“Focus on the mind and the soul. Read. Study. Enrol in a course of lectures. Pray. Become a member of a religious congregation. Study the Bible or other ancient works of wisdom.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“What creates freedom? A revolution in the streets? Mass protest? Civil war? A change of government? The ousting of the old guard and its replacement by the new? History, more often than not, shows that hopes raised by such events are often dashed, sooner rather than later.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“In an ecology of love, people can relate in trust and face the future without fear. They do not need to play it safe. They can take uncertainty in their stride.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“We believe that what we possess we don’t ultimately own. God is merely entrusting it to us. And one of the conditions of that trust is that we share what we have with those who have less. So, if you don’t give to people in need, you can hardly call yourself a Jew. Even the most unbelieving Jew knows that.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“Technology gives us power, but it does not and cannot tell us how to use that power. Thanks to technology, we can instantly communicate across the world, but it still doesn’t help us know what to say.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“Which European leader today would not relish the wonder-working powers of a Moses? Budget deficit? Unpopular cuts? How about just a little miracle, an overnight increase in gold reserves, a new oil field, or the next world-changing communications technology? Surely that’s not too much to ask.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“If we are to negotiate the coming years safely, we may need a new kind of leadership. To put it more precisely, we need the rediscovery of an ancient kind of leadership that has rarely been given the prominence it deserves. I mean the leader as teacher.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“Follow your passion. Nothing – not wealth, success, accolades or fame – is worth spending a lifetime doing things you don’t enjoy.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“We from every religion feel comfortable in Britain because there is a host. The Church of England is a good host, it has been a major force in shaping England into such a tolerant society.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“If you want a free society, teach your children what oppression tastes like. Tell them how many miracles it takes to get from here to there. Above all, encourage them to ask questions. Teach them to think for themselves.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“Religion is the best antidote to the individualism of the consumer age. The idea that society can do without it flies in the face of history and, now, evolutionary biology.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“In virtually every Western society in the 1960s there was a moral revolution, an abandonment of its entire traditional ethic of self-restraint.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“Britain, relative to the U.S., is a highly secular society. Philanthropy alone cannot fill the gap left by government cutbacks. And the sources of altruism go deep into our evolutionary past.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“We do not always appreciate the role the Queen has played in one of the most significant changes in the past 60 years: the transformation of Britain into a multi-ethnic, multi-faith society. No one does interfaith better than the Royal family, and it starts with the Queen herself.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“Stabilizing the euro is one thing, healing the culture that surrounds it is another. A world in which material values are everything and spiritual values nothing is neither a stable state nor a good society. The time has come for us to recover the Judeo-Christian ethic of human dignity in the image of God.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“In thinking about religion and society in the 21st century, we should broaden the conversation about faith from doctrinal debates to the larger question of how it might inspire us to strengthen the bonds of belonging that redeem us from our solitude, helping us to construct together a gracious and generous social order.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“A society in which there are high levels of voluntary activity will simply be a better, happier place than one where there are not.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“Science will explain how but not why. It talks about what is, not what ought to be. Science is descriptive, not prescriptive it can tell us about causes but it cannot tell us about purposes. Indeed, science disavows purposes.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“In the post-enlightenment Europe of the 19th century the highest authority was no longer the Church. Instead it was science. Thus was born racial anti-Semitism, based on two disciplines regarded as science in their day – the ‘scientific study of race’ and the Social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer and Ernst Haeckel.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“Since Hiroshima and the Holocaust, science no longer holds its pristine place as the highest moral authority. Instead, that role is taken by human rights. It follows that any assault on Jewish life – on Jews or Judaism or the Jewish state – must be cast in the language of human rights.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“Jews have deep respect for the Queen and the royal family. We say a prayer for them every Sabbath in synagogue. We recite a special blessing on seeing the Queen.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“In thinking about religion and society in the 21st century, we should broaden the conversation about faith from doctrinal debates to the larger question of how it might inspire us to strengthen the bonds of belonging that redeem us from our solitude, helping us to construct together a gracious and generous social order.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“Since the 18th century, many Western intellectuals have predicted religion’s imminent demise.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“We from every religion feel comfortable in Britain because there is a host. The Church of England is a good host, it has been a major force in shaping England into such a tolerant society.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“Religion is the best antidote to the individualism of the consumer age. The idea that society can do without it flies in the face of history and, now, evolutionary biology.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“Religion survives because it answers three questions that every reflective person must ask. Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live?”
– Jonathan Sacks
“Religion creates community, community creates altruism and altruism turns us away from self and towards the common good… There is something about the tenor of relationships within a religious community that makes it the best tutorial in citizenship and good neighborliness.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“Technology gives us power, but it does not and cannot tell us how to use that power. Thanks to technology, we can instantly communicate across the world, but it still doesn’t help us know what to say.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“The Jewish festival of freedom is the oldest continuously observed religious ritual in the world. Across the centuries, Passover has never lost its power to inspire the imagination of successive generations of Jews with its annually re-enacted drama of slavery and liberation.”
– Jonathan Sacks
“While everyone else is thinking about economics and politics, executive salaries and the future of the euro, do the opposite, even if it’s hard. Invest in the spirit.”
– Jonathan Sacks