Parashat B’reshit (5780 – 2019)
Genesis 1:1 – 6:8
Our biological clocks generally give us a sense of a new beginning with the morning light, and, with darkness we sense the day’s end. But our tradition has reversed this order in its definition of when a day starts and when it concludes. Instead the day begins with the onset of darkness and ends with the waning of the light. We take this order from the Biblical refrain that ends the description of the creation of each day: “And it was evening, and it was morning, one day” and “the second day,” etc. (Gen. 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31)
Thus it turns out that our definition of the start and end of a day does not correspond to our bodies’ experience. Our usual association with evening is one of conclusion and even fatigue. (Even when we party all night long we are actually trying to defeat the darkness and overcome this sense of ending. No one thinks it is amazing to be able to party “all day long.”) But our tradition define our days differently.
Each day follows the trajectory of the mythic story of the Creation of the world. First there was “darkness upon the face of the deep,” (Gen. 1:2) and then “God said, ‘let there be light,’ and there was light.” (Gen. 1:3) Each day begins with a return to primordial darkness and then it moves into the goodness of light. Every day begins with a dark expanse of mystery and absence and then slowly turns to enveloping openness and energy. First there is silent potential and then there is active realization. (For more on this, see my sermon for Kol Nidrei, 2016) Each night is the start of a new day. Each day starts from nothingness and moves toward a new world to be created. Each new day makes a new world that points to another dimension, one of quiet and repose, of sleep and dreams.
This is palpably felt in Israel on Friday afternoons. The sun is still in the sky, but it is sloping to the West. The day is coming to a close. The light that still shines is a light that is restored to its original purity. Soon something new and special and precious, perhaps, even holy, will begin – Shabbat.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi David Greenstein
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image: “Sunset” by hrkaspar is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
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