Please join us in shul this Shabbat
This week we read the very first Torah portion in the Torah—parashat bereishit. The Torah begins at, well, the beginning, with the story of creation—one of the most impactful stories in the cannon of human literature. It is our account of how everything came to be. Yet, in a world of science, in a world in which we no longer look to biblical accounts to understand how we earth and everything in it got here, it is natural to wonder what message we can still take from our creation story.
When we read this story as a literary narrative, we can see that it communicates much more than an etiology of humanity and our environment. In this story, God creates the universe in seven days. In the early days, God creates the building blocks of life—water, air, and light. Soon, vegetation appears along with the more base animals. Not long after, God creates the more complex forms of life until, on the sixth day, God creates human beings. Interestingly, while the story certainly sees human beings as one of the central creations in this universe, the narrative does not come to a climax until the seventh day, the final day of creation.
This final, seventh day is the culmination of all of God’s work. The Torah tells us:
“The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array. On the seventh day God finished the work that had been undertaken, ceasing on the seventh day from doing any of the work. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy—having ceased on it from all the work of creation that God had done.”
On the seventh day, all of God’s work paid off. On the seventh day, God could enjoy the fruits of a week of hard labor. Instead of tying up any loose ends on this final day of creation, God rested. By resting on the seventh day, by creating Shabbat, God wove rest, wove Shabbat into the fabric of the universe.
Our world today requires so much of us. We must work hard to make ends meet. We are reachable by work, family, and friends twenty-four hours a day by email or phone. Like God in our creation story, we spend our days engaged in creation, working hard to ensure that we can live good and happy lives—and we should. Yet, Shabbat reminds us that there is a different kind of labor that we must engage in beyond our six days of creation. This is the labor of enjoyment, of quality time with loved ones, and of rest.
The climax of the story of creation, the message of this story, is that we, like God, must rest. We must carve out one-seventh of our time to spend reconnecting with ourselves, with family, with friends, and engaging in the labor of leisure.
This Shabbat, try to make an extra effort to spend time away from your phone, unplugged. Pull out a board game or a good book. Spend some time in the stillness of Shabbat.
Read more about this week's parasha here.
I wish you a gut shabbos!
-Rabbi Eitan Bloostein
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