By Rabbi Dr Khazn Barbara Borts

After the Beginning

And there we all sat, we rabbis, poised to write our wise Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur sermons, anxiously waiting for the next news, something that could render what we were going to write redundant, something happening that might compel us to cast off what we had written, and start again.

Just now, as I was at the computer ready to share my insights, on the threshold of Sh’mini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, on the last day of teshuvah, Hoshana Rabbah, the hostages returned to Israel and the war in Gaza was paused. Two years to the actual Jewish date, we, too, could dance with more abandon and joy.

Bereishit:

In the beginning, God created the peoples of the earth and the land called Canaan.

On the 2^nd day, two peoples came to inhabit the one land, known as Israel/Palestine, sisters and brothers to each other, through their father, Abraham.

On the 3^rd day, each claimed God gave the land exclusively to them and began to foment violence, one against the other.

On the 4^th day, terrorists wrecked, murdered, raped, took hostages, and tore apart people’s lives in the part known as Israel, and Israel wreaked violent war and destruction on the part known as Palestine.

On the 5^th day, despair, death, no sign of an end, people gathering at a square to demand an end. The world in upheaval. Demonstrations for and against. Strange coalitions formed. Darkness threatened.

On the 6^th day, a ceasefire is produced. End of bombing, the return of loved ones.

And on the 7^th day, guns are silenced, hostages return, in delight, in weeping and songs of rejoicing, and prisoners return to families and friends with their cries and their sighs and their songs of joy. And a great breath of relief gushed up from the destroyed cities and barricaded villages of the lands Israel and Palestine. And there was rest.

But unease settles upon this vision. As of the end of Shmini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, the deceased hostages had not been released, Hamas recruits are patrolling the streets of Gaza, and Israel has shut a major artery for aid. Joy is tempered with caution and anxiety.

And thus it was in our parashah. The six days of creation ended with a seventh day of rest and renewal, but this story of creation was only ever a beginning, the first chapter in an ongoing tale of perfect harmony followed by cycles of the imperfection of discord. In much the same way as the wedding at which we celebrate the formal declarations of love and commitment of two people who are at the commencement of a new life, we know that after this ceremony is real life, during which a couple must work hard to renew that feeling that they had at that moment under the chuppah.

We know that the first idyllic chapters of the Torah were followed by the difficulties humans had in trying to live a righteous life with each other, and before we have even moved to our second parashah, we have had disobedience, banishment, fratricide, evil, which brought down upon the earth a deluge and another attempt at creation. We need not be surprised, for this is how we experience life, as it says in a midrash, “Anything created in the first six days, needs further actions, for example mustard seeds need sweetening, peas need sweetening, wheat needs grinding, even humans need fixing. [Bereishit Rabbah 7:6]

‘Even humans need fixing.’ We breathe in and celebrate the beauty of creation in our festivals and in our Shabbatot, but we know that after the days of rest and renewal, comes the harder effort, day after day, of keeping the tohu v’vohu, the chaos of undermining forces, at bay, allowing each day the beauty of the possibility of the world to blossom. We acknowledge that this is God’s task, when we thank God in our prayer, hamechadesh b’chol yom tamid ma’aseh bereishit, the One Who renews the work of creation day by day.

But this task belongs not just to God. We too are Gods partners. Rav Soloveichik wrote, “When God created the world, God provided an opportunity for humans to participate in the creation. The Creator, as it were, impaired reality in order that mortal people could repair its flaws and perfect it…[and] continue the act of creation. [i]

The joy we are witnessing, the return of the hostages, the ceasefire, this has created in us and in many in the world such hope and delight, and as we watch this unfold, our hearts are with those in Israel who got to hug a beloved family member. But this is tempered by the tears of those whose loved ones will return to them in a coffin. And by the sight of those Gazans returning to their homes to find nothing but rubble, not even a stray photograph of a grandparent.

We who are not living in Israel have a part to play. We send our love to our families in Israel. And we turn in love to the organisations that work on the ground in Israel and Palestine, to continue this act of creation, of a just and lasting peace for all the peoples of the area, one that guarantees safety and security, and which we can all finally gaze at and say, ‘v’hine tov m’od,’ this is very good.

[i] Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “Halakhic Man”. trans. by Lawrence Kaplan. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1983), p. 101

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