Parshat Bereshit; Genesis 1:1 - 6:8 by Rabbi Denise L. Eger
With this week’s celebration of Simchat Torah, our holiday season is officially over. After almost a month of intensive introspection and teshuvah, repentance has been capped by a week of overwhelming joy and celebration during Sukkot culminating in the wonder of Simchat Torah. We end the cycle of reading the five books of Moses and begin again on this holiday of rejoicing in our Sefer Torah, our Tree of Life.
As we read the last verses of Deuteronomy and re-roll the scroll to the opening verses of Genesis we see the entire Torah, the entire story of our people pass before our eyes. In these moments, as history rewinds, our rejoicing deepens and as we know that ahead lays before us this unfolding story once again. Once again, to be studied, read, chanted and savored. Our story, the Jewish people’s story once again to be lived week in and week out.
The fact that we can begin again has great meaning. We have gone through the process of purification from our sins. We have celebrated the overflowing bounty that God grants to us. Then and only then we can start over—renewed and refreshed and ready to read of our beginnings. Thus on Shabbat Bereshit when we read the accounts of the creation of the cosmos and humanity our own hope overflows. For in the ensuing weeks we have been re-created in the image of God just as we read about in Genesis. “And God created human being in God’s image, male and female in the image of God, did God create them. (Gen1:27).
And so we have been remade, fashioned again in the ongoing creation that is our human saga.
So too the story of Genesis acknowledges our human frailties. Soon again the story shows our ability to be obstinate and stiff necked as we human beings transgress against God and our fellow human beings. Here we have just atoned for our sins on Yom Kippur and the story of our Torah reminds us that temptation is at every turn. That temptation is made evident in these stories. It certainly was for Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden as they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They were expelled for their violation of God’s command. And for their son Cain who murdered his brother.
Can we read these stories in Genesis and not recall that just a few days ago we resolved to throw off the burdens of our sins? Can we not recall that we just confessed to God and resolved to God and our fellow human beings to be stronger and wiser when confronted the next time around?
These stories are our next time around.
We are reading them in this new yearly cycle. Their message should be clearer to us having just gone through our own purging of our sins.
And so the stories of Genesis reach out to us to remind us to stick to the path we vowed on Yom Kippur—to live a life filled with mitzvot, free from sin, free from fear and full of faith. As we begin the Torah stories again on this Shabbat may we remember our vow and be inspired to live holy lives.
Posted by Lee at October 24, 2005 09:42 AM
