Parashat Bereshit by Rabbi Martina Loreggian
Everyone who has been in a long-term relationship has a clear idea of what happens with time passing by. The first months, maybe couple of years for the lucky ones, are called honeymoon. Everything is exciting and new; our partner is the best we could have ever met. We want to know everything about them: stories from their childhood, about their family, what they like and what they dislike. Every and each date is exciting, and that period is full of first times: first time holding hands, first time kissing, first time going to the cinema or watching the sunset. But after a while what was new becomes a habit and we start to notice also some of the flaws that inevitably every person has. Some of these little flaws will make us smile, while others will be annoying, hopefully not intolerable. We learn that our beloved one likes tea just with milk, but no sugar please. That they have a particular way of reclining their head while focusing on a difficult task. We will start to recognize that sometimes they talk or move or walk like one of their parents. And then that they forget to put outside the bins every week or they don’t put the cap back on the toothpaste tube after they have brushed their teeth.
People who have been married for a very long time can tell you that they can have an argument with their spouse without them being in the same room. They know what they would reply, even think and maybe don’t say. So, we get the idea that we perfectly know the person with whom we lie down every night and wake up every morning. There is nothing more to discover. Yet, this bias can be the starting point for the end of a relationship. Because we all change and the person who is sharing their life with us is not, for sure, the same as one year ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago. Behind and beyond all the little habits we know so well, that makes us smile or angry, there is an entire world yet to discover. If only we could be more curious and open and caring: isn’t this the essence of love, in the end?
Here we are again: bereshit barah Elohim et hashamaim ve’et haaretz. How many times we have read the story of the creation? And not just that, but what comes next. Verse after verse, chapter after chapter, book after book. For some of us the Torah is new, and they just fell in love with our wonderful tradition, but for others their relationship with the Torah is probably the longest relationship of their life. Longer than their marriages, or longer than the relationship they have with their siblings or best friends, sometimes even parents. We start again from the book of Genesis, and we think that nothing new can happen because we know it almost by heart. We are looking forward to the parts that we love and which inspire us; and we would love to avoid the bits that we find difficult, distressing or uncomfortable. We love reading about Abraham waiting for guests outside his tent, or Jacob fighting with the mysterious messenger, or the long saga of Joseph, waiting for the happy ending. But then we have Abraham and Isaac asking their wives to pretend to be their sisters, and let’s not even talk about Leviticus, with all its lists of sacrifices and detailed rules around a Temple we don’t even have anymore…
Love for the Torah is like love in a marriage. We think we know everything about our Scripture like we think we know everything about our spouse, and in a way that’s comforting. Familiarity is one of the most powerful feelings we can experience, even when familiar things are unhealthy ones. But familiarity can kill curiosity, and with it, new discoveries. During this time of the year, while we start a new cycle of the Torah readings, we should think about what kind of relationship we want to have with our Scripture and Tradition. During the High Holidays we reflected on our relationships with God and other people.
Maybe Shabbat Bereshit is the right time to reflect on our love and relationship with the Torah. Are we willing to read it and study it anew like a book we never read? Are we open enough to find beyond the familiarity of its verses new meanings and inspiration?
‘Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead; inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.’ (Dt. 6:6-9). The words of the Shema instruct us to do with matters of Torah as we do with the most important relationships in our life. Keep them with us, night and day, have them as a priority in our thinking and in our actions, model them as an example for our children, bring the love that shape them into our houses and into larger society.
We should look in amazement at the person beside us every morning: hello! Who are you, well known yet mysterious person I am so lucky to share my life with? As well, we should open our Torah and say: what are you going to teach me today, my familiar and yet unknown book? Because as ‘Ben Bag Bag would say: turn it and turn it again, for all is in it; see through it; grow old and worn in it; do not budge from it, for there is nothing that works better than it.’ (Avot 5: 22)