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?

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?