Bereisheet
Genesis 1:1-6:8
I Samuel 20:18-42
Many years ago, I read the following passage in Abraham Joshua Heschel’s classic work, “God in Search of Man.” I continue to be astounded at how profound the statement is, and how apt a description of our own time.
“Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man’s attitude toward history and nature. One attitude is alien to his spirit: taking things for granted, regarding events as a natural course of things…He knows that there are laws that regulate the course of natural processes; he is aware of the regularity and pattern of things. However, such knowledge fails to mitigate his sense of perpetual surprise at the fact that there are facts at all. Looking at the world he would say, ‘This is the Lord’s doing, it is marvelous in our eyes’ (Psalms 118:23).”
Perhaps more than any other before us, our generation is dominated by an attitude of skepticism. Not only do we treasure our consciously rationalist view of the world. We greet every piece of news with suspicion, every presentation with doubt. We think of ourselves as too sophisticated to be surprised by anything. We have been everywhere, done everything. But the attitude of “been there, done that,” with which our age is so afflicted, is the antithesis of the life of the spirit.
Spiritual life is grounded in awe, a sense of continuously renewed surprise at the wonder of life. From this sense of “radical amazement” (Heschel’s beautiful phrase) flow the Jewish practices of reciting blessings over everyday experiences: eating a piece of bread or a peach, drinking a glass of water, smelling a lovely scent, seeing a rainbow or a person of striking appearance or of great wisdom, hearing good news or bad news, and more. Most fundamentally, we are to awaken each morning with the words Modeh/Modah ani (Thank you, God), on our lips, for we strive each day to renew our delight at the miraculousness of being alive at all. The hard part is remembering to slow down long enough to notice the wonder that surrounds us and pervades us.
Studying commentaries on Parashat Bereisheet, I found a set of images stunning enough to reawaken us to wonder. Rebbe Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev, in a commentary called the Kedushat Levi, comments on the tense of the verb in the first verse of Genesis: “In the beginning, God created heaven and earth.”
“The Blessed Creator created all. God is all, and God’s flow of goodness is unceasing. For in every moment God pours a flow of goodness into all creatures and all of creation…This is why we say [in the Shacharit service] ‘God fashions light and creates darkness,’ in the present tense, not ‘God fashioned light and created darkness.’ For God creates in every moment, pouring life force into every living thing…As it says [in the Shacharit service], ‘Every day, in God’s goodness, God renews the work of creation.'”
The rebbe audaciously takes issue with the use of the past tense in the phrase “God created heaven and earth.” For the siddur itself asks us to acknowledge again and again that the work of creation was not completed eons ago. Creation is continuously unfolding each day, each moment. Levi Yitzhak challenges us to take this teaching literally, to recognize that were it not for the ever-renewed gift of vitality that moves through us, we would not continue to be.
From this perspective, awakening each day is literally a gift. Everything that I encounter each day is new, for its existence has been given new life again today. Each person, each experience, each moment is brand new, a glorious gift. How, then, could I forget to be amazed?
May we carry forward the enlivening sense of new beginnings that was with us on Rosh Hashanah. And may this week’s retelling of the story of Creation awaken us to the wonders of re-creation unfolding in us and around us every day.