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Parashat Bereishit—The Governor’s Visit, and the Power of Creating when Times are Dark
I’ve often spoken of my belief that creativity is, in a sense, the first religious obligation. In the book of Deuteronomy, we are told to “walk in God’s ways”—and the first thing God does in the Torah is create. We aren’t supposed to leave the world the way we found it; God shaped the world through words, and we must do so as well. If we fail to contribute new ideas, new forms of kindness, new solutions to old problems, we aren’t just missing out on the joy of creativity; we are, in some sense, failing at our mission.
What happens if we aren’t creative? The Torah lends itself to three interpretations:
1) One traditional understanding of the book of Genesis is that God created the world out of nothingness, out of a void. Yesh me-ayin, as the rabbis say: creativity gives us something from nothing. Without creativity, the world is a blank.
2) The Torah also suggests a less pleasant context for creativity—that before the Creation, our world was tohu vavohu, utter chaos, a formless mess. Water, wind, earth, darkness—and an abyss. God’s creation was a reversal of entropy, the imposition of order. Without creativity, the world is a mess.
3) Rabbi Yitzhak takes this concept one step further in a midrash about God’s initial call to Abraham. God is compared to the owner of a multi-story building that was in flames, and Abraham to a passerby who remarks, “How could this tall building lack an owner?” In this midrash, God needed a partner to extinguish the fire; without human creativity to shape a different future, the world would be consumed by destructive flames.
When I’ve spoken at our Ner Tamid Gala or Back to School Night about the importance of creativity, I’ve imagined children in an art class painting on new canvases, or students in our future Makerspace inventing a solution to a defined, manageable problem. This vision of creativity is rooted in the first option above: a tabula rasa, a blank slate.
This week, though, as we confront the unspeakable crimes of Hamas, fueled by their unimaginable hatred, the world feels more like a burning building than a blank slate. In the face of this fire, we feel helpless. We can all imagine ourselves painting on a new canvas—but we feel powerless to extinguish the flames of a world consumed by hatred. It’s the same reaction we may have to the parable in the midrash: “What can one single passerby do about a burning high-rise building?” A military response is clearly part of the solution—Israel must try to rescue her hostages, and Hamas’s murderers cannot go unpunished. But fighting alone, however justified, won’t yield a different future. Something else is necessary as well: creativity that, like God’s, is rooted in the power of our words.
The most powerful moments of my week came when I watched our students creating posters to encourage us to give to the Federation's emergency fund, writing letters to elected officials, welcoming Israeli students to our community—and most of all, sending heartfelt letters to people in Israel. “You are not alone,” they wrote; “We are with you, we pray that you are safe, we remember you.” Their words created a world of support in a time of fear. Many grateful recipients replied within hours, some via email and some on video. As a sample, please see this video by Sophie Kruger, Schechter alumna and daughter of our current board chair. I urge you to have tissues at hand when you watch.
Normally, we’d be singing from the rooftops about a visit to Schechter by Governor Ned Lamont—and he might have come with a big camera crew, taking pictures with our students. This week, though, the governor came without the press. His goal wasn’t to be seen; it was to listen, to get a sense of what the Jewish community is going through, and how we are responding. He was kind, and spoke beautifully but briefly to our students. The power of his visit was not due to his prominence; it was due to the work of our students who were learning to reach out, to advocate, to make a difference. Today’s leader met tomorrow’s leaders—and creators.
Creativity is not just seen in inventions and paintings; it is also seen in our human ability to bring love and kindness to the bereft. This is how we walk in God’s ways—by bringing light to the darkness. In the days and weeks to come, I pray that we can continue to add to the light. Our children will lead the way.
Shabbat shalom,
Yoni
Rabbi Jonathan Berger
Head of School
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