Bereshit
Genesis 1:1–6:8

By Jen Smith

These may be the most famous words in all of Torah:

Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim v’et ha’aretz – In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Jewish mysticism teaches that the “moment” of Creation, wasn’t a moment at all. Far from the one-time event captured inside of a seven-word sentence, the Zohar explains that the act of creation is continuous as the world is renewed every single moment. Each breath we take is, in some sense, a new “Genesis.” And in many ways, modern Jewish life reflects the same truth. Whether we are lighting Shabbat candles in a studio apartment, corralling teenagers to light candles before a high school football game, or streaming services from afar, we are engaged in recreating what it means to be Jewish in each generation.

The mystics call this process hit’hadshut, or renewal. I think about this in terms of software updates. Rather than focusing solely on discarding the old stuff, we turn our intention toward infusing ancient wisdom with new vitality. When we teach Torah to our kids, share challah (or most recently, a sukkah) with neighbors, or volunteer to repair the world (tikkun olam), we become part of the ongoing act of Bereshit – divine creativity that makes life sacred.

Jewish values like chesed (kindness), emet (truth), and shalom (peace) are hardly fossils of an ancient system. These pillars are sparks of divine light still waiting to be revealed in our choices; and each time we choose compassion over cynicism, kindness over harsh ridicule, and community over isolation, we re-enact the act of creation itself.

The Torah tells us that before God said, “Let there be light,” the world was tohu va’vohu, it was chaotic and void. The Baal Shem Tov, founder of Hasidism, taught that this tohu is also within us, taking the form of confusion, darkness, and the struggle to find meaning. Yet, just as God brought light out of chaos, we are called to do the same in our lives. Afterall, we learn in Genesis that we are B’tzelem Elohim – made in God’s very own image.

When we face anxiety, doubt, or injustice, there is an opportunity to seize our moment to declare “Let there be light.” The proverbial spotlight is turned on us when we choose an act of courage, a moment of forgiveness, or decide to hope again.

Mystically, the first light of creation, Or HaGanuz, is known as the Hidden Light, storied to be so pure that it illuminated everything to the farthest reaches of the universe. Though it was later concealed, the mystics say that the original light of creation remains as the divine sparks within all of us. Every good deed and every moment of connection releases a fragment of that hidden light back into the world.

Later in the parsha, the Torah declares: Vayivra Elohim et ha’adam b’tzalmo – God created the human being in the Divine image.

This is one of Judaism’s most radical ideas. To be human is to be a creator, a partner with God in shaping the world. When we paint, build, cook, teach, dream, or even love, we imitate the Creator. For me personally, the moment my first child was born, I understood this t

In modern terms, that’s what makes Jewish life so resilient. Whether we are reimagining how to pray, how to connect across generations, how to stand for justice, or even how to raise children in a world far more complicated than that of previous generations, we are participating and enabling the continuity of the Divine experiment of creation. Essentially, we are co-authors of the ongoing Torah of the world.

Bereshit doesn’t just mean “In the beginning.” Grammatically, it can also mean “With beginningness,” suggesting not a single start, but an ongoing invitation: Begin again. Each new week, each new Shabbat, each new morning, is a chance to start over; to bring light into the dark places and to restore the balance between heaven and earth within ourselves.

So as we read Bereshit, we’re not just reading about what was. We are reminded of what is, and maybe more importantly, what can be. The same divine energy that hovered over the watery abyss also hovers over each one of us, waiting for our voice to join the chorus with:

“Let there be light.”