"Breisheet barah Adonai et hashamayim v'et ha-aretz - In the beginning, God created heaven and earth..."
So opens this week's Torah portion as we turn back to the book of Genesis and begin reading anew the biblical account of creation of the world. No sooner do we end the weeks of the many fall holidays that we also begin something new. Yet, we don't even wait until Shabbat to begin the reading anew. Even as we celebrate the last of the fall holidays, Simchat Torah, we blend the reading of the last portion of the Torah with the beginning of the reading of the first portion of the Torah. As one cycle ends, another begins.
Kol Hatchalot kashot. Beginnings, as Midrash Mechilta teaches, are hard. For any new endeavor, be it a new year or a person's life, the powerful internal and external forces of resistance are present and active, sometimes impeding our ability to move forward, to begin that which lies in front of us.
Think about the parent who takes their child to their first day of school. Are they excited? Yes! But, there are also tears and there is fear and there is trepidation - on the part of the parent and the child; or, how about the experience of leaving an old job and starting a new one? It can be so hard to overcome the complacency and apprehension to take the steps to move to a position whose potential seems greater and whose stability is sounder. How much more challenging is it when it also means moving to a new city, a new community? Consider, in a similar way, the bereaved who faces obstacles in readjusting to a world in which a loved one is physically absent. Or, how about the beginning of a new semester of school, where there may be an initial burst of energy, but shortly the exuberance wanes as exhaustion and overwhelm sets in. Often, as we spring towards a new first, it's not "the beginning" at all but actually "the end" that is our obstacle. As we say good-bye to something, we mourn the loss, the lack, the change - aware as we are that we are losing something important and meaningful. Endings are hard; beginnings, therefore, sometimes even harder.
Imagine the world's beginning. On the one hand, God speaks and creation comes into being. Yet, the world, says the Torah, was created out of tohu vavohu - complete and utter chaos. Out of a deep abyss and void, the world came into being. Easy? Perhaps in Divine terms; not so much in human terms.
So, why do we find so much focus put on new beginnings? Why mark such moments when they are accompanied by loss and endings?
Sitting in shul on Simchat Torah morning, I posed these questions to my friends Marci and Roberta. Each of us acknowledged how important it felt to be in shul as the end of Torah was read and as the beginning of the Torah followed. So, I asked them, why do you suppose it is so important to us to be here? Why do you suppose we find so special this moment of ending and beginning?
As we sat pondering beginnings, we commented on how beginnings are really about transition; how we need ways to mark the progress of our lives. Perhaps said better by Robert Frost, in his work "In the Home Stretch": "You're searching, Joe, for things that don't exist; I mean beginnings. Ends and beginnings -- there are no such things. There are only middles." We are constantly in transition and beginnings are not so new, but are about evolving from one thing to another.
We also spoke of another understanding of new beginnings. In this week of Bereshit, of newness and of creation, we are reminded that each new beginning is itself a reflection of the original Beginning. As we pray each morning in the blessings of the Shema, God is hamechadesh b'tuvo b'chol yom tamid ma'aseh b'reishit, the One who, in goodness, renews the works of Creation each and every day.
Through God and in our experience of God's world, each day is for us a true Bereshit - a beginning; a journey whose new lessons are Torah to us, and whose wisdom teaches us abiding lessons. Sure, the loss of an ending can be hard, but the start of a new life, the opening of a new door, the initiation of a new project or a new day reminds us that, in the end, hope and optimism shine brighter. When we muster the courage and fortitude to take the first step, miraculous things happen and a whole new world opens before us. Renewal is in our grasp, and we look to the future with the knowledge that we can indeed build on our past, and make tomorrow even brighter. What a great message to take with us from the High Holiday period - we don't have to wait a whole year to experience newness, to return, to look toward the future.
Approaching each of life's experience with the possibility for transformation is certainly not simple. Indeed, kol hatchalot kashot - and perhaps a slight different interpretation of the word kashot is in order - all beginnings are complex. But, I think, we are up to the task and can indeed look to this Shabbat, this week, this life, this experience, as a new beginning and an opportunity to grow.
Shabbat shalom