We are always looking for something new. A new place to go, a view we haven't seen, a fresh experience to inspire the spirit. There is a deep restlessness in being human, and no superficial experience ever quite settles it.

In this week's talk for Shavuot - the festival whose name means weeks, the festival of the journey - the Chief Rabbi opens with this restlessness, and what it tells us about who we are.

Drawing on Pirkei Avot's image of the human being as a traveller from another world, on the Maharal's reading of 'Adam' as pure potential, on the strange Mishnah about those who walk and learn, and on the Chief's own observation that animals don't get bored, this is a talk about a profound psychological need that we have, and why no destination ever quite scratches the itch.

What are we searching for, and where do we find it?

Key Questions

• Why is the human need for change so deep, and so easily disastrous?

• What does it mean to be a traveller from another world?

• Why are we never quite satisfied by the new things we find?

• What is the difference between travelling outwardly and travelling inwardly?

We all reach for structure. Routines, habits, the small repetitions that hold a day together. Without them, life can feel like chaos.

In this week's talk on the Parsha of Bamidbar, the Torah describes the Israelite camp arranged with extraordinary order around the Mishkan, every tribe in its place. The Chief Rabbi argues that structure is not just helpful. It is one of the deepest psychological and spiritual needs of the human being. The architecture beneath every meaningful life.

But there's a problem. Too much structure crushes the soul. Where does the joy go? The spontaneity? The love?

Drawing on the Maharal, on Rabbi Yerucham Levovitz's image of pearls held by a string, on the Mishnah's strange instruction to pray with structure but not as routine, and on the very word Siddur, the Chief Rabbi traces the paradox at the heart of Torah, and the way it holds structure and passion in tension.

And asks what holds a life together, and what sets it free.

• Why do we need structure to feel alive?

• Can routine crush the very thing it's meant to protect?

• What is the difference between Torah as structure and Torah as rote?

• How does the same Mishnah tell us to pray with order, and yet not by rote?

Something astounding has just happened in America.

In an official presidential proclamation marking the 250th anniversary of the United States, the President has called on Jewish Americans to observe a national Shabbat — from sunset Friday 15 May to nightfall Saturday 16 May.

In over 3,300 years of Jewish history, no head of state has ever officially recognised Shabbat in this way and called on Jews across an entire nation to keep it. Never before. Not in America. Not anywhere.

In this address, Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein — founder of the global Shabbat Project — calls on every Jewish American to answer the proclamation. To rally every family, every community, every Shabbos table. To make this Shabbat a moment of unity, pride, and Jewish connection across the United States.

Above politics. Shabbat is a gift. And this is the moment to open it.