Rabbi Talia Avnon-Benveniste, Director of HUC’s Israel Rabbinic Program, reads this week’s parsha, entirely changed by October 7, 2023. How could it be any other way, when on that very day, Simchat Torah, we were to start reading the Torah all over again? We were to begin anew with B’reishit?
She notes the many ways in which our world and our assumptions have been shattered since that day three years ago. Then, she writes:
We could read B’reishit as a story of creation.
But today, we read it as a story of restoration.
Judaism has never been interested in how the world came to be
(Even the story of the birth of the world, we read like lawyers.)
Not only what was created.
But what was promised.
Not only how the world began.
But the agreement on which it stands.
Indeed, B’reishit is a promise, a preview of what our world could be. To name just a few elements of B’reishit’s vision:
-God’s green earth is not just beautiful; it is holy, and it is God’s.
-Work and rest go hand in hand. Neither is complete without the other.
– Every one of us reflects the Divine. Every. Single. One.
-Companionship along the journey is sacred. It is not good for us to be alone.
-We human beings err, recover, grow, learn, do better, err and recover again. Every mistake is an opportunity to take responsibility.
May our journey through Torah be enlightening and inspiring. May these agreements, on which our world stands, bring healing and hope.