Rebecca Galin – Senior Sermon (RS ’25)

Oct 22, 2024 By JTS Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Bereishit

Rebecca Galin’s Senior Sermon on Bereishit

God’s Partners in Torah

Oct 25, 2024 By Robert Harris | Commentary | Bereishit

The ancient rabbinic Sages taught that the people of Israel must consider themselves, שותפיו של הקדוש ברוך הוא במעשה בראשית “God’s partner in the work of creation” (BT, Shabbat 119b and elsewhere). Often overlooked is that reading the Torah’s opening (בראשית ברא אלהים…, which I am deliberatively leaving untranslated for now) demands a similar type of partnership. The reason for this is that the opening of the Torah contains impenetrably difficult syntax. Let us consider the very first verse:  בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ. If we were to translate this verse literally, and absolutely retaining the order of the words, we would understand it along these lines: “In the beginning of, he-created God (did), heavens and earth . . . ” This is a far cry from the affecting cadence of the majestic King James Bible’s translation, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” The question is, given the difficult syntax, what does this verse “actually” mean? 

An Anthology of Beginnings

Oct 13, 2023 By Benjamin D. Sommer | Commentary | Bereishit

The Torah seems to begin twice, in a way not paralleled by any other creation narrative from the ancient Near East. It uses the conventions of ancient literature in a new way. By beginning twice, the Torah announces what sort of a work it intends to be: it is less a book than an anthology, a compendium of numerous viewpoints and competing teachings.

The World of Creation in Each of Us

Oct 21, 2022 By Israel Gordan | Commentary | Bereishit

One of the most well-known, and controversial, passages in the Torah comes after God creates man and woman: “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea the birds of the sky, and all living things that creep on earth’” (Gen. 1:28).

Is the World a Mirror?

Oct 1, 2021 By Dianne Cohler-Esses | Commentary | Bereishit

The God of the Torah is driven by loneliness, by a desire to be in relationship with humanity and to God’s chosen people, Israel. As Abraham Joshua Heschel says (quoted by Michael Lerner in his book Jewish Renewal), “God’s dream is not to be alone, but to have humankind as a partner in the drama of continuous creation” (vi). Out of a great loneliness God emerges from royal solitude to create a world and within it humanity as a partner for God.

Beginning, Rebuilding

Oct 16, 2020 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Bereishit

Like millions of American children in the 1970s, I tuned in weekly to ABC’s Wide World of Sports. The opening sequence showed skiers gracefully racing down a mountain, and then spectacularly wiping out while the narrator promised viewers “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” Something tragic and true was contained in this message. The possibility of calamity makes moments of triumph precious and worth pursuing.

Don’t Wait Until Next Week

Oct 25, 2019 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary | Bereishit

Authored together with Karenna Gore, Director, Center for Earth Ethics, Union Theological Seminary

The Earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world and all its inhabitants. God founded it upon the oceans and set it on the rivers. (Psalm 24:1-2)

As the Jewish community once more begins its annual reading of the Torah, and as we recount the grandeur of God’s creation, we focus on God’s charge to newly created humanity: “The Lord God took Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden, to serve and protect it.” (Gen. 2:15, authors’ translations).

Here We Go Again!

Oct 5, 2018 By Stephen P. Garfinkel | Commentary | Bereishit

What?! Starting Genesis again? We read it last fall. And we read it the year before that, and the year before that. How many times do we need to hear, “In the beginning of God’s creating the heavens and the earth” (or “When God began to create . . .,” or the even better known, but less accurate, translation, “In the beginning, God created heaven and earth . . .”)? Really, don’t we already know that the first chapter of the Torah announces to all readers and listeners that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day?