book (4th ed 2006), p.XVII

Jonathan Sacks Quotes

“In Judaism faith means wrestling with God as Jacob once wrestled with an angel…”

Jonathan Sacks

The Case for God, first broadcast on BBC1, 6 September 2010

“We have no idea where the world is going, except that it's going there very fast.”

Jonathan Sacks

Speech to Kenan Ethics department, 2009.
Universal, 2009

“Marriage, sanctified by the bond of fidelity, is the nearest life gets to a work of art.”

Jonathan Sacks

Source: From Optimism to Hope (2004), p. 69

“If we are to cherish freedom, and to guard it, we must remember what the alternative is: the bread of affliction and the bitter herbs of slavery.”

Jonathan Sacks

Source: From Optimism to Hope (2004), p. 42

“Values are tapes we play on the Walkman of the mind. Any tune we chooose is fine so long as it does not disturb others.”

Jonathan Sacks

“A society, or for that matter, a political party, that tolerates antisemitism, that tolerates any hate, has forfeited all moral credibility.”

Jonathan Sacks

House of Lords debate on antisemitism, 20 June 2019 https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/tonge-blames-israel-for-jew-hate-during-debate-on-antisemitism-1.485685 <br class="br">Other

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