Daniel Rynhold shows how R. Sacks identified collective structures such as religious traditions as that which creates social meanings giving reasons to pursue one course over another. In doing so R. Sacks restores the link between ethics and reason, reading against a classic essay by philosopher A.J. Ayer – This week in “The Rabbi Sacks Bookshelves Project.”

Daniel Friedman reads H. Richard Niebuhr’s classical essay, asking what it implies for the universal value of civil society – a new entry in the R. Sacks Bookshelves Project, presented in cooperation with the London School of Jewish Studies.