When God Began
to Create…Me!
“When
God began to create heaven and earth, the earth being unformed and void…”
So opens the 1985 JPS Tanakh, turning
away from the traditional rendering of the Hebrew: “In the beginning God created heaven and
earth…”
The new rendering accounts for an
unfolding understanding of the Hebrew grammar, where the first two words (Bereishit bara) are now understood to be
nouns in construct state. So if bara, creation, is a noun and not a
verb, then it reads literally (in translation):
“In the beginning of the creation by God of heaven and earth…” Then the JPS version is a poetic, yet
accurate rendering of the Hebrew.
A theologian would say that the new
rendering teaches two things whose opposite were implied by the old rendering. First, the beginning of the creation of
heaven and earth was not the beginning. It was not the start of the story of the
universe, only the start of the chapter of
the physical universe. That means that a
different universe, that of incorporeality, of spirit, pre-existed the
physical. Or may have. Second, it does
not teach that the earth was formed out of nothingness – creatio ex nihilo. The earth
was formed from pre-existing matter. No
waving of any magic wands, as it were.
So what’s the difference? The difference is that we know from outside the Torah that the
earth’s formation wasn’t the beginning of the story. And similarly we know that the earth had to have been formed from pre-existing
matter. So, the opening verse of Genesis
does not set us up for a stark choice:
Torah or science. In fact,
there’s absolutely no choice necessary.
The either-or dilemma that some fundamentalist readers of the Torah on
one side and some scientific absolutists on the other side insist exists, in
reality, is…a fabrication. It’s only
necessary if you’re a fundamentalist of either Torah or science. But if you’re the type who tries to mine
every source of truth for the truth that’s in it, and not set it up as the
be-all-end-all, then you know that there’s ample wisdom to be found in both
places.
So…you can breathe easy! Your religion – Progressive Judaism – doesn’t
require you to choose between its wisdom and that of the scientist. You’re thus freed from being an absolute materialist. And you’re freed from the stigma that
religionists are those who cling to fairy-tales. Isn’t it liberating! So now you can focus on the important
questions of life!
And the important question of life on
my mind today is about the creation of…Me!
Oh, I don’t mean the physical creation
of Me. All that stuff about my father’s
sperm fertilising my mother’s ovum, creating a zygote which grew and developed
into a foetus, et cetera, et cetera. Oh, all that stuff matters and is
interesting on a certain level. But
that’s not the Me I’m talking about today.
I’m talking about the Me that I encounter when I close my eyes and
contemplate my life. When I consider the
life experiences that have made me who I am.
When I dream the dreams that are the motivation for me to get out of bed
each morning, do the work to which I’ve committed, love my wife, fret over my
kids. God created Me – that Me – just as He created heaven and
earth. From pre-existing matter. When I made a commitment to religious living,
when I made the decision that the progressive Jewish life would be my life’s
path, then I opened the door for God and me to begin the really important act of creation.
To take all the baggage I was then carrying, all the experiences, the
triumphs and the disappointments, and give me a context for understanding the
importance of my life. And with that
context, to begin the process of creating a life that matters. Of course, my life mattered before I made
that commitment. But now it mattered in
a different way, because I had joined myself to the ever-unfolding narrative of
the Jewish people in their quest to be a Holy People.
I have many Christian friends of the Born-again sort. They understand that their uniquely Christian
selves did not have their genesis when they were born. Rather, at some point after the age of
cognition, they made a decision, made a commitment to an idea. Each one was born on their birthday, but then
each experienced a second birth when
they saw a clear picture of the Me they
were supposed to become.
Now if I went around to the members of
my congregation telling them that they would do well to experience being “born
again” in that way, they would think I’d gone off my rocker. They would start plotting my exit from the
congregation’s pulpit! That’s because
the language of born again has been effectively
hijacked by another religious faith, one with which Progressive Jews are
unlikely to feel any strong affinity.
But when you really think about it, that – being born again – is not really an inaccurate description of the process
that many of us have gone through. Of
the process that is a worthy religious goal.
Yes, even in our religion: Progressive Judaism.
It’s really not that different from
the rebirth that ideally happens when we commit to a career path. The quest to become the best and most
successful whatever we’ve committed to – doctor, barrister, musician, teacher –
will ideally consume us and motivate us and guide our priorities and
actions. If we don’t experience that
rebirth – if we don’t make a commitment that consumes us in that way – we may very
well achieve what we set out to do, but chances are we won’t become what we set out to be.
Likewise, when we marry and commit the
rest of our lives to our partner.
Ideally, we begin moving toward a new definition of ourselves. To be sure, one can be half of a couple
without going this process. One can be a
worthy partner. But to really be married, to grow into a person for
whom that marriage is an inextricable part, we must experience the rebirth that
comes when we commit from the depths of our soul.
This kind of rebirth, this kind of
commitment, is not an everyday thing.
Not in pursuit of career, and not in marriage. And not in religion. Most Jews don’t think of their religious
‘walk’ in such terms. I was born a Jew
and raised a Jew, and being a Jew is just part of who I am. Or, I made a rational decision to become a
Jew (for whatever reason) and jumped through the hoops that were placed in
front of me, and then a beit din told
me that I’m now a Jew. But we seldom
think of our Jewishness as the result of a a rebirth, or a life-changing
decision.
But that sense of rebirth is a worthy
goal, in all three: career, marriage,
and religion. In order to really be a doctor, to really be a partner, to really be a Jew, we must make a commitment
that, at the end of the day, re-defines us and sets us on a new path. That can be scary, because when you turn onto
a new path you’re stepping off the familiar, oft-trod ground. You’re stepping off into directions
heretofore unknown.
When God began creating heaven and
earth, He stepped off onto such a path.
There’s a delightful Midrash where God is being scolded by the angels for
creating man. Since man had turned out
rebellious and violent and predatory, God had clearly made a big mistake. So God thinks about it and agrees. “Okay, I
made a mistake when a created man. But I
did create man. So we’re stuck with him; let’s make the most
of him.” The Midrash, in effect,
humanises God by acknowledging that even He could not always anticipate what He
had unleashed. But He created even so.
We never know what will be the
ultimate result when we step off into the unknown of a new career path. Or of marriage. Or of religious life. All are part of the great adventure of
life. Of the process that results in the
Me I see when I contemplate who I am.
Had I not had the courage to make such commitments, my life would have
unfolded – would be unfolding – in a
far different manner. But the emerging
Me is the Me that made these decisions, these commitments. Who submitted to the process that began with
a rebirth. A rebirth that can only be
seen as a positive and desirable thing.
Do you have the courage to experience it?
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