Parashat Bereshit – Beginning Again Out of Chaos

Botanists often tell us that the sequoias — those colossal trees that grow in California — are the longest-living species on earth. Some have reached two thousand years of age. It is humbling, almost overwhelming, to think that they were planted in the days of Rabbi Akiva and still breathe under the same sky. 

Yet, according to a fascinating and little-known midrash, the oldest living creature in the world is not a tree, but a bird called the Jol — or Maljás. Tradition tells that this winged being has lived for over five thousand seven hundred years, strong, healthy, and youthful, dwelling with all its offspring somewhere in the Gan Eden, the Eden Garden.

The midrash recounts that when Eve (Chava), tempted by the serpent, ate from the forbidden fruit, the Angel of Death began to move toward her. In despair, she shared the fruit with Adam so as not to face mortality alone. All the animals of the Garden followed their example — all except one.

The Maljás refused to partake. Then a heavenly voice proclaimed:

“The Maljás shall never know death; he and his offspring shall live forever in the Gan Eden.” (Bereshit Rabá 19, 5)

The Maljás stands for honesty amid corruption, integrity in the face of collective temptation. It is the image of the human soul choosing to remain faithful to God even when everyone else gives in to chaos.

I imagine that bird watching as the others were expelled from the Garden, feeling the solitude of one who chooses righteousness while the world chooses convenience, and wondering:

“Shall I stay with God and my principles, or follow the current into corruption?”

But it was already too late.

A flaming sword was placed at the entrance to Gan Eden. According to the Torah, to keep those outside from returning. But perhaps also — as the heart’s wisdom teaches — to keep the one who remained within, the righteous one, from being tempted to leave.

And so we arrive at Bereshit, the story we return to each year as we begin the Torah anew:

בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃ וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְה֑וֹם

“Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’aretz. Veha’aretz hayta tohu va’vohu, vechoshech al p’nei tehom…”

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep…”

The Torah reminds us that the world has an origin, a purpose, and a boundary. Chaos is not sovereign. Light can — and will — break through the darkness.

Bereshit is not only the story of creation; it is the story of hope — the sacred possibility of beginning again, even when everything seems lost.

The text says, “The earth was tohu va’vohu” — formless and void, covered by darkness and deep waters. Yet the spirit of God hovered over the waters.

Before there was light, there was chaos. Before there was order, there was desolation.

And still, God did not flee from the chaos — He faced it, named it, and out of it He brought forth goodness.

The prophet Isaiah used those same words — tohu va’vohu — to describe the destruction of Edom: a land laid waste, stripped of life.

Centuries later, Jeremiah used them to describe a people who had lost their wisdom and their moral compass:

“They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge… I looked at the earth, and behold, it was waste and void.”

In both cases, tohu va’vohu depicts not only a physical ruin, but a moral one — the disarray of the human soul and of society.

And here Bereshit ceases to be a tale of the past and becomes an ethical calling: we were created to repair the chaos. It is tiem to start taking responsibility of that possible task we have.

Not merely to survive it, but to order it, to heal it, to transform it.

Creation was not a one-time act of God; it is an ongoing human task.

Every act of kindness, every pursuit of justice, every effort to rebuild what was destroyed is another divine word spoken into the world — “Let there be light.”

We too have seen the tohu va’vohu of history.

Only two years ago, Simchat Torah found us engulfed in horror and darkness, unable to rejoice at the beginning of the cycle. Since then, we have been waiting for our own Bereshit — a dawn to restore meaning.

And now, that light begins to glimmer again. We repeat the words of Genesis with tears in our eyes:

Grateful for the hostages who have come home, for every embrace restored to life.

And yet, our hearts remain heavy, for nineteen bodies are still held by the hatred of Hamas.

Until they are all returned, creation remains unfinished.

I had taken off my yellow ribbon in the joy of seeing hostages return home. But joy blinded me for a moment — until I realized that as long as the bodies of the murdered remain unreturned, their families will keep imagining that their loved ones might still be alive, waiting in some dark tunnel to be traded for hundreds of other terrorist killers.

I will not remove the yellow ribbon, for the world cannot yet be tov — cannot yet be good — while there are brothers and sisters who have not come home.

Today, as on the world’s first day, we look once more upon chaos — desolation, emptiness, darkness.

But we also hear again that ancient voice: “Let there be light.”

And we discover that hope itself is a form of creation.

For every act of faith in life, every word that restores dignity, every embrace that heals fear — each is a new Bereshit.

There will be much to rebuild, to weep over, to understand.

But the people who learned to turn exile into prayer and pain into hope will rise once more — to write a new scroll,

the scroll of a people who refuse to surrender to chaos,

who choose instead to bring order with God’s partnership;

the scroll of a humanity that learns from the Maljás to be faithful to life;

the scroll of those who, even after the abyss, dare to say:

“Bereshit bara Elohim…”

Because — thank God — history can always begin again.

Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Gustavo Geier