rabbis-from-the-united-kingdom

"God's teaches us to refrain from inflicting unnecessary pain on any animal. And not only physical pain; an animal can suffer mental pain too. … It is an important part of Torah education to train children to respect animals as sensitive beings which should not be unnecessarily deprived of the joys of life. Do not forget that the child who crudely delights in the suffering of an injured beetle or the anxiety of a harassed animal will soon be numb towards human pain too. … It seems doubtful from all that has been said whether the Torah would sanction "factory farming," which treats animals as machines, with apparent insensitivity to their natural needs and instincts."

"The current treatment of animals in the livestock trade definitely renders the consumption of meat as halachically unacceptable as the product of illegitimate means."

"We must clearly advocate dietary practices that are truly in consonance with the sublimest values of the , and today more than ever before these are overwhelmingly incompatible with carnivorous indulgence."

"Indeed, Judaism as a way of life, seeks to inculcate in us a consciousness of the Divine Presence in the World and respect for life accordingly. The more we care for life, the closer we are in fact to God. Accordingly, an ethical vegetarian way of life expresses the most noble and sublime values and aspirations of Judaism itself, bringing us closer to its vision for society as a whole."

"Torah is an ever-expanding universe"

"Everything really belongs to God, and man has no right to assume that he can, at will, exploit God's bounty."

"The effect of Judaism's vigorous promotion of monotheism, and the dignity that this doctrine conferred on all humankind, as created in God's image, coupled with the discipline, warnth and security offered by the Jewish way of life, cannot be overestimated as a powerful catalyst for the undermining and eventual destruction of Graeco-Roman paganism."

"G-d does not wish to occupy the role of Spiritual dictator, coercing us to accept His Torah. He would rather that we spend our life studying, plumbing the depths of, and becoming inspired by it, so that we may reach the stage when, with proper conviction and enthusiasm, we can affirm, "Whatever G-d says we will obey.""

"No amount of money given in charity, nothing but the abandonment of this hateful trade, can atone for this great sin against God, Israel and Humanity."

"Among Jews, there is an absence of drunkenness, always a fruitful source of domestic strife and misconduct."

"The object of education is not merely to enable our children to gain their daily bread and to acquire pleasant means of recreation, but that they should know God and serve Him with earnestness and devotion."

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

"One of the most important distinctions I have learned in the course of reflection on Jewish history is the difference between optimism and hope. Optimism is the belief that things will get better. Hope is the faith that, together, we can make things better. Optimism is a passive virtue, hope an active one. It takes no courage to be an optimist, but it takes a great deal of courage to have hope. Knowing what we do of our past, no Jew can be an optimist. But Jews have never – despite a history of sometimes awesome suffering – given up hope. Not by accident did they call the national anthem of their new state Hatikvah, meaning, the hope."

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"Judaism is the refusal to give way to despair."

"In Judaism faith means wrestling with God as Jacob once wrestled with an angel..."

"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.More generally we say in the name of the God of Abraham, the Almighty, merciful and compassionate God, that the religion in whose name atrocities are being carried out, innocent people butchered and beheaded, children treated as slaves, civilians turned into human shields, and young people into weapons of self-destruction, is not the Islam that once earned the admiration of the world, nor is its God the God of Abraham. It was Nietzsche not the prophets who worshipped the will to power. It was Machiavelli not sacred scripture who taught that it is better to be feared than to be loved.Every religion must wrestle with its dark angels, and so today must we: Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. For we are all children of Abraham and it will only be when we make space for one another as brothers and sisters that we will redeem the world from darkness and walk together in the light of God."

"[T]oday there is hardly a country in the world, certainly not a single country in Europe, where Jews feel safe. A society, or for that matter, a political party, that tolerates antisemitism, that tolerates any hate, has forfeited all moral credibility."

"Not indolence but congenial work is man's Divinely allotted portion."

"Though man comes from the dust, sin is not a part of his nature. Man can overcome sin, and through repentance attain to at-one-ment with his Maker."

""Accept the true from whatever source it come," is sound rabbinic doctrine — even if it be from the pages of a devout Christian expositor or of an iconoclastic Biblical scholar, Jewish or non-Jewish."

"Men of all lands and climes are brothers."

"Man must be a co-worker with God in making this earth a garden."

"Everything in the Universe was as the Creator willed it — nothing superfluous, nothing lacking — a harmony."

"Because man is endowed with Reason, he can subdue his impulses in the service of moral and religious ideals, and is born to bear rule over Nature."

"The immemorial ingratitude of rulers and commonwealths is proverbial. Especially common is ingratitude to Israel — the People that has achieved so much of eternal worth, but has rarely succeeded in winning gratitude."

"Judaism stands or falls with its belief in the historic actuality of the revelation at Sinai."

"To Israel's faithful hosts in the past, as to its loyal sons and daughters of the present, the Siddur has been the gate to communion with their Father in Heaven; and, at the same time, it has been a mighty spiritual bond that unites them to their scattered brethren the world over."

"Prayer is a universal phenomenon in the soul-life of man. It is the soul's reaction to the terrors and joys, the uncertainties and dreams of life."

"Life is a frail and transitory thing, but it has been given a higher purpose and dignity through the revelation of God's Teaching to Israel, and the resulting dedication of an entire people to God's service."

"Sabbath rest is more than mere abstention from physical work; and, therefore, must include worship and Scripture-reading"

"In contrast with the simplicity and sublimity of Genesis I, we find all ancient cosmogonies, whether it be the Babylonian or the Phœnician, the Greek or the Roman, alike unrelievedly wild, cruel, even foul."

"Divine punishment is at once followed by Divine pity."

"In spite of the pangs of travail, the longing for motherhood remains the most powerful instinct in woman."

"A wife is not a man's shadow or subordinate, but his other self, his "helper," in a sense which no other creature on earth can be."

"Man's most sacred privilege is freedom of will, the ability to obey or disobey his Maker."