Bereshit: Starting a New Chapter

Bereshit: Starting a New Chapter
By Rabbi Angela Buchdahl

Indeed the last 20 living hostages have been restored to Israel, and it feels like a surreal, miraculous, dream –I didn’t think it would happen. Like so many of you, I was glued to my screen watching tearful, joyful, emotional family reunions. Hearing primal screams from families seeing their loved ones again, as if they had returned from the dead – because in a sense, they had. It was amazing to see the faces of hostages who have become familiar to us over these last two years, like Ziv and Gali Berman, twin brothers, separated for 2 years, who - once reunited – donned Maccabi Tel Aviv jerseys and waved out the window of their van to the throngs welcoming them home. And Alon Ohel –whose family decided that they would mark Simchat Torah as another birthday, since this was the day their son was reborn. Or Avinatan Or, who —with his girlfriend Noa Argamani —were stolen from each other as the world watched Hamas motor them into tunnels – to finally be reunited with a tumbling hug and a sweet kiss.

And it must have been like a dream for the captives as well: the returning hostages were the only Israelis who didn’t experience October 8th. Guy Gilboa-Dalal, who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival, only learned upon his release that his brother Gal– who was also there– had survived the massacre. And Bar Kuperstein, whose father, Tal, was wheelchair bound after a car accident led to a stroke, saw his father rise from his wheelchair for the first time in 2 years, at their emotional reunion on Monday.

We know that not every reunion was joyful. 9 captives returned in body bags this week, and 19 more families still wait, desperately hoping that their deceased loved ones will return home for proper burial. And more than a thousand families this week marked the 2-year Hebrew yahrzeit for their loved ones killed on Simchat Torah, while hundreds more grieve soldiers and reservists killed while serving in this war.

There has been too much pain and too much death, in Israel and in Gaza over the last 2 years. We’ve gotten to a fragile ceasefire, the day we’ve all prayed for, but what happens now? It’s hard not to worry that the terms of the agreement will fall apart. That trust from each side is too broken to move forward. How do we even begin?

I suggest we can take a lesson from our liturgical calendar and texts. On Monday night, Simchat Torah, we finished the last verses of our Torah cycle, which ends with the death of Moses, and then immediately starts again, with Bereshit. A new beginning.

For 2 years we have been swirling in tohu vavohu, the Torah’s words for the “formlessness and void” that preceded creation. We too are coming out of a dark void – but this week marks an opportunity for a new beginning.

When God began creation, God first separated the light from the darkness. We can begin healing because we finally have brought the remaining living hostages out of the darkness and into the light. God then sets out creating a world of beauty, growth, and life. So too, in Israel and in Gaza, there must be rebuilding – of southern kibbutzim, of leveled cities, of torn up fields.

But in some ways the building feels like the easier part. The hardest part of creation – is dealing with human beings. This was true for God when God created us as well.

I want to share an amazing story about Creation from the Midrash, rabbinic commentary to the Torah. As God prepared to create Adam, his angels offered conflicting opinions. The angel “Kindness” said: You must create Adam because he will perform so many acts of kindness in the world. But Truth argued that man should NOT be created because: he is full of lies. Righteousness argued for Adam to be created because: he would perform acts of Tzedek and righteousness. But Peace argued: he cannot be created because he is full of discord.

What did God do? The midrash says that God took Truth, the ringleader of the bunch, and threw him to the ground. The other angels go apoplectic. How could God do this? They start debating God’s action among themselves, protesting, and engaging with one another. While they were distracted, God went ahead and formed Adam, then turned to the angels and asked: Why are you deliberating? I already created Humans. (Bereshit Rabba 8:4-5)

Isn’t this just the wildest, most amazing rabbinic legend? God refused to get bogged down in his angels’ bureaucracy. The angels, to their credit, wanted to make sure God fully understood that humans are capable of great cruelty, violence, and lies. In addition to being capable of extraordinary generosity, selflessness, heroism, kindness and love. We have certainly seen ALL of this, good and bad, in abundant display over the last 2 years. Because this is the reality of people – we are HUMAN.

The rabbis interpret this midrash as an expression of God’s immense, merciful love overriding everything else. God knows the best and the worst of what humans are capable of, but like a dreamer, God imagined our greatest possibilities.

The Creator thought: making these human beings, it’s still worth it. Sometimes you just have to throw Truth to the ground. And dream.

I have heard a lot of pundits and politicians express a lot of pessimism about the “day after” this ceasefire agreement. And the Truth is: there will be many bumps in the road. It’s going to be very, very difficult—if not impossible —to rebuild, to make peace, to start again. And the hardest part of all will be creating trust among peoples, who do not.

But we are dreamers. And we have already experienced miraculous things – like what we saw this week. Who would have thought that the captives would all return to Zion? As soon as the joy wears off, we can get bogged down in all the realities, get cynical, even despair.

But we cannot forget, we are a people of hope – hatikvah –THE Hope. Like God, we will call upon our better angels to make a new beginning for Israel out of this crisis. Because we always have. And because… we have no other option.

Our Psalm for Shabbat ends: Those who sow in tears will reap in joy. May it be so. And we will be ‘like dreamers’ once more.