Back to The Beginning, בראשית Bereishit

This Shabbat, the first of the Jewish Year after Rosh Hashanah and the whole slew of Jewish Holidays that followed, was Shabbat Bereishit, the Shabbat when we begin the entire annual cycle of reading the Torah, the first five books of the Bible anew.

In the synagogue this morning, as I began to read the Bible to myself, I kept thinking that I must know it all by now, but as I read, my mind saw different things. It's always like that. From year to year we change. We are not the same. There are all sorts of times and cycles...

self-portrait in a Jerusalem Park

self-portrait in a Jerusalem Park

Studying the weekly parsha, Torah Portion of the Week is a very popular learning activity among Jews. It can be done on all sorts of levels, from all different approaches. And like a chameleon, it takes on whatever is going on in the world.

And our Bible isn't written about perfect people. Even from the very beginning, there were sins, jealousy and murder.

As King Solomon wrote in Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, אין חדשת "Ein chadash..." "Nothing's new..." but it sure looks new if you look at it from a different angle....