Starting Again, with hope

 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. 3:22 “And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever.”

 

Rabbi Dan Moskowitz (10 Minutes of Torah 10/20/19) points to this iconic scene of Adam and Eve leaving the Garden of Eden after eating of the forbidden fruit from the Tree of knowledge.

Before partaking of the fruit, they did not know that death existed. God has expelled them from the Garden, which we can easily see as a punishment. In fact, Moskovitz argues, it was a blessing. Why? If one has eternity, there is no urgency. Citing German existentialist Martin Heidegger, to truly live authentically we must confront death head-on. But even though we know that we are all going to die, we don’t always believe what we know to be true.

            Our tradition has a different take. Instead of denying death, we are instructed to live each day as if it is our last because we don’t know, it very well may be (BT, Shabbat 153a).

            Considering the freedom of the hostages from Gazan captivity this week, this thought has added poignancy. The hostages did not know whether they would survive another day, let alone reach freedom. We thank God for their release and offer our prayers for their refuah schleimah. We mourn with those who lost their loved ones to baseless hatred.

            As Moskowitz asks, where is the true paradise? Is it in the Garden of Eden where no one ever dies and time is limitless? Or is it East of Eden, outside the garden, where every moment is precious, every decision is life changing, and the fruit, sometimes bitter, compels us to appreciate the sweet? Above all we can seek the sweetness of peace.

A command to be joyous

Shabbat Chol Moed Sukkot

Ecclesiastes 1:10-11 “Is there anything of which it may be said, ‘See, this is new?’ It has already been in old times, which were before us.  There is no remembrance of former things; neither will there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come afterwards.”

            The traditional Torah reading for the Shabbat during Sukkot is Leviticus 22:26-23:41, verses which recapitulate the list of holidays making up the Jewish calendar, and verses in Exodus which recount Moses’ preparation of the second set of tablets. During the festival of Sukkot, we also read the Book of Ecclesiastes, when we are called upon to recognize the temporary nature of the abundance of the fall harvest.

                The most famous part of Ecclesiastes (at least to those of us of a certain age) is from Chapter 3, which includes the famous line “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven” made famous by the Pete Seeger song, “Turn, Turn, Turn” (recorded by the Byrds in 1965).

            I wanted to look at the verses from the Book cited above for another reason. Sukkot is a holiday during which we are commanded to be joyous. Yet don’t these lines appear to be depressing?

            It may be a frustrating truism, but the author of Ecclesiastes gives us wisdom: what happened in the past is soon forgotten. As one ages one recognizes that things younger generations see as revolutionary are nothing of the sort when measured against the yardstick of millennia.  Things may appear to be bleak at present, but those of us with memories know that we have survived and overcome even more perilous times.​ Perhaps the glimmer of hope for peace we now see before us can help us to obey the command to be joyous during Sukkot.