Bereishit 5783
Can we see the bigger picture?
Reflection by Or HaLev Community Manager
Carrie Watkins
"We have a phrase in English, `missing the forest for the trees,` for when we get so caught up in little details, that we forget about the bigger picture, the whole forest. This week’s parsha might have adjusted the metaphor to something like `missing the tree for the fruit.`
Parshat Bereshit recounts the creation of trees in a most curious way. God creates the world through words, ה. Hashem says, ‘Let the earth sprout vegetation: seed-bearing plants, fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it. And it was so. ’ (1:11). Except that it was not quite so. The next line says, `The earth brought forth vegetation: seed-bearing plants of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it.` The commentator Rashi points out that while God had asked for `fruit trees bearing fruit,` what the earth actually sprouted forth was `trees bearing fruit.` Did the earth disobey The Creator?
Rav Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Israel, in his Lights of Teshuva (6:7), shares based on a midrash that indeed, fruit trees were supposed to be made of the fruit they also sprouted. They weren’t supposed to be a means to fruit; They were supposed to be the fruit itself. This, says Rav Kook, is the first sin of the earth. Since the beginning of time, the earth too has been susceptible to missing the forest for the trees. Divorcing the ends from the means, and getting lost in the banalities of the day to day, is an inevitable pitfall of being a being in the physical world.
It is through teshuva, says Rav Kook, that we can return to finding the fruit in the day-to-day. As we move from this season of teshuva holidays to the “grind” of ordinary life, this teaching offers us an opportunity for practice. How can we keep finding the fruits in the midst of our ongoing processes?
Wishing you a week of finding presence and beauty in routine and the peace in the means."