Rabbi Howard Morrison

A new Torah reading cycle has begun and a new beginning, as it were. Now, a year later since October 7^th 2023 and its corresponding date of Shemini Atzeret-Simchat Torah, Parshat Bereishit comes to offer some significant lessons, from each of the opening chapters.

In chapters one and two, creation narratives, God separates light from darkness, resulting in the creation of each day of the week. We understand that there is a clear distinction between light and darkness, truth and falsehood, good and evil. There is nothing complex or complicated. There is no need for "context." It is sad, tragic, and unfathomable that leaders of Western nations just do not get it, either refusing to accept moral clarity, or ridiculously being unable to accept moral clarity.

If the opening two chapters come to teach about MORAL CLARITY, chapter three comes to teach about MORAL AWARENESS. After Adam and Eve eat from the forbidden tree of knowledge, they are suddenly aware that they are naked. God asks, "Ayeka-Where are you?" Of course, God knows where Adam and Eve are physically. Rather, God is asking "Where are you morally?" Are you not morally aware that you committed a forbidden act against God, for which there are consequences?

Chapter four then comes to teach about MORAL ACCOUNTABILITY. Murder enters the world. Cain murders Abel. God exclaims to Cain, "What have you done? Your brother's blood cries to me from the ground." For the past year, the blood of our brothers and sisters cries out to us and to the world. Cain now becomes morally accountable for what he has done. He will literally wear the mark of Cain on his forehead wandering throughout the world, being punished, and having to contemplate what he has done. Recently, after most of the world has done little or nothing, it has fallen on Israel to take precise targeted action to demand moral accountability over what the progenitors of evil have perpetrated during the past year. 

Bereishit, the book of Genesis, opens with absolute and eternal values: Moral Clarity, Moral Awareness, and Moral Accountability! May we and the world around us pay heed to these eternal lessons of life.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Howard Morrison