Bereishit 5785

This week we begin the Torah again and begin at the beginning with the story of the creation. God forming life and being out of chaos, tohu va vohu. God’s first act is a gathering of the chaos, separating it and making space for the world. God brings light, not as we understand light, but a light of discernment, goodness and compassion, a light of knowledge and wisdom, a light which will touch all creation with its inspiration and awe filled beauty. And then God gets down to the business of building creation: waters are separated and then gathered, sources of light are formed, seasons separated, light and darkness, earth and sky, waters and dry land. The process of creation seems to be one of dividing, a binary for everything. At first reading we can understand why our world is so fractured, there, in the heart of the creation story is separation. To exist, to make order, to impose structure on the tohu va vohu God must separate and divide. But perhaps there is more to this than first appears.

Rabbi Jamie Korngold in her article “The Holiness of Wild Places,” brings a different teaching and understanding which is deeply embedded in the tradition and the world. She begins with what scientists call “the Big Bang Theory” She writes: “physicists tell us that when the universe began there was singularity. One. In religious terms we might choose to call this God. But whatever you call this oneness so it was. One. And then something happened. Bang!…scientists don’t know what caused the big bang but suddenly that singularity,  that oneness, divided into many- from one to light! Heavens! Planets! Water! Air! Trees! Mountains! Fish! Plants! Creepy crawly things! Animals! You! Me!…in other words the one, echad, had become many.” (Seven Days Many Voices, Pg. 89) 

But as we understand from shema, everything is still one. Even though there was separation, we remain connected and linked through the deep oneness of the beginning. The sparks of that primordeal one-ness, now separated, reside in each one of us, in every living being, perhaps in all of the created universe itself. And it is this invisible yearning that pulls us together, which links us beyond our separation of place. We are not divided and separate, we are one, perhaps even the One. We all have sparks of that connection deep inside us, perhaps it is what we call soul, or perhaps it just is, flowing through us. Humans were brought forth from the earth, adam from adama, we are deeply embedded in nature, in the ground. But we are also water, we are sky, we are one. And more than ever, in a world which seeks to categorise us, to separate us, to pull us into binaries, we need to find within us that spark, that deep essence which reminds us of our connection. The ways, that from the very beginning, from the very essence of who we are, we are one. And from that place of being and knowing we walk in the world. Finding the links, seeing the holiness and sanctity in our world and in each other. 

As we enter this new Torah cycle, this beginning which is really a continuing, I pray that we can focus on the ways we are connected, and unite ourselves and our planet in harmony and peace.

Rabbi Jacqueline Ninio