Essays on Ethics Quotes

“the willingness to go against the consensus acquire a monumental freedom. That is what Judaism is: an invitation to freedom by resisting the idols and siren calls of the age.”
― Jonathan Sacks, Essays on Ethics: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible

“Revolutionary utterances do not work their magic overnight. As Rambam (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, or Maimonides; 1135–1204) explained in The Guide for the Perplexed, it takes people a long time to change. The Torah functions in the medium of time. It did not abolish slavery, but it set in motion a series of developments – most notably Shabbat, when all hierarchies of power were suspended and slaves had a day a week of freedom – that were bound to lead to its abolition in the course of time. People are slow to understand the implications of ideas. Thomas Jefferson, champion of equality, was a slave owner.”
― Jonathan Sacks, Essays on Ethics: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible

“That needs law: law that represents justice, honouring all humans alike regardless of colour or class; law that judges impartially between rich and poor, powerful and powerless, even in extremis between humanity and God; law that links God, its giver, to us, its interpreters; law that alone allows freedom to coexist with order, so that my freedom is not bought at the cost of yours.”
― Jonathan Sacks, Essays on Ethics: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible

“The greatest challenge of any society is how to contain the universal, inevitable phenomenon of envy, the desire to have what belongs to someone else. Envy lies at the heart of violence.”
― Jonathan Sacks, Essays on Ethics: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible

“At three in the morning we finished by dancing together. We knew we were different, we knew that there were deep divides between our respective faiths, but we had become friends. Perhaps that is all we should seek. Friends do not have to agree in order to stay friends. And friendships can sometimes help heal the world.”
― Jonathan Sacks, Essays on Ethics: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible

“The alternative to morality is violence. Violence is the attempt to satisfy my desires at the cost of yours.”
― Jonathan Sacks, Essays on Ethics: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible

“That is why three of the four matriarchs found themselves unable to conceive other than by a miracle.”
― Jonathan Sacks, Essays on Ethics: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible

“A free society is a moral achievement. That is the central insight of the Torah. It depends on the existence of a shared moral code, a code we are taught by our parents, a code we internalise in the course of growing up, a code for whose maintenance we are collectively responsible. Today, throughout much of the West, morality has been largely outsourced to governments and regulatory bodies. The”
― Jonathan Sacks, Essays on Ethics: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible