Bereshit 5785
Why do we go back to the beginning?
Reflection by Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg:
"How often do you read a book more than once? Even a book that you really loved. Twice? Three times? Why? For pleasure? To learn something? To remember why you loved this story, or to discover a new interpretation that would help you in your life?
This week we are starting to read the Torah again. Again? Yes! We are starting at the beginning - In the beginning - Bereshit, and I am fascinated by the question: Why? Why do we have to go back to the beginning?
Clearly this year has not been like anything we can remember. Even now, however, we are still going back to the same old book. There must be something to learn, to enjoy, to ponder, to practice, to probe.
Perhaps we return to Bereshit to look more closely at our relationships with each other. In the first two chapters on Bereshit there are at least two stories of creation. Categories and separations abound in the text as they do in our lives and our minds. Yet, the very idea that there is more than one story of creation may indicate the limitation of our categories – be they about gender and sex, race, who is able bodied or able minded, who is a stranger and who a native, who is a Jew, etc.
We return to Genesis, to creation, to reexamine our categories, our judgments, our habits, the sense of comfort we have with what we thought we knew when we read Torah last year. Now is unique, as are we. A new year is an opportunity to deepen our curiosity. That is Bereshit. How often do we see beginnings? How often do we honor beginnings? How often do we notice the first breath that enters us when we wake up in the morning? Or the first thought that comes to mind? Or the first words we chose to utter to someone in our life? We return to awaken attention. We return to the beginning to see how swiftly things change and to realize how the beginning will soon no longer be the beginning.
As we enter each moment in the life we have been given, with all the challenges and delights flowing through us and around us and connecting us to all that is, was and will be, may we know the great solace, joy, and opportunity of beginning again."