Rabbi's Week in Review Blog

This week we complete the Book of Bereishit/Genesis.  It is the culmination of what is essentially the story of a single family.  It is a family that in modern parlance we would categorize as dysfunctional. Yet, as Ellen Davis describes this dynamic in her book, Opening Israel’s Scriptures, “G-d works repeatedly through badly damaged relationships, opening up new possibilities for the restoration of harmony among the creatures-even human beings.”

We often cite to our forebearers, the matriarchs and patriarchs, not as an example of living morally exemplary lives in all they did.  Rather, it is how they moved forward toward living a better life; ongoing acts of Teshuvah-turning away from what is wrong toward living better lives.

Two things that strike me as we leave Bereishit/Genesis behind for another year: one, is that their stories are our stories; that everyone has a story that deserves to be told, and needs to be listened to. All voices need to be respected and heard.

My second thought is that family, in the myriad of ways we come together as family, is the foundational piece of Jewish community, and the Jewish people.  That Bereishit/Genesis inevitably leads us into Shemot/Exodus where we first come together as a people.  After all, there is not a more popular holiday than Pesach.  It is where we gather at our Seders as family to discuss who we are, and what it all might mean.  It is where we expand our sense of family and community to include the stranger in our midst, and to use those lessons as we contribute to a stronger and more compassionate people, and do the work as G-d’s partners in creating a better world.