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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

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Jonathan Sacks
Age: 72 †
Born: 1948
Born: March 8
Died: 2020
Died: November 7
Clergyman
Politician
Rabbi
Theologian
University Teacher
St Pancras
London
Jonathan Henry Sacks
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Jonathan H. Sacks
Baron Sacks
Yaakov Zvi
Jonathan Henry Sacks
Baron Sacks
Explain
Indeed
Ought
Causes
Purpose
Prescriptive
Science
Descriptive
Tell
Talks
Cannot
Purposes

More quotes by Jonathan Sacks

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The message of Passover remains as powerful as ever. Freedom is won not on the battlefield but in the classroom and the home. Teach your children the history of freedom if you want them never to lose it.
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Yom HaShoah is a vital day in the Jewish calendar, providing us with a focal point for our remembrance. We cannot bring the dead back to life, but we can bring their memory back to life and ensure they are not forgotten. We can undertake in our lives to do what they were so cruelly prevented from doing in theirs.
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Find people not to envy but to admire. Do not the profitable but the admirable deed. Live by ideals.
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Giving is what makes a nation great.
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Religiosity turns out to be the best indicator of civic involvement: it's more accurate than education, age, income, gender or race.
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Hope, even more than necessity, is the mother of invention.
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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.
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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.
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No great achiever - even those who made it seem easy - ever succeeded without hard work.
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In her religious role, the Queen is head of the Church of England, but in her civic role she cares for all her subjects, and no one is better at making everyone she meets feel valued.
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We need to rediscover the idea of the common good and work together to build a home.
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The Holocaust survivors are among the most inspiring people I have had the privilege to meet.
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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
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God's forgiveness allows us to be honest with ourselves. We recognize our imperfections, admit our failures, and plead to God for clemency.
Jonathan Sacks
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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
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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
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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.
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The idols of today are unmistakable - self-esteem without achievement, sex without consequences, wealth without responsibility, pleasure without struggle and experience without commitment.
Jonathan Sacks
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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.
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Volunteering has been undervalued in Britain for a long time. Often it has been seen as a kind of cut-price, amateur version of work that would be better done by the state. When politicians speak about it, people hear in the background the sound of budgets being cut.
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