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?

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.

• "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."

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.

• 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?