The chief rabbi has joined the 14th Dalia Lama and the former Archbishop of Canterbury as a recipient of a prestigious award honouring people who turn their “faith into action”.

Lord Sacks will be awarded this year’s Ladislaus Laszt Ecumenical and Social Concern Award by Ben-Gurion University at a ceremony in Israel next week.

The prize, created in 1985 and worth more than £6,000, "acknowledges and rewards people whose deeds reflect tolerance, hope and vision – those aspects so essential to the survival of the human race."

The university's judging panel has chosen Lord Sacks in acknowledgment of his status as "a widely-published theologian and philosopher whose aspirations for truth and mutual respect of all peoples guide his actions”.

Lord Sacks, who recently announced that he would retire in 2013 after 22 years, was given the Jerusalem Prize in 1995 and knighted by the Queen a decade later. He is a also a visiting professor of theology at Kings’ College London.

While at Ben-Gurion University, the chief rabbi will take part in a seminar with Israeli academics on "Pluralism and Normativity in the Jewish Experience."