Holding On: Parashat B’reshit

handsTorah Sparks
Genesis 1.1–6.8

In three rapidly succeeding days we will be bringing this season of holidays to a close, concluding the annual cycle of reading of the Torah and we will start reading the Torah from the beginning all over again.

The holiday of Sukkot and Sh’mini Atzeret are meant to be especially joyous times. We apply the term “simchah” to both Sukkot and to Sh’mini Atzeret. The first is called “z’man simhatenu—the time of our joy (or  “rejoicing”),” while Sh’mini Atzeret includes the celebration of “Simhat Torah—the Joy (or “rejoicing”) of the Torah.

This emphasis on joy seems to fade away once we begin reading the Torah’s first chapters on Shabbat. The word for joy and happiness—“simhah”—is not found there. And some of the stories about the beginnings of human living are well known for being dark and challenging. Yet, the term “simhah” is explicitly applied to the story of Genesis by our tradition. It is found in one of the seven blessings recited to celebrate a wedding. We pray that God make these loving partners rejoice—“same`aht’samah”—just as God made Adam and Eve joyful in the Garden of Eden of yore.

The tradition is convinced that Adam and Eve knew real joy in the Garden, the joy of newlyweds. Yet, they were there for only a short time. Did they know joy afterwards? When we read their story we might ponder that we are their children, living in the very world into which they were painfully thrust. We do not know how they coped with their expulsion or their subsequent tragic losses. Yet we know that we, as their children, share the same conditions of life. How fortunate we are that we have merited to have just completed a long stretch of joyful celebration!

Our time of joy derives from the amazing human capacity to overcome suffering and to grasp happiness. And it equally derives from the gift of the Torah that gives us a way to direct and channel that capacity. The first couple was sent out of the Garden so that they would not reach out to take hold of the Tree of Life. Yet, when we celebrate the Joy of the Torah—Simhat Torah—we will dance and sing that the Torah is a Tree of Life for all who take hold of Her!  And when we recite the blessing for having read from the Torah we will thank God for the gift of Eternal Life that God has planted—not in the Garden of Eden—but in us.

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