D’var Torah for Bereshit (Genesis)
Delivered to Congregation Dor Hadash on Rosh Hashanah Morning

by Barbara Carr

What a gift it is to be engaged in Torah study with you during these Days of Awe – to find new meaning in the Creation saga while still paying heed that today we are also challenged with the task of confronting our selves and our souls… We’re reading texts designed to remind us that we are inevitably flawed human beings with enormous potential, who have once again, fallen short of perfection… Yet we try… willingly, even longingly, we try… We want with every part of our beings to be able to look back over the past year and say to ourselves, as we read again and again in today’s portion… “It was good…” or even… “It was very good…” What a powerful process we have to undergo in order to get to that moment… when we are exposed and honest and able to stand before God or whatever Power it is that draws us to this sacred time, and say -  “We have fallen short of the mark… but listen, listen to what we have done to repair that …” 

The Creation story, our very first story in the Torah, doesn’t seem to give us a lot to wrestle with on this day that demands so much of us.  This appears to be a story for children.  This appears to be an “explainer”.  This appears to be the quick and easy resolution of the question, “How did this all begin?”  It’s a beautiful and poetic reading with wonderful imagery, and it gives us, beyond the simple explaining, the underpinnings for Shabbat and our crazy twenty-four hour day that begins at sundown, and even court cases that keep some amused and many angry.  There’s a lot of power in this children’s story.

Later on in the portion of course, we’ll get the introduction of temptation and seduction and free will, as humans get involved and stir things up, as we always seem to do… But these chapters, which we read today, are simply the story of the first seven days before Adam and Eve have a chance to really get going.  We’re just concerned, this morning, with the Creation… so bear with me – understand that much is symbolic – and no, I don’t think the story is literally true, but I do think it’s full of truth.

The easy answer to the question of why this is our chosen Torah reading is that today is the supposed birthday of the world and the Creation story is its birth.  But as a Reconstructionist and progressive thinker I balk at that explanation.  There must be more.  So I look to this holy day, in it’s fullest meaning, to try and help us understand why this story, which we know so well, is the first piece of Torah study we encounter as our Days of Atonement and reflection begin. 

When God, that Source of Strength that brings us to Holy Awareness, creates the heavens and the earth on the first day, you’ll see written in our English translation that the earth was in a state of  “waste and wildness” and “the breath of God was hovering upon the water’s face,” separate and apart from the chaos that was to become the world we know. 

I sometimes think that we all enter into this season feeling that chaos ourselves.  I know that when I start thinking about how to cleanse my soul during this holy time, and start to meditate on my past year, there is a sense of waste and wildness in me, as well.  Too many things have been left undone – too many people ignored – too many words unspoken or spoken too hastily – actions taken that shouldn’t have been or should have been.  My self often feels fragmented and edgy.  I need to be reintegrated – recreated – made whole again.  I need to feel “the breath of God” to help me feel centered. 

So in my reading I can find, symbolically, a powerful connection to this creation or re-creation story.  My waste and wildness, our waste and wildness, does need to be reformed and made whole – and we cannot do it alone without the added support of the Breath of God – which comes to us in the prayer and return that we feel during these Days of Awe. 

And as we continue studying we can see that when God creates human beings on the sixth day, there is even more for us to learn that is relevant for this holy season.  There is a clear path offered by God that helps us focus our teshuvah, if we are only willing to suspend our twenty-first century skepticism and dive once more into the beauty and depth of Torah study.

The most important lesson, of course, is that we have been created in God’s image, in God’s likeness, which means simply that we have the capacity to strive towards godliness.  Perhaps, if we hadn’t gotten thrown out of the Garden of Eden we would have more easily achieved that goal, but the goal is still there.   

Godliness, for me, means to have the capacity to understand our responsibilities for the world beyond our own needs – to understand that we may get nothing back for our positive behavior – to understand that often our hearts will break as we watch the world misbehave, but we can’t give up – to give as much as we can without strings attached – and to model the behavior that we expect of others.   God falls short in the Torah on occasion and so do we… but God also pulls it together and has the capacity for continued renewal… and so do we.

God also gives us an assignment on the sixth day.  God puts us in charge of the world that has been created.  We’re God’s partners in this task.  There are wonderful children’s books on this topic and children understand it much better than adults do.  Being God’s partner is a task we’ve failed at again and again but our partner has stuck with us.   I’m not sure the brilliant writers of Torah would have set things up this way if they could have foreseen the splitting of the atom or global warming or cloning or even oil drilling. Our technology continually expands beyond our ethical understanding, and that increases our responsibility to the partnership a thousand fold.  We owe our partner a lot of apologies these days.  That’s part of what we’re here for today.

God also tells Adam and Eve to be responsible for the earth and all it contains, which means caring for each other as well.  So not only are we to be thinking about our internal waste and wildness but also external waste and wildness of all kinds, that we have allowed to go on around us.  There are people in need and to act in a godly way means we must lessen their burdens.  By this I don’t just mean the people in the Sudan or the people along the Gulf Coast – I also mean the people we love who may have needs we’re not hearing or sensing.  We must search our hearts and souls to make sure we’re helping to bring their waste and wildness to a calmer place, especially if we may be the cause of some of it.

That sixth day established a symbolic but eternal contract between humankind and God that says – I’ve given you this incredible world with all this opportunity – I’ve given you heart, soul, strength and mind.  I’ve given you free will and creativity and raw materials to create great cities and wondrous art and music.  I’ve created a natural canvas of mountains and oceans, lakes and meadows that will inspire you and offer you food and shelter.  I have given you a path by creating within you a vision of what Eden, perfect living, can be like.  I have given you an image of godliness.  You have the path, the story and the inspiration.  Now live this gift out in the world and live it fully.

That is the mark we are aiming for… the dream of Eden… the image of godliness… the reason we read Bereshit on these days of Awe…

Shanah Tovah…