The Torah We Need This Time – Bereisheet 5786

It’s 5:13 a.m., Monday, October 13, 2025, and I’ve already been awake for the better part of three hours. Like many, many Jews both in Israel and around the world, I can’t sleep. I’ve been following the news on my phone through various news sources as well as scrolling through social media. After 738 days – 738 excruciating, painful days which I never want to relive – our remaining living hostages in Gaza are home. The remains of another 28 more who have been murdered, at this hour, are not yet returned but are to be transferred eventually, to be properly buried in dignity in the soil of our homeland. 

(I want to acknowledge that as of Monday October 20th, the bodies of several hostages have been transferred to Israel and have been laid to rest.)

I’m all too aware that I need to save my strength and energy for the days ahead. Three days of holiday celebrations which truly bring the high holiday season to a close- Hoshannah Rabbah, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah. And yet, it’s so cathartic to bear witness to and celebrate these events.

Our newly-released hostages tasted freedom early in the morning in Israel, yet it was in the middle of the night here. According to the Torah, the Israelites were freed from Egypt, as the song in the back of the Haggadah goes, “around the hour of midnight”.

I’m trying to not get too caught up, but it’s hard to ignore the symbolism and biblical overtones. Released pretty much exactly two years to the day after they were first taken. Being in the midst of a celebration that marks the passage of time and the evergreen cycle of communally reading, studying, and interpreting our story from the beginning.

This is the time of cycles coming full circle. In Israel, the dry season ends and the rainy season begins, which is reflected in our liturgy: we cease saying “Morid ha’tal” in our Amidah, referring to the morning dew, and begin saying “Mashiv ha’ruach u’morid ha’gashem”– “You, G-d, cause the wind to blow and the rain to fall.” It is a time for new beginnings, in many ways. Our returned hostages began again in Israel this past week, and we too begin again- making changes to our liturgy and our own outlook as Jews in the Diaspora, with the full Torah in front of us, rolled to the beginning.

The words of the Torah are immutable, yet there are so many layers of meaning underneath each word. It’s a different story to us each year that we read it. So what can we do to make it better this time around? What is the Torah we need to hear this year, at this moment, starting with parshat Bereisheet?

I want to offer three teachings from our parsha that are especially resonant for me right now. First- as we learn after Adam, the first human, is created: “it’s not good for a person to be alone.” Our hostages have spent two years alone, isolated and afraid. There is a widely-documented epidemic of loneliness among Americans in the current moment. Companionship is a key to unlocking the magic of Jewish community. How can we add to our community?

For starters, let’s continue to be there for each other, in good times and bad. Here at Temple Beth Sholom, you can help make a minyan in person on Shabbat, and join our nightly minyanim on Zoom. On a related note, on a personal level, one is not meant to study Torah alone. Join our weekly Torah study on Zoom on Thursday afternoons, and let’s share each other’s insights and perceptions about our shared narrative that is always revealing itself in new ways. 

Secondly- as our parsha teaches, we are responsible for each other. In chapter 4 of our parsha, after Cain killed his brother Abel and was questioned by G-d where his brother was, he answered: “Hashomer achi anochi?“- Am I my brother’s keeper?” The answer, of course, is unequivocally yes. We need each other- to hold us accountable, to celebrate with us, to mourn with us, and to fully experience what it means to be created in the divine image. We don’t individually exist in a vacuum. Our parsha teaches us that, despite our differences, we are beholden to each other and hold communal responsibility.

One bright spot in the hostages’ journey to freedom has been how seemingly all of Israel has come together to support them. I loved watching a video earlier this week of a particular hostage enjoying, under medical supervision, several Israeli desserts that he hadn’t tasted in two years which were lovingly prepared by his mother. Others- strangers- were sharing in his joy and supporting him. To be alone and having to go through the unimaginable fear and sorrow, and then joy, of the last two years is unfathomable to me. 

Adam is placed in the Garden of Eden l’ovdah u’l’shomrah– “to till and to tend it”, or perhaps more literally, “to work it and to guard it”. We have a responsibility to the earth, to work it diligently while still respecting nature and our natural resources. As the parsha makes abundantly clear, we are dependent on nature and the land for our own sustenance. We must not ill-treat the natural world which we live amongst, which was created before humans were created, but lovingly maintain and beautify it. 

Lastly, we need to maintain the mindset that we are fallible. Our parsha ends with G-d being resigned to humans’ innate draw towards selfishness, which in turn leads to the destruction of all life on earth, save for Noah, his family, and the animals on the ark. 

But I’ve heard it taught that the whole Torah can be summed up as- we keep falling short, but G-d, despite their occasional frustration, maintains faith in us, exhorting us to try again. This is merely the first time where we haven’t lived up to G-do’s expectations, which is not reason enough for G-d to entirely break faith with us. 

It seems that today, many individuals have become too enamored with their abilities or status, causing them to believe they’re immune to failure. None of us are immune to failure; but when we do fail, we should use that experience to recalibrate and fine-tune ourselves. We may never be perfect, but we can always get better. 

The late, great basketball coach John Wooden famously began his first practice every season he coached at UCLA with showing his players, yet again, how to properly tie their shoes. It may seem silly or overwrought, but there really is no substitute for fundamentals. We have our own fundamentals. According to Pirkei Avot the world stands on three things- Torah, divine service, and good deeds, which can all be viewed as the same thing. 

In order to get better, one needs to have mastery of the basics. At this time of year, after the Tishrei holidays, we have the opportunity to get back to basics. To learn the Torah anew; to concentrate, for a time, on Shabbat and no other widely-prescribed holidays. To reintroduce our returned hostages to an Israel and broader Jewish community that welcomes them with open arms. And to take our reflections from the high holidays and put them into practice.

We are fallible; thankfully, we are not alone; and, we share responsibility with and for others. This is the Torah that I need to hear this time around. Not only because it’s comfortable and reassuring, but because it demands that I raise my own standards and avoid complacency.

My friends, we have much work to do to improve our world in the current moment of fear and unrest. Luckily, we have the capacity to do so. Torah is there to help show us the way. Let’s continue to grow in Torah, mutual understanding, and shared experience this coming year.