Faith in the Future

A partnership of the Sinagoga Edmond J. Safra – Ipanema with The Office of Rabbi Sacks

He was 137 years old. He had been through two traumatic events involving the people most precious to him in the world. The first involved the son for whom he had waited for a lifetime, Isaac. He and Sarah had given up hope, yet God told them both that they would have a son together, and it would be he who would continue the covenant. The years passed. Sarah did not conceive. She had grown old, yet God still insisted they would have a child. Continue reading CHAYÊ SARAH

To Bless The Space Between Us

A partnership of the Sinagoga Edmond J. Safra – Ipanema with The Office of Rabbi Sacks

There is a mystery at the heart of the biblical story of Abraham, and it has immense implications for our understanding of Judaism.
Who was Abraham and why was he chosen? The answer is far from obvious. Nowhere is he described, as was Noah, as “a righteous man, perfect in his generations.” We have no portrait of him, like the young Moses, physically intervening in conflicts as a protest against injustice. He was not a soldier like David or a visionary like Isaiah. In only one place, near the beginning of our parsha, does the Torah say why God singled him out: Continue reading VAYERÁ

Journey of the Generations

A partnership of the Sinagoga Edmond J. Safra – Ipanema with The Office of Rabbi Sacks

Mark Twain said it most pithily. “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” Continue reading LEKH LEKHA

The Courage to Live With Uncertainty

A partnership of the Sinagoga Edmond J. Safra – Ipanema with The Office of Rabbi Sacks

For each of us there are milestones on our spiritual journey that change the direction of our life and set us on a new path. For me one such moment came when I was a rabbinical student at Jews College and thus had the privilege of studying with one of the great rabbinic scholars of our time, Rabbi Dr Nachum Rabinovitch.
He was a giant: one the most profound Maimonidean scholars of the modern age, equally at home with virtually every secular discipline as with the entire rabbinic literature, and one of the boldest and independent of poskim, as his several published volumes of Responsa show. He also showed what it was to have spiritual and intellectual courage, and that on our time has proved, sadly, all too rare. Continue reading NOACH

The Art of Listening

A partnership of the Sinagoga Edmond J. Safra – Ipanema with The Office of Rabbi Sacks

What exactly was the first sin? What was the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil? Is this kind of knowledge a bad thing such that it had to be forbidden, and was only acquired through sin? Isn’t knowing the difference between good and evil essential to being human? Isn’t it one of the highest forms of knowledge? Surely God would want humans to have it? Why then did He forbid the fruit that produced it? Continue reading BERESHIT

THE ARC OF THE MORAL UNIVERSE

A partnership of the Sinagoga Edmond J. Safra – Ipanema with The Office of Rabbi Sacks

In majestic language, Moses breaks into song, investing his final testament to the Israelites with all the power and passion at his command. He begins dramatically but gently, calling heaven and earth to witness what he is about to say, sounding ironically very much like “The quality of mercy is not strained,” Portia’s speech in The Merchant of Venice. Continue reading HAAZINU

TORAH AS SONG

A partnership of the Sinagoga Edmond J. Safra – Ipanema with The Office of Rabbi Sacks

Moses’ long and tempestuous career is about to end. With words of blessing and encouragement he hands on the mantle of leadership to his successor Joshua, saying, “I am a hundred and twenty years old today. I may no longer go out and come in, since the Lord has said to me, you will not cross this Jordan.” (31: 2). As Rashi notes, he says, “I may not”, not “I cannot.” He is still in full bodily vigour, “his eye undimmed and his natural energy unabated.” But he has reached the end of his personal road. The time has come for another age, a new generation, and a different kind of leader.

Continue reading VAIELECH

WHY  JUDAISM?

A partnership of the Sinagoga Edmond J. Safra – Ipanema with The Office of Rabbi Sacks

This week’s parsha raises a question that goes to the heart of Judaism, but which was not asked for many centuries until raised by a great Spanish scholar of the fifteenth century, Rabbi Isaac Arama. Moses is almost at the end of his life. The people are about to cross the Jordan and enter the Promised Land. Moses knows he must do one thing more before he dies. He must renew the covenant between the people and God. Continue reading NITZAVIM

THE PURSUIT OF JOY

A partnership of the Sinagoga Edmond J. Safra – Ipanema with The Office of Rabbi Sacks

Happiness, said Aristotle, is the ultimate good at which all humans aim.  But in Judaism it is not necessarily so. Happiness is a high value. Ashrei, the closest Hebrew word to happiness, is the first word of the book of Psalms. We say the prayer known as Ashrei three times each day. We can surely endorse the phrase in the American Declaration of Independence that among the inalienable rights of humankind are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Continue reading KI TAVÔ