When God began to create heaven and earth - the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water - God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day and the darkness God called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, a first day. [Gen. 1:1-5, New JPS Tanakh]
In distinction from our ahistorical ancestors, we believe that things change, that there is an arc of history, perhaps moving forward in knowledge and civilization. If we take that backwards, there must have been a starting point. Cosmologists believe that the universe began with a “big bang” - that there was nothing and then there was something. Our Jewish understanding has several versions of how it all came to be - two of them prominently placed at the beginning of our sacred text, the Torah. The first version posits an orderly creation - six days with a development from nothingness to the world that we have received.
At the beginning, all was potential. That which was to change things from nothing to something, the Creator we refer to as God, waited and considered in that potentiality: What would be and how should that existence be created? The first thing was to get things moving to create time, and thus: a first day. Day and night are marked by darkness and light, so God created light - and by creating light, defined darkness as its opposite.
We often define ourselves by our creations - our work, our family, the home(s) that we have owned or made our own. Some of us create more tangibly with visible objects. We also create with words - spoken or written. The way that we treat those around us is a creates the world that we live in; the environment that we inhabit. Judaism challenges us to imagine each new year as a unique creation. It is colored by the year that has come before, by who we have been up until that point. Yet, the High HolyDays tell us that we are not solely defined by what we have done - that we can resolve to be different, once we have made healing for what we have done. To say goodbye to our old selves, or at least the parts that we want to leave behind, we are instructed to take a self-inventory, and to make right for others the wrongs that we have done. Then, without baggage, we can imagine who we would be in the new year.
If we do it right, the idea of the new year can strike us like the light of creation - illuminating the path forward. Once we have our light, we can define darkness - that which we would rather not do. Only once we have taken the decision to move forward, can we understand where we should and should not tread.
In the end, if the path is well imagined, we are inspired to travel upon it. Then, just as God said at the end of the first day, it will be good - good for us, good for others, good for the world. Let us resolve in this new year to pause, to consider what we are creating, to prepare ourselves for that new world, and, illuminated by the light of purpose, do our best to do good.
Shanah tovah,
Rabbi Abraham
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