Parashat Bereshit: The Light We Sow

We return to the beginning. To Bereshit. To the first creative words: Yehi or. Let there be light. 

In the Torah’s first account of Creation, God speaks these words into the darkness. But the Israeli poet Natan Zach, in his poem כשאלוהים אמר בפעם הראשונה — “When God First Said”— imagines something unexpected: perhaps God simply wanted to no longer be in the dark. God had not thought about the heavens, the trees that would fill with water, or the birds that would acquire wings and bodies. Much less had God imagined human beings, who would soon begin to think for themselves, no longer needing gods and even coming to believe themselves to be something less than gods.

Poetry invites us to consider something that goes beyond the act of creation itself: What happens when creation no longer belongs to the one who initiated it? What happens when those who are given the ability to create become, in turn, responsible for what they have created?

Perhaps this is one of the fundamental questions of Bereshit. God creates the world, but God does not live our lives for us. We are given an existence we did not choose, a history that began before we were born, and a reality in which we nevertheless have the power to make a difference. From that moment on, what we do with what we have been given will also help determine the kind of world those who come after us will inhabit.

There is a word that runs through the Torah’s second account of Creation, one we often read too quickly: adamah, the earth.

“Vayitzer Adonai Elohim et ha-adam, afar min ha-adamah” — “Then the Lord God formed the human being from the dust of the ground” (Genesis 2:7). The relationship between adam, the human being, and adamah, the earth, is embedded in their very names. Human beings take their name from the very substance from which they are made.

But the Torah establishes an even deeper connection when it tells us that there was no human being to work the ground (Genesis 2:5). Shortly afterward, God places Adam in the garden leovdah uleshomrah — to work it and take care of it (Genesis 2:15).

The earth is our origin, but it is also our responsibility.

A midrash in Yalkut Shimoni takes this relationship in a remarkable direction. It tells us that God gathered dust from the four corners of the world to form Adam. Why gather it from everywhere? So that no land could claim that a human being was a stranger to it when the time came to return to the earth.

In this image, the human body carries a geography far greater than any border. We come from the earth, and the earth does not belong exclusively to those who draw its boundaries or claim it as their own. There is something in our very origins that reminds us of our shared humanity.

Could we learn to see one another this way today, even when our histories, convictions, wounds, and sorrows divide us?

This question becomes particularly urgent in times when violence seeks justification, hatred finds its voice, and memory risks becoming selective. We can remember our own suffering deeply while becoming incapable of recognizing the suffering of others. We can demand light for ourselves while accepting, without question, the darkness that engulfs others.

But the light of Bereshit is not private property. And recognizing the humanity of another person does not mean erasing differences, confusing responsibilities, or forgetting our wounds. It means understanding that pain, even when it is legitimate and profound, should not make us indifferent to the pain of others.

Memory is indispensable. As the Jewish people, we know this and embody it deeply. Memory allows us to know who we are, understand where we come from, and recognize what must never happen again. But we must also ask ourselves what we do with our memory. Do we turn it into a source of responsibility, or do we allow it to become a boundary that prevents us from seeing those on the other side?

Sometimes, reaching out a hand does not solve anything. It does not bring back the dead, erase trauma, or repair an injustice on its own. But it can keep pain from becoming loneliness, and prevent memory from cutting us off from every possibility of encounter. This is precisely what the concept of a minyan is about: being present with one another and connected to the world around us, even when we might sometimes prefer not to be.

The Torah does not promise that we will be able to eliminate the darkness in our existence. It reminds us, however, that we have both the ability and the responsibility to kindle a light.

And here we find another teaching in Bereshit that completes this idea.

When God commands the earth to produce vegetation, the Torah tells us:

“Tadshe haaretz deshe, esev mazria zera” — “Let the earth bring forth vegetation: plants yielding seed” (Genesis 1:11).

The earth receives a seed and brings forth something that does not yet exist before our eyes. This ability to transform something small into something new lies at the heart of its fertility. But it also carries a warning: the earth makes grow whatever it receives.

A grain of wheat can become food. A word can become a memory; a teaching can endure long after the person who shared it is gone. An act of solidarity can inspire other acts. A just decision can open paths that once seemed impossible.

But a word of contempt can also spread. Humiliation can be passed down. Suspicion can take root in a community, and violence can grow to proportions no one could have imagined at the outset.

Seeds do not always reveal their fruits right away. Some remain hidden for a long time. And when they finally emerge, we may have forgotten who planted them.

There are generations that reap what others sowed long before them. They inherit prejudice, hatred, and division, just as they can inherit teachings, values, and traditions that enable them to build something better. That is why our responsibility does not end with the earth we receive. It also lies in what we sow into it.

Every word, every decision, and every action plays a part in shaping the world we will leave behind. Even when we think we are doing nothing, our indifference can allow others to keep sowing in our name.

Bereshit reminds us that we are neither the absolute owners of Creation nor mere spectators of it. We inherit a world we did not make, and at the same time, we are given the opportunity to transform it.

The question is no longer only where we come from, but also what we are making grow.

What seeds do we plant in our families, in our communities, and in the society we share? What do we teach through our words, and what do we pass on, even unintentionally, through our actions? What will those who come after us find: the fruits of our responsibility or the consequences of our indifference?

We return to Bereshit every year because the beginning is never truly over. Every generation inherits a world and takes part, through its words and actions, in shaping the world yet to come.

Our responsibility is to ensure that the earth we inherit is not condemned to reproduce everything we have inherited from the past, but can also bear the fruit of what we are still called upon to create.

Bereshit begins again.

The words that call forth light are spoken once more.

And once again, we have the opportunity to decide what we will do with that light.

Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Gustavo Geier