The Bible begins with the concept that God’s intention was to create the universe, unlike the ancient idolators who believed that the world was created by accident. Many that the rest of the Bible is a commentary of the first statement.
For a quick Torah.
We’re beginning the Torah all over again, and we begin with perhaps the most revolutionary statement in the entire Torah:
“Bereishit bara Elohim et hashamayim v’et ha’aretz” — “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
We sometimes forget just how revolutionary that idea was.
Many ancient peoples had creation stories in which the world came about through struggles and wars among different gods. The world was almost an accident—the result of these gods fighting with one another.
The Torah begins with something completely different. The world was not an accident. God intended to create it.
That opening sentence is a statement in itself. In a sense, it is the thesis of the entire Torah. Everything that follows is commentary on that basic idea: God created the world deliberately, and therefore creation has a purpose.
People sometimes make the mistake of treating the Torah as though it were intended to be a science textbook or a history textbook. It isn’t. Certainly, the Torah can teach us things about history, and it can give us ideas that relate to our understanding of the natural world. But that is not its primary purpose.
The Torah’s purpose is to teach us how God expects human beings to live.
And that is especially appropriate now, because we have just finished the holidays of Tishrei.
On Rosh Hashanah, we look forward. We say, “This is the person I want to become in the coming year.”
On Yom Kippur, we look backward. We examine what we did wrong and promise that we’re going to try to do better.
Then comes Sukkot. Suddenly, the fasting and solemnity are gone. We’re told to eat, drink, celebrate and be happy with our families and friends. And perhaps God is saying to us, “Fine. You made all those promises on Yom Kippur when you were fasting and standing in the synagogue. Now let’s see how you behave when you’re celebrating and enjoying yourself.”
And finally we arrive at Simchat Torah. We celebrate the Torah itself—and then immediately begin it again.
Why?
Because the Torah isn’t something that we finish. It is something that we are supposed to live.
And it isn’t enough simply to study Torah for ourselves. We have an obligation to demonstrate its moral principles to the world. If God wanted the Jewish people to isolate themselves and keep the Torah entirely to themselves, He could have put us on some remote island like Fiji or Tahiti.
Instead, Jewish history has placed us right in the middle of the world.
Our task is to demonstrate that a person can live a moral life, deal honestly with other people, care about the stranger and the vulnerable, pursue justice—and still participate fully and successfully in the world.
And that brings us right back to the first words of the Torah:
“Bereishit bara Elohim et hashamayim v’et ha’aretz.”
God created the world intentionally.
And if the world was created with a purpose, then our lives have a purpose as well.
The rest of the Torah is there to teach us what to do with it.
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