Arguments for the Sake of Heaven

What is the future of the Jewish people? In Arguments for the Sake of Heaven, first published in 1991, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks explores the contemporary issues that influence Judaism and the controversies that affect its destiny.

If the Jewish world is to be mended, Rabbi Sacks contends, Jews must move beyond sectional thinking and recognize alternatives within Judaism. The tradition of argument requires respect for positions with which one doesn’t agree; rabbinic texts imply more than one legitimate stance. It is in this spirit of healing that Jewish unity will be achieved, and “to see this is already to have begun the transition from Torah as the faith of some Jews to Torah as the constitution of the whole Jewish people.”