Each year, our celebration of the High Holy Days, renews in me a sense of the orderly passing of time. A mild depression sets in when, at the end of Sukkot, I realize that I am now a year older yet no wiser. I still make many of the same mistakes today as I did last year. My grandchildren are growing, my beard is completely white, and I haven’t played any tennis or gone swimming in so long I cannot remember the last time I did these things! And, the fact that my birthday falls between Sukkot and Hanukkah, merely adds to the problem. How is it that when I was 17 I could not wait until my birthday? These days, I can wait!
For me, a certain satisfaction arises in reading the creation stories in Genesis during this period. I take comfort in knowing that God has created me for a purpose and equipped me to do that job. I smile when I read, “And God created the Adam in His own image; in the image of God He created it, male and female He created them. And God blessed them…” Now and then I need a little blessing. The cooler weather and the changing of the colors all conspire to remind me that this blessing was not just delivered long ago, but is renewed in me each and every day. Nevertheless, the Biblical account of creation is not just a story designed to make one feel good, nor is it prophecy, nor is it some great truth to be defended against the onslaughts of science. Rather, deep insights can be found in the narrative if one knows where to look.
The Rabbis of old scoured the text for meaning, and their efforts were rewarded, much to our benefit. For instance, in the fourth chapter of the Tractate Sanhedrin, we find a remarkable mishna. In part, it reads:
In the case of Cain, who slew his brother, it is written, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s bloods cry to me from the ground.” It does not use the singular ‘brother’s blood,’ but rather, the plural, ‘brother’s bloods,’ namely his blood and the blood of his posterity. Therefore, a single man was created in the world to teach us that if anyone causes a single soul to perish, Scripture counts it as if a whole world was made to perish. One who saves a life is credited with saving an entire world.
But the Rabbis were not content to learn only one lesson from so rich a text. The mishna continues:
But a single man was created for the sake of peace among the nations, that none may say to another, “My father was greater than your father.” It is also, thus, that heretics could not claim that there are many ruling powers in the Heavens. A single man was created to proclaim the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He.
And, in a closing burst of brilliance, the Rabbis teach:
A man stamps many coins with a single seal, and each is like the other. The Holy One, blessed be He has stamped each human with the seal of the first, yet no two are alike. Therefore, each person must say, “For my sake was the world created.”
God created a world just for me? You know, I kind of like that.
Shalom uverakha (peace and blessing),
Rabbi Ronald B. Kopelman
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