Bereshit

Weekly Wisdom - Parashat Bereshit
by Zac Newman, Program Director at Or HaLev

Bereshit. We have arrived again at the first portion in the whole Torah. The first word in the whole Torah. Which, as Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi points out, because it is vocalized Bereshit rather than Ba-reshit, means "in a beginning" - not "in the beginning" as it is usually translated.

It's one beginning among others. This builds on the established thread in our tradition (e.g. Bereishit Rabbah 1:10 and 3:7, Zohar I:15a) that there is something which comes before the beginning which is written about in the Torah.

Isn't that true for all the beginnings we experience, too - that there is always something which comes before? And isn't it also true that in our lives, too, there are multiple beginnings? Countless ones, really: the beginning of each week, each day, each activity, each moment.

What's it like for you to bring awareness to being at a beginning? It may be daunting, uncertain, weighty. It may be fresh, hopeful, new.

Can you notice that this new beginning, like all the others we know of, already has so much that comes before it? And, at the same time, can you find the newness of this beginning, too? Can you sense yourself poised between what has been - the fullness and complexity and mystery of that - and what is emerging now - the freshness and brightness and mystery of this?

Can you linger in this poise between past and future tense? 

It's one way we can taste the richness of this present moment: utterly unique in its particulars, and also held in the timeless embrace of before and after, which is the eternal beginning anew. 

Shabbat Shalom.