To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility

What are our duties to others, to society, and to humanity? How do we live a meaningful life in an age of global uncertainty and instability? In To Heal a Fractured World, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks offers answers to these questions by looking at the ethics of responsibility. In his signature plainspoken, accessible style, Rabbi Sacks shares with us traditional interpretations of the Bible, Jewish law, and theology, as well as the works of philosophers and ethicists from other cultures, to examine what constitutes morality and moral behavior. “We are here to make a difference,” he writes, “a day at a time, an act at a time, for as long as it takes to make the world a place of justice and compassion.” He argues that in todays religious and political climate, it is more important than ever to return to the essential understanding that “it is by our deeds that we express our faith and make it real in the lives of others and the world.”

To Heal a Fractured World—inspirational and instructive, timely and timeless—will resonate with people of all faiths.

From the Hardcover edition.

From the Hardcover edition.

Part 1: The Call to Responsibility

1 The Ethics of Responsibility

2 Faith as Protest

3 Charity as Justice

4 Love as Deed

5 Sanctifying the Name

6 Mending the World

7 Like a Single Soul

8 The Kindness of Strangers

9 Responsibility for Society

Part 2: The Theology of Responsibility

10 The Birth of Responsibility

11 Divine Initiative, Human Initiative

12 The Holy and the Good

13 The Monotheistic Imagination

14 The Faith of God

15 Redeeming Evil

Part 3: The Responsible Life

16 Transforming Suffering

17 The Chaos Theory of Virtue

18 The Kind of Person We Are

19 Who Am I?

20 On Dreams and Responsibilities

Index