After the intensity of the High Holy Days and the emotion of Sukkot and Simchat Torah, we open the Torah and read once more: Bereshit bara Elohim — “In the beginning, God created…”
There’s something tender about that moment. We roll the scroll back to the start, as if to say: even after everything, the story isn’t finished. We can still begin again.
This year, that question feels especially real. How do we begin again now — when our hostages have finally come home, yet twenty-four of them will never return alive? How do we hold both the joy of reunion and the ache of loss in the same heart? How do we start anew while still carrying the trauma of the past two years?
The Torah doesn’t begin with l ight; it begins with darkness. “The earth was unformed and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.” Only then does God say, “Let there be light.” Creation
begins not when chaos ends, but right in the middle of it.
That’s the challenge before us, too — to create new hope, new tenderness, new l ight, even as grief still lingers in the air. To speak l ight into darkness not because it’s gone, but because it hasn’t.
Bereshit isn’t just a story of creation; it’s a story of partnership. God leaves the world unfinished and asks humanity to tend and protect it — l’ovdah ul’shomrah. Our sacred task is to guard what
is fragile, to mend what’s broken, to rebuild trust and community after the world has been shattered.
Over these years, we have witnessed both unimaginable cruelty and extraordinary resilience. We prayed for the hostages every week: Bring them home. Now we give thanks for every life
restored, even as we mourn those who will never return.
To begin again doesn’t mean forgetting. It means remembering — and still choosing to build. It means letting gratitude soften our anger. It means honoring those who were lost by shaping a world
where such loss is less likely to repeat.
Even God, our tradition teaches, begins again after heartbreak. If the Divine can start anew, so can we.
May this year call us not only to believe in creation, but to become creators ourselves — of l ight, compassion, and hope. And may we, like God, find the courage to bring new life into a world still
trembling.
Ken yehi ratzon — may it be God’s will.
