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October 8, 1999/28 Tishri 5760, Vol. 52, No.6
In the beginning
Genesis creates sense of wonder
RABBI HARVEY J. FIELDS
Bereshit/Genesis 1:1-6:8
Then God began to create heaven and earth...
God said, "Let there be light ...
"Let there be an expanse in the midst of the water ...
"Let the earth sprout vegetation ...
"Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate day from night ...
"Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures ...
"Let the earth bring forth every kind of living creature ...
"See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth" ...
And God saw all creation and found it very good.
Genesis 1:1-31 |
A recent scene in Southern California remains a shocking surprise to those who got caught up in it. They talk about it as a "once-in-a-lifetime experience."
At the famed Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens in usually serene San Marino, near Los Angeles, more than 70,000 visitors waited in line for hours in the scorching sun, from Sunday, Aug. 1, through Wednesday, Aug. 4, to view the rare two-day blooming of the amorphophallus titanum. The crowd was among the largest ever recorded in the 71-year history of the library.
Why the swarm of visitors? Botanical buffs know that while the titanum is relatively common in its native Sumatra, it has bloomed only 11 times in the United States. Regarded as the largest flower in the world, it has also been called the "corpse flower" because of the rancid scent it emits to attract flies and dung beetles for the purpose of pollination. The plant stands nearly 6-feet tall, its bloom a cluster of tiny bright colorful flowers with a purplish, towering spear, called a spadix.
The flowers die within two days of blooming. When they die, the spadix sends forth a noxious, pungent stink. Imagine the scene: Thousands of people were battling traffic snarls, looking nearly endlessly for parking places, then walking miles to purchase $8.50 admission tickets, in order to wait up to three hours to walk by the largest and most putrid plant in the world.
"It's about being a part of something," Rosie Rodriguez told a reporter, "something positive."
Is that why the Torah begins with ma-aseh bereshit, the creation of the cosmos and our world, and not with the history of the Jewish people? Is being astonished by creation, even the creation of a "stinking" plant, essential for human existence? Is this the reason Jewish tradition prescribes that we begin our morning and evening prayers each day with the theme of creation, reciting Yotzer Or (Creator of Light) in the morning and Ma-ariv Aravim (Whose Word Brings on the Evening) in the afternoon? Is it all about being a part of something positive?'
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) penetrates the gauze that so often envelops our senses.
"There is no faith at first sight," he observes. "Faith is preceded by awe, by acts of amazement at things that we apprehend but cannot comprehend. ... We must learn how to see 'the miracles that are daily with us.' We must learn how to live in awe, in order to attain the insights of faith" (God in Search of Man, 1955, p.153).
The first words of the Torah plunge us into a universe saturated with God and bid us: "Look around. Engage your senses. Imitate God. Take in the wonder of it all."
"And God saw all creation and found it very good." Stinking plant and sweet rose? Yes. Life and death? Yes. Joys and sorrows? Yes. Defeats and successes? Yes. Suffering and healing? Yes.
We begin the Torah with Bereshit because we need to learn how to see the way God sees, and to find all of creation very astonishing and "very good."
Harvey J. Fields is the senior rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles and the author of A Torah Commentary for Our Times, UAHC Press, 1994. Torat Hayim is produced by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. Other commentaries are on the Internet at www.uahc.org/growth.
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