A Leap of Faith | Parsha with the Chief: Lech Lecha

Taking risks is often associated with being reckless. But nothing of real worth in life can be attained without them. Every leap demands courage, and an acceptance that we are not in control. And if we can learn to embrace that, living with risk can ultimately be liberating. The Parsha of Lech Lecha opens with the act that launches all of Jewish history. God tells Abraham to leave his homeland and his family and go "to the land that I will show you." He isn't even told where. Rashi notes what a move like this puts at risk: family, livelihood and reputation. The same leap runs through to Sinai, where the Jewish people said "naaseh v'nishma," "we will do and we will understand," and on into marriage, raising children and going out to earn a living. Drawing on Pirkei Avot, Rashi, the Abarbanel and more, the Chief asks why a worthwhile life demands this kind of leap, and what it means to let go of control without giving up. Underneath it is a question every one of us lives with: how much of our lives do we really control? Abraham did not drift into his destiny. He leapt, and nearly four thousand years later the world still speaks his name. Key Questions If nothing of worth comes without risk, how do we tell a leap of faith from recklessness? Why did God tell Abraham to go without telling him where? How can a tradition that venerates the human intellect also tell us not to rely on it? If the outcomes of our lives are out of our hands, what exactly are we responsible for? Why would the Mishnah call the person who accepts the yoke of Torah truly free?

The psychological and emotional forces that shape a human being - what we call character traits - are incredibly powerful. Left unrefined, they can undermine our relationships, our happiness and our ability to make good decisions. But when directed properly, with awareness and intention, they can become a powerful source of growth and psychological health. The parsha of Noach describes two societies that destroyed themselves: the generation of the Flood and the builders of the Tower of Babel. Read back to the beginning of the Torah and the pattern runs further, through the sin in the Garden of Eden and Cain's murder of Abel. Then, after the Flood, God says something that seems to contradict the "very good" of creation: the inclination of the heart of man is bad from his youth. That verse is the source of the term yetzer hara, the evil inclination. But does a person really want to do evil? Drawing on Pirkei Avot, the Rambam, the Maharal and a remarkable insight from the Radak, the Chief Rabbi looks at what this inclination really is, and why the mind we trust to keep us on track is far weaker than we like to believe. And as the Torah moves from Noach to Avraham, we meet a man whose clarity came from a place most of us would never think to look. Key Questions If God saw everything He made and called it "very good," how can the Torah say the inclination of the human heart is bad from youth? Does any human being actually want to do evil? When we see a situation clearly and still act against our own interests, what is really making the decision? Why would the Vilna Gaon say that refining one's character is too important to be counted among the 613 commandments? Why does Pirkei Avot remember Avraham, the man who discovered one God, for his character rather than his intellect?

Three years after October 7, and at great sacrifice, Israel has, thank G-d, defeated its enemies on the battlefield. But they have not given up. Now they are using the blood libel of genocide in a relentless attempt to finish what Hamas started: the destruction of Israel.  This is a call to action for the Jewish world. Here is my speech delivered at the SAZF October 7 memorial service.  Our guest that evening was Chaya Hexter, who travelled from far to be with us, carrying the story of her son Yakir, of blessed memory, and his chavruta David, who fell for Am Yisrael. Over these three years the Israeli people have shown a bravery that words cannot do justice to. A civilian army, serving on miluim for months on end. Tens of thousands of wounded whose lives will never be the same. Bereaved families who carry that ache and still continue. The Mishnah asks us to be gibor ka'ari, brave as a lion, and Israel has truly risen like a lion to defend itself. Its victories on seven fronts are a partnership between G-d and people. This anniversary leaves no room for complacency. What our enemies could not achieve with missiles and knives, they are now trying to achieve politically, through the genocide libel. That changes who is being called on for courage. Israel's soldiers rose like lions. The question now is whether Jewish communities around the world will do the same. Pull Quotes "As members of the South African Jewish community, we can only bow in silent humility at the awesome courage of the Israeli people." "A true partnership between God and people." "What our enemies could not achieve on the battlefields with guns and missiles and bullets and knives and savagery, they are now trying to do politically." "Jewish communities around the world have to summon the courage to match the courage of our brothers and sisters in Israel, who fought like lions." "We have to rise up like lions and not be afraid, and not cower. We are fighting because we are one people, like one people with one heart."

Do you think of yourself as a creative person? We generally associate creativity with artists, with painting and music and writing. Yet in a fundamental sense, every one of us is a creator. This week we begin the Torah again, with the parsha of Bereishit and its most radical statement about the human being: that we are created b'tzelem Elokim, in the image of God. The Rishonim understand this as our intellect and our moral freedom. Yet the very first thing the Torah reveals about God is that He creates. "In the beginning, God created heaven and earth." To be made in His image is to be a creator like Him. Some of that creativity faces outward: medicine, architecture, technology, everything that makes the world a place where human beings can live. Looking at the parsha through the lens of Pirkei Avot, Chief Rabbi Goldstein helps us begin to understand another kind of creativity. One that is more personal and more foundational. Key Questions If creativity belongs to artists, what is the rest of us doing every day? Why is the very first thing the Torah tells us about God that He creates? What could it mean for a person to give birth to themselves? If our nature, our parents and our circumstances are given to us, how much of who we become is still ours to make? Why would an act of kindness require creativity?

Surrendering to what lies beyond our control can be liberating.  Accepting our powerlessness before God can paradoxically be empowering.  The final verses of the Torah, which we read on Simchat Torah, describing the last days of Moshe's life, show us how. Vezot Habracha, the final parsha of the Torah, ends with a startling lesson. Moshe Rabbeinu, the greatest leader of the Jewish People, stands at the edge of the Promised Land after forty years of leading his people towards it. He sees the land, but never enters it. And his death brings the Chumash to a close with one of his greatest missions still unfinished. Drawing on Pirkei Avot, the Rambam, Rashi and Rav Eliyahu Dessler, Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein shows why surrender before God is not a defeat. The Rambam notices something the Mishnah leaves off its list, and that omission reveals exactly where human power lies. Knowing what belongs to us and what belongs to God can become a source of real freedom. Then the question goes further. What does success mean if you never finish the work? The last verse of the Torah names Moshe's greatest achievement, and Rashi's reading of it is the last thing anyone would expect. It changes the very meaning of success and failure. Key Questions The Mishnah lists what happens to us against our will. What does it leave out, and why does so much depend on that omission? What would change if you stopped carrying the outcomes of your life as though they were yours to guarantee? How can the greatest leader who ever lived leave the central mission of his life unfinished? If it is not upon us to complete the work, what exactly is being asked of us? Why would the final verse of the Torah celebrate a moment that looks, on the surface, like Moshe's greatest failure?

Self-help is one of the most popular genres of books in the world. Walk into any bookstore and the shelves are weighed down with them. Self-development, personal growth, becoming your best self. This series has been about self-development too. Pirkei Avot is the Torah of who a person can become, what we have been calling Torah bein adam l'atzmo. But the philosophy of self-development from a Torah perspective is very different from contemporary culture. The clue to understanding  is in this week's parsha. Ha'azinu holds 43 verses of poetry that carry the entire sweep of human history: creation, free will, the failures of the early generations, the emergence of Abraham and then of the Jewish people, our own drifting, and the long road to the end of history. It is called the Shirah, the song. The verse instructing us to write it down becomes the source for writing the whole Torah, which tells you that something at the heart of this parsha holds the essence of what Torah is. It is also read every year in the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Rav Yisrael Salanter read the famous Gemara about the three books opened on Rosh Hashanah in an astounding way, and it answers a question the commentators have been asking for many centuries. How can the Gemara say the righteous are written immediately for life, when every one of us can name righteous people who died this year? His answer reframes what the judgment of these days is asking of us. And it reveals a radically different way of understanding what self-development is actually for. Key Questions Self-development is one of the biggest industries in the world. What does the Torah think it is actually for? How can working on yourself become the very thing that blocks your growth? In all the generations back to Sinai, not one let the chain break. What did that cost the people who carried it? The Gemara says the righteous are written immediately for life. What do we do with the righteous people who died this year? What changes if you are not the point of your own self-improvement?

What are we actually meant to be doing on Rosh Hashanah? What are the goals of the day? What does an ideal Rosh Hashanah look like? What should be going through your mind when you are sitting in shul? The answer to these questions can completely change your experience of Rosh Hashanah this year, and, even, transform your entire life. Every Jewish festival has a clear objective. On Yom Kippur we repent and confess. On Pesach we remember the Exodus. On Sukkot we remember how God protected us in the desert. Each one takes a theme that matters all year round and gives it a specific time of complete focus. Rosh Hashanah looks like the exception. We never mention sin. There is no explicit reference to repentance. We call it the Day of Judgment, but what does that ask of you when you are sitting in shul with the machzor open in front of you? The key lies in one line of the Mishnah, which departs from its usual legal language and turns poetic. On Rosh Hashanah, all who pass through this world come before God one by one, in single file. Not as a congregation. Not as a family. Alone. Drawing on Pirkei Avot, the Rambam, Rabbeinu Yonah and the Rema, Chief Rabbi Goldstein explores the mitzvah that lies at the heart of Rosh Hashanah and gives meaning to its judgment, its prayers, the shofar and the kingship of God. We call these days the Yamim Noraim. Many people hear that as the days of dread. But the phrase is better understood as the Awesome Days. Understanding why can transform not only our experience of Rosh Hashanah, but the way we live throughout the year. Key Questions Every other festival tells us exactly what to do. What is Rosh Hashanah actually asking of us? What does it mean to be judged on a day when we never once mention sin? We spend Rosh Hashanah surrounded by family and community. Why does the Mishnah describe us coming before God one by one? What does it really mean to call Rosh Hashanah one of the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe? Can two days of the year really change how a person lives the other 363 days?

Inner strength is needed to succeed in everything in life.  But how do we build the strength we need?  Avot gives us high-impact tactics for this. And more than that, it offers a profound understanding of the nature of life itself that can give us the strength we need to overcome all the obstacles in our path. Courage is usually defined against fear. In the parsha of Vayelech it is defined against weakness, which makes courage a matter of strength. And that turns an abstract virtue into a practical problem. Where does a person actually get strength? The parsha sits at a moment of handover. The forty years in the desert are ending, and Moshe is giving way to Yehoshua. A people who have had everything provided for them are about to enter a land they will have to fight for and then run themselves. Two words carry the whole transition, stated three times here and repeated another four more at the opening of the book of Joshua. Chazak ve'ematz. In our lives, the stakes are more ordinary rather than epic. We set out to build families, earn a living, become the people we want to be, and we meet resistance we did not expect. Resistance from other people, from circumstances, and from our own character. Drawing on Pirkei Avot, the Malbim, Rashi and the Maharal, Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein works through the practical answers to dealing with fear and anxiety, and then deeper to what the Mishnah says about the nature of this world. Key Questions If courage is the opposite of weakness rather than the opposite of fear, what have we been calling courage all this time? We are told to be strong. What use is that instruction to someone who does not feel strong? Which is harder to stand against, the people in your way or the parts of yourself that are? The soul, before it enters this world, meets no obstacles and no friction at all. Why is that not the better arrangement? What would change if the resistance in your life turned out to be the point of it?

Understanding that feelings of guilt come from the depth of the soul, can empower us to transform the discomfort they bring into a catalyst for personal change and new beginnings. This understanding comes from understanding the deeper meaning of teshuva, which is often mistranslated as repentance. Repentance comes from the Latin for penitence, meaning remorse and regret. The same root gives us penitentiary. A prison. Time served for what you have done. That is not what teshuva means. Teshuva means return. During Elul, the month of teshuva, we are then faced with a difficult question: if teshuva is return, what is it we are returning to? The distinction is not just semantic. It changes what a person is actually being asked to do at this time of year, and what they are being asked to believe about themselves. The parsha of Nitzavim is read every year in the days before Rosh Hashanah. Drawing on this parsha, Pirkei Avot, the Ramban, the Rambam and others, Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein follows that question from guilt through to redemption, and asks what the discomfort has been trying to tell us all along. Key Questions Guilt tells us something is wrong. Why can't it tell us what is right? Is the wrong a person has done evidence of who they are, or evidence of the distance they have travelled from it? If our deepest nature is already good, why would we need commandments at all? If the mitzvot express who we already are, why do they so often feel like rules imposed from outside?

What does it mean to be spiritually healthy? The Rambam was a physician as well as one of our greatest sages. In his introduction to Pirkei Avot, he draws a remarkable parallel between the health of the body and the health of the soul, describing the sages themselves as "doctors of the soul." But spiritual illness presents a unique problem. When something distorts our character or the way we see the world, it can also distort our ability to recognise that anything is wrong. In this next part of our journey through Pirkei Avot, The Chief explores what it means for the soul to function as it was created to function, why we may need help seeing what we cannot see for ourselves, and how Avot offers us a path back to spiritual health. Drawing on the Rambam and the great commentators on Avot, we discover a vision of spiritual health that reaches from our character and the way we see the world, to the very heights of what a human being can become. KEY QUESTIONS If spiritual illness can distort our ability to recognise it, how do we know when something is wrong? We accept that the body sometimes needs a doctor. Why do we assume the soul does not? Anger, arrogance and envy are usually treated as faults. What changes if we understand them as symptoms? Is there a connection between becoming a better person and becoming a calmer one? The Mishnah says that the human being is created in God's image. The Sforno reads that not simply as a description, but as an instruction. What is it asking of us?