Very Good

Bereshit

Gen. 1:1 - 6:8

 

Précis: The first Book of the Torah, Bereshit (Genesis, literally “in the beginning” or “When God began to create”) begins with the familiar story of creation. The world is created in six days and God rests on the seventh. The stories of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden are included, as is the story of Cain and Abel.

 

Gen. 1:3-4, 31“God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness… God saw everything that God had made, and indeed, it was very good.'” 

             

Rabbi Lea Mühlstein has offered an insight on these opening phrases of Bereshit (10 Minutes of Torah, 10/13/25). At its start, creation unfolds with purposes: order out of chaos is “good.” Light and the seas and the Earth itself are “good.” It is only at the end of ​creation (including humans) that God look​s at everything together and call​s it tov me’od (very​ good).

According to Rashi, the world is not “very” good until it contains humans with the power to choose and act. Later thinkers ​also stressed human responsibility. As Franz Rosenzweig taught in “The Star of Redemption,” creation is not a finished event, but rather an ongoing process. Creation does not end in Bereshit; it continues when human beings take responsibility for the world. In other words, God declares creation “very good” not because it is finished but because it has been entrusted to us.

This stewardship is eternal, and we emphasize it as we begin another year of the Torah cycle. Mühlstein challenges us: in this year, what light must we identify? How must we separate darkness from goodness? How will we affirm what is tov me’od for our communities, for the Jewish People, and for the world?

 

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Some Assembly Required

SHMINI ATZERET

Deut. 14:22-16:17

Num. 28:35-30:1

On Shmini Atzeret, we read about tithing, the remission of debts and sacrifices for this holiday. Shmini Atzeret is perhaps the least well-understood major Jewish holiday, and I would guess that only a minority of Jews know why it is celebrated. (Actually, traditional commentators are similarly at a loss to explain why we celebrate this holiday.)

                One meaning of “Atzeret” is “assembly,” from the Hebrew root meaning to gather. We have certainly gathered as a Jewish community during the past month for the High Holy Days and Sukkot, but we have yet another opportunity to draw together. Some of us do so by visiting the sukkot of friends and neighbors, others by attending services in shul. Nevertheless, we are together even while we as a people face unprecedented struggles.

Bill McKibben, a professor at Middlebury College, wrote in the New York Times on Monday that "an irrational response [to the challenges we face] would be to try to ignore [them]. Many folks are doing so.  However, this kind of avoidance will just get us in deeper trouble by ceding control to those who profit from it, so I hope we won’t choose quietism or escape."

                To me, the meaning of “assembly” is found in community. We have communities in our congregations, in Israel, and in the Jewish People around the world, regardless of the divisions we have among ourselves. Some are currently reluctant to publicly declare their membership in our community out of fear of antisemitism or “othering.” I take this holiday’s core message to be a reassuring statement of the unity of the Jewish People, and I rejoice in 3,000 years of assembly. Am Yisrael Chai b'yachad.