- Clergy
- Shabbat
When do you stop saying, “Shanah Tovah”? This is a question that clergy are commonly asked around this time of the Jewish year. The answer is, today. This very Friday finally concludes the four week long holiday period called “the Chagim, the Holidays.” We move swiftly from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur to Sukkot to, finally, Simchat Torah. As much as we enjoyed the fun, it’s time for a breather and for the commencement of this new year.
Simchat Torah comes to a close as the sun goes down tonight, leading us straight into Shabbat and the first portion of the Torah, Bereshit. Having ended the Torah just last week, we immediately roll it back to the beginning and start again. We come back to these ancient stories that have been told an infinite number of times, but each year we are different people with different perspectives who hear the stories differently. When we restart the new year, we also restart Torah and our exploration of it as well.
The name of the portion comes from the opening word of the portion, the opening word of the entire Torah. Bereshit means “In the beginning,” and the portion tells the story of God’s creation of the universe. Ever curious of hidden meanings and insights, the early rabbis asked this question in their commentaries centuries ago: If we are starting at the very beginning, why does the first word of the Torah begin with “bet,” the second letter in the Hebrew alphabet? Wouldn’t it make more sense to begin with “aleph,” the first letter instead? Many answers are offered, but my favorite explains that the sound of the bet in BE-reshit explodes out of the mouth. To form the sound, we start with closed lips that then blow out the noise, just as God started with nothing and creatively exploded the universe into being. Though aleph is the first letter, like the English equivalent “A,” it is an open vowel that does not create a strong sound, and creation in the beginning needs more umph than that.
This explosive sound that begins Torah reminds us of the power of the creation of Bereshit and the new year. We do not enter the new year, with our new convictions, resolutions, and insights, softly. We want to enter into it with a bang. We gather all that we have learned and discovered from the last cycle through this ancient scroll and we burst into this next chapter of our journey as human beings. We have spent the last four weeks preparing to begin the new year, gearing ourselves up for the changes and opportunities that we hope to create. With Bereshit, we finally get started and move forward into the next cycle.
As we burst into the new year, may it be a time of renewal, renewed perspective, and unfolding creativity.
Shabbat Shalom and, one last time, Shanah Tovah.
Rabbi Hannah Elkin